something is starting....

I am excited. On Tuesday I will have my first meeting with a group of people who want to form a Village Savings and Loan Association. I visited with the group that the previous volunteer had started last week and they are still going strong. The groups last for 1 year from they day that they started saving. All loans are given internally from the money that they group has saved. They buy “shares” in the group and can buy up to 5 shares each week. The group decides how much each share will cost depending on how much the group thinks they will be able to consistently save. I am blessed to have a copy of the manual in French and English. I don’t have to go to my dictionary each time I don’t understand something and my counterpart for this project will be able to read and understand the manual too.

I received my armoire and bookshelf. They are pretty and the menusie/ carpenter did a good job. My peace corps friend in town didn’t have as good of luck. She was waiting a month for the work to be done and when she went there it looked like he hadn’t started. I got mine done in 2 weeks. She placed and order with my menusie on Monday and I am picking it up today (Friday). I asked my friend about this and he said that this is common, artisans, especially menusies will take the advance deposit and sit and think about it for awhile without any work actually being done. There are many people who I have found that do actually work hard though. The man who cleaned out and patched up my ceiling put up my mosquito net and put up my decounter (something that counts the electricity since my neighbor and I run off the same box). He is also a trained hair beautician (coiffeurse) and I recently discovered he fixes shoes and sells brooms. When I passed him last week he was planting something in a plot of land behind his house. All this to say people here have to work hard to make the dollar (or franc). They learn to diversify their skills if they want to do well. I feel like my friend is an anomaly.

I am becoming desensitized to the bugs. I have now killed 2 cockroaches and a large spider. There have been many more than that, but usually I will have the neighbor kids kill them. Unfortunately when it is really late at night I don’t want to wake them but I refuse to sleep with a miniature tarantula above my head. I find that as with many things in a new place, especially like Africa, you learn to adapt. Showering from a bucket, sweeping the dirt out every morning, drawing water for bathing and washing dishes every morning… Passing my language exam used to be my biggest prayer as I was preparing for this trip but now my prayers are focused towards working well with my work partners and becoming more a part of this community. I still pray for knowledge of the language but now it is Fon more than French. I am supposed to start lessons with a Fon teacher soon.

I love the next door neighbors. We have started giving each other food. I shared a watermelon with the concession and most of them didn’t know what it was. Sometimes she will send over yams or pate with sauce and I will send some of my stir fry. The kids are so cute. Sandra is a toddler and there are 2 twin newborns in the other concession (Elvie and Elvis). I am glad for the neighbor boys too. I think they are impressed by how hard I work, but they will help me when I am struggling. They will get my drinking water from the pump down the street and whenever I am working on something like pounding nails into my cement walls, and I cry out multiple times one of them will come help me.

Well I miss you all. Please send me letters or emails to let me know how things are going. You are loved and in my prayers. P.S. I am testing out another church this week. The first two weeks I went to the Catholic church because they spoke French, but I couldn’t take communion, and the last two weeks I went to weeks I went to a Pentecostal Church but they pray all at the same time, which is a little much for me on top of not speaking my language. I guess I can’t tell when they are speaking in tongues though because it all sounds like that to me. =) Well I am hoping the Baptist church is something like I am used to.

Zambettos and Playing frogger

a note on zambettos. the village vodoun practices sometimes can bother the normality of women in the village. i was a tech visit a couple months back and riding a moto with my friend and the driver. a man flagged us down and told us the zambettos were out. i was told to cover my head, given the man's sweaty t shirt and then like a good volunteer put on my helment. The moto then continues on and we passed through 2 checkpoints lets call them which were essentially men with their shirts off holding a rope demanding money. there was i am sure a vodoun fettish or a man dressed as a haystack somewhere in the village. for some reason women are not allowed to see this. it was rather intimidating riding through terre rouge with a bag over my head but i guess its a part of being integrated. sigh. my friend rich was a gentleman trying to reassure me. when we would stop there would be people surrounding us saying things in local language. all in all; i had a good cold drink; coke; when i got back.

playing frogger:::
when the catholics get in the taxis they cross themselves and i have started to pray as well. taxis, semis, motos, and any vehicle i am leaving out drive down the roads at life endagering speeds while carrying loads twice their size or more. motos will have passengers who carry rebar around their waste and let it drag on the ground behind them, potholes are everywhere, semis will take curves at dangerous speeds while again carrying oversized loads, people pass by honking and usually just miss the oncoming traffic and all in all people dont slow down for each other they just honk. i feel like motos are a little more cautious because they never win the battle but hardly anyone besides peacecorps wears a helment. i play frogger everyday; but i am still probably bad at the video game.

work? searching for "clients"

sorry it has taken awhile to get this posted. so there are a couple cybers in my town that are not the most reliable because of power and internet connection but they do the job for the few times i will use it. i am doing well and i am making friends. work here is difficult. if i am ever asked if i am a self starter in a future job interview i can tell them that i have been a self starter for the past two years of my life. i am at times jealous of the english teachers who have their schedules laid out for them before they step in the town, although i wouldnt want to teach children.

i have been trying to find additional ^^work partners. i see potential but it comes with time. everything takes four times as long to get done here. this morning for instance the bureau had told me they were meeting at my house to discuss my schedule of formations for the future months. i will be teaching accounting, marketing, and computer skills to the artisans of 6 different arrondissments. I will be teaching 2 or possibly 3 arrondissments per month.

I am also looking for other projects ideas with the groupments helping them in agrobusiness: planting new vegetables, teaching accounting for illiterates==a program using symbols to teach accounting to those who cannot read/write; maybe teaching farmers about composting; maybe teaching cooking classes of foods other than pat and red/green sauce with fish (i cook for myself alot). I am trying to research the benefits of the merenga plant; not sure i am spelling it right but the search results pop up with the dance not the plant. Anyways i am hoping to have our village do a formation on merenga and maybe work with the health center to plant the trees. Maybe the health center could sell the merenga in the city.

Lastly, (but really it should be first), savings and loan groups will hopefully become a main project. The treasurer of the arrondissment of the neighboring town worked with the previous volunteer on this and it was sucessful i think. I am going to try to pursue savings and loan alot. It is a system where women get together to save money. They will give a sum each week that the group decides on and also after the money builds up can loan money to other group members at a cost. they will end after a year and the benefits will be divided out among the group. This is very rewarding for them emotionally and financially. Many times if a women makes money she will use it to help her family or her husband will take it. She is often times saving herself from spending it; i guess that what banks are essentially for but her in this colletivist culture based on community the members of groups are able to keep each other accountable as well.

Housing and such, things are well. I recently had my ceiling cleaned and repaired. It is hard to describe ceilings here but there is a space in between the plafonds and the actual roof where various creatures including bats, mice, insects, reptiles.. were living. The guy cleaned it and patched it up. I am having fun trying to learn fon and talking with the neighbor kids. There is another peace corps volunteer in my village and we hang out sometimes as well. Overall i am very content to be here. I know I am where God wants. I have found a friend to go to church with. She is in highschool and keeps telling me she wants to come back to the states with me. alot of people tell me that but she is one who i am dissapointed to dissapoint. Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers. I love u: a la prochain:

please pray for my grandpa. he had pneumonia and is better but is living in rehab getting his strength (as far as the last conversation with my mom). either way i love him very much. it is hard being far away from family.

Workstation visit

so, i stayed up last night writing a long blog but now my computer is malfunctioning again. i think it is the heat. if it works agaoin i will copy paste and you can hear about my past month here. over all i am doing well. thank you to my mom and my Bible study friends for all the letters. thanks mom also i got 2 copies of the book from amazon that we ordered? did u mean to send 2? i am sorry about not being able to skype. if it gets up and running in the next hour than okay but otherwise we will talk sunday. okay i am not sure when they will get there but i am sending some letters. thank you to those who prayed for my health. i am doing much better. still a little on the skinny side but that is normal for africa. no more ghiardia though. (sp?) i love my village and my house pretty good too. you can hear more about it when my computer is up and running. ttyl and i love you all very much.

almost done with stage....

So alot of things have happened these past few months but a few things to keep in prayer:

=that i passed my language interview (which was just 2 hours ago)
=that i start gaining weight, been sick from both ends, and have an uber good time with my english speaking friends before finally going to post
=for everything that post will entail (cooking for myself, sweet!!; that i get my house furished and can barter for some good prices with the carpenter; for my safety; for meeting all my future work partners and starting to learn about their work; to become integrated into the community; learning some fon, local language; understanding my expectations and what the expectations are of my supervisor

Alors; my post is beautiful. Lots of red dirt roads, i will have very strong legs when i come back from biking Africa. There are lots of fruits and vegetables, and lots of opportunity for work. I am going to be working with artisans teaching basic accounting, working with some womens savings and loans groups, and searching for other opportunities to maybe intergrate agrobusiness or other environment focused work. My house is two rooms totally empty and stripped of the lights so i have to get the electrician in to but in some lighting. No running water but there is a citren/well for bathing water and a pump down the road for drinking and cooking water. We have to filter/boil all of our water and bleach our vegetables. I live alone but there are some other people in my concession, aka they are in the same cement wall down the line of rooms in one long building. Really close to the Oueme river. My friend lives on the other side; we were hypothesizing taking a boat to visit each other. I think it takes less time but costs more money. I also have another peace corps volunteer in my village and one not too far away who comes once a week for the marche. Well abientot: see you soon, through this wonderful invention of the internet.

Post Visit

Sitting in my new post at the home of the coifferse. The city is beautiful and has lots of fruit. My home was being painted today, and I gave a downpayment on the repairs that are being made: screening on the windows, creation of a screen door, fixing of the doors for the kitchen and shower out back. It is kind of dirty right now but once it is painted and my counter part cleans it will be better. *

Leaving to go back to Porto Novo tomorrow; we have 2 more weeks. I have my french test, for those who are praying, on Friday. Pretty much one of the most important days. After we are done in Porto Novo I will be at my post for 2 years. I will be learning fon and sharpening my ever improving french. More to come I dont want to take advantage of my hosts hospitality in letting me use their canacu... satelite internet.

Tech visit tomorrow!!

So past weeks have been a blur. Pray that I have lots of conversations to practice my french with. I have not really been sick stomach wise, I had a fever but it passed quickly, no malaria dont worry. We have had two formation sessions teaching personal savings and also accounting for illiterates. Both times our groups taught in french and one of them we had a translator speak it in local language. Grammar is hard; I havent studied verb conjugations alot so it is difficult speaking in different tenses. We will get it, but pray for my motivation to study and for time as well. My host family thinks it is strange when i am alone but it is hard to study with them there too.

Tomorrow we are leaving for technical visit where 3 other stageieres and myself are going to another volunteers post to hang out. He is going to take us to some of the places that he frequents alot. Hopefully there will be lots of french practice and also some rest; they work us pretty hard here.

Overall things are awesome. Tired alot and I miss you all but it is amazing to be here. Please send me letters. It would be nice to get an envelope even if you are bragging about drivethrus and airconditioning. Love u dad and mom!! keeping it real in africa; peace out