NO PREREQS

WARNING: Before we get into the meat of today's post (which begins 3 paragraphs down for those who want to skip ahead), I thought my return to blogging after a long hiatus needs some explanation, so I wrote the following intro. When I was younger I used to be a big fan of the WWF. Yes, I loved baby pandas and still do, but the other WWF(E), was where the real entertainment was. The storylines, the personalities, and the struggle they all went through...

9 EDIT: Both these posts are late, late late... but I’m too lazy to change the main text to reflect it, so lets live in a bit of nostalgia: So! I know this was supposed to be a ten day thing, 1 post per day, but each time I head to the cyber I’ve just been so occupied that I forget to put up the #10 post I wrote earlier this week. So now I’m going to release numbers 9 and 10 today since I’m getting a little short on time before my trip comes...

10 And so it begins… the beginning of the end. I thought of this new feature, “Top 10 Pictures” while keeping in mind that my time in Benin is slowly drawing to a close. For the next 10 days, I will (do my best to) post the countdown from #10 to #1 of what I believe are the top 10 pictures from my time here in Benin. By the end of this series, my time in Benin will pretty much have come to an end.  I have taken more than 3600 photos during...

                Although I did spend the majority of my time being sick last weekend, I did also get a chance to head out to the city of Lokossa and Lake Possotomè on a day trip with my host dad, Melissa, and Aristotle. It was surprisingly fun despite not feeling so well. On our way to Lokossa, we stopped by Comè to visit a friend of my host father who works for the government....

Boy, have things ever flown by fast eh? Here we are in the middle of July, halfway through my 10th week in Benin and already the 8th edition of this post. For things I learned points 70 – 80, I was as not as stretched to find as you might think, there always seems to be something new to learn. So here is my collection from the past week: 1. Although locals might find it cute when you say hello in Fon, make sure you also know the term “I don’t speak...

So, as some of you might already know, there’s been a combination of reasons why I haven’t posted a blog in more than a week now. Firstly, the internet connection has been down in Ouidah since that big storm about two weeks ago that I mentioned in my previous TTILTW post. The internet only returned yesterday. In the meantime, I had to make do with my cellphone internet, which is only reliable enough to use facebook and google (my previous posts I put up during a trip to Cotonou). Secondly, that...

This week, I had to think hard about what to include and what not to include. It was a week full of travel and sightseeing, new experiences and lessons. I am now more than halfway through my trip to Benin. I hope you enjoy this edition! 1. How the dread feels when you eat a delicious mango, only to inspect the plate and see tens of tiny white worms wriggling around the inside of the peel. 2. Zangbeto, the Voodun god of the skies and thunder, has...

The veil of opaque water trembled as our guide’s paddle made contact with its static surface. I watched in silence as the ripples began to augment, soon lapping at the side of our wooden canoe and rocking it ever so slightly. Above us, the tattered cloth tied to a wooden pole that served as our makeshift sail also did its part to carry us ever so closer to what has been called the Venice of West Africa: Ganvié, the Beninois village of about 30,000...

The endless blaring of horns. Fumes from a moto that just barely missed your arm as it whizzed by. Claustrophobia as you realize you can’t step aside for the girl with a basket of fish on her head because the man holding wooden statues in his hands to your right is backed up by a group of children selling cookies and a woman bartering with a merchant in front. Squinting to avoid getting the dust that perpetually blows through the market in your...

I gripped the chalk, a grain about half the size of the nail on my pinkie finger, and about as thick – tightly between my thumb and forefinger. My hand trembled slightly as I raised my hand up to the smooth wooden chalkboard. It leaned against the wall behind me and rested perilously upon a wooden bench opposing another one of the same, upon which sat my first ever class of students. Eight pairs of eyes stared up at me eagerly: some familiar, some not, and all clearly waiting upon my next words...

So! I didn’t get a chance to visit Parakou this weekend. Instead, I spent Saturday in the market at Cotonou and Sunday at home. Although I don’t have a summary of my trip to Parakou, I still did learn a lot over this past week. Here is a list of 10:       1.       The worst sound in the world is the wailing of a handful of baby goats tied together by their legs to the top of a car. It’s literally...

This weekend I will be heading to Parakou, a city about 6 hours from the capital of Cotonou, in central Benin. Thinking about this last night, I realized that I still have not written about my trip to Porto Novo, 3 weekends ago. But, better late than never! Getting this trip down in ink would be a good idea because it’s probably been my most adventurous experience in Benin. You cna also expect a post about my time in Parakou when I get back as well...

As the baby child in a family of six, I’ve never really understood what it meant to have younger or baby siblings. It’s something I’ll never experience fully, but living in a host family with 3 younger kids is the closest I think I’ll ever get to it. Forgive me if this is a bit of a boring post, but the dynamics of having younger siblings is so unique and interesting to me that I had to spend some time talking about this. I get to observe how the...

A common theme throughout all of my posts has been perspective. Money is no different. In this post, I want to talk a bit about how I value the same amount of money so differently here than I would at home. This might be a common thing for those of you who had made trips to a country with a currency valued significantly less than your home currency. For me, this is a new occurrence. The smallest coin of currency in Benin is the 5 FCFA coin (the equivalent of roughly 1 cent CAD). The bills start...

           Finalement, après une telle attente, je suis prêt donner vous ma première affiche en la belle langue de Français. Je connais il y aura beaucoup des erreurs, mais quand même, il n’y a pas mal en essayant. Si vous voir quelque erreurs flagrant, n’hésitez pas me dire dans les commentaires.  1.       Il y a une 250 pièce de monnaie. C’est bizarre que je...

EDIT: This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I ended up getting sidetracked on my way to the cyber because Yannick wanted me to whoop his butt in foosball again (thank you to the free foosball tables at |New |Rez, I.O.U.). So tomorrow there will be another two posts up. I figure I’ve gotta start being more productive and keeping this blog updated goes hand in hand with that. Enjoy!        Today seems like...

This is a blogpost I hope a lot of my readers will be able to relate to, and take something from. I know it’s great hearing about my adventures in Benin, but with life kind of settling in this past week, I thought it would also be helpful if I addressed a topic I’ve been meaning to write about for a while now – failure. A couple weeks ago, I got a rejection letter from McGill University telling me I was not admitted into Neuroscience, the program...