Lyle put together a ton of great information on what to expect and things to bring. I don’t really care too much about what you expect, but I imagine my life will be much easier if y’all pack well. So here’s some advice. Biased by gender, sector, and the fact that my post is rather unique. YMMV. Don’t take the list too seriously. Etc.

And for the love of GOD, don’t get talked into going out and buying close-toed (sp?) shoes during staging. You’ll understand when you get there.

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Yogurt has proven itself delightfully easy to make. And making it myself is hella cheaper than buying it. And it won’t make me sick either (often a problem, when refrigerators are only turned on during the day . . . and the yogurt can be months old). Chewy granola was also easy, but I think next time I’ll break out the Dutch oven and bake it to crunchy goodness.

I “eat out” about as much as I eat in, but when I say “eat out,” don’t get any ideas about fancy resteraunts or fine cuisine. It’s good food, but beans and rice, or pate, seasame and sauce legume run me a couple hundred francs (usually between 20 and 50 cents, although I’ve been known to pay as much as a dollar when wagasi is involved, wagasi being the local cheese, but it’s mostly like tofu, only better!). You eat sitting on a wooden bench, outside, where you can watch the bean lady, or whomever, cooking up their next batch.

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If you ever make it over to Benin, you’ll be surprised and amazed by the things people put in their stomachs here. The food is different enough, but when you see what we drink, whoa . . .

First of all, coffee isn’t coffee. It’s instant. It’s Nescafe. And it’s almost never drunk black. Take two generous tablespoons of really sweet condensed milk (you know, that stuff you buy in cans). Then put in a few teaspoons of Nescafe or Milo (which is kind of like Nestlé’s Quick). Then fill your mug (or more likely, metal bowl) up with boiling water. Stir and enjoy! If you’re drinking out of a bowl, sip it with a spoon because the bowl will be too hot to pick up. This stuff sounds disgusting, but it’s actually pretty tasty.

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When I was younger, I used to get in huge fights with my parents, especially my father. He and I are surprisingly alike, which means that we both know exactly what buttons to push in order to get the other one going. And oh man did we go. Finally, the fight would start to wind down, and I’d be in just about as much trouble as I was likely to get into. Dad would look at me and say “PACE yourself, Carpenter. Positive Attitudes Change Everything.”

I’d be like “Yeah, OK, Dad,” but internally, I’d be like, “WTF?” I didn’t feel that the end of the argument was necessarily the best time to be dispensing this particular piece of fatherly advice . . . especially since it came at the end of EVERY fight we got into, and I’d inevitably be the loser. What was there to be positive about in that?

Now, however, I find myself far from home and smiling as I find another application for his words. My regular readers probably have some sort of an idea of the frustrations I’ve felt since my arrival at post. Unfortunately, a good friend of mine ET’d (ET = Early Termination = going home) last week. Her situation had become untenable, and for various reasons, things weren’t looking to get better.

My friend had done everything she could to make her situation workable. Everything. And it was still impossible. I, however, have done no such thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked incredibly hard, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve been working smart. Positive attitudes change everything, right? Now I’m focusing on making one positive change every day in order to make life here in Benin more tolerable. It’s the little things that count, and it turns out, the little changes aren’t that hard to make.

PACE yourself, Carpenter.

Today’s positive change is buying good coffee.

And it’s only the start of the rainy season. That’s the price I pay for living in a tropical paradise, I suppose. Except Cotonou’s not really a paradise. It’s a dirty smelly city. When it’s dry, it’s hot and polluted and miserable as the sun beats down on sidewalks and streets with no shade, literally cooking the sewage in the gutters.

Rain helps somewhat, washing the dirt, the grime, and the litter away into the Atlantic Ocean. It also washes away the sand roads in my neighborhood and makes some alleys inaccessible as puddles and small ponds sit and breed mosquitoes because it’s too damn humid for the water to evaporate.

I love the rain because it’s cleansing. I love the moments before it starts, where the whole world takes their laundry down from the line and runs for cover under the yellow sky. I love the moments when the water is rushing so hard and so fast you can’t hear yourself think over the racket. I love the moment when the sun comes out after a storm, and everything is renewed.

But rainstorms are also lonely as I hole up in my apartment by myself. Tonight was going to be wine and enchiladas, but all the tomato stands closed down for the storm and will remain so for the duration of the shower (probably another couple of hours). And I can’t find a zem (moto-taxi) to take me to buy a decent bottle of wine until the rain stops so . . . here I am.

Ramen for dinner it is.

Pictures from the waterfalls up by the Tang will be up soon, but while you’re waiting, check out some pics by Lyle.

Sara and I froze our asses off during All-Vol. Ben, Sara, me, and Lyle all dressed up for the GAD dinner. Hott! (Seriously, I love that picture.) And of course, ICT at IST. They promised us a pool, but they never promised us it would actually have water in it.

My trip up North was incredible. Frustrating. Painful. Digestionally challenging. Amazing. Beautiful. Full of culinary delights. Mostly, though, it was inspiring. Coming on the hells of All-Vol (two days of enforced quality time with every single other volunteer in country) and IST (in service training for SED/ ICT-18), it was nice to get back to work, albeit a bit far from my post.

Tanguieta was fantastic. I ate some fantastic pilée (I am a pilée addict). I taught a fantastic formation. I swam under a fantastic waterfall. And I had fantastic company the whole time. Also, I got over my parasites and ate bush meat for the first time. Yum.

Karimama was motherfucking hot. Gogonou was too. And Kandi was, well, it was Kandi. Their hospital was like “WTF are you coming in for a boil for?’ And I was like “WTF it hurts!” And they were like “Jesus Christ that’s big.” And I was like “NO FUCKING KIDDING GIVE ME DRUGS RIGHT NOW I MEAN IT OR ELSE.” And they did. Haha. It’s weird how much I like that town.

Going north is always refreshing for me. I tend to get caught up in the frustrations of working in a Beninese office, dealing with Peace Corps admin, and life in general, without looking for the positive changes I can make to solve these problems. Then I go north, where I’m confronted with genuine poverty (towns were you can only get tomatoes once a week on market day, for example) and genuine hosipitalty (the neighbors send over bouille for breakfast anyway), and it wipes all the confusion away.

Dammit, I’m here to help people.

And it was humbling how paitent they were willing to be with the fact that I didn’t speak their local language (hey, I’m from the south and I speak Fon) and didn’t know their customs. Anyway, that’s the best thing about heading up to the Atacora and the Alibori. It reminds me of all the fantastic wonderful things that are going on all around me, and that I miss out on when I sit around grouchy and annoyed at life.

And yes, it was a typical Peace Corps trip. Great company. Great eats. Work where none was expected. No work where lots was expected. Varying levels of preparation. Etc.

Katie’s still alive, as are Glen, Sara, Bendy, Ben’dali, and Jason, in case anybody’s parents are wondering.

I’ll try to get posts up about All-Vol, the GAD Dinner, and IST up in the next few days.