ma chere

july 23 2014
i havent mentioned that fact yet that yes! i am finally admitting that i am having and will have a totally non comparable peacecorps experience than most volunteers. i mention this bc, at first, it was hard. usually people come together closer in this setting by talking about the shit they went through during the first weeks of being here. and i, myself, i am having a REALLY nice time. AND i cannot really ccomplain much: I am feeling different partly bc: I AM yorouba, i am nigerian, my family accueil is yoruba, im having this awesome inner quest to find myself and everyone else is pretty much preoccupied with getting called YOVO (the langue local word for stranger) and secondly, benin is wayyyyy different from home,but  you dont see me complaining anyhow. anything that will stop me complaining is having just to remember that most of my life i thought i was the most unluckiest kid alive. I never complain about meals here bc it sucks as a child having to depend on meals at school for your basic nutrition needs. Now i get two meals a day, and even though they are not my first choice for breakfast and dinner meals, they are cooked for me at my home and i know ill never be hungry again. I remember being so hungry some days when i was in middle school and the only reason i went to school was to have a meal that day.
anyway today was the defintion of an hot and cold day.
after having another talk with a staff member, im irritaed to the max.
je ne veux pas savior que les autres qui me pensent
since i have a bit of a habit of talking about negatives, something amazing happened today!! one other trainee finally freaking gave me episodes of the chappelle show.
at the start of training i was very very frugal, now every day after class i ride my bike to my house and on the way i stop by a shop to buy sweets. which is good but mostly bad. mostly bad bc i see the way people look at me, this black girl with a tossed skirt to the side. I used to attracting unwanted attention (see Slovakia) but usually on average about 10 people shot "bon travail" "ca va ma chere" but actually one cute girl said "tu est jolie" which really made is chuckle bc i was ride my bike through mud all day, and there was mud all on my feet and sandals and even some on my clothes, how can anyone even imagine that??
when i came hope, i had a nice and lovely chat about my birthday which is on the exact date of fete ramadan
and lastly, july is still a very tough time for me because it is the anniversary of my best friend death. I still cant believe ive made it through so many years without her.
and i still feel slightly irritated at my dissapoointment in the training,,, but i know soon itll be all over and soon i will be alone at my site

some entries

july 21
my best friends: fans,mamas who give me good prices for things i want to buy, and did i say fans? ventelateurs, i love you so much
not a big fan of: being home before dark, not getting any remontants, being told that being myself was not the best way to spent my time here.
shit
for some reason i got really sad today, but i dont really know how i got really sad or why, but i felt really melancholy and i havent felt that
in a long time, it makes me mad, how my mood can change so quickly. i just get really fed up sometimes, and when i feel like im trapped in a corner
i feel hopeless and upset. so far for the past two weeks ive been told that the last persons i should be right now is me. this personalilty isnt working
for the right now. feedback-what other reaction can i feel for someone who tells me NOT to be me? disgust---not at myself, but for a collection of people
who just need to get a clue.
i seriously dont think that african americans have it bad here, not a all. but because im a teacher, people need to respect me right? ok tell every woman that
they probably need to dress conservatively for the respect of other teachers and students: cool. But pull my black ass out of the crowd and tell me im am black (like
i dont know that) and that i should have already been dressed to the nines in traditional clothes and have my hair permed and pressed ....wtf
i thought i wasnt gonna get the painful stares as the other volunteers, but damn, im getting the wrong kind of attention.
good news,i just downloaded GoT  from a classmate and my life is not complete! (jai besoin encore des romans excitants!)
july 22
arafat....
sayid...
wow my mom can sure yell the names of her sons all day
im sure everyone in this culture feels differently, but i feel like the youngest in the family does everything, maybe they are used to it, maybe my childhood was alittle bit the same, i always did things, maybe twice moreover, but the youngest one does EVERYTHING. maybe i feel a little inaddequte bc no one really taught me to do all those things that are necessary for growing up.
yorouba-honestly i didnt come here to discover my roots and be integrated as a real african. somehow though i do think about my origins while here, i also think about grenoble and how much happier i would be if i lived in someplace like that. i think people are surprised that i hold i general interest-as i do in all cultures- about yorouba culture. anyway some new words i learned:
ecarro-good morning
ecasan-good afternoon
ecala?-good night
all of these spellings are probably incorrect and im probably making my ancestors dissapointed right now.
somehow surprisly ive managed to live off the 70 dollars ive exchanged since i got here.