-Lizard in the Shower. Sometime between boiling the water and shaving
my left leg, a large, warm, squishy lizard joined me in the shower. I
know he was warm and squishy because in a moment of off-balance-ness,
I put my hand out to steady myself… surprise.
-Comptable Chased All My Students Out Again. Monday morning I had a
big set of lessons planned – I'd drawn pictures, written activities,
and slept well the night before in preparation. Three minutes into my
first lesson, the comptable (school accountant) marches into my class
with a whip and kicks all but 4 of my kids out because they haven't
paid all of their (ridiculously expensive) tuition. There goes
another half-week of classes…
-My Kids Called Me Yovo. I got out of classes on Wednesday and heard a
group of kids yelling "yovo" at me. Upon calling them over, I
discovered that they were my students. I explained (again) very
calmly and logically why "yovo" is inappropriate, especially for
school. The second I finished, one of my troublemakers looked at me
and yelled "YOVO, YOVO, YOVO, YOVO!" I gave him two hours of manual
labor… some 12-year-olds are just little jerks, I guess.
-Night at the Chef du Village's. I'd been wanting to saluer (say
hello) to the chef du village of Daagbe, who's I guess like the chief
of the town. I couldn't find his house for months, but then on a walk
one day my friend Juliette mentioned his name. We ended up visiting
on Tuesday evening. We showed up to his house, where he greeted us in
a pair of shorts with a ten-inch rip along the back seam, and nothing
else.
Between shots of rum and shots of Bailey's+wine liquor (ew), he made
lots of jokes in Gún (he doesn't speak French), introduced us to his
five wives in two different housing complexes, and told me about 500
times that he was really happy I had visited. Why? Because his social
status would soar the next day when people were talking about a white
woman saluer-ing him. Then he gave (drunk) me and (drunker) Juliette
1000 CFA ($2) because he didn't have any food to offer us… hah. I
gave my half to Juliette, smiled at his wives and bajillion children,
and left maybe a little in love with the hilarious old guy with ripped
pants.
-Upon Returning to My House. My neighbor dropped by to change my
porch lightbulb, and immediately afterward launched into a tirade
about how I left a pineapple on my porch two weeks ago. The French
was really fast, and I was… uhh… not sober (did I mention I hadn't
lesson planned at this point?)… so I was pretty sure he was reaming me
out for some horrible culture faux pas I'd committed with my rampant
pineapples. Days later, I finally asked Juliette what he'd said. He
was just trying to warn me that the village people might poison me if
I did that again. That's better, I guess?
-Bad News: Another ET. One of the Southern Belles, Becky, just ETed
(Early Terminated – left Peace Corps). Sucks, because she was
hilarious and smart and fun to be around, and now we're one fewer in
the Oueme Plateau area. Her reasons make sense – she didn't have any
work at her NGO, and living in the capital city makes it really hard
to get close Beninese friends. Still, we'll miss her. We spent this
weekend cleaning out her apartment (Becky, how in the world did you
get that many clothes here??)… good hangout time, but kind of under
not-great circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment