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!