Hotel Beaurivage Porto-Novo

... the wat**. We organised for 2 boats to take us th**e and it was a real insight into how they lived in bamboo huts on stilts just 2m above the wat**. Our guide was called Issac and the boatman was called Alexand**.



Aft**wards we had the long journey to Abomey, which was long due to the condition of the road. We w**e staying at



Dist. cov. = 189 km



25th - Had a half day tour of Abomey on the back of a motorbike or ...

... that tomorrow morning if all goes as planned. I met also with three other ladies who have asked to be baptized. They are just beginning to study the subject, so it will take a little more time for them. One of the complications is that two of the three can't read, even in their own language, and they also need a translation from French into their language. That makes communication more difficult and it ...

... way to be helpful. She may have been involved in something very pleasant that followed. I was able to go to the Air France lounge long enough to get a quick snack before embarking. Then, as we boarded the plane, my boarding pass wouldn't clear the scanner properly. I started hoping; I'd seen that happen before. The agent tried several things, and checked the computer, but it still wouldn't clear. I hoped a little more. Finally he found out ...

... money. Same money he needs to provide for his family. But he just wouldn't let me go and once more I was blown away by this African tend**ness. On the Benin side, a quick introduction about my travel method immediately gath**ed me some sympathy, the immigration offic** rushed to get me a nice, not too expensive transit visa which I wouldn't be able to afford if I had decided to pay the 50 cedis at the Ghanaian bord**. Walked for about an hour, but the scorching ...

... de victoire qui étaient poussé à chaque fois qu'un '' arrêt se faisait''. Dans la salle, une dame crie au scandale elle vient d'apercevoir un jeune homme soutirer un porte-monnaie de la poche d'un voyageur, justement occupé à récupérer ses bagages. L'attention reste portée sur le tapis roulant mais le voleur n'a pas le temps de s'enfuir pour autant. Il est rattrapé par la police, cravaté pour ne pas dire. Élégamment vêtu, il dit être ...

So this is my first official message as a qualified 'Peace Corps Volunteer' (PCV), so this is an acronym change for me from PCT to PCV (so only a slight change to the top line of my address. This is also my first message from post. By coincidence, because there's no internet in Pobe, I've got to make the hour journey down to Porto Novo anyway to use the internet at Songhai. ('Project Songhai', as it's officially known, is an interesting little place in ...

This is probably going to be one of my last posts during 'stage' as it is now very possible to see the end of PSL and the swearing-in ceremony. Since post-visit the last week just flew by with lots of language classes and two TDAs (Training Directed Activities) where we had two afternoons of teaching some local artisans of Porto Novo accounting and marketing. All this needed to be taught in French and was a bit of a struggle to get ...

Into week 8, the final full week of stage and just came back from tech visit in Pobe, which was v**y eventful with lots happening. The week began with monday and tuesday being the 'Homologues' conf**ence (homologue is PC Benin t**m for Beninese count**part- techincally who I'm working with). This meant regular language classes in the morning, but both aft**noons we w**e shepharded (a lot of 'shepharding' of PC Trainees happens during stage - we've ...

At the moment we're at the beginning of week 6 - which will no doubt rush by, then next week is 'post-visit, and the next week after that will be 'test-week', all building up to the language interview at the end of that week, and then before you know it we're in the final week and the swearing-in ceremony, the 40th anniversary in Cotonou and leaving for post. We're also given a few days to do some shopping with our settling in allowance so ...

Since I last wrote a lot has gone on. We (I was teamed up with K) taught our first TDA class to a group of artisans, we taught them the benefits of saving and how to construct a basic personal finance portfolio. It went surprisingly well, there weren't too many moments where we were staring blankly at each other. Language wise, I got by and have been picking up more of the technical language for business skills. We had a group of about 10 ...