lauren laughs

i’m not sure why, but africans often put on very serious faces when having their picture taken. so i decided to introduce my students to the concept of saying “cheese!” and it worked! except for one student that had a really hard time with the “ch” sound, scrunching his face in a not-so-happy look.

see, each student got to choose an “english” name to be used in class. my students in porto novo mostly chose the english equivalent of their own name, but my students in cotonou chose names like “jesus” and “king.” one student chose the name “bill” (we had to practice NOT saying “beel”), one chose “matthew” (we had to practice NOT saying “maTTew”), and one student chose “stephen” (knowing it was the name of my dad and brother, he wanted to be in my family). after going around the room practicing, “what’s up, dave? what’s up, joe?” while i took pictures of “dave” or “joe” saying, “cheese,” the students decided it was time to name me. they chose a name in fon: jesuwamè, which means “in the hand of Jesus.” that was enough to put a smile on my face.

click here to see the pictures (and names) of some of my beautiful students!

i went to church sunday wearing one of my beninese outfits. one of my students chose the fabric, and another chose the style of dress. this type of outfit is called a “modelle” which basically means it’s fitted instead of a loose pagne. and boy, do i mean fitted! to get on the back of a moto, you have to pull the tightest part of your skirt up over your hips… necessitating some kind of shimmy-shake in the middle of the street. ridiculous. but fun nonetheless!

and yay! now you can look at the picture sideways!! gotta keep things interesting…

sorry blokes, the internet connection is down at the cyber cafe… oh, the irony. tia. so i have three lovely blog postings i’ll have to put up at a later time, and LOTS of pictures of my beautiful students. stay tuned!

in the mean time, i’m borrowing a friend’s computer to say “peace out” before i head to tanzania tonight. will be there for a week with college buddies raph and skye. SO excited.

and if you haven’t tried pringles spicy guacamole chips, you should. they’re delicious!

i had to say goodbye to one of my friends this week. while i partly benefited from her departure (i bought her bed, 2 mattresses, a desk and chair, bookcases, a couch, coffee table, chairs and ottoman, a refrigerator and kitchen stuff… all of which is in storage now… not to mention hand-me-down clothes she just gave me!) i had a really hard time not crawling into her suitcase to get back to the US. relationships here are so transient, at least in the expat circles. i’ll have to say more goodbyes in frebruary, march, may, june and july. every single missionary family is going home (ie: leaving cotonou) in the next year! that, combined with the upcoming thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, is enough to make anyone homesick.

but i’m TOTALLY excited to see my college buddies, raph and skye, in tanzania this week! that should distract me out of homesickness for a bit.

and i’m SO grateful to rob and brian for lending their wheels and man-power to operation-move-lauren-to-nowhere!

last night was my first english class with the volunteers. it was awesome. it was supposed to start at 7:30 pm, but in typical fashion, people were wondering in around 8:00. i told them there are three rules: 1) respect yourself, your classmates and me; 2) no french, only english; 3) try your best. at the end of class, once everyone had arrived, i explained that showing up late was NOT respecting me or the other students. i also told them that they shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes in english because they hear me making mistakes in french ALL the time. they laughed. they know it’s true.

i asked them if they wanted to have english names just to use in class to practice pronunciation, and they said yes, so i need to come up with a list before the next class.

we talked about why english is important, what they find most difficult, and what they hope to achieve in class… but then we spent the bulk of the time learning american phrases like, “what’s up? dude. yo. chillin’. cool. for real?” and of course, because it’s my class… “y’all.” they loved it. i explained that these are not phrases they will learn in class, and not phrases to use with their teachers or a boss, but phrases youth use with each other… and since our ministry is geared towards youth, it’s important to understand their language.

i wish you could have heard them, “what’s up, dude?” we were all beaming by the time class ended, and everyone promised they’d be on time next time. we’ll see 🙂

don’t have much time to update, so here are a few snippets:

1. i’m pink. had a great sunday in the sun with some girlfriends at what is likely benin’s nicest beach. i felt like i was in a different world! but alas, putting on sunscreen once just isn’t enough here. guess it beats the farmer’s tan i’ve been sporting for months!

2. today is my first day of teaching. i just taught a class at the english international school (just a one time deal on how to take notes and study, random) and my english language classes start tonight! i’m very excited to be back in the classroom.

3. still no apartment, but i’m buying furniture from one of my girlfriends moving back to the states this week… so i’ll be fully loaded once the apartment becomes a reality!

really, these could be 3 prayer requests… that i won’t peel, that class will go well tonight (and this week) and that i’ll have an apartment soooooooon!

After running some errands on Monday with my Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) friend Sarah (including a stop at the local market and then the PC office, which has a great collection of used books to borrow), we set off for Sarah’s home, the village of Lobogo.

Lobogo is northwest of Cotonou, on the way to Lokossa. To get there from Cotonou, you take a bush taxi for a couple hours (depending on the road conditions) and then a 20 minute zemi into the quazi bush. Riding a zemi on a narrow red dirt road through stalks of corn is much more refreshing than riding through the smog of Cotonou.

Sarah lives in a concession (a group of rooms around an open space) with a man and his two wives and two kids, goats and chickens. Her house consists of a front room (which serves as a living room, dining room and office), a back room (which serves as her bedroom and kitchen) and then the latrine is behind the house beneath a banana tree. There is no running water, but you can collect rain water or have well water brought to you. Once you get used to the routine of filtering and boiling water for cooking and cleaning, it’s really not so bad. We actually cooked up a storm, making no-bake cookies and banana cake the first night (Sarah has a camp stove, but no oven, so I finally learned the art of creating your own dutch oven when making the banana cake). The second night we made a peanut sauce with tomatoes, onion and grated eggplant to go over lots more veggies (carrots, green beans, squash, more eggplant and green peppers… all purchased from the local market) and some kind of wheat pilaf stuff similar to rice. We also made a delicious salad and some orange oatmeal bread. PCVs in Benin have written a cookbook which is awesome to experiment with. I think I could really develop a love of cooking here. You have to love it because everything take so long to make! Cooking also requires a lot of creativity. Like when making the orange oatmeal bread, after cracking 3 rotten eggs (one exploded all over me) we finally gave up and substituted 1 tablespoon of corn starch. Worked great, though the rotten egg smell did linger in the house a bit longer than I would have liked. Gross. Anyway, being in the village is a great break from the city. I actually felt pretty darn pampered this morning. Sarah heated up my bucket shower water over the stove, so I had a warm “shower” in the crisp morning air under a banana tree. Who wouldn’t love that?

Sarah works as an English teacher in Lobogo. She has 4 classes of about 60 kids each, and each class lasts 2 hours. I fielded questions for 2 of her classes on Tuesday. Are you married? How old are you? How many children do you have? How many children does your father have? Do you have an identity card? Where are you from? Where do you live? Are you a teacher? Will you marry me? Sarah is a great teacher. She has the softest voice in the world, but it somehow carries over the 60 kids in her classroom (or more than 60 kids, if you count the kids that stand just outside and watch, which is easy enough when your classroom has only one wall).

After school on Tuesday, we met up with some people working with Population Services International (PSI) for an HIV/AIDS workshop hosted by two peer educators that have just been trained. They are a young man and young woman from the village who have agreed to be trained and to volunteer their time. The workshop they led was supposed to be for all the hairdressers of the village, but lots of other people came by to learn as well. At least 40 people were present. I was pretty impressed until the end of the workshop, when everyone ran up to grab fistfuls of free condoms, then ran off triumphant into the street. It made me wonder if that was the only reason they sat through the training, just to get free condoms. You’d guess by how quickly they ran off that the condoms wouldn’t last through the afternoon. But this was the first time the volunteers had completed a workshop, so they learned from the experience, and will handle condoms a bit differently next time. I learned a lot from the experience too.

Only other exciting village news to report is that I bought 4 meters of fabric at the market on Monday. It’s totally simple and my favorite colors (blue and brown), but completely comical, since the print on the fabric is of large electric fans. You can find the funniest fabrics here, decorated with the most common household items… toothpaste, tea cups, rolls of toilet paper. I’ve contemplated buying several, and finally settled on electric fans. It’ll make a lovely pagne!

the constant state of itching somewhere between where your feet stop and legs start.

why, oh WHY do mosquitos like my ankles so?