Did I shave my legs for this?

Last night we dined with the President of Benin. I think we did, anyways. Hard to say, from such a great distance.



The dinner had been postponed at least three times already, so none of us really believed that last night would actually happen. But happen it did. I got out of work as early as I could and joined my roommates in the preparations for the dinner.



We were all to meet in the Cafe area. At that time, we were given numbers. The whole ship was to go, so there were going to be several bus trips. Our numbers would correspond with when we got to go. I was on the second bus, along with my roommates. We all sat down to wait. We were told it'd be about 20 minutes until the buses returned. These 20 minutes stretched into an hour. I have been feeling sick so I had eaten a small lunch. I snuck some bread and butter during our wait, which was a wise move. Turns out the buses thought there was just one trip to the president's house, so they parked and were not intending to come back for the rest of us. Eventually they did, and we made our way to the compound in which the president of Benin lives.

We were lead into a huge room where the first batch of Mercy Shippers were already mingling. They opened an area for drinks, so we all rushed over. We sat and drank our beverages until the third group arrived. After that, we waited some more. Eventually we were all lead into a large room where there were tables set up. We all sat down, or so we thought, until we noticed a group of about 40 people for whom there were no seats. The staff quickly acquired chairs and tables from another room, and they set those tables with our second set of silverware.

We then waited. After a time, we were asked to stand up for the national anthem of the country of Benin. We did so, and the president arrived. We were all hoping to eat before the awards were presented to Don and Deyon Stephens, as well as to other Mercy Ships people, but that was not to be. We continued to stand for another 20-40 minutes while the awards were presented (in French) and speeches were made. The translator fortunately abbreviated the president's long, formal speech in about three sentences.

We finally got to sit. Then we waited. Eventually the tables for the buffet opened up. My roommates and I beat a path to as front of the line as we could, as we were all quite hungry at that point. We got food, which was everything from rice to couscous, rabbit to chicken, fries to plantains, and ate. During that time, dances from the various regions of Benin were performed. They were interesting but quite far away, so we only got to see snippets. After dinner and the performances, we sat around until the bulk of the people got taken back to the ship. We boarded the last buses and vans, and headed back to the ship.

It was an interesting experience.