Benin, Cotonou, and Beyond

First off, I wanted to point everyone towards my Peace Corps partnership page where you can buy an english textbook for kids in my town. Each book is ten dollars and will help out immensely. Please pass along the word to any and all who would be interested in helping. There's still 7000 to raise.

Ok enough of trying to get money from ya'll... Oh and I'll try to explain the whole PC Partnership thing better in a future post; feeling internet cafe time constrictions here: 9 minutes and counting till shutdown!

So Kelsey is visiting, has been here for over two weeks actually, and we are currently in Cotonou after seeing 1. Dirty Niamey, 2. Giraffes, 3. Gaya, and 4. some awesome hills. Pictures forthcoming with more internet time; but not tonight. So in the sake of such time crunch I'll let her tell ya'll all about it from some snippets which went out to her family. Maybe it'll help describe this place more since I'm too accustomed to its auirks and have settled into it. Enjoy!

From July 1

"Hey!

So, I would love to say that the time here so far has been AMAZING......

But the reality is that I find that Niamey sucks ass. The city is so sad and depressing....not what I was expecting at all. There are little kids begging everywhere, in addition to the real beggars. Some of the children beg to learn to be humble, according to the Qu'ran. If you give them money, they give it to their teacher. You can tell the difference between the children that are begging out of need and the ones who are learning to be humble because the ones who have money are the ones with silver bowls on strings and nice clothes. There is no shame here in begging.....they ALL do it. You are white, give me money.

I already had one little boy try to pickpocket me at the national museum. Going to the national museum would have been cool except for the fact that nothing has been updated since about 1983 (literally, no sarcasm here) and the zoo that they have is extremely depressing with the most cruel of animal conditions imaginable. It is hot and nasty, the flies are rampant during the day and the mosquitos at night.

So far, I am not impressed and I find myself a little depressed because of it. I am hearing that the trip will get better. Gaya is a small town but is still supposed to be prettier....we will head there Friday. I am REALLY looking forward to getting to Benin, Togo, and Ghana because the other volunteers that I have talked to that have been there say that it's awesome....we should be going there in a couple weeks.

Tomorrow I am going to have a purse made....I will get to pick out the material and everything. I am actually looking forward to that. Their local beer, Bierre Niger, is actually not bad, but each bottle is different....you never know what you are going to get. Wednesday we are going to look at a bunch of wild giraffes not too far from Niamey....supposed to be cool."

From July 8:

"Hey!

i decided that i am not going to capitolize anything since this is one
of those damn european keyboards where everything is out of order.

the trip is tons better. we went to goethéye, north of niamey for a
fish bake for a couple days. it was awesome to get out of the city
for a while as I was definitely tired of it. the culture shock has
worn off though and i am just trying to accept it for what it is now.
I got some fabric at the grand marché and had two bags made and a
dress. I am very excited as it was very cheap and they look good. I
love the way the women dress here....so colorful!

we also took a bush taxi out to Kore to see some wild giraffes that
are protected. They have about 150 there but we only got to see about
6, but three were babies. Even babies are huge! it was cool to see
them out in the wild and not in a zoo. We had to walk with a guide 7
km to see them in the hot sun....that part was not so much fun but
still worth it. the bush taxi ride was crazy. They crammed more
people into that van than i would have ever thought possible; and kept
trying to stuff more in. I had a womans armpit on me, and when her
baby started to cry, she pulled out her boob in my face and started
feeding. The boob and baby were practically in my lap! I have seen
more boobs here in one week than i have ever seen in my life!

I am now in Gaya; where Jeremy is stationed. Everyone here is very
friendly, and while it is still dirty, it is much prettier here thanks
to more trees and vegetation. The town is about 30,000 so it is still
a fair size. Everyone here wants to say hi and I am getting many good
opportunities to practice my french, which is good but i am still shy
with my lack of enough vocabulary. I can understand
about 70% of what people say, which i think is good considering that
african french sounds different than France french. Mostly I have to
rely on Jeremy though since most people speak Zarma more than french.
I hate that.... I have to stand and smile stupidly since I have no
idea what is being said and they are often teasing him about me.

It has been raining since it is rainy season, but usually in the
mornings. It makes it humid but at least it is a little cooler than
usual."


So.... as you can see it takes a little bit of time to come to love this place like I do, well at least get comfortable with it. Will post about the trip soon.... 2 minutes till this thing explodes, time to publish!