Holy bologna

Seasons greetings from your favorite Filipino-German in Benin (actually, I’m probably the only Filipino-German in Benin, at least until my schwester comes to visit, and even then, I’ll probably still be your favorite hehe). I’m not as depressed as I thought I would be around the holiday season, but that’s probably because it doesn’t really feel like Christmas time to me. No snow, no overcrowded malls, no hideous reindeer displays, no jolly old men dressed up in Santa costumes. I don’t think any of that is going to appear overnight in Benin, but I don’t mind since I’m really looking forward to spending the holidays with some of the other volunteers.

I think this is where I’m supposed to have some revelation about the true meaning of Christmas, but instead of boring you with that, I’ll bore you with what I’ve been up to these past few weeks.

I finally started doing some work! As much as I’ve enjoyed doing nothing for the past few weeks, it feels good to actually do something meaningful. I think I was a little discouraged about my work situation this month because the President and VP of the artisans (my work partners) were really helpful in the beginning, but haven’t been so helpful recently. It took me a while to realize that I’m going to have to take much more initiative in getting projects and classes started. I don’t mind the complete flexibility in making my work schedule, but I’m realizing more and more that I like things a bit more structured.

There is also such a different meaning of “time” and “work” here that it’s kind of hard getting into a schedule. If I don’t happen to do something today, then I can always do it tomorrow, and there isn’t any consequence in waiting a day or a week or a month to start something. I guess the only consequence is the guilt I would feel not doing anything, which does weigh pretty heavily.

Anyway, so I had my first computer lesson this past week with 6 artisans. I feel really lucky to even have a classroom of computers available for me to teach with. The classroom is a part of my town’s technical school (where apprentices go for class a few times a week). Normally, the computers are reserved for students and faculty only, but the director of the school was nice enough to let me use the classroom for a few hours a week. The class was supposed to start at 5pm, but seeing as Benin is in Africa, and it follows “Africa time,” people didn’t show up until 5:45.

And this isn’t the first time that time has been an issue. Last month the VP told me he was going to pick me up to go to a meeting at 8am, but didn’t actually arrive until 10 or so, no big deal. I’m going to have to be stricter about the class really starting on time, but then again, what if I’m not? Is someone going to die? Is the world going to end? The answer is no.

Becoming more relaxed in my punctuality-ness is my first step to being “bien integré” or well integrated in my community and the Beninese lifestyle. The phrase is often used among volunteers to describe other volunteers who are really into Beninese culture. They eat a lot of pâte, wear tissue clothing all the time, date or even marry a Beninese person, and even join secret voodoo societies.

Anyhoo, the class went well, but it was a little shocking to realize how little is known about computers. I mean, in the States kids seem to know how to use a computer before they’re even eating solid foods. It’s just something that we’ve grown up with as a normal part of our everyday lives. There are obviously people here who know how to use computers and surf the internet, but what I experienced in my class gave me one of those “reality check” moments that I’ve had almost daily since I’ve been here. A lot of what I did the first class was teach people how to hold a mouse, explaining the difference between a left-click and a right-click, and other basic computer functions that seem like second nature to you and me. I don’t think people here are stupid; they’re not, but certain aspects of life and the things that are important to know here are just so different than what’s needed to get by in the States. For example, I may know how to use a computer, but ask me to kill a chicken, build a table, or pick out a good yam from a bad yam, and I’ll just give you a blank stare and an awkward “I have no idea what’s going on” smile.

Besides the computer class, I’ve continued helping with the English club at the local high school. I am also continuing my French lessons, but have added some Nagot (a main local language) to the session as well. Nagot is a really hard language to learn for a couple reasons: 1. It’s a tonal language so slight differences in intonation make a world of difference. I have this fear that I’ll end up saying something like “Yes, I will marry your son” when I really mean, “Yes, I would like 3 bananas” all because of an incorrectly inflected “A” or something. 2. I’m learning Nagot through French which means I have to go from English to French to Nagot and back again for anything to make sense. Oh well, I guess I’ll learn. On a good note, I am excited to say things like “baba baba” (grandfather) and “oooooh” (a response for things like good morning and good job).

I’m not planning on becoming fluent in Nagot, but I do want to be able to saluer (greet) people and buy things in the marché from the women who don’t speak French. Plus, people get really excited when they hear the town whitey say something in Nagot, and it makes me happy to put in that effort to learn something so culturally important to the people in my town. The other night I even got a round of applause from all the neighbor kids because I said “good night” in Nagot. I think I was having kind of a bad day too, but it’s funny how something small like that can just make everything better.

Speaking of the neighbor kids, we’ve been hanging out a lot this past week. Some of you know that the word “affectionate” isn’t the word used to describe my feelings towards children, but I actually like the ones that live by me. They’re really friendly and helpful and when I come home with a bunch of stuff in my hands they always take it from me and bring it upstairs to my apartment. I still get the occasional “yovo” or “oweebo” (white person or foreigner in local language) yell from them, but I hope to be able to teach them to say something like “foxy lady” or even just my name. I think I’ll probably go for “foxy lady” because I think it would be hilarious to have all the little kids yell that when they see me.
All the kids are very curious about what I’m doing and will knock on my door a lot just to get a peek inside my house. Also, I normally burn my trash in this metal bucket once a week and whenever I do that, they all come out and watch me. All I’m doing is poking a bucket of burning trash, but for some reason this is highly entertaining for these kids. I don’t think I’ve talked about what I do with my trash here, but I guess now is as good a time as any. Trash collectors don’t really exist here. Most people either burn their trash or just throw it on the street. I toss all my food scraps out of my kitchen window (since I’m on the second floor it just lands in this trash pile on the side of my house where goats and pigs will eat it). All my paper and plastic trash gets tossed into a bucket where I douse it with kerosene and light a match. Interesting, right?

So after burning my trash the other night I bring out some crayons and a coloring book for all the kids and they start clapping and screaming. Then one of them asks me if I can get my camera to take pictures of them. Since I was in a good mood, I said yes and brought my camera outside. I took a few pictures and showed them on the digital camera screen and they start flipping out. I mean not just jumping around, but going crazy like it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen. I’m not even gonna go into how amazed they were when I tried to explain the self-timer button. While I would like to say that I’ll post the pictures, I would only be lying. I’ve tried, but it just takes too long to load even one picture, so if anyone back in the good ol’ US of A would like to be responsible for loading some of my pictures on a website, please let me know and I’ll get you a CD of my pictures.

Hmm…what else did I do this week? Well, I fixed my bike (all by myself), ate lot of papaya (the VP of the artisans gave me 4 huge papayas. Thank goodness my postmate likes them or I would be a little nervous about eating so much that I would actually turning into a papaya), and met some Canadians (there are 7 or 8 of them in my town until the end of January. I think most of them are just out of high school, but their supervisor is a little older and it’s nice to speak English with them and share experiences).

I also went and got yam pilé with one of my neighbors for dinner one night. I originally thought we were going to eat dinner with his family at home, but thanks to cross-cultural miscommunication, it meant that we were going out to get yam pilé alone. He’s older and the director of one of the local high schools, but I never got the “creepy man” vibe from him so I decided to go. I had a good time, but I definitely thought more about how strange and different my life has become in a matter of months…all from getting on a plane. I mean, there I was eating yam pilé with my Beninese neighbor speaking in French. So weird. I guess it was just one of those “Holy bologna *, I’m in Africa” moments.


* I don’t think I’ve ever actually mouthed the words “holy bologna” in my entire life. I’m not sure why I wrote that. It’s probably because the word “bologna” is normally replaced by something more vulgar than a highly processed lunch meat, but not really appropriate to post on my blog.