These are not all stories with a happy fairytale
ending because Africa is not Disney. Don’t let “The Lion King” fool you, Symba
would have finished off Pumba in a second. These are more along the lines of
Grimms fairy tales. All good until someone dies and there is always a lesson to
be learned.
The Rabbit:
My host father has taken to showing me around Porto
Novo, more specifically, its bouvettes (bars). On one such occasion we visited
his personal mentor (who yes owns a bouvette) and as I’m walking in I notice 2
cages full of rabbits. They are so freaking cute that even my stone heart
softens a little. Big puppy eyes, floppy ears, twitchy pink noses, and all the
innocence that comes with it (other than the F*#@ing like rabbits part, that
part is far from innocent, but I digress).
So I’m looking at these when my papa’s mentor comes
over to feed them and asks me which one I like. My papa had told him that
sometimes volunteers want a pet at post and while I didn’t want a rabbit, I
know another volunteer who did. So I looked them through and found one that was
small with huge floppy (yet perky) ears, black fir, and a white T shaped puff
on its belly.
He then took it, smiled at me, said “this is a good
one”, and broke its neck . . .
I should have seen this coming, I should have said ‘stop!’,
I should have done a lot of things, but I didn’t. Instead, 1 hour later I was
enjoying some succulent white meat with an ice cold Coke and listening to Bob
Marley’s “don’t worry, be happy”.
So now you ask me, “But Josh, what could be the
possible moral of this child scarring story?!?!” to which I reply, “Simple my
dear friend, Don’t judge a book by its cover” and as you begin to open your
mouth again in retort I continue with, “Don’t look at the cute outside, think
of the delicious, tender, juicy inside; Because while rabbits are cute, they
taste even better grilled with some garlic, lime, and pimant sauce on the
side.”
My Nap:
I’m now at my site in Goumori, and about to enjoy one
of the many perks of the Peace Corps. The medical staff recommends that we take
naps. For those of you who know me, you know this is not something I need to be
told twice, and I have no qualms whatsoever over utilizing this perk. If it
involves sleep or food, I have very strong opinions on the matter.
Anyway, I was following my doctor’s advice early one
afternoon and took a nap with the door open cause (go figure) it can be
freaking hot in Africa. Fast forward 1 hour and I wake up to a blurry white
object 2 inches from my face. This peaks my interest because there was no such
blurry object here when I went to sleep. To investigate this newfound mystery,
I reached for my glasses (cause even bats and naked mole rats see better than
me). At exactly the same moment the U.B.O. (Unidentified Blurry Object) moved
and makes a great deal of noise. About the same time I notice two other U.B.O.’s
near my chest and feet on the bed freaking the hell out with U.B.O. #1.
Now I’m not a timid man, but having woken up 5 seconds
previously, my 1st reaction is a ‘manly’ yelp and getting the hell
off the bed. This turned out to be a bad idea because mini U.B.O.’s #4 through
#18ish were on the ground and I almost crushed a few.
About this time I realize that the noise coming from
said U.B.O’s is clucking. Aha! A clue! By the time I have my glassed on, my
face has been thrashed by a chicken wing, and my body has given me a healthy
dose of adrenaline. I then realize that not only were there 2 chickens and a
cock on my bed, but all of their chicks were on the floor cause they couldn’t
make the jump up to the bed.
The moral(s)?
Screw closing the door, it’s too damn hot, but
mosquito nets keep out big and small flying things alike.
Second, a chicken’s only redeeming fact is that they
are delicious. They are the polar opposite of the cute rabbits in every other
way; Small beady eyes, sharp beaks, no obvious ears, creepy feet, shrill cries,
and they excrete the scent of pure evil. Thus my war with these avian terrors
is still in full swing. After all, I eat them because “I just want to be sure
it’s a real bird and not some kind of multidimensional cybernightmare” (Adams
p. 780) I know that was a random side track quote, but I had to work it in for
Mel who has sent me a package and deserved public recognition for it. Also she
hates all birds in general so much that she will only work in an office with no
windows so there isn’t even the possibility of seeing them during the work day.
(Love ya Mel!)
Finally, I need to invest in a screen door.
Haircut:
So Goumori is a predominately Bariba speaking
community, and for the past 7 months I have been studying French. This does not
bode well. Anywho, on with the story
As has been
previously stated and can be generally assumed, it is hot here in Benin. My
continually growing hair does not aid my comfort with this. The simple solution
is to get a haircut, however this poses a problem; the barbers have no idea
whatsoever how to cut my hair. This is not because they are incompetent, what I
mean is that the only hairstyle here is bald or a slight variation thereof.
When asked about my hair, they will laugh and walk away, or show me a razor and
point to a picture of a bald man.
My solution to this issue is simply to cut my own
hair. For this I would need scissors, a mirror, and a comb. I asked my Goumori
host family to help me find these things at the market in horrible French and
off I went with the guard. Here things got a little mixed up. Apparently they
thought I was describing a barber shop to get a haircut, not to buy said items,
and thus sent me to the closest chausurre (barber). I was blissfully ignorant
of this fact and thought that the barber would sell me what I needed.
I sat down in one of the side chairs in the shack as
my guard spoke rapidly in Bariba to the chausurre then left. A small warning
sign went off in my head which I promptly ignored. Another man then walked
behind me and in one swift, coordinated move, the man put a cloth around me
while the barber turned on a shear (electric razor? shaver? I never know what
they’re called) and took a swipe down the middle of my head. I now had a
reverse Mohawk and was adamantly protesting in French, English, and probably
some Pig Latin and expletives. The problem with this was that the warning light
from earlier was trying to tell me that no one left in the shack spoke any of
these languages.
With my only choices from here being, taking it all
off, or receiving an undesirable nickname in a language I don’t even speak, I
sided with going bald and going to the market alone next time.
The moral?
Even if you speak the language, you never speak the
right one when it matters.
AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!
This is what you say when a motorcycle with a full
grown freaking bull strapped ON it, crashes, and flips through the air toward
you.
Bread
So bread is a dry, sometimes sweet, sometimes hard
food that . . . ok, bread is boring, I’ll go back to the flying bull and give
you a little back and forward story.
So at the end of every day the men all sit in front of
the gate, which faces perpendicular to the road, and watch traffic go by. Here
I’ll make you a picture!
(figure A)
--------------------------------------------#-----------------------------------------<-- that’s the road
I <--That’s the gate ↑That’s a motorcycle with a bull on the back
It had just rained buckets that morning, so the dirt
road had the same consistency, and appearance, of melting rocky road ice cream.
That evening was also the end of the bi-weekly cattle market. A popular way to
transport our bovine friends long distances in Benin is to pick them up, place
them of the back of a motorcycle (think mini-harley), and strap them there with
elastic cord and twine.
I don’t quite understand the physics behind this task
but think it would be a great topic for a doctoral thesis in theoretical
physics.
Moving on, I was sitting in front of the gate (see
figure A) when the guy driving the moto lost control on the melted ice
cream-like road. He fell in a way that the bike landed on his leg, flipped
entirely over his body without touching him (imagine what the bull is thinking
at this point) and continued to cascade towards me.
You know those movies where there’s a massive abject
on a collision course with the main protagonist who just stands there like an
idiot while his impending doom slides to a sudden stop inches from his feet?
This was almost exactly like that except I almost lost the bet. Losing the bet
is shitting your pants (sorry for the graphic detail grandma). I would have
ran, but there was a closed, 10 foot tall steel gate behind me, a wall to my
side, and a flying bull in the front. (Rock and a hard place has a new meaning
for me now)
Once my life
stops flashing before my eyes I go see if the guy was alright, but felt weird
case everyone else was only interested in getting the bike right side up again
(a difficult task when you try it with the bull still attached). The driver is
walking around a little and I don’t see a bone fragment which is a good sign,
it means his leg isn’t shattered, he’s not dead, and he is conscious (I know,
one implies the other), win! From there I check ***[TEXT MISSING]*** and with the
fire out I move back to the moto. By this point the bull had been untied, and
while it’s not nice to say, I’m glad it had snapped its neck in the crash. It
normally would have been slaughtered with a slit neck, and if it had survived
the crash, it would have been rampagingly pissed! I then help the men turn the
bike right side up and like an idiot, I grab the muffler, which I immediately
release (cause it happens to be hot. Palm meet face, slap!). We finally get
everything situated with the bull going to the butcher, and the driver getting
a ride to the local clinic.
I have absolutely no idea what the moral for this
story is. Don’t drive on wet roads with a cow strapped to your moto? Make sure
there are no ignition sources near leaking gasoline? Always have an escape
route? Don’t grab burning metal? Whatever, take from it what you will, I just
liked the story.
That about sums up how much I want to tell for now,
cause even though you don’t know the other ones, I’m not sure you want to. So
before I leave you again for an undetermined amount of time . . .
More random
facts/things about me in Benin:
I have a dog now. I don’t know why, but when I came to
post they told me it was mine and now it follows me everywhere.
I now hoard coins like a (very tall) leprechaun cause
getting change here is like pulling impacted teeth.
The lake behind my house is filled with crocodiles
If the bar does not have chickens wondering through
it, something is wrong
Peeing anywhere I want is not a crime here, in fact
its encouraged (at least for men)
I have seen the following combination of things on
essentially a dirt bike (not tied to, following, or around, ON):
- 3 men and 5 dogs
- 2 men and 4 full grown pigs
- 1 man and 7 goats
- 1 man and 1 full grown freaking bull
- I have also started carrying my camera everywhere to get photographic evidence of this
- I could do my own laundry . . . or, I can pay someone $1.50 to hand wash, dry, iron (heated with fire, not electricity), and deliver a full load of laundry
