Photos: My Garden

As requested, here are some photos of my garden.

Can you spy at least one green bean?

This okra plant sprouted entirely on its own, presumably from an old okra pod discarded by my neighbors.

Radio Kandi

One of my latest projects here is my very own radio show. The Kandi volunteer left Benin a few weeks ago, so I took over her radio show upon her departure. Every Sunday at 10 am, my pre-recorded radio show airs in my region. Like the previous volunteer, my topics vary between health and American culture. I have recorded seven shows so far on topics like good nutrition, pre-natal care, breastfeeding, the 4th of July, and Barack Obama. I divide my lessons into three segments that total about ten minutes, and the rest of my half hour is filled with music.

I record my shows on a nifty handheld record left to me by the previous volunteer, then I transfer them to my computer. Once all the audio and music segments are organized on my computer, I put them on a USB stick, which I later drop off at the radio station.

One curious thing about the radio station is that it does not use a generator. The station only operates when Kandi has power, which is generally less than 50% of the time. That means that on some Sundays, my show must not air because of a power outage. I wonder how that can be a successful business model. The city is supposed to upgrade the electrical grid so that there will be fewer outages, but on a Beninese timeline, that could take years.

Gandos

In a previous post, I wrote that there are predominantly two ethnic groups in Sonsoro: the Baribas and the Peulhs. I neglected to mention a third group that is quite numerous: the Gandos.

Many locals describe Gandos as the slaves of the Peulhs, but it is more complicated than that. In Sonsoro, Gandos are a group of people who are culturally Peulh but ethnically Bariba. Long ago, other tribes would trade prisoners of war to the Peulh in exchange for horses or cattle. These prisoners of war (of Bariba origin in my region) became the slaves of the Peulh - Gandos - and they took on a Peulh cultural identity by wearing Peulh clothing and speaking the Peulh language.

Peulhs no longer accept prisoners of war as slaves, but the Gando tradition continues. Generally, Gandos only marry other Gandos, so a child can be Gando by birth if both of his parents are Gando.

This is not the only way to become a Gando today. A second tradition continues to this day that if a Bariba child is rejected by his parents, he can be adopted by a Peulh family and raised to become a Gando. Often it is babies who are rejected. There is a local superstition against breech birth, so such babies may be abandoned to become Gandos. Another superstition is that if a baby's top front teeth grow in before the bottom front teeth, the child will bring bad luck, so he may be abandoned to be raised by a Peulh family and become a Gando.

I have been told that Gando communities (of various ethnic origins) exist wherever there are Peulhs. The Peulh population itself stretches across all of West Africa, so there may be quite the diversity of Gandos indeed.

Beninese Health and Demographics

I recently came across the results of Benin's 2006 Demographic and Health Survey. Many of the findings were fascinating. Several support my contention that the most important thing Benin can do to promote development is to send children – especially girls – to school.

Here are some of the more interesting findings:

Fertility

Average number of children per woman: 5.7

     If the mother is uneducated: 6.4

     If the mother attended secondary school: 3.4

Marriage

Median marriage age for women: 18.6 years

     If the woman is uneducated: 18.1 years

     If the woman attended secondary school: 22.2 years

Median marriage age for men: 24.5 years

Percentage of men who marry under age 21: 16%

Percentage of women who marry under age 21: 64%

Percentage of women ages 15-49 in polygamous marriages: 43%

Family Planning

Married women using a modern form of contraceptive: 7%

     If the woman is uneducated: 4%

     If the woman attended secondary school: 19%

Reproductive Health

Babies delivered with the assistance of a health professional: 78%

     Babies delivered by a nurse or midwife: 69%

     Babies delivered by a doctor: 5%

     Babies delivered by a nursing assistant: 4%*

(*In my health center, half or more of babies are delivered by the nursing assistant. The others are delivered by the midwife or occasionally the pharmacist. There is no doctor on staff. Perhaps half of births, however, happen at home, even though delivering at home is illegal and subject to a fine.)

Child Health

Children having received all their vaccinations as babies: 47%

     If the mother has no education: 43%

     If the mother has a secondary school education: 80%

Breastfeeding and Nutrition

Children who were breastfed: 95%

Median length of breastfeeding: 21.4 months

Median length of exclusive breastfeeding: 1.7 months*

(*The national recommendation is 6 months. International recommendations range from 4-6 months.)

Children ages 6-59 months with anemia: 78%

Children under age 5 with retarded growth: 43%

Child Mortality

Under 5 mortality rate: 12.5%

     If the mother is uneducated: 14.3%

     If the mother attended secondary school: 8.4%

Female Genital Mutilation

National rate: 13%

Rate in Alibori (my region): 48%

Rate amongst Baribas: 74%

Rate amongst Peulhs: 72%

HIV/AIDS

Prevalence of HIV: 1.2%

Status of Women

Percentage of women who work: 88%

Percentage of these women who decide themselves what to do with their earnings: 87%

Percentage of women who believe a man can beat his wife for a particular reason: 47%

Percentage of women who believe a woman can refuse sexual relations with her husband: 50%

What Is Your Name in Bariba?

For this post, let's play a game. Let's figure out what your name would be in Bariba.

Here are a few principles to help us figure out your name:

1. Your last name is your father's first name, even after marriage.

2. When stating your full name, you say your last name first and your first name last.

3. A child may be given a Muslim or Christian first name, like Mohammed or Thomas, if the family is religious. Otherwise, the parents will give the child a name based on his/her rank in the family (or, as you saw  in an earlier post, based on the child's twin status, if applicable). Even if the child has a Muslim or Christian name, he/she may still be called by his/her rank-based name.

The rank-based names are as follows:

Oldest son: Woru

Second son: Sabi

Third son: Bio

Fourth son: Gouda (yes, that's right, your child could be named Gouda!)

Fifth son: Sanni

Oldest daughter: Gnon

Second daughter: Bana

Third daughter: Bake

Fourth daughter: Bignon

So have you figured out your name? To give you an example, let's take Obama's oldest daughter, Malia. In the simplest sense, her full name would be Barack Malia because her father's first name is her last name and the last name goes first.

But if we want to make her more Bariba yet, we could call her Barack Gnon because she is the first daughter. Since Barack himself is his mother's oldest son, he would be Woru. If you want to take Malia's name a step further, we could pretend that Barack's parents never named him Barack and only called him Woru, in which case Malia's name would be Woru Gnon. Obama's second daughter, Sasha, would be Woru Bana.

And you? What would your name be?

Bariba Bread

One remnant of French colonization in Benin is bread. There are multiple kinds of bread available in the north, but there is one that predominates in Sonsoro. We call it Bariba bread because it is found in Bariba villages. It is baked in large mud ovens and sold for for 20 cents per loaf. Loaves are small, usually 4"x4"x3". When you get Bariba bread fresh, it is delicious. Below are a few pictures.

A bread oven (it's taller than me!)

A few loaves of bread