Short Stories From My Peace Corps Diary

Stories From My Peace Corps Diary:

Please leave me feedback on my writing on the Fon is Fun Guest Book. I'm always looking for constructive criticism and of course I'd love to hear from you if you enjoyed them. If you have comments that you don't want published on the web, send them to Cstarace@yahoo.com . I'm trying to get my writing published so if you have any pointers, please send them on! Thanks. Chris

More Peace Corps Stories about Africa written by other RPCV's:

Peace Corps.gov -Stories About Africa

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Rich and Famous on $6.00 a Day

by Chris Starace

Being rich and famous while earning only $6.00 a day seems like a fantasy doesn’t it? For me it’s a reality. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa I earn just that, and I am rich and famous. I experience here a lot of the same advantages, disadvantages, and situations that a rich and famous person does living in the U.S. as I have learned from a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer who is a wealthy investment banker who retired at an early age. From what he tells me about being wealthy in the US sounds very familiar to what I experience here.

In Benin government employees earn on average the equivalent of $120 a month, or $4.00 a day, and they are the middle class! The average hired farm or store help earns only the equivalent of one dollar a day! By American standards I’m a volunteer because I’m not paid a “real” salary, yet I make more than most government employees so I’ve got to be careful to not offend anyone when I explain what it means to be a “volunteer.” The government employees often have large families of five to ten kids, sometimes with more than one wife, and they are able to feed and clothe them mostly on their salary.

I on the other hand, make more than them and have limited living expenses with only myself and my dog to feed. The cost of living here is very low. For example, my rent is only $12 a month, but it is paid by the community. I can get a huge meal on the side of the road in town of rice, beans, and pasta for only fifty cents! After the basic necessities I usually have enough money left over to take short week end trips, to visit other volunteers in Benin and to buy expensive imported French food like cheese, butter and chocolate once in a while when I go to the capital city. People here can rarely afford such luxuries.

The unique concept behind Peace Corps is to live near the same economic level of the local people so the volunteer can better understand the culture and lives of the people they’re trying to help. I live in a small three-room cement house with a tin roof, which is down a long narrow dirt path on the outskirts of town. I’ve have electricity and a fan (thank the Lord) but no running water. I pay my neighbor to fetch me water every day out of the cistern in front of my house. I take refreshingly cool bucket showers and do my business in a pit latrine in my front yard. I don’t have a TV or phone, and I get news from short wave radio. My sole means of transportation is my Peace Corps issued Trek mountain bike, which I use for short trips, and I must take bush taxis for out of town trips. These are very austere living conditions by American standards, but I’ve adapted to them out of necessity. I’ve made myself very comfortable and want for nothing except American junk food and pizza!

Most readers are probably asking themselves, "How can he feel rich without a car? without a TV?, without a phone? without running water? or without a computer? on only $6.00 a day!?” Being here has made me realize how materialistic we Americans are and how much we base, or try to base, our happiness on material objects. “I’ve discovered that being rich is nothing more than a state of mind. It’s a matter of having enough money to take care of one’s basic needs and then some. It’s also a relative state in which you have more than most everyone else around you, and it’s when there aren’t many things available that you don’t already have or want. All of these conditions apply to my situation. I don’t have many things but then again, there aren’t many goods and services available here in my little town. There are no restaurants, no concerts, no computer stores or supermarkets selling expensive gourmet ice cream and 50 different varieties of breakfast cereal. I’ve realized that what one wants is a function of exposure to marketing and seeing others with enviable goods. Here there is not only a lack of products, but there is practically no marketing what so ever. There are very few people with enough wealth to buy luxury items so I’m not pressured to feel that I need anything I don’t already have. Here stores don’t have sales nor is there a “keeping up with the Jones’ s” mentality, nor is there planned obsoletion of products to entice people to always want more and more better and better.

I feel rich here in Benin because people perceive me as such, and they always ask me for money. If I had a penny for every time someone asked me for money or a “cadeau” (gift) I’d be a millionaire! My wealthy Peace Corps Volunteer friend said charities, strangers and others often asked him for donations in the US too. People here equate white skin with money and handouts because they were colonized by the French for 60 years ending only 37 years ago. Strangers, kids, adults, women, men, old and young, educated, and uneducated, all walks of life aren’t too proud to ask the Yovo (whitey) for a cadeau at any moment. Often as I’m riding my bike down the dirt roads I hear kids yelling out “ Whitey, give me money!” or “Whitey, give me a gift!” I refuse to give gifts to strangers without a second thought unless they are crippled or missing a limb. It’s more difficult to refuse my neighbors who are my friends and whom I care about. They often ask for gifts and loans, and it’s especially difficult when they come to me for money because they’re sick or need money to pay their school fees so as not to be kicked out. I sometimes hesitate to help them because there are 40 of them, and I’m afraid that if I show too much generosity, I’ll be besieged with requests and will perpetuate their dependence on outsider’s charity as colonization did. When I do give them handouts, I make them promise to keep it quiet. I came to teach people how to help themselves, and to be independent. I didn’t come to give handouts. None the less I often I feel like a walking dollar sign which can be very unnerving at times.

Buying things is always an ordeal because sellers double their prices when they see white skin. They believe that those who have more should pay more. It’s a tax on being rich. Being rich and from the developed world makes it difficult to have real friends because it’s so hard to tell who really wants to be my friend for who I am and who wants to be my friend for a chance at monetary gain or a free trip to the US.

I am famous here not because of my money, but because my white skin makes me stand out, because I’m different, and because I’m from a far away exotic land. Coming here from lily-white town in CT was a real eye opener. The fact that I’m one of five white people living in a town of 10, 000 gets me a lot of attention. People are curious and always want to talk to the Yovo. No matter where I go I can never go unnoticed. I’m used to always getting stared at, talked about, and singled out in a crowd which Peace Corps refers to as “living in a fish bowl” (I’m the fish). At times it’s flattering to get so much attention, but often it’s annoying to never be left alone and to never fit in. I remember when I was living in a small village during training, and I hadn’t seen a fellow white person in several days. I had to remind myself that it was normal to be white in some parts of the world, and that I wasn’t the freak of nature that the people were making me out to be.

Because I’m different and interesting, everyone knows me, and I know relatively few. When I ride my bike home through town and down the dirt path leading to my house, many people call out my name. I often wave without even looking to see who it is because I rarely know the person. I either talked to them briefly at one time or forgot who they were, or they learned my name by word of mouth. Often people are disappointed when I can’t remember their name, but that’s what happens when you are a celebrity. I know people will remember me and talk about me for many years after I leave because I still hear things about the other Peace Corps “Yovos” who were here before me. I talked to a Peace Corps Volunteer who after finishing her service, returned to her village in Benin several years later. She was shocked to learn that the current Peace Corps volunteer living in her old village knew so much about her, but they had never met each other before!

In Benin, white people are subjected to reverse racism, which is at times flattering, but it’s not healthy for their self-esteem and national pride. Many people look up to me and give me special treatment because I’m white. They often feel inferior to whites because they know that western nations are wealthier, more educated, and more powerful than their small and impoverished country. In conversation I’ve heard them say that they believe whites are more intelligent than Africans. Their inferiority complex stems from being colonized by the French and seeing many manufactured products they buy come from western nations. Sometimes I get better service at the post office or bank than other Beninese because they perceive me as being more important. I’ve gone to the King of Allada’s public ceremonies without an invitation and found myself sitting next to other regional kings, government ministers, and local dignitaries because my presence was an endorsement for the ceremony seeing that I was the only white person there. Whenever I go to public gatherings I am often given the best seat without even asking. People believe that sitting in the front passenger seat of a taxi is more comfortable than the back and often the driver asks a passenger sitting there to move to the back to let me sit up front just because I’m white.

I love Benin. I love being rich, and I often enjoy getting special attention and privileges because I’m white. I surely won’t miss constantly being singled out, stared at, being called “Yovo,” always being hounded for money and getting ripped off whenever I buy anything. On the other hand, when I’m finally back in the U.S., I won’t enjoy the feeling of being “poor”: that no matter how much material wealth I have, I still need more. By going back to the U.S. I’ll also lose my celebrity status which I’ll surely miss at times. I’ll certainly possess a newly found sensitivity towards minorities of any type, and I’ll do my best not to single them out now that I know what it’s like to be noticed constantly only for the one aspect which makes me different from everyone else.

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