Where I Will Be Living

Drum Roll Please: Missérété in Akpro- Missérété in Ouémé

Basically... I am going to be living in a small village about 10 minutes outside of Porto-Novo. I am in the region near the Atlantic Coast and near Nigeria. I am not far from Cotonou, so the main headquarters will also be my regional workstation. The village is called Missérété and I will be working closely with the communities of Blewan, Gome Sota, Sogbé Aledjo, and Vakon. I believe my house is in Vakon.

Leading up to Post Announcements I was hoping to get far away from the cities... but I think it will be OK. I will be living in a village so I won't have to see the city all the time (unless I have to go to Songhai) and since I am near the cities I will have easy access to most things I might need.

My village has electricity (don't know if that means I have electricity). My water close to (or in) my house. I might be first PCV to have a post at this site (the paperwork they gave me was vague). The local language is Goun. There is a health facility in my village. And it has been confirmed that there are no bats currently living in my house. Other than that I know very little about my village... some volunteers received a list with things like “population, religion, ect.” and some even got pictures of their house or supervisors. I did not receive any of that :(... if someone wants to google it for me...

Also, my job has evolved, I am now going to be a “Gardening Production Adviser.” From my current understanding that means I am going to continue to work with the practices of Songhai (where we do our training) even after training is over and with the “Centre Communal pour la Promotion Agricole.”

I am going to be working with local farmers/gardeners to promote new crops, composting, natural pesticides, irrigation systems and other sustainable gardening techniques as taught to me by the geniuses at Songhai. In addition, I am also going to be promoting and assisting with environmental education at the local schools.

We meet our supervisors on Friday, and then we go to see our posts on August 5^th. I promise to take some pictures. Then maybe I will figure out how to post them with the slow internets. 

Can't believe its been a month already!

Z