Since Obama took office, U.S. foreign assistance has been going through some historic changes. A renewed appreciation for the role that development plays in U.S. foreign affairs and a rebuilding of its ranks; the gradual integration of development budget, activities, and goals into U.S. defense and diplomatic strategies (and vice-versa in some cases, the “three D’s”); elevating USAID as the lead in U.S. foreign assistance while at the same time reforming it to be a smarter, more efficient, results-based agency.

The Quadrenniel Diplomacy and Develop Review, inagurated last Thursday encapsulates these changes in a policy that is sure to be a watershed document in U.S. foreign policy history.

Read it here: http://www.state.gov/s/dmr/qddr/

Livestock plays a central role in the Malian economy and livelihoods. It's Mali's 3rd largest export, and 80% of Malians derive some portion of their income from the raising of either of cattle or small ruminants (goat, sheep). For Mali’s nomadic Fulani people, cattle constitute more than just an asset or means of income, but is the centerpiece to their culture. Herding is not just agriculture production and trade, but paces out the seasons and sets the rhythm of daily life. In Mali, one marker of the beginning of the dry season is the herding of cattle from their domicile grazing grounds in the North in search of greener pastures south of the Niger River. Tradition has it that every year the first of these Niger River crossings takes place at Diefarabe.

This year I took a weekend trip to watch this year’s inaugural crossing, an event which seems to usually draw a decent crowd of Fulani herders and family members, Bozo fisherman/ferry-operators, Barriba villagers, local government leaders, and a handful of tourists. Here are some shots from the day.

After some stateside R&R, I am Back in Bamako. I’ve actually been so for about two months, and during this time have had no shortage of activities and thoughts to write about; rather, the bustle of Bamako has made it hard to find a time and calm mind to sit down and think. Notwithstanding, a couple weeks ago I had an opportunity that I can’t pass up blogging about.

Malick Sidibé is probably one of Mali’s most celebrated artists, and surely its most famous photographer. Strictly speaking one would classify Sidibé’s photography as studio and candid portraits, but his work is so refreshingly different from what Africans consider portrait photography, and from Western conceptions about African art and artistic expression. Since the 1960s Malick has made his mark with his ability to intuit and capture the emotions and self-expression of Malians, whether they be on a studio stage or at party, in prepared pose or candid dance. Independence and freedom; energy and movement; cultural tension; self-expression and imagination; joy and affection; authentic portrayal. Such are the motifs that run through Malick’s photographs.

Above: One of Sidibe's most recognizable "on the scene" shots

Below: Example of his studio work

In Bambara “I ka nje tan” which means “you look good like that,” and is a phrase that so neatly captures the point and spirit of Malick’s work, both on the scene and in the studio. Sidibé sees and memoralizes the beauty of Malians in their movements, joy, love, and African authenticity. A couple weeks ago I and some friends were able to get an appointment to have some studio shots taken by Sidibé.

Although today Malick is over seventy years old, he still keeps a studio in Bamako: surprisingly inconspicuous and unapologetically “Malian” in appearance and everything else. After waiting a couple hours beyond our rendez-vous time, the vieux Sidibé finally showed up, cane in hand, dressed dapperly in crisp Malian Bazin, wearing the smart smirk of a brilliant artist.

Malick in action.

Our photo shoot lasted only about 20 minutes. Although all of us had given some thought as to how we wanted to memorialize ourselves before Sidibé’s camera, once Malick entered his studio he took a natural but unimposing command of his space and subjects, and suggested unique poses for each of his three subjects. How he came up with each is beyond me, but for the man whose work and expertise is so aptly captured by the bambara phrase “i ka nje tan” (“you look good like that”), who would argue?

While waiting for the Sidibé’s arrival, we took advantage of the time and laid back atmosphere of Chez Malik to practice our poses. One characteristic of his Sidibé’s studio work is his tendency to “play” with the expectations of his viewers by capturing more than what should typically be in a studio shot. Often the backdrop will end to expose a bare wall; the platform stops at the bottom of the image and you see the cement floor; often the gazes and attention of the subjects are very obviously fixed on something outside the frame. All this as a gesture to authenticity, and as if to say that you that you can’t put people—above all Malians—in a box.

Above: Practicing and passing the time in Sidibe's studio.

No, it's not cheesy, nor is it Glamour-shots. Simply sidibe-esque.

I cringe a bit to see that it's been over 6 months since I've blogged. I'm stateside at the moment, and there have been some related stories about American-Islam relation that are riling me up enough re-emerge.

Most have probably been following the U.S. news stories about the controversy over the Ground Zero Islamic center; the burned-down Islamic center site in Murfreesboro, TN (the Feds suspect arson); and now this extremist pastor in FL who is leading his congregation in an "International Koran Burning Day" this Saturday, Sept 11.

To the international debate that these events are sparking, I want to add the perspective of an American Christian who has been living abroad in majority Muslim areas for the last three years. In my opinion, this trend of paranoia, intolerance, and violence that is developing in America towards Muslims living here is scary, sad, and truly embarrassing.

This is scary because these events will no doubt trigger equally extreme repercussions in some Muslim countries, perhaps even worst responses, centered against U.S. troops, and other Americans and Christians working and living abroad. This is a very real risk that a few insecure people ocassioning for an entire nation.

This is sad, because I have much empathy for the minority Muslims that are in the States--many of whom have come from poor or unstable countries on the assumption that America is a nation which promises tolerance, religious freedom, and open opportunity to all, and who are instead being marginalized anew by some new form of social tyranny. I personally know many Muslims from Africa who have come to the U.S. to work or study. Both their places of worship and their sacred texts (in fact, "sacred text" does not convey all the meaning and importance that the Koran holds for a a Muslim) are being publicly targeted for destruction, and at the apex of Ramadan, one of Islam's most important religious holidays. That Christians and Americans are also targeted in other parts of the world--while true, sad, and unjustified--is beside the point here. Responding in kind, in fact, will only aggravate this violence.

Finally, this is embarrassing--because a small number of Americans are bringing disrepute to an entire nation, and so-called Christians are horribly misrepresenting the Christ-like love on which the our faith is centered. With this last comment, my frustration is brought back most ardently on this FL pastor Terry Jones. I hope that he is stopped, repents, and finds--maybe for the first time--the true Christian faith.

I just finished reading two books which are very helpful about thinking about the "development problem" in a new light: The Mystery of Capital, by Peruvian economist Hernando DeSoto (http://ild.org.pe/), and Dead Aid by Zambian economist Damibas Moyo (http://www.dambisamoyo.com/). More important than the fact that these books are written by someone other than your stock western development economist (no ad hominen argument commited here), these thinkers write from novel perspectives (financing and law) which give us refreshing, market-oriented approaches to economic development.

Ultimately the problem with economic development is not its goals or activities, but the way its financed. Aid money-- particularly government-to-government transactions-- isn't just ineffective to achieve development goals, but is positively harmful, says Moyo. Aid encourages corruption, hampers good citizenry and government accountability, and can be economically harmful to an economy (as it tends to reduce savings and investment, encourages inflation, and chokes off the export sector, among other things).

Moyo proposes a "menu" of financing options to replace aid and enable states raise their own funds for development. The participation in international bond markets and the development of local ones. More Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in infrastructure and institutions from companies and governments (like China) who see opportunities in Africa. More trade, which brings a country foreign earnings, and makes an economy more productive. Better banking services for the poor should expand micro-financing opportunities, lower the costs of remitances and other money transfer services, and enable the poor to more easily turn their assets into usable savings.

DeSoto's book--again, written from the same market-driven development perspective--is all about this last point: turning the poor's assets into capital. While Moyo writes from a broad finance perspective (among other things she spent 8 years as a strategist with Goldman Sachs), DeSoto focuses on the legal reform that is necessary to enable the poor to begin leveraging their savings and fund their own development.

The problem is that many developing countries have property legal systems that do not reflect the informal or extralegal sector, which often is the world in which most of the population lives and works. The consequence is not only that these extralegal property owners can't physically secure their assets, but that they also can't leverage these assets as capital to improve and develop their livelihoods. Consider, for example, how important mortgages are as a loan source for many Americans, or the important role that a residential address plays in allowing someone to access credit or making them "accountable" enought to enact a business transaction.

The solution, says DeSoto, is hidden in the histories of many western nations, all of which at some point in had to begin recognizing and absorbing the extralegal sector into their formal legal system. This happens by reform, which requires the vision and initiation of political leaders.

This month I had the opportunity to meet up with some PC volunteers from Benin to do some traveling in Mali and Senegal. Here are some snapshots and highlights.

Segou Music Festival

This year the Malian town of Segou held it's 6th annual Festival Sur le Niger, which is probably the single most important event for showcasing Mali's rich music culture and world-class artists. The festival took place over almost an entire week, each day ending with a headlining concert whose stage was actually a float on the Niger river. (For those of you from Chatty, it kind of reminded me of Riverbend.)

Dakar, Senegal

After Segou and a short sejour in Bamako we headed to Senegal. It's capital, Dakar, blew me away with its urban development, tall builings, cliffside seascapes, and great restaurants. Dakar has an interesting culture all its own: worldly and sophisticated residents, an African language (Woloff) quite unlike others I've heard before, lively sub-cultures, and the capital West Africa's longest-standing democracy (modern Senegal has never seen a coup d'etat), to point out a few facets of this city.

Goree Island, Senegal Goree Island is just off Dakar, and was one of the main slave ports in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today the island is filled with Malian artisans, museums, and winding paths that take you past old colonial buildings, baobab trees, and friendly residents. Saint Louis, Senegal Saint Louis is all the way up the Senegal coastline, just shy of the Mauratanian border. Historically it was the French administrative center for all of Francophone West Africa, and the island part of the town contains block after block of interesting architecture.

Toubab Dialo, Senegal Senegal has some nice beaches--somehow much more picturesque and swimmer-friendly than the kind you'd find on the underside of West Africa in Gulf of Benin.Toubob Dialo was one of these "beach towns." Yes, that's me sweeping the beach.

All my photos from these trips are posted on my Picassa account. Enjoy.

Nigeria has recently been getting some negative press as the U.S. looks into the personal history of the Christmas Day suicide bomber. This last week Hillary Clinton suggested the country breeds radicalism.

But few people likey caught another headline coming out of Nigeria, also having to do with religious based violence. Last week Jos, Nigeria erupted in violence between the town's Christian and Muslim populations. This rioting razed property all over the town, left over a 400 Chistians and Muslims dead, and thousands displaced.

While the story doesn't have any direct connection with international terrorism, it's significant b/c these riots were a reprisal to predecessors taking place in 2001 and 2008, and also symptomatic of other similar Muslim-Christian outbursts that frequently erupt in this part of middle Nigeria, where the Christian populations (mostly in the South) meet the mostly-Hausa Muslim populations from the North. This religious fault line--in general, where Sub-Saharan's Northern Mulsim populations mix with Southern Christians--is sometimes called the "middle belt," and can be said to stretch horizontally across all of Africa.

The Atlantic Monthly published a very interesting expose of this issue last year called "God's Country." Also, last year an Anthropologist Barbara Cooper published a book called Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel which essentially examines a very similar type of religious tension, but this time in southern Niger.

Of course, not the entire middle belt is marred by such thick religious tension. My former post in Northern Benin and my present one in Southern Mali, for example, see the peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims. Also, labels like middle belt run the risk of oversimplifiying certain conflicts that also have political competition and resource-control as root causes (i.e. Sudan).

Neverthless, the middle zone is an important area to watch, not least because this trully is one of the world's most impoverished regions. And, as we see more and more, it's also in the interest of international security to identify these kind of hotbeds where poverty thrives, and political-religious radicalism and violence seem to breed. Ultimately the best defense strategy is to address the systematic poverty and to help make these regions thrive.

It’s amazing how human tragedies can so easily sit as abstract “happenings” in our consciences. Africa has a good share of these, and I’ve found it to be true that even living on the continent it is so easy to forget what may be happening in the next country or village over. I happened to meet a couple people this week who have personalized some of these issues we read about in the news.

Last night some Peace Corps friends introduced me to a twenty-five year old Guinean refugee who in September was one among thousands of Guineans gathered at Conakry Stadium in Guinea’s capital to protest the rumor that the unstable “President” (read: military autocrat) Captain Moussa Dadis Camara’s would “run” (read: rig) in the coming elections. Government supported troops were released on the crowds, resulting in sexual assaults and over a hundread deaths. My Guinean friend said he witnessed all of this, took photos with his cell phone camera, and sadly saw his own friend shot and killed.

A second acquaintance I made this week was of the cousin of some good Malian friends. Another young guy, for the last several years he’s been one of the thousands of desperate West African Africans who annually attempt to illegally migrate into Europe, normally by sea but by other means too. Often these human smuggling attempts end in tragic stories: boats capsizing, drownings, people found dead in airplane the landing gear housings. Motivated by economic desperation and rumors of opportunity, my friend has made multiple attempts, and three formidable ones, for which he had saved (and subsequently lost) a total of about $2,000, a small fortune in local terms. His stories are pretty amazing, and include days at sea in a hand-carved boat, detainments by Spanish authorities, travels by foot across Mauritania and Morocco, and being chased by dogs and airplanes. And he wants to keep trying. Apparently one of the tragedies of such ocean-crossings is that they’re surprising addicting to those who attempt them—despite the danger and the cost.

A fellow RPCV from Benin recently passed along some info along about a Freshman forward at Villanova who hails from the North of Benin. Turns Villanova's coach Jay Wright had been trying to scout out a Nigerian player at an AAU tournament when he noticed Mouphtaou Yarou.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=46191

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1162973/index.htm

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/colleges/villanova/69737552.html

Last week I went to Ghana for a 2-day workshop. The voyage itself ended up lasting 3 times longer than the workshop. Here I am providing a synopsis of my 6-day travel adventure, which is sadly very telling of the extreme exploitation, inefficiency, and lack of organization that characterizes West Africa’s transport system.

Day 1 and 2 of Travel: Bamako, Mali to Accra, Ghana

Total bus time: 40 hours

Total time waiting in bus station: 3 hours

Misadventures:

- Bus leaves Bamako station more than 3 hours late.

- During overnight segment of travel, bus kept stopping to either sell fabric, or pay bribes in fabric, I’m not sure which.

- At some point during the night bus backtracks 15 minutes for some unknown reason—at 1 am in the morning it was best not to ask why.

- At Ghana border we’re detained 2 hours. A group of about a dozen Malians had been recruited by Saudi Arabians to go be truck drivers in their country, but their VISAS were expired 2 weeks ago and they had no idea who to contact. After long discussions in a closed room with Ghanian border officials, somehow that Visa problem got cleaned up, minus 2.000 CFA from the pockets of each Malian. I will assume these were official administrative fees.

Day 3 & 4 of Travel: Accra, Ghana to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso

Total Bus Time: 16 hours

Total time waiting in stations: 4 hours

Misadventures: - In Accra I discover that all the direct buses to Bamako are canceled due to the Tobaski Festival (the biggest holiday in the Muslim holiday), and if I don’t leave immediately it’s likely that I’ll be stuck in Accra until next week.

- Thanksgiving day/night spent on a bus. (Dinner: rice and chicken).

- In Ouga I immediately begin looking for a transfer to Bamako, but nothing: this is Burkina’s national day to celebrate Tobaski.

- I’m promised a direct ride to Bamako the next morning, and for now I’m stranded in Ouga.

Day 5 of Travel: Ougadougou to Bobo, Burkina Faso

Total bus time: 4 hours

Total time waiting in stations: 5.5 hours

Misadventures: - Nice try: my direct bus to Bamako got no further than Bobo, Burkina Faso. Why? Burkina’s Tobaski was over, but today is Mali’s turn to celebrate its Tobaski, and nothings going in or out of Mali. (Why the West African Umma couldn’t get together and coordinate holidays is beyond me).

- After trying to negotiate with about 10 bus companies and travel options, I concede defeat, and am again promised a direct trip to Bamako the next day.

- I had never heard of Bobo before today, but somehow manage to find a place to spend the night with the family of the sister-in-law of one of the Mali Peace Corps staff members. Thanks Justine.

- Meanwhile throughout the day I hear many other horror studies about TSR, the bus line in question. Turns out they have a company policy of lying/misrepresenting information, leaving people stations for hours/days at a time, selling worthless tickets, and on and on.

Day 6 of Travel: Bobo to Bamako, Mali

Total time: 13 hours

Total time in station: 2.5 hours

Misadventures: - Turns out there was a whole busload of us who had been lied to/abandoned in Bobo the previous night, each by his or her respective bus line. The next day the bus lines pull together and put us all in one bus for Bamako (nice of them).

- Bus breaks down 3.5 hours from Bamako…I flag down another, pay the remaining fare again to get myself home.

I spent my first couple months in Mali living in a village just outside of Bamako. While very much a village as far as amenities go, its significant that the town calls itself a quartier of Bamako, (though its really more than 10km outside the capital)--for the the sprawling town has plenty of city-like issues, especially the side of town I was living in.

The place could not at all retain the "quintissential village quality of being "tranquil." Right behind me: Mali international airport, in front of my house: the main highway going to Cote d’Ivoire, and across the street the villages notorious bar le loisir, whose dealing of alcohol was only one of its many litany of goods and services forbidden by Islam, and in some cases also by the law. The village has lots of trash, dirt (mud, when it rains), no electricity and it was always a half-day affair trying to get clean water. Though the town is relatively close to Bamako and is quite big comapred to other villages, people are very discourage to invest much in the property because the city has not yet gotten around to surveying and registering property lots. Many people commute into town for work and school on a regular basis, and the part of road running in front of my house was a particularly potent reminder of the perils public transportation that most everyone is enslaved to here. On average, about three accidents happen a week in this spot, usually of a "T-bone" quality, usually the fault of the wreckless public transport drivers, and usually very audile from inside my house. The village also seemed particularly poor--a trait emphasized all the more by its proximity to the capital--and most everyone seems to be hardly getting by doing extremely menial jobs (or not), and many, many people steal.

In the end, I moved to a location a bit quieter, a bit closer to my work. Yet it’s interesting how fast a place—or more aptly put, the people in a place—can grow on you. There are lots of people I’ve come to spend regular time w/ this village, and I’ve grown quite fond of them. When I began telling folks of my imminent move, and it was surprisingly sad.

In many ways, this Africa. What I just written explains alot of villages, and alot of lives. The problems are many and veritable, and living and earning a living are a continual trial, no less for the people who born and die here. But these people are wonderful, perhaps even more so because of the difficulty of their lives.

If you haven't heard of Confluence Project, check it out. It's a website that hosts entries from all over the world from people who have visited and documented one of the globe's confluence points (where a line of lattitude and longitude intersect).

The small country of Benin happens to have 9 confluence points, most of which were recently documented by my PCV friend Jim Rybarski. "Confluence Hunting" can be a tricky task when you're trailblazing in Africa bush, and documenting Benin involved some failed attempts for a couple sights. Problems include unexpected bodies of water, unreliable roads, unknown terrain, and trying to convince local motorcycle taxis to do the unreasonable (take you into the bush) for a reasonable price. Here is an index of Benin's confluence points.

One of the points happens to be not 40 km (as the crow flies) from my own Benin town, Nikki. You can get a 360 degree idea of the place here as well as get a synopsis of the couple attempts to locate the point. While I didn't personally make it to the point, I accompanied Jim in his first attempt, which on the day was eventually given up after a decent ammount of meandering in the bush and realizing reaching the target would mean walking in uncharted terrain at least 10km.

For over a year now we’ve been hearing quite a bit about the global food crisis. Though much eclipsed now by attention to the international financial crisis, it remains one of the most pressing global issues today. The problem is that the world is reaching the limits of its capacity to feed itself, and the problem is most dire in Africa.

This is somewhat ironic, given Africa’s vast land resources, however a number of causes render this the reality: the short-sighted trade policies of the more developed nations, but also the paranoid export restrictions of many developing nations, climate changes, commodity speculation, rising fuel prices, and the diversion of important crops (notably corn) into bio-fuels.

Aside from redressing these causes (all very much political in nature), all experts on the matter agree that more energy and funding needs to be put into improving the productivity of the developing world’s farmers, especially “Africa’s 400 million small farmers and their families in Africa who are most vulnerable to hunger,” which represent “80% of the hungry in Africa” (Catherine Bertunini & Dan Glickman). Also very political, this requires that all aid programs increase their focus and funding on agriculture research and development to get to the rural farmer more agricultural inputs (enhanced grains, fertilizers, etc), better equipment and methods, and better access to markets. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Bertunini and Glickman site that U.S. agriculture aid to Africa has dropped off 85% since the 1980s (at which point the 1970’s global food crisis seemed to be resolved).

On the ground, the global food crisis is expressed by the issue of food security, which has three core elements: the physical availability of food, the physical and economic access to food, and food utilization, all of which must be fulfilled simultaneously and continually for a household or community to have food security. While a healthy productivity is key to the world’s level of food security, in recently in West Africa the food security rub has been price, as high grain prices and general inflation is making it more a more difficult for households to feed themselves. This is the case even when the country itself is producing enough grains to feed its population (as is the case for many West African countries).

Redressing food security really implies a holistic strategy that encompasses many sectors. The Mali government, along w/ other West African countries, has been trying to weave market-based food security into its overall economic growth strategy. Donors and NGOs operating in Mali are also working food security into their programs, and recently USAID allocated quite a bit of money to Mali for food security projects. A small portion of this fundsing is going to Peace Corps Mali, whose nature and mission is in many ways is uniquely positioned to intimately understand and deal with food security issues that rural Malian community face. In the next four years the program will taking a multi-sectoral approach to the food security problem with such goals as the creation of Food Security Community Comities, encouraging the agricultural exploitation using new techniques, the creation of agricultural cooperatives, and assistance in natural resource management.

More reading on Global Food Crisis and Food Security:“Farm Futures” by Catherine Bertunini & Dan Glickman – June/July 2009 Foreign Affaires “Politics of Hunger” by Paul Collier - Foreign Affairs http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64607/paul-collier/the-politics-of-hungerAlliance for a Green Revolution in Africa http://www.agra-alliance.org/ FAO Food Security: http://www.foodsec.org/ MSU Food Security Group http://www.aec.msu.edu/fs2/index.htm

Greetings from Mali! I arrived a couple weeks ago, and my time since has been filled with an assortment of introductions, visits, and briefings as I get acquainted to my new surroundings of Bamako, the capital. All that has included some intensive Bambara language training, which I'm trying to tackle hard in these first months. French is the official language in Mali, but local language definitely plays a more predominant role than it did in Benin.

My job assignment in Mali will be defined more clearly as the first months here progress, but my major work partner is a new Malian company called Karis+ (http://www.sheaplus.com/). As a refiner, marketer, and exporter of Malian shea butter, Karis+ should fill an important gap in the local value chain. Hopefully this will render Malian butter more competative (better quality and price) in international markets, and bring more business and revenu for the women producer groups Karis+ partners with.

Here are some pics from a couple recent sightseeing outings. By the way, w/ much of sahelian West Africa, Mali's had an exceptional ammount of rainfall this year, which explains how green everything is!

For some time now I've thought of Nikki as my dusty corner of northern Benin. "Dusty," because it is that (and dirty), especially during the dry season. A "corner," because it's off all the main roads, nestled away to the western corridor of Northern Benin, the country itself normally unknown to your average Western traveler. Nevertheless, this has been "my" dusty corner because for the last two years Nikki has been my Peace Corps post.

Some angles from Nikki. Left: gazing down one of Nikki's main roads one early morning. Right: the king's courtyard. It's Friday, and small local kings are slowly gathering on the "palace" grounds to greet the Barriba kingdom's highest sovereighty.

Living and working as a business volunteer in the somewhat geographically isolated capital of the historical Barriba kingdom has had its unique challenges...this can be a tough spot for the development of business and commerce, even for Benin. Nonetheless, workwise we've done pretty well.

But there's more to life than work, and more to work than a series of projects. These eventually fade away or lose their immediacy, and what always remains is people and how we related to them. Maybe it's cliche to say, but I'll remember Nikki for the people. The infatigable mothers whose joy somehow always seem to surpass their many burdens, the philosophizing old Barriba men who walk around with their canes and umbrellas, the kids whose smiles make you smile.

To you all, "A kwan weru" and "Na siara."

On a promenade, some village paths and people around Nikki.

Nikki recently hosted Unseen Stories, an American NGO currently working on a couple film projects aimed at stemming the problem of child trafficking in Benin.

Illegal child trafficking is one of Benin's more serious long-running human rights abuses. Although since 2006 there have been laws in the books abolishing child exploitation and illegal displacement, the problem perseveres due to the many factors fueling the phenomenon, especially economically poor and vulnerable households, insufficient rural knowledge of the problem and the law, ineffective law enforcement, and cultural traditions in which certain forms of child displacement and work/study arrangements (both good and bad) have long-been practiced.

Local NGOs working on the problem estimate that hundreds of trafficked children are either sourced from, trafficked through, and/or end up being exploited in Benin. The region surrounding Nikki is particularly vulnerable, due to the district's proximity to the Nigerian border and because of the large, rural, poor, and uneducated populations.

In Nikki the trafficking scenarios vary from case to case, but usually include some common elements. Usually a trafficker goes to a rural area and negotiates either with a family or the child himself, promising either money, goods, or an education in return to the child's labor for a given amount of time, after which it is presumed that the child will be freed of his obligations. Then the child is illegally displaced (usually snuck into) Nigeria, and put to work in an exploitative manner. Boys are often put to work in the fields or rock quarries, and girls end up as domestics, market vendors, or even prostitutes. Most of the time the children are either forcefully or effectively restrained from returning home, even after the end of their pre-agreed time of service.

While in Nikki, Unseen Stories' activities focused particularly on the problem of poor public education. The NGO had put together an animation telling in French the stories of two Beninese trafficked children, and over four days we played the film in six of Nikki's most vulnerable villages. Following each screening was a discussion of the film. Leading these discussions and serving as our local expert on the problem was a development worker from the Beninese NGO APEM. For the last two years our animatrice has been working against the issue of child trafficking with a UNICEF-financed project, and has to date educated thousands of Nikki residents, installed over 60 community vigilance communities, and assisted in the reception and recuperation of trafficked children. Protecting children has trully become a passion for her, and her tireless work that goes beyond the normal call of duty proves that. Our sub-project couldn't have been a success without her.

Our Animatrice.Unseen Stories also held dozens of similar screenings in communities across Benin. The other major element of their project is ostensibly in its final stages: the realization of a feature-length documentary on child's trafficking in Benin. Once finished this fall, it is set to be screened in film festivals, universities, churches, and other venues across America in order to raise awareness and support for the issue. You can see a trailer from this documentary and track the work of Unseen Stories' at their website.

Unseen Stories Northern Benin Team in one Nikki village.

Remember growing up and buying that toy that was made in China or an electronics device with the same origin, then being dissapointed later to find that it did't seem to last as long as your Fisher Price or Sony purchase? I've read that these days China is working hard to develop a more reputable national label for its manufactured goods destined for the West. Meanwhile, that kind of low quality manufacturing is still happening in Africa.

Every once in a while evidences of this shows up in the international news, but living here you see it all the time, and can't often help but feeling that too many pieces of life are uncontrollably at the mercy of cheap imports. I've had two rather disturbing recent experiences that have driven this point home for me.

There's variety of new bus lines that have popped up in Benin in the last year, riding on the advantages of having a large potential client base of people desparately looking for safe, reliable, and efficient alternative modes of overland transport, and secondly the availability of inexpensive Chinese imported buses. Rolled off the dock, the buses are shiny, clean, and airconditioned--all welcome changes to the normal transportation alternatives.

But structurally and mechanically the buses have not proven so appealing. Exhibit 1: Mid march, I'm traveling North and the engine catches fire. Fortunately, all the passengers got out of the cabin before the entire vehicle caught flame, which was in a matter of minutes. (There's a photo of that wreckage in my last blog post). Exhibit 2: Last week I'm making the same trip w/ the same company and in the same bus model and the windshield "suddenly" (without any obviously siginificant cause) shatters into large and small shards, which shower over the first three passenger rows. This was obviously not a shatter resistant window pane. This time there were injuries: three bleeding badly, including the driver himself. Fortunately he didn't panic, and wasn't hit in the face, otherwise the end could have been alot worse for all. (Minutes later, by the way, the back window pane also blew out).

The problem does't just reside in the public transport sector. Late last year you may recall the scandal of one of China's largest dried milk manufacturers essentially lacing their recipe with a main ingredient to pesticides in order to bump up their milk's printed protein count. I remember hearing the story on the news here, that quite a few number of African kids died and thousands more were sick as a result. Earlier there was the antifreeze toothpaste that thousands (or millions?) were using without knowing it. I'm always hearing complaints from neighbors and coworkers about the repairs they're always making on their motorcycles, almost all of them Chinese makes, all purchased w/in the last year ago.

Who's Fault?

I'm not one of those people that labels China a rising evil industrial power, nor do I fear globalization, nor do I get upset necessarilly when I read about China's increasing commercial and financial presence in Africa. I say commerce and competition is always good when the market is honest and fair. In fact, China has improved the quality of life for many poor Africans buy making available cheap goods that do work, and at an aid level by financing many public infrastructure projects across the continent. But I'm all for trying to fix economic inefficiencies when they're there--especially when they have the potential to hurt people-- and there's some to be fixed when it comes to commerce from China to Africa.

The biggest is imperfect information: the African mother doesn't know enough about the milk she's buying to know whether its good for her family. Often the labeling isn't even clear enough for her to know what country it comes from let alone what's in it. Another related problem is that when malfunctions happen there's not really any single and central and accesible mode to complain, nor know about other complaints. I felt the pangs of this problem after my second bus incident--there was somthing significantly and seriously wrong with these bus models, and I wanted "to do something about it," but I felt that I had no satisfactory recourse to voice my complaint.

Of course I complained to the company management my string of "bad luck" with his cars, but will that stop them from buying more? I doubt it, just recently I'm pretty sure I saw at least one new purchase. And new companies are buying from the same place. And so this is another problem...though a product may be risque, African firms continue to buy them because they're cheap, and often neither the government nor the clients will mount enough pressure for change.

So then we can put some on the African governments, who don't regulate their importants nearly as much as they should. When the powdered milk crisis came out last year, a slew of African states banned Chinese imported milk. This reaction was good until the products were proven good once again, but there needs to be more preventative and controlling activities going on too.

How much fault should be accorded to the Chinese producers? Probably lots, but depends on the severity of the deception. With regards to the milk, it was completely the fault of the group of individuals who decided to lace their product with chemical melamine, and furthermore deceive their consumers about it. Perhaps rolling out cheaper buses is a lesser crime, but in my opinion it's still a crime to put on the market buses knowing they have weak windows and malfunctioning engine pieces, and furthermore that they will be put under even further strains in the tropics of Africa.

I should make a couple points to catch some false assumptions that might otherwise be made. One, it's not just Africans that are sufferring from cheap goods--China dumps them on their own people, as well. Chinese infants also died from the poisoned milk incident. (What's more, I've heard reports of entire Chinese communities with whose population suffer physically from the harmful chemical spillovers from careless and accountable-less nearby industrial factories.) And it's not just China dumping it's cheap goods on Africa. There are alot of scary low quality Chinese-made meds sold on the streets of Benin, but alot of them also come from India. And Africa also dumps alot of bad products on itself. And alot of the equipement imported can become dangerous when it's over used and poorly maintained.

I guess what is so unique and potenially frightening about the Chinese cases is the fact that China is probably the biggest supplier of "cheap imported goods" to Africa--and commerce is only going to increase. The other element is that certain of China's manufacturers seem to have the power and intention to put pretty shines on prodcuts that prove inferior once they've been road tested.

Here are some various photos to illustrate and recap my last couple months of blogging silence.

My dad visited Benin in February, and actually managed pretty well for three weeks. We spent our time touring some southern and northern sites like Ouidah’s slave coast, Grand Popo’s tourist coast, and the Pendari Nature Park. We also did 10 whole days in Nikki, which was probably the most insightful leg of trip as far as getting the true picture of life in Bénin.

Ever wonder where all those presidential aid to Africa dollars go? At the end of February I and my work partners realized a small project educating local secondary school students on HIV/AIDS, and facilitating testing for those wanting to know their status. This photo is the result of group brainstorming during an event held before, in which united the project partners came together for training and to talk strategy. The project encountered several hiccups along the way, but in the end a couple hundred students were educated and tested.

In March I hosted 16 other volunteers for Nikki’s annual Ganni festival. This two-day event celebrates the Barriba kingdom (whose historical seat is Nikki), and features a lot of formal salutations, pomp and ceremony, decorated horses and riders, and some other sideline events. Crowds, horrible traffic, power outages, and hot afternoons usually figure in too. All in all your staple Beninese cultural festival. Always a good time.

On one fateful return voyage from Cotonou in March, I was sitting in the back of said bus when the back began smoking. I won’t narrate the not so fun subsequent 3 minutes, but fortunately the end of the matter was that everyone made it out all right before the bus completely went up in flames. You would think that after a month the bus line would have taken the incinerated wreckage off the road, but apparently this kind of publicity damage control doesn’t figure into their marketing concerns. For myself, the charcoal monument remains as a reminder to always sit at the front of the bus. Otherwise a roadside exhibit testifying to the chronic poor quality of Chinese imports (the bus was practically new).

My Nikki Shea Project was funded back in January, and we’re now in the middle of realizing the project activities—the grand vision always being to organize and offer trainings to 15 Nikki village producer groups which will render Nikki’s shea sector more commercially competitive and profitable. Already we’ve held several general assemblies, have drafted the Association’s founding documents, and have successfully finished a training event on production/quality control, and also one of the fabrication of a simple Shea-based soap. Also in March I accompanied Nikki’s shea association president, and the president for another in Parakou, to an international shea conference held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, which was very informative for us all. If you find yourself in the strange minority of people interested in this shea work, I’ve put up a simple blog that better tracks the project’s activities.

If you are reading this you have likely heard the news of the tragic death of Benin Peace Corps Volunteer Kate Puzey on Wed March 11th.

Kate was an English teacher who had been living and working in the NW town of Badjoude since 2007. She was a very sweet girl, and a passionate and hardworking volunteer. Her passing has affected many.

This week I have been in Cotonou with most other PC staff and volunteers to attend a private memorial held for Kate. It was very lovely. This week the Benin PC Director is bringing Kate's body back to her family in Cumming GA, and a stateside funeral is to be held this Saturday.

Here is a link to Kate's Peace Corps Blog.

Her Uploaded Photos Site.

The AP wire on Kate's Death. And other news sources: the news source and Atlanta Journal.

When such a seemingly meaningless tragedy happens, attempts at explaining its significance or reason, at any level, becomes an impossible and even arrogant task. At least for now, in the immediate wake of such a death, what can those who mourn do, other than praise the Creator for his moving in beautiful people and actions, and then cling harder and tighter to the only hope offered to this broken world:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Amen.

Unlike the U.S.’s melting-pot culture and our music scene’s incessant search for new sounds and styles, West Africans seem comfortable reserving only a handful of music categories to which they typically listen. (A Virgin Mega store would probably be a very intimidating place for your average Beninese.) On a recent bus ride I decided to try creating a taxonomy of all the sounds I’ve heard. This wasn’t too arduous a mental activity, but I am also no sophisticated connoisseur or technician of music. In any case I came up with 5 main categories of music that is commonly “locally” produced in West Africa:

- Traditional music. Yeah, Duh. West Africa’s traditional music can vary quite a bit depending on what region you’re in—each has its own personality, language, and canon of instruments. In my opinion there are certain regions that put out more beautiful and skillful music than others, but I won’t say which.

- Rumba sort of type stuff. Not a very technical term, but there you have it. I think this originates from the Congo, at least all the major artists seem to be there. Some of it sounds quite Latino.

- Cote d’Ivoirien Beat Music. This thrives all along coastal West Africa and is characteristically identified by a very overt electric drum-beat driving each song. Often there’s some trumpet involved. A lot of West African musicians seem to come from this stock— and it takes a lot for such an artist to sound original.è

- I want to add a sub-category to this one. I say sub-category because to me its just a more mellow version to the just-mentioned. But it probably (and as I am told) actually warrants its own category. It’s called, Zouk: a style actually originating from the Caribbean, and featuring slower beats.

- Reggae. Cote d’Ivoire is again the bastion of this school, but there is more variety and often more depth within. This music’s lyrics thrive get a lot of their inspiration from social issues.

- Hip-hop. Not sure if West-African hip hop has its roots in any particular place in the region, but many successful artists of this genre seem to come Senegal, perhaps because it is most one of the region’s countries most connected to Western culture whence rap comes. In any case, hip-hip is being attempted enough all over the subcontinent to warrant being its own category.

Here are some of my favorite albums. Some of them are produced in Africa so I’m not sure how widely availably they are, but I’ve tried to include links where possible:

- Habib Kioté: Malien singer. Exemplifies the best of acoustic traditional music. Hear samples here.

- Tiken Jah Fakoly – Noveau Albume. Probably my favorite reggae artist. Amazing lyrics and original sounds. He’s from Cote d’Ivoire but lives in France. A music video from this record.

- Magic System. I’m usually not a fan of the common-stock Cote d’Ivoirien stuff, but these guys are pretty good-O, good-O, good-O. Their website.

- Petite Miguelito. I had to throw at least one Beninese artist into the mix. I’ve seen Petite, and he really is small. But his songs are fun. Hard to find him one the internet but heres a picture at least to prove he's a little guy. Scroll up.

- Rokia Traoré. Beautiful, haunting voice. A rare example of the softer, more melancholic music that’s rather rare. Her website.

I've been reading a book called Je Gere Mon Entreprise written by a Cote d'Ivoirien named Kanga Ballou. It's interesting because its a practical guide written for African Small Businessman. As such, it explains alot of western-originated management tools as they could--and might not work--in sub Saharan African contexts.

The book does quite a bit of diagnosing of the issues facing small business owners and managers. I've seen most of these problems operating also in Benin, where it can be very, very hard to establish and develop a profitable business, at any level. Despite the variety of causes, when I try to spur the folks I work with here to analyse their business-related problems and then to brainstorm possible solutions, they have a hard time moving beyond "le moyen," or the financial means, as the preeminent problem facing them. If only there were enough of ______ (equipement, money in the cash box, etc), all problems would be resolve.

Ballou is a bit refreshing because it's an African voice giving a more honest assesment of the situation. He finds that the problem of poor management is one of (if not the) key impediment to African businesses. That is, even when businesspeople here have enough capital resources of any given type: money, materials, etc., they often still end up with unssuccesful businesses for lack of proper managament of these resources. For example, stocks are poorly monitored, little market anaylyse is done, often the most basic accounting books are kept, let alone the financial position of the entreprise periodically analyzed and planned for.

The reason for poor management is both a within and without problem. There is certainly often a problem of initiative and will: alot of people that I have given training and guidance to here simply don't put the tools into practice. On the other hand, this is hard. Let's face it, businesses in the world run on western models and values, and most business people are not adequately trained in even the most basic management tools. Many have not furthermore haven't evolved in a culutral milieau that endorses certain Western notions of efficiency, linear time, market operations, etc. This is espcially an issue for in the case of Benin, which before 1990 was a so-called Communism-style controled economy--little opportunity here to develop intuitions about supply and demand, market analyse, workers incentive, etc.

Of course, there are other problems ailing Beninese businessman. Some of the other significant one's I've seen here in Nikki include very poor infrastructure (chronic power outages and one of the worst roads in Benin connecting a major town to the main highway); lack of access to markets (Benin has valuable commodities, but unfortunately doesnt see much profit on them for for lack of market info and a surplus of middlemen); difficult physical environment (sickness, heat, shortage of water); and dishonest business practices (in Nikki, its very difficult to be both honest and profitable as vender of many imported items--gas and processed foods, for example--because of the price-deflating affects that smuggling has on the local market.

After Thanksgiving I took a short excursion to Niamey, the capital of Niger. Niamey doesn't sport so many tourist attractions as it does carry a very interesting ambiance which probably is the product of a collussion of variables: its proximity to the desert, being in the position to showcase some of the most interesting cultures of West Africa (Hausa and Taureg, among others), its status as the capital of one of the most Muslim countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and--sadly--one of the poorest nations in the world.

Among other adventures, during my 4 days in Niger I had dinner on the Niger river; saw wild giraffes; went Taureg leather and silver-goods shopping; and was crammed into a truck bed with 28 other human beings and several chickens.

In theory no proper Niger excurion is complete without going further North into Agadez (which is to Niger what Timbucto was to Mali and its historical desert trade routes), and making a camel trip into the desert. Unfortunately, an ongoing Tuarag rebel movement has pretty much Agadez and northward too dangerous for passage.

Unfortunately my currently slow internet connection is prohibiting me from showcasing photos here; but they are alreay up on my Picassa account if you're interested, along with other photos from the last 4 months. However, I did have to take whatever time was necessary to upload this photo:

Nikki is very much an agricultural community, its economy, culture, family structures, and many of other areas of life deeply rooted in realities of working the land. Towards the beginning of this agricultural season (which runs from about May to October), I was presented with the opportunity to use a ¼ hectare (250 sq. meters) of land to cultivate as I pleased. I didn’t know the least thing about farming, but nevertheless snatched up the opportunity to do some experimental farming, in partnership w/ a friend in Nikki.

I and my friend decided to sow our quarter hectare with soy and peanuts, which in these parts are staple crops. At the same time one might say that here these belong to the minor league of local agricultural products: compared to other crops (like the fertilizer-intensive corn and cotton or time-consuming yams and rice), peanuts and soy demand relatively little capital and time.

The cultivation process took on four basic stages: 1) The weeding and preparation of the soil in 50-meter long rows; 2) the planting of the seeds, 3) Two different weedings, and 4) the harvest, in which the plants were simply pulled out of the ground.

Beyond the cultivation this there was the post harvest processing (which I’m still working on) to include getting the plants back from the fields, drying them, separating the beans/nuts from their plant, pulling them out of their husk, and further preparation depending on the crop. I will probably roast my peanuts, and maybe make peanut butter out of some, which involves its own respective processes. The soy will probably have ground into a powder, which can then be used as a protein-rich ingredient to whatever dish strikes your palette.

For all our work, even if we had tried to sell the goods from our ¼ hectare, we wouldn’t have brought in much: at current prices: our soy probably would have earned about $10 (remember the goats enjoyed the first fruits) and our peanuts maybe $50-60.

I should note for the record that there were most certainly some rookie mistakes committed. For example, we sowed a bit too late into the rainy season, which didn’t afford the peanut plants enough time to develop as fully as they could have. We could have made more efficient use of our land, and I probably paid folks a bit too much when we sought an extra hand in the fields. The most frustrating setback was finding one afternoon that some local goats had eaten a very healthy proportion of our soy plants, which had been left out to dry in the sun. I hate these beasts.

Despite these setbacks—and in part b/c of them—my attempt at putting hand to hoe gave me a valuable glimpse into the culture that all other aspects of life in Nikki revolve around. Your average farming family keeps as much of the crop as they will consume in the next year (which sometimes meets or surpasses what was actually grown), and sells the rest, often immediately, but preferably later in the year when prices go up.

I was surprised to find that the seeds, methods, and equipment, here are incredibly simple. For example, most farmers use only locally grown seeds, cannot afford fertilizer or insecticide, and complete every step of the farming process using nothing but a hoe. Integral to this observation was the realization of how incredibly how time-consuming agricultural activity is here—from preparation of the land to processing of the crops.

Yet agricultural production is not necessarily or easily profitable. This is especially so for those many farmers who have little capital at the beginning of the rainy season (for things like improved seeds, fertilizer, or the hiring of cattle to plow the land), and whose take-home at the end of the season are at the mercy of a number of uncontrollable forces: ruthless world commodity prices, the whims of the weather (this year in rained TOO much in Nikki), and the exploitations of middle-men traders and other market inefficiencies. Photos: 1) Our 1/4 hectare after about a month, peanut plant in the foreground. 2) The field at harvest time, our friend Mathias helping us w/ the harvesting. Hard to see but the taller plants running paralell to the smaller peanuts are soy. 3) Post harvest processing. The goobers themselves sit in the 3 sacs.

This election year wasn’t the first that I’ve spent overseas—in 1992 my family was living in Japan when Clinton was voted into office. But this year was the first time I’ve voted abroad (although in the end write-in ballots don’t count unless there’s a tie) and it’s the first time my voting milieu has been non-Americans.

Honestly, there were many some moments that I felt less of a loyal American citizen than my Beninese neighbors. When, for example, they would feed me updates on the election campaign (when I for example had grown tired of fighting shortwave radio fuzz). Or on the evening of November 4th when many pulled all-nighters to watch the results come in while I slept soundly.

Granted, staying current this year hasb been a bit tricky: I have no television, and my comprehension of French news broadcasts shuts down pretty early in the evening.

But I was quite surprised at how fervently my town, Benin, and the rest of Africa followed the elections. Of course, it was with just as much fervency that Africa embraced America’s new president. This realization was settled by the many felicitations that I received; by the news footage I saw of Kenyan’s dancing; and by the BBC radio call-ins I heard enthusiastically supporting a “son of Africa” in the White House.

I was actually taken by surprise by how powerful a thing it was for many Africans, a product of several factors: Obama's skin color, his direct biographical roots to Kenya, and the newness of his political ethos. I think that for the Beninese this last factor (which Obama and supporters has chosen to sum in the word "change") might have carried special weight: Benin's popular president Yayi Boni has also self-stylized his politics in one word: changement.

An American leaving abroad couldn't help but be moved by how emotive and engaged Africans were over the U.S. elections. Of course, much of this was due to the symbolism of it all. For all their interest, most Africans (along w/ Americans) know little how Obama's presidency will practically affect their lives, especially in the areas of trade and U.S. Aid policy.

You probably know the product: Shea Butter is an important ingredient in many soaps, lotions, creams cosmetics, and even chocolates produced and sold in the U.S. But did you know that all the world’s Shea Butter comes from the Sub-Sahara African Shea Nut? And for most African families the Shea Nut represents generational tradition, household utility, and an important source of revenue.

Market Opportunities. This is no less true today: by some accounts Shea Butter production is considered to be a more important source of household revenue for certain families of Northern Bénin than even the “cash-crop” of cotton. Yet today the benefits and veritable utility of Shea Butter are now well-known beyond the borders of Bénin and West Africa, such that Shea Butter has become a very profitable commodity, both within Bénin and especially in export markets. ­­­­

Even while such market expansion is taking place, the fundamental activities involved in making Shea Butter in West Africa—that is, the gathering of Shea Nuts (from the Karité or Shea Tree) and the production of the butter itself— are still mostly performed by women across this region, and using traditional manual methods. This combination of market profitability and rural production realities presents a unique opportunity of income generation to women’s groups across West Africa, and by extension a significant opportunity to increase the household revenues for the many families being supported by such women’s Shea Butter-Producing Women’s Groups (Groupements).

Market Barriers. While such Groupement women and families have much to gain from an increasingly profitable Shea industry, this opportunity is not without a formidable challenge: How are traditional women’s groups to successfully access and participate in such modern markets in a way that is profitable and sustainable? This is the grand challenge posed to the Shea Groupements of Nikki, Bénin. Despite their rich and long tradition of Shea Butter production, several factors make it difficult for many women in Nikki to profit from evolving Shea Butter markets.

Market Empowerment. In the last year’s experience of working with local Shea groupements, I and local Béninese NGO L’Enfant Epanoui Bénin have seen these obstacles first-hand. To put this particular experience to constructive use, we have decided to launch a project that will empower 15 Nikki groupements to adopt structures, skills, and strategies for successfully addressing these market barriers.

This project will take the form of a series of conferences, workshops, training events, evaluations, and publicity activities held for these 15 groupements, likely representing at least 300 women and their households. You can link here to read more about the background and five particular project objectives, which include thorough quality control training, the formation and official government registration of an operational Nikki Shea Butter Association, and the identification of a business partner for this association, most likely some type of buyer-lender.

How You Can Help Empower the People Behind the Product…

To initiate and realize this project we must raise $4,500.00 in funding, an amount which complements a sizeable project contribution already offered by the community of Nikki. We would like to see this money raised by the end of the year: this project’s success largely depends on the active participation of many rural women and as such should be launched well before the rainy season begins next year, the arrival of which immediately occupies any free time in Northern Beninese households.

You can very easily make a contribution by following this link to a secure Peace Corps webpage that has been set up for donations to this particular project. All contributions satisfy direct project needs, and none of them are spent on administrative fees, per diem, etc. of those mounting and managing the project.

I will be posting further info and updates on this project, so please check back soon!

It was about this time last year that I swore in as a Peace Corps and made my way up to Nikki. Recently I’ve been realizing that the vast majority of blog entries in the last 12 months have been more about what I’m learning or miscellaneous experiences, rather than what I’ve been doing vis à vis “formal” work.

Truth is, a PCV generally has to work really hard to work, and this is especially true the first year, as you are learning the language and locality, and getting a better idea of the needs, resources, and assets of a community. These being the prerequisites to productivity, one could say that work wise the first year sees a lot of false starts: ideas that seem promising, but eventually fizzle out for one reason or another. Nevertheless, I have been doing my best to put those token tax dollars to palpable good use (consider this my yearly report), and will now attempt to satisfy the common question—most recently recited by my sister— “What do you actually do?”

Business Formations. The biggest priority for Peace Corps Benin’s Small Enterprise Development sector program objectives, developed with the Béninese government, is providing business technical training to artisans, small businessman, and trade groups. In the last year I’ve given classes (Formations) on basic Accounting and Financial Planning, Marketing, and Business Planning, with some individual consulting here and there.

Formations usually are completed in 6 to 12 one-hour sessions. It’s hard to gauge a success rate with these, and the real work always begins after the course ends, as you try to follow-up and ensure proper application. Aside from the couple participants whom you see trying to apply the material, there are at least always a handful of participants who seem especially engaged during classes or who come back again to take another course subject. I personally have enjoyed these interactions a lot, as they have helped me to improve my French and to gain important entry points into the lives and business realities of many Béninese.

Working with Shea Butter Producing Women’s Groups. This, almost verbatim, was what I was told would be my primary project at Nikki, in conjunction with a local NGO. The mandate started out vague, but over the last year the work with 4 Shea Butter-producing groupements (women’s groups) has managed to define itself, if only in several different directions. One front of this has been business technical support in the form of accounting lessons, given to each of the groupement’s leaderships. In June we set up a small quality control training, in which over two days one local groupement (who themselves have taken quality control trainings, and who produces quality butter) shared their methods with the others. Three of the women’s groups and my NGO have been working on Karité Tree (whence comes shea nuts) replantation projects, with which I’ve assisted a bit in the manual labor. Two groups have also built Foyers Ameleriorées, simple but more energy-efficient earthen hearths used for cooking and making butter. And preparations are being made to start a garden for one group during the dry season.

The grand vision in the Shea Butter domain has always been to equip the women’s groupements for and open them up to better market positions, ultimately ones that will earn them better profits for their trade. We’ve been talking for some time to a producer/exporter in the South named Natura (who produces groupement butter into soap, then exports it to an importer/distributor in CA), and may be soon selling a small batch.

In any case, a lot of valuable research and experience has been gained in the last year to this “marketing” cause, and myself my NGO are in the works of planning a district-wide Shea Butter training conference early next year, which we hope will open up significant opportunities for many local groupements. More on this to come soon.

Several factors have recently sparked some late personal reflection on the realities and the raison d’être of the Peace Corps. One has been recent conversations I’ve had with volunteer trainees about my year’s experience of being in peace corp. Another is Sthe approaching September’s 40th Anniversary of Peace Corps Bénin.

Further fodder for the fire has been some interesting articles recently written on the Peace Corps. If you find yourself with most Americans thinking that “Gee, it’s nice the Peace Corps exist,” but couldn’t really place your finger on what the Peace Corps does, or is supposed to do, read these. In one, Robert Strauss, former PC Country Director of Cameroon, goes candid on the shortfalls of Peace Corps in his experience. The other "Where to Go Peace Corps," is more of an distanced reporting on the state of Peace Corps.

My own thoughts on Peace Corps are of course subjective to a certain point: I’m in a particular country program, placed in a particular community and work project, have only only been here a year, etc. And at this point I’m pleased with a lot of what I’ve seen of Peace Corps. Nonetheless, I can’t help w/ agreeing with many others about the very real confusion—one might say skitsofrentia—about how Peace Corps purports, markets, and practically sets itself up to be.

This schizophrenia is basically between trying to be an effectual development program on one hand, and in actuality being some type of cultural exchange pragram. The Peace Corps stateside marketing along with the general sentiments of most volunteers will lead you to believe that Peace Corps is mostly valued for the personal experience is gives its participants, and maybe also the warm fuzzies evoked between Americans and their host country nationals. The realities of how Peace Corps is funded, structured, and operated on the ground further leave little opportunity for it to accomplish formidable development work. One problem with this is that many in host country governments and citizens actually suppose or understand Peace Corps to be a development organization dispensing of technical advisors. Another problem is that of legitimacy and longevity: can such a schizophrenic entity continue to exist, looking and being so many things to so many people?

The benefits of cultural exchange, soft diplomacy, and valuable personal experience are not necessarily bad, but in my opinion would be best enjoyed in the context of a Peace Corps program that first and foremost had a clear and coherent development vision, and was structured and operated accordingly.

You can read the linked articles referenced above if you want more polished versions of what people have observed to be wrong. As far as reform goes, I can consider 4 general points that Peace Corps could restructure itself on in order to be a more viable development agency:

1. Professionalizing the program. This first and most important point here involves the way Peace Corps markets and recruits. It needs mature and to some extent experienced volunteers, not 21 year olds looking for an extension to college life or a way to pad their law school application. This means putting higher demands on candidates, and setting higher expectations (and more serious consequences) on them once they’re in. McCain and Obama both have commited themselves to increasing the numbers in the Peace Corps volunteer ranks. Such a development ambition, absent of higher standards and additional funding (discussed below), would be horrible for the program.

2. Providing more resources, training, and support to volunteers. Professionalizing the program doesn’t end with selecting good volunteers. It implies also giving volunteers the things they need to succeed. This can include a lot of things: more technical training (rather than the very “soft” or general technical and cross cultural training we’re often given), with a focus on contextualizing this information to the country and culture and local challanges. Better information and networking systems in things related to project ideas, news of what's happening in the development-domain in a particular host country, and maybe also a feed to development ideas and trends. A more formidable operating/work budget for each volunteer, depending on his or her site and project, would also be a line item in an improved budget. Finally, peace corps volunteers need better accessibility to project funds. Some good projects really do require little or no funding; but many do. All this will take more money for the program. The good news is that Peace Corps volunteers and the program itself is in some sense already thrifty, running on a smaller per-person budget than any other US develepment program. The bad news is that Peace Corps money has been progressively cut in recent years, a trend which at this moment doesn't seem to have much relief in store.

3. Diversifying its programs and projects to fit a diverse world. The Peace Corps is not operating in the same world it was 50 years ago. If it is to be a development program, it needs to increase its involvement in poorer countries and poorer regions. It will also need to diversify its program to fit the diversified needs of a diversified world and even the diversified regions of a country. It must also recognize the variety of volunteers' skills and experiences, and to give them placements and work mandates that match these realities, even if there may be some uncomfortable degree of diversity within the ranks. Various work sites and mandates means leaving flexibility in living and working allowance, training, work mandate, even terms of service. This is already a reality to some extent, but could be worked on more. A volunteer assisting a country's national courts to write a sustainable business pland and living in the country's capital city maybe should not the same living/work allowance and terms of service as a recent college-grad leading school clubs in a rural post.

4. Working harder to create better work partnerships between volunteers and their host-country work partners. Much of a volunteer’s level of success depends on the quality of his or her work site, project, and work partner. Unfortunately, many volunteers have very passive or uninterested work partners who are themselves without a passion or knowledge for what they’re doing, and many volunteers effectively have no work partners at all, leaving them without a crucial resource to understanding and working in their community. This element in some sense depends first on Peace Corp's initiative to professionalize itself and its volunteers, but requires also more professionalism and intentionality on part of the host country.

Having said all that, I I'm still a fan of the Peace Corps, and feel there's alot of potential in the program to be exploited. Whethere this happens, though, is largely a question of Congressional funding, and necessary courage on part of Peace Corps program to define and develop itself.

I spent the last two weeks in Porto Novo as a Volunteer-Trainer for this year’s training (Stage) of incoming volunteers, endearing known as Stagaires until September’s swearing in. September also happens to be the Peace Corps Benin Program’s 40th Anniversary.

Stage consists of 9 weeks of intensive classroom and self-directed learning geared towards producing skilled, resourceful, and productive volunteers once they begin living and working at their assigned posts. This includes the development of sector-specific technical skills, cultural knowledge, French language competency, and certain “survival skills” (safety and health issues, bike maintenance, even cooking lessons).

One of the best parts of stage is meeting the new trainees. This year’s group is no less interesting than other years. Aside from the many recent college grads, there’s an architect who has worked on an amusement park in Dubai, a former accountant with one of the big 3 firms, an experienced nurse, quite a few from the non-profit fields, and many others from interesting backgrounds and geographies.

The high price of gas, global food shortage, and the American “recession” are all threads describing some of the present global economic condition. It’s been interesting and sobering to see how some of these trends have been playing out locally in my corner of Bénin.

The Drop in the Dollar’s Value has brought sudden and unforeseen problems for many government and NGO-supported programs that rely to some extent on American money. For example, I am working with a local NGO on a shea butter project which receives much of its financing from an American fund. Since the project was launched a year ago, however, the Dollar has weakened, effectively lowering the purchasing power of our funds, which most be converted to the Beninese currency to be used. As a result, we can now only afford to buy two of the three shea-butter processing machines we had planned for and ordered (one for each of the three womens groups we are working with). This shortage of machines, in turn, has threatened to cause stresses in the project: progress was halted as we ran around looking for other options, project donors became impatient, the local government was put in a tight spot as we petitioned it for supplemental funds, and discord among the 3 women’s groups/project beneficiaries was foreseeable as one group (at leasty for the time being) will be evidently be short-changed a machine that was promised to them.

The High Price in Gas also causes problems in and around Nikki. While Nikki is less than 20 miles from the border of Nigeria, Africa’s leading producer of crude, there is a chronic shortage in the supply of [legally-sold] gasoline in the town, as in Benin in general. As result, our town’s power—supplied by generators—has been cut regularly from 8 in the morning till sundown. And everyone feels the effects of this and right where it hurts. NGOs and government offices cannot write their reports and artisans and businessmen of all kinds must either invest in a gas generators or else (in the more likely case) put off their work until sundown. This is neither profitable nor necessarily safe for most folks: one Sodeur I have been working with complained to me that working welding after dark is not at all good for his eyes, even with the safety goggles he wears.

The Cost of Living is driven up also by the high price of gas as transportation costs augment the price of goods. Production costs go up as well, for items such as locally produces flours, which rely on gas powered mills for their processing. The global food shortage, itself partially spurred by the cost of oil (and fertilizer) has also reared its head in Nikki. My comfortable stipend here cushions and desensitizes me a bit to the effects I feel by such a shortage (you’d do better asking your average farmer here how he is coping). I'm not convinced yet of what many locals are telling me: that the recent increase in the price of local foods are just a seasonal thing (for things like rice, yams, peanut butter, or soy cheese). When the harvest arrives they may be surprised that prices don't drop back down in historic manner. Prices of imported goods such as dried milk and canned and packaged goods have certainly risen over the last months.

To ease the effects of the high cost of living I’ve heard that the World Bank has given some financial assistance to Bénin, along with other African nations, and that the national government has tried to ease the burden of the poor by subsidizing what it deems as “basic” consumer goods. I’m told also that fertilizer is to be distributed to farmers to improve this year’s crop yields. However, slow decision making, profiteering commerçants and food traders, and inefficient distribution systems slow or effectively blocks the impact of these state interventions at the rural level.

Is Sub Saharan Africa Primed and Ready for Explosive Growth?

In the news world, financial-business world, and the development world, there is lately a renewed and strong interest in the idea of “Investing in Africa,” whether through venture capitalism, private equity, or through public market exchanges. Indicators I have seen of this trend include magazine articles, books, blogs, websites, SRI material and other investment prospectives, business and development conferences, and even a documentary that honing in on the subject.

Why the sudden and new interest? Some claim the disillusioning recession in the U.S. and elsewhere and the ostensible saturation of other markets is turning the attention of investors on Africa as an investment target. Certain shining examples of companies in such growth industries as precious minerals, banking, and cellular service across sub-Saharan Africa helps to turn these gazes. I think also that African markets are becoming more accessible, or at least feel closer and more important, to investors: African exports are feeding the “emerging economies,” new stock exchanges are slowly opening across Africa, and—as I read recently in the Financial Times—several African countries are trying to get a number of Africa-owned companies listed on the Chicago Stock Exchange. As a final possible factor to the recent attention, though“Socially Responsible Investing” rightly has plenty of critics, no one can deny also that the very idea of “Investment in Africa” is an admittedly more sexy one that buying stocks in your typical Dow-Jones company.

A Good Thing?

My very cursory understanding of developmental growth theory economics tells me that this buzz of investment interest, if materialized, could be very good, because the “I” variable (Investment) is one of the most—if not the most—necessary variable for macroeconomic growth. Big financial investments are also necessary (though not sufficient) for long-term poverty alleviation, as jobs, assets, productivity, and government revenue for social programs (through taxes) are all generated. When the end-consumer is the poor person himself, he or she can also be empowered by being offered a newer or cheaper product to improve his or her quality of life (This argument is advanced in Profit from the Bottom of the Pyramid). Sometimes these suddenly accessible “consumer products” are as essential as small loans or reliable ambulance services.

On the investor side of things, prospects are also good…very good in fact with potential returns marketed at twenty-some percent. Africa represents to many investors an environment perhaps poor in material assets rich in land and natural resources, labor, entrepreneurship, and a potential consumer base, and so primed for explosive growth so long as one can identify those good targets to inject the funds.

And “so long as…” remains the biggest potential barrier to this kind of profitable and sustainable investing. Africa is a rich and varied continent…investors cannot afford to categorize it as one place; rather, they must specify their research and understanding of a country’s realities and economy. Certain crucial factors of investment climate must be well analyzed such as trends related to infrastructure developments, corruption, rule of and respect for private property and commercial laws, taxation, and political and social stability. If not, one may be likely either to see the whole region of Sub-Saharan Africa as a continent of genocide, civil war, and election fraud. Or else, one is likely to commit the opposite error by actually investing in a Darfur, a Northeastern Congo, a Zimbabwe, or some other place more likely to erupt in some mass social disruption than in economic growth. This error happens by forgoing deference to the complex histories and varied difficulties that characterize many African countries.

America is suffering at this moment the fallout from the bursting of a particular financial market bubble that was based on irresponsible and unregulated risk. The last thing the world—and especially Africans— needs now is another mass financial venture that is a powder keg in disguise.

Is Bénin a Ripe and Risk-Minimal Market for Investment?

Given the potential benefits, along with the appropriate risk assessment that must happen, could Benin make a good target should the region see a financial investment windfall? I think so.

On the risk side of things, Benin is about as stable as you could get in the region: There has not been severe civil disruption for almost 20 years (see the Onion article satirical affirmation of this fact) and has enjoyed free and fair elections since then. There are also no outstanding ethnic, political, or resource-driven issues that have driven other African countries to war and unrest. Benin has no extremely lucrative resources that might attract corrupt leadership or render other exports too expensive to develop. The itinerant president, Yayi Boni is widely supported and has made it one of his primary goals to stem corruption. Evidence of this includes Benin’s election by the U.S. as a beneficiary of the much-prized (but hard-to-get) aid from the Bush’s Millinium Challenge Corporation. Among other things the MCC project is expanding and cleaning up Cotonou’s international port, once infamous for its corruption. Such are some of the indicators and evidendences that Benin may be a healthy environment for a large investment, especially when compared to other countries of the region.

If Benin were indeed poised for explosive growth, here is my estimation of the potential profitable sectors into which investors could inject their confidence, ideas, and inflow of private capital:

Transportation. There is the need and market here for car-taxis to service city populations, bus lines to serve the cross-country travelers, and possibly also a rail service to run over Benin’s largely unused railway line.

Tourism. Benin’s beaches, wildlife parks, and varied cultural landscapes are beautiful, but remain unknown to tourists…what’s needed is marketing and a more developed tourism infrastructure of hotels, touring agencies, etc. to exploit this possibility. Holding company Dubai World entered into negotiations earlier this year to develop beachfront, hotels, and game parks in the South.

Communications. Perhaps telecommunication but most especially internet, especially with the virtually untapped fiber optic line that runs through the country from the south to the north.Banking Services. Perhaps in mortgages and micro-loans, as is taking place …across much of Africa. Certain Agri-based products. Shea butter, cashews, and pineapples immediately come to mind, for which large and unsatisfied markets exist abroad.Electrical Power. Most of Benin, derives its power from gas generators and is therefore electrically reliant on Nigeria. This source of energy is expensive and non-sustainable and will only become more so as oil prices increase with the demand for power. Alternative sources of energy could find an eager consumer base.

My friends during college developed a small canon of classic photo poses. There is the game-face "World Cup" pose, for example. There is the "Mather Finger Wave" which requires a story to be properly understood. A later addition to the collection--much to my chagrin--was the "Vroeg Grin." I guess you could see exhibit A above for an idea of that one. But in my opinion, the most impressive element of the above photo (taken with some Artisans after they "graduated" from an accounting class) is not the white guy but those soul-piercing Beninese faces. "What's going on behind those eyes?" you may ask.

I can’t pinpoint exactly why the popular people’s pose is this way, but I recently read something by an Art Historian named Kathy Curnow ("Prestige and the Gentleman: Benin’s Ideal Man") that makes me wonder if some of what encourages such stern and stolid expressions before the immortalizing powers of a camera is some effort to prove and portray the “Ideal Man.”

What constitutes the ideal man of West Africa, you may ask? Some of Nigeria artwork may clue us in. Often, “great” men would commission artists to render them in carvings of different kinds—perhaps the rough historic equivalent of the grand photo one is guaranteed to see beautifying the wall of almost any Beninese household. Most generally, this artwork tells us the ideal man is “a prominent individual who has acquired wealth and a large household of dependents (and supporters)…His public behavior is aggressive, generous, confident, responsible, and showy.” He is also adept at operating in the social limelight. There is also at work in culture a kind of contest between men—which at some point has replaced warfare—in which men compete through “innovations in architecture, dress, entertainment, or imported cars.” Watching Beninese men in public—especially in the South—can confirm these observations. In this artwork these qualities and this contest are conveyed by the visual and symbolic representation of wealth and social prominence. In photos today this may be manifested by the fancy clothes (which “make the man”) and bling-bling many Beninese insist on porting themselves with before a camera. Often they are photographed with the superimposed grandeur of a French villas backdrop.

What’s especially interesting about the artwork, though, is that the visages of men are “virtually interchangeable: everyone is youthful and vigorous, most gazing confidently at the viewer.” This pose, ostensibly “standardized” in this artwork, is an argument to the viewer of “the ways great men prefer to present themselves: as eternal presences of immutable celebrity, in control of themselves and their environment.” Could something like this really be going on inside the head of the Beninese guy posing beside me and my wimpy smirk?

If my theory holds about the connection between the Beninese pose, some of West Africa’s historical artwork, and the ideals of masculinity, I admit it that it may not be able to explain why women also tend to pose this way, since the kind of artwork I am referencing almost completely excludes depictions of women. On second thought, maybe the ideal woman is an extension of the male counterpart. Curnow might agree: “With women’s absence, the visual ideal becomes narrowly conceived, defining both masculinity and humanity.”

I'm back in Benin after a 3 week vacation in the states, where I was able to stay with family in Denver, catch up with friends in St. Louis, and see a good buddy get hitched. Most volunteers who go home will tell you that--stateside stomach adjustments aside--going home is easier than coming back. For the most part, I can agree: culture-shock wise it's probably stranger slipping back into rythym here. I can't believe less than a week ago I was fighting through snow just below the treeline in the Rockies! At any rate, barring some delayed baggage, I am very much glad to be back and especially excited to return to post this week.

I've recently been perusing some of the Blogs launched by incoming Benin PC volunteers, actually called stagiaires their first two months. This spawned my own thoughts about the preparations I made for Benin a year ago, and how over the last year many of my original assumptions about Benin have been surprised and recanted. Here's my contribution to the corpus of PCV "wisdom" being floated out there for incoming Benin stagiaires.

1. You will not live in a grass hut. No volunteer here in Benin does, due to the housing standards set by the Peace Corps program here (cement floor, at least two rooms, at least a metal ceiling, etc.) and due to the more developed towns in which most volunteers are placed. I think about half volunteers have electricity, and some even have indoor plumbing. Truth is, these standards, combined with your living allowance, certain reimbursements, and health coverage will place you squarely in the upper-middle class echelons of Beninese society.

2. You will not learn (fluently) a local language. Volunteers at most learn to small talk very well. While we're on languages, don't set too high of expectations regarding the French. If you come in with little or nothing, you will obviously gain a lot, and will more or less become "fluent" for West African purposes, but not in the Frenchy-French sense. Most don't really care much about attaining to the latter goal anyhow.

3. At the end of the day (and two years), you are not here to do development work. Peace Corps is a great way to be exposed to the realities of development work, but thinking of yourself as a development agent will set you up for disappointment. Better to think of yourself as an very active student in a cross cultural program, than as part of an important development agency. That said, many volunteers do in fact do good "development" work, but this reality is often a function of several key factors: personal motivation and technical skill on part of the Volunteer, good work partners, motivated community, and perhaps also the ability and resources to raise your own project funds. In any case, maintaining a student's posture--patience and humility--will always serve you well.

4. You won't like the food, but then you will. The food here is not fantastic, but you get used to it, and many (especially guys, as it is) come to like it. I started out really not liking the food. When I got to post I cooked for myself almost all the time, but at this point I buy most of my meals off the street. In my opinion the North has more to offer than the South (especially fresh cheese, soy cheese, a dish made from pounded yams, and a rice and beans,), but if you know your town well you can eat well. Expect lots of carbs and spice, and not a whole lot of easy protein or produce.

5. You will never be perfectly accepted or integrated. Bien intégré is a mantra among many volunteers. But no matter how well you may speak French, "saluate" in the local language, dress in local garb, stay at post, consume local food and drink, and adopt Beninese mannerisms, at the end of the day you're still a "white person" ("yovo," "weebo," "bature," "anasara," depending on where you are). This is not necessarily bad, it just is, and is worth swallowing from the get-go, because then you are free to understand and empathize with the Beninese people and culture in a way that's honest and real.

6. You will be sick a lot, at least at first. The physical adjustment that your body goes through in Benin is probably more significant than any cultural shock. You will learn that there are lots of interesting ways to be sick, and probably spend several late nights under your mosquito net reading the PCV Health Manual in a futile attempt to diagnose the noises and sensations that are coming from your belly. De Courage...eventually you and your stomach learn how to adjust, and bowel movements cease from being the main topic of conversation when you call home.

7. You will be bored a lot. While any given volunteer has an ostensible work partner and work mandate, you will have lots of time on your hand. Think of it as like being in perpetual summer vacation when you were 10. Volunteers have different ways of coping with having excessive time on their hands. Some travel a lot, others sleep a lot, some cook a lot, most read a lot, and many spend a lot of time writing up lists. I generally suggest cultivating a curiosity for and desire for exploration of your local area. There's a lot to learn, and most things around you are not what they seem. So develop the habit of asking yourself good questions about what's going on around you. Then go explore.

8. Peace Corps "policy" might be a significant part of life, but doesn't have to be. The Peace Corps is essentially a lot of young people living by themselves, with a lot of freedom and in conditions that can't always be understood let alone controlled. While we may indeed be an "asset" to our local communities, to the folks in Benin who are responsible for us to Washington and to the Beninese people we are to some degrees walking liabilities, even though this concern really doesn't apply to the vast majority of volunteers. Nevertheless, a natural consequence of this is that there will be certain in-country rules on how to conduct yourself. Sometimes you may feel micro-managed, but my honest opinion is that the policy here is sensible and non-suffocating. Some volunteers like to make Peace Corps policy a staple topic of conversation and a big deal in their lives, but I think its boring for the most part.

9. Voodoo really isn't that big a deal. First, to clarify: Voodoo is the word for the particular variety of African spirituality (known widely as Gris-Gris) that was born and bred in Southern Benin. It's an important element to the South (as is other types of Gris-Gris to other parts of Benin). But so is Christianity and Islam, and other cultural factors. I feel that it's unfortunate that tour guides and tourism profiles of Benin feature Voodoo as the country's main claim to fame. This is first of all deceptive because, even over your 2 years of service, any manifestation of voodoo you're likely to see is in certain places in the South, and probably will be something inauthentic and hyped up for tourists. This claim to fame is also unfortunate, because Benin's traditions and culture have so many more flavors and nuances than what is captured in the typical Westerner's idea of "Voodoo." All that to say, it might serve you better to read up more on Islam, Christianity or traditional West African spiritualism than investing much in Voodoo research.

10. You won't need most things you think you do need now. Many of the blogs out there feature exhaustive packing lists, and I myself remember spending countless hours in logistical planning, purchasing and packing. Give yourself a break and just don't think about it that much. I'm not going to add any more specific advice to the countless--and probably contradictory--recommended packing lists that are out there. As a general rule pack the bare essentials--even if you think you need it now, keep in mind that you become materially lower-maintenance as time goes on. And anyways, you really can find a way to get further items later on as you decide you need them. The lighter you pack the better-- you will save time headache, and in the long term have a more meaningful experience in Benin knowing you haven't been dependent on all the material comforts of home.

I recently participated in a 150 km AIDS bike tournée with about 20 American and Béninese volunteers. Over four days we stopped at 13 towns and villages in the Borgou (a North East Commune of Bénin) to lead HIV/AIDS “sensibilizations.” These basically consisted of breaking any given village into groups based on sex and age, and talking about the realities of HIV/AIDS.

Giving a sensibilization in the secondary school of one of our bigger stops, Perere.

According to the most recent statistics I have seen (for 2005), Bénin has a surprisingly low HIV prevalence rate, around 2% as the national average. The Borgou Commune’s estimated prevalence rate is estimated even lower, at .3-.5%. Due to the extreme difficulty of collecting comprehensive and accurate data, these rates most likey are signigi Nevertheless, they might still indicate a real improvement from Bénin’s historical rates and a better rate than some surrounding African countries, it could be also that testing methods and difficulties (especially in more rural parts, as in the North) contribute to such low rates.

There are a number of cultural patterns that are likely to contribute to HIV prevalence in Bénin, among them prostitution and polygamy. But the most overt problems I observed during our sensibilizations had to do with behavioral patterns, mostly (among the guys) to do with views of sexual relationships, condom stigmas and the general kind of short-sighted decision-making that doesn’t take consequences into proper consideration.

Barriba woman at a water pump, Filani woman in the background.

For our tournée, the majority of stops were Barriba communities which seemed to have good grasps on the nuts and bolts of HIV/AIDS and how it’s contracted—these were not extremely isolated communities, and it seemed clear that at this point their people had been hit many times over by NGOs and government groups giving AIDS talks. In short, the “sensibilization” phase (not actually even a word in English) of the fight against HIV/AIDS seems very much over with for many of the populations that we talked to. An exception to this seemed to be villages consisting mostly of Peuhl and Gondo minorities. These folks, perhaps because they live somewhat outside the mainstream Barriba society, and speak another language, understood surprisingly less about AIDS.

For all stops, especially in those villages that were well-informed, the talks (at least with the “young men” group that I was with) were geared mostly towards reviewing and clarifying facts and encouraging certain sexual behavioral changes. This latter task is obviously not accomplished over the course of a 1-hour “sex talk and so it is most realistic to conceive of our efforts as a contribution to and continuance of an already-begun community conversation about AIDS. Hopefully in the long run such a conversation yields a positive change in community norms, individual behavior, and overall quality of life.

Brief respite before our final leg into Nikki. To see all photos taken on the bike tour, link here.

I am reading The Bottom Billion by Oxford Economist Paul Collier. It is a book that for me probably ranks as one of the most insightful works among the last several years’ worth of writings and arguments that I’ve happened to digest on the theme of “development.”

In reality, “development” and the bloc of nations constituting the most “undeveloped” part of the world are ideas which have very much outlived the definitions that might have been pinned to them 60 years ago, as well as the periodic adjustments that have been made to these categories thereafter. Collier states that most of what was the developing world is now very much on its way, and what remains is a group of 58 nations—constituting about a billion people—who are “stuck,” not just in low income and poverty, but in a worse way: without growth, which translates to pandemic paucities of hope within these nations, and a new “diverging” world without.

Collier attributes the condition of a nation’s being stuck to 4 “development traps,” each Bottom Billion nation essentially being snagged by at least of these traps. 73% nations have recently experienced civil war or coups. 29% suffer from the drags of natural resource-dominated economies. 30% fit the profile of being landlocked, resource-scare and with bad neighbors. And 76% have been through a prolonged period of bad governance and poor economic policy. While each of these realities themselves slow or deplete growth, Collier labels them as traps because the conditions are self and inter-perpetuating.

Is Bénin Trapped?

Africa happens to be the epicenter of the Bottom Billion—not exclusively (there are others outside Africa) but enough such that Collier can rename the Bottom Billion “Africa +,” meaning a lot of African and some others. I myself read Bottom Billion with the continual curiosity of whether Bénin has in fact made Collier’s list of 58 nations. Collier doesn’t list the Bottom Billion countries by name, though he uses many as case examples throughout, including Nigeria, Niger Burkina Faso, and perhaps also Togo, all of whom are Bénin’s only neighbors.

According to the UN’s Human Development Index (a composite ranking that seeks to quantify the quality of life for the average citizen in a given country, then to compare this level of life with that of other countries) it is evident that Bénin is among the world’s poorest nations, in 2005 it was ranked the 163rd most poor of 177 nations. But what about in terms of growth or development traps? That is, the average Béninese may very well be poor, but is Bénin as a whole free of development traps such that the average Béninese can in good faithharbor hope that things will get better?

It’s clear that Bénin has never been snagged by two traps: Bénin it is not land-locked, nor has it discovered any lucrative natural resources within its national bounderies (“yet” one might add…an estimated million barrels of oil was recently just found off nearby Ghana’s coast).

However, Bénin did suffer from some of Africa’s worst Economic Policy during 1970s and 1980s which earned it the nickname the “Cuba of Africa.” In the end the economic fallout of these policies were so horribly evident to both citizens and leadership alike that they prompted in 1990 what I think might be the region’s only “peaceful revolution” to democracy. Bénin has, however, seen prolonged armed conflict and instability: before its shift to Marxism, Bénin's government was subjected to 5 coups d’etats in less than a decade. So it looks like two traps have snagged Bénin at some point in the past. But, depending on what kind of time parameters Collier’s trap categories assume, perhaps Bénin has successfully “escaped” one or both of these: Is two decades of attempted reform and over 35 years of internal peace long enough?

It may be worth noting—as Collier does—that other development traps have been proffered by other economists, most notably the “health” trap by Economist Jeffrey Sachs (put forward in The End of Poverty) a category of snares that Bénin would most likely fit into.

A Realist’s Insights

At the end of the day, I don’t think Collier’s book is meant to be read this way, as interesting as it may be to try to deduce the technical preconditions of the Bottom Billion and the exhaustive list of its constituent’s names. Rather, Collier makes many new insights on economic development, particularly for the African countries that are the materially “poorest” and proposes that Industrial Nation leaders must complement aid with certain trade policies, international laws and charters, and even military interventions in order to set the stage for escape from these growth traps. Though ultimately a conservative himself, (at the end of the day, enduring reform and change can only come from bold reformers within the nation itself), Collier acts as an alternative voice of realism between the rivaling opinion camps of economists Jeffrey Sachs (more Foreign Aid is the solution) and William Easterly (development through markets).

No matter the reader’s political-economic predisposition, even taking Collier’s claims only as suggestions has the potential to refresh the ongoing conversation on “development”…a subject whose research very much needs honest and constructive refreshment, given its complex nature and high stakes.

Some of the things that have been happening around town in Nikki while I was traveling about:

Chaleur. The Chaleur or hot season arrived and went full speed ahead in my absence. Yesterday was 102 Degrees F. Basically this means that from about 11 am until about 4 pm you are in a semi-coma state. As one of the few dividends of being driven out of your house during chaleur, I and my neighbors have been sleeping outside. Dusty wind and screaming goats aside(do they ever sleep?!), sleeping under the stars is a beautiful thing.

Power Outages. Nikki’s electricity, normally powered by a number of gas-generators, was recently brought to its knees, presumably by the heat. Now Nikki’s 5 quarters are taking turns with 2 small generators, which works out to 8 or 9 hours of power every other day.

Mango Season. One of the other silver linings to the hot season. These start ripening and dropping in April or so. Because it hasn't rained much yet, the big ("vrais") Mangos haven't yet dropped in Nikki. So I eat lots of the small ones. Yesterday I ate 9.

Elections. I came back to local elections week in full swing. This meant campaign posters everywhere and other political fare. And that pack of men gassing their motorcycles through center town? To the untrained eye, frat boys just getting out of a football game, but local closer and that's someone's campaigning centerpiece. Sunday the town went to vote, at one place in a booth partly corridored by a turned over car. When all the dust settle on election day, I was told that all went smoothly. Long live democracy.

My dog. The saddest piece of news coming home was that my dog Cowboy had fallen sick and died. Ostensibly, in the course of his daily rummage through a rubbage heap just outside my concession, Cowboy had found and eaten some really bad meat that someone had thrown out. Since Cowboy was the only dog in Nikki to have a name, a collar, and regular walks, I'm pretty sure many folks will miss him.

Returned recently from a 10-day trip through Burkina Faso and Mali with four other volunteers. Our main hits were Ougadougou (Burkina Faso), Pays Dogon (Mali), Mopti (Mali), and Djenne (Mali). In between was ALOT of miles of bush taxi discomfort and adventures.

Highlights?

The top highlight of the trip was a four day hike through Dogon country, a region of beautiful escarpments in middle-Mali that for centuries have been inhabited by the Dogon people, cultivators who have settled at the base of, at the top of, and--in some places--inside these escarpments. Alongside "beautiful," the other word needed to explain this area is "fragile," as the very traditional Dogon villages are vulnerable to encroaching desertification, tourism, and other outside forces, the effects of all of which you can vividly see. We had a fantastic time trekking the area, sleeping on roofs, meeting the locals, and hanging out with our fantastic guide, Oumar.

Visiting Africa's largest mud mosque in Djenne, Mali's "sister" city to Timbouktou was another highlight. A cleaner, more accessible, and quite possibly more beautiful version of Timbouktou, Djenne is a Muslim city of North African architecture, winding narrow streets, and lots of camera-friendly kids.

Though the miles and miles of "bush taxi" we covered could only be described as "fun" by the chronic masochist, I feel that something should be said about this element that consumed about half of our trip. What would voyaging in Africa be if not done in style: Sahelian heat, harmattan dust, broken axles, flat tires, wooden benches, sharing space with peeing goats and dying cows.

I've posted some photos from the trip online. Link here to see the whole album.

Two sisters in Djenne. The world's largest mud mosque, seen through a house window in Djenne, Mali.

I and the other volunteers I traveled with, on a rooftop in Djenne.

At the end of March Peace Corps Benin had its annual "all vol" conference in Cotonou, basically to discuss the successes in the Benin program, as well as to suggest improvements. Thought it'd be good to post the photo taken at the end of the conference to give a visual idea of who makes up the program here in Benin.

The photo to the left (copywrite WATH, I think) is of Bush pounding Shea Nuts (which eventualy turns into Shea Butter) during his recent visit in Ghana. Ghana was one of the several stops (and this one of the many photo shoots) that Bush made during Bush’s February tournée of Africa.

Not sure how much U.S. media attention was given to this diplomatic trip, at least “positive” media coverage. I imagine not much. However, here in Bénin (one of Bush’s stops), Bush’s visit was quite a big deal vis à vis its political importance, the vast media coverage, and even what was talked about on the street by the typical Béninese. Bénin even shut down its sole international airport for several days, and extended a runway in order to receive Air Force One, if only for a couple hours (I’m told Cotonou didn’t have sufficient hotel capacities to lodge all of the President’s numbered traveling support staff overnight).

Such a warm welcoming, however, is probably indicative of how momentous an occasion this was for many Béninese. Many seem to see this visit, which is the first time the country has ever been visited by a current U.S. president, as affirmation that Bénin, led by President Yayi Boni, is emerging as an African Nation that is stable, veritably democratic, and economically competitive. Distinctions are all the more noteworthy when they are compared with the recent histories of many of Bénin’s West African neighbors.

Yet, as I listened to my shortwave radio throughout the time of Bush’s visit and heard opinions and reports coming in from across Africa, it seemed to me that most of the sub-Sahara—not just Bénin—looked favorably upon Bush’s visit. According to Pew Research, 8 of the top 10 world countries that give America the highest approval ratings are African.

Interestingly, some of this pan-African enthusiasm comes from many Africans’ approval of the President’s self-assured (never mind sometimes misled?) demeanor and policies—he’s a man that doesn’t just talk, but takes action. But personal motivations aside, there are in fact very good reasons for Bush’s approval ratings in much of Africa. During the course of Bush’s presidency, American aid to Africa has increased threefold, into programs combating Malaria, AIDS, and corruption, among others. Bénin for example, has received millions of dollars (through the President’s Millinium Challenge Corporation initiative) to restructure, render less corrupt and more competive, its port in Cotonou. In the diplomatic world of many worthless words, America has also been one of the most aggressive international actors actually pushing for action in Darfur.

The realist will respond that the U.S. has its interests in Africa, too. Bush, at the end of his unpopular term, certainly was in need of some positive PR. Many are saying that the President’s visit to several West African countries (Bénin, Liberia, Ghana) were prompted my expectations that the U.S. will soon be reliant on this region for 25% of its oil imports. One correlative of the President’s war on terror has been increased friendliness and aid to certain Northwest and Eastern African countries proximate to the Arab-Islamic world. And then there is the raising of support (and the securing of a location) for AFRICOM, which beginning in 2008 will be the headquarters overseeing all U.S. military, diplomatic, and developmental operations in Africa.

Bush’s presidency has left no lack of cannon fodder to be fired back at him concerning the economy, the War in Iraq, and several big domestic issues. Yet I—and apparently many Africans— think the last 8 years have been encouraging for U.S.-African policy.

The newest acquisition Chez Ryan.

His name is Cowboy, but this (and the collar) are about the only thing American about him.

Cowboy eats ignam pile and other Beninese food, responds to French commands, lives in a African outdoor kitchen (see open door in back of photo), and runs with all the other African fauna that happen to be outside the concession.

While the majority of Bénin’s working-class populations (2/3) are engaged in the agricultural sector, the second largest demographic is engaged in service-sector activities. This service sector also generates just over half of Bénin’s aggregate income.

The service sector itself is composed largely of Artisans (and Artisan Entrepreneurs), a broad economic category which includes mechanics, electricians, metal workers, carpenters, tailors, hairdressers, food and drink producers, potters, artists, and small-scale transformers of various household products.

Among Peace Corps Bénin’s Small Enterprise Development (SED) objectives is the technical training of Artisans/Small Business Owners in business skills which will reinforce their organizational and management capacities, and helping to create linkages between markets that will spawn business growth and development for such small and medium-sized businesses.

Such an objective can include an array of activities for a Peace Corps SED Volunteer. For Artisans who have and/or manage their own shops, I recently began teaching Comptabilité (basic accounting). If successful, these formations (training) will not just teach artisans to “crunch numbers” and augment profit. As crucial as profit margins are to the life of a business, good business and development itself is not just about quantifiable growth and the bottom line. Rather, it is my hope that the analytical rigor that accounting demands will also trigger more analytical planning and problem-solving in other arenas of life. I also hope to use the general discipline of accounting to open up other important “less-quantifiable” topics of discussion, to include corruption and transparency, worker’s/employer’s and children’s rights, conflict-resolution, and the conscientious management of household/personal income and resources.

Aside from accounting, SED Volunteers also have taught formations on Marketing, Business Managament, Personal Finance, Savings and Credit, Time Managament, and other topics of practical interest to entrepreneurs. Additionally—pursuant partly to the demands of Sustainability—many volunteers offer formations to “train-up trainers.” These endeavor to teach business specific skills, offer guidance on teaching, and create a “system” of incentives that will ensure that low-cost technical business training continues when Peace Corps Bénin has left Nikki, and eventually Bénin.

One of my primary projects here, commissioned by a local NGO L’Enfant Epanoui Bénin and by project financers, will be delivering assistance to three local women’s groupements in the income-generating production of Shea Butter.

In Bénin and across West Africa, a groupement is a group of women (in this case about 30-40) who form some economic collaborative such as the cultivation, preparation, and selling of vegetables, yams, soybean products, cheese, etc. Our groupements are in the business of Shea Butter.

Shea Butter is more recently known to the States as an ingredient to certain beauty products or as an item in the natural products niche market, given Shea Butter’s veritable uses and its supposed homeopathic qualities. But in West Africa, the only region where the Shea Nut (coming from the Karité tree) naturally grows, Shea Butter has been used for centuries for a plethora of household ends, most notably as a moisturizer, healing product, and for cooking.

Although Shea Butter has been produced across this sub-Saharan strip of Africa for generations, most groupements (being the most common producing agent of Shea Butter) employ the same tools and methods always used. Basically, the women will de-husk the nuts with a mortar and pestle; further remove moisture from the already dried nuts by grilling them over a fire; run this through a mill; enliven and “refine” the butter through a lengthy and technical process of kneading, cooling, then boiling the paste; then leave the refined oil to dry into butter in calabash bowls. The end product, as you will see it in a local marché, is a spherical greenish/crème-colored solid with a earthy/nutty taste and odor.

According to my own observations, transforming a 25kg of dried Shea Nuts takes: about three days, the manual labor of several women (at least), and about 4300 CFA (about $8.70) in direct costs. Yet, in the local market such a transformation will yield only about 5,000 CFA (about $10.00) in sales for the women to divide up or reinvest in the next production cycle.

Our project hopes to cut the direct and indirect costs of the production cycle by purchasing for each groupement a machine that effectively subverts the time spent de-hulling, and the money spent running the nuts through the mill. We also hope to regularize the quality and quantity of production enough such that we are able to export raw Shea Butter to a buyer in the States (where demand for raw Shea Butter is catching on fast) or Europe. According to my preliminary research, in these markets one can generate revenues of more than four times that in the local Béninese marchées. If such a point could be reached (indeed, many groupements across West Africa are already selling directly to buyers), our groupement women and their families could benefit greatly from the sustainable supplemental income that is generated.

Supplementary and complementary activities will include the replantation of Karité trees in the our locality; community sensibilization concerning the problem of desertification; and the technical training of the women’s groupements concerning topics such as accounting, shea butter production techniques, and others directed towards the better well-being of their households.

Photos:

Top Left: A woman from a local groupement sells Shea in the Nikki Marche.

Bottom Left: A drawing depicting the kind of Machine Production of Shea Butter that is replacing more traditional methods. Acquiring such technology will greatly economize our groupements Shea transformations.

Several travel books make the claim that Beninese food is some of the best in West Africa. While I can't comment on the comparative element of this assertion, I think that this culinary judgment should probably be made with some qualifications, or at least some divulsion regarding what exactly composes Beninese cuisines. Beninese food for the most part consists of 2 parts: A) Starch. You have your starch, sometimes rice or cous-cous. But most of the time it is "Pâte," a lump of paste made out of either corn mill or garri. Here in the North "Ignam Pilé" is in my opinion a more palatable alternative to Pâte. It is basically boiled yam (not the yam found in the states…these are huge…starches on steroids) pounded (w/ gigantic mortars and pestols) into a thick disk-shape perhaps very roughly resembling the closest thing they get to mashed potatoes here. B) Sauce. The sauce is usually composed of some variety of the following ingredients, all easily found in your local village market: tomatoes and/or T paste; Maggi cubes (think bullion cube); onions, piemont (peppers), garlic, oil, and often some meat (beef and chicken are best, but goat and fish are the other more lowly of God's creatures who frequent these sauces more often). Sauce "legume" will have a greenish vegetable in the ensemble, and sometimes "Wasagi" cheese. And "gumbo" is a slimy concoction made using okra…perhaps the Beninese salute to Southern cuisine? And that's about it as far as variety goes. On the streets one might also find "boie" (think oatmeal, but made with corn meal instead of oats); fried yams, or fried balls of dough (sometimes made w. bean-curd) and surved w/ a hot sauce. Outdoor "cafeterias" will offer you one of the above staple/sauce combinations, perhaps also with additional options of spaghetti noodles, beans, and cheese (rice, beans, cheese are my own daily staple here). Often you can also find an omelet stand, a "salad lady," someone selling bread, and in most towns you can find some guys grilling meat in the open market.

With the close of Pre-Service Training's sunrise-to-sunset schedule regiment, and as I further settle into my new post, I'm finally finding myself in a position where I can begin posting more faithfully on my blog….depending on how often I get to an internet connection. If for the past 3 months you've been regularly checking for updates, only to be consistently disappointed, hang in there. Following is a shot-gun blast of posts that have actually been in the works for a while, whether in my head or on my laptop.

Last week the groups for the African Cup of Nations were chosen by lottery. The African Cup of Nations is to be played out in Ghana and Egypt this January and for the first time in its humble history Benin qualified for this 16-team event by beating Sierra Leone 3-0 a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, as this week's draw revealed, bottom-seeded Benin will be playing Nigeria (the recent victor of the Under-20 World Cup) in the first round. Most Nigerians appear pretty confident of the estimated results of this match-up, probably w/ good reason. Mali and Cote D'Ivoire are the other teams in Group B, which is to play in Ghana. While Benin's lot admittedly doesn't leave much opportunity for success in its group, I admit that watching a Benin-Nigeria match in Nikki will be a blast b/c Nikki, being situated on the eastern border has many Nigerian residents. If I can't be in Accra in late Jan to watch this match in person, a generator-powered tin shack packed with a good mix of Beninese and Nigerians is not a bad consolation.

Here's a brief digestif after having spent three months as a French student in French Africa. First, some thoughts about the French language. Proper French is kind of like playing bagpipes. When the pipes are played well, they produce one of the most beautiful sounds heard. Yet anything less than well-played produces the cacophony of a goose giving birth. And getting to the point of playing the pipes well is really, really hard, as I've had chance to observe. French, when spoken well, is a beautiful language. But it's really hard to speak [and understand] it well. There are a number of technical reasons for this I'm sure, perhaps purposefully conceived of by the aristocratic classes of Old that made French the exclusive language that it is. In some sense, to speak French well you have to be in a special club, a country club if you will. Club membership entails understanding all the secret rules of grammar and pronunciation, many of which are based not on any kind of linguistic logic that I can conceive of, but on an aesthetic of what sounds nice. One must gain an intuitive discernment to know which of the consonants and vowels one is actually supposed to pronounce in any word, and equally to know which letters hang onto words for no apparent reason other than to trick novice speakers (especially English speakers, as it is, since so many French words look deceptively identical to their English counterparts). Club membership also entails that you have the time and training [and trainer, perhaps] to learn to speak the words properly. Speaking French not only requires amazing agility of the mouth muscles, but a considerable amount of mouth muscle memory, as well. How else is one to pronounce their R's. Having said all that, learning and speaking French in French Africa has its advantages. To begin with, most Africans speak French more slowly, rhythmically, and with "courser" pronunciations than Frenchy-French. For example, Beninese tend to roll their R's versus the French slurring. Grammatical rules and constructions are also more simply employed, if not often ignored and violated. Fewer verb tenses are used. For example, in Benin the subjunctive virtually doesn't even exist (only in the linguistic-grammatical sense, of course). Bien sure, learning French in Benin also brings unique challenges, especially for one wanting to acquire a fairly proper comprehension of the language. As with any language that is spoke in different countries and regions, in Benin also certain French words are wielded and employed differently. "Deucement," for example, is an exclamatory word on a number of meanings: slowly (as adj.); slow down!; be careful!, I'm sorry! "Petites choses" (little things) is underwear; pate ("paste") is a staple food here made from corn flour and water. Another common difficulty, especially in more rural parts of Benin, is speaking and understanding folks who speak a French that is heavily accented by a tongue more accustomed to speaking a local languages than French. All things considered, though, learning decent French is indeed probable and possible here. The Beninese especially tend to be patient and amiable (if not sometimes too forgiving) with an American struggling to learning French. When I've finally reached the point fluency, I may not be a card-carrying member of the high-French country club, and I might indeed speak with a tell-tale West-African accent. But I don't really see any loss in either of these prospects.