My name is Evette.* I live in Benin, West Africa. Sidoine, a local evangelist, told the women in my village that some white ladies were coming to give us a talk on how to live more healthful lives. I was skeptical. What do they know about us and how we live? I heard they were friends of the other westerners who used to live here with us, so I decided to go and hear them.

On the appointed day, they were waiting under the old mango tree. They looked pretty normal to me, wearing clothes like ours. Finally, we had enough people to start. After worship, the one in charge passed out a plastic-covered piece of paper with an interesting picture of tiny babies. She told us that this is what a baby looks like before it’s born. I always thought that the baby was just blood until we felt it move. I didn’t know it looked like that. But she showed us that even after the first month the baby has arms and legs. She told us that we need to eat well when the baby is inside us because we need to give the baby strength to come out and live outside. She said that mothers need to eat well because they will have harder deliveries if they don’t. We all agreed. She also told us the kinds of things we should eat to give us strength.

She told us that babies six months old or older need to eat cereal. But she told us to add other things to our usual cereal of flour in water. I told her we don’t have money to buy other stuff, but she replied, “At your house you have corn, millet, and sorghum, right?” We had to agree. Then she said, “You have seeds of the baobab tree at your house, right? You can collect them for free; the trees are all over.” She also told us to put powdered greens into our cereal. She told us to use the leaves of the baobab tree and other greens we use for sauce. She described how to dry them and pound them into powder. She said we should also add oil to our cereal.

I told her that cooking oil is too expensive, but she said, “You have shea butter, right? You make it yourself for free.” Well, she got us again. She had obviously done her homework and knew what we eat. We were all thinking we might try her suggestions, but it sounded like a lot of work and would probably taste weird. But then she pulled the ingredients out of a bag and one of my friends made it right there in front of us. She made enough for everyone to eat some. It was good and my child seemed to like it. Maybe I will have to try making it.

On her next visit, the teacher talked about how drinking water is a good way to cure many health problems. We also talked about some skin problems babies have that she said often come from using powder that is too perfumed. Then she told us we could make our own powder. We all laughed until she pulled out a small container of white powder. She told us it was tapioca ground into flour. She let us all touch it, and it felt just like powder from the market except it didn’t have any smell. Then she told us how much cheaper it was to make our own—we were all amazed.

She also told us how to use powdered charcoal for medicine. That seemed strange, but the guy who was translating told us some stories of how it had helped him and other people. The teacher told us how it had helped a girl with a toothache. She also explained how to use it on insect bites and scorpion stings. She demonstrated how to use it to help sores.

I am not sure I totally understand everything, but it was interesting and I learned many new things. I better get home to cook for my family. Di swana nanga.

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