Reflections

Right now I am stuck in Natitingou. I am on my way back from COS medical, in which the doctors basically check up on me to make sure I have any and all issues dealt with before they release me into the states. I was worried about money, since If I don’t get it now, I have to come back once again to Natitingou. So I was delighted Friday night to receive a text saying that the money was deposited into my account. But, I arrive at the bank, and the doors are shut. I ask the guard, and he tells me it is Korite, or the end of Ramadan. “But that’s not until Monday,” I point out.

“Yes, Monday is a holiday. But the bank isn’t open today either.”

I inform the guard that I feel this is ridiculous (though he obviously had no part in the decision-making and can do even less about it), and walk away. I then decide just to go back to Kerou in these fancy new taxi they have, which is a daily ride, and much more comfortable than other taxis and especially zems. So I call up the taxi, to make a reservation. “Oh, I’m not traveling tomorrow,” he says. “It’s a holiday on Monday, so I just want to rest tomorrow (Sunday)” Sigh. I know, yes people should have breaks. But the bank already has the weekends off every week, unlike most people in Benin, and perhaps the taxi company should also have more than one driver doing a daily route? Just a thought.

Anyway, I wanted to take the time to reflect a little on my Peace Corps Service. Now that it is officially ending in about a month, I wanted to look back on my successes, failures, lessons learned, etc.

To start with successes: hands down, my biggest success was the creation of a Village Savings and Loans Association, and the creation of an extensive accounting system for them. I spent hours upon hours working on, modifying, improving, etc the spreadsheets. Originally hand-drawing line after line into a paper notebook, I realized this was a not sustainable practices; the artisans would never take the time to do this all themselves! So I created a printed version, where the groups can keep blank sheets to copy every year for their accounting book. I have updated this version multiple times as we’ve run into newer problems, and I’ve changed the sheets to make them clearer and more user-friendly. Most recently I created a spreadsheet where they can verify all the totals on a regular basis, and ultimately calculate the amount to be shared.

Credit is such an important part of the modern economy. No one can really grow and evolve without it. But on the other hand, it can have high interest rates and fees, which can be crippling to small-time farmers and entrepreneurs. This is why I love the VSLAs so much. Yes, the loans require fees, but at the end of the year, ideally each person gets this money back, provided they’ve also saved money at the same rate as other group members.

I’ve had quite a number of failures. The most disappointing one for me was the chicken-raising operation never getting off the ground. Even if they mayor’s office hadn’t come in and steam-rollered those plans (then pretended like they were back on board for a few days, and then never brought it up again), I’m just not sure it would have worked. It required a huge investment from local farmers, who don’t necessarily have that money. Even if they did hand over the cash as soon as they sold some of their cash crops, that might mean that their family goes hungry for a bit somewhere later down the line. I think, maybe if I had more time and more structural support, it would have been a huge, wonderful, project which allowed twenty individuals to increase their incomes dramatically as well as increase the protein available in the whole community.

I sometimes wonder if it might have been better never to have done the irrigation project. I had this magnificent plan where I quickly put out this irrigation project, turned in the completion report, and immediately submitted the chicken-raising grant. But the irrigation project was delayed. By me being stuck in Cotonou, by the government shutdown, by Hubert’s lack of cooperation, my own inadequacies, and so forth. And in the end, this project…well I’d say it’s not been an entire failure, but it got pretty darn close.

So what if I had just skipped all that, and already gotten the grant for the chicken-raising before the mayor’s office came in to stomp on my plans? What if, inspired by the appearance of actual funds, the group members manage to scrounge up their own contributions, and the project takes off? Who knows, maybe this project would have been amazing. Maybe it would have hit more snags than anything else, and failed more miserably than any other thing I tried (and an expensive failure at that!)

Perhaps it’s stupid to think about the “what-ifs”. I still am glad that I did the irrigation project on some levels. I think I made a huge mistake by designing it around the idea that it would hook up to a water tower. In retrospect, of course that was a terrible idea! No farmer even in the states would hook up to the town water supply. Everyone has their own wells. I just wasn’t thinking logically. In my mind, I guess it made sense because there was no other water supply available. There is no stream or lake nearby this new location, and the water line ran right through it! When I think of wells that could work with irrigation, I think of American-style wells, and the only ones here are the traditional hole-in-the-ground, pull-up-a-bucket kinds. I also had no one here tell me it was a bad idea, even my community partners who are supposed to be experts on agriculture. Everyone just did what occurred to me. I think it’s part of the culture, to never disagree with someone—especially someone giving you money—so Hubert made promises that he would totally make sure the mayor’s office had a deal with the women, etc. While at the same time, (looking back, I realize this) working with the mayor’s office to get a well in the exact same spot. I’m betting he even planned on hooking up the well to my irrigation system the whole time, using a gas-powered pump. But why couldn’t he had just said that from the beginning?

I know I was in a rush to get this project done. Not only because of the second Food Security project I wanted to do, but also because of the small window of time in which the ground is actually okay to dig and lay these systems. If I had just taken a second to breathe, maybe the well-idea would have been suggested. I would have realized that was a way better option than having to pay for town water. I probably would have had to make sure the mayor’s office (or another NGO) would contribute the well, because there was not enough left in the budget for a well also. But it could have gone so much smoother.

In conclusion COMMUNICATION. Sure, I can blame it on the culture here, that telling people “no” isn’t a thing. But also, I’m sure it has a lot to do with NGOs that come in and have certain goals, and specific technologies/practices they want to impose, and thus are not always willing to listen to local suggestions. So maybe at some point locals just learned to shut up and do whatever the people handing out the money said was the best based on their INFALLIBLE LOGIC. Maybe I shouldn’t have brushed aside so easily my doubts about the feasibility of hooking up to the water tower. Asked Hubert, or other partners more questions, looked for other possible solutions, etc.

At least I have plenty of lessons learned. I have the irrigation project, which I tried to throw haphazardly together, alongside my slow and plodding (but ultimately very successful) progress with my Savings and Loans Association. Then, of course, there is the School Improvement program. I have been way less involved in its implementation, but I think it is one of the better things I’ve done. It was entirely community-driven, organized mostly by a very motivated individual. It helps very rural, very poor children, and is sustainable (hypothetically).

The most important lessons I have learned is consistency and dedication. I have tried to throw together some projects, but had them broken up by my absences or lack of interpreter or simply the rain. Getting people motivated the first time is hard. The second, third, whatever times are even harder. I have found this when I tried to start a literacy or financial class, but would have to take a two week break. Getting people to come back after the two weeks was always difficult. Furthermore, it’s harder for people to remember when there is too much time in between. One small endeavor I undertook with Anna was accounting for illiterates. It might have worked out much better if I had been able to go to the groups every single week and teach them, but I wasn’t. I had Peace Corps trainings to go to, or the interpreter was only allowed to visit groups once a month.  On days that I was able to show up (with the interpreter begrudgingly supplied by the mayor’s office), many of the women weren’t there. It had been too long since the previous lesson, so they had forgotten, or maybe they weren’t even at the previous lesson. I wish I had more time, less illness, and more support. But don’t we all?

In the end, I’m proud of what I’ve done. There are opportunities that were missed for a plethora of reasons. But I’m hoping that my next step in life will lead me to make use of these lessons that I’ve learned and apply this to my future work in aiding developing communities.

Updates

At least now I have an excuse as to why I have not updated my blog. No computer, no writing. Maria, the godsend that she is, has lent me her iPad. For the most part, I find it pretty unhelpful, because it mostly revolves around needing internet. I guess it does help when I’m at a workstation, that I can browse the internet on something besides my phone. And of course, I didn’t discover that it has Pages (the Apple version of WORD), for a while. Which would have been helpful. Since my discovery, I have been using it to continue my writing endeavors, so that’s nice. Although the ultimate would have been having Numbers (Excel), but alas, that was never meant to be. I don’t have a charger for an iPad charger, only for an iPod. Apparently this means a huge difference in charging-speeds. So it takes hours and hours for the iPad to charge. Oh, and I can’t use it while its charging, because its temperamental. Life is hard.

Nevertheless, I suppose I have managed to get a lot accomplished in the last month. I was supposed to be organizing the workbook for the girls camp that Maria, Raili, Ron (volunteer in Gnemasson, 1.5 hours south), Will (volunteer in Oussa-Pehanco, 2 hours south), and Ally (volunteer 2 hours south and .5 hours east), and I are putting together. The workbook, of course, gets a lot harder with my lack of computer. I have to depend on Raili and Maria and there generous donations of computer time.

Maria got a job offer at USAID (GO MARIA!!!), so she returned to Kérou after organizing the completion of tshirts and organizing the purchase of mosquito nets. I offer to swap her my help in packing for use of her computer, which of course she accepts. So we spend a few days packing all of her stuff. I have this habit of waking up absurdly early nowadays, so I’d work in the morning until she woke up, and then we’d start on packing. After a bit, Maria would convince me that what we really needed to be doing was watching The Mindy Project (a hilarious series, I’d highly recommend). We might get back to packing after ten or so episodes. And so our days went.

One day, before a meeting with my artisans, I happened to stop to get an omlet-sandwich. As I’m minding my own business, a guy walks up to me, and insists on greeting me. I thought it might be someone I vaguely know, so I said hi and went back to my meal. He sits down beside me, and not without me even looking at him, he says to me, “It’s Matthew”.

My whole body freezes. It’s him. The guy who has been harassing me. Not looking back at him, I think back to our interaction a few seconds ago. He’s so ugly. I mean, getting uglier by the second as I think about how much stress he has caused me over the past year. I ignore him, and don’t respond. I finish my sandwich and tea. As I’m trying to pay, he says, “Where are you going today?” He doesn’t even make sure to have my attention. He just says it in the direction of my body. As if I’m not a thing to be engaged before talking to. I say nothing. I get up and ride away on my bike. I go in the opposite direction, then loop around on a back-road to Maria’s house. When I arrive, he’s sent me a message saying that he was sorry he was so shy at breakfast, but if I’m ready to “start” with him, he’s totally ready too. I don’t get it. I really don’t. Like I don’t know how to be any clearer that I am in no way interested. Although, honestly, meeting him allowed me to see how sad and pathetic he is. He’s a guy lacking confidence, or any real ability to relate to women. He’s a bumbling excuse for a human being. My hate is in no way lessened, but my fear is. [He left Kerou officially a few days later, and since that day, he has called me a few times and once sent me a text after my failure to answer, asking what was wrong. Umm. What’s wrong is that you’re still calling me. Although, I don’t understand why you’re insinuating that anything is different, because this is exactly how I’ve treated you from Day 1.]

Anyway, back at Maria’s house, I finished up trimming the workbook, and Raili finally made it back to town. We had to come up with songs to incorporate. “Allouette” was an obvious choice. And there’s a Beninese song that talks about working hard in school to the tune of “Frere Jacques”. Furthermore, I translated a song from Mar-Lu-Ridge (I’m Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic, to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”) into French. My favorite part was, however, translating a song from girl scout camp. It was a song that my sisters and I loved, a call and response that basically is about a girl seeing a cute boy sipping cider through a straw, wanting to learn this talent, ultimately sipping cider “lip to lip” and thus ending up with 49 kids. So Raili and I translated this into French, with a story about a cute boy eating sheep meat, a love story that involves skipping school and ultimately finding out the boy is cheating (in Beninese culture, we were unsure if having an absurd amount of kids would exactly be a thing looked down upon. Obviously 49 is an excessive number, but not AS excessive as it is in the States. And besides, people find cheating-plots hilarious here, so it fits). The moral of our story was to leave the boys and do school work. We were super-proud of this song.

So finally the book is ready to be printed. I leave Friday the 13^th to head to Parakou. Here is the Business Club competition that I’ve been preparing my students for. I have two students, presenting two different plans. I’m kind of worried about it, because I’m not sure that they’re entirely prepared. However, they manage to pull off decent presentations (and I use my grandmother’s old trick of pulling on my ear when they started speaking too fast). The kids had a really good time, meeting other students from around the country, and got really excited about their ideas and business in general. On the way back I even talked to them about continuing a business club next year without me.

Me with my two students

While in Parakou, I print out the workbook, and then give it to a photo-copy store to organize into all 38 copies. I explain to the woman very thoroughly how I’d like everything to turn out. She seems to be really competant, and when I come back a few hours later, she has everything copied and bound into the books. Everything seems to be falling into place.

I journey back with my kids Sunday, and then spend the rest of the week doing all the last-minute prep for our camp. Maria has already left, but another volunteer, Nora, has agreed to help out our camp.

Our camp starts in true Beninese fashion. There is a taxi that is supposed to be coming from Pehanco (two hours south of us) to pick up all of the girls and volunteers in Kerou. This was organized through Beninese friend in Pehanco, but upon the chauffer realizing that he was talking to white girls (via the phone) he decides he’s up for some tricks. Raili calls him right as he’s supposed to be in route to Kerou, actually almost there. He says, “Actually the price isn’t good. So I’m not coming. Unless, of course, you double the fee.”

Raili calls me, and we debate it. We are enraged by this maneuver, especially that he didn’t even have the decency to call us to make sure we would be arriving on time. But, the price we had agreed to was actually less than we had budgeted. Our budget was the price of each individual to travel in a normal taxi, and renting out a whole taxi as one group is obviously less expensive. So ultimately we pay what we would have paid as a per-person deal, even though it irks us the way we were tricked out of the money. Oh well.

We arrive, and things are chaos due to miscommunication between the director of the school where we’re hosting the camp, and the teachers/students. After a while we finally figure things out, and the camp gets started.

It’s thirty girls (5 girls from 6 different schools). We also have various “Model women”, meaning women from the community who are good role models. Our original intention was to have women from various sectors. However, both of my artisan/business owner women fell through, as did the two women’s health physicians. So it ended up being all teachers. They were really invaluable. A lot of times with basic things, such as translating our “Americanized” French into “Beninese” French, or just clarifying ideas. They offered valuable insight as we talked about things from budgets to sexual health.

I was launched back into Mar-Lu-Ridge mode. We even did a few skits that were from MLR. I’m not sure if they exactly translated culturally. The girls laughed late. Or in places I wouldn’t think one should laugh. Or we’d get the punchline, and it would be funny, but the girls wouldn’t seem to realize that it was the punchline, as in they’d be, HAHA, that line was funny, instead of HAHAHA, that skit was hilarious. Oh well, they still laughed, at least a little bit.

We had lessons in various subject areas, such as study skills, critical thinking, environment, hygiene, business plans and budgeting (by yours truly), and sexual health, as well as other activities to break up the classroom monotony. I introduced more camp games; they loved “Fox and Squirrel” or as we called it “Lion and Antelope”, which is a modified “tag”. We did some team-building activities. These took a while to explain, and so much longer for the girls to understand. I guess there are just some things that I take for granted, especially having spent so many years at camp, and in church/school events with similar principles. Explaining them to someone who lives in a culture that has never been introduced to games for the sake of team-building, including high and low ropes courses, it was a hard bridge to cross. In the end it worked out, however, at least mostly. It might also help if I had the French vocabulary built around these activities, but I guess I should have prepared more?

The last night, we had planned a dance party for the girls. The location is a bar that happens to double as a brothel. (Yes, if we were in the States, our asses would have been sued/put in jail). But it was the most practical place. Because honestly, every single “Maison des Jeunes / Youth House” that is  staple of every village, and paid for by the mayor’s office, is so underutilized that they all get converted into bars anyway, and thus not so helpful for actual youth activities (which really don’t exist). There aren’t really any other locations where we could have held this party.

Additionally, we made arrangements with the bar owner in advance. He happens to love Ally and her friends (thanks to her birthday celebration). So weeks ago, the owner agreed that he would reserve the space for us from 8 until 10, and no one else (especially creeper men, who have no business looking at middle-school girls) would be allowed in. And we would purchase 36 soft drinks (one for each of the girls and Model Women, so he was supposed to have those ready for us.

We arrive, and everything is terrible. There are men sitting around, watching the world cup. Because sports are more important than anything, we’re told that the bar obviously can’t kick these men out!!! It’s the WORLD CUP. Which the bar owner apparently forgot about in agreeing to our proposal. Then we are told that actually they had a rush earlier, so there are no cold soft drinks. Ally and I are talking with a woman, who I believe is the owner’s wife. I exasperatedly mention that maybe we should get drinks from another nearby bar and bring them here. This, of course, is outrageous to her, as we would be using the dance space and electricity, etc, but not paying for anything. “But you don’t have anything TO buy,” I point out. She suggests giving the girls warm sodas, because for goodness sakes, they’re children, and they’re lucky to be getting sodas anyway. I refuse this notion. We end up parting ways, without resolving much. I go inside to talk to Raili (the girls are currently dancing on the floor, but still with the male world-cup-watchers present and no soft drinks). She is sitting at a table, looking both angry and upset. There are two guys that have taken over the table next to us, which we were told was for us. I approach them, and they—in the douchiest, high-horse way—inform me that they have rented this table. Yes. They paid for it. With money. THEY HAVE MONEY. WHICH THEY USED TO PAY FOR THIS TABLE. MONEY. DID YOU HEAR THAT? They have money. I try to explain that we were promised this table, but THEY HAVE MONEY. I turn away, frustrated. The boss’s wife comes up to Ally and I again, trying to work things out, and I point out the men sitting at the table we were promised. She immediately goes up to them, and shoes them away, to another, smaller table in the back of the bar. Barely containing my glee, I run up to Raili and yell over the music, “VICTORY NUMBER ONE!”

After that, everything got better. I don’t know if the game ended, or the bar kicked the men out, but all the world-cup watchers left. The table-stealing men soon followed suite. The owner’s wife found cans (as opposed to glass bottles) that were cold. They were more expensive, but at this point we didn’t really care. All the girls were thrilled. The owner’s wife then took up the post at the entrance of the club, keeping out ALL other people, especially men/boys. We had a fabulous time. We taught the girls the “Wobble” line dance, but otherwise mostly danced to West African music. Ten PM came way too soon, although I was definitely sweating so much that my hair was soaked. We marched the girls back to the school, where we were sleeping, and had them go to bed.

Overall, this was a really amazing experience for me. Obviously, I worked at a summer camp for three summers during college. I always loved it. It also always terrified me. Having to get up in front of children and sing songs, or act out silly skits. Lead them in activities. Terrifying. But somehow, it always was such a positive time for me, and as far as I know, good for the kids as well. I was once accused of “not being there for the kids”, and hey maybe I wasn’t as dedicated as the other so-called perfect counselors, but I did put in my best effort. I constantly fought the effort to hide in the background (I sometimes succumbed), and for the most part I did put aside my fears and dance merrily, dress crazily, smile and encourage the kids.

This time, however, I wasn’t on the Mountain. I always felt an energy at MLR that would take me weeks to lose when returning home. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the way everyone from the camp director to the newest counselor worked to exude this energy. Maybe it was all the joys of former campers and counselors that lingered on the mountain. But I was always so inspired, so moved, so let out of my shell when I was there. I was really wary in planning this camp. As in, “oh god, I’ll have to act out these skits, this time without an audience of American children, who were guaranteed to ‘get’ it.” I didn’t have other counselors thoroughly trained alongside me, who knew the songs and skits perfectly as well. Plus, I’d always had a director, a tried-and-true schedule that we used every year, program directors, and so on. Here, it was all on me and Raili. We made it work, and despite my paranoia, it turned out great. The girls seemed to love it, despite our flaw of not scheduling them 5 shower-times a day, which they seemed to require. I even found myself imagining towards the end, that I might create a summer camp in West Africa. Maybe in some beautiful location, bus girls (and boys) in from all over the country, and have a fabulous experience for all of them. Camp was such a staple of my summers growing up, and made such a huge, wonderful impact on me. I’d love for that to be part of the culture here, as well. I’ve even come up with plans to make the camp almost entirely sustainable. Basically after “earthship” models. These are made using old tires and mud as walls (which keep the temperature at a really steady level, eliminating the need for A/C and Heat). Plus they collect rain water, which is used in different levels, i.e. obviously drinking water is the fresh water. Then say cleaning (dishes and shower water). The water used in those is then transferred to your toilet, until finally that water is used, and disposed of into the earth. Energy-wise, of course, we’d have solar power. We’d use Smart Boards (basically powerpoint-like projections that you can write on like they’re a chalkboard) for lessons. But wouldn’t that be cool? A sustainable camp (maybe still using food from local farmers, as a way to support local business, and then maybe some paper to print things out that we wanted to girls to keep) for children in West Africa. Okay, there’s one of my many endeavors I want to undertake. How to complete this all in one lifetime…

For a some more narrative on the camp, and pictures, here is Raili’s blog:

http://journeydujourbenin.blogspot.com/2014/06/camp-journal.html

Camp ends the completion of all of my official, specific projects. I have nothing detailed that needs to be completed before the end of Peace Corps (except for my school study).

However, the Tuesday after (June 24) marked the one-year anniversary of my Village Savings and Loans group that I started. We had a celebration the following Friday (despite my protests, because I didn’t want them to spend their money on a party, that’s not the point. But they ended up taking up a collection for the party amongst themselves, so whatever). The exciting part was distributing the money. Although they originally said they didn’t want to distribute individual savings, they did this year. This is due to a bunch of people not starting right away, or not keeping up with the savings program later, so there were a lot of gapes in the savings amounts. Now that the group is well-established, however, this will hopefully mean that the savings efforts will be stronger next year. So they are all starting at zero, but everyone is really excited to build the savings back up. I also showed them how to calculate the “profits” and distributed those according to their “savings” which also function as “shares” of the organization. I’m really proud of this group, and what we’ve been able to accomplish. I really hope they are able to keep going strong after I leave. As of now, some of the more dedicated members have started one other small “tontines” group, which is kind of like savings and loans, but it functions like a collection is taken every week, and distributed to one member on a rolling basis. I also met with a friend of Dennis. This is a guy that works with improved cookstoves in our region, and he and Dennis are talking of starting a Savings and Loans group exclusively for improved-cookstove producers, so that they have capital to buy supplies in larger quantities. I’m sending him all of the documents I’ve developed, plus improving my computer-version, so he can just do the accounting on his computer. Without my computer, this has proved a little difficult, but I made sure he knew that it might be delayed, and have been working at the workstation to fine-tune all of this. I really don’t know what the final outcome will be, but I really hope it does help some people.

The Savings and Loans Group at our celebration

 Meanwhile, working with Ben Club, the other Savings and Loans group, has been a regular pain. I struggled to get all of their accounts in order. Finally, right before I left for the business plan competition, I managed to have everything perfect. I come back three weeks later, and am going over the books with them. “So what you’re telling me,” I say, looking at the numbers, “is that you had 809,325 francs, and you gave away 820,000 francs in loans, and yet still had some left over??” Yes, that is exactly what they were saying. I repeated this a few times, until they understood that actually, this math was a problem.

Finally, the following week, we figured out that there was a reimbursement that hadn’t been recorded. And therein lies all of the problems of Ben Club. People just do things. They don’t write them down. Or if they do write them down, it’s on a scrap piece of paper that becomes part of a stack. This stack, however, doesn’t do math, nor does it automatically incorporate itself into the group finance statements. So I once again lectured them, trying to drill into their heads that they can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with money, unless it is written down in the group books. If they don’t know how to write it down there, then they can’t do it. Finally, with the mystery solved, I go through some more of the steps with the guy that they’ve put in charge of the accounting books. “Hey, do you think you could give me a lesson on all this accounting?” he asks.

At this point I almost explode. I want to shout, “WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST YEAR??? I’ve been teaching you this for OVER A YEAR!” But, instead of saying that, I smile and set up a time where we can work together on this, making sure, he really, deeply understands all this.

Other than that, I finally don’t have much work. Which means I’ve been cleaning my house (that simply means transferring the mess from room to room in  rotating manner). I finally got rid of all the kittens, and pray daily that Luna is either already preggars, or now doesn’t get pregnant at all. I can’t bring her on the flight if she’s pregnant, so that’s an issue.

I’m now down in Cotonou, where I will see off Ally (she is actually a third-year in Benin, and is finally leaving now), celebrate July 4, have my COS medical appointment (just to make sure there aren’t any issues that need to be addressed before leaving the country), work on computer-things, and hang out with other volunteers. Only two more months until I am home! Crazy!