Thoughts from places: living in the second unhappiest place in the world

At the beginning of September, Benin was named the number two most unhappy country in the world, according to the UN-sponsored World Happiness Report. 

So, while I’ve been here in a removed environment where I am continuously forgetting that I live in Benin (the Peace Corps office in Cotonou), I tried to think about whether the people that I’ve surrounded myself with for the past year seem particularly more unhappy than the society that I left behind.  

My neighbor doesn’t seem so unhappy when he’s riding my bike around our compound. My host father doesn’t seem so unhappy when we’re eating pounded yams together. My students don’t seem so unhappy when we’re singing and dancing through the village.

More than being unhappy, the Beninese people want more. They want more than they have now, but don’t know what to do to have more. They perceive that other countries have found the answer to how a person can have more than he or she does now, while their own country has been left in a state where the best solution is to leave. They see others advancing (Nigeria, Ghana, the US) while the rest of the world continues to label their country as “developing” and “third world.”

Because they come from a society based on strong patriarchal ideals, the Beninese take statements from people of power (the western media, the UN) to heart. More than just reading this report with interest, the people that I know will believe this to be true. They will continue to believe that their country is failing in comparison to the rest of the world. And they will continue to believe that the answers to the problems in their life lie outside their own country. 

You can talk about what was the real purpose of this report was. You can talk about our western indicators designed to quantify an unquantifiable idea. You can talk about internalized oppression. 

Just don’t forget that you’re talking about real people who have real issues who are really trying to make the lives of their children better than their own.