HA!

Family, it's always been important to me and my new Beninese one is no different. Maman, a large powerful woman, is pretty cool. She rules the household like a benevolent dictator and is quick to laugh at me, which I am used to. I have three brothers and one sister. Aziz, 16, Hauko, 13, and Grace, who is probably two years old. Grace is one of the cutest babies that I have ever seen, he could be the black Gerber baby.
Aziz and Hauko and Joelle, my sis, have been real helpful in terms of speaking French. Being that I have the French skills of a dim-witted young whipper snapper, I can better communicate with them than with Maman whose deep voice can be rather hard to follow sometimes.
Yesterday I was able to partake in the age old rite of passage for all youngsters in Africa, playing soccer in the street while wearing sandals. The sandals, I feel, are very important because they enhance one's inablity to be good at football, especially in my case. I look forward to many more shockingly ungraceful performances on my part as my footballer carreer in Africa progresses.
On more note on African hilarity. My first ride back from the school on my new bike the other day was yet another in a string of "pinch me" moments. Riding through the streets of Porto-Novo on a mountain bike, whaaa?! Allow me to paint you a picture, I'm wearing my best Mormon proselytyzer outfit, a yellow tucked in polo shirt and khakis, with my right pant leg tucked into my woolen sock. Classic, I know. As I approached a group of young beninois fooling around on a moto I believe the sight of me caused the young man to drop his moto.
This in turn, led to me falling off of my bike. An attempt at a conversation followed as we both picked ourselves up. The main form of communication through all of this, owing in no small part to my French disablity, was laughter. It really is the shortest distance between two people and everytime we laugh here together the failure to communicate dissappears, and we see each other all too clearly.