Category Archives: Benin

Cultural Differences part 1,000,000

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.

Is this a coup?

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?

Your racial politics don’t always cross cultures

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.

Cultural Difference

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.

How Not to be an Asshole About Language

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.

Don’t be type two. No one likes him.

 

 

We’re not in China anymore, Toto

So we’ve been in Cotonou, Benin for a little more than 4 months now after spending 3 years in Xi’an, China. People keep asking me to compare the two so here I go.

I am so much happier in Benin! People are nice here, the air is cleaner, I can find anything I need in the shops, oh and did I mention people here are nice? My husband and I say all the time it’s like being back home. For sure it is poor here. It’s really poor but the people are so nice. Walking down the street here is a lot like walking down the street in the US South. Almost everyone says hello, and asks how you are doing, people smile at you. If you’re in a shop with a slightly confused look on your face someone will always offer to help. Even if there are language barriers they’ll try. Now am I saying every single person in this country is nice? Of course not. Assholes are everywhere. The difference is in China the norm is asshole and the outliers were nice and here it is the opposite the norm is nice and the outlier is an asshole.

If you drop something here several people will help you. If you drop something in China no one will help and even worse if you help someone that has dropped something people will point and laugh at you. In China, if an old woman drops something and a child moves to help her the child’s mom will hit the child and say NO! That is not your problem! Leave her alone. Here, if an old woman drops something a woman will send her child over to help.

When we had only lived here about six weeks and I was out for a walk a woman riding on a moto taxi dropped her purse in the middle of the road. I walked out in the traffic and grabbed it for her and returned it to her. People clapped for me and everyone was telling me how nice I am and someone even reached out and touched me to say thank you. In China had that happened I most likely would have been hit by a car in the street and left to die there. And no I’m not exaggerating. I saw many times where pedestrians were hit and left in the road with no one going to their aid or when a scooter carrying two people was hit by a car, both people went flying into the middle of the road, and the traffic didn’t even slow down as they were left to fend for themselves. Think I must be exaggerating?  See this and this and this

We had an emergency the other day when we were in a strange city we had never been and Trinidad collapsed. People came running to help us, one person picked her up and carried her to the car for us, and then hopped in the car with us to guide us to the hospital. He stayed with us the whole time and helped us with everything even though our French is poor and he could not speak a word of English. In China we would have been completely on our own. There’s no way we could have found anyone to help us. It was a REALLY stressful time for us and everyone was honestly just trying to help us. The hospital didn’t gouge us for money. No one that helped us tried to get money out of us. People genuinely cared and wanted to help. Two days later I am still emotional about it. In fact it was that experience that has finally prodded me to make this post.

In China, for 3 years anywhere from 5-15 times a day I was called fat and ugly. Complete strangers would walk up to me on the street, grab my arm and tell me I was fat and ugly and I ate too much. AT THE GYM the employees called me fat and lazy and were in general really mean to me(See my post about it). I quit going to the gym. Once in a cafe a stranger sat down at the table with me and told me I was too fat and ugly to be out in public and I needed to go lock myself in my apartment.  I developed a huge complex about it. I had never been so self-conscious about my appearance than I was in China. When you are constantly being told how fat and ugly you are it can really fuck with you. I’m not even that big! It’s just that in China the average woman is a US size 2 so anything bigger than that is considered fat. The Chinese woman pictured below is considered the epitome of beauty in China. The picture on the right was taken of me at approximately the same time.  Here people call me beautiful.

    

In China I was sexually assaulted more than ten times. A man attacked me at 8am in a elevator while returning from walking the dog while wearing my flannel pajamas(I hesitated on mentioning what I was wearing at all since it shouldn’t fucking matter what a woman is wearing) it was recorded on camera. A man walked up to me on a busy sidewalk and grabbed my breasts. I was jumped on and dry humped in a bar. The list goes on an on. I had a taxi driver offer to buy me a new iPhone if I would go to his apartment and have sex with him. Taxi drivers trying to get me to fuck them was a regular occurrence. Here men hiss at me, and say gross things, make suggestive faces at me, and constantly ask me for my number but after 4 months I still have not been touched by a man and when I stand strong and repeat I am not interested he always leaves me alone. In China they don’t care. It’s like all the stories I’ve heard about being a woman in Morocco. Men simply think it is their right to do anything they want to women. And sadly women are taught from birth that a man has the right to do anything he wants to her. So since I’ve only been here about half a year I can’t say it won’t happen here but so far here it’s been no worse than walking down the street in Atlanta while in China it was horrible. Having a man grab me, or jump on me, or solicit me for sex because so commonplace it didn’t even surprise me anymore. And that’s fucked up.

People do pee fairly freely here but they don’t do it directly on the sidewalk nor do they let their children shit anywhere they please. One time in Xi’an in the elevator in my fancy apartment building a grandma let a toddler take a shit IN THE ELEVATOR with me!!! Then when they got to their floor they just walked out and left it there. Children up to about the age of 8 just piss or shit absolutely anywhere there: in the supermarket, in the mall, on the bus, in the middle of the sidewalk, in the restaurant, in the damn elevator. That doesn’t happen here and people would be mortified if it did.

There’s also a higher level of expats here. In China you had friends if you wanted to party until you couldn’t stand up straight but that was about it. Expat life there is about drinking every night until you blackout, sleep, work, repeat. Think the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Here, and this is because “Teaching English” is not a thing here, the expat scene is mostly diplomats, Peace Corps, and various NGO workers. I’m much more comfortable here and I fit in a lot better than I ever did in China.

I have a nice big house here, a car, and even a housekeeper/cook and a gardener, and I love my job. I think every day about what an amazingly lucky life I’m living but I am not lying when I say I would choose to live in a shitty mud hut here before going back to Xi’an. It’s easier to drive here, it’s easier to find things here, it’s easier to make friends here, I know if I get hurt here someone will come to my aid, I can go out with people and not be expected to drink all night long, I can leave my home without wondering if a guy is going to attack me today, I don’t constantly get called fat and ugly, and people are kind.

The ways things are similar in both: people really fuck with you over money. It’s not as bad here as it was in China but they still try to overcharge you by a lot. People point out the fact that your skin is a different color although here it is more of a novelty and in China it was often said in disgust. People are really superstitious. It’s really poor but they don’t think so and they’ll argue with you if you mention it. This comes from a lack of experience with the outside world. If everyone you know has more or less the same as you then you have no idea how poor you are. It works in reverse too… just look at the 1% that claim to be middle class.