What I Have Become

It’s Saturday night. It is the first time in over a month I am able to sleep comfortably indoors and that there is electricity so I can have the simple joy of a fan. I have spent the last couple hours grading papers.

I was walking home today after my French lesson and as I reached down to adjust my bag, I was reminded of the beads under my skirt that are tied around my waist. The wind was blowing my skirt against my skin, as I strode, thinking how I was walking less like I used to and how one day I will win the ongoing battle of keeping my feet clean. Then it occurred to me; what have I become?

Sometimes the most exhausting part of my life as a volunteer is dealing with the life I used to have and comparing that to where I am now. The first day we were in Benin one of the staff members told us to be wary about keeping one foot in the States and one foot in Benin. If we were going to be volunteers we needed to be committed one hundred percent to Benin.

First, I can’t say there have been many things I have not committed to one hundred percent and second, I would vehemently argue with anyone who dares to challenge my commitment as a volunteer, and yet I constantly feel I am playing this game of hopscotch. I have not figured out the best way to explain this.

It would be selfish for me to believe nothing was going to change with me gone, and I knew that, but I never anticipated how the changes would make me feel. And it isn’t the changes alone, it is going on facebook and seeing everyone living a life I can’t relate to, but used to relate to, and will go back to. It isn’t that I look down on anyone and to some degree I am envious I don’t have that, but I also can’t imagine doing anything else and being anywhere else but here. In some ways I feel like I am getting left behind, while also being the one going ahead.

A death

I tell my Maman that I have broken my hand on the phone and she is concerned. I tell it is fine and ask how my dog is doing. I am told he is making progress. When I arrive home on Sunday night, Beaugarde isn’t where I left him and he is not next door. My sister tells me he is out with my Maman. She arrives home a moto fifteen minutes later, without Beaugarde of course.

“Where is Beaugarde?” I say. “Oh Jamie, he is dead. I didn’t want to tell you with your hand and everything.” End of story, sort of.

Later my sister tells me he isn’t dead and that he wasn’t tied up and he wandered off and they couldn’t find him. The whole village was out looking for him, she tells me. Then later I tell this story to someone in my concession, when my aunt, she is nuts and grates on me, says that story isn’t true, but that Beaugarde hung himself on his leash. I talk to my post mate a couple days later and she tells me how bad of shape Beaugarde was when she saw him after I had left. I don’t know what happened to my dog. I would like to believe that maybe he knew he was going to die and wandered off somewhere to do so, but the realistic part of me thinks perhaps my Maman gave him away, which ultimately means here for eating. I haven’t even bothered to ask where his collar went and I have made it clear, I don’t want another dog.