Thoughts from places: Sunday mass

I sat in mass last Sunday nervously flipping a 100 franc coin around in my hand as I watched the rows of my students and their families get up one at a time and file to the altar. Each pass was marked by the metallic clink of coins hitting coins. 

I’m never sure what to do here. Here, the collection is more obligatory than masses to which I am accustomed. Also, in all the masses at which I’ve been here, there is always a second collection after Communion. My friend Job explained to me that this one is not obligatory; only if you’ve recently been paid or come into money some other way should you give 10 percent to the church. (I was amused that the 10-percent tithing rule had made it to Benin).

As a general rule, I throw in whatever coin I have on me at the time, but it is the public nature of the interaction that always gives me pause. I tend to stand out here, so I knew people would notice when I stood, walked in front of everyone and then turned back to my place on the bench next to Job.

Here, (and I can only speak for Benin since it is the only developing nature in which I’ve spent an extended period of time, although one could assume this trait is semi-universal across cultures that have a history of being on the receiving end of colonization) having white skin is synonymous is having lots of money. I cannot fault anyone for this conclusion. I live like my neighbors only because I would like to come out of this experience even financially as when I started. I tell myself that because I live within my monthly allowance that I am experiencing life the same way (financially) that my neighbors are experiencing life.

But I’m not.

I know that if there was an emergency, I would have the funds to take care of any expenses that might entail. I know that in the two years I live here, I will have the monetary ability to do all the things that I want to do and see all the parts of the country that I want to see. I know that my salary for one is probably divided amongst an entire family for my neighbors.

As I sat in mass last Sunday, I thought about how I know how little my friends, neighbors and students live on compared to me, and yet, how much their capacity for generosity surpasses mine. Later, during the announcements that always follow Communion, my host father invited all the children of the church back to his house for food as part of the village-wide Easter celebration. My host father is a relatively wealthy member of my community (he and his children probably live at the same socio-economic class that I do here). But while I choose spend my money on Internet credit and phone credit and motorcycle taxi fare and Beninoises, he chooses to give what he can back to the community.

I always kept from flashing money in my village because I told myself it was a slippery slope down which to start, especially when I still will be living in this community for the next 19 months. But now I’m not so sure. There is always the risk of someone taking advantage of me. But there’s also always the risk of giving someone something when they could really need  it.

Thoughts from Places: Park Pendjari

Last week, in my extended training/vacation away from post, I headed to Park Pendjari, one of the two wildlife reserves in the north of Benin.

It was my first safari experience, unless you count the wildlife train that runs through the Africa section of the Kansas City zoo. At the end of our six hours in the park, we had found all the animals (except for the elusive lion) that we were promised we could find, sat on the roof of a jeep and realized soon after we got on the roof the grand mistake that was not putting on sunscreen as soon as we got on the roof.

When we were leaving the park, tired and wondering how much of the recently acquired tan was actually just dust, I thought about my students and neighbors who were 299 kilometers south of me. I thought about how they had all been and will be in this country much longer than I will, but most of the people I would be going home to the next day had probably never had the experience that I just had.

During the two days I spent in and around the park, I saw more tourists than I had seen in Benin during the past nine months in this country. What’s weird is that I was not comfortable around these people. These people who were naively willing to pay three times the actual rate from the bus station. These people who were willing to drop the same amount as my monthly paycheck on meals, a hotel room and activities for three days.

In fact, I wanted nothing to do with these people. What I thought about as we passed another group of tourists entering the park as we were leaving, was how their Benin was completely different than my Benin. This fancy hotel up north is not why I am here. These sight-seeing adventures will not be what define my time here.

My Benin is the Benin of being hot and dirty and eating the same thing four days a week. The Benin where “Tuesday” and “Thursday” are usually pronounced the same way. The Benin of dance parties with four year olds. The Benin where it takes 45 minutes to get home from school in order to talk to everyone you know on the way. The Benin 299 kilometers south.

Thoughts from places: Lessons in a Beninoise backyard

In the evenings, after I’ve spent a couple hours in my house by myself, I usually feel the need to leave. I usually end up wandering over to the side of the village where I lived for two weeks in August, where there are more people I feel less awkward with when we’re sitting in silence.

Last night, I wandered over to Paula’s house, a girl who has known the previous two volunteers here and doesn’t mind me sitting with her while she works. From her yard, you can see the mountains to the south and you can catch as much of the wind as is blowing that day. Not a bad place to pass a few hours.

Last night, as I watched Paula make dinner for her family in the open air, I thought about how much the education we’d received differed and thus, how much our concepts of what it was important to know would differ.

I, after my 17 years of formal education, can write you a paragraph free of passive voice, can solve for “x” in an algebraic equation and can tell you about the sociological theories of neo-Marxism. Paula was educated in how to wash clothes by hand, how to carry water in a basin on her head and how to build a fire without lighter fluid.

Our educations were different because what we needed to know was different. The contexts of our lives were different. I have lived the majority of my life with a machine to wash my clothes, water that pours from a faucet and a stove that heats up after I rotate a nozzle.

But now, it seems that we’ve switched places. She is trying to complete high school, while I have been buying purified water for the past two days because my basin is empty and I don’t have the resources to fetch it from the pump myself.

It seems as though as long as I keep putting myself in new situations, my education will never really stop.