Tales from Rohan

Happy Holidays!

This is my end of year letter for 2009. This year I managed to start two new jobs. From January till June, I consulted for Skype while waiting for time to leave for the Peace Corps in Bénin in West Africa. Skype is a great company and I really enjoyed working for its widely distributed crew, and the opportunity to go to Austria, Taiwan, Tallinn (Estonia) and Stockholm (Sweden) a few times to work with colleagues there.

Tallinn in winter and spring

I also spent a lot of my spare time working on my acrobatics. I attended several workshops including a four day seminar in Oakland with the founders of AcroYoga. I made some great friendships with my acrobatic partners. Yes Mom, I stayed home and joined the circus.

Before I left for Peace Corps, I packed up and rented out my house and find a home for Tyler with my tenants Ian and Christine. Alex came back from Evergreen and a week-long kayak school just long enough to help me get things packed up and ready for visits with my Mom, and my Dad and Jill.

Near the end of July I went to Philadelphia for two days or orientation and then got on an airplane for Benin with 55 other stagiaires (trainees). After 9 weeks in country, living with our host families in Porto Novo, 50 of us swore in as volunteers and went to our posts. My post is at the University of Parakou.

My host family; the new SED/ICT (business + me) volunteers just before and after swear in

Parakou is the third largest city and is about mid-way along the main North-South highway, however, like the American “Midwest” starting in Ohio. The “North” of Benin seems to be anything north of Bohicon. The comparison is a good one. The North is (like the Great Plains) a scrubby savannah with wide open spaces and occasional beautiful thunderstorms. Where the comparison ends is that our “cold season” just finished with temperatures dipping as low as 55º (brrrr!). Now I am bracing for the chaleur which should bring temperatures upwards of 100º everyday. One major consolation is that mango season coincides with the chaleur. There are mango trees everywhere which provide welcome shade and even more welcome mangos.

I am here:

Being in good sized city, life in Peace Corps is far more luxurious than I expected. I have running water and electricity (most of the time) and access to lots of variety in terms of food (fruit, vegetables, cheese, live poultry, lamb, fresh beef, frozen fish, even yoghurt). The University even has an Internet connection that is very good by local standards.

Pass the papaya please…

As part of my primary project, I am teaching three computer classes in French. Because most of the professors in my school come up from the other public University in Benin (Abomey-Calavie near Cotonou), the classes at my college are usually taught in one or two weeks as a single 45 hour or 60 hour sequence. My 60 hour Linux class for example runs 0900-1200 and 1530-1830 every day for two weeks. The students here are used to classes consisting almost entirely of theory. They are starved for practical instruction and seem to thrive on it.

The rest of my primary project includes managing the school’s teaching lab of about 20 computers (a time consuming but necessary evil) and a seminar series on entrepreneurism. In addition, I am working on lots of secondary projects in my community and providing tech support for other Peace Corps volunteers and for a variety of Beninese nationals. I am also finishing up the installation of a database and web front end written by a previous volunteer for a national “planned savings” bank.
One of the groups in Parakou that I’ve been doing some work with is the Corps de Volontaires Beninois (CDV). This is a group of a little over 20 university and “high school” students who do projects in health, the environment, and social concerns . As far as they know they are the first Beninese-only volunteerism group in the country. I recently attended one of their hand-washing awareness seminars (sensibilisations in French) at a primary school, and another awareness session on volunteerism. When I first arrived in Benin, CDV was in the process of distributing the balance of two community savings and loan groups. One of these groups of women (mostly street vendors) managed to save an impressive 1.5 million CFA (Central African Francs) over the course of the project.

In addition to making Beninese friends like my neighbor François (a young plumber) and Ibrahim (president of the CDV), I see lots of other volunteers who come to Parakou for banking, shopping, and official Peace Corps events. For Christmas, I am going to the northern city of Kandi where a lot of friends will be gathering.

François and Ibrahim

Meanwhile, Alex is doing well as a sophomore at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He is very excited that he was just accepted for a spring quarter program in Peru as part of the course “Andean Roots”. He spent Thanksgiving in Santa Cruz with Lisa and will be in Pennsylvania with his mom for Christmas and New Years.

Alex with Carmen at Lisa’s house

I wish you all a very happy, safe, and joyous holiday season and good luck for 2010.
Du Courage!
Love,
-rohan

Around this time of year in Benin, groups of men go through fields of tall dry grasses or stalks of corn and hunt rats. I managed to catch a few shots of some of these chasseurs. Compared to the domestic animals here, the rats look remarkably healthy. They are medium sized, filled out and have healthy coats. I’m not sure exactly how they are cooked, but according to locals and volunteers alike they taste pretty good.

This particular group had already collected around 20 rats in a rice bag. The weapon of choice is a stick with a loop snare near the end.

Hi Everyone. Unfortunately I won’t have any new photos for a little while, as my camera finally decided to break down during a Thanksgiving fête. However I did want to share a few thoughts.

Here is Benin, how do I know it is almost Christmas? Is it a light dusting of snow? Christmas carols in every store? My mailbox filling up with requests for donations? Cards appearing and gifts going up under the tree? Not a chance.

Today I hit my head on a fist sized mango (still hard for about a month). The Harmattan winds are slowing down and the temperature is creeping up into the 90s. I’ve received almost all of my birthday cards. Students who were otherwise finished with University last year are doing their equivalent of a dissertation defense (called a soutenance) while their friends and family peer in through the windows in their best clothes and call out a big cheer when they pass. Yup. It must be almost Christmas.