Je a arrive!

Hello friends, everyone who will read this. I am in Benin. We arrived on Friday evening. It is 6 hours later here for all who are on Chicago time. It has been a little too overwhelming until now to process and write everything down. I am very content and am glad that I am here despite my previous anxiety. The food is amazing, mostly rice, bread, and LOTS of poisson (fish). I have not been sick yet.

The people here are very welcoming and hospitable, they love to take care of you. We were greeted at the airport the first day by the current PCV's and some of the staff. They loaded all of our bags and we crammed on to buses and rode to St. Jean Eudes which is a retreat center surrounded by cement walls. There is a buvet (bar) on the 'compound' and most of the trainees go there every night, talking or playing cards and having Beninoise beer. I have joined them most nights, pulling out the UNO or Phase 10. Another PCT knows how to swing dance! so I got him to feed my love for dancing and we performed a little. I had to get my dancing fix before I leave for post and possibly won't have another swing dancer around for awhile.

We have had alot of meetings discussing Beninese culture, the problems we may face, and how we should react in certain situations. We had our language interviews which were probably the most intense as far as anxiety goes, but otherwise I am at peace about the future.

On Sunday we had our safety and security seminar and the current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) talked about the "peer support network" that they have created with the purpose of helping us if we need to vent and speak confidentially with someone. Later that day we had our first language class. We are split into our sectors (TEFL, SED-small enterprise development (me); EV-environment, Health) and then split further by language capabilities.

At 4pm we went to the church that is on the compound. It was kind of awkward finding a seat. There were about sept Yovos from our group (foreigner or white person) and we showed up at four pm. Unfortunately we missed the memo that the Beninese show up hours beforehand to scout out the best seats. We split up and squeezed in between some of the Benin people. The people spilled out of the church and there were speakers that projected into the crowd. The kneeling, sitting, standing, repetez is much like Catholic church in America, the length of service and the number of homilies given is much different than a normal Catholic service. We were there for 3 hours and when we left service was still going on for another 45minutes. The best part of course was the dance party on the way up the aisle to give offering and then for 10 minutes afterwards.

Well, more shots to come this afternoon and tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to Porto Novo and will move in with our host families for the next 8 weeks! I am tres content. I hope all is well in America. I'm just getting in to the blog thing so bear with me. I will not be posting all the time but we should have semi regular access the internet. Wish list and more stories to come.

I met a girl who comes around at night that speaks with me in french. She shared pate with me Sunday night