The Southern Tour

At GAD weekend I stepped on a piece of broken glass and a week and half later it still hurt and it felt like something was suck in the cut. So on Monday I called the doctor and the next day I was able to take the Peace Corps shuttle down to Cotonou. It was really nice to ride in a spacious air conditioned SUV over the awful road between Kandi and Parakou. I don't think ex pats know quite how good they have it because that is their standard mode of transportation while Peace Corps volunteers squeeze into old puegot station wagons and share a seat with at least one other person. And of course there is no air conditioning.

So I got my foot taken care of in Cotonou, I thought there was glass in it but it turned out to be a couple of large pieces of sand. The good news is that it is healing a lot better that it had been and I can finally walk without limping. I stayed in Cotonou for a few more days because there was not enough time for me to go back to post before our second round of training in Porto Novo. I had a great time in Cotonou, I got to spend time with people who I rarely see (that is usually what happens in med unit) and I ate some great food. In his previous life my friend Mark was a wine and cheese buyer for whole foods so he and I went to a French supermarket one day and bought three different cheeses and a bottle of wine and it was amazing. Other nights we had beers on the beach and ate schwarma and we had a pretty good time in general.

Last night my friend Rich who lives a few hours north of Porto Novo had a fundraiser for an NGO the he is trying to start in his community. The goal of the NGO is to support orphans and at risk youth in school through help with tuition and school fees as well as providing life skills such as job training and financial management. Most of the business sector went to support him, as did the country director and the director of the business program (Yves.)The food was good and at the end there was a voodoo priest who danced and ran around touching people with his hair whip. I got some great pictures of it. But really I am so proud of Rich for all of his hard work and dedication to his project. I hope he continues to succeed and is able to raise all of the money he needs to get his NGO off the ground.

It always amazes me how different the South is from the north. Where I live the population is very muslim and the climate is dry and incredibly hot. Down here the population is Christian or practice vodun (usually it is a mixture) and it is really humid. So I will be spending the rest of April either at Peace Corps related trainings or visiting Southern volunteers and it should be an interesting couple of weeks. I will post again soon.

Hillary