I enjoyed the phrase "traditional pineappling grounds"

8/4/2015 8:58:40 AM

I made it to just past the three year mark, but now I'm officially tired of Benin and ready to go.

Many of the same things that irritated (or enraged) me at the beginning of service eventually faded into the background, or even became funny in a way, but now my view has come full circle. The lack of change that everybody faces. The absurd price gouging and heckling that only come with being foreign here. The incessant requests for gifts or handouts. The tales of harassment experienced by my girlfriend when I'm not around (and sometimes, when I am around, though at least one of those guys stopped his daily pestering after we had a conversation).

I have affection for Benin, and I wish it the best, but for now we need to part ways.

Quote :

"It's very easy to buy train tickets from the stations in India"

Maybe it is. But whether it is easy to buy tickets for the correct train with only a day's notice is another question, and my internet research suggests not chancing it. I can't risk being stuck in Varanasi or Darjeeling when the plane leaves Kolkata.

8/4/2015 10:46:00 AM

Law enforcement everywhere!

First of all, there's FBI agents in Benin continuing the investigation into the death of Kate Puzey, a PCV from a few years back who is the only reason that anybody talks about PC Benin. She was a TEFL teacher who found out that her work partner (and beneficiary of a lot of PC stuff) was using his position to force underage girls to have sex with him. This is pretty common practice and may be the worst thing about Benin.

Anyway, she wrote to admin saying, basically, maybe we shouldn't keep supporting this child rapist. Problem is, child rapist's brother worked at the office and saw this message. He tipped off his brother, who sneaked into her compound at night and slit her throat.

The principals are all in jail, as are a couple of people who probably didn't have anything to do with it. But they haven't actually been put on trial, because the Beninese justice system is the second worst thing about Benin, behind all the teachers raping kids. The local law enforcement has entertained all sorts of preposterous theories, including that this guy paid $400 to a team of Nigerian hit men that actually did the deed. (The senior US security guy here has pointed out that he could raise $400 by passing the hat around Peace Corps, and we could end this thing tomorrow.) Meanwhile, these dudes sit in Beninese prison. Fine and all, but America (and the girl's family) want justice, which tends to involve an actual trial. And to support the investigation, FBI guys periodically come in and do stuff. The latest team centered on polygraph experts.

I got drunk with some of these. I was interested but not surprised to learn that TV gets polygraphs wrong. The idea isn't to have a "gotcha" moment. They tell the accused all of the questions they're going to ask, up front. And by that I mean they tell them the exactly one question they're going to ask, baseline ones aside. They say, "We're going to ask you some baseline questions, then we're going to ask whether you committed or had any knowledge of the murder of Kate Puzey. If you have any questions about the process ask them now because once we get started it has to be just yes or no." Then they plug the dude up and do exactly what they said. (The guy failed the test, incidentally, and I think a second round of testing showed the Nigerian hit squad theory to be bunk as well)

Probably there will never be any actual closure to this. But the FBI guys are fun.

---

The Peace Corps community has been more immediately shaken by the shocking revelation -- make sure you're sitting down for this -- that a lot of PCVs like to smoke weed.

Normally, there is a tacit understanding about this: admin is not so stupid as to believe that none of us smoke, because they were all volunteers once and they all smoked. But some respect must be paid to the rules of decorum, so people are supposed to keep it hidden. (I will point out that I've smoked pot exactly once in this country, years ago, and the experience was so unpleasant that I have sworn it off for ever in favor of liquor)

This agreement worked well for most of my time here, but the last class of full-fledged PCVs are dumber than a pile of hammers. They quickly took to smoking in the workstation. Bear in mind that the Cotonou workstation is not just a place for PCVs to crash and do work -- it is PC Benin HQ. All of our bosses are here. The place is positively teeming with staff. But these idiots didn't care. They started smoking on the balcony. Then they started smoking in the sleeping spaces, but these weren't private enough (16 beds) and smarter people yelled at them. So they moved to the smaller medical unit, which offers a lot more privacy. Lastly they started going out the window on one of these and smoking on the roof.

People this stupid are bound to get caught through some sort of stupidity, and indeed that is what happened. Someone left a couple of joints in the medical area, these were found, and now the inquisition begins.

The PC inspector general's office is a group unto itself. Virtually none of its employees were ever PCVs. They are unmerciful and unyielding. And they flew out here on very short notice to begin interrogating people. It's going on now, I gather, but they aren't interested in me because admin knows I'm just a drunk.

There are two reasons why this whole thing is so pathetic:

1) The workstation is pretty much the only place in Benin where PCVs absolutely should not smoke weed. You can smoke all day in village and nobody will know. You can smoke at a number of places in Cotonou -- one of our popular live music hangouts has a lounge explicitly set aside for the purpose. You can, if the PC Country director is out of town, smoke at the PC Country Director's house (said CD having two children in their mid-twenties). You can smoke at Lion Bar in Grand Popo, because it is run by a hulking Rastafarian who starts every workday with a blunt the size of a baby's arm. But these reprobates apparently can't manage that and must feel capable of smoking IN THEIR PLACE OF WORK ON THEIR BOSS'S ROOF.

One of these geniuses apparently tried this defense: "This isn't fair! It's legal in my home state!"

2) Some of the people being interrogated folded instantly and started naming names. I will gossip my ass off -- it's the primary Peace Corps pasttime -- but I abhor an informer. Snitches get stitches, guys. I will be livid if this cooperation gets them the chance to stay in country.

---

Meanwhile Africa keeps on being Africa. Ironically July and August are the best weather months in Benin -- low 80s, sunny, but not unpleasantly dry -- so that's been nice. My diet gets less and less varied as I desperately start to binge on all of the Beninese foods I like but won't be able to find back home. Admittedly it is not a long list:

Igname pilee (pounded yams) with peanut sauce
Benin-style pork and piron
Local pineapples
Rice-and-beans-and-fish-jerky
Soja (kind of a tofu wedge imitation cheese)

I could probably, with effort, manage most of those, but igname pilee is the result of a long and physically demanding process that involves a massive mortar and pestle, as well as a bunch of, you know, yams.

---

For the first time in a year I went back to my village on Wednesday. The travel was shitty (one accident and then one taxi whose doors would open randomly at speed). The trip's purpose turned out to be shitty -- I went up there to visit my replacement, who turned out to be kind of an idiot who will probably wash out. But the visit itself was great. Obviously as the town's only giant white dude I expected to be recognized, but even kids I would have thought too young to remember me were shouting my name. There are some fancy new stores, but otherwise it's much how I left it.

The best moment came when, walking by the side of the road, I saw a container holding what I took to be the aforementioned soja. I started approaching it when one of the market mamas called out, "Don't bother, it isn't soja." It's one thing to be remembered a year later. It's another that my afternoon dietary habits are still well-recollected.

8/14/2015 10:41:16 AM

They know their yovos, bro!

8/16/2015 1:42:36 AM

Breaking news: potheads are dumb!

8/16/2015 5:18:29 AM

Turns out I was wrong; the guy from the inspector general's office laughed when I said people thought he had flown out for the marijuana thing. He, too, was down for the Kate Puzey investigation, and this happened to be going on at the same time. I got drunk with him, too. Law enforcement guys drink more than anybody I've ever met, and I've met Irishmen, graduate students, and Peace Corps volunteers.

The whole thing has moved into the territory of an inquisition and then a straight-up purge. 20+ people have been called in -- more than a fifth of PC Benin -- and some are already quitting over it. One guy has gone into hiding, which, as a long term strategy, doesn't make much sense, but I guess at least he's willing to commit.

The best thing to come out of this, by far, have been the tidbits about some of the confessions. For example, one of the people called in we'll call Raoul. Raoul is a Brazilian-American and the single gayest human being I have ever seen, in person or on screen. Guys in assless leather chaps at pride parades ask this kid to tone it down. Another PCV, we'll call him Todd, is not gay. Up until this incident I would mostly have described him as "painfully dull." But when faced with the prospect of administrative separation, he decided to do what I suspect few of us would do, even in this new enlightened age: he said that, yes, he was at all of these events where marijuana was used, but only because he was in a gay relationship with Raoul, and Raoul was at them because he loves weed, but Todd was only there because he loves Raoul's cock, and, what, is the inspector general's office trying to oppress the LGBT community?

It was a bold move. Stupid, though, given that he failed to coordinate his story with Raoul (who he was throwing under the bus anyway). They called in the Brazilian later, and boy wasn't he shocked to hear that he had a lover in Todd. The lie was exposed, and I suspect they're both toast.

8/17/2015 4:26:13 AM

LOL, I wish Raoul and Todd were their real names.

Please PM if they are. It makes the story better for me.

8/17/2015 4:34:41 AM

this thread, it is a good thread

8/17/2015 5:37:14 AM

Hahahaha Todd. What a moron.

8/17/2015 3:08:50 PM

haha fucking Todd

8/17/2015 5:55:10 PM

if OP writes a book i would buy it

8/17/2015 6:03:05 PM

^^,^^^LOLOLOL

[Edited on August 17, 2015 at 8:04 PM. Reason : Todd...]

8/17/2015 8:03:47 PM

Alas those are not the real names. I find it very unlikely that naming them here would cause any trouble, but GrumpyGOP ain't no snitch anyhow.

I think now we're in the eye of the storm, the calm after the interrogations but before the actual firings.

My girlfriend is terrified that somehow she's responsible for all of this. A few months ago, some people from the more boring, administrative end of OIG came through and interviewed several PCVs, including her. Asked what she didn't like about the program, she said that a lot of volunteers have problems with professionalism, including sometimes being stupid with drugs. She thinks this led to the crackdown. I have been trying to explain to her that exactly zero people on the face of the Earth needed her insight to figure out that some PCVs are stupid with drugs. She might as well have informed the FBI that crack can sometimes be found in America's inner cities, or that crystal meth might be made in trailers.

---

My professional life has reached some sort of bizarre, Kafka-esque nadir. I don't actually know that much about Kafka, but it seems appropriate somehow. In the last week I had praise heaped upon me -- the phrase "tremendous work" was used -- for properly alphabetizing a file cabinet. That was by the security director at Peace Corps, and by the way, the only part of that job that required any skill was resisting the temptation to read the incident folders I was alphabetizing. Some of them were quite thick.

My other boss came in yesterday and said, "I know sometimes you think your position here isn't really well-defined, but believe me, you are absolutely integral to this team and I don't know what we will do without you." I spent six hours of yesterday playing Minecraft, and half an hour correcting the spelling in a powerpoint presentation. You'll note that this leaves 1.5 hours of the work day, which is how late I arrive to work because my boss always arrives even later than that and nobody else notices whether or not I'm here. That isn't even an exaggeration. On days when my boss is absent, I could stay home and nobody would know. I only come in for the AC and internet.

The profound sloth and almost tectonic pace of work at this aid organization blows my mind. At our weekly staff meetings, our nutrition expert reports the same thing every week. "I'm going to be finalizing our flipchart about hygiene." She's said this every week for five months. The flipchart is ten pages long. If it were an assignment in your freshman class, you would get a week, two, tops.

Meanwhile my girlfriend is being sent to conferences in Senegal and, of all places, West Virginia. Her professional life is better not because she works harder now (though of course she does), but because she works at Peace Corps itself and, God forgive me for saying this, Peace Corps actually does not have its head buried to the shoulders in its own ass.

8/18/2015 6:51:18 AM

why do you have better internet in benin than i do in virginia? i can't play minecraft

thanks, obama.

8/18/2015 8:44:07 AM

From the details you've provided, it's definitely not your girlfriend's fault. She's certainly not to blame for mentioning what she did; maybe they should have been more discreet and less selfish. The backward thing is, she's blaming herself, and the ones responsible are selfish jerks who I'm sure are trying to blame everyone else for their stupidity.

8/18/2015 9:21:48 AM

Quote :

" i can't play minecraft"

Neither can I, online. I just build shit in single player like a ... well I was about to say "like an eight year old" but I guess they're all playing online, too.

Believe me, the internet here is garbage 90% of the time. The other 10% we will have inexplicable bursts of speed in which it is merely terrible.

---

The first two heads have rolled, and what do you know, they're Todd and Raoul. Asked to resign this morning. Raoul was about to start his third year working for one of the bigger NGOs in Cotonou; they're liable to be pissed.

8/18/2015 9:42:57 AM

I could see her statement factoring in honestly... It's one thing to know pcvs are being stupid with drugs, it's another thing to know this irks other pcvs, and have this on record.

What if word got out there was a semi formal complaint that pcvs were using drugs to the OIG and the oig did nothing? They lose all plausible deniability. Of course this assumed they had plausible deniability in the first place.

Many a blind eye is turned when plausible deniability exists, remove that and you bring down the hammer.

In the end, the only one responsible is the pcvs who didn't even take cursory efforts to hide their drug use.

8/18/2015 11:26:48 AM

how long until senioritis is finally over?

8/18/2015 11:53:40 AM

Quote :

"I could see her statement factoring in honestly..."

Being familiar with the organizations and the principals, I'm going to have to go ahead and say "you're wrong."

Even if anybody remembers the conversation -- which I doubt -- and even if they communicated it to the investigative wing -- which I also doubt -- any paltry significance it may have had was already eclipsed by more significant events and would soon be eclipsed even more.

From what little I could find out, this is the approximate order of events:

1) September 2014 -- The latest class of PCVs swears in. After this, there is traditionally a semioffical party in Porto Novo. But one breakaway group snuck away to have their own, expressly forbidden party, at the beach in Cotonou. They are led by one Frank E. Tate, a shithead and notorious drug user who, among other things, talks about it on his publicly viewable blog. They smoke a bunch of pot in public.

2) October 2014 -- There is a completely unofficial Halloween party at the Parakou workstation/rest house. A lot of pot is smoked, the guards notice, and evidence is left behind.

3) February 2015 -- My girlfriend is one of a dozen volunteers interviewed by one of the OIG departments.

4) April 2015 -- A Rwandan PCV takes an illegal trip to Tanzania to get heroin and cocaine, then dies of an overdose. Over the next few months OIG comes in and kicks out 20+ PCVs for violating drug policy.

5) July 2015 -- Frank E. Tate is fired because his host organization reports that they find him to be an uncooperative and potentially dangerous drug user. Shortly after, PCV committee is warned that drug use will be punished with separation, pointing to the recent firings in Rwanda.

6) August 2015 -- Shortly after the warning, somebody leaves a roach in the med lounge, and here we are.

If one of these events seems really really minor in comparison with the others, that's because it is (3) and it is really, really minor in comparison with the others.

And on top of all this, the OIG was very candid with me on the subject. "Did those interviews you guys give a while back have anything to do with this?" "Pfffft, no."

Quote :

"how long until senioritis is finally over?"

COS (Close-of-Service) on October 7. Fly out of Benin October 15. Arrive in the US November 22, and in NC November 28.

8/19/2015 8:38:43 AM

Quote :

"They are led by one Frank E. Tate"

Is that the guy with the thing on his head?

8/19/2015 11:08:46 AM

his blog is gone

8/19/2015 11:33:40 AM

The one and only.

8/19/2015 11:33:55 AM

8/19/2015 3:22:15 PM

Quote :

"4) April 2015 -- A Rwandan PCV takes an illegal trip to Tanzania to get heroin and cocaine, then dies of an overdose. Over the next few months OIG comes in and kicks out 20+ PCVs for violating drug policy. "

wow... okay your GF was def. not responsible

8/19/2015 3:25:40 PM

Lord above, the people at my organization are talking about wanting to hire me to keep working there after Peace Corps, in spite of the fact that all I do is show up late and play video games. It's like fucking bizarro world over here.

I think there's about a 1% chance they offer me anything I would even entertain staying in Benin for.

---

I have very little to do the rest of the afternoon and would love to come up with something to post but I'm drawing a blank. Anybody got something they're curious about?

8/20/2015 9:00:55 AM

how are babies made?

8/20/2015 9:02:25 AM

A male middle school teacher pressures one of his female students into letting him put his penis into her vagina for thirty seconds of unlubricated penetration. Eight months later a somewhat premature, underdeveloped malaria-stricken baby is born and has approximately an 80% chance of surviving until its first birthday.

At least that's how it works here.

8/20/2015 9:18:19 AM

Ugggghhhhhhhhhhhh

How much money would you have to make to afford armed guards and a fort in Benin?

8/20/2015 10:10:20 AM

Hmm. Aside from the word "armed," the answer is "not all that much." In Cotonou, especially, the threshold for having a guard is not that high. Pretty much all of the expats I know use a uniformed guard service, and even my apartment building has a (non-uniformed) night guard.

Meanwhile virtually every residence has some sort of walled-compound element that is, if not a proper fort, at least very fort-like. It's actually a requirement for PCV housing, even since the Kate Puzey murder. But the walls are pretty common across west Africa. You top these with broken glass set into mortar, or barbed wire if you're really fancy.

Guards generally sit in a little booth outside the gate to your compound and are not armed. Truth be told, they do a lot of sleeping on the job, and 80% of what they actually do is provide doorman services, admitting guests and keeping away peddlers and beggars. They would provide no deterrent against violent criminals, but these are rare enough in Benin that they are generally effective at keeping away burglars.

I think most of the more reputable guards get paid around 100,000 CFA a month, a around $180, for which they generally do five 12 hour shifts a week. That works out to something like $.75/hr, so round-the-clock guards would run, what, $540 a month? But most people only have night guards, and most expats have them provided by their employers.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21654074-more-kenyans-now-work-private-security-tourism-guards-not-guides

Good article about guards in Kenya, where the situation is much worse, but you can see the analogs. There are certainly waaaaay more security guards around Cotonou than you'd see in the states, generally several of them on any given residential street (since they're each only paid to guard one house). The pay is abysmal by our standards, but it's a pretty sweet gig -- you sleep, you hang out with your guard buddies, a lot of them have little TVs or radios. It doesn't involve much actual work.

[Edited on August 20, 2015 at 10:54 AM. Reason : high/low]

8/20/2015 10:49:12 AM

I'm house sitting for a higher level embassy person for the next two weeks. It's a trip.

They live in the closest thing Benin has to a McMansion -- one of a dozen or so more-or-less identical oversized houses with walled yards and small pools, wedged between the beach and Benin's one western-style grocery store (Erevan, mentioned many many pages ago). The experience has taught me many things about the embassy life.

Embassy housing is always a tug of war between "sufficient for the family's needs" and "sufficient for the status of the people being housed," sometimes with ludicrous results. My guy lives with his wife. They have no kids. But their home has four bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a dining room that could seat the whole Duggar family, with room to spare for their underage sex partners. This is because he has a high-level job and the status could not countenance anything smaller. They do not particularly want such an enormous house. For all intents and purposes they use two bedrooms (one having been made into a gym) and the TV/video game room. (The personal cook is the one that does most of the kitchen stuff)

All of the State Department houses are furnished by the same company and thus have the same oddly old-timey furniture. The chairs look like they come from Downton Abbey. The couches look like what your old relatives sat on in the early 1990s. A lot of embassy employees ship their own furniture with them.

Being an American embassy employee means you get Amazon Prime, which through some kind of contract with the embassy will deliver to Benin every two weeks or so. This means that they have such improbable foodstuffs and velveeta, refried beans, and pop tarts, none of which can be found elsewhere in Benin for any amount of money. (At least, they had such things, before my girlfriend and I cleaned them out)

Meanwhile, the usual residents consider the following to be a legit Benin problem: "The filter on our pool has been broken for a week and they haven't fixed it, so the water is cloudy."

I have been using the experience to catch up on video games that I've missed in the past three years. Right now it's Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. I am not a big Assassin's Creed fanboy but I will play any game, no matter how stupid, if it permits me to be on a ship with cannons.

---

When inside this house, a person is perfectly capable of thinking they are in America, or at least, not in Africa. Which is good. I am ready to be not in Africa. Two incidents in the past week didn't help:

The other day I was taking a walk to kill time and burn off some of that velveeta. At one point I came to an intersection and realized that I could turn left and get to the more visually pleasant beach road, so I did that.

A minute later, on the periphery of my vision, I see a very angry gendarme running at me, shouting. My headphones were in, so I guess I had missed his earlier yelling. I took them out and tried to ask what was up, at which point he pointed his AK-47 at me.

Beninese gendarmes are notorious for having AK-47s that contain no bullets, but on a couple of noteworthy occasions they have defied the stereotype and, besides, even an empty AK makes a formidable club in the hands of such a muscular individual. I put my hands up.

"Walk! This way!" I walked, that way. He asked me a question. I didn't understand, so I stopped and turned. "What are you doing! Walk!" I walked. "Stop!" he yelled, at a random point in the middle of our path. "How long have you been here?"

"Since 2012. I live in [neighborhood]."

"Walk!" I walked. Six seconds later, "Stop! Do you not know this place?"

"Um...no." It seemed the safest answer. I drive by this particular plaza several times a week but had never really paid any attention to it, because absolutely nothing distinguishes it from the other 500 dirty, ill-kempt spaces like it in Cotonou.

"What are you doing here?"

"Taking a walk..."

"Walk!" Finally we arrived on a street corner. "Halt!" He took out his cell phone and called somebody. "I found a man. He has a very suspicious look and he has a bag and he is near the court. He says he is taking a walk. What should I do?" Pause; disappointed look. "I should let him go?"

And so he did. Here are the strange things about the experience:

1) This plaza is, evidently, forbidden, but there is no sign, gate, rope, or rubbish heap indicating as much to passersby.
2) At no point did he provide me an opportunity to bribe him. Don't get me wrong, I don't pay bribes, but it would have been comforting to be asked.
3) He didn't ask for my ID. Here he thought I was this yovo terrorist and he didn't even do that?

8/25/2015 5:26:00 AM

I was offered a job as Program Assistant at the Cotonou office of my host organization. Presumably it would have paid something like real money, but I cut them off early. I can't stay here. It's time to go home.

There was some brief halfhearted talk of seeing if anything is available in DC but I'm pretty sure the bridge is burnt. It's a pity, but I think -- hope, anyway -- everybody gets why I'd rather try my luck on my own.

---

The purge is over, a dozen people sent home in disgrace. It's gutted most of the committees, a lot of projects are left unfinished, everybody's kinda pissed off. Only half of the 2014 class is still here, which is a shocking rate of attrition -- I think that by the end of two years only around a quarter of my class had gone home early.

On the other hand, a dozen or so of the 2013 crowd are extending for a third year working in various capacities. One of the girls from my class will hang around for a while, trying to get her Beninese fiancee a visa; one of the guys has gone completely native and plans to just remain in Benin after his PC term ends, just doing what he's been doing and living off of the ~$8,000 readjustment allowance coming his way.

---

Nothing I have seen in Benin, not the malnourished children nor needless motorcycle deaths, nothing is as sad as watching the new embassy Marine guards try and fail to fuck Peace Corps ladies.

It's not that there's anything wrong with them, really, and it's certainly not that the ladies are opposed to fucking them. They're just 20 years old and completely incompetent. The other day, after hours of flirting, the following exchange took place after arriving at a new bar:

Marine: Do you want a drink?
PCV: Uh, sure, yeah. [receives and chugs drinks, stares at Marine]
Marine: Do you want...uh... another drink?

And so on until the Marine's curfew (hahaha) hit and he had to leave without ever having pulled the trigger. He seriously could have just gestured at the bushes and she would have dragged him back there. As it was, after he left the PCV started drunkenly yelling, "I haven't had sex in eight months god damn it!"

It's really unbelievable how desperate the women here get. I am not an attractive man. On paper, I sound like I should be: tall, blue eyes, good hair. But I am not attractive. I am pear-shaped, flabby, and wear terrible clothes. In point of fact I am revolting. But this has not stopped multiple women from throwing themselves at me -- in Peace Corps. There's a term for it, "Peace Corps goggles," and one hopes the girlfriend doesn't take them off when we go back to the states because I'm pretty goddamn serious about this one.

9/2/2015 10:43:00 AM

so what's your view on the whole Donald Trump as president thing?

9/2/2015 10:53:47 AM

Was that the first time someone pointed a gun at you since you've been there?

Quote :

"Two incidents in the past week didn't help:"

Did I miss the second?

9/2/2015 11:10:50 AM

Second time with the gun. The first time I was visiting another PCV's farm, and the "guard" -- a drunk man in rags that amounted to a loincloth -- was very proud of his gun and wanted to show it to me by pointing it in my face. It was homemade. The handle was rough wood and the barrel exterior still showed where it had been hammered into shape. About the size of a .38 special but with a shotgun-sized barrel. The guy didn't speak French, but I pieced together that you loaded one shell in from the back, and that it was more for snakes than intruders. He was very happy and I was somewhat afraid, because I'm damn sure the homemade gun didn't have a homemade safety.

And no, I forgot to include the second thing. I needed to buy credit for my phone. I went to the only store open at that point (it was late). The adult proprietress was sprawled on the ground, eating two turkey wings. Seriously, she had one in each hand. Meanwhile a nine year old girl was doing the actual work. Selling phone credit is a little bit complicated for a child, as it involves accurately entering a combination of codes and numbers so length that it wouldn't fit in a tweet. The kid messed up once and the turkey lady yelled at her. The kid messed up again and the turkey lady put down her wings, took off her shoe, and started to savagely beat the kid. I yelled at her, she told me to fuck off.

9/2/2015 11:25:39 AM

i want to join the peace corps, so women will throw themselves at me.

9/2/2015 3:36:33 PM

Why don't you want to stay in Benin?

9/3/2015 12:20:24 AM

^^You know, the catch-22 here has often been discussed: Peace Corps could easily get more applicants if guys knew about the 3:1 girl:guy ratio, but those applicants would be dudes, which would fuck up the whole thing.

^Three reasons. One is Benin fatigue. I have it. I'm tired of the substandard food and the racially inflated prices and the traffic and the garbage.

Two is, I don't like my job or the organization I work with, and it would take more than they're willing to pay for me to put up with their incompetence any longer.

Three, the girlfriend has to go home for grad school, and I'm not trying to do trans-atlantic long distance for two or three years.

9/3/2015 5:44:06 AM

I love these stories Grumpy. I hope that when you come back to the US, you continue to tell us stories about your life, mainly because you are an excellent storyteller and can make anything sound exciting and interesting. Also, +1 on the book idea.

9/3/2015 6:12:27 PM

My Duke University research friend here was recently initiated into the Oro cult. I heard this and was ecstatic. After three years of guessing, innuendo, and just making shit up, here at last was our chance to know what goes on in everybody's favorite woman-murdering fetish society.

Boy was I in for a disappointment. Ethically, my friend says, he is not permitted to share things that he promised to keep secret.

I was bewildered. Anthropology is one of those subjects about which it is easy to say, "Yeah, but...what's the point?" But I don't say it, in spite of the limited immediate utility of unearthing 4,000-year old Chinese dildos or watching the courtship habits of nearly-extinct jungle societies; I don't say it, because I tend to respect the expansion and availability of knowledge. But if his academic integrity prevents my friend from sharing his newfound knowledge, that changes things. If your research must necessarily stay inside your own head and die with you, really though, what is the point?

To my friend's credit, he wasn't sent over here to study Oro -- Duke University isn't paying him to research things he can never write or talk about. Joining the cult was just a side activity. Still, though, it's infuriating, having someone at hand who knows all the dirty details and will share none.

Well, almost none. There were a few things that fall into a gray area that he was willing to share. For example, during his initiation my friend was told that among many secrets he must keep under pain of machete death is the source of "Oro's voice." This is the deep "woooOOOOOoooowoooOOOOOooo" sound that is Oro's trademark. It, and the higher pitched version that is said to be "Oro's dog," are both produced by bull roarers. These are just wooden lozenges tied to strings and spun around overhead; google them to get an idea of the design and the sound.

Well, the prohibition on bull roarers puts my friend in sort of a tight spot, because Western researches have known about their role in the Oro cult since at least 1898, when the first papers on the subject were written. My friend has already written papers about Oro that reference them, because everybody figured it was common knowledge. Not so his Oro coven (for this is what they call themselves, proving that Oro has a keen sense of irony -- using a feminine term to describe a group in which no women are allowed). Even after he explained that, much as it pained him to say, the bull roaring cat was out of the bag, they told him, "Well, OK. But still don't tell anybody about it."

Apparently we volunteers have been making people wildly uncomfortable this whole time, because we frequently pantomime using a bull-roarer to indicate Oro. Whoops.

Other than that he sort of tangentially verified that on Oro days, the cult members are mostly just wandering around town drunk, whooping and hollering. Though having been through a half dozen such days I didn't really need anybody to verify it for me.

9/9/2015 11:05:15 AM

didn't crocodile dundee use a bull roarer at some point in one of those movies?

9/9/2015 11:17:45 AM

yea, mate

9/11/2015 9:08:47 AM

My office has two toilets. The one on my floor has been broken for two weeks. I had assumed it was the, ah, stately pace of West Africa customer service, and that somehow the plumber was stringing us along. But no. It's US government regs regarding how we spend their money. Apparently even something so simple as toilet repair requires a competitive bidding process.

I miss my latrine. Latrines don't really break.

---

The Peace Corps Benin program is in the middle of a serious rough patch. In the end, a dozen people were fired in the marijuana purge. One was Raoul, from a few posts back -- he as about to start a third year position in Cotonou. All the rest were from the class that just finished its first year in country, the class that is supposed to be at peak productivity right now. The one year mark lies in the middle of the gap between "bewilderment and exhaustion from training" at the beginning of service and the "fuck this, I'm out" senioritis at the end. Truth be told the productive period is not very long. I could not get any projects moving during my first six months or so, which is probably about average. Meanwhile most of the standard two-year PCVs have checked out by June of their second year, because by then the school year is over and the rainy season is in full swing, so everybody is too busy growing yams to talk to you.

So like I say, the class in question -- called "PS 27," whereas my class, PS 25, left a year ago, and PS 26 just got done leaving -- PS 27 should be in top form. Except only half of them are left. The rest of bitched out, been fired, or been medevaced. They have a midservice conference coming up. The staff plan to use the entire first day for "morale building." The PCVs plan to wear black in a show of mourning that day.

To put the 50% figure in perspective, PS 25 lost about only lost about 20% of its people over the course of TWO years.

The quality of classes has seriously (and, given the numbers I just cited, objectively) declined over my time here. PS 24 had a lot of rock star PCVs who did phenomenal work and were loath to go home -- in fact, something like 15 of them extended their service past the original two years. My class, 25, also held on with tenacity. None of our English teachers went home early, and few enough of the others did. A dozen of us extended (and now one is trying to add an elusive fourth year, because he's gone as native as a white dude from Minnesota can go in Benin). Even 26 was alright. But 27 has been gutted and 28, whose members were only sworn in as PCVs last week, have already lost a tenth of their people. The environment PCVs almost made that number much larger when they tried to protest a staff decision by showing up to class not just drunk, but still openly drinking. Five years ago I would have thought that was a cool way to protest something. Now all I can think is, "You fucks, straighten up and fly right! If you get fired there will only be 3 environment volunteers left in Benin." The other six all got purged.

9/21/2015 6:13:57 AM

Pretty much every day I work at this office, I go around the corner to a shack for lunch. The shack serves pounded yams with peanut sauce, and the sauce always includes various goat components. Normally this is an unidentifiable segment of flesh, but often enough there's a recognizable kidney, liver, lung, intestine, or brain. But it was only today, after more than a year of eating at this establishment, that I finally got served a whole goat heart.

Overall I would rank the quality from highest to lowest thus:

Intestine
Heart
Brain
Kidney
Liver
Lung

Just in case any of you should be planning to celebrate Eid al-Adha, which is called Tabaski in Benin and will be taking place either tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday, depending on lunar observations made by imams, who are apparently unaware that we have actually got a pretty good handle on predicting the phases of the moon. The central feature of the holiday is killing, sharing, and eating a goat or sheep, which is why suddenly my neighborhood went from being goat-less to being just chock full of goats.

9/22/2015 11:00:11 AM

In ten days I am no longer a PCV. Traditionally we have a little ceremony where someone goes around the office banging a "gong" (a cowbell, really) to inform everybody to go outside, where they say a few words to the departing person, who then responds with a short speech of their own.

It used to be that the big draw to these things was hearing our country director's speech. Our CD always sounds like he is profoundly, irredeemably stoned. He says inappropriate things like, "I don't really...know who you are, so much." Recently a volunteer asked if he knew her name. He said, "No. I remember you had a rough time your first year. Then I came to visit and your town seemed nice and I thought, 'I don't know what she's complaining about.' But really I don't know why we put people in your town anyway."

Unfortunately, our CD just left, so most of the speeches will be by newer staff we barely know. Which means it's up to me to make it interesting. I am torn between the heartfelt, moving talk I've been half-formulating in my head for days now, and just ripping off a speech from a movie that has nothing to do with what is going on, for comedic value.

For example, looking out at the people assembled and suddenly saying, "I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!"

I'd think it was funny. My girlfriend would be mortified, which I would also think was funny. Some of the Americans might get it. The Beninese would be justifiably confused.

---

There's one apartment building in Cotonou that now has four PCVs living in it, all third-year people who work at the PC office. One of them is a guy who is currently getting married, soon to bring his wife with him to Benin. In his mind she will happily make a living working at our favorite Indian restaurant, but we're dubious. Not least because she doesn't speak a word of French.

We're also dubious about his domestic felicity. He and his fiancee did the "open relationship" thing for most of his two years, during which time he managed to fuck both the ladies who are now his next-door neighbors. Maybe I'm a doddering old relic for thinking that "open relationships" are stupid and bound to fail 100% of the time. Maybe some people are more open-minded than all that. But I've yet to encounter the woman who would be totally content living in between two of her husband's former sex partners. Hell, I'm a man who is not overly prone to jealousy, and I wouldn't be content in that situation.

---

Speaking of significant others, my girlfriend is out of the country at a conference. The experience has already highlighted how quickly I need to get a job so cohabitation can begin. Three days without female supervision and I'm basically feral. There are bones lying around the floor of my house from where I get done eating them and toss them to the dog.

9/28/2015 12:09:36 PM

Give the speech from Independence Day.

9/28/2015 12:29:03 PM

gotta go Samuel L from Deep Blue Sea

[Edited on September 28, 2015 at 12:38 PM. Reason : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz1J9PUcMQ0]

9/28/2015 12:35:06 PM

Quote :

"Three days without female supervision and I'm basically feral. There are bones lying around the floor of my house from where I get done eating them and toss them to the dog."

Hahahahaha

9/29/2015 12:49:44 AM

Independence Day, Braveheart or Pacific Rim speeches FTW.

[Edited on September 29, 2015 at 9:14 AM. Reason : ]

9/29/2015 9:09:33 AM

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. “Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!


DO IT.

9/29/2015 9:56:57 AM

I've been leaning towards Al Pacino from The Devil's Advocate, just because it's such a religious country:

Quote :

"Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!"

9/30/2015 1:23:51 PM