Here Comes the Rain

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 unbearably hot all the time. March is without a doubt the hottest month, wear you sweat through everything without even trying.

It’s also the time of year when the power cuts out the most. I believe this is because people are using more energy for fans and air conditioners, and because hydroelectricity is a large source of energy in West Africa and during the dry season there is less water in the reservoirs, and ergo less power being produced. This is my theory.

The start of the rainy season also means that bugs are coming back in a big way. They’re all over the place, best to control your use of lights at night to try and reduce the number of bugs swarming into my house.

Aside from the obvious excitement over the coming rains, not a whole lot to report from Benin. Next month the country will be having parliamentary elections, which are actually on time, and then a month or so after that they are doing the local elections that have been delayed for two years. Don’t ask why they don’t just do them both at the same time (which would presumably be cheaper for a cash-strapped country), because I do not understand. At least around me the run-up to voting hasn’t really sparked any controversy or anything.

Patron Status

The life of a young Beninese boy revolves around one goal, obtaining patron status. A patron is basically a total boss, someone who oozes wealth and influence, think Ernie McCracken in the movie Kingpin (“Finally Big Ern is above the law.”) Of course to be a patron, you first need to have a lot of money, but just being rich doesn’t give you patron status.

No, to be a patron you need to have the lifestyle to match. In my time in Benin I’ve been blessed with a few patron tutors, and I’ve been able to learn some of the habits of a highly effective patron.

For instance, a patron should only pay for things in large bills. In Benin this is a problem because there is never enough change, and people hoard small change. It can be hard sometimes to get change or break bills, so you typically need to have close to exact change when making purchases. So, when a patron is purchasing a 500 franc beer, he will throw a 10,000 franc note at the server. No explanation necessary, bring the change.

Patron’s will never wait in line, I’m not even sure they know what a line is. Similarly, meetings don’t start until they show up, so of course posted start times are more of guidelines. They are always dressed to the nines, large (because patron’s are typically overweight) flowing clothes with lots of embroidery. A patron will never have to walk anywhere, they will either drive there or be driven by someone.

A patron never has to deal with the details. Not because somebody else deals with them for him, but rather to him the details don’t exist, so if that creates problems for someone else then too bad so sad. They do what they want, when they want.

Of course a lot of a patron’s influence comes from his role in helping out members of the community. To maintain your patron status you need to be handing out gifts and goodies to your loyal vassals. Whenever somebody comes to greet you, it is customary to offer food and drink. If someone needs money, they will be coming to their closest patron.

Spelling Bee

As I think I’ve previously mentioned, this year I will be participating in a spelling bee this year. Or, rather, my students will be participating and winning this year’s Peace Corps Benin spelling bee.

For the last few months I’ve been working with students specifically on spelling. They need the most help with remembering how to pronounce letters in English. Otherwise brute memorization of vocab words is actually something that Beninese students respond to pretty well. It’s in line with how most of their education has been conducted.

This June students from different schools all over the country will be gathering to get their spelling on. This last week we started figuring out who we would be sending to the competition. We decided the best way for us to do it, since we can’t really find a time for all of the students at are school to do a competition, was to do mini competitions in each English class to identify the two strongest boys and girls. Then, next week we’ll do a competition amongst all the class winners to narrow it down to one boy and one girl.

So far the results have been interesting. It’s been harder to get girls’ involved, except for in one of my older classes where the girls were far more interested than the boys. After our school competition we’ll have plenty of time to work with our school’s winners and prepare them for ultimate glory.

Spelling bees aren’t free, however, so we are looking for people to help make it a reality. If your interested in helping support this project, here is the link to donate.

School Photos

The various projects at our school are coming along. Our classrooms took another step forward with the roof. They’re ready to put on the tin roof next week, which will be good to finish before the rains really get started. Then they still have to finish up the floors and windows. Still should be a couple of weeks, depending on how well we can motivate the mason/carpenters. I’ve also posted a photo of our new latrines. So far they’ve mostly been unused, since students still prefer to go in the bush. We’ll see if that changes. The last photo I’ve posted is of our new trash cans. We took some oil drums, cut them half, then put them on some stands. We’ve got 8 of them made, and are going to put them up around the school campus. The next step is that we’re going to have a competition with the kids, where they will make designs and slogans, and the winners will get to paint them on the trashcans.