Whelp, I've made it through Peace Corps training! Finally! It was a heck of a lot harder than I imagined, but hey, c'est la vie. Here are the basics of how Peace Corps Benin Training went down: It was three months long and consisted of both language immersion and Benin-specific technical training based on your sector. Each sector was trained separately in villages surrounding Porto Novo, the capital of Benin... My sector (Rural Community Health) was in Dangbo. Dangbo is a large-ish village with a few solid buvettes, an amazing beignet lady, a rockin' pineapple supply, and even a little diner to sit and drink instant coffee :D
Here are my AWESOME fellow RCHers:
So. We had language, cultural, or technical classes briiiiiiiight and early Monday-Saturday, and we usually spent the nights/Sundays with our different host families throughout the village... They taught us to cook the local food, do laundry and dishes, etc... It was all pretty flipping draining, honestly! So much to learn. Basically during training your brain is constantly turned on, bombarded with French (and several local languages mushed in there too), everything is new, a lot of the village is watching you and/or shouting "Yovo," (the name for "foreigner," sort of, in the local language) at you, you don't get a whole lot of alone time, and I swear the roosters that start up at 5am here have built-in megaphones as well as some form of whooping cough... HOWEVER, the other RCHers were a phenomenal support system, the language facilitators are such incredible people, and my host family was a BLAST and insanely patient and supportive. It was hard to stay stressed or sad for long when I had a houseful of kids who loved having crazy dance parties, playing foot/handball, making board games, carving toys out of bamboo, and watching far (FAR!) too many French Jackie Chan movies ;), along with a smart and sassy Maman who guides me through all the new.
Here are some pics of my host family :
Preparing dinner
Little brother and sisters :)
Learning ABCs <3
Just... <3
My "uncle" being his usual sweet self
Now that training is over I'm off to a much smaller, quieter village up in the Borgou, sans host family, running water, electricity, OR an instant coffee place :P
Though I'm going to miss the heck out of my family and my fellow volunteers, I am so happy to settle into my beautiful new village, and I can't wait to see what the next two years have in store.
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