A large group of volunteers all came to the main office in Cotonou for the weekend for a program and since there was so many of us, PC Staff organized with Expatriates to find us all places to stay. Myself and two others stayed with the Director of the American Cultural Center in Benin, which is the branch of the U.S. Embassy in charge of public diplomancy. They commonly do programs in Benin, support Beninese initiatives, pretty much do anything that provides a positive image of Americans in Benin.
We got off the mototaxi in a neighborhood that I didnt know existed in Benin. I guess there are wealthy people in every country, no matter how poor the country is, but this neighborhood could have been pulled out of Long Island, except for guards and barbed wire. Our host has been working for the US State Department for many years and has thus traveled and lived all over this world. Her house is gorgeous and filled with artisan goods from every corner of the world. But, we only were able to get in after four different sets of keys opened up four different doors. Her place is beautiful and is not only a small fortress but is outfitted with just about anything one could need and a generator the size of some houses in my village, in case the power goes out.
Going up to the second floor there is also a industructable metal baracade, just in case a small army storms the house. In Benin it is not exactly important but in other countries it could come in handy. It would be a lonely life though. She must move every couple of years and few people would be willing to tolerate not also having a job and following their spouse everywhere. Not to mention living so far away. She has a huge house of amazing things, but no one to really share it with. One of the reasons she was so nice to us. She made us amazing food, stuff I have not had since I left. I am for sure going to visit when I am back in Cotonou.
I had an interesting weekend. We went out to a club in Benin, and yes, this was actually a real club with good music and dancing. I probably looked like a moron because the only dancing I have done in the past 7-months is Beninese traditional dancing (the Beninese in village just laugh at me when I try that also), which resembles a more intense version of the chicken dance. Anyways, we had a really good time; it got interesting when we were trying to leave.
A friend of a volunteer, who lives and works in Benin gave us a ride, so we climbed in his car to leave. On the way out we were stopped by the police, keep in mind this is at 4 in the morning, for absolutely no reason other than they just wanted to bother us. They made us all get out of the car and then they asked to see our papers. PCVs never travel with our passport, but we have a PC ID card that is supposed to be sufficient. The cops were not happy and it became clear that they were not going to let us go until we bribed them. The guy who was driving said this is pretty common after midnight. Well, we all speak enough French and probably have developed an unfair confidence since we live alone in rural villages so each volunteer took a different cop and basically 5 different small arguments commenced. We refused to pay them and they refused to let us go, so we needed something to do right. After pretending to arrest the driver, pretending to take his car and drive away (the only moved it down the street), and arguing with us they eventually just let us leave. We were never in any danger and no one ever became threatening, except the guy I was talking to. I think I just pissed him off more than the other PCVs pissed of their officer. They bank on people not being willing to wait out the cops, since if you pay you get to leave right away. They just got sick of arguing with us and they were not prepared to deal with PCVs who really have nothing else to do.
We could have paid the bribe. It would only have been about $10 (the running rate for bribes here) but it is the fact of the matter and we won! One point for stubborn volunteers, zero for jerk corrupt cops.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
If I was in charge of Peace Corps - Benin
So after being in Benin for seven months and at post for five I have already become an expert in developing a third world country. Just kidding. I realize that I still have a lot to learn, but this whole Peace Corps thing…well, it could be done differently and have a much larger impact. As it exists right now, Peace Corps is more about cultural exchange than anything else. I believe Peace Corps should exist primarily to give the host population the ability to help themselves and cultural exchange will occur regardless. All of my conclusions below are based on that premise. These are my ideas.
1) Get rid of TEFL
TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. These volunteers put in around 15 hours of work a week in a local high school teaching English to the Beninese. To their credit, because these volunteers have the most structured schedule with regular classes, they actually lose the least amount of volunteers due to early termination (quitting). They also can do some impressive side projects outside of the high school because they are automatically connected with a large host structure, the high school. But I ask, what the heck does a Beninese person need to speak English for? I have met people on the street selling these ice cream-like treats out of carts who speak better English than I do French. People here have this belief that if you can speak English you can either get a good job or get out of Benin. I hate to be debbie-downer but neither is likely to happen. Maybe you could get a job as a teacher in Benin, but since the Government doesn’t have any money, they regularly stop paying them, which leads to teacher strikes. A volunteer spending countless hours preparing and giving lessons is a waste and does little to give the Beninese an ability to help themselves.
2) Get rid of EA
EA stands for Environmental Action…yes I think Peace Corps needs to do away with the specific enviro volunteer despite the fact that I am an enviro volunteer. Let me explain. Lets say you struggle to put food on your family’s table, you can’t pay for all of your children to go to school, and you do not have a regular job. Do you really give two shits about the environment? You might say, well, since they are poor their lives literally depend on the environment, and you would be absolutely correct. If the crops fail due to natural causes or poor farming practices, then people die. If the rains don’t come or come to hard (that’s what she said) then people die. Basically, if people depend on their environment and they don’t take care of it then they will have huge problems. I completely agree with that, but specific EA volunteers are overkill. We try to protect the environment or educate in an atmosphere, at least in Benin, where very few people have any choice on changing behaviors to care for their environment. Therefore any behavior change you are really hoping to make needs to be profitable for the person. As you will read in a sec, I am not advocating for a total abolition of the EA volunteer in Benin, just a serious change.
3) Everyone becomes a Health or Small Enterprise Development (SED) Volunteer with an EA volunteer’s education as well.
I believe that the really only effective means of development in Benin right now are small businesses. Benin needs to somehow create small business so that the people can develop some disposable income, create a middle class, and give the government something to tax in order to provide civil services. The biggest problem in Benin is an extreme lack of available credit. Should someone have an idea and they need someone or something to invest in that idea to cover the start up costs, they are pretty much out of luck. Microloan companies can do some amazing things, but they are only appropriate for certain circumstances. I truly believe that too much aid goes to pay for immediate needs or services and while these are important, they do little to advance Beninese society as a whole. I think the most effective avenue for change within the Peace Corps are Small Business Development Volunteers. They work to create small enterprises that put power into the hands of the poorest members of society by connecting them with funding sources, education, and markets. The local population comes with the ideas and the PCV helps to develop them and the business to provide a needed service or product. If this is done well, the business or co-operative will become self-sustaining and provide necessary income to its members years after the PCV. So, I would split the volunteers into half; one group is SED/EA and the other is Health/EA. Sorry TEFL. Since the majority of people in Benin survive with what they take out of the land, I would train all the SED/EA volunteers how to create businesses that try to protect and conserve their natural resources while at the same time profiting off of those natural resources. For example, one could create a tree nursery with a motivated individual by teaching them how to plant trees (EA) and then how to market/sell them (SED). Then this tree nursery could work with local schools, donate trees, and at the same time as working with the students to reforest the area they are providing necessary environmental education (SED/EA).
Health, I believe is equally important because it does address the immediate needs of a society, while SED/EA focuses more on long term needs. Because people live so closely to the land, their health and their environment are directly connected. You can teach someone that they need to drink clean water to prevent diarrhea and potentially deadly dehydration (Health) but if you don’t show them how to filter their water using locally available supplies (EA) then you do little to address the problem. You can tell someone they need to diversify their diet to ensure greater food security and health (Health) but if you don’t teach them how to build a garden, plant vagetables, and prepare them (EA), again you are doing little to address the problem. I would then encourage all Health volunteers to focus on projects that might be able to earn revenue for a motivated individual or group.
In conclusion, every volunteer would either receive the education of a SED or Health volunteer with a few weeks during training dedicated to the environment.
Obviously people have spent years studying development, not to mention writing thousands of pages on the subject. Here, I can do little more but provide my ideas based on my experiences. Peace Corps is a great organization, but I think it could be improved to become more of an agent for change of a society than of the participating volunteer. What other org has a development agent live with the host population for two years? PC really needs to take advantage of the community integration that comes with that kind of time and focus more on small enterprise development and health by marrying it to environmental protection/education. Again, sorry TEFL volunteers.
1) Get rid of TEFL
TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. These volunteers put in around 15 hours of work a week in a local high school teaching English to the Beninese. To their credit, because these volunteers have the most structured schedule with regular classes, they actually lose the least amount of volunteers due to early termination (quitting). They also can do some impressive side projects outside of the high school because they are automatically connected with a large host structure, the high school. But I ask, what the heck does a Beninese person need to speak English for? I have met people on the street selling these ice cream-like treats out of carts who speak better English than I do French. People here have this belief that if you can speak English you can either get a good job or get out of Benin. I hate to be debbie-downer but neither is likely to happen. Maybe you could get a job as a teacher in Benin, but since the Government doesn’t have any money, they regularly stop paying them, which leads to teacher strikes. A volunteer spending countless hours preparing and giving lessons is a waste and does little to give the Beninese an ability to help themselves.
2) Get rid of EA
EA stands for Environmental Action…yes I think Peace Corps needs to do away with the specific enviro volunteer despite the fact that I am an enviro volunteer. Let me explain. Lets say you struggle to put food on your family’s table, you can’t pay for all of your children to go to school, and you do not have a regular job. Do you really give two shits about the environment? You might say, well, since they are poor their lives literally depend on the environment, and you would be absolutely correct. If the crops fail due to natural causes or poor farming practices, then people die. If the rains don’t come or come to hard (that’s what she said) then people die. Basically, if people depend on their environment and they don’t take care of it then they will have huge problems. I completely agree with that, but specific EA volunteers are overkill. We try to protect the environment or educate in an atmosphere, at least in Benin, where very few people have any choice on changing behaviors to care for their environment. Therefore any behavior change you are really hoping to make needs to be profitable for the person. As you will read in a sec, I am not advocating for a total abolition of the EA volunteer in Benin, just a serious change.
3) Everyone becomes a Health or Small Enterprise Development (SED) Volunteer with an EA volunteer’s education as well.
I believe that the really only effective means of development in Benin right now are small businesses. Benin needs to somehow create small business so that the people can develop some disposable income, create a middle class, and give the government something to tax in order to provide civil services. The biggest problem in Benin is an extreme lack of available credit. Should someone have an idea and they need someone or something to invest in that idea to cover the start up costs, they are pretty much out of luck. Microloan companies can do some amazing things, but they are only appropriate for certain circumstances. I truly believe that too much aid goes to pay for immediate needs or services and while these are important, they do little to advance Beninese society as a whole. I think the most effective avenue for change within the Peace Corps are Small Business Development Volunteers. They work to create small enterprises that put power into the hands of the poorest members of society by connecting them with funding sources, education, and markets. The local population comes with the ideas and the PCV helps to develop them and the business to provide a needed service or product. If this is done well, the business or co-operative will become self-sustaining and provide necessary income to its members years after the PCV. So, I would split the volunteers into half; one group is SED/EA and the other is Health/EA. Sorry TEFL. Since the majority of people in Benin survive with what they take out of the land, I would train all the SED/EA volunteers how to create businesses that try to protect and conserve their natural resources while at the same time profiting off of those natural resources. For example, one could create a tree nursery with a motivated individual by teaching them how to plant trees (EA) and then how to market/sell them (SED). Then this tree nursery could work with local schools, donate trees, and at the same time as working with the students to reforest the area they are providing necessary environmental education (SED/EA).
Health, I believe is equally important because it does address the immediate needs of a society, while SED/EA focuses more on long term needs. Because people live so closely to the land, their health and their environment are directly connected. You can teach someone that they need to drink clean water to prevent diarrhea and potentially deadly dehydration (Health) but if you don’t show them how to filter their water using locally available supplies (EA) then you do little to address the problem. You can tell someone they need to diversify their diet to ensure greater food security and health (Health) but if you don’t teach them how to build a garden, plant vagetables, and prepare them (EA), again you are doing little to address the problem. I would then encourage all Health volunteers to focus on projects that might be able to earn revenue for a motivated individual or group.
In conclusion, every volunteer would either receive the education of a SED or Health volunteer with a few weeks during training dedicated to the environment.
Obviously people have spent years studying development, not to mention writing thousands of pages on the subject. Here, I can do little more but provide my ideas based on my experiences. Peace Corps is a great organization, but I think it could be improved to become more of an agent for change of a society than of the participating volunteer. What other org has a development agent live with the host population for two years? PC really needs to take advantage of the community integration that comes with that kind of time and focus more on small enterprise development and health by marrying it to environmental protection/education. Again, sorry TEFL volunteers.
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