Kokand is one of the ancient towns of Uzbekistan. It has existed since at least the 10th century, but the Han Chinese have written record of conquering this town in 1st century BC! But don’t tell them that! They might pull a Trump, grab a Sharpie, and draw in a nine dash line on a map. It was a major thoroughfare for trading on Silk Road.
When we woke up we decided to ask the hotel staff about hiring a taxi for the day instead of worrying about driving around town. It’s always a pain to get around town and we learned long ago it’s best to just park the car hire someone else to drive us from place to place inside a city. The hotel staff suggested one of them should join us for the day. We were shocked but accepted. We were off! We had our own personal assistant and interpreter for the day! What a luxury! We ended up teaching him lots about his own town. We showed him places he had never even heard of before.
First on our need to do list was the local bazaar. Qo’qon Bozori. It was your typical outdoor marketplace all but it wasn’t typical at all because there wasn’t a lot of yelling, shouting, and even arm pulling to get your attention like there often is in may parts of the world. It was really convenient to have our hotel guy with us now because he did all the bargaining. We weren’t getting any souvenirs or even anything Uzbek, we just needed some basics. I’m only mentioning it because I do think it’s worth mentioning everyone was incredibly calm. It was the least hectic outdoor market I’ve ever been too and I’ve been to many a outdoor market on multiple continents.
After the basics were out of the way we were ready to be tourists. First on our must see list was an old madrassa turned mosque, Norbutabiy Mosque. It’s protected by the governmental historical society so they’re not allowed to change anything. Everything looks just the same as it has for a very long time. It’s old and beautiful.
Next we went to the Modari Khan Mausoleum to see the burial place of Nodira. She’s the kinda lady I want to pay my respect to! She was the wife of the khan, ruler, of the Kokand region from 1810 to his death in 1822. When he died she became the de facto ruler because her son was still a teenager. She was a poet and her poetry was mostly about the oppression of women under Islam. The khan of another region didn’t like how brazen she was, he thought she was in the public eye too much for a woman, he also got mad at her for refusing to marry him, and had her hanged along with her sons. A beautiful mausoleum was built for her.
Later, the Soviets propped her up as the model Uzbek woman. The exhumed her body, moved it a bit away, and reburied it with a new monument over her.
Next, we went to a theater originally built in the 1800’s. There wasn’t much to see and we couldn’t get a tour. Apparently someone on staff had died and the funeral was today. Everyone was away at the ceremony. The grounds were beautiful.
After that we headed to the old part of town. Our friendly hotel staffer told us we were walking on the very first street of the town. We never would have known it because the roads were freshly paved and the houses looked freshly painted. Nothing looked ancient. The first stop was a mosque. This was also an old madrassa. Sahib Mian Hazrat Mosque. There was an imam there an he showed us around. There were NO PICTURES signs posted so, sorry, so pics.
This road doesn’t make me feel as if it’s thousands of years old. I don’t get emotions of the Silk trading route while walking on it.
Then we walked on and found our next place. You guessed it! Another old madrassa! This one from the early 1800’s. It was beautiful. We were told it was originally built as a guy’s personal residence. He added a classroom a help teach students, then another room, then another, then soon he had a full blown madrassa at his house.
We woke up in Tashkent this morning, had breakfast, and left for the Fergana Valley. It’s a region in the eastern part of Uzbekistan most many foreign visitors to the country skip. Not this family! We want to see it all! At one point, while we were driving along we looked up and there was a camel in the back of the truck in front of us.
A camel.
Our poor UAZ Patriot doesn’t handle mountains well. We couldn’t go up the passes much faster than the big semi trucks and at one point we were afraid our engine was going to overheat so we stopped to give it a rest. We had lunch here. Eggs, sausage, bread, and water.
Where we stopped for lunch.
After about a 4.5 hour drive we made it to our destination: The Palace of Khudayar Khan in Kokand. We arrived from the back of the place and parked in a huge empty lot behind the place and it looked completely unimpressive. I was thinking it was going to be a bust. Sometimes when we travel like this some things end up being not worth it, but!!! When we got around front… this place was different! It was great!
The courtyard of the palace.
It’s been mostly restored and it’s gorgeous, but we’ve seen lots of old palaces before. The thing we liked the most was the museum. There had lots of neat stuff in it. The most interesting to us was the reference to some petroglyphs we have not heard about anywhere else before and we’ve done lots of research on Uzbekistan. Now we have a new place added to our want to see list.
We were pretty tired after that so we checked Google Maps for hotels nearby and found the Silk Road Kokand Palace Hotel with good reviews. We seem to be the only guests here. I mentioned this in a previous post but it’s so surreal traveling at this exact time in history. museums are empty, restaurants are empty, hotels are empty. everything is empty. My husband and I are both vaccinated, but our teen daughter isn’t. We had serious discussions about whether we should travel this summer or not and if we were going to travel where we should go. Our conversations went around and around and in the end we decided on no airplanes, road trip only, avoid large crowds, try to stay outdoors as much as possible. Oh my god! We had no idea avoiding large crowds would be so easy! There’s no one here! No one! It’s just us everywhere we go!
We woke up early and had breakfast, then we were on our way out. Our first stop was the Oqsaroy Palace, the previous home of the tyrant Uzbek leader Islam Karimov. Apparently, they are eventually turning his old palace into a science museum, but when we looked in the windows all we saw were big empty rooms.
After wandering around for a while on the huge grounds we eventually found our way to the exhibition hall where they have two large rooms dedicated to the life of Karimov. One has some very interesting art and the other is full of photographs.
The staff was very friendly. They rushed around to find someone to translate for us. When we were about halfway through with our tour a nice woman who spoke fluent English came in. She told us all about the place and was eager to tell us what an amazing man Karimov was and all about the evils of Stalin. They took lots of pictures of us, they were very excited to have us sign their guest book. She explained to me how Karimov’s widow comes in frequently and reads the comment book and how much it means to her. They even gave us a really well made propaganda book about his life. We’ll keep it.
They were so kind and welcoming to us it reminding me of how people are falling for George Bush’s bullshit these days and thinking he’s just a sweet old man. They’ve all somehow forgotten he’s a war criminal. Awww…. but look at those cute little paintings he does. Isn’t he a cutie pie???
Next we went to get local SIM cards since we’re going to be here three weeks. It was completely painless and only cost us $7 for the month. After signing up we got a text saying we had to register our phones at the post office? So, we went to the post office. We walked in and after asking a few people if they spoke English we found someone that spoke enough he could explain what we needed to do and then guess what! We met someone from the US! It was our second time in two days! He’s been living six months in the US and six months in Uzbekistan since the 1990’s! Then!!!! Someone else walked up that lived in New York for ten years, and then!! She started LOL’ing because an old friend of hers she hadn’t seen in a long time walked up and got in line behind us, the two of them had met in New Jersey!! What a small world! We were all standing in line to register our new phone numbers in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The first guy gave us his number and said if we have any need at all to give him a call. That’s always good.
Then we went to the State Museum of Temurids History. They had some interesting stuff. A lot of their stuff we found the most interesting was about Samarkand but we’re going to be in Samarkand next week so I honestly didn’t look too close. It was a beautiful museum.
After that we went to get our car insurance. We were told we really, really have to get insurance while we’re here. We had been chatting with a guy from an insurance company all day via Telegram and we entered the address to the company to Yandex, the local Uber type company, and off we went. When we arrived the guy that opened the door looked confused and had no idea who we were. It turned out we were at the wrong place.
Same parent company, different type of insurance. This guy sold travel insurance while we were looking for the car insurance guy. This guy didn’t speak any English so we did all our communicating through Google Translate. Do you wanna know what he did? He put us in his own car and drove us to the other insurance office!!! Oh my god, the Uzbeks are nice! We got our car insurance.
We had originally planned to hit one more museum before calling it a day but we decided to stop there. We came back to our hotel, ate dinner, and now I’m sitting in bed typing this. The husband and kid are already fast asleep.
There are more things we want to do here but we’ve decided to press on. There are a couple reasons:
#1 We’re making a loop of the country meaning we’ll be back in Tashkent in 16 days
#2 Tashkent is only a 45 minute flight from Almaty. We can always come back. I seriously doubt we will ever again see any other part of Uzbekistan again for as long as we live, but if we really want to we could easily hop on a plane and come to Tashkent for a weekend.
We left Almaty on Monday morning and about 350 kilometers into our trip our car broke down. We were pretty angry because we had taken the car for a full tune up just last week. We had told the mechanic we were going on a two-month road trip all around Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and to make sure our car was fully prepared.
When I called to say our car had broken down do you want to know what the mechanic said? “Your car has an electrical problem, that’s probably what’s going on.” WTF??? What part of we’re going on a massive two-month road trip through two countries where we don’t speak the languages and we really need to make sure our car is ready did you not understand????????
We pulled over on the side of the road, popped our hood up, and stood there for a bit. It only took about two minutes. One of the first cars that drove by us turned around and came back to help us. They didn’t speak any English, we don’t speak any Kazakh, and our Russian is poor, but a broken-down car is universal.
The guys tried a few things but nothing worked. They communicated that they’d call someone else to help us. We pulled our camping chairs out of the back of our car and kicked back under the shade of a tree. We were in the middle of nowhere and a dog walked up! I love dogs! I was excited! It was happy to see us, wagged its tail, hung out by us, but wouldn’t let us touch it. While I was trying to pet the dog a police car pulled up.
We went up to talk to the police. They were friendly. They tried to start our car but couldn’t. After they had only been there a few minutes a tow truck pulled up. The first people had come through for us! They really had called a tow truck for us! The tow truck driver spoke with the police for a bit and then he loaded us up. Before we were off, another police car pulled up! I’m pretty sure this police car just wanted to see the Americans broken down on the side of the road in a small town in the middle of Kazakhstan.
It turned out it was a national holiday in Kazakhstan. We didn’t know that. There was no mechanic anywhere around willing to work on our car. The tow truck driver agreed to drive us to the next small town. We really were in the middle of nowhere. He had been just driving us down the road and randomly stopping at gas stations with garages and even at people’s homes and asking if anyone would work on our car.
We stayed in a town called Taraz at a shitty hotel that didn’t even have hot water for showers. The ceiling of the bathroom looked like it was going to cave in on us and the knob on the door to our room was so fragile we were afraid to touch it, we opened and closed the door via the lock. But! The receptionist was amazing! We’d stay there again just for him! We had had such a stressful day. It had been awful. This guy was really patient with us and our lack of any way to communicate with him in a language he understood and he ordered delivery food for us.
The next morning, he was in the process of trying to find a mechanic to come to the hotel and fix our car for us when a fellow guest just happened to say hello to us in English. What?????? Someone that spoke English???? Here??? What were the chances??? This guy was from Kyrgyzstan but has been living in the US since the 1990’s! He’s a long-haul truck driver and just happens to be traveling through Kazakhstan right now. He’s traveling with a good friend who’s a mechanic!!!!!! They fixed our car for us!!!
So, we were on our way! We drove about three hours and got pulled over by the police. Now, had this been me of 15 years ago I would have been terrified. Heck, had this been me of 7 years ago I would have been terrified, but me today? Naw. You want to know what we did? Or what my husband did? He laughed at them. Literally. Here’s how it went down:
The kid and I sat in the car; the cops told the husband to come back to the car with him. They tried to get him to pay a $300 USD bribe. He LOL’d at them. He told me one of them laughed when he laughed at the cop. So my husband laughed directly in a cop’s face and then the other cop laughed at that. So, they went back and forth and back and forth the cop trying to get a bribe out of him and my husband kept insisting just give me the ticket. That’s not what they want. They don’t want to give you the ticket. They want you to pay a bribe. In the end, we paid a bribe. $10 USD. Yes, you read that right. $10. The cops originally tried to get $300 out of us.
We’ve lived in China and Benin. These Kazakh cops aren’t going to get shit outta us.
Eventually we made it to the Uzbek border. I had read horror stories online about the Zhibek Zholy border crossing and since we have our own wheels, we drove the extra kilometers to the Kaplanbek border where I had read it was much easier to get across. But when we got there were no other cars, only semi-trucks. A guy came out and told us there were no cars allowed at this border crossing. I had the distinct feeling he was lying to us, but we had had such a stressful time getting here so far, we just didn’t have it in us to find out if he was lying or not. We turned the car around and headed toward the dreaded Zhibek Zholy.
Wow! It was annoying. It was almost empty. There were maybe three other cars there and it still took us four hours to get through customs. I cannot even imagine going through there on a busy day and I do not recommend it. We would never do it again. If we ever visit this country again, we’ll fly in and rent a car. We have no idea what took so long. It seemed as if it was all for show. Every time we thought we were finished they’d call us over to another window and ask us more questions. It was borderline absurd. We were there an hour and a half after already having had our passports stamped! Really! I’ve read stories online of fights breaking out at that border due to the stress and oh my god! I can understand why. There was literally no one in line when we were there, no one, and if I had been there just one more hour, I would have been ready to start screaming. That place must be complete insanity on a busy day. Truly, if you’ve just randomly stumbled upon my blog because you’re thinking of doing this trip…. oh my god…. do not enter through this border. My husband and I are well seasoned travelers. Uzbekistan is our 39th country to visit together. We arrange all our own travels, and we have the utmost amount of patience, but wow! This I can really see how this place could drive someone to violence. We did it in the middle of the pandemic when there was almost no one around and it took us four damn hours to get through. Only do it if you’re a masochist.
Or I guess my real question is has it always been this bad
and I just didn’t know it? You see, I went to a high-end private school and
received an excellent early education. At the time I didn’t know anything different,
so it was just school, and I thought school was school for everyone.
I’ll spare you the long and detailed story of why, but I
didn’t go to university until I was in my 30’s and even then, teaching was not
my first choice of careers. Heck, it wasn’t my 5th choice but here I
am, a teacher.
I didn’t hear the term critical thinking until university.
My response was an audible laugh and “you mean thinking???” Everything I had
ever been taught about what thinking was was suddenly being called critical thinking…as if there were a
different kind of thinking.
Fast forward 8 years. At this point I was working the most
amazing, most fulfilling job of my life (and I’ve had a lot of jobs). I was a
middle school teacher and I had never, ever been so happy in my life. I had
never even imagined life could be so fulfilling.
Sometimes I would encounter things that confused me a bit.
Because I was in my mid-thirties but brand new to teaching my boss checked in
on me often. One day she wanted to ask me about how I was teaching reading and
she used a term I had never heard before: close reading. I told her I had never
heard that term before and a look of oh-my-god-what-have-I-done-placing-this-woman-in-a-classroom
came over her face.
She explained to me what close reading was and I was like
oh! You mean reading. Yeah. I know how to read, and I know how to teach reading.
She insisted it wasn’t just reading. It was close
reading. I teach a combined class of 7th and 8th
graders and we can take up to an hour to read two pages in book. Every time the
author uses interesting words, I stop whoever’s reading and we discuss word
choice. We discuss figurative speech, symbolism, and theme. We discuss
character motivation. We relate what the character is going through in the book
to personal experiences my students have had. I don’t just listen to them say
the words. I teach them how to read.
To read, one must feel and understand the meaning of the words. Other than that,
it’s just saying words. So yeah. My students learn how to read.
If teaching a student to understand the meaning behind the
words is called close reading, then what the heck is plain ol’ reading? I got
my answer to that. A year or so later I had a student in my class that was a
very poor reader. This student had a younger sibling and I asked that child’s
teacher how she was with reading. The teacher responded fine. She’s a good
reader. Now understanding… that’s another thing. She can read the words, but
she doesn’t understand what any of the words mean so she doesn’t get anything
from it. I just looked at her, cocked my head and said, “so she can’t read?”
The teacher responded, “No she can read she just doesn’t understand any of it.”
So here we’ve got a problem with word meaning. I don’t care
at all if the kid can pronounce masters level words, if they don’t know what
the words mean then they’re not reading. It’s like the word belief. It can mean
two different things. If someone asks me, do you believe in the bible. Well,
yeah, I believe there is a book called the Bible, but do I believe in the Bible
as in it’s the inspired written word of a god? Then no I don’t believe in the Bible.
I couldn’t believe this fellow teacher was telling me a
student was a good reader, but she couldn’t understand any of the words. It
threw me into a bit of an existential crisis. What are we doing to children if
we’re basing their reading level only on whether they can pronounce the words
or not?
Another creepy story from education: I had an 8th
grader that once several years ago had been held back, so by age he was a year
older than his classmates. At the beginning of the year he didn’t know how to
multiply. Now I’m not saying he didn’t have his times tables memorized. I’m
saying he didn’t understand multiplication. He was 13! How was I supposed to be
teaching him pre-algebra if he couldn’t even do basic multiplication?
Everyone at the school but my own husband told me this student was a lost cause. I was told to not even try with him. Just give him a calculator and teach him how to use it. Everyone said if he’s this old and hasn’t learned his times tables by now he never will. My husband was on my side. He believes in me.
The parents were on board. I can’t dismiss for a second how
much help they were at home. They worked with him daily and they got a math
tutor for him.
I never let the boy slide by even once in the classroom. All
year long I expected him to do the same work his classmates did. Yeah, sure, it
took him longer than everyone else, but I made him do it. I made him not only
memorize his times tables but understand them. Why is this the answer? This
goes back to the same issue with reading. I don’t care if a child can spout out
math facts to me if they don’t understand what they’re doing and how the answer
is what it is then what’s the point?
That student not only learned how to do multiplication he finished my pre-algebra class, moved on to algebra and passed that class too. The boy almost every other teacher I know told me to give up on, the boy everyone said was a lost cause is now thriving in school. The child that was just barely passing any of his classes (and that was with very creative grading) is doing well in in all of his classes now. He needed someone to believe in him and challenge him while everyone but me wanted to give up on him.
One more story: Since I work in an international school environment, I get new to the school students all the time. Their parents were transferred here for some reason or another, they went to school in different country until now, and here they are in my classroom today. By the time they get to me many of my students are attending their 4th or 5th school.
One time I got a new 7th grader (12 years old)
that could not write at all. His handwriting was nearly illegible, and his
“sentences” were just groups of words on paper. His spelling…oh!…his
spelling… any 8-year-old could have done better. It was really shocking.
I spoke with him about it and he told me at his last school
they never, NEVER wrote with pen and paper. 100% of their schooling was on
laptop. He was completely dependent on spell check and grammar check at all
times. He had no idea how to write if given a pencil and a piece of paper. How
long had he attended this school? Three years. Ugh. The last time he had held a
pencil in his hands was 3rd grade. I confirmed this with his parents.
It was true. No pens, no pencils, no paper at his last school. None.
Oh, my goodness! I had a challenge before me. I had to get
this kid up to level.
Coincidentally, at the same time someone posted in an
international school teachers’ forum I belong to about computers in classrooms.
It was a general what do you think about technology in the classroom kind of
post. I commented that I’m all for technology in the classroom but sometimes
teachers/schools go too far. Then I explained about this student.
Wow! The comments exploded. Everyone told me I was wrong for
wanting to teach the student to write. I was told it was a waste of my time. I
was told if he was this age and couldn’t write he’d never learn. (I’ve heard
that before). I was insulted and numerous people wrote in a condescending way
implying I didn’t know what I was doing and the only thing to do for this child
was to let him continue to use a laptop in my class.
What bothered me the most was the apathetic lean they all
seemed to have. I couldn’t believe how many teachers from schools all around
the world were telling me to not waste my time on this child. He was a lost
cause.
Is this really what education is?
Here’s a sample of the child’s writing from the first week of school in August.
Here’s a sample from September
And here’s a sample from October
All it took was kindness, understanding, and dedication from me, the teacher. I had a meeting with the parents, we came up with a plan, and we put it in place. The October writing is not perfect but just look at the improvements made in just 7 weeks of school with a teacher that is encouraging? If teachers give up on students or even worse won’t even begin to try with students, then what are we creating for our society? When teachers discourage other teachers from trying to help what are we saying?
Is this what education is these days? Teach to the lowest
level and when they can’t even do that just call them a lost cause and ignore
them? Has it changed or has it always been this way and I just happened to be
one of the luckiest students on earth to have amazing teachers that cared about
my education? I was taught to think and to read and that’s what I teach my
students to do. I always thought teachers cared and that’s why they did it but
I’m not so sure anymore.
My experience in this world of international school teaching
has led me to believe a whole lot of people just choose this path as a way to
get paid to party all around the world. In between drunken adventures with
co-workers they go to the classroom and put in as little effort as possible to
save up energy to party again tonight. Even the teachers that aren’t just in it
to party still put in minimal effort to try and actually help their students. The
really high-level schools only cater to high achievers and kick out the
students that don’t make the cut and the other schools have teachers that call
children that are a bit behind lost causes.
It’s really depressing. Don’t worry about me. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I love my job. I love teaching and I love making a difference. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a student that came to me struggling succeed in the end but this isn’t about me. This is about our children and our future. What you should worry about is the fact that I’m pretty sure I’m not the norm. I’m the outlier and that’s not good.
The number one, most difficult, thing for me to adjust to
about living in a different culture is my super friendly nature. I was always
raised to be friendly to everyone. Make eye contact, smile, say hello, be
friendly. I’m that Southern girl that’ll strike up a conversation with the
person behind me in line at the supermarket. I’ll spend 20 minutes in a gas
station because I struck up a conversation with the cashier. It’ll take me an
hour to run an errand that should only take 10 minutes because I have so many
conversations along the way. I love people and I talk to everyone. It served me
well in the restaurant business and made me lots of friends in the States.
That trait of mine does not work to my benefit in all cultures.
You may have trouble adjusting to different foods, a new language, different
fashion, different levels of cleanliness, or any number of other things about
living in a different culture but, for me, I struggle with avoiding eye contact
and not smiling at people. It goes against the very person I am. It goes all
the way to my inner core.
A woman sitting alone here in Benin is obviously just looking
for a man. Why else would she be out alone? But I get depressed when I just sit
around the house all the time and I simply must go out. I take a book or, on
Sundays like today, I take my computer and work on my book. Men will never
leave me alone. I can’t go anywhere without being constantly annoyed. They
follow me around in the store, the follow me down the street, they demand my phone
number several times a day. Give me your number. The most common pick up line I
hear here is “You’re my queen, you’re going to have my babies.” Sometimes they
bother me so much I have to find a security guard and ask him to tell the guy
to leave me alone. I pay $100 a month to work out at a gym when my favorite
form of exercise is walking but I can’t walk here because they won’t stop harassing
me.
That’s when I don’t look at them. If I make eye contact it’s
even worse. The same thing happened in China. Making eye contact with a man is
an invitation. It’s sooooooooo hard for me. My first instinct at all times is
to talk to anyone near me. If someone looks at me I smile and say hello. It’s
who I am. But here, and in China, I have had to break myself of that. I’ve
become colder, more distant, and I don’t like it.
It’s so different here in Benin than it was in China. Life
and especially the idea of beauty is so different from than it is in China. It’s
been a nice boost for my self-esteem. In China I was called fat and ugly
several times a day. I cried a lot. I was once told I was too fat and ugly to
be in public and I should lock myself in my apartment and not come out again
until I lost weight. I once walked into a clothing shop I knew wouldn’t have
anything to fit me but I wanted to look at the cute clothes anyway and the
entire staff accosted me and shoved me out of the store all the while telling
me I was too fat and ugly to be in their store and I was bad for business. The
kids around our apartment complex called me the fat foreigner. I sank into a pit
of depression so deep I was unsure I’d ever be able to climb out. I did join a
gym but the people at the gym were really mean to me and that made me quit going.
I don’t know about you but having the gym trainer call me fat and ugly didn’t
motivate me to work out harder, it motivated me to stay home in bed and eat.
All of their abuse only made me gain weight and cry all the time. It didn’t
have the effect they intended.
Here in Benin it’s different. It’s my normal Sunday afternoon
routine to go out, sit on a restaurant patio, and write. I’m working on a book.
As of the time of this writing I’ve been here an hour. I have a collection of 3
phone numbers from men that wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to take
their numbers. It’s always the same: the walk up to my table, loom over me, the
more bold ones pull up a chair and sit down at my table without asking, and say
give me your number. I say no. They say give me your number. I say no. They say
give me your number. I say no. Then they say I’m going to give you my number. I
say I’m not going to call you. They say I’m giving it to you anyway. I say whatever.
They try to talk to me but I ignore them. If I talk I give very short answers
trying to get rid of them. Here’s my nice collection of trash I’ve collected
today.
I’m never going to be happy cooped in up in my house all the
time. I simply must get out. I try
and try to avoid eye contact and not speak to strangers but it’s so difficult
for me. Even when I know if I look at that guy and smile at him he’s going to
think I want to fuck him sometimes it happens instinctually, before I can stop
myself.
I must admit being in an environment where I’m not
constantly called fat and ugly has worked wonders for my mental state. I’m
happier than I’ve been in a long time and I’ve lost almost 40 pounds since
moving here. Being called beautiful as many times a day as I was called fat and
ugly in China has does wonders for my health. As I’m typing this I have to keep
my eyes on my screen because there’s a guy sitting across from me that’s
staring at me and every time I glance up for a second he gives me creepy sexy
eyes.
People ask me all the time what’s the most difficult part of
living in a different country? That’s it for me. Not making eye contact, not
smiling, and not being friendly. It’s hard. In Europe people don’t smile at
each other but when I do they just roll their eyes and mutter something about
Americans under their breath, in China it’s an invitation to call me fat and
ugly, in Benin it’s an invitation to fuck. I don’t think I look forward to
anything more on my yearly visits to America than being able to smile at a
stranger and just have them smile back and keep on keeping on.
Before anyone goes and calls me mean or racist you should understand
that I am ever so aware that the problem is me. I’m living in their country and
in their culture and I’m the one that has to adjust. I’m trying. I really am. An
entire nation of people is not going to change to cater me. I get it. I’m just
writing about my experiences and what it’s like for me to do all the traveling
and living in different cultures that I do. You ask all the time what it’s
like. This. This is what it’s like.
So I’ve been living in Cotonou, Benin on the west coast of Africa for almost two years now. I know you’re trying really hard to bring up all the junior high geography knowledge in your brain right now. It’s near Nigeria.
Everything has been great! My husband and I are international school teachers. We work for a great non profit organization that we are very happy with. They have schools all over the world. Before accepting this job we did research on the place. Benin’s constitution was written in 1990 and put into place in 1990. Since then it has been a democracy. The past couple presidential elections have shown smooth, violence free transitions of power.
Benin is one of the 20 most impoverished nations on earth so, of course, there are things to worry about, but crime and violence were very low on our list of things to worry about it. We were more concerned about things like malaria and other diseases. That is, until this week.
Ever since we arrived we have heard people say bad things about the president, Patrice Talon. There are many comparisons that can be made between the Trump presidency and the Talon presidency. They’re both arrogant, rich, businessmen and they both got elected because of that trait. The ignorant masses will always vote for a rich guy that promises to make life better for everyone. He’s a good businessman, so of course he’ll be a good president, right?
So in 1963 President John Kennedy began the Art in Embassies Program. It is a public-private partnership that promotes cultural diplomacy through US embassies around the world. In 2002 they began an artists abroad program where artists can apply to travel to US embassies around the world and perform or display their art.
This week a jazz band is being hosted by the US embassy here in Cotonou. I posted about it on Facebook and Instagram and have received an amazing amount of hate from it. Everyone says the same thing: pardon me…but…uh…shouldn’t African Americans be playing jazz to represent America in Africa? I responded to a couple people but then had a huge lot of what I can only guess are African American Social Justice Warriors begin attacking me and calling me a racist, a colonizer, and some other extremely not nice things. For the first time I was brought to block several people and report several more. The hatred was pretty intense.
Well…something tells me the application for your band getting to play in a US embassy doesn’t have a check box for race. It’s a damn band. If you want to bring your American racial politics into a world traveling jazz band then let’s talk about what it’s like here.
First off, I’m no colonizer. I’m a wanderluster. Since I was 14 I’ve never lived in the same place more than 4 years. I’ve traveled in 47 of the States and 39 countries, I’ve lived on 3 continents and in 4 countries so far. I have no plans of stopping. After spending 3/4ths of my life in poverty and just a decade ago being sick and homeless on the streets of Atlanta I hit the proverbial jackpot, I have found my calling and it’s traveling and teaching. I’ve never been so happy since the day I was born. While I’m traveling I observe, I study, I write, and I try to do what little good I can for the world. I’m no missionary and I’m sure as hell no white savior. I just want to travel and see the world. I want to learn and I want to do it in the real world. While you’re calling me a racist on Instagram for watching some white guys play music I’m actually living in a foreign country, learning the language and learning the culture. Far more than you’re doing scrolling through the Internet from your cushy chair in Starbucks.
You wanna talk race relations in Africa? You wanna talk about how fucking stupid it is to say bringing 3 white guys here to play jazz music is a problem? You remind me of meat eaters that get grossed out by hunting or slaughter houses. You’ll eat your meat but it has to come in the neatly wrapped plastic packages in the supermarket. You can’t dare be faced with the reality that your dinner was once a living breathing being. Heck, you can’t even eat a fish with the head still on it. You wanna talk reality? Let’s talk.
Benin is the 16th poorest nation on earth. Literacy rates are below 40% for the total population and 20% for women. Slavery is still a very real part of day to day life here. People commonly sell their children for about the equivalent of $60 USD. People on the street approach me with their baby and try to get me to take it. They beg me to take their kid back to America with me. The teen girl that runs the small shack selling food attached to the wall of my house lives in that shack with her 3 year old little girl. There’s no water. They shit and piss by the tree across the street. My gardener almost died a few weeks ago because he didn’t have money to buy some antibiotics and was too ashamed to ask us.
Education here is depressingly abysmal. Last year, for my World Geography class I thought I had done something really awesome. Through a few people I had met I arranged for a local university professor to come lecture my class on life in Africa. This man, this African man, this African university professor, proceeded to tell my students that the white man had to come here to get slaves because white men can’t work in the sun. They needed slaves to work their fields. Then he moved on very casually to the next topic. Here in Benin there is very little understanding of chattel slavery as it was in the US. Because slavery is still common practice today. I was flabbergasted and didn’t really know what to do or say. This is a guest speaker I brought in to lecture my students! A history professor from a local university!!! Telling my students that the white man just had to come here and get slaves because his poor white skin couldn’t take working in the fields. Even members of the elite here are extremely uneducated compared to the average 6th grader in the US. I recently taught a wealthy man with a very respectable job that owns two large homes that plants need sunlight to live. Our American ideals of education simply do not transfer here.
I find myself constantly struggling debating coworkers on their insistence upon calling me ma’am. I don’t like it. They tell me they are raised to respect white people and address them with honor. I explain it’s racist and they say huh? what? I explain if you are supposed to respect me simply because of the color of my skin am I supposed to disrespect you because of the color of yours? Don’t call me ma’am just because I’m white. It’s gross.
I live in a place where people don’t have money to send their children to school or to feed them so they sell them off as slaves. Hundreds of people die in the hospital daily not because their illnesses are all that difficult to treat but because there’s no money. Almost no one I interact with on a daily basis can read or write. I could continue this list all day to explain to you the horrors I see.
Is it sad? Yes. Did I have to struggle with some pretty tough depression when I moved here? Yes. When beggar children ring my bell at home or crowd around me on the street do I still get emotional? Yes. When I go to the pharmacy and the man with the horrific tumors all over his face is there begging me for anything to feed his children do I ask myself wtf is wrong with this world? Yes. But I am in a very REAL situation and very, REALLY, have come to grips that I can’t save the world. I’m not trying to tell anyone how white people do things right and how if they’d just do it my way they’d get out of this poverty. That’s what missionaries like to do. That’s not my place. Not my role, and I have no interest in being that person. I’m not here to save the world. I’m here to observe, write, and learn and hopefully help a few people along the way.
If you think seeing 3 white dudes playing jazz music is going to have any kind of a negative effect on the minds of the local people then you have no idea what you’re talking about. You are far out of your league and you are part of the problem.
Do you want to help the world? Do you really want to help the world? Become a teacher. Get off your high horse trying to imply I’m a racist for wanting to hear some music.
The number one, most difficult, thing for me to adjust to
about living in a different culture is my super friendly nature. I was always
raised to be friendly to everyone. Make eye contact, smile, say hello, be
friendly. I’m that Southern girl that’ll strike up a conversation with the
person behind me in line at the supermarket. I’ll spend 20 minutes in a gas
station because I struck up a conversation with the cashier. It’ll take me an
hour to run an errand that should only take 10 minutes because I have so many
conversations along the way. I love people and I talk to everyone. It served me
well in the restaurant business and made me lots of friends in the States.
That trait of mine does not work to my benefit in all cultures.
You may have trouble adjusting to different foods, a new language, different
fashion, different levels of cleanliness, or any number of other things about
living in a different culture but, for me, I struggle with avoiding eye contact
and not smiling at people. It goes against the very person I am. It goes all
the way to my inner core.
A woman sitting alone here in Benin is obviously just looking
for a man. Why else would she be out alone? But I get depressed when I just sit
around the house all the time and I simply must go out. I take a book or, on
Sundays like today, I take my computer and work on my book. Men will never
leave me alone. I can’t go anywhere without being constantly annoyed. They
follow me around in the store, the follow me down the street, they demand my phone
number several times a day. Give me your number. The most common pick up line I
hear here is “You’re my queen, you’re going to have my babies.” Sometimes they
bother me so much I have to find a security guard and ask him to tell the guy
to leave me alone. I pay $100 a month to work out at a gym when my favorite
form of exercise is walking but I can’t walk here because they won’t stop harassing
me.
That’s when I don’t look at them. If I make eye contact it’s
even worse. The same thing happened in China. Making eye contact with a man is
an invitation. It’s sooooooooo hard for me. My first instinct at all times is
to talk to anyone near me. If someone looks at me I smile and say hello. It’s
who I am. But here, and in China, I have had to break myself of that. I’ve
become colder, more distant, and I don’t like it.
It’s so different here in Benin than it was in China. Life
and especially the idea of beauty is so different from than it is in China. It’s
been a nice boost for my self-esteem. In China I was called fat and ugly
several times a day. I cried a lot. I was once told I was too fat and ugly to
be in public and I should lock myself in my apartment and not come out again
until I lost weight. I once walked into a clothing shop I knew wouldn’t have
anything to fit me but I wanted to look at the cute clothes anyway and the
entire staff accosted me and shoved me out of the store all the while telling
me I was too fat and ugly to be in their store and I was bad for business. The
kids around our apartment complex called me the fat foreigner. I sank into a pit
of depression so deep I was unsure I’d ever be able to climb out. I did join a
gym but the people at the gym were really mean to me and that made me quit going.
I don’t know about you but having the gym trainer call me fat and ugly didn’t
motivate me to work out harder, it motivated me to stay home in bed and eat.
All of their abuse only made me gain weight and cry all the time. It didn’t
have the effect they intended.
Here in Benin it’s different. It’s my normal Sunday afternoon
routine to go out, sit on a restaurant patio, and write. I’m working on a book.
As of the time of this writing I’ve been here an hour. I have a collection of 3
phone numbers from men that wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to take
their numbers. It’s always the same: the walk up to my table, loom over me, the
more bold ones pull up a chair and sit down at my table without asking, and say
give me your number. I say no. They say give me your number. I say no. They say
give me your number. I say no. Then they say I’m going to give you my number. I
say I’m not going to call you. They say I’m giving it to you anyway. I say whatever.
They try to talk to me but I ignore them. If I talk I give very short answers
trying to get rid of them. Here’s my nice collection of trash I’ve collected
today.
I’m never going to be happy cooped in up in my house all the
time. I simply must get out. I try
and try to avoid eye contact and not speak to strangers but it’s so difficult
for me. Even when I know if I look at that guy and smile at him he’s going to
think I want to fuck him sometimes it happens instinctually, before I can stop
myself.
I must admit being in an environment where I’m not
constantly called fat and ugly has worked wonders for my mental state. I’m
happier than I’ve been in a long time and I’ve lost almost 40 pounds since
moving here. Being called beautiful as many times a day as I was called fat and
ugly in China has does wonders for my health. As I’m typing this I have to keep
my eyes on my screen because there’s a guy sitting across from me that’s
staring at me and every time I glance up for a second he gives me creepy sexy
eyes.
People ask me all the time what’s the most difficult part of
living in a different country? That’s it for me. Not making eye contact, not
smiling, and not being friendly. It’s hard. In Europe people don’t smile at
each other but when I do they just roll their eyes and mutter something about
Americans under their breath, in China it’s an invitation to call me fat and
ugly, in Benin it’s an invitation to fuck. I don’t think I look forward to
anything more on my yearly visits to America than being able to smile at a
stranger and just have them smile back and keep on keeping on.
Before anyone goes and calls me mean or racist you should understand
that I am ever so aware that the problem is me. I’m living in their country and
in their culture and I’m the one that has to adjust. I’m trying. I really am. An
entire nation of people is not going to change to cater me. I get it. I’m just
writing about my experiences and what it’s like for me to do all the traveling
and living in different cultures that I do. You ask all the time what it’s
like. This. This is what it’s like.
Last night I finally had an encounter with someone that got me fired up enough to really write. I’ve come here to write several times since arriving in Benin but never gotten around to doing it. I’m back.
There are nice people all over the world and there are assholes all over the world. I find them both everywhere I go. This post is not a commentary on Benin culture. I’ve been here 4 months and so far I have absolutely loved it. This post is commentary on human beings.
In my travels I’ve found that when in a foreign country and not quite speaking the language yet you encounter two types of people and these two people exist in every city, every village, every country worldwide:
Type One:
Hi! Welcome to my country! How long have you been here? Are you learning the language? Oh yeah? How long have you been studying? How’s it going? Can we speak a little? Wow! You’re really good! I can’t believe you know so much after only studying for x amount of weeks! I’m impressed. Keep it up! If you ever need to know how to say something feel free to ask. I look forward to keeping up with your progress.
Type Two:
May or may not say something in English first. Immediately speaks high level of their language then looks at me and expects me to respond. I say I’m sorry I don’t understand. He/She says I’m speaking your language you should speak mine. I’ll only speak in English but you should answer me in French. I explain I’ve only been studying you’re language for x amount of weeks. I can’t do that. He/She says how dare you come to my country and not learn my language. I tell him/her they are being rude to me and I don’t appreciate it. Then there’s the inevitable insult and statement about how I am disrespecting his/her culture and how rude I am for coming to a foreign country and not learning the language. He/she repeatedly says insulting/condescending things to me and repeatedly tells me that I’m the rude one for pointing out how rude they are being.
