Tony 1, Ants 0

It’s official, I have finally outsmarted the ants!

Ok, there are these tiny, relatively harmless ants…everywhere. I have been keeping my house very clean, spraying insecticide on anything that looks like a nest of them in or around my house, and keeping food tightly covered at all times. I have breathed in so much insecticide that I am probably developing little holes in my brain. Ohh, might I add that they don’t exactly have the same laws here that regulate pesticides, herbicides, or any other cancer causing aerosol spray.

Well, these *%$&^%@ eat through plastic bags, they are able to climb under everything but the tightest fitting lids, and they come out of nowhere. I cannot find any nest of ants anywhere, but should I let my guard down in the slightest they appear in force as if they are storming the Beach of Normandy. Also, if there is something sweet inside a container, which they cannot gain entry to, they will just cover the outside of it to the point that if you don’t look closely it looks like the container’s shell is actually moving. But, I finally figured out how to keep them out of my stuff and I did it quite by accident.

One day I put a small can of this sugary syrup, which I add to water and powered milk to make a sweet treat, in a basin, which had a very small amount of water in it. The ants loved this container and no matter what I did they found it and covered the outside. Thankfully they never broke inside, but they did make it through the 3 zip locked plastic bags, which were hidden under a towel. So I forgot about the can for whatever reason and when I came back there was not an ant to be found on the can and instead there were a bunch of dead ants in the water surrounding the can. Guess what, the f$#@!@# can’t swim! Lame, I know, but these guys were really starting to annoy me. Now I put anything that they would like in something plastic and put it in the basin with a tiny layer of water. The first ants drown in the water and are never able to return to their colony to tell there partners in crime where the meal is.

Moving on. Life is going well. I had a meeting with a group of teenaged students who want to start an environmental club the other day and I am starting to figure out what I can do with the ecotourism activity at my NGO. But, it is going to require me to change some things and change is not exactly a popular thing to do here. I am mean, they eat the same stuff in the same way over and over and over again. Even when I have used their foods to cook something different, they don’t like it. But, I have Thanksgiving to look forward to and for Christmas I will be traveling to Kenya. I hope all is well and if you are getting sick of the colder temperatures already the plane ticket to my house is only a measly 2,000 dollars.

Manual Labor and hey, Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! For one of the first times I am really missing not being back in Madison right now but I am celebrating Halloween with a bunch of other volunteers in a city called Parakou. I do have a costume that isn’t a costume…I don’t really know how to explain it. It is a Beninese thing.

So I have been at post for over a month now and things are going well. My counterpart at the NGO I am partnered with is backing off and giving me the freedom to do the projects that I want. He is still a little jealous when I talk about working outside of the NGO, but he is learning that I am kind of going to do what I want to do and he might as well work with me on that. I was actually approached by a student who wants to start an environmental club in a surrounding community, which is super exciting. The first meeting is Sunday, Nov 7th.

This past two weeks has been fairly busy and I have been doing all kinds of physical activity, despite the fact that it is getting hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter. We are hitting 90-100 degrees everyday but on the bright side I have a killer tan. I helped a neighbor finish the walls of his house. Let me see if I can describe how this is built. First off they use red clay to build their houses. We mixed, with our feet, clay and water until it reached the proper consistency. We then balled the clay up into large but throw-able balls then we created an assembly line where we passed the clays balls eventually ending with the person standing on the partially constructed wall who used the clay to continue the wall upward.

Also, the past couple weeks 6 French, 6 Nigerians (from Niger not Nigeria), and 5 Beninese students ranging from 17-22 years old have been visiting my NGO. They are participating in two-weeks of cultural exchange and manual labor in Camate. We are building a fence so that my NGO can have a free-range chicken farm and in the traditional Beninese way we are doing so without any labor saving tools/devices. While you would use a posthole digger or an auger (what ice fishermen use to dig holes in the ice) to dig post holes, we use machetes and our hands. While you would have bought precut wood from Home Depot, a group of people goes into the woods and cuts down trees, removes the branches, and brings them to the work site. If you needed to cut the wood that you bought from Home Depot into a smaller size you would use a power saw or at least a handsaw; we use machetes (but I brought a camping saw with me, see the pic). While you would have cleared the ground using a power mover of some kind, we use machetes and hoes, which both require you to bend over. I think you get the picture. But, as I have been working wishing for modern tools and Home Depot I realized that they would never work here. All of those things save Americans time because, well time is money right, so Americans invest in labor/time saving devices. If the Beninese had more time they just wouldn’t have anything to do. The greatest commodity in Benin is time and the one thing they don’t have is money so using a machete to did a 3ft posthole is perfectly fine with them.

In the end I don’t mind so much. I think I have actually gained some weight in the form of muscle mass from this physical labor so the joke is that maybe by the end of two years I might look like the Beninese. The Beninese are ripped. The guys don’t have 6-packs because they have 8-packs. Every American woman would be jealous of the arms of the Beninese women.

Ok, the Halloween party is starting. I hope you are all doing well and hit me up with an email about what is going on in your world if you have a chance.

Not a whole lot is new...but it is becoming very, very hot

So I am well into my third week at village. Sorry that these have taken me so long to get up on the blog. My internet situation is a little difficult.

Everything here has been going well. My new furniture has arrived and now my house feels like a home or at least something that I could comfortably spend two years living in. Despite having little to no structure or real responsibilities I have managed to keep myself busy, for the most part. I have prepared a small garden and in the next couple of days I will plant it, but first I need to move my compost pile. I built one close to my house but my landlord doesn’t like it, so I will be moving it inside the fence next to my garden. My neighbor has a large plot of land all fenced in behind his house and he generously gave me whatever I wanted to plant a garden and put my compostable waste.

Since I am the third volunteer in this village everyone is accustomed to seeing a white person walking around. I try to get around the village once a day to say hi to people, practice my French and local language, and describe what it means to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. That is a fairly big question and difficult to describe especially since my French still needs improving, but what I say is that I am here to eventually start some projects within the community and work with the local NGO. I have also spent quite a bit of time climbing the hills that provide the scenic backdrop to my Beninese home. During the day especially it is often the only place where I can feel the wind when it is pushing 90-100 degrees everyday. I also nap, a lot. I figure it is apart of the cultural integration and since everyone takes a break between 1pm and 2pm, I might as well participate.

I am involved with a fairly active NGO, who often has tourists and projects ongoing. This is both a blessing and a curse because that means there is always something to do but the NGO will want me to be active in all of their projects thus limiting my impact in the greater community. When coming up with ideas I am trying to focus on ways to build the community up so that they can improve themselves and the environment at the same time. The NGO doesn’t always have projects that fit what the Peace Corps Volunteer is supposed to do. If there is one thing that I could do for the environment in Camate it would be to fight the erosion problem but I could not do that until I somehow found different work for many of the residents. One of the primary income generating activities here is to break rocks into small rocks, by hand, which is then sold to construction companies who use it for gravel. The rocks are removed from the hills thus augmenting the erosion problem here. For a medium-sized basin full of small rocks one receives 150 CFA, which is the equivalent of 35 cents and it probably takes one day to fill it. There is no amount of education regarding erosion, and the effects are apparent here, that would have any impact unless I somehow provided another way for the ‘rock-breakers’ to make money. I’m still working on that one.

Before I go I have to recommend a novel that has subsequently turned my life upside down. If you have not read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn than you have not lived. I’m not sure yet how to apply what I learned, but I am going to think about it, and try to incorporate it into my service here.

A week in

(Voodoo Elder paying respect to the chicken he is about to kill. The thing to his left is an example of a voodoo festish)











(All of the PCV after swearing in and that is Johnny and I with the mustaches we grew to commemorate the event)



After a week of living in Camate, I am starting to settle in. I have arranged my house to make it as ‘homey’ as possible and I have started to assimilate into the community of about 2,000 people. To do this I usually just walk around with someone asking questions, meeting people, and practicing speaking Igaasha, the local language. I am trying to meet as many people as I can and so far everyone have been nice and welcoming. My only complaint is that communication with the outside world has become more difficult. I do not get any cell phone reception within my house and there is not a cybercafé with wireless that I know of yet. My NGO has internet, but I have to use their computers with French keyboards and work around their schedule. Taken all together I much prefer Camate to Porto Novo. The air is clean, the view is beautiful, and the people are nice.

But now that I am here I am constantly thinking about what I want to do. The first three months of my service is supposed to be spent integrating into the community in order to learn what their strengths are so that I can use those to address areas of potential improvements. Unfortunately it is much easier to find the latter, but there is a women’s microfinance group here as well as a group of young men who play soccer regularly. I might be able to direct some of their energies into some other areas. Once I get started I will have to balance my time between improving the eco-tourism business at my NGO and starting projects within the community.

So, I have been holding off writing about Voodoo until I have experienced enough to have something to tell. In training Peace Corps tells us to avoid Voodoo in most circumstances, but never tell someone that you don’t believe in it. They might take that as an invitation to perform the darker side of voodoo, which as their believe system goes will have no impact on nonbelievers, but since everyone else believes in it, the rest of the community wont want to work with you at all therefore making it difficult to be a volunteer. I have seen a voodoo dance ceremony, plenty of fetishes (fetish in the context of voodoo simply means a physical voodoo representation), I have visited a sacred forest for non-voodoo believers, and witnessed a sacrifice ceremony. Voodoo is just about everywhere in Benin, especially in the south because the north has a bigger Muslim population. I was invited to the sacrifice ceremony, which happened ten steps away from my house, and I was even encouraged to take pictures and everything was explained to me in French. My neighbors have constructed a physical representation for a specific spirit who was a member of their family but was killed in some sort of accident. For special occasions, in this instance the start of school, they have a party that is not very different to a family celebration in the states. They say some prayers, have lots of conversation and laughter, and eat a lot of food. The only difference is that they kill the animals (in this case, several chickens and one small goat) and use a little bit of the blood to pay respect to the spirit. They believe that the spirit inhabits the fetish during the ceremony. Voodoo has gotten a very bad name as the small majority of its darker sides have been grossly exaggerated. While we go buy processed meat at the grocery store, they pay respect to the animals and thank them for giving their life for their sustenance. The only thing that happened that was bizarre for me is that they drip a small amount of the blood from the dying animal onto the fetish in a ritualistic manner. Everything was quite interesting and everyone was very welcoming to my presence. All was going well until we hit a small snag. The women who were making a traditional food called pate (similar to mashed potatoes) accidently used all of this red cooking oil stuff. They were supposed to save some for later in the ceremony for the guy in charge to use. He became very angry and stuff became a little crazy until they went house to house finding enough red cooking oil to finish the ceremony; I even contributed some since the previous volunteer left a small amount here. According to the ritual, if it is not done correctly (aka if this guy did not find enough red cooking oil) he will die, but alas, everyone can sleep well.

Overall life is pretty slow for me right now. I don’t exactly have a lot to do, but I keep myself busy with the other community members, even if I don’t know what they are saying. It is a bit lonely to live in a place where you marginally speak their second language (that being French), where you live far away from technology, and where you don’t exactly have a lot in common with everyone, but I could not have asked for a more welcoming community. I’m really getting sick of the bugs here though. One lesson I learned so far, which I will leave you with, is do not spray insecticide into dark areas unless you want to see what will come running out of there.

My Post and clothing styles in Benin

(Picture 1: Myself in 'meme tissue' or same tissue. The four different sectors purchase their own style of tissue and wear it to swear in so each person in the same sector matches, but sectors are different.
Picture 2: The view from the top of a hill at my post)

Last week I spent four days at my future post and lived, with the outgoing PCV in my future house. All I have to say is that my post is beautiful. Just look at the picture and you will see why. I will be working with an NGO that does environmental education, which is funded by eco-tourism to the NGO. If you ever find yourself in Benin, which will surly not happen, but just in case, make sure you see the hills in Central Benin.

My village is rather quaint with only about 2,000 residents. Aside from the NGO in the village, which employs 11 people, everyone else makes a living in the many farms or by crushing rocks, by hand with a hammer into large jagged pebbles. These rocks are retrieved from the hills and are accelerating their erosion. Thankfully the majority speaks French, but as time goes by I will begin to use their local language, Igaasha, especially for greetings and use in the market. Good Morning = Ekoni; How are you = O wa réré ni; and Yes = oo, or adoukpé. It is much different from anything I have ever learned before, but it has one thing up on French and English for that matter in that it is phonetic. Upon further thought, the fact that it is phonetic does me very little good, because I will probably never actually write it down or seen it written.

Since I just passed my language exam I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer next Friday, September 25th. After that, it is on to my village, where I will move into a large single bedroom house with electricity and convenient to access running water. I also move in with a cat, who is the killer of all things that I don’t want in my house, which is awesome. For the first three months I will spend my time getting to know my community, the residents, and learning what I can do inside of my NGO and outside of it, in the community. For those first three months no PCVs are allowed to leave their post for more than 24hrs. It is one of the rules, which forces us to step outside of our comfort zone and go integrate into a community we know very little about and have a mediocre grasp of the language. I have it easy since my community has had two volunteers before me and they speak French and local language. Other volunteers are moving places that don’t speak any French into a home without electricity, running water, cell phone reception, and easy access to the internet.

Now onto my cultural observation: The clothing styles in this country are fascinating.

Traditional Beninese clothing is hard to describe, but just look at the picture of myself, and you will get the idea. They love loud colors and repeating patterns with identical prints below and above the waist. Women’s clothing is rather conservative and ranges from form fitting to semi-loose, while many guy’s shirts resemble moo-moos (I have no idea how that is spelled, but you know the huge maternity-like shirts). The shirt I am wearing above is actually smaller than how it is traditionally made and it is very un-African to have buttons. Clothes you buy ready-to-wear, as we do in the States, is for the most part considered uncool, although that is changing as Western influences become more pronounced. For example, for the outfit above and for the two pairs of different pinstripe dress pants I just bought, you first go to the market and buy the fabric and then taken it to a tailor. All of this is done for about 7,000 – 8,000 CFA, which translates into 16-18 US $. I am planning on over my two years accumulating some very nice looking suits that are perfectly tailored. The trouble with the clothing here is even I, with my lacking sense of style, would never wear 95% of it outside of Benin or West Africa. I like the pants but am not a huge fan of the shirts. It is fun and the Beninese actually respect you more when you are wearing their style. My parents sent me some UW Red and Motion ‘W’ fabric, which I cannot wait until it arrives so that I can have the best UW-Madison pride outfit ever.

Now combine this style with what I will call the Western world’s rejected Goodwill store clothes and you have a very diverse range of styles. A lot of clothes that will never be worn in the states are dumped into West Africa and are either given away or sold for pennies. Many people in this country are extremely poor, but they will not only wear the ‘Goodwill’ style, they make it their own. It is common to see guys wearing girl’s shirts and/or pants, and yet they have no idea and frankly they don’t care. In fact I saw a dude wearing a shirt that said, “No Money, No Honey” just the other day. It was black with white lettering, and the cut of the sleeves and collar were clearly feminine to a western eye. Also very few speak any English in Benin, so what a shirts says is unimportant. That shirt was probably cheap and matched this guy’s idea of Western style so it is good enough for him. Remember when the Patriots lost the super bowl to the Giants in that massive upset a couple of years ago??? Well, I saw a Patriot Superbowl Champion t-shirt from that year. What is interesting is that they will take these clearly uncool shirts (to Western standards) and wear them or match them with other things in a way that mimics what is cool. Since they don’t speak English and can’t understand that their shirt says “New York City Public Library – Where it is Cool to Read” they choose form fitting sizes and combine it with the rest of their outfit in a very creative take on Western style. They may be adopting our styles but when they want to dress up for a special event they almost always go with traditional wear.

Thanks for reading. I hope this finds you all well and that the States are not killing each other over things like Obama’s health care plan. I sure hope that passes or has passed. Be thankful those are the debates you get to have because the election here is not until 2011 and the current President, it is rumored, has already started removing the people’s constitutional right to assemble peacefully through unchecked executive orders. He is doing this in specific locations in Benin in order to limit political rallies because potential opponents for the job of President are starting to identify themselves and organize.

Only three weeks left of Training!

(Sorry, I look super awkward in this picture but it was taken while on Technical Visit. It was actually a beautiful and quaint village where everyone we met wanted to talk and serve us a shot of their local hard alcohol called sodabe, which tastes like vodka mixed with tequila. They dont do much beer in this country. In fact I drank whiskey out of a juice box the other day. Shout out to Kenvin Krentz. If your job with Epic doesnt pan out in the long run, you could have a monopoly on the market of juice box whiskey drinkers).


About 2-weeks ago, everyone went on what they call technical visit, where you break off into small groups and go live with a current volunteer for four days. I went to a small village close to Quedma-Peda (I think the spelling is at least close), which is to the west of Cotonou. Quedma-Peda’s claim to fame is that it was once the largest slave port in all of West Africa. Estimates are rather rough, but I have read that at least 1/3rd of all slaves passed through this city on their way to the Americas or Europe. Upon entering the city there is a small statue, probably 3-4 ft high, on top of a pedestal with an African in a loincloth, looking with hands outstretched toward the heavens holding the two pieces of a broken chain in each hand. I asked if there were any museums or other such educational exhibits to educate both locals and visitors about what happened here, but that is it. I was told this was because most of history in Benin is passed on orally, but I still couldn’t help but find it strange that one would have to travel to the Western World or read book written by Western authors to learn about the Slave Trade in Africa. I want to eventually, when I build up enough trust with a Beninese person, to ask them about what they know about the slave trade, what is taught in schools, and what people think about it here. It would definitely be an interesting conversation. Peace Corps is actually taking everyone back there for a more detailed tour or field trip so I might learn more then as well.

Moving on.

Training is going well and my French is coming along nicely. I am now able to have rather complete conversations with most people, most of the time. I still talk slowly and if the French speaker I am talking to forgets that I am not fluent and speaks fast, I lose any comprehension of the conversation. But, once I kindly remind them that I have no idea what they are saying, they slow it down and I can figure out what is going on. One of the other difficulties in Benin is that although French is the official language, it is usually one’s second language. There are dozens of local languages, so especially if a person is educated (school is only taught in French), they speak French as well as another local tongue. It is not always easy to figure out when people are not speaking French or if I do just not understand them. I am getting better, but when my family bounces between local (they speak Fon) and French, I get crazy confused.

So far I have learned how to build two varieties of mud stoves, plant a garden, plant a tree nursery, identify trees/plants and care for them, market environmental products, mix and apply natural pesticides, fix anything about my bike, turn plastic bags into coin purses, compost, teach environmental education, and integrate into my community. They teach us everything so that we can choose exactly what projects to start in our communities based on their need and what we want to work on. This coming Wednesday (Sept. 9th) I am leaving for post visit. I will be there for four days, where I will meet the volunteer I am replacing, my community, and specifically the people that I will be working closely with. I am pumped to a) get a break from training and b) see where I will be living for the next two years.

That’s it for now. I am currently putting together a page on snapfish, or flicker, or something like that so pay attention for that information. It is hard to believe that I have been here for going on my 7th week and that I will be moving to my post is 3 weeks. And, thank you all for the emails! I really like reading them and learning about what you are doing.

All kinds of wastes

(This is an example of coordinated trash removal in Southern Benin. This provides the food for many animals, sadly they cannot eat plastic...c'mon evolution)


As you can assume I have had to get used to many different things and change many behaviors now that I am living in Benin. It has been a fairly easy transition thus far, without any major problems, but there are two things that are a little more challenging for myself to adapt to.

There is hardly any coordinated solid waste trash removal service in this country, especially in the south where I live now. That means that trash lines the street, flows in the waterways, and grows in the piles behind houses. Ohh wait, sorry, there is one form of trash clean up, which I almost forgot: larger piles of trash do exist where groups of people throw their stuff and every now and again a concerned citizen will light that trash pile on fire. I love riding my bike past those! Furthermore, in the states, I was (and am now even more) a huge fan of trashcans, trash pick up, garbage dumps that are environmental cared for, and recycling. Guess who has to become accustomed to throwing all trash behind the house or on the street as I walk? That would be me, just in case you didn’t know. The one that continually put ‘please recycle’ signs on the front desk’s recycle bin at the Memorial Union now has to throw his plastic bags, food waste, and anything else outside where it becomes a part of this picturesque landscape. In Benin’s defense, the Beninese people don’t consume even close to what American’s do, so what they, and now I throw away is minimal. One fact for you that I read in my book: “The average ecological footprint per person for those in developed nations is 54 acres, while in Africa each person only consumes about 2.5 acres. The earth can support only an average footprint of 39 acres/person.” Regardless, I lose a little bit of my sole every time I have to throw something out, by throwing it outside. The Peace Corps is teaching us nifty things to do with the waste, such as turning these tiny black plastic bags, which everything in this country is carried in, into wallets, coin purses, etc. My friend Johnny and I are going to try and develop a cowboy hat out of them. Also, I will be building a compost pile at my future post and encouraging everyone around me to do the same. So, if you ever feel like not recycling or you want to throw your trash on the ground, please think of me and say, “I am going properly dispose of my trash/recycling for Tony, because he can’t.” Thank you in advance.

Moving onto the other thing that will take some getting used to. Not only are bathrooms with running water (ie flushing toilets) uncommon, public bathrooms or even latrines are next to impossible to find. Next time you are at a bar and have to pee because you have been drinking, imagine that there are no bathrooms. Now what do you do? Guys have it much easier then women. If we can find a discreet place to relieve ourselves we are fine. Then again, discreet is not in the Beninese vocabulary and thus, often you will see people just taking a leak on the side of the road, thankfully facing away from traffic. Despite the fact that guys have it much easier (I am going to describe what women do in a sec), I cannot help but find it unnerving to aim in front of a cement wall, with the equivalent traffic of the southbound exit toward Chicago as you head east into Milwaukee, flying by 40 feet behind you. Women on the other hand... If, and there is a strong emphasis on the if, a woman can find a bathroom as she is out and about, it will most likely amount to nothing more than a hole in the ground, about the size of a small pancake. So, role up your pants ladies, because there is no way you are not going to splash urine all over your feet and legs as you try to balance, assisted by nothing, over said hole. This is all I am going to say about our other form of bodily excrement: Thankfully the diet here is heavy in starch and low in fiber so as long as you can avoid diarrhea-causing parasites, bacteria, and/or viruses this is not as much of an issue. If you don’t know how starch or fiber regulates your BM’s (not building managers, for those Memorial Union folk), go ask a health professional. Ohh, and never forget to carry toilet paper or soap/hand sanitizer, because they have not begun to appreciate either as of yet.

The general rule for all things bathroom related is, if you are far away from your house, where you will have a latrine per Peace Corps housing standards, you just might be shit out of luck.