Doin' Work

So I've started doing things, and time has jumped into warp speed. I
can't believe I'm at the 7 month mark already! Any minute now the next
stage will start getting their invites and in 5 months (possibly to
the day) they will be arriving!

I've started my Waama lessons on Monday and Wednesday mornings…slowly
(SLOWLY) but surely I'm learning how to say some things. My language
class partner is a PCV in a town ~10km away that is Waama-speaking, so
she gets a lot more practice than I do and came in knowing a lot more
than me - but that means she can help me and my neighborhood, which is
predominantly Waama, LOVES her. I'm always getting asked how "Nɛkima"
is doing, or told I need to have her over because it's been a while
since she visited…if you're going to have a closemate, it's great to
have one that your neighbors like having around!

Although I've been failing on some resolutions, I've been doing well
on my exercising ones….I've been consistently biking and doing yoga. I
have less than a week until the Atacora nutrition bike tour! I'm
definitely in better shape than I was a few weeks ago, but I'm still
scared of biking so much. I'll have to do my best and I'm sure it'll
be fine.

Last week my new homologue (N'Koue'i) and I went out to the Jardin
Botanique in Papatia (half hour south of Nati) to see how it is set up
and run. Their land is much, much bigger than what my NGO owns, but it
was good to be able to see things we do/do not want to copy. I also
got to meet a baby patas monkey, some duikers, and a few sulcata
tortoises(!). This week we started going out to the Jardin Écologique
(my NGO's project) to inventory the tree species that exist there. I
kinda took for granted how many species I learned unintentionally just
by growing up in Gainesville, and then later being able to take plant
ID classes in college. I'm lucky that we have a couple decent books to
help us, but using technical plant terms to key-out species was never
my strong point… let alone in French. But after 3 days in the Jardin
this week (one of them being a national holiday, grumble grumble),
we've ID'd (hopefully correctly!) about 30 species. It's harder in the
dry season than it would be in the rainy season because all the trees
are missing leaves, fruits, flowers, or all of the above. Mais, ça
evolue.

Yesterday after going out to the Jardin, my supervisor, homologue, a
French girl, and I went to Tchanwassaga (village ~20km north of me on
the way to the Pendjari entrance) to talk to the group of women là bas
who transform shea nuts into shea butter. It's a relatively rural
village that speaks Waama, and since many of the women didn't go to
school (or at least not for long), most don't really speak any French.
My supervisor is Fon, my homologue is Ditamari, and the French girl
is…well, French, so there were no fluent Waama speakers in the group.
My former homologue is Waama, so he was the one who set up the
partnership, but now we use one French-speaking transformatrice to
translate. Anyways, I got to bust out some of the words and phrases in
Waama that I've learned the past couple weeks, and it was a HUGE hit.
You know how Americans would like foreigners to speak English? Well,
that's a universal thing, except the Beninese seem to be way more
patient and less rude about it. I made several new friends who I will
be able to practice my language skills on in the future, and my
homologue and supervisor were complimenting me a bunch (which makes me
feel better about missing work for language class). Oh, and for once I
earned more brownie points than a French tourist because native
language didn't matter! I was/am very happy. :)

Today I have a meeting with my Waama teacher (who happens to be the
high school principal in Cotiakou) about a possible tree-planting
project for the new school they are building. I want to get an idea
about what he wants to get out of the project (shade, fruit trees,
less erosion, what?) so I can help him pick what species we'll plant,
get a nursery going (hopefully with the students' help) so we can
plant them on Tree Day (June 1). That's the idea, at least. Tomorrow
I'm going to Toucountouna to help the PCV there start a school garden
with her students.

Unfortunately, my enviro club is having some issues – first because of
the holidays, then the weather, and also two rounds of devoirs (like
midterms)…BUT, I am not giving up and hopefully it'll eventually
become more consistent.

So, yeah, I did some stuff this week. It was good. I am happy and I
hope it continues. :)

da kpannà wɛyònè! (à toute à l'heure! (later alligator!))