Thursday, May 25, 2006

Welcome Book

I've been here for almost a year now. I feel like I know what is going on. Of course I'm usually proved wrong, but in any case I can describe what happened, and what I think things will be like for you all. I've tried my best to describe everything from before you leave, up until stage. There are some other random comments about what certain aspects of Benin are like, and hopefully just some things you'd like to know. If you have any questions, feel free to email me: lyle[at]lostinbenin[dot]com

Preparing to come

I've put together a packing list. It's neither all-inclusive, nor without sectorial bias. I can't make any promises that it's good or bad, but it's probably about what I'd bring if I had it to do over again. Actually, I take that back. I'd bring like 2 pairs of clothes, and 65 pounds of pepperoni and bacon. That's just me though.

Staging

Philly was fun! Sure there was lots of boring class time, but running around with $35 per diem for your last few days in country is a blast. Enjoy it, talk to people, go out to dinner. Drink your favorite beer. Eat your favorite food. DON'T go out and buy shoes! You'll know what I mean when the time comes. I'm really serious though. Don't do it.

En route to Benin

It's an exciting bus ride from Philly to New York. Everyone is raring to go. You'll soon however be beat down by the extreme boredom of being in the airport and on airplanes for 24 hours. If you all take the same flights we took, you'll have 7 hours in the Paris airport. I personally don't recommend going to Paris, 7 hours seems like a long time but it ends up cutting it really close if you do go. We had some people go last year, they did get back in time... but I wouldn't risk missing the plane. It certainly be an embarrassing call to Washington, that's for sure.

The Paris airport was pretty boring, but they did have ham and cheese sandwiches, espresso and Orangina in the terminal we were at. You won't see any of those things very commonly once you arrive. So there's that.

When you're on the last leg (Paris -> Cotonou) make sure you enjoy the free champagne and wine that Air France offers. Also, make sure you take your sack of goodies (the headphones, eye mask, etc.). Arriving in Cotonou is at night, but it's exciting nonetheless. If anyone doesn't want his or her Toblerone, I'll happily accept it when you get to the hotel.

Arriving and Cotonou Stay

If you thought the departure was exciting, just wait until you see the city lights in Cotonou. After 24 hours of travel time, you're more than excited to finally be in country. When we started the descent, everyone in our group was 100% awake and ready to go. Stepping out of the airplane was like being hit in the face with a sponge, it was hot and humid... even at 9pm local time. It was also confusing. Anne does a good job of getting everyone under control though, just look for the Peace Corps baton and listen for the yelling in English. Be patient, it takes awhile to get your bags and things ready to go. All of your bags will be put into a big truck, and you'll all be carted out in vans and SUVs to the hotel for the night. Some volunteers will be at the airport to greet you (probably not me), it's okay to talk to them (but not to give them that Toblerone that you saved for me). I think our whole stage was pretty anti-social when we arrived, and we got complained at once they knew us better!

On arrival at the hotel you'll be greeted by a lot more volunteers (I'll be there! This will be when you should give me that Toblerone). We'll be clapping, and cheering and excited that you're finally here. We'll also help you with your bags. We also got scolded for not letting the volunteers help us with our stuff last year... so take heed! We're there to help! You'll probably be served some snacks and sodas. Things will be passed out, you will be tired. There will be talking. You will be tired. Then you get to go to bed.

Unfortunately though, you only get a nice 8 hours or so before you're up again. Peace Corps doesn't let you lay in bed and languish for a day. You're working the next day at 8 or 9 am. I don't remember exactly. You will be 100% pampered for your first few days in country, catered meals and the whole nine yards. Enjoy!

After a few days (length for now undetermined) of meeting people, going to the bureau, getting bicycles, zemidjan training, language testing, and tons of other stuff you'll finally be assigned host families and be shipped up to your training sites.

Stage

Ah stage. 9 Weeks of intensive learning. It's fun, it's hard, it will be hard to forget. This section is dedicated to the issues you'll be dealing with during your time as a PCT.

Host Family

During stage you'll be housed with a typical Beninese family. This usually means lots of kids (that may or may not belong to your family), a few goats and some chickens. Your family may or may not have electricity or water. You'll take all your meals with them, hang out with them, and essentially become part of the family. They'll help you learn to do things like take a bucket shower, wash your clothes by hand, shopping in the market and how to prepare Beninese cuisine. They'll do their best to make sure you're comfortable, but living with the family will be both rewarding and challenging.

For me the host family experience was hard. I thankfully had an awesome family that could deal with me not speaking a word of French, an odd appetite, and all of the other things that I didn't even know were weird about me. Talking with, and hanging out with the kids was essential. The wonderful thing about kids is that they have infinite patience. If you don't understand them, they'll either repeat the word until you do understand, rephrase, act it out, or in short do anything to make sure you get it.

Families have been instructed to prepare nutritious meals. Whether or not they follow guidelines is up for discussion. You should be getting at least one source of protein per meal (host families know about vegetarians, and have been prepped to deal with it), a grain and usually a piece of fruit. Lots depends on local availability though. Note though, as it says in the welcome book they won't be preparing American food. If you require American food, Peace Corps is REALLY not for you.

At your host family you will have your own room equipped with a twin mattress, mosquito net, table, chair, gas burning stove, water filter, and a small locker. You'll also probably have 2 sets of sheets for your bed, a pillow, a metal bucket for showers, a 5 liter jug for drinking water, a pot for boiling water, and a kerosene lantern.

Culturally things are different here. You'll find at first you think that everything is the same as it back home. You'll soon find out you're wrong, and actions that seem perfectly normal to you are absolutely bizarre to the Beninese (and in some cases even offensive). At one point during stage we received new water boiling containers, and had to transport them by bike back to our homes. I strapped mine onto my saddle bag, and didn't really think anything of it. When my host family saw it, they nearly died laughing. They'd never seen anything so ridiculous. I tried pointing out to them that putting a cow in the trunk of a car (something I've seen on many occasions) is somewhat ridiculous too. They didn't agree. Certain things just aren't done in certain ways.

There is a lot to say about the host family situation but I'll end with this. It's fun, it's hard, and they know a heck of a lot more about Beninese life than you do. Use them for their knowledge, ask about everything. They will love it.

Class

You will have class every weekday from 0800-1230 and 1500-1730, Saturdays are half days, and Sundays are to be spent with your family. Classes will include lots, and lots of language, cross culture, technical sessions, health sessions, and more. Classes will take place in a centralized location, which you'll all be introduced to when you get to your training site.

Free time during stage

Most of your free time will likely be spent with your family. That's not to say that you won't get to socialize with your fellow trainees at all. My training group in fact went out to a buvette every night to get at least a large Coke (although more likely the case... a large beer). Every group is different though, you'll figure it out. Truthfully though, during stage... you don't have a lot of free time.

Health during stage

Adapting to a new culture means adapting to a lot of new things. New foods, new language, new microbes. Everyone goes through some period of adjustment, and I don't think there is a single person that doesn't notice that things aren't at least a little runny occasionally on a latrine trip. Thankfully though during stage your health and well being are of top priority. The doctors will come frequently to give you information on how to stay healthy during your service, and if you do get sick you will be taken care of. You'll be well informed on what needs to be done when the time comes. Additionally you'll get the sweetest med kit on the face of the planet, so that helps too.

Money during stage

During stage you'll be paid substantially less than you will be when you become a volunteer. Honestly though, since your family is cooking for you... the only thing you'll probably be spending money on is beer (and that's only for those of you with training sites that have bars... I'm looking at you SED/ICT). You'll also probably buy snacks and odd little things. Maybe even some fabric for a local outfit. I really suggest you do this as soon as possible, wearing local clothes is possibly the easiest way to integrate with your community. It's so easy, and so effective. Plus, the clothes rock. I think we got around $20/week (10.000 CFA), paid biweekly in cash.

Communication

Mail

Mail is possibly the most important link a volunteer (or for that matter a trainee) to the US. Through the mail you'll receive all of the "bonnes choses" that you'll miss so much. During your time as a trainee mail will be shipped to Cotonou and delivered to your training sites periodically (usually around trainee pay-day, or every couple weeks). Your address is:

PCT
Corps de la Paix Americain
01 BP 971
Cotonou, Benin
Afrique de l'Ouest (West Africa)

When you're sworn in as a volunteer your address will remain much the same (your three letter acronym of PCT will change to PCV though!). All mail to Cotonou eventually finds its' way to the volunteer. Depending on where you're posted you can also have mail delivered directly to your post. Many volunteers rent post boxes so they can receive their mail directly. Additionally (depending on where you're posted) you can have mail delivered to any of the three regional workstations, where packages are more likely to arrive in a timely fashion.

Mail take about 2-6 weeks to arrive from the states, but it can take much, much longer. Generally the bigger the box, the longer it will take. Padded envelopes are the recommended medium of transport. Not only do they arrive more quickly than boxes, the volunteer on this end won't have to pay duty on it (duty for a medium size box is around $1-2).

Telephone

As the Welcome Book says "Generally, regular and long-distance communication via telephone is available, but expensive". This can't be said any more truly. For calling in country it can be up to $0.40/min! Thankfully though it's much cheaper for your friends and family to call here. Rates as low as $0.10/min can be found through phone cards, and with VoIP services like Skype calling Benin can be even cheaper. (To be fair, the phone cards that have the cheap rates likely use VoIP routes).

Cell phones are highly available, and coverage is becoming more and more common. There are 3 major networks: Areeba, Telecel, and Libercom. Areeba seems to be the most common network in the north (and is also arguably the cheapest network to be on), with Telecel more pervasive in the south. Service operates on a prepaid model. The client provides his/her own cell-phone, purchases a SIM card, and buys more credit as is needed. If credit isn't purchased after a certain amount of time, the SIM card becomes inactive and a new one must be purchased.

All incoming calls are free. All outgoing calls are expensive. This leads to a prevalence of SMS (text) messaging. Text messages are cheap to send and, with most networks, can even be sent to the states (for a slightly higher rate). Unfortunately text messages cannot be sent to networks, so your choice of network will limit with whom you communicate regularly.

Internet Access

Internet cafes are becoming more and more prevalent, but they aren't everywhere yet. In the south, where the infrastructure is a bit more developed they are a bit more common, but in all likelihood you'll have to travel to a regional capital to use the internet. Prices range from as little as $0.60/hour to as much as $2.00/hour. Generally access is much slower than what we are used to in the States (imagine 6 computers sharing the same 33.6k modem). DSL is available in Cotonou, and there are places with satellite Internet access (Parakou, soon Bohicon/Abomey). The Parakou workstation is, at present moment, being outfitted with the capability to access the Internet.

Volunteer Life

The rest of this document deals with life after you complete your training and swear in. You'll probably touch on a lot of these issues during stage, more than is probably necessary in some cases. In any case, maybe it will be useful?

Housing

Peace Corps Benin has relatively strict regulations on what is allowable for volunteer housing. That being said, Peace Corps Benin is also flexible on their strict regulations, so certain things about your house may not fall under the official guidelines because of what is available in your community. You will probably not be living in a mud hut. Most volunteers have cement homes with 2-3 rooms. Most volunteers have pit latrines. It's more common to have electricity and running water than to not, but the volunteers without these amenities are numerous. You may or may not live in a concession with other families. Each and every volunteer house is different.

Money

Peace Corps Benin Volunteers are paid quarterly. Money is deposited directly into a bank account that will be setup for you during your training. There are essentially two places to go to get money; Parakou and Cotonou. The living allowance is generally found to be more than sufficient for most volunteers to cover any but the most extravagant expenses. ATMs do exist in regional centers, and withdrawals can be made from US accounts.

Food

Your diet in country will change quite a bit from what you're likely used to in the States. Basics include rice, corn, beans, ignames (a local root, somewhat like a potato), and manioc. The variations on these are enormous, and there is an amazing variety of food made with these simple ingredients (although it's sometimes hard to believe). Most meals are some type of basic accompanied by a spicy red tomato sauce. I'll do a feature a little later on Beninese food types.

The fruits here are amazing. I promise you'll never taste a better pineapple. The mangoes are superb, the oranges juicy, and the bananas delicious. You'll be able to find most tropical fruits here at sometime or another, and even odder fruits in Cotonou (pears, grapes, apples). Most fruits however congregate in larger population centers, so they may not be available at your post on days other than market day (and sometimes not even then)

All of your food will likely be purchased in the open air markets. Market days are very social, and always fun. Your post may have a market day once a week, or a rotating schedule where a market occurs every 4-5 days. During market you'll be able to find the greatest variety of foods. Many villages will have only tomatoes, onions, okra, spicy peppers, garlic and a variety of dried grains during the week. Certain things are always available though, including chicken bouillon, tomato paste, pasta and powdered milk.

There are generally supermarkets in the regional centers that supply imported (and thereby expensive) items. What is available is usually very random, especially outside of Cotonoua. In Cotonou itself, with enough searching you can find almost anything.

Transportation

Depending on where you live you'll have different options for transport. You'll be issued a Trek 820 Mountain Bike and helmet, many volunteers use this to get around. Other volunteers use zemidjans (motorcycle taxis), and everyone walks... a lot.

For getting around the country you'll be using bush taxis. These are usually dilapidated Peugots stuffed beyond capacity. Bush taxis come in two flavors in Benin, the 5 place (a standard car) and a 9 place (a station wagon). Note that the number of places does not dictate the number of passengers in the car. In the north most 5 place cars will hold 8 people (including the driver, and people being defined as adults), and most 9 places will hold 11 or 12 (not counting the people on the roof). Suffice to say bush-taxi travel is less than comfortable, but it's usually your only option.

Bus lines are slowly gaining in popularity, and routes from Cotonou to Parakou and Natitingou are the way to go. Bus travel is cheaper and more comfortable than bush taxi travel, and as such is often exploited by volunteers. Bus travel guarantees you your own seat, and on most lines you get a small snack. Cotonou - Parakou is currently about $11, and Cotonou - Natitingou $15. There is a route planned for Parakou - Malanville, but it is still only in the trial stages.

This website expresses the views of Lyle Kozloff, who is entirely responsible for its content. It does not express the views of the United States Peace Corps or any other institutions herein named or linked to.