This last Sunday marked one year in Benin for everyone in my training group.  Of the 59 of us who arrived in July 2007, only about 45 have made it to this point.  Fifteen of us went out for ice cream and Indian food in Cotonou last Friday.  For an enormous banana split and dinner at a formal restaurant with wine, appetizers, the whole nine yards, the bill came to 8,500cfa per person…under 20 US dollars.  (Now if I could only live in Benin on an American salary, that would be perfect…) 

When I returned to post on Saturday, I celebrated again by making chocolate and vanilla cakes to share with my neighbors.  I don’t have any oven out here, but I’ve been baking a lot recently using a Dutch oven: a large lidded pot with an empty tuna can on the bottom.  I perch my cake/bread/cookie pan on top of the tuna can and put the whole setup over a low flame on my gas stove.  It works very well, though I’d been having problems finding the right ingredients for baking.  Real butter isn’t available at my post, and the tub margarine here that Beninese people call “butter” is disastrous in baking.  It tastes like plastic and when exposed to high heat, it congeals into a sticky black mass.  For the one-year anniversary baking day, I used real butter bought in Cotonou and made caramel frosting from scratch, and the cakes were amazing.  (On less special occasions, I use vegetable oil instead of butter.)  My neighbors were VERY happy.  I’ve gotten a couple of offers to bake for payment that I’ve had to turn down since I’m prohibited from earning money as a Peace Corps volunteer.  If I have to get fired sometime, though, I’d definitely like to do it for unauthorized pastry sales. 

After a bombardment of start-of-summer Peace Corps activities, things have really quieted down.  I got so bored last week at post, I taught myself to crochet.  I bought the yarn and crochet hook from a woman in my local market.  If I had been shopping for shriveled animal parts to protect myself against sorcery, no one would’ve given me a second glance, but since I was haggling for crocheting supplies, I had an audience of at least ten curious people around me by the time I was finished.  There can’t be much variety in the crochet action in Benin since I’m still working to convince my friends at post that the round red thing I’m making is NOT a hat.  I don’t think they’ll be convinced until they see me carrying around my new crocheted satchel in a few weeks.