Happy New Year!

Community map of Tchetti with my counterparts

Happy New Year and happy holidays to everyone! My new year's resolution is to post more on my blog and to start more projects at my site. After an entire month away from my site I am back and ready to get started on activities for this year. 

As for my time away from my site, I had training at the peace corps training center in

Lokossa for the first 2 weeks of December called Tech II. The RCH or health sector was also there for their training (TEFL/education’s is in February) so we had a great time getting to hang out together again because we hadn’t seen each other in 3 months, except for a vaccination day we all had to attend in November. For SAS, we had trainings over a bunch of different topics including chicken raising, rabbit raising, nutrition, and womens loan and savings groups. We also spent some of our first sessions together reflecting on our first 3 months at site. Each member did a presentation with photos from their community and it was really nice to see what everyone else was doing. This was also a reassuring time because all 5 of us are still working on integrating and figuring out how things work in our communities which helped to remind me to not put too much pressure on myself to get things moving because we are all in the same boat. 

We were able to visit rabbit and chicken farms on a few field trips and that was really fun.

We also made a trip down to Grand Popo to visit a few different farms and production facilities. The first was a pineapple juice operation that was really impressive, they had 3 buildings which were kept pristine and they gave us some juice too before we left! The second place was a chicken farm which was commercial and was the first one I’ve seen here. The third place we went was actually also where we ate lunch. It was a resort hotel where they also have an extensively operating farm. They grow a lot of different things but they also have ducks and lots of fish, including catfish which I didn’t think I would see here. It was a really interesting place and very self-sufficient for the items they could grow. 

On the last few days of Tech II we worked on planning activities with our counterparts who were also there with us for the whole 2 weeks. I have planned a lot of stuff for the coming

Catfish Farm

months and can’t wait to share the results. I will be doing a number of trainings on the animal raising that we learned in Tech II and some other things like a girls club and training on income generating activities like making liquid soap. Overall, I am looking forward to what the new year brings and what I can do here in my community. 

The rest of my time away from my site was spent on vacation!! I visited Grand Popo with a large group of volunteers a few days before christmas. It was a really nice time and I stayed in a room with AIR CONDITIONING which I have not slept with since I left the US. It was lovely. They also had a shower and kind of warm water so that was really nice as well. We swam in the ocean and the waves here are no joke. I have always loved playing in the ocean but it is much different here than on the east coast.

Since there are no islands or other land masses in front of us the waves have nothing to slow them down which means they’re pretty big. It was really fun though and I think we all had a good time but I’m not sure if I would recommend it if you aren’t confident in your swimming abilities. We also went to a sea turtle sanctuary and saw some colonial buildings there as well.

At our hotel there was also a pool, lawn games, and volleyball so we had a lot of fun everyday, plus a bunch of wine which certainly doesn't hurt. On Saturday while we were there we did a gift exchange for secret santa. It was also Lena’s birthday so we had to celebrate with a good meal. We did it at Vincenzo's, which is an Italian restaurant that may have been conjured from my dreams. When you first get there you go sit down and they bring you a small plate of pasta and then when you are done with that, fried eggplant, and then, the pizzas. And this is all without ordering. The way this place works is you can order drinks but you just sit down and they bring the food. They will bring tables pizzas as they come out of the oven and it is wonderful. And the payment for food? A contribution. That's it. You just pay how much you think you ate. Not only all of this but there is also a pool there, right in the middle of everything. And if you want to swim they will bring you wine and pizza to the side of the pool. This is seriously one of the best places in Benin. Unfortunately it is only open on Saturday and Sunday but we will take what we can get. We all had a great time and since it was Lena’s birthday we had cake but we ended up with 3 cakes because so many people wanted to make sure she had one so we also had an excellent dessert. There is also another place down the road called Lyon’s Bar which is a bar

and hotel. We went there a few times for cocktails and for a bonfire on the beach which they usually had going every night. This place is also really cool and is completely Bob Marley themed and Bob Marly actually stayed there once upon a time! Grand Popo was a great time and we will definitely be back, hopefully very soon!

Next stop on the trip was Cotonou. Cotonou was holding the WeLoveYa Festival right at the Amazonian Warrior statue which was super cool. We went there straight from Grand Popo

on the 24th and so we spent Christmas day there. Fair warning, I read back through this paragraph and a lot of it is just like a food diary. When we got there in the evening we went to eat at an awesome restaurant called Livingstone where I shared a pizza and pasta with Ronan and it was excellent. Our group went to get drinks after and ended up staying out until midnight which was really fun because when it hit 12 at the bar a Santa came out and they did sparklers! On Christmas day we went and had Moroccan food right next door to

our hotel and I had Sami order for me (he’s Moroccan) and I’ll say he chose right because it was excellent. After that we all went back to the hotel and had a little rest on the porch. We then made our way to the ocean to meet up with another group of volunteers for a little Christmas get together. We had a really nice time there and then headed back to our hotel to drop our stuff off and then down the street to eat at Automatic where they have a plethora of options. I got chicken tenders and that's the first time I’ve had them in so long; they were great. After our very festive christmas dinner we went back to Livingstone to have another giraffe (which is basically just a beer tower) and play some drinking games. I also ended up getting their steak with peppered cream sauce and it was outstanding. I made everyone at the table try it. We stayed out pretty late that night but we were up

before noon so not too bad. We went to Fresh Nachos for lunch the next day which is a Mexican restaurant, although not too Mexican, they had burritos, quesadillas, tacos, and, of course, nachos. After Fresh Nachos, we had a fun excursion to go get piercings! I had 2 nose piercings which I took out before I got here because I was led to believe that would not be accepted. But after getting here and seeing all the people with piercings, I decided I would get mine

redone when we were in Cotonou. So Lena found a highly rated piercer there and we all went: me to get my nose piercings redone, Lena to get her second lobe piercing, and Rio to get her first nose piercing. It was really fun and surprisingly good experience and way more affordable than it would be in the US. Afterwards it was time to have a snack/dinner so we went to sprinkles and I had a milkshake and some pizza. The next day was the first day of the concert but it didn’t start until the evening so we had the whole day to hang out. I ate lunch at a Japanese restaurant which was good. I thought they had ramen but it wasn’t quite what I expected but it was still good. I got their version of ramen and

some beef gyozas and a rainbow roll. I haven’t had sushi in a long time so that was really nice. After that we went to the promised land… Erevan aka Super U aka the huge grocery

store. We took a slow stroll around the store taking it all in. I actually didn’t end up spending too much money and it was a successful trip. After Erevan we went back to the hotel to rest a bit and I took a nap, until it was time to go meet the temporary Country Director for ice cream! She was acting CD while Kristina our current CD was on vacation and since we were all in Cotonou she wanted to have us all out for ice cream (her treat!) to meet us in person. It was cool to meet her and talk to her about our experiences in Benin. After our ice cream outing, we went to hang out at a buvette before dinner. Dinner was at Tandoori Nights, an Indian restaurant just down the road from our hotel. We had a great meal here; I had chicken and rice with a cream sauce which Shreyas suggested (he’s Indian) and it was delicious, the perfect fuel for a long night of festival going. 

We headed back to the hotel to get ready and then off we went to the festival. There were so many roads closed and we originally got dropped off at the wrong entrance but we got it figured out and made it in. As I said before the whole thing was based around the amazonian warrior statue there and that was so cool. They had food and drink stands and

game areas, the full works. There was however only one stage though so to get through all of the artists you had to stay until about 4:30 or 5am, which of course we did. We stayed the first evening with just a few other volunteers and walked back to our hotel afterwards. 

The next day we had an exciting opportunity. We were able to go swimming at the US Embassy! They have a specific time every Saturday for the Peace Corps volunteers to come and enjoy the amenities at the Embassy. Henry and I went to Erevan before hand to grab hamburgers and hotdogs and stuff to grill out since they have a nice grill there as well. It was very weird to go through so much security to get into the Embassy after having experienced nothing like that for quite some time. Anyway, we grilled out and swam and had a great time for our 3 hour time slot. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and rested and then went back to Livingstone for dinner. I got the steak with peppered cream sauce again and it was also happy hour so we got buy-one-get-one drinks and giraffes for a little while. We took advantage of happy hour and then went back to our hotel to get ready for the concert. There was a bit of commotion at the festival this night, because a few people got their phones stolen. We ended up staying the whole time again and by the end of it there were 3 people without a phone. They were able to get it figured out in the days that followed but it certainly wasn’t ideal. The end of the concert itself was actually really nice with Rema closing out the show and fireworks! We again walked back to our hotel and the festival was over. We all headed home over the next 2 days and got ready for New Years.

I spent my New Years Eve in Dassa which is a larger city a little closer to my village. They had a “night club” which was empty when we got there about 3 minutes before midnight. Apparently, New Years Eve itself is not celebrated much here so that's why we were some of the only people counting down at midnight. We went to Zach and Sami’s site the next day and had a New Year's Day dinner with their host family which was really nice. After this it was time for our long vacation to come to an end and for the rest of our group to go back to their sites. 

I won't lie, it was really difficult to come back to my site after being away and with my friends, eating good food, and doing a bunch of fun things. But, just a week later we

headed to Voodoo Days in Ouidah where we saw multiple voodoo demonstrations and saw music on stage by the Door of No Return. They also had great food there with paninis, kebabs, shawarma, and burgers. We all had a really fun time there as well. I have actually just gotten back from Ouidah and now it feels like the vacation is really over. I am trying to get back into village life and get started on some of my projects that I have planned for this year. I will post more on those when they get started and might even do a house tour soon! Hope everyone had an excellent New Year’s celebration and I’m wishing you a great year!