Beaucoup même

Hello there everyone!

So it seems that it's been a long time since i posted, and I've been busy, but mostly with the same stuff over and over, so this post will probably be short and uneventful. The pics are of my very favorite neighbor, Roseline, who is 11 and helps me with everything. (Today she carried my empty butane bottle to the taxi stand on her head because i couldnt carry it. That was a little embarrassing.) She wanted to take these pics because it was Sunday and we were both dressed up. The second one is of her with her youngest brother, Leonel. He used to run when he saw me, and cry when his older brothers tried to make him come near me, but now he comes and stands outside my door saying, 'Ko Ko Ko,' the local equivalent of knock knock knock. He doesnt speak any french yet, so thats pretty much the extent of our conversations.

Anyway, since my last post, school did indeed start. So I have been teaching - I have 16 teaching hours a week, plus a two hour meeting. So not a lot of hours, but it is taking some getting used to. Plus, right now I am doing extra classes to make up for a week of school I will miss for a Peace Corps training. I have four classes, two each of the Beninese equivalent of seventh and eight grade. My students are, on a good day, rambunctious, and there are about 55 in each class. Basically I have found out that it is not easy to get that many kids to stop talking at one time, not to mention the kids that are not my students who are hanging through the nonexistent windows of the classroom, nevermind getting them to actually understand what I am saying. But we are working on overcoming those little issues.

I took a trip to the big city a couple of weeks ago. Parakou is the biggest city after Cotonou, the capital, and there is a Peace Corps workstation there, which translates to a really cool place where volunteers can sleep and hang out for free without having to worry about being friendly in local language. We had a meeting there and several of my friends were in attendance, so it was really nice to see them after almost two months basically on my own. I was also able to get new books (the workstation keeps a library) and buy ketchup and green beans and carrots, which was a big deal. My training is also there, so I am excited about that. The goat on the right was dinner one night - some of the other PCVs (ones who have been here longer of course) decided they were going to grill out, and that only a whole goat would do. Of course, the Beninese guard had to kill it and clean it, since we had no idea how to do that. I didn't watch most of it, but from what I did see, there is quite a complicated technique involved. Did you know it's actually illegal to kill a goat or other animal in your yard in the US? Well thats what my PC friends said. Maybe it's not true in GA.

This next, lovely picture is of my most impressive wound yet. It's actually not a great story; but its all I've got, so I'll tell it. I had these two mosquito bites on my ankle that were normal for like a week, then mysteriously got infected, which was ok until my ankle got all swollen and I was pretty sure gangrene was the next step. Long story short, I had to go to a hospital in the next town (ok it was really just a medical center, but the french word is hôpital) and they prescribed some antibiotics that took care of my fear of losing my foot, but i did have to work hard to keep bandages on a rather impossible place (your ankle, you know, bends) so I walked around looking like a wounded civil war soldier for like two weeks, prompting lots of judgmental comments from my friendly neighbors, who could not in any way understand how a mosquito could possibly inflict such damage.

I have also had encounters with a mouse, a gigantic cockroach, and a bat in my kitchen, but none of them have deigned to make a second appearance (well the bat can't because Roseline came and bludgeoned it to death with a stick that was taller than her, to my horror and relief) so I still am able to, you know, set foot in my kitchen without feeling the need to crouch in abject terror on my chair. Basically, my pest problems could be much much worse, so I just hope they stay as they are.

In other news, the election of Barack Obama has made me a local superstar (who am I kidding, I already was one). Everybody congratulated me on it, which I thought was kind of funny. I think Africans are quite possibly more excited about it than Obama supporters in the US.

If anyone's looking for a good book to read, my recommendations include The God of Small Things and A Prayer for Owen Meany, although most books are enthralling when your only other entertainment is BBC World Service on an ailing short wave radio. Not to knock BBC of course - they keep me quite informed about the world and I have learned some about British politics, cricket, and world football ( aka soccer for all you Americans ) in my hours and hours of listening time.

Anyway, time is getting away from me, and I need to go to the bank if I want to eat for very much longer (which I do), although the apparent butane shortage is going to mean i can only eat cold, raw food pretty soon, but oranges and bananas cost money too!

Oh yeah, and the title is a response to one of the favorite questions around here, Have you done a little? Normally you just say yes, but if you have done especially a lot, you can answer beaucoup même, which i guess translates to, a lot itself. This amuses me and it happens to fit right now.

So anyway, until next time.