Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

I’ve decided that it takes too much work to try to remember everything I want to share when I only send out big, infrequent updates. So…here is (what I hope will be) the first of many smaller, more frequent updates. Salut!

It is the middle of the rainy season here in Benin. Rain here doesn’t fuck around, either. Back home we get stretches of days on end when “it rains.” Usually that means there has been some minuscule, yet measurable, amount of precipitation. Not here. No, in Benin we had a two week stretch that just ended yesterday, when we had a good 2-3 inches of rain every day…every day for two weeks! Needless to say, the drainage system – such as it is – was massively overwhelmed. The roads around my house have up to a foot of standing water. And the best part, the drain behind my house got clogged with leaves and I had an inch of water in my bedroom and bathroom. Yippee!!! There is also paint flaking off of my bedroom ceiling in huge patches and the walls are all clearly soaked from the inside out; huge areas of dark sogginess are everywhere. Even the front door has expanded from the wetness to the point where I have to use my shoulder to get it open or closed. I think we must have arrived after the worst of last year’s rainy season, because I don’t remember it being anything like this when we got here.

The flip side of the rainy season is that it is also pineapple season…mmmmmmmm. Ginormous, yellow-orange, spiky footballs of deliciousness. Women walk around all over Cotonou with platters of whole, fresh pineapples on their heads. For 100f (about $0.25) they’ll peel one, slice it up and give it to you in a bag with toothpicks to make it easier to eat. THE perfect snack or dessert. Canned pineapple…never again.

A couple of stories from the “Cultural Adjustment Never Ends” file:

Was having lunch at a café not far from the bureau yesterday. It’s called Chez Tony and it serves what I think of as Lebanese comfort food: felafel, schwarma sandwiches, hommous, babaganouje and my personal favorite – sheesh taouk. (For those of you who know how much I love the sheesh taouk at The Mediterranean Kitchen in Seattle, this is nothing like that. But it’s still delicious. I digress.) Anyway, sitting there having lunch in the outdoor seating area and I felt something rub up against my leg under the table. When I looked down and saw a brown, furry thing I figured it was a small dog that wandered in from the street. But when it came out from under my chair it turned out to be a kid. NO! Not a child, a baby goat! C’est l’Afrique! (We actually have a little game we sometimes play here. We try to guess whether the screams we are hearing are coming from a child or a goat. They sound remarkably similar.)

And from the category of, “You ain’t all that enlightened, dude” comes the following incident:

I was buying grilled chicken from a street vendor near my house the other night. I do this a couple of times a week, so I know which ones are safe and which will leave me regretting it later on. Anyway, while I was waiting for my chicken a guy approached me and said that he had just arrived from Ghana and hadn’t found work yet and could I give him some money so he could get something to eat. As you might imagine, something like this happens frequently here in Benin – one of the ten poorest countries on Earth. I determined very early on that the only way for me to deal with these situations without going rapidly broke or crazy was to politely and consistently decline. So I said, “Sorry, I can’t give you any money.”

He asked again for money and I said, “I can’t give you any money, but if you want food you can have some chicken.”

He told me he needed money for him and his family, so I said, “Okay. Sorry, then. Good Luck.” And I left with my chicken.

As I said, this is a fairly common occurrence. I have long since gotten over any feelings of guilt I had about not being able to help every single person who asks. But as I was walking home I realized I was feeling guilty. WTF? Why, after months of routinely being confronted with the same situation, was I suddenly feeling guilty about this one?

I thought maybe it was because I was buying food at the time, but I offered him food and he didn’t take it. Then I thought maybe because he mentioned his family, but I’ve actually been waylaid by mothers with children in-tow, so that wasn’t it either. It wasn’t until I got back to the house that I realized what it was. He was from Ghana…so this entire exchange occurred in English. Unlike most other times when I can dismiss the situation with a quick, “Ce n’est pas possible.” or the somewhat more deceptive but always effective, “A la prochaine.” (basically, “I’ll get you next time.”) this guy engaged me in my own language. Something about the fact that we were speaking English made it seem worse when I had to refuse his request. Why? The only thing I can come up with is that by speaking English he seemed more like me; there was less distance between us – he was less ètranger – and so it was harder. ♫ We are the world…♫ My ass!

So…a couple big things coming up. Next Friday, July 4th, there will be a big shindig at the Ambassador’s house to celebrate Independence Day. Then, after the festivities it’s off to the airport to greet the next batch of volunteers. There are 65 in total, including 12 SED and 3 ICT volunteers who I will be working with for the first week of training. Should be fun!

Then, toward the end of July we are going to execute the first step in the Marketing plan for CAMeC; a series of public information meetings all around the country to promote the use of arbitration and mediation as a way to resolve commercial disputes. We will have at least one stop in each of the 12 departments (basically, provinces) of Benin. It should last from 2-3 weeks and I’ll get to see most of the country in the process. More details as they become available.