March 12

Happy Birthday Mike

Published on March 13, 2005 By Beninian Annie In Misc

As the subject says my lovely brother turned 21 yesterday. Mike is obviously a year older and now wiser and I wish I could be there!

I have been at post for about two weeks since the last time that I posted. Classes are kindof starting again as the teachers are taking their sweet time calculating the final grades of students. It is all done by hand and let me tell you, I have never understood the importance of computers so much before. To think that I could look up my grades at DePauw on line. Oh well.

Classes are going, it is not that I am not motivated, but there is just a lot of things going on. I find myself going to meetings and conferences at greater frequency as my responsibility to Peace Corps gets more intensive. Projects obviously need funding and this requires a lot of paper work and planning, thus using resources that are not available to me in village. It is really a balancing act most times. I feel bad going to the larger cities, but then I also realize that I have to be honest with myself and realize I will perhaps help in a greater way by getting funding for my local libraries book project or finding sponsorship for a girls camp. Money rules the world, which is my greatest frustration in working in development.

The dry season is hitting and thus it becomes harder for villagers to find food and money. Usually people is my village understand my role and that I am not a bank, but the occasion asking for food or money is getting more frequent. There is this young man who is finishing his last semester of senior high school. His family refused to give him the money to finish, so as a result, I have someone now helping me on Sundays doing yard ans house work. I will pay the rest of his tuition, about ten US dollars, directly to the school. In cases like these I feel almost like a social worker. People will come up to me wondering about jobs, asking about interest loans to get a water pump for their fields. It to be honest is the most rewarding, yet annoying part of my job in Badjoude.

Okay, I will write again soon. We have an Easter break comming up. Because of strikes down south, the second week of it was also cancelled, thus no trip to Ghana. Hopefully though in May or June I will be able to go. However for Easter I will be in Cotonou, the capital, for a training conference and to meet our new country director.

Love you all!

Comments

Dad

on Mar 14, 2005

Annie, have you noticed that your posts AND letters get more and more informative as time goes on. Perhaps you are more comfortable talking about your situation, or are noticing more and more things as you get comfortable with the languages of the country. In any case, for readers like me they become more and more fascinating. Imagine being a banker by giving someone 10 dollars to finish school! We are so incredibly spoiled in the U.S.; your posts should be required reading in civics classes ( oh, of course, Americans don't have any civics classes any more; that's not important?!)
I had a great time playing for Art Garfunkel. He is 63 and still sings like he did when he was 23. His rendition of Sounds of Silence was totally amazing, and he's probably sung it over a thousand times in his life! It is so great to work with a pop musician who is obviously very talented and well versed in his art. I even had a chance to talk to him alone for a couple of minutes about the Peruvian origin of the song El Congor; during the conversation, he noticed the redness in my eyes and seemed genuinely concerned that I suffered from glaucoma. In rehearsal, he is just a regular guy who wears glasses and a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. NO ONE would ever recognize him on the street, but on stage he still looks like Art Garfunkel. That is really cool!
I had a solo in one of the works the orchestra played alone, quite lengthy, and the conductor gave me a solo bow. I think the last time that happened to me in an orchestra was in Germany in 1975 when I played the Mozart Requiem with the orchestra in Solingen. At that time, I was so sick that I could hardly stand, and my ears were so plugged up that I literally could not hear what I sounded like. The circumstances are a lot better now!
Love,
Dad

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