Things I Learned in Peace Corps

After receiving a hilarious email about things my friend Alyssa learned in Timor, I decided to write my own version about my experience. I’m afraid mine may not be as funny, but I hope it will reflect some of the more important aspects of my time here. So, in no particular order, some of the lessons I have learned in Peace Corps:

Animal husbandry is not for me. I lost years off my life after watching my cat give birth, and the fiasco that ensued. Also, I have had enough of crowing roosters, squealing pigs, and curious goats to last me a lifetime.

I can’t fix everything. Unsurprisingly, this has been one of the most frustrating aspects of my service. And of course, it’s not just that I personally can’t fix things – it’s that I can’t envision a sure way for anyone to fix them. From the problems with the school system (overcrowded classrooms, underpaid and undereducated teachers, sexual harassment of female students, rampant cheating, lack of resources…) to the challenges of village life (poverty, lack of education and employment options, poor healthcare and sanitation, extremely disadvantaged female population…), the issues facing the Beninese population – and anyone, like the Peace Corps, who tries to get involved – often seem overwhelming.

Latrines are cool. Or at least better than a toilet that doesn’t really work, which is generally the other option here. Also, intestinal parasites aren’t as bad as they sound. Really.

Family is important. And I mean that in the widest sense of the word – people you’re related to, people you’re friends with, people you share part of your life with. Beninese people often wonder what in the world would motivate all these young, educated Americans to leave everyone they know for two years and come work here, for less money than we would earn in the US. In general, the Beninese depend on their families for everything – a place to stay when you’re away from home; a place to send a wayward child, or one you can’t afford; the surest way to get a job or a place at university; friendly intervention in disputes of all kinds; etc. While I would argue that there are many benefits of leaving the nest for a while, I also know that it has been hard – and wouldn’t have been possible without my many families: my parents, sister, and fiancé, who spend hours listening to me whine on the phone; my relatives who sent letters or packages; my friends who write me emails and don’t mind if I take a few weeks to get back to them; my neighbors in village who can overlook my utter foreign-ness enough to scold, annoy, and help me just like they do their own family; and my fellow volunteers, who know what I’m going through before I tell them. Now that I’m finally about to return to my pre-Peace Corps family, something for which I’ve felt ready for a while, I can’t escape the sense of loss that comes with leaving my closest neighbors, and the community of volunteers to which I now belong. But as I tell everyone here who asks why I won’t extend for a third year, I will be sad to leave Benin, but happy to return to my country.

I don’t have to understand everything. As some who know me may have noticed, I like to ask ‘why’ about pretty much everything – and then critically evaluate the response in a way which I am sure is nothing but constructive. When I first got to Benin, I couldn’t do anything without posing a series of questions: Why does a full taxi stop for ten minutes in every village? Why must I eat with my hands, and not the perfectly good spoon you have in the kitchen? Why is it rude to use your left hand if you can help it? Why is it okay for all the other teachers to start class 15 minutes late but not okay for me to end class 15 minutes early? Needless to say, I was pretty annoying to be around for a while. Sometimes I would get good answers to these questions – perfectly valid reasons I hadn’t even thought of. Other times, people would just shrug and say, That’s how it is. C’est l’Afrique, ça. What I’ve found is that, either way, those things that everyone does here aren’t going to change because I demanded reasons. I can either choose to do things my own way – which I usually get away with, as a foreigner – or get used to the Beninese way, which I like to think I have done in a lot of situations. Sometimes I still ask the questions, out of curiosity, but I don’t worry too much if I don’t get an answer, or if the answer I get doesn’t make any sense at all. I consider this a very big step for me.

Motos are cool, but safety is cooler. Although I must admit that I found nothing scarier at the beginning of my service than having to travel by motorcycle, there is nothing quite like speeding down the road on the back of a motorcycle, arms out to catch the wind. Until, of course, your zemidjan driver, preoccupied with adjusting his single rearview mirror, slams on his brakes, forcing you to smack him in the head with your oversized helmet. Or he fishtails in a sandy part of the dirt road. Or he takes a ‘speed bump’ (aka small tree placed in the road by concerned citizens) so fast you fly off the seat and land with a thud, happy not to be on the ground. Or he underestimates the depth of a puddle, and the clothes that you hand-wash end up splattered with mud. Or, squeezing through traffic, he squishes your foot between his moto and the hot tailpipe of another one. Or… well, you get the picture. I often love the breezy, unencumbered feeling of riding on a moto, but I will be more than happy to go back to travelling in cars with solid windshields and seatbelts and doors that latch, on roads where everyone stays in their own well-marked lane, even when it would really be faster just to use the left lane or the shoulder.

Kids are kids, everywhere. Sure, Beninese kids are generally more obedient to adults than American kids are (because they’re scared they’ll get smacked), and they do way more manual labor than you could ever con an American kid into doing. (I’m not allowed to carry anything around the village, even if it’s a bag so heavy I really can’t imagine how that skinny eleven-year-old could possibly lift it.) But as soon as their parents’ backs are turned, they’re playing around and smacking each other and yelling and doing all the other things kids usually do. And I don’t even want to hear about how students in the village must be better-behaved because they recognize how lucky they are to be in school. My students’ behavior ran the gamut from delightful to downright mean, but generally landed somewhere in the middle – a mix of respect, boredom, fear, interest, and mischief. Accordingly, my frustrations with teaching mirrored those of US teachers – even though our schools and our students seem so different.

I’m sure I have learned other things – or at least I hope so – but those are the big ones I can think of. Now here’s hoping they will have some bearing on life back in the US!