Home » Benin » Re-locating my Bossy Toes

My biggest worry is that all I will do in Athieme is talk, and not necessarily talk about relevant issues, but just drink beer and sodabi and just shoot the breeze. What if I am a person that likes to study, talk, and write, but not actually do any work?

Re-locating my Bossy Toes

Erika Kraus
2006-08-28 19:43:20

Displayed times (last time: )

of mushroom soup; you get my drift. A grocery store.
Cotonou also provides the Peace Corps office. The Peace Corps office is like the Holy Grail for a volunteer, providing everything I have ever hoped for: mail, including peanut butter, but even better, letters, also reliable internet (no lying!), administration with resources and moringa seeds and good advice. I also have an English-language library there, doctors, and the air-conditioned t.v. room with movies, movies, movies. The medical unit also has a full kitchen, so I can buy feta cheese, chorizo sausage, and brown bread and make a hot sandwich. The office also brings lots of fellow Americans, which gives ample opportunity to make “ex-pat” type memories.
On this trip I had some beer. Oh wait, I have that on every trip. But, with the beer this time I had sugar-plus-milk powder popcorn, which kind of changed the taste of the beer. I also went to a play. Two plays, actually, both of which were provided by the French cultural center. I really like theater. The next day I went to the beach.
I love water. The ocean here is violent, though, so I “swim.” I “swim” by standing/lying in the water while waves wash over me/knock me down. I can stand in two-three feet of calm water and watch a wave higher than my head wash toward me, and strong enough to leave me snorting snot/salt water from my nose and pulling my swimsuit back into place while removing sand. The volunteers are strongly cautioned on entering the ocean.
Lovely water all the same.
I had no definite plans for the evening, so I headed out of Cotonou. I had really started to feel guilty being lazy, watching a movie in air-conditioning and bathing in warm water I had not heated myself. I only had each of those novelties once. I visited another volunteer and together made yet another beautiful version of Wakiki chicken. We ate it with one of her friends, who was either really hungry or liked the meal, because he ate it twice. I could have eaten it ten times, but contained myself.
At the end of this week, I have new ideas on how a volunteer is effective. At first, I had thought I would be a better volunteer by staying in Athieme as much as possible and working with the resources I have available there, but now I realize that I can still be a good volunteer by participating in nation-wide events as well as Athieme events. I also realize that with myself as the leader, a project can still be effective, as long as the people around me know why I am doing whatever I am doing.
So- back to post, with more energy to work than to play! Though I am sure I will do both…