10/16/09
Things are fabulous. I’m keeping plenty busy and I haven’t even officially started working yet. I ride my bike to surrounding villages about twice a week to weigh babies with a local animatrice, Louise. My ONG is working in conjunction with a university to collect data on malnourishment. They distribute moringa to mothers in certain areas to enrich their children’s food to see if those babies recuperate more quickly than children who don’t receive moringa. They also have about a billion other projects that I will collaborate on when my French gets to that level. I’m working with a very good tutor but I’m also impatient and just want to be fluent, now!
I’ve mostly just been having fun, to be honest. Hanging out with neighbors, going for walks, etc. I love that the primary basis of social interaction here is not eating, drinking, smoking or go-go-going but just talking. Talking for the sake of talking. People walk around the village and there’s no pressure to look busy, no social construct that commands us to feel and act important. There’s nothing awkward about just sitting with a group of people, even if you have nothing to say. I’m not doing a very good job of describing the social atmosphere here, but suffice it to say it’s very relaxed and I’m enjoying it very much.
My friend Vitale took me to a spiritual center in Porto-Novo in which I am considering becoming a member. It’s completely free and is just a quiet place to meditate in the city. They advocate maintaining a positive karma by refraining from taking lives of other sentient beings (meaning a compulsory vegetarian diet) in addition to refraining from intoxicants (this one will be broken), and speaking the truth. I like the idea of getting better at meditation and congregating with other compassionate people, so I might join, but I’m not fully sold. They maintain that Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed etc were all prophets of God and that God is not external from man but just a word for our inner energy that is harmonious with nature. Sounds closer to what I believe that anything I’ve encountered so far and I don’t have anything to lose by spending time there, so we’ll see.
We went to the beach yesterday. I can’t imagine anything more fun than zipping through the Beninese countryside on a moto and relaxing by the ocean all day. You get the adrenaline from the ride and the peace from the waves, all in one day. We swam, walked, played, talked, ate and then came home and studied French for two hours. It was one of my favorite life-days so far.
Every day is full of new experiences and it seems futile to try to represent the ways in which life is different or my feelings about those differences. Maybe there are too many; maybe I don’t know what they are yet. At any rate, I’ll keep you posted.
(No pics this time cause the connection is terrible and keeps resetting. Sorry!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I am SOOOO happy for you! I cannot even express my happiness!! :) But I miss you terribly and wish I could be there and share your excitement! But I'm thinking about you all the time! Love you!
ReplyDeleteIt really is difficult to try to summarize yourself in a way that reflects the changes that occur when you're in new place. On top of that, there are the new things that keep happening in this new place. It's possible that in order to accurately represent yourself as you unfold through ever-new changes that you'd have to always be at the computer to type them out. If that were true, then you'd never be out experiencing new things and changing. So don't worry about under-representing your new self, because it seems like it was never possible to accurately represent it in the first place. Keep on!
ReplyDelete