Technical Visit and such
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2008
1
7
17
Trip End
Sep 04, 2010
Porto-Novo,
Benin
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
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 adults, (mix of male and female) to teach, and I realise that
for my previous experience of teaching kids I have to suppress my instinct to
control the classroom, and be more a facilitator of discussion between the
adults as opposed to lecturing at them.
Beninese adult education is a world away from the quiet teenagers of
ZhenZe WuJiang Middle School.
We
teach our next TDA class tomorrow in fact, and everyone is looking forward to
it. We're teaching accounting for
illiterates which means drawing lots of boxes, lots of different colours and
shapes. To find a practice audience
we're going out of Porto Novo to a small village with some illiterate women's
groups. We also get french-Guun (local language)
translators, which will be an interesting twist.
A
big part of last week was the 'technical visit' where I shipped out with K
to go spend a couple of days at post shadowing another volunteer. We went and saw E who's up in a
medium-sized town called Ketou, 2 hours by bush taxi from Porto Novo. E is notorious within the PC for being the
tallest AT 6'7''. With K being a few
inches shorter than I am, we made quite the sight trundling about the town for
a few days. The drive up was fairly
eventful, with various types of car trouble, and a combination of paved and
dirt roads. The most exciting thing was that we passed by
Pobe, so I had my face pressed against the window trying to see as much of it
as I could as we passed through it rapidly.
Warning: there might not be a cyber, so internet is looking more limited
at the moment.
As an insight into the life of a volunteer -
it seems INCREDIBLY relaxed. We arrived
on wednesday, and it was a shame because E had taught formations on Monday
and Tuesday, so we had no more
planned. We did meet a few of his
colleagues/counterparts, and it was a fete weekend (Benin's independence day
was on the friday) so there was nothing resembling 'normal' working hours. We did a lot of walking, and a LOT of
reading. After having been there a year
E has read over 100 books. I myself,
after having some very poor luck losing my various copies, finally managed to
conquer Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' in the short
time we were there - which I absolutely adored! (So with that done, and
'Ryanland', I made a start on 'Blackberry Winter' Mom, finally!). As soon as I got back, I started a list of
all the books I've read so far so I'll be able to keep track. (I can imagine Mom thinking at this moment:
'what if we had a bet as to how many books she will read during her time in the
PC ...;). While in Ketou we also met the
King of that particular kingdom, which involved bowing, and signing his guest
book. He has an interesting role as a
local figure and has significant weight that he can add to local disputes - so
his role is very much like that of a local judge. There wasn't much going on in Ketou for
independance day, which was a bit of a dissapointmentt. Also spent some time with E's post-mate,
R, who is TEFL and finishing his service in the next couple of months. He's a great cook, and he baked us very
chocately brownies, and we exchanged recipes (snickerdoodles in Benin,
anyone?). I certainly know how I'm going
to be spending my spare time. Again, it
was nice too relax with the four of us sitting in R's house with 2 fans
going, munching brownies, watching Scrubs and playing Scrabble. After a few days of that though, and minus a
few days of french tuition, it was nice to get back and speak more french.
This
week we got our new classes, which has meant for me, going from a class of 5 to
just the 2 of us - which means it's a lot more intense and I have to be on the
ball without any respite. Also we
switched away from Lucien, who spoke clearly and with so much patience, to
Andre - who is harder to understand. But
I'm sure if I can learn to understand him well over the next few weeks, that'll be an accomplishment all on it's
own. I'm definately getting better, but
it's still with hearing the french and distinguishing the different words that I have a lot of issue with.
The
host family is good. I properly carved
up my first pineapple today, which is something like a small accomplishment for
me. I also taught the 10 year old son
the paper origami game involving choosing different colours and numbers, and
having to do different forfeits (an opportunity for me to practice writing with
the imperative in french - I never miss an opportunity!). Was a definite hit.
