It’s my personal belief that you have to be somewhere for at least a year before you can claim to have lived there. Any time spent before that is just “staying” somewhere. So after having stayed in Bénin for only 2 months, I’m hesitant to write as an authority on the culture, the country, or even working with a Béninois NGO (non-governmental organization). All I can relay to you is my experience and what I learned from it, and I hope I’ve done that through the last few months of blogging.
I’ve been back in the U.S. for almost 2 weeks now, and in that time there have been many things that have made me happy. Seeing my friends is the first to come to mind, but fast and free internet is a close second. I can actually upload every web page in its entirety and look at my friends’ facebook pictures within seconds. I also like being allowed to wear shorts in public without offending anyone. I appreciate being able to speak fluently with those around me, especially my co-workers. I love coffee shops, indoor plumbing, and blackberries. I enjoy having a job where I actually feel like I’m accomplishing something. But most of all I love anonymity. I fit in everywhere, I can walk anywhere I want without children announcing my arrival, men harassing me, or people asking me for money.
But I miss populated streets, where my ten minute walk to work consisted of greeting at least 25 people, sometimes more. I miss how alive the streets are with mechanics, women selling food, neighbors sitting outside their gates watching the world pass by. In Bénin everyone is part of the community, but here in Arizona, while most people are incredibly friendly, there isn’t much interaction between strangers. Life is individualized.
I also miss the bright colors. Clothes are usually muted here (the majority of my wardrobe is unfortunately not an exception), but in Bénin the clothes were almost as beautiful and vivid as the tree-covered hills.
I miss the kids and their enormous, sincere smiles.
I miss the music. Everywhere. Pouring out of restaurants, bars, hair salons, and houses at excessive volumes. It’s almost always upbeat, especially at church. I was sitting in church last Sunday and couldn’t help but be distracted and disappointed by how slow and boring all the songs were here in America.
I daydream about the fresh tropical fruit- the mangoes, the pineapples, the bananas, the coconuts. I loved that there was food everywhere, and that it was always flavorful, natural, and homemade. It’s all so fresh and organic that it doesn’t last very long, prompting one of my roommates to make the insightful observation of, “It’s nice that when you’re hungry you just have to go outside to find food, but it’s annoying that when you’re hungry you have to go outside to find food.”
Those are a few of the things I loved while I was there, but what did I learn?
I learned about the realities of NGOs in Bénin, which may provide a fair representation of NGOs in Africa as a whole, but I’m not positive about that. A lot of people who manage NGOs are actually working full time jobs elsewhere and tend to their NGOs on the side. Projects and programs are created once funding is found, rather than looking for funding to support projects and programs that have already been put in place. I learned that with my personality, I wouldn’t feel fulfilled working in a local NGO if it were similar to the one I just worked in, since I was viewed by my NGO as more of a resource for getting money than anything else. I didn’t really learn any skills, since the staff I was working with barely had enough training and experience to run the NGO. But I gained invaluable experience, so I’m not too disappointed.
In fact, I left Bénin with very mixed feelings about NGOs, foreign funding, and the development field in general. NGOs like the one I was working with wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for foreign funding, so should they even exist at all? An entire system has been created that revolves around training Africans to adhere and submit to the whims and methods of European/America/Canadian donors. But at the same time, there are lots of foreign and local organizations who are doing a lot of good within that system. So for the majority, it’s an unnatural, one-way relationship, but not one than I can write off as being solely villainous. But now I’m not so sure I want to go into it as a career.
Also, it was reaffirmed for me that I will always be a foreigner in Africa, simply because my skin is white. Even if I become accepted as a local in the community or town I’m in, any time I travel outside of that group, the people I encounter will see me as an outsider. No matter how much I try to dress and speak like the people around me, my skin will always set me apart.
Despite several frustrations, I’m inexplicably glad that I spent the last two months in Bénin. I got two more stamps in my passport (Brussels & Bénin), as well as a realistic idea of what working in a Béninois NGO is like. I got acquainted with another region of Africa, improved my French, and acquired a better understanding of the development field.
Thanks for following my adventure and I hope you’ve been able to live vicariously through me at least a little over the last couple months. The blogging is now officially over, since I’m not going to attempt blogging about my life in Arizona. If I did, I would only publish posts sporadically and they might not even be interesting, because as a grad student, surviving an insane schedule and remembering to eat/sleep/maintain basic levels of hygiene take priority over having an interesting life. I would write things like, “I went to class, and then I went to work and sat at a computer, and then I went to the library and ploughed through some of my readings for class, and then I went to bed.” But in May I graduate, and am off to the next adventure. So, check back in a year, if you feel like it, and hopefully there will be interesting news up there.
-Jenn
p.s. I have full albums of my pictures from Bénin up on facebook. If you would like to see them, the link for the first one is:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.730608447928.2249484.27711297&l=659339dcd7&type=1
and the second is:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.738907616328.2253204.27711297&l=0958410b14&type=1
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