Post Visit: Whoa

Oooh baby, post visit was interesting.

I went to Daagbe on Wednesday morning, and I was excited to find out that it’s really rural even though it’s only 30 minutes away. The host family I stayed with seemed pretty entertained by my foreign-ness (the papa was hilarious, and/but he kept force-feeding me pate by telling me I was insulting his wife), and the people were, for the most part, really excited to have me there. I met every official in the place, got lots of long speeches promising me absolute security and support (Mom, take note), and waved at a lot of people.

I also got to see a little of the reeeeally rural part of town: I live off of the main village road, but if you walk into the bush, there are whole compounds of people living in legit mud huts with thatched roofs. We visited and chatted with some, my tour guide/fellow professor Gabriel translating for me, and I got to see the wood carvers making Beninese masks and sculptures right in front of me. So cool.

The school was exactly what I expected: bare bones. We do have electricity in the office and a computer, which is a big thing for around here. The classrooms are big, open areas with no windows or doors, there are latrines rather than toilets, and the staffing situation is interesting to say the least… only 4 out of 50ish teachers are permanent staff members. I also learned that sexual harassment is a really big issue in my school, so I’m both apprehensive about seeing it and really pumped about starting a girls club to combat it.

(Dangit, forgot to put the pictures on my flash drive. Next time, I promise pictures of the school and house.)

We went to see my house, and that was a bit of a letdown – details to follow (update: I found out that most people had/have emotional meltdowns on their post visits. Congratulations to me, I’m normal!). Because of the house, I was in a sad mood for most of the first and second days, but the third day was awesome. We visited a palm nut factory, met every official in the area, and drove to three different points on the Nigerian border (sidenote: I am expressly forbidden to enter Nigeria at any point during my service or they send me home. I told that to my directeur [the principal, my boss] and the laughed: “But how would they ever know?”).

Two tiny highlights from the last day: an exchange with my directeur and the presence of pork in my diet. The pork was this delicious roast pork from the side of the road that the directeur bought for lunch… I missed pig. And the exchange might not be as funny here as it was in real life, but it kept me giggling to myself all day.






The directeur was asking me what I wanted for lunch, and he told me my options were pork, fish, or lapin. I didn’t know what lapin was, so he started miming “rabbit” – ears and little hops, all while driving a car on the wrong side of the road. “Oh, rabbit. It’s ‘rabbit’ in English.”
“Ahhhh, oui, I remember. Larbert.”
“Rrrrrrabbit.”
“Oui, larbert. I’ll remember now.”

My impact on Daagbe's English has begun.