On the Road: My 1st Site Visits

This week I went "upcountry" as some folk put it. This week Monday and Tuesday I went on a site visit to visit mother's associations (a sub-group of parent-teacher associations) near the Abomey region.

This is a crude depiction, indicated by a blue lines and circles, of my journey from Cotonou, on the coast, to the Abomey region. Compared to how big the country is, you see how relatively short the distance was. That was about a 3 hour trip. My colleague is still on the trip and he went all the way up to Perekou (indicated in red). That's a day trip.

The roads were pretty smooth.  I learned that the best time to take pics was when we slowed for a speed bump so those are the sights I was able to snap from the road: markets, random stores, etc.

Below are some of my pictures from the journey to the Abomey region.

Sights of stores along the way

This is a gas station. Gas is in the bottles. 

Doutou Mother's Association: Can you spot me?

We arrived! This was my first time meeting with a mother's association. It was more formal than I would have liked. They arranged a meetin just for us as opposed to us joining them at a typical meeting they would have. The leadership of the school and the association introduced themselves and then gave a report of their recent activities. They included: setting up a corn business to reaise funds for activities, setting up study centers in villages, rescuing children that were taken out of school, doing HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, setting up girls with mentors, etc.


The moms in Doutou brought in two girls to tell their stories. The one seated was rescued by the moms from a "fetish convent" where some families send their girls to become voodoo priestiesses. The girl standing up was rescued from working in a home in Porto Novo. Poorer families in the country sending children to be "taken care of" by wealthier families in the cities is a common part of the culture. Unfortunately, many of these children get trapped in child labor and lose out on the opportunity to go to school.


We took a break for lunch at a small, tucked away restaurant with a "traditional" (cement latrine) toilet, as our World Education counterpart called it.  Sorry, no pic.  I was just trying to be in and out as quickly as possible.  Then I ate the most traditional meal I have had in Benin: rice with wagasi cheese and a green "vegetable sauce" that begins with a "b."  I just spent 15 minutes trying to find the name online but couldn't find it.  I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw it, it looked so much like my beloved kale that I miss so much. Wagasi cheese is locally made from cow milk.  It has the texture of tofu (another food I used to eat alot in the US). 

Here's another pic I found online of wagasi where you can see the texture better. It tasted nothing like kale or tofu but was delicious!!! I need to find some of that yumminess in Cotonou!

A community sage/former director sat in.

 Next stop was the Gohomey mother's association.  Boy, did we get a warm welcome! As we drove up they women greeted our car with singing, pouring water on the ground and dancing.  Check out a clip of the song they sung on YouTube: http://youtu.be/Jxi83g2oxR8  .  Below are more pictures of the ladies and school leaders as we met with them and heard about their work to support the education of the girls in the community.

The work of the mother's associations is among one of USAID's greatest success stories in education. Because of the keen eyes and diligent work of the mom's girl's enrollment in schools has increased and stayed steady. The mom's greatest reward is knowing their girls will have more opportunity and choices than they had at their age. At the end of the visit there was more singing and dancing and our World Education counterpart, Melanie and a school leader joined in. See the YouTube video:
http://youtu.be/hV3iEFF0q4s
I realized I have so much more memory than I think I do so I'll take longer videos next time.

Gohomey Mother's Association and school leaders