Last week was the girls’ leadership camp in Porto Novo, the capital of Benin.  About fifty girls attended, coming from all over the southern portion of Benin.  I brought four of my 5eme students from my post, and I think they really enjoyed it.  Two of them were girls who performed very well in my English class this last year, one was a girl who didn’t perform very well but had an excellent attitude, and the fourth was a very smart girl who seemed dedicated to doing as little work as possible at school.  I hoped the camp would encourage the first two to keep working hard, and the second two to start thinking seriously about their futures.  They had sessions on study skills, managing work and family, nutrition, health and sexuality, etc….plus special trips to a museum, a non-profit farm, and the National Assembly.  I mostly ran errands and helped with the general running of the camp, though I did assist with the goal-setting workshop and taught one session on origami.  (The girls loved folding paper hats and wore them around for the rest of the day.)  The camp was funded by donors back in the U.S. – so thanks a lot! 

To celebrate the Fourth of July, the American ambassador to Benin invited everyone connected to the U.S. embassy, plus all the Peace Corps staff and volunteers, to a potluck lunch at her [enormous] house [with swimming pool!] today.  At least fifty people showed up, and we feasted on everything from salad to macaroni and cheese to hamburgers and hotdogs – very exotic foods for Benin.  I baked a cinnamon cake with chocolate frosting at post and brought it over today.  On the way back to the Peace Corps office on a motorcycle with the remains of the cake balanced on my knee, I got a lot of odd looks from Beninese people…which I think is a bit much since I regularly see Beninese people driving around on motorcycles with a goat slung over their knees and a basket of thirty chickens tied to the seat behind them.

In a matter of minutes, a plane carrying a new crop of Peace Corps trainees will arrive at the Cotonou airport.  They’ll be training for the next two months at sites in and around Porto Novo – right next door to me, in other words.  Current PCVs will be assisting with the training, but I won’t be one of them since I was in Paris during the trainers’ training session in March.  I definitely plan to show up for their Iron Chef Benin competition, though.  Since I won’t be involved in the actual training, I think I’d make a great impartial taste-tester and judge.  Those who make it to the end of the training period will swear in around the fourth of September, and their swear-in celebration will also double as Peace Corps Benin’s 40th anniversary celebration.  I won’t be able to make it since I’ll be visiting the U.S. at that time, but I’ve heard a rumor that the President of Benin might attend.  At this rate, I’ll never meet a President of anywhere!