Au revoir!

My Beninese adventure is almost over, so this will be my last post. Thank you to all of you who followed my blog over the last two years. I hope to see many of you shortly in the US. Au revoir!

Goodbye!

Tobacco

When I was visiting a farm a few weeks ago, I got to learn how they prepare tobacco. Essentially, the leaves are woven into braids, hung up to dry, then pounded into powder. In northern Benin, tobacco is consumed by being snorted up the nose.

As for cigarettes, there are packs of commercially packaged cigarettes for sale in village. Curiously enough, it is nearly always Peulh men who smoke cigarettes. Bariba men rarely do, and it is socially unacceptable for any woman to smoke.

The braids of tobacco are hung up to dry

A bundle of tobacco braids

 

A man pounding the dried tobacco into powder

Loose tobacco

Sam Girls' Camp

A few weeks ago, I led yet another girls' camp, this time in Sam. We covered the same material as the Sonsoro camp, but this time we invited every girl in the Sam Middle School, and nearly every girl came (around 50 girls). Another innovation was that we brought four girls from the Sonsoro camp and had them run many of the sessions. We are hoping that this experience will allow them to take a leading role in subsequent editions of the Sonsoro camp (when I will not be around to coordinate).

The Sam camp was a roaring success, and my co-organizer (the person who originally asked me to do a camp in Sam) is planning to run such a camp twice a year indefinitely. At the request of some parents, he also wants to organize a few days of camp for local middle school boys.

Below are a few pictures from the camp:

Two girls from Sonsoro are teaching the campers how to make a fuel-efficient mud stove

A Sonsoro girl is leading the group in song at our closing ceremony

We celebrated the end of the camp with traditional local dancing, accompanied by drummers

The four girls from Sonsoro and my camp co-organizer

Cabane

 A few months ago, I decided to construct a millet stalk structure in front of my house in order to have a shady spot to relax during the hot season. Below are the photos of the construction of my cabane.

My friend is using a special tool to dig holes for the posts.

Using a hatchet to chop the posts down to size

The framework has been set up and a millet stalk roof has been installed.

Chopping the millet stalks to the appropriate length using a machete

A local child tying the millet stalks together

Two people work simultaneously to tie the stalks together

My neighbor boy trying to help

The finished product! All of the walls are attached like curtains, meaning they can be rolled up or pushed aside