Opening Ceremonies of CIAMO. . .

Friday was an incredible day for me. Since I've been here in Benin, I've attended a handful of ceremonies that are similar. Peace Corps things, Camps, Awards Ceremonies. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything as wonderful as what we produced yesterday.

Authorities came from the Ministry of Culture, of Primary School Education, the Mayor, Peace Corps, and the American Embassy. Usually at these sorts of ceremonies, people talk forever, reading a speech prepared for them, without passion or enthusiasm. For one of the first times, yesterday, I saw a group of authorities that was actually excited about the project. I think it's something new, something different. You get tired of inaugurating school buildings and wells and hospitals (all of which are desperately needed). This is a new idea, new inspiration. A simply worded goal, to improve arts and music education in Benin, is not a simple task. People are excited about it and that gives me energy to push forward.

A delegation of Americans came, the founder and her best friend, amazing electric guitarist Leni Stern, and filmmaker Herve Cohen. During the week, we had a lot of serious meetings about the school and what it will take to get it up and running and successful. What we want to do is so much bigger than our current mission in Benin, but teaching kids art and music is always going to be at the base of what we do. We're hoping to have international artists come to the center to teach the kids and to help professional artists to develop their crafts. We also hope to make arrangements with schools in the US - study abroad, j-term, that sort of thing - to encourage cultural sharing. This is all very exciting and I can't express enough how privileged I feel to be a part of this. Here's the last week in pictures.

This is a display table with some of music supplies we're using.

This is for real.

Sarah helping out Herve shotting the kids doing the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking

Myself with Wilfred our new administrator

This is the entourage.

More pictures to come. I'm having trouble uploading.