Gaaah!

Rain doesn’t quite sum it up

The start of the rainy season here has all the subtly of a sledgehammer on a thumb tack.

Over the course of two days I’ve seen rain fall horizontally (contradicting, I know), my well water level has risen over seven meters (that’s 22.9 feet), my porch has become an extension of a three hectare lake, and lightning strikes so close and frequently next to my house that I believe I’m going deaf and blind. It’s like being thrown into the ocean with twenty flash bang grenades . . . and I’m loving every second of it.

Plotline for a B-Horror Film

Coming home late one night I hear drums off in the distance. The closer I get to my house the louder the drums get. The louder they get, the more Intrigued I am, so I decide to go investigate. It doesn’t take long to find the source as its right in front of my housing concession.

Here I find what looks like your typical Bariba drum fete (party) with all the accoutrements; dancers, straw huts, bonfires, leather hide drums, etc.

As I’m asking around I slowly learn that this is a three week long, 24/7 drum ceremony to respect the dead. Wait, dead? Yes, dead. As it turns out, my house, and the land in front of it was, and still is, the village cemetery.

 All those random piles of dirt I thought were their just cause the field was a convenient dumping site?

Not so random

All those cement covered sections I thought were old sealed off latrine pits?

Not latrine pits

I like to think I would have been intelligent enough to realize a bit sooner that I live in a graveyard, but as they don’t exactly mark their graves (they pass down that knowledge from generation to generation from what surmounts to a line of priestesses) or visit them, I think I get a pass.

So now I've got crocs in my back yard, (probably) pissed off tribal spirits below my house, and ambivalent priestesses banging on drums three weeks a year and burying new bodies in the front . . .
I live in a B-Horror film, that or “Poltergeist Goes to Africa”

Transportation Solutions

As a PCV I’m not allowed to drive any vehicle with an internal combustion engine. This means no cars, trucks, motorcycles, mo-peds, or go-carts (though I can still ride shotgun).

I have been given two obvious solutions to this problem.

The first is my god given feet. They tend to work rather well at getting me from point A to B, though at a slower pace than I prefer at times.

The second is my Peace Corps issued Trek bike. This option comes with 21 gears, front shocks, and the envy of every child in village.

That all said, I have recently discovered option number 3.

There are times in which I just want to get from A to B without expending any energy. This is my ‘Lazy American’ coming out to rear its ugly head. In these cases I have recently taken to commandeering a donkey cart. Here’s how it works; sit on the side of the road, wait for a (un)laden donkey (with attached cart) to come by, and hitch a ride like McFly.

The best part of this is that it works for mass transportation as I was able to exploit a few weeks ago for a pub crawl to every bouv in village.

Condemnation Commendation (this is for incoming EA PCV’s to Benin 2013 - 2015)

One optional job for volunteers is to develop new posts for the incoming volunteers every year.

Before leaving the states just short of a year ago, I was expecting next to nothing in terms of housing, eg: no electricity, no running water, mud hut with a thatch roof, way out in the middle of nowhere. As it turned out, I do have a cement house with a sheet metal roof (though everything else is spot on).

Anyway, back to ‘site development’. I recently came across Batron, an ecologic village way out in the sticks that is an Environmental Action Volunteers wet dream. This place has year round gardening (which is saying something in the desert-ified Alibori) touristic viewing platforms, outside funding opportunities, a motivated work partner, and a solid developable work site.

Sounds great right? Well, there are some drawbacks. You WILL be vrai villageois.

You will speak only local language (Bariba).

There is not even a slight possibility of running water or electricity arriving in village while you’re here.

You won’t have a mud hut, but you will have a . . . house that meets Peace Corps requirements.

Phone reception is sketchy at best.

You will be one of the furthest volunteers from Peace Corps ‘Headquarters’ in Cotonou.

That all said, this is what attracts most people to Peace Corps in the first place, at least it was for me.

Pending administrative approval, one of you lucky EA’ers will be joining the Alibori crew in four months.