…and other nuggets of wisdom from Benin. I was told this by another stagiaire, and I’m really hoping that it was some kind of mistranslation on his part and not what people actually think. However, it a) wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what was actually said, because I’ve heard lots of people eat dog in that village and b) doesn’t really bother me because I hope never to eat a dog. I am an enormous hypocrit though, because I adore chickens, and found street meat poulet to be incredibly delicious (albeit full of bones and potentially things that could’ve made me ill).
Today I wore my outfit that I had made for post announcements, and every single person I’ve talked to today has stopped to compliment me on how beautiful and “African” I look today. I’m thinking I should’ve worn this early in my post visit. I’ve gotten a few compliments in Porto Novo, but here, where there seems to be a decent number of French people that pass through and don’t try to integrate, it seems to be a bigger deal. Duly noted, Beninese – wear tissu to work/community functions as much as possible.
I currently have two outfits and a bag in the works at the couturier. I have no idea how they’ll come out, since I just described what I wanted to the woman without being able to show her pictures, but at least they’re all made out of the most orange and blue tissu I could find (not exactly gator colors, but I’ll take what I can get). I think in celebration of Shark Week (which I am disappointed to be missing), I’m going to buy some tissu at the marché that reminds me of sharks. (I have tried to explain “Semaine du Requin” to a few people here, but it seems to be a strange idea to them…but it’s all relative, because I find channels that air people reading the Qu’ran by day and Cher concerts at night kind of bizarre. :)
Tomorrow is the Fete d’Igname (sounds like “yam”) here, and apparently it’s a big deal, since lots of people are off of work and they are televising commercials for the celebrations the bigger cities. I’ll have to tell you more about it later, since at the moment I really have no clue.
This weekend was pretty fun, as I got to do a fair amount of stuff. On Friday night, my maman (it feels weird to call her that since she is only 34) had an errand to run and couldn’t leave me home alone, so she dropped me off at the hotel buvette down the street to hang out with her “ami.” I got lots of practice speaking French, and later when my maman returned (and one of Didier’s, the bf, friends showed up) I tried to explain “vrai histoire” (true story) and “c’est ce qu’elle a dit” (that’s what she said) jokes. It was fun, but a total failure in my childish French. It’s interesting, because the more French I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know. The low point of the night was when I sang along to Justin Bieber’s “Baby”…something that I swore I would never ever do, but apparently will when I’m in a foreign country and missing America. After Bieber, the buvette played a cd by Celine Dion, who is apparently is popular here.
Saturday morning, my maman wanted to clean the house, so Didier was put in charge of entertaining me. He grew up in a village that’s only 20/30 minutes away by scooter, s’appelle Taiacou, so he brought me there. It was marche day (though there was only a few vendors with a limited selection, since it is a small village), so we walked around while Didier introduced me to like 20 of his “brothers.” We also had some tchouk with the king, met the Vieux of the village (the oldest man…Didier’s grandpa), and saw the Grand Fetish of his quartier. There wasn’t much to see, except some woods, lots of rocks that people sit on, and miscellaneous bones hanging from a tree, but I thought it was awesome that I got to see it, because it is usually totally forbidden for outsiders to see fetishes. However, because I was with Didier, and who he is in his family (the last child) and other complicated social things that I couldn’t quite understand, it was alright for me to go.
Right after we visited the Fetish, I got a text from the CED director saying that he was on his way to Tanguiéta to make sure my post visit was going well. We had to head back, meet up with the PC person, and eat lunch (note: pintade/guinea fowl tastes exactly like chicken). I drank too much Sprite with lunch and got sick, so I went home to sleep for a little while instead of adventuring more.
Saturday night, we went dancing! Yes, you read that correctly. Sarah J, who has never once in her life gone dancing, danced in public. My logic was that my life here is already one giant, embarrassing adventure, so I might as well just embrace it. In the end, it turned out to be fun! We got to the “club” (named Alcatraz) at around 11 and were the only people there. For such a quiet mountain town, the party gets started late here (around 12). We ended up getting home around 3, but the club supposedly stays open til 5am…further confirming my suspicion that the Beninese people sleep about as much as giraffes. At the start of the night, the music was mostly American rap/R&B and progressed on to music from other countries and ended with awesome African music (I wish I could have found out the names of the artists/songs, because it was so much better than the stuff I’ve heard on the TV). Funny songs that I danced to – the “I’m a Barbie Girl” song from what, the 80s? 90s? and the Numa Numa song (“Dragostadintei”?) that was an internet sensation like 10 years ago…Not what I would’ve guessed I’d hear here (or really anywhere, actually). They also played a French remake of “Oh What Night” (which I love, but this was NOT as good at the original). I also learned why even cheap cell phones here have flash lights – when you have to use the latrine in the pitch black in the bad corner of a bar, the last thing you want to do is fall in because you can’t see anything. I’m so glad that I thought you bring my phone with me! I can pee anywhere now.
Sunday was another busy day, especially after only getting a little sleep (note: until this weekend, the latest I had gone to bed here was 11:30…usually it’s 9 o’clock…I feel asleep on our table at the bar waiting for Didier to pay, lol). We headed back to Taiacou, where we met up with another stagiaire, Tom, who I had forgotten the previous day will be living there. We got to see his current/future homes, and then we all went to the marche in another village (N’Dahonta) which was much bigger than the one in Taiacou. Most people spoke…Nateni? I really need to get on learning the salutations in all the local languages. We had some tchouk at the cabaret owned by the second wife of Tom’s papa before we headed back to Taiacou to visit the king again. We got to ask him questions about being king and see the “royal palace” – a two story mud hut is something to be proud of. We couldn’t see the bottom story because that was where the fetish is, but all I have to say is this place is some kid’s dream fort. I learned that if part of the palace falls apart, the fetish will keep the rain from coming until it is repaired. Good to know. After visiting the king, and then taking him out for a drink in appreciation, we visited by the military compound foyer to visit with a friend of Didier’s, and then went to some kind of ONG get-together (I was exhausted at this point, and there were three French people there, so I gave up trying to understand anyone).
Yesterday, Tom and Teresa (who is also in a village 20 minutes away from me – I am so lucky to have awesome people so close) came to Tanguieta for my marche day. We wandered around for a while, had lunch with my future neighbor maman (they seem super nice and excited to have me moving in), and had tchouk at the cabaret next to my compound (where the woman tried to convince me to adopt her baby). When we were on our way back to my ONG's office, we passed an area of the marche where an older man was selling fetish stuff...I stopped to look as soon as I saw snake skins. He definitely had the skins of a ball python, what I think was an african rock python(!) based on the pattern and the size, and some kind of viperid (!!) that I have yet to ID. He also had a caiman skin, elephant skin parts and toenail, a primate hand (good size), some chameleons, some kind of monitor lizard heads (baby niles?), and various smaller mammal skins. I did my best to try and find out where he got some of these animals...it ranged from "in the brousse" to "in the parc." I'm pretty confident that hunting is not permitted in the parc except for rich tourists, and even then I'm not sure they're allowed to hunt crocodilians or elephants. My homologue says he thinks the man got the stuff from trophy hunters' leftovers, rather than poaching. I am very curious to learn more, not just because of the potential illegality, but because I want to know where I can find these animals myself! I will probably be visiting this man again to keep an eye out for the kind of stuff he has and to try to be friendly.
One last thing – Tom and I met a girl at the buvette yesterday that wanted to talk to us a lot because she “loves white people.” I asked why, and she said it was because our (white people) God created her (black people). I think I died a little inside. It just really made me sad…that and the number of skin lightening products they sell here. Thankfully she is the only person I have met who has said something like that.
I apologize for the length of this post! I can’t wait to show you pictures when I get back. Love and miss you all!
Side note : mom and dad, I know it sounds like I spend every day at buvettes and cabarets, but I am almost always drinking Sprite. :) No need to worry.
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