Saturday, July 11, 2009

benin-utiae

parakou, benin

you must at first excuse me. when i heard that we would be going to the tchouk market, i didn't fully understand that this would be a tchouk crawl. with seven people participating, just call it par for the course if i misspell a word or nine. what's that? what's tchouk? why, it's a millet-based fermented beverage, of course. this beverage is served in a calabash, and you can usually see the actual yeast gather at the bottom of every serving. the stuff may not sell like hotcakes if it made it across the pond, but if tonight is any testament, it gets the job done.

so we've returned from katie's village in sirarou. as it's difficult to explain what happens in a village like sirarou, my best explanation is that each hour passes demonstrably slowly, but that each day flies by. at the outset, our agenda included maybe three things that we barely managed to accomplish in three days (do laundry, greet local friends, walk around). it's not that things got in the way, it's just that village life has a way of wrapping itself around you and bringing you down to its speed.

with the school year recently concluded, one of the big events in sirarou was to listen to the results of exams as they came in on the radio. national radio, mind you. picture yourself as a 16-year-old who has just taken a national placement exam and the entire country hears whether or not you will advance to the next level of education. yeah, that.

so it was that last night as we were bidding adieu to katie's local mother, with all the stars in focus, that her mama's daughter's results were announced....and that she had passed. and while katie's mama remained stoic this entire week despite the death of her younger brother, it was so pleasant to see some emotion. her daughter cupped her hands around her mouth surprisingly and received congratulations from all her relatives. the type of seen never to be found in a guide book, never to be found on a guided tour.

wawa
i must say that it is difficult to be surrounded by so many pcv's (peace corps volunteers). the throwing out of acronyms is a bit aggressive, and the insular quality to their stories can be a bit much to handle. but one that fits is certainly wawa: west africa wins again. next time a four-hour bus takes ten hours: wawa. next time the waitress takes your order and returns an hour later to tell you they don't have it: wawa. and so on.

je vais pisser
many of these countries are muslim, yet i really never noticed this phenomenon until burkina faso. apparently muslim men, in an effort to be humble, will take a leak in public, but do it kneeling. that's right. not on their knees, but they will do a bow-legged squat while delicately protecting their special little guy and let their juices flow. my mind has not quite accepted why anyone, individually or as an organization, would choose to punt on the y-chromosome's greatest advantage.

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