6 months in, 21 to go…

Happy holidays everyone! Here are some thoughts that I wrote when I was at site on Dec. 10, 2019. 

I left Anchorage to start my journey with the Peace Corps on June 9th, 2019, six months ago yesterday. It feels like it was much longer than that but at the same time it feels like yesterday. Time is moving quickly, just as everyone told me it would. 

One of the difficulties volunteers often face is the daunting nature of our jobs. There is so much work to be done and so many people to work with, but where do you start? How are you going to be the most effective volunteer possible? Is the work we are doing actually making an impact? 

It’s easy to fall into the jaded mindset that we’re not really helping anyone, that we’re not qualified to provide real help, that the problems are structural and therefore out of our control. Something that really stuck with me during PST (pre-service training) is the metaphor that Peace Corps Volunteers are like drops of water in a river, and with the combined efforts of every drop of water, the river will flow, and progress is made. 

Our work as rural community health (RCH) volunteers in the first three months at site is to integrate into our communities. This means making friends, learning local language, and learning and observing absolutely everything we can about our communities. My village is fairly large compared to other surrounding villages, as it is the head of the arrondissement (equivalent of a county). I have started to slowly but surely make friends in my village. I walk through town every morning to the Health Center, greeting in Yom (my local language) the same mamans who are set up selling bouille (similar to porridge) in the same spot every morning. 

Quick tangent. One of my friends from village gave me a “village name” on the first day I got to my site: Assibi. Assibi means samedi (Saturday in French) and she gave me this name because I arrived at site on a Saturday. Then, a week or so into my arrival in September, the landlord of one of my friends noticed that I was très elancé (tall) and called me Dogo. I laughed and said, I should be called Assibi Dogo, and from that day forth, my name has been Assibi Dogo: tall Saturday. 

Anyways, I’ve introduced myself to as many children as possible in Yom so that they stop yelling Tempura (foreigner/white person) whenever they see me. I haven’t gotten all of them, but quite a few of the kids in village now call Assibi Dogo when they see me which is fun. 

Learning Yom is difficult, but my language tutor is beyond incredible. My original language tutor, Samirath, recently found out she was pregnant (yay!) but unfortunately has had a really difficult first trimester and has therefore been unable to do language class with me. I switched to my site mate Laura’s language tutor named Bassiki and have continued my lessons. It is such a privilege to learn a language from someone who is so passionate about the history of his culture and language. Bassiki explains the meaning behind the words he teaches me in Yom. For example, the word for Dieu (God in French) in Yom is Cansawa (pronounced chan-sa-wa). The first part, Can, means lumière (light in French) and the second part, sawa, means roi (king in French). So the word Cansawa, really means the king of the light. These lessons really remind me how lucky I am to be here and to have met people like Bassiki. 

Learning local language is extremely important to me because I want to show my community that I care about learning everything I can about their culture. I am here for 24 months and I’m going to do everything I can to be part of the community. My relationships that I build over the next two years are going to be my lasting impact on the community. Sure the health talks that I give every week in the surrounding villages are going to help spread important health messages to communities that might not have heard them in the way I present them. But the conversation that I have with my 18 year old neighbor about the importance of Gender Equality and what it means to be an ally for women in his life, that will make him think twice about throwing that pencil at one of the three girls in his 10th grade class. Or it might encourage him to send his daughters to school instead of keeping them home to work so his sons can go instead. Conversations opening people’s minds to other possibilities may not result in immediate change, but it allows them to think about what you’re saying and what it means for them in their life. These conversations are my part of my job description, and are often what leaves me feeling the most accomplished at the end of the day. Each one is like a drop of water into the river.

My homologue and I giving a health talk on complimentary feeding for children under 2 years old 

Complimentary feeding explained with images, ranging for infants from 0-24 months old. Images include breasts for breast milk, spoons in a bowl for porridge, bananas for bites of fruit, water drop for water, and peace sign looking symbols for full meals with all three food groups (we have simplified food groups in Benin)

I recently got a bamboo table made which has improved the cooking space in my kitchen. My house is not quite done yet but when it is, I will post before and after pictures. 

I spent Christmas this year in Grand Popo with some other volunteer friends. Yay clean feet! 

We had quite a few volunteers meet up for Christmas on the beach in Grand Popo. It was so fun to catch up with everyone from my stage (training group) after three months at their respective sites. Also fun to play in the ocean which was soooo warm with fun waves.