you have any other options to stay if your peace corps extension falls through?

[Edited on March 21, 2014 at 7:51 AM. Reason : a war corps perhaps?]

3/21/2014 7:50:47 AM

I suppose if one of the many, many NGOs and UN organizations here offered me a real job, I would. I could live like a king with that kind of money, even in Cotonou, but that seems very unlikely.

A couple of guys two years ago founded a legitimate moonshine business (sodabi in fancy bottles that is made to an actual standard, rather than just hillbilly guys making it willy-nilly). Which is fine for them, probably not for me.

When you complete two years you get a "readjustment allowance" totalling a little less than $7,000, because PC doesn't benefit from having its volunteers immediately become homeless and starving upon return to the US. One could live for a year off of that in Benin, no problem. As it is I live off around $200 a month in pay and the maybe $40 a month that my hosts pay for my rent. Of course, if you got sick, you'd definitely die.

For me, though, my choices are limited to things that help deal with student loans. I don't owe a lot compared to many people, but it's not negligible. A third year in Peace Corps holds them at bay. A paying job lets me just pay the bill. Helping make moonshine or just bumming around Benin do neither. So if I the third year with PC falls through (which I doubt), and I don't get offered a real paying job (which I certainly will not get), I just have to go home and take my chances there.

And let me be clear, if for some reason I do have to go home, I will be a little disappointed and I will be sad to leave my girlfriend, but getting to come back to the land of Bojangles, safe driving, good booze, and customer service will soften a LOT of that blow. It's almost a win-win for me.

3/21/2014 10:37:30 AM

you better hope there's no winter precipitation if you want safe driving when you come back

3/21/2014 10:43:55 AM

Southerners in snow are better drivers than Beninese people under any circumstances.

At least when it snows most of us try to go slower. Hell, most of us try to avoid driving, period. A Beninese taxi driver doesn't care if you are in a hurricane-force storm with ten feet of visibility and floodwaters in low spots on the road, he will attempt to drive through it at 60 miles an hour and refuse to touch his brakes whenever he thinks there is a possibility he can swerve around an obstacle. I would far, far rather have to drive around Raleigh in the snow that ride with a professional taxi driver in Benin.

You know what I see during winter precip at home? Fender benders. Maybe even an actual crash. You know what I see every couple of months here? Dead bodies, in broad daylight on cloudless days at major intersections. I've posted on here before, I was once in a cab that ran over a woman and her baby.

3/21/2014 10:52:48 AM

at least you didn't hit the sentient haystack man

3/21/2014 10:55:19 AM

If we had, there's a reasonably high chance that we would have been murdered so we couldn't reveal the "secret" that there's a man inside.

3/21/2014 10:57:53 AM

So I've been working on these blog posts about the guy in prison, and I can't post them to the blog until I leave PC because going there is against the rules. I want to share them with people. Is anyone here even remotely interested in that side of things?

3/21/2014 11:52:56 AM

I will read them

3/21/2014 11:55:40 AM

^^ absolutely.

3/21/2014 11:57:38 AM

^^^yes

3/21/2014 12:08:30 PM

OK, well I'd love to share. It's a 7 page document, though, a little big to post here. Can I e-mail it to somebody? Upload it somewhere? Assume that nobody will share it around, since right now this story is my best hope of achieving my dream jobs?

3/21/2014 1:39:47 PM

You got a Dropbox account you could post it to?

3/21/2014 1:41:39 PM

Er...no, I'm afraid not. I do pretty much everything with google docs if I do anything at all, which I don't, anymore.

3/21/2014 1:43:23 PM

OK, I e-mailed it to Nighthawk and he is going to upload it somewhere. I look forward to your input.

3/21/2014 2:18:55 PM

I retract my earlier response to bmel, about how I missed customer service most. No. At this moment, I miss cheese. I miss cheese the way widowers miss their wives. No swallow called to capistrano, no salmon summoned upriver to spawn, no Ulysses tied to the mast as he passed sirens has ever yearned as I do now for cheese.

Specifically the kind of cheese indigenous to NC Mexican restaurants.

Probably this is a phase that will pass shortly.

3/21/2014 6:38:29 PM

They don't have cows in Africa?

3/21/2014 6:56:47 PM

^^ have you tried milking a wildebeest or a lioness?

3/21/2014 7:40:47 PM

Cows exist. Scrawny, sickly cows that look they just got out of a bovine Bergen Belsen. They exist solely to add to the wealth of Fulani people and are never eaten and rarely milked. when they are, the cheese produced is called wagaji, and it is awful.

3/21/2014 7:47:24 PM

Here is the file:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/772237/In%20the%20summer%20of%202013.docx

3/21/2014 9:03:15 PM

I have to rotate which bar I go to in village based on where the employees have been most obnoxious lately. Today, for example, I can't go to the place across the street because there's a guy there who is super nice but refuses to let me just sit and read my goddamn book. It'd be OK if he wanted to talk about something, but he just wants to force me to stay on one page so he can read aloud and "Practice his English." Which would be annoying enough except I am reading War and Peace, which is full of Russian names he can't pronounce, archaic language, and sufficient boredom without having to wait ten minutes for him to read a goddamn page, thank you very much.

Another bar with a nice, breezey outdoor area had one employee go from being fine to intolerable. Every time I go, she asks me to buy her a guiness (Nigeria is by far the world's largest consumer of guiness and in Benin it is considered a fancy drink). She does this because she is a prostitute and this is step one to another transaction. I cussed her out, cussed her boss out, made a big tantrum in the Beninese style, and stormed out.

That leaves the ol' standby on the other end of town, a place owned by my boss's sister. There was once an employee there who bothered me, always asking for gifts or just straight up money. I complained. He was instantly fired. Being white is awesome sometimes.

3/22/2014 11:30:28 AM

wait, white privilege works in bumfuck, africa?

3/22/2014 12:07:00 PM

Could you post a pic of this prostitute? Thx

3/22/2014 12:30:27 PM

What would happen if you shipped them a bunch of like Better Homes and Garden magazines and those guides you see at Lowe's that show you how to frame houses and build proper roofs and stuff? Would people try to mimic the construction strategies or just use the books for kindling?

3/22/2014 2:01:49 PM

Quote :

"wait, white privilege works in bumfuck, africa?"

In a lot of ways, yes. I can violate certain rules ("No swimming at this beach" is a big one) with no problem. But even aside from crippling white guilt it isn't worth it. There are plenty of people who inherently distrust you for being white, and virtually everybody sees a walking dollar sign whenever they see a yovo. And I was half joking about the bar story, the guy probably got fired more because of my relationship with the owner than anything else.

Quote :

"Could you post a pic of this prostitute?"

Trust me, you don't want to see a picture. She's the worst looking of all the bartender-prostitutes in village, and that's a low bar.

Quote :

"Would people try to mimic the construction strategies or just use the books for kindling?"

Neither. First of all, you don't build frame houses in a country where the dominant lifeform is the termite and wood is far more valuable as fuel. But they wouldn't burn the magazines, they would hang up the pictures of them. Beninese people LOVE pictures of nice white people houses, exactly like you'd find in Better Homes. I have been in many houses, bars, and restaurants that just had giant posters picturing upper-middle-class kitchens. No people, nothing going on, just the room itself. It'll be the main decoration. When you ask why they have it, they'll say, "C'est jolie, quoi." Which, compared to their soot-covered outdoor cooking space, I suppose it is.

I recently tried to burn some outdated TIME magazines as part of a cleanup, and kids snatched them out of the flames just to look at the pictures. Pictures are a big deal here.

[Edited on March 22, 2014 at 2:14 PM. Reason : ]

3/22/2014 2:11:19 PM

Ha, I just discovered this thread, and it's impressive that you've been posting your experiences all along the way since the invitation. I did 2 years in Botswana, 2010-2012, so I can sympathize with a lot of things, but I can also say there are plenty of differences where I was posted. Some people need to realize that Africa is lots of diverse countries that aren't all the same.

3/22/2014 9:38:33 PM

Even just the size of the thing. Before I left people would say stuff like, "Oh, Benin, really? My cousin went to Namibia and she loved it You should visit if you get the chance." Which would be like saying, "Oh, you're going to North Carolina? You should check out Rio de Janeiro while you're there."

3/23/2014 4:54:58 AM

I mentioned briefly a few months ago that I got scars but didn't go into much detail because nobody seemed to give a shit, but now this thread is enjoying some temporary popularity so...

A lot of people around here get ritual scarification done, and it's not at all unusual to walk into a bank and meet a teller in shirt and tie who has elaborate designs carved into his face. These are voodoo or other animistic religious markings for various things, usually spiritual protection. They don't have to go on your face; the torso and arms are also acceptable, and this is where PCVs usually have them done (and we pretty much all get them done at some point)

I was with three PCV ladies on a visit to the head voodoo priest in one of their villages, a nice guy who likes volunteers and will always give them free beer. We wanted beer and to discuss the possibility of setting up an appointment to get scars done at some point down the line. When we mentioned this, he said, "OK. Or we could just do it today."

We were all nervous, not having planned for this, but nobody (least of all me) wanted to chicken out, so we said sure and he sent his daughter out to get supplies. These included:

-Four fresh razor blades
-A jar of special ashes
-A bottle of "Braveheart" liquor

Then he took us inside and told us to take our shirts off. I expected the women to protest but I guess they figured this was a necessary step to getting their torsos cut up. Then I was told to go first.

I was to get 48 cuts in sets arranged like this:

||||
||||
||||

On my sides, chest, and back. The girls would only get 36 (rows of three instead of four), because, as a man, I am "stronger." I was less than thrilled. I was, in fact, suddenly very in favor of gender equality.

He had placed the brand-new razors into a dish of "Braveheart," then set the liquor on fire. It caught so fast that even I'm now afraid to drink the stuff. Having sterilized it, he took my appointed blade and started carving.

It didn't hurt. In fact, I felt so little that I thought he was just making guide marks so that he could come finish the real cutting later. But no, 48 nicks, each about a quarter inch long, no pain...yet. Then it was time to rub the ashes into the wounds so that they would stand out later. That part hurt. Not a lot, but it let me know I'd had a procedure done.

Then I was given the camera and told to shoot the women who went after me...and then the three of them, kneeling in their underwear, smeared with ashes, next to a very satisfied looking voodoo priest. It is the best picture I have ever seen. Sadly they did not let me keep it.

Even more sadly, only four of my scars are still visible today. We were told not to shower for 24 hours so the ash would get trapped in the wounds, but it was one of the hottest days yet and sweat appears to have washed them out. This may explain why in spite of my scars -- designed to guard against witchcraft and illness -- I proceeded to get a horrible cold the next day.

Some of the girls still have much more pronounced marks, and I intend to get fresh ones done before I go home. Some of the people up north get much bigger, deeper, and frankly cooler ones, so maybe I'll go up there.

3/23/2014 9:26:37 AM

Now that's a hell of a souvenir to come back with. We never did anything quite like that in Botswana. A lot of the older traditions are fading away as the country has become more modernized and westernized fairly quickly. It was kind of like Peace Corps "light". Hell, I lived in a 3 story apartment building 2 blocks from a fast food restaurant (although that was not the case for most people who were posted in small villages). Anyway sounds like you're having some amazing experiences...good for you man.

3/23/2014 11:17:29 AM

Yeah, Benin is not like that. There is not one chain restaurant in the country. (I gather that there was, at one time, a Steers, but Lebs bought it and now it bears no resemblance to the South African original)

3/23/2014 4:54:51 PM

So does the priest accept responsibility for the genocide or is he still saying he is innocent? Also, did he just do it so he wouldn't be murdered or does he also hate these people?

He looks like a nice guy.

Is it difficult to remember that he is an evil man and not your friend?

That's pretty cool about the tats. I wonder how they came up with that random number?

3/23/2014 8:45:39 PM

He says he's innocent. He admits he was there when the place was attacked and bulldozed but says he had nothing to do with it, and felt powerless to stop it.

If any of the witness testimony is true then he hated those people, though as per that document linked above he claims he loved them, they were like his children, etc.

Quote :

"Is it difficult to remember that he is an evil man and not your friend?"

Not really. The only circumstances under which we meet do a pretty good job of reinforcing that. Still, I was a little upset when I found out that HE thought so little of ME as to try to scam me. Which is weird, I know.

3/24/2014 4:41:10 AM

Fun things in the news today:

There's ebola in Guinea. Guinea isn't exceptionally close to me, but ebola originates in the Congo area and doesn't spread too easily. Draw a line between the Congo and Guinea. I'm on that line, and I'm very curious how it got from A to B.

A home in southwestern Nigeria -- the part near me, dominated by the ethnic group that runs my aprt of Benin -- was busted for having a bunch of people chained up, sickly, some half-dead, some totally dead, many dismembered. They were selling human body parts to sorcerers in the middle of the night. A year or so ago, dozens of graves were robbed in Misserete (a town near me, where the prison is) to get body parts for witchcraft purposes also.

So at least in West Africa, belief in -- and fear of -- sorcery is a big thing. Yet I'll note that none of these people were killed by sorcery, but by machetes and guns. Point that out to a Beninese person and they roll your eyes like you're a buffoon.

---

In happier news, I may be about to go to "Malaria Boot Camp" in Senegal, in early June. My boss nominated me today. Not only is it a week of intensive learning and mingling with important people, it's in Dakar (which we now view as being comparable to Denver in terms of restaurants and amenities) and you get paid an absurdly huge per diem. Other PCVs who have done this report that they spent quite a bit of money on food and drink and still came home having saved almost a month's salary.

Speaking of per diems, I'll be getting one this Friday for stopping by a training to talk to some people about possible third year positions. The training is run by a private org that has money to throw around. PC is one of the few groups in the country that doesn't pay people to come to trainings. You're probably thinking, "Why would you pay people to come learn stuff?" and that's because you are sane and logical, unlike Benin or the French assholes who left their legacy behind. Beninese people are loathe to come to a training in which they don't receive money and/or food for attending. In America, you pay to go to a convention; in Benin, the convention pays you. There are guys whose incomes are made up almost entirely of going to different trainings. One of my bosses works with a bunch of them.

Normally I think this is stupid, but apparently I'm going to benefit from it on Friday. 5500 CFA ($11) for a morning. I get paid 3000 CFA a day. Looks like the ol' lady and I are eating well in Cotonou this weekend.

3/24/2014 5:34:53 PM

Are you able to recognize the different types of Africans?

Do you ever see someone and think of a friend back home and say to yourself "this must be where Curtis' ancestors were from"?

You have always been pretty vehemently anti-racist, but does your experiences in Africa affect your perception of black/non-black race relations in America at all?

3/24/2014 5:46:49 PM

Quote :

"Are you able to recognize the different types of Africans? Do you ever see someone and think of a friend back home and say to yourself "this must be where Curtis' ancestors were from"?"

I can sort of tell apart some of the groups here. The Fulani and Hausa people, who are mostly herders in the north, are pretty distinct from the largely Yoruba population in my village. But when it comes down to Fon/Goun and Yoruba, I have a harder time.

I don't see so much of my friends as certain celebrities. My boss's brother instantly reminds me of Forrest Whittaker, and some of us have a running game of "spot the guy who looks like someone from 'The Wire.'" The best I've been able is a D'angelo, which means I'm losing to the best Omar and Stringer.

Of course, probably my best black friend back home is Rwandan (no relation to Seromba), so it would be weird if he looked like people here.

Quote :

"You have always been pretty vehemently anti-racist, but does your experiences in Africa affect your perception of black/non-black race relations in America at all?"

It affects my understanding of a lot of cultural points back home, including race relations. A very large portion of American slaves came from Benin. And a lot of southern white people were raised in part by slaves. Every now and then you can see little bits of culture that have filtered through the years either to southern whites or American blacks in general. That can go from the food (guess where okra comes from?) to linguistic tics (I maintain, based on personal observation and no scholarly evidence, that the expression "that there" as in "That there is the best dog I've ever had" is the result of translation from Fon/Goun phrasing)

More unfortunately, I can see the more communal nature of Beninese culture as something that has manifested itself in certain parts of the black community in America. It's easy to generalize about America and I don't want to do that because it isn't right or fair, but I think we can agree that there is a certain thread within the African American community that believes strongly in entitlement -- to everything from welfare to reparations to affirmative action -- than the European-based community does. For a while I thought that it just came from the tragedy of slavery and Jim Crow, but now, for the first time, I live in a population that really is communal rather than individual-oriented, and it's where the ancestors of most black Americans came from.

Here, if you get some money, you will share it with friends and family. To not do so would result in ostracism, which is quite possibly worse than death here. If you get a nice house you will let your family stay there for free for however long they want, and family here is an expansive concept. The attitude is "Who has, shares." Which is a lovely theory until you realize the consequences.

One, it totally undercuts the motivation to work hard to get money/goods/whatever. You work your ass off to get $10, and you end up having to give (or "loan" in the sense that you'll never be repaid) $9 to people who come asking. Well, in that situation, it's hardly worth working $10 harder, is it?

Two, the culture is communal but individuals often aren't. It's normal for people to go to great lengths to spend their money so that other people can't borrow it. Usually you do this by being forever in the process of building a new home. Every time you get money, you spend the vast majority of it on cement/rebar/windows/whatever. Eventually, you get a house out of it. A house is basically a savings account, and even when you move in, you've left rebar sticking out of the top in hopes of adding a second floor.

Or, almost as often, you just buy whatever ridiculous bullshit you happen to encounter on your way home from the bank. Ooh, a new motorcycle seat cover! It doesn't do anything, but if I don't spend this money my idiot brother will, so might as well.

I'll eventually reconcile all these thoughts but this is already a long post and hopefully you kind of get their drift. At any rate, I got issues with culture but never race.

3/24/2014 6:17:52 PM

This thread is literally the best thing TWW has going for it these days. can you repost the link to your blog when you get the chance so I can add it to my Feedly? I'm a lazy Amercian and don't want to go back through 10 pages.

And the prison write up was incredible.

[Edited on March 25, 2014 at 10:37 AM. Reason : .]

3/25/2014 10:37:22 AM

^^ Best post so far. Thanks.

3/25/2014 10:53:39 AM

Why not China?

3/25/2014 11:12:37 AM

I just realized the liquor store is closed on Sundays so we can't blow our money on booze before the collection plate comes around.

3/25/2014 11:20:24 AM

Nice read on the prison

MOAR

3/25/2014 11:34:11 AM

Agreed, I want more prison.

3/25/2014 2:11:03 PM

The blog is http://www.voodoobatman.com. Readers of this thread may be disappointed because it is hard for me to update as often (it loads really slow) and I can't post everything in there because PC reads it. In theory.

Quote :

"Agreed, I want more prison."

I'm going to try to visit again in April sometime. The way my third year job search is going, I may be much closer / able to visit a lot more often. But we're fast approaching the point where the experience depends on him. We've broached the subject, but at any point he could clam up or start pestering me for money again. But I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.

My fantasy right now involves turning those experiences at the prison into an article, having it picked up by some semi-reputable magazine (or hell, it can be as disreputable as it wants so long as it pays), and maybe parlaying that into a book. It's a long shot but it gives me something to shoot for.

3/25/2014 2:31:16 PM

I also want to add something to my previous post about the communal nature of African society (which you should read as "west African" and beninese in particular because africa is huge and I live in one small corner of it)

On the cultural scale, a lot are listed as "communal." Most Asian societies are. Nordic societies are to a greater extent than the UK or US. South America and the rest of Europe falls somewhere in between. But I think there is one thing that makes Africa distinctive in its communalism, and how that attitude has resulted in stagnation rather than the wild economic success of many Asian and Nordic countries. In those countries, yes, you are expected to do some sharing, and to do it more readily and personally than Americans*. But I suspect it isn't so accepted that a person will just come up and demand a thing. Even less so that, having had it demanded, you must give the thing; and that the entire arrangement is directed by the supplicant rather than the person who is doing the giving.

An example: If my neighbor asks me for 5,000 CFA to buy his kid medicine, I'm inherently suspicious because "medical crisis" is a big scam here. But let's say I give him the money and there really is a need for medicine. But before he can buy the medicine, his motorcycle tire pops. It is, in Benin, totally acceptable for him to take my money, buy a new tire, and then ask other people (or even me, again) for money for medicine. He, as the person asking, had the final say. Whereas in America, if you borrow money to buy medicine and spend it on motorcycle parts, I would be within my rights to tell you off at the least.

And "motorcycle tire" is optimistic. Just as likely they'll spend it on some traditional medicine/religious ceremony/sacrificial animal.

I'm not as familiar with Asian cultures, but my guess is that in many of them the arrangement is slightly different, not to say "more sane."

*-Americans are famously generous when it comes to charity but they are less hospitable, is how it is always explained in the literature. We are happy to give to the Red Cross or whoever, but a guy who shows up on our porch asking for money is more likely to be turned away (or arrested) than taken in, fed, and housed for the night. In Benin a request for anonymous charity (for anything other than church/mosque, at least) is kind of silly, but you could walk up to any house where you speak the language and expect a share of their food, however meager their own resources, and a place to sleep.

3/25/2014 2:42:28 PM

if you had your druthers and control of all the money budgeted for Benin, how would you set about doing things?

3/25/2014 2:45:24 PM

Budgeted for Benin by Peace Corps or the Beninese national budget?

3/25/2014 2:50:34 PM

play out both scenarios

[Edited on March 25, 2014 at 2:53 PM. Reason : but i was thinking the former]

3/25/2014 2:53:08 PM

Whoo boy. There's a lot of ways to answer that.

In an ideal universe the Peace Corps puts all its volunteers into maybe four towns as opposed to spreading them out. They run a school. The Beninese government can shape the curriculum but we focus on critical thinking and research skills rather than rote memorization, which is what Benin does. We take the students from age 5 until they are ready for university. Even if they don't all go on to be brain surgeons, they now have a new way of thinking about things that will benefit Benin as they start entering government/education.

In a more realistic world, that can't be done. What can be done is to throw every spare dime into SITE DEVELOPMENT. This is the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN PEACE CORPS.

In theory, communities/organizations submit a request for a volunteer, someone goes and investigates that community, and a decision gets made after some serious thought whether to send a PCV there. In reality maybe somebody visits for an hour and no serious thought is given. The result is that we've had four PCVs quit in the past two months because they have nothing to do. Their orgs requested them expecting nothing but free money, or maybe just a pet white person to show off at meetings. We also had one guy had to shit in the woods for six months. The PC requires that every volunteer have their own latrine, but the people who were supposed to inspect the guy's house...didn't. A handful of PCVs get lucky -- like I did -- and have motivated organizations that take care of their housing and put them to work. But it's random chance.

What I have proposed (which was shot down) was that we create 2-4 positions for third year PCVs who have experience working in this environment, and their primary job is to do site assessment and development. Most of our bosses are Beninese. They don't know what it's like to work as an American in Benin, so with the best will in the world they can't think that way. PCVs can.

---

Now, if I was dictator of Benin, I would do the following:

1) Immediately deregulate the Port of Cotonou (probably the most important port in this part of Africa) rather than trying to strangle commerce with regulations and fees. Just generally speaking I would gut regulation, because here, at least, regulation=opportunity for corruption. There are still horrible labor practices up to and including slavery in spite of the laws, which are mostly used as an excuse to squeeze money from people who aren't well-connected.
2) Incrementally gut the gendarmes (national police) and the military. There is no real reason for Benin to have a military, but you can't get rid of it because they'll throw a coup. Meanwhile, they're corrupt as hell and cost a bunch of money.
3) Request international help, not in the form of just plain money, but in setting up a competent judicial system to uphold rule of law. The money Benin currently gets is mostly wasted anyway.
4) The money gained from port profits and cutting the military budget gets poured into an overhaul of the education system. Right now the money gets spent building new schools -- too slowly to keep up with population growth. That's not helping anybody. Those who we can educate, let's educate well. Then with the wealth they generate down the line we can get to everyone else.
5) I would renegotiate the contracts with the Chinese, or try to leverage them into better contracts with America/Europe. china screws this country like a tired whore.
6) Work hard to make a partnership with chiefs/kings around Benin to take some burden off the government. It worked well in Ghana.
7) Stop trying to make Benin good at things it is never gonig to be good at. We have a comparative advantage in tree nuts (cashews, shea) and cotton. And we have a good port. Pouring government money into anything else is pork and it's not helping Benin. Bitches love shea butter, we should be rich on that alone.

3/25/2014 3:17:50 PM

So do those in Benin ask you about African Americans?...what they're like? If so, What do you tell them?

What aspects of life do you imagine will be the most difficult to adjust back to once you're back in your homeland melting pot of greed, corruption, and pork rinds that is America?

[Edited on March 25, 2014 at 3:28 PM. Reason : Sure ipad, that's a word. Why not.]

3/25/2014 3:26:32 PM

Beninese people are dubious that there are African Americans. They know about Obama (sometimes -- other times you see a girl in the very common "Obama girl" shirt, say you voted for the guy, and they say, "He's REAL?!?"), but they -- like Republicans -- think he's from Kenya. Also like Republicans they are fanatically anti-gay and super duper religious, just sometimes the wrong religion.

I try to tell them that approximately a third of North Carolinians are black and they look at me like I'm on PCP. It doesn't make sense to them. They live in a country where 100% of citizens are black and a handful of visitors are white. In fact, they refer to the America/Europe combo is just called "Yovotome" -- land of the Yovos, which is what they call paler people, including albino Africans. Even my neighbors who know me quite well are always asking what Europe is like. When I tell them I've never been to Europe it takes them a second to follow me. Remember, these are people who think that Chicago and Brazil are US states. I want my last project in village to be a big world map on the side of a school building. Many PCVs do that for the same reason I want to, which is frustration that nobody knows geography AT ALL.

Quote :

"What aspects of life do you imagine will be the most difficult to adjust back to once you're back in your homeland melting pot of greed, corruption, and pork rinds that is America?"

Greed, corruption, and even a version of pork rinds (they're just unfried skins) exist here. That's no problem.

There's option paralysis in stores, of course. I get that even on the rare occasions when I go to Erevan. And wearing shoes. I have had one closed-toed shoes for a grand total of 10 hours since I landed in Benin. My feet will suffer.

I'll feel weird being out at night. That even happens in Cotonou. I'll feel weird carrying bigger bills (by that I mean twenties) and paying for small things.

It'll be strange not being a celebrity everywhere I go. In town I'm basically brad pitt. Today I had 15 children follow me home from my liquor vendor, chanting my name (or their version of it, "ee-nah"), begging for me to pick them up for a second. Yesterday an army of fifty children in school uniforms followed me home chanting, which made my neighbors laugh themselves retarded. When I go home and walk down the street or into a store, nobody is going to give a shit. Here, it's newsworthy.

3/25/2014 4:17:50 PM

You know what, i take back all that. I did some thinking. The hardest part, at least initially, will be communicating with "regular Americans."

In the first season of Homeland, the two characters have an exchange like:

"How do you make somebody understand what it was like over there?"
"How do you even talk to somebody who wasn't over there?"

And of course they're talking about Iraq and I'm not, not even close, but there are certain parts of that experience I understand a little better now -- the isolation from home, being surrounded by an alien culture, and, when you come home, being totally unable to talk to people about what you experienced in a way that will even interest them, let alone make them understand. You guys enjoy this thread and that means the world to me, but let's face facts here. If we got together for a beer upon my return, my desire to explain Benin would be WAY higher than your desire to listen. By beer three you'd be onto TWW gossip or Raleigh news. And that's cool, that makes sense. Nobody wants to listen to one guy prattle on.

But it will be an adjustment, going from here -- where I can explain my situation or issue in relatively few words, and have my PCV friends understand instantly, and be interested, and have informed commentary -- to there, where people want a quick summary of Africa, preferably focusing on poverty and wildlife, with none of the jargon or "franglais" that is second nature to me now. They warn us about this. The official PC advice is, "Talk for five minutes, then shut up." I intend to at least try to follow that (although nobody has ever gotten me to shut up regardless of circumstances). But it will be hard.

3/25/2014 5:26:58 PM

Quote :

"If we got together for a beer upon my return, my desire to explain Benin would be WAY higher than your desire to listen"

I beg to differ, but maybe I'm not the typical American. I love watching documentaries about other cultures and strongly considered joining the peace corps before I fell in love. I think it's absolutely fascinating, especially when comparing and contrasting it back to our own my lifestyle. People can be so dynamic and yet exactly the same in so many ways.

3/25/2014 6:42:18 PM