Rice hates me, which is bad, or maybe it’s the tomatoes

We’ll get to the title later, but I think it’s rather self explanatory.

For now, ‘A Typical Day in the Life of Trainee Josh’

Some random hour in the night – Depending on a variety of factors, run to the bathroom.

05:30 – Well good morning 500 chickens 20 feet away from my room, I will eat you all someday. Deep fried, grilled, baked, sauteed, or raw if I have to. But mark my words, I will have my revenge. /go back to sleep.

06:30 – Wake up again to my alarm (I have been ignoring the chickens and roosters). Still tired, don’t hear too much activity around me, and its a little cold in the rainy season w/o sheets. My solution? Go back to sleep.

06:50 – Ok, my family is awake and I need to be too if I want breakfast. Push aside mosquito net, clothes, toiletries, breakfast, etc, etc.

*Side note, breakfast every day without fail is this: Lipton tea, a hard-boiled egg, a baguette, and 2 cubes of sugar for the tea. Though considering that if left to my own devices I wouldn’t eat any breakfast at all, this is awesome.

07:45 – Ride my velo (bike) a few kilometers to a fellow volunteer’s house for class (every forth day it’s at mine). This is how I wake up, cause all they have here is Nescafe (insert trademark here) for coffee. I could take a Zemi, but that adds up when you make as little as a volunteer trainee (about $3/day).

***Sometimes we replace class with a trainee wide meeting at Project Songhai for medical, admin, culture, and diversity training. It’s basically an excuse to round us all up so they can shoot us full of chemicals (this week it was Rabies!). But don’t mis-interpret this; I love my vaccines almost as much as I love not having Rabies (or Yellow Fever, or Hep A, or any of the other wonderful viruses and bacteria that are prevalent in the world).

08:00 – Start class with my facilitator Masso and three other students who are way better at French than me (both a curse and a blessing)

10:30 – About now my brain is ready to explode, so we take a break for 15 to 20 minutes. We all speak English while Masso continuously reminds us that “Anglais est mort, parle Francais!”

12:30 – Break again for lunch. Time to put that French to use! I have three choices every day; Rice, Pate, or if I’m lucky, Spaghetti. I don’t really choose pate very often, paying for it seems . . . wrong, you can’t understand why until you try it.  They like to put fish on everything in the south, but I’m not a big fan, so I’ll take the bread and sauce tomate instead.

13:30 – Continue avec le francais! Tell Masso what happened at lunch en francais.

For example, try translating this:

We all wanted rice for lunch, and we found a place who said they had rice. Once we sat down (chairs are not expected here by the way) they asked if we wanted avocado. I assumed they meant with the rice and three of us said yes. Then I said I want bread with mine. When the food was served one person got rice, two people got a salad (with avocado, and one with an omelet but not the other) and I got a piece of bread (no rice, no avocado, just bread).

Isn’t speaking remedial French fun?!?

15:30 – My brain has shut down. I’m smiling, nodding, and have ‘repute si vous plait’ engrained in my vocabulary. Unfortunately at this point I’m spent, but at least I get a quick break to recover and finish off the school day.

17:00 – Officially in zombie mode. My brain is mush, I operate on basic motor functions to get home and eat a snack my papa has gotten me. This food is normally great; homemade tapioca, yovo doughnut holes, Kluis Kluis (a spicy peanut green bean looking thing), corn based pudding, fried sweet potatoes, etc. This is one of my favorite parts of the day.

17:30 – Start French homework, bang head against wall, study verbs I didn’t remember in class, bang head against wall, practice oral comprehension with my family, bang head against wall

20:30 – Dinner time! I help if I can, but I’m normally only allowed to watch, so yea. Wash hands in a series of bowls, eat traditional (with your right hand) or western depending on the food, and enjoy fruit for dessert (always an orange before today, yay mini bananas).

Quick side note about fruit: Banana in French is banane. Pineapple in French is ananas. Try saying Banane ananas five times fast . . . I’ll wait. Longue langue is another one (long tongue). Yay tongue twisters.

21:00 – Take a bucket bath/shower. This is my second favorite part of the day; it’s HOT at night so semi-cool well water feels like a polar swim back in Colorado. Write a quick paragraph or two for this blog (I have to do it all in advance and upload it at a cyber café), boil and filter water for the next day, sweep/clean my room, finish any lingering French homework or practice.

22:30 – Go to sleep. I have not had a bed time for over 14 years, but this one is self enforced. The Beninese seemingly never sleep cause they stay up later than me without fail, and are awake before me every day (is country-wide insomnia a thing?).

Back to the Rice (or tomatoes)

So I got sick for the first of, an expected, many times a few days ago. I blame food poisoning, which is probably a safe bet here with some of the street venders. I know how to look for a safe one, but sometimes you just pull the short straw.

The vendors are comparable to hot dog venders in the states, but instead of a cart, they have a table, and instead of a grill, they have covered (if you are smart) coolers. And I’m decently sure that you don’t need a license here to sell food. So when I say I know what to look for, I mean that I look for the vendor (normally women trying to contribute to the family) who covers her food, cooks in front of you if possible, and has something of a permanent set up. This usually (but not this time) works.

In any case after puking and running to the latrine every two hours like clockwork, I decided I wasn’t going to class the next day and called medical. It was a bit confusing cause I called at 6 in the morning, but that’s what on-call is for (French is difficult, but Franglish with a drowsy accent is indecipherable). After around 6 phone calls and poor phone reception, I decided to just sleep it off rather than go to the medical unit in Cotonou. I’m all better now, but I have nightmares about rice and sauce tomate. It’s just on a plate not doing anything, but I know that it’s just bidding its time, waiting for its next opportunity.

My end result; Healthy with a few extra bacteria running around in my system waiting for friends (otherwise known as reinforcements). 

Final 3

I tried to upload some pictures, but it's proving to be a futile effort. Sorry.

I also updated my contact info with accurate shipping info, and how to call/text me.

I (will try to) update a list of things on the sidepanel which if you send me, buy my love for the period of time it takes me to consume them/it.

I'm in Benin!!!

Just as a forewarning, it’s going to be a long one. That and no pictures, they don't like me on this internet connection (sorry)

Language

Good day . . . my name is Gosh . . . how are you . . . good

So this is how mine host family and speakers French hears me must. It is love Russian who knows yes no English yah?

Ok, back to writing like my college degree was worth something. So I have my good and bad moments with francais every day. Most days it goes along the line of being thrilled that I understood someone (usually my papa or one of the kids around the block) give me a basic greeting. As the day goes on I get frustrated at how much I forgot last semester in French as I re-learn in at an accelerated pace. Then at the end of the day my host brother (who speaks more English than I do French) helps me with repetition and basic conversation that I have learned that day.

Rinse and repeat.

On a side note, in order to understand some of the French I have to try and forget the related English rule. So as a result I expect my grammar to fail soon, and you are not allowed to judge!

Finally, there are a few aspects of Beninese culture that I knew about, but didn’t fully comprehend until now.

First, I am a “Yovo”. A yovo means foreigner in Fon. Every child that sees me calls me a yovo. Try to understand this; the youth population here is HUGE. On any given street there are 20 to 30 or more kids all calling me a yovo. Important side note, yovo is NOT a derogatory term; it is not impolite or rude to call someone white, black, fat, skinny, old or any variation of the above here. Ok, continuing, I hear the ‘yovo song’ at least once on each street which, for your viewing pleasure, is written below.

Yovo yovo bonsoir, sava bien, merci

Once one kid says it, it spreads and eventually the whole street is singing this song to you.

Second, before I cam e here I was told that the people would essentially congratulate you on everything. Turns out its true; “good sit, good eating, good work, good walk, and good arrival” are all examples. It makes you feel rather accomplished for the day when you are complemented on relatively rudimentary tasks.

That’s about it on language for now. On-y-va

Food:

I am, for a fact, gaining weight. The people in the cities here almost literally shove food down my throat. This is not because I am skinny or white, it is because I am a guest in their country and a full yovo is a happy (and fat) yovo. I eat many of the same foods too: noodles, omelets, salad, tea (oh, sooooo much tea), baguettes, hard boiled eggs, fish, pork, goat, etc.

There are however some more exotic foods available, and by exotic I mean . . . different. Pate (pronounced like Patrick) is a good example. Think of jello mashed potatoes and you have pate. It’s a delicious image I know but rest assured it has absolutely no taste what-so-ever, that’s what the sauce is for. The sauce is usually made up of a combination of oil, tomatoes, and vinegar. I also was taught how to de-feather, gut, prepare, section, and fry a chicken today, so yea, there’s that.

I had a hamburger, French fries, and an orange soda on the 4^th of July! Well, it was the closest thing they have here to resembling a hamburger. But it was fantastic, I know I’ve only been here a little over a week, but you would be surprised how much I miss American food already (hint hint for food in care packages).

The women cook here, which is to say, when I tell my family that I want to help cook they laugh at me because men don’t cook. Today they let me watch (yes watch but not help) my mamam cook. In fact she was the most insistent that I did not get in the way and mess anything up.

Beninese

I can’t say enough good things (and some odd ones) about the people here. They are all kind, happy, accepting, and understanding of me which says a lot about the culture. I am however the obvious minority (see previous section about ‘yovo’). Most of them speak at least three languages and have something of an education depending on their local.

Now for odd things (to me)

They eat their oranges in a strange way. They cut off the outer orange part, but not the entire shell, so you still have to peel it anyways.

You eat the fish with the skin on

Everyone drives a moto (scooter)

Rent is like $30 or $40 per month

Catholic mass is high energy and colorful (yes, it’s not all weird priest singing and somber songs!).

Kids don’t misbehave. It’s simply not a thing here. No temper tantrums, crying in church, saying ‘no’, and they are all still crazy happy and excited all the time. I think we’re doing it wrong.

Gasoline sold from glass bottles every hundred yards or so.

Living literally 20 feet away from a chicken and rooster farm (oh look, its 5:30AM). I’m not a morning person, but I guess I am now cause not even I can sleep through that.

Having my own personal bubble (otherwise known as a Mosquito net)

Bucket baths!!! Quick shout out to my mom here; Thanks for the training with ‘bird baths’ as kids.

Traffic

I will never again be terrified while driving with my family in the states. You all have absolutely nothing on the Beninese drivers. Traffic signs? Don’t need em. Tailgaiting? Its required! Lanes? What lanes? Helmets? Only yovo’s wear helmets.  Street names? Ha, that’s funny, there are no street names.

Imagine trying to find a house when your directions are “turn at the tomatoes, then again at the chicken”. I’m not kidding, this is how I get home, by using something that has legs and can walk away as a landmark. It has gotten better and I am slowly learning how to get around but still . . . no street names in the housing areas . . .

On the plus side, a zemi ride (motorcycle taxi) is about 200-300cfa which is around 45-65 cents US. They normally know where they are going (at least better than I do) but you have to negotiate out of the yovo price (500cfa+ depending).

Medical

I am healthy and feel like Swiss cheese. I have had so many shots and I’m not even close to done. Hep A, Meng, Rabies, Typhoid, and enough Doxy to choke a horse. First aid kits, water filtration systems, mosquito nets, stool and urine sample kits, a doctor’s personal phone on speed dial, and anything else you can think of, I have it. This is the best medical care I’ve had in my life and I’m a volunteer.

My Host Family

The name is Zannou, Josh Zannou. My host family is awesomely spectacular and I love them. My papa is a professor at the local college teaching mathematics, my mamam is a primary school teacher, and my brothers are both college students (though I have only met one). 

There are also a large multitude of children that live next door whose mother runs a boutique out front (and owns the chicken farm I was talking about). The kids refuse to let me carry anything once I am in eyesight and constantly try to sneak up and touch me. They have never touched a white person before and are curious.

If you got this far you probably have some interest in what’s going on over here, so if you want it, I have a cell phone now. See the “contact me” tab above for how this is going to work.

Well, I think that just about covers it for basic info on my life so far in Benin. There have been plenty of more specific stories I could go over, but that can wait