Life Goes On

Last night there was another amazing thunderstorm here in Cotonou. I know I’ve already sent you one rather colorful description of the storms here, but last night took it to another level entirely. I mean, I haven’t been afraid of thunderstorms for at least 30 years; in fact, I quite enjoy them most of the time. But last night I was actually scared. I think it was because I wasn’t entirely certain if I was safe or not. Back home, even in the wildest storms, if you’re inside you know you’re pretty safe – unless lightning hits the tree next door and it falls on your house. :’-( But last night I wasn’t sure what might happen. In a word, I felt vulnerable. Every day a new experience…

So, life has been interesting the last couple of weeks. First some sad news; another volunteer has left early. This time it was the woman who had become probably my best friend thus far among the PCVs. Happily for her, she found the perfect program at a school in California and they had a January admissions cycle, so she’s headed off to school. Sadly for me, that’s one less person on the dwindling list of people I have to talk to about “stuff.” She was the one who helped me work through my initial crisis of conscience back in September. She’s very perceptive and insightful and I already miss having her to talk to.

In that vein, however, there is a group designed for PCVs to have people to talk to. It’s called the Peer Support Network (PSN). It is a group of volunteers scattered all over the country who have been trained to listen and offer support to other volunteers when they need it. With my training in Compassionate Listening I felt like I could be effective in that role, so I mentioned it to one of our Medical Officers and voila! As it turns out, there is a team coming to West Africa from DC to do PSN training. So starting Monday I’ll be in a two-day training workshop on Peer Support in Peace Corps. I’m really looking forward to it. I think with my previous training and the fact that I am older (and presumably wiser, at least in some ways) than most of these “kids” that I will be able to help folks when they’re feeling stressed or lonely. Hopefully, we can intervene and keep a few more PCVs in Benin instead of wishing them good luck on their way back to the USA.

We had some people visit from Millennium Challenge HQ in DC this past week. It was actually a very productive visit. We were able to demonstrate that there are people here who are working hard and are serious about making CAMeC a success. We did a post-mortem on the whole business plan process, which was very illuminating. Hopefully both we and they can now avoid most of the pitfalls that hindered that process the next time we need to submit documentation. We also started discussing our next steps: hiring, training and marketing. My buddy in Tcharrou, Steve Schwartz (aka “encore Steve”), has extensive experience in Marketing and PR so he came up with a 1-3 year plan intended to: publicize the existence of CAMeC and the services it provides; to develop the market by increasing the formalization of the economy; to get the country talking about the legal system in general and arbitration/mediation in particular; to change the perception of the legal system among foreign companies, investors and the international financial community; and ultimately to make Benin a leader in West Africa in the area of legal and commercial reform. Ambitious? Yes, but not impossible. In fact, if we get only half of those things accomplished Benin will be significantly ahead of most other countries in the region. I’d be happy with that.

As for me, personally, my outward life is going along just fine but I continue to struggle with my conscience. As when I was in South Africa the issue of privilege has come front and center here in Benin. I continue to insist that I am not “rich” when approached for money or “cadeaux” (gifts), but come to understand more everyday that rich is a highly relative concept. I feel like I have barely enough money to live on, and yet it is waaaaaaaaaay more than most Beninese will ever have. Although I have had to economize to be able to afford it, I am going on a “safari” later this month. And although it is to a park right here in Benin, nevertheless most Beninese will probably never have that experience. Now, I could assuage my conscience with the convenient rubric about “contributing to the local economy,” but that feels like a massive cop-out. So I’m not sure where that leaves me.

I talked about some of this stuff – albeit in broken French – with the papa in my concession the other night. He was just hanging out on the stoop in his wheelchair, so I pulled out a chair and hung out with him for a while. So we got around to talking about how I was adjusting and I told him how hard it was to always be seen as the rich white guy. He pointed out, correctly, that the vast majority of Beninese have no experience with white people who are not – in their eyes – extravagantly rich. Add that to the fact that most aid agencies, not to mention individual aid workers, are basically in the business of giving out money and then top it off with the images of America that they get from the f@ck!ng television and OF COURSE they think I have money falling out of my pockets. So one struggle is how to adjust the expectations of the people I encounter without having them think I am just rich but stingy or else lying through my teeth.

The other struggle is with the question of what kind of lifestyle to adopt – not an entirely separate question. I came here expecting to live au village, perhaps without running water or electricity. Now that I live in the largest city in Benin, with most of the Western conveniences I’m accustomed to, there is the temptation – the VERY strong temptation – to try to recreate as much of my former lifestyle as I can. I have air conditioning and internet at work and at the Peace Corps bureau, so I have access to news and media. I have electricity at my home, so I can get a little fridge and I’ll be able to store food. I could just create my only little enclave of pseudo-Americana and live in it for the next two years. Of course part of me screams that that is not what I came here for; that that would not be an “authentic” Peace Corps experience. But when I look at the three goals of Peace Corps, I see #2: “To promote better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served” So do I do that by trying to be “bien integrée” or by living an American lifestyle in full view of my friends and neighbors? I don’t know. But I do know that in the absence of an active direction that inertia has a way of taking over, so I need to figure it out.

ET? Phone home.

Happy Halloween!

I have bad news, good news and great news from the past couple of weeks.

The bad news is that my friend and postmate Andy went home. We call it ET’d, which stands for Early Terminated. Early Termination is a purely personal choice and PC does a great job of supporting people who decide to go home. There is no “penalty”; you don’t get a black mark next to your name in the PC ledger or anything. In fact, it is possible to return to PC later to re-apply after you’ve ET’d – many people do. That being said, I’m disappointed both personally at having lost my nearest fellow PCV and professionally because I don’t really think he made a good faith effort to make it work. I won’t go into details because it wouldn’t be appropriate, and I don’t want to judge because as I said ETing is a very personal decision. But I am disappointed.

The good news – though I am perhaps a little ambivalent about it – is that I now have a house full of furniture. Why? Because when Andy left he gave me all of his. I inherited a dining table with four chairs, another coffee table, an end table and three set of shelves: HUGE ones for the living room, medium ones for the kitchen and tall skinny ones for the bathroom. I also got his stove (both his burners work while only one of mine was working), a pagne (PAHN-ya) chair – basically a canvas deck chair – and his single bed frame, but not the mattress. Now I just have to set up the spare room and other volunteers can stay with me when they come to Cotonou. Actually, a few have already done that although the spare bed is currently doubling as my couch. What I really need to do is rearrange the whole place, move my kitchen into the house and use the kitchen space out back for storage – it will make living much easier. So, I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend.

More good news: It looks like I’ve found a secondary project to work on. There is a business school here in Cotonou that is looking for someone to teach some classes on Leadership/Management and the like. One of the other PCVs is going to be teaching some tech classes and she introduced me to the woman who runs the place and it looks like I’ll start teaching in December. That should be fun and it should put me in touch with a different crowd of people; good for broadening the horizons and all.

The great news is that we finished the business plan! Why is this great news? First, it means that LOTS of aid money will now start flowing to the project. We will be able to move into our new office space (getting me out of the lobby) and start hiring and training people to actually DO arbitrations. Second, it means that we can stop operating in “crisis” mode and start working a normal routine. Now at this point I have no idea what that looks like because we’ve been working on the business plan since I got here, so this may or may not be a good thing. I have only a vague idea of what my role will be under normal operating conditions, so we’ll have to play it by ear. Ca va.

Everyday news: Sunday I’m leaving Cotonou for the first time (officially) since swear-in. The Small Enterprise volunteers are all getting together in Natitingou (just like it’s spelled) for our Early Service Conference (ESC). ESC is out first real opportunity to check in and see how things are going for our sector. We’ll get some additional info sessions on funding sources for projects, applying for them, finding secondary projects, etc. But mostly we’ll get to share our experiences with our fellow PCVs. Plus, Nati is way up in the north of Benin, which is totally different from the south. Everyone says it’s just beautiful. I’m REALLY looking forward to a change of scenery right now! I’ll be driving up with a couple of other volunteers and our APCD in a PC vehicle, so instead of cramming into a bush taxi for 14 hours we’ll be riding in a nice, comfy, air-conditioned SUV for 8 or 9. There are some good things about living in Cotonou…

Next time, more pictures!

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.