Two weeks and first experiences
Trip Start
Feb 11, 2007
1
9
25
Trip End
Dec 18, 2007
Parakou,
Benin
Monday, February 26, 2007
Today I have been in Benin two weeks. It feels at once as if I have been here forever and as if I just arrived. I have been here long enough to be thoroughly sick of lizards and completely unconcerned about blackouts. I haven't been here near long enough to be comfortable fending for myself in the markets and I haven't been here long enough how to get on a zemidjan (moto-taxi) in a skirt and look elegant all at the same time.
Which reminds me, I haven't written about our (mine and Claire's) first zemidjan experience. Zemi are quite literally everywhere here: on the highway up from Cotonou in the middle of nowhere ages away from the nearest village; on every corner; in every shop. I remember the night of Jo and Evan's wedding, we were heading home and the car broke down on Hoddle Street at around midnight and we waited forever for a cab
Bob and Marcia
. You would never have that experience here. Last week, while the Sims were away in Cotonou, Stacey proposed to take us to lunch at one of her favourite places. So she rocked up to collect us as we finished work at 12.30. We walked out the gate, stuck our hands in the air and had three zemidjan at our feet in under 20 seconds. It may be that this kind of experience is unique to 'les blancs' because zemi drivers think they can make lots of money out of us, but with so many around I can't imagine even the stingiest looking national would have trouble finding a ride. Stacey, who's French and understanding of the place we were going was significantly better than ours, negotiated the price with the drivers - they wanted 200 CFA, she laughed at them, saying we may be 'les blancs' but we're not stupid and it's a trip that normally costs 100 CFA. I accepted this as perfectly sensible, Stacey's a Peace Corps Volunteer and they're not allowed to drive cars or motos so zemi is the only way she can get anywhere, so she has a fairly good grip on the going rate. I did realise latter that 100 CFA is about 26 cents, and though praps I could have stretched the budget to a 50 cent zemi ride, but the going rate is the going rate and apparently one should never mess with that. The trip was a little on the hairy side. I had made the mistake of wearing my nig green skirt, which is beautiful and fantastically comfortable, but completely ill-suited to zemi riding because it is incredibly difficult to keep all that fabric under you and not in the zemi's wheel
Jeong Mi Han
. There were a fairly large number of women along the way who made their concern for my skirt very well known by yelling it from their spots on the sides of the roads (although, it's possible they were expressing concern for the zemi, they were yelling in Bariba mostly so they could have been telling the zemi driver he was really good looking for all I know). We made it most of the way, but the last 100 meters or so was unpaved and a little lumpy, so Stacey decided we'd ditch the zemis there and walk the last little bit. Altogether, it could have been a worse first time. After I got off the driver did tell Stacey and anyone else within ear shot I 'had far to much fear', I thought I'd done a rather good job of not clutching on to him white-knuckled the whole way, but the people here are completely fearless about zemi's - I regularly see women riding on them with their babies casual slung on their backs, with very little between them and bouncing on the pavement - so in comparison I may as well have screamed the whole way. Our first meal out was at a restaurant called mono (which is the name American's give to glandular fever and just that little bit off-putting), but it was nice enough. Like everything here it was made entirely of cement. All the food was cooking in big dishes out the front and you had a look and picked the one for you. A scoop of rice (50CFA a scoop - that's about 7 cents!) and a scoop of something very like baked beans, is the base for everyone, then there's the potato salad, I got some of that (okay, the word salad is a bit misleading for all you people freaking out about me catching horrible diseases from veggies washed in unsanitary water - yes, mum, that means you - it's all cooked and resembles a lot more closely the baked veggies I sprinkle on top of my spring-veg risotto
The whole team in 2005
. Then you move on to the meat portion, the lady explained in French what the first 4 of the six options were and all of them sounded suspiciously like they used to swim (not just a problem because of my fish phobia, but we're a really long way from anywhere you'd get fish and refrigerator-trucks are not the kind of technology that's made it to Benin yet - we have enough trouble keeping the lights on and the phones connected), the next meat dish was described in French and I didn't understand, I sought clarification from Stacey, her response was, "aahh, skin, yes skin", already repulsed I asked what exactly it was the skin of, my question was repeated to the lady behind the counter, who's response is best translated as, "a bit of this, a bit of that" - NO THANKYOU! By that stage my stomach was turning over a little too much to deal with a discussion of exactly what Fulani cheese is (let me tell you this, it doesn't look like any cheese I've ever seen), so I stuck with my vegetarian option. All up, less than 200 CFA - 60 cents. And it was all good, and the beans were actually nicer than baked beans, which have never featured in my shopping list 'cause I think they're icky.The zemi trip back was a lot less eventful (and I wasn't yelled at once!), probably because I had a lot more luck tucking my skirt in. I did, however flash my knee a few times during the ride, which in Benin is the equivalent of some of the things Paris Hilton does which generally end up in the back of Who Weekly in the section called 'The Marker of Shame'. But none they less, we got back unscathed and paid about 60 cents round-trip for a trip that'd cost about 20 dollars back home.
That actually wasn't our first 'African' meal though (the Sims and most other missionary families cook quite western food and Aussies in particular don't find it difficult finding substitutes to cook a lot of what they're used to back home). On Wednesday, we were invited to lunch at the Stahl's on the north compound. When we arrived we discovered that Mrs. Stahl (Miriam) has a lady come in twice a week to make 'inyum pillé' (that's a phonetic transcription) which are yams which are boiled to within an inch of their lives, then taken outside to what is essentially a giant mortar and pestle and 'pounded'. They result was something like a really stretchy scone dough, but without the nice butteriness. It was served up on our plates with the choice of three sauces. One which looks so suspiciously like very green snot that only the little boys were interested in eating it, one that was very spicy and sauce arachides (peanuts), which is the national solution to anything, kind of like the Aussie propensity to put tomato sauce on anything and everything. It wasn't horrible, the texture was a little off-putting but I finished it. I'm pretty sure I won't be paying a lady to come make it for me twice a week though.
In other news, Bob and I have finally started getting work under way properly. My first task has been to work with him to overhaul the Area Manual, which means I now have a really good grip on what I am and am not aloud to do. When Bob first talked about it, he thought I might be a bit worried by starting out with such an 'enormous task', I proceeded to tell him the story of how we got qualified for AS4801 at Integrated: the new intranet, the two lever-arch files chock-full of new procedures, the document control protocols. All of a sudden he doesn't think it's such a huge job. So far, we're doing alright. I'm starting to get the impression that having a PA come is something he really likes the idea of but really doesn't know how to deal with in reality. We're getting there though. For me, it's a fairly incredible change from the demands of the corporate world back home, so I'm learning not to be stressed about not having so much to do that I want to pull my hair out. You'd think it'd be a nice feeling, but so far it's just weird.
Did I write in my last post that I will be moving to the north compound? I can't remember what's in emails and what's on the travelpod and at the moment I can't get internet access so I'm just punching this into a word document (we've had a black-out all afternoon so the generator has gone on here, but the ISP doesn't seem to have a generator). Well, anyway, when we arrived Neil and Lisa presented us with a bunch of options we had for where we'd live and how we'd organise ourselves. Two options involved staying here on the South compound where the Sims and the office are. One of them was quite nice and I though perhaps I'd take it up. A week later, when I first sat down with Bob he informed me he'd made an executive decision that I would move to one of the empty places on the North compound (which happens to be where he and his wife live). I wasn't particularly impressed with the situation at the time. But now that I've seen the place and I've got over my indignation at other people making decisions for me and I've got tired of sharing a room and not having my own space. It does mean working and living at pretty close quarters with Bob and either travelling with him, on his timetable, or getting really well acquainted with zemidjans. But I would kind of like my own space and it's a pretty nice place and nice as the Sims are, I can imagine having under 12s everywhere I turn is going to get old in a hurry too. So, maybe this weekend or next week, I move the 6 kms to the other side of town and set up shop in the compound with Bob and his wife, the Stahls and their inyum pillé and another German couple, the Kropfs. Mr. Kropf was the director a few years ago, so maybe he'll have some hints I can make use of, you never know.
Well, now that I've exhausted your eyes and my finger, I'll sign off. Hope you all had a wonderful time on Church camp (those of you who were there) and that all is going well with you.
Sarah.
