I cut my thumb in October. This was no routine paper-cut style scratch but a gash worthy of several stitches. On the positive side, I know that when people point to my scar and ask me where I got it, I can reply "Africa" with a certain air of masculinity that leaves the listener in awe. On the negative side, the story behind it is not nearly as romantic. I was opening a can of peas, and the can opener missed two spots directly opposite each other. Being the incredibly bright individual that I am, gifted with the mental capacity to graduate from an institution such as the University of Michigan, I thought to myself, "Well, I'll just push the lid open with my thumbs!" Five minutes later I was on my last piece of gauze from the medical kit the Peace Corps had provided me, calling my postmate who was at the Peace Corps office, to tell her to bring me some more gauze when she came back the following day.
"Well, do you need stitches?" she asked. I hadn't thought of that.
"I don't know, probably they'd stitch it up in the US but I can't really see it because it's dark," I replied through a mouthful of peas cooked in Type O positive blood.
"Well, you might have to go to Parakou tomorrow," she said, referring to the big city two hours away with a decent hospital.
I slept fitfully that night, my hand bleeding through cloths I had wrapped around it and my arm raised above my head. In the morning, I decided to try out Ouesse's little medical clinic. I arrived and asked two men where the doctor was.
"Why?" asked one. I told him I'd cut my thumb.
"I can take a look at it," he said. I followed him hesitantly into a room where he slowly put on a shirt. The room was furnished with a blood-stained wooden table and a cart with medical supplies. He told me to put my hand on the table, which looked as though it had been previously owned by some goat-slaughtering voodoo fetishers. He then carefully unwrapped my bandages with tweezers treated with what he said was "sanitizer." I got my first daylight look at my injury, and knew immediately that I needed stitches.
The prospect of dealing with a white person's lesion must have aroused the curiosity of this man, who had never actually admitted to being a doctor or told me where the real doctor was. He started poking and prodding the cut with the tweezers until it started gushing blood again, after which he said that it was worse than he had thought.
"Yeah, I think I need stitches," I replied.
"No, you know what we're going to do," he said, taking surgical scissors and placing them around the front half of my thumb which was falling off; "we're going to cut this off and let it heal a l'aire." This was a little too much for me to handle; after all, I have enjoyed playing guitar for the last ten years. I stopped him in time and told him I was going to go to the hospital in Parakou instead to get stitches. He looked hurt, but I think he understood.
The doctor in Parakou, I was told, is regarded as one of the best surgeons in Benin. He took one look at the cut and told me he'd stitch it up. I told him what the man in Ouesse had wanted to do and he gasped. He then gave me several shots of anesthetic and I waited a minute for the anesthetic to work its magic. It didn't.
He approached with a thread that looked thick enough to use as a ropeswing, so I told him that maybe we should wait another minute until the anesthetic started kicking in.
"It hasn't yet?" he asked, surprised.
"Nope."
He thought for a moment and then proceeded. Every time I winced in pain as the needle pierced my thumb and the gigantic thread was pulled through, he would ask incredulously if it hurt. As if the procedure wasn't painful enough, now he had to put my manhood into question. I lied and told him it didn't. He finished and I headed off to find lunch after thanking him.
The cut healed well; I'm actually somewhat disappointed that the scar isn't nastier. Nevertheless, it was a memorable experience that gave me a first-hand look at the Beninese health-care system.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
My Way or Their Way...?
I often look at my current job as an opportunity to teach other people something I already know. I teach accounting and marketing skills to artisans and secondary school students. I teach music theory to church choir groups. I'm teaching a friend the alphabet so that she can eventually write her own name. With all of this teaching it's very easy to miss out on all the opportunities to learn from people here. This is why I get very excited when I see some useful tool that I can take back home with me at the end of my service.
Benin recently held municipal elections, and the campaigning process provided me with one such opportunity. Although I do keep tabs on the presidential campaign in the United States, I have to admit it's been quite refreshing not to be flooded with news about the candidates all the time. In the United States, the prospects declare their candidacy months, even years, in advance and you never stop hearing about them - what they did right, what they did wrong, what they mispronounced, why they will or will not be elected.
Here, the candidates could not begin campaigning until 10 days before the election. As soon as the campaign was open, they all made a mad dash to distribute as many posters, flyers, and stickers as they could. These featured, usually, the candidate's face and the party's logo.
The general campaign strategy seemed to be something like this: the candidate would get 20 or so of his friends together at his house, they would all take a handful of posters, take a couple of shots of sodabi (moonshine), and head out on their motorcycles, honking. Also yelling into a megaphone if one was available. When they ran out of posters, they would ride back to the house, grab some more, take some more shots, and then head out again.
As I was observing all of this from an outsider's perspective, the thought occurred to me: "This is what we should do with the presidential campaigns in the U.S!" Think about it - it can't make the campaigning any less serious than it is right now, it would be wildly entertaining, and we could cap off each night with a nationally televised debate. I don't think it's a stretch to say that after a few drinks throughout the day, the candidates would be more sincere during these debates.
So, sometimes there are things where it seems to me that the "American way" is better, but there are still plenty of things that I can learn from and appreciate about the local way of life. While this example is perhaps somewhat more of a joke, this also holds true for many other things. In a position like mine, it's often easy to fall into the trap of thinking that my way of doing things is superior. It's a challenge to remember to look for ways in which I can grow or I can learn from people here, but when I do pick something up or learn something, it's very rewarding.
Life continues to go well here in Ouesse. I enjoy my town, my friends, and my work, and I'm thankful that I made the choice to come out here. Thank you for all of your prayer, love, and support, it really means a lot to me.
Love,
Sebastian
Benin recently held municipal elections, and the campaigning process provided me with one such opportunity. Although I do keep tabs on the presidential campaign in the United States, I have to admit it's been quite refreshing not to be flooded with news about the candidates all the time. In the United States, the prospects declare their candidacy months, even years, in advance and you never stop hearing about them - what they did right, what they did wrong, what they mispronounced, why they will or will not be elected.
Here, the candidates could not begin campaigning until 10 days before the election. As soon as the campaign was open, they all made a mad dash to distribute as many posters, flyers, and stickers as they could. These featured, usually, the candidate's face and the party's logo.
The general campaign strategy seemed to be something like this: the candidate would get 20 or so of his friends together at his house, they would all take a handful of posters, take a couple of shots of sodabi (moonshine), and head out on their motorcycles, honking. Also yelling into a megaphone if one was available. When they ran out of posters, they would ride back to the house, grab some more, take some more shots, and then head out again.
As I was observing all of this from an outsider's perspective, the thought occurred to me: "This is what we should do with the presidential campaigns in the U.S!" Think about it - it can't make the campaigning any less serious than it is right now, it would be wildly entertaining, and we could cap off each night with a nationally televised debate. I don't think it's a stretch to say that after a few drinks throughout the day, the candidates would be more sincere during these debates.
So, sometimes there are things where it seems to me that the "American way" is better, but there are still plenty of things that I can learn from and appreciate about the local way of life. While this example is perhaps somewhat more of a joke, this also holds true for many other things. In a position like mine, it's often easy to fall into the trap of thinking that my way of doing things is superior. It's a challenge to remember to look for ways in which I can grow or I can learn from people here, but when I do pick something up or learn something, it's very rewarding.
Life continues to go well here in Ouesse. I enjoy my town, my friends, and my work, and I'm thankful that I made the choice to come out here. Thank you for all of your prayer, love, and support, it really means a lot to me.
Love,
Sebastian
Friday, March 28, 2008
Friendships at Post
Several months ago, if you had told me that someday one of my closest friends would be a 26-year old illiterate woman who didn’t shave her armpits, I probably would have had trouble believing you. However, this is the reality for me in my village in Benin. It really is amazing that you can forge significant friendships with so many different types of people.
I’m really enjoying my community in large part because of these friendships. Originally, coming into Benin, I thought that my post would be where I worked, but that most of my fun, social interaction would be with other volunteers. It’s a pretty typical American mentality—find the other Americans and hang out with them. That’s why we always do study abroad programs in large groups, I guess.
I’ve slowly realized that while there is a lot of value in friendships with other volunteers, the most rewarding ones are with the locals that I meet at post. This realization has led me to appreciate cultural differences even more, and to look for ways in which I can let go of my preconceived notion of what a meaningful friendship should be, and instead embrace the opportunity to create different types of relationships that are just as meaningful.
Felicite, the woman I mentioned above, was friends with the volunteer before me, and pretty soon was coming over every day for a while just to chat. She is a single mother with a 7-year old son who has club feet and a 9-month old baby. One of the most interesting and most fun projects, as well as one of the most simple, I have begun with her. She told me that she would someday like to be able to write her name, so I’ve begun teaching her the alphabet, and working with her so that she’ll be able to do that. It’s not quite the type of work I’d ever thought I’d do, and it’s not what most people think of when they think of development, but it’s definitely one of my projects I love the most.
Other friendships have similarly involved. Victor is another of my close friends at post. He’s a very dynamic NGO president, with a clear heart to improve his community, and I’ve come to rely on him for a lot of things, and feel very comfortable talking to him about nearly everything. I also enjoy going and spending time with other friends at their shops or work stands. All in all, I’m finding more and more value every day in the friendships that I’ve made with Beninese people, and have come to learn that they often provide greater wisdom and insight when I need it than I ever expected. I’m truly thankful for them, and they are a big reason why I love my post so much.
Sorry I haven’t been updating my blog lately. I actually spent the last two months at post without leaving, and it looks like I’ll be doing things more in that vein from now on. Perhaps not two months, but I don’t think I’ll make it to a computer every two weeks like I had originally planned. This is not to discourage all of you from emailing me and keeping me updated on your lives—please do, I love hearing from you.
I hope everyone is doing well, staying healthy, and getting ready for summer! God bless,
Sebastian
I’m really enjoying my community in large part because of these friendships. Originally, coming into Benin, I thought that my post would be where I worked, but that most of my fun, social interaction would be with other volunteers. It’s a pretty typical American mentality—find the other Americans and hang out with them. That’s why we always do study abroad programs in large groups, I guess.
I’ve slowly realized that while there is a lot of value in friendships with other volunteers, the most rewarding ones are with the locals that I meet at post. This realization has led me to appreciate cultural differences even more, and to look for ways in which I can let go of my preconceived notion of what a meaningful friendship should be, and instead embrace the opportunity to create different types of relationships that are just as meaningful.
Felicite, the woman I mentioned above, was friends with the volunteer before me, and pretty soon was coming over every day for a while just to chat. She is a single mother with a 7-year old son who has club feet and a 9-month old baby. One of the most interesting and most fun projects, as well as one of the most simple, I have begun with her. She told me that she would someday like to be able to write her name, so I’ve begun teaching her the alphabet, and working with her so that she’ll be able to do that. It’s not quite the type of work I’d ever thought I’d do, and it’s not what most people think of when they think of development, but it’s definitely one of my projects I love the most.
Other friendships have similarly involved. Victor is another of my close friends at post. He’s a very dynamic NGO president, with a clear heart to improve his community, and I’ve come to rely on him for a lot of things, and feel very comfortable talking to him about nearly everything. I also enjoy going and spending time with other friends at their shops or work stands. All in all, I’m finding more and more value every day in the friendships that I’ve made with Beninese people, and have come to learn that they often provide greater wisdom and insight when I need it than I ever expected. I’m truly thankful for them, and they are a big reason why I love my post so much.
Sorry I haven’t been updating my blog lately. I actually spent the last two months at post without leaving, and it looks like I’ll be doing things more in that vein from now on. Perhaps not two months, but I don’t think I’ll make it to a computer every two weeks like I had originally planned. This is not to discourage all of you from emailing me and keeping me updated on your lives—please do, I love hearing from you.
I hope everyone is doing well, staying healthy, and getting ready for summer! God bless,
Sebastian
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Marriage and Children
We have polygamy here in Benin. I guess I shouldn't include myself, since I haven't yet taken advantage of this marital loophole, but nonetheless, polygamy is practiced here in Benin. Apparently it's not technically legal, but it's so ingrained in the local traditions, that the government's laws prohibiting it haven't done anything to decrease its occurrence. Men will simply marry one woman officially and then have other "unofficial" wives. You'd think the women would be jealous, receving only a fraction of their husband's attention, but the women often don't seem to mind. Maybe they're just happy that their husbands are honest about the other women. Sometimes people will ask me,
"In your country, can a man have several wives?"
"No," I'll respond. "In my country, when a married man wants to lust after another woman, he has to go behind his wife's back to do it. We call them affairs."
"Oh," they'll say, and you can see their desire to go to America vanishing. After all, who would want to live in such a repressive country?
So the men here stick to having several wives. When they see a woman they like, they just kind of tack her on to the group. Now, this is certainly not the case throughout the country. In fact, many of my friends have only one wife. It's just not something that is considered taboo here. In addition, the many wives have many children.
This is another aspect of life here that strikes me as somewhat funny. Nearly every girl and woman large enough to be carrying a baby on her back is doing so, to the point where I'd imagine it's embarrasing to not have a baby on her back. One volunteer told me about a friend of hers here. This friend has a baby, and takes the baby to her husband's mistress' house. It's as if she's saying, "You may be sleeping with my husband, but I've got the baby." So all the women have babies, and there are many more small children running around the city. And so it's funny to hear American and European development officials lauding the progress made by their programs that teach HIV/AIDS prevention and population control. These programs are centered around a clever, little educational tool--the ABC's of safe sex. A stands for abstinence, B stands for Be Faithful, and C stands for Condoms. Call me insensitive or politically incorrect, but I find it comically ironic that we've chosen to use the ABC's to teach safe sex to a largely illiterate people. In any case, given the number of wives some men have, and the number of children each woman has, I'd venture to say that A,B, and C are being dutifully ignored and people are skipping straight to D, which evidently stands for "Do it."
People will often ask why I myself am not married, or if I have a wife back in the States. This is fun for me, because I can sometimes make up an imaginary wife back in the States, if I feel like it. I can tell them I have 14 kids. I can tell them my wife doesn't actually live in the States, she lives at the North Pole. But I mostly just tell them the truth, which is the most shocking out of all of these. As a man here in Benin, I most definitely should not be living alone, shopping at the market, cooking for myself. Some men have felt sorry for me and offered to bring me a young girl that I can have, which I respectfully declined. Sometimes it's hard to explain this to them, and they feel hurt when you refuse their generous offers, but overall I think it's good for me. Because I'm looking at the big picture. When I'm married, I can tell my wife, "I could have had several wives in Benin, who would shop, cook for me, do my laundry, bear me many children, but I chose you instead." I think she'll have to love me more for that. But probably she'll just slap me. So, no wives for me yet, which means I'll have just another simple plate of spaghetti tonight.
"In your country, can a man have several wives?"
"No," I'll respond. "In my country, when a married man wants to lust after another woman, he has to go behind his wife's back to do it. We call them affairs."
"Oh," they'll say, and you can see their desire to go to America vanishing. After all, who would want to live in such a repressive country?
So the men here stick to having several wives. When they see a woman they like, they just kind of tack her on to the group. Now, this is certainly not the case throughout the country. In fact, many of my friends have only one wife. It's just not something that is considered taboo here. In addition, the many wives have many children.
This is another aspect of life here that strikes me as somewhat funny. Nearly every girl and woman large enough to be carrying a baby on her back is doing so, to the point where I'd imagine it's embarrasing to not have a baby on her back. One volunteer told me about a friend of hers here. This friend has a baby, and takes the baby to her husband's mistress' house. It's as if she's saying, "You may be sleeping with my husband, but I've got the baby." So all the women have babies, and there are many more small children running around the city. And so it's funny to hear American and European development officials lauding the progress made by their programs that teach HIV/AIDS prevention and population control. These programs are centered around a clever, little educational tool--the ABC's of safe sex. A stands for abstinence, B stands for Be Faithful, and C stands for Condoms. Call me insensitive or politically incorrect, but I find it comically ironic that we've chosen to use the ABC's to teach safe sex to a largely illiterate people. In any case, given the number of wives some men have, and the number of children each woman has, I'd venture to say that A,B, and C are being dutifully ignored and people are skipping straight to D, which evidently stands for "Do it."
People will often ask why I myself am not married, or if I have a wife back in the States. This is fun for me, because I can sometimes make up an imaginary wife back in the States, if I feel like it. I can tell them I have 14 kids. I can tell them my wife doesn't actually live in the States, she lives at the North Pole. But I mostly just tell them the truth, which is the most shocking out of all of these. As a man here in Benin, I most definitely should not be living alone, shopping at the market, cooking for myself. Some men have felt sorry for me and offered to bring me a young girl that I can have, which I respectfully declined. Sometimes it's hard to explain this to them, and they feel hurt when you refuse their generous offers, but overall I think it's good for me. Because I'm looking at the big picture. When I'm married, I can tell my wife, "I could have had several wives in Benin, who would shop, cook for me, do my laundry, bear me many children, but I chose you instead." I think she'll have to love me more for that. But probably she'll just slap me. So, no wives for me yet, which means I'll have just another simple plate of spaghetti tonight.
Holiday Season
Many people have asked me about the holidays, and although it's perhaps a little late to do this, I decided to recap my holiday season in Ouesse.
There were three major holidays that are celebrated every year. These are Tabaski, which is celebrated by the Muslims in my village as a commemoration of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. The Christians celebrate Christmas, and everybody celebrates New Year.
I wish I could tell you that there was something very special about these celebrations in Ouesse, but really all of them consisted of drinking, eating, and talking a lot. Tabaski came and went, and since I didn't really know any of the Muslims who were celebrating it, I didn't slaughter a goat with them. Christmas came and went, Baby Jesus was born as always, and after going to Midnight Mass on the 24th I went over to a couple of different friend's houses on Christmas day, where I ate an enormous amount of food.
New Year's was interesting simply for the fact that people here don't stay up till midnight. They just celebrate when they wake up on January 1st. However, this was not good enough for me, so I made several of my friends stay up till midnight with me. We got some drinks, some snacks, and set up a table and chairs outside. There were a few problems, though. First, we're in the middle of a season called Harmattan, a dry season with dust winds, and it gets very chilly at night. My friends, not being from Michigan, were especially cold. Second, we are all used to going to sleep between 9-10 pm, and midnight was really stretching it. Lastly, since we have no electricity, we had no lights, music, TV, or anything else to help keep us awake. We made it to midnight, toasted to the New Year, and everybody went home at 12:05 am. The next day, though, my friends were all bragging to everybody else who hadn't been there that they'd stayed up to welcome in the New Year. Maybe we'll start a new tradition here in Ouesse.
Not to downplay any of the three more traditional holidays, but we had another celebration around this time that was definitely the most interesting of them all: we installed our new king in Ouesse. Our last king died in 2004, and the oracle who chooses the next king was having a little trouble picking a successor. They kept presenting the men in the village who are of royal lineage to the oracle (whoever or whatever that is), and the oracle kept refusing them. Some of these candidates were upset. You see, being king has positives and negatives. On the positive side, you get a prestigious title, recognition throughout the village, and traditional, if not practical, power. On the downside, your chances of incurring gri-gri (voodoo black magic type stuff), significantly increase. So some candidates wanted the prestige, some candidates just didn't want the potential gri-gri. Finally, a few months ago, the oracle settled on a 45-year old truck driver (actually a pretty lucrative job here). The truck driver didn't really want to be king, because he would have to leave his job, which meant leaving a steady income, but if he refused the oracle, he would die. This man weighed his options for probably about .02 seconds, and then accepted the position.
The installation began on December 21st with a ceremony that I was not able to attend because I was giving accounting classes in another nearby village. After this, the poor man chosen as king had to be shut in his house with ONLY one wife for a week, after which he would be crowned. This is the ceremony I went to, on December 28th. Another volunteer was visiting me at the time, and my friends in Ouesse made sure that we were seated front and center (no reason to hide the white people in the back) under one of the tents that surrounded the main area where the ceremony would be held.
Now, a coronation is not a coronation without Civil War-era muskets being fired into the air. Which brings us to the all-important question: If you were planning a coronation ceremony, to whom would you entrust the firing of these rifles? If you answered "a pack of 12-year old boys," you answered correctly. I was convinced that this would all end tragically. But perhaps I should be glad that this responsibility was not charged to the old men of the village. By the time the ceremony got underway around noon, our village vieuxs were already several shots deep into their respective bottles of sodabi (moonshine). They would take turns getting up and dancing into the middle of the main area where the ceremony would be held. This would draw giggles and laughter from the crowd until one of the security guards would walk over and gently lead the old man, who would have a big grin on his face, back to his seat. As soon as the security guard turned his back, the old man would jump up and make his way to the center of the ring again. I don't think streaking is very popular here, but I kept waiting for that one shot of sodabi to put one of the old men over the edge, so he'd rip his clothes off and make a dash for it across the ceremony grounds. Fortunately, this did not happen.
The actual ceremony was less amusing but equally interesting. The people of Ouesse originally came from the city of Savalou, west of us, so the king of Savalou, a large man by Beninese standards, came to install our king. There were dancers, and an entourage of about 30 women that followed our king, chanting, as he went before the king of Savalou to be crowned. The king of Savalou was flanked by two guards who looked more like pirates, with their black outfits, red sashes, and sabers at their sides. The national TV camera crews followed along. Since my friend and I had the good fortune of sitting in the front, and were the only white people there, the camera crews made sure they got plenty of footage of us. It seems the white people were nearly as interesting as the installation of a new king. And they certainly did not hesitate to use this footage. A few days later, shopkeeper friends in Parakou, a big city north of us, were telling me that they had seen me on TV.
And so now we have a new king. He's a tall guy, actually kind of looks like a king. I'm looking forward to seeing what his reign will bring. Hopefully not gri-gri.
There were three major holidays that are celebrated every year. These are Tabaski, which is celebrated by the Muslims in my village as a commemoration of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. The Christians celebrate Christmas, and everybody celebrates New Year.
I wish I could tell you that there was something very special about these celebrations in Ouesse, but really all of them consisted of drinking, eating, and talking a lot. Tabaski came and went, and since I didn't really know any of the Muslims who were celebrating it, I didn't slaughter a goat with them. Christmas came and went, Baby Jesus was born as always, and after going to Midnight Mass on the 24th I went over to a couple of different friend's houses on Christmas day, where I ate an enormous amount of food.
New Year's was interesting simply for the fact that people here don't stay up till midnight. They just celebrate when they wake up on January 1st. However, this was not good enough for me, so I made several of my friends stay up till midnight with me. We got some drinks, some snacks, and set up a table and chairs outside. There were a few problems, though. First, we're in the middle of a season called Harmattan, a dry season with dust winds, and it gets very chilly at night. My friends, not being from Michigan, were especially cold. Second, we are all used to going to sleep between 9-10 pm, and midnight was really stretching it. Lastly, since we have no electricity, we had no lights, music, TV, or anything else to help keep us awake. We made it to midnight, toasted to the New Year, and everybody went home at 12:05 am. The next day, though, my friends were all bragging to everybody else who hadn't been there that they'd stayed up to welcome in the New Year. Maybe we'll start a new tradition here in Ouesse.
Not to downplay any of the three more traditional holidays, but we had another celebration around this time that was definitely the most interesting of them all: we installed our new king in Ouesse. Our last king died in 2004, and the oracle who chooses the next king was having a little trouble picking a successor. They kept presenting the men in the village who are of royal lineage to the oracle (whoever or whatever that is), and the oracle kept refusing them. Some of these candidates were upset. You see, being king has positives and negatives. On the positive side, you get a prestigious title, recognition throughout the village, and traditional, if not practical, power. On the downside, your chances of incurring gri-gri (voodoo black magic type stuff), significantly increase. So some candidates wanted the prestige, some candidates just didn't want the potential gri-gri. Finally, a few months ago, the oracle settled on a 45-year old truck driver (actually a pretty lucrative job here). The truck driver didn't really want to be king, because he would have to leave his job, which meant leaving a steady income, but if he refused the oracle, he would die. This man weighed his options for probably about .02 seconds, and then accepted the position.
The installation began on December 21st with a ceremony that I was not able to attend because I was giving accounting classes in another nearby village. After this, the poor man chosen as king had to be shut in his house with ONLY one wife for a week, after which he would be crowned. This is the ceremony I went to, on December 28th. Another volunteer was visiting me at the time, and my friends in Ouesse made sure that we were seated front and center (no reason to hide the white people in the back) under one of the tents that surrounded the main area where the ceremony would be held.
Now, a coronation is not a coronation without Civil War-era muskets being fired into the air. Which brings us to the all-important question: If you were planning a coronation ceremony, to whom would you entrust the firing of these rifles? If you answered "a pack of 12-year old boys," you answered correctly. I was convinced that this would all end tragically. But perhaps I should be glad that this responsibility was not charged to the old men of the village. By the time the ceremony got underway around noon, our village vieuxs were already several shots deep into their respective bottles of sodabi (moonshine). They would take turns getting up and dancing into the middle of the main area where the ceremony would be held. This would draw giggles and laughter from the crowd until one of the security guards would walk over and gently lead the old man, who would have a big grin on his face, back to his seat. As soon as the security guard turned his back, the old man would jump up and make his way to the center of the ring again. I don't think streaking is very popular here, but I kept waiting for that one shot of sodabi to put one of the old men over the edge, so he'd rip his clothes off and make a dash for it across the ceremony grounds. Fortunately, this did not happen.
The actual ceremony was less amusing but equally interesting. The people of Ouesse originally came from the city of Savalou, west of us, so the king of Savalou, a large man by Beninese standards, came to install our king. There were dancers, and an entourage of about 30 women that followed our king, chanting, as he went before the king of Savalou to be crowned. The king of Savalou was flanked by two guards who looked more like pirates, with their black outfits, red sashes, and sabers at their sides. The national TV camera crews followed along. Since my friend and I had the good fortune of sitting in the front, and were the only white people there, the camera crews made sure they got plenty of footage of us. It seems the white people were nearly as interesting as the installation of a new king. And they certainly did not hesitate to use this footage. A few days later, shopkeeper friends in Parakou, a big city north of us, were telling me that they had seen me on TV.
And so now we have a new king. He's a tall guy, actually kind of looks like a king. I'm looking forward to seeing what his reign will bring. Hopefully not gri-gri.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Benin Cultural Guide
Hello everyone,
Life here in Benin continues to go well. I've already been out at post for eight weeks, and although work is slow in getting started, it's coming around. In the meantime, I've decided to give a brief cultural guide to Benin, so you can have more of an idea of where I am, considering nobody (including myself before I found out I was coming here) knows where Benin even is. (It's in west Africa, between Togo and Nigeria!)
History: Benin is a mesh of several local kingdoms, the most important of which had their royal palaces in the city of Abomey in the south. The Kingdom of Dahomey (as it was known) conquered other kingdoms, and eventually partnered with European countries, especially the Portuguese, to begin trading slaves with America. Benin is the center of the slave coast, so that most African-American slaves came from this area, from ports in the cities of Grand Popo and Ouidah. The French colonized the kingdom of Dahomey in the nineteenth century, and in 1960 granted it independence. The country itself suffered through several coups in the 60s before settling into a communist dictatorship in 1972. In 1990, the dictator, Kerekou decided to transition the country to democracy and since then, Benin has enjoyed a relatively stable democratic government. The current president is Yayi Boni.
Geography and Weather: The south is more populated and more clustered, and a little more humid and tropical. The hills begin as soon as you get to the middle of the country, which is where my post, Ouesse, is located. In the north, it gets dryer and dustier. The summer is the rainy season, which is followed by a short dry season known as Harmattan, where the winds blow dust everywhere and it gets a little bit cooler (about 80-85 degrees). This is the season we are in now. We'll have a short rainy season in a couple of months, followed by an intense, dry season known as the "chaleur" (heat!) which I've yet to experience, but I'm sure it gets very hot. This will be from February to April. The north of Benin is also where the two national parks are located, Pendjari and W, where people can do a safari.
Religion: Benin is the birthplace of voodoo. The voodoo practiced in the Americas was brought over by Beninese slaves. There are reminders of this all over the place, but in reality it's mostly practiced only by a few people in the little villages. The south tends to be more Christian, although there is a lot of sincretism with local traditions--voodoo and other forms of animism, while the north is almost entirely Muslim, although again local traditions get mixed in.
Music: The music here tends to be more rhythmic than melodic, and the traditional music rarely even uses instruments besides drums. The women sing in high-pitched screeching voices, not very pleasant to the Western ear, but interesting nonetheless. The pop music sounds a little more Westernized, but incorporates a lot of African rhythms. One of the more well-known pop musicians is Petit Miguelito, who I was actually able to meet in person my first week in country.
Food: The main dishes are rice, beans, spaghetti, couscous, and pate (pronounced "pot"). This is a dish that is bland, somewhere between bread and mashed potatoes in consistency, and you eat it with your hands, taking a chunk and dipping it into a sauce which usually includes tomatoes and hot peppers. One of my favorite dishes here is "yam pile," basically mashed yams, often served in a peanut sauce. My village has pretty much only onions, tomatoes, and hot peppers as vegetables and oranges as fruit, but there are mangoes, and mango season is coming in April. Other places in the country have delicious bananas, pineapples, sweet potatoes, and papaya. Peanuts and cashews are also pretty plentiful here. Chicken and beef are the main meat dishes served here, but oftentimes you can find a vendor of "bushmeat." This could really be anything and oftentimes its best not to ask. I've been served the leg of a bushrat, with some of the hair still on it. Restaurants are really just a woman who made beans and rice serving it on the side of the road, and you go and ask her for a plate.
Drinks: Any village will have a couple of "buvettes," bars where you can get Coke, Sprite, and a number of local and regional beers, although none of these are very good in my opinion. La Beninoise is the cheapest, Eku, Awooyo, Flag, Castel, and Star are other beers widely available here. The local liquor is called sodabi, it's basically moonshine, produced who knows where (there's not really a national distributor), and it's strong and doesn't taste like anything except alcohol. Farther north, there's a drink called Tchoukoutu, which is basically a strong cider, also made at home. People bring big buckets of it to the market on a given day, and you pay a certain amount for a bowl. You can have it already fermented, or in the process of fermenting.
Dance: Haven't seen too much of this in real village life, but in demonstrations that they did for us during our training, it involved a lot of flapping the arms, like a chicken, and walking to a beat.
Dress: People here wear outifts made from local fabric, most often the entire outfit is made of the same fabric, which has colorful patterns and designs. It almost seems like the entire country spends the whole day in their pajamas. A lot of the fabric has really cool patterns, and you can take any that you like to a tailor and have them make anything for you-shirt, pants, whole outfit, dress, etc. Western clothes is also worn here, often bought secondhand at the market, and it's kind of funny to see what some younger people consider their "Sunday best." I sometimes see 25-year old guys at Mass on Sunday wearing tight, flowery jeans, an Avril Lavigne t-shirt, and sunglasses. Impressive.
Shopping: There's no Wal-Mart here, so you go to the local market and buy what you need to make lunch or dinner, or any other thing you might need that your market sells. In my village, if the market doesn't have something, you give money to one of the local taxi drivers, who will buy it in the nearest big city during the day and bring it back to you. The market is quite an experience in itself, with everything from dried fish to vegetables, to cuetips, to cheap flashlights. My village's butcher is in the middle of the market, and that's an interesting place, too. Doesn't inspire you to want to get meat. When you ask them where it comes from, they just say "en brousse," which means "the bush." However, every cut of meat is the same price, meaning that for $2, I can get 1 kilo of the best cut of meat, so if I'm inspired I'll wake up early, go to the butcher, get my cut of meat, and cook it for lunch.
Home Life: Men often have several wives, and a number of children also. I've even run into men who can't name all of their children on the spot. Kids go to school during the day, but are all over the town the rest of the time. Women tend to stay home, clean the house, and cook. Men work, mostly as artisans (carpenters, mechanics, tailors, masons, solderers) and some, especially in my village, out in the fields as farmers.
Recreation: It's hot here, so this involves mostly sitting under a tree and talking. Kids play soccer, and the men play soccer in the morning when it's still cool out, but during the day, you just try and stay out of the sun.
This is very brief, but hopefully it gives you a little more inside info into Benin. I'm ready to spend Thanksgiving eating pate instead of turkey, which will be interesting, but fun. My village and the people have made it very easy for me to get used to life there, and I really enjoy it. It's quiet, peaceful, and my porch, with the porch-swing I had built, is fantastic.
I hope everyone is well. I really enjoy receiving your emails, and wish I had more time to respond adequately to each one. I miss you all, and hope that if any of you have the chance to visit, please take it, because this blog post is not enough to describe this amazing country that is quickly becoming home!
Love,
Sebastian
Life here in Benin continues to go well. I've already been out at post for eight weeks, and although work is slow in getting started, it's coming around. In the meantime, I've decided to give a brief cultural guide to Benin, so you can have more of an idea of where I am, considering nobody (including myself before I found out I was coming here) knows where Benin even is. (It's in west Africa, between Togo and Nigeria!)
History: Benin is a mesh of several local kingdoms, the most important of which had their royal palaces in the city of Abomey in the south. The Kingdom of Dahomey (as it was known) conquered other kingdoms, and eventually partnered with European countries, especially the Portuguese, to begin trading slaves with America. Benin is the center of the slave coast, so that most African-American slaves came from this area, from ports in the cities of Grand Popo and Ouidah. The French colonized the kingdom of Dahomey in the nineteenth century, and in 1960 granted it independence. The country itself suffered through several coups in the 60s before settling into a communist dictatorship in 1972. In 1990, the dictator, Kerekou decided to transition the country to democracy and since then, Benin has enjoyed a relatively stable democratic government. The current president is Yayi Boni.
Geography and Weather: The south is more populated and more clustered, and a little more humid and tropical. The hills begin as soon as you get to the middle of the country, which is where my post, Ouesse, is located. In the north, it gets dryer and dustier. The summer is the rainy season, which is followed by a short dry season known as Harmattan, where the winds blow dust everywhere and it gets a little bit cooler (about 80-85 degrees). This is the season we are in now. We'll have a short rainy season in a couple of months, followed by an intense, dry season known as the "chaleur" (heat!) which I've yet to experience, but I'm sure it gets very hot. This will be from February to April. The north of Benin is also where the two national parks are located, Pendjari and W, where people can do a safari.
Religion: Benin is the birthplace of voodoo. The voodoo practiced in the Americas was brought over by Beninese slaves. There are reminders of this all over the place, but in reality it's mostly practiced only by a few people in the little villages. The south tends to be more Christian, although there is a lot of sincretism with local traditions--voodoo and other forms of animism, while the north is almost entirely Muslim, although again local traditions get mixed in.
Music: The music here tends to be more rhythmic than melodic, and the traditional music rarely even uses instruments besides drums. The women sing in high-pitched screeching voices, not very pleasant to the Western ear, but interesting nonetheless. The pop music sounds a little more Westernized, but incorporates a lot of African rhythms. One of the more well-known pop musicians is Petit Miguelito, who I was actually able to meet in person my first week in country.
Food: The main dishes are rice, beans, spaghetti, couscous, and pate (pronounced "pot"). This is a dish that is bland, somewhere between bread and mashed potatoes in consistency, and you eat it with your hands, taking a chunk and dipping it into a sauce which usually includes tomatoes and hot peppers. One of my favorite dishes here is "yam pile," basically mashed yams, often served in a peanut sauce. My village has pretty much only onions, tomatoes, and hot peppers as vegetables and oranges as fruit, but there are mangoes, and mango season is coming in April. Other places in the country have delicious bananas, pineapples, sweet potatoes, and papaya. Peanuts and cashews are also pretty plentiful here. Chicken and beef are the main meat dishes served here, but oftentimes you can find a vendor of "bushmeat." This could really be anything and oftentimes its best not to ask. I've been served the leg of a bushrat, with some of the hair still on it. Restaurants are really just a woman who made beans and rice serving it on the side of the road, and you go and ask her for a plate.
Drinks: Any village will have a couple of "buvettes," bars where you can get Coke, Sprite, and a number of local and regional beers, although none of these are very good in my opinion. La Beninoise is the cheapest, Eku, Awooyo, Flag, Castel, and Star are other beers widely available here. The local liquor is called sodabi, it's basically moonshine, produced who knows where (there's not really a national distributor), and it's strong and doesn't taste like anything except alcohol. Farther north, there's a drink called Tchoukoutu, which is basically a strong cider, also made at home. People bring big buckets of it to the market on a given day, and you pay a certain amount for a bowl. You can have it already fermented, or in the process of fermenting.
Dance: Haven't seen too much of this in real village life, but in demonstrations that they did for us during our training, it involved a lot of flapping the arms, like a chicken, and walking to a beat.
Dress: People here wear outifts made from local fabric, most often the entire outfit is made of the same fabric, which has colorful patterns and designs. It almost seems like the entire country spends the whole day in their pajamas. A lot of the fabric has really cool patterns, and you can take any that you like to a tailor and have them make anything for you-shirt, pants, whole outfit, dress, etc. Western clothes is also worn here, often bought secondhand at the market, and it's kind of funny to see what some younger people consider their "Sunday best." I sometimes see 25-year old guys at Mass on Sunday wearing tight, flowery jeans, an Avril Lavigne t-shirt, and sunglasses. Impressive.
Shopping: There's no Wal-Mart here, so you go to the local market and buy what you need to make lunch or dinner, or any other thing you might need that your market sells. In my village, if the market doesn't have something, you give money to one of the local taxi drivers, who will buy it in the nearest big city during the day and bring it back to you. The market is quite an experience in itself, with everything from dried fish to vegetables, to cuetips, to cheap flashlights. My village's butcher is in the middle of the market, and that's an interesting place, too. Doesn't inspire you to want to get meat. When you ask them where it comes from, they just say "en brousse," which means "the bush." However, every cut of meat is the same price, meaning that for $2, I can get 1 kilo of the best cut of meat, so if I'm inspired I'll wake up early, go to the butcher, get my cut of meat, and cook it for lunch.
Home Life: Men often have several wives, and a number of children also. I've even run into men who can't name all of their children on the spot. Kids go to school during the day, but are all over the town the rest of the time. Women tend to stay home, clean the house, and cook. Men work, mostly as artisans (carpenters, mechanics, tailors, masons, solderers) and some, especially in my village, out in the fields as farmers.
Recreation: It's hot here, so this involves mostly sitting under a tree and talking. Kids play soccer, and the men play soccer in the morning when it's still cool out, but during the day, you just try and stay out of the sun.
This is very brief, but hopefully it gives you a little more inside info into Benin. I'm ready to spend Thanksgiving eating pate instead of turkey, which will be interesting, but fun. My village and the people have made it very easy for me to get used to life there, and I really enjoy it. It's quiet, peaceful, and my porch, with the porch-swing I had built, is fantastic.
I hope everyone is well. I really enjoy receiving your emails, and wish I had more time to respond adequately to each one. I miss you all, and hope that if any of you have the chance to visit, please take it, because this blog post is not enough to describe this amazing country that is quickly becoming home!
Love,
Sebastian
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Out at Post
Dear Friends and Family,
I have now been here in Benin for about 2 1/2 months, and having finished training, moved out to my post, a small town called Ouesse, two weeks ago.
Training was an intense 9-week long process, which for me and all of the other small enterprise development volunteers was held at a town called Azove, in the southwest part of the country.
My host family was that of the king of Azove, but this really meant nothing, as I soon came to see. Since he is king, he told me, he doesn't have to do anything all day, so he stays home and rests. As I quickly observed, this directly correlated to my host family's affluence and my accomodations were what you would expect for Peace Corps.
However, I really have nothing to complain about. My family was great, very welcoming, and helped me get through training with plenty of good memories:
I'll remember the king, telling me many times the day after the independence day feast that I had danced well at the independence day parade, and that he loved me. (Je t'aime beaucoup! Tu as bien dancer!)
I'll remember my 17-year old brother Gerard, who loved to talk about anything and everything. Once, when trying to grasp that Michigan had four season, not two, and none were called rainy or dry, he asked what naturally follows in this sort of conversation--"So what is in-vitro fertilization?" And we proceeded to talk about IVF for thirty minutes.
I'll remember my albino shoemaker half-brother, who would always enthusiastically greet me as "mon frere!" (My brother). My family thought it necessary six weeks in to point out that he's albino. "You know he's albino, right?" they would ask. Yes, it was pretty obvious.
I'll remember my friend Agustin, a fledgling recording artist, inviting me to a drink underneath his roadside stand made of sticks and palm sheeting where he sold coffee every morning.
I'll remember Johniska, the orphaned 18-year-old manager of the local bar we'd go to, who we taught to throw a baseball, and who, while never being a legitimate major league prospect, was attached enough to us that he's spent his own money more than once to call at post and make sure I'm alright.
I'll remember my host mother, and the contrast in her face between when she mercilessly slit the chicken's throat when she was teaching me to cook Beninese-style and when she nearly came to tears when she found out I was leaving.
I'll remember Armand, the Peace Corps housing coordinator for our group, who would play guitar with me, and when he found out that the Peace Corps had mistakenly left some of my things in Cotonou, thus delaying my move to post by a day, he offered to drive his motorcycle 3 hours overnight to Cotonou, pick up my things and drive them back to Azove so I could leave on time.
But mostly, I'm glad to get out to post. Here, farther north, in the countryside, the people are friendlier, the town is cleaner, and the atmosphere more relaxed. My house is nice (with a beautiful porch) and I've settled into life here. I"ll begin working soon, teaching accounting and marketing classes to local artisans and working with a local radio station.
For now, though, my days have consisted of fixing up my house, getting to know the local townspeople, shopping at the local market, having cold Nescafe coffee with my friend Victor, having drinks with local friends, etc.
My neighbor, Cofi, after wondering why my wife wasn't with me (I told him I didn't have one) said I could find one here, and if, after two years I hadn't, I could take his daughter, who's currently 8. I politely declined. She and her brothers and sisters enjoy coming over, and they are amazed that I have leg hair, and that they don't.
The entire town knows me, since I'm one of 2 white people there (I have an english-teacher volunteer here in the same town as me). I enjoyed this newfound celebrity status briefly at the first Sunday Mass I went to, where the priest made me come to the front of the church and stand in front of the whole congregation. They all clapped for me, and the priest said since I was Catholic, too, they all were my family for the next two years. It felt great, and I haven't even done anything yet.
It quickly became apparent, though, that while they all knew me, getting to know my name would be more difficult. My carpenter, after fixing a window, gave me a bill, where on the line for client, he'd written "Pour le blanc" (For the white person)
I miss home and every day causes me to appreciate each of you and the love you've shown me more and more. Yet, I love it here, and every day causes me to appreciate the people here more and more. God's given me an amazing group of people in my life wherever I've gone and I can never be thankful enough. I miss you and love you all!
Please write when you get the chance. Although I might not respond due to time or accessibility constraints, I love to hear from you!
Sebastian
I'll
I have now been here in Benin for about 2 1/2 months, and having finished training, moved out to my post, a small town called Ouesse, two weeks ago.
Training was an intense 9-week long process, which for me and all of the other small enterprise development volunteers was held at a town called Azove, in the southwest part of the country.
My host family was that of the king of Azove, but this really meant nothing, as I soon came to see. Since he is king, he told me, he doesn't have to do anything all day, so he stays home and rests. As I quickly observed, this directly correlated to my host family's affluence and my accomodations were what you would expect for Peace Corps.
However, I really have nothing to complain about. My family was great, very welcoming, and helped me get through training with plenty of good memories:
I'll remember the king, telling me many times the day after the independence day feast that I had danced well at the independence day parade, and that he loved me. (Je t'aime beaucoup! Tu as bien dancer!)
I'll remember my 17-year old brother Gerard, who loved to talk about anything and everything. Once, when trying to grasp that Michigan had four season, not two, and none were called rainy or dry, he asked what naturally follows in this sort of conversation--"So what is in-vitro fertilization?" And we proceeded to talk about IVF for thirty minutes.
I'll remember my albino shoemaker half-brother, who would always enthusiastically greet me as "mon frere!" (My brother). My family thought it necessary six weeks in to point out that he's albino. "You know he's albino, right?" they would ask. Yes, it was pretty obvious.
I'll remember my friend Agustin, a fledgling recording artist, inviting me to a drink underneath his roadside stand made of sticks and palm sheeting where he sold coffee every morning.
I'll remember Johniska, the orphaned 18-year-old manager of the local bar we'd go to, who we taught to throw a baseball, and who, while never being a legitimate major league prospect, was attached enough to us that he's spent his own money more than once to call at post and make sure I'm alright.
I'll remember my host mother, and the contrast in her face between when she mercilessly slit the chicken's throat when she was teaching me to cook Beninese-style and when she nearly came to tears when she found out I was leaving.
I'll remember Armand, the Peace Corps housing coordinator for our group, who would play guitar with me, and when he found out that the Peace Corps had mistakenly left some of my things in Cotonou, thus delaying my move to post by a day, he offered to drive his motorcycle 3 hours overnight to Cotonou, pick up my things and drive them back to Azove so I could leave on time.
But mostly, I'm glad to get out to post. Here, farther north, in the countryside, the people are friendlier, the town is cleaner, and the atmosphere more relaxed. My house is nice (with a beautiful porch) and I've settled into life here. I"ll begin working soon, teaching accounting and marketing classes to local artisans and working with a local radio station.
For now, though, my days have consisted of fixing up my house, getting to know the local townspeople, shopping at the local market, having cold Nescafe coffee with my friend Victor, having drinks with local friends, etc.
My neighbor, Cofi, after wondering why my wife wasn't with me (I told him I didn't have one) said I could find one here, and if, after two years I hadn't, I could take his daughter, who's currently 8. I politely declined. She and her brothers and sisters enjoy coming over, and they are amazed that I have leg hair, and that they don't.
The entire town knows me, since I'm one of 2 white people there (I have an english-teacher volunteer here in the same town as me). I enjoyed this newfound celebrity status briefly at the first Sunday Mass I went to, where the priest made me come to the front of the church and stand in front of the whole congregation. They all clapped for me, and the priest said since I was Catholic, too, they all were my family for the next two years. It felt great, and I haven't even done anything yet.
It quickly became apparent, though, that while they all knew me, getting to know my name would be more difficult. My carpenter, after fixing a window, gave me a bill, where on the line for client, he'd written "Pour le blanc" (For the white person)
I miss home and every day causes me to appreciate each of you and the love you've shown me more and more. Yet, I love it here, and every day causes me to appreciate the people here more and more. God's given me an amazing group of people in my life wherever I've gone and I can never be thankful enough. I miss you and love you all!
Please write when you get the chance. Although I might not respond due to time or accessibility constraints, I love to hear from you!
Sebastian
I'll
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