Ketou and the Oro

This was post visit week. For those of you who haven't been paying attention we all went, individually, to the site of our eventual posting. For me this meant a trip to Ketou in the southeastern part of the country.

We had a one and a half-day conference with our homologues. A homologue is the person that works for the host organization. A host organization is the group which sponsors us in their area. I am being sponsored by the CLCAM (an agricultural credit union organised by the national government). My homologue is the Gerant of the local CLCAM, analogous to a bank manager.

Immediately after the conference on Tuesday afternoon we drove to Ketou. Most others left on Wednesday morning in bush taxis but my homologue had come to Azove with his own car so we had a much eqsier voyage than most. I did have to come back by taxi but it was uneventful if somewhat uncomfortable. We left quickly because ther was an Oro fete in Ketou on Tuesday night that the Gerant did not want to miss. If you remember from earlier posts the Oro are a secret society, actually a Voodoo sect as I learned this week, who have been known to kill outsiders who witness their ceremonies, often held in public. Apparently I was slightly misinformed, they only kill women and those who do not respect the fete. Lucky me. Anyway, we got to Ketou on time, unloaded the car and walked the streets waiting for the Oro to appear. There is one being known as the Oro, from which the sect takes its name. I did get to see, and get touched by, the Oro. Since I was warned beforehand that I cannot talk of the experience to women for fear of their lives I can say no more. Women are not only not allowed to witness any ceremony, they are also not allowed to know any details or even talk of the Oro upon penalty of death. Driving into town and walking around after parking there were no women or girls to be seen. They were all inside their homes with the windows closed for the entire day. The next day was as if nothing ever happened though.

The rest of the week was spent meeting some of the local dignitaries and people that I would be working with, and of course seeing my eventual accomodations. Given what I witnessed and was told Tuesday evening and night I was extremely surprised, and pleased, to find that Ketou has a female mayor. I forget her name right now but I'm sure I'll be able to remember it after working there awhile. I also met some of the people on some of the administrative committees of the CLCAM. I don't know why so many of them live in Ketou but I'll find that out eventually also I'm sure.

I had a fair amount of spare time even with all of these introductions and was able to get some language study in also. I will get it eventually. I also learned some greetings in the local language, Nagot. I don't know how to spell them so I can't write them here now though.

Finally, my new house. It is not finished yet but nearly so. The outlets and wall switches have to be installed as well as a more appropriate lock put on the front door but otherwise it is fine. That's right folks you heard right, outlets and wall switches, I will have electricity. Yeah!!! Not all of us will. One of us is being posted to a village that has no electricity anywhere. Others are in cities with sporadic electricity. It never went out in Ketou while I was there and was told that it was reliable. I'll find out what that means soon enough. Electricity - yes, running water - no. Can't have everything I guess. There is, or will be, a robinet (faucet) just outside my building though, not too bad by Benin standards. There is one very large room with two good sized bedrooms. There is a separate room out back for the kitchen, a common arrangement in Benin. There is also a shower stall and outhouse in the backyard. The bqckyard is walled off with broken glass stuck into the top of the wall for security. The front yard is walled off as well with a locking gate. There is even enough room for a small garden for fresh vegetables.

My time is almost up at the cyber so I have to go now. Our schedule is fairly routine for now so I probably won't have an update for a couple of weeks. Be good.

a Ouidah

We were sent to Oudiah (we-dah) Saturday for a cross-cultural training session. Just a day trip this time, not overnight. Ouidah was one of the largest ports for the embarkation of slaves from Africa to Europe and America. There is a very good museum along with other sites around the city about this sad chapter in human history. There are several monuments along the route the slaves took through the city to the ships. After a tour through the museum we were given a tour of this route.
There are four main stops on this route. The first is the site where the slaves were housed while waiting to be sold and shipped out. The building is now gone with only a monument and several statues in a small park. The building was several floors high and had only a single small door and no windows. The slaves were held there with no light to disorient them, not allowing them to know where they were or who they were with and to get them used to being on the ship, under the same conditions. Next to this was the site of the mass grave. Whenever a slave died before being sold the body was just thrown into a hole next to the holding site. The bodies have now been buried, but were never removed. There are no reliable estimates as to how many people are buried there. There is a very moving monument there now that is kept up very well, unlike many things here.
The next important site is the tree of forgetfulness. This is a tree that was planted by the king of the area. He was the one doing the actual selling to the Europeans and Americans. The king planted a tree and had some kind of voodoo magic buried beside it. The slaves were forced to walk around the tree nine times in order to forget their homeland before they were shipped out. The original tree is now gone but a tree of the same type is there now;
Further along the route is the tree of hope. The slaves were told to walk around this tree three times and there would be the hope that they would one day be able to return home. Obviously this was a scam to keep the slaves quiet but there was no voodoo done here. The original tree is still there however. It is now almost four hundred years old.
The final site is a large monument at the point where the ships were loaded. The point of no return. The piers have washed away and there is only a beach there now. The entire route was about two miles long. The slaves were forced to do this walk at night so that they wouldn't know where they were or where they were going.
Slavery was not uncommon in this area at the time but it was different than it was in Europe and America. Slaves here were generally captured prisoners of war and had some hope of rescue at some point. They were also used as forced labor but were not mistreated. They were merely not allowed to go home. Most of the slaves along the coast were from inland tribes and kingdoms. Many had never seen the ocean much less an oceangoing ship. The practice of not letting them know what was happening was intended to keep them compliant. They had no reason to suspect their future overseas because they had no experience or knowledge of such.
Ouidah is also the birthplace of voodoo. It is still the predominant religion in the area and is very common throughout the country. We were not told much about this during the trip. We have classes about religion and other cultural differences in Azove.
I also learned that the Oro is active in Ketou, where I will be posted. The Oro is a secret society based upon voodoo like beliefs. They require that no outsider see them during their religious activities. It is known who the Oro members are, but others are not allowed to see them only during their ceremonies. The only problem with this is that they perform their ceremonies in public. Everybody else is required to go inside whenever the Oro are around. In the past they have been known to kill those people who don't comply. The government has forced an end to that practice now however. Apparently, the Oro are still a very powerful force in local matters. Disrespecting them will get a person shunned and even threatened with bodily harm. One volunteer was forced to move from the area because of this. I don't expect to have any problems with them. The society sounds somewhat interesting and I hope to be able to get to know some of them in time. Their main activity now seems to be policing the streets at night and occassionally getting drunk in public.
I am now almost completely recovered from my head butting incident. I still get an occassional headache, which the doctor said would be normal for a week or two. I cannot engage in any strenous physical activity or drink any alcohol for two weeks. The doctor is coming to Azove this week to continue the immunization schedule (Oh boy, more shots) and will check me out again then.
Nothing else is going on right now, just more classes and French practice. We go to Abomey next Saturday for a history class. Abomey is where the kings of one of the former kingdoms in this area lived. The following week is post visit. We all go to live at our post for four or five days to see the area and get introduced to some of the people we will be working with. This will be a short trip for me to Ketou, but some of us have rather long trips to the far north of the country.
A bientot.

Taking the good with the bad

I've got a little free access time so I might as well take advantage of it. More on why I have free access later. Training is going OK. Fairly intense without much time for anything else. There have been a few distractions and deviations from the norm though.
The first distraction was a trip to Grand-Popo, the resort area of Benin. It was fairly deserted because this is the off-season for travel to West Africa. We are in one of two annual wet seasons for this area. It doesn't actually rain very often but it is usually overcast and, thankfully, a bit cooler than the rest of the year. The trip made for the first time in a bush taxi for most of us. This in itself was a deviation from the norm. There were fourteen of us trainees, or stagieres, plus a volunteer in two taxis. With, of course, the two drivers as well. The two cars that were used should have seated 12 people total. If you studied your math in high school you know that the two cars held 17 total. This obviously did not make for a comfortable ride. It is fortunate that we all get along with each other here. About halfway throught the two hour trip the taxi I was in pulls over with no explanation from the driver. The driver gets out, inspects the front right wheel then asks myself and Ly to get out of the car. We were seated in the front and he had to get to the tool box under the seat. When we got out I noticed the problem. The wheel had nuts on only three of four lugs and they were all loose. As the driver retightened the nuts I walked around the car and found the same condition on all the wheels. After fixing the problem we continued on without incident for the rest of the journey and had no such problems on the return journey the next day. The time in Grtand-Popo did make for a great distraction from the routine of Azove. Sitting on the beach, playing frisbee and softball with local children and going out that night was very relaxing. You will notice that I did not say that we went swimming. That's because it is not possible. The waves are tremendously large all day regardless of the tide and there is a very strong ripcurrent that is almost impossible to stand against in water only thigh high. Before we left we were told to be extrememly careful and informed of a volunteer who got a dislocated shoulder merely by getting hit by a wave. After getting hit by a few of them myself I can believe the story.
Another distraction was being told our posts early. We were originally told that we wouldn't know our posts until week five. We were informed of them earlier this week, week four. After training, I will be posted to Ketou (K2). It is in the southeast portion of Benin near the border with Nigeria. I will be working with a group of local artisans to help them better run their businesses. This will involve teaching basic bookkeeping and accounting skills initially and then going onto cost control methods as time allows. The other aspect of the post is working with the local CLCAM (agricultural credit union cooperations) to build a database to allow them to better track clients payments, or lack thereof, and become more efficient. I am very happy to have gotten both of these projects. They appear to fit extremely well with what I had in mind with being able to help out here. We were also informed of where we would be going for tech live-in. Tech live-in involves living witha apresent volunteer for several days to get some exposure to the life of a volunteer. I was told I would be going to Tangieta, a small city in the far north of Benin. I read my Rough Guide about the area and was looking forward to going. There are mountains, as opposed to the very flat terrain in the south, and, although it gets hotter in the north than the south, it is the cool season there so it is very comfortable there now.
Now the bad part of the early post notice and why I have free access time. I am writing from the medical unit of the Peace Corps office in Cotonou. We have had several people in our group get sick, as was expected, from unclean water or food or excessive heat or some other adaptation that didn't go well initially. However, it should come to no ones surprise that yours truly has received the first serious injury of the group. After being told of our posts we decided to celebrate with a game of Ultimate. We were able to involve some of the local children and our Beninese teachers who had never seen the game. It was a lot of fun and went a long way toward helping us to get established in the community. During the game I banged heads with a volunteer who has been here for about a year. She is one of our teachers for a week or two as well. She is fine and back to work now never having suffered any adverse effects. I, however, have not been so lucky, of course. I received a small cut over my right eye; very small, no stitches and the bleeding stopped on its own in just a few minutes. I got a headache shortly thereafter and woke up in the middle of the night with extreme dizziness, nausea and an even bigger headache. I somehow got myself to Ecobank (where we have classes) and informed Jason (a volunteer teacher) that I could not depart for tech live-in in my present condition. A ride was arranged for me to get to the doctors here in Cotonou and everybody else went off for their live-in. Upon arriving at the medical unit, after a ride that did nopt help my condition at well, I was examined by the PC doctor who immediatly called a neurologist to come and examin me as well. I was diagnosed with edema. It seems that when I hit my head my brain bounced off my cranium and swelled up, imagine that. I got a CAT scan the next day to confirm the diagnosis. The prescription was to take it easy for a few days while by brain returned to normal size and stay in the medical unit in case any complications arose. My brain is normal again, no complications arose and I am leaving tomorrow. I spoke with Jacques, the APCD for my section, and I will be probably go to a different city for the rest of the week to get at least some portion of a tech live-in. It would take the whole day to drive to Tanguieta, my original destination, leaving only enough time to stay the night before I would have to return to Azove on Saturday.
That's it for now. I'll get back whenever I can. C'est Afrique.