Thinking about the future...

So I am approaching my one year mark quickly and the conversations with volunteers have begun to move away from the strange things that we see to what we plan on doing after our service. One evening I had a long drawn out conversation with a volunteer about the future and both of concluded we have no idea what it is that we actually want to do and finding it in Africa was most likely not going to happen, and coincidentally enough I read the following passage in the book I was reading at the time (the only difference is that he is in the French Foreign Legion while writing this and I am in the Peace Corps, but both in Africa):

8 September 1962

Idle days continue to move slowly past. There is time for reading and even more for thinking - time to take stock of one's life. REalizing that I have two more years and more to go, I realize simultaneously that it is too early to plan. But it is not too early to dream and that is a source of great pleasure.

When I finish here I will be approaching my twenty-fifth birthday. That is a sobering thought. My youth will have passed me by - not so fast, that is for sure. I will have no qualifications and no experience that is readily marketable. What to do? Friends with whom I was at school will have finished university and obtained their degrees and will be years ahead of me.

I do not even begin to know what I would like to do, although I am aware of several things that I would like not to do. Perhaps it is by a process of eliminiation that one eventually stumbles on the thing that gives one the most satisfaction in life. The great thing is to keep on moving forward and to keep on looking.

-(pg 210, Legionnaire, by Simon Murray)

I may have more marketable experience and qualities but still I have no idea what I want to do, where I want to end up but I definitely know what I do not want to be, where I don't want to be, and who I don't want to be. So the search continues and will continue until I find the drive to finally decide.

Grand Popo Here I Come!

First off let me say, sorry it has been so long and I surely have a lot to tell you. It has been an extremely busy past three months. To start, I don't know if everyone knows but a volunteer was murdered in Benin about three months ago, just after the last time I emailed everyone. Following this the Peace Corps has done everything in their power to ensure that all volunteers here are safe, feel safe, and remain in country. We only had one volunteer end their service early after the news of Kate's death. We have had innumerable safety checks and rechecks, had the regional security officer come through and we updated all requirements for housing and living situations to ensure further safety.

Since the murder, my life has been a battle of ups and downs. The first big piece of news is that I and another volunteer were sent to Ghana by the Peace Corps (thank you for paying your tax dollars) to meet with the West African Trade Hub, Technoserve and the African Cashew Alliance. The trip was amazing because it was 5 days in Ghana and really only one day of work, but one day of prep work for the meetings, and two days of travel. It is amazing cause it only cost us about $15 to travel across two countries in a taxi. The second we started to get into Accra central we realized we might as well have been in another world. First off, there is grass!!!! Second, the streets are paved and I mean all of them!!!! There are taxis, fast food joints, and even a few malls and movie theaters!!! Anyway, the meetings were extremely productive. I have a potential investor coming to my post on Monday to meet with my factory and discuss creating the largest cashew factory in Benin. This will be the second investor that I have introduced to my counterpart and I'm hoping she doesn't embarrass me again.

The second thing that has happened in the past three months involves a “promotion” that I did not get. I use quotes because it really isn't a promotion but it is a position that you apply for and you get more important things to do dealing directly with the HQ in Cotonou. I applied and was positive that I was perfect for the job. The job entailed being the Volunteer Leader for the HQ and the liason between the volunteers and HQ. I would move to a regional capital and run a regional office that also acts as a transit house that has electricity, running water, and internet, so volunteers without those can come and work, stay and get clean. It sucks cause I didn't get the job but it seems that it actually opened up a better opportunity for me.

This leads me to the third and final thing, I AM MOVING TO THE BEACH!!! Since my work and my relationship with my counterpart has been going South since nearly the beginning of my service, I asked for a post change. I don't feel like wasting a year of sitting around in a city that is unwelcoming and a workplace that I cannot get anything done. So, I will be leaving my position (as some have called it) “The King of Cashews” and will tackle the problem of tourism in the resort town of Grand Popo, not to be confused with the Grand Poop or Poopoo as some other have called it. My first task of many will be to create a Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Board to streamline the image that Grand Popo wants to portray to foreigners that know nothing about the city. Among other things, I will be helping to get accredidation for a hoteliers school that already exists, increase awareness of other Beninese about the beauty of the beach and hopefully instill the necessity of cleaning the beach. I will be taking over from another volunteer that has lived there for a year and has hit a lot of dead ends along the way. I am going to take it in a new direction and do a lot of self-driven work, so I can ensure that it is done properly and gets done. My move date that I am striving for as of now is July 1, so as to never have to come back to Savalou again as a volunteer here, making things very awkward.
So as to the next time you will most likely here from me, I will be writing to you from the beach or my front door that has a view of the beach!!!

See some of you very soon in the United States on my three week return and the rest I will see you soon enough when I am done here in another 17 months! I can't believe it has already nearly been a year. Anyway, good night all!

Tragedy in Benin

Last week, one of the worst things any mother, father, family member, and fellow volunteer could possibly think could happen. She may not have been blood related nor did I know her really well, but I knew her well enough, was a fellow volunteer and am apart the same, small community of Peace Corps volunteer in Benin. The past week has been a week of reflection for every volunteer on is this worth it. Is living in a foreign land, surrounded by foreign people, amongst a foreign culture, helping a strange people worth a life? No it is not! The act that was committed is unthinkable. For the past week, volunteers have joined together in the mourning the loss, leaning on people that we have just met and seeking the answers to the above question. Except for one, everyone of us so far have found the courage and seen the necessity of our work and are here for good. The random act of violence is not a mass spread movement. We are in no more danger than we were before the act. Last Wednesday, the nearly the entire volunteer community of Benin met together in Cotonou by ourselves. This past Wednesday, a smaller group of volunteers, including myself, US, French, and Beninese officials all met together at the Ambassador's house to share our last words in memory of Kate Puzey. To my surprise, the Beninese representative (the second in command) stood and shouted in anger and embarrassment that this act will not go unanswered, vowing everything in the Beninese government's power to ensure the remaining volunteers security.
Since the murder, nothing has changed except for the loss of trust in nearly, and I emphasize nearly, Beninese. I emphasize nearly because there are still the members of the Beninese society that have reached out beyond the call of the day to show their remorse and disgust at what has passed. These people are few and far in-between but they are there. And it is these people that I stay here for because they are the people that see the necessity and show the gratitude for the work that I and my fellow volunteers are doing here.
My projects are continuing, slowly but surely. My work with Raimi and his honey factory are moving forward a lot faster than I thought. Last week, I met with the American Development Fund (ADF) to discuss receiving our initial investment to start the project. During the proposal, I was torn apart because they started throwing out technical questions that I was in no position to answer, but it will be fixed in my next meeting with them because Raimi will actually be there to answer the questions that I have no idea about. My work with Kake 5 and the cashew factory is moving backwards at this moment because of some personal disputes between me and the owner. Hopefully they have been taken care of and I can go back to where I was before all of these problems started to happen. She has started to loosen up and before all of these things happened she opened her accounting books to me and asked me to help out and start computerizing them, looking for areas that need improvement. I am slowly but surely wresting control of nearly all important actions in the factory so I can fix them and make them run smoothly, instead of haphazardly. My Peace Corps experience, hopefully, will become more and more like a real job and become something that I really enjoy, instead of feel like I am wasting my time with my primary project. But they pay the rent so I have to continue the work that is painful to do.
On other news, I have started learning local language with an English teacher at the local high school. He taught himself english by translating American rap songs into French for the local radio station. It is interesting cause I am actually able to ask and talk about things that I want to with him in a language that we both fully understand. Valentin (the teacher) speaks English with an American accent, even though I am the first American that he ever met since he was 12. The guy is impressive and I have been trying to find him a better paying job and to push him to succeed beyond just teaching. It is working, or so I believe. Now I just need to help him find a job that puts his skills to work.
But other than that, everything else is going well and I am doing fine over here. My house is finally completed and fully furnished. Dounyan (my dog) is doing well and is still a little pup and my son.

My work here

Since I have been in country (in Benin), I have been getting asked about what I do here and when I mention the title of what I do, they then proceed to ask what that has anythign to do with the Peace Corps. Well, a lot of my fellow volunteers here like to tell me that I have the least Peace Corps post of all in Benin, if not all of West Africa. I refute this fact by saying that I have the best post for my skill-set, desires (for my service and future), and my personality.

If you were to look at what I do on paper, it would theoretically say “Manager of a Cashew Factory in Savalou, Benin”. This is true but it doesn’t really explain what I truly do. On a day to day basis, I am nowhere near what you would call a manager or foreman; I am more of a quality control/consultant/enforcer. Since I have arrived, I have set goals for myself, changed these goals, and changed them again. Originally what I was told (and this is what my original goals were based off of) was that I would be helping a woman develop her small, artisanal cashew factory become a large, modern factory. I took this at face value, as one would in the United States. My goal became just what it says above, to take this little factory that has no controls, that transforms around 100 MT (metric tonnes) of raw cashews, into a modern factory that runs on greased rails and transforms around 2,000 MT of raw cashews. You would think I was insane, but theoretically, again I repeat, THEORETICALLY, possible, if, and only if, we received a large investment. The problem was that I looked past this theoretical nonsense and thought I was the super-volunteer and anything was possible. On my first day at work, I started righting down necessary changes (e.g. health problems, quality controls, necessary documentation issues) that would be needed to make to form a sort of semblance of a true, modern factory. My second day, I went to work on this, demanding changes, instating new rules and expecting things to happen. Well, needless to say, my poor, unblemished, white toes got stepped on and every word that came out of my mouth on deaf ears (which is a funny analogy because no one in my factory except maybe 4 of the 130 speak French). So I had to take a step back and re-evaluate my situation.

For the next three months, I no longer demanding anything nor put rules into place, by myself. I used a conduit, in the form of the existing manager that was both liked, trusted, and most importantly a fellow Beninese person. With this new method, I began to make headway into the problems that persisted within the factory. These include, a new documentation system that tracks every single cashew that enters the factory, tracks every workers progress, efficiency and personal capacity, clocks in the employees, and simple rules (well in my American eyes) (i.e. no breast feeding at the work tables, no children on the worktables, and you must wear a shirt at all times in the factory, both men and women). With these simple processes and documentation methods, I was able to increase the capacity of the factory from 113 MT to 138 MT. Within three months, early October to mid December, the factories capacity was increased by 18% (from my calculations). I get this number because if the workers were to have maintained their efficiency levels as they were when I came, the stock would have lasted well into January, but with the ability to track the progress of the women better and a little coaching from me, the manager started to demand a little more work from the employees. This helped finished the stock within a month of me being there. To my much irritated owner, she was forced to buy more stock from Nigeria so that we could keep the factory open longer now, because the workers were demanding more work. She then purchased just 25 more metric tonnes which were finished in less than another month.

The reason why all of the other volunteers say that I have the least Peace Corps post is because I carry two cell phones (a necessity when travelling cause you know when you will have service from which company), I have my own office with a computer and internet (which really doesn’t work very well), I have employees, I travel for business meetings with government officials, and I have basic set hours of my work (7AM to 8 PM).

Now after explaining all of this, I get the question, do you like this work and what you are doing? Yeah, I definitly like what I am doing, its exactly what I asked for (a Post that would allow me to get experience in something I could go back to the US and use). But that is not the right questions. The right question is, is it worth it? After much deliberation, I have decided the answer to this is “Yes”. Despite the frustration, the ignorance of those around me, the lack of support for the local people save two or three, and the fact that I am living in Africa, the work is worth it. I will be able to leave here with two years experience running and consulting a factory in a developing nation and hopefully be attractive enough to employers in the US to get a good-paying job. And I must not forget that while I am gaining all of this experience, I am helping people get more money in an extremely impoverished country and helping one of the wealthiest become wealthier.

On top of this project, I am also working with an entrepreneur to help start a honey factory, from conception to the first ground-breaking, and also I am about to start creating new marketing and advertising schemes for the Commune of Savalou’s, where I live, “tourist board”. These are my “fun” projects that help me distract myself from the other things. I have also somehow become the “expert” on business plans for Benin because I helped write one. I have no written a formation (class) and a presentation on how to write a business plan.

Needless to say, my days are full while I am here, but somehow I find time to play with my dog, go for bike rides, and read a lot of books (check out the list that states all that I have read, on my blog).

Seeing the walking dead (and still sweating cause I'm still in Africa)

Today was a day like no other that reminded me that I am in a foreign land (besides the language and the fact that everyone around me is African). This past weekend was a national holiday called “Fete de Voodoo”. All across the country, this weekend was a celebration of one of the many contributing cultures. It is said that the voodoo that is talked about, bastardized in movies, and turned into an evil cult in the West came directly from the slaves that were stolen from Benin.
 

As I was waiting for my homologue to show up so I could talk to her, I noticed that hundreds of people were walking, sometimes running, chanting and dancing in my general direction. This sight caused me to recount everything that the Peace Corps and my mother told me right before I got to post: when you see people running towards you, run faster in the opposite direction; it probably means something bad is happening. But this time it was a celebration, offering me a chance to see into a part of the culture that I did not understand nor could possibly understand unless I mastered the local language, but would still never be able to fully comprehend what was happening in front of me. I always wanted to be apart of these celebrations and witness things that I do not understand. I am lucky in my position as a volunteer for the wealthiest, most powerful man in Savalou, because as luck had it, it was because of him and his friends that this celebration was occurring, in front of his house. Before the true fete started, we went upstairs to meet his friends and the French volunteer that lives with him. We ate a little and drank a little to prepare ourselves for it.
Imagine any time that you walk up to a group of around 3000 people and as you approach they part, leaving a path to the center of the group, some prostrating themselves at your feet, begging for money, dropping in reverence and respect for you and the members of your group. That is exactly what happened as we approached today, not just because there were two white people in the group (like what happened in Miniki) but because the leader of our group is the most respected, most powerful man in your community. Because I work for him and was invited by him to enjoy this celebration with him, they treated me and everyone else in our group of about 10 as if we were him.

The celebration consisted of about 19 revenants (walking dead) dressed in completely outrageous costumes (to my eyes, that is). One was dressed in all black with flailing patches that were marked with skull and crossbones, another dressed all in burlap sacks, wearing Adidas socks, a mask made of cowry shells (see the cover of the Bradt tour book) and another dressed like the others with a tail of dead animals and leathered skins of goats. The colors ranged from bright red, to white, to black, to purple. The brighter they were the more they were respected and the more adorned they were with random trinkets the more they were revered, even by other revenants. These revenants gyrated, danced and ran to the beat of drums that played incessantly for the entire hour. As the beat rose, the revenants were overtaken by wild spirits; they ran wildly around swinging flimsy swords, sticks (that hurt you when they hit you, trust me) and whips. Supposedly, if you touch anything that they are wearing, unless they touch you, you will die soon after. But of course, since I was sitting with my group, the revenants constantly came over gently, stopped, kneeled and spoke to us with sincerity. I almost wish I was not with him, to experience it truly but then I remember the images of others running in fear, while getting whipped.

I have some pictures that I will be posting soon of the aftermath of everyone walking/running home, from a vantage point 4 stories up in my homologues house. It was definately interesting. In the end, my homologue husband donated 50,000 franc CFA, which is equal to about $100 to the revenants. It goes to their temple and to the revenants. This was a celebration for the Cult Agun(?) that originally comes from Nigeria but has found its home in Savalou. I walked away without being attacked for money nor was I threatened in anyway. This once again proved to me why people say that I live at the “Beating heart of Voodoo”.