7

6/18/2013 2:17:04 PM

Today is a good day, Submitted and received approval for my first grant proposal. Gonna travel up and down my region helping people set up operations to store tomatoes. This is actually kind of a big deal, the price goes up 100-200% during the dry season, and everyfuckingthing that the Beninese eat involves tomatoes. So being able to store them up in the rainy season is handy. Best of all, the whole operation is going to run less than $100. The only material thing I will be handing out is sample jars. The rest is all information exchange.

I've also got a relationship thing going, which is unusual for me.

And I got a side job running our humor magazine here.

And I've got two more projects coming down the pipe, one of which could fail spectacularly or be very exciting -- which is hard to believe, given that it involves solid waste management.

The question is why, considering all this good news and my corresponding mood, I have not been able to sleep through the night in weeks. In scheduling my appointment the PC doctor seemed awfully eager to blame it on my prostate. So I've got that to balance out the good news, that my doctor may want to sexually assault me.

Quote :

"My friend is moving down there in about a month. Supposed to be heading up construction on the embassy."

I ran into some Americans working on the construction the last time I was in Cotonou. They were at a bar and living out of a hotel for the time being.

That's all for the foreseable future, my time at this cybercafe is running out.

[Edited on June 26, 2013 at 7:49 AM. Reason : ]

6/26/2013 7:44:40 AM

so did your TWW care package ever arrive or was it even ever sent?


also, just read this entire thread. very awesome. i do not envy you, but definitely enjoy reading your stories.

what is your typical day like from wake to sleep? How much "down time" or "personal time" do you have during the day? I know you said at one point you were reading tons and tons of books.

6/26/2013 9:22:26 AM

I cannot say enough how much I've enjoyed reading this thread and your blog. I'll very likely be living in the Cotonous of the world over the next two decades or so and I love hearing your first hand experiences (although in my case, I likely won't be roughing it to an extent nearing that of you PCVs). Keep it up.

6/26/2013 9:33:14 AM

Quote :

"so did your TWW care package ever arrive or was it even ever sent?"

Never sent. Only 1 person ever gave me money to put towards the shipping costs.

6/26/2013 10:08:54 AM

You must not have seen my PM. I asked for details of where to Paypal the money.

6/26/2013 4:32:07 PM

Sam, how much more do you need? Sorry, I keep forgetting.

6/26/2013 4:47:22 PM

I already sent bmel back her money

I'm moving next month so if somebody else wants to head this up, that'd be great. Bt the baby and moving, I'm pretty busy.

6/26/2013 4:59:02 PM

I'll throw down on this bad boy to spite jcgolden.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/26/2013 5:01:16 PM

Someone should make a chip-in (or something similar, since chip-in is no more) for this. Make it easy for all those people who said they are in/wanted to help send shit.

[Edited on June 26, 2013 at 5:14 PM. Reason : http://www.gofundme.com/]

6/26/2013 5:12:06 PM

is chip in the thing bubblebobble got that shit from?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/26/2013 5:15:06 PM

Seriously? $100 to teach people how to store tomatoes. And that doesn't strike anyone as a gimmick to appeal to throngs of sandal wearing hippie housewives?

can't they just order a box of that shit my grandma used for canning food? instead of a jar, they can just use a baggie, like the ones they shit in. (lol, they shit on the ground tho) wrap that fucker in banana leaves and put it on a shelf.

Stop acting like I'm this big troll and let's get some intelligent responses up in this motherfucker instead of herfing on Grumpy's penis.

6/27/2013 1:59:46 PM

"look at me! I just rescued an entire village with my $100 donation!" "all they needed was this dude Grumpy to teach them how to preserve food" "I'm so much smarter than the Christian Miracle Network or whatever the fuck."

So why is it the US Gov't is building 1Billion in road infrastructure in Sumatra to accomplish the exact same thing Grumpy is claiming to be doing?

let the conspiracy theories enter the arena.

6/27/2013 2:06:52 PM

Grump, I am not accusing you of being a sheister, just your handlers. I am pretty sure you drank the koolade. seriously, enjoy your adventure.

oh, and answer me this: do YOU find out about the Peace Corp commitment counting as time served toward your future career? Or was it originally suggested to you by a Peace Corp recruiter? LOLOLOLOL!

Running away to join the Circus looks good on a resume? Get real, kid.

get a haircut, get a job.

6/27/2013 2:17:03 PM

Why do you have such a hard on for this?

6/27/2013 2:25:04 PM

YOU GONNA GET RAPED if u join the peace corps: "more than 1,000 young American women have been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries."

thats like 1/200 chance based on there being like 200,000 volunteers since it started. worse than being in ghetto parts of Amurica? i dunno.

the mission of the peace corps is to try and confuse the shit out of people with freebies just like the Jesuits then manipulate them to our own ends while keeping them from forming solid local, uncontrollable political entities.

"Conquer" in the modern sense means make them docile and consumerist.

6/27/2013 2:29:46 PM

I have a buddy working in Djibouti, Djibouti right now

6/27/2013 2:31:02 PM

I know a cool chick that did a tour in American Samoa doing something actually useful. PRoviding legal support for the transition from Diesel generators to Solar. actually had to do it TWICE because a huge typhoon came thru and destroyed all the panels the first time, lol.

since it was a real thing that actually helps people, it was a paid position.

6/27/2013 2:49:23 PM

i also would like to give GrumpyGOP my money

6/27/2013 2:59:29 PM

I think it's fantastic that jcgolden is so passionate about something.

However, it is entirely wrong-headed to single out an individual with this rhetoric, especially GrumpyGOP. It's pretty much a total disconnect up in here. Mr. Golden's remarks are totally baseless and bizarre.

6/27/2013 3:55:27 PM

appears he's been suspended for be a DICK

...

his politics are one thing... hell in a different context GrumpyGOP... or any one of us... may agree

...

but FUCK him, that isn't what this is about

this is about GrumpyGOP living life

and I'm down with that

7/1/2013 7:29:59 PM

I'm not sure which part I like more, the part where he thinks PCVs getting raped is funny or the part where tomato jarring somehow feeds into American conquest.

Guys, don't worry about the care package. I never for a moment actually thought I would receive it.

---

Oh, just found out I passed out the FSOT as well.

[Edited on July 8, 2013 at 6:40 AM. Reason : ]

7/8/2013 6:37:00 AM

Last Sunday I went to a funeral party with a bunch of blind guys. At one point, I was in a car being navigated by a blind guy and driven buy someone who kept pointing -- pointing -- at places and asking, "Do I turn here?"

Then I was forced to drink the worst moonshine I've yet encountered under a 2000-era britney spears poster while another blind guy felt my head and told me I looked like Jesus.

8/2/2013 7:00:44 AM

Sounds like a creative writing assignment.

8/2/2013 9:02:43 AM

why were they all blind?

8/2/2013 9:05:59 AM

Drinking methyl alcohol like a bunch of fuckheads.

8/2/2013 9:11:24 AM

how long til grumpy goes blind

[Edited on August 2, 2013 at 9:13 AM. Reason : b/c they made him drink the same crap]

8/2/2013 9:13:04 AM

I'm curious as to how much weight you've lost out there?

8/2/2013 12:51:05 PM

I'm curious as to how you're still alive.

8/2/2013 3:31:15 PM

I read the blog and enjoyed it.

It said he lost like 47lbs in the first 5 months.

8/2/2013 4:32:49 PM

I've lost 50 pounds exactly.

So it turns out that a number of Rwandans who were convicted of crimes against humanity are imprisoned in a town near me. (Don't ask why the UN decided on Benin to house them, I have no idea and neither does anybody else) One of my PC buddies went with a Rwandan friend to visit some of them. He quickly befriended one of the guys and told me about it. Turns out, this guy is Athanase Seromba, whose case I wrote a paper about in Dr. Figgins' international law course at NC State back in 2004.

That's a pretty big fucking coincidence and not an opportunity to be passed up, so I went with my buddy and visited the guy. He's nice, he's funny, he's charming, and he is serving a life sentence because he let 1,500 Tutsis hide in his church (he's a Catholic priest), then locked them in, denied them food, let the interhamwe attack it with guns, grenades, and fire, and finally ordered a bulldozer to topple the building on top of them. There was only one survivor.

The prison itself is kind of a joke. The guys in charge of the front gate are inmates, as are the people in charge of frisking visitors and looking out for contraband. Once you get through that process you can pretty much wander around wherever.

In other news a fellow volunteer has decided that I need to take her virginity.

My life is very different now than it was 15 months ago.

8/10/2013 9:25:07 AM

My buddy just moved there and works for the embassy. He sends random snapchats all the time of the most ridiculous stuff...especially this one bar/club.

How far do you stay from the embassy?

8/10/2013 5:03:56 PM

^^ let's see pics of this volunteer

CAN'T IMAGINE SHE'S THAT HOT IF IT'S TAKEN THIS LONG

8/10/2013 5:06:09 PM

I live a couple of hours from the embassy but the office (where I often post from) is only a couple of blocks away. I eat at their cafeteria sometimes and have made a couple of embassy friends who are about to leave. Give your friend my number, 64556233. I can introduce him to PC girls. They're desperate because they outnumber us 2 to 1.

I wonder which bar. Livingstone's is where most of the expats hang out, including my embassy pal, and it has a happy hour so I can afford to go there sometimes. Code Bar has legit drinks and good food, but when a drink costs 3,000 francs ($6), that's a whole day's pay for me. I'd bet money it's one or the other, probably Livingstone's.

And jaZon, how stupid do you think I am? I could post Natalie Portman or Scarlett Johansson and you vultures would say her knees were too pointy. The girl is gorgeous as far as I'm concerned. She's just spent her entire life being waaaaay too focused on school. Peace Corps has a habit of breaking that sort of work ethic and introducing people to fun.

8/10/2013 6:02:27 PM

8/10/2013 6:10:23 PM

I certainly will. He makes really good money(dont tell him I said that if you happen to meet him) and I am sure will pay for whatever drinks you have. He JUST moved there a few weeks ago so a NC face will surely pep up his spirits, not to mention would be a really good connect for you seeing that he gets all the government benefits for living at/working at the embassy.

I'll PM you.

8/10/2013 6:55:17 PM

Yeah, knowing embassy guys is good -- though they generally learn pretty fast not to buy us drinks, because we travel in droves and drink like we don't want to live.

My outgoing buddy has a house that's just like one you'd have back home, but here that blows our minds. I kicked his ass at a poker game there once. It was magnificient. And this poor fool did offer to let us drink his Captain Morgan's, which cannot be found in country (just like any decent booze).

On Saturdays we also get to use the pool at the ambassador's residence, which is always an odd experience. On the one hand, it's nice to be able to swim in a body of water that isn't possessed by active malice. On the other hand, the ambassador is the next best thing to God for us, so our behavior has to be carefully guarded.

8/10/2013 7:09:21 PM

Honestly? Kind of upset nobody asked about the genocide guy.

8/28/2013 8:12:43 PM

was it Kony?

did you bang out whatshername?

8/28/2013 8:16:04 PM

No and yes. You can actually look up the guy. His name is Athanase Seromba.

8/28/2013 8:20:39 PM

what are your thoughts on what's going down in Kenya?

9/23/2013 6:05:25 PM

Quote :

"Honestly? Kind of upset nobody asked about the genocide guy."

Dude. This is TWW. No one cares about some murderous African. We care about this hairy legged Sasquatch you're banging.

9/24/2013 5:26:49 AM

Quote :

"what are your thoughts on what's going down in Kenya?"

My thoughts are that Somalia is fucking insane and I'm glad I'm far, far away from it. It would be a lot harder for something like that to happen in Benin, fortunately. Not because the government is more effective. Ha! They wish. Mostly because we don't have any buildings that large.

Quote :

"Dude. This is TWW. No one cares about some murderous African."

Him being a murderous African is to me less interesting than the bizarre series of coincidences that lead to me spending time with a murderous African I wrote about in 2003 and have been following ever since.

9/25/2013 11:04:39 AM

wow, just catching up. interesting.

in 2003 I wrote a huge paper on Charles de Gaulle; I'd freak out too if I suddenly found myself meeting him



Keep giving us updates!

9/25/2013 11:38:33 AM

The tomato project went great. It can go to your head a little bit, because whenever the people here are remotely pleased with you (or maybe even just pity you) for a project, they do these really elaborate applause things that involve acting out and clapping, all in unison. They also sing and dance. But all that bullshit aside, we reached more than 100 women in four villages and they were pumped about it.

The latrine project hit a snag when, on the day I submitted by proposal, word came down that latrine projects were finished. USAID takes the position that "if villages want latrines they can pay for them themselves." Which logic would seem to make USAID and Peace Corps obsolete, but hey. I begged and pleaded my way into a smaller version of the project. Now this village will go from having 0 holes to shit in to having 8 (whereas originally I wanted to get them 14).

--

I normally get one or two roaches a month in my house, but the other day more than 30 invaded on the same night. My neighbor had sprayed his back porch area (where his latrine is, which I prefer not to think about) and they had all fled to chez moi. It took hours to murder all the bastards, which I then put in a pile outside my door since I couldn't dump them in the brush until the next day. The ants had vaporized the entire pile by morning.

--

The murderous voodoo fetish that occasionally traps me in my house has left for 2013. It used to be exotic and cool, now it's mostly just annoying. So good riddance.

9/25/2013 12:01:05 PM

i'm glad you have a place to shit now

9/25/2013 12:05:16 PM

Quote :

"in 2003 I wrote a huge paper on Charles de Gaulle; I'd freak out too if I suddenly found myself meeting him"

i'd be terrified if i met a ghost too

9/25/2013 12:15:13 PM

hence the

i was picturing a zombie de Gaulle, a ghost wouldnt be too bad

[Edited on September 25, 2013 at 12:38 PM. Reason : ]

9/25/2013 12:38:23 PM

Allons enfants de la BRAAAAIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSS

9/25/2013 12:41:49 PM

I've had a place to shit this whole time. It's a hole in the ground, but still.

It's people in a small nearby village that don't have any holes to shit in.

9/25/2013 4:30:21 PM