My morning starts off with a baguette and a cup of Nescafe, the baguette I pick up at the bakery down the street, so fresh that its heat makes my fingers uncomfortable. Then I try to be out the door by 8:50 to get to work by 9, but since the word “late” doesn't seem to exist in any African language, I'm not too concerned about arriving exactly at 9. My walk to work is now speckled with familiar faces of people I've walked past at least 3 or 4 times a day since arriving here, and we smile and greet each other. The woman sitting at one of the corners selling bread out of a giant basket, the mechanics discussing how to fix the broken car in front of them, the teenage girls at the hair salon learning how to braid hair professionally. The little kids waving at me excitedly, yelling out, “Yovo, yovo (white person)!”
A typical scene on the way to work:
When I arrive at the VAID office, Rekya, the secretary, greets me in French first, and then we greet each other in Fon, one of the local languages, so I can use the little vocabulary I've acquired since arriving here, and then we greet each other in English, so she can practice what she learned in school. After this fun little exchange, I pull out my computer, and spend the day doing research online for VAID. I have internet access at the office, but it's really slow, so I spend most of my time waiting for the pages to load.
Around lunch time, I walk down the street and either get some fruit or try one of the dishes prepared and sold by one of the women on the side of the street.
In the dishes on this tray are “patte”, a paste made from cassava, and a tomato-based sauce, usually including fish and leafy vegetables in it. The woman selling it carries the entire try on her head from one location to the next, stopping when she reaches a new group of customers. Not only is it incredibly convenient for the customer, who never has to go far to find one of these women, but it's all home-made, and is usually delicious.
I then return to my lethargic internet, and after a few hours, head back home. Not incredibly riveting. But if there's been a lot of rain during the day, the walk home can be very interesting, since sections of my street will be flooded until the water drains off, evaporates, or soaks into the ground. One afternoon, as I was wading past someone's house through six inches of water, trying to keep my skirt up around my knees while not losing my balance on the uneven dirt road full of unexpected potholes, the woman sitting on the porch laughed and told me, “This is Africa”. As if wading through water on my way home was something I frequently did in America, and I had forgotten where I was. I laughed with her, and agreed.
In the evenings I spend time at an orphanage, where I help the kids with their homework. This has been an unexpected challenge, since not only is it usually math, which I haven't done much of in years so I don't remember some of the concepts, but it's in French, which makes it even harder to explain the concepts I can't even remember in English. On top of this, since I haven't done math in French lately, or ever, a lot of the words are unfamiliar to me. As I sat there struggling to explain in French how to calculate the length of a section of carrots when it takes up 35% of Mr. Djaha's garden that has a circumference of 575 meters, I really hoped none of these kids would fail their exams because of me. Thankfully one of the staff members also helps them with their homework, so the fate of their grades isn't solely in my hands.
The wall by the entrance of the orphanage. Roughly translated, it says, "Welcome to the hope of the children of Benin Orphanage":
After leaving the orphanage I have dinner, and the rest of the evening is spent relaxing at home. It's not exactly an action-packed day, but then again, the stress-level that comes with it is pleasantly low.
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