More zems, pede and sonarisation
Trip Start
Feb 11, 2007
1
15
25
Trip End
Dec 18, 2007
Parakou,
Benin
Monday, May 28, 2007
Okay, so this afternoon I wander out of my house around 4 carrying a bag full of blueberry muffins (thanks for sending the packet mix, mum), my sunnies, some cash and my ever-present casque (helmet). I walk two or three hundred meters from my house to the goudron (highway). On the way, everyone I pass who is under the age of 12 at least yells 'Bature, bature' and many sing a song that features three or four different local words for 'whitie' and a bunch of French greetings. Everyone over the age of twelve 'bonne arrivée's me
01 Pede
. By the time I reach the goudron, I have also passed an impromptu rubbish dump, been hugged around the knees by a funny, sweaty, little three year old who calls me his wife and been honked at by at least 6 heavily pregnant goats (I'm serious, they make a kinda honking noise). I stand at the big intersection between my little dirt road and the paved goudron, greet the ladies smashing yams in what is essentially a giant mortar and pestle and have a quick conversation with the lady who sells me my baguettes. When I see one of the 10,000 men who drive around town on a moto wearing a green and yellow shirt, I hiss for all I'm worth; like some kind of deranged rattle snake with an LSD habit. He takes this as the 'oi, you' noise that it is hear in Benin; he would have also accepted the smoochy mouth noise we associate with 'give'us a kiss, love', but I'm not quite that weird... yet. I tell him where I'm going and ask how much. In this case he gives me the right price straight off; something like 50 aussie cents. Normally at this point we would be adding a 5 minute haggling session in which I display my fantastic understanding of fuel price fluctuations in Benin and explain a couple of hundred times that I live here and I know the 'vrai prix', so it's really not worth treating me like a tourist (not that we ever really get any of those in Parakou, but the zems still hold out hope). Me and my skirt, which is a big bit of brightly coloured fabric held on only by a tricky twisting and tucking maneuver (which wasn't working very well for me today for some reason) leap on the back of the moto and toodle off to the other side of town thinking, for the 60th time today how stupid sheep are. I mean, if something large and mettle was hurtling toward you at speed with two people on the back and honking, wouldn't you think it might be time to wander out of the way? I tell this story because it struck me today, maybe for the first time since that first, disastrous zemi ride that involve 2nd degree burns, that it all is really rather absurd
02 Pastor Daniel Gassary
. Kinda like if you say the word pyjamas or fridge enough times it'll eventually end up sounding like the most bizarre word you ever heard. But I did it 6 times today and 5 times on Friday like it is the single most sensible thing in the world to do. I mean, it's a whole lot more sensible than walking 12kms to the south station in 30-35 degree heat, or never leaving my house unless someone else from the station is going out in their car - but standing on the side of the road hissing for all I'm worth at a stranger on a motorcycle... the world really is a strange and wonderful place. I remember a time when a trip on a zem involved a lot of praying and shaking and generally being so terrified my French left me completely. Today I did it like someone back home would wander into a station and run their metcard through the little validator thing; like it was the most normal thing in the world. We're not in Kansas any more, Toto. Anyway, so it's been maybe three weeks since I wrote. Three pretty busy weeks, actually. In the office, Neil has me translating, editing and collating all his quarterly project reports. English to French, thankfully, because I'd be nowhere if I were doing it the other way round. It's an interesting and often frustrating task, although it has done great things for my French. Mostly the frustration comes from the fact that the project report could be coming from the translation consultant we work with, who has a master's degree and better French than anyone else in all of Benin or it could be coming from a rural pastor who may have had a couple of years of high school and who did his Bible college Bariba or Ditammari and who's French is only a small notch up from mine, and who's grip on spelling is more creative that my small mind and fat dictionary are equipped to handle. I've learnt a bunch of words and expressions I wouldn't have learnt anywhere else, though; like follow-up and about 12 different French words for 'broadcast' (we do a lot of radio work here in Benin)
Little boy blue shirt
. In other news:
Three weekends ago, now, I roused myself out of bed at 5.30 and jumped in a car full of elderly people and drove out to a little town called Pede about 3 hours north of here for the dedication of the Monkole New Testament. It was held in the massive, long, tree-lined drive way of Pede's only school. There was singing, some of it was in English, although we only recognized it as English about a half a verse from the end. The advertised start time was 8.00am, the thing got underway at around 10.30 - see Nick, the fact that I never want to start an evening service until 7.15 really isn't that much of a delay when you stand it up next to this. There was a shaded section for 'responsables administratif' and a shaded section for 'responsables ecclesiatique' (we were in there). There was a roped-off section for 'chefs traditional' and a section for the town's mayor and his cronies (don't remember what it was called). When the local 'king' arrived with his entourage (about 13 people all shoved into a shiny pajero) a couple of guys actually prostrated themselves on the ground in front of him in greeting. But the greatest spectacle of the whole thing was the crowd of maybe 300 kids who gathered in a pushing throng behind the 'responsables ecclesiastique' section to check out the weird white people. I took very few photos of the proceedings themselves, but I nearly wore my camera out with pictures of the kids. Some of the mums who were about were clearly very eager that their kids have their photos taken by the white chick and would yell and shove any kid who might wander between their kid and my shot. The Beninois equivalent of a stage mum, I suppose. I put a couple of the photos I took up for you to check out
Little boy red shirt
. The actual ceremony only took about and hour and featured a lot of people talking in languages I don't understand (not French, and not only Monkole either, but Bariba and Dendi and a bunch of others). On the order of service and in person, they referred to the missionary lady who led the translation team and Grandma Pede. They handed out a bunch of Bibles to people in recognition of their contribution to the translation. One of them was Grace's (grandma pede's) house help lady. She was hilarious, at first they couldn't find her because she was out the back preparing lunch for the 500 or so people who were there, then when she came busting through the crowed, she was waving her hands in the air and making the high pitched squealing noise that represents extreme excitement for Beninois women. It was really rather lovely to see how excited she was to have the Bible in her own language. I've been thinking lately, because I've been reading a fair bit of Bible in French for church and at morning devotions/prayer meeting in the office, that if I finally got an English Bible after years of this, I'd probably make the aussie equivalent of the high-pitched squealing noise too, whatever that might be. Unfortunately, the one thing I remember most vividly from the whole trip is the incredible bladder and thirst control involved in not needing to pee for 12 or 13 hours. There, I've officially shattered any delusions you people had of my being lady-like or demure, or polite... those of you who don't already know me, that is, the rest of you will have had those delusions shattered quite some time ago now.
Since that weekend I've also got myself involved in the music ministry in the French/Fon church we go to here in Parakou. I think I wrote last time that I had gone or was going to go one Wednesday morning to help Theophile (Mr
Mango season
. Smiley) install a bunch of new mics Pastor Achede had bought. Well, I did that and now I'm the new sound-guy, or more accurately the 'sonarisatrice'. Last Saturday I rocked up to music practice for the first time. It was fantastic fun. Plus I finally felt like I was actually in church for the first time since I arrived here 3 months(ish) ago. I mean, it was in a funny language and I still don't quite understand what all of the songs were actually saying, but I was hanging out with a bunch of young people who love to spend their time using their voices to praise the Lord. Often on Sunday mornings it looks like they are completely unengaged and unjoyful, but at music practice on a Saturday afternoon they're free and they're dancing and their full of joy. It was great, even if the new white chick sitting on the stage (the 'sound desk' ie. trolley stacked with PA equipment, is right there in amongst the singers, not half way down the church like at home because that'd require buying really long leads - not in the budget) did attract some fairly shocked stares from a whole lot of the kids, and not a few of the adults. Last night was even more fun. Our church combined with the UEEB church in Dokparou (near my house here on the north side of town) to put on a 'grand concert' at the church in Gah. Now, the afternoon was one big, hot, sweaty nighmare because doing sound in an enourmous room made entirely of concrete and corrugated iron is really not the easy (acoustically) at the best of times, but it's even harder when you bring in even bigger speakers than usual. Luckily, it wasn't just me and Theophile, one of the guys who works on the radio ministry was there too. A lot of the white's didn't think the sound was all that great. Particularly the older ones, most of whom commented that it wasn't quite as loud as last year at the university, but they still wished they all wore hearing aids they could take out or turn down (see, some things never change, no matter where you are). But it seems the Beninois ear is different to ours and the loudness and the overly treble screachiness of the girl's voices was exactly how they like it and I, at least, adjusted fairly well to it eventually.
For me, the actual event was fantastically good fun. Theophile was actually sitting at the controls (down in front of the stage with his back to the audience while Mr. Radio and I sat in the front pew with the kid's of the choir girls giving opinions and pointers like awesome back seat drivers. By the second half of it everyone was dancing and clapping and having an awesome time. Dancing here is something somewhere between a crouched-down chicken dance and a shuffling conga line and apparently I'm pretty good at it - although I'm not sure that speaks very well of my dancing abilities. One of the girls I'm friends with, who cleans for the couple who live next door to me, actually, was sitting a couple of pews behind me. She did a very good impression of Lauren, tall and skinny and pretty and absolutely determined to get me to join in the dancing at the front. I was my usual self (only so much can change in three months, people) and refused to dance up the front, even when she roped in one of her very strong male friends who actually physically lifted me from my seat. I was quite comfortable dancing in my little corner, which was not all that far from the front and was attracting enough stares as it was, thank you very much. Maybe one day at a wedding, outside, where there aren't big lights shining down to illuminate my dorky white dancing.... maybe. Anyway, it was awesome fun and I even managed to drag myself out the front door at quarter past seven to go back to do sound this morning - I won't know what to do with myself when I get home and music practice doesn't start till 9 and I can drive there instead of going through the zemi-getting saga I wrote about before.
Anyway, the long and the short of that story is that I'm starting to feel more settled at church, and more like I'm actually in church. Plus, I'm really starting to make some friends there, which is great. I wanted to get a picture of Theophile's crazy smile for you all, but he was being serious last night and, like all the rest of us it seems, he has a cold. Rainy season is pretty much upon us now and despite the fact that the average temperature has gone from 35 degrees to a chilly 30, everyone has a cold like it's the start of July back home and the temperature hasn't manage to struggle above 13 degrees for a couple of weeks. Plus, the zemi drivers are starting to wear ski jackets because it's so freezing in the evenings. I have one jumper here. I didn't even bring it, Stacey passed it on to me and some days I seriously consider giving it to a zemi driver because the temperature hasn't come anywhere close a place where you might consider turning on the hot tap in the morning, so I'm thinking we're not likely to be seeing any jumper weather. The only thing that stops me is the knowledge that when I get into Paris in the middle of December for my three weeks in Europe with mum, I'll feel like I'm going to die of frost bight from the moment they open the plane doors.
I think that's it for today. Happy mother's day, I suppose.
Sarah.
P.S. My apologies to those of you who read French or would like to be able to work out how to pronounce some of the local words, but I'm writing this on my laptop, not my desktop, and adding all the accents is an enormous pain in the butt, so I just didn't bother with them. Apparently I have no fear of commas or over-long sentences though, go figure.
