PC Update #9/Life in Cotonou

Well, things here in Cotonou oscillate wildly between the seemingly normal and the utterly surreal. If I were in almost any other setting, it would feel like I’d simply found a new job doing consulting on international development projects; something not outside the realm of possibility for someone with a Masters degree in Public Administration. But here I am in Benin riding to work every morning on the back of a zemi, living in a house where I have to go outside to get to my kitchen, making about $260/month and arguing with the marché mommas over a dime for a kilo of potatoes. (I really need to get out of the habit of converting everything to $$) At the same time, I have an internet connection in my office so I am totally caught up on the terrible fire in the tunnel in California and the latest setbacks for the Huskies and Seahawks. I have a DVD player in my laptop (Glad I brought that!) so I can watch the latest pirated movies from Nigeria (the latest Harry Potter is already on DVD here) or try to watch episodes of Heroes online (slow connections often make that impossible). So, yeah, plausibly normal activities if I weren’t living in one of the poorest countries on earth.

Coming here, I thought the cultural adjustment was going to mean getting used to living without all of the conveniences and gadgets of modern life. Little did I know that it would actually mean learning how to live WITH most of them in a place where very few people have access to that kind of thing. PC does a great job of preparing you to live without, but they make no provision for people who end up having to live with. It’s a very different kind of challenge. In many ways it makes living and working here harder, rather than easier. Like trying to convince your neighbors you don’t actually have any extra money to help them buy their medication when they see you carrying a laptop to work every morning… (Happened to me just this morning.)

So obviously life as a PCV isn’t exactly what I had anticipated before I came over here. I feel a little guilty because I live in a real house with indoor plumbing, electricity 24/7 (more or less), and internet access at work – hardly like a PCV at all. Many, if not most, of my peers here in Benin live at least au village, if not en brousse, with no plumbing, spotty if any electricity and little or no access to media or news of any kind. At the same time, though, living and working in Cotonou isn’t all fun and games. The PC salary doesn’t go nearly as far in Cotonou as it does living in a village. While I’m struggling to make my salary last through the month (actually we get paid quarterly, which makes it even more difficult), there have recently been volunteers en brousee who have banked up to $2000 during their service, because living out there is so cheap. They can literally eat for a week on what I pay for food in a couple of days. Also, most of my fellow volunteers moved into houses that were previously occupied by other PCVs, which were already furnished when they got there. I came to a brand new post, into a new house (at least new to PC) with absolutely no furniture at all. Right now I have a double bed, which I ordered from my host papa in Azové (he’s a carpenter), a single bed which is currently functioning as my couch (the mattress is PC issue, the frame was donated to me by another volunteer), a coffee table (also donated), a work table in my “office” and a table in the kitchen where my gas stove is located (both made for me here in Cotonou since I moved in). It’s pretty bare. I have no storage space, either in the house itself or out in the kitchen; no hooks to hang anything on; no shelves and nothing on the walls. Luckily I have windows, so it doesn’t actually look like a prison cell, and I have some ventilation…oh, and I have a stand-up fan.

I am getting creative in the kitchen, however. The other night I made “Cheesy Tuna Mac” – basically Mac n’ Cheese with Tuna (Thank you, Mom!). Of course we don’t have the blue box from Kraft, so I had to improvise a little. I melted several wedges of la Vache qui Rit (literally, the Laughing Cow – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Cow – a brand of processed cheese popular all over the world) to make the cheese sauce then added that to the noodles and finally stirred in the tuna and a little piment (zesty!). I also made “Fajita Fried Rice” last week. My next adventure is going to be some kind of chicken with peanut sauce…Bon appetit!

Plans are afoot for a Christmas safari. There is a rule in PC/Benin that new volunteers can’t be away from their posts overnight during their first 3 months of service. Our three months expires on Dec. 21st, so we’re planning a safari for the week after Christmas. There is a big national park in the northwest of the country called Pendjari that boasts all of the “Big 5” (Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino and Buffalo) plus cheetahs, jackals and hyenas, baboons and tons of other wildlife. The only thing they don’t have there are giraffes, which I’ve seen in South Africa. I’m especially keen to see cheetahs in the wild. Their habitat is steadily declining and huge efforts are being made in some areas to preserve some range for wild cheetahs to survive. Parc Pendjari is the only designated cheetah preserve in West Africa. [Check out the Cheetah Conservation Fund or Earthwatch Institute if you want to come to Africa to help cheetahs.] We’re planning our trip for Dec. 27-29, with a travel day on either side to get to and from the park. So I’ll basically be gone for the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. I’ll try to figure out how to post pictures on my blog before then.