just sort of knowing a language other than English

Just sort of knowing a language other than English.
I have already wrote extensively about short of knowing French while living in France, sort of knowing Korean, but I haven't yet triumphed in sort of knowing my local language.
Diligence, is a word I use frequently when it comes to language learning. A while ago,  when I was struggling with the Slovak language, I decided to cease the act.I just didn't have the right kind of stuff to keep going (diligence and motivation).from that day on, I stopped trying to pick up new languages and go back to what I call the big three:French, Korean, and Arabic,

selective

after 7 months. it may have  finally occurred to me that village life is perfect for me. imagine: a 12 hour bus ride (which may or may not be air conditioned), and to descend that said bus only be met by rude taxi and moto drivers and the occasional harassing male whose aggressive advances toward you reemerges your previous daydream of being on a beach in Thailand or even perhaps that one time you broke your foot while zip lining. whatever area of my brain i resort to daydream to escape these situations is clearly working. every time i return to village, that area is not used frequently.

Its normal. whenever anyone feels that they are in discomfort its up to the brain to make the best out of the situation. my own just selects certain memories to erase (nearly). i'm ashamed to admit my only comfort is to know that im not the only volunteer to put up with this.

not every passerby is rude. Im thankful for mamas who want to share their 'pain chaud' with me even though i cannot eat while traveling bc of fear of travel diarrhea (real).

im looking forward to being back in village which mean more local language learning which just really means having coherent conversations with the bi-sap lady. if i continue having conversations outside the normal greeting of "how are you?", "good job", "good sitting" ," how are your children?", "I am fine" and so on....and my potential triumph of convincing her to give me free bi-sap due to the fact most of her income in the past has come from me.

yes, there is an incentive, now i just have to survive beninese transportation.

Stuff and ...things

sorry for the late post.Things have gotten hectic, Ive been out of post lately and I just realized that I am most content being in village. Since I moved to post life has change almost 180 for me. Yes, there are some ephemeral moments of sadness but not from homesickness (mostly illnesses). My students have finally taken to me and here is a video of a song I taught them:

a new year

feb 10, 2015
Now that I am finally in village, i have the chance to write about my experiences this past month.
I started feeling sick around the middle of last month, and when it started to turn for the worst, i visited my friend in the Donga region. Then when it got really bad i went on a 13 hour trip to cotonou(the big city).
Before I fell into the expected bacterial infection that every volunteer experiences, I got into sort of routine here in village. I woke up everyday feeling like today would be a long day, but it would be productive. the start of every week i would basically set the mood for the end of the week. I would spend most mornings, lesson planning and meeting up with my counterpart for the various activities we would conduct at the end of the week. Bc it was the season of interrogations (quizzes) I was busy most nights grading papers under my little light.
Girl's club has gone well. There have only been 2 meetings but I can tell people are interested. Perhaps when I get back to village after IST things will pick back up.
anyway,  i would rather tell you a story about how i went to kara(togo). Just like benin, I had no prior info about Togo. I knew that the small country has a similar history to benin. So we had to take a zem and a taxi to get to the mountainous city. During the voyage, my mouth would be agape. The mountains were not like anything i had ever laid eyes upon in benin. So caught by this unexpected view, I was struck by this realization: i choose the wrong country. well, before 2013, volunteers didnt really have a choice in selecting their new country.  Now that ive seen Togo-a country that resembles benin culturally-i mean to visit there more often. It seems to be drastically cheaper than benin--according to our trip to the marche. People seem to speak french better--according to my 2 minute conversations with the vendors. perhaps I am just more or less enrapturd by the steep mountains and ruch rivers but volunteers in Togo must be living the good life.

sweetness

It’s not my fault. So you can’t blame me. I didn’t do it and have no idea how it happened. It didn’t take more than an hour after they pulled her out from between my legs for me to realize something was wrong. Really wrong. She was so black she scared me. Midnight black, Sudanese black. I’m light-skinned, with good hair, what we call high yellow, and so is Lula Ann’s father. Ain’t nobody in my family anywhere near that color. Tar is the closest I can think of, yet her hair don’t go with the skin. It’s different—straight but curly, like the hair on those naked tribes in Australia. You might think she’s a throwback, but a throwback to what? You should’ve seen my grandmother; she passed for white, married a white man, and never said another word to any one of her children. Any letter she got from my mother or my aunts she sent right back, unopened. Finally they got the message of no message and let her be. Almost all mulatto types and quadroons did that back in the day—if they had the right kind of hair, that is. Can you imagine how many white folks have Negro blood hiding in their veins? Guess. Twenty per cent, I heard. My own mother, Lula Mae, could have passed easy, but she chose not to. She told me the price she paid for that decision. When she and my father went to the courthouse to get married, there were two Bibles, and they had to put their hands on the one reserved for Negroes. The other one was for white people’s hands. The Bible! Can you beat it? My mother was a housekeeper for a rich white couple. They ate every meal she cooked and insisted she scrub their backs while they sat in the tub, and God knows what other intimate things they made her do, but no touching of the same Bible.

black-ness

i think i stopped being "black" according to most people when i read all of tolkiens books before starting high school. what most people thought of me mattered 2% in my life, but i never really believed that liking hip hop/rap was an  automatic go-to music choice for me or anyone else because of my skin color (I do like this music but i also like jazz and celtic songs).
no matter how far or how long i have travelled, other people (mainly other american expats) seem to want to put me in their "token" black friend status. i end up being friends with non american expats or locals and we all share a nice dialogue about our cultures.
here, in benin, there is hardly a dialogue. when I talk to locals, they are well perplexed by my american attitude and standards i end up defending myself instead of having a conversation. before i came to benin, i reveled in the idea of being in a place where people look like me and i blend in. Korea was a modest place where young people stole stares at you and old people bore those stares into your soul. Slovakia was a place where people didnt stare out of curiosity, but probably a mixture of disgust or envy (a post about that later). More or less i enjoyed most of the stares because i felt proud--i represented a darker person in these regions where there are so scarce. I think im confusing people by being so different but also similar. I mean, in my village there are many different cultures, but people cant seem to categorize me. Or they wont. If I speak one word of peule im suddenly fulani, if i speak bariba, im suddenly batooni, never american. 
I have met some amazing american friends while travelling but i have also met some of the most racists americans while travelling. benin is no different.
of all the other third world countries ive been to( guatemala) benin IS different. i only went to guatemala for a total of ten TOURISTIC days. I saw the poverty, we all helped out, but i also looked past all the filth and violence and fell in love with the country. I remember going to me room after returning home  from my 3 hour plane ride and feeling like i should have never left. It was a life changing experience. It was an experience that catalyzed my love for children's education and humanitarian work.
fast forward 5 years and I am in benin,,,living the dream,,,

in the land of snot rockets

november 7, 2014
Halloween has just passed us and i am alive again. i was dressed in one of my best costumes ive ever worn in my life. I made an ok attempt a being a fulani (queen). i wore bright colors and bought some jewelry. I myself, was quite disappointing at my sad attempt. I had originally planned for losing 50-70 pounds and donning real tattoos. but instead i ate spoonfuls of nutella every night and decided that henna was the best option for me. I though it was an ok costume, but everyone seemed to like it as it seemed. what i was really proud of was then i went out of the compound in my full makeup and clothes and beninese people generally seemed to believe i was fulani (which mean a little bit more to me than an american saying i looked fulani). this proud feeling of resembling a fulani (queen) is highly contrasted to the feelings i get when people think i am beninese. sure if i walk down the street and you just look at me , its ok to think and believe that i am beninese, but if im introduced as "volunteer" or "american" to you and you have a useless conversation to me about how my skin is so black there is no way i could be american, i am beninoise like you...im just tired and it'll only get more frequent so i should just find a bridge and get over it.