april stuff

New Finnish people have arrived and many have already left. One of the greatest things with my work at Villa Karo is that I get to meet and work with so many different kinds of people. I meet all sorts of Finnish artist in various ages. I have made great friends that I hope I will stay in touch with in the future. Some of my good friends here have been men and women over 60 while others have been in their thirties. Excellent. Time just passes by so incredibly fast. People say “African time” when things go slower and there is no hurry but it seems like days, weeks and months pass by faster in Benin. Very strange. Well, one does say that time goes faster when one is enjoying oneself, it must be that then.

I made a terrible loss a few days ago. I threw myself in Auberge’s little swimming pool to cool off from the extreme heat. I was wearing the bikini I had in Asia in 2004, which I haven’t actually used a lot here. After my relaxing swimming session I took a shower but when I returned to work and was about to put my swimming stuff out to dry I realized the terrible loss. I had lost my bright blue bikini pants. I knew I had left them in the shower at the hotel. Kaisa asked after Marina’s pants the next day but the guys just smiled largely and said that they haven’t seem them. Now we are convinced that one of them are wearing them, which actually makes me giggle. Those bikini pants were not worth a fortune so if some guy in Grand Popo gets a kick out of wearing or selling them at the market I will give him that pleasure. I just hope that I will, one day, know what happened to the bikini pants and where they travelled. If someone meets them on their journey please send them my best wishes.

I have decided to return to Finland in July, work for a month in the archipelago and then see what the next step is. I have simply made the realization that it will be terribly difficult to find an ok-paid job here now and unfortunately I can’t afford to work at one of the women’s organisations a few months for free, which I would gladly do if I could afford it. Many of the very interesting jobs at various international organisations go anyhow through Europe so it might actually be easier to find a job in West African from there, which just feels absurd as one is used to the idea that it is easier to find a job at the spot. It is alright though, august in Finland is great and it will be nice to meet good old friends, family and of course my brother, who complains that I don’t specifically write that I miss him . It will definitely be nice to hang out before the next great adventure.

Hospitals, Funeral, Dinners and Kia

I am starting to be an expert on Beninoise hospitals. The hospital in grand Popo turned out to be useless, again. So, this time I got to ride a fast speeding ambulance that had the sirens on all the way to Cotonou with two Finnish stipendiates that were in terrible condition. One had malaria + some infection and the other had a serious infection. I also got to spend the night at the hospital with them, as support and translator. Luckily they are both feeling better now. Now I Hope I am done exploring hospitals. Time to explore the next thing. I have also been taking Nisse to the local hospital basically every day as if the tyre isn’t loose then half of the bodyparts are loose or missing. The mechanists like me though and don’t charge me a yovo price anymore. Today I have to say that Nisse is a happy camper and spins like the king of the hill, which makes me smile and invite everyone for crab dinner.

Last weekend I got to attend a voodoo funeral which for me mainly meant eating a big meal, times four, and drinking lots of sodabi. Doesn’t help to say no thank you as it is a tremendous offence if you don’t taste the family’s food or sodabi. So with a smile on your face and very full stomach you say oui oui and gladly eat some more and take another sip of the burning palmbooze. It was a great experience though to visit the village of Adjaha and all the very warm, friendly and welcoming people.

I have been attending lots of lunches and dinners lately, never a dull moment. If there isn’t a spontaneous drumming session in our garden and a huge dinner afterwards then someone comes by and invites me over. I have enjoyed it a lot lately and my need for own a time seems to have disappeared entirely. I was also glad to hear that the article I wrote for Hufvudstadsbladet Volt was published the 5th of April and was well appreciated. Jeah.

Kia is coming over soon (beginning of June) which makes me very very happy. As no members of my family will make it over, it is nice that my favourite travelling buddy comes to visit and at a perfect time when I have finished work so that we can travel around for 6 weeks. Now the plan is to go up north, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali and perhaps Niger. Suppose to be a great area to travel, safe and friendly people. I am so much looking forward to meeting Kia again. It will be another trip of a lifetime.

Being sick in Benin

Everyone has to get sick at some point, right? I haven’t been sick at all so far until now. And now it hit me good. The interesting part of the story is that I got sick in Kpalimé, in Togo, and so did everyone else, even the driver. We decided to skip the rest of the program and try to get back to Grand Popo as fast as possible. It took 6 hours with regular stops along the road so that people could throw up in the bush. What a lovely feeling. Crossing the boarder at noon in 38 degree heat wasn’t the most exciting thing I have done in a while. It is interesting how you can handle a situation when you must. When I came home I completely collapsed. Three days without food and barely any liquid at all. Fever swinging from 34.7 to 39 and back down to 34. I spent the days in my room, in bed, looking at the monotone movement of the fan. Everyone kept telling me that it is obviously malaria, that the food poisoning (or whatever it was) had triggered but turned out to “just” be a serious infection. What sort of infection and where about in the body they couldn’t say. Now I have plenty of medicines and feel good. Malaria wouldn’t have been a surprise even though I take Lariam as we already have three Finns down with malaria since January. Otherwise Kpalimé was a very nice city 120km north of Lomé and the nature was stunning. We hiked to a waterfall, jumped in the refreshing water, played the drums, drank sangria, laughed and enjoyed ourselves, until the disaster. Did I mention that I have started to play the drums? I am not very good at it but it is fun and I will learn.

Now I am back at work, Nisse is also back in shape, well at least sort of, and Linni is visiting me from Lomé. She will go and work in Cotonou for 6 weeks so hopefully we will see more of her now that she doesn’t have to cross a boarder to get to Grand Popo.

I still have plenty thoughts about staying in the country. I would definitely want to stay, that is for sure, but it all depends on work possibilities and salaries… There are for example plenty of local NGO’s that do a good job which would be interesting to take part in but they can’t afford to pay a salary. There is for example a very interesting feminist organisation called Federation Nationale des Associations des Femmes Beninoises that work in all areas of women’s rights. I could imagine staying and follow the work they do just for a few months even if they can’t pay me, just for the experience. This would though require some sort of income from somewhere, maybe from articles.. In Dakar, Senegal, there is United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) where it of course would be super interesting to work or do an internship. On the other hand that is not Benin or Togo where I would like to stay. But why not Dakar? could be interesting. The international NGO’s often take employees that are already enrolled in the organisation in Europe and all the French people in the country come on a three year work contract from France. Benin doesn’t exactly have a “look for job” internet site that would function so it is difficult to know how to proceed. The problem is also the salary unless it is international organisation that pays in the direction of a European salary or at least an internship. Working for 50-150 euros a month doesn’t feel to exciting, at least as I have loans to pay off, in Finland. Maybe it means that I will stay in Finland for a while, until the next journey. Interesting to see where life takes me this time.

Thank you for the calls and sms I have been receiving when sick. It is particularly nice to hear voices from back home when sick.