When I first came to Benin, I kept track of how many days I had been here. I no longer perform that ritual, probably a good sign that I'm now used to living here. Don't misunderstand, I still encounter things that I'm not used to every day, but I'm accustomed to being here in Benin... and I'm really enjoying being here. No longer do I wish to board the next plane and no longer do I plan on cutting my time here in half :). I'm really thankful to have to priviledge, this opportunity of living here and experience so many new things.
The big news of this past week is that I've moved into my own place, my new temporary home. I'm grateful to have stayed with a missionary family here up until now, making my transition much easier. Even though it's been a really good situation (especially after I got used to living with a family and with people I didn't know), I'm excited to have my own space and schedule and home. It will be another adjustment living alone (I've always had some roommmates), but in the four days I've lived there I haven't even had a second to consider lonliness; the only time I've even been alone was to sleep. Besides, my new home is just across the road, maybe 100 yards (I'm poor at estimating distances), so I'm close to everyone I know here. At this point my new place is only temporary, for 1 or 2 months. That's partly due to the fact that I haven't decided if I want to stay in Aplahoue or move to Azove (a bigger town 4 km away)- both have their pros and cons, and I don't want to make decision until after I've started working. Also, I think the owner might only want it to be temporary since it's where he normally stays when he comes back from the city. My new place is really nice, much nicer than I was anticipating. I'll try to paint a little picture of it for those of you who are interested in details. If not, just skip on down to the next paragraph.
My little home has cement walls and floors (a contrast to some of my neighbors' houses that are made out of dirt, sticks, and tin), with three little rooms. You walk into the living room, with couches, a coffee table, a light bulb, and a TV (yes, you read it right! I sure didn't expect to be watching TV here. And I don't really plan on watching it much, but my friends Koudjo and Jules are excited to come and watch soccer games at my place (which they did last night). ) To the left of the living room is the "kitchen", a newly-added-on room, which is completely empty except for my kitchen things sitting on the floor (and some of the owners things piled up in a corner). To cook, I use the owner's little kerosene burner. Yesterday I used it for the first time and it went surprising well and quick. I wash my dishes using two buckets that I have sitting on the floor in the light that streams in from the living room. Since there is no electricity in that room, I can use a kerosene lantern (which at this point is out of wick so I'll try to find more at the market). I'm borrowing a cooler from Thora to store my fruits and vegetables. I use frozen water bottles that I exchange at Thora's daily. Although it's kind of a pain to exchange the water bottles daily and it doesn't keep my food all too fresh, it still is better than nothing. I gotta have my fruits and vegetables! :) Two steps up from the living room is my bedroom, with a bed and another lightbulb; I've just put the matress I bought before I knew I would be using all of the owner's furniture, on top of his. When the owner knew that I wanted to live there, he had a small wall built in the bedroom. Behind it he added a toilet (Yes, a toilet... a rarity here!!), a spicket with running water, and a drain on the floor, because he said he couldn't let a white woman live there without running water and a toilet. Although I had thought that I would really like to experience life here as most of the people live, I am so happy and glad to have an indoor toilet and running water! My neighbors around me use the latrines and get their water from the cystern outside. So, as you can see, I really have it very nice, with electricity, running water, and a toilet! Of course, it's still an adjustment learning to cook on one small kerosene burner on the floor, not having any sinks, feeling like my neighbors can always watch me, and the noise. What noise, you ask? Yes, the people talking right outside my window at night or the music playing will take a little adjusting to, but it's the goats that I'm really struggling with. I had no idea goats were so loud, much much louder than sheep. All night long they congregate on my door step (literally, honestly) and do whatever they're doing. I have my hypothesis of what they're doing, but I'll leave that be. I'm sure eventually I'll get used to it, but let's just say that I've been a little sleep deprived this week. Sometimes, when the door is open, a goat or chicken will pop his head in. I don't care if their just trying to be friendly and welcome me (as someone has tried to convince me), I don't plan on making friends with the goats :). The same goes for the ants, termites, spiders, cockroaches, beetles, and whatever other little creatures come to visit. So far no mice or lizards have come inside my house, but I'm sure they'll come (I had those visitors at the Broyles). Spiders and lizards I usually let be... we have a pretty peaceful coexistance. But cockroaches and beetles get the sure death, and I'm not too fond of mice either ( I was afraid they would run around on my face when I was sleeping :) ).
The little enclave where I live has its own name, but it's not considered to be a village. As far my neighbors, I'm not sure who all lives around me, because, with exception of yesterday afternoon and evening, I hadn't really been there yet except to sleep. Somehow most of them are all family, but I'm still confused exactly how everyone fits together. There are probably 10 or more little houses or huts. Yesterday I found out that there are 7 or 8 students who live around me. Since most villages don't have high schools, students here often live away from their families and rent a room. There is a high school in Aplahoue, because it is a county seat, even though size-wise it's not really big enough for it's own high school. Last night three of the students, who live in the rooms attached to the house I live in, came over to say hi. I'm glad to have some students around, because I know that I can converse in French with them. There is also a man there who studied in Ghana and likes to speak English with me (although I would rather be forced to speak only French). I've used my couple little Adja phrases with some of the people who don't speak French and it always makes them smile and laugh (I think it's because they're happy that I'm using Adja, rather than that they're laughing at me :)). Of course then they say a bunch of stuff I don't understand. Then I just smile and say in French that I don't understand (since I haven't even learned that in Adja yet). Now that I have more of a need for Adja in order to communicate with my neighbors, it will hopefully encourage me to learn it better.
Language learning is still going very slow, because I really haven't been able to devote much time to it in the last few weeks. I've been doing school with Jennie for the last 3 days since Thora has needed to go to some other villages. Other stuff, both some necessary things and also lots of fun stuff, pushes language learning to the side. I feel this pressure to learn it though, because next week I'm going to start observing an organization called Plan Benin. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because from what I've heard, this is a really well-run organization. I had met a man who works for this NGO at church and he gave me the name of the director. I went to see her last week and in my broken French tried to explain to her what I was interested in. Between my poor French and her broken English, we were able to communicate a little, but she told me to come back with Stephanie (a Peace Corps Volunteer who we both know.... but who leaves Benin at the end of this month) so she could translate and we could set up a program for me. Basically, I would like to learn what they do and learn from them. I don't know what I have to offer them. At those point I'm planning on being with them one day a week and then they're connecting me with another organization that works solely with people with AIDS, and I should be able to be with them once a week as well. At first I want to just learn from them. They work in 40 some surrounding villages with health care, education, AIDS, nutrition, and many others things. Hopefully God will then direct me in how can get plugged in with them and work together with them. If it ends up being a good fit, maybe I could just work with them since it's a lot closer than the clinic. I still haven't made contact with the director of the clinic in Gohomey, although I have repeatedly tried. He isn't there every day and right now the boss lady is in from Germany and so it's not working out to see him. There is a possibility that it will work out to see him tomorrow. I'm hoping to see him to get an idea of what he is thinking of how I can get plugged in. However, I'd like to wait to start there until the beginning of April, giving me some more time to learn French and Adja.
I've enjoyed having time to exercise. I've been running and playing basketball almost every morning with Koudjo. I've had to learn to do push-ups, because on Saturdays when we play with a bunch of other people, you often have to do push-ups if you miss. The first week I was lucky and always made at least one shot each round. However, one week, they had you do five push-ups each time you missed the shot! I ended up doing 20 push-ups (in sets of 5)! Granted, I wasn't making it as close to the the ground as I was supposed to, but they have no idea what an incredible feat that was for me anyway!!. :) Also, I bought a bike in in Togo last week (since I will need it for going to the clinic) and have been on a couple bike rides. Last week we went for what I thought was going to be a quick ride before dinner. We ended up riding to the border of Togo (about 12 km each way) up and down hills. My legs and butt were so tired, that if it hadn't been for that fact that it had become dark, I would have wanted to give up. :) Somehow when I'm riding a bike through the villages, it always brings laughter. I was assured that it wasn't that they were making fun of me, it's just really funny to them to see a white woman riding a bike. A couple of times I had a little entourage of children running after me. Other times people would just turn and stare or wave and yell something I couldn't understand.
I've visited two churches in Azove, the two Baptist church around here. (There are some Assemblies of God, various other pentacostal, and a big Catholic church in Azove as well.) The one that the Broyles often go to when they are in Benin (until recently they were rarely here on the weekends) is a very small church conducted in French. There are maybe 5-7 adults and 10 or so youth. I've been there twice now, once with the Broyles and one Sunday by myself when they were gone. The people made me feel very welcome and I was able to understand some of what was going on. (Little side note, one of the youth is studying German in school and brings a German Bible to church ... his German is quite good!) Last Sunday Koudjo and I went to visit the other Baptist church in Azove, which has between 100 and 200 people. The majority of the people in the church are Yoruba from Nigeria, so the church is conducted both in Adja and Yoruba (and obviously I don't understand either). A lady came to sit next to me to translate it into French, which I actually understood quite a bit of. (In case you're wondering why Koudjo didn't just translate, it's because men and women sit on separate sides). I ended up understanding almost all of the sermon... because they translated it into English for me from the front!! Try to imagine it, three very animated men preaching/translating, trying to take turns but it not always working out. Already the services tend to be long, but I think this one was especially long because of the sermon being in three languages. We didn't get there until close to ten (Sunday school goes from 9-10, but it's conducted in church just as if it's part of church) and left close to 1. I really liked the larger church. It was full of life and the people were also really nice. (There were 4 or 5 familiar face of people I had met before, which was nice. ) There was more singing than at the other church. In addition to their traditional drums, they also had a bass and an electric guitar. Just like at the church I visited in Togo, there were dances when you bring up the offering ( which happened 3 times. I keep forgetting to ask Koudjoy about the offering, but I'm confused about the 3 different times. Once it was everyone (although in groups of youth, women, or men) and one other time it was all the women, and another time just some people. I haven't really decided to which church I'll go, because at this point I don't understand any Adja and I don't want someone to feel like they have to translate for me each time (much less having it translated from the front!). Also, if I do decide to go there, I would probably be going there alone since the Broyles don't go there are and Koudjo said it was too loud and big for his liking (I guess Uptown got me used to that :)).
Well, this chapter in my novel has become long, so I'm going to stop. On one hand I feel like I'm writing too many details and am boring people, but on the other hand, I feel like there is so much else to say that I leave out and don't even get to, especially things I'm learning. I guess maybe I'm writing more about me than the culture (but then again, I know that each of you cares for me and maybe you don't care to know every detail I Iearn). Maybe I should start a second blog for the things I'm learning about life here or for the things I read or think about...but realistically that won't happen :) (For all those of you who know how many books I brought (40or so!!) , I really haven't made a dent. I'm in the middle of 2...pathetic. My time is just going other places. However, now that I have my own place, I really hope to have more time to read. Anyway, I was in the middle of ending this blog entry, so I better follow through with it.
Thank you for your e-mails and your continued prayers. Keep praying for my language acquisition and for direction with what to do while I'm here. Also, I want to stay focused on my desire for this to be a spiritual sabbatical year, a year in which I grow more intimate with God (so, for those of you who pray for me, you can pray for that too). Please keep me updated on what is going on in your lives. I love hearing from you!
Blessings, Chrischona/Chrissy/Christine (because that's what most people say when I introduce myself, I've just started using that with some people :)).
The big news of this past week is that I've moved into my own place, my new temporary home. I'm grateful to have stayed with a missionary family here up until now, making my transition much easier. Even though it's been a really good situation (especially after I got used to living with a family and with people I didn't know), I'm excited to have my own space and schedule and home. It will be another adjustment living alone (I've always had some roommmates), but in the four days I've lived there I haven't even had a second to consider lonliness; the only time I've even been alone was to sleep. Besides, my new home is just across the road, maybe 100 yards (I'm poor at estimating distances), so I'm close to everyone I know here. At this point my new place is only temporary, for 1 or 2 months. That's partly due to the fact that I haven't decided if I want to stay in Aplahoue or move to Azove (a bigger town 4 km away)- both have their pros and cons, and I don't want to make decision until after I've started working. Also, I think the owner might only want it to be temporary since it's where he normally stays when he comes back from the city. My new place is really nice, much nicer than I was anticipating. I'll try to paint a little picture of it for those of you who are interested in details. If not, just skip on down to the next paragraph.
My little home has cement walls and floors (a contrast to some of my neighbors' houses that are made out of dirt, sticks, and tin), with three little rooms. You walk into the living room, with couches, a coffee table, a light bulb, and a TV (yes, you read it right! I sure didn't expect to be watching TV here. And I don't really plan on watching it much, but my friends Koudjo and Jules are excited to come and watch soccer games at my place (which they did last night). ) To the left of the living room is the "kitchen", a newly-added-on room, which is completely empty except for my kitchen things sitting on the floor (and some of the owners things piled up in a corner). To cook, I use the owner's little kerosene burner. Yesterday I used it for the first time and it went surprising well and quick. I wash my dishes using two buckets that I have sitting on the floor in the light that streams in from the living room. Since there is no electricity in that room, I can use a kerosene lantern (which at this point is out of wick so I'll try to find more at the market). I'm borrowing a cooler from Thora to store my fruits and vegetables. I use frozen water bottles that I exchange at Thora's daily. Although it's kind of a pain to exchange the water bottles daily and it doesn't keep my food all too fresh, it still is better than nothing. I gotta have my fruits and vegetables! :) Two steps up from the living room is my bedroom, with a bed and another lightbulb; I've just put the matress I bought before I knew I would be using all of the owner's furniture, on top of his. When the owner knew that I wanted to live there, he had a small wall built in the bedroom. Behind it he added a toilet (Yes, a toilet... a rarity here!!), a spicket with running water, and a drain on the floor, because he said he couldn't let a white woman live there without running water and a toilet. Although I had thought that I would really like to experience life here as most of the people live, I am so happy and glad to have an indoor toilet and running water! My neighbors around me use the latrines and get their water from the cystern outside. So, as you can see, I really have it very nice, with electricity, running water, and a toilet! Of course, it's still an adjustment learning to cook on one small kerosene burner on the floor, not having any sinks, feeling like my neighbors can always watch me, and the noise. What noise, you ask? Yes, the people talking right outside my window at night or the music playing will take a little adjusting to, but it's the goats that I'm really struggling with. I had no idea goats were so loud, much much louder than sheep. All night long they congregate on my door step (literally, honestly) and do whatever they're doing. I have my hypothesis of what they're doing, but I'll leave that be. I'm sure eventually I'll get used to it, but let's just say that I've been a little sleep deprived this week. Sometimes, when the door is open, a goat or chicken will pop his head in. I don't care if their just trying to be friendly and welcome me (as someone has tried to convince me), I don't plan on making friends with the goats :). The same goes for the ants, termites, spiders, cockroaches, beetles, and whatever other little creatures come to visit. So far no mice or lizards have come inside my house, but I'm sure they'll come (I had those visitors at the Broyles). Spiders and lizards I usually let be... we have a pretty peaceful coexistance. But cockroaches and beetles get the sure death, and I'm not too fond of mice either ( I was afraid they would run around on my face when I was sleeping :) ).
The little enclave where I live has its own name, but it's not considered to be a village. As far my neighbors, I'm not sure who all lives around me, because, with exception of yesterday afternoon and evening, I hadn't really been there yet except to sleep. Somehow most of them are all family, but I'm still confused exactly how everyone fits together. There are probably 10 or more little houses or huts. Yesterday I found out that there are 7 or 8 students who live around me. Since most villages don't have high schools, students here often live away from their families and rent a room. There is a high school in Aplahoue, because it is a county seat, even though size-wise it's not really big enough for it's own high school. Last night three of the students, who live in the rooms attached to the house I live in, came over to say hi. I'm glad to have some students around, because I know that I can converse in French with them. There is also a man there who studied in Ghana and likes to speak English with me (although I would rather be forced to speak only French). I've used my couple little Adja phrases with some of the people who don't speak French and it always makes them smile and laugh (I think it's because they're happy that I'm using Adja, rather than that they're laughing at me :)). Of course then they say a bunch of stuff I don't understand. Then I just smile and say in French that I don't understand (since I haven't even learned that in Adja yet). Now that I have more of a need for Adja in order to communicate with my neighbors, it will hopefully encourage me to learn it better.
Language learning is still going very slow, because I really haven't been able to devote much time to it in the last few weeks. I've been doing school with Jennie for the last 3 days since Thora has needed to go to some other villages. Other stuff, both some necessary things and also lots of fun stuff, pushes language learning to the side. I feel this pressure to learn it though, because next week I'm going to start observing an organization called Plan Benin. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because from what I've heard, this is a really well-run organization. I had met a man who works for this NGO at church and he gave me the name of the director. I went to see her last week and in my broken French tried to explain to her what I was interested in. Between my poor French and her broken English, we were able to communicate a little, but she told me to come back with Stephanie (a Peace Corps Volunteer who we both know.... but who leaves Benin at the end of this month) so she could translate and we could set up a program for me. Basically, I would like to learn what they do and learn from them. I don't know what I have to offer them. At those point I'm planning on being with them one day a week and then they're connecting me with another organization that works solely with people with AIDS, and I should be able to be with them once a week as well. At first I want to just learn from them. They work in 40 some surrounding villages with health care, education, AIDS, nutrition, and many others things. Hopefully God will then direct me in how can get plugged in with them and work together with them. If it ends up being a good fit, maybe I could just work with them since it's a lot closer than the clinic. I still haven't made contact with the director of the clinic in Gohomey, although I have repeatedly tried. He isn't there every day and right now the boss lady is in from Germany and so it's not working out to see him. There is a possibility that it will work out to see him tomorrow. I'm hoping to see him to get an idea of what he is thinking of how I can get plugged in. However, I'd like to wait to start there until the beginning of April, giving me some more time to learn French and Adja.
I've enjoyed having time to exercise. I've been running and playing basketball almost every morning with Koudjo. I've had to learn to do push-ups, because on Saturdays when we play with a bunch of other people, you often have to do push-ups if you miss. The first week I was lucky and always made at least one shot each round. However, one week, they had you do five push-ups each time you missed the shot! I ended up doing 20 push-ups (in sets of 5)! Granted, I wasn't making it as close to the the ground as I was supposed to, but they have no idea what an incredible feat that was for me anyway!!. :) Also, I bought a bike in in Togo last week (since I will need it for going to the clinic) and have been on a couple bike rides. Last week we went for what I thought was going to be a quick ride before dinner. We ended up riding to the border of Togo (about 12 km each way) up and down hills. My legs and butt were so tired, that if it hadn't been for that fact that it had become dark, I would have wanted to give up. :) Somehow when I'm riding a bike through the villages, it always brings laughter. I was assured that it wasn't that they were making fun of me, it's just really funny to them to see a white woman riding a bike. A couple of times I had a little entourage of children running after me. Other times people would just turn and stare or wave and yell something I couldn't understand.
I've visited two churches in Azove, the two Baptist church around here. (There are some Assemblies of God, various other pentacostal, and a big Catholic church in Azove as well.) The one that the Broyles often go to when they are in Benin (until recently they were rarely here on the weekends) is a very small church conducted in French. There are maybe 5-7 adults and 10 or so youth. I've been there twice now, once with the Broyles and one Sunday by myself when they were gone. The people made me feel very welcome and I was able to understand some of what was going on. (Little side note, one of the youth is studying German in school and brings a German Bible to church ... his German is quite good!) Last Sunday Koudjo and I went to visit the other Baptist church in Azove, which has between 100 and 200 people. The majority of the people in the church are Yoruba from Nigeria, so the church is conducted both in Adja and Yoruba (and obviously I don't understand either). A lady came to sit next to me to translate it into French, which I actually understood quite a bit of. (In case you're wondering why Koudjo didn't just translate, it's because men and women sit on separate sides). I ended up understanding almost all of the sermon... because they translated it into English for me from the front!! Try to imagine it, three very animated men preaching/translating, trying to take turns but it not always working out. Already the services tend to be long, but I think this one was especially long because of the sermon being in three languages. We didn't get there until close to ten (Sunday school goes from 9-10, but it's conducted in church just as if it's part of church) and left close to 1. I really liked the larger church. It was full of life and the people were also really nice. (There were 4 or 5 familiar face of people I had met before, which was nice. ) There was more singing than at the other church. In addition to their traditional drums, they also had a bass and an electric guitar. Just like at the church I visited in Togo, there were dances when you bring up the offering ( which happened 3 times. I keep forgetting to ask Koudjoy about the offering, but I'm confused about the 3 different times. Once it was everyone (although in groups of youth, women, or men) and one other time it was all the women, and another time just some people. I haven't really decided to which church I'll go, because at this point I don't understand any Adja and I don't want someone to feel like they have to translate for me each time (much less having it translated from the front!). Also, if I do decide to go there, I would probably be going there alone since the Broyles don't go there are and Koudjo said it was too loud and big for his liking (I guess Uptown got me used to that :)).
Well, this chapter in my novel has become long, so I'm going to stop. On one hand I feel like I'm writing too many details and am boring people, but on the other hand, I feel like there is so much else to say that I leave out and don't even get to, especially things I'm learning. I guess maybe I'm writing more about me than the culture (but then again, I know that each of you cares for me and maybe you don't care to know every detail I Iearn). Maybe I should start a second blog for the things I'm learning about life here or for the things I read or think about...but realistically that won't happen :) (For all those of you who know how many books I brought (40or so!!) , I really haven't made a dent. I'm in the middle of 2...pathetic. My time is just going other places. However, now that I have my own place, I really hope to have more time to read. Anyway, I was in the middle of ending this blog entry, so I better follow through with it.
Thank you for your e-mails and your continued prayers. Keep praying for my language acquisition and for direction with what to do while I'm here. Also, I want to stay focused on my desire for this to be a spiritual sabbatical year, a year in which I grow more intimate with God (so, for those of you who pray for me, you can pray for that too). Please keep me updated on what is going on in your lives. I love hearing from you!
Blessings, Chrischona/Chrissy/Christine (because that's what most people say when I introduce myself, I've just started using that with some people :)).
posted by The Sodjis | 2:00 PM
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