Cotonou

In Cotonou, there are many strange things, some are unpleasant, some are pleasant and some just are. As I fall asleep at night, under my mosquito net, I gear the slow growl of the car and their loud low horns and the fast zip of the zems and their high quick horns. The bugs buzz outside my window, and unsurprisingly my room smells vaguely like sweat.
When I wake up at 7 am I hear the crow of the roosters faint in the distance and the quiet sounds of my roommate getting ready for the day. Breakfast generally consists of crusty bread, butter, and our choice of hot chocolate, Nescafe, or tea. After breakfast the work begins. When we go into the PC headquarters in Cotonou, things smell different; when we first arrived they had dug up the sewers so there were piles of black smelly sludge lining the streets, as you continue to walk the smells of unknown roasted meats and even a few vegetables.
People sell everything on the streets here, fruit, sandals, toiletries, plus, clothes, snacks, both fresh and packaged, all carried on the tops of their heads. (I bought a pair of flip-flops for 300 CFA which is like 75 cents) There are also the all important fan milk carts, fan milk is best described as frozen deliciousness, but is really like frozen yogurt, softer than ice cream but firmer (depending on where it was in the cart) than a smoothie. They come in many flavors, chocolate (tastes like chocolate milk) Fanyogo (which tastes like vanilla yogurt) a few fruit flavors (citrus) and Fan Ice (by far the best flavor, if you ask me, it tastes like a mix between cake batter ice cream and the best frosting you’ve ever had. It’s amazing)
We get called ‘Yovo’ a lot. A yovo is a white person or a foreigner, and children will yell it out in the streets as we go past ‘yovo, yovo, yovo!’ they laugh and smile, and jump up and down, they even have a little song they sing, the yovo song. We must look ridiculous half the time, there are 60 sweaty tired white people all crammed into a bus and some vans, or walking around in large groups, so many yovos all at once! We must be quite the sight to see!
It’s hard to write everything that has gone on, and I have only been here for three days, but already there is so much to say! St. Jean Eudes, (where we are staying in Cotonou) is a monastery, we are all in rooms with between 2 and 7 people to room with its own little bathroom (toilet, sink, and shower) the water usually works at least twice a day so we can get showers and wash up.
I’ve also learned how to ride a zem or zemidjan (moto-taxis) always with my helmet of course, and it was surprisingly fun! We all got together in a group of about 20 for a lesson and the PC had brought in enough zems for all of us, we were given helmets and a basic lesson in how to hail, give our location and barter a price, and then were sent on a petit tour, and a grand tour. It was hilarious, here we all are in the middle of Cotonou all wearing HUGE white helmets, and we are riding in this fleet down the street and then later around the block! People were pointing and laughing, and waving, the children having a great time and doing their whole ‘yovo’ thing!
So on wed. the 25th I believe we will head up to Lokossa where our training will commence for the next 8 ½ weeks, and finally we will meet our host families!
More to come!