Bless The Rains Down In Africa: Guest Blague: Sherry!

For those of you who don’t know me, hi! I’m Sherry (alias Rosa when in Benin, in order to avoid presenting strangers with the opportunity to address me as “chérie”), and Lissa and I became friends during college, thanks to the beauty that is JIBA. Now, after ever so many years of larnin’ and maturation, we are still friends, and I am not sure how this happened (no really, I just read through old emails to check, and I am truly at a loss) but after Camp GLOW last year, I half-jokingly emailed Lissa telling her how awesome her stories from camp were and how I was going to hop over the Atlantic to crash the party the next year--and then, somehow, about a week ago, there I was!

tl;dr I’m Lissa’s friend and I visited her in Benin and now I am writing about it and here you are reading (thanks!).

Considering that this is Lissa’s blog and “when in Rome” yada yada, I figured I would do my guest post in list form. Before I launch into those, I did just want to say, once more, thanks so much to Lissa for hosting me and letting me visit and to all the PCVs who were wonderful to me throughout my trip! :)

Things I loved about running around Benin:

Marché-ing in Porto Novo for pretty tissu, later to be taken to the couturière for the making of pretty clothes and things! Seriously, if Lissa were a superhero, I think tissu-shopping would be her power--well, her power and maybe her kryptonite, as well.
Birthday cake in a makeshift dutch oven
Seeing the new map! Eee!
Baby animals and lots of pretty foliage
Daagbe students and neighbors (and Lissa's adorable toddler "husband")
Daagbeians (is this the proper demonym?) shouting "May-lees-ah! May-lees-ah!" at us whenever we walked or zemmed past. They love her, they do!
Riding on zems
So many conversations in which questions about my family's health were matter-of-factly followed up with inquiries after Obama's well-being
Debating whether or not to buy penis keychains when present-shopping in the artisans' village (in the end, I decided that the fact that they existed was enough for me, and that I did not need to purchase any)
Piment, mmm
Lissa's miscellaneous calendars and goals and quotes posted up on her wall: same Lissa as always!

Things I loved about Camp GLOW

Singing and teaching songs (including, as Lissa mentioned, Jones cheers in both English and French)|
Interactions with the Beninese women (and a few men, too!) who helped with the camp and were fantastic role models to the girls, as well as cool field trips to broaden the girls' horizons
4th of July celebration with the PCVs, with Real Hamburgers and Real Ice Cream (USA! USA! USA!)
Group of girls: Madame Rosa, how old are you? (cue guessing back and forth until they happen upon the right number) Oh, are you married? Do you have any children? Sherry: Mais non, but how old are you? I know you aren't married. How many girls are there your age who are married? Girls: We all know some in our villages, of course. S: What do you think? Would you be ready to be married and have children at 14? G: No! Those girls, they are always tired, and they are never clean, because they have no time to wash themselves!--I think this is as apt a summary of 16 And Pregnant as any of its viewership could give.
The end-of-camp skits, wherein the girls demonstrated what they had learned, simultaneously touching and (probably unintentionally) hilarious
Getting coffee for all the volunteers with Lissa each morning and debating whether the man was making it "that colour"
Watching Bend It Like Beckham with the girls, who had comically exaggerated reactions to all the dramatic scenes, as well as some pithy and astute commentary on culturally Western things I had taken for granted ("Wait, Madame, does everyone have her own ball to practice with?")
The girls' soccer game, so very apropos!
The girls, just on the whole: I was thinking I'd have to deal with some of the shenanigans Lissa had blogged about, like students calling her "yovo" and refusing to use "Madame", but the camp girls were wonderful(and had no end of dance moves to teach me! speaking of which...).
Dance party incorporating MoTown, Bieber, and multiple repetitions of "Waka Waka" (requested by the girls each time)

Things I wasn't expecting

Finding myself in a Rasta bar the first evening in Benin--or even, that there were Rasta-themed bars to be frequented there at all! but it was a really fun time with a little group of PCVs, some live music and slam poetry, and Beninese beer (which, incidentally, is no better or worse than what Lissa's posts have made it out to be)
Obama beer! it's for real, people! and I really hope he knows he gets to take his place in history along with Sam Adams as a president with a namesake beer (I'm kidding, yall. It's a blog blague!*)
That I’d get my first marriage proposal on the back of a motorcycle; it was so very Rebel Without A Cause (well, kind of)
A couple gendarmes stories, but I’ll pick my favorite: it took place on a taxi ride from Daagbe to Cotonou. Lissa and I had seen our driver bribe someone off early on but brushed it off, as our mental energies were fixed on the sheep (the poor sheep! though when we first heard moaning, we thought the noise was the car breaking down, and I do think that the situation might have been worse had the taxi's machinery actually been the source of the bleating) that had been loaded into the trunk of our car. This became especially worrisome once we began to think we smelled urine, given that my suitcase was also stowed in the trunk. Then, at some point, we were pulled over again, and this lasted a very long time.

At this point, we realized that our cab driver might actually have been in some real trouble with the law, which you would think would involve more glamour than carting around livestock in your sedan's trunk but oh well. Also during this time, we, being yovos, had to hand over our identification to the fuzz, and we did have the pleasure of hearing the police debate what my ethnicity might be ("probably mixed, black-and white" "ah yes, probably mixed"). Then, this diversion being over, we waited. The man with the sheep (which turned out to be plural sheep--though, thankfully, they left behind no bodily fluids) and a couple other passengers decamped in search of faster transport, but being that it was raining and we were on the side of the highway with luggage to tow, we stayed put. Finally, some more money changed hands, and after that extended delay was over with, we were in Cotonou in no time.

Last but not least: favorite Lissa quotations

"So, how concerned are you about schistosomiasis?" (If you already know what schistosomiasis is, you've more understanding than I did, but imagine having this line dropped on you casually as you're wading across a semi-lit and mostly flooded street at midnight on your first night in Benin; happily, neither of us contracted schisto and so did not have to be much concerend about it)
"Don't play. I'm Beninese!" said in local language to zem drivers who were trying to rip her off, often resulting in their complimenting her as being a strong woman and then standing down (note: this is my rough translation, since I don't speak Fon/Gun)
"Here, we bon everything"

*Blague = "joke" in French