Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Happy Tuesday. I'm making progress on the website. Or at least I hope I am. Naturally when I finish this design (the one I like the best) reactions will probably go from "ça c'est jolie-quoi" to "nnn.. ça n'est pas bon-quoi". Even if that does happen, I'm happy with the design and will fritter it away for future use if it doesn't see the light of day here.

For those of you who speak a little French, you're probably wonder why the heck I put "qua" on those French blurbs. Well, "quoi" (kwah) seems to be the magical random ending to all sentences. I'm pretty sure they don't "quoi" in France, so I'm trying to avoid the habit. So far I've been successful, but I don't know how long I can hold out-quoi. Ah! See? I've been told by several sources that once you start quoi-ing, you don't stop.

This week promises to be short and fun. I'm taking a half-day on Thursday because Theresa and Ben are coming into town for our first official ICT meeting. Then on Friday we'll have a couple more coming in for our regional VAC meeting. Then most everyone will leave Saturday, and it's time to go chookin'.

For the record the ginger beer turned out awesome. I was a little worried initially, since after its first 24 hours without active yeast, sipping it made your head light on fire with gingery attack power. 24 hours with healthy, strong yeasts had a calming effect and made it quite delicious. With that under the belt, and a little goading from Shane... I'm going to embark on a breweing expedition of an entire new sort: Hobo Wine. Yes, you heard it right. I'm going to brew me up some hooch. This should not be confused with Prison Wine, Hobo Wine will be brewed out of things yet to be determined under sterile conditions. As soon as I figure out what delicious fruity Boone's Farm-esque concotion I'll try, you'll all be the first to know. At this point I'm leaning towards a pineapple-gingery-lemony type. That's mostly because all other fruit is too freakin' expensive. We'll see though.

Other than that, uh, nothin'.

Monday, October 24, 2005 Today is the first day of Month 2! Wow. It's amazing to me that we've already been at post for an entire month. In honor of it, I finally finished reading Shogun (James Clavell), which was quite good. In honor of finishing reading Shogun, I read Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)this weekend. It was very, very good. Now I'm reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Tom Robbins).

WARNING!
The rest of this post has to do with food

This weekend was awesome. I made so much food it was ridiculous. No. Really. It was, and remains ridiculous. I knew on Friday night that it was time to buy meat, so I made plans to go over to Marché Depot on Saturday morning to do just that. I also knew that it was time to make some chili, so that meant beans. I arrived with minimal hassle, and a great deal on the zemidjan and quickly found what I was looking for; a dude with a knife and a dead thing on a table. I really wanted to get out of there quick (there was a meeting at the workstation with an auditor from Peace Corp's Inspector General), so I didn't even ask what the animal was. I think it was cow, but it might have been sheep too. Whatever. He pointed to two parts, the standard part and "filet". I went with filet and right there in front of me he hacked a big chunk off, weighed it and into the bag it went.

Next stop was beans. The Grand Marché unfortunately is pretty crappy in the beans department (they have only black-eyed peas, which are good... but not what I wanted), but Marché Depot rocks my socks off. They had black beans, red beans, I think I may have even seen chickpeas. (I need to confirm this so I can buy mass quantities. I am going to make falafel) The first lady I stopped to buy black beans was really suprised.

"Vous mangez ça?" (You eat that?)
"Oui... c'est pas bonne?" (Yeah, is that not good?)
"Non, non, c'est bonne! Qui vous a enseigné ça?" (No, no that's good! Who taught you?)
"Uhh... moi-même" (Uh, I taught myself)
"Ah!" (Ah! Actually there isn't really a translation for the noise she made. It's a very Beninese sort of surprise/delight squeek)

So, after that I bought a few other random veggies and back home I went.

Let me say now, beans are the best and worst thing ever. Here (and maybe at home too, I never made beans in the States) you have to glaner the beans before you can do anything. This means essentially inspecting each and every bean, in the process eliminating ones that have been eaten by bugs, rocks, dead bugs, live bugs, and pretty much anything that isn't a bean. It took FOREVER. And it's boring. I finally finished after several hours of going in and out of doing it. (I made steak and mashed potatoes for lunch, which took up quite a bit of time) and went off to the workstation. I made sure to take with me all of the ingredients necessary to make ginger beer.

Oh yes, you read correctly. Ginger Beer. Sweet, ambrosiatic ginger beer. Well, that's the idea. It takes at least 24 hours... and our yeast was dead so we reheated it and added living yeast. I'll try the fruits of our efforts today.

Everything went well, and I went back to my house to make fried rice with leftover rice and steak. It was deliciously awesome. I also put my beans in water to soak overnight. So. I have an interesting bean revelation to share with you. Turns out a kilogram of dried beans is a lot of beans. I mean, it doesn't look like a lot when you put them into soak... but when you stumble into the kitchen dreary eyed on Sunday morning and you find they have pushed the lid off the pot they were soaking in you will realize how much bean is packed into each of those unassuming packages. Holy crap there is a lot. So, I cooked them. It took a long time, and then I made Chili. I was hoping I'd use... oh, maybe half of them in the chili. I used possibly a quarter, and that resulted in more an amount of chili equal to the amount of beans in total (after the addition of meat and veggies and things). So now I have a crap load of chili and a crap load of beans.

That's okay though. Tonight we're going to make refried beans and have a reprise mexican night. It'll rock, and with ginger beer it'll be even better.

Then, last night we had a "bread date" as they shall now be called. We made an olive-rosemary loaf and a lentil soup. Both delicious.

I think it will suffice to say that with my massive bean ingestion yesterday, last night was hillarious.

Oh. I'm making chili-dogs for lunch today. Possibly with chili fries.

Today is the first day of Month 2! Wow. It's amazing to me that we've already been at post for an entire month. In honor of it, I finally finished reading Shogun (James Clavell), which was quite good. In honor of finishing reading Shogun, I read Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)this weekend. It was very, very good. Now I'm reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Tom Robbins).

WARNING!
The rest of this post has to do with food

This weekend was awesome. I made so much food it was ridiculous. No. Really. It was, and remains ridiculous. I knew on Friday night that it was time to buy meat, so I made plans to go over to Marché Depot on Saturday morning to do just that. I also knew that it was time to make some chili, so that meant beans. I arrived with minimal hassle, and a great deal on the zemidjan and quickly found what I was looking for; a dude with a knife and a dead thing on a table. I really wanted to get out of there quick (there was a meeting at the workstation with an auditor from Peace Corp's Inspector General), so I didn't even ask what the animal was. I think it was cow, but it might have been sheep too. Whatever. He pointed to two parts, the standard part and "filet". I went with filet and right there in front of me he hacked a big chunk off, weighed it and into the bag it went.

Next stop was beans. The Grand Marché unfortunately is pretty crappy in the beans department (they have only black-eyed peas, which are good... but not what I wanted), but Marché Depot rocks my socks off. They had black beans, red beans, I think I may have even seen chickpeas. (I need to confirm this so I can buy mass quantities. I am going to make falafel) The first lady I stopped to buy black beans was really suprised.

"Vous mangez ça?" (You eat that?)
"Oui... c'est pas bonne?" (Yeah, is that not good?)
"Non, non, c'est bonne! Qui vous a enseigné ça?" (No, no that's good! Who taught you?)
"Uhh... moi-même" (Uh, I taught myself)
"Ah!" (Ah! Actually there isn't really a translation for the noise she made. It's a very Beninese sort of surprise/delight squeek)

So, after that I bought a few other random veggies and back home I went.

Let me say now, beans are the best and worst thing ever. Here (and maybe at home too, I never made beans in the States) you have to glaner the beans before you can do anything. This means essentially inspecting each and every bean, in the process eliminating ones that have been eaten by bugs, rocks, dead bugs, live bugs, and pretty much anything that isn't a bean. It took FOREVER. And it's boring. I finally finished after several hours of going in and out of doing it. (I made steak and mashed potatoes for lunch, which took up quite a bit of time) and went off to the workstation. I made sure to take with me all of the ingredients necessary to make ginger beer.

Oh yes, you read correctly. Ginger Beer. Sweet, ambrosiatic ginger beer. Well, that's the idea. It takes at least 24 hours... and our yeast was dead so we reheated it and added living yeast. I'll try the fruits of our efforts today.

Everything went well, and I went back to my house to make fried rice with leftover rice and steak. It was deliciously awesome. I also put my beans in water to soak overnight. So. I have an interesting bean revelation to share with you. Turns out a kilogram of dried beans is a lot of beans. I mean, it doesn't look like a lot when you put them into soak... but when you stumble into the kitchen dreary eyed on Sunday morning and you find they have pushed the lid off the pot they were soaking in you will realize how much bean is packed into each of those unassuming packages. Holy crap there is a lot. So, I cooked them. It took a long time, and then I made Chili. I was hoping I'd use... oh, maybe half of them in the chili. I used possibly a quarter, and that resulted in more an amount of chili equal to the amount of beans in total (after the addition of meat and veggies and things). So now I have a crap load of chili and a crap load of beans.

That's okay though. Tonight we're going to make refried beans and have a reprise mexican night. It'll rock, and with ginger beer it'll be even better.

Then, last night we had a "bread date" as they shall now be called. We made an olive-rosemary loaf and a lentil soup. Both delicious.

I think it will suffice to say that with my massive bean ingestion yesterday, last night was hillarious.

Oh. I'm making chili-dogs for lunch today. Possibly with chili fries.

Thursday, October 20, 2005 A clean bike is a healthy bike. Yesterday during my lunchtime rush (I thought "repos" meant "rest"!) I decided that it was time to wash and re-lubricate my bike. Holy moly what a difference that made. I thought my bike was fine before, but it's so nice when everything moves smoothly and quietly. It also helps a lot to have tires that are pumped up to a proper pressure.

Work continues on the website, but I'm currently having an annoying creative cramp. The one thing I hate about websites is making them not look crappy. I really can hardly wait until this part is done(ish) and I can start working on the back end. I long for the expansive coding sessions of the days of yore. Give me C or give me death! Well, maybe not quite that dramatically (since I'll be coding in PHP)... but it would be nice to not be doing graphics work for which I'm poorly prepared.

In any case, things are going well. Stacey prepared a delicious Mexican dinner last night with Spanish rice, refried beans and tortillas. I also got a tip about where I can find black beans. That's one step closer to the Chile Pepper's Nachos I so richly desire. This weekend though I think I'm going to take the plunge and buy some meat. I did before under the guise of hamburgers... but I think I want steak and mashed potatoes. Mmmmm. I also want to grind some beef to make chili. Why you ask? Well, because I have hot dogs... and there is only one thing between me and Chili Dogs. That given, the only thing between me and an Oki Dog is pastrami. I wonder how you make pastarami....?

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 Whew. What a long lunch I had today. Today I had plans to eat a salami sandwich, and maybe a little salad. I thought to myself "hmm, 100 CFA is always way to much... today I'll get 50 CFA worth". Bam. I was so freakin' wrong. Turns out that when you eat a salami sandwich and the vegetable ladies get to know you... 50 CFA (~$0.10) is way to freakin' much salad too. Oh my gosh is it too much. After eating my sandwich, which was generous in and of itself, the salad was too much. I think I'm going to die from pains of anti-hunger.

Yeah, but before all that. Grr. Annoying situation. So my carpenter is awesome, nice guy, and I don't think he's taking too much advantage of me. The last time he was at my place installing the mosquito net holders on my bed (hereafter referred to as "mosquito sticks") he notice that I had a lot of laundry. This is true. He asked if I had someone to do it for me. This was (and is) not true. He asked then if he should ask a friend of his to come and negotiate a price to have it done. "Sure! What the heck." I thought. This was like 2 weeks ago. I assumed that he forgot, which is fine... since doing my laundry is not that big of a deal (and I'd rather spend the money I save on cheese). In any case, riding my bike home I'm stopped by the carpenter's apprentice. He's saying something in French, but at that moment a motorcycle brigade was going by... so I couldn't hear him. Then this lady comes up and says "He's saying that his master told him to tell you that the laundry lady (me) wants to come by and see your place". Ooookay. So off we go, she on the back of a zemi and me on bike.

So we get to my place, and I'm not really sure what she wants... since I did laundry yesterday. She comes in.

"The zemi is waiting to be paid"
"So why don't you pay him?"
"I don't have any money"
"And why do I have to pay him?"
"Uhhh"

So fine, no big deal. I hand her the only coin I have in my pocket; a 500 CFA piece. The zemi ride should have been less than 100 CFA. She comes back.

"I argued, but he insisted on 150 CFA"
"Yeah, right."

So at this point, I'm already annoyed with her. If she wants to come and work for me, why the crap do I have to pay for her to get there? Grr. So she comes in and looks at my clothes. She says she generally charges 200 CFA for a full outfit to be washed. She says it as if she's being so generous too. I nearly fall down laughing. I tell her that my entire pile wouldn't ever have cost more than 750 CFA in Azove. She knows I'm telling the truth (well, about the pile she was looking at. There was another humongous pile in the bedroom), but thinks I'm loaded.

"Well, if you buy the soap I'll think about that price. Can I do these now?"
"No, I did those yesterday. Everything is clean."
"Oh, well you have to tell me a day in advance when you want me to come. I live on the other side of town near the Grand Marché."
"Yeah, that's like 200 CFA each way"
"Yes, make sure you have change when I come next time"
"Excuse me? I'm not paying for your zemidjan to come over?"
"Why not?"
"Well, that just wouldn't make any sense. Say you're 'being nice' and charging me 750 CFA to do my laundry... but I have to buy soap too. So that will cost me at the very least 150 CFA more. Then if I have to pay for your zemi that's another 400 CFA on top. That just doesn't make sense. If I want my laundry done that badly I'll find someone in the neighborhood to do it."
"Oh. So we'll just leave it then."
"Yeah, I think so."
"But why?"
"It doesn't make sense"
"Fine, we'll leave it then. But give me 200 CFA so I can get home"
"I will give you 100"
"But that's not enough!"
"I didn't invite you over here, the carpenter sent you here. I didn't say I wanted a laundry lady, he offered. It's not my fault."

Yeah, so I paid 250 CFA for the joy of talking to an insane old lady with a crazy scheme to take all my money. Grrrr. It bugs the crap out of me that people just think I am completely composed of money, that if you cut me 100 CFA pieces start pouring out. The entire situation above is of course paraphrased, the actual words were about 100 times more infuriating. Gah!

Tuesday, October 18, 2005 I've finally discovered a bit more about the origin of my mysterious Queen Alice dishes. For those not in the know, I bought these in Azove just before departing for post. I needed something to store food and the like in, and these just happened to be in a shop we were in. They're a full set that stack together like Russian dolls. All black with silver writing, I couldn't say no. Especially considering nearly everything else in this country in the same genre is beige with a floral print.

In any case, I'd always wondered what "Queen Alice" was, and why Yutaka Ishinabe was producing it. Well, Queen Alice is a restaurant... and those foodies out there will already know that Yutaka Ishinabe is one of the chefs on "Iron Chef" (Iron Chef French, I believe?). In any case, how random is it to have dishes branded as such? I'm pretty sure he's not using these in his restaurant... so why do they exist? So much mystery still surrounds them.

Monday, October 17, 2005 What a weekend! This weekend (like most weekends have so far at post) was excellent. Well, okay, it didn't start off that great. Let's start there.

Friday I had plans to leave work a little early so that I could find a SIM card for Sara. I tried during the day earlier, and went to 5 shops... and almost had one (bought from under my nose!) and thought I knew at least 2 more that might have them. Well, leaving early didn't work out. Turns out I'm not completely worthless, because I was summoned to help with a computer problem. Good that I could help, bad for my plans. I wanted to leave around 5:30 so I could get things done. I left after 6:30 (and had plans to meet Stephanie and Stacey for dinner at 7). Crap. I also had about a million errands to do before then, including picking a few things up from the store, heading by the workstation to pick up mail and Stacey's fan, heading by my place to pack for Kandi and finally head out to Stacey's for dinner (where I would spend the night as she lives near the road to Kandi where I could get a bush taxi without too much trouble). Well, in a case like this there is only one thing to do. Louer a zemi for an hour. Expensive, yes. Worth it? Yes. I went to all my places, and he patiently waited (although I was rushing around... and ended up forgetting half of everything). I finally did get to Stacey's for some awesome eggplant parmesean, but sans camera, underwear, toothbrush, or deoderant. But, petty things like that never stop a Peace Corps volunteer!

I woke up early and headed out to the road to get a taxi. I only had to wait about 20 minutes, and I was on my way. 1 hour in we got a flat tire, but surprisingly he had a spare and we were on the road within 20 minutes. All in all the journey wasn't too horrible, although I confess a bit uncomforatble. I arrived in Kandi after only about 3.5 hours, not a bad time at all. I of course was starving, since I hadn't eaten yet... but there were pancakes waiting to be eaten when I arrived. Perfect timing.

Sara came, and was surprised I was there. She'd forgotten that I was coming, but was more than happy to see me on account of the gigantic sack of fruits and vegetables I brought. It was a fairly random assortment, and I wish I'd taken a picture of it. It was pretty incredible. I think I spent about $4 and ended up with a watermelon, 2 pineapples, 4 avocados, 1/2 kilo green beans, a few green peppers, a few small eggplant, and a huge cucumber. All in all I think the bag weighed about 15 pounds. It was awesome.

We went out with a few of the volunteers there to an african restaurant where we ate Igname Pilée (also known as "fufu" in other west african countries). I don't think I've talked about it before, but it's essentially the pate blanche of the north. It's made from ignames (surprise) which are gigantic roots. I'm not sure if there is an equivalent, but they aren't yams. They are sort of like potatoes. In any case, these are boiled and the pounded by very strong women with big sticks into a sticky, blobby consistency. Plopped onto a plate and served with sauce d'arachide (local peanut sauce) and a bit of wagasi (local cheese) and you've got yourself a meal. Naturally it's eaten with your right hand. In the past I wasn't the biggest fan, but now that I have the option of taking or leaving African food (in most cases), I'm finding I'm enjoying it more and more.

After that, back to the workstation for a well deserved nothing. It was nice to be able to just sit and chat. After a little bit we got the surprise of Katie who was with us in Azove. Katie is hillarious, has a great sense of humor and the best laugh ever. I was glad for the surprise. The three of us made pizza with the mozzarella I brought up from Parakou and socialized with the other volunteers long into the night.

The next morning was more nothing and being lazy, and Sara buying about 3 meters of bread accidently. The boulangerie next to the workstation in Kandi doesn't sell normal sized loaves, but rather super-size meter long loaves. Sara went to buy 3 normal sized loaves for Katie, her and myself but upon asking and being handed 3 meters of bread was so shocked that she didn't refuse them. It was hillarious to see her walking in with such long loaves. I don't think any went to waste, she herself ate a meter (as salty bread is non-existent at her post, and many others). Ah, I should probably take an aside and say bread is available everywhere, but there are two varieties. Sweet and salty. Sweet bread, in my ever so humble opinion, sucks. Some people like it, but it's not as versatile as the salty. The salty bread in truth isn't even salty. In fact it's realy exactly like a baguette you'd find in the states.

In any case, such long loaves gave me the best idea ever. Someday we will buy loaves and let them dry in the sun all day (or buy the burnt rejected bread at the end of the day). After they are crispy enough, we will have... are you ready? Kandi's First Annual BREAD JOUST! Yes. That is the best idea ever known to man. I can see it already, volunteers fighting valiantly and proudly in an honorable battle with meter long stale bread. I can hardly wait.

Trip back was fairly easy, didn't have to wait on the road long and even had a travelling buddy in the form of Ellen, our PCVL (PC Volunteer Leader) of Parakou. Got back before I thought I would and found that I had receieved a care-package from Sara's mom! Thank you!! Mail from the states is always awesome, and when it's filled with delicious comestibles it's even better.

Finally I went home, but was only there for 20 minutes before I was summoned by Glen back to the workstation to go to the Marche Kilimbo. Marche Kilimbo is (on Sundays) the place to be for one sole reason: Tchoukachou. What is Tchoukachou you ask? Well, Tchoukachou (more commonly called "chook") is a locally made millet beer. It's very... interesting. Marche Kilimbo is on the very edge of town (which is really, really far) and absolutely awesome. On approach you're greeted by a crowd of zemidjans, wandering people and lines of small fires on which they are roasting skewers of pork or frying beignets or ignames.

Being a chook virgin, Glenn had to explain everything. We started by eating some pork, which was really good... and proving to me that my meat snobbery is going down hill fast. What was on the skewere was pork skin, fat and a piece of meat. I ate it all. I'm still not the biggest fan of pork fat or skin, but it's more of a texture complaint than the flavor. We continued on to chook.

Chook stalls take up the rest of the somewhat large market. Each stall is probably about 4 meters square, and has benches, or logs surrounding the chook lady in the middle. Halves of gourds used as bowl-cups are passed out, and when you sit you're passed a sample. Chook looks like chocolate milk, but don't be fooled. It's evil chocolate milk. Actually it's pretty good, but at first surprsing; it's warm. After your sample you choose your denomination of chook consumption, and commence. We opted for the smaller 50 CFA (~10 cents) denomination so we could browse several stalls. All in all, very fun. Everyone in the market is jovially tipsy and even more boisterously friendly than usual. It's really quite a good experience, people compliment you on your clothes, tell you they love americans, invite you to their shops, and most buy you chook. It's very fraternal, and very fun.

After all that, we decided we'd go to the marche to pick up things to cook, then re-decided to get African food, then re-re-decided to get hamburgers. After walking up to Le Miel, we were dissapointed to find that there would be no meat for a couple of hours... so hamburgers were out. We finally re-re-re-decided to go back to my house and make Macaroni and Cheese Peace Corps style (with Vache Qui Rit and powdered milk). Turned out very well, and that was the weekend.

Thursday, October 13, 2005 Man, Gallery-Remote sucks the big one on Win98. I can't get ImageMagick to configure correctly, so all of the extra information in my photos (like capture date and things like that) are stripped out. There is a gallery update in any case, but I'm unhappy that GR had to rape my meta-data.

Work continues, fighting the constant battle of browser compatability. Which is sad, since it's just the design phase. But, when you're in Win98 nothing is as easy as it should be.

Oh, I haven't updated the sidebar yet, but I finally figured out my new address. It should be noted the old one will work fine. I just might have to travel to get your package, but it will rest safely in the hands of Corps de la Paix. My new address is:

Lyle Kozloff, PCV
Corps de la Paix Americain
BP 359
Parakou, Benin

That is all.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 Hey, I'm alive and doing work! I finally have all the tools to do what I need to do, and I since I received the go-ahead to start over I've actually been doing work! Yay! So, I don't have quite as much time to ramble now...

In any case, I got my fridge now at my place. Oh it is wonderful. In celebration I made pizza, since I knew that I could save the leftover cheese, salami and sauce. I also bought an imported (from Germany) Twix, which I froze. Oh yes, it was awesome. So awesome that the half that I had planned on saving for dessert tonight I ate for breakfast this morning. I'm also very happy to have freezing cold water at my disposal.

Again I'm amazed at zemi drivers. My fridge was delivered by the small mopeds they call "motos" here. No straps, just the fridge on the rear seat and the zemi-driver one hand on the handle-bars, the other arm holding the fridge on the moto. All this over gulleys and hills, rocks and all the other like you find here on a typical dirt road. Amazingly both the man and the fridge survived.

I'm finishing up downloading GalleryRemote/ImageMagick which will help me tremendously in uploading pictures. Previously I had to go to the workstation to resize them, and then transfer each one by hand and caption each one through the web interface. This handy little program will let me do all those things at once, here at work. So, expect to see a gallery update tomorrow.

Monday, October 10, 2005 Weekend good. Went to a party at a NGO (non-governmental organization) called Victory Way for a volunteer who is leaving. Good times, good food, delicious cake. Also, we found hamburgers in Parakou. Not only that, delicious hamburgers for not much money. A little bit less than $3 for a complete meal of a cheeseburger and fries. Very delicious, very happy Stacey tipped us off.

All in all a good weekend, but not much really to tell. Mostly eating and socializing with volunteers. I'm trying to stay away from the workstation, but it's proven difficult thus far. Not because I really want to go over there, but really through a matter of necessity. This weekend was significant because it was planned. Last weekend was because I had no choice. Thankfully next weekend I'm going out of town to deliver groceries and a SIM card to Sara... although funnily enough it's to another workstation. I swear there will be a weekend where I DON'T go to a workstation. Really. I want one.

In other news though, people in my neighborhood know me. It's cool. Whenever I come home there are a ton of people on my route who wave and say "bon arrive" or the time-appropriate greeting of the moment. It's cool to feel like I'm becoming part of a community. Even though the only reason I'm probably really noticed at all is because of my white skin.

Today was the first day of school for all the youngin's. It was cute to see all the really little ones with their wide-eyes being led by their older siblings towards all the various schools. There is one in my neighborhood, so I saw lots of kids today. It's also funny to see 3 kids holding on for dear life on the back of a motorcycle being driven to school. As such the whole town was quite a flurry of activity this morning.

I'm slowly finishing up downloading all the things I need. I may, just may even get my own workstation soon... which means I'll actually be able to start serious work on the project. Oh, that's news. My homologue says we've definetly lost too much time waiting on the company so we're starting over from scratch. Fine with me, means I have something to do. I'm excited to have a purpose finally.

That's actually one thing that I consider to be an advantage in my situation. Other volunteers who've just started literally have nothing to do, or are at the present moment incapable of doing what they will do for reasons of language or season. Even if I have nothing to do a work, I do have a "work" to go to. It's much better than being all alone in a village and literally having nothing to do but to go between the marche, sitting on the porch, and sleeping. If that were the case I might die. Or, I might have finished a book by now... as opposed to the 6 I heard tale of one volunteer having finished.

Oh, for those of you who aren't link-stalkers... Theresa has updated her gallery. There is even a gallery devoted entirely to me!

Thursday, October 06, 2005 I got my speakers! I don't think anything that costs $14 has ever made me so happy. Now I can listen to my tunes (via iPod or MP3-CD) anywhere in my house. Sure the quality isn't the best in the world. But damn, it feels good to be making spaghetti sauce and jamming out to Alice in Chains (as I was last night, since A is at the top of the artists list... and I was afriad of scalding my onions). So that is good.

I took a bunch of pictures of the house yesterday and am in the process of uploading now. A decent view will be up by the time I go home, which for all of you all is still the beginning of the day (well, for my East Coast readers I suppose your day is half done). I was going to get the screens put on my windows today, to fend off my insect attackers... but it's raining now. So it's not likely I'll get to do that at all. Alas.

In lieu of telling you all what I'm eating, I've also decided to start a new gallery. I'm going to take a picture of everything that I prepare myself, and as often as I have my camera what I eat out as well. This will be the most awesome gallery in the world after 2 years.

Other things to look out for tomorrow gallery wise are the beginnings of "Month 1". Rather than adopting clare's mass-update once a month approach (which she probably has to do). I'll take advantage of the bandwidth and update as I take. Yay for cities!

Still trying to get myself situated in a work situation where I can do things. The current problem is bandwidth. I need tools to do my work, and they are all free to download. The problem is downloading takes FOREVER. It'll be next week before I'm finally done. Oh well, at least it's a legitimate excuse.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005 As promised, I got my mattress. Thanks to my friend here at work, I got the best price I've heard from any PCV so far. What's more, it's the coveted name-brand PEB mattress. In all of it's double-glory it cost me 43,000 CFA (about $86). Quite a chunk of change, but it ought to serve me well. Julie, a PCV who is in the process of finishing up her service in the next week or so, has had the same mattress for nearly her entire service and raves about it. (She also paid more than I did! Hehe!) My judgement so far after having slept on it for a night? Whew. It's hard! Supposedly it'll soften up after a few nights, but right now it feels like I'm sleeping on a rock. Now, that sounds like a complaint... but let me assure you that a rock hard mattress is much better than one that is too soft. The one at my host family was an example of this. If I sat on it for an hour playing guitar, there would be a butt print that wouldn't go away until for 12 hours. Sleeping on it was a process of being absorbed into a giant black hole. My new mattress does not do this at all. All in all, I'm quite happy with it.

Getting the new mattress to my place was pretty hillarious. Have you ever seen a moped carry a double bed? How is it even possible? Through the magic of Benin. The guy put the mattress on the seat, sat on it and then navigated his way through pot holes and avoided huge puddles all the way to my house. It was skillfully done, and absolutely ridiculous.

Actually, lots of things here seemed ridiculous at first, but now are almost mundane. In a sometimes shocking way though. Case in point; last week I saw a cow in the trunk of a bush taxi. It was alive, and munching on some grass. It was secured with ropes. I pedalled past it not even really thinking about how odd it was. Then about 20 feet down the road I realized... "Oh wait, there is a cow in that trunk. That's not normal!"

Last night at my house was the night of the killer bugs. I found out quickly to NOT turn on my front light and inside light at the same time. There are these absolutely disgusting bugs that are absolutely retarded. The crash into the light like most bugs, but unlike other bugs they don't continue to crash into the light. They crash into everything else... including my windows. And, they aren't small bugs. They are big, and when they hit the window en masse it sounds like an army of kids with BB guns. Then, as if crashing into my windows wasn't enough, they decided to figure out a way to crawl through the glass slats and into my front room where they did a repeat performance with my living room light. I'm not normally a violent person, but these bugs had it coming. I had to buy a broom this morning to sweep out their corpses. I regret having not taken a picture of them all, I think there was at least 20. It was gross. Oh, wait. I live in Africa. It'll happen again tonight and then you'll be able to see.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005 I did work today! While it may or may not have been useful, I made a schedule and agenda for things that need to be done to finish the project. It took me all of 30 minutes in English, but then I had to translate. Whew... it was interesting to realize how much technical jargon there is in something so simple. Translating things like "back-end" were difficult. In the end, I think I did okay. We'll see when my homologue takes a look at it.

I'm amazed at how nice the Beninese can be. I've been taking zemidjan's to and from work more and more this week because there are a lot of things I need to do quickly. The problem is that my house is a bit of a way from the main roads. So, if you're going to find a zemi you need a little luck or a lot of walking. However, for the past 3 days I've gotten a ride at least part of the way. I'll just be walking along with my zemi helmet, and a random car or moto will pull up and offer to drive me at least to the top of the hill. It's awesome! It is strange to me that strangers stop to help strangers, but it's a good thing. It's sort of just how it is here, people share what they have. Of course that leads to other interesting cultural things, like hiding what you do have so you don't have to share it. This is especially true in the knowledge department. If you teach a farmer how to increase his crop yield 20%, he's not going to tell anyone what you told him for free. It makes sense... but it's frustrating for development...

Today I'm buying my double mattress finally. Things are slowly coming along at the house. I still need to buy a few more things, and commission a few more pieces of furniture... but it shouldn't be too long until I'm right at home. People at work here are just awesome. They're helping me so much get all the things I need. One of the ladies here at work drove me around on moto yesterday to find the best price on a mattress, and told me she could help me get my pagne chairs covered. Then there is dumb stuff that I should have bought already... like forks. I have one fork, and I stole it from Air France. (It's plastic! They would have thrown it away any how!) I have no plates, but I do have this awesome stack of tupperware like things that work very well in the meantime. I'm really just being a lazy ass. Sad, isn't it?

I'm going to try and take pictures of my house tonight, or tomorrow morning and upload them when I get to work tomorrow afternoon.

Monday, October 03, 2005 I finally moved in to my house!!

Whew, this whole weekend was really good actually. Lots of activity at the workstation because there were two big meetings. I believe on Saturday night there were close to 17 people sleeping at the workstation. That's a challenge, since there are but 12 beds, but in typical Peace Corps fashion we managed well with what was on hand; couch cushions, mystery mattresses and any manner of soft thing placed on the ground. I was very surprised to see quite a few of PSL-18ers come in for the meetings (as well as to do some emergency banking... turns out most of us had no idea how much money we would need during our first week at post). It was fun to see everyone and hang out, especially now that I'm no longer a stagiare, but a full-blood volunteer with a whole WEEK at post!

In any case moving in was quite the experience. The plan was to move in Friday night, but we didn't have the keys to the house and the property manager wasn't around to give them to us (which we found out AFTER having packed up 90% of my stuff and going down to the house). So, it was back to the workstation with me. The next morning the driver for the mairie came to collect me again, and we were off! Shuffled everything quickly, got the keys and had the intention of coming back within 15 to 20 minutes so the property manager could install some lights in the back. Then, it rained like no other. So I didn't end up going back until the next day, but got the key to the main gate to the house and all that jazz. All in all the house rocks. The kitchen and bathroom are smaller than I remember, and oddly designed (I can't put my stove on the counter!) but all in all I'm very happy. In addition I was surprised to see a double-bed (no mattress yet) and a 6 person dinner table with chairs already included with the place. That really rocks, because I was going to order the bed, and was thinking about having an Asian style dinner table (sitting on the ground). This frees me up a lot, financially and stress wise. Rock on.

Last night marked the first time I got to use the meat grinder. All in all, I'm pretty impressed! It does in fact grind meat, and it didn't break or anything, so far totally worth it. It is messy, but I think it has a lot of potential. Hmm. I think I might even be able to make applesauce with it. I will definetly be experimenting now that I have my own place.

While it's probably a bit premature, Cindy asked if I had any suggestions for getting ready to come to Benin. Well, I'd say first check out the travel guide over at fon-is-fun.org. I think that most of the things covered there have proven to be fairly accurate. Also check out the Lonely Planet Guide to West Africa. There are about 10 copies of that book at each workstation from past PCVs, and I can say for the most part it's accurate and fairly informative. Of course your PCV will be 10 times better by the time many come, but I learned quite a bit about Parakou during my stay at the workstation just from the book itself. Finally, just prepare yourself mentally to be frustrated. Things don't work here like they do in the states. You may wait around for hours, people may not come when they say they are going to, and few things that ought to be easy will be. Beyond that, I don't know... maybe find a friend with a motorcycle and practice riding on the back, because you will for sure be doing that here. Zemis are completely unavoidable if you want to get anywhere. They aren't bad at all once you get used to them, but the first few rides can be a bit terrifying. Beyond that, I'm not really sure yet. I've only been in country for a few months (I believe tomorrow will mark exactly 3 months since I left home).

Oh yes, and one excellent funny story. This occured the other day in the marche with Ly. A youngish boy (around 14 or so probably) was carrying these bizzare looking whip like things through. I approached him

"What are those?"
"Whips."
"Like, for domestic animals?"
"Yeah, wanna buy one?"
"No, I don't actually have any domestic animals"
"That's okay, you could use it in the bedroom."

Bam. That was quite possibly the funniest thing to happen me so far in country. For that reply he almost earned me buying a whip for him. Almost.

One final note. I think I'm going to start growing another goatee. The last time I came to Parakou I was called "madame" 3 times. In the past week, we're so far up to 2. I'll start as soon as I buy a mirror.