Hello Friends and Family,
I hope this email finds you all well ! I'm still in Benin, and while the initial thrill of being in a new place is long gone, I'm enjoying my stay here. It's a holiday here, so I'm taking some time to write an email—it's a long one. If you don't want to read it all, know that I'm well and I miss everyone and would love to hear how you're doing.
The countryside and the village are still as beautiful and as charming as ever, but I've been here long enough to see a bit of the really difficult life that most people lead here. Excuse the statistics-ese, but I'd like to think that I'm working from a biased sample, since I live on the grounds of a clinic. Most of the people I interact with are injured, sick, or in desperate situations. I've fallen in love with several of the kids who have come to the clinic… some of whom probably won't live much longer. And the role of women/girls here breaks my heart and makes me angry and I feel helpless.
But on to the more entertaining aspects of my life here—I've become very adept at making pancakes—and flipping them in the pan! I can catch them and everything. I'm finally (finally) learning how to cook, thanks to my French roommate/colleague (who's been incredibly patient, both with my halting French and my inelegant attempts to cook for the two of us). I'm a huge fan of palm wine, which is most definitely a girly drink, no matter what the guys here say.
I went to Togo for the weekend a week or so ago with the Center Director, Emmanuel. I needed to leave the country to stay within the limits of my Benin visa, and he wanted to visit the School of Public Health in Lome (the capital of Togo), so it worked out well. African borders are crazy! The School of Public Health turned out to be more of an allied health school… no biostats, epidemiology, health behavior, etc. I was disappointed, but I now understand why it's been so hard to explain what it is I do to people here. There's really no reference point.
Ah, my Montreal roommates and the Denver VISTA crew will appreciate this—I think I've finally gotten over my fear of knives—people walk around here with machetes like we walk around with Nalgene bottles. Well, except they carry them on their heads J
I'm crazy tanned, so tan that occasionally it startles me when I see my hand or my arm. Everyone here finds it HILARIOUS that if I lift my shirt sleeve a little I'm completely white again. And I've given up trying to explain that when I get red in the sun, it's not that I'm hot, it's that I'm actually burned. They think if I take a shower or turn on a fan it'll go away. Pretty adorable… though patently false. When I tell them it hurts, they're completely bowled over. The sun burns? But when you're on the motorcycle, you can't get a sun burn, because there's the wind. HA!
I've done some more HIV/AIDS awareness workshops in local high schools and while I still don't love doing them (let's stand up in front of 700 teenagers and talk to them in a second language about sex and condoms and immune systems… sounds like fun, no?), I'm glad we're doing them. The kids seem to be interested and they seem to have a lot of questions that they haven't been able to ask anyone. It's especially heart-warming to go into a particularly rural school (a "lost school") that has never had a visitor, and talk to the kids about how to protect themselves.
My main role in the clinic is to be an "apprentice" to the Pharmacist—she finds it pretty amusing that I'm her apprentice, and I ask her every day if she's going to "liberate" me, which is what they do when apprentices finish their time with their patron. You have to pay 100,000 francs CFA (about USD250) to be liberated… so if anyone wants to pitch in and help me out, my address is:
Lauren Bateman
Amour Sans Frontieres
BP 58
Adjohoun, Benin.
J There are three girls who work at the clinic as nurses aides. I taught them Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. And the chicken dance. I figure I've done my part to help spread American Culture around the world!
Well, I'm going to sign off now. It's a big month for a lot of you so: safe travels, happy graduation, happy birthday, happy anniversary, etc etc etc J
Love to you all, and a bientot!
Lauren
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