Happy Together

Previously on this blog: The next installment of my journal will be brought to you by two hired guest writers: my parents...I figured that it would be both interesting and considerably more informative for my parents to be the ones to narrate the tales of their adventure in Benin.

And so now you have it: The fabled account of what really happened during their two week visit in Benin as brought to you by my lovely guest writer Judith A. Johnson

I dreamed of Africa every night for about two weeks after our return.  It was usually some variation of being in a strange place or trouble with transportation.  What the dreams lacked was the excitement of waking up and knowing that today I would see something I had never seen before; surprises waited at every turn. .  Every day in Africa I woke to a new adventure. We were in the capable hands of Carly and her well laid plans and so I felt no danger, although I may have been a bit naïve about that aspect.
The skeleton of our plan was for Mark, Carly and I to fly to Paris, meet Nate flying from New York and then all of us fly to Cotonou in Benin.  We were there Wed. night through Sunday morning then we left for Manigri, Carly’s post.  We stayed there for 3 days and were off to Natitingou, the workstation for her area.  From there we went east to Parakou on Friday, another workstation, and on to Camate on Saturday and a hike in the collines (hills). Sunday and Monday found us on the ocean beach in Grand Popo for Carly’s holiday rest, which we all gladly shared.  Tuesday and Wednesday we returned to Cotonou and the Hotel du Lac, went shopping and on a tour of the stilt village upriver.
In between all the simple words above is the trip of a lifetime.  We have been home about 2 months now and have told lots of stories and shown a lot of pictures about the trip and tried to convey “what it was like” and probably done a fairly good job but it’s like playing a game on a simulator, nothing will really match actually being there.  All senses were on overload.  While you read the rest, imagine that you are dripping wet with sweat the entire time, unable to understand the language, and that you are living in the 1700’s, albeit with cars and motorbikes available to some, and throw in some electricity once in awhile.  Oh, and cell phones.  You may cook your food over a small fire outside a mud hut thatched with grass, grind your food on rocks, haul water from a well and poop in a hole in the ground, but most likely you can call a friend on your cell phone.
After barely meeting up with Nate in Paris (he had the departure day wrong and almost missed his flight!) we flew into Cotonou, arriving just as daylight faded.  Amid the chaos of the luggage claim we found all of our bags, including the ones with food for Carly and muled goods for other volunteers.  Interesting enough, all luggage was checked against claim tags before one could leave the area- a more secure arrangement than in any other airport I’ve been in.  Benin.
Aside from all else being new to us, we also met Alex for the first time.  We already knew we liked him, I think our only fear was that we would seem like idiots to him.  Whether we did or didn’t, we were in his hands getting us on the hotel shuttle and out and we got better acquainted over dinner that night. It was all good.
First impressions: Alex- couldn’t be better.  We love him.  Cotonou/Africa: exotic, chaotic, humanity everywhere, sidewalks lined with vendors, streets filled with motorcycles and the sound of their engines and exhaust, and it is hot!  We are in a hotel with AC and dine on the veranda overlooking the river/lake, which is beautiful at night.  Our meal is not too daring or foreign, we are doing well.  But it becomes very clear that Carly and Alex are our link to any communication in Benin and we will be very dependent on their skills.  We are strangers in a strange land.  And water brothers. (Obscure but apt reference to popular 60’s book of the same name)
Thursday we breakfasted on fresh avocado sandwiches, made right outside the hotel door, fuel for the long walk through Cotonou to the Peace Corps office.  It was to be our last long walk in town as we picked up our motorcycle helmets and became officially mobile.  The walk was good, though, we saw that the river was not quite as beautiful in the daylight, and there were more vendors and more zemis and more pollution than at night.  Women of all ages had stuff for sale in baskets carried on their heads and by stuff I mean live chickens, dried fish, underwear, phone cards, oranges, pineapples, food of undetermined origin and stuff I don’t know what it was.  We passed through an indoor market, Marche Ganhie, and it was jammed with more goods alive, dead and wall-to-wall. It reminded me of the market scenes in Blade Runner. Another obscure reference.
At the Peace Corps office we met many of the volunteers whose blogs we have been following; it was like meeting movie stars.  We know so much about so many of them, or at least know what they look like and it was great to meet face to face.  We had lunch in one of their favorite nearby restaurants, which by American standards was like a, well, there is nothing like it here.  Open air, limited menu, I don’t recall silverware, language barrier, but somehow we ordered great food and chalked another one up.
Our first zemi ride was to pick up our custom made outfits for the swear-in ceremony and 40th Anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps in Benin.  Nate and I quickly decided that riding zemis was one the best parts of the trip and also the most dangerous.  There are no traffic laws, few signals or signage; everyone is on their own.  We share the streets with large cargo haulers, oil tankers, cars and thousands of other zemis, not to mention pedestrians.
Abel’s tailor shop- we were dropped off near an alley, and walked to large metal gates behind which were the ruins of a large house. (Actually, it was probably a building in progress, but it was gray and black brick and no progress has been made in a long time).  The gate squeaked open and we followed a narrow passageway to a small shop in the back and under a tin roof, with uneven pavers on the floor, maybe 2 electric bare bulbs was Abel, working on a treadle sewing machine on our outfits.  Our ‘meme tissue’ outfits were spectacular and fit perfectly.  We, along with all the TEFL PCVs, will be wearing magenta tissue and it will be an impressive sight.
We belatedly celebrated Alex’s birthday, or at least that was the excuse to eat at a nice restaurant, at the Berlin, a deceptively nice place. Deceptive in that we were thinking, this is really nice, the rest of Benin can’t be so bad, this is food we recognize.
Our first taxi ride, with 7 of us plus the driver, proved atypical for us, typical for most of the rest of Beninese.  We listened to another PCV playing sax at a local nightclub, and then took advantage of the great pool at the Hotel du Lac with its high dive.
The swear-in ceremony marked the 40th Anniversary of the Peace Corps in Benin and was held at probably the largest assembly building in Benin, the Palais du Congree.  It was very modern, though strangely low in bathroom facilities, large stage, plush seating, good sound system, video/TV cameras everywhere and the proceedings were appropriate for the occasion, lots of speeches, in French or local languages, music and singing.  A big celebration attended by the Peace Corp Director of Africa and representatives of the President of Benin.  A craft fair of sorts was set up outside the venue, but rainstorms put a damper on shopping, and it was an odd mix of stuff for the occasion.  A reception later in the day at the same place, an assortment of African hors d’ oeuvres devoured by the PCVs and guests and a glimpse of what strange offerings were to come.
Our meme tissues earned us an appearance on the news that night, and we were heralded walking in the Cotonou streets as we explored the rest of the day.  Seems nothing could brighten a rainy day quite like giant white people in the meme tissue parading around.
 Much of the adventure of Benin revolves around transportation.  Riding double on a zemi at night, flooded roads, paved and unpaved, dodging the rest of the traffic, dodging police 3x because riding double is frowned upon in the city, separated from the rest of the party, speeding- I am so grateful I was with Alex for this one, but it was still scary scary.
Our taxi ride to Ouidah gave us another perspective of Benin.  We rented the whole taxi, even the  “empty” two spaces, still cramped by our standards.  Miles and miles and miles of roadside stands selling all that there was to offer, heavy traffic, pedestrians, bad bad roads, periodic stops of the taxi at police checkpoints which were intimidating, though I don’t think we had much to fear, filling the tank from whiskey bottles of gas at roadside “stations”, using whatever side of the road had the least potholes.  The cabs are midsize cars with few working accessories, beaters by any standard, with a Beninese flag on the dash.  The drivers honk warnings at pedestrians which means they honk almost constantly for the many hours it takes to get anywhere.  Radios or tape players are barely functional at best.
More to come......