Culture Shock

6/30/12
I know I tend to keep it pretty light, so having two out the past three blogs be more serious might make it seem like Africa is making me a drag, but I am here to write about my travel experiences and today I went through a serious one worth writing about. 

I can really only some it up as the severest culture shock I have dealt with in all of the three countries of my tri-country excursion.

I was at the orphanage earlier today, enjoying a lazy Saturday morning with the kids. It was raining pretty hard on and off, so we were camped out under the gazebo, staying dry while reading books. Between my reading out loud and the sound of the rain on the gazebo roof, we all managed to miss the sound of someone knocking on the front gate. As it turns out, it was the director (Papa) and he was furious at the kids for leaving him in the rain. He came yelling into the gazebo and started hitting all the kids, demanding to know why they hadn’t opened the door. All of the kids in the orphanage are small, even the 11 and 12 years olds could pass as 6 or 7. The director is a big guy, and size didn’t matter when it came to the force of his hits. 

Physical punishment is not uncommon here. Even my French professor, who teaches at the university here, was telling me the other day that when not a single one of his 60 students did an exercise he assigned for homework, he hit every single one of them. Back at home, I am not exactly against the deserved spanking, when the intention is not to harm, but to check a bad behavior or attitude. I got spankings when I was little, never hard, not like my mom when she was little, learning just how many pairs of underwear she had to put on if she knew she was in for it. When Christian told me about his students, I realized that there is a clear cultural difference between here and the U.S., but honestly, what else is new? 

But actually sitting in that gazebo this morning and witnessing such a difference...that was really hard. This entire trip has been about never trying to fit the place that I am in into a frame I have previously constructed. Punishment and relationships between kids and adults are just as varied between different cultures as food or music, and I understand that.

But at the end of the day-constructs and cultures and open-mindedness aside- what I saw at the orphanage today was still just a group of little kids getting smacked around by a big man.

When I left, the director apologized to me. He said that’s how things are here, but he was sorry that I had to see him so angry. What was I supposed to say? I told him it was different than where I am from, and then we shook and hands and said “See you Monday.”

I should have told him that he missed somebody earlier.

I hadn’t heard the knocking at the door either.

For the honor and glory.

Stare...Point...Laugh...Repeat

***Just a quick note: posting has been impossible lately, so sorry for the inconsistency. The three posts that I am putting up today, I will date to give you some frame of reference as to when the events actually happened***

6/29/12

Maybe you have picked up on this already, but I am not Beninoise. I am not even African. This might be of little consequence to you as you read, but here, it is sort of a big deal. Adults stare. Kids yell, “Yovo!” When I go to the Marche Kpasse, the biggest open air market in Ouidah, I am sort of like the visiting zoo attraction. 

So, given all of this information, yesterday, I learned that nothing will make people point and stare at a Yovo more, than if that Yovo takes off her shoes and walks barefoot through the mud streets because the puddles are just too big. When you do that, people don’t just point and stare, they laugh. Hysterically. And so was I, so it was pretty much an entertaining experience for everyone. 

Yesterday, it actually rained from 4:30 in the morning until about 2:30 in the afternoon; if you think back to one of my first blogs, you might remember that rain was one of my biggest concerns before coming here. As an Arizona desert girl, I have always been a fan of short bits of rain in moderation because that’s just how it comes in the desert, but clouds for more than a few days start to drive me batty. But! Surprisingly, I did alright with the 10 straight hours of driving rain, unless you count trying to keep my shoes dry and walking barefoot through the mud as going batty. Hey, I figured it was either have muddy, wet feet for 10 minutes, or muddy wet shoes for a week (85% humidity 24-7 doesn’t really lend to anything ever drying here). I also had lots of great examples of how to deal with the inclement weather from the locals, who unlike Arizonans in rain, really just continue life as usual. No one blows up their Facebook news feeds with “OMG. Rain!!!!” posts or tries to light a fire in the fire place because there are clouds in the sky. 

Nope, they do all the usual things, for example, have a wedding...and sometimes they even invite the Yovos. That’s right, Christian (the French professor) got married yesterday and invited me and my roommates Alice and Robert to join in the mass and celebration. It was really a neat opportunity to see all of the traditional facets of a Catholic wedding intermixed with Beninoise traditions, a perfect example being that after Communion, a bit of a dance party broke out. Maybe I will make it a goal to a wedding everywhere I travel from now on. 

Pictures are a serious pain to upload, so I will post a million when I return and have real internet.

For everyone who made fun of my strappy jacket that I made, please enjoy this picture of my clothesline, made from straps and hooks from the strappy jacket

You know you are in Africa when....your makeshift capo is made from 100% DEET...

For the honor and glory.