So I’m traveling. And I’ve been traveling for a while. And I’ll be traveling for a bit longer.

No, it’s not a metaphor; I’m doing a mini-tourney in the North to get some projects started and to do some research for my work partner, It’s been a blast getting up here again (I haven’t been North of Parakou since tech week during stage), but it’s been a jarring reminder of how different my Peace Corps experience has been from that of most volunteers.

A typical week for me includes at least four days at the office. That’s 36 hours of working, most of which is spent sitting in front of a computer. My “day off” is spent at the Peace Corps office, running errands, and sitting through meetings for my secondary projects. Evenings are spent preparing for formations, cooking, receiving visitors, and working on secondary projects. Weekends are similar. The reality of my Peace Corps experience is upwards of 60 hours a week spent on PC business, and that number is only going to grow once my laptop arrives. Projects practically fall into my lap and it’s a rare day when I don’t have anything to do.

This is not a typical Peace Corps experience.

But how do I describe the difference? Here in the North, traveling, today was productive. I had a meeting with several cotton farmers. I was able to make it to an Internet connection. I worked through some problems regarding training with a fellow PCV. And this afternoon I’ll get some more work done on the classes I’ll be teaching next week. Then I won’t accomplish anything else until Monday afternoon, when my next meeting will be.

During training, they tell us to be happy if we can accomplish one task a day, understanding that it’s hard to track people down, hours can be wasted waiting for meetings, and planning activities in a foreign culture takes time. But in Cotonou, if I were to limit myself to just one thing a day, I’d never get anything done!

The pace of life is radically different once you leave the city, and it’s easy to see how so many volunteers fall into the trap of being content with “good enough.” The reality, however, is that your service is what you make of it, and if you choose to do nothing, well, you’ve taken the place of somebody who maybe would have put more effort into helping your village improve their quality of life. And that sucks.

I dunno. I guess I’m just frustrated with other volunteers who come down to the city and talk about how cushy my post is. I don’t really have a response to that, because how can I turn around and tell someone to their face that the trade-off is, oh, I don’t know, actually having to do real work? Not that other volunteers don’t work. They do! But . . . it’s pretty fucking insulting to have someone who only works 15 hours a week talk about how easy I have it.

The fearsome assault on my iron stomach has finally yielded results. Six months of darn near perfect health, and I have to get sick right before a 9-day trip.

I’ve been sick for three days. I stopped by the Bureau today to give a sample and . . . nothing. NOTHING!!! Nothing would come out! I have been suffering for DAYS. I have a low-grade fever. And motherfucker, my worst symptom disappears the moment I walk into the Med Unit! WTF!!! I am NOT perfectly healthy, people! I am perfectly MISERABLE.

Packages may arrive tomorrow. w00t!

I’m slowly but surely giving up on F/OSS. Yes, that’s right. I’m using *gasp* Outlook. Everyday. I still don’t know how to make it portable, but hey, no big deal, right? I’ll have a laptop soon! Then I won’t need portability. Oh wait, yes I will, because then I’ll have to synch everything on my laptop with my desktop here at work. Welcome to the Posh Corps, I guess.

Anyway. Life’s been pretty busy lately. The president and former president of the English club I advise took me to a woo yesterday. Well, first they took me out to lunch (I fucking LOVE ingame pileée), then we moto’d almost all the way to Porto. The zoo was a jarring illustration of the differences between American and African culture.

The animals were in dirty concrete and steel enclosures. No space to run around and most didn’t have adequate water. One of the lions was in bad enough shape he wouldn’t even move to flick the flies off his nose. Alligators without water. Ostriches with clear skin diseases where their feathers were all falling out.

Yikes.

And my companions didn’t even notice things like that. Lions and tigers and bears oh my, and all that madness. Then again, this is a culture where farm animals are marked with a piece of cloth tied around a leg, then let loose in village, where they’re left to forage on their own for food until they’re big enough to slaughter. The idea of an indoor cat is incredible strange. And if you’re traveling with your (live) goats, you’d better believe they’re trussed up by their feet and slung over the top of the bush taxi.

Anyway.

It’s been a while. I’ve, um, well, I’ve been busy. Not traveling, of course, because I’m a Cotonou volunteer, and we Cotonou volunteers don’t get to travel (that whole regular job thing, ya’ know?), but I’ve been keeping myself occupied.

Anyway, I’m alive. I’m just swamped right now. In fact, I expect to stay swamped until the second week in May. It’s a good feeling, especially since I enjoy my work so much. I’ll try to post when I can, but it may be a while. :)

Love,
Theresa

PS, thanks for the emails. Really! I’m alive!

I’m sorry.  What on EARTH makes you think I could POSSIBLY want to date you?  Or give you my phone number?  Or tell you where I live?  Or even fucking FLIRT with you?  What makes you think I’m going to react favorably when you make a relatively indecent proposal?

Do you think I don’t speak French?  Do you think I don’t see the pr0n you’re looking at?  Do you think I don’t hear your friends egging you on to ask me?

Let me illustrate my prejudices for a moment.  If you are looking at pr0n in this VERY PUBLIC cyber at 10 o’clock in the morning, you are not the type of man I’m interested.  In fact, if you have time to surf the internet non-work related purposes at 10 o’clock in the morning, that tells me that you don’t have a regular job.  Nope, not interested.  If you can’t understand why a young woman would want to avoid telling a strange man where she lives, then you’re not the man for me.  And if you can’t be bothered to even ask my name before asking me to be your girlfriend, then I PROMISE that our relationship will not last long.

UGH.  Watch out, Bénin.  Theresa’s on a man-hating rampage, and it doesn’t look to end well.

I am so fucking angry right now, I almost didn’t come to work today.

I do a significant amount of English tutoring. One of the options for the BAC (comprehensive test you have to take to finish school) is foreign languages, and one of the mot popular options is English. Great, no problem. I help girls with their English homework, give them some conversational practice, etc, and in return, they help me with my French and/ or Fon. It’s also a good way for me to be a positive role model and remind these girls that you don’t HAVE to get married and have children to be valued as a woman.

Two days ago, one of my girls came and told me that she wouldn’t be returning to school after the winter break. WHAT? Girl scout’s only got a year and a half left to go. She’s never had to retake a year (exceedingly rare here). She’s doing really well.

Her family thinks it’s too expensive. WHAT? She’s got two older brothers at University, and older brother in the same year as her (he’s on his SECOND time for this grade level, and has retaken previously too). She’s got a younger brother in school too. Her school fees and books have already been paid.

After further investigation, the real story comes out. Her family doesn’t want to pay someone to manage the fruit stand anymore. WHAT? She’s being conscripted to work in their store a few days a week, and sell fruit during the rest. WHAT? She already does that for just about every moment that she’s not in school or studying! Her BROTHERS don’t work! They don’t have JOBS!

And yet she’s not going to get a chance to finish her education. Her mom wasn’t educated. None of her aunts and sisters were. What was good enough for them (a man and a dozen babies) should be good enough for her.

THAT IS SO FUCKING STUPID!!!

So this morning I went to speak with her parents, to see if there was any chance that they could be dissuaded. She lives in a fucking MANSION (well, it’s nice compared to most homes here). Her two university aged brothers share a moto. Her mother has a moto. Her father has a car. A CAR!!! And yet, they can’t afford to keep her in school for another year and a half.

So I went home, cried my eyes out, then put on my face, and came to work. Days like today make me wonder how much progress we’re really making in this country.

2.0 is sweet sweet lovin’.  And nothing broke.  Lucky t, considering my cavalier approach to back-ups.  Heh.