Song For You Far Away

The long overdue post visit post is here! So let’s start from the beginning.

I had to wake up at 4am to get ready and to get out the door in time to meet my director at the hotel. My sisters walked me to the hotel even though I insisted that I knew where it was and how to get there. I’m not sure if they walked me because they didn’t think that I knew where it was or because they didn’t want me to walk alone in the dark. Regardless, I thanked them and then sat and waited for the adventure with several of the other stagaires. After a brief while, myself, Sandy, and Anna along with each of our directors and a driver crammed into a car and headed to Cotonou. The whole time Sandy was expecting the worse to happen to us, just because when her and I are together, strange and interesting things seem to always occur. I like to call them adventures. Anyway, despite being horribly uncomfortable the whole ride, nothing really that bad happened. I thought that our taxi driver was going to kill us a few times, but I’ve discovered that that feeling isn’t really out of the ordinary when you are traveling via bush taxi. For the last minutes of our ride me and Sandy were sitting sideways in sort of a spooning position. Sandy fell asleep on my left shoulder while Anna had already dozed off as her head dropped on my right shoulder. I felt like a mama bear with her little cubs, and it was actually the most comfortable I was the whole ride. Anyway, I digress. Once we got to Cotonou (about 2 hours), Sandy and Anna along with their directors got out of the taxi. My director got out, too, and just as I was going to get out, he told me to stay. That him and I were going to the bus station--which is actually quite confusing in Beninese culture because they say car for bus even though bus is bus or autobus and car is voiture or just car in English which made me think taxi; confusing, n’est pas. So we go to the “bus station” that isn’t so much a station as two buses parked on the side of the road, and we board the bus and head towards the back. We take a seat in the very back row, and we wait. In the meantime, we meet the King of Manigri who invites me to have yam pelée (so good) at his house sometime. Also, during the waiting, I my director was pretty much outside buying snacks the whole time while I just sat there. It was pretty sweet. Not to mention that I have my big camping backpack in between my legs with my big moto helmet on my lap and there is a rear door in the row that I am sitting in, so anytime anyone wants to board the bus I have to do this awkward half-squat maneuver while holding onto all my luggage. I think I would have gotten up for often had I know that fate that awaited me. Which brings me to the trip itself. Let me begin by saying that I made a conscious decision in the morning that I was going to purposely dehydrate myself a little bit so has not to make me have to go to the bathroom really badly on a long voyage. Turns out, great decision. The bus ride up to Bassila ended up taking 10 hours because it was stopping all the time for no apparent reason most of the time (I did take a different bus line on the way back that only makes one stop and that took much less time). Furthermore, during this 10 hour time span (plus all the travel time before that remember), my director would not let me leave my seat for any reason. That meant no bathroom for Carly. I’m sure it was done in a protective manner, but for God’s sake did I have to pee. So, of course, that was the first objective when we finally arrived. Find Carly a bathroom. We found a shower, instead. Good enough, and it marked my official first squat pee in country! Hurray for me! I should return to mention that the bus ride itself was pretty much uneventful. At one point a guy came on with a pet monkey and that was pretty interesting, but other than that it was just a bus full of unique individuals, but not anymore so unique than one would find on a Greyhound.
--Pause for me to retire to my bed; Will continue tomorrow--
And I’m back! Just boiled my nightly pot o’ water for tomorrow and ready to type! Alright, so once I arrived in Bassila and got my bladder issues taken care of, my director and I walked across the street and waited for about 15 minutes while my director got some part for his motorcycle. It was a strange 15 minutes for me. As I sat there, I was overwhelmed with the outsider feeling. It was really the first time I had been completely isolated away from any Americans. I started noticing that I look different, I act different, I speak different, I dress different. Everything about me is different. It is such a weird feeling to have, especially when I have always been able to find someway to connect to people. It was a good introspective (I think that’s the right word) moment for me. Anyway, once my director got his part, we were off to Manigri on his moto. With my sweet motorcycle helmet on and my huge camping backpack on, down we zipped on the road to my new hometown. We ended up arriving late enough that day that all of the activities that were planned for that night were cancelled as it gets dark at 7:30 here, and it is really not that safe for us to travel after dark. Instead, I got to meet my new host family for my visiting days and sit in and make extremely awkward conversation with my host Papa (and I thought that I had some awkward conversations in America-I had no idea). Anyway, I ate dinner yada, yada, yada and went to bed-sharing the bed with one of my host sisters. The next morning I was up and ready to go at 8:00 just like my director said, and I ended up waiting around until 9:30 because my director was apparently working on “Beninese time.” Oh well. The first place we went to was my house. I was so excited to see where I would be living for the next two years, and as it turns out, I only got to see things for like 5 minutes. They literally shuffled me in and shuffled me out. I don’t think they realized how important it is to me, but oh well, I suppose that I will have plenty of time to spend there. However, first impressions of the house is that it is fantastic. It appears as though John packed a backpack and left. He left me all his furniture, all his cooking supplies, a fantastic looking homemade kitchen area, a queen size bed, his clothes (which I will find a creative use for), his books, and lots of other stuff. When you first walk in, there is a giant American flag on the wall to your right. I walked in and thought, “Wow. Okay. I’m home.” John also wrote me a really short note saying that I should feel free to call him or email him should I have any questions. Just from hearsay and my impressions, it seems like John was a really nice guy and made a great impact on the community. He will be a tough act to follow, but happy for that, and I am excited to ask him some questions before I get to post. It should also be noted that I have electricity (hurray), my own private shower and latrine (hurray), and a light to shine on my latrine a night (hurray hurray-hopefully this will deter the cockroaches from crawling around me as I try to take care of business). After that, we went and visited the school and we went into almost every classroom. They all looked the same to me, but my director wanted to show me everything, and after each one he would turn to me and ask me what I thought. I was busting out every French adjective I knew. The school looks good. Bigger than I expected. After that, we proceeded to meet what seemed like everyone in Manigri, and then after that we went back to Bassila to meet everyone there, too.

Dad, you would like it in Africa, because you have to say hello to everyone. Literally everyone. It is considered really rude to pass someone and not at least say hello. If it is someone you know, then you have to go into greater detail. It is the land of friendly hello people. Just your type.

Some highlights of the people I met, where meeting the censeur for my school. He is this little, rotund, jolly man with the most fantastic buckteeth that stick out even when he has his mouth closed. He was so nice and seemed to keep popping up wherever my director and I went. I hope that I enjoy working with him. Also, I met my homologue (which is like my counterpart--the person who I will be working the closest with; he helps me in the community and I help share my ideas and opinions from my perspective). He seems like a really nice guy, and interestingly enough, he is in a wheelchair and yet manages to teach a room full of 50+ students. That is pretty amazing with all things considered. He must really do a great job of classroom management; I would love to sit in on one of his classes. The best part is that he seemed really into helping the girls of the community, which is sadly sort of a rarity amongst Beninese men. So, yeah, I am really excited to work with him.

I feel like I am writing too much. The point is that I met a lot, a lot of people and that everyone seemed really nice. I would say hello in French, they would find out I’m an English teacher and then they would try to say hello in English. I actually had a surprisingly hard time the whole time to get people to speak French to me. And by the time I left Manigri, I was ready to go back. Gaining back some independence is going to be great.

There is more to the story on the return visit, and I will save that for another post. Let’s just say that my famous last words were, “I’m a strangely disappointed that I didn’t have more of an adventure on my post visit.”

LOVE AND MISS EVERYBODY

Got a postcard from Aunt Lucia and Uncle Harry
Got two letters from Mom (2 and 4)
Got a package!