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.