PST: Missérété

July-September

My host siblings

PST (pre-service training) was a whirlwind.  My sector, environmental action (EA), was placed in Missérété, a small town outside of Porto-Novo in southeastern Benin.  Living with host families, the twelve of us were kept busy 8-5 Monday through Friday, and even half a day on Saturdays.  Our days were filled with language, culture and technical trainings, and our nights and weekends with family life.  Amongst the things I learned during PST include how to cook pâte (imagine corn flour play dough) and sauce gumbo (a gelatinous okra sauce), how to do my laundry à la main (one load usually takes me an hour and a half), and Fon, one of the most widely spoken local languages. 

Maman Josette and my little sister, Guenelle

Learning how to make sauce

My host brother, Claude

A Beninese "grocery store"

Guenelle and me

Learning how to graft mangoes

Tech training was by far the most enjoyable: we started our own gardens, built mud stoves, made compost piles, learned how graft fruit trees, and got to work with gardeners in the area.  We also started putting into practice participatory development skills such as seasonal calendars and community mapping.  I was also introduced to polygamy, vodun (voodoo), and the sweltering African sun.  Furthermore, we had the opportunity to spend the first two weeks of August at our permanent sites in order to scope out our future communities and learn more about our roles the next two years – more on that later.

Amaranth from our garden

 A little note on EA: our main goals include increasing food security, reforestation efforts and environmental education.  Based on these objectives, our main activities include gardening, small animal husbandry (rabbits, chickens, goats), tree planting and environmental clubs at local schools.  Also, I feel fortunate to be part of such a great group of EA volunteers and trainers.

The EA gang and our first mud stove