cotonou

We spent the last week in Cotonou, the administrative capital of Benin, travelling down on Monday and back on Friday. Our main reason for going was to sign for our residency cards, but since it is a day's journey from Parakou we won't be going often, so we made the most of this visit to get some shopping done.

The journeys went smoothly – despite it being long the boys were very good, and they enjoyed the break at the “Auberge de Dassa” where we ate lunch both on Monday and Friday.

The administrative part of our trip went very quickly. One of the SIM employees in Cotonou, Roger, took us to the immigration office, where we were first in the queue and were processed efficiently! Our fingerprints were even taken electronically, which is certainly less messy than the traditional way!

We had a long shopping list of household items we weren't sure we'd find in Parakou, and the pressure was on to find everything in the three days we had in Cotonou. We were looking particularly for kitchenware, and there is no one shop that has everything at an affordable price – in fact often the selection of things available in one shop seems quite random! We also stocked up on a few luxury foodie items we can't find outside Cotonou, like golden syrup, cocoa powder, Chai tea bags, garam masala spice mix … but I don't feel I enjoyed that part of the shopping as much as I might have because of the urgency of finding the other things!

By Thursday afternoon we had at last found almost everything on the list, and felt that it had been a successful time. Cotonou is not somewhere we like spending time in really, as it is hotter and more humid than Parakou, and very very busy. Plus all four of us had to share a bedroom, which means that the boys wake each other and us up very easily. One night Simon fell out of bed twice quite apart from Benjy's waking for feeds! We are enjoyed staying in the SIM guesthouse though. Marc, who runs it, is very welcoming, and it's always a great way to meet and talk to other missionaries who are passing through.

We avoided the very centre of Cotonou as much as possible, as there is so much traffic – cars, motorbikes and pedestrians everywhere. We would have no chance of parking if it wasn't for men with sticks and whistles who wave at you as soon as they see you looking for a space and usher you into the nearest one with much blowing of aforementioned whistle! Even better, when you have to back out of your space they will step into the road waving their stick to stop oncoming traffic so that you can get out again. They expect a tip, of course, but it is very much worth it!

Twice we just bought a picnic lunch to eat at the guesthouse, but once we managed to find a Chinese restaurant (not the one we were looking for, but equally recommended by our guide book!) and had a very tasty Chinese meal! I could have believed I was in England ;o)

On the journey home we bought roasted peanuts, pineapples and gari (a local cereal) sold at the side of the road. Buying the peanuts was a bit of a stressful experience, as we had 5 or 6 girls run up to my side of the car and all stick their arms through the window with bags of peanuts, all shouting furiously. Trying to decide which peanuts to take and how to pay the right person, while my ears were being bombarded by their cries, not to mention working out how to close the window again when they didn't seem to want to take their arms back out, was exhausting. I don't think we'll be stopping there again next time! (Or else I'll have to ask friends if there is a better technique!)

I spent a lot of the day yesterday packing away the SIM kitchenware we've been borrowing, and washing and putting away our new stuff. It feels more like home now!

on-line at home!

One of the things we managed to get done last week was to sort out internet access at home! We have access via our mobile phone which communicates with our computer by Bluetooth. It is a slow and not necessarily very reliable connection, but we do appreciate being able to get on-line most days! At least if things are taking a long time we can go away and do something useful while we're waiting!

(See Marc's blog for more details in French about internet access in Benin.)

Beep beep!

While Marc can use his French driving licence to drive here, my English licence isn't valid because it doesn't have French on it. One possibility for me would be to get an international driving licence, but I would have to apply (and pay) for it every year in the UK, which is costly and complicated. So I have signed up with a driving school here in Parakou, and for 60,000CFA (about £80) I will be able to have 6 driving lessons (if I need that many), and take the written and road tests. It will be an interesting cross-cultural experience, quite apart from the advantage of ending up with a Beninese driving licence for life! I asked how to go about booking a lesson and was told that I should just turn up and ask for an instructor - “it's you who decide when's best for you” I was told. It seems to me that making the effort to get there just to find out there are no instructors free wouldn't necessarily be the easiest arrangement, but I didn't think they'd appreciate me arguing about it.

We went to find out about it yesterday, and the boss of the school said, “Since you already know how to drive you can take the test on the 27th!” Of this month?! I replied politely that although I can already drive I'd like to familiarise myself with the Beninese Highway Code before the written test. “Oh, you don't need to worry yourself about that!” he answered me, waving a hand dismissively. I insisted that I wasn't in a rush, and would prefer to wait until next month. We are away in Cotonou (sorting out our residency cards) next week, so I won't have time to think about it then, and since I've never driven in Benin before, I'd like to go out with an instructor once or twice just to see what advice they will give me!

So I now have a month and a half to study the 600 multiple choice questions which could come up in the test! (That's fewer than 20 a day to memorise...)

thankfulness

We now have our car! And through the whole process, we have seen how God has provided and put things into place at just the right times. First of all, we were very blessed to receive gifts from people who wanted to help us buy a car for our work out here. On arrival, another missionary recommended an agent at the Port of Cotonou who would be able to find us a car among the secondhand cars that arrive at the port every week. We didn't give a very precise description of the kind of car we wanted, as we weren't sure what would be best, yet the car chosen has turned out to be ideal for us. It is a Toyota Picnic, which is a 6-seater where the back 2 seats can either be put in for extra passengers or left out to give a huge boot. It has air-conditioning, which is very nice in the kind of temperatures we get here, and particularly on long journeys. Despite being secondhand, it is in very good condition, with few signs of wear and tear. And it is silver-coloured, which is very important in my family ;o)

Marc travelled down to Cotonou to fetch the car on Monday. He left home at 5.45am, knowing that he had to be at the bus station by 6.30 but not sure if he would be able to get a taxi-moto at that time in the morning. As he walked along the main road, someone from church (who he didn't even know) recognised him and stopped his journey (in the opposite direction!) to offer him a lift to the bus station. What a blessing!

Then at Cotonou he found out that an experienced missionary had just arrived back from Home Assignment, and was travelling back to Parakou the following day. This worked out very well for both of them. The other missionary didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus, and Marc had someone to help him sort out the car's insurance and had company for the long drive back to Parakou. God was obviously looking after all the details!

they don't make 'em like they used to!

Some generous missionaries with teenage sons made Simon's day a few weeks ago when they passed a whole load of toys on to him. His favourite are the tractors, but the rest of the farm and the Duplo make him very happy too.

These missionaries are currently living somewhere where they don't have mains electricity, so they said they had other things they don't use which we could have. These turned out to be an iron (and ironing board) and a food mixer. Both are Canadian, and so need to be used with an extremely heavy transformer, which scared me when it arrived by its weight and the random wires sticking out of it. But our handyman next-door neighbour put it all back together again, and I started to investigate the food mixer. I was amused to see that it had been bought in 1982 (!) but immediately won over by the enthusiastic description in the instruction-and-recipe book of all that it can do. It's a Vita-Mix Plus … which I had never heard of before, but an American I met yesterday said, “Wow – Vita-Mix are the best!”

So far I have puréed fruit, minced meat and mixed cake batter in it … with great success! And I am sure that Marc is right that if I bought a brand-new standard food mixer in Cotonou now it would probably last less time than this model will carry on working for.

I just have to remember to warn Simon before I use it, as it makes a big noise, and if it takes him by surprise he is not a happy bunny!

another update

(Written 27.06.08)

Our crates arrived just over a week ago. It had been a slightly complicated process to get them through customs and up the country, involving a clearing agent, a large sum of income tax and then helpful friends with empty cars who were driving North! We were glad to see them, and it is very nice to have more of our own things around. I am enjoying cooking with the spices my sister picked up for me in a Middle Eastern souk, Simon and Benjy have “Charlie and Lola” and “Postman Pat” decorating their walls, and we now have family photos up. I also needed the next size of clothes for Benjy, as he was fast growing out of the clothes we'd brought in our suitcases!

It also seems that we have found a car! There again we used a local agent, who works at the port and therefore sees the cars that are imported into the country. He rang at the end of last week to say that he had found a Toyota Picnic (a 7-seater – useful if we are transporting other people). After some negotiation (and prayer!) we agreed to the sale, and are waiting for the next step.

Family news. All of us are in good health, and apart from a couple of days of tummy bug for Marc and me, we have been thriving here! Simon has made friends among the other missionaries' children, and particularly enjoys being looked after by our neighbours' 8 and 10 year old girls. Benjy is showing signs of being as sociable as Simon, if not more so, and gets very cross if everyone else is sitting round the table and he isn't included! He is also very Weeble-like in wanting to sit up all the time, rather than lie down, and everything that passes anywhere near him is grabbed by his clutching hands. He is extremely smiley, and also has very good eyesight, so from the other side of the room he will try to catch his parents' eyes to exchange a grin. He has also started letting out ear-shattering shrieks when bored!

Benjy's sleep is gradually getting better. He has never been good at getting to sleep during the day (since he was about two weeks old) but it seems that his anti-malarial treatment intensified his problems. He was waking every 90 minutes or so during the night! But since we stopped the treatment he has gone back to only waking once or twice a night, which is much better for his parents! He is also taking daytime naps regularly and without any fuss.

We took the boys swimming one day, and had to pay for Simon's ticket but not for Benjy. That turned out to be the wrong way round, as Benjy very much enjoyed splashing in the pool whereas Simon refused to go any deeper than his knees!

Simon has begun to speak more French. After eighteen months in England he had realised that even the people who spoke French to him understood English, so while he clearly understands French perfectly, he had got into the habit of generally replying in English. Here, however, he has noticed that when he speaks English he is not necessarily understood, and has very pragmatically started increasing the amount of French he speaks. He particularly enjoys greeting people, “Bonjour! Bonsoir!” and is very polite, “Merci beaucoup!”

In English he is putting more and more sentences together. We have things like, “Put this one there safely!” or “Put it up there!”

We also had a historic moment recently when for the first time he told us a story of something that had happened when he was away from us. He had been playing with our neighbours' girls, Noémi and Athalia, in their sandpit. At teatime he solemnly said to us, “Athalia, eyes, sand! … Washing eyes!” I replied, “Oh dear, poor Athalia! Did she cry?” and he answered, “No!” as if that was a silly idea!

The two boys also interact more and more as Benjy becomes more interested in the world around him, and is therefore more interesting for Simon. When Simon comes to see Benjy in his bath, it's quite clear that Benjy is trying to get Simon's attention and deliberately splashing to make Simon laugh!