This happened nearly a week ago, but it was a pretty good tuesday for stories, so I'll tell you all about it right now.
First, everyone in the carrefour (big traffic circle) simultaneously stopped dead in the street and started yelling YOVO..YOVO...YOVO. This was remarkably unusual for 7:30 Porto-Novo congestion patterns, so I decided to slow down to figure out exactly what was going on. If I would have been in a car I may have wanted to crack the window slightly. About this time I became slowly aware that I was the only white person in sight, and was thus probably the source of all the consternation. I look back to see this middle-aged man bent double running towards me through traffic. Always being one to 'bein integre' I plant my bike next to the middle of the carrefour and take a closer look. He catches up to me, throws something at my feet and says approximately, "You need to take care of your stuff, idiot". He then waded back through the morning tangle to wherever do-gooders pass their pre-apertif hours of the day. Apparently, I had dropped my saddlebags. It was embarressing. The situation was not improved by the fact that my commute that morning lasted more than a mere 3.5 minutes COUNTING the time I spend with my mouth open like an idiot in the middle of the street. Fortuneatly, all this attention solved my original problem (I had been lost) and I was able to rejoin my other highly educated peers for our morning of intellectual stimulation.
The second good story of the day involved my attempting to foolishly take use of the bathrooms in Sonhai without giving the proper respect to the ancestors, vodun and the chief maintence officer. We had decided to go to a buvette en group after class, and I thought I was being quite the sly one by pre-emptively relasing my bladder before our Benin Emergency Educational Resource Session (known colloquially as BEERS). My friend, who will only be identified as J wished me "good luck" as I entered the bathroom, which I now believe to have activated the failure of the restroom facility. After inspecting the porcalin, I turn to exit and rejoin my fellow stagiers only to find that the door will not open. No worries, there is always a huge line for this lonely toilette, so there will be someone to notify a professional that the door appears to be stuck. No such luck. Apparently, the attractiveness of putting liquids into their bladders had temporarily outweighed the benefits removing them and I was indeed alone in the middle of what can be generously described as 'Beninese Disneyland.' (If Disneyland was run by the World Bank). Anyway after calling for help for an appropriate amount of time (~4 seconds) I decide the only thing to be done is to investigate the problem with my handy multi-tool. First I check to ensure that the door is indeed stuck. It is. Fine. I take off the handle and try to move the axle of the door with the pliers on my tool. No dice. I keep playing with that and I realize that the tounge of the door simply will not go in, despite my attempts to the contrary. (For mechanically-challanged stagiers only- this means the boy part of the door wouldn't leave the girl part so I could go drink). Things escalate quickly when you're trapped in a hot bathroom with thirsty americans quaffing your brews. Thus, I took out my flathead screwdriver and destroyed the doorjamb to the point where it would swing freely in......which allowed the repairman who had been standing outside to walk in and give quite the look to the splinter-covered American on his knees with hopes of escape rapidly fading from his eyes. Damage control mode. I pick up all the assorted pieces of the door, throw my best German accent on my french that I possibly can and make references to "il ne marche pas" (it dosen't work), throw everything in his hands and walk right out without looking back.
I like Africa.
haha davey you're awesome!
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