Open Letter to the Incoming Benin Volunteers

For those coming this summer, we’re going to take a little trip in the way back machine* to give a quick run down of all the things we wish we knew then. This is not a replacement for the official packing lists floating around, rather as a commentary on the advice given through the lens of a year’s service. For everyone else, a little window into our lives in Benin. Sherman, if you please:

Clothes – Probably the biggest packing conundrum given that the climate is fairly varied and the different sectors have different minimum standards of professionalism.

In terms of overall quantity, pack lightly. Bring maybe 10 days worth of clothes, double that for “intimate apparel.” One thing you’ll learn very quickly is that in a world of hand laundry, doing it once every week-10 days is a terrible idea in that it will end up eating up an entire Sunday. Instead, most folks will do smaller loads a couple of times a week, thus diminishing the number of clothing options needed.

As for wardrobe additions once in country, a note of explanation seems worth making. In all the materials sent prior to departure we were told that we could “have clothes made.” Now we’re Americans who came of age in the late days of the 20th century. We come from a culture of malls, brands and ready-to-wear, and as such have a very vague understanding of how the world of made to order clothing works (mostly in the context of expensive, hand-stitched Italian suiting which is hardly applicable here). So to read “have clothes made,” we didn’t have a clue how that got done, what the relative cost was and what the local tailors were capable of. So in a moment of doubt, we instead packed more clothes from home.

Stupid move compadres. Turns out having clothes made is supremely easy and inexpensive, and the act of buying fabric and visiting the tailor can be passed off as a “cultural exchange.” Generally you will have two types of clothing made – local style and western style. The local style is all the colorful design cotton fabric made into oversized pajamas for the men and restricting ankle-length tube skirts or sarong-esque wraps for women. Beyond the cultural integration motivation for having this stuff made, it’s also light weight fabric that is key in the heat.

As for western style clothing, there is a surprising level of ability vis-à-vis foreign style and technique. Most should be able to make a passable buttoned down dress shirt, dress and/or casual pants, polos for the men and as Steve has found, baggy surf-style shorts (not to mention suiting, and given the availability of obscenely colorful fabrics available, filling your closet with suits fit only for Adam West-vintage Batman villains is a very real possibility). For the women tunics, linen pants, pleated skirts and blouses are all easy. Got an idea, just bring a picture.

Is it expensive? How long does it take? No and no. Tailoring is a widely supplied skill and as such the prices are dirt cheap. It can be done in a day or two. You’ll pay about 500 francs for a shirt or pants ($1), which is almost nothing. Bottom line – bring enough clothing to last 10 days and worry about the rest when you get here.

Books – I’m going to echo Jeff on this one – no need to bring more than one or two as you’ll start swapping almost immediately. Also, you’re not the first Peace Corps volunteers to bring books to this country and leave them, and as such PC Benin has an excellent collection spread throughout the main office and three work stations.

To that end, after 40 years of volunteers who came to country thinking “I’m going to have a lot of time to read [insert big thousand page book title here], let me pack it.” The product of that is PC Benin seems to have a Russian literature collection that would rival the University of St. Petersburg. War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karena and any other tome about cold, depressed and possibly drunk Russians is already here in triplicate, so save the space in your luggage.

Food – The potential and the reality of eating in Benin are two very different propositions. What you can find in terms of ingredients and what you can find pre-prepared are worlds apart. Before arriving we ate lots of things we thought we were going to miss – beef, pastas, seafood – and man did we ever screw that one up. Knowing that those were going to actually be the cornerstones of our diet here, we would have instead eaten more fresh fruit like apples, peaches and pears, along with asparagus and broccoli, knowing we couldn’t get them here. Oh yeah, and lots of ice cream.

That said, you can find all sorts of good ingredients if you’re willing to poke your head around and take seasonality into consideration (something we Americans have gotten used to living without). And we’re not talking about the imported stuff you find in Lebanese groceries in Cotonou or Parakou, but honest to goodness local produce, meats, fish, legumes and grains. Just don’t expect to find too many Beninese people who know how to do anything other than boil it within an inch of its life.

Is it worth learning to cook a bit if you don’t already know how? Absolutely. Do you have to be an expert? Not at all. Are you going to be desperate for something other than pate and sauce within the first six months? Bet your ass. Go on epicurious.com or foodtv.com and just find some basic recipes involving tomatoes, onions, beans and garlic and you’ll be fine. For the more ambitious, learn to clean a fish – you can buy frozen all over the place.

On the spice front, there is not a wide variety but the staples are widely available. Salt, pepper (although you may want to bring a small refillable pepper grinder) and sugar are everywhere, and in the north oregano is common. Everybody’s auntie sells fresh garlic, and chili powder is in the blood. There are a handful of fresh herbs in the big cities – the parsley, celery leaf and cilantro usually wilted but there. What you won’t find are things like sweet basil, dill (yogurt and citrus are common, making dill sauces a layup), mint (heard legends but have never seen it).

As for getting used to the food here in advance, don’t bother. There will be plenty of time to eat akasa and sauce once in country.

Health and Medical – The medical office in DC can be irritatingly vague and unhelpful, leaning on my mother’s preferred reasoning - “because I said so” – as an answer to all your questions. This is particularly unhelpful considering this is probably your biggest concern right now. So as a bit of advice: when they say three months of medication and they will take care of the rest, they mean three months of medication and they will take care of the rest.

Upon arriving in country you will be given a medical kit, a plastic briefcase with a supply of every over the counter medication and first aid supply you could ever want. So unless you are very particular about a certain drug store item, don’t worry about the basics. They will replenish on request should you run out of band-aids, sunscreen, chapstick, alcohol swabs or anything else. After your two month training, your prescriptions will be in the system and you will be replenished accordingly. They will also provide vitamin and/or supplements within reason (Vitamin C, calcium pills, etc…)

Now this raises the question “Why doesn’t PC give me all my meds up front?” That’s because during the first few months there are people who quit and go home. PC works on a budget and therefore does not want to pay your 2 year supply of birth control if you’re going home 6 weeks after arrival, that’s why.

As for the shots – when they say they’ll give them to you and you’ll be fine not having them all prior to departure, that is true. You will get some in Philly, the ones needed to enter the country and some that are the start of a series. You will also start taking your anti-malarial drugs in the US. You will get some shots after you first land, and others over the course of the first few months. Pretty soon you’ll have a WHO card that looks like a Chinese takeout menu – everything you can possibly imagine.

Are you in danger by not having all your shots before arriving? No, as you spend the first few weeks in a fairly sheltered environment and you will be inoculated against the immediate threats early on. The shots that come later are things you will not be exposed to during training. DO NOT GO TO COUNTY HEALTH AND GET ALL YOUR SHOTS IN ADVANCE. You’ll pay a fortune (trust us, we did) and make a world of trouble for yourself with the med office in DC, possibly leading to the revocation of your offer to serve.

Why is it done this way? See above about PC budgeting and early termination of service.

Your worst enemy right now? Costco. As you walk past the gallons of sunscreen and family size bottles of vitamins, you’ll convince yourself that you’ll need to have TWO WHOLE YEARS worth of it. Next thing you know half your luggage is this crap, taking the place of those personal affects and sporting goods you did not have room for, only to find out you could have gotten it all here for free none the less. Three months really means three months.

(If you are going to go to Costco though, could you pick us up one of those giant brick of Tillamook cheddar cheese. Thanks.)

Supplies – If you are going to cook, bringing a good knife sharpener is probably more important than bringing good knives. Part of the reason the knives here are all so dull is that local cutting technique has the chef holding the onion or tomato in between two fingers and cutting through to the gap on the other side – an awful idea if your using anything sharper than a pair of children’s safety scissors. As such, knives sold here are sharpened less and if they are it is usually done using a cement pillar. A good knife sharpener would turn any hardly functional knife into a highly functional knife, and would take up far less room than bringing three or four knives (which will only go dull during the two years).

As for the Teflon pan, it is much easier to bring one but if you don’t want to drag it, there are places in Cotonou to get T-Fal (provided you know where to look). Another thing we’re happy we have is a good carrot peeler as it works well on potatoes, yams and manioc. Good tongs - a good pair of cooking tongs or two will work wonders. And oven mitts are key when dealing with recently boiled water.

Electronics – There is a lot of this country that is wired, and probably a good chance there will be electricity at least a few hours a day at or near where you’re living. Computers and other assorted digital technology are a very real part of development work being done here, like it or not. The final word on this is if you’re going to bring a laptop, iPod, speaker unit or anything else, go in with the expectation it will be stolen or destroyed at some point. If you think that will devastate you beyond belief, leave it at home. Older things that have already had a good run would be our recommendation, and it would probably be wise to keep your ownership of said valuables to yourself (you will hear MUCH more about this from the Saftey and Security staff).

Phones - Got an old cell phone from that semester abroad in Europe or Asia? Bring it. If it is not already unlocked there will surely be someone in town who can unlock it (thus making it usable with any sim card). As for the chargers, most power strips sold here have universal configurations, which means that UK, European and Chinese plugs will work (although you will have no surge protection). Plug adapters are also ubiquitous and can be bought off of most donkey carts. To date, data service is sparse and works intermittently – if you’re planning on bringing that iPhone, don’t expect to connect to the internet with it.

The Beninese – despite all the pictures of children running the streets in their underwear and livestock on the loose, not all of the people in this country are poor and uneducated. There is an upper class. There is a middle class. There are people who have seen the outside world through the magical box known as television (imagine my surprise the first time I heard the “24” clock coming from my neighbors living room). There are people with email addresses. We play FIFA soccer or Mortal Kombat on Playstation in our town. The point is that you should be aware of the fact that your service may not be exactly like you imagined it, especially if you are drawing your notions from earlier incarnations of the Peace Corps. Don’t be disappointed if you’re not in a mud hut in a village of 50 people, and that the mandate to share technical expertise can take many forms even in places where it doesn’t initially seem like any help is needed.

So there you go, see y’all in a few months. And go have a plum for us.


* Points to those who get the reference