The Neighbors Here

We’ve now been in Tchaourou for close to two months -- as long as we were in our stage towns – but we have yet to introduce you dear readers to our new neighbors. Pictures included where available.

To the right:

Eric - Even at 14, still one of the most worldly Beninese we've met. Wants to be an ambassador. Likes eating foreign food. Speaks English and Spanish as well as French and a handful of local languages. And has an impressive capacity for creative thinking, something not many are known for here.



Steeve (aka Steeve Noir, Tipu, Jumeaux) - 9 and fast friends with us. Steve and Steeve play up the whole name twins thing a lot, and he's always up for a walk through town.


Valerie - A relative from the Attacora region, in Tchaourou for the school year. Very much like a 15 year old American girl, which is to say there is far more self confidence than your average 15 year old Beninese. Gonna make something of her life if it kills her mentality.

Claude - 18. Older brother of Eric and Steeve. We had been told he was at seminary school for the first year, but showed up at the beginning of the school year needing to retake his HS exit exams (not a shocker, less that 20% pass nationally).



Deborah - 14, had been rescued on the border where she was intended to be someones arranged bride. Sweet, quiet, and just learning French (she's a 14 year old in what is essentially the first grade), having her around is a good insight into the mindset of traditional living here.



Isabelle - 6 year old under Nicole's care, also from the Attacora. Can nearly always be found in front of our door coloring with sidewalk chalk or asking how to say something in English. She was so quiet when we first arrived but now we really struggle to get her to shut up. Not to say we don't enjoy it as she keeps us laughing when asking where she can buy Jaren's hair (unable to conceive that someone can naturally have strait hair, she's convinced its a weave) or trying to say "water balloon" in English.

Nicole - Jaren's boss and head of the Center for Social Promotion. Also our next door neighbor and mother of some of the above mentioned. Here she is presenting backpacks and school supplies to orphans a few weeks back, one of the many programs she administers throughout the commune. Very fun, very modern in her world view and a force of nature when it comes to getting things done here. We're very happy to be in her orbit.

Grandmere – an absolute force of nature. At 67, Nicole's mother lives with the family here in Tchaourou but originally hails from the Nattitangou/Atacora region (same as Valerie and Isabelle). She speaks mostly French, and speaks it well as she learned from the French themselves.

Grandmere spends most of her time tending to a multi-acre garden across the road from our concession where she grows the usual local crops (tomatoes, onions, beans, okra, hot peppers) as well as some pretty unusual ones (lettuce, mushrooms, cucumbers). It is truly amazing to watch her work, spending most of the day bent in half working the soil with a crude hoe and a tin can of water. And while she claims to be a simple woman of the land seems to have a real awareness about the connection between food and nutrition.

Best of all though has to be her incredible animated nature and sense of humor. Every morning we go through the same verbal two-step, she greeting us for the day by calling us “my child”, asking how we slept, asking how her other “child” slept and then being genuinely relieved when she hears everything is ok. We get into all sorts of chats about subjects mundane (seching vegetables for the season seche) and complicated (inter-religious conflict in Benin), for which she’s always got a memorable answer.

She’ll sass you inside-out for asking a question she doesn’t want to answer (the “I’m just a simple farmer” defense when she doesn’t want to deal with someone) or for asking a question you should already know an answer to (“Of course you should get me a second bottle of Tchuck Eric, why do you even ask such a ridiculous question”). We could not have imagined her if we wanted to, and feel lucky to know her.

To the left:
Chef
Head of the Arrondismant (kind of like being the mayor). Very much a classic back room politician, horse trading in the local watering hole on a Saturday afternoon. Definitely a powerbroker in town, but with the shadow of the President looming, I'm getting the feeling he's being asked to deal with a whole pile of problems and requests he's never had to before. The town is becoming a development petrie dish for the country and he is at the center of it.

Mama
Wife of Chef, she sells sleeping mats and used bottles in the market to pass the time. Very nice, very traditional (still pummels her own I'ngames, no domestic workers in sight). Has been a great market ambassador for us as well.

Najem
12 year old son of the above pair and budding shortstop. Video forthcoming.

Others in the area:


Kasim, Pierre, Innousa and Abel - President (Mechanic), VP (Welder), Treasurer (Tailor) and Secretary (Electrician) of the local artisan bureau and with whom Steve works directly. Very nice guys and clearly intent on seeing things improve, we're working together now to create programs to teach basic management to the local small business owners.

Often naked little girl A and Often naked little girl B – These two live in the concession next door and about two weeks ago started showing up in our concession sans clothes. Neither speaks French, so most of our interactions involve making faces and noises. Also, Steve can’t get over the feeling A looks like 76ers point guard Andre Miller even though he only vaguely remembers what Andre Miller looks like and knows for certain that Andre Miller is not a 4 year old girl.


Salu, the head of the local butchering operation – very sweet guy, happy to answer any of my asinine questions. Making things better his wife LOVES us because we gave her some oranges when we first arrived and despite a lack of French, falls all over herself to greet us when we walk by. They also have a kid about 12, Wahab, who Steve has played a little baseball with, might make a good outfielder.


Rachatou - Local high school student in the last year of a Peace Corps scholarship program, we were able to help cover her school fees, books and supplies to finish high school. She's on the math and science track at school and is hoping to go to University in Parakou to study agronomy.

Sooned – Nigerian man who greets us in Nigerian English every time we walk by his store selling clothes. “How it is?” can be heard from 50 yards away whenever we’re in town (yeah, Nigerian English is English only in name. While much of the base vocabulary is the same, the sentence construction is so screwed up it is barely intelligible.)

He just opened a second shop selling motorcycle parts – turns out you can bank on the fact that any shop selling any sort of manufactured good from abroad is owned by the Ibo (Nigerian tribe). The third largest market in Africa is in a Nigerian town not too far from here, so they buy up some inventory and (in a manner of unknown legality) bring it to Benin for resale. Most importantly, he explained all of this to us in English (again, relatively speaking)

Valentin – local welder, let Steve play with a welding torch…