Frustration and Deliberation

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

I think my assessment that I have hit a plateau in my language learning was correct. We got back the results from our Language Proficiency Interview and I received and “Intermediate-High”. I know that I took an ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview test a few years ago, and on that I received an “Advanced-Low”. At that point in my life, I had recently completed a semester in Senegal, however, the interview wasn’t for 4 or so months after I left. I feel like my language would have rapidly declined, since I wasn’t using it every day. Here I am in language class for 7 hours a day, plus I talk to my family and other people in the community outside of that. I should be speaking a lot better than I did when I was living in the US. On the other hand, my teacher feels like my rating was low. And perhaps this is accurate. I didn’t feel great about the interview. I tend to be able to talk very well when I have something to say. However, I suck at creating sentences out of thin air, just to say something. I think that is just my personality and the way my mind works. For example, in class, when we are reviewing grammar and my teacher asks me to make up a sentence using this newly-learned rule, I find this damn near impossible to do on the fly. I have to think about it very methodically for way too long, and no one wants to wait for that. But if later I am talking and suddenly have a usage for this new grammar rule, I can put it into play.

Anyways, the Peace Corps has reorganized all of the classes, so I am no longer with the same professor. This is very sad. My new professor is actually the one who gave me the low rating. Boo. I don’t know what more I can do. I have been taking the language classes, making tons of flashcards with new vocabulary, and reading Beninese (French) books. Plus I will actually stop studying French and start a local language on the 30^th. I would be excited about this, but I’m mad that my French is not progressing like I want. Oh well. I guess I will just have to keep working at it!

Also, it is hard for me to make friends. I feel like this is way too big of a group for me. I do better in somewhat smaller groups, where everyone is forced to hang out with me, until they realize that I really am an awesome person to be around, and can’t imagine NOT wanting to hang out with me. But in this large group, everyone sections off, and I sit in my corner and read, which isn’t helping. On the other hand, I remember commenting that I wanted to avoid the only-friends-with-Americans trap, because if I only associate with other Americans, why bother leaving the States? For now, however, it is hard to meet Beninese people, because I just have classes all day with these Americans, which leaves very little time for socializing with Beninese, besides of course, my wonderful family.

I did get the urge to do something about this today. After class, I rode over to the Ecole Normale, where we sometimes have class. I thought that maybe I could just meet some students there, at least talk to them or something. I have done that before. When we’ve actually had class there, students will sometimes come up to us and strike up a conversation. Unfortunately, the school seemed closed off, I think because they are in the time of exams now or something. So instead I went home. When I go there, the little boy with whom I played cards in an earlier blog entry, was there. He was playing with this tiny plastic ball (about the size of my fist). It was all bent in, but we ended up throwing it around. He can throw with some accuracy, but can’t catch the ball even if I threw it right to his hands. After a little bit of toss, he just started kicking it to me. I guess football (you probably call it soccer) is a more popular sport here; and no one really plays baseball or American football.

After we had been playing for a bit, some other neighborhood kids saw me, yelled, “YOVO!” then started singing a song that is popular in Benin. It goes: “Yovo, Yovo bonsoir! Ca va bien? Merci.” This literally means: “White person, white person, good evening! Are you well? Thank you!” My professor informed us that this song stems from the historic reality that white people, typically missionaries and priests, would give little gifts to the children, so they are greeting and thanking you all in one song. It follows us volunteers everywhere we go. We only have to listen for this song to know that our friend is approaching.

While singing this song the kids ran over. I then tried to include them in this game, being the democratic and fair person that I am. I asked if everyone wanted to play, then told them to get in a circle. They didn’t understand at all (I don’t think many of them have started going to school where they would actually learn French). So then the game turned into “watch the yovo play catch with one kid, and pick up the ball for her every time it’s overthrown.” I played this awkwardly for a little bit, while adult Beninese people walked by looking at me like I was crazy for playing ball with these random gaggle of kids in the middle of the street. Finally I was like, “umm…I have to do study…”

Oh, and another bizarre thing that happened in this game was when a motorcycle drove by. I moved to the side and said to the kid “Doucement!” which is a French word that the Beninese people use as a catch-all phrase meaning anything from, “Watch/Look out,” “Pay attention,” “Be careful,” and “Excuse me [for running into you].” (Sidenote, that last one is annoying. “doucement” literally means, “softly” so I don’t understand why a Beninese person is telling ME to be careful if they were the one that ran into me. But whatever). ANYWAY, after I said this to the kid, and kind of waved him to the side, the motorcycle driver was like, “No, continue to play!” This contradicts everything I was taught as a child, haha. You are always supposed to stop your game when a car drives by. Maybe we are just too safe in America, haha.

Now I want to bring up something that I’ve just been thinking about lately. I don’t want anyone to start worrying (GRANDMA), but here goes. If you have googled anything like, “peace corps, west Africa” lately, or just seen in the news, you might know that there was a slight incident in Ghana last week. Two Saturdays ago, someone tried to rob two volunteers there. One volunteer fought back, with a knife, and fatally wounded one of the robbers. The news then reported that this person had been arrested; however, one of my Peace Corps leaders said that he or she had only been questioned, not actually arrested. And furthermore, there were reports that the inhabitants of the town were not entirely upset about all this; supposedly the person who tried to mug the volunteers was a trouble-maker anyway.

The point of bringing this story up, however, is to share a discussion I had with my cousin regarding this incident. When I first heard reports that the person had been arrested, I was a little freaked out. Here was someone, who was just reacting in a way that is entirely reasonable in our culture. Yet they might have to face trial in an unfamiliar justice system, and so on. The American Embassy doesn’t help you if you’re being charged with a crime under that country’s laws. The Peace Corps mentions this specifically in the instance of drug possession/use; they WILL NOT help you out if you get entangled in that business. Luckily I don’t intend on using/possessing drugs, killing anyone, or really breaking any laws, so I think I’m good J.

So anyway, as I was freaking out, I mentioned the story to my cousin, half expecting him to have a similar reaction to mine, aka “What? Why would they arrest someone for self-defense?”

Instead his response was, “Yeah, that volunteer killed someone!”

Shocked, I said, “But the person was trying to mug them!”

My cousin looked at me weird, and replied, “Well, that doesn’t give anyone the right to kill that person!!!”

We ended up going back and forth in this argument. I argued that this clearly was a struggle of sorts (the robber/mugger had to be close enough to kill with a knife), and perhaps the volunteer really felt their life was in danger as well. My cousin continued to argue that, regardless, you shouldn’t be allowed to kill someone. You can fight back and stop them, but not to the point of ending their life. So this really got me thinking. In America we hold very dear our self-defense laws, our gun laws, and—perhaps most importantly for this situation—our property rights. In some states you can shoot someone for the minor infraction of daring to step foot on your land. So we might not see anything morally wrong with fighting a robber and ultimately killing them. But to my cousin, that reasoning made as much sense as perhaps “honor killings” make to us in America. Was the volunteer wrong? If it was just a point-blank mugging? Is your iPod or the whole $20 you are carrying really worth someone’s life? I know, I know, iPods are expensive. And sometimes I carry my computer, which not only is expensive, but also holds my life inside. If there’s a house fire (in the States), hands down, I’m running into the flames to save two things: my dog and my computer (assuming, of course, that my family has already made it out themselves). So I understand the urge; the attachment we Americans have to “stuff”. I’m not immune. But I have been told repeatedly, “Get yourself to safety; don’t risk your life for your stuff.” It’s not worth my life. But is it worth the life of someone else? Even if they were perhaps in the wrong for trying to rob you in the first place? Just something to think about.

Friday, 27 July 2012

Okay, well the grand announcement of today is that I know where I will be living for the next two years. It is Kérou! Now I know all of you know exactly where this is, but just in case, I’ll tell you. It’s in the North of Benin. Other than that I really don’t know much. Hopefully at the time I finally post this, I will finally be able to google and find out more. I’m not even sure if this is a place big enough to have anything on the Google. But then again, EVERYTHING is on the Google.

I know that as Peace Corps volunteer, my assignment is supposed to be in a small village/town and under trying conditions. But then again, so many people I talked to kept promising me that as a Community Economic Development volunteer, I would live in (relative) luxury. So I kind of got my hopes up. I even asked to be placed in a very large town in Benin. Honestly, my reasoning was that I would occasionally love to be able to go a nightclub, and I want to live without constant scrutiny of my personal life. I don’t think this is possible in a small town, especially in Africa, which has a very communal (rather than individualistic) perspective.

And like I said, I really know very little about the place where I will be. One paper that I received about it said that 50,000 people live in the county in which this town is located. Another paper said 80,000. One said that only about 1,000 people live in “urban centers” within this county. But as I talked to some of the instructors, some of them insisted that there might be at least 10,000 inhabitants. So who knows? I guess I will find out in a week when I go to visit the town.

So anyway, I am kind of disappointed, because I feel the boredom setting in already. And I have it very set in my mind that I like large cities. However, if nothing else, the past few years have taught me that LIFE knows better than I do. If things had gone as I wanted them to at the time, I would be sitting in some cold city in America, slaving away for my doctorate. But instead, I spent an absolutely fabulous time in Oklahoma (who would have thought that possible?) and I met the most incredible group of people ever, while I was taking courses for my masters. And now I have the chance to spend two years in West Africa, only taking on as much responsibility as I want, and with the opportunity to perhaps make a difference in the lives.

So to some (possible small, possibly mid-sized) town in Benin I will go. And, quite like the little town of Stillwater, OK, I think it will be a better experience than I can possibly imagine right now. I also will be stationed there with another volunteer, Maria. She is from Puerto Rico but went to school at Tulane, in LA. I have a feeling we will become close over the next two years by necessity. And although I originally said that I was looking forward to being on my own, i.e. not around other Americans, perhaps this is for the better. As I mentioned earlier, I tend to benefit from having a strong other personality in my life. We will be working in different jobs (she is in the Rural Community Health), but we will be able to go out and discover the little (or mid-sized) town together.

So the North of Benin is supposed to be absolutely beautiful. It has mountains and waterfalls, and I will be near-ish to Pendjari National Park. Often visitors go to this park to see the landscape as well as the wildlife, such as elephants, hippos, buffalo, warthogs, cheetahs, lions, etc. It can get really hot, aka 120 degrees or so. It can also get comparatively “cold” (all the way down to 50-ish!). I’m sure I will complain about and love both extremes. At least the north will not be humid. Although I am used to humidity, being from the east coast and all. And it will have far less mosquitos (yay!) My town is partly Muslim, and somewhat Christian, so I am looking forward to Tabaski which will happen maybe a few weeks or so after I arrive. People may be more conservative when it comes to dress lengths, for example. But more accepting of body piercings. People in the North are also supposed to be way more relaxed and friendly. I guess kind of like the stereotype that the South has in the US. Well, that’s what I’ve heard at least. Again, I really don’t know much and will have to let you know.

Anyway, feel free to google Kerou. And maybe even tell me what you find. I will depart for there August 5, and spend 2 weeks before returning to Porto Novo. I’m not sure about the whole internet situation, so don’t be surprised if I don’t write for a while after I depart.

P.S. something else is that I had said in my interview that I was willing to bike around. I should have clarified this with, "In FLAT cities. That aren't 120 degrees." But it for my assignment I will be spending some of my time working in a city about 10 km away from my post, and I will have to bike there. Looks like someone is going to be uber-in-shape upon my return to the US. Also, some people have been talking about organizing hiking expeditions, which will be fun.

Can Somebody Please Explain Things to Me?

Friday, 20 July 2012

OKAY. So today I had a big breakthrough with my family. I came home and my mom was cooking things for dinner. Then she had my cousin Sasha come over and try some of what she was making. Then Sasha starts explaining to me that my mom can’t eat anything right now, so he has to try it for her. The reason she can’t eat anything is that it’s the first day of Ramadan, and it was still daytime. I was just looking at him, dumbfounded, and he thought I didn’t understand what Ramadan was. But in my head I’m thinking, “WHAT? My Maman is Muslim?” This explains so many things, yet again creates so many more questions.

So knowing that she is Muslim, means the whole this-might-be-a-polygamous-family thing makes more sense. And quite honestly, my Papa makes a lot more sense with some of the things he said and in his boubou, among other things. Okay, I probably have to explain that last one. In Senegal, the main type of clothes that you see there on men our “boubous” which basically look like fancy pajamas. There are loose-fitting, straight pants. Then the shirt is also very loose, the sleeves are always long. The shirt can be any length from mid-thigh-, to knee-, to ankle-length. You’ve probably seen these or something similar on men from other Muslim and/or Arab countries. This contrasts with the typical Beninese male attire, which is called a “boumba” and ALSO looks like fancy pajamas, but there are subtle differences. Mostly that the shirt of a boumba is usually short-sleeved and also is a lot short in length: it usually only reaches to the upper thigh. These clothing differences have led to the Beninese joke my teacher shared with us, which was, “Where can you go to find a shirt that is longer than the pants? A Mosque! Ha ha ha.”

Anyway, so my family is Muslim. I have no idea why I didn’t know this before. But honestly, there really wasn’t anything that might have tipped me off to this. There’s no Arabic writing or Muslim decorations around the house. I have never seen my mom pray. It is entirely possible that I would miss this, because the first prayer would be early in the morning, possibly before I got up, some of them during the day, while I am at school. But I feel like there should be one in the evening too. Plus she’s never really mentioned anything about Islam. Also, I remember sharing a story from one of my first days, which involved a bottle of wine. Thinking about it now, I couldn’t swear that my mom was drinking, but I guess at that time I assumed that she was. Perhaps not. Or perhaps she just isn’t that devout of a Muslim. Also, I know for sure that my sister drinks, but I am not aware of whether she will be fasting for Ramadan or not. Although it seemed in Senegal (though this may be more due to the high percentage of Muslims in Senegal), even those who weren’t very devout as Muslims, still fasted for Ramadan.

Furthermore, I still stand by my assessment that the family of my Maman is Christian. I mean, I did go to a confirmation of one of my cousins. And from some of the conversations, I got that vibe. Plus I think my cousin is Christian; it is only my Maman and brother who are fasting. So this would mean that my Maman probably converted to Islam, quite possibly due to her love for her husband. Which again, doesn’t make sense, because in my experience, I’ve found that people who have converted to a religion to be a lot more faithful in upholding its tenants then sometimes those who were simply born into it. If you make the conscious decision to convert or adopt a religion, then wouldn’t it follow that you would be more inclined to want to actually live it every day then someone who just happens to have parents of that religion, but may not really believe or care?

Anyway, so now I have tons more questions, but it’s not like I can really ask them. For example, “So I got the vibe from your family that they are Christian, but you are fasting for Ramadan. So did you convert because you fell in love with a Muslim? And by the way, are you one of five wives (or less)?” Yes, that’s not awkward at all.

I don’t mind living in a Muslim household, obviously. However, Ramadan is kind of a downer, since it’s basically a restrictment of eating during the daytime and fun all the time. Not like I’ve been doing much in the way of going out, etc. But this means that there is less of a chance of attending any celebrations, etc. Then again, if my mom’s family is Christian, maybe there are still events that will go on. However, for two weeks of Ramadan, I will be away from Porto Novo and it looks like I will return just in time for Korité, the end of Ramadan (that, of course, depends on the moon!). So I am glad I will be able to celebrate that with my family, which will be fun!

Okay, so that was my confusion of the day.

Now: a quick story about the continual hilarious-ness of my professor. He usually lives in Cotonou, but is currently just renting a house from a friend of his in Porto Novo. Anyway, there are chickens that live in this yard (Sidenote: one of them is missing one of his feet and part of his leg, so it limps around the yard on a little stub, which is such a bizarre thing to see). Today, one of the chickens had come up to the porch, and was looking into the door of my professor. So I said, “André! The chicken will go into your house!” My professor just looks over and goes, “It’s okay. I will hit him. I will eat him.” The chicken chose this exact moment to turn and run away, back out into the yard. The other student and I lost it at this point. We couldn’t stop laughing. And laughing. My prof just has this smile he always does, like an ornery boy. I think he was kind of thinking something like, “Okay, it wasn’t that funny,” but he was also definitely happy we were laughing at his joke.

Sunday, 22 July 2012

So Sasha confirmed most of my assumptions. Yes, Maman converted to Islam because she married a Muslim. But she just isn’t that devout of a practitioner. And yes, my “papa” has mulitiple wives. I’m not sure how many. I remember when my “Papa” drove up, my Maman was so happy, I think to see him, and also to show him off to me, etc. I am really curious about this whole situation. Was my Maman his first wife? Am I wrong to assume that he’s living with a younger wife now? How okay is Maman with this whole set-up? I kind of felt bad for my Maman, because she exuded such excitement and love when he was here, but he didn’t stick around. I think if I were, for some reason, involved in a polygamous relationship, I would want to be the one he lived with, the one he always came back to. But I guess that is the opposite of the whole point of polygamy; that the man doesn’t have to belong to anyone woman; he can flit among them. He clearly provides for his wife and kids; I just don’t think my Maman is getting the proper amount of love. But then again, I know very little about the whole relationship, having only been exposed to it for a total of perhaps 2 minutes. I’m sure there exists far more layers. I am kind of reminded about Song Long A Letter, which is a Senegalese novel. It talks about two Senegalese female friends, who married Muslim men, but with the promise that the men would not marry a second wife. Both men ultimately break this promise, but the women react differently. One just up and leaves, while the other one stays married to her husband. The book is somewhat a metaphor for the broken promises of the new (at that time) generation of African politicians, but it also just explores the dynamics of marriage and polygamy.

Anyway, moving on with my activities here. Saturday I had a Language Proficiency Interview. Each person is required to reach the level of Intermediate-High in order to swear-in to the Peace Corps. I was already at this level when I came here, but I am interested to see how I have progressed. I actually kind of feel like I am at a plateau right now. I already know all the grammar rules, but it’s hard to just put them into play without considerable thought. My class involves a lot of review and repetition of these rules plus just general conversation, which is helpful. I know, I really shouldn’t be complaining, because there are plenty of people here who are just beginning in French, and probably can’t communicate anywhere near the level that I can. And I really do admire their ability to function in Benin. But still. I feel frustrated that I don’t feel like I’ve made a significant improvement. But this happens with every language-learning experience: there will be plateaus, then hopefully I will come to a time where my skills increase exponentially for a bit.

Also, we went to historical museum in the afternoon. As a former history major, I found it absolutely fascinating. It was basically just the palace of the kind of Porto-Novo. One kid mentioned to me that it was “a joke” but I reminded him that oftentimes, African countries don’t have much in the way of preserved history. Before the arrival of the Europeans, all history was oral, so there weren’t many written records. Senegal is lucky to have Muslim royal courts, which meant that history began to be written down, and there was some written communication, especially as the Europeans became more frequent. Also, France was far more interested in Senegal than many of its other West African countries. There has been a lot written about Senegal, and there was a lot more French involvement, and so on. When I was researching Benin, it was hard to find anything predating Europeans. Even Dahomey was a kingdom that grew up largely as a result of the slave trade, so it is somewhat recent as well. I would be really interested to see if there were any resources to learn about pre-Europoean-involvement history in Benin.

Anyway, we walked around the palace, and our guide told us about it in French. The other student in my class and I tended to translate what was said for the rest of the volunteers who may not understand perfectly. Overall, we learned that the king tended to have many wives and servants, all of who could be beheaded at any moment, for any infraction. There was a lot of evidence of voodoo beliefs. One was just a cabinet having various gris-gris items. Gris-gris is a French word for a charm or amulet, and is something I encountered in Senegal. Senegalese don’t practice voodoo, per se, but there are animist beliefs present there. So someone (even a Muslim or Christian) might where a “gris-gris” around their neck to protect from spirits. Here the word “gris-gris” was also used just for various ingredients that went into voodoo practices. I’m not sure if this was an incorrect use of the word, or if “gris-gris” has a different meaning in Benin. We learned that in one of the ceremonies for the ancestors, only two types of women were allowed to lead this: virgins and women who had already gone through menopause. The reasoning was that both of these women are “pure”. However, this seems a little shaky. There was something about how periods and sex interfere with your ability to perform religious ceremonies. But to my knowledge, virgins still can have periods, and women who have gone through menopause can still have sex. (Probably even more so, since they don’t have to worry about the inconvenience of getting preggars.) But I digress.

There was also a divining apparatus, which supposedly determines whether food has been poisoned. If it gave the signal indicating poison, the kitchen staff would be immediately beheaded. Also, there was a chain lying across one of the openings in the palace. In theory, if one of the king’s wives had been going out with another man, when she walked across this, she would immediately begin bleeding. Then the king would know of her infidelity and behead her as well. While being a queen could be good, especially if you were close to the king and could make requests, but it seemed very much filled with peril, with the possibility of beheading at any moment. Oh, and also when the king died, some of his wives were buried with him. Alive. Yikes!

One of the more amusing-but-precarious tidbits, was that the king would sometimes play games with others. But the rule was that the king always won. If you won, the king could do you a favor and behead you right then, or put you in prison—possibly have you do hard labor—for two weeks, let you think about what you’ve done, and THEN kill you.

We found it odd that many of the door were quite small. We had to dip to go through them. This, however, was explained to us as being on purpose. There were two sets of doors. Large, or rather normal-sized doors for the king. Then the smaller doors for everyone else, which would require you to bow in reverence to him.

For another random cultural thing, I shall tell you the story of the canon. There was a canon that was just sitting in the middle of the kitchen area.

So we volunteers asked: “Why is there a canon here?”

Guide: “The French gave it to the king, for battle.”

Volunteers: “Okay, but why is it in the kitchen?”

Guide: “It’s really heavy. We don’t feel like moving it.”

C’est Ça, l’Afrique.

Saturday was a busy day. After the museum, we were split up in to groups, to go to someone’s house and learn how to cook with Beninese ingredients. I was really excited for this, and was not at all disappointed. First of all, I watched the Maman of the house gut fish (a crucial thing to know, btw). It was kind of gross, but obviously necessary. In Benin, fish don’t normally come in boneless filets. This, has unfortunately led to me swallowing a few too many fish bones, but I just haven’t mastered the art of picking out all the bones. But I am getting better! Anyway, we also made “pate rouge,” which is a pretty typical Beninese dish. “Pate” is a grain product that has a consistency of somewhere between pudding and bread. It “pate blanc” is made from corn-flour, and is pretty much tasteless. “Pate rouge” is basically pate blanc with tomato paste, and possibly tomatoes, onions, or even other veggies added in. It is pretty good. “Pate noir” is the best, but of course more expensive. It is made from the flour of yams (or sometimes even plantains, etc). Another Beninese food is a type of fried “cheese” although I don’t actually believe that its cheese. It’s supposedly made here, and always, always fried. To me, however, it tastes like and has the texture of rubber. If I want cheese I will eat “La vache qui rit” (aka The Laughing Cow) every day. (Thank you, France, for spreading this delicious cheese around the world. Thank you also for spreading baguettes around the world, especially since your former colonies actually tend to make baguettes better than you yourself do.)

My favorite thing that we made, however, was “sauce legume”, which literally means “vegetable sauce”. Specifically in Benin, it means a sauce made with bitterroot leaves (I think. I’m not the greatest at identifying plants, the first time I ate sauce legume, I thought it was spinach, but this was clearly wrong. The sauce is made with ground-up sesame leaves, then there are various seasoning added. This host maman used a blend of garlic/pepper/ginger for a lot of the dishes. For the sauce legume, she also added hot peppers, bouillon, and of course salt.

The fish were covered in the garlic/pepper/ginger sauce, then deep fried. Then the “cheese” was fried. Then we were ready to eat. Everything was so delicious! (minus the “cheese”, because I didn’t even bother with it). Although I think my mouth hates all of the hot things I am eating here. I have been trying to prep for this since even before I went to Senegal, by putting Sriracha sauce on pretty much everything I eat in the US. However, I keep getting ulcers here. But I eat through the pain. In my kitchen, there are just tons and tons of little tiny green peppers. My maman will put these in everything that she cooks, or grind them up into a hot sauce. So good!

I don’t know if I will be able to replicate this at all. The cooking, even of the pate, went along the way of “a handful here, a pinch there.” However, the Peace Corps has provided us with a nice cookbook, to which I can refer. But now at least I’ve seen different things actually be prepared, so I know what they should look like when I’m doing it.

Today, Sunday, I went to the pool in Cotonou with my host cousin, Sasha. It was kind of haphazard getting there. The “taxis” which are basically old 15-passenger-vans, start at a stop not far from my house, then continue down the road, honking at people, then stopping for everyone that hails them. Two guys are hanging out of the van, one on the side, and one at the back. Then are just yelling at people, yelling to each other; it’s chaos. At one point, I’m pretty sure they got in a fight with some other people. I think it was a fight over turf. Possibly, the other people in a fight were also taxi-drivers, who didn’t like them stopping for passengers right there, and physically tried to close the doors, and so on. Anyway, I didn’t really understand, obviously, this fight was in some local language. But it was kind of amusing.

Along the way to Cotonou, we were stopped at a roadblock. And even though our driver presented the police with proper documentation (I assume), he still had to bribe them. With 500cfa, which is equivalent to about $1. In some ways, I wish this could happen in the US, i.e. “How fast was I going? Well, officer, George Washington here says I definitely wasn’t speeding, and he never told a lie.” Ultimately, however, its annoying that the police tend to abuse their power to extort money from motorists, no matter how small the amount is (at least to me).

It was overcast, so it wasn’t ideal pool-weather, but it was still really fun. We were in a somewhat upscale hotel, which charges the equivalent of $8/day to use the pool. There was a family there, two sisters (and the older one’s kid) and a younger brother. Sasha knows them, he says he met them over some sort of Blackberry-meet-up app, which I didn’t realize as even a thing in Benin. I swam some laps. Then I started doing hand-stands, which the younger brother tried to imitate. I also raced against this brother (and won). Mostly I just floated around or swam underwater.

Up a flight of stairs from the pool, there was a terrace that overlooked the river or part of the lake, which ran into the ocean. I could see the beach from there. Although, the beaches in Cotonou are not a safe place to be, nor is the ocean there a safe place to swim. So I will have to be content simply with that view. I was standing there, in my bathing suit, towel around my waist, when I suddenly realized that there were guys in pirogues on the water. I had seen them there, but I didn’t think about how inappropriate I was, standing there in a bikini. Sometimes it’s easy to be in those hotels and forget that Africa exists right outside the walls. I suppose this would be true for closed ex-pat communities, etc, which I am told exist here as well.

For lunch, we ordered from the hotel. It was crazy expensive. But that I mean the cheapest things was $4. This is ridiculous, compared to the typical 40-cent meal I get on the streets of Porto Novo. I tried just to get a sandwich ($4), but the Sasha’s friend, was like, “No, why don’t you try this one,” and ordered something that actually cost $12. I kind of apologized to Sasha later, because he was the one that paid (In Benin, the rule is that if you are the one that invites someone to eat out or for drinks, you are the one that pays). He said tthat when I am with him, I shouldn’t look at the prices, just order what I want, but I told him that I was just that kind of person. He called it “une personne econome” which sounds better than “cheap”, haha! But the meal was well worth-it. I got a nice fish filet, WITH NO BONES, and a delicious alfredo-esque sauce with mushrooms. Delicious. What a luxurious day.

On the way back, we took an actual car as our taxi, which is apparently faster, but more expensive. It was kind of terrifying, because the shoved two people in the front seat. One person just had to sit kind of on the console, but of course out of the way of the stickshift. Oh, and the dash on the front, behind the steering wheel didn’t actually work at all. How fast are we going? Who knows? Are we overheating? I don’t believe so. Are we out of gas? Hopefully not. C’est Ça, l’Afrique.

Anyway, this made me think of a subject that came up not in my class, but in the class of friends of mine last semester. It was if it was okay to pay poorer countries to send our trash there. To the minds of people thinking straight business, this seems brilliant. We get the trash out of our country, and poorer countries get to make money simply by existing. But for those of us liberal hippies that were my friends, this sounds like a horrible idea. Okay, let’s ignore the problem that we have with throwing away way too much, without thinking about the real consequences. Let’s just pollute the earth of a desperate country. Yes, that sounds humanitarian and sustainable all around. But I think in class the other day, my teacher was saying that while this practice is generally rejected outright (though still happens), in reality it happens all the time. Africa (and other developing regions) receive many of our old things as “donations”. For example, France sends a bunch of its old Peugots to the people of Benin. Then when it breaks down completely after a year or so, it ends up becoming the trash in Benin anyway. It’s not like the Beninese get to ship it BACK to France. Anyway, just and interesting perspective.

Please Excuse My Thighs

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

I would like to repeat how much I love my French teacher. He just does bizarre things, always with a smile, and it always enhances my day. He constantly feeds the other student and I. I guess he wants us to experience Beninese food. And its not like things are that expensive. Usually about 20 cents for little snacks like a coconut, Fan milk (basically frozen vanilla-flavored milk that people keep in coolers-on-wheels and walk around neighborhoods selling while blowing little hand-held-horns), a fried-dough-thing, a pineapple, or bananas, and so on. Be also hacked into wi-fi near his house, so now when we have class there we can use the (very slow) connection. And the other student and I decided that we should read the news in the morning, and talk about it in French. He also made us lunch the other day, which was awesome. He is a good teacher, and develops good, solid grammar lessons. Then sometimes we just talk in French and build our vocabulary. Our professor is curious about the goings-on in the States. He constantly asks about things that he’s heard in American-related news, i.e. “So there is that guy Romney. Tell me about Mormonism, what is that?” or “So I heard someone say that the health-insurance reform is socialism. Do you think that is true?” (NO!) Then sometimes his questions are completely random. For example, we were practicing the conditional tense, which is when you say “I would…” So he was asking us questions like, “If you had a million dollars…” One of the questions though, probably pulled from an old textbook, was as follows:  “You are a cowboy. And you come across some “red-skins” (literally, the word was ‘peaus rouges’). All you have is your Winchester and your horse. What do you do?” The other student and I just laughed so much. It was such a random question.

Otherwise, I continue the adaption to Beninese way of life, trying to figure out a system for life over the next few years. Showering, for example, is something I need to work out. Even in the states, where there is hot water aplenty, I hate showers. They are annoying and a waste of time. Sometimes it takes me so much effort to convince myself that they’re really necessary, especially in the morning when I want to sleep, etc. This is even harder in Benin, because of course my showers are all cold bucket showers. So my current strategy is to work out in my room as soon as I get home (I brought some workout-cds burned onto my computer). I am already hot and sweaty from biking home, so it’s a perfect time to work out. Plus when I am all hot from exercising, the cold shower feels refreshing rather than miserable. Although sometimes I really don’t feel like working out after a long day. I don’t think this is ever something I will truly get used to.

Also, another issue I am encountering is the problem in the combination of dresses, bicycles, and a culture that demands you not show your thighs. Currently in Porto Novo, there are white ladies everywhere flashing their sexy legs helter-skelter around the city as we try to get around on our bikes. I don’t know how to solve this. This is something that I at least have some practice with; as I happen to really enjoy wearing skirts/dresses and I biked a lot to and from classes. In fact, skirts and bikes are a really common combination in Charleston, that’s just the way things are. In the States, I mostly dealt with the whole I-might-be-flashing-people issue by not actually caring. Also wearing tighter skirts that didn’t always blow everywhere. Plus showing your thighs aren’t really a problem, I was just worried about my skirt riding/blowing up and revealing everything. But here, just showing thighs is a cultural faux pas. Although I feel like people do understand that you’re not trying to be provocative; you just want to get where you are going. On the other hand, repeatedly flashing parts that are supposed to be covered just isn’t a good thing, regardless of the situation.

So what to do? I have this image of 50s-era girls, wearing poodle skirt, biking to their hearts content, and not flashing anyone. Did that work? Is that just in the movies? Was there something special about 50s skirts that made them bike-friendly? I don’t get it. My impromptu solution was tying a string on the middle pole of my bike, then taking a binder clip to fasten the middle part of my skirt. This worked for a little bit, until the binder clip came loose. Is there something else that exists that would grip my skirt better? If you know this item, can you let me know? Or better yet, send it to me?? thanks… Gah, anyway, that is my biggest problem right now. At least I have some more time to master the art of riding a bike with a skirt. I’ll let you know how I progress.

In other news, I’m learning more every day about survival in Benin. I think it is very good that they are training us to be independent (this is obviously necessary). For example, I believe I was talking the other day about the lesson on repairing flat bike tires and other bike upkeep. We also have learned how to clean our veggies and fruits (they have to be bleached in order to kill all the bacteria/viruses that may be on them). Soon we will have a class on cooking using ingredients found in Benin. I know that I still have a lot to learn. On the other hand, however, I am really excited for life on my own. I love my family, and I enjoy having my meals cooked for me. On the other hand, I also enjoy my independence. I enjoy being able to cook exactly what I want. To eat precisely when I want. I am also looking forward to being able to do things in the privacy of my own house, without having to worry about whether my family is watching/judging. For example, I want to be able to go to the shower after exercising in my room without having to worried if I’m covered up enough (which I’m not, as I’m only wearing shorts and a sports bra). Furthermore, since it’s considered really inappropriate to give your undergarments to who ever is washing your clothes (because its all hand-washing, that would be foul), I usually just wash them in the shower. So it’s this obnoxious long process for the shower, then I have to hang my ‘delicates’ up in secret in my room. I long for the day when I can walk around my own house in whatever I want, wash and hang my clothes anywhere, and so on. I also hate having to ask my family to turn on the water, so I can boil some for my filter. Furthermore, when I am on my own I can “treat” myself every once in a while to a HOT [bucket] shower!!! (Oh what bliss!). Also, I want to be able to fix my bike, etc with out my host cousin laughing at me. The other day we got a headlamp from the Peace Corps (which btw is one of the greatest things ever. Especially when you have low lighting in your room and want to read or study, etc. Anyway, so I have this headlamp on, am working on affixing the new lights we just got for our bikes onto my bike. My host cousin walks in my room, sees me, then just starts laughing. He’s laughing so much that he can’t talk, and just walks back down the hall. I hear him laughing the whole way. Whatever. I’m just trying to get my bike a-working, even if it does make me look like a weird yovo.

I just want to be able to do things on my own, at my own pace, and in my own time. Probably once I have this freedom, I’ll be thinking, “Oh wouldn’t it be nice if someone would just cook dinner for me!” But then again, I can probably go out and get a dinner for 30 cents if I wanted. So this training period is a necessary process, which is good in many ways, but I really do long for freedom.

Thursday, 19 July 2012

So I finally met my “papa” that I’ve heard a little about. I was just in my room, and my Maman called me outside. And in this nice car, with tinted windows sits a man in a white boubou. My Maman says, “This is your papa.” Then he proceeds to ask me questions like where I’m from, how long I’m going to be in Benin, etc. He talked about how he knows Maryland, he’s been to Washington DC, to Atlanta, to Philadelphia, and so on, basically naming every major city on the East Coast. I think he mentioned something about how he was going to Philadelphia to buy a car. Then he said something like, “ This is my wife. This is my house. You are living in my house. I have lots of houses.” And apparently he typically lives in a house in Cotonou, which is closer to his work. Then he just says goodbye and drives off in his nice car. This is by far the weirdest experience I’ve had so far. And really all it did was answer absolutely NO questions, and create so many more. Not that I can ask them. Like, “So are you involved in a polygamous family?” That is what I really want to know. When papa says, “I have lots of houses,” does that mean he has lots of wives too? Or maybe he just travels a lot for work. Also, what is this work that he does? How is he balling out with his car (and possibly loads of wives)? I really want to know. But again, how do you ask that? Am I jumping to conclusions just because its Africa and of course everyone has multiple wives (obviously not true, but sometimes it’s a sterotype). WHY DOES NO ONE EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO ME?????

Moving on, tonight I played cards with a little boy, who I think is my neighbor or something. Or something about he belongs to the woman he is doing my Maman’s hair? Anyway, communication is clearly not the strong point in the relationship I have with my host family. I have no idea what’s going on. Anyways, the boy is absolutely adorable, I briefly considered kidnapping him (joke). Sidenote, he was here when I first got home, and my host mom joked, “Here is my husband!” Apparently that’s a common joke, “Haha, this young child is my husband/wife.” I guess that kind of happens in America, you can say, “Yeah he’s my [little] man,” kind of conveying that same idea. But regardless, I didn’t get the joke, and once you don’t get a joke, and it has to be repeated/explained, and then it’s no longer funny. It’s kind of like sometimes someone here will ask me, “You’ve returned?” Then my response is, “No, I haven’t returned” (sarcasm, because, duh I’m standing right here, implying that I have indeed returned). Then they just get really confused, and think that maybe I just didn’t understand what they were saying. Jokes just simply don’t translate, rather it’s across languages and/or cultures.

Anyway, first we played “war”, which is the most boring game ever, but at least it is really simple, and doesn’t take much explaining. I wasn’t sure if the boy understood numbers. He knows how to write numbers, as I discovered later, but I don’t know about knowing which ones are higher/lower. At what age do you learn that? I don’t know. So we played that for a while, then drew pictures for a bit, then went back to cards. This time we played his game. Let me just tell you that its really hard to play a card game when you have no idea what the rules are or what the object is. The little boy seemed kind of shy. I’m not sure how much French he speaks, although he seemed to understand what I was saying. But I kept asking, “what should I do now?” and he wouldn’t say anything. So in the end, it just ended up with me putting down cards haphazardly and him telling me what happened with them. I still don’t understand it. Oh well.

And for your entertainment, here is a poster for some "Obama Beer". Yes it's a real thing. I can really drink an Obama. Si se puede!!!

Africa is Dangerous; a.k.a. my Mosquito Net is Trying to Kill Me

In light of my recent entries, I decided to start with something lighter, and luckily I, in my brilliance, provided a perfect story Saturday morning to share with you.

Firstly, I must explain that the bed-frame in my room actually is a double (which my family has provided); however the Peace Corps provides the mattress, which is only a twin. This sucks for me, since I don’t really fit on a twin (yay tallness), but that’s a story for another day. But the point is that the bed-frame extends out from either side of my mattress. Also, as I mentioned before, I am required to sleep under a mosquito every night, so I don’t die from malaria. This net has to be tucked under my mattress, so that little mosquitoes don’t think of trying to come in underneath.

So that is the set-up in which I sleep every night. And Friday night, my cell phone had run out of battery, so I had to charge it. The outlet is kind of far from my bed, so my cell phone was sitting about 3 feet from my bed. So my alarm goes off at 6:30 (yes, we even have to get up early on Saturdays; it’s terrible). I had been sleeping on the edge of my mattress, and it startles me so much that I roll off the mattress, onto the bed-frame. Of course this means that I roll on to the mosquito net as well. Then in my just-awakened-disorientation, I am trying to get out from the net to get to my cell phone, but as I am lying on top of the net, this is pretty impossible. So I struggled with that for a good 30 seconds, while my cell phone is singing its stupid alarm song. Then I finally get myself back up on the mattress, pull the mosquito net from under it, then dip through the opening, almost fall face first on to the floor as a step off the bed, then I finally reached my cell phone to turn the darn thing off. At least I was wide-awake by that point. Well, there you have it: the story of the time my mosquito net almost killed me. I plan on talking to the Peace Corps about the dangers that accompany mosquito nets, so they can weigh this against the benefits of nets, like the whole malaria prevention thing. At least a mosquito has never tried to strangle me J

Ok, now I’ll go back to things that happened earlier in the week (but perhaps just aren’t quite as humorous). At the end of each day, our teacher is supposed to take us “into the community” to have some sort of informative/learning experience. So Wednesday evening, we followed him on our bikes to this area right on the shores of the lake that is between Cotonou and Porto Novo. There was a whole community of people, who are involved with either fishing or sand-gathering. The sand is put into piles and then collected by people who will use it to make cement, or whatever you make with sand, to build houses. Apparently there is actually a whole community that lives in the water (my teacher described it as being kind of like Venice), on stilt houses. There are many pirogues (a type of boat) just sitting along the shore, that I guess people use at various times. We also could see that there was water-hyacinths that have taken over the water here, and our teacher pointed out that this has made it harder for people to navigate the water. We kept getting offers to take us there, but Peace Corps Benin strictly forbids any interaction with water for Trainees, and I think almost all interaction with water for volunteers. This is due to the dirtiness of the water, the roughness of the beaches in Benin, and some past tragic incidents involving water. So we just watched the people there work. Some were bringing sand that had been collected in the pirogues, to the various piles along the shore. And some people were working with fish, separating them in baskets, etc. Some people were leaving in the pirogues, I guess to go out for more fish, or to go back to their water-village.

My teacher said that these were the “autochthons” of this area. Interestingly enough, I just studied the idea of “autochthony” in one of my classes last semester. Basically it is the idea of being tied to the soil; being the absolute original inhabitants of a region. Autochthony can have a lot of political implications and discussions, but here the autochthons have simply moved to the edges of the lake to continue their tradition of fishing and a way of life that revolves around water. This has occurred as large populations of people have moved into the cities of Cotonou and Porto Novo

An incident erupted while we were standing there just observing. A young woman started yelling at an older woman, who was coming in on one of the pirogues. The younger woman climbed onto the pirogue, shouting at her. I didn’t see everything, but what I did see was the older woman grab the younger one’s hair, the slam her face first towards the pirogue. Other women got involved, some even jumped in the water, so they could reach this fighting pair and separate them. The younger woman seemed to want to continue the fight, then a man stood between the two and yelled something at the younger woman for a while, then other people got involved as well. I thought this whole incident was bizarre, and actually kind of hilarious. Our teacher told us we wouldn’t see this in the US, because people would just go to court. Although my fellow student and I joked, saying that this wasn’t entirely true; we had both seen similar fights break out in the United States. Also, have you ever watched a “reality” show? Stuff like that goes down all the time. But our teacher said that this is just how fights are solved in Benin, because no one really goes through legal procedures. He also mentioned, at another time, that people don’t tend to put much stock in the “law”. Typically, when they have a problem, they will immediately begin thinking of the people they know in some sort of government functionary position that can help them. This is true, whether or not the law would be on their side were they to pursue legal options. Obviously, what we saw was very extreme. This doesn’t happen all the time here, but just exemplifies the more informal way of dealing with arguments. Another interesting thing to go along with it though was the way that people got involved. In the US, people might gather in a circle around a fight, but random observers don’t get involved. However, according to a culture-comparison-sheet we received, observers in Benin might feel like they must get involved, to help sort out the argument, etc (like the man here who got up to put in his two cents and more). In the same vein, this sheet also says that people, especially elders, might feel obligated to give you advice, even when you’re not asking for it. To Americans, this is bizarre, because we are constantly told to “keep your nose out of other people’s business.” I haven’t experienced this yet, but hopefully if I do, I can accept it as just part of the culture, that people just want to help, offer their wisdom and advice, etc.

Other than that my days have been pretty regular. I just have a lot of language class, with occasionally cultural classes or group activities. The Peace Corps keeps you pretty busy during this period, so you don’t have much time (or energy) to do much else. At the end of the day Friday, some of us did get together and went to a bar and just chatted for a while about our training experiences so far.

Also today I observed my family’s version of “spanking”. There are two young boys here, one is a younger cousin of mine, and one I think is just his friend, and not actually related. Anyway, apparently, while all the adults were out, they ate all of the sugar cubes that are meant for my coffee. My older (male) cousin, Sasha, and my sister Bijoux were mad at the boys and called them into the family room. They lectured them for a while, then Sasha made them hold out their hands while he smacked them with a thick flip-flop. The younger, non-cousin, looked absolutely terrified, and positively fled when Sasha told him that it was done and to leave. (Also, I feel like that would not at all be allowed in the US, to corporally punish someone who was not actually your child/relative) Personally, I was torn between thinking, “It’s just your hands!” (though of course, I have never had my hands smacked with a flip-flop) and feeling really terrible that the sugar for my coffee had caused all of this drama. Honestly, while the boys definitely knew they weren’t supposed to eat that sugar, I really can’t blame them. Sugar cubes are one of my favorite things about not being in America. It’s sugar! In a cube! How *sweet* is that???

Otherwise, I spent most of the day practicing French, with a few breaks. Mostly I’ve been trying to build my vocabulary. During the week, my teacher reviews grammar, and we have exercises to accompany that. But on my own I just want to expand on everything that I want to be able to say. My vocab comes from class, from things I want to say in everyday life, and from the Beninese novel that I am reading.

My sister, Bijoux, saw me reviewing vocab, and was like, “Oh, are you bored?” Yes, I am kind of bored. (On the other hand, it is important that I practice my French.) She invited me to “se promener” with her friends, which literally means to “take a walk”. However, in Beninese reality, this meant to get on her friend’s moto, go to a baptism or confirmation party, chill there for a while, then go to a bar. Regardless, it was fun.

And here I am going to insert my belief that the Peace Corps manual and training is filled with lies. No, I take that back. Hypothetically, everything I am being told and taught is true for the majority of (rural) Benin. However, my actual experience of living in Porto-Novo teachers me something completely different. Which is why I understand Peace Corps Benin’s effort to move training outside of the capital city, into a more rural area.

But tonight I went to a bar with my host sister. There were people dancing that were showing way too much PDA. Even my American self was thinking, “Get a room!” I think, however, that these specific people were married. So is it more acceptable then? In Benin, we are told that people of the opposite sex don’t hold hands, because then people might think you are doing something illicit. But if you are married, then isn’t it obvious that you are doing some freaky things, so its okay that you hold hands in public? Or is it just these scandalous Porto Novo-ians? I guess it really doesn’t matter, because its not like I’m married anyway, so regardless, that rule wouldn’t apply to me. I’m just curious.

On the other hand, one of the hardest things for me to reconcile, is the blatant male-on-male holding of the hands. Beninese people don’t really consider homosexuality a “preference.” If anything, they think it is something invented by white people, or so I’ve heard. So if someone is caught doing gay or lesbian things, while this is highly offensive for the community, but it isn’t viewed as a way of life, but merely a momentary action of that person. Therefore, homophobia doesn’t really exist, because for the Beninese homosexuality doesn’t “exist.” Thus, it is really common for men, who are friends/business partners, to hold hands while talking to each other, or walking, etc. For me, this is really bizarre, because as an American, I take male-on-male hand-holding as an indication that they are gay. But here, that is [for the most part] untrue. [I am sure that there are actual Beninese gays who are able to hide under the guise of being “just friends” and go along merrily holding each others’ hands.] I’m not sure why I find this the mostly complexing cultural thing to deal with so far. Maybe its because its such a subconscious thing. In America, hand-holding is always a relationship thing. Unless its between a string of girls who are just trying to make their way through a party. Or I guess in general its just more acceptable for girls to hold hands as “just friends.” If straight guys were ever to do that, they would do so in an exaggerated manner, so everyone knows it is a joke. Anyway, that’s just something I’ve been thinking about.

So anyways, back to the bar with my sister. It was really loud, so I couldn’t hear anything. Even in America it is really hard for me to hear when someone is talking in a crowded area, in English. But with the Beninese-accented French? I understand NOTHING. I keep trying to explain that to the guys with us. It’s not exactly that I don’t understand, its just that I can’t hear what your saying. Or the sounds that I do hear don’t string together to make sense in my ear. I’m sorry. PLEASE STOP TALKING TO ME. But they keep on talking to me. So I just smile and say, “Oui!” and hope that they are simply telling me something. And not actually needing a coherent response. Then sometimes they are expecting a response, and “Oui!” doesn’t make sense, and everyone is looking at me like I’m retarded. Oh well. The guys ended up getting me some wine, while they drank their beers. We chilled for a while, then my host sister went up to dance with the guy she was hanging out with. (Boyfriend? I’m not sure. My cultural guide says that in Benin men and women aren’t “just friends” but I also trust nothing that this guide tells me). His older brother, who was the other guy hanging out with us, drug me to the dance floor as well. See! Here I went and danced. 1) Because it was dark-ish. 2) Because the only person I knew there was already dancing, so everyone watching was just strangers. And I don’t care what they think. Those are my rules. When they are followed, I feel fine! Yay me. Yay dancing and having a good time.

That is all.

Politics and Religion

Sorry for the long rant that began my previous entry. I just felt like that it was something that needed to be said. Besides, my blog would be boring if it were simply a list of everything that I’d done. Now you have some commentary too.

But just to go off the theme of the previous entry: I really do hope that you find it incredible that I am here at all. Not just because it’s Africa. Living in primitive conditions is nothing, for me at least. But I remember talking to one of my professors (Dr. Bodek) a few years ago, saying that the idea of Peace Corps, of having to figure out projects to do all on your own (not just simply being given instructions for a task), absolutely terrified me. He told me that I was underestimating myself. So here I am. But when I read something like during our two-week stay at our future posts we are expected to go out, and actually talk to people, such as local leaders, administrators, vendors, and so on, I am scared shitless. I briefly contemplate packing up my bags, going home, and finding a job where I never have to talk to anyone, if such a job existed. But here I remain, and hopefully doing all this will make me a better and stronger person and my perseverance will enable me to help those I meet here and share our cultures and in friendship.

Maybe its my fault for trying to do extroverted-like things; for not giving into my shyness totally. I tend to gravitate towards people who ARE extroverts, like the people I choose to be my close friends in France and Charleston. Their outgoingness affords me many opportunities: they help me meet new people and have experiences I would have never had on my own. Often I am jealous of the ease of which they talk to new people. I wish I had that ability, to meet new people and make friends easily. But I don’t. Most of the time I have to work hard to meet people, unless of course, they are the ones that come up to me. Which is why I highly value my extroverted friends who make the situation easier.

And on the other hand, I know that I must also me sympathetic to situations which extroverts might find trying. For example, it takes me a lot to get bored. I can read or even envision a new story I make up in my head for hours on end. But an extrovert craves and needs human interaction; so I should not be hasty to dismiss the frustrations of volunteers who may be bored and find it hard to entertain themselves during the time they are adjusting to village life.

So that’s all I want to say on that. Now moving on to other things…

Just as a forewarning, this some of this entry (not the very beginning though) has turned into a deep, loaded one. Be prepared. And I hope I still have readers when this is over. I know that it is said to never discuss religion and politics with friends, but I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I am just presenting ideas that I have found here in Benin.

Sunday, 8 July 2012

I didn’t end up going to a nightclub Saturday night. I actually ended up just going to bed because I was really tired. This is so hard, having to get up for class at 8 every morning. I know, every adult reading this is playing their little finger-violin of sympathy. But, fo realz, I just spent a semester with my earliest class at 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s hard adjusting. I asked my prof if we could just have shorter “pose”-s (breaks), but then not begin until 9 O’clock. He was like, “No, the Peace Corps says that’s forbidden!” I jokingly tried to explain to him that what the Peace Corps doesn’t know won’t hurt them, but he wouldn’t buy it. He explained that the main point of the time was to get us accustomed to the typical Beninese workday, which begins at 8 in the morning, and ends at 6:30PM, but has a 2.5 hour break in the middle. I guess that makes sense. Plus it sounds a little better, because you can actually accomplish something, like lunch and a nap with 2.5 hours, rather than these stupid 30-minute breaks. I still hate waking up so early though. Oh well. I guess I’ll get used to it.

So anywhoo, Sunday morning I slept in late even though I also went to bed early. When I got up my Maman said that we were going to her family house. I asked at what hour, then she told me that everyone was just waiting on me. I felt really bad, but then “waiting on you” turned out to mean that she hadn’t even started getting ready, so then I didn’t feel bad at all.

Anyway, there was a grand celebration, I think for the confirmation of one of my younger cousins (who I had never met before. Or maybe I met him once. I’m not sure). He was really cute, dressed in an all-white suit with a red tie. I also I met a lot of uncles, aunts, and cousins. And I am no more certain of who everyone is than I was before. Oh well. But when I first sound down, I was offered delicious food. Then they asked if I wanted some beer. I told them I didn’t really like beer. Then one of my uncles was like, “Do you like whiskey?” All I could say was “Well… yeah!” So I was provided with a substantial amount of whiskey. One uncle joked that with that much I will just fall asleep, but I said that I would “faire la fête”, which means literally to “do the party”, or perhaps one would say, “party it up!” I still have a pretty high tolerance. Although its def been decreasing over these few weeks of not drinking regularly. Which is good, but can also be dangerous if I try to drink as much as I did before. I, however, have no intention of embarrassing myself.

There was one point when we exited the house, and walked down the block a little to what was I guess a continuation of the party, just under a tent. This tent, I noticed, actually came from America (it was originally made for a radio station), and I had a conversation that went as follows:

Me: “This (tent) comes from America!”

Cousin: “What?”

Me: “It says, ‘Home of the Braves’! The Braves are from Atlanta!”

Cousin: “What?”

Me: “The Braves! They are a team from Atlanta!”

Cousin: “What sport?”

Me: “Baseball!!!!”

Cousin: “Oh, no one knows baseball here.”

*awkward silence*

 So anyway, a whole group of women, including my host mom, I think a bunch of her sisters, and other just sat down. And then in the center of the table was placed many bottles of whiskey, beer, sparkling wine, energy drinks, and so on. Everyone was just drinking, laughing, and having a good time. I didn’t really understand everything that was going on, but it was really great. One women asked me if I know “energy drinks” and I tried to explain that the popular drink in the US is called “Red Bull,” but I forgot the word for “Bull” in French, so I called it “Le vache masculine rouge” aka “The Red Male Cow” which doesn’t exactly have the same ring. Oops.

Now, this next part will explore political things. I don’t want anyone to get upset. This is just an exploration into different viewpoints that exist. I don’t necessarily agree with them. Those of you who know me might know that I love Obama with all my heart, mind, and soul. Yes, there are things that I disagree with him on, but I still love him. Yet I am still willing to listen to others who may disagree with him, so that I may discover why they disagree with him. I think if you can understand and appreciate (while perhaps not necessarily accepting) different worldviews, it makes you more well-rounded. And better able to function in this world, and work with the people in it. So all I ask of you is just to read, accept that these points are valid, and then go back to believing what you want (or perhaps even a little changed), but with a greater appreciation for the rest of the world’s feelings.

Just as the US is not wholly united in its politics, neither is Africa, nor even Benin. For example, my Beninese French teacher expressed his view recently that were it not for America and Europe, the world would be completely overrun by Islamic extremists. He also said that he thinks that Muslims are the most intolerant people in the world. (Although I mentioned that perhaps he had not met some of the extreme Christians in the US. For certain, there are intolerants from every religion, but also there are very loving people as well.)

Today I talked with some of my older uncles, who expressed a completely different idea. They are Christian(esque? Or at least, they are not Muslims, and I think they are Christian in history, but not practice.) They were talking about how all of Africa initially loved Obama, him being a son of an African and all. But he has done things that some Africans substantially disagree with.

The main topic of discussion was the recent(ish) overthrow of Kaddafi in Libya. My one uncle thinks that this was a terrible thing, and that Obama and NATO were wrong for supporting the fight against him. For certain, it has had terrible repercussions. For example, there have been many Libyan Muslims that have fled to African countries, such as Mali and Niger, and have caused a lot of disruption there. In part it has been the continuation of Islamic extremism, and also it has been in part the creation of new Islamic extremism. While we Americans can be content with the overthrow of a dictator that we never actually liked (as opposed to the multitude of dictators we have supported over the years), this has still had dangerous consequences for the whole of Africa. The disruption of Libya actually led to the recent coup d’état which took place in Mali.

Furthermore, Kaddafi, despite all his quirks, and perhaps genuine crazy, has long projected the idea of a united Africa. This is something that my uncle supports. As it stands now, Africa has been raped by colonialism, and is continually raped, country by country, by neocolonialism, the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization, a multitude of Multi-National Corporations, and so on. In this vein, it is easy to understand why (my uncle) would look up to someone who asserted that Africa must unite and take control of its own destiny. He talked about many scholars and leaders who have asserted the same ideas, and have continually been assassinated. While his theories are vaguely conspiracy-oriented, they still express the same frustration that Africa has never been truly allowed to assert its own destiny, even in the aftermath of independence. I want to defend Obama, and I do. I think Obama has done a good job of addressing problems quickly, and succinctly. But is this the best solution? Is it just? The night that Osama Bin Laden was killed, and everyone was celebrating, I posted the quote, “Many that live deserve death. But some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment.” I think Bin Laden perhaps received a just end, but it wasn’t “justice”; it was still an execution. But then again, I also don’t think there was a realistic alternative. Ultimately, however, I do not think it is right to celebrate the death of any individual, no matter what crimes they may have committed against you or your people.

So what is the message of those who contradict the actions of the US? It is simply this: “Let us make our own, fair destiny”. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? Can we stop meddling? Stop forcing our vision upon everyone? Can we stop protecting only our commercial interests everywhere under the guise of “freedom”? Can we go where our help is wanted? (sidenote: Peace Corps only works in countries in which they have been invited). Can we allow Muslims to freely worship, freely elect their own governments? How can you insist on the US government following “Judeo-Christian Law,” (i.e. when it comes to gay marriage) but then outright reject any middle-eastern government that accepts Sharia Law? (And don’t even try to pretend like that is different at all. Read the Bible. All. Of. It. Read the Koran. Then talk to me). I think government and religion should be separate, but of course people will vote with their own religious consciousness in mind. That is no problem at all, as long as it does not restrict the freedom of another.

My uncle was not rejecting American intervention as a whole, just expressing his belief that it was done in the wrong way. I, personally, am glad the Kaddafi is gone. I don’t think he was a good person. And I think Obama executed a solid strategy for addressing the fight in Libya. On the other hand I don’t think Americans or Europeans actually address well the problems of Africa. It’s a really, really complicated thing. What is the solution? I don’t know. My uncle here believes that Africans must unite, so they can be a strong player in world politics, and actually have a legitimate seat at the table, have a say in international decision affecting them. Is that realistic? Probably not. There is not magic answer to this. But my hope is that this experience can teach me what Beninese people want, what other Africans that I meet want, and I can share this with you. We all want to succeed. We all want our countries, our people, to be able to succeed. Beninese people don’t want their success to be hindered by European and American policies. Again, is that too much to ask?

Anyway, that was all ‘food for thought.’ I don’t necessarily expect you to agree. I just want you to see a different viewpoint.

Monday, 9 July 2012

So after that topic, I shall move on to another loaded one, which is religion. I hope that you can read and learn, and perhaps shake some prior misconceptions as well.

Benin, as I have discovered, is the birthplace of what we call “voodoo,” but which I’ll call “vodoun” so you can separate it from “voodoo.” I know the word “voodoo” brings to mind a lot of images, mostly dealing with black magic and dolls that can bring immense amount of pain to target individuals. This is not exactly correct. Personally, I am just beginning to learn about vodoun, so what I will share comes only from very limited sources (One being my travel guide for Benin and the other being a presentation that us Peace Corps volunteers had today by a female vodoun priest). I am sure that I will learn more and more about vodoun as my time passes in Benin.

These sources have claimed that anywhere from 50%-65% of the Beninese population is vodoun. The other most popular religions are Christianity (mostly in the South) and Islam (mostly in the North). However, regardless of the presence of these other religions, it is said that all Beninese are vodoun at heart. Christian or Islamic ceremonies will incorporate aspects of vodoun. I found this in Senegal as well, which is upwards of 90% Muslim. There, Islam often had many animist elements. This can be somewhat equated to the use of pagan symbols in Western Christianity. For example: bunnies at Easter. Or the fact that Christmas was originally the day of celebrating a Roman god. When a religion spreads, it adapts various parts of local culture, including previously unrelated religions.

The vodoun priest today explained that vodoun emerged as a religion to help people overcome difficulties they faced in their everyday lives. It is overall a peaceful religion and has laws that are meant to protect and respect Nature as well as humans, and especially decrees that one must respect the disabled. Vodoun came to the Americas, obviously, through the slave trade. (Benin, in fact, had the name the “Slave Coast” since a huge, huge amount of slaves came from here.) The most common representations of “voodoo” in the New World come from Haiti, and sometimes New Orleans, etc. The priest today asserted that Haitian voodoo, having been brought by people who were stripped of everything but what they could carry in their brains, and was subsequently sundered from Benin for centuries, is not what she considers “pure” vodoun. She also pointed out that voodoo in Haiti faced constant oppression and persecution, so this is why it seems that voodoo there has developed a very defensive and almost mean aspect (such as the voodoo dolls, even though these are a small part of the full religion).

So to clear up any misconceptions, vodoun here in Benin has nothing to do with “black magic”. It is mostly the idea of spirituality. Vodoun deals with spirits and those things that are invisible to the eye. There is the idea that there are spirits within all of nature (especially sacred forests) and that the spirits of our ancestors live amongst us. The five important elements are trees, earth, fire, water, and thunder (although “thunder” has been mentioned by one of my sources and not the other. Although I’m sure specific vodoun practices vary all over Benin). There are major and minor deities associated with all of these elements. Two symbols that I thought were interesting were the rainbow, which represents fortune and beauty; then the snake is also venerated, representing wisdom. Those who are priests in vodoun must work to be pure and righteous. They are expected to do good to others and respect nature and spirits. There are even rules restricting sexual activities before certain events/ceremonies, so that priests can be “pure” upon engaging in these ceremonies.

A huge important aspect is also the immense amount of respect given to ancestors. From what I have heard so far, it seems that vodoun does not really consider there to be much in the way of an extra-terrestrial afterlife. The dead continue to live amongst us, and must continually be shown respect. They are in the house, or nearby, watching over us. There is no concept of an ultimate “Judgment Day”; according to vodoun, judgment happens to us here on earth. We reap what we sow. Misfortune will come to those who have done evil. And living a vodoun life will better enable you to deal with the difficulties that come along.

In this way, death does not have such a negative connotation. For those who have lived a long life, their death is actually celebrated by a long day of partying. They have had a fulfilling time alive and will continue to be around, per se, so what is there to mourn?

It is even common if you are offered drink or food to put a little on the floor and say “For the ancestors”. I haven’t actually seen this done, in real life, however, I was watching TV the other day, and there was a commercial for a certain beer. This commercial was about a woman, who was having a funeral party for her lately deceased husband. So there was a picture of this husband just across from her, then a beer was set down between them. The beer starts disappearing from the glass, and she looks at the photo, which is now smiling. And everyone is like, “Yay, you’re husband is fine, he’s even drinking really good beer right now!” or something like that. Then at the very end, one of the men poured a little bit of beer on the ground.

So that is what I have learned so far about vodoun. It is not much, and I am sorry if I have perhaps said anything that is incorrect, but this is vodoun as I understand it so far. And as I experience more during my life here in Benin, I am sure I will share it with you. I hope you have found this interesting and enlightening.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Well, my French professor must have known that I was writing about political things, so we discussed them somewhat in class today. Benin is a very interesting country, politically. After independence in 1960, it experienced about 12 coups d’état (not particularly violent, in fact many of the overthrown leaders would come back in to power later, in subsequent coups, etc). Finally, Mathieu Kerekou took power in 1974, and he was the leader until 1991. He adopted a Marxist-Leninst philosophy, until he abandoned it in 1989, due to political and outside pressure. In 1990, there was a “National Conference” which was a gathering of civil society leaders, who declared themselves sovereign in Benin, wrote a new constitution, and scheduled elections. Kerekou agreed to this, and in return was promised that he would not be prosecuted for any crimes as president. When he lost the elections in 1991, he stepped aside, making Benin the first African country to transition from a dictator to a democracy peacefully.

My professor said something interesting, that “the better man in the world is the man that has the courage to change.” He was mostly talking about Kerekou’s move away from Marxism, which at the end of the Cold War period, ceased to be a helpful philosophy for him to maintain as president.

Often in the US, we ridicule people—especially politicians—who ever change their positions. And sometimes, then, they are forced to hold on to a viewpoint for fear of being labeled a “flip-flopper.” For certain, there are those who seem to change positions when it seems expedient, or to gain a political advantage with a certain crowd, so that they might be elected. And while I don’t want a leader like this, who seems to have no convictions, neither do I want someone who remains steadfast, despite any and all evidence, or even, perhaps, more importantly, in changing situations. Things may happens at a local, national, or international level, which changes how a leader should respond, and I want someone who can adapt. In the above example, Kerekou was able to use his Marxist leanings for the benefit of his country, by garnering Soviet support/money. However, when the Soviet Union fell, this was no longer an option. So it was better for his country that he embrace a more Western philosophy, and that’s what he did.

Politicians (on both sides, though I personally see this more on one side in particular) in the US oftentimes hold on to their values and views TOO rigorously. And I think this is wrong. Part of living in society is knowing that YOU DON’T GET EVERYTHING YOU WANT. I want my politicians to WORK TOGETHER. It’s being able to change your viewpoint. (i.e. “you know, I said I’d never, ever raise taxes, but for the good of the country, and so we can find an actual compromise, I will agree to this bill which may raise taxes, but also has many other measures that I agree with and it will help the economy.”)

This is why I am presenting a lot of the things I am learning here. I want you to see other viewpoints from around the world. I also try to learn; sometimes I will discuss politics with my republican uncle. And I make an effort to understand why he believes/wants certain things. And just because I understand why he does, doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with him. And it doesn’t mean that we’re ever going to find a hypothetical solution that would appease us both (though we might try). However, when you can understand a viewpoint, it makes you less likely to demonize it or the people that adhere to it. (That can apply to religion too). Again, like I mentioned before, I think you will find that ultimately everyone wants to succeed and wants their people to succeed. They want to be moral. But you may find that the methods or even their definition of success and morality to be different.

That is all for now. I hope you enjoyed this blog filled with difficult issues. Perhaps my next entry will be a little lighter.