After my friend’s fundraiser in Ketou the business volunteers all headed to Porto Novo for our second round of In Service Training (IST.) The last one had been incredibly boring and mostly unproductive but luckily this time I had my wireless internet key and I spent most of my time facebooking other volunteers, including people in the room who were frequently checking facebook on their internet phones. The training was conducted at Centre Songhai which is an agriculture project where they raise animals and crow crops in a sustainable manner. They provide training to people from all over West Africa and they also have a hotel and conference facilities. We were frequently there during training and there are some pictures in one of my earlier photo albums. At Songhai we met two guys from the Boston area who are traveling through Africa from Morocco to South Africa on Motorcycles. Their motorcycles both had Mass license plates and it was a strange thing to see in Benin. They were really nice and even put a picture of me on their blog! Here is a link: http://www.northsouthventure.com. Unfortunately one of the first nights there I lost my camera but it was not working very well anyway and I am going to get a new one when I am home next month.
After IST I headed to Pobe to visit my friend’s Lindsay and Jackie. Pobe was very pretty, it is on a plateau in the more Jungley regions of Benin and it has some nice old architecture. The three of us spent most of our time cooking good food and watching the Jersey Shore which is circulating around Benin on flash drives and is the latest obsession among most of the volunteers.
I spent a couple of days in Cotonou before heading up to Kloukuomey with Sarah to visit our friend Erik. We ate a dinner of Steak and baked potatoes followed by breakfast of omelets with cheddar and chorizo and a lunch of chalupas. One nice thing about living in the south is the ability to bring good ingredients from Cotonou to your post without having to worry too much about them going bad. The three of us then headed to Lalo to visit the famous Mr Fogla. Mr Fogla is famous among Peace Corps Benin volunteers and has been friends with volunteers for many years. He is the chef du village (village chief) and he is one of the friendliest and most open Beninese people I have met. The journey to Lalo was not easy, just as we were setting out it started to pour and we were forced to take shelter in a shop waiting for the storm to pass. 45 minutes later we decided to head back to Erik’s house because it is unsafe to travel on dirt roads by motorcycle in the rain. Back at Erik’s we discussed the situation and decided that meeting Mr Fogla was not an experience we wanted to miss, rain be damned so we set out anyway. We found mototaxis that were willing to take us despite the impending darkness and were on our way. A ride that should have taken about 20 minutes turned into an hour long muddy ordeal during which time my motorcycle crashed and I cut up my leg. We finally made it to Lalo and stopped at the house of Charlie and Miranna, married volunteers who live in Lalo and are friends of Mr. Fogla’s. Unfortunately, because of the rain the power was out and Fogla had not been able to prepare the planned meal of pate rouge and fried chicken (Beninese people generally cook outside over an open flame.) Instead, we sat inside his house and drank Sodabe which is distilled palm wine and the liquor of choice in Southern Benin. We had a great conversation; he talked to us about vodun and the health benefits of sodabe (good for the digestion and gives strength.) He then invited us over for pate rouge and chicken the next day, an offer we gladly accepted. The next day was beautiful and sunny, we hung out at Charlie and Miranna’s house (they had left for Cotonou in the morning but left us the keys) and then headed over for lunch with a case of Beninoise (Beninese beer.) We sat in the shade of a large tree, drank more sodabe, discussed more interesting topics such as eating snakes and ate delicious pate rouge and chicken. It was one of my favorite cultural experiences in Benin thus far and I am hoping to return at least once more before I leave.
That afternoon I hopped back on a mototaxi and rode to Bohicon to visit my best friend Jeff. I was still slightly drunk from all of the sodabe and the dirt road was beautiful and as we were driving past all of these small, lush, green farms I thought about how happy I was to be having this experience in Benin and I would not change it for anything. I arrived in Bohicon and Jeff made fun of me for being drunk. Jeff has a beautiful house and we just sat around and then went to bed early. The next day we were joined by Sarah B, Sarah P and Erik (my companions in Lalo,) Brad and Dave with the intention of partying in Bohicon and then traveling to Cotonou together the next day. The next morning we rented a taxi for the seven of us and bought some boxed wine before heading south. We ‘juice boxed’ where each person gets their own box and a straw and it is the most amusing way to pass a taxi ride with a large group of volunteers. We hit very bad traffic coming into Cotonou (which is actually very normal) and spent a good amount of time standing on the side of the road with our wineboxes and occasionally walking along when our taxi moved forward. We eventually made it to the hotel where all of the volunteers were staying and the rest of the week went something like this: boring sessions all day (we were planning for the new group of volunteers coming into Benin in July) and eating good food and drinking a lot all night. Personal highlights of the week include another motorcycle crash, falling into an open sewer and having to be pulled out by very confused Beninese bar staff and passing out on top of two tables pushed together at the same bar the very next night. I think that maybe I should not go back to that bar again.
I am now back in the Alibori after almost a month long absence. It has rained a couple of times so it is not as hot as it was when I left which is a nice relief. I will be back in Boston on June 14th so I am going to spend the next six weeks buckled down at post trying to get some projects off of the ground before a few hectic summer months. See you all soon!
Hillary
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