Sending Sara to Benin
Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, Matt via hardcopy, and Brian,
cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny,
& Maxine Shirts
Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea,
belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit
to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended
family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail
box at any time.
"This was definitely an emotional week for me. Sending Sara to
Benin was not easy for me. I admit, I'm scared to death for
her safety, mostly because I have been in that part of the
world, from Mozambique, to Senegal, Nigeria, The Cameroons,
and know folks who have been in most of the other countries,
and it is not a safe place. Jude did get me to look at it
more realistically, specifically since Sara will be there as
a representative of The United States Government. Oh well!
Kids grow up, make their beds, they get to sleep in them, and
there isn't much I can do about it. And if I even mention my
concern, it seems like I come across as trying to control
their lives or play Heavenly Father in their lives. Oh well!
I am concerned about each of you, and in each case the concern
is different. I can write my thoughts, and try to generalize
them so there you can choose whether to personalize them or
not. Since I don't speak emotional thoughts very well, I can
use this forum to strive to tell each of you how much I love
you, and hopefully someone will believe me. Then I guess it
is up to each of you to decide whether you believe me or not.
Kind of fits with a possible Prime Words Stanza I wrote at
church, based on a talk by Jennifer Turner:
<![CDATA[ `The truth is not that we must
Make it on our own
But rather that we must
Learn what to own']]>
After church on Sunday the 21st of September, we came home
and I started charcoal on tinfoil in the back yard because
the fire pit was full of rain water, and peeled potatoes while
Andrea made shish-ka-bobs. Sara and two of her friends arrived
about 4:00. Shortly after this Jessie, one of my Nigerian
friends, his wife and son arrived. Sara had a new digital
camera, and she was very interested in learning how it all
works. We had a very nice dinner, good conversation, and
before I knew everyone had gone different directions. There
were other e-mails that took priority over writing Thoughtlets,
and so I didn't write about my trip to Washington D.C.
Monday I must have been stressed out, because I ate most of
the shish-ka-bobs, and bought a Frostie at Wendy's when I was
out. I had a brief talk with Sara, which I surprised myself
by starting out with the words this is probably the most
important five minute conversation I will have with you in
my whole life. I have no basis for knowing whether this
will turn out to be right or not. However, experience tells
me that if it was a statement made with spiritual support,
and surprising statements often are, and not just something
out of my ego, then the time will come when I will know if
I was right or not. I will leave a link to a future
Thoughtlet, just in case I was right (../????.html).
Several weeks before, I had signed up to lock up the church
in the evenings this week. Matt and Andrea helped me
Monday evening. We cleaned out all of the garbage cans,
checked to make sure all the windows were locked, flushed
the toilets, vacuumed, turned off all the lights, checked
to make sure the doors were locked, and then played a
little bit of basketball. I told Matt I could beat him
with one hand behind my back. Boy was I wrong! And
boy am I out of shape! It takes more than running around
the block 3 or 4 times a week to stay in shape.
We were up early Tuesday morning. Sara was a little late
arriving at the house, and she had been up all night.
She was obviously stressed out. Hopefully she won't be
so worn out she gets sick when she first arrives in
Benin. We got her and her 90 pound bag to the airport
on time. I watched her go through security, get searched
and wander off to the gate in a daze. Sara, you never
looked back. Guess that is a good way to be. My/our
prayers will be with you. Andrea was waiting for me in
the car, and we drove out the airport toll road to get
to the temple via FM 1960. It was a nice session, and
we were the witness couple. I was vicariously
representing William S. Dubois, 1861, from Kingston,
Ulster, NY.
Following the session we called Doug Harless, who was
in The Woodlands, and went up and had a brief meeting
with him. Andrea watched President Bush's news
conference about Iraq while Doug and his CTO and I
talked. I went on splits with the missionaries in
the evening. Wednesday evening we had some real good
spaghetti. The missionaries and Brother Cahoon
tracked us out, and also our three neighbors who have
just moved in. Two of the neighbors were interested
in them coming back. Thursday evening I served on
my first Eagle Board of Review. It was very hard
for me. Taylor Flannigan is only 13, a good kid,
who did a great project, and all I could do was feel
like a failure. Friday evening Andrea was a judge
for the High School Debates. Saturday evening she
had Relief Society General Woman's meeting and made
some really good meat balls. I'm stressing the
food because the weight gained in Washington D.C.
has not come off.
Besides John Benard postponing his visit again, and
me using my time to catch up on a lot of things
which have been hanging around, I'm sure there was
a lot of concern about sending Sara to Benin. In
case you don't know, I have built three separate
web pages for Sara:
For thoughtlet documentation, in two of her first
letters she wrote. Saturday she wrote:
<![CDATA[ `Dad,
I will have a chance periodically to call home and have you
call back (its much more expensive to have me call the US)
so if you want to, you can set up an at&t one country only
account. This is the cheapest rates. I think it comes out to
40 cents a minute. Just look into it and let me know if you
decide to do it. I don't want to really call if you don't
have a plan. I think just regular phone cards would work
too if the plan costs $.
Anyway, so guess what? I guess all I can do is describe my
view out of the second story window of the Peace Corps
office right now. There is a woman walking across the
street with a purple shirt and bright yellow/orange
patterned saraong on making her way across the
dirt-everywhere street and towards a small market.
They are selling fruits and vegetables; lots of tomatoes
and pineapple and HUGE avocados. The women can hold bowls
on their heads to carry all of these things...probably
the same diameter of a tire, and all the goods are
carefully piled high. The purple shirted woman is now
carrying one of these full of pineapples away from the
market and out of my view. The buildings are all low
to the ground with rusted tin roofs, clothes drying
on the line outside right on the street. And this is
the largest city in Benin, and we are 'downtown'
although there really is no city center.
It's wild. I'll write more when I get a chance. I'll
have internet access of some sort for the next three
months. I'll be in Azove (along the Togo border) with
the 17 business people. There are 115 PCVs in Benin
right now and 38 people in our whole group. The staff
and everyone we've met so far have been absolutely
amazing.
Hope y'all are doing well. Love you, Sara']]>
This last Tuesday she wrote:
<![CDATA[ `September 30, 2003
It must be impossible to express exactly why the past
seven days have felt like months. I was dizzy at the
realization my staging roommate gave me just hours
ago that we have only been here for our first week.
And that's not even the first week in Benin. It's two
days of PA, the day and a half of travel and four
days in Benin!
To the comfort of many, I have already gotten four
shots and had blood drawn to put on reserve
(hopefully we won't need to use that any time soon!)
I'm not looking forward to the ten+ that I'll be
getting over the next eleven weeks of training. Ouch!
For those of you who receive Ben Chen's emails,
he's exactly right the people here are amazing.
Travelers, ambitious, idealistic yet still
down-to-earth, diverse, interested and fun. In
Philadelphia, I met the group of 38; 17 of which are
in my Small Enterprise Development (SED) program.
We've been getting to know each other over Philly
cheesesteaks, our staging introduction in PA, our
3 hours to New York, 2 hrs of waiting, 7 hrs to
Paris, 7 hrs of waiting, 6 hours to Benin and now
our time here in Cotonou. Uuugghhh.
On the last plane I got to test out my rusty
French with a Beninoise man who is a doctor in
Paris who insisted I take his card to email him
in case I had any questions about Cotonou. I've
begun to experience the desire to help and to be
hospitable is a regular trait found in the
Beninoise.
My first night in Cotonou, we had an introduction
to the life of unreliable electricity as we arrived
at the airport after dark. The scuffle to find our
bags was quickly forgotten as several current
volunteers welcomed us with Bon Arrive, Bon Arrive!
Again, a new realization I have come to find common
is that the French here is often times translated
directly from the local languages and so when in
France I would hear "Bienvenue," in Benin it's
"Bon Arrive." And the Beninoise accent almost makes
them sound like Texans speaking French, which
surprisingly makes it more difficult, not more
clear to my Texan ear. The current volunteers took
us out and I felt like I was at Crown and Anchor
but in the fourth dimension. American music, long
wooden tables, surrounded by familiar faces,
having good conversation. Randomly, we had a
Michael Jackson dance contest between a Beninoise
and a volunteer: hat, gloves, the moves,
everything!
But something was off and with the morning, the
light showed exactly what it was. The infrastructure
originally constructed by the French has drastically
deteriorated over the years. As the Beninoise still
have a socialistic and communistic mindset due to
their recent history and so they lack initiative and
the know-how and the resources to better their
environment. The pollution chokes down your throat;
a few cars and tons of zembijohns (mopeds) driving
in every direction with little attention paid to
traffic laws or pedestrians. When they seldom do,
and you see the zembijohns get backed up at a red
light, it feels like watching Roice and Cole at a
track day on their motorcycles with everyone
vrooming at the starting line. Pedestrians are
pushed off the sidewalk by piles of dirt overflowing
into the street, women cooking and selling behind
tables full of goods, beggars who are lame, piles
of trash, etc. Women carry huge loads of fruit,
vegetables, brightly colored fabric and products
to sell in the market in huge baskets probably the
diameter of a tire on their heads. In the market,
we kept getting asked where we wanted to go by the
taxi drivers and getting yelled at "yovos!" No one
flinches at the chaos.
We ventured to the beach for a day even though it
was forbidden to swim because the tide is so strong
(especially on that day) and the beach so steep
that even if you are in waist deep, it can suck you
under and the best swimmers don't get out. Clear
skies, long sandy beach, huge waves. Small straw
huts lined the beach for shade as we read, played
football and volleyball, and drank from coconuts.
On our way out, I opened the window of the car as
I was trying to position my camera to get a good
picture of the endless forest of palm trees. We
passed several people lounging against a stone
wall. A woman saw my camera and thinking I was
trying to take a picture of her, she jumped up,
her pagne (dress) fell below her breasts,
screaming at the car. One of her sons (~5 yrs. old)
threw a handful of sand at the car just as I was
able to shut the window. Another (~7 yrs. old)
jumped up with his cutlass and began running
after us. Startled and glad to be in a car, I
found out another important rule here don't take
pictures unless you ask permission. They believe
that you are taking a part of their soul with
you with each snap.
So enough of my gradually diminishing ignorance
and on to that other thing I'm here for. I've
received much more information on options for
my job over the next couple of years. I
actually have a lot of input on what I end up
doing, where I end up going and what my lifestyle
will be like. I still won't find out until half
way through training. So I'll let y'all know
then. After a French interview, I thankfully got
placed in the advanced group, which means I get
to start learning Fon (the most prevalent local
language) right away. I'm looking forward to
moving in with my host family in Azove on
Thursday for the duration of training. I think
they've been easing us into new food and too
much exposure in the "big city." But I promise
plenty of recipes for anyone who likes to cook
in the somewhat-near future.
Sorry this was so long winded. I'm never offended
if you just skim or even delete, but do let me
know how you are doing every now and then:
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 971
Cotonou, Benin
It was good to see everyone before I left even
though it got a little hectic towards the end.
I miss you all!
Bisous, Sara']]>
I look forward to the day when Ethan, or Grant,
or Colby, or ??? go out into the world, and
when that happens I will remind you how I felt
Sending Sara to Benin."
I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements
of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how
important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy
it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of
distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets
go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at
rnelson@walden3d.com.
With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)