If Only I had a Little More Common Sense

Sometimes I really wonder how I have survived so long in this world, and how anyone allowed me to fly across the world and join the Peace Corps. I think the first indication of this really goes back to the fly in the eye story, but of course like with any great story there are sequels, which are not as important, but noteworthy.

Exhibit A:
My first full day at post I grew impatient with the locksmith, who was fixing my front door, so I took it upon myself to change the lock on my bedroom door. The issue with the door was that the deadbolt was out, and I had no key, therefore I could no close the door. I changed the lock successfully.

After hanging around my house all day, I decided I needed to get out and take a walk. I went to change in my bedroom, and successfully closed my door. It turns out there was a reason the deadbolt was out on the door. If you close the door, you can’t open in again, because the cement wall is in the way. I tried to think quickly, “Hey, why not just take the door knob off. I remember that working at my parents house when I was little.”

As I successfully unscrewed the lock, it dawned on me to late that this plan was flawed. By unscrewing the lock, the other side would fall, and then I would have no handles to turn and open the door. I stopped and looked hopelessly to the other side in the small cracks. I paced and tried to tell myself to not panic, and desperately shunned the idea of having to shout for help from my bedroom window. I finally looked at the lock closely and realized the small thin piece in the center was what controlled the turning. I took my bike kit tool, and turned this piece carefully. Voila, I was saved, and that is how one locks themselves in their house, rather than out.

Exhibit B: Chaud
I decided to paint my living room. A Peace Corps volunteer explained a cheap process by which to do so. You mix what is called chaud with water. Let it sit over night and cool, and then add tinte in the morning. Now various volunteers commented that when the chaud and water mix, it does exactly what the name suggests, it gets hot. Although I had heard this, and had even read it, I didn’t really register it in my mind. This was made clear when I decided to mix the chaud and water in a plastic bucket, which developed a small hole in the bottom, before I was able to transfer it into a metal bucket. Even when I started pouring I sensed a potential problem, but did not go with my instinct. The bucket with the hole is now storing food items kept in their plastic bags. At least it can still serve a purpose.

More stories to come.

“I don’t know if I can do this?”

The first night I arrived in Materi I was full of enthusiasm. It did not faze me that I had no furniture, and I was sitting on the floor trying to cook macaroni and cheese. I have never enjoyed cornflakes so much in my entire life—I despised most dry cereal as a child. I was excited to be finally beginning my service as a Peace Corps volunteer.

The harmony I felt that first night was short lived. Over the next two days the fact that I am an American living in Africa started setting in. It is not that I have not come accustomed to being one of the very few white people in Benin—the other white people being predominately volunteers. No the adjustment was different. It was that I was not living in a manor that I have ever lived, and the hope for change was far away, if it was at all possible. It was not as if I did not know the circumstances I was walking into, it was that I did not know truly how it would make me feel.

On my second day as I shuffled around items, not knowing where to put them; there was no other place to put them, but in a different room, on a different floor. My clothes had no home, not even over the mosquito net, as they had hung in Porto-Novo. I could not hang my helmet on a rack, and I could not take the food out of cement sacks, for fear that ants or some other bugs would descend upon it. And as I wandered around my house aimlessly I felt tears welling up. I was shocked at this response. I don’t think I had actually registered how much things were different for me, until that moment. I tried to pretend the emotions filling in my eyes were not actually there. I kept about shuffling items, and finally I sat down on my mattress, which was on the floor, only partially covered, because I don’t have a sheet to fit it. I sat there, and stared at the blank cement wall, and deep down I really felt that maybe I can’t do this.

I can not think of any time in my life that I have felt this way. I don’t think I have ever felt I could not do something. I have been stressed out, and thought something was too hard, and I have not wanted to do many things. Even when I had been up over 24 hours working on my senior thesis, and knowing I had to drive into Washington, D.C. for work, my body so tired, I never thought I can’t do this. Sure, I might have said it, but I didn’t really believe it. Just last week I was talking to another volunteer about my firm believe that I can do anything I set my mind to. And here I was less than a few days after swearing in, and thinking, “I don’t know if I can do this.” But this time I really began to think I believed it. It is a frightening to feel something you have never really truly felt before. Like when your heart is broken for the first time, and you don’t know if you ever can love again. Many other feelings we encounter for the first time, we do so when we are young, and more resilient. I could not tell you how I felt the first time I was truly scared. I have been scared since, but I think subconsciously I know it is temporary. I suppose I should feel grateful to have gone so far in life without really feeling a possibility of defeat, but honestly it scared me to think I could willing admit not being able to do something. And honestly, part of me thought, “If I don’t have the strength, than who does?”

I am constantly surprised of the information that bubbles to the surface the longer I am here. My mother once asked me to read a book, whose name of course escapes me because I never finished it. But I do remember a specific part in the book. It talked about the value we place on material items, but that when it comes down to it, we really aren’t the items we so value. I totally agreed with this doctrine, and admittedly I felt pity for those so attached to material items that they could never realize it. Little did I know I was really one of those fools.

Also, when I was a junior in high school I took a Psychology course. Most people took the class as an easy A. Me, of course, as studious as I am took it because I was genuinely interested. We learned about Maslows Hierarchy (I apologize if I totally destroyed the technical name). If I recall correctly there are three basic needs people need, security and shelter, socialization, and food and water. The first few days at post totally compromised these basic needs for me, which I have never really had to legitimately worry about.

I felt secure and I had shelter, but it wasn’t what I was used to, and therefore I felt my guard was up more than usual. I don’t think I have ever really known the value I placed on furniture, and how much those material things really were a part of my life. It is easy to think you don’t value material items, until you don’t have them.

I have such a close knit circle at home, that my social situation has been compromised since I have been here. On a regular basis I am reminded of how I could not really go on very well in life without my family and friends from back home. I also acknowledge that as much as I try, I will never truly know what it is like to be Beninese. As for food and water, the market here is once a week, and cooking here isn’t like cooking in the states. I was worried I would never find enough to eat, and the next two years might be spent not feeling full.

In my moment of despair I texted my friends in the states are secret emergency code. Even with a five hour time difference, both of them managed to get a hold of me. One of the friends I have known since I was nine years old. She offered up many words, but one really stuck. “You have to look to the small successes.” After I got off the phone with her, I promptly dressed myself, and made myself go out and talk to as many as possible. My French is not good, but people appreciate the effort more than anything else. My day started to improve. That night the electrician came and checked my outlets, which worked, and fixed my power strip that had been broken. I also decided to make it my mission to find food. I often heard volunteers talk about the people in their concession feeding them, and so this is what I have done. I have adopted myself to the family next to me. It is a lady and her daughters. She feeds me a lot and often, and has even said she is making it her mission to make me fat. A few days later I bought a table and a chair, and the carpenter finished my screen door, and my frame for my twin size bed.

Now I am reading “Life of Pi,” which has been the best read so far, since I have been in country. The author frequently repeats how humans can get to use to anything after a while. Everyday I find that to be more and more true. Perhaps, I can do this afterall.

Stage Mix II

Here is the latest mix created in Benin, and the final one for stage, as I am now an official Peace Corps volunteer.

New York, New York by Ryan Adams
Can’t Take It In by Imogen Heap
Oh My Sweet Carolina by Ryan Adams
Gasoline (Acoustic Version) by The Airborne Toxic Event
My Winding Wheel by Ryan Adams
Poison Oak by Bright Eyes
The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! By Sufjan Stevens
… On The Radio by Nelly Furtado
Wild Honey by U2
You Can Have it All by Yo La Tengo
Don’t Fail Me Now by Ryan Adams
Start Without Me by Pedro the Lion
Silver Bullets by Ryan Adams

Education – Part II: Favorite Moments in Model School

What I am doing exactly in Benin, I think remains a mystery to even my father at times. For the last two months I have been training. For the last four weeks that training has included teaching for the kids of Porto-Novo. Model School as it is called conjures up a culmination of emotions that can appear, disappear, and re-appear at any given moment. What I have accumulated here is a plethora of moments I have experienced, and have heard from others.

Story 1: “I had to put a kid in the corner today,” I overhear Brandon saying. I can’t recall the reason why—most likely for talking. The kid was facing the board, and during this time he ate a piece of chalk. The chalk was blue. It was all over his face when it was done.

Story 2: Lemeec. Everyone’s favorite student, one volunteer put it best: “Try not to look disappointed when Lemeec is the only person who is raising his hand yet again.”

Story 3: Students are told to write sentences about why education is important. The sentences, of course need to be written in English. The students take it upon themselves to look up words. Sentences given at the end of the exercise: “Education can help you get a job and have good prospects,” and “If I have an education, tomorrow I can be president.”

Story 4: I had to introduce a new section on the world. Part of this included teaching nationalities. I asked my students, “Am I African?” They shout “No!” I ask, if they are sure. I also brought in my childhood teddy bear as a prop. The students correctly identify her nationality: “She is American.” They learn how to sing, “It’s a Small World After All.” They loose track of time, and don’t want class to end.

Story 5: When I lesson plan, I write in the instruction: “If they stare at you blankly,” followed by what I will do to get them to understand.

Story 6: A trainee throws back to the 1950s—he makes a student bang erasers together for fifteen minutes.

Story 7: Favorite Quote: “Do you send parcels into space?” Answer: “No. You send satellites into space.”

Education, Part I: President Obama’s Speech

Today on the way back from Ganvié we stopped at the Peace Corps Bureau. We had heard that President Barack Obama had given a controversial speech about education, which was presented to all the students during the first week of school in the United States. We knew the internet connection would not be suitable to watch the speech on youtube, but found the transcript and printed it out for the ride back to Porto-Novo. It was an interesting moment. Ten of us in a van, listening as someone read the speech. In many ways the speech felt like such a far away concept from my experiences here, but the concepts of the speech were things we all could understand, because we are American.

Nine months ago I started substitute teaching in Anne Arundel County in Maryland. A month into doing day to day subbing I fell into a long-term substitute position at a high school. I could not be more grateful to have had that experience prior to joining the Peace Corps. I think the most important thing I realized from the time teaching in the states, is just how much I love teaching. One of the more invaluable tools I learned was telling with classroom management. But in many ways teaching in Benin is not the same as teaching in the United States. In fact, after hearing the speech given by Obama, we all decided they should do a classroom exchange between Benin and the United States, and show the students how things could work in the world.

In Benin there is primary school, which is free for everybody. After primary school, students continue to secondary school, or college, as it is often called here. Secondary school is not free. Students are normally about ten years old when they enter secondary school. Of course ages for grades are a fluid concept here. Because secondary school is not free, some students float in and out of school as they can afford it. Because secondary school is not free, many girls only receive primary schooling. The issue of girls’ education is really an issue onto itself.

In the classroom students do not have books—unless they buy the books, which is atypical. Since they don’t have books, their notes serve as their books—they take painstaking measures with all copying, and they cherish their copybooks. If you take a students copybook they are sure to follow it very closely. The only supplies given to teachers, aside from the curriculum books, are boxes of white chalk. Where I will be teaching in Matéri the student body is around 2,351 students—the same, possibly more than the number of students I went to school with during undergrad. In the two grades I will be teaching this year, sixieme, and cinqieme, there are about 900 some students. Both grades receive English class. There are five English professors, including myself. My class sizes will be close to 70—normal in Benin. I will be the only female teacher at my school—also normal in Benin.

The stark reality of education here is something I am just beginning to observe, note I don’t dare to say I completely understand it. And when Obama references in his speech, a part of me feels better that such a notion does not need to be preached to the majority of the children of Benin. The reason the children follow their copybook is because they know that is the proof of their education. The reason they copy so diligently is because they can’t go to any books to find the answer later. So when Obama talks of students using computers and a demand for books, I understand, but the odds against education here in Benin, make it feel foreign.