The Roller Coaster

The following was written on November 16, 2008:

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted. Once you’ve read this, the reasons should become clear. Obviously, I am using this blog as basically a substitute for a journal. If, as a result, I end up subjecting you to the random crap that goes on in my head... well, I hope you enjoy some of it.

One of my PCMI cohorts recently referred to Peace Corps life as simply, “the roller coaster” which is a pretty apt description. [Shout out to Abby! Keep up the good work. I know it gets tough, but it sounds like you’ve got some pretty good folks there who support and care about you. I’m sending only my best thoughts to you from Benin!] My particular instantiation of the roller coaster has been pretty active lately, to say the least.

As I think I’ve described previously, I got through the 40th anniversary with flying colors. The video project finally came together and was a huge success. I got a lot of very positive feedback from PCVs, from staff, even from the Regional Director, who insisted on getting a copy before he flew back to DC. It was even broadcast on Beninese state television, courtesy of the good folks at the US Embassy. Now we’re negotiating with PCHQ (some controversy over the copyright on the music I used for the video) about putting it up on YouTube. Ah, my 15 minutes…

Following the anniversary, work started to really pick up. There were a series of public information meetings to promote CAMeC and the work we do to the business and legal communities around the country. The first two were here in Cotonou and in Porto Novo, the capital. We drew large crowds and the exchange was really productive. Everybody was quite happy with the results. Then, my homologue and another staff member took the show on the road in the southern part of the country while I got to attend “life skills” training.

Three days of my life that I’ll never get back.

The program was designed to include PCVs and a host country work partner who would attend together and learn how to teach life skills related to reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. This is great for health volunteers, and maybe even for environment and TEFL volunteers. But for small enterprise volunteers, especially for those working at the level I’m working at, it’s pretty much a waste of time. (And that’s notwithstanding the fact that I could have TAUGHT most of what was presented.) But because this training was funded by a grant, and the grant was dependent on a certain number of people attending, no one was allowed to miss it. And all the while I could have been executing the marketing plan I submitted to CAMeC back in January! So, by the end of the week my enthusiasm for all things Peace Corps was at a low ebb…

Then things really went to shit.

We were supposed to continue the road show in the north of Benin the week after Life Skills. We were leaving on Sunday. Friday morning I got a text message from my homologue saying (I thought) that there was a meeting at MCA at noon. Well this was around 11:00am and I was still in Porto Novo so I couldn’t make it. Later that night (around 9:30) I got another text saying my homologue was unable to get me per diem and could I cover the cost of the trip and then be reimbursed. There was no way I could come up with enough money on such short notice. So after several more exchanges of texts, including one sequence where I told her how upset I was for the short notice and saying I felt disrespected, it was finally decided I would not go on the tour. She left as scheduled on Sunday morning.

One small problem…the initial message wasn’t telling me to go to a meeting, it was telling me to go to MCA for my “frais de mission.” What is that, you might reasonably ask? That’s my per diem. Obviously, I only discovered this after the fact. But thus, everything that happened after the first message was a result of me misinterpreting her messages in light of what I (mistakenly) thought was going on. Needless to say, I felt like a complete asshole…AND I ended up not going on this tour that we’ve been planning for four months.

To quote a line from Bill Murray, “And then...depression set in.” I wrote the following the next day…

Among the cardinal rules in life, right up there with, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia” and “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter” are the following: 1) Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry and, 2) Never sit down to write when you’re depressed. Why? For approximately the same reason in both cases; you invariably end up with more than you bargained for. On va voir…

One of the most amazing things about this journey I’ve been on for the last few years has been the absolute certainty that I’ve been on the right path. As I have described [previously], I have carried this sense with me; not like I-have-analyzed-this-thoroughly-and concluded-that, but more as a part of the fiber of my being. No doubts, no hesitation, no detours, u-turns or dead ends. I’ve been living a Yogi Berra-ism, “When you get to a fork in the road, take it,” I have been, and every time it’s been the right one. It has been a source of enormous strength and reassurance for me for going on five years now.

Not anymore.

I have lost my way. Like Hansel and Gretel, I look around me only to find that someone has eaten all the bread crumbs. All of the bright positive signals the universe had been so kindly providing have disappeared, replaced by…nothing. I don’t want to sound too melodramatic, but it really is quite profound. An accumulation of circumstances and events over the course of the last few months has left me bereft. My purpose for being here has been lost. My sense of my place in the world has been displaced. My confidence is in tatters. And the way forward looks very much like the slippery slope into the abyss. I am consumed with a deep and abiding sense of disillusionment which admits very little in the way of hope or optimism. I am, in a word, lost.

The one thing I am still fairly certain of is that quitting is not the answer. There is still work to be done here, even if I may not be the right person to do it. I have a plane ticket to Seattle leaving in a little over a month, which should give me an opportunity to gain some perspective. I need to decide whether to finish my degree program, and if so, why? And either way…then what?

What do the Germans call it? “Sturm und Drang?” Yup. That was about two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve gotten much better…maybe I’m bipolar… Anyway, I sat down with my APCD and explained what had happened and he was incredibly supportive. He tried very hard to get me to believe that “things like this happen all the time.” [He told me a little story that only really makes sense if you know French. It seems a couple of PCVs went to a restaurant and wanted to order bread. But they got the article wrong – instead of “le” they used “la.” So instead of bread they ended up with rabbit! (bread = le pain, rabbit = lapine)] He and I went to speak to my homologue together and she was very understanding. There seem to be no hard feelings and we are back to working well together, thank heavens.

With that resolved I followed some very good advice and went back to the beginning, trying to rediscover why I had embarked on this journey in the first place. One of the things I realized was that my descent into lostedness pretty much coincided with my starting to try to figure out what comes after Peace Corps. But it wasn’t that, per se, that was the problem.

The problem was that all my planning revolved around the idea that it was time to do for me now, instead of for others. As soon as I started caring more about what I could get out of this experience, and how I was going to turn it to my advantage (i.e., “good” job, better paycheck, more credibility or perks or whatever) that’s when the universe turned off the lights. Instead of being concerned with, as I have written before, “Bringing more of the world’s advantages to more of the world’s people” I was trying to see how I could bring more of the world’s advantages to ME! And basically the universe said, “Oh yeah? Fine. If you’re gonna be like that, you’re on your own.” Okay. Message received and understood.

So, in restarting the process of figuring out what comes next I went looking, first and foremost, for ways to continue to serve the greater good while, hopefully, also improving my circumstances and my future prospects. It certainly helped that this also coincided with election night, which dramatically improved my outlook on a host of things, Peace Corps included. (Yeah! I get to come home after my service is over!) Anyway, I’ve found some promising opportunities, several of which I am actively pursuing.

In particular, I have decided to apply for the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellowship. It’s a two-year program through the Congressional Hunger Center that puts fellows into the field for a year and then at an organizational HQ doing policy work for the second year. If I get it, training starts in mid-July and field work starts in August (in either Uganda or CAPE TOWN!). Yes, that puts the Masters degree on hold. But, since the point of the Masters degree is to be able to actually work in international development, I figure doing that sort of trumps the degree.

But that’s getting well ahead of ourselves at this point. Because, the PC roller coaster has taken another very interesting turn just this past Friday.

By way of background, PC has three work stations around Benin, in three of the larger cities in the north of the country. These are buildings PC provides for volunteers to work, to sleep, to rest over as they are traveling around the country and also to gather in the event of an emergency. They have kitchens, sleeping quarters, TV/VCR/DVD, computers w/ internet access...basically all the comforts of "home" as far as those are available in Benin. Each of these has a PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leader) who manages the workstation, hires and pays the guards and other support staff, provides support for the volunteers in each region, and is generally the go-to guy/gal for PCVs who have problems or concerns or complaints for PC staff. These PCVLs are generally volunteers who extend for a 3rd year to accept a PCVL position.

Now, because the PC bureau is down south in Cotonou, it is considered the "southern workstation." However, it doesn't really function like a workstation for many reasons, not the least of which is that there is no southern PCVL. There are also no sleeping quarters at the bureau, except for those in the Medical Unit for PCVs with legit medical problems. Ditto for TV/VCR and kitchen. PCVs who come to Cotonou generally stay in hotels (or with Cotonou PCVs) and if they are on PC business they should get reimbursed - several weeks after the fact. All of this is managed by PC staff and comes out of the PC budget. Despite that, all PCVs - north and south - pay workstation dues...go figure.

So, for quite some time, southern volunteers have been agitating for a southern PCVL who can provide the same kinds of support for southern PCVs as the three existing PCVLs do for northern volunteers. For a host of reasons, including those differences I outlined above, PC Admin has never authorized a PCVL for the south. However...by the end of this year we are going to be moving into a new Bureau that will include volunteers sleeping quarters, kitchen, work area, lounge, etc. that will be in the same compound but in a separate building from the administrative offices. This area will be accessible to volunteers 24/7, unlike the current bureau which has an 8 o'clock curfew.

By now you're probably way ahead of me, but the upshot is that on an interim basis - sort of a proof of concept - I am going to take on the responsibility of the southern PCVL. Lots of details have yet to worked out - including a formal job description. The idea is that we'll do it for a few months and try to measure whether or not having a southern PCVL actually makes a difference in the level of volunteer support - or in the volunteers' perception of how well they are being supported, which is nearly as important. From there, PC will make a final decision about a permanent PCVL in the south.

What impact will this have on me, my work, my degree program, etc.? I have no idea, but those will be active considerations as we hammer out the details over the next few weeks. This all came out of a "Town Hall" meeting the southern PCVs had on Friday morning with the Country Director and the Admin Officer, so it's all brand new territory. The move is currently scheduled to happen while I'm in Seattle, so it should be up and running by the time I get back. As if the culture shock of coming back here isn't going to be enough all by itself...

How’s that for a loop-de-loop?!?

C-U-B-A

So, this is a video taken by another PCV of me and Ben Fouty (PCVL in Parakou) performing at the All-Volunteer conference Talent Show back in March. We are performing a song entitled C-U-B-A, by Irving Berlin...though not in the original style. (Shout out to the Austin Lounge Lizards!)

The miracles of modern technology...and the lack thereof.

One of the hardest things for me to adjust to while living here has been the consequences of failed technology (NOT an unusual occurrence around here). In the States when a computer fails, for example, you just call up tech support and get someone to fix it. To my ongoing frustration, such is not the case here. Thus, the reason why I haven’t written for a while. My computer continues to resist all efforts to revive it (perhaps a new verb is needed: to lazarise, i.e. to bring back from the dead) so I continue to try to make due without much of the essential information of my life. This includes things like my email address book and my resume(s), but also all of my music (all on iTunes) and all of the data for the 40th anniversary video project I was working on. Needless to say, I haven’t been getting a whole lot done lately.

Now mind you, that’s not the only reason I haven’t been working much. As I recall, the last time I wrote I had just returned from working stage in Porto Novo and I was on my way to Grand Popo for the weekend. My friend Jaren’s parent were visiting and she and Steve had planned a vow renewal ceremony for them, which they had asked me to officiate. What a wonderful weekend! Annie and Greg (Jaren’s parents) are great and basically made me feel like one of the family from the get-go. (I think it’s safe to say at this point I am one of the family. I’ve already been invited to Husky tailgate parties and the family 4th of July at Liberty Lake...oh yeah, they're from Washington.)

We stayed in a beautiful little auberge right on the beach, run by a Frenchman named Guy who has lived in Benin for over 20 years. He is the stereotypical French ex-pat: he hates it here but he can’t imagine leaving; he is always “busy” but never too busy to be welcoming and generous with his guests; he is always working on the next scheme to improve his business (he recently bought and refurbished an old train, which he now runs between the auberge in G Po and the one he owns in Dassa); and, of course, he knows everyone and has stories about all of them – which he prefers to tell over a bottle of wine or a glass of whiskey. Quite a character, to say the least.

We held the ceremony on the beach, next to a lonely palm tree. Jaren and Steve had matching outfits made for Annie and Greg from local tissu in their original wedding colors. Jaren walked her mom down the “aisle” (across the sand) as local drummers played in the background. It was really very lovely. Afterwards we retired to the deck, under the umbrellas, for a celebratory dinner, to the accompaniment of more drumming and the sound of waves crashing on the beach. I’m not sure it gets much better than that. We came back to Cotonou the next day to send Greg off to the States and Annie continued on to visit Tchaourrou, where Jaren and Steve are posted.

I spent most of the next week trying to get my computer fixed. I won’t bore you with a litany of all the things I tried (with the help of an IT volunteer), but suffice it to say none of them worked.

It was the following weekend that I started to feel sick; fever, aches, alternating sweats and chills – all the classic symptoms of malaria. So I began a course of anti-malaria drugs (Coartem for you doctors out there). Only problem is, I had 3 malaria tests come back negative! The only thing worse than being really sick and not knowing what you have is being 8,000 miles from home and not having anyone to take care of you. Now, of course, the doctors took care of me, but only in the barest clinical sense. What I would have given for a bowl of hot chicken soup and some saltines...!

After about five days I started to feel better. But then a rash of little red spots started showing up all over my body and the next day the fever was back (though milder). So the doctors took more blood (and various other samples) and ran a multitude of tests. As of this writing, I still have no idea what was wrong with me. Actually, that's not true. I have a pretty good idea what I had, I just have no clinical confirmation. (Again, for you medical types, I'm pretty sure I had Dengue Fever. The symptoms match pretty well.) That notwithstanding, I seem to have fully recovered; both the fever and the rash are history. I have returned to my “work,” such as it is, and life is more or less back to normal.

***GREAT NEWS ALERT*** Within the last few hours I have finally – FINALLY!!! – managed to rescue the 40th anniversary video data from my hard drive, so I should be able to finish it in time for the big celebration on September 5th. (For you techies in the audience, I was able to boot my laptop using a bootable linux disk – Ubuntu – and get to my hard drive through a Windows-like shell. Then copied the files to an external drive and voila!) The computer is still not operational, strictly speaking, but at least I have access to my data. When my new hard drive gets here, then the real fun begins. I get to try to “lasarize” my laptop! Wish me luck. ***

OK, gotta go. Next big thing is the 40th anniversary celebration. We're having a big ceremony here in Cotonou, with speeches, booths, and the swearing-in of the new volunteers. The PC Regional Director for Africa is coming from Washington. He and President Yayi Boni are supposed to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding. (Our current MOU was signed by the government of Dahomey!) Finally, if everything works out, the president of Benin is going to host a banquet for all PCVs and PC staff that night. I'll believe it when I see it...

Of Arrivals, Departures, Renewals...and Pigs.

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

A lot has happened since my last post. The final weekend in June a bunch of volunteers organized Pork Fest (aka Pork-a-palooza). We all got together in Parakou and chowed down on a couple of pigs. (A few adult beverages might also have been consumed.) We had pork of some kind for every meal: breakfast sausage, pulled pork sandwiches, hand-made bratwurst (yes, we cleaned the intestines, ground the meat and stuffed them ourselves), and - of course - a whole roast pig. A fine feast was had by all. And it was a nice way to let loose before the next major event - the arrival of the new stagiaires!

They arrived on the Fourth of July and were greeted at the airport with great enthusiasm. We spent a few days in Cotonou, staying at a monastery just outside the city. The new trainees got their initial briefings, medical checks, immunizations, language evaluations...etc. And, of course, their first taste of "Peace Corps life", i.e., bucket showers, latrines, waiting, bush taxis, zemidjans, pate, waiting, nescafe, bureaucracy...did I mention waiting? They are a great group and I think most of them will still be around for swear-in. Of course there will be some who decide that either Peace Corps or Benin is not right for them (there have already been a couple) and I have to respect them for having the courage to make that decision and stick to it. There is nothing noble about being miserable for no reason.

After Cotonou, we all picked up and headed for Porto Novo where they met their host families for the first time. During stage, all of the trainees live with Beninese families so they can learn about the language, culture and customs first-hand. This group is pretty spoiled, however, because most of them are living with very well-to-do families. Almost all of them have electricity 24/7, indoor plumbing (toilets and showers), tile floors, blah, blah, blah. (OK, so I'm a little jealous, but can you really blame me?) They are in for a bit of a rude awakening when they get to post, I'm afraid. In Porto Novo they've gotten their first technical, cross-cultural and language sessions, initial bike training, more shots and of course more waiting.

Sadly, while in Porto Novo my computer finally died. I got one BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) on Friday and by Sunday I had a "Hard Disk Failure Imminent" warning whenever I booted. I am trying to get a new hard drive ASAP because, of course, I haven't backed up any of my data. C'est la vie.

At the moment I am in Cotonou. When I arrived last night I found out that the maman in my concession had passed away over the weekend. So there was music blaring away until 3am that started up again this morning at seven. Needless to say I got very little sleep last night. Now I'm headed for the beach at Grand Popo. My friends Steve and Jaren Schwartz are there with Jaren's parents, who are visiting from la bas. They (her parents) have renewed their wedding vows every few years in different parts of the world, so Steve and Jaren have put together a vow renewal ceremony for them out in Grand Popo. And they have asked me to officiate the ceremony! The best part is that her parents don't know about it yet! They are actually going to get invitations to their own ceremony. Steve and Jaren have arranged local musicians and dancers to perform for the ceremony...it should be very cool.

After that it's back to work and sleeping in my own bed...for a change.

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.