After a couple weeks of travel around the country, meetings
and various other engagements, returning to village feels like coming
home. Not only is my actual house a
place of quiet (well, save the kids and goats) but everyone here feels like
family. When I arrived on Tuesday, after
a treacherous bus ride that resulted in me getting splashed in vomit, I was
greeted with a running hug from Alphonse, who has become my little village
shadow. He follows me everywhere and
cries when I go home and close the door.
This morning, he sobbed for 15 minutes when I wouldn’t let him come over
because I had to shower. One thing they
don’t warn you about Peace Corps is that, after a while, you’ll forget where
home is.
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Alphonse and I, happily reunited. |
While Adourekoman used to be simply the village I was
assigned, it has become that village that I was gifted. The people, the work and the comfort I feel
make every day back feel like I won the Peace Corps lottery. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are hard moments. But those are far outweighed by the joys of
watching the village embrace change, move towards development and include me in
that process. And, even when we aren’t
tackling big projects, it’s nice to be part of the celebration.
This weekend marks two major events in village. First, it is the death anniversary of my best
friend’s father. She has been working
tirelessly to prepare 16 matching tissu outfits for the ceremony and it’s been
fun watching everyone pitch in. It is
also the “liberation” ceremony for the apprentice seamstresses in Okouta. The five women have passed their exams and
are being “freed” into the world of employment.
After years of apprenticeship, they are so excited to work on their own
and finally leave, what some would view as, a life of modern servitude.
In addition to the clothing preparations, the women have
been busy making akassa, a typical Beninese dish consisting of corn flour. It’s been a “all hands on deck” effort as
they made bags upon bags of the globby white mash for all the weekend’s festivities. The process starts by grinding dry corn
kernels into flour. While some do this
by hand, most villagers send the grains to a mill down the road where they pay
about 50 cents to grind the contents of one cement sack (think a large reusable
shopping bag). Once the flour has
cooled, it is boiled until it reaches a milky consistency. Additional flour is added and the pot is left
to cool, allowing the corn meal to settle to the bottom. The liquid layer is drained off and stored
overnight, while the corn meal (sediment) is discarded (and often fed to the
pigs.) The next morning, the liquid undergoes another sieve separation before
being boiled again. During the boiling,
a small amount of sediment is added until it becomes thick, like a heavy
pudding. While still hot, the women
spoon it into plastic bags and tie them off, leaving the akassa to cool in the
form of small balls. The akassa stays in
the bags until served, often cold, with a side of spicy pepper sauce and
fish. It’s not my favorite, but it’s
Benin’s delicacy!
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After boiling, the liquid layer is separated from the corn sediment through a series of sieves. |
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Sabine fills plastic bags with the hot akassa mixture |
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Akassa, bagged and cooling for the big fete! |
Learning how to prepare local dishes has been one of my
favorite ways to learn about my community and the culture. Even more importantly, the women always think its funny when I
struggle to stir the contents of a pot that’s bigger than my body and hotter
than the surface of the sun! (And humor is the key to cultural integration success!)
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