Sitting here safe inside my office while a heck of a storm blows around outside. It looks a little like those pictures you see on CNN of the approaching hurricane; lots of wind, sideways rain and a few brave or foolish souls running for what appears to be their lives. Litter and loose objects clattering down the street headed G_d knows where. It’s really quite intense. I guess I won’t be going out for a while.
Many aspects of Western culture have found their way to West Africa and been fully embraced here in Benin. Hip-hop is HUGE here. There are even indigenous rappers who get massive play on Beninese radio. (…at full volume, at all hours of the night. I’m not sayin’; I’m just sayin’…) Cell phones, obviously. Most of Africa is just blowing right past the land line infrastructure, which is time consuming and expensive, and going straight to building cell towers. And, I might add, their pricing and service are much easier and more progressive. You buy a phone, then you buy a SIM card for whatever network you want (more often than not, several) and install it in your phone. Then you purchase credit for that network and load it on the SIM card and its good for TWO YEARS!!!!! No predatory, penalty-laden contracts like we have in the States. And the sale of “recharge” cards is an enormous part of the informal economy here. The cell companies allow you to purchase them in bulk at a discount, so there are 2-6 people at every major intersection in Cotonou selling credit for whatever network you might need.
[Just looked outside again and it now looks much more like the hurricane has arrived. Ten times more rain, the wind has probably doubled, huge fronds blowing off the palms outside…I just had to get up and put a chair in front of the door because the wind had blown it open. Big fun!]
Street vendors are a ubiquitous feature of life in Cotonou, by the way. The array of goods that it is possible to buy on a random Cotonou street corner is truly astounding. I think I mentioned before that the typical Beninese gas station is a table on the side of the road covered with recycled bottles and jugs full of smuggled Nigerian gasoline. But, I’ve also seen blenders, alarms clocks, wall clocks, watches, purses, belts, shoes, luggage, stereos, DVD players, guitars, mattresses and even small appliances. You gotta see it to believe it.
Speaking of mattresses…one aspect of Western society that has yet to reach this (…not exactly G_d forsaken, but at least divinely neglected) part of the world is modern mattress technology. I have three beds in my house (not counting the fold-away cot). None of them has a spring mattress. There are mattress stores all over Cotonou. None of THEM has a spring mattress. They are non-existent here. Mattresses in Benin consist of nothing more than foam (of widely variable thickness, density and quality) surrounded by fabric. Regardless of the various qualities of the foam, none of these mattresses are terribly durable or long lasting. The big double mattress on my bed has a very distinct valley in the middle from having been slept on for seven months. It has gotten to the point where it is self-exacerbating, because regardless of how hard I try to sleep nearer the edge where the good foam is, as soon as I fall asleep (and thus relax) I roll down into the valley for the rest of the night.
Writing that now it sounds almost comical, but I assure you it’s not. A few nights ago I was attempting to find a comfortable position on the limp tortilla that passes for a mattress on one of the guest beds and I managed to pull an oblique muscle in my rib cage. Any of you who have had such an injury know how much it sucks. If you haven’t, it is easily the most inconveniencing injury I’ve ever had (and I’ve had quite a few in my day). It is nearly impossible to carry on a normal daily life without using your oblique muscles almost constantly. This, of course, prompts one to try to compensate for the lack of regular mobility, so that now my whole trunk – from my neck to my ass – is out of whack. So from trying to get comfortable, I now wake up with a sharp pain SOMEWHERE every time I even move in my sleep.
Anybody got a spare mattress?
I’ve been enjoying very much having a refrigerator. I had no idea the heights of rapture that could result from a simple bowl of Jell-o. Never again will I doubt Bill Cosby.
A new side project has come my way since our All-Vol conference. During the conference we viewed a video that was made to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of PC in Togo. It turns out this year is the 40th anniversary of PC-Benin and our Country Director wants to make something similar to show at the big fete. So I have volunteered to take the lead on this little project. I get to go through 1,000s of photos and slides, as well as a couple boxes of video tapes, and try to distill the history and experiences of PC-Benin over the last 40 years; all in under 10 minutes. Should be fun!
It has lately become clear to me that PC is not primarily a development organization. Now this may have been obvious to many of my cohorts (and to many of you for all I know) before we left, but it was not to me. I came here believing that my primary purpose was to improve the lives of the Beninese people. Now mind you, if I can actually do that…so much the better. But the real reason we are here is to appear to be making the lives of the people better. We are really nothing more than poorly paid goodwill ambassadors for the good ol’ U. S. of A. As long as we can live within the culture and make it look like our intentions are good (which, don’t get me wrong, they are for the vast majority) then we have done our jobs well. Honestly, anything we accomplish beyond that is gravy. This realization has taken a lot of the pressure off of me to “accomplish something.” It has also made me want even more to go to work for an actual development organization once my degree is finished; if only to see what that would look like.
On that subject, some things to consider: I will probably take the Foreign Service exam in November, either at the embassy here or in Abidjan. Why? Because there are FS positions with USAid that I will qualify for once I have my MPA. Now, this depends entirely on who wins the election in November, but it’s a possibility. Equally dependant upon that outcome is the possibility of applying for a Presidential Management Fellowship. A PMF would most likely put me in DC, working for a similar agency, USAid, Millennium Challenge, State Dept., USDA, etc. There is also a small possibility that I could get an overseas appointment as a PMF. Also, anyone who knows or has connections to anyone in the international development arena, please mention that you know a PCV who will be coming home to complete an MPA next year – I need all the contacts I can make. Finally, from perusing various web sites that aggregate job listings in this area it seems quite likely that I may end up working in a post- (or even an active) conflict area at some point in the not-too-distant future. Ethiopia, Sudan, Angola, East Timor, Somalia, even Afghanistan and Iraq all figure prominently in the development world right now. This is by no means a certainty, but I mention it mostly to make the possibility explicit so I can mentally prepare for it. C’est la vie…
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The good, the bad and the...you get the idea
April 14, 2008
Please forgive the (latest) loooong delay between my updates. It has been a difficult few weeks for me here and I didn’t want to just vent my frustrations at everyone. That being said, it has by no means been “all bad” and I have no intention of leaving early as have some of my erstwhile colleagues. I am beginning to make plans for my Masters Degree project and am actively looking for ways to become more engaged in my (or some other) community. As with all things, PC is what you make of it and I am determined to make something I can be proud of when all is said and done. So…
Many of you have enquired as to what my daily routine is like. Oddly, it isn’t very different from many of you…for better or worse. Unlike “normal” PCVs who live and work primarily in small towns and villages far from Western amenities, I work in an office in Cotonou, with AC and internet. I work a normal “9-to-5” work week, although with a tad more flexibility than most of you probably have. I’m working on the marketing aspects of our little operation right now, so I spend time making contacts with press, business groups, gov’t officials, etc. – anyone who is in a position to help us get the word out. I spend what seems like an inordinate amount of time in meetings – many/most of which are frustrating on multiple levels. Often my French ability (STILL) proves to be inadequate for me to understand much of what is being discussed. Often, even when it is clear, we end up discussing (i.e., arguing over) trivialities. (An hour and twenty minutes deciding whether or not to offer a cocktail at our opening reception; I kid you not!)
I proposed a Marketing Plan for CAMeC back in December (I think) and a major source of my frustration is that it has yet to be addressed in any meaningful way. We’ve had one meeting about it in which we spent an hour and a half wordsmithing the first page. No one appears to want (or maybe to be ready) to discuss the substance of the proposals. One potentially interesting idea in the proposal is to create a radio serial with a lawyer/barrister as the protagonist. Each week he handles a new case and shepards it through the arbitration/mediation process, all to the satisfaction of both parties. Programs like this have been effective in other parts of Africa regarding other issues (HIV/AIDS, female genital cutting, domestic violence). We’ll have to see if it works for us or if we can even afford it, as I have no idea how much it would cost to produce here; especially since we would probably need to produce it in at least six languages (French, Fon, Yoruba, Bariba, Dendi and Adja)
Such are the pitfalls of having the least PC-like job in all of PC. Having a “real job,” I keep expecting things to happen at the pace of a real job in the USA. Such is distinctly NOT the case here. I don’t know if they just don’t yet understand that a deadline is actually a deadline, or if they just think that “somehow” the work will magically get done, or if they think the money will keep coming whether or not anything gets done…I just don’t know. And I don’t have any authority to act on my own. I can give them advice, I can cajole them, I can make suggestions – often very pointed ones – but I can’t actually DO any of the real work. I had a chance to have lunch with the Country Director for Millennium Challenge and her deputy on Friday and we’re going to stay in contact and see how things develop.
While all of that has been building, I have not been sitting still, however. I recently traveled all the way up to the Nigerien (not Nigerian) border to a town called Malanville, where another PCV had asked me to help with her women’s group. She is teaching them to make things like handbags and coin purses out of recycled plastic bags (there are A LOT of them in Benin). So she asked me to come up and talk to them about how to sell the stuff she is teaching them to make. For almost a week I got a taste of what “real” PCVs do on a daily basis. It was very eye-opening. Malanville is the farthest north PCV in Benin – and it’s f’ing HOT there. I think one day it only got to 98 degrees, every other day was over 100. THIS is why everyone goes inside and closes their doors between 12:30 and 3:00pm every day. You would die of dehydration otherwise. We spent one entire day at the only nice hotel in town, lounging by the pool and sipping the occasional beverage. Ultimately, we did a little work, had a lot of fun, and generally just enjoyed being out of Cotonou for a week. Everything up there is very different, from the weather to the landscape, to the people, to the food. It was a nice change.
Then the last weekend in March was our All-Volunteer conference. All the Benin PCVs got together at a nice hotel here in Cotonou for three days of workshops and drinking…um, I mean…training. The hotel has a pool, HOT showers (nobody in PC has a water heater) Wi-Fi in the rooms, a great restaurant and bar (DRAFT beer) with a patio that overlooks the lagoon…very nice place. It was a lot of fun – and surprisingly relevant. We had a general venting session called “Rumor Busters” where everyone had a chance to voice whatever rumors they had been hearing and got more or less frank answers from PC Admin. We had sessions on what is or is not working with PC Benin and got the opportunity to suggest our own solutions. And we had lots of sector-specific sessions where we got to share experiences and compare notes with the other PCVs in our sector. That was actually the least valuable for me, since I’m doing the least PC-like job in PC. Not much to “compare” to, I’m afraid. Of course, when we weren’t in session we were hanging out by the pool, drinking cold draft beer and eating pizza. ;-)
One of the highlights of All-Vol is the annual talent show (and date auction). Yes, I performed in the talent show. My friend Ben and I did a duet of an Irving Berlin tune, C-U-B-A (shout out to the Austin Lounge Lizards). Someone got it on video, so as soon as I get it I’ll post it here. We were a big hit, though we didn’t “win” on account of we had to go first and the judges had to leave room in their scores for the later acts. (Sour grapes, anyone?) The date auction (think, Bill Murray and Chris Elliot in Groundhog Day) is a strictly unofficial event organized by Benin PCVs to supplement the funds raised by the other big highlight of the weekend, the GAD Dinner and Auction.
GAD is the Gender and Development project, specifically intended to ensure that women and girls are accounted for in our efforts to assist the people of Benin. GAD funds a myriad of small projects throughout the country throughout the year and is almost entirely funded by the proceeds from the annual auction(s). All the PCVs have really amazing outfits made and let me tell ya, we clean up pretty good. Most of the ex-pat community in Cotonou is invited and they spend lots of money on lots of stuff to help support GAD. A grand time was had by all. I did my part as well, replacing my poor dead iPod with a brand new iPod Shuffle that was kindly donated by the nice folks at Apple. I also bought a basket of chocolate that somehow had two small boxes of Frangos!!!! in it. They were little boxes of four mints each and they managed to make it all the way here without melting…don’t ask me how.
Luckily, the remaining chocolate hasn’t melted yet because I recently got a REFRIGERATOR! (Full-size with a freezer!) Yes, folks, it’s hardly like Africa at all now that I can make ice, buy butter and store leftovers. Admittedly it cost me a bit of money, but I expect to more than pay for it over the next 18 months as I can now keep food fresh for more than 48 hours at a time. I can also buy things like beverages, meat and cheese in bulk quantities for much cheaper than by the meal’s worth. In the last week I have had ham and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. I realize that this may seem insignificant to you, but after 9 months of mostly starch this is HUGE! This alone has made an enormous improvement in my overall level of happiness. (Not to mention the cold beer.)
On the flip side, however, I recently had a zemidjahn driver try to mug me on the way home from a restaurant…so you take the bad with the good. I managed to get away unharmed and without loss, so it’s OK. But it didn’t make me feel very “warm and fuzzy.”
I’m getting involved with some side projects here and there. A volunteer who is working with the national parks department is going to put together a Benin tourism website (probably a wiki) and has asked me to be responsible for the section on Cotonou. I’m going to ask Jacques (my APCD) if I can get reimbursed for eating in restaurants and staying in hotels around town as part of my “research” for this project. Wish me luck…
I’m teaching a class on Business Leadership at a Biz Mgmt school here in Cotonou. I’m teaching it in English which is great for me but sometimes tough on the students. The idea is to expose them to a professional level English vocabulary while at the same time teaching them something about leadership. I try not to resort to French unless I really have to. I’m never quite sure if the students are “getting it” or not. But I get the occasional really intelligent question or insightful counter-argument that let’s me know that at least some of them are getting something. I figure that’s the best I can hope for.
Coming up at the end of April is a workshop on how to start and operate a village savings and loan association – basically, a micro-credit program. This should be very interesting, if not terribly applicable to my primary project. But once I’ve been through it, I can take the information to other PCV’s posts – like Meagan up in Malanville – and help them start programs in their villages. Yet another good reason to get the hell out of Cotonou for a while. (Can you tell it’s not my favorite place on Earth?)
And the thing that I think I’m most energized about. There have been a group of three filmmakers in Benin for the last few months working on a documentary about child trafficking. It is a big and much underappreciated problem in Benin. They recently went back to the states to resume their “normal” lives and to edit and complete their film. (For more on their project go to: http://unseenstories.wordpress.com/about/ ) They are going to be returning next summer with a short animated film in multiple languages that they will tour around the country, giving screenings and educating people about the issue. This tour is going to be largely focused around PCVs and their communities and I am helping to organize the tour. At the same time, lots of PCVs are holding independent events highlighting the problem; the first is a rap concert/party in Parakou on May 17th organized by my friend and fellow PCV Jaren Tichy in Tchaorou.
That’s about it from here. Saturday, I’m going to a Passover Seder at the home of our Country Director. That should be interesting. Other than that, I’m reading lots of books and watching lots of movies. I highly recommend Charlie Wilson's War and a novel called Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes.
Please forgive the (latest) loooong delay between my updates. It has been a difficult few weeks for me here and I didn’t want to just vent my frustrations at everyone. That being said, it has by no means been “all bad” and I have no intention of leaving early as have some of my erstwhile colleagues. I am beginning to make plans for my Masters Degree project and am actively looking for ways to become more engaged in my (or some other) community. As with all things, PC is what you make of it and I am determined to make something I can be proud of when all is said and done. So…
Many of you have enquired as to what my daily routine is like. Oddly, it isn’t very different from many of you…for better or worse. Unlike “normal” PCVs who live and work primarily in small towns and villages far from Western amenities, I work in an office in Cotonou, with AC and internet. I work a normal “9-to-5” work week, although with a tad more flexibility than most of you probably have. I’m working on the marketing aspects of our little operation right now, so I spend time making contacts with press, business groups, gov’t officials, etc. – anyone who is in a position to help us get the word out. I spend what seems like an inordinate amount of time in meetings – many/most of which are frustrating on multiple levels. Often my French ability (STILL) proves to be inadequate for me to understand much of what is being discussed. Often, even when it is clear, we end up discussing (i.e., arguing over) trivialities. (An hour and twenty minutes deciding whether or not to offer a cocktail at our opening reception; I kid you not!)
I proposed a Marketing Plan for CAMeC back in December (I think) and a major source of my frustration is that it has yet to be addressed in any meaningful way. We’ve had one meeting about it in which we spent an hour and a half wordsmithing the first page. No one appears to want (or maybe to be ready) to discuss the substance of the proposals. One potentially interesting idea in the proposal is to create a radio serial with a lawyer/barrister as the protagonist. Each week he handles a new case and shepards it through the arbitration/mediation process, all to the satisfaction of both parties. Programs like this have been effective in other parts of Africa regarding other issues (HIV/AIDS, female genital cutting, domestic violence). We’ll have to see if it works for us or if we can even afford it, as I have no idea how much it would cost to produce here; especially since we would probably need to produce it in at least six languages (French, Fon, Yoruba, Bariba, Dendi and Adja)
Such are the pitfalls of having the least PC-like job in all of PC. Having a “real job,” I keep expecting things to happen at the pace of a real job in the USA. Such is distinctly NOT the case here. I don’t know if they just don’t yet understand that a deadline is actually a deadline, or if they just think that “somehow” the work will magically get done, or if they think the money will keep coming whether or not anything gets done…I just don’t know. And I don’t have any authority to act on my own. I can give them advice, I can cajole them, I can make suggestions – often very pointed ones – but I can’t actually DO any of the real work. I had a chance to have lunch with the Country Director for Millennium Challenge and her deputy on Friday and we’re going to stay in contact and see how things develop.
While all of that has been building, I have not been sitting still, however. I recently traveled all the way up to the Nigerien (not Nigerian) border to a town called Malanville, where another PCV had asked me to help with her women’s group. She is teaching them to make things like handbags and coin purses out of recycled plastic bags (there are A LOT of them in Benin). So she asked me to come up and talk to them about how to sell the stuff she is teaching them to make. For almost a week I got a taste of what “real” PCVs do on a daily basis. It was very eye-opening. Malanville is the farthest north PCV in Benin – and it’s f’ing HOT there. I think one day it only got to 98 degrees, every other day was over 100. THIS is why everyone goes inside and closes their doors between 12:30 and 3:00pm every day. You would die of dehydration otherwise. We spent one entire day at the only nice hotel in town, lounging by the pool and sipping the occasional beverage. Ultimately, we did a little work, had a lot of fun, and generally just enjoyed being out of Cotonou for a week. Everything up there is very different, from the weather to the landscape, to the people, to the food. It was a nice change.
Then the last weekend in March was our All-Volunteer conference. All the Benin PCVs got together at a nice hotel here in Cotonou for three days of workshops and drinking…um, I mean…training. The hotel has a pool, HOT showers (nobody in PC has a water heater) Wi-Fi in the rooms, a great restaurant and bar (DRAFT beer) with a patio that overlooks the lagoon…very nice place. It was a lot of fun – and surprisingly relevant. We had a general venting session called “Rumor Busters” where everyone had a chance to voice whatever rumors they had been hearing and got more or less frank answers from PC Admin. We had sessions on what is or is not working with PC Benin and got the opportunity to suggest our own solutions. And we had lots of sector-specific sessions where we got to share experiences and compare notes with the other PCVs in our sector. That was actually the least valuable for me, since I’m doing the least PC-like job in PC. Not much to “compare” to, I’m afraid. Of course, when we weren’t in session we were hanging out by the pool, drinking cold draft beer and eating pizza. ;-)
One of the highlights of All-Vol is the annual talent show (and date auction). Yes, I performed in the talent show. My friend Ben and I did a duet of an Irving Berlin tune, C-U-B-A (shout out to the Austin Lounge Lizards). Someone got it on video, so as soon as I get it I’ll post it here. We were a big hit, though we didn’t “win” on account of we had to go first and the judges had to leave room in their scores for the later acts. (Sour grapes, anyone?) The date auction (think, Bill Murray and Chris Elliot in Groundhog Day) is a strictly unofficial event organized by Benin PCVs to supplement the funds raised by the other big highlight of the weekend, the GAD Dinner and Auction.
GAD is the Gender and Development project, specifically intended to ensure that women and girls are accounted for in our efforts to assist the people of Benin. GAD funds a myriad of small projects throughout the country throughout the year and is almost entirely funded by the proceeds from the annual auction(s). All the PCVs have really amazing outfits made and let me tell ya, we clean up pretty good. Most of the ex-pat community in Cotonou is invited and they spend lots of money on lots of stuff to help support GAD. A grand time was had by all. I did my part as well, replacing my poor dead iPod with a brand new iPod Shuffle that was kindly donated by the nice folks at Apple. I also bought a basket of chocolate that somehow had two small boxes of Frangos!!!! in it. They were little boxes of four mints each and they managed to make it all the way here without melting…don’t ask me how.
Luckily, the remaining chocolate hasn’t melted yet because I recently got a REFRIGERATOR! (Full-size with a freezer!) Yes, folks, it’s hardly like Africa at all now that I can make ice, buy butter and store leftovers. Admittedly it cost me a bit of money, but I expect to more than pay for it over the next 18 months as I can now keep food fresh for more than 48 hours at a time. I can also buy things like beverages, meat and cheese in bulk quantities for much cheaper than by the meal’s worth. In the last week I have had ham and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. I realize that this may seem insignificant to you, but after 9 months of mostly starch this is HUGE! This alone has made an enormous improvement in my overall level of happiness. (Not to mention the cold beer.)
On the flip side, however, I recently had a zemidjahn driver try to mug me on the way home from a restaurant…so you take the bad with the good. I managed to get away unharmed and without loss, so it’s OK. But it didn’t make me feel very “warm and fuzzy.”
I’m getting involved with some side projects here and there. A volunteer who is working with the national parks department is going to put together a Benin tourism website (probably a wiki) and has asked me to be responsible for the section on Cotonou. I’m going to ask Jacques (my APCD) if I can get reimbursed for eating in restaurants and staying in hotels around town as part of my “research” for this project. Wish me luck…
I’m teaching a class on Business Leadership at a Biz Mgmt school here in Cotonou. I’m teaching it in English which is great for me but sometimes tough on the students. The idea is to expose them to a professional level English vocabulary while at the same time teaching them something about leadership. I try not to resort to French unless I really have to. I’m never quite sure if the students are “getting it” or not. But I get the occasional really intelligent question or insightful counter-argument that let’s me know that at least some of them are getting something. I figure that’s the best I can hope for.
Coming up at the end of April is a workshop on how to start and operate a village savings and loan association – basically, a micro-credit program. This should be very interesting, if not terribly applicable to my primary project. But once I’ve been through it, I can take the information to other PCV’s posts – like Meagan up in Malanville – and help them start programs in their villages. Yet another good reason to get the hell out of Cotonou for a while. (Can you tell it’s not my favorite place on Earth?)
And the thing that I think I’m most energized about. There have been a group of three filmmakers in Benin for the last few months working on a documentary about child trafficking. It is a big and much underappreciated problem in Benin. They recently went back to the states to resume their “normal” lives and to edit and complete their film. (For more on their project go to: http://unseenstories.wordpress.com/about/ ) They are going to be returning next summer with a short animated film in multiple languages that they will tour around the country, giving screenings and educating people about the issue. This tour is going to be largely focused around PCVs and their communities and I am helping to organize the tour. At the same time, lots of PCVs are holding independent events highlighting the problem; the first is a rap concert/party in Parakou on May 17th organized by my friend and fellow PCV Jaren Tichy in Tchaorou.
That’s about it from here. Saturday, I’m going to a Passover Seder at the home of our Country Director. That should be interesting. Other than that, I’m reading lots of books and watching lots of movies. I highly recommend Charlie Wilson's War and a novel called Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes.
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