It’s been an eventful couple of weeks for Benin. Last weekend they held elections for the national parliament, which at least in my part of the country were peaceful and orderly. Campaigning was interesting to watch, it’s all confined to Read more…
It’s Easter break now and things are pretty quiet. School is off for a week, partly to give everyone a break, and partly because the rainy season is just starting so many families are sending their kids to the fields Read more…
Great news, the rains have started. The other night we had a real nice storm, it rained off and on through the evening and night. This is of course great news because it means that it won’t be quite so Read more…
In Parakou for the moment so I’m throwing up some photos of how our classroom building is going. The big changes from last time is putting in backfill to get all the floors to the same level, which I’ve been Read more…
It finally happened. Mawu and all the other voodoo spirits made the decision, and the oven that is West Africa has been cranked up. The good news is that all of my bucket baths are now with nice warm water. Read more…
The New Year is on us, and school has started back up. Harmattan is starting to finish up now, but this year harmattan has been much stronger then last year (both colder and longer lasting). With harmattan over, the hot Read more…
It’s burning season in the Collines. Every year, once the dry season has started, people burn all the grasses and low-lying shrubs. So the sky fills with smoke, there is burning ash all over the place, and it is means Read more…
It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been here for about a year and a half. Time is starting to go bye a lot faster, mostly since my schedule has been getting a lot busier since the school year started Read more…
School is starting to get in the swing of things and things seem to be settling down. I think we’ve seen our last rain in village until April, so that’s a bummer. On the other hand harmattan is starting up, Read more…
Classes have started. Well, sort of. At least some classes have started. This last week was officially the first week of classes, but schedules and what not are more of guidelines around here. For the most part, the kids spent Read more…