from grain to table!

Here is the last stage for our corn! First a photo of Marc and Benjy de-graining the dried corn cobs. Then I'm afraid no photo of it being milled in the village, as I had to leave it there in the morning and go back and collect it in the afternoon. Next, a photo of it made into "pâte", a fairly solid paste which you eat with whatever sauce takes your fancy! In this case a fairly non-traditional mince and tomato sauce with tinned peas!

Benjy may be looking as if he has been forced into child labour, but I promise he volunteered his services!



Of course, it would usually be eaten with fingers, but we were hungry and it was hot!

context

A: Is it true?
B: Yes, it happened just like we thought it would.
A: Oh no. And is it bad?
B: Uh-huh – at least 5 have been affected.
A: Oh dear. How long do they think it will last?
B: It could be up to three weeks.

I hope that as you read this conversation you found that you understood every word and yet still didn't have a clue what these people were talking about. This is how I sometimes feel at our current stage of language learning (though I also have times where I don't understand many of the words!).

Language is more than just learning vocabulary and getting to grips with grammar. It also involves relationships, and knowing what the person you're talking with knows about which you therefore don't need to mention explicitly.

This means that when you come into a village where everyone has known everyone from birth, and spends most of their time together, you are bound to lack a lot of the shared knowledge. I sat through an hour-long church meeting recently where everyone else knew what the problem was which was being talked about, but I didn't! So although I understood quite a lot of what was said, I was missing the crucial bit of information necessary to work out the relevance of what everyone was saying!

Of course, when people are talking directly to us they do adapt what they say accordingly. They know we don't know the same people, and haven't experienced the same events. But even then, there may be cultural assumptions we don't share.

For example, I was telling my seamstress how much Simon liked the new trousers she had made for him.

Me: This morning he told me, “Mummy, I want to wear my new trousers!”
Seamstress (in a jokey manner): Ah, was he going on a journey?
Me: (puzzled silence until I remembered that here people dress in their best clothes if they are travelling somewhere – quite the opposite from what I would tend to do!)

We could allow ourselves to be discouraged when we realise that we have a far greater task ahead of us than simply learning the rules of a language. Yet it also makes it more exciting, as we have a whole new world to explore, and a new community to become part of. Yes, we'll always be outsiders to some extent, but that doesn't mean we won't have real friends and a positive role to play.

PS Even I don't know what A and B are talking about above ;o)

circle of the year

Spring is green and yellow
and the summer, pink and gold.
Autumn's red soon turns to brown –
the year is getting old.
Wintertime is blue and white –
the ice is crystal clear:
All the colours dance around
the circle of the year.

(Lois Rock, in “My Very First Prayers”)

This poem is in a book of Simon's. It is interesting to read it with him, because he doesn't really remember about European seasons. He is quite fascinated by the idea of snow and ice!

Here in the North of Benin, the harmattan wind is blowing again. This brings us right around our circle of the year, since when we arrived here in February it was the end of harmattan. The harmattan wind is a cold(ish) north wind which blows down to us from the Sahara. At the moment our nights are chilly (down to 15°C) but after some mist early in the morning our afternoon temperatures can go up to 33°C or even higher. The air is very dry, and I have to dig my moisturising cream out again.

The year is basically divided into two parts – about 6 months of rainy season and about 6 months of dry season. The dry season includes harmattan and hot season. Hot season is well-named! We didn't have our thermometer during the last hot season, but we know it was 43°C in our nearest town at the beginning of hot season! The hardest part is that the temperature doesn't even go down much at night, which makes sleep difficult, especially if like us you don't have electricity at night-time, so no chance of ceiling fans. By the afternoon we have hot and hot running water, and one of the loveliest things my husband ever did for me was to manage to cool some water overnight so that I could actually have a coldish shower in the morning!

By the time the rains finally come, it is a real relief to feel the freshness they bring, though at first the drop in temperature doesn't last much longer than the storm! We had big storms at the beginning and the end of rainy season this year – with several trees and branches knocked down in May. The boys found it quite scary, as they couldn't remember the last rainy season, and the rain sounds very loud on our metal roof!

The other wonderful thing about the beginning of rainy season is the speed at which the vegetation grows back. One day everything is dry and bare, and then in the space of a few days there is grass everywhere!

The rains were heavy in the middle of August, and there was one week where we didn't see the sun at all, putting a strain on our solar-powered electricity system and making it nearly impossible to dry laundry. We were grateful to have a generator (and I even resorted to using my hairdryer to finish drying some nappies!).

Then by October the rains are usually dying away again, though this year they went on longer than usual (see my post here). And then we end up back in the harmattan end of dry season. I love harmattan, it is definitely my favourite season here. The only thing I find strange is to know that Christmas is on the way, but not to “feel” Christmassy. There is too much warmth and sunshine, and whereas down in Parakou there were quite a lot of Christmas decorations and things in the shops, here up North I haven't seen anything yet. Simon and Benjy do have an Advent Calendar, and I think I'll put the Christmas tree up this weekend, so we will try to get into the spirit of things. We have been told that Christmas is a big celebration in the church here, so that should help!

We have yet to find out how much of a shock to the system it will be to fly into the UK at the end of February, dropping about 30°C overnight!!

A few photographic memories:

Dry season



After a storm


Near the end of rainy season:

But...?!

Two good examples of how your cultural background can both help and hinder your reading of the Bible came up this week.

On Tuesday we were reading the passage in Mark where Jesus sends some disciples to prepare the Passover meal. He tells them to go into town, and when they see a man carrying a water jar, to follow him.

In discussions in Europe, I've heard comments like, “But that's so random! How could they tell whether it was the right man?” Yet here in Benin it is very rare to see a man carrying water – he would stick out like a sore thumb. So no one here is surprised to hear that the disciples had no trouble finding the right man.

This morning, however, we were talking about the story of Jacob stealing the birthright from his older twin, Esau. The pastor said that Monkolé people may well be confused when they hear this story, since in Monkolé tradition the twin who is born in second place is considered the elder twin – and the text clearly states that Jacob was born after Esau. In Monkolé understanding he would have no need to steal the birthright as it would be his already!

Which all goes to underline the importance of understanding the historical context when you read a text … and why you might not understand what you read if you don't!

harvest-time

The harvest continues here in Pèdè. Here are Simon and his friend Benja collecting the last corn cobs (to be dried ready to make flour):

Hard at work harvesting peanuts in the field next to our house:



Papa working hard while Benjy supervises(?):


Hélène carrying another sac of peanuts into our compound:




All the peanuts that have been harvested so far:

conference

After ten days away and then a visitor, it is reassuring to get back to blogging! We went down to Parakou at the beginning of the month for the SIM Benin-Togo Spiritual Life Conference. We were half looking forward to it, half apprehensive. We only managed two days of last year's conference, as Benjy decided to go on sleep strike! But he is a year older now, and the conference was being held in Parakou, which meant we were sleeping in our “usual” Guesthouse room, so we thought we could count on it being a bit better than last year.

And it was! Another bonus this year was that we had Esther looking after the boys for us again. Not only do they like her, but we know she won't let them get away with too much, so we really can concentrate on the meetings we go to. The boys came with us to the worship meetings, and then stayed with Esther during the teaching and report sessions. They did go to a couple of the kids' meetings, but are still a bit young for group stuff, especially organised games.

There were 72 of us at the conference, including 22 kids. It's actually SIM plus other smaller missions, giving us a chance to catch up with far-flung missionaries we wouldn't otherwise see very much of. The teaching was challenging, refreshing and very honest. Our speaker was the brother-in-law of our director, and he came from Canada with his wife, cousin and cousin's wife, the three of whom led the children's work together. We even had a guest worship leader, the sister of a TWR missionary, and she came all the way from the USA to bless us!

All the missionaries present gave short reports of their work. It is easy to give in to the temptation to compare one's own work unfavourably with all that others are doing … but it is far better to rejoice that we are all serving one God together in many ways with our diverse gifts! And it was encouraging to hear other language-learning missionaries who have been going through similar experiences to our own.

We also had fun times – games and a barbecue one afternoon, a Fun Night with sketches, and a bonfire on the final evening, which just happened to be November 5th (remember, remember!). It's the first Nov 5th bonfire I've been at for years!!

Of course, as parents of small children, we don't quite manage to talk at length to everyone we'd like to, but there are other blessings. When we arrived on the Monday the boys were quite shy and avoided talking to people. By the Friday they were even playing with other kids and holding long conversations with some of the adults.

So all in all, it was a week of blessing and growth!

trying times

We had a tiring week last week. Over the weekend, Benjy had had vomiting, diarrhoea and a high temperature. A visit to our local clinic on Monday for some tests revealed that he had a bacterial infection. Antibiotics soon had him recovering, but after four very turbulent nights his parents needed to recuperate too!

Just as Benjy was on the mend, our fridge broke down. Everything in the freezer de-frosted and had to be thrown away or eaten, and we had to chuck a few things from the fridge too. Thankfully we found a fridge repair man who was able to get it up and running again. He warned us though that conditions here – the heat plus the unreliable electricity supply – aren't great for fridges, and ours isn't the best model either.

However, stressful and exhausting as our week may have been, it is nothing compared to the suffering of others in this country. We and our neighbours at least have not been hit by the floods affecting many people in Benin – see here.

The farmers around us are worried though, as the rains are continuing longer than usual, and crops are rotting in the fields. And “farmers” applies to most of the people in the village so it is a hard time for all.

mystery objects

Yes, it's time for some more guessing games! Though I'm afraid anyone who lives, or has lived, in Benin is not allowed to give the answers - that just spoils it for everyone else! So here we go ... I think it goes from easiest to hardest, but we'll see. The final photo is not exactly native to Benin, but is rather abstract!

can cook, will cook

Last weekend our church here in Pèdè held a youth rally – an event hosted each year by one of ten churches in the region. I wasn't able to go to the rally on the Saturday, as both boys were under the weather, so Marc went down on his own. But on the Friday the women of our church were preparing the food – for an estimated 100-200 people – and I went down to watch them. It was so different from the cooking I know that the only helpful thing I was able to do was to get the cellophane wrapping off a box of stock cubes which was giving them difficulty!

It was good to be there – so often I am put off going into the village by not knowing if anyone will be around, and this time I knew exactly where I would find people I know! I can't say I understood all that much of the conversation – which in a group of people who know each other extremely well is not that surprising – but I got the gist of things. I did manage to make a joke, at one point, and despite that being a risky thing to do when you're a language learner, it did appear to be understood and appreciated! I only understood on about the fifth telling when someone joked to me that if I ate their spicy sauce my skin would turn black like theirs!

It was interesting to see and have explained to me what they were doing. They were using enormous cooking pots over their three-stone cooking fires, using wood for fuel. When I was there they were making “akassa” - a starchy food made with fermented corn spooned into individual bags while it was hot (hygienic if not very environmentally friendly!). They were also making soy cheese, made with soya and the water taken from the fermented corn – when it becomes solid it is fried in oil. I tasted some of the akassa with the sauce they'd made (with beans and chilli peppers) – it was very good … and my skin isn't noticeably darker yet!

While it was a positive experience, it did bring back to me just how different my cultural background is to everyone here. They all knew what they were doing – they've grown up helping their mums do it – and for me it was all new. I already knew that I'll always be an outsider here, even though I am accepted and very welcome, but it really made me feel the fact that I am an oddity and that that won't change. It made me a bit sad, but that's just the way it is. It helped, the next morning, to be reminded in my Bible notes that as Christians we are all on a “journey of sacrifice”. And serving God here means sacrificing part of our identity and status. It is worth it!

firstfruits

When Hélène - who works for us - arrived this morning, she told me that she thought the corn was ripe. Simon was very excited to hear this, so she took him and his friends out to harvest some for lunch.

Simon automatically carried it back into the house the way everyone carries things around here:

Steamed for 15 minutes, a bit of butter, salt and pepper, and it tasted gooooood!

Marc thinks that we can call it organic, fairtrade corn ... if we can prove that Simon pays his workers a fair wage ... or any wage at all for that matter! (Don't worry, they'll actually be taking home most of the corn!)

getting cornier!

Simon's corn continues to sprout at an impressive rate! Here is Simon, now able to hide in the middle of it!

An ear of corn forming:

The rest of the corn and the okra, looking a bit like a paddy field after a big rainstorm:

huh?!

When you are learning a language, sometimes you understand the words themselves but not the meaning when they're put together. Today Samuel quoted a local proverb and I just didn't get it! The proverb was:

Prison isn't for sheep.

Okaaaaay...? No matter how much I tried to get my brain round that, it still didn't make any sense to me (apart from supposing that the literal meaning is true!).

So Samuel explained that the proverb is quoted by anyone feeling rebellious. They say that prison isn't for sheep, it's for people, ie. they would feel quite at home there, so the threat of it isn't going to put them off breaking the law.

Although I felt enlightened by the explanation, I still found it rather weird reasoning … but that may well be a cultural thing too! Or just the fact that I have always been very law-abiding :o)

Another culture-learning experience we had was to learn a local card game, having the rules explained to us in Monkolé. It was fun, but I'm not likely to play much. I suspected it would be just the men who play, and Samuel confirmed this, saying that women don't have time to. (This was confirmed by a local woman I talked to later on, and she didn't seem to mind!)

Here are Marc and the pastor playing, with Simon looking on (and camouflaging well into Marc's shirt!).

Simon and the corn stalks

When the okra was planted (see my post of 3-ish weeks ago), the corn was about a foot high. We got back from travelling on Saturday and found it THIS high!!

sur la route...

We are at last home in Pèdè after all our travels. Someone out here told us that a missionary family is always on the move, and our experience seems to back that up!

This time we needed to get our residency cards renewed, which involves a blood test (done in Parakou) and medical, and then a trip to the government office in Cotonou. We made the most of our days in Parakou (waiting for the blood test results) to get some work done on our car, and then the mechanic came down to Cotonou with us to replace our wheels with stronger ones. Given the state of the roads during rainy season, this seemed a good idea!

Benjy was a bit hit in the government immigration office. One woman came in with her meal of traditional Beninese food (akassa) and Benjy started smiling at her and pointing at the food. “Does he like this?” she said, doubtfully. “Probably, “ I replied, and she tried giving him some. Soon he was gobbling it down, with much lip-smacking and appeals for more. The previously stony-faced officials were laughing incredulously and saying he must think he is African! (Children are always good at making friends in high places!)

The Parakou-Cotonou journey is a long day of driving, and we wouldn't choose to do it unless really necessary. But once we were there we enjoyed the opportunity to do some shopping in Cotonou, and to introduce our boys to the hypermarket (they'd been there before but didn't remember). Not that they were very impressed with the idea of shopping - it took the “Baguette d'Or” café-restaurant to reconcile them to big city life! Here's Simon with his dessert – he was disappointed when I said he had to choose just one of the many on offer!

The road between Parakou and Pèdè is worse than the road further south. Here are a few photos taken on my mobile phone. First, the supposedly tarmac-covered road! In this case, the tarmac is still there, it's just covered with mud!

The rain coming down, and the water flowing along the side of the road:

A lorry we saw which was lacking its back right-hand wheel!

fieldwork (2)

After watching – and participating in – the sewing of peanuts in the field next to our compound, Simon started to play at planting seed in “his field” - one corner of our compound. We looked on, smiling indulgently … and were very surprised to discover one day that he actually had real corn growing in his field! Well, it turns out that our home help, Hélène, had planted it, and last week she suggested planting some okra too. So she, two of her kids, Simon, and another visiting boy all got busy planting the okra seeds.

The team hard at work:

The boys with their buckets of seeds:

Benjy wondering if he can join in!

visitor

When I met a short-term French team in Parakou last month, it brought back memories of the first time I came to Benin, in 2002. What struck me was that way back then Benin felt so foreign … and now it feels so normal!

However, there are reminders now and then that West Africa is not the England I grew up in. Yesterday evening, as we ate tea, I noticed a strange creature with a very odd walk moving along our compound wall. I went out for a closer look and this is what I saw.

Yes – it's a chameleon! And here it is again, trying to get away from me!

I love its huge round eyes and funny-toed feet!

peanuts growing

As you can see, the peanut field is coming along nicely, thanks to lots of hard work from the pastor's kids, who spent two whole days weeding it last week. School holidays here are spent working in the fields, at least part of the time.

outside in

We had some good friends to stay here in Pèdè last weekend. They are a family we knew in our church in France – in fact Alexandra and I knew each other before we knew our husbands, and she was the first person to talk to me about SIM's work in Benin. She did a work placement in the hospital here in 2000, and Guillaume, like me, first visited Benin in 2002. This summer they've come back to Benin so that she can do a few weeks' work in the hospital and he can help with a music camp. Their first child was born just 6 weeks before Simon, and so it was exciting for us, if not for the kids themselves, to see them together again! All four kids got on well together, which gave us parents more time to chat over the weekend.

It was a refreshing break for us to spend time with old friends, to relax, reminisce and share news. Another unexpected benefit of them being here was that we were no longer the most “outside” people here. Suddenly we were the ones who knew people, who could explain how the church service goes, who were able to give a rudimentary translation of the sermon, and so on. For the first time I had the impression of being on the inside – as relative as that may be!

This is not to say that I am no longer experiencing culture shock, but at least it has been balanced out a bit by our weekend.

A photo of our church taken back in April:

the old man isn't snoring

Last night, at about 9.30pm, we heard what sounded like children chanting, clapping their hands and banging tins far off in the village. The sound continued for quite some time, and gradually moved towards us. It got quite loud as they reached our house, then went quiet before starting up again and moving back into the village. (I didn't see anything ominous in this – we are the last house on our end of the village, and people don't generally go wandering off into nowhere in the dark!)

This morning, when Hélène arrived for work, I described what we'd heard and asked what it was. At first she looked puzzled, then she laughed and said it was the “cho-lo-lo”. That didn't mean anything to me, so she explained that it is a kind of rain dance. When rain is sorely needed, as it is at the moment, people shout and sing and bang things, praying for rain to come. She said that they are chanting, “Come here, come here, rain fall, rain fall!”

I don't know to what extent it is taken seriously, and my Monkolé wasn't really up to asking. She, as a Christian, didn't seem to put much stock by it, and I should imagine that here as much as anywhere some people may just join in to be part of the crowd. Do we really think much about the Gunpowder Plot as we watch our fireworks in the UK on November 5th? And do all those celebrating St Patrick's (especially in France) care about Irish patriotism or the great man who evangelised Ireland?

Anyway, 24 hours later the rain dance doesn't seem to have worked … a shame really since the fields desperately need water.

encouragement

It is a relief to get back into language again after Pastor Samuel's month of annual leave. Encouraging too. Yesterday afternoon I called in to see a friend in the village, my seamstress, Emma. She's single, a bit younger than me (I suppose) and sings in the church choir. She greeted me warmly and brought two chairs out so that we could sit in front of her workshop. I know she speaks French because Grace told me so, but she has never spoken French with me. I'm very grateful, as it makes it that much more easy to stick to Monkolé. We caught up on each other's news, and I found I understood most of what she said, and was able to say more or less everything I wanted to say. It went more slowly than a normal conversation, of course, but it was reassuring to realise that I am making progress and can build on a fledgling friendship!

She told me she'd been away working in her family's fields. The fields are 18km away, so they go and stay there while they're working. Her brother, who is a lorry-driver, drove them out there, and they called him (on their mobile phone) when they wanted him to come back and get them back! She told me they'd planted cotton, corn, millet and soy, and that elephants had been getting into their fields! (My comprehension was helped by having learnt “elephant” in one language session, and by the fact that a friend who works for the Forestry Commission had told us that elephants have been getting into fields north of here and destroying people's crops.)

We also talked about my journeying, the French team who are going to be calling in to see us on Sunday, the state of the road between here and Parakou, and a friend who passed his Baccalauréat (equivalent of A Levels) in Niger and then got it validated in Benin. So all very satisfying for someone like me who likes to natter! I came home praising God for encouraging me and re-motivating me for language sessions!

speaking in tongues

It is quite a privilege to be part of a bilingual family. During my undergraduate studies I was interested in language acquisition, particularly second language acquisition, and, by extension (though it is not the same thing) bilingualism. As I became more fluent in French, and found myself becoming comfortable speaking two languages and switching between them constantly, I wondered what it would be like to grow up with that. I couldn't help envying anyone who didn't have to put hours of effort into learning a second language!

When Marc and I decided to have children, I don't remember even considering the idea of bringing up our children monolingually. It would have seemed odd to me not to speak my mother tongue to my own children – despite not minding speaking French to my husband most of the time! – and since both of us understood both languages, there didn't seem to be any reason not to. What's more, since we knew by then that we were heading for Benin, where the official language is French but many missionaries are English-speaking, it seemed logical to give our kids a headstart.

We chose the OPOL (one person one language) model of bilingualism, whereby one parent speaks one language to the child(ren) and the other speaks the other. In our case that seemed the most natural way to do things.

To my shame as a linguist, I haven't done any formal study on Simon's language acquisition, though to be fair we've been pretty busy doing other study and moving countries since his birth. But from very early on I was impressed by the the way he obviously understood both languages. As he began to speak, we were living in England, and he was going to nursery in an English-speaking setting. So although we'd decided to deliberately speak French between us parents, his English developed faster than his French (in production, at any rate).

When we moved to Benin, for the first eight months he was hearing and speaking more French than English, as he was spending most of his time outside the family with French-speaking Africans. It was fairly obvious that his French production overtook his English at that point. After we moved to the village we were spending quite a lot of time with Grace, an English-speaking Canadian, and the Africans we now spend time with speak more Monkolé than French. His English has seemed to catch up again, and he has started speaking a few words of Monkolé! (So I guess soon I'll be able to say that we are a trilingual family!)

A few months ago another missionary we didn't know very well called in, and in our conversation he was asking about whether Simon spoke French or English better. So I decided to ask Simon:

Mummy: Which language do you speak best, Simon, English or French?
Simon: English.
Mummy (out of earshot of Simon): Peut-être si Papa pose la question en français la réponse sera différente!
Papa: Simon, c'est quelle langue que tu parles mieux, le français ou l'anglais?
Simon (with a huge grin): English!

There's nothing wrong with his sense of humour!

Simon always uses French to speak to Marc and English to me, except occasionally when he decides to joke with me and says something like, “Maman? Qu'est-ce que tu fais?” If I reply in French it makes him laugh. He's used to hearing me speak French, but not to him!

One thing I always wondered about was which language our children would use to speak to each other. It is very interesting – and I can't explain it – to see that Simon prefers to speak English with Benjy than French. A typical example occurred the other day when the following conversation took place at a mealtime.

Marc: Dis merci à Benjamin, Simon.
Simon: Merc- thank-you, Benjy!

Benjy already understands both English and French very well, and has himself begun using a few words – a real mixture! He says “Mumma” (a mixture of Mummy and Maman), “amam” (for both “amen” and “all gone”!), “au'voir”, “bravo” (in French), “aawo” (Monkolé for “no”!), “honey”, “brr-brm” (for any vehicle) and a whole host of animal noises!

As for my poor brain, now that I'm using a third language on a daily basis, sometimes when I switch out of Monkolé I find myself speaking English instead of French!

getting to grips with Monkolé

Our method of language learning is not a traditional one, and we are finding it very useful! I don't want to go into all the details (see any of Greg Thomson's work if you want to know more), but just thought I would explain a few of the principles.

First of all, this method prefers not to talk about “language learners” – since in theory at least you could learn a language alone in a room with book – but “growing participants” – people becoming more and more involved in a language community.

The idea is that you can learn more quickly, and more naturally, by first understanding and responding to language input, and then allowing this passive knowledge to “surface” as active knowledge. This means that at first you don't concentrate on speaking, or on understanding grammar, but on responding appropriately to what someone says to you.

When you do start learning the language, it's important to realise that you will speak it badly. Adults often hate the idea of speaking with grammatical “mistakes” or sounding like a child or someone of limited intelligence, but unfortunately this is inevitable if you are going to communicate your own thoughts and not just memorized expressions.

Those of us who feel we are visual learners don't always like the idea of learning without writing anything down. But the only way to improve listening comprehension is to learn to understand spoken language – insisting on seeing the words won't actually help in the long run! (Few people in the real world speak with subtitles!) Since we are learning a language which is written phonetically, if we learn to hear and speak it accurately, we will automatically be able to read and write it pretty well too!

In a way, using a method like this is liberating when learning a language like Monkolé for which there are no formal courses, very little literature (the New Testament in Monkolé and a few literacy primers), few audio recordings (some sermons recorded for the radio) and for which no systematic grammatical analysis exists.

As parents of small children, we have the advantage of already having a good stock of toy animals for learning to talk about animals, plastic bricks for learning colours and positioning (left, right, next to, etc.), story books to look at with our language helper and so on! Compared to formal language lessons, this format is much more “kid-friendly”, as the children can wander in and out of the room where we are, and can take part in the activities if they want to.

The challenge for us is to discover what we need to learn. We realise that there are a lot of things we don't need to know how to talk about, because they are unknown to the Monkolé people, such as seaside holidays, mountain life, central heating, waltzing, MacDonalds – to name a random few! So what do people talk about? What is important to them? What are the everyday concepts that any small child is aware of, and which we need to know about? Our language helper can help us with this, but we can't just put the question to him, as these things are so obvious to him that he may not realise that they aren't obvious to us!

As for us, we may mistakenly want to learn to talk in categories unknown to the Monkolés. To take an easy example, it's no good asking them whether they describe ginger hair as “orange”, “red” or whether they have a specific word like “ginger”. None of the Monkolés have ginger hair, so there is no “normal” way to talk about it! There are sure to be less striking examples where it is more important to us to listen to what is said rather than asking for Monkolé translations of our way of thinking or speaking in English or French. I can't help but think that the old saying about having two ears and only one mouth applies to language learning too!

Here's Marc learning animals with Pastor Samuel:

oats and beans and barley grow ... actually just peanuts in this case!

We got our first taste of fieldwork today. Admittedly it wasn't much more than a taste, but it was an interesting experience. It rained yesterday evening, and again for much of the morning, and when it stopped, the pastor's wife called in on her way to plant peanuts in the field next to our compound. We said we'd like to see how it was done. We aren't just trying to learn the language, we also want to participate in village life, and since we know nothing about farming at all, this seemed a good opportunity to get started!

I had always imagined that all fieldwork was a hard grind, but soon discovered that planting peanuts isn't so difficult … or at least not if you only do it for 15 minutes! In the photo below you can see Daniel – on the right – going down the rows making holes with the end of his stick. Hélène, Marc and Simon are dropping one peanut into each hole and closing them over with a foot. If you have good aim, you don't even have to bend your back to do it!

This was the second time the field had been planted. We were filling in the gaps where the first peanuts sown hadn't sprouted. We'll let you know how things grow!

Here's my foot next to the hole into which I've just dropped a peanut.

back in benin

The long gap between posts is due to my trip to the UK for my sister Ali's wedding. Marc and the boys stayed in Parakou, and though we all missed each other, everything went smoothly for everyone. Here are a few photos from my time away...

I had hoped to put more than this, but I can't upload any more at the moment (dodgy connection, I think). Our family just before the wedding:

The happy couple triumphant after cutting all the way down through their cake:

power cuts are coming to Pèdè ...

... say the cynical among us! But in between the cuts, we might even get mains electricity. It has been promised for a long time, but now look - the holes have been dug, and the poles are by the road. Admittedly not yet the right way up ... but they make useful benches in the meantime I noticed this morning!

A pole not currently being used either to carry electricity or as a bench...

fresh and green

Last Monday we left Pèdè with the countryside around looking like this:

As you can see, the trees were green, but the ground was still very dry and brown. A couple of rains had done nothing to change that.

We arrived the same day in Parakou, 200km south, to find it looking like this:

Rainy season arrives, and works its renewing magic, earlier there than up North!

The day after we got back we experienced this: (This should be a video file showing the rain, but I'm not sure if it will work in this format.)

And here is Simon looking at the immediate consequences - you can tell by his clothing that the temperature hasn't gone down much!

uniformly different

In the UK, any woman who enjoys dressing up for a party would be very embarrassed if she arrived to find that another woman was wearing the same dress as her. But here in Benin, when there are events like marriages or church Christmas parties it is common for a particular pattern of fabric to be chosen which all the guests are invited to buy to make their clothes from.

Our colleague, Grace, will be retiring next month, and so the Monkolé churches held a goodbye party for her last Saturday. We were told a few weeks ago that some material had been chosen, and we ordered enough to make outfits for the whole family. A seamstress from the village took our orders, and delivered our clothes on the Thursday before the party. It was our first experience of wearing this kind of “uniform”, and it certainly made us feel like we belonged!

It was very impressive to arrive at the party and to see literally hundreds of people wearing the same cloth. Here are a few photos taken during the morning:

Grace, the guest of honour.

One of the choirs.

The youth group dancing for Grace.

Simon in his outfit (we forgot to take photos of us parents, as usual!)

confusing culture

One of the problems about culture shock is that it's hard to pin down exactly what is wrong. Part of this can be because in your own culture you know how things ought to go in any given situation, and you know when you are justified to feel angry or frustrated. If you are aware that your own cultural expectations are likely to be unreliable in judging such things in another culture, you are in for an uncomfortable time. You are often left feeling you are adrift in a sea of ambiguity and unrecognisable social cues.

Here are a couple of examples.

On Saturday, I found a piece of paper in our Post Office box saying that they had a parcel in my name (too big for the box) and that I should come to the Post Office with proof of identity to pick it up. The Post Office was closed on Saturday, so Simon and I headed back there on Monday. Marc had already told me that he couldn't figure out how things really worked when you went into the Post Office, so I had already decided to ask.

As we went in, I could see two desks with employees behind them, and what looked like a small hatch marked “Parcel pick-up”. At one desk there seemed to be two customers, and at the other, a group of 3 or 4 more customers. I knocked, without much hope, on the hatch, and there was no answer. A woman being served at the first desk said to the employees, “There's a lady here with a question!” which forced them to notice me, and I asked, “Is it this hatch or one of the desks to get my parcel?” One of the employees replied, “It's here, but you'll have to wait your turn!” (as if I was trying to jump the queue!) then said more politely, “Please take a seat,” indicating some plastic chairs the other side of the room.

This was reassuring, as it showed me that, 1) there was some kind of queuing system, and 2) they knew I was there and where I should be in the queue!

But then followed half an hour of the two customers at the desk going up to the desk, leaving again to come and sit down, being called back again, leaving again … the employees seeming to do nothing very much … and I realised that while it wouldn't be unheard of to wait for half an hour in a European Post Office, at least I would understand what was going on! You'd be in a long queue, hearing people called to different desks, watching the Post Office employees doing recognisable things like selling stamps, weighing parcels, dealing with people's accounts … and here I really didn't understand what was going on or why I wasn't being called. But I didn't feel I could be annoyed at being made to wait, because probably everything was being done according to the “rules”!

And yes, it is always said that Africans have a different idea of time, and don't mind waiting (a bit of an over-generalisation!), but when it is 37°C and you have a rather warm small boy sitting on your lap, you can't help thinking wistfully of your air-conditioned car sitting outside!

A funny twist to this was that a woman who arrived after me did go up to the desk before me, but the PO employee still called me up first (phew – the English side of me wouldn't have liked to see any queue-jumping!). He did then ask the woman what she wanted, in French, but she answered in another language (obviously not knowing French), and he rolled his eyes at me and said, “Oh, these other languages!” which was a bit odd, as I suddenly found myself included in the “us” of French-speakers against the “them” of non-French-speakers, where I'd been thinking of myself in the “them” of non-Beninese compared to the “us” of Beninese!! (No, I didn't attempt any Monkolé, as even if she had been Monkolé, I doubt I'd have understood her well enough to translate!)

The second example is a young man who called round today to ask us for some clothes. Not only do we not have a whole lot of clothes anyway, but we didn't know him from Adam so had no idea if he really needed them or would just go sell them at the local second-hand market! Marc chatted with him for a bit, then hinted that he should go away (if you call, “Au revoir!” a hint!) and the guy then leaned over the bonnet of our car and fell asleep there!

It seemed to us that it wasn't just our Western culture that made us think that was a bit strange, and that was confirmed when some Beninese colleagues came round and also found it very odd behaviour!

We've always been told that you have to be careful to welcome people here, but they told us we don't have to let just anyone into our house. They said you should be ready to talk to anyone, but that if you don't know the person it is fine for Marc, as head of the household, to talk to them at the gate of the compound, and only invite them in if he thinks they are genuine.

We are very thankful that we do have wise Beninese friends to advise us about this kind of thing. We really want to avoid offending anyone, but don't particularly want to be taken advantage of either!

(And in case you're interested, the parcel was well worth the wait!)

worlds apart

We are about to begin a new phase in language learning with the pastor of the church here in Pèdè working with us as our language helper. I am currently trying to plan different ways for us to learn, to keep it interesting for both us and him. I also hope that some things will be accessible for Simon too, as it would be good for him to learn a bit more Monkolé (he currently knows a few greetings and numbers).

One idea I read about to help gain vocabulary in a new language is to use a children's book with lots of pictures. Simon has an excellent book like this, called “1000 Words and Pictures” (thanks, Grandmum!). However, when I looked at it to see if we could use it with our language helper, it turns out that the majority of the book will not be very useful to us.

We will be able to use pages such as: Bodies and families, actions, wild animals, opposites, colours and numbers, and shapes and comparisons.

Some pages are of no use to us because they illustrate places unknown to your average Monkolé, such as:

The Park
The Supermarket
The Railway Station
The Airport
The Seaside

Other pages might sound as if they should be useful, but the places illustrated bear little or no resemblance to the Monkolé equivalent:

The House and Garden
The Kitchen (theirs are outside)
Partytime
Builders and Buildings
Games and sports (they do play football, but skiiing? Judo? Ice hockey?)
Clothes (again, some are similar, but some very different)
Weather and Seasons (you can imagine!)
All about plants

This is, of course, no criticism of the book, which is brilliant for the purpose for which it is intended, and will be very good when we want to explain to Simon and Benjy about European seasons, houses, parks, parties and so on! But for our language learning we will need to be more imaginative. I recently read an article in which the author suggested taking photos of daily life in the local culture and using them to learn vocabulary and descriptions, and I think we may well use this idea.

We could come back to the picture book later when our Monkolé is better to discuss differences between our background and daily life here, but I think we first need to concentrate on local culture.

Speaking of which, the “chef d'arrondissement” here – I think kind of like a county councillor – recently got the opportunity to travel to France as part of a twinning programme. He is from our church in Pèdè, so we know him a bit. Before he went we chatted to him one evening about what he should expect, and insisted that he take one of Marc's jumpers with him, as he said he only had one. He was unconvinced … but when he got back he told us he'd had to wear it every night! He thoroughly enjoyed his trip – except the cold – and when Marc visited him on Saturday he was telling his friends about his journey in the aeroplane. It is interesting to have someone from our new world here visit our "old" one!

A Monkolé kitchen (coincidentally belonging to the "chef d'arrondissement"!):

Dry Season Bible School

For the first four weeks of March, we were busy attending Monkolé Bible School. It is held every year during dry season, since that is the time when there is no work to be done in the fields, and therefore people have more time. It's open to anyone, and this time there were on average 15 men and 5 women who turned up each morning. The teachers were our Canadian colleague Grace and Monkolé Pastor Samuel (see photos below). Another one of the elders of the church gave a few lessons too. The sessions took place in an open-sided hut with a blackboard, and people sat both inside and outside (in the shade of a mango tree).

The subjects covered this year were baptism, eternal salvation and a study of several chapters of the Gospel of Mark.

It was good for Marc and me to hear so much Monkolé, and although we didn't understand most of it, some days we were encouraged by the improvement in our listening skills. The other useful thing about Bible school was that we were able to meet and start to get to know people from the church. It will make it easier for us to go out into the village and visit!

At the end of the month, after the last class, there was a party with Kool-Aid, popcorn and prawn crackers (not traditional fare in the village!) and you might notice a small gate-crasher in one photo!