Salut :)

Hey everyone!

It is around 5pm in Benin and I am at the clinic without much work to do at the moment! I feel like I am starting to get used to living in N’Dali and getting used to the people and the culture here. I have a good past 2 days! Yesterday I went to a local hospital with Dr Martin to meet with the doctors there. Unfortunately they were busy so we just walked around and visited a few patients. We then drove to a bigger city, Parakou, to look at the university and departmental hospital. We also ate lunch at a restaurant there and ran into the mayor of N’Dali. When we returned to N’Dali, I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Dr Martin’s 3 children. It was so much fun! We watched weird African sitcoms and just hung out. I am able to have fairly decent conversations in French and am improving so much every day! I feel like the Africans here understand me much better than when I was in France a few years ago. That is a good feeling for sure!

Today was a great day at the clinic. I arrive at the clinic each morning around 7:30 for devotions with the rest of the clinic staff. We then start to work around 8:00. Today was the day for check-ups for pregnant mothers. The midwife, Ortese, taught me all about the paperwork and examinations for each mother. I first took all the blood pressures, temperatures and weights of the mothers and then got to help with the examinations. I measured all the bellies and had to feel the uterus of each mom. That was a bit shocking at first, but I got used to it after awhile! I left at 1:30 for lunch at the Catholic Center and then Dr Martin said I could rest until 4:00. I am back at the clinic and there aren’t any patients here, so I have some more free time which is nice!

Tomorrow I might be going to the markets with Dr Martin’s wife to look for material to make an African dress for me! The women have beautiful dresses here and I guess it isn’t very expensive to buy material and have one made. I’m pumped!

One thing that I really love about Benin is how friendly all the people are. I hardly notice that I am the only white person in the entire village now! Everyone I see always waves to me and smiles- whether they know me or not! I know not many people come this far north in Benin, so everyone also stares and gets excited when they see a white person. It is very interesting but I am getting used to it!

A few things that I realized I take for granted are: roads (the one highway here is full of huge potholes and you have to swerve or completely stop while driving), safety (nighttime creeps me out here, I never feel completely safe and wish I wasn’t alone in my room!), electricity (every day the electricity goes out for several hours, but you never know when that will be…its usually in the evening so that can be scary too as the sun sets by 8 every night), and air conditioning (the only place that is air conditioned is my room and that is because I am paying a little extra for it! The clinic and all the homes have no air conditioning…I guess everyone here is used to the crazy heat!)

I think that is all for now…I will try to post some pictures soon! I can only use the computer at the clinic and I always forget to bring my cords for my camera…maybe tomorrow or Monday?! Bon soir mes amies!