Tree Photo Project

There is a tree behind my house that I find myself constantly photographing. Every time I walk by it looks a little different but very striking.  Its a nice view to come back to at the end of my day and be reminded about the beauty of this place.  I thought I'd post a few of my favorite photos of it around sunset, at night and in lightning storms. Enjoy.

The First Day of School

Conversation with my school Director:

“You need a book?”

“Yes, more specifically the textbook—the currculum.”

--silence--

“You don’t have the text book?”

“No I was told my school will give me a curriculum.”

--Gives me a book--

--silence--

“...This is a dictionary.”

And so begins my second day at school. The resources are constantly a problem.  I arrived at school on a hot day jumping off my bike—which is just is just barely too big for me so that I always end of half-falling off of it—sweat liberally pouring off my brow, to the gaping of a surprisingly small number of students. After socializing with the other professors for a while, I asked my professor if there was any chalk.  He gaped, “you don’t have chalk?” Every time I ask for something, chalk, the curriculum, an eraser I’m met with a pause followed a long explanation that ends with me not getting said object.  It’s a good exercise in learning to just take one day at a time, one conversation at a time and one task at a time.  This is Africa!

Yesterday I came to school to check out my classrooms that I’d been teaching in. They’re pretty bare, dirt floors, rocks strewn about, unfinished walls and ceilings with cinder blocks exposed. The blackboard is a just the concrete wall with some blackboard like materials painted on top. In the middle scattered about in various levels of disrepair was a pile (no joke—a tall pile) of desks, not stacked neatly but as if I giant had come along and pick them up haphazardly and thrown them down in a pile in a juevenile fit of rage and stomped off without cleaning up.  I half imagine that the last time these desks had been touched was the last day of school when the excited storm of departing students had somehow created this pile of dilapidation.  What are these kids like, I thought?  Some of the desks were split in half with shards of wood on the floor all covered a very very thick layer of Sahara-blown dust. I live in the Savana but sometimes the winds blows out of the north and bring big clouds of dust with it covering everything with a thick film.  I turned to the member of the school administration next to me and asked him if it was my responsibility to organize the students to clean the classroom on the first day.  “No! It’ll be all cleaned up by tomorrow!”

Alas, the next day I arrived and it looked as if the giant had come again during the night and smashed the pile flat. It was no longer 8 feet tall but now flat, evenly spread around the classroom, though there was a greater number of broken desks than the day before.  I wiped a spot of dust away on one desk and waited for my students to arrive.  About ten minutes later three students and I began class. 

“Where are the others,” I asked? After much cajoling they told me that normally the first week or two is like this with few students present and even some of the teachers not arriving.  As they told me this, I look up to the classroom next door, which is this case was very easy because the wall between the two adjoining classrooms has not yet been built.  From that classroom a group of about twenty students stared in to our class watching and I realized that there teacher didn’t come to school and they were just sitting there because, well I’m not sure but they were just sitting there.  Eventually, I invited them in and talked to both classes for a while about rules, introducing ourselves and discussing the coming year.  Towards the ends I brought a map out that I brought with me from the states and asked if anyone could find Benin on the map.  I was met by 25 students staring at the ground and not answering.  As you can see there is such a dearth of materials and/or visual aids, that students and just as rarely the population at large ever looks at maps. I once asked my host father in Porto-Novo to point out where he lived on a map and he couldn’t do it.  There’s lots of work to do. I really want to try to incorporate visual aids in to my teaching and try to get students to think more visually and critically.  A big criticism of the Beninese system is that the best students it produces rarely seek to be anything more than bureaucrats. There is a lack of creative thinking. 

Anyway, I had a similar experience of my next two classes and the same thing occurred of a class without a teacher watching me and inviting them in to join us once it was evident that their teacher wasn’t coming. Afterwards, I had a meeting with my school’s director and president of the Parent Teacher’s Association to form a selection committee for a girls scholarship program that I hope to start as soon as I can. There is funding available and I plan to take advantage of whatever I can find, wherever I can find it. 

The level of girls education is in even more dire straits than education in general. By the end of high school fewer than 10 girls out of an initial 300-400 will pass the final high school barrier test.  All the these things make me feel at once excited by the number of opportunities but at the same time daunted by the scaled of what needs to be done. I think one has to just tackle one small problem one at a time or else be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenge.  Other than that I feel actually quite relieved that school is starting. The first few weeks in village without anything to do have been really lonely!  My  village is really really small so there is little to buy and even less to do.  But things are going well. Please keep writing emails! It’s been great to hear from so many people back home! Your letters help more than you’ll ever know!

J'arrive

New Address

It's official. I'm finally sworn in as a volunteer. Tomorrow I move to my post.  Here is my new address below:

John Bohman PCV
B.P. 168
Natitingou, Benin
Afrique de l'ouest

Best Translation Ever

Thought you might like this charming translation on the back of the door at a local hotel.  This is babelfish circa 1995.

Peace Corps Pictures Post

The beach near Ouidah where slaves boarded ships.


Feeding fish maggots at a local sustainable agriculture center.


The grand Voodoo temple in Porto-Novo


The view from the top of the Voodoo Temple in Porto-Novo

The former home of the King in the Sacred Forest near Ouidah. Ouidah was the point of embarcation for all slaves leaving Benin. Today, there is no sign that there was once a active slave trade there. Its bizare, I'm not sure if its a good thing that the community has moved on or sad that such suffering left so little evidence to remember it by.

Tree in the Sacred Forest

Traditional dance in the south.

My host dad and I wearing the same tissue on our way to a funeral. Funeral here are hardly sombre, more like celebrations and the community has them periodically to remember a person who may have died long ago. On this day, I went to three! Oy!

This needs no explaination.

Volunteers on the way to an outting.

Porto-Novo

Host brother touching my hair while saying, "Wow! You have hair like a horse!"

TEFL and Rural Health volunteers in Ouidah.

Host siblings.

Post Visit

Pardon my terrible format and lack of pictures! I can't really convey the condition of the internet here accurately enough for you to understand how hard it is just to post something once. Loading pictures? I've found one connection even capable. So, thank you for your patience.

Bouncing down a bright red dirt road, each bump in the road sends me bouncing up slightly off the seat as I peer over my Beninese colleague’s shoulder. Trees, crops and livestock bl

ur past in a lush green savanah-esque landscape right at the peak of its rain

y season. To my left from a perch in a baobab tree a flock of bright red

birds fly alongside me, observing me passively for a moment before darting off toward the low mountains a few kilometers to the west over the border in Togo (view to the left).

I am visiting my post and it is everything that I asked for. Far in the north nestled in the Atacora mountains, I will be working in Manta--a small village of a few thousand with no electricity or running water-- situated close to the border with Togo and Burkina Faso. Descending out of the mountains on a motorcycle, the wide savanah-like paysage at the sunset made my heart skip a beat because it's everything I think I want. I say think, because everything at this point is truly just speculation but I am really happy with where I will be posted as of now. It’s beautiful, rural, French-speaking and has lots of community development side projects I can get my h

ands in. But, only time will tell what it will actually be like.

My trip began with the shock that in the tremendously humid environment all my clothing

, bags and shoes I hadn't touched since I came to Benin were covered in mold. The zipper to my

backpack, had literally become molded stuck. It took quite an effort and an alcohol s

olution to dislodge it. I left the capital city a few days ago after staying the night in a pretty wretched hotel with bugs in two out of the three beds my colleagues and I were staying in.

Also notable at the hotel was an alligator in the hotel kept in an empty fountain (see picture). The sign essentially says in the alligator's voice that he's been here since 1967 and you can feed him if you want. We spent our evening in the big city searching for

a pizza which heard could be found there, on

ly to find the frozen variety. Better than nothing!

The next morning, after about 11 hours and 5 truck accidents later, I

arrived in the main northern city of Nattitangou. I rode with the Director (principle) of my school, who got off the bus, stepped in the local school and came out with cowboy boots, tight jeans and a winter coat--

surprising given it was about 85

degrees outside. I followed him around the city buying fish, building materials, bread, boxes of foodstuff, more and more all the while doing my best to make conversation in French and wondering how in the hell we were going to fit it all on the one motorcycle we would be riding another two hours to our village. Alas, sure enough, with two bags on m

y back, one bag in each hand, and two bags on the front of my director on the moto, we mounted up and headed out on the rough dirt roads as I tried desperately to avoid falling off the back with every bump in the road.

As I said the region I am in is mountainous, but they are very low mountains by our standards. The region speaks an amalgamation of languages but no single language predominates as in the south. As a result, French is actually more widely spoken in the north as it is the one common language everyone is familiar with. The local language I will learn in my village is called Ditamari, which, lucky for me is a tonal language! How many tones? I have no idea, because I've

never met anyone outside my village who speaks it. The region is famous for the traditional houses called "ta-tas" (no joke) that look like mud castles with straw roofed turrets. Also in the region is one of the only nomadic ethnic groups left in Benin. They raise cattle which means that beef is unusually cheap in the region. There is a distinct rainy season where the landscape is lush and green and a dry season which is hot as hell and turns the landscape brown.

The differences between the family gender role and dynamics of my post's host family and my work counterpart's family could not be more pronounced. I will live next to my host family. My host father is a math teacher at my school and is quiet as quiet can be. I arrived and exchanged pleasantries with him and his wife for about 15 minutes and after that I could not get him to engage in conversation for the life of me. The wife, is also traditional so she doesn’t really speak to me unless she is spoken to. I went through every sentence I know how to construct in French only to be met by low grunts, and one word answers. My host father's wife spends most of the time outside of the house cooking, cleaning or doing something domestic, while my dad sits on the couch and sleeps. The children have so much less energy here than they do in the south. I am not sure if it is circumstantial, cultural, malnutrition or another reason, but the kids seem as lethargic as their dad. Everyone eats with their hands here, but years of work and calluses have built up their ability to withstand scalding hot temperatures to the point that they dip their hands readily in to a bowl of pate (mealy paste-like food made from a local flour) that I would consider just under the boiling point. By the time the food is cool enough for me to touch, I was being stared at by a silent host father with an empty plate.

In contrast, my counterpart is as flamboyant as a 1930s gangster. At our first meeting, he arrived wearing a red satin shirt underneath a slim vest, with a newsboy cap, nice slacks and shiny polished white dress shoes. He is incredibly gregarious and his wife is the only university educated woman in the village. They cook together (rare in Benin) and eat together as a family (rarer still). Normally the man will eat by himself. I met with local elected officials, the chef of the village and the president of the parents association and managed to stumble through some conversations about community priorities, etc. The local French accent can be pretty hard to understand at times, but it has a nice kind of sing-song quality to it.

Some other notable highlights included having a converstation with a man wearing an Osama Bin Laden tshirt, a man proposing that I have sex with his sister (with his sister sitting next to him) and driving down a highway more akin to a lunar landscape than a road. My time on the computer is running low so this post will have to end. I apologize for the infrequency of my posts but finding an internet connection that can even upload an image is really really difficult!

Until next time.

Guardian de la Nuit

"Well, if you see it, you will be killed."

In a matter-of-fact tone, our Beninese saftey and security officer told us what would happen if we happened to chance upon a certain special voodoo ceremonies during a specific month of the year in the northern part of the country. And so begins the fascination/fear relationship I'm developing with the local voodoo customs. First, let me be clear, voodoo is not the pin-in-the-eye-of-a-doll kind of evil witchcraft that hollywood purports it to be. On the contrary, one of the most interesting things thus far during my stay in Benin has been learning about the practice. But it is complicated, mysterious and most of all confusing.

The ceremony I mentioned above only occurs in the month of January. Women are not permitted at all to see it and only men who have been initiated with certain rites are allowed to gaze upon the men who are participating in the rituals. During this month, the news, television, radio, newspaper and even cars with loudspeakers all state loudly that during certain times on certain days the ceremonies will be taking place and those who are not initiated should not leave their homes or look out the window. If you happen to be outside, as far as I can tell from everyone I talked to, you will be confronted, asked certain questions to see if you have been initiated, and if you have not, you will be killed or sometimes they use the verb for disappear.

This ceremony only take place in a certain region in the north. More closer to home, in my town, Porto-Novo, a similar festival takes place during a limited part of the year. The same rules apply and a panel of local men told a group of male volunteers that if you are on the street at the night and see the procession, "it is obligatory that you are made to disappear".

ADDITIONALLY, as if that wasn't enough, 3-4 nights out of the week all year round, there is a "Guardian of the Night"--a man in dressed in a costume that looks like a hay stack with no legs hovering down the street--in each neighborhood roaming around neighborhood looking for trouble makers or the "uninitiated." Traditionally and to this day, this person (calls the guardian ancestral spirits), roams the neighborhood to prevent bandits or criminals from attacking the king (historically) or local community (today). Each quatier, or neighborhood, has 1-4 people who take turns playing this role. However, if you are not initiated and he sees you, he or the large number of the initiated children around him will give you a beating in the middle of the street. And don't think for a second that you can just run away because there is only one white guy in the neighborhood and everyone knows where you live. As he approaches he emits a sound that sounds like a low hum or moaning that warns of his approach. That way at least, the unitiated can avoid him. I can hear him at night as he passes by the house, down the bright red dirt roads of my neighborhood. I also live next to a voodoo house (that's what they call it in French) that is often full of drumming, chanting and sometimes screaming all night long.

Obviously, I'm kind of fascinated by the phenomenon and ask my dad all sorts of questions. Who is a the guardian? Do you know him? Where does he live? What happens to unsuspecting foreigners who don't know about this practice? Today my dad told me that he would take me to show me where the guardian lives. I said, "Great! Let's go!" We left the house and walked down the street to a huge dark concrete building about 25 meters long and 10 meters deep. In Benin, unless a structure is complete, one does not have to pay full property taxes. As a result, this building, like many others looked to be in the middle of its construction. The outside walls were a very dark splotchy grey that seemed almost burned in places. The building was surrounded by bananas trees, a pen for pigs, a pen for chickens, many goats roaming the yard and I group of women outside doing chores with babies on their backs. All in all, a very prosperous, yet ominous looking home.

We entered through a wooden gate in the compound wall, crossed the yard and entered the building. Inside it was pitch black aside from a small fluorescent lamp which cast a limited sterile glow over about a third of the rooms interior, revealing it was empty aside from a few chairs, dirt and debris. As we walked in deeper my dad took out his cell phone to light the way up a pitch black stairwell, at the bottom of which, I was startled to see a child sleeping on top of a pile of cardboard and clothing. At the top of the stairs I could see daylight peaking in through some upstairs windows but the lit the room enough for me to be more afraid of what I couldn't see. He moved towards a room that had a straw mat wedged in the doorway as if a cursory way of keeping out nosey children. He pulled out the mat, pushed at the door but it resisted as if something heavy was behind it. He shoved harder eventually dislodging whatever was behind it. As the door opened I could see just enough light to make a pile of something and something large just past the doorway. He shined he light on it to reveal the large freestanding costume of the Guardian of the Night. As I said, it is made to look exactly like a man sized stack of hay with two eyes slits in the front. It was big and part of me wasn't sure if someone was inside and half expected it to get up and walked toward me. On top of that, the general atmosphere of the abode already had, I'll admit, me scared shitless. The whole time I'm asking him questions and trying to act like I'm quite comfy there. Eventually we went downstairs and at the bottom ran in to this old lady that said, "Hey white guy!" in a very jovial voice. I thought recognized the voice until I realized that it was my host grandma, who is the only person in my family who calls me "white guy" (roughly translated). She doesn't speak French so I asked him what she was doing here and he says. Well she's lives here. So apparently, the Guardian of the Night, the hay stack that is going to kick my ass someday lives at my grandma's house.

C'est la vie.

Photo Shoot

Wow! Just broke out the digital camera today and my host brothers and sisters went absolutely bananas. I mean CRAZY. They loved so much to have their pictures taken. Jumping and squirming to see the photo. Disatisfied with the picture, they would arrange themselves for another with a flurry of yelling, gesturing and jostling for position followed immediately by the dawning of stoic expressions betraying nothing but the dignity they wish to project to the outside world. Most Beninese looks serious in their pictures but the children couldn't keep a straight face for long and the picture taking session turned in to total chaos. The children in this country really keep me going with their unbriddled joy with everything.

I spent the beginning of the day today in language class, but for the first time we had the afternoon off. I had been putting off taking my Peace Corps issued bicycle and helmet home from school because already I am a SPECTACLE walking down the street. The roads are all dirt with varying levels of passability, made worse by the rainy season. It is difficult to walk down the street without sending goats, birds and other animals scurrying from the commotion I create amongst the ubiquitous children on the street. Yovo, yovo (white person, white person)! Adults may say and all children will scream. "Bon sois, Yovo! Ca va?" I am evidently not the first because the local kids have a song to accompany my passing. They all will drop everything and sing as I walk by. "Yovo, yovo, bon sois! Yovo, yovo parlez-moi" (white person, white person, good evening. White person, white person talk to me). At the top of their lungs they will sing, dropping whatever their doing to come to the side of the road and sing. As I continue to walk down the street, soon enough the kids about 50 meters down hear the commotion and begin their own singing. And thus it continues as a progression of children screaming/singing at me the entire kilometer on the way home. This isn't an exageration or hyperbole. This afternoon I walked around the market with some other volunteers to similar acclaim.

Back to host brothers and sisters, there are 5, 2 boys and 3 girls aging 14 to 2. Until I broke out the camera tonigth the 2 year old was terrified of me. The others do not share such reservations and after a night of timidity, I have turned in to a walking jungle gym to the point that when I walk up to the house in the street, the middle three come running at me and literally jump through air in to the my arms, whether I'm ready or not. My siblings followed for for at least a kilometer this afternoon, running and pushing a old cart wheel as they went, their famiiarity creating a small gaggle of children around us. Wish I could attach pictures but internet is so slow it will not complete the upload of a file so big. I'll write more later on where I'm living.

John

Throw on that Hot Blanket

Landed a few days ago and Benin has been full of interesting sights, experiences and things to learn. Its the rainy season so the night we got here it was like a hot blanket was thrown over my shoulders. The humidity was heavy but not too much worse than DC. We taxied to the "gate" which was just some stairs that went down to the runway. Our plane was the only one visible at the airport that wasn't rusting and still had wheels on. Inside the customs/passport control was just a hot room with bright kind of colonial sky blue paint slightly peeling off the walls.

Exhausted our, group left the airport stepping in to heavy air ladened with scent of exhaust and the screening cheers of about 8 current volunteers who came to greet us. We left on a bus through the super crowded streets of Cotonou for a Catholic mission of sorts near the outskirts where we are staying. Not ten minutes in to the drive i witnessed my first traffic accident in Benin. The place we're staying is interesting and it has and pretty expansive grounds that seem to be home to a lot of other people that are staying here from other parts of West Africa, mainly people who fled the political turmoil in the Ivory Coast. There is no Internet and we've been mostly held up here undergoing trainings and orientations. We've only been in to town once to the main office to conduct our language interviews, which went surprisingly well. I was really surprised. My vocab and verb conjugation are bad, but I'm talkative and can work around most of my limitations. Im really surprised with how much i can communicate with the french I have and I think my accent makes me sound better than the content of what I'm saying. I ran in to a group of guys for Ivory Coast who fled the recent turmoil. Talking to them in French was like peering in a window of a whole new perspective and culture. I've never utilized another language this much before. I'm really excited to work on my French now.

Other than that, we spend a lot of time just getting oriented. We're a big group and as you can imagine, a group of 50 Americans on the street is a bit of a spectacle. It will be nice whm I'm posted to travel around solo.

Now to bed because we're leaving tomorrow at 630 am to practice navigating moto taxis and later to meet the ambassador, which should be interesting.

Two Years--Two Packs

As some of you know and some of you do not, it's official. I quit my job, to travel and bit and do something I've always wanted: join the Peace Corps. As of tomorrow, I am off to Philadelphia to meet my fellow co-conspirators on a trip fueled by a small dose of idealism, a smattering of wanderlust, and the hope that we can make a modest contribution. I'll be in Benin in French-speaking West Africa, specific location yet to be determined, teaching English as a second language. Some of you expressed an interest in keeping tabs on what I am going to be up to so I finally exorcised the social-networking Luddite in me and joined the blogosphere. Oy, next I'll be tweeting. Stay tuned for more updates and I'll do my best to keep them interesting.

Tomorrow I arrive in Philly for staging, to meet everyone, get pumped full of vaccines then given 12 hours in a plane to get immune. Wish me and my anti-bodies luck! My contact info is at the bottom of the post.

Best,

John

John Bohman

Corps de la Paix Americain

01 B.P. 971

Cotonou, Benin

Afrique de L'Ouest (West Africa)