I am a Volunteer…Now What Do I Do?

I, Katrina Shankle, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of American against all enemies, domestic or foreign, that I take this obligation freely, and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps (so help me God).

It is official, as of Friday September 14, 2012, I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer; after three months of training where I successfully met the language, technical and cultural components I was permitted to swear in with 65 of the other Stagiers in my class. We didn’t have Hillary Clinton, or any other big name swear us in, but it was the US Ambassador to Benin’s first act as Ambassador, as he had only been sworn in himself 24 hours prior- which is kinda cool.

I thought having spent so much time and effort trying to get into the Peace Corps and then with the ups and downs of training, the whole thing would have been a more emotional experience. However, the week ahead of swear in was a blur of last minute administrative tasks, goodbyes to the people I have spent the last 3 months getting to know and surviving stage with, and packing,  all of which ended with me waking up early to catch a motorcycle taxi (Zem) to the buses that would take us to swear in. On any normal day, the second I stepped out on the street I would be accosted by Zems looking to take a fare, but of course on the day of swear in, I could find none. After turning down several non-official Zem drivers in an effort to avoid breaking too many Peace Corps policies on the day of swear in, I had made it all the way from my house to the main road, and still no Zems. Finally a man in a blue shirt (the color Zem drivers in Porto Novo wear) drove up, at this point, already late I barely negotiated, and just hopped on. Only after we were already on our way did I notice he did not have a license number on the back of his shirt, he was in fact just a guy in a blue shirt giving me a ride. Luckily Peace Corps didn’t seem to notice or care and I made it to the bus on time.

As we waited at the US Embassy for the ceremony to begin, rumors began flying by those who snuck a peak in the kitchen, that there would be burgers, pigs in a blanket, quiche, crab cakes and of course beer- all the glorious things we had been salivating over thinking about for the last three months (except for the beer, which we all enjoyed abundantly after training each day). Thus, by the time the ceremony began- on Beninoise time, alors en retard- most of us were hungry and ready to move on to our shopping and other post swear in tasks.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in a taxi at 5 am, driving through Porto Novo the next day, still dark, that I realized that my 3 months of Stage were over, that I would likely never live in Porto Novo again and that I had taken my oath and I was finally a volunteer. After what felt like summer camp or study abroad all over again, I finally felt like I was in the Peace Corps. Then I fell asleep.

12 hours after saying goodbye to my house in Porto Novo, I was sitting in my house in Banikoara with all my bags and a dinner I grabbed on the road. This was the start of my service.  However, it was also the first opportunity I had to use my new internet key and reconnect to the outside world, so naturally the first thing I did was check my email, Facebook, the news, and ESPN. After being sufficiently overwhelmed by the happenings of the outside world, and disappointed in my sports teams, I began cleaning the house and unpacking. 24 hours later I was still cleaning and unpacking. In that time I began to get a feel for what home would be like for the next two years. Living in a desert, I am learning, means that no matter how many times you sweep, the dirt and the dust will prevail, I discovered that my toilet leaks when the water is left on- unequipped to fix this, and too lazy to figure it out, I have decided to just turn the water source on and off, half the lights in the house don’t work, rain on a tin roof is really loud and really wet when you have leaks, the fasteners we were supposed to get with our propane tanks, stove and hose were not actually in my supplies (against my better judgment I checked for gas leaks by lighting a match near potential sources of leaks, with no explosions I decided my stove was safe enough- in retrospect it was not the smartest move on my part), I have pet crickets and there is a chicken that sometimes hangs out by my bedroom window.

After successfully unpacking my house in the first 24 hours, I was ready to start meeting the community. Peace Corps warned that people would just show up at our house, invite us for dinner and offer us help moving in. My community was more or less uninterested in me. Not to say that they don’t like me but there has been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Banikoara for the last 6-8 years and there are other development agencies here with other foreigners allegedly residing in the community, thus the excitement of having a white person living in the neighborhood is diminished. After walking around and saying hi to my new neighbors without much excitement on Sunday, I returned home looking forward to my first day where I would at least get to see my coworkers. Monday came and went, then Tuesday, Wednesday I bumped into my counterpart who informed me the mayor’s office was busy, my supervisor was in Parakou and she was leaving for Togo, then she said something about not working until November or December and left. Moments I wish I spoke better French.

In the absence of work or much social connection, I have spent my days studying French, Barriba (the local language), talking to my security guards (both very nice people and my main source of social interaction), visiting the market, trying to cook with items available and recognizable to me, giving up on cooking and exploring the cafeteria world of Banikoara and contemplating whether the water I drank at the cafeteria was a bad idea midway through an attempt to go running which in reality was more of a half run mixed with trying not to fall in the mud, get hit my a Zem, all while people continue to greet me with things like bon sport, bon perspiration, bon travail and the uncreative bon soir.

So many times I have been warned that this is the reality when you get to post but still I can’t help but wonder if I am already failing at being a volunteer or when this initial complete lack of structure will come to an end. I have moments where this is a low for me, where I worry about my ability to integrate and work within my community. I continue to remind myself of how long it took to get to know my coworkers in a structured office setting in India to accomplish work and that brings some comfort but for those who know me well, four days of having nothing to do is four days too many. Thus, in typical Type A Katie fashion I woke up this past morning and made myself a daily schedule rationing when I would exercise and when I would do language study, when I would study for the GRE and when I would wander the community and try to integrate, we will see how long this schedule lasts.

A harder point of being a female volunteer here is that I can’t just go to a bar and hang out and make friends because it would be considered inappropriate, further challenging me is the warning Peace Corps gave women of hanging out and making friends with men- by doing so it is generally assumed that you are agreeing to date them on some level. This is restricting. But today I cracked, a Nigerian man invited me to get a beer with him after he finishes work, starved for human interaction and friendship, I agreed, stressing that I am married of course, but that only sometimes helps. Here’s hoping that I have made myself a friend and that I won’t spend the next hour explaining why if I am married I am here and uninterested in getting married again. Lucky for me I have found the key to ending marriage proposals, after informing a different suitor I did not want children, he informed me that no one ever would want to marry me then and that was that. Oh cultural exchanges.

Hopefully, for my sake, I will have more to report on in the weeks to come.

A la prochain.

Becoming Un-Lost in Translation (9.6.12)

Days in Africa as a Peace Corps Stagier seem to drag on forever, weeks however seem to disappear in a blink of an eye. As I try to remember where I left off here and what has happened since, it feels as though I have not written in months and I want to tell you about how so much has changed in the same moment I want to say nothing ever happens here.

I have now finished my core/language training, gone to post and am now in the middle of my technical training. While my French is far from perfect it is weird to think that it was only a little over a month ago that I couldn’t say much more than hello, and now I am preparing to teach a class on feasibility studies in French to a group of students.

I realize that during my first post I actually said very little about the training I was going through with the Peace Corps other than that it was a whole lot of language with some medical and safety and security sprinkled into the mix. So to recap…

The first part of training was intense for me; it was a lot of language with the same three people almost every day in each other’s homes with lots of studying after class and time spent with my family. It was also during this time that we learned more or less everything we were supposed to know about service before we got to post. During the medical sessions I learned about the various parasites and bacterias that will like infiltrate my body at some point during service and make my life hell. We learned about all kinds of worms and skin infections we could get while here, including a worm that will present itself in your eye, I won’t go into any more detail, but the laundry list of things I could get is pretty gross. I learned all about malaria, nothing about dengue and a little about the other random diseases I might end up with while I am here. We had one session dedicated entirely to snake bites and skin problems, during which we spent a long time looking at pictures of the different snakes in Benin and being informed about which ones are poisonous and how long it will take for the venom to kill you only to be told that the medical office also let the anti-venom expire so if we get bit we are kind of SOL- then we skimmed over skin diseases and called it a day. Upon returning from post visit one of the rural community health Stagiers reported seeing a man come into her clinic to be treated for a snake bite, he was vomiting blood. If I wasn’t already afraid of snakes, I most certainly am now. Luckily I am a CED volunteer so I don’t have to spend too much time in places where snakes could be lurking.

During safety and security I learned to be alert and some other stuff, but nothing nearly as memorable as our medical sessions, except for the session when Stagiers began asking what kind of weapons we were allowed to carry and if we were going to take a self-defense course and what kind of repercussions where there for resorting to violence. As this is the PEACE Corps, the questions seemed to throw our Safety and Security trainer who reminded us that our main focus should be staying out of situations where we would need a weapon. Fair.

I passed my language exam so during the few language classes we have during technical training I will now be taking Barriba, they don’t waste any time here (well that’s a lie, but in regards to language learning…). Technical training consists of about two to three hours of learning important information about what we will be doing at post and about 4 hours of the volunteers wasting time and planning what we are all going to do after the day’s class. A perk of being a CED volunteer is that we take a lot of field trips and we have gotten to see what creative entrepreneurship in Benin looks like, which is good to see since the needs in Benin are very different than in the United States. It has also been interesting for me during these sessions to learn where funding has come from and to get a feel for the organizational management of the projects. All of which I am trying to make mental notes of for when I get to post and start my own projects, but in reality there seems to be great variety in various projects’ organization and financial independence. From these field trips and conversations with other volunteers and CED trainers it seems clear that one of the major problems here is that there are an abundance of NGOs and development oriented entrepreneurship projects all of which depend on foreign aid to operate. Beyond just the dependence of foreign aid it seems that many of them use most of that aid to employ members of the organization and then only have a little left to accomplish the original goal of development. While it is good that these projects are creating jobs for the Beninoise and providing good salaries, the reality is by using aid money in this way there is little actual development and forward motion toward self-sustainability. As this is a mammoth problem and I have no illusions about my real capacity to inspire progress here, I don’t image in two years I will be able to do much or anything to help ameliorate this, but it is something to think about as I consider how I want to use my time here.

I have enjoyed this phase of training because I am with all the CED and TEFL volunteers every day and it has been nice to get to know the other volunteers as the majority of my language training was spent with the same three people, who I enjoyed but there are 61 other volunteers to get to know in our group. Having the bulk of language behind me has relaxed me a lot, as the first half of training I felt like I was working all the time, and now I feel like I am at summer camp.

My family is still crazy but they seem to have become much less interested in me since my return. This has been both good and bad, no one seems to mind when I get in late after hanging out with the volunteers but now they forget to feed me sometimes and when they do remember it’s pretty basic. My host dad did make sure to buy a large case of beer for me, so I always have to open bottles waiting for me when I return to the house, so I at least have that.

Another volunteer had a bunch of us over for burgers and fries, which was an amazing recess from Beninoise food. After which we decided while we were all in Porto Novo with access to more American-like food we should make this more of a tradition, so I agreed to host the next dinner of chili. When I informed my host family I would be making another dinner for them and that this time I was going to also have other Americans over they got really excited and called the family photographer who showed up promptly the day of the dinner to have a mini photo shoot with my family and the other volunteers. So the day before the dinner I went to the market with two other volunteers to buy the beans to soak overnight- of course after a pit stop to the bouvette. It was starting to get a little late once we got there so we were moving fast to find beans that were close enough to what we would use in the states. There seemed to be only one woman selling what we decided looked like the best beans, the price was a little high but we ended up taking them. The next day after class myself and another volunteer starting cooking the beans while my sisters hung out with us and waited for the other volunteers to arrive. My sisters during the whole process kept asking if I wanted them to grind the beans and I couldn’t understand why, so I just kept saying no, in the United States we don’t grind the beans for chili. Finally after some time of boiling the beans with little progress one of my sisters explained to the other volunteer that we had not bought beans but peanuts and they thought we were trying to make a peanut sauce. This was going to be a problem for the chili we had promised to several hungry volunteers. So the peanuts were taken out of the hot water and became a snack while we waited for the dried beans that I then sent my sister to go out and buy. In the end the chili came out well, and we just had a lot of peanuts to snack on in the house for the next week, which was good for me when my family was being forgetful about feeding me. In any case volunteers hung out at the house and enjoyed the chili and beer and my sisters were delighted to have the company of so many other Americans much more new and shiny than I was at this point. It was decided that night that the volunteers had to come over another time to celebrate with my family one more time before we all left for post.

It feels now as though the countdown is on for swear in, and I am both anxiously awaiting it and nervously anticipating it. Knowing that both my time with beaucoup de American connection and to figure things out with the training wheels still on is almost up has left me trying to cram as much in as possible and yet after close to 3 months with constant connection and little alone time there is also the part of me that feels ready to have a home where I can close the door and decompress. It is funny being at this point in my service as I remember preparing to leave for the Peace Corps thinking this would be the hardest part as I am coming up to the date marking this endeavor being the longest amount of time I have spent abroad. I thought it would be at this point I would feel ready to turn around and go home, but instead I feel like I am only just getting to the start of my time here; that I am not reaching an ending point but a starting point. Perhaps in another 3 months I will feel differently but for now, this crazy life decision I have made still makes since to me…

Yup. TIA. THIS IS AFRICA. (8.31.12)

About 3 weeks ago now, early on a Saturday morning, I left to visit my post in Banikoara, and so the story begins. After triple checking to see if I had everything I could possibly need, and forgoing the majority of the things the Peace Corps recommended (malaria smear kit, medical handbook, safety and security handbook, trainee handbook, 4 full bottles of water and our kit to test for parasites- not fun), my host father and I were off for the bus stop before the sun was up or I was really awake- this changed quickly. The first lesson of the many I would learn on the trip; riding on the back of a motorcycle with a full pack on changes your weight distribution vastly. After almost falling off the back on the first jerk of the bike leaving the house, I was awake. We arrived at the bus station where a bunch of other sleepy volunteers also heading to the north greeted me and instructed me to have a seat- the Peace Corps, in an attempt to make sure we all made it on the bus, told us to get there 45 minutes before the bus would even arrive, overlooking the fact that the bus was likely running on Beninoise time, and we were still on American time.

To our excitement after 45 minutes the bus promptly showed up, and we eagerly slung our packs on and made our way to the bus noting that none of the Beninoise around us had moved- including our homologues who were taking us to our post after our 2 day training together. They gestured to us to sit back down, which we obediently did after the bus driver just waged his finger at us when we attempted to board. Giving in to the fact that we had no idea or control over the situation we sat down and waited for further instruction. Soon after, a miniature bus, or slightly-larger-than-normal van, depending on your nationality arrived- for that people moved as though a building was on fire, I sadly did not make this van, but my homologue told me to be ready, another would come. Sure enough another van rolled up and this time I ran to get to the front, threw my pack on the roof and elbowed my way into the even smaller van, securing my seat. After further battling to win their seats other volunteers, homologues, and random Beninoise whom I had the fortune of sharing this morning with slowly made their way to their seats- babies and baggage on laps. And then we waited. And then we waited some more- the smell, heat and general lack of personal space were slowly wearing on me- this was going to be a long trip and it hadn’t even started yet. Finally, the chauffer came back to try to argue with myself and the other volunteers that there was space for at least one more person- our adamant rejection of this being a remote or scientific possibility seemed to amuse the host country nationals in the car. We were not so amused. Meanwhile a fight had broken out in the other van and in the midst of the shouting match everyone unloaded out of that van and got into the still empty bus, filling the large bus with the same number of people, at which point we were instructed to unload our van and move to the now empty vehicle.

3 hours later we were all in vehicles, and on our way to Parakou, my first stop on the way to Banikoara. After the initial drama the rest of the ride went pretty smoothly, we were still packed in; I still had small children hanging over me, making sure to spill whatever they were eating throughout the various points of the trip on my once blue shirt. After about a 6 hour drive we had arrived in Parakou where we stayed for the night at a missionary couple’s house and enjoyed the blessing that is Marie Antoinette’s, a real Italian restaurant. The voyage the following day was fairly uneventful, we piled into a 15 person van and were off- of course making many stops on the way to buy various goods- which was annoying to the stagiers who didn’t know any better yet. The van only sort- of-broke down once due to overheating,  but it was conveniently by a restaurant around lunch time, it was also at this point that I realized that the very hot engine under me that was starting to burn the bottom of feet had begun to melt my motorcycle helmet resting on the ground- opps.

At our posts, we were all required to stay with a new host family to continue our “cross- cultural” learning. I was staying with the equivalent of the vice principle of the equivalent of a high school, Denis and his family, which was pretty fortunate. Other than his wife being sick, which made me feel slightly guilty for taking up his and the other family members’ time, my living situation with this host family was nice- the house was slightly smaller than my house in Porto Novo, and didn’t have running water or an indoor bathroom, but it still had electricity, I still had my own room with a DOUBLE bed, and the wife happens to be an excellent cook and Denis is a great friend and tour guide.

Getting out of the big city brought on a whole host of new adjustments and experiences for me and my body, which resulted in a lot of moments of saying TIA, This Is Africa, to myself and making a mental note to add to my blog, 3 weeks and lots of TIA moments later we will see how I do.

Within the first day, something made my stomach unhappy- something that seems inevitable here but also so much more inconvenient in Africa. Unfortunately for me, my stomach decided to make its discontent known to me around 3am. In households without toilets, there is usually either a family latrine (locked and only used by the family) or public latrines. My family had a family latrine which was good in the sense that they are far more sanitary, but not so good in the sense that not only was I going to have to try to quietly walk through the living room in the pitch black where everyone else was sleeping to get out, but also climb over one of the mattresses and people to get to the key. The latrine was about 200 yards from the house on a dirt path and around some tall grass- also problematic for me. As it had been raining all night and I had learned earlier that day that in a mud v. flip flop scenario, mud would win here, and my general fear that the spot light of my headlamp was not big enough to identify potential snakes in the grass (yes this is what I think of) this all was going to be very challenging. Deciding against making this a production I opted for the Imodium for the angry stomach and some Benadryl- to knock me out and hoped for the best in the morning. A week of Imodium roulette and getting to know the cockroaches of the latrine quite well- to the point where they didn’t really move when I got in there but instead seemed to stand by almost sympathetically waiting for me to leave, I finally adjusted to the bacterias of Banikoara and carefully stored my remaining two Imodium pills. Yes Africa does weird things to the mind- like finding solace in the apparent sympathy of your resident latrine cockroaches. Like most things here, some of the most amazing experiences seem to come hand in hand with the worst and departing the latrine late one night I happened to look up before making my way back to the house and there I stood memorized seeing more stars more brilliant than I have ever seen, and the greatest gift of all- aurora borealis. It was incredible, I stayed transfixed on the stars until the smell of the latrine behind me and the rustling in the grass reminded me it was late and time to go back inside.

My first week at post was very busy, I drove around getting to know the town, the markets, local officials, more or less tribal leaders (including the Chief or King of Banikoara), the mayor- who I will technically be working for, the work I will be doing, my counterparts, and the volunteer I will be replacing. I was lucky enough to not only have a volunteer in my post before me who furnished the house and was leaving behind lots of books and wisdom for me but also who is going on to do a third year with the Peace Corps in Cotonou. Although the Peace Corps recommended we not spend too much time with the Volunteers who we were replacing, spending time with her gave me the opportunity to gain valuable insight into the quirks and personalities within the community. It seems I have some very big shoes to fill, which is both exciting for me and makes apprehensive to find out what kind of volunteer I will end up being.

Banikoara is the commune head of the commune of Banikoara, as such it is more like the city to the small villages around it, but is in reality a big town. There is one paved road that runs through it and continues all the way to the neighboring commune of Kandi – which is where my Peace Corps Workstation is located- this makes travel pretty easy for me (comparatively).  Everything else is dirt road and it is small enough to walk most of it. There is a cyber café, lots of bouvettes, a church, several mosques, a stadium- which is a good place to run when I want to get away from traffic, but also makes it easy for my workout to become a spectator sport for the locals, a few small restaurants and a hotel with a swimming pool currently being constructed. There is a big market in the town every four days and a small everyday market as well as a grocery store with canned goods, that being said the variety of fruits and vegetables is limited as the climate in Banikoara is very desert like and after seeing the market I understand why we stopped so many times on the way up to buy produce.

People who work in the formal sector (very few) or who have gone to school speak French but a majority of farmers, venders and other workers really only speak Barriba which means I will need to learn at least how to greet people and negotiate in Barriba. There is also a group of people in Banikoara known as the Phole, who speak Fulani, but they are more or less removed from the society as a whole. The work in Banikoara is more than 80% agriculturally based and it is the largest producer of cotton (the country’s largest export) in Benin. I will be working for the office of the Mayor but will be working closely with an “NGO” that works on sanitation and clean drinking water projects with funding from the Mayor’s Office, to help them with financial management. Additionally, after a meeting at the Mayor’s Office I was informed of some of the secondary projects they would like to see me work on which include working with a women’s group with the production of Shea and moringa, other small garden groups with product diversification, financial management and access to markets, teaching financial literacy classes to about 300-500 community members, hosting a radio show on financial literacy in Barriba (ha!), working with the students to help encourage entrepreneurship through English and business clubs, sensibilizations on the use of clean water and private latrines as well as sanitation practices in bouvettes and more, in other words I have plenty of work if I want it.

I also got to see the house where I will be living in for the next two years, and was able to confirm that I am a lucky participant of the posh corps. I live in a compound with the electricity company- which makes paying my electrical bill pretty simple- but since my neighbor is an important company, I also inherit 2 security guards who protect the property 24 hours a day. They technically are not responsible for my house, but as my house is literally connected to the office of the electrical company, it would probably take more work to actively not guard my house as well, so as long as I remain a good neighbor I think I am set. The house itself is HUGE I have a master bedroom, a guest room, a giant living room space, and a giant kitchen, indoor toilet and…shower!!! So I really have nothing to complain about, except for one detail. In my training I learned I am actually prohibited from getting a goat as a pet as a volunteer, so I was planning on have a “neighbor” with a pet goat instead, but sharing a compound with an electrical company makes this unlikely. As a pet goat was the number 1 thing I talked about before leaving for Benin, this is an unfortunate development but at the moment I am willing to trade the goat for electricity and running water.

My two weeks at post were the first time I wasn’t with Peace Corps staff, thus it was my first opportunity to experience time as it is understood by the Beninoise. I like it. When the people here talk about Americans they always say “time is money” and then usually laugh. I didn’t get why this stuck with them as much as it did until I understood how much time is not money to the Beninoise. My days would usually consist of getting to the office around 9, if it wasn’t raining- if it’s raining you stay home until it stops, whenever that may be- I would work with my host organization in some capacity until around noon, then my work day was over and I would go home to eat lunch, nap and hang out with the family. To the Beninoise, personal relationships are more important and defining than the work you do- as an American, I am going to need to try to bury my type A personality deep inside me if I want to be successful in the community.

At the end of the two weeks, it was time to make the journey back to Porto Novo with a pit stop in Kandi to meet up with the other stagiers in the region to travel back together and to meet the current volunteers serving in the area. After two weeks of almost no English it was nice to see familiar faces and share battle stories over some beers and chili. The next morning we woke up early to take a taxi we prearranged to take us back to Porto Novo, but when the taxi arrived he had another person with him, after 45 minutes and much arguing over the lack of space in the car and the fact that we had paid extra to make sure this didn’t happen he agreed the other man wouldn’t come with us, we felt victorious. That was until we saw the other man giving our driver directions to Porto Novo, not good. There are two ways to get back down south from the north, there is a road that goes through Porto Novo and another that goes through Cotonou, during the rainy season most traffic goes through Porto Novo because the road to Cotonou is in bad shape, our driver didn’t know the road to Porto Novo nor was he interested in looking at the map with us, so we took the bad road. After a long and bumpy ride with one near miss of a traffic accident it was getting dark and we were not near home so we decided to call Peace Corps for further direction as we are not supposed to travel at night. It was decided that we were to stop in Cotonou to be safe, we were excited, this meant we were going to get fancy American food in the big capital city. And that is exactly what we did, a calzone and a bottle of wine later, I was enjoying the company of current volunteers who were in town and happily decompressing after a long day on the road. The next day, after three days of traveling, I finally was back in Porto Novo.