"update" OR "the post dedicated to beninese food"

I sat here at the computer thinking about a clever title for about three minutes before I gave up and put up the most boring one I could think of.

Currently I am in the sweaty south of Benin, having just finished a week of training. For part of the training each of us education volunteers brought our teacher counterpart, who is another English teacher at our school. I think all of us thought it was a really good week of training, especially because it was an opportunity to allow our fellow teachers to learn more about basics like lesson planning and how to conduct a staff meeting, but also more serious topics like sexual harassment and corporal punishment in schools. I'm looking forward to discussing it all more in depth with my counterpart when I get back to Tobre.

I feel like I say this every time I write a blog, since me writing a blog means I have left post, but I am looking forward to getting back. Granted I will arrive covered in mosquito bites (its too dry in Tobre for them right now), which probably will mean my friends and neighbors will be even more convinced that I'm prone to skin disoders (aka freckles).

Since I'm somewhat at a loss about what to write, I think I'll clear up some things I previously said about food in Benin.
Some things:
1. Food here is good. Most of the time.
2. Food here is usually eaten with your hands.
3. Food here often contains shocking amounts of starch, oil, and pepper.

I know spent a lot of time in one of my earliest blogs complaining about the food, but over time I've gotten more used to it, and also discovered that there are plenty of options. Due to the diversity amongst the different people groups in Benin, there is plenty of regional dishes.
Here are some of my favorites, in order of preference:
1. Yam Pilee: a northern speciality. Really it should be called Igname Pile, since yams here are nothing like what we call yams. Here they are huge starchy roots. To make yam pilee, the roots are peeled and chopped, then boiled. After soft, the yams are put into a piece of hallowed out wood, and pounded into an elastic, soft, almost play dough-like consistency. Once ready, it is rounded into nice plops, and served usually with spicy peanut sauce with chicken or sheep. It is eaten with your hands. It fills most volunteers up quickly, but I can always eat all of mine.
2. Ablo: a southern speciality. These are little steamed rice cakes. They are usually served with fishy, spicy sauce.
3. Beans and Gari: I love beans of any sort, so its nice be in a place where I can usually find someone somewhere who sells beans and gari. Usually the beans are just white beans cooked with plenty of chicken msg. Gari is pieces of ground up manioc. This is usually also smothered with big spoonfuls of oil.
4. Buille and patee: buille is a general name for porridge, and patee (there should be an accent over the first e) are a type of salty, fried breads. This is a breakfast dish. There are two types of buille: good buille and gross buille. Good buille is made, I think, from corn. It is served with plenty of sugar. I'm talking heaping spoonfuls. Gross buille is made from fermented corn meal, or millet. No amount of sugar can make it taste good, in my opinion.

So these are my favorites, and it is also easy to find people selling rice with red sauce and meat (or cheese). There is only one type of cheese, which is made by the Fulani people here. I can't describe it well, but I will say that I know I'll miss it when I leave. There are also plenty of fried balls of delicious dough, referred to ambiguously as "beignets" in French ("cakes"). In Bariba there are specific words for the different types: for those made of corn flour, those made of bean flour, or those made of wheat flour. All of them, of course taste good.

In cities there are often at least one of what we volunteers refer to as yovo stores. These stores are stocked full of western foods that we crave, usually packaged with arabic writing, and sold at exorbitant prices. So there ARE chances to take a break from the fine Beninese cookin'.

To end this post on food, I share something serious. I have actually started working with the gardeners in Tobre, and we have begun the process of looking for ways to get a better water pump for them, as well as looking into alternative to pesticides (a BIG shout out to my friend Kjessie, who researched the bugs attacking plants for me). A week and a half ago I met with them, and found out that they had harvested their potatoes, but that the NGO who promised to buy them still hadn't come to pick them up. At that point they'd been harvested for about a week. My postmate and I tried to think of ways that they could begin selling the potatoes before they went bad. We suggested they try to sell them at the bigger market 15K away, or to stores there. We thought they had a couple dozen kilos maybe, which would be hard to sell in this area since most people don't eat potatoes there, but it might be possible. Turns out they have about three tons of potatoes. TONS. All about to go bad.

Luckily Ly, my postmate, knows a number of people who work in the mayor's office and for the county, and confronted many of them about what's happening with the gardeners and their potatoes. A lot of people promised to look into it, so I'll see when I get back whether or not the NGO ever came.

Its hard to blame either side, because the gardeners really should have made the NGO sign a contract and give a down payment, but this is a group of old, mostly illiterate women we're talking about. Growing three tons of potatoes is no small task, especially when literally every part of the growing and harvesting process is done by hand.

Maybe this was a pessimistic way to end an update, but the reality is that not everything here is as exciting as yam pilee.