NO PREREQS

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 to an end.

Number 9 (help me come up with a good name in the comments), is a simple picture that tells few tales, but the ones it does tell it shares loud and clear. My initial reaction was, “cool” after I took it (a couple weeks into my stay here), but now I know it is much more than “cool”. Maybe even more than “really cool”... only time will tell.

Let’s start with the device itself. This is one of two pictures that I took during my time here that my computer found its way into (the other was a picture of the kids at the orphanage practicing typing on it). Rightfully so, you might think. Why would anyone want to photograph a plain old PC (not even a Mac) in the middle of a trip to Benin?

Well photos aren’t always about what looks good, they are about the memories they invoke. And in this case, the memories are of many dull days of typing at my computer: searching for and filling out grants, translating English to French and vice versa (no google translate unfortunately), reading books in pdf format, creating management material for the orphanage, pretending to do work for the orphanage while really doing nothing, and of course the least dull of all: writing this blog.

At least now when I look back at this picture, I can nostalgicize about those feelings of dullness... that’s not something that every picture can do for you. Think about that the next time you... um... yeah ok, there’s no point in pretending that the computer actually adds something to this picture. We all know the reason this made the top ten is...

Yes, our very own Aristotle, the youngest of my host family coming in at an impressive 2 years old. He leaps tall footstools with a single bound and runs towards first sight of his older sister’s Nintendo DS faster than a speeding bullet. Here he is pictured in action, though it is unclear what is going through his head at this moment. He is either trying to imitate his favourite safari animal, or preparing to leap off of the chair he was sitting on by striking a daredevil pose. Most probably a combination of the two. This guy has so much energy that it’s pretty much written that he’s going to grow up to be an athlete. As you can see, he’s already practicing his best “Patrick Kane’s mouthguard hanging out the side of his mouth” impression.

There’s not much else of note in this picture, but I’ll list the remaining things that caught my eye:

- those greens poking though the stone railing give you a small idea of how beautiful my host family’s veranda is on a nice breezy summer day.

- that’s my knee in the bottom left of the computer screen. Sloppy photography? Maybe. Kurtha pyjama? Definitely.

- you can see the reflection of a plant pot, albeit distorted, in the shiny glossy area below the keyboard. Why is this even remotely interesting? The pot holds a prickly variety of cactus with an extremely bitter tasting inner flesh (I was bored). That same week my host dad shows me how he spices up vodka: with cubes of the meat of this plant fermenting in the alcohol for a week or so.

And that’s picture number 9! Numbers  8 and 7 tomorrow :)

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 my time here in Benin so far. If my math is right, that’s operating at a clip of about 49 pictures per day. So although it will be quite tough, we’re gonna narrow it down to the top 10. The panel (me) will be selecting the photos based primarily on artistic sentimental value. Thus I will be choosing a group of photos that complement each other well and then ranking them.

However! If someone with a keen eye has any suggestions for how I could’ve made it a better picture, I’d really appreciate your advice in the comments! 

Anyways, let’s kick this off with #10, shall we?

#10

This picture originally squeaked into the top 10 contenders list based purely on sentimental value, but now that I look back at it, there are minor subtleties to it that made it too good pass up for the list. I call it “The Silent Plead”. Let’s take a bit of a deeper look into this picture and what it tells you about my time here in Benin:

The Expression

The first thing you might notice about this picture is the expression on my face, and rightfully so. They say the eyes are the window to a person’s soul, and that could not hold truer in this context. It was taken after my first week in Benin, with the initial intention of taking a weekly picture to monitor the progress of my trip (lol). 

This is the kind of expression I would imagine a prisoner in a cell uses to silently communicate their deep heartfelt “Get me the hell out of here!!” to everyone that passes by. Fortunately, I was not in a cell in this picture. I was in my bedroom, a simple structure made of four reinforced concrete walls, with a nice window (although with bars on it) and part of a larger complex walled by reinforced concrete, with the only exit being a heavy gate that I didn’t have the keys to. “Not a cell, not a cell, not a cell” I told myself throughout that first week.

It was a tough week that had me crying for mommy by the end of it. The first couple weeks were tough like that, but I can laugh at it in hindsight knowing that now I only feel like that 5 of out 7 days a week.

The Hair

There I was, so eager, yet so foolish in my inexperience with that hair of mine. It would’ve been wise to come to Benin bald to minimize the impact of the heat, but there I was, with a full head of hair. You can see my hair matted to my forehead with sweat and the unbearable heat that came with my first couple of weeks in Ouidah: unfortunately, this was a couple minutes after I had dried myself off from a shower.

It’s not only the hair proper that tells the story here, it’s the dishevelled facial hair – normally, I do the dishevelled facial hair much better than this, but that difficult week had reduced me to producing a meagre patchy beard worthy of being placed in the same league as a Sidney Crosby playoff beard. Shameful.

The Obscure Objects in the Background

Only further complimenting this picture, we’ve got my classic sky blue mosquito net hanging in the blurry background. Those were back in the days when I still needed a clothes pin to put my mosquito net up. Still the attempt was feeble, you can see how it hangs in a loose parabola... I’d say that’s like a 5x squared even. Sad. I was young, I have learned. Soon after, my expertise with the mosquito net would quickly eclipse any other skill I would learn during my internship for the months to come.

Finally, we’ve got the bottle of sunscreen with the conveniently blurred label. The best part about this bottle is that it still sits in that exact same position that it was in on that day. I haven’t used it since coming here. The problem is that the heat here welds the sunscreen to your skin so that when you take a shower, it doesn’t come off and you have to scrape it off your body like dirt afterwards. That being said, I probably should’ve used it anyways. Sunscreen offers protection from skin cancer, and I’ve had experience this summer with neglecting to properly use things for the prevention of diseases coming back to bite me (literally).

Stay tuned for picture number 9 tomorrow!