Weekly Update: 3/4/11

• I am not dead.  I realize it might have seemed like I was, thanks to the total lack of blogs for almost a whole month, but I am not.  Being stuck in post sans interwebs because of elections sucks.
• Big Congrats to my awesome Jonesian friends Cat Swanson and Jim Doty for getting their Peace Corps invites!  Cat's going to Kazakhstan in later March, and Jim's going to be near(ish) to me in Ghana.  Cheers for them!
• Elections in West Africa don't really run on the "fixed date" idea.  After being on the ready-to-run standfast stage (can't leave village, have a bag packed and an escape route planned) for close to a week, we found out that the 'lections were rescheduled... again.  That'd be the 3rd election date.  Fingers crossed that Sunday they finally pick a prez.
• Campaigns in West Africa are not the high budget affairs we're used to in the States.  There are no fancy graphics, wardrobe overhauls, or highly televised debates... as far as I know there are no debates at all. They do billboards (often with pictures that look like candids from Uncle Semako's birthday party 3 years ago), and they do motorcycle "parades" with fellow villagers trickriding (hilarious).  The incumbent, YAYI Boni, has songs written about him in at least 7 of the most common local languages.  The songs go, as transcribed by fellow PCV Dave Cowell,
• Taco Night was last weekend, but thanks to standfast I didn't get to blog it.  I spent spring break #1 doing a little tour of the southwestern part of Benin (the Mono Couffo region) and visiting my friends Dione and Scott.  The last night, we all went over to our friend Erik's post for one of his famed taco nights.  Yall, I can't even tell you how much I missed Tex-Mex, and we threw everything we had into the meal: one couple brought amazing pineapple salsa, I did guacamole, someone brought REAL CHEDDAR CHEESE from Cotonou(!), and Erik and Dione made the most amazing tortilla shells ever.  Combined with a huge number of other volunteers (like 14 of them), it was a fantastic night.
• There's a Voodoo Fetish in the Schoolyard.  The director made an announcement that there's a dangerous something in the bush part of the schoolyard and that none of the students should go near it.  One of my students went near it.  Then her foot swelled up to the size of her head, and she had to stay home from school for a week.  Don't mess with gri-gri.
• March 9th: Spelling bee!  Excited!
• What does it do?  An older boy at the school brought me a goodie bag the French people gave some students last year.  He loved the nice pens and colored pencils, but was completely baffled by the glue stick and Play-Doh.  "What... are they? What should I do with them?"  I gave a little demonstration with the gluestick and made a chicken with the Play-Doh, and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.  Ah, the wonder of available school supplies.
• Two excellent sentences that I got this week on homework:
• You go pounded yam.
• Sebastien is as intelligent as fish. (This written by Sebastien himself, the fishbrain.)
• Read three books in a week.  Am no longer worried that I won't make my goal of 75 books in 2 years.
• Oranges: Nature's Currency.  This week, I got lazy.  I decided I didn't want to take me trash out.  I put the pail on my front porch and waited til my neighbor girl Chancelline offered to take it out.  I paid her an orange to do so.  This started a trend, and suddenly ass my friends uder the age of 8 desperately wanted a job to earn an orange.  Five oranges later, I had a scrubbed porch, a swept front "yard" and, most impressively, a clean litterbox.  I love oranges.