Summertime

The end of the school year has always held a special place in my heart, perhaps as I havn't yet outgrown the student mentality yet. Well, it seems that that feeling is all the more present in teachers, speaking from the end of my first year of teaching.
As oppossed to the American big boom finish style, the Beninese schools prefer to limp slowly to the finish line, prolonging the academic angst. Our final exams were taken at the end of May with a month left of teaching. This was mainly due to the strike earlier in the year but this fact did not make the going smoother as us Volunteers were teaching throughout the year, strike and all.
That being said, it was nice to have more time opening up and have the joy that is summer vacation slowly reveal itself until its sunny demeanor is the only thing noticeable. It's also helpful to see some more of the problems in the system exposed to me, as I'm a first-year I hope to take better advantage of the system next time around or at least be better prepared for it.
Ah, summertime! My old friend returns and is reinvigorated by the excitement on the looks my children give me. "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers (or students), dirty looks." For now the many summer camps of all us teaching Volunteers looms and the new trainees coming from America to join us in a new world.

Gone Fishing

The moon hung high in the sky, reflecting back to itself in the ocean. Lights from across the abyss floated on the horizon. Unknown crews, unknown cargoes, unknown stories hidden from my consciousness. Teasing me with an impossible barrier stretching out between us. More bitter, more sweet, more "wow".
This was the scene as silent figures began to emerge from the periphery. Stage left and right, an act in and of itself. More moving and full of meaning than any Oscar nominated film on the market today.
We had been lounging at the sunset bar, one of our spots. Spread out at a table like big cats, full from their supper and relieved by the night's chill.
They were fisherman pulling in the catch. Salutations were exchanged and I was forced to squeeze out all of the Fon under my metaphorical belt.
I envied them. Unjustly, I know. Theirs was a job beyond my physical capabilities and without much to show for. But how can I be immune to the romanticism before my eyes, the same act that they've done for who knows how long and they were letting me help them, letting my hands ache with theirs. Behind us stretched a sore of urbanity, unchecked growth and the hopes of a young, small country. In front of us was the dark water and a navy of traders hell bent on having their way with Africa, comme l'habitude. Perhaps I generalize. Either way, they were not the show, merely the background.
In fact it was like reality itself was our background. We were the show, the escape. A brief bit of levity and normalacy in a crazy world beyond the ability to be reached. This was the show and for forty minutes I imagined people stopping and the planet's heart rate lowering as we dragged in the night's catch.
It wasn't much really. Maybe a hundred fish outnumbered by ocean trash. But it was exciting nonetheless. To have fought the outgoing tide and come up with food as the receding water revealed old ships wreaked by the ocean, their mysteries enhanced by the glow from the moon.
"Have some fish," they said. "I'm going home, thank you," I responded. They had given me enough. Close curtains.

Rain

The earth had been dry for longer than I had cared to remember. After months of living in a dryer-machine like atmosphere one's brain becomes numb to the heat. Most especially during the peak hours from around ten o'clock to four o'clock. What would back home normally be considered the most productive hours of the day is reduced to a hazy, narcotic like heat trance forcing all ages outside under the nearest mango tree. It never ceases to amaze me what the human body can become acclimated to. And while heat is certainly acknowledged, accepted, and feared, in its ubiquity it is not even an issue but just a physical fact of nature, like gravity.
This was the scene for nearly four months throughout the long dry season. And this fact of life was mercifully broken for a short day by a righteous rain that changed my understanding of what I had always thought was just water from the sky.
Rain is a simple enough concept. Back home, every so often some water would fall from heaven and interrupt our outside activities. At best a nourishment for the yellowing lawn and at worse, and more frequently, a cessation of the enjoyment of the greater outdoors. In Benin not the case.
The big sky was already starting to look angry as I began the walk to school. I had wondered if the kids would show up during a rain storm, especially with the other teachers striking, but responsibility reared its ugly head and I was compelled to take the walk anyway, poncho in hand and binder in the other. Halfway there the slow pitter patter began to increase and I was obliged to suit up. By the primary school I pass on the way this pitter patter had become a downpour. Buckets upon buckets, falling and falling and falling. What I had always thought were dusty creases in the trail become flowing rivers and I imagined tiny towns being carried away in the current.
How different the scene now was as I looked around. The fogginess instilled in my minde by the long dry season's heat had seemed to be lifted and my eyes were new. The laughter came slowly, seemingly answering the pounding of the rain and by the time the poncho was off tears were in my eyes as I could hardly stand due to my cackling. It wasn't funny...Well, maybe a little. At least the thought of how ridiculous I looked in my poncho whilst walking to school. But the laughter was more caused by joy or reverence for the rain. I'm not a farmer, but almost everyone else is in Aklampa and I get my food from these farmers. No water, no food. But then again, the joy I was feeling in my soul wasn't just a, hooray I can eat!-feeling, it was something more primordial. A realization that for at least one more year, the sky hadn't forgotten us. Water fell, like it has always done, and though the dry season tried again to fool us into giving up hope, the heavens opened up and acknowledged us. Hope springs eternal, especially when the spring is the sky. I could hear the children pounding out beats on the desks before I rounded the corner to my classroom and at the sight of me approaching an uproarious shout was let out by the students and the beat stoutly held its line, trying to answer the gratifying noise of rain on tin. Dusty orange and red had already began to change to deep brown and green, signs of emerging life. The smiles on the children confirmed what I had thought on the walk to school. We are born again in Aklampa.

Cotonou Tries

The Cotonou skyline is nonexistent, the city being simply a series of concrete buildings carpeting the beach along the bight of Benin. And yet, I still felt like a farm boy in times square as I look for a zem to the bureau. What a difference living at post will do to one's view of modern conveniences like traffic lights and other new fangled contraptions like running water is quite impressive.
My first trip to the nation's economic nerve center since training. Pizza, internet, movies, all things to be had in this city and to confuse me with their exotic nature. To further complicate matters, the novelty of my being white/foreign/American does not quite exist in this more cosmopolitan center of commerce, where I've become just another face in the crowd. The brief weekend respite from the countryside, while fun, also serves to get me excited to return to "normalacy" back in Aklampa. What need have I for hot water when I have my trusty bucket back home? Who needs to watch "Desperate Housewives" when I have th drama of an adolescent puppy to entertain me (Quite large now, how fast they grow!)? Besides, the new semester has gotten underway and my kids must hit the books. Like all good things, city life is good in moderation here in Benin. The sprawling sore that is African urbanity is better left sequestered down south, to be visited once in a blue moon and only with the intention of a brief stay. In short, Aklampa edges out Cotonou in terms of quality of life, at least community wise. The Mahis up north are more relaxed than their Fon brothers down in the south, and appreciate a salutation more as well. So thanks Cotonou for trying, but I choose you Aklampa.

Racing Thoughts

Just to that tree. That's as far as I'll go. Well, Naturally, I'll have to turn around afterwards. But no farther than that tree. The fields had been trotting by me as I made my way through the country-side, all willy-nilly and what have you.
How far is it anyway? Maybe that's why I asked? Only getting there ever really answers that question. It's fun to speculate but it's the getting there that actually proves it, the "it" being what I don't know. The journey, the quest, the adventure. That eternal voyage where the story lies.
What's it like when you get there? Well, it turns out it's just a tree, as expected, and then I turn around. Is there a new goal? A new vision for my eyes to feast upon? If there is, it's only in my mind. Heck, isn't that what makes a goal anyway? The fact that it's there, in your mind.
While the goal may not be visible, the journey sure is. I see it. Stretching out before my strides. In a blur by me as I pass onlookers with their mouths open and landscapes burnt dry by the scorching sun.
An old woman stops me as I approach. I passed her on my way out and, just as I said in local language, I'm back. She shoves some peanuts in my hand and we say our goodbyes. I couldn't help but take the nuts, the novelty of running with a handful of nuts suiting my comic disposition. What's more, their presence added a rhythmic backbeat as I bounded up and down on the sandy road back to village.
The unbaked clay fetish is still there, as it has been for countless years, as I approach the village limits. Phallus pointed at me, locked and loaded, and a devilish grin, half welcoming half menecing, greets me as I approach. Legba, this region's Pan, Coyote, the trouble maker. I try to stay on his good side more often than not, to varying degrees of success as friends and family can attest. I pass him smiling, mimicking his grin, as I always attempt to do.
Still no goal in sight as the hills recede and signs of habitation increase. Unless, of course, you count the mind's eye. And that, in any regards, is rather shrouded over with thoughts. Dancing Zangbetos mingle with two stepping loved ones and memories of long ago. Regrets and hopes meet in a terrible tango only assuaged by the salutations of my neighbors as I pass.
The goal is made mental by the journey because the journey is so ubiquitous. It envelopes you, surrounds you, chews you up and spits you back out. It hits you, hugs you, knocks you down and builds you back up. Running makes that clear. It's Reader's Digest for life. As I approach my house, I almost wish that it doesn't materialize. That it somehow will stay hidden so I can prolong the journey. But it doen't work like that. It'll show and I'll have to forget all of these thoughts for another twenty hours or so. But ca rest tomorrow. And who knows what the goal (or should I say journey?) will be then.

Dogon Dream

Camera panning out, view of the cliffs in the background as the sun sets and the horse cart begins to trot away, roll the credits and cue the applause. Your standard ending for most epic movie endings, right? How lucky then, that I got to experience this phenomenon as I left God's gift to Mali, the Dogon country. Perhaps I'm being a bit unfair, the divine Power that be was kind enough to grant Mali a plethora of amazing sights, and somehow lil ole me managed to see a fair share of them; the Niger river, the Djenee mosque, etc.
But I digress, this post is about the Dogon country, a place bigger than a stopping point on my hectic vacation. Rather, one of those places that you just have to see to understand. I had never thought that tourism and traditional cultures could exist so close in tandem but, for the moment, the Pays Dogon is managing to market its incredible natural beauty in a beneficial way, both for the indigenous inhabitants and for those lucky enough to venture out here.
The Dogon chose the cliffs of the Bandiagara for its beauty after traveling around central Mali for many ages. I, for one, don't blame them. One would be hard pressed to find a country more awe-inspiring and spirtual in nature. From the cliffs one sees out over the river (dry for half of the year) and beyond that what is left of the "forest", as the desert in the far distance ever encroaches on the natural rock faces that are these people's homes.
Within the cliffs are hidden more villages and fairytale landscapes just as suitable for a J.R.R. Tolkien novel as for a Louis L'amour western. It was hard to not break into a sudden game of cowboys and Indians as Baba, our guide and friend, took us through what are his stomping grounds and his livelihood.
We waved by to our new friends from our horse cart as the driver began to pull away, the marketplace and other guides came out to wish us on our way. The cliffs stayed with us for sometime but eventually, as we continued, they sank beneath the horizon, following the setting sun and leaving the horse and us in a moonlit landscape with the wind whispering in our ears. Baba's story of the Tellum, the forest people who had lived here before the Dogon, was still fresh in my memory. "Why did they leave?", I asked. "Because we cut too many trees down." And still they cut. Even Baba himself has noticed how small the "woods" are now compared to when he was a child. It was hard not to notice the sand blowing in the wind and the few remaining bastions of skinny trees as we approached the more arid hinterland of the Pays Dogon. The Tellum have already left after trying to teach their lesson, with hope the Dogon will not follow.

Parakou

Ah, Parakou. The city of lights. Well, not quite, but it's still something for a country-boy like Monsieur Robert coming in from the hills of Aklampa. Flu season is upon us it seems (they get that here?) and that means the backwater folks get to come into the burgeoning population center that is Parakou, a glorified dustbowl during this time of year, for their government mandated stabbing. Minerets replace steeples in this part of the country and shawls replace braids, it being a more Muslim influenced region than in the dirty south. Parakou has become quite the loci for us TEFLers over the last two weeks as it was just seven days ago that we were all here for our brief respite from the school year known as PSW (Personal Strategies Workshop). Thanksgiving, that ancient most American of holidays, found us all together and we had quite the fete, stuffing a guinea fowl in a duck and then stuffing the afformentioned amalgamation into a turkey tastes better than it sounds and throw in some mashed taters and home is just a taste away. The walls of the workstation sufficiently insulated us all from the prayer calls and zemijohn drivers as we all pretended to be back home. As trite as it sounds, there is a lot to be thankful for. Just a brief list to whet your appetite; showers, books, my dog, my family, my friends (old and new), and just plain being. Perhaps another thing to add to that list is movies, it never ceases to amaze me how awe-inspiring movies are after being au village for a month. For a culture shock it's always fun to take a walk outside of the station immediately after watching "I Love You Man" or "The Hangover". Sufficiently inundated with American popular culture and rearmed with new reading materials, Aklampa is calling. A la prochaine Parakou.