wanderlust imagery

Last Saturday my landlady offered her daughter in marriage to a rich fella from Banikoara. These folks are a prominent family in my village, so the marriage is a big deal. My neighbors brought gifts of goats or chickens to celebrate the occasion. Living on a Peace Corps budget I couldn't afford a good goat (about 50,000CFA or $100), so I offered to take pictures instead.

I'll have these images printed to give to the family.

Thus, my first real foray into wedding photography:

Will this portfolio lead to wedding gigs back in the USA?

nervous bride, Anissa

and her proud Mother, Asja Sofia

friends and family prepare food on the eve of the wedding

Anissa's friend paints her in henna tattoos

it was a day for celebration, unless you're a goat

well-wishers arrived from across the country

dressed in the finest fabrics

At the Mosque, these gentlemen scrutinized the husband, and found him fit
to support a third wife. Cash and kola nuts lubricated the deliberations.

I now pronounce you: husband and wife.

(except the wife isn't allowed in the mosque for the actual wedding ritual)

drums and dancing, and Dolce & Gabbana.

not sure who he is, but he's important.

you're just not a wedding photographer unless you snap shots of cute kids.

And finally, I raise a glass of warm beer to my peeps Drew and Gilli who tied the knot back home in Virginia last weekend. I miss you guys, and wish I could've been there with you. Congrats. I am so happy for ya'll.

DISCLAIMER - NO PHOTOS in this post. I tend to favor photographs, but if the old adage holds true, and a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, then this should be worth about a picture and a half.

My good friends Ross and Andrew of the American Festivals Project dropped me an important question recently:

Can you tell us a bit of what you are doing over there? What are your day to day tasks? Are you working alongside anyone else?

Well, yeah boys, I suppose I should explain what I’m doing here. After all, Peace Corps ain’t just about taking pictures…

I’ve spent my first three months at post getting settled into life in the village. I’ve made a full time job of getting to know my neighbors, learning local languages, and figuring out how to get by day-to-day.

WATER

Each day I lug my 25-liter water jug to the pump. It’s a hand pump that pulls water from deep within the earth. Cool, clean and fresh. Inevitably, there’s a line of women and kids waiting to fill their own jugs or laundry basins. Yes, women and kids. It ain’t a man’s job to be schlepping water in this Bariba culture, but since I’ve got neither a woman nor kids of my own, I swallow my manly pride, lift the jug onto my head and lug it back to my house. It’s only a few minutes away. It didn’t’ take long on African soil for me to discover carrying heavy stuff on one’s head really is the best way to cover ground with a big load. Thank you Dr. Moskovitz for helping me heal my spinal fractures.

I use those 25 liters each day for drinking, cooking, showering, dishes, laundry etc.

I’ve got a clay pot that I fill with water to keep cool. The moisture seeps through the clay and evaporates, keeping the water pleasantly chilly inside.

FOOD

Goumori has a great market that gathers every 4 days. Folks bring their wares from miles around selling anything from onions to jewelry and brightly colored fabric. The veggie availability varies month-to-month, but onions and tomatoes are the consistent staples. Carrots were hot last month, and I hear okra is coming up. Part of the market is dedicated to smoked fish – brown curled catfish from the wetlands. Upon arriving in Goumori I swore to myself I wouldn’t eat such a nasty looking hunk of meat. A week later my neighbor brought over swamp fish in a spicy pepper sauce, and I gobbled it right up. How quickly I’ve lost my dietary inhibitions. There are also a couple gardens in the village where you can procure whatever’s in season. We just saw the last of the lettuce and cabbage last week. Fortunate as I am to have the means to travel, I get quite a bit of my food from outside the village: oatmeal, powdered milk, eggs, coffee, and canned sardines. The sardines go especially well on noodles with some sautéed onion and tomatoe.

Once in awhile a kid will ride into town from Banikoara with a cooler full of frozen yogurt strapped to his bicycle. I always look around the village mid-afternoon searching for this joy delivery. On a good day, I settle into my hammock in the afternoon heat with a little plastic bag of frozen bliss.

BEER

For a small village, Goumori is fortunate to have three drinking holes. Three bars offer a half dozen varieties of warm beer. Though we're a predominantly a Muslim village, the prohibitions on alcohol are taken rather lightly. Most business and politics seems to be lubricated with omnipresent bottles of Beninoise.

LANGUAGE/CULTURE

With the help of an occasional tutor and patient neighbors, I’ve been learning the predominant Bariba language. The Bariba are the ethnic majority in my region, and they dominate local politics. Much to the amusement of neighborhood kids, I’ve gained enough proficiency to negotiate the price of a chicken and profess my intention to grill it. I can also announce that my name is indeed Christoph, not Bature (“White Dude”). The mother who lives next door also baptized me into Bariba culture with the name Sabi Suleman.

The Fulani are the ethnic minority in my region, but I’ve become fascinated with their nomadic herding culture. They tend to live in small camps outside the larger villages. While they’re less pastoral than they were in centuries past, they still focus most of their energy on grazing cattle deep in the bush. On market days they bring milk and firm wheels of cheese, and shop for the brightest clothing and silver jewelry. Although the Bariba tend to dominate the socio-political scene in Goumori, I’m making a deliberate effort to reach out the both ethnic groups. In February I held a meeting with Fulani elders to explain my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was thrilled by their kind reception, and some of the men told me I was the first white man to approach them in friendly conversation. Humbled by this position, I’m eager to collaborate with the Fulani as I plan my projects. I’ve also received a Fulani name: Sidiku.

So, my full name in Goumori is Sabi Suleman Sidiku Bature Christoph.

PROJECTS

I’m trying to understand the complexities and challenges of village life so I can organize appropriate projects here. I’ve realized it’s impossible to separate environmental work from social projects - people must meet their basic needs for health, food and shelter. In some cases these pursuits come at a cost to the natural environment: the tragedy of the commons. When a growing population shares limited resources, each individual claims his own small share, leading to the degradation of resources. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the population continues to grow as water, grazing land, fertile soil, and forests grow increasingly scarce. Environmental concerns are foremost human health concerns. As an “Environmental Action” Volunteer, I’m trying to figure out ways that folks can meet their needs while reducing their footprint on the natural environment.

One encouraging prospect is the planting of live tree fences. Goats and cattle are all over the place, looking for green stuff to chow on. That’s all good, but they can be a nuisance when they stroll into hospitals and schools. Rather than cutting wood to build fences, I’m working with a local health center and elementary school to plant tight rows of thorny trees to enclose their properties. I’m currently experimenting with a couple different species to figure out which plants are least appetizing to my neighborhood livestock. Save wood & plant thorny bushes: it’s a win-win situation.

I’m also excited about planting a bunch of moringa trees. You can read all about the trees on Wikipedia, but basically they grow well in arid climates and the leaves offer tremendous nutritional value. Moringa leaves are rich in beta-carotene, Vitamin C, protein, iron, and potassium. Yes, multivitamins do grow on trees. Folks in Benin are not starving for food, but they are often malnourished. With diets based largely on corn meal, manayunk root, and yams, it’s difficult to achieve a balanced diet. It’s common to see kids in the streets with big bellies sticking out. Their bellies aren’t plump because they’re well fed. Their bellies protrude because they are malnourished and their abdominal muscles are too weak to hold tight their intestines. By adding vitamin-rich foods to the diets of children and nursing mothers, malnutrition can be easily improved. A few scoops of dried moringa leaves added to the daily cornmeal slop can make a big difference.

I’ve become friends with an old woman who owns a large piece of land near the Goumori village center. She currently grows corn and has a small vegetable garden, but she’s eager to find a new crop to put her land to better use. In the next few months I’ll be working to set up a small moringa plantation in anticipation of the upcoming rainy season. I’ve also been in touch with local health workers and pharmacists to promote the use of moringa leaves once we produce a harvestable crop. If the small planting succeeds in the first year, I’m hoping to grow the plantation into a larger operation that may employ several community members.

You see where I’m going with this? You can’t just tell folks to plant trees ‘cuz it’s good for the environment. You’ve gotta form a direct link between their life, their health, and the planting of trees. That way we can take small steps towards resisting the desertification as the Sahara spreads south due to deforestation. Small steps.

I hear Benin was the first West African country to experiment with moringa, and there are a few successful moringa plantations in other parts of the country. However there is very little organization to coordinate moringa as an industry. In Nigeria and Ghana, for example, there are national groups that regulate quality, packaging, distribution, and promotion. There is currently no such organization in Benin. One of my larger goals as a Peace Corps Volunteer is to organize a coalition of moringa interests. If the growers and distributors and health officials work together, we can get more folks turned onto this good stuff. An organized industry is a profitable industry, and a profitable industry is the key to widespread distribution. I’ve heard that in Ghana you can find bottled fruit juice fortified with moringa additive. Way cool. I’m planning a research trip to Ghana to study their organization and promotion structures.

It may exceed the scope of typical Peace Corps service to organize a national agricultural coalition, but I’m eager to think big. My grand hope is to organized a nationwide conference of individuals involved in moringa. Short of that, I at least hope to learn the nuances of the industry and help forge stronger connections between those involved.

So that’s where I stand. I’m becoming ever-more comfortable in my village as I enter the more fruitful portion of my Peace Corps service. Thanks for reading, friends, and I aim to continue sharing these developments with photographs.