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In Philadelphia, just before all the pink-cheeked Benin Volunteers of 2005 left for that country, a previous volunteer told us to remove the blue-tinted glasses to observe and learn about the culture we would be entering. No matter what color the tint of the shades were, the idea was that I am not to judge a culture while standing in my own. Every culture has positives and negatives, but I don’t want to compare to find which culture is “better.” <br />With that in mind, I write this not as objectively as I should: <br />To be a Beninese woman. I find it difficult to keep my house swept, my dishes clean, my dog and myself fed, my flowers watered, and my cockroaches dead, and I am only responsible for one human life. How does a woman keep a family and home in Benin? She is amazing, that’s how. And I know she is amazing because she feeds me regularly, and I see her carrying/herding freshly bathed, sweet-smelling babies and children to church. And her husband is well taken care of too. She carries her baby on her back to go to work, and is entirely professional to breast feed while working. Not only is it professional, but it is also assumed. Babies nurse throughout the day, thus babies are always with mom, end of question. Because she lives with her mother or sister or in-laws or someone who keeps the home if she is away, she can leave her older children at home.

Men and Women

Erika Kraus
2006-08-28 19:42:25

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In Philadelphia, just before all the pink-cheeked Benin Volunteers of 2005 left for that country, a previous volunteer told us to remove the blue-tinted glasses to observe and learn about the culture we would be entering. No matter what color the tint of the shades were, the idea was that I am not to judge a culture while standing in my own. Every culture has positives and negatives, but I don’t want to compare to find which culture is “better.”
With that in mind, I write this not as objectively as I should:
To be a Beninese woman. I find it difficult to keep my house swept, my dishes clean, my dog and myself fed, my flowers watered, and my cockroaches dead, and I am only responsible for one human life. How does a woman keep a family and home in Benin? She is amazing, that’s how. And I know she is amazing because she feeds me regularly, and I see her carrying/herding freshly bathed, sweet-smelling babies and children to church. And her husband is well taken care of too. She carries her baby on her back to go to work, and is entirely professional to breast feed while working. Not only is it professional, but it is also assumed. Babies nurse throughout the day, thus babies are always with mom, end of question. Because she lives with her mother or sister or in-laws or someone who keeps the home if she is away, she can leave her older children at home.
And she makes a mean legume sauce.
Young girls have hopes and dreams for their life: they aspire to be doctors, ministers in the government, and mayors. She wants to go to school and learn as much as anyone. She wants to play soccer and basketball and handball. She wants to be the only wife of a loyal man, she wants to control how many children she has in her family, and she doesn’t want to be completely dependent on her husband.
The men. The men seem to be who I am with the most often, since it is the men who get out of the house, and in the villages it is the men who speak French, ...