Sorry guys. I'm still here!

Can I still call myself a blogger (could I ever?)? Apologies for the six-month delay in writing. I wish I could say I’ve been busy but mostly that’s not true. Instead of chronicling what I’ve been doing, I’m just gonna jump write into a post about sharing…which is hopefully not as lame as I make it sound.

Every time I get frustrated here – feeling like people are just using me for money or status or whatever, something happens to shake me up and make me realize how much I really like Beninese culture. Often, it is the incredible and unexpected generosity of the Beninese, though I remain a bit conflicted about it. The other day, a friend and I were having a beer and the guys at the table next to us sent us over a beer. With no expectations – they didn’t try to talk to us or get our phone numbers. We were clearly foreigners and so they were welcoming us. I was talking with another friend about gifts and giving. In American culture, we have pretty limited and defined terms for gift giving – we give gifts on holidays and birthdays, to our friends and family. Our friends are pretty tightly defined as well – people we have known for a while and with whom we share some kind of bond or intimacy. Here, people use the term “friend” pretty loosely – the woman who sells me vegetables in the market calls me her friend, the student I met on the bus who asked if we could be friends, the little boy in Grand Popo who talks about his Canadian friends (probably the Quebecois nurses who come every year to work at the health center).

But, they also give things away with astounding ease. From buying beer for strangers at a local bar, to sharing your meal with your seat mate in a taxi, to showing up at someone’s house with fruit or vegetables, the vast majority of people I’ve met here take giving as a given. There is usually not an expectation of anything in return – the seat mate in a taxi, for example, might not have spoken a word to me before or after the food exchange is made. A friend invited me over the other day and insisted on sending me home with ice, avocadoes, and fried dough balls she had made that morning. When I tried to return the Tupperware the dough balls had come in, she said, “Oh, is it useful to you? If so, you should just keep it.”

There are times when this generosity of spirit causes problems for me. I find myself confronting my own selfishness at times – is it selfishness or being the product of a culture that prizes individualism and personal property? Maybe I’m just way more of a capitalist than I ever thought. But when people come up to me when I’m buying a snack and say “Oh, you’re going to buy me one too, right?” my reaction is usually “No, why the hell would I buy you a snack if I don’t even know you?” Or when the kids who help take care of my yard come to my house and start pointing at things: “what is this? Can I have it?” my instinct is to shout at them. Because it’s MY stuff, dammit. I bought it, or was gifted it and it’s in my house…I would never go to their house and start pointing to things or asking for them. But in truth, if I did, they would give me whatever it was without a second thought.

And maybe that’s where I have trouble with the whole system: In the States, I feel like I would give anything to a friend in need, and I would know in return that my friend would do the same. I would expect a friend not to ask for something unreasonable and I wouldn’t ask them for something unreasonable. Here, though, I’m still learning the rules and the expectations. It seems the lines of friendship are much looser and sharing and giving are an obligation of living in society, rather than a choice you make based on a shared relationship. And, it’s hard to say no, knowing that I have a lot more than many of the people around me, and that on the whole, my community has welcomed me with extraordinary generosity – feeding me, inviting me out, and looking out for my well-being. I’m still figuring out how to deal with those little cultural situations as they arise – sometimes I buy a snack for people, other times I make a joke or an excuse and get out of there. I’m hoping that I come back to the US a more generous and open person, but it’s amazing how deep this cultural training runs – I just hope I can find a middle ground between the reactionary-Republican-dismantle-the-welfare-state attitude and the sure-I’ll-let-you-have-ten-dollars-why-don’t-you-take-my-credit-card-too mindset. In the meantime, I’ll go on enjoying the occasional free beer and muddling my way through daily social interactions.