Benin - a new way of living

How to describe another world of new feelings, sights and smells, while sitting in an air conditioned room with a cold beer??

My world here is very different to home in New Zealand, but different in a wonderful way. It has now been just over a month, and I have two months still to go. Every day is a learning experience, the way of living here is just so different on every single level, but when I say different I do not mean better or worse, just different.

Where am I?
Benin is on the west coast of Africa, next to Togo and Nigeria, a long thin club shaped country. Cotonou is where I flew into and where I am right now, but where I have spent the last five weeks is about half way up on the western edge in Koko a small village just out of the village Bante. Koko has 6000 people and about 50% are under the age of 14 years (the same is across Benin). I am working here with Karin. Karin played volley ball with mum when they were both in Switzerland, 25 years ago mum found New Zealand, and Karin found Benin. She has been living here ever since. Her work within Koko is development work at every level, I am only just starting to understand the beginnings of her relationships with the people, the environment and culture here and my comments can only be basic. But what she is doing I can whole heartedly support. The main project which I am helping with is the school.

Ayeke school and kindergarten.
Ayeke has about 400 children (three kindergartens and six classes, about 40-50 kids in each class, so nine teachers a liberarien and a director). The way I understand my role is to bring creative energy into the school, through a way that respects their own work and which supports them to find and explore new ideas. School is from 8-12 and then 3-5 cause of the heat in the middle of the day it is just impossible to do anything. A couple of times I have had whole classes by myself, but that tends to be very difficuilt because if the children dont have an activity they tend to beat each other up (literally). It is common for the teachers to hit, they have rubber wips on their desks, the parents often beat the children (a crying children is just as common as a hot day) so therfore the children hit each other. And that is one of the key differences that I bring, I wont hit the children, the activities I bring they want to do, so if they misbehave they are set out, and if they behave I show them care, I pat their shoulders, the nice touch of an adult is quite uncommon for them I think.
Generally I take little groups of children in the afternoon part, I have done pompoms with class one, twistie people with class two, friendship braclets with class four. I also help out with their afternoon clubs (this is something which stands Ayeke apart from other schools, cultural social activities are uncommon in other schools), mainly the art and craft club (we have done finger knitting mobiles, seed pod curtains, drawing pictures with colour of ther school). I have also introduced the children to elastics, cats cradle, os and xs, knucklebones and just playing.
The teachers are wonderful people, and it is with them that Karen really focuses, empowering them to teach with care and love, to teach the children to think and be creative. But it is hard work, sometimes they just dont show up. When she takes them to Cotonou and they see the sea they think that is the end of the world, so what are they teaching in geography??

Ceromony
A week after arriving in Koko was the ceromony for the old man who died three months ago, he was the centre of the village for many people and it was a huge festival. The way the Beninise can dance is just outstanding, the energy can be felt, they move the upper part of their bodies, so that their shoulders are almost seperate from their bodies, and in the heat everyone just runs with sweat. And they think it is most halerious if white people dance, so of course I was dragged into the middle, but the energy is just contageous. We slept in the village for the two nights of the ceromony in the middle of the organised chaos, but they continued the energy, when it was dark people would just curl up and sleep for a bit in the trees, with the goats, anywhere and then once refreshed continue dancing, talking, laughing, everything. It was a full on, eye opening weekend.
I was also apart of the opening ceromony of the traditonal hospital with Karin. She helped them finish the hospital. What i have observed with her work is that she encourages people to start, they need to find the energy and create a project that suits them, not something which suits a white person, they have to take step one and two, she will then help with step three and four, the roof or the wall or the final creations, then the project is theirs, the best occurs when steps five and six is them helping someone esle. Development project from outside, where the project is just started and given, is one way of development work, but examples stand in Koko where it just does not surive. For example some people calme a built solar lamps in the village, a great idea, but they did not communicate with the people. The lamps were built not asking the cheirf where would be best and the keys and instructsion were not given to the people, so now about 5 of the lamps dont work and the others are in places that are not used. A great idea, but to me that is not development work. The hospital ceromoy was wonderfult to observe, although Karin was acknowleged, it was their ceromony in their tradtions. They even had a mask dance, I watched the children just as much as the mask, they were like children at home watching a puppet show, is it real, do I laugh or should I be scared, they were so wrapped into the activity of the mask.

Trip north
Two swiss friends from karin came to Benin for two weeks and Karin took them up north, I was lucky to be able to join them. We went into the park Pendjari, a wild savannah park wth impossible bumpy roads but we were so lucky to see animals. I had expected them to be in huge herds like you see in photos, but often they were solo, watching us past, observing us as much as we them. And unlike the zoo you had to work to spot them, I was hopeless, every termite mound was an antelope or lion to me... For me the biggest was seeing a hippo out of the water, we had got out the car and were looking down on the river perhaps 5m away, then the hippo casually got out of the water, paraded past and smoothly got back in to continue his journey, so unexpected. Wort hogs provided me amusement, with their tails up right, just like Pumba in the Lion King. Going north was also great to see other villages, and travel a bit more of benin. Karin has so much experience of Benin that she knows all the tricks and I can feel completely safe with her. Though saying that I feel that Benin is a safe country. The children still get excited by white people and call out "Yovo (white) Yovo bonjour, ca va bein, merci" in a sing song rhyme. or up north it was often "cardeau, cardeau" as there are more white tourists. Photos are a funny thing here, although the children love it, they stand very soleum for you to take the photo and then on the digital camera I can show them and they burst with laughter, you almost need two cameras one to take a photo of the excitement when they look at the other camera with a picture of themselves. The other side of photos though is that it is a such a white thing, white people get out of their cars, snaps the shots of the black people living and then back in their cars and drive away, some people up north did not want photos. In the ceromony I did not take many photos as I also felt it stuck me out, but also it was a living ceromny and hard to capture on camera.

I travel back up to Koko on Wednesday, by bus should be another experince, Karin is staying in Cotonou for a bit longer. The work I am doing at the moment just feels so right, but it is hard work, I truely admire the strength, compassion and generosity that Karin works with. Her understanding of Benin and what is needed comes from living with the people for the last 25 years. The school is just one of her projects, another area she has set up is a honey factory. The old way of making honey was very destructive of the forest, now she has worked with the people and showed them how to protect the forest, how the forest helps you produce more honey, and then how to market and sell the honey. And it is a circle, the children are then taught by the honey makers and through education, for example the envi club, they learn about forest protection and suatainability.

Although I am giving the children and Koko as much as I can, they in turn are giving me so much more. They are all so opening and helpful, they love looking after me, finding me the best onions, letting me know when the bread is fresh, but also teaching me indirectly, they do not mind if I come and watch them cook or help with shelling peanuts.

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