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.