Noah's Peace Corps Blog

If I had to describe my last two weeks with one word, it would be infectious. It’s not a beautiful word, but it is a bit fun to say. Its connotations arouse images of hospital beds, hazmat suits, sneezes, and a runny nose. In fact, I find it difficult not to add “diseases” each time I say infectious. Infectious, however, also means communicable, transferrable, and catching, and while my last two weeks certainly had its share of the bad kind of infectious, it also saw a good share of the other, better kind of infectious. About two weeks ago I noticed a growing skin infection on my left arm. I had previously and successfully treated some minor red inflammation on my arms with allergy medications, but this infection was not as kind. I’ll spare the reader the details but suffice it to say that by the beginning of the work week my underarms were blistered with, well, blisters. Or maybe they were boils. What mattered was the discomfort and pain that had – mainly metaphorically - reall...

You never really know a place until you’ve tasted its food. We imagine France as starlit evenings of wine, Nutella, baguettes, and escargot (but not all at once). It’s easy to conjure and image of dinners in Japan with Kobe steak, rice, and sushi (perhaps at once). And in the United States, we eat hamburgers, tacos, and take-out (if not all at once, you’re doing it wrong). Considering this tasty truism and my Peace Corps goal to share Beninese culture with Americans, I am happy to present to you [*drum roll*] Beninese food! My PCV peers might be a little surprised at my enthusiastic presentation of Beninese cuisine. While they share my joy for sharing of Beninese culture with Americans, I assume many don’t think of food as a hot topic to write home about. The words I’ve heard that describe our culinary experience include the passive-aggressive “different” and “interesting,” the more upfront “invariant” and “boring,” as well as the all too desperate “p â te again???” I admit that...

I have spent a little over a month at site, something that amounts to about 5 percent of my total service. I thought it was about time I updated you all back home on my actual work situation. I work with a local nongovernmental organization (NGO) called CRIPADD (Cercle de Recherche pour l’Identification et la Promotion des Alternatives du Développement Durable). Our partnership was orchestrated by the Peace Corps and is meant to provide mutual support for our respective missions on food security, environmental protection, and community economic development. My host organization supports agricultural development and environmental protection in a chain of villages on the east shore of Lac Ahémé. My work so far has been to support CRIPADD’s extension work among a few women’s garden groups. They grow local leafy greens for sale at the nearby market or to pre-order customers. Each group has a plot of land that they manage year-round but focus on during the dry season (December-May). Then...

I was leaving the office of my host organization when I overheard neighbors mention that the neighboring community was experiencing a visit from Egungun , the Revenant. Egungun , as far as I know, is not one spirit from the great beyond in particular -like your great-grandpa or a deceased friend- but more or less an awakened, vile spirit returned to us briefly from the Undiscovered Country. I raced over and, against the concerned pleas of neighborhood children, proceeded to watch the Egungun as it haunted the attending crowd. At first, I was a member of the large mass of young men pursuing the spirit only to be chased away, but soon found it much more entertaining, informative, and safe to stand on the sidelines with a large group of women, children, and a handful of men. Each time the Egungun retreated it received taunts from the crowd it just chased, which seemed a little counter-intuitive to me at first until I inferred that doing so was part of the fun and spirit of it all. No...

It has been quite a change being away from Minnesota this Christmas season. In fact, I often forgot it was time for roasting chestnuts as I was too busy roasting in class from the afternoon heat. Neither did I try to create mistletoe magic with moringa or decorate a palm tree with ornaments. Don't get me wrong, for all has still been appropriately holly and jolly this Christmastime. It kicked off with a Thanksgiving dinner of chicken and potatoes to promote peace, friendship, and grace among the multinational composition of trainees and staff. It progressed as newly-minted volunteers hummed Christmas music and decorations lined the streets of Lokossa and Cotonou. Now I'm site where I've often blasted Christmas music on my computer speakers as community members living abroad in Nigeria have trickled in for a long weekend of holiday festivities. I enjoyed being away from the American airwaves this holiday season and getting the chance to be selective with which tunes ren...

"I, Noah Mikeal Nieting, promise to serve alongside the people of Benin. "I promise to share my culture with an open heart and open mind. "I promise to foster an understanding of the people of Benin with creativity, cultural sensitivity and respect. "I will face the challenges of service with patience, humility and determination. "I will embrace the mission of world peace and friendship for as long as I serve and beyond. "In the proud tradition of Peace Corps’ legacy and in the spirit of the Peace Corps family — past, present and future —  I am a Peace Corps Volunteer ." I officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer yesterday! After three months of language classes, instruction in agriculture and business development (public health for some), and living with a host family, the 38 members of Stage 30B took our oaths of office from the American Ambassador. Three cabinet-level ministers were in attendance, as were our host families and P...

The other day I woke up with the immediate need for contemplation. I wasn’t sure why and to what end, so I brought the thought right back to what I was doing: waking up. By now I was standing at the window, peering over the setting of this recent act. Tin rooftops populated my foreground with the expanse of lake emerging beyond them. It was not quite light, but a large harvest moon lit a fisherman heading early to his acadja with oar in hand and feet solidly planted in his pirogue. Distant drums beat the tune that had woken me up for a few moments earlier in the morning. They no longer seemed a nuisance with the impending dawn so near. A glance at the grove of trees a few blocks over failed to find any of the monkeys I happened to spy the previous morning. I marveled at these details and thought back to where else and how I had woken up this year. In Benin, I most frequently wake up in a village not far from Lokossa, the site of our training center. Kids are already giggling ...

I have spent one month in Benin. It sounds trite, but it seems like ages since I left the United States. Many days have ticked by in biking to cross-culture classes, practicing French and Fon grammar, gardening in the hot sun, and goofing around with my toddler host siblings on the front steps of our house. Joys and monotonies sprinkle each day, but I have overall enjoyed and benefitted from my time in Pre-Service Training (PST). I will say that it has been a rather easy cultural transition, which I attribute to a semester in Senegal in both urban and rural areas there. So, word of advice to my younger peers interested in the Peace Corps: Study away serves as a great opportunity to test your meddle and interest in two years of service. Okay, I’ll end my stump speech there before I jump to too many conclusions. My favorite aspect about PST so far has been the host family experience, though teaching local primary school students about building hand washing stations or workshopping a co...

How do you eat an orange? You probably eat them in the way I always loathed. Step one: punch through either the top or the bottom. Step two: wedge your thumb sufficiently underneath the rind to prepare for the third step, which is continuing to leverage your thumb between the hard rind and the soft, easily puncturable flesh. It’s here that I would generally fail to gain enough momentum to peel the orange in large strips. Instead, my fingers would be drench and covered in the orange I was supposed to be eating already. By the time you’ve peeled the whole kit and caboodle, you must face the pile of rind bits and a pulverized heap of citrus. Step four: divide into manageable pieces without drenching your hands in orange juice again. And step five: avoid the seeds while eating. You’re probably thinking that I’m just a terrible orange peeler, and you’re correct. (No amount of time in Macalester admissions could fix that.) Many of the Beninese that I’ve met eat oranges differently. Optio...

The return from lunch had us energized and ready for an afternoon of gardening. We remained eager even as the sun beat down on us in the rear of the training center. You might expect as much from Sustainable Agricultural System (SAS) trainees. This SAS Squad wanted in on the action we had heard so much about earlier in the week. We spent more than an hour and a half preparing our garden with hoes and picks, pausing every once and a while to watch brief demonstrations from staff from current volunteers on digging berms, plant ecology, and mixing “garbage” dirt, charcoal, and dried chicken fecal matter. Most of the afternoon saw the swinging of hoes up and down like oil wells, but our game was infusion of organic matter, not extraction. Faces drenched with sweat glanced up at the darkening sky. Whispers of pluie began, and the swinging quickened… but to no avail. Water poured down, leaving each volunteer sopping as they persisted in their work. Most teams finished their work, and t...