Daily Life

I am now in Porto Novo, and staying with a host family. We received a picture of our host family and they received that lovely picture of me that I already talked about, and then all 56 of us attempted to match our photos to our families. I walked right past my family but my “Mama” ( what I call my host mother) tapped me on the shoulder and introduced herself.
I live with my Mama and a bunch of other people, I have no idea how/if they are related, everyone I meet is introduced to me as my brother or sister. I have at least 6 siblings (between 6-12) who live here all the time but there are always kids everywhere! My Mama introduces me as her daughter to her friends, there is probably less confusion on their part as to whether or not I am blood related when they meet me. I guess I don’t resemble the rest of the family. Family isn’t always related through blood, and my host family is very welcoming and they always make sure I have everything I need and more especially when it comes to food. They feed me sooo much food, let me just give you an example, my first breakfast I was given coffee, a whole baguette with butter, 2 oranges and 5 eggs. My Mama thought I didn’t like her cooking because I normally eat 1/3 of what she gives me, I finally conveyed to her last night that I like her cooking but I seriously just can’t eat that much food.
They have a very nice house, running water, electricity (when it works, it goes out quite frequently in Benin but not for long luckily), tile floors, leather couches, a TV, etc. They love watching a redic. Spanish soap opera dubbed in French. I’ve never been much of a soap opera fan but I have a feeling I will miss it when I leave them. I have my own room with a bed, once again surrounded by my mosquito net, a desk and chair, and shelves for my things. The bathroom is located right off my room. When we met our host families the PC director told them we learned an important phrase in French “Ou sont les toilettes?” (Where is the bathroom?) When we got to my house my Mama wasted no time showing me where it was and how to use it, as in went to the bathroom mid conversation, while I was standing there, just one of my many awkward situations.
It is culturally normal for the guest and/or the Papa to eat alone and first. There is no Papa in my family so I eat by myself. Just before dinner the first night the power went out, so I sat at the table with a flashlight shined on me, like a spot lot, while all of my siblings curiously watched me eat, it was awkward to say the least! However a few nights later when I was served fish and that was staring at me because it was served with eyes and all, I would have much preferred the children staring at me!
The kids are used to me so they don’t watch me eat anymore, the run to the door when I get home from school to great me and fight over who is going to bring my bike in. It’s really hard to be here sometimes, so far from home and so out of contact with everyone at home. It’s an emotional rollercoaster; I go from laughing and loving it here to crying and missing home to wondering if I am on fear factor. I have learned to go hang out with my little siblings when I am sad they never cease to make me laugh. One of my little brothers breaks out random dance moves when he walks by me. If I sit in my room for more than half an hour they come looking for me to play cards with them. We play ALOT of UNO and some other game they taught me. The young ones don’t really understand the rules and the older kids cheat but nonetheless it’s amusing.
The roads here really stress me out! We aren’t allowed to drive a car or a moto, but I take motos as taxis and when I ride my bike I am on the road with the cars and motos, it’s kind of insane. I have a good 5 minute bike ride on a dirt road to get to my house which never fails to make me question if I’m going to make it out alive. We had a cooking session the other night with some of the current volunteers. We left their house at 8:30ish and it was already quite dark the bike ride home is best described as Catherine put it “it was like we were in the X-Games but in the dark.” We all agreed that biking at night wasn’t going to become a habit of ours.
I have classes 6 days a week starting at 8 and on Sundays I go to church with my Mama so I don’t sleep in ever! I wake up every morning at 5:30 to the call to prayer coming from the mosque down the street I had no idea what it was the first day, I always fall back asleep so it doesn’t really bother me, if you think about it it’s really kind of cool that everyone in the city of Muslim faith is getting up together to pray.
The weather really isn’t that bad normally, I haven’t broken out the sunscreen yet, the Beninese people don’t sit out in the sun, and if the sun is out they are in the shade which makes sense. I have, however used a lot of bug spray I still manage to get eaten alive. I am convinced I am going to have scars on my legs from all the bites, hopefully the malaria meds work!