The more time I spend with people, the more our conversations break the “How’d you sleep? How’s your health? How are the kids?” framework. Everyone has a story. Certainly everyone in the US has a story, but its generally a variation in frequency or degree of the same: divorce and remarriage, loans or debt, cancer or heart attacks, eating disorders, etc. Here the ingredients are more like polygamy, malaria, poverty, malnutrition, lack of health care, lack of education, etc. I’ve been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to hear many stories. You learn more about the people, the lifestyle, the struggles, but it doesn’t make for easy sleeping at night.
My favorite topic is voodoo because people get so animated. It’s considered more of a culture than a religion, though many say they ‘leave God at the door’ when entering a voodoo ceremony (they also do this for abortions). Everyone has a story about a spell put on them or their friend, what they had to do to break it.
I recently learned that if a woman does not have any male children, and her husband dies while she is still relatively young (not that uncommon), she is evicted from the house by her late husband’s family. Property rights go to men alone. Also, I learned that in some cases of polygamous households, the first wife will actually go looking for a second wife for her husband. The mentality is if you know he’s going to get one eventually, it might as well be someone you get along with.
Some of the funniest conversations I’ve had about life in America include topics such as plastic surgery, liposuction, life expectancy, Michael Jackson, divorce, dieting, and greek life.
Random: I saw my first nomad last week. It was maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever seen/will ever see in my life. It was a man and a little boy-dressed in rags, skin incredibly black from the constant sun exposure- and about a dozen cows. They had travelled down from the North since the South has greener pastures this time of year. This is especially cool for me because I spent much of my last year of college studying conflicts between nomads and pastoralists in sub Saharan Africa (my senior thesis was on climate change conflicts in SSA). And as part of my job right now I’m asking village chiefs what their environmental problems are, and a couple have brought up nomads taking up decreasing amounts of land and resources. Unfortunately I think my thesis conclusion was something like “can’t we all just get along?” so I actually have no solution to offer.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Lost Boys
There exists in Africa a concept of the lost. I first heard it called this in Obamas book Dreams From My Father, though it is a concept most have seen under other names or contexts. It refers to those individuals who have had the opportunity to travel to the developed world, mostly to attend university, and end up staying. Africa is much too far for the occasional visit, less in physical distance than in the distance referred to when we say “worlds away.” You are forced to choose. I suspect that its not that they purposefully forgot about their roots, never tried to come back, but more that, upon returning, they were welcomed with both open arms and outstretched hands. Expectations, many PCVs understand, can easily envelop and consume you. Obama also talks about racially mixed individuals as belonging to two worlds and thus, ultimately, none. Maybe its similar to that- you will always be identified with the other. When people talk about lost individuals, its usually with a mix of envy and disdain. Its funny- you hear about Indians and Chinese who are educated in the US and, increasingly, return to their native country to practice the profession for which they have been educated in a US university. Their return is often discussed negatively in the press, as though they have taken from some finite pot of knowledge and stolen away with it, ripping us off. But it is just these people who can be the most effective investment in development: they understand the people and the system, and have the education and skills that a great many don’t. I think one “returner” is probably worth thousands in development aid.
It is rare to meet returners in a rural setting. The career opportunities, the foreign development workers (as well as the running water and supermarkets) are only in the cities. I recently met a family of returners who started an NGO here that creates community gardens to supplement diets and incomes. The mechanics of it may not interest you, so I wont go into detail, but its closed cycle process is a thing of beauty. Though they don’t turn anyone down who wants to help out, it is intended for women and youth- women because income generation is crucial to both the gender equality movement here and the precarious situations of women, especially those who don’t bear sons and are thus not entitled to any of their husbands property, and youth in order to both educate the next generation in healthy lifestyles and to “keep kids off the street.” (I use street lightly.) They are a bizarre family for Benin. They dismiss criticisms of the small number of wives and children they have as ignorance, a hard feat considering that many still consider the number of wives you have determines the weight your word carries, the respect you command. Perhaps most inspiringly, they don’t take credit for any of it. They attribute their gender and social equity views to their grandfather, and their environmental and health work to the Peace Corps volunteer they housed 20 years ago, who kept a small garden on their property. These people embody Kennedys message of ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for you country.
Note to readers: I do know the appropriate use of apostrophes and the two forms of its. I just cant find the apostrophe on this God forsaken keyboard.
It is rare to meet returners in a rural setting. The career opportunities, the foreign development workers (as well as the running water and supermarkets) are only in the cities. I recently met a family of returners who started an NGO here that creates community gardens to supplement diets and incomes. The mechanics of it may not interest you, so I wont go into detail, but its closed cycle process is a thing of beauty. Though they don’t turn anyone down who wants to help out, it is intended for women and youth- women because income generation is crucial to both the gender equality movement here and the precarious situations of women, especially those who don’t bear sons and are thus not entitled to any of their husbands property, and youth in order to both educate the next generation in healthy lifestyles and to “keep kids off the street.” (I use street lightly.) They are a bizarre family for Benin. They dismiss criticisms of the small number of wives and children they have as ignorance, a hard feat considering that many still consider the number of wives you have determines the weight your word carries, the respect you command. Perhaps most inspiringly, they don’t take credit for any of it. They attribute their gender and social equity views to their grandfather, and their environmental and health work to the Peace Corps volunteer they housed 20 years ago, who kept a small garden on their property. These people embody Kennedys message of ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for you country.
Note to readers: I do know the appropriate use of apostrophes and the two forms of its. I just cant find the apostrophe on this God forsaken keyboard.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Bows
When the dog (mosquito) bites, when the (massive African) bee stings, when I'm feeling blue...
A few of my favorite things:
-My morning coffee and crossword
-Calls from America, from anyone, but dad calls the most
-Rain pouring down on my rin toof
-Letters!
-Having my neighbor kill the lizards that get stuck in my backyard (the part I like is not having to do it myself)
-Daily to do lists with tasks in multiples of 5 (the habit will never change, but the tasks are radically different)
-Moto and bike rides on paths barely big enough for two feet
-Pregnant goats. They're midget goats so when they are pregnant they are bigger horizontally than vertically. Looks like they swallowed a chess board. Gets me every time.
-Having people say "welcome" instead of "hello" when I get near my house
-Getting more breadfruit and sweet potatoes than I paid for from the mama down the street
-Trying to speak Fon. If it's correct people get giddy and call over their friends to witness the American speaking their language, like I'm a baby who has just said her first words.
-Watching the flow of vendors for the evening market from the villages, women carrying tubs of bananas, onions, smoked fish, and corn on their heads with infants strapped to their backs.
-My friend Eleonore's two kids- a girl, 4, and a boy, 2. The cutest kids I've seen in Benin.
-Exchanging stories with other PCVs
-Once in a blue moon, getting a Nigerian station on my radio that plays the occassional English tune
-The little boy next door who wonders over unannounced and stays to dance in my living room. He also makes me sad, because he's 4 but looks and acts like a 2-year-old, and is extremely bow-legged. The only silver lining to that is that our shadows look like Curious George and his owner walking down the street, which always makes me chuckle.
-Funny questions, like "Do you have the cold (weather) in the US?" How do you respond? They think cold is 75 degrees. I'd like to tell them about a little place we call Alaska but I don't think snow is something people can really grasp.
-Kids and old women who want to hold my hand, touch my skin, play with my hair
Babies!! Some of my favorite photos.
A few of my favorite things:
-My morning coffee and crossword
-Calls from America, from anyone, but dad calls the most
-Rain pouring down on my rin toof
-Letters!
-Having my neighbor kill the lizards that get stuck in my backyard (the part I like is not having to do it myself)
-Daily to do lists with tasks in multiples of 5 (the habit will never change, but the tasks are radically different)
-Moto and bike rides on paths barely big enough for two feet
-Pregnant goats. They're midget goats so when they are pregnant they are bigger horizontally than vertically. Looks like they swallowed a chess board. Gets me every time.
-Having people say "welcome" instead of "hello" when I get near my house
-Getting more breadfruit and sweet potatoes than I paid for from the mama down the street
-Trying to speak Fon. If it's correct people get giddy and call over their friends to witness the American speaking their language, like I'm a baby who has just said her first words.
-Watching the flow of vendors for the evening market from the villages, women carrying tubs of bananas, onions, smoked fish, and corn on their heads with infants strapped to their backs.
-My friend Eleonore's two kids- a girl, 4, and a boy, 2. The cutest kids I've seen in Benin.
-Exchanging stories with other PCVs
-Once in a blue moon, getting a Nigerian station on my radio that plays the occassional English tune
-The little boy next door who wonders over unannounced and stays to dance in my living room. He also makes me sad, because he's 4 but looks and acts like a 2-year-old, and is extremely bow-legged. The only silver lining to that is that our shadows look like Curious George and his owner walking down the street, which always makes me chuckle.
-Funny questions, like "Do you have the cold (weather) in the US?" How do you respond? They think cold is 75 degrees. I'd like to tell them about a little place we call Alaska but I don't think snow is something people can really grasp.
-Kids and old women who want to hold my hand, touch my skin, play with my hair
Babies!! Some of my favorite photos.
Why is the rum always gone?
Benin often feels like living in the Pirates of the Caribbean film. And not just because there is a crazy lady woman here who looks shockingly like Johnny Depp a la Captain Sparrow- I’m talking long dreads, capped teeth, the appearance of not having showered this calendar year. I’m thinking about fashioning a black pirates hat and offering it as a gift just for my amusement. (Insensitive? Or genius?) Sometimes Ze it is as chaotic and aggressive as Tortuga- at my night market, when all that lights your way is makeshift candles (tomato paste cans & hemp) and the whites of eyes, or when brawls break out in the street (to be fair, I’ve only seen two brawls). Other times it is as unspoiled and deserted as the white sand beaches of the Caribbean. There are moments in the early morning, after the chickens stop crowing but before the street vendors and school children are out, and in the evening, when you can’t tell if the sun is coming or going and the sky is pale blues and pinks- dare I say, twilight- when the calm in infectious and all the elements are in harmony. My job is coming along. The work I’m supposed to do with the environment is slow going, but the schools have been on my case to give time and would probably take me on as a full time teacher if I agreed, despite the number of times I tell them that I have no experience teaching and no materials. We decided I’d visit a class and speak for half an hour just for students to hear American pronunciation. I offered to record my voice speaking, the entire textbook if necessary, to distribute to the 12 or so English classes. But that would be the efficient thing to do. And I think they want me in the flesh, the real deal. Who can blame them? So this week I led my first class. The plan was to discuss their textbook topic for that week, comparing America and Benin. Turns out the topic was child trafficking, not really a light topic to start out with. So I let students just ask me questions and ended up taking up the entire 2 hour class. The teacher loved it and said he wants me to come back each week. In America this would not be an efficient use of class time but whatev. The first 20 questions were all variations of “Are you going to marry a Beninese man and live here forever?” but after that the questions ran the gamut. They were astounded that my father has only two kids from only one woman, and that not only are both my parents alive, but 4 of my grandparents are, 2 of which are approaching triple digits. They were floored. I explained sunscreen, the absence of local language in the US, that I do not know personally Michael Jackson or Jay Z. The English “books” are photocopied, sloppily bound, early 1980s British books. They used phrases like “Come off it!” (I disagree.) and the female dialogue name used throughout was Bimbo. I went to a funeral a couple weeks ago. Beninese funerals are much more celebrations on life- dancing, eating, drinking, laughing- than anything else. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. What you can’t see from the pictures is that they buried the coffin inside the house. This is standard though sometimes it is in the yard, whereas in this case they actually dug up the concrete of an existing room, buried him, and replaced it. And someone sleeps in that room. Ew. They were horrified at the idea of cremation though. Funny side note: There are really no ambulances here. Instead, the hearses have lights and sirens like our ambulances would. A day late and a dollar short, no?
Home Sweet Home
My house is the tin roof behind this pineapple field.
This is what most of the area looks life- a sea of green.
My bed! The mosquito net that fails me time and again.
An African dresser/closet (the thing on the right is a ceremonial hat which I was given to wear for big events, pictures of me donning it to come in the next few months). And pictures of all my loved ones :)
The street in front of my house.
My kitchen.
View from my front door.
My living room.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Et voila
This is a long one, hope you have the time. For those of you who do, make yourself a cup of tea, put your cell on silent, and enjoy
This post, like my general train of thoughts here, is a jumble of seemingly disconnected reflections, observations, peculiarities about my new life. Though I always hope to sit down and write a blog post that astounds you all in eloquence, in which images of life in tropical Africa leap from the screen like gazelles, it never seems to happen. I am always rushed, sweating profusely, frustrated at the slow speed of the internet, desperately searching for the man who should be powering it by stationery bicycle and must have fallen asleep. Instead, moments of clarity and refined introspection seem to come at the most inopportune time. When I’m shopping at the market. Eggs, check. Tomatoes, check. Purpose in life, check. Or when I’m hoofing it up a potholed dirt road. The physical exhaustion never seems to make its way into my head; I think the clearest when all I can only hear the deafening sound of blood pumping in my eardrums. Or when I’m one of 8 in a 5-person vehicle, one hand pinned under the mama next to me and the other propping up the head of the dude next to me with supernatural napping abilities, lest he nap in my lap. Perhaps this is because, like many aspects of my experience here, I should hold those moments of clarity for myself, appreciating them for their inherent wealth-the assurance that this experience is continually developing my mind and soul- rather than desiring to trap them into words and corner them into blog posts. What I’m trying to say is Warning: This May Underwhelm.
The longer my stay in Benin, the harder I find it to write about it. Aspects of my life that were once bizarre have become commonplace, and the aspects I’d like to express evade cohesive, eloquent thoughts. I am in both a perpetual state of euphoria and one of confusion. Euphorically confused 24/7. This place is beautiful. Even when it’s hotter than the rings of inferno or pouring buckets and thundering raucously, there is a calm about it that is both unshakeable and infectious. I can’t believe that I live in a place with such awe-inspiring raw beauty. I walk and bike around to surrounding villages and often don’t see another individual for miles. I can be just a 10 minute bike ride away and the language is completely different. The narrow red dirt paths are hedged by deep greens of the lush landscape- palm trees, pineapple fields, stalk upon stalk of corn. Though much of the land is cultivated, cultivators aren’t too particular or efficient with their land so it retains the appearance of land that has been untouched. It’s as though people are working for the land, not that the land is working for people.
Living alone is bizarre. Not lonely, not yet at least, but bizarre. It’s QUIET. It won’t be like that forever; its quiet now because my ipod broke, my hard drive crashed, and the radio I bought in the US doesn’t pick up any stations out here. The first couple hours in the morning and the last several at night, after sunset, I am completely alone. I read a lot, write a lot of letters, journal constantly. It’s a good thing in some ways- knowing that I’ll be alone for so long makes me more excited to get out of my house and see people, and constant interaction and French and Fon speaking when I’m out of the house makes me savor the moments of peace and quiet in my little home. I finally put up some pictures so you all can see what I mean when I talk about home. (I’ve yet to get any pictures that do Ze justice. It’s too beautiful for my 8MP Olympus.)
Every venture outside of my house is a never-ending string of greetings. I greet and am greeted by every single person along the road, and since people’s work is all outside unless you are the mayor or a teacher, there is never a 10 second period without a greeting. People are always staring. Sometimes it feels like I’m a celebrity, other times like I’m a bearded lady centaur, a freak. Most of the time my smiles and greetings are returned with even bigger smiles and warmer greetings (even when they don’t understand French and I don’t understand their greeting, we both get the picture), but sometimes I make a baby cry or an old man pee himself (I think moonshine had something to do with it too). Some people are too friendly, mostly young men who ask me not just my name and what I’m doing here but where I live, what my phone number and relationship status is, if they can get to know me better. I don’t want to burn any bridges so it’s a fine line between being firm and being rude. For instance, the mayor’s assistant asked me where my house was and I responded by saying that it was a Peace Corps rule that men could not come in my house. He said he’d have his wife and kids bring by a dozen oranges then. I felt like such a jerk! Kids often knock at my door, just to say hi they say though I know they’re hoping that I have a never-ending stash of candy to bequeath them. You learn quickly that it is an “if you give a mouse a cookie” kinda society. Don’t give someone something unless you are prepared to continue all day every day, that includes access to your house.
Sometimes people laugh when I pass by. I try to laugh too, make myself feel I’m in on the joke. It’s funny right- only one white girl in town! You gotta make yourself feel like a celeb when that bearded centaur reflection appears.
My job is at best unstructured and at worst non-existent. It’s somewhat the norm for Peace Corps though. Though the mayor’s office pays my rent, they actually have no job for me to do. It boggles my mind. In America, you only pay for someone if there is an expected return. Maybe they thought a white person would boost tourism, or that I would be eating enough to cause an increase in local revenue. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if they sat me down and said, look, we were really looking for an American that could dance like MJ or sing like Whitney. Right now, my job seems to be meeting and greeting. Like Miss America, I like to think. And since I often can’t understand what is being said around me (if its local language), I just sit and smile, look pretty, hope no one notices the beard. I am one by one greeting the directors and staff of the schools in my area. Tomorrow I will be meeting all the village chiefs in my commune with the mayor. The work day is interrupted by both extreme heat and rain showers, both of which warrant staying inside the house, and also the daily noon-3pm siesta. I just show up to the mayor’s hoping someone will answer questions I have and play Sudoku while I’m not doing anything. Even though I tell them it’s a game, they constantly tell me “good work!” with my Sudoku. I’m in for a rude awakening when I return to the American job market. More than once they have made mention of my Anglo-Saxon work ethic and talk about my punctuality almost as if it’s a fault. If time is money in the US, time is pineapples here. And there are a lot of damn pineapples.
It is the rainy season here, which I absolutely adore. Not just because I get to sit inside and listen to the rain fall on my tin roof (which is sometimes soothing and other times sounds like the apocalypse), but also because I have an outdoor shower so I can shower in the rain! Glam, right? Since I usually shower with a bucket and a scoop, rainfall provides the closest thing to an American shower and water pressure here. The rain here is bizarre in the way it can be POURING just 10 feet from you and you are completely dry. I’ve watched as it slowly envelopes the land, creeping thatched roof by thatched roof. I’ve made a few friends by being caught in rainstorms; someone always motions me to share their covered patio when I’m helplessly soaked and trudging through red mud.
My house has lots of spiders and lizards which I don’t mind when they stick to their place on the walls and ceiling. The first night I had a panic attack and made my dad calm me down while I was sobbing about the scawey spidewrs. I’m okay with it now, except that the one time I left for a couple days I came back to find lizards everywhere- in my bowls, among my books, in my suitcase. I found one caught in my mosquito net a few days ago. I don’t like to think about what else can get in if something as big as a lizard can.
I’m struck by the raw beauty of this place, my new home, at various times each day. I often take long bike rides in the evening, late enough to not risk death by heat stroke, light enough to not risk death by pothole. One dirt path one day, another the next. It’s a legitimate part of my work- creating a map, locating villages and schools, identifying crops and tree species, looking for evidence of different agricultural practices. Occassionally there’s a traditional healer or health center. There is often more goats than humans and more green than imaginable. I’ve had several moments, bumping violently down a rocky hill- being greeted by a group of old women in their local language, being chased by high-pitched toddlers- when I’m so overwhelmed by the beauty and inherent tranquility of this place, that I’m giddy. This surge of emotion erupts in laughter, choked out in gasps of air as I breathlessly pedal. I look crazy, like Clockwork Orange dude status, but they think I’m bizarre no matter what I do so I get away with it. More than once I’ve also been at such a moment of euphoria only to realize that I have no one with which to share it. I feel kinda like the guy at the end of Into the Wilderness, who chases what he sees to be the meaning of life only to realize at the end that for happiness to be real it needs to be shared. I know that having a constant here would drastically change my experience. My comfort circle would be larger, I wouldn’t have to leave the house for human interaction. It’s somewhat like an anchor, though, in that you can’t change too much, can’t stray from what you were when you arrived. That said, I think people who are able to share this experience with someone they love- finding a best friend or future partner within a day’s journey or joining Peace Corps with a spouse- are truly lucky. I envy that experience.
Moving on to lighter topics, a melange of observations:
-People are called by their professions at almost all times, even if its your spouse, even if you have the same job. No last name, just Teacher. Also, Mama is any older woman or any woman whose house you are in, and Tanti (aunt) is any woman selling something. And many children call me and others my age Dada, which means big sister.
-Work and school hours are flexible and both have midday siestas of 2 to 3 hours. Makes the transition from undergrad a lot easier.
-Of the 20 or so designs of school notebooks nationwide, 2 feature Obama and Michael Jackson.
-Some people were looking at pictures of graduation that had the date on them: 6/12/09. Here the date reads date/month/year rather than month/date/year. They asked me if it was already 2010 in the US.
-Typewriters are alive and well in the heart of Africa.
-People sleep in the middle of meetings and as far as I can tell it’s totally okay.
-Though I am definitely the only white person now, at one point there was another white girl here. I know this because several people call my Sonia and my friend told me to watch out for a family whose son had been burned by a white girl and might have it out for the whole lot.
People often ask me if I’ve made friends…that’s hard to answer. I have one friend for sure. She’s 26, a teacher, a mother of 2. Sometimes I spend weekends over there, we go to the dressmaker because she likes to have matching outfits, she helps me buy things in local language at the market. But she works all day and I stay in at night so our socializing is limited. Other than that I don’t have friends like I would use the term in the US. No one to call and hang out with. (Not that I’m looking for a pity party! It’s just another aspect of life here.) There’s a thousand people I greet around village and who greet me, with huge smiles and inquiries about how I slept, my health, my family “over there.” There’s an old woman who always gives me more sweet potatoes than I pay for and another old woman who lets me hang out with her on the side of the road while she sells corn cakes and teaches me words in local language. There are people at the mayor’s office but they have families of their own (it’s actually just one family: the mayor, his wife, his sister, his brother, his nephew, you get the picture. African politics.). There’s a woman who comes by every other day or so and just sits at my table while I read or work. We sit in silence mostly, which would be awkward anywhere else. There’s a girl in high school who helps me get water (and by that I mean she carries the water and I pay) but she’s a lingerer which bugs. I have two neighbors, both men in their 20s, but rules of propriety forbid us from entering the other’s home so our contact is limited to polite convo outside. The guy to my right is a policeman by day, I see him coming home in his intimidating military apparel, but the second he walks in the door he blasts Celine Dion and sings word for word every song of hers ever recorded. There are, of course, other PCVs, but for the first three months we are supposed to stay in our villages for the first couple months in order to be well intergrated.
That’s my life! Keep the emails and letters coming! And if you send one, please send a stamp. I’m about 15 letters behind and completely out of postage!
This post, like my general train of thoughts here, is a jumble of seemingly disconnected reflections, observations, peculiarities about my new life. Though I always hope to sit down and write a blog post that astounds you all in eloquence, in which images of life in tropical Africa leap from the screen like gazelles, it never seems to happen. I am always rushed, sweating profusely, frustrated at the slow speed of the internet, desperately searching for the man who should be powering it by stationery bicycle and must have fallen asleep. Instead, moments of clarity and refined introspection seem to come at the most inopportune time. When I’m shopping at the market. Eggs, check. Tomatoes, check. Purpose in life, check. Or when I’m hoofing it up a potholed dirt road. The physical exhaustion never seems to make its way into my head; I think the clearest when all I can only hear the deafening sound of blood pumping in my eardrums. Or when I’m one of 8 in a 5-person vehicle, one hand pinned under the mama next to me and the other propping up the head of the dude next to me with supernatural napping abilities, lest he nap in my lap. Perhaps this is because, like many aspects of my experience here, I should hold those moments of clarity for myself, appreciating them for their inherent wealth-the assurance that this experience is continually developing my mind and soul- rather than desiring to trap them into words and corner them into blog posts. What I’m trying to say is Warning: This May Underwhelm.
The longer my stay in Benin, the harder I find it to write about it. Aspects of my life that were once bizarre have become commonplace, and the aspects I’d like to express evade cohesive, eloquent thoughts. I am in both a perpetual state of euphoria and one of confusion. Euphorically confused 24/7. This place is beautiful. Even when it’s hotter than the rings of inferno or pouring buckets and thundering raucously, there is a calm about it that is both unshakeable and infectious. I can’t believe that I live in a place with such awe-inspiring raw beauty. I walk and bike around to surrounding villages and often don’t see another individual for miles. I can be just a 10 minute bike ride away and the language is completely different. The narrow red dirt paths are hedged by deep greens of the lush landscape- palm trees, pineapple fields, stalk upon stalk of corn. Though much of the land is cultivated, cultivators aren’t too particular or efficient with their land so it retains the appearance of land that has been untouched. It’s as though people are working for the land, not that the land is working for people.
Living alone is bizarre. Not lonely, not yet at least, but bizarre. It’s QUIET. It won’t be like that forever; its quiet now because my ipod broke, my hard drive crashed, and the radio I bought in the US doesn’t pick up any stations out here. The first couple hours in the morning and the last several at night, after sunset, I am completely alone. I read a lot, write a lot of letters, journal constantly. It’s a good thing in some ways- knowing that I’ll be alone for so long makes me more excited to get out of my house and see people, and constant interaction and French and Fon speaking when I’m out of the house makes me savor the moments of peace and quiet in my little home. I finally put up some pictures so you all can see what I mean when I talk about home. (I’ve yet to get any pictures that do Ze justice. It’s too beautiful for my 8MP Olympus.)
Every venture outside of my house is a never-ending string of greetings. I greet and am greeted by every single person along the road, and since people’s work is all outside unless you are the mayor or a teacher, there is never a 10 second period without a greeting. People are always staring. Sometimes it feels like I’m a celebrity, other times like I’m a bearded lady centaur, a freak. Most of the time my smiles and greetings are returned with even bigger smiles and warmer greetings (even when they don’t understand French and I don’t understand their greeting, we both get the picture), but sometimes I make a baby cry or an old man pee himself (I think moonshine had something to do with it too). Some people are too friendly, mostly young men who ask me not just my name and what I’m doing here but where I live, what my phone number and relationship status is, if they can get to know me better. I don’t want to burn any bridges so it’s a fine line between being firm and being rude. For instance, the mayor’s assistant asked me where my house was and I responded by saying that it was a Peace Corps rule that men could not come in my house. He said he’d have his wife and kids bring by a dozen oranges then. I felt like such a jerk! Kids often knock at my door, just to say hi they say though I know they’re hoping that I have a never-ending stash of candy to bequeath them. You learn quickly that it is an “if you give a mouse a cookie” kinda society. Don’t give someone something unless you are prepared to continue all day every day, that includes access to your house.
Sometimes people laugh when I pass by. I try to laugh too, make myself feel I’m in on the joke. It’s funny right- only one white girl in town! You gotta make yourself feel like a celeb when that bearded centaur reflection appears.
My job is at best unstructured and at worst non-existent. It’s somewhat the norm for Peace Corps though. Though the mayor’s office pays my rent, they actually have no job for me to do. It boggles my mind. In America, you only pay for someone if there is an expected return. Maybe they thought a white person would boost tourism, or that I would be eating enough to cause an increase in local revenue. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if they sat me down and said, look, we were really looking for an American that could dance like MJ or sing like Whitney. Right now, my job seems to be meeting and greeting. Like Miss America, I like to think. And since I often can’t understand what is being said around me (if its local language), I just sit and smile, look pretty, hope no one notices the beard. I am one by one greeting the directors and staff of the schools in my area. Tomorrow I will be meeting all the village chiefs in my commune with the mayor. The work day is interrupted by both extreme heat and rain showers, both of which warrant staying inside the house, and also the daily noon-3pm siesta. I just show up to the mayor’s hoping someone will answer questions I have and play Sudoku while I’m not doing anything. Even though I tell them it’s a game, they constantly tell me “good work!” with my Sudoku. I’m in for a rude awakening when I return to the American job market. More than once they have made mention of my Anglo-Saxon work ethic and talk about my punctuality almost as if it’s a fault. If time is money in the US, time is pineapples here. And there are a lot of damn pineapples.
It is the rainy season here, which I absolutely adore. Not just because I get to sit inside and listen to the rain fall on my tin roof (which is sometimes soothing and other times sounds like the apocalypse), but also because I have an outdoor shower so I can shower in the rain! Glam, right? Since I usually shower with a bucket and a scoop, rainfall provides the closest thing to an American shower and water pressure here. The rain here is bizarre in the way it can be POURING just 10 feet from you and you are completely dry. I’ve watched as it slowly envelopes the land, creeping thatched roof by thatched roof. I’ve made a few friends by being caught in rainstorms; someone always motions me to share their covered patio when I’m helplessly soaked and trudging through red mud.
My house has lots of spiders and lizards which I don’t mind when they stick to their place on the walls and ceiling. The first night I had a panic attack and made my dad calm me down while I was sobbing about the scawey spidewrs. I’m okay with it now, except that the one time I left for a couple days I came back to find lizards everywhere- in my bowls, among my books, in my suitcase. I found one caught in my mosquito net a few days ago. I don’t like to think about what else can get in if something as big as a lizard can.
I’m struck by the raw beauty of this place, my new home, at various times each day. I often take long bike rides in the evening, late enough to not risk death by heat stroke, light enough to not risk death by pothole. One dirt path one day, another the next. It’s a legitimate part of my work- creating a map, locating villages and schools, identifying crops and tree species, looking for evidence of different agricultural practices. Occassionally there’s a traditional healer or health center. There is often more goats than humans and more green than imaginable. I’ve had several moments, bumping violently down a rocky hill- being greeted by a group of old women in their local language, being chased by high-pitched toddlers- when I’m so overwhelmed by the beauty and inherent tranquility of this place, that I’m giddy. This surge of emotion erupts in laughter, choked out in gasps of air as I breathlessly pedal. I look crazy, like Clockwork Orange dude status, but they think I’m bizarre no matter what I do so I get away with it. More than once I’ve also been at such a moment of euphoria only to realize that I have no one with which to share it. I feel kinda like the guy at the end of Into the Wilderness, who chases what he sees to be the meaning of life only to realize at the end that for happiness to be real it needs to be shared. I know that having a constant here would drastically change my experience. My comfort circle would be larger, I wouldn’t have to leave the house for human interaction. It’s somewhat like an anchor, though, in that you can’t change too much, can’t stray from what you were when you arrived. That said, I think people who are able to share this experience with someone they love- finding a best friend or future partner within a day’s journey or joining Peace Corps with a spouse- are truly lucky. I envy that experience.
Moving on to lighter topics, a melange of observations:
-People are called by their professions at almost all times, even if its your spouse, even if you have the same job. No last name, just Teacher. Also, Mama is any older woman or any woman whose house you are in, and Tanti (aunt) is any woman selling something. And many children call me and others my age Dada, which means big sister.
-Work and school hours are flexible and both have midday siestas of 2 to 3 hours. Makes the transition from undergrad a lot easier.
-Of the 20 or so designs of school notebooks nationwide, 2 feature Obama and Michael Jackson.
-Some people were looking at pictures of graduation that had the date on them: 6/12/09. Here the date reads date/month/year rather than month/date/year. They asked me if it was already 2010 in the US.
-Typewriters are alive and well in the heart of Africa.
-People sleep in the middle of meetings and as far as I can tell it’s totally okay.
-Though I am definitely the only white person now, at one point there was another white girl here. I know this because several people call my Sonia and my friend told me to watch out for a family whose son had been burned by a white girl and might have it out for the whole lot.
People often ask me if I’ve made friends…that’s hard to answer. I have one friend for sure. She’s 26, a teacher, a mother of 2. Sometimes I spend weekends over there, we go to the dressmaker because she likes to have matching outfits, she helps me buy things in local language at the market. But she works all day and I stay in at night so our socializing is limited. Other than that I don’t have friends like I would use the term in the US. No one to call and hang out with. (Not that I’m looking for a pity party! It’s just another aspect of life here.) There’s a thousand people I greet around village and who greet me, with huge smiles and inquiries about how I slept, my health, my family “over there.” There’s an old woman who always gives me more sweet potatoes than I pay for and another old woman who lets me hang out with her on the side of the road while she sells corn cakes and teaches me words in local language. There are people at the mayor’s office but they have families of their own (it’s actually just one family: the mayor, his wife, his sister, his brother, his nephew, you get the picture. African politics.). There’s a woman who comes by every other day or so and just sits at my table while I read or work. We sit in silence mostly, which would be awkward anywhere else. There’s a girl in high school who helps me get water (and by that I mean she carries the water and I pay) but she’s a lingerer which bugs. I have two neighbors, both men in their 20s, but rules of propriety forbid us from entering the other’s home so our contact is limited to polite convo outside. The guy to my right is a policeman by day, I see him coming home in his intimidating military apparel, but the second he walks in the door he blasts Celine Dion and sings word for word every song of hers ever recorded. There are, of course, other PCVs, but for the first three months we are supposed to stay in our villages for the first couple months in order to be well intergrated.
That’s my life! Keep the emails and letters coming! And if you send one, please send a stamp. I’m about 15 letters behind and completely out of postage!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A West African Cost-Benefit Analysis
Though I just moved to Ze Thursday (more on that later!), I've had to spend the last 24 hours at the Peace Corps office in Cotonou. What does this entail? Air conditioning 24/7, a hot water pressure shower, a stocked kitchen complete with oven (the only one I've seen since being in Benin), the company of other Americans, a DVD player if I so choose, computers with the fastest internet in the country, insect- and lizard-free rooms, cold water (FREE!), a chance to stock up on books at the book swap, and everything I could need that I can't get in Ze is just a moto ride away: the bank, fabric to make clothes, schwarma, Thai food, burgers, supermarkets with spices, baking supplies, coffee mugs, shampoo and conditioner, and all varieties of fruit.
And what did I have to do to earn such a vacation? Extreme diarrhea for 4 days. I won't go into further detail only to say that words like "inflammatory" and "bacterial" have been thrown around, and that the position of my latrine outside my house, two locked doors and about 40 steps away from my bed, has been an issue. All that included, I would say that it was worth it if I was able to enjoy any of the foods of Cotonou, particularly schwarma. But I couldn't. So, no, not worth it.
And what did I have to do to earn such a vacation? Extreme diarrhea for 4 days. I won't go into further detail only to say that words like "inflammatory" and "bacterial" have been thrown around, and that the position of my latrine outside my house, two locked doors and about 40 steps away from my bed, has been an issue. All that included, I would say that it was worth it if I was able to enjoy any of the foods of Cotonou, particularly schwarma. But I couldn't. So, no, not worth it.
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