Happy Holidays! Saturday, Dec 22 2007

First, before I forget, merry Christmas and happy New Year (merry happy Christmahanukwanzikah, etc.) to everyone from us both.  We’ll be thinking of everyone back home on Christmas, especially as there’s no snow and only a few lights.  Other features of Christmas here include an influx of Chinese toys for the kids and lots of candy.  There are plastic Christmas trees and Santas, too, and they have Pere Noel.  For our part, we’ll be making a tortiere (French-Canadian meat pie), lots of cookies, and we have a khaki-paper Christmas tree (see Phoebe’s pictures page for December).

As for work, I’ve finished up with my first round of “formations,” which have been trainings on accounting.  Though I didn’t have very many “students,” those I did have were very enthusiastic.  Phoebe’s on vacation till after New Year’s.

In less-than-happy seasonal news, we’ve entered the dry season.  This basically entails foggy mornings but little or no rain.  Our cistern’s running VERY low — so low someone had to add a length of rope to the lengths already added.  We’re doing our part to conserve, one might say, by taking pretty infrequent showers, but this could get dire if we don’t get rain soon.  There’s water from the pump down the road, but at 25 fCFA (60 cents or so) for something like 10 liters, it could get pricey to do laundry and wash dishes.

My addition to the dog comment: Travelling with dog.  I had to take him to the vet for his rabies shot a few weeks ago.  The varying reactions in the cab were, “aw… what’s his name?” to the body-language indicating, “get that mechant animal away from me!”  How anyone could think Hugo threatening is beyond me, but it just goes to show ya, I guess.

Anyway, I suppose it’s about time we returned to post…

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Having a Dog Sunday, Dec 2 2007

Carly’s mom asked about having a dog in Benin.  Well we love our dear little Hugo, but our neighbors do seem a little confused by the amount of affection we give it. The ladies in my concession refer to Hugo as my “baby” most likely because it is equally strange to most Beninese that I do not have children.

People in Benin do have dogs and they do like their dogs, their relationship is just more distant. They don’t spend a lot of time petting and training their dogs. Dogs live outside and often have to fend for themselves. They aren’t always fed, so they scavenge the neighborhood for scraps of food or eat whatever the family doesn’t eat.

The kids in our concession like Hugo and try to play with him, but they don’t understand how to play with him.  Hugo runs away from them because they are often a little too rough although I do believe they mean well. The little baby is terrified of the dog and cries at the sight of him.

When I returned from a week in Parakou, Hugo bounded up to me in a happy sprint. His tail was going and he jumped up on me. It was adorable! Of course, the kids we’re stunned by it. Dogs don’t do that here. They don’t have the same relationship with their owners.

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