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.

probably a goat

october 24,2014
as the school year rolls in i probably get more and more neurotic.
heavily influenced by the lack of sleep and poor organizational skills, i have come to the conclusion that this is not the life for me. simply meaning, can i settle down in a place for long? during the last five years, ive taken comfort that i can fall in love with places ive been to once and making friends easily ( and leaving them too). Everything happens so rapidly while your traveling. my mood was more happy and constant instead mercurial. Why correlate happiness with a location? its not as simple as that. its become habitual of me to love something so quickly when i know i wont experience it for long. every location that i travelled to had a short time line on it and stamped even a great mark upon my heart. while here, two years seems forever when you have general feelings about the place and the people. in conclusion, if i contribute this experience to another spot on my resume im sure i will go crazy by next term.

goumori in the time of cholera

oct. 15 2014

I dont think life has even been this right. somehow i have managed to find comfort in the middle of nowhere. that feeling when you put  the perfect amount of milk in your cereal leaving no white lakes in your bowl after you ate your last bite. that feeling when you forget your grocery list at home while at the supermarket but manage to buy everything that you needed to buy. things are not perfect, but things just happen to work out alright, all i needed was a little time.
update: unfortunately, i have not received a kitten yet, but i will do everything in my power to get one. (that just requires an extra trip to kandi this weekend).
after my brief bout of cholera, its decided that i didnt really have it. but i will not rule it out anyway. I went sound to sleep last night after chasing a bat throughout my house, great exercise.

goumori life

septmeber 26 , 2014
its only 3 pm and i have already sweat out all of the water (bisap) i had today. i am also disscussing with a fly on whether or not he (or she) should get the fuck out.

dispite the disturbance, i still want to get on with my life and practice guitar. I am also waiting for the person who change the key on my door which has consequently, left me front door less and exposed to the world. its too hot to do anything today, even the locals said so, so how the hell is someone from not this climate supposed to do stuff within the hottest hours of the day????
just the other sunday i was  lying on the beach with my friends saying 'wow, ive made it. we made on an african beach. this is the life'. is this the life? in dunno. those days when you spend the morning doing lao tsu meditation with beninese people, get taken to this awesome vegetarian restuarant, et enfin go to the beach are days that you are glad to spend two years in benin.
pc benin is interfering with my goals in life: not to be under direct sunlight. 

july 27, 2014

july 27th
this week will probably be one of last weeks ill have internet (at least for two weeks).
Also tomorrow is the fete de ramadan and my birthday~~~!!!!
so after classes:(( ill head straight home and idk there will probably be a while bunch of people around my house bc it probably seems like the center of all muslim festivities in my town. Ill probly wake up to more "allah" songs/prayers.
On saturday after class i went with another classmate to go to a birthday party of another sector. It seemed to me a good chance to get out of the big ol' city, porto-novo, and see what its like outside big cities. despite the unnecessary hour long ride, i really like the village life, a lot quieter than PN. It also gave me another chance to hang out with other sectors too which i really was looking forward to. by the time we got there, the party was winding down but still i decided to dance into the few hours i was there and danced with one of the trainees little sister and she seemed to take a liking to me. on the way back home we made a couple of stops to another volunteers house which was big and huge and i was abit jealous even. As we made our way through the little pathways to the big road where all the zems are found, my new 'sister' (which i seem to make one everyday) stopped by her moms shop to talk and chat and introducing us to the happiest little baby ive ever seen. most babies here run away from me (idk exactly why), but this one just made my long day worth it with her smile:))

september 21 entry

September 21, 2014
The traffic jam is benin extends our already 12 hour car ride by three short hours.  But no complaints can be heard here. Luckily, we were  not on any benin-owned buses, luckily, the illness i was/am suffering through did not occur in the car, luckily i have made some pretty good friends to shorten our 15 hour ride.
It seems that training is over and my real and new life begins. Since I like lists, the following are goals for the next few months:
(not in any order)
1. Start studying (GRE, korean, french,bariba, poole)
2. more guitar time (I have more time to myself to practice)
3. English Club
4. Choir Club??
5. Secondary Projects: Primary school English time, environmental education workshops,....
6. Decorate my House!
7. Self-directed capoeira trainings

the little things

Im sitting on the communal computer room in the north of benin at my regional workstation. I can hear a melange of the call to prayer from several different mosques nearby. Low chants chime in the background , guttural , rhythmic,  some of the fast , some slow.

after a successful stroll the day before through the market of kandi, I feel more comfortable with being in my village. The north is nothing like the south. No one is questioning if you are american here in the north, for some reason its automatically assumed.

i have been spending an unreasonable amount of time thinking about grenoble. not particularly about the experiences but the ones i would have if I moved there after benin. this is also the same for vienna if I lived there. It is probably due to the fact that I am studying for the GRE. once i start teaching, maybe my mind will finally catch up to the present.

      photo of a few other volunteers in my region and our homologues. hilarity ensues with a bit of delusion from a 2-day voyage,

one thing: not to bring this up again as the main theme in my blogs, but its come up again in my life and i have to take note of its frequency. after over hearing a conversation about how cool or uncool each of the colored volunteers are AND repeatedly being asked about  (like, how is _____?) another black volunteer (whom i have never talked to before). i have come to conclude that i dont actually like some volunteers. It's sad, because some of these people are in my region and it looks like i have to deal with them for two years.

anyway, i'll be writing more posts once i get installed into village.

training is over

after a great end of training party, i head to the cyber cafe for the last time.
my feet hurts of all night intense sessions with my coping mechanism: dancing.
ive been negative lately, not listing five things i like about my life right now:
1. getting to spend an entire day recovering and doing what I want.
2. realizing i have a whole new team of supporters behind me.
3. I got to be more familiar with cotonou/benin
4. planning sweet reunions with other volunteers.
5.getting to talk to my friends back home:))

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.

pre-departure thoughts/why i wanted to spend a year teaching english to hone my skills

i am not nervous
dont get me wrong, being a peace corps volunteer can be the hardest experience anyone can have
BUT it can also be the greatest experience
i still remember the feeling like it was yesterday- 4 years ago the day before getting on the plane, i wasnt  sleeping well for the whole week bc my heart seemed to burst out of my chest beating erratically at every thought that i would be living my dream in a few short hours:))
i cant imagine feeling that way now
i am not nervous bc nothing can surprise me
i spent a total of 32 mins researching czech repubic and slovakia before-other than boring history that wouldnt help me out on the streets, i had nothing to prepare myself for my unexpected 7-month stay.
i knew nothing about the culture and next to nothing about teaching
no matter how much english grammar you know-teaching involves almost none of that stuff
i am not nervous because knowing NOTHING is okay!!
i spent seven months learning that there IS no one way to teach good. i mean, well
after my experience in slovakia, i got comfortable with trial and error, criticisms (harsh), and screaming KIDS -who spoke in a language i dont understand-
so now i am the calmest person you will ever meet- it saves me time on adjustment and collecting myself so that i can focus on the important things- education
here is one my protegees i miss so dearly

Pre departure Qoute for Benin

“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat”

—

M.A.

DONE (finalement!)

officially done with medical preparations for peacecorps. Ive been through bratislava and vienna and back trying to get this done. Ive gone pretty close to insanity living on a mixure of anticipation and anxiety. Now, I can hardly control myself! I did it! Thanks so the slovak doctors who speak english and my host mom for putting up with me for 2 nighmarish months.
ive almost put everything on hold bc of my busy schedule of waking up every morning to find a hospital, get lost, and be back in time for teaching english at noon.
i should spend this last days to ranger mes affaires but im spending my idle time basking in my freedom (to move) cuz i know i wont be able to suddenly have a urge to go somewhere in atlanta and follow through with that action as well.
comparing to my other experiences living outside the US, slovak life seems either on a lower level or a another level all together. For my study abroad experience, it was pretty easy to meet friends and even natives. when you live in a place like this, slovakia, there are plenty of young people willing to meet, its just WHERE and HOW? it is a challenge everyone has to face, but me being spoiled by my korean and french adventures wasnt any help. living here has increased my love for those places and rather put me off for living in a new country where i have no friends and its hard to find any. I admit, i am spoiled but not rotten, ive honestly tried my best:))
contrary to my previous statement, i have met a few people who i can call dear. my 3 months here (part 1) ive met more kindred friends than 2nd time around..and they all left. I can tell why people leave, the people who are left here seems stuck on some type of complacent comformity. i lack the vocab for this kind of experience.
Last 5 days in BRA will be EPIC!

the best people are

People who are my spirit animals:Colbert, fotc, bo burham, ben from p&r, martin freeman