America the Beautiful and English with Antoine

I was visiting a colleague when a friend of hers stopped by to visit. Perhaps in an effort to impress us, he arrogantly insisted he knew all about the differences between our cultures, though for half of the conversation, he was assuming I was French… His main points:

• “If I left a cell phone on the table here, someone would steal it. And that would never happen in America. No one is poor or greedy in America.”
• “If I want to buy a computer in America, but I don’t have money, the government will pay for it. Americans don’t have to work.”
• “If I want to come visit you at your house in America, I have to call your secretary first and make an appointment. No one needs to be welcoming or friendly in America, because they don’t need their friends to give them money.”

That same day, I was stuck at school, waiting for a rainstorm to pass, when my school director started ranting: “I work 10 hour days here! I don’t make enough money! See how we suffer? If I lived in America, I would never feel this way!” While Americans probably don’t always consider how lucky they are comparatively, I’m sure that same rant has been expressed state-side. I explained to him that the life of an American teacher probably didn’t feel much different…

“But you get free coffee and meals in American schools, right?” he asked.

No…

“Free lodging near the school”

No…

“Longer lunch breaks?”

Definitely no (the Beninese lunch period is a 3 hour siesta)…

He asked me about an American teacher’s salary in Chicago (he did his master’s thesis on Barack Obama and is always looking for the opportunity to speak English or talk about the president). We made a mock budget, estimating what one earns and spends on food, housing, transportation, etc.

“You Americans can save some of your monthly paycheck!” he exclaimed. So I had him do the same thing for a Beninese teacher in a city. Same results… “Look,” I said, “one can save money here too.” He looked at me for a moment, and chuckled a little. “No, no we cannot… We have to go to parties on weekends.”

And when it comes to that cultural aspect, I simply cannot disagree. Saving money is near impossible in this culture, because one is expected to give money when a family member asks for it, even if it was reserved for something else. Now pair that with the fact that families are huge here (due to many factors: polygamy, a need for extra hands in the fields, a lack of family planning, etc…), jobs are hard to come by, and medical care is almost always necessary given the low health and hygiene standards of developing countries. This is why people will often spend money as soon as they have it – so that they don’t have to share. In Benin in particular, this results in a lot of half-built homes and buildings – piles of bricks and sand, that are in fact the family’s financial investment.

Furthermore, socially, the Beninese are expected to attend every party to which they’re invited, where they are obliged to spend large sums of money on matching outfits, food, drink, and contributions for the blow-out funeral ceremonies that take place almost every weekend. Not attending is a snub to that family. Again, families are huge, so that can come back to bite you and your kin in the ass one day. Alas, one cannot be both popular and rich, and in this culture, one is clearly preferred.

Once I was working with my environmental club students, discussing soil quality, and I tried to solve some confusion and lead them to the right answer by asking them a general question: “which is better, to be rich or poor?” They unanimously agreed “to be poor.” (I should know by now that I can’t give a normal lesson without getting a cultural one)… When I asked for an explanation, they said rich means greed and rich means everyone asks you for things. True enough, especially here, when even the richest man will try to assure you he is poor. If not to gain your sympathy, he will say so to avoid your open palm, to which a culturally competent Beninese pocket must oblige.

…It’s been a common theme lately, people complaining to me about how hard life is here, and how much easier it is in America, as if they could get off the plane and immediately have their pockets stuffed with cash. On more than one occasion, a mother has half-jokingly held her baby in front of my face, asking me to take him / her back to America with me.

Peace Corps goal 2 is about educating my host country about America. While my usual response to these occasions is to nod sympathetically, I feel like I’m feeding into a lie. Yes, America is wonderful. But as an American, I can recognize that my country has hardships of its own, despite the way it has presented itself and the achievement of the “American Dream” to the rest of the world. I wish we could find a way that allowed the rest of the world to have an “[Insert Country Name Here] Dream,” to set an example of success, rather than appear to be the only success. The ways of America, the beautiful, won’t necessarily work for others, as cultures are developed and valued so differently. How can we go about encouraging economic and social development with a new standard that doesn’t necessarily have to apply to ours, but makes each country into an ideal for itself?

Of course I will agree that people here struggle more in their own ways, especially as they have little to no support from the government. But what I am more bothered by is the way in which people who start such dialogues with me are usually doing so just to complain, or to seek an easy way out, rather than to find lasting solutions to their woes. While the man from my first story was also implying that Americans are less hospitable and generous, I can’t say that there is any more evidence of solidarity, or any less evidence of selfishness here. Only that the “every man for himself” or “what can I get from you?” mentality is universal, cloaked in its own cultural justifications.

This leads me to my second story…

"English with Antoine” has been a common note on my calendar since last April. Antoine is an English professor at the local secondary school, and he has become a sort of secondary project for me the past 6 months. Antoine has been participating in a series of tests that will allow him to work for the state as a translator. One day he showed up at my house and asked to practice his English with me. This is a common request from people I meet, but I had yet to tutor anyone privately. I agreed, fairly certain he’d be like the others and forget or not have the time to dedicate to actually improving. Much to my surprise, Antoine has a work ethic and a focus unlike any I’ve seen here. He comes to study several times a week, and we have taken to listening to NPR podcasts together, discussing the stories and clarifying vocabulary and pronunciation as we go. He is determined to land this new job.

In working with Antoine, I have recognized that he is somewhat of an anomaly in other ways too: he does pick and choose which parties he’d like to attend, and he saves up part of his paycheck for new English books or a fancy phone. He doesn’t enjoy drinking, or loud music, or going on dates. He doesn’t want to leave Benin forever, and he doesn’t think life is easy anywhere. Rather, he embraces this place as his home, and he therefore wants to make it better, despite the fact that he is an “atypical” member of his community and doesn’t entirely fit in with the masses’ ways of socializing or coping with the hardships of this country. People like Antoine are those who I enjoy working with: people who want to improve their own country, rather than leave it all together. He gives me hope for a grassroots movement, the kind comes from those who know and love their country, and also know what could be better about it. Those are the ones that will truly make development toward those “self-idealized” countries possible.

               

Enough of my development schpeel and culture ranting for now… My goal is only to be honest. Just as I feel a rekindled duty to realistically describe what life in America is like, as I see it, I also feel obliged to avoid romanticizing the Peace Corps experience that is two amazing, invaluable years of culture confusion. I hope my observations and generalizations have not come across as paternalistic or ethnocentric. I have learned so much so far here and there is a great deal left that I will never understand. I find a humbling comfort in it, knowing how much I do not know.

With all that in mind, the next 10 months will fly by. Year two will be eons more productive in the sense that my roles here are established, contacts have been made, and I have a success or two to my name. I also expect it to become somewhat more challenging however, to spend more time in the culture that I have learned to accommodate, yet not always appreciate. But Geo and I are healthy, and I’m looking forward to family visits for the holidays… Wishing you all a lovely fall; I’m glad that will be the season to welcome me home in 2014!

Sundaze

We’re in the midst of the mini rainy season now, which happens to be wetter than the big rainy season was a few months ago. Despite my attempted explanations of climate change, I am often corrected that this is merely due to the fact that people were performing ceremonies a few months ago, so as to ward off rain while they installed electricity in a nearby village. Let there be light.

It seems to be getting dark earlier these days, and I pretend that I’m not only 7^ο from the equator, that Fall is actually a season here (not just wet and dry, or wetter and hotter), and that the winter solstice is right around the corner, followed by Christmas and the new year, and then before I know it, I’ll be home. I’m sure that’s how it will go in some sense, but it’s hard to believe on days like today, when the highlights are listening to the rain fill my buckets (no trips to the pump yet this week!) and finishing yet another book.

Though Sunday is a universal excuse for a lazy day, my weekends tend to blend into the “work week” these days, because all seven of them seem slow and full of unanswered questions. I’ve been experiencing bursts of impatience and hopelessness lately, as I’ve passed the one-year point, though I’m not sure if that’s because it’s not enough time left, or too much.

With 12 months to my name, the pressure of living the Peace Corps dream seems to build: “Save the world!” “Transform the village!” “Leave your mark on Benin!” But so do the inevitable realities that the world is big, transformation is not in my power alone, and Benin has been here long before me and will be here long after. And so, I don’t know what else to do but to continue with the small garden projects and school activities that scatter my calendar, from which I am uncertain if any lives are changed, except for my own.

Regardless, I try not to blame the rain for the dreary restlessness, and rather appreciate it for the blessing that it is – a break from the heat, a few buckets of saved time and effort, and a plausible excuse for another lazy Sunday.

Back at It

A quickly passing August started with readjusting to village life and planning for year two! The farm’s irrigation system is almost finished, so there will be much gardening and harvesting ahead. Back-to-school season is only a month away, and a week-long environmental camp in the city of Parakou gave me some great insight into lesson plans and potential activities for my village – hand washing stations, crafts with recycled materials, latrine use campaigns… I’m looking forward to improving on last year’s projects, as well as the introduction of a few others.

My Amour et Vie team worked hard the last couple of months to survey the community about its health awareness. We hosted a kick-off ceremony for the target groups and authorities from our region. True to Benin, no one showed up at the invited time (2 PM), but by the end, there were over 100 guests to watch the peer educators’ skit and hear about the team’s goals to raise awareness and improve the health of our community members.

The community gathers for an Amour et Vie kick off ceremony

Mid-August brought personal projects: recording some of the many guitar songs I’ve been inspired to write during my time here and helping paint a mural on the side of my house! It’s about time it started to feel like a home…

The artist and his finished product!

The month will end with a formation for my women’s group about tomato conservation and home-canning, just in time for the September surplus!

While Peace Corps life is unhurried and often unscheduled, I think I’ve established a good pace for the year ahead, and these days it seems there’s always something on the calendar, including a few vacations to look forward to: West Africa road trip in November, family visits for Christmas, and a spring break birthday adventure.

New pictures of Environmental Camp, the Amour et Vie kick-off ceremony, and the mural process can be seen here.

No News Blues

 

Peace Corps assures the friends and families of volunteers that “no news is good news,” so I make no apologies for my lack of blog posts the past couple of months. The truth in my case however, is that it seems that “no news” is in fact, no news… but I realize that the life I’ve grown accustomed to here is still not at all resembling of the norm state-side, so I will try harder to get back to my monthly updates! Here are a few recaps of the memorable happenings of June and July.

June 1, World Tree Day, I got a group together to plant 50 trees at our local health center. Moringa, known as the “Miracle Tree,” is the focus of many of my activities related to food security. Though realistically it is comparable to other legumes, the whole tree can be used for various products from sauce with the leaves to soap with the seed oil. My group of Moringa enthusiasts would like to advocate its nutritional and medicinal properties to those in village who have limited resources and access to healthy foods and Western medicine, so we’re hoping for a nice little plantation by next spring. One problem – no materials or money to build a fence, and Moringa is essentially goat candy. The trees are pretty resilient and continue to grow despite their regular de-leafing, so fingers crossed…

Moringa morning. From left to right: Health Center Guardian, Innocent (my supervisor's son), Roland (intern at my farm), Gregoire (see more below!), Michelle, John (fellow PCV), Sylvestre (English teacher, and PCV enthusiast)

Gregoire, the Beninese man to the left of me in the picture above has become my champion work partner #1! He sought me out my first week in village, not for the shady reasons I’ve often associated with some Beninese men, but because he truly envisions a better future for Benin and the environment. He works for the mayor’s office as a community counselor, giving informational sessions in rural villages about child nutrition, diarrheal disease, and malaria. He has become a reliable contact for many of my projects in village, from my monthly nutritional seminars for preschool Mamans, to my new Amour et Vie team!  As I mentioned in a previous post, “Amour et Vie” (Love and Life) is a program run by Peace Corps, Population Services International, USAID, and other development organizations that trains a community counselor (Gregoire’s role) and two high school-aged “peer educators” to conduct informational sessions twice monthly for a target group, predominately concerning family planning, sexual health, malaria, and diarrheal disease. My team attended a training last week, and we are preparing a kick-off ceremony for mid August!

I am happy with my team and excited for the work we will do, but it was a lengthy process putting the team together. The boy peer educator was found immediately with no problems, but we went through 4 girls before finding one whose parents gave permission or didn’t request that their daughter be paid for the work. In one shocking and disappointing circumstance, a chosen girl showed up at my door with her uncle. While her single mother and older brother gave enthusiastic permission, her uncle refused. In a confusing, language-translated conversation, he explained that she was too young (“only 18”) to travel to a weeklong training, and that going out into the community to teach people things will bring “gris-gris” (voodoo curses) upon her, or people would expect money or favors if she tried to teach them things. I explained that it was a safe and important opportunity for a young girl, especially because she hopes to be a nurse. He was adamant however, and I felt powerlessly unable to defend this girl’s opportunity. The next morning, her maman approached me and asked that I not be angry with them for refusing her daughter’s participation in the program. She consoled me, “If her father was still alive, he was a school director, or if it were her other uncle who is a doctor, she would have been allowed,” she said. “But since he is the uncle who lives in village, his permission is necessary, even though he is wrong.” I assured her that I understand respecting an elder’s wish, but I also asked her why they let him have the final say, if they know that he was wrong. A simple, “what-kind-of-a-dumb-question-is-that?” response: “Because he is a man and I am a woman, so I must respect him.” That was such a hard thing to hear, and such a hard realization to let go of, that they can know he is uneducated and wrong, yet still be content in letting him make their decisions – certainly one aspect of this culture with which I struggle to empathize. I assured the mother that I was not angry, only sad for her daughter, and I promised to let the girl know if another opportunity comes up.

The cultural frustrations and slow days made for a restless June. While I hit my year-in-country mark, it seemed like more of a reminder that there’s a whole year and some change to go… So the getaways of July were much appreciated:

The first week was spent in Porto Novo at Camp GLOW (“Girls Leading Our World”), an amazing opportunity for young village girls to spend the week learning about how to be healthy, happy leaders. Like my Camp AGBASSA, it was so inspiring to see the confidence and knowledge gained by middle-school girls over one week.

From there, I was off for a 1½ week vacation to Morocco! Morocco was full of adventures like paved roads, air conditioning, hot running water, cold potable water, beds comparable to clouds, and rooms with rose petals sprinkled delicately, welcoming me to relaxation and luxury. It was ten days of over-eating, over-sleeping, over-bathing, and indescribable comfort. It re-sparked my travel bug, and got me thinking about post Peace Corps possibilities. While vacation was refreshing and very much appreciated, it’s hard to get back to nights of interrupted sleep and mornings of 4 am roosters.

But here I am, back in Benin, and heading to the next thing: this week, Camp BRO (“Boys Respecting Others”). Another week of learning and confidence building, though I imagine this one will have less singing and screaming than girls’ camp.

I look forward to the calm 2 weeks I will spend in village after July (mid August brings Environmental Camp, the final wrap-up to the summer vacation period), to reconnect with my colleagues, to get back to my projects, and to hang out with my Geo cat. 

This lengthy update is all the more reason for more frequent posts, so I’ll be sure to get back at it in August. I’m missing you all and your luxurious amenities!

Amoebas and Mangos

Last week I checked off another “rite-of-passage” from my list of inevitable unpleasantries in the life of a West African PCV (or perhaps a West African in general). Among them: transportation accidents, stepping in feces, getting splashed as a mama gracefully throws out her basin of dirty water, and as you may have guessed, parasites. Yes, I am now the official owner of three amoebas all in one gut! I admit I feel a little proud... And also frequently nauseous, fatigued, and lacking in appetite, which is why my doctor instructed me to poop in a cup in the first place – a glamorous life we lead here. No worries, it’s nothing that taking some strong meds and paying better attention to food and water can’t fix.

Despite the dip in health, it’s been a fun month for projects, as we are in the short window of mango season here. These juicy delicious fruits are cheap and plentiful from April to June, so I took full advantage to eat, bake, boil, and brew these babies. What made the menu this month? Mango bread, mango curry, mango jam, mango wine… keeping my eyes open for more recipes before the season’s up!

The new month brings more gardening and tree planting, so not much is new there. The year-in-country mark is fast approaching, and they say the second round flies by. Didn’t the first?

Mango Jammin'!

April Chaleur brings May Showers

The stress-to-success of last month’s girls’ camp was followed by several stints of comfort in the city. I celebrated my birthday with friends in Cotonou, attended a week-long In-Service-Training with the other PCVs in Porto Novo, and shortly thereafter got to return to Cotonou with two girls from my village for a “Take Our Daughters to Work” program. Now, it’s back to village life for the next two months, where I need to put in some valuable face-time, and get my next projects up and running!

Here’s what I’ll be up to, “work”-wise, the next couple months:

• At the farm: we’re breeding our bunnies, growing a tree nursery, building some compost piles, replanting our garden for the rainy season (finally!), and soon will be installing an irrigation system (take that, dry season 2014!)

• At the school: the girls’ club continues, the environmental club flounders, and apparently I’m in love with Peace Corps camps… July brings Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and Camp BRO (Boys Respecting Others), and August brings Environmental Camp. I’ll bring some students and help lead sessions during those three weeks.

• In the community: The farm and I are hosting a community tree planting event on June 1^st, World Tree Day! My homologue and I are also planning a series of information sessions for mothers about nutrition, malaria, and hygiene. Similarly, another work partner and I are starting an “Amour et Vie” (Love and Life) team, a program run by Population Services International, that trains community members and two high school-aged “peer educators” to conduct informational sessions for youth, predominately concerning family planning and sexual health.

As Peace Corps Benin prepares for the new batch of volunteers, I realize that I am now in the thick of my service. That’s an intimidating thought, as I sometimes feel so very lost and wonder “now what?”… . It’s undeniable that many people who join the Peace Corps hold a desire to change the world, or maybe even save it. However unrealistic I knew that was, I had to see for myself that real change will take time, much more than two years and one foreigner (in fact, forget the foreigners. I’ve developed opinions on development, folks!). Anyhow, tangible accomplishments in that direction are few and far between. So what’s next? I can also admit that joining the Peace Corps was, for me, a selfish venture for self-discovery and self-improvement, with hopes that the rest of the advantages will follow. I suppose it’s time to grow, to hold myself to the challenges of independence and initiative for which I came here. While I try to figure all that out, I’ll leave you with some humorous anecdotes of village life:

• I was working alone on the farm one morning, thinking far away while engrossed in building raised garden beds. One of the high school boys who works on the farm with me, Evariste, came home for his lunch break. He stood watching me for a while, and then asked: Mishu, who are you going to burry there? I looked up, confused, and then realized that in my intense effort to “raise” a garden bed, I had actually just dug myself into a sizeable hole... So we planted a tree there instead :)

• Another boy from the farm, Rodrigue, is struggling with his English class. After his last exam, he came home and wrote down for me all the words that he didn’t understand. It was a long list, meaning his exam was probably half blank when he turned it in, but he was surprisingly chipper. When I asked him why he was so pleased: Because I knew that even if I didn’t know the words there during the test, I had a big dictionary at home, and her name is Michelle! 

• Upon my entering a weekly women’s group meeting, all the mamans snickered and chattered in Wemε. One finally explained to me: Yovo, when you walk, your butt bounces! I laughed it off and blushed a bit, but I’m somewhat used to comments about (or even the feeling up of) my body by now, from older women. But they didn’t stop there: Yes! Look at that! Yovo, this is very good. A young woman’s butt must bounce when she walks. Right, left, right, left… They proceeded to stand, clapping and dancing, while chanting “à la gauche, à la droit, à la gauche, à la droit!” To the left, to the right, to the left, to the right! It didn’t stop until I obliged them in standing up and dancing with them, in celebration of my own bouncy booty.

So while bouts of homesickness and frustration do come, I'm still learning, having fun, and even getting some work done! It's been a fast but long ten months.

Camp AGBASSA

So it was totally happening, and then it probably wouldn’t happen, and then it definitely wasn’t going to happen. After that, it was maybe going to happen, and then it happened... Camp AGBASSA was a slow, painful planning process, amounting to a quick, fun three days and nights.

When funding for the girls’ camp fell through, I admitted my fault to the camp planning committee (really just me and Marie-Elise, and then later her visiting French friend, Monique). I asked to try again later in the year when we were more prepared and eligible for Peace Corps aid, but the Beninese optimism that “it will happen” and “someone will help us,” (that’s another blog post for another time) was somehow irresistible to us all. So there we were, 24 hours before the camp, with 30 middle-school-aged girls invited, and not a dollar to our cause…

Normally, Peace Corps gives a community camp 4 years to become financially independent, weaning them from an initial 75% aid, to moral support. Alas, a fully community funded, first-edition, five day overnight camp was slightly stupid and atrociously ambitious.  But Marie-Elise is a go-getter, and I’ve perfected my go-with-the-flow attitude here, and so we managed to scrape by for three days & nights on donations of mosquito nets and sleeping mats, sacs of corn or rice or onions, and again, the French friend. Only 18 of the girls showed up, but so did only half the number of desired counselors, so it did somehow all work out. Eventually, though often after-the-fact, the donations and acknowledgements of the solicited community participants did finally roll in; we received 20 sleeping mats after one night had already passed and a sac of rice and several monetary donations on the last day of camp – better late than never.

It was all so Beninese: nothing ran as scheduled and no one came on time; nothing was practiced or prepared ahead of time; the most money was spent on a decorative banner and certificates of completion; adults didn’t freak out when kids were “unsupervised” or got sick, and kids entertained themselves and didn’t want to go home. Many sessions were replicas of the Beninese education system – a series of lectures in which kids don’t ask and aren’t asked questions, rather they repeat or write on the board whatever the teacher said. But I did my best to make it less like school and create a safe space to talk about all the things a young girl needs some guidance on, from goals and obstacles to relationships and health, and hopefully the girls did leave with something they didn’t have before (besides a misprinted T-shirt with some Caucasian newlyweds’ faces on the front, one of Monique’s contributions – we took what we could get).

And even though it really was a po-dunk version of a camp (nowhere near my days at Sherman Lake, or St. Mary’s, or Walden – or maybe not even Mrs. Wolf’s preschool art camp…) it was an opportunity that some girls wouldn’t have had: to take a break and do some reflection and hopefully gain some knowledge and confidence. The name of the camp, AGBASSA, means “within me” (though that’s a twice removed translation, Wemε à French à English, so the sense isn’t quite the same), and on the last day we marched around village, telling the community about what we accomplished this week, and singing about what’s great about being a young girl.

This is the first project I’ve completed in village that feels like a success, like I’ve participated in something lasting and worthwhile. I was so proud of my campers at the end of three days, at how much they seemed to learn and grow and become proud of themselves. But I was even more proud of Marie-Elise and the women’s group that supported the camp. The best part is that I actually did so very little, and I know the camp could (and hopefully will) continue long into the future, without my presence. I’m already looking forward to AGBASSA 2014!

Dormitories for 6em (7th grade) and 5em (8th grade) girls

From misprinted wedding t-shirts, to reprinted camp t-shirts...

 

The women who made the camp possible!

One of the songs the girls sang while marching through the village: "We're going to the ends of the Earth. Camp AGBASSA will never perish!" They also sang about keeping a joyful heart (the meaning of AGBASSA), and maintaining their rights to be safe, innocent, young girls. My favorite part was the chanting: "Young girls - fight! fight! fight! Without women: no nation, no development. Women - they exist too!"