Circle game

You talk a lot about karma. You’re not a strict devotee, but you have this feeling that having an altruistic nature will lead to things working out in your favor later in life. You have this idea that the nicer you are and the more you give, the more things will work out later. The easier things will be for you.

Except that you’ve moved to a place where things rarely work out easily. That is, as easy as they would if you still lived in the US. You have failed to reassess this particular brand of karma when you moved to a place where, when things work out, you still believe them to have been hard because you have failed to realize that for here, that was easy. As much as you would never admit to someone, sometimes you want to remind everyone at all hours of everyday how much you don’t have to be here. How much you chose to be here. And how much you perceive you have chosen to give up to be here.

This inflated sense of your position in this new place makes you think that everything here should work out exactly how you want it exactly when you want it exactly how you planned. You fall apart when you are trying to genuinely complete work and systems or structures that are out of your control prevent you from accomplishing what you set out to do (ie when you lost electricity for four days while trying to fill out end of service paperwork). You don’t understand why the universe can’t just align for you.

What you think you deserve here is significantly different than what you really deserve here. Even after almost two years, you sometimes fail to understand that this is what working here is like. That you should just stop whining and feel successful when your work is completed.

This is because of one fundamental omission. What you have failed to understand in all this is that you are not the person who deserves to get everything she wants. You have failed to see that all around you are people who deserve so much more than you. You get mad when you can’t watch the third season of Girls as soon as you get it? What does your friend do when he loses his first child to a disease that probably would have been diagnosable and treatable if he came from where you come from? What do your students do when they are subjected to forms of punishment that are outlawed in your country? What karma did you have already acquired to be born when you were instead of where you are?

If you want to talk about karma, first talk about how much more these people have compiled than you.

Real Gs move in silence

It wasn’t that we were making deep-fried lasagna, but that we were making deep-fried lasagna in Benin.

It was my friend’s birthday, and I was at our ex-pat friend’s (the kind that get paid a salary that allows them to live in house with air conditioning and satellite television) house in Bohicon. Her requests for the day mainly included a list of things that she wanted to eat.

Culinary-wise, most things are possible here. That is, if you’re willing to think ahead, lay down enough money, have access to a fridge and live close enough to make a trip to Cotonou. (which means, yes, we had previously thought out this plan to eat deep-fried lasagna, and it wasn’t something that just happened after too many Beninoise)

She had made the trip to the biggest city last weekend, then transported the lasagna, hot dogs, cheese and pizza (which we had previously used for other things), dropped them off in the freezer in the city before biking back to her village 15 km away. The other three of us that were there had traveled in by bike, taxi and bus in journeys that ranged from 3-6 hours.

Then, we had defrosted the lasagna, cooked it for 40 minutes, covered it with pancake batter and pan-fried it while sweat dripped down our faces.

Never had I worked so hard for the ability to eat something so ridiculous.