3 villages in 2 days: Diagnostic Site Visit

I'm trying to catch up on sharing the goings ons in Benin. June has been the fastest month ever. I can't believe it's already over! Three places that have touched my life this month are: Tourah, Maligoungoun, Goungounberi.

They are three quintessential villages in the far north of Benin not much bigger than their names. The trip to these villages was definitely among the highlights of this month. Let's refer to our handy dandy map of Benin.



Last week I went far beyond Parakou (circled in red, where we went on the last site visit), all the way up to Malanville.

If you look at the far upper right corner, right on the border of Niger, you'll see Malanville.  I went where many Beninese in Cotonou have not been, about a 12 hour drive from Cotonou.

It was a work trip (I LOVE work trips!! I pray they will never lose their savor for me).  Our traveling team included my Beninese education colleague, Pierre, a consultant in project design from DC, a specialist in climate change from DC, and the Program Officer at AID.  Our driver  was Ghanaian.  I was the only woman on the team from Cotonou and it was great! It reminded me of the rare moments when I hang with my father and 3 brothers.

The trip had a very unique purpose.  We are at the very beginning stages of designing a project around how to decrease the effects of serious flooding due to climate change on children's access to education. The assumption we came in with is that given the major floods of 2010 in Benin, flooding is an issue, particularly in that zone and we need to help the community do something about it.  I'm not quite sure who decided that flooding is an ongoing problem in access to education in those communities. . .I have a sneaky suspicion given the way aid tends to go that it wasn't the village chief, the prez of the parent's associations or even teachers at the school.  But regardless of who cooked up the project idea, I was glad we were going to the community early on in th project to check our assumptions and ideas and get a feel for what the real assets and needs in the community are.  We were accompanied by our World Education colleagues and planned to meet with representatives from the widely successful mother's associations, a subgroup of traditional parent-teacher associations.  The only goal: Get an idea of their perspectives on how to mitigate flooding and how it may/may not affect children's schooling and other aspects of life in their regions.

Before I delve into what we discovered, here are some pics from the journey up to Malanville.  Many of the villages we passed or went through were like compounds: a dense collection of homes, build with mud, cement or a combination with straw, tin or combination roofs.

Food storage shelters

We noticed that many of the homes were not constructed to withstand major floods.  But then again, we also found out that it only takes about 3-4 days to reconstruct a home.  We did, however, see that many of the smaller storage spaces (which looked like smaller versions of homes) were built up on stilts, probably more to protect the contents from insects and creepy/crawly pests than from floods. The countryside was particularly lovely given that it's rainy season and it is a lot greener than normal.  Much of what we saw were villages and town centers built alongside the road.  Or rather we went down roads built through villages/town centers.  I'm not sure which came first. . .

Typical homes in the village.

Tourah, our first village, was about 45 minutes off of the paved main road, down a pitted, very very bumpy dirt and mud path that wound through rice fields (a common improvised use of flooded fields).  

If I had to find my way back from the village to the main road it would be a nearly impossible task as the path that the driver took was not paved or well marked.  I was very thankful that our World Education colleagues, who live in the area and interact regularly with the parent and mother's assocations, were with us.  

In this picture, Abiba, our World Education colleague is in the foreground and the representatives from the mother's associations are int he background.  I'm also including pictures of the mother's associations in the other two villages we visited over the following days.I couldn't help take a picture of a common latrine in the villages we visited.

We found that the latrines and schools tended to be the most well-built, sturdy buildings in each town we visited, due to the fact that it was usually donors that fund such projects. This school is typical of school construction.  Unfortunately, the roof wasn't well constructed and was partially blown off in winds.

All of our meetings took place outside, sometimes even under the proverbial baobab tree that has a lot of traditional meaning. It is among one of the oldest tree in the country and tends not to have too many leaves.  The most distinctive feature is it's thick trunk that seems almost to this for it's commonly stubby branches. A small aside, there is a delicious candy chew they sell here made from baobob juice.  It's considered to be a natural energy booster.

In the pictures you'll see most of the women with covered heads.  The Northern dwellers of Benin are largely Muslim. In the center of the country there is a lot of animist, traditional belief and the Southern part is mostly Christian. The ethnic group of the towns we visited were primarily Dindie.  Our World Education conterparts are all fluent in Dindie and translated all of our conversation with the mothers' and parents' associations.
A lot of what we heard from the mothers is that the greatest impact of the flooding is not so much on school attendance but rather on livelihood.

 When the worse floods come it tends to be near planting season and therefore washes away many of the seedlings.  The families have made the most of the situation and try to switch their income source to fishing or picking/selling useful leaves.  In this picture is my education team colleague, Pierre (bald in blue/white) and World Education colleague Abiba (in blue).  In addition, the families have tried to build dams out of sandbags to stop the flooding but to little to no avail. Another effect of flooding is sullying the potable water sources.  Because of the runoff and dramatic water movement, it becomes harder to find potable water and villagers are forced to use river water for daily chores. That has reverberating effects on health and hygiene.

I just love this picture of mama and baby.:)  The meetings were great opportunities to snap a lot of pictures

This is the 2nd World Education conterpart, translating from Dindie to French. 

Here are some pics of the discussions with the moms.  Following the discussions with moms were discussions with the parent associations, primarily male dominated, hence the need for subgroups of moms.  

 A picture of more visiting team members.  In the center is Josue from World Education and Andre, the climate change specialist from DC.

Me wondering what's in that white pot and if it's made with river water. . .

This is another favorite picture. The man in the center in the burgundy patterned robe with the white cap is the village chief.  I can count the number of words he said on one hand. A very different model of leadership. 


 I spoke about this recently with a colleague, different cultural mores around leadership.  While in the US the leaders are often heard loud and clear, in some traditional village cultures, the voice of the leader is seldom directly heard.  Often spokespeople speak for the leader, acting as a messenger to the people. Interesting. . .


On another note, when asking about early warning signals that floods were coming, we heard some fascinating methods from the typical cloudy sky to the receding waters to a plant that grows more prominently in river beds when floods are coming. However, even though the signs are pretty reliable, it doesn't mean a particular village will flood, sometimes the floods only affect neighboring villages.  Overall, it was such a productive time and beginning of a great dialogue with the community that I hope will be maintained through the life of the project. Next post: The adventure coming home to Cotonou.