Girls' Camp in Bassila

All the girls from the girls' Camp we did in Bassila. The only person missing in this picture is our wonderful Beninese counterpart, Olivier. There are more pictures at the end!!!

Okay, I know I’m terrible… I should have written before now. So much has happened that I don’t know where to begin!!

The most exciting event recently was the girls’ camp in Bassila. Bassila is a town about 3 hours to the south of Boukombe, mostly Muslim, and the cultural groups there are the Ani and the Nago, and both have their own languages that have integrated a lot of Arabic into them. Anyway, this was the 2nd year of this girls camp, but the two volunteers who set it up last year both finished their services literally within 2 weeks of the end of the camp, and long before their replacements had even arrived. To top it all off, one of the new volunteers quit Peace Corps about 1 month before the camp was scheduled to start, leaving all the planning and budgeting to one new volunteer. That’s a lot of weight for one person to carry, especially in a still strange culture with a still new language. It was impressive in that aspect, but that’s not to say there weren’t some hitches.

The biggest difficulty was the lack of help. Unfortunately there were quite a few Peace Corps camps going on at the same time as this little Bassila camp, making it more difficult to get volunteers to come up and work. Also, this year they decided to rent a house and have all the girls stay in it together. The house used was a good size with a living room, 3 bedrooms and a huge front yard that was walled in. It was ideal… until the last minute when the Mama that was supposed to stay with them at the house decided that she was just going to stay at her own house at night. This left the Carly, the volunteer, with a bunch of volunteers in her house while she slept on the porch of the rented house with the girls. I can’t imagine how bad the mosquitoes were that night! So, needless to say, she was tired the whole camp. That Mama barely helped the whole camp. Then the last 2 days (out of 5) all the other volunteers left, leaving Carly and I and Olivier, our Beninese counterpart for the camp. It was hectic, but we managed!

The experience of the camp was truly fully embodied in our last field trip. Olivier, our awesome Beninese counterpart, had arranged for 2 mini-buses to come at 8am to pick us up for our day trip in Djougou, a bigger town about 1 ½ hours to the North. Breakfast was scheduled to arrive at 7am. Since it was just Carly and I at that point, we were both sleeping on the porch, a mosquito net ghetto-rigged above us. 5am the girls start getting up to take their showers, which means they had to go get the water at the faucet across the street, which mean we were quickly woken to the sound of voices and squeeky doors opening. The electricity had been cut for most of the week, so I laid there and watched the sun rise, glad to have a warm sheet on such a cool morning. 5:30am: Cries and screams start coming out of the house. Poor Carly was so exhausted that she didn’t even budge from all the noise, so I went to check it out. I found a girl bawling on the floor of one of the bedrooms with girls rubbing her legs while she screamed in pure agony. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard screams like that before.
“What’s going on” I asked
Another girl answered, “She’s sick, this is her sickness.”
‘Oh great’, I thought to myself as I went to wake Carly. With Carly’s help we easily moved the girl onto the living room couch as the girls continued to rub her legs ferociously and occasionally wrap one as tight as possible with a head scarf. The girl was yelling something in Nago, the local language. “What’s she saying?” I finally asked.
“She wants us to beat on her legs. We won’t do this. She’s irrational from the pain.”
I was overwhelmed. “What’s her sickness?” I finally thought to ask.
“Rhumatism”
I mulled the word over, searching my tired brain for the meaning. I wanted to say it was arthritis, but that didn’t seem right for a young girl. Carly, who was beyond exhausted, decided to go to her house and get the girl some aspirin as I sat there and continued to rub her legs. She was in so much pain that it was painful to watch, so I left the girls to rub her legs as I moved up and had her put her head in my lap. The sudden silence was a shock to the ears. She all-of-a-sudden just stopped balling. As she laid on my chest I could feel the moistness of her t-shirt, completely drenched in tears. Carly arrived after a while with the aspirin, and that also calmed the girl.

As I sat there the girls flew around, occasionally stopping to gawk at the sick girl. The breakfast, of course, didn’t arrive till 7:45. “It’s okay.” Carly said, “They can all eat in about 30 minutes or less. We’ll be fine. Besides one bus just arrived, but the other isn’t here yet.”

After the sick girl calmed down we sent her to change shirts and get ready. She was determined that she didn’t need to go home, and that she would be fine on the trip. She had stopped crying and was even walking a little, so we decided it would probably be okay. Once ready and fed, we loaded her in the first bus as we waited for the second.

9:30: Olivier decides to go look for another bus to take us. At least we didn’t pay the guy in advance. 10am a 2nd bus arrives and the girls start piling in. The 2nd bus had a whole row less than the 1st bus, so the girls had to squish together with 5 to a row…. And for some reason the driver of the 2nd bus, after filling his vehicle, comes over the 1st and starts having the already-loaded girls start moving so that they are 5 to a row as well, which gets the 1st driver involved, and then the apprentices for both drivers come to help their patrons, and within a minute there was 5 African men standing at the door of a sardine-packed bus with room to spare, yelling over something in Nago. Seeing she stupidity of the situation, I get involved and add my voice to the yelling, “LEAVE THOSE GIRLS WHERE THEY AAARRRREEE!!!” …no use. Men just don’t listen to women here, white or not. Seeing the intelligent approach, I went to tell Olivier what was going on, and he breaks the 5 minute discussion up with a few words. It’s so frustrating working with men here.

10:00 Start your engines, we’re ready!! … of course the 1st bus wouldn’t start though, which once again meant all 5 men came back over to the 1st bus and stared at the bus together while the drive dabbled here and there – nothing. So, everyone got out of the front seat so it could be lifted up to view the engine underneath. The driver again dabbled here and there as now 8 sets of eyes glared at him, while the other driver annoyingly puts in his two cents along with sounds of disapproval. Another minute or two and, “VVvrroooommmm!” The engine finally starts. We’re off! “It’s still only 10:30. I guess we’re not hurting to much on time.” Carly says as we roll up to where we were dropping stuff off. Carly jumps out to take care of things with some people as I stay with the girls and the driver. The driver, speaking oddly more English than French, says, “I go there” pointing to some people. I nodded. The man walks over to the group of men, says high, then walks over to a nearby taxi-moto and jumps on and takes off!!!! I caught his eyes as he looked back at me while holding up a ‘1 minute’ finger as he shot off ahead. I must have sat there astounded for a few seconds, because all girls behind me started laughing at my expression. “Where did he just go!!??!!” I asked them. “Did he tell you guys??” Everyone nodded no. Carly came back and quickly got worried by my expression. I explained what happened, and then the girls laughed at both of our expressions. We sat there for a few minutes wondering what was going to happen next, when the driver finally comes back, takes an envelope from his dash and says, “I visit moda. She live dehr. She not fa. I go now.” I flipped a little, and took advantage that he was speaking English, “No, you can’t visit your mom!!! We have everyone in the car!!! You will bring us back this evening. You should visit your mother then.” Luckily this guy wasn’t too hard to convince, so after just a little more cajoling he put the envelope back on his dash and started the car back up. Off we went.

We had left the 2nd bus to go pick up the lunch while we were supposed to pick up the disappearing camp Mama near where she worked on the main road. We found her easily, and she ran over to the window looked in to find a packed car and said, “I am waiting for Olivier’s bus.” “Okay” we respond, and we took off for Djougou.

The next hour and a half passed smoothly. Arriving on the outskirts of Djougou we decided to stop and wait for the other bus. The engine rolls to a loud stop, and everyone gets out to stretch. 5 minutes pass.
“You know, they might have passed us since we took so long dropping that stuff off.” Carly mentioned. “Maybe they’re ahead of us.”
“It is possible. Can you call Olivier?” Carly tries to call. His phone doesn’t ring.
“He might be behind us because his phone isn’t working… but we did take a long time. Maybe his battery’s dead. Let’s go ahead into town.” We all loaded up into the car again. The driver turns the key. Gr-gr-gr-gr-gr. Silence. Try again. Gr-gr-gr-gr-gr. Silence. “It not go now.” The driver says as he calls a man nearby over to push us. We were right off the cement of the road on probably a 5 degree angle with a big, stagnant puddle 10 feet in front of us. The two of them push… no luck. The driver tells 3 girls to get out and push, this time helping push it backwards to avoid the nasty puddle. The engine still doesn’t start and the 5 of them aren’t enough to get the bus back on the pavement. “Wouldn’t ya know. Let’s do it.” I say as Carly and I get out to push, quickly followed by all the other girls. We pushed it forward again. We pushed it back onto the pavement again. We pushed it forward again. Back onto the pavement again. Forward again, and, finally the engine roars up and we all run to jump into the moving vehicle. I turned around to see a bunch of sweaty smiling faces as I started a head count, only to turn back around to the slowing of the car again… our driver had voluntarily stopped at a police stop not 500 feet in front of where we had just come from.

Let me explain about policemen here in Benin. Ya see, there are a LOT of cars in Benin that just don’t want to get their paperwork for their vehicle. Maybe they just work a local route, or maybe they can’t afford it. After all, it costs an arm and a leg. Anyway, most roads aren’t barricaded, they’re just mostly blocked off, letting everyone pass and only stopping ‘suspicious’ vehicles. Suspicious vehicles, if in the wrong, can usually be let off with a small private donation – a bribe. Luckily though, a lot of people just roll through the stops without any problems. Let’s face it, you don’t want to take too many bribes or else it might get back to your superiors… and your average policeman works so hard fattening their pockets that they need at 20 hours of sleep a day… my point is, about 60% of vehicles fly through without a hitch.

But our driver willingly stopped at this police stop, knowing that he didn’t have his papers and that that would be of interest to the police. He takes 2,000 francs ($5usd) of his pay in advance from us as he gets out of the car to talk to the policeman. The policeman, taking not of the 2 white women in the front seat, strolls back to the vehicle, acting as though he’s truly outraged, “Can you believe this man hasn’t bought his papers in 3 years!! 3 YEARS!!! And here he is putting you and all these young girls at RISK!!! Mesdames, you are not secure in this vehicle!! What do you think of that?!!!” He obviously assumed we were stupid enough to possibly side with him on the ordeal. I just turned to him and quietly said, “It’s between you and the driver.” The policeman turned to Carly and started in, “And you??!! This man is putting you in danger!!”
“It’s between you.” Carly responded, without even a turn of the head. As we sat there the other 2nd bus flew by past us with a few black arms sticking out of the windows and waving. Luckily it didn’t take to much longer, and we soon were left to pass with the little tip the driver had offered.
The other bus had gone on to meet with the women who made cloth, and we quickly found it without to much trouble. In arriving, Olivier quickly asked, “Where’s Mama Angelique????”
“She said she wanted to go with you.” we each replied.
“No, you were going to take her. I didn’t pick her up!” Olivier responded.
Ooops.

The rest of the trip seemed to go well. I got to see most of the tour of the hand-made cloth shop before the sick girl had another attack of pain. She broke out a bottle of her own medicine, and reading in English I found what they were calling arthritis; the girl had Sikle-cell Anaemia. I was shocked again!!! Now it all made sense. I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that that was one of the most painful diseases anyone could have. Wow. I sat with her till the first tour was over, then another girl tied her on her back like a baby and took her to sit in the bus.

The woman who gave us a tour of the cloth factory was so excited to have a group of girls there, that she lead us to visit a metalworker, a jeweler, a leather worker who made shoes and purses, and a man who made makeup and other cow products, like cow hide jewelry boxes and hats. She single-handedly made the day a huge success, and all other problems seemed worth all the fun. The poor Sickle-Cell girl sat in the car crying the whole time with another girl who spoke her language. I wasn’t much help, so I took the role of trip photographer for most of the day. We got back while the sun was still setting with a load full of very happy, pumped-up girls.

That’s the perfect example of how the whole camp went. It was one thing after another, but it was really all about the girls, and I think they had a great time and learned a lot. I was so excited to help them learn to take hold of their lives, and this year my French was so much better than last year that I could even teach them sessions without them giggling at my mistakes. By the end of the camp all the girls were in tears, and I have to admit I was the worst of them all. It was all so difficult and exhausting and frustrating, but all so very worth the trouble.

In case your curious, Sickle-Cell anaemia is actually a hereditary disease that causes the red blood cells to take a sickle shape instead of their normal round, flexible shape. Because of this, they sometimes get blocked up in the system and restrict oxygen from the blood vessels downstream, causing attacks that, in the developed world, need opioids to calm the pain. It can cause strokes, ulcers, gallstones, and much more, and the average lifespan of an inflicted person is 42 to 48. Interestingly though, Sickle-Cell is more common in places where malaria exists, because people with Sickle-Cell have red blood cells that aren’t conducive to the parasites causing immunity to malaria altogether. Crazy, right?

This was a long post, huh? Well, I hope you all are doing well. I have about a month left in Boukombe, then 2 months of travel, and then I’ll be home!! I look forward to it.

Sarah


All the girls singing in the bus. They had about 5 camp songs that we sang everywhere we went.


Here the girls are learning about weaving cloth.


In this little shop the girls learned about making aluminum products. The workers here can make 3 to 4 spoons a day like this one, and they can sell them for $4 a piece.


These girls are looking over the materials and tools used to make jewelry at the jewelers.


This man made these things out of cow hide.


After touring all the different workers' shops, The woman who was helping us also introduced us to her mother. Her mother was the one that taught her to weave, and here you can see she is in the process of starting a loom.