Conversation I had with my seamstress last night:

“Good evening!”
“Good evening!”
“I was wondering if you could make me a skirt and top out of this.”
“Sure. What do you want?”
Our Heroine gestures. “I want shoulders like this.” She points. “I want a skirt like hers.”
“Okay, let’s take your measurements.” She pulls out a book where my measurements are already listed.
“Aren’t those my measurements?”
“Those are for a boomba [traditional Beninese costume].”
“Oh.”
The seamstress measures my chest. She leans over and looks at my previous measurements, puzzled. Then she measures my waist. Yep. Still puzzled. “Have you been eating?”
“Uh, yes.”
She narrows her eyes. “You haven’t been eating right. You’ve gotten much smaller!”
“Well yeah, a little”
“What do you eat every day?”
“Well, it depends. Salad. Sandwiches. Spaghetti. Whatever I feel like.”
“You need to eat more pate [traditional carb filled and nutritionally empty Beninese fare]. You are clearly not taking care of yourself in this country.”
“Oh, it’s the heat, and I’ve been sick. I eat a lot!”
“Not enough! The next time you come for a new dress, you’d better be fatter.”
“Uh, okay.”

I fuckin’ love this country.

Thanksgiving was amazing. Of course it was amazing. It was organized from some pretty incredible volunteers up North who worked their asses off to cook, clean, prepare, and generally throw a great party. Those kids are pretty incredible.

You all were expecting crazy-ass stories of drunken debauchery, weren’t you? Hah. My mother reads this blog, you know. ;)

Franklin: Meow! (Wakeupwakeupwakeup!)
Theresa: Shut the hell up, you stupid fucking cat!
Franklin: Meow! (No you shut up! Wake up and play with me! Play! Play!)
Theresa: *pushes cat off bed*
Franklin: *thinks it’s a game, jumps back on bed, bites Theresa’s nose* Meow! (This is fun!)
Theresa: *throws cat off bed* I’m fucking going to drown you.
Franklin: Meow! (Is that a new fun game?) *bites Theresa’s toes*
Theresa: Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck. *rolls out of bed* I’m going to shower.
Franklin: Meow! (Okay, but after that, can we plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?)
Theresa: AARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

Every day. Every single fucking day. I don’t need an alarm clock. I have a stupid fucking kitten who doesn’t understand that when Maman is an idiot and stays up too late chatting with a friend, she needs a little bit more sleep the next morning. That on top of the weird and scary dreams I’ve been having lately all adds up to one cranky Theresa.

Go ahead. Push one of my buttons this morning. I fucking DARE you.

I love how volunteers come to visit me and complain about the city. They’ve got these wonderful posts where everyone is nice, you can bike everywhere, and integration is more-or-less easy. Then they come to big bad Cotonou and complain that the zemis suck, that the pollution makes them ill, that it’s expensive, and that the people just aren’t as friendly, all without thinking about the fact that Cotonou’s my post.

I fucking love this place. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not all that comfortable with my role as a city volunteer, and may never be, but this town is home.

Guess what? The only time I get ripped off by zemis is when I’m with other white people. Large groups? We’re screwed. But worse, when other volunteers insist on negotiating, instead of letting me do it for all of us. Nope, you’re not going to get a good price, because it’s obvious you don’t know the city, and it’s obvious you’re not familiar with the rules of negotiation (always flirt, always smile, don’t be an asshole until they are).

I know this city’s expensive. Hell, I burn money like no other volunteer in this country! Nevertheless, I’m not broke. Don’t come here for three days and complain about how much money you’re spending. You don’t have to go to all the western restaurants. Beans and gari is 100F. Pate with meat sauce is 350F max. Try having to zemi from my apartment on the edge of town to the center to do Peace Corps business. That’s expensive, and it’s not an avoidable cost.

And the people aren’t friendly? WTF? Maybe you’re not being friendly to them. I know that all of my regular vendors go above and beyond for me. I’ll spend money there whether or not they try and teach me the local language, but they take time out of their day to do it anyway. They know that I don’t really care if my beignet came fresh out of the oil or if it’s been sitting there for 15 minutes, but they ask me to wait for the new batch that’s coming and give it to me piping hot anyway. My neighbors look out for me when sketchy men stop by, and the whole neighbourhood was on the lookout for a missing friend the other night. They’re pretty darn friendly in this town, when you take the time to be friendly yourself.

Yeah, there are more aggressive obnoxious men here than anywhere else in the country, but hey, welcome to the city. There are men like that in DC too. Yeah, the air pollution’s rough, but I have some of the cleanest water in country, so I’d say it balances. Yeah, the humidity here is worse than anywhere else in the country, but guess what? I’ve lost almost 20 pounds because of it. Yeah, Cotonou can be a big intimidating place, but you know what? It’s fucking home.

I’m starting to feel fair to middlin’ well integrated, which is pretty damn exciting. It’s nice to stop and chat with the beans and rice ladies, the beignet ladies, and my vegetable lady, but that’s not quite the same as actually having friends. During Stage, we were warned that it would take months before we started making friends. I shrugged off the advice, realizing it’d be difficult, but thinking that it would be similar to moving to any other big city in the world.

Boy was I wrong.

Turns out, I don’t do too many things where I meet young people. I have my office job, of course, and I spend a significant amount of time on Peace Corps projects, neither of which introduce me to people my age. I have a lot of fantastic professional relationships, but there’s nobody in my life I can just shoot the breeze with. Who do I talk to about pop culture, news, politics (on a limited basis, of course)? What about hopes and frustrations and dreams?

I mean, it’s easy to find people who want to talk to me. The problem is that it’s damn difficult to find people who want to talk to me who don’t want something from me. Money. A visa to the US or France. Plane tickets. Marriage (to them, their brothers, their sons). More money. A job. English lessons (for free, every day, for hours, so that they can ask for money in my own language).

There are tons of people around that aren’t like that, but in my particular line of work, it’s tough to find them. I am meeting people. Slowly. One person introduces me to another who introduces me to another who introduces me to another, and at the end of the long chain, sometimes I find someone I want to hang out with. Even more rarely, I find someone who doesn’t want anything from me but friendship and exposure to another culture, exactly the same thing I want from them.

This weekend was frustrating in a lot of ways, but it was incredibly encouraging to find that after two months at post, I’ve started making real friends. I haven’t been lonely, and it’s not like I haven’t had people to chat with, but it was really good to just hang out for a while with interesting people.

Also, I have furniture. And kitchen supplies. And OMFG a refrigerator. And a bed. This morning, I woke up, rolled out of my BED, walked into the kitchen and got COLD WATER out of the FRIDGE. I poured it into a GLASS, then walked to my TABLE, sat down in a CHAIR, and enjoyed the peaceful morning. Tonight, I will entertain visitors around my COFFEE TABLE, around which they can sit in COMFORTABLE CHAIRS, eat off of PLATES, of which I now have enough for everybody.

Life is so fuckin’ good right now.

More or less busy, these days. It’s hump day, thank goodness. I’m finally catching up on NaNoWriiMo. Only seven thousand words behind (that’s including the words I haven’t yet written today). It’ll be even less after I get some writing done today. Work is keeping me hopping, as it should be.

And because it’s keeping me hopping, less SVO for the next few days. Usually I come in early to type up entries, or do them over lunch, but now I have to come in early to, um, actually work. Damn.

I’m so not a Peace Corps Volunteer. :-p

You might ask yourself, what is Theresa doing in her office at six o’clock on a Sunday evening? The short answer is typing up my novel. The long answer is hiding. That’s right. I’m HIDING. Turns out, Darling Heroine is a coward. [edit]Descretion is the better part of valor! :-D[/edit]

I swear to God, even at my lowest moments in college (yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, Silverman), it was never this ridiculous. I mean, it’s cute and all the first few times, but really. What. The. Fuck. And why does every man here think that he’s going to be the one to change my mind?

“No, I’m not going to get married while I’m here.”
“Two years is an awful long time.”
“I don’t think so. I’m planning on living to be at least eighty. Two years isn’t that long at all. At most, I’ll be 24 when I leave.”
“So you’re saying it’s impossible.”
“Not impossible, just unlikely.”
“And you won’t marry an African.”
“No, I can’t imagine. Well-educated African men who don’t want children, are willing to marry an American but not (and possibly never!) live in the United States, and who aren’t PUSHY OBNOXIOUS BASTARDS are relatively hard to find.” (this is actually not true, there are lots of great men over here; however, they’re not the ones currently knocking down my door)
“But if you found one?”
“Well, I’d probably still say no, because I’m contrary like that.”
“How educated is well-educated?”
“A university degree.”
“I have the BAC!”
“That, my friend, is the rough equivalent of a high school diploma.” (although to be fair, it’s relatively rare, over here.)
“Well, maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t you go out with me sometime?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Racist!!”

ARGH.