How fast time goes by, a year ago this week I was stepping off an airplane and starting my Peace Corps service. The feelings of excitement and nervousness surged through my body as I discovered Benin and got to know Africa for the first time. I left a good job in the Department of State and I gave up a great relationship with a wonderful girl to pursue my crazy idea of joining Peace Corps. But since the day I arrived to Africa I have been very lucky in everything that I have done. My host family with whom I lived with when I first arrived turned out to be wonderful, the town that I live in is very nice, clean, and scenic and in my opinion the best town in Benin. Peace Corps Admin in Benin is great, I have made many friends and I am very proud of the work that I have done.

I am very fortunate to have very ambitious work partner. Yacaobou Moussa,(pictured above) is a leather smith by trade with a simple 6 grade education but he is the most determined person that I have met. He is also the president of the handicap association of my town and together we have taken an old cargo container and turned it into a clean water production facility. As of June of 2007 we are employing three handicap people, by producing clean filtered water and selling water in small water bags at a very cheap price to the public, we have recently started producing flavored water such as tamarind, hibiscus, lemon, and local exotic fruits with the profits the handicap association is paying for health needs of handicap people in town. It is an amazing feeling to be part of this project and seeing an old container turned into a facility that produces clean water, employs handicap people and making money.

Another project that I am very proud of is having an English and Spanish club in the local high school. Students are very interested in learning English, so my postmate Richard and I applied for a small grant from USAID and with the assistance of Abel; a local English teacher we prepared a regional English competition that focused on HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness. With the money we received we gave out the test to over 250 students in 23 schools throughout the region, the top 80 students and top 7 teachers came to our town of Natitingou and we gave them another exam with the focus on HIV/AIDS and then had an awards ceremony with a play and presentation on HIV/AIDS prevention afterwards we gave the students, books, dictionaries, school material, money and paid for next school year’s fees. The English Competition was a huge success and the kids had a great time.

By far the greatest reward comes from working with the local orphanage and an NGO that helps children especially girls go to school. With a couple of dollars we have fed over 80 orphans for Christmas and bought clothing for them and with the NGO we have purchased books and uniforms to help underprivileged kids go to school and encourage the education of girls in small rural villages.

At times things are a little difficult because if people see you do a project with somebody, some get jealous and expect the same attention and effort, many just want a handout because they think I have money to give away, others want me to do a project with them but they are not willing to put in the time and effort they expect all the work to be done for them. Overall I have been very blessed with everything I have done so far, I have already accomplished so much this year and I already have plans for my future projects, I am in the process of raising money to build an adult education classroom for my town, so expect an email from me asking you to please donate some money to my project or please check back in the near future for more info and details.

Another popular tourist attraction in Benin is Ganvie, a village built on a lake an hour from the capital. Think about it as Venice in Africa. Stories tell that in the 17^th century Kings of Abomey were waging war on their neighbors and capturing people to sale to the white men as slaves. Since the king’s soldiers could not swim, the people built themselves a village on the water, and they were thereby safe from the persecutors. Legend says that the people made a deal with the animals of the lake and they were helped by crocodiles to swim to the middle of the lake and other animals taught the people to build houses on the water to fish and farm in their new environment.
I was recently in Cotonou, the pseudo capital of Benin when a couple of friends and I decided to go to the water village of Ganvie. Like I have ranted before Cotonou and the surrounding communes are some of the dirties and worst organized places that I have seen so far in Africa, and Ganvie was no exception, the place leading to the entrance was heavily polluted with trash, the road is in deplorable condition, the people come running up to tourist begging for money or to buy some incredibly over priced souvenir, and there was a horrible stench of trash and dead fish, for a popular tourist attraction this place is rundown and it seems as very little money is reinvest in the development of this national treasure, and this is sad cause it is probably the largest lake village in Africa and a very popular tourist attraction, I am sure that there is a lot of money being earned from this that locals are not seeing any benefit from.

That was just the entrance, after we payed for our boat we started our trip to the actual village, we started seeing little wooden fishing boats, most were aged and beat up cause while one person rowed another was responsible taking the water out of the boat, sometimes there was one person doing both. The sails were made from old blankets or from empty rice and corn sacks sown together. After about 30 minutes in a motorized boat we started seeing rough make-shift houses of old planks and straw on stilts, the closer we got we started seeing more and more till it looked like an actual village on water. The actual village of Ganvie is nice, very picturesque, with colorful wooden houses, people conducting everyday business but on boats, the market was a cluster of boats and people rowing to buy and sell, people transporting animals and random things to sell.

Aside of the people who sold stuff to tourist the people of Ganvie were very defense about not taking their pictures, the pictures I have of people I had to take very discreetly. Actually the people of Ganvie were not that nice to the tourist, kind of strange considering that this is one of Benin's most popular tourist attraction and the village lives of tourism and fishing. But after a couple of minuets of being in Ganvie I could completely understood why. Tourist come in in loud motor boats that scare the fish and create waves that unbalance their little boats, then tourist go around taking pictures and viewing people and the place as a zoo attraction and invade in their personal space and everyday lives, I too would get upset if people came to my town and treated me and my town like a zoo or tourist attraction, and like I previously mention the village does not see much of the profits that is earned from their town. But overall Ganvie was very nice and I am glad I have the chance to see it.