My Post and clothing styles in Benin

(Picture 1: Myself in 'meme tissue' or same tissue. The four different sectors purchase their own style of tissue and wear it to swear in so each person in the same sector matches, but sectors are different.
Picture 2: The view from the top of a hill at my post)

Last week I spent four days at my future post and lived, with the outgoing PCV in my future house. All I have to say is that my post is beautiful. Just look at the picture and you will see why. I will be working with an NGO that does environmental education, which is funded by eco-tourism to the NGO. If you ever find yourself in Benin, which will surly not happen, but just in case, make sure you see the hills in Central Benin.

My village is rather quaint with only about 2,000 residents. Aside from the NGO in the village, which employs 11 people, everyone else makes a living in the many farms or by crushing rocks, by hand with a hammer into large jagged pebbles. These rocks are retrieved from the hills and are accelerating their erosion. Thankfully the majority speaks French, but as time goes by I will begin to use their local language, Igaasha, especially for greetings and use in the market. Good Morning = Ekoni; How are you = O wa réré ni; and Yes = oo, or adoukpé. It is much different from anything I have ever learned before, but it has one thing up on French and English for that matter in that it is phonetic. Upon further thought, the fact that it is phonetic does me very little good, because I will probably never actually write it down or seen it written.

Since I just passed my language exam I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer next Friday, September 25th. After that, it is on to my village, where I will move into a large single bedroom house with electricity and convenient to access running water. I also move in with a cat, who is the killer of all things that I don’t want in my house, which is awesome. For the first three months I will spend my time getting to know my community, the residents, and learning what I can do inside of my NGO and outside of it, in the community. For those first three months no PCVs are allowed to leave their post for more than 24hrs. It is one of the rules, which forces us to step outside of our comfort zone and go integrate into a community we know very little about and have a mediocre grasp of the language. I have it easy since my community has had two volunteers before me and they speak French and local language. Other volunteers are moving places that don’t speak any French into a home without electricity, running water, cell phone reception, and easy access to the internet.

Now onto my cultural observation: The clothing styles in this country are fascinating.

Traditional Beninese clothing is hard to describe, but just look at the picture of myself, and you will get the idea. They love loud colors and repeating patterns with identical prints below and above the waist. Women’s clothing is rather conservative and ranges from form fitting to semi-loose, while many guy’s shirts resemble moo-moos (I have no idea how that is spelled, but you know the huge maternity-like shirts). The shirt I am wearing above is actually smaller than how it is traditionally made and it is very un-African to have buttons. Clothes you buy ready-to-wear, as we do in the States, is for the most part considered uncool, although that is changing as Western influences become more pronounced. For example, for the outfit above and for the two pairs of different pinstripe dress pants I just bought, you first go to the market and buy the fabric and then taken it to a tailor. All of this is done for about 7,000 – 8,000 CFA, which translates into 16-18 US $. I am planning on over my two years accumulating some very nice looking suits that are perfectly tailored. The trouble with the clothing here is even I, with my lacking sense of style, would never wear 95% of it outside of Benin or West Africa. I like the pants but am not a huge fan of the shirts. It is fun and the Beninese actually respect you more when you are wearing their style. My parents sent me some UW Red and Motion ‘W’ fabric, which I cannot wait until it arrives so that I can have the best UW-Madison pride outfit ever.

Now combine this style with what I will call the Western world’s rejected Goodwill store clothes and you have a very diverse range of styles. A lot of clothes that will never be worn in the states are dumped into West Africa and are either given away or sold for pennies. Many people in this country are extremely poor, but they will not only wear the ‘Goodwill’ style, they make it their own. It is common to see guys wearing girl’s shirts and/or pants, and yet they have no idea and frankly they don’t care. In fact I saw a dude wearing a shirt that said, “No Money, No Honey” just the other day. It was black with white lettering, and the cut of the sleeves and collar were clearly feminine to a western eye. Also very few speak any English in Benin, so what a shirts says is unimportant. That shirt was probably cheap and matched this guy’s idea of Western style so it is good enough for him. Remember when the Patriots lost the super bowl to the Giants in that massive upset a couple of years ago??? Well, I saw a Patriot Superbowl Champion t-shirt from that year. What is interesting is that they will take these clearly uncool shirts (to Western standards) and wear them or match them with other things in a way that mimics what is cool. Since they don’t speak English and can’t understand that their shirt says “New York City Public Library – Where it is Cool to Read” they choose form fitting sizes and combine it with the rest of their outfit in a very creative take on Western style. They may be adopting our styles but when they want to dress up for a special event they almost always go with traditional wear.

Thanks for reading. I hope this finds you all well and that the States are not killing each other over things like Obama’s health care plan. I sure hope that passes or has passed. Be thankful those are the debates you get to have because the election here is not until 2011 and the current President, it is rumored, has already started removing the people’s constitutional right to assemble peacefully through unchecked executive orders. He is doing this in specific locations in Benin in order to limit political rallies because potential opponents for the job of President are starting to identify themselves and organize.