Here is a picture of my friends and fellow volunteers...
Today Altheme and his new bride, Florence, invited us to lunch with some other people that were in the wedding. It was a lot of fun because it was a more intimate crowd, so I got a much better feel for what’s going on than I did at the wedding yesterday. Josue kinda MC’d the lunch conversation. He asked all present to please give Altheme and Florence any advice. To my shock, Julienne started giving sex advice right away, telling Altheme to take it slow at first, that sex could be painful for a woman that is not used to it, and that he should want sex to be pleasurable for her, so be gentle. WHAT?!? I couldn’t believe that a) this was a public discussion, and b) that it was being discussed over lunch! Goodness.
The food was excellent though. I ate so much, I skipped dinner. I had sausage, kibob, and pork along with rice and French fries. The Beninoise sure do love their starches. The French fries were just like what we used to eat in Argentina, so good you wouldn’t dream of adding salt of ketchup. Then we had fruit. Pineapple is grown locally and it tastes mild and wonderful, like in Costa Rica. Then we had cake with extremely sweet icing, similar to something I tasted in Pakistan. A whole mix of flavors.
I watched TV tonight for a bit. The news in Benin makes me laugh. They insert random pictures behind the talking heads as backdrops, and tonight’s backdrop was a picture from the DC metro. I know that underground station too well to mistake it. It cracked me up. I wonder if the person that chose that shot knows where it was taken, and what about it was so appealing that they thought it a worthy backdrop for the news? Another funny thing is this commercial that’s really a PSA about how women should take extra precautions against malaria while they are pregnant. The commercial shows a woman going to the doctor, someone taking malaria pills, mosquito netting being dipped in DEET, and then it talks about how you should sleep with the protection of the DEET soaked netting… but the picture is of a woman on a bed with said netting, which happens to have a gigantic hole in it. I mean, if you’re going to use visual aids for didactic purposes, at least show a mosquito net that’s intact! How hard is that? Then 24 came on. Yes, Sundays at 10pm I can watch Jack Bauer speaking French. It’s kinda comical. Makes me think of Erin, Brian, Eric, Adam and Mike. I think it’s probably the first season. All the other characters are long since dead, so it’s definitely old. I think I might watch it every week. Just for kicks.
I tried to make chai like Farhan and Roohi make back home. I need to find cardamom seeds to really do the trick.
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