Chickens Eat Trash

I just got back from my last In Service Training session in Porto Novo. It was a lot of fun, my birthday got mixed in there as well and it was fun to be around a lot of volunteers. We had sessions every day from 8 AM to 6 PM with our Beninese counterparts to help facilitate better means of education. It’s difficult to make suggestions in a place where much of the education is a matter of copying what’s written on a chalkboard. There is very little thought put towards creative thinking or critical thinking. It’s a verbatim kind of education. It’s the same thing when dealing with Beninese professors. They know how they were taught, and see themselves as the measurement of the Beninese education system, and so their education is good enough for the others. I found another Peace Corps Volunteer blog who talked about chicken eggs. Without further ado:

Q1: Why doesn't anyone in village sell eggs?
A1: People can't find the eggs. The chickens run all over and we don't know where they lay. Plus, most people want to eat chicken meat, not the eggs.

Q2: Why do people let the chickens go wherever they want?
A2: They have to look for food (i.e. trash).

Q3: Couldn't people make simple pens for the chickens? That way they could sell eggs for people who want them and fatten them up faster?
A3: Sure. But then people would have to feed the chickens.

Q4: Why don't people what to feed their chickens?
A4: They eat the trash.

We had a spirited discussion about being corrected in class. My perspective was, if I am teaching my students something that is WRONG, I want and deserve to be corrected, and they deserve the correct answer. Sometimes I make mistakes and my students can correct me, and my response is always, “thank you.”

A Beninese professor I was speaking with argued that the children look up to the professor in such a way that to believe he is wrong will destroy all of their confidence in him.

I tried to explain that if a professor is giving students wrong information because he fears losing their respect, he does not deserve their respect.

To which he responded, the professor needs to be the king of his class, he needs to be perfect in their eyes, and he must know every answer they pose to them, even if he has to make something up.

Chickens eat trash.

It can be incredibly frustrating, but this is the culture here. Little children are ordered around by anyone older than them. “Petit! Go get me eggs! Petit! Go get me phone credit!” They have a society built on the authority of elders. That is not something easily changed, as we all can easily understand. Convincing someone to sacrifice a level of authority to possibly gain more respect.

I’m getting used to it. Not in the sense that I’m okay with it, but used to it in the sense that I am getting better at discussing these issues with Beninese. I also realized how used to other aspects of the culture I am now. I was in a taxi and noticed a Santa Clause mirror ornament. I was talking to my friend for about fifteen minutes about how weird it was to see a Santa when they don’t really have the same gift giving ideas that we do in America before I realized that there was a horsetail fetish also hanging from the rear view mirror. That’s a bit weirder when you actually realize that you were more entranced by Santa than a voodoo fetish.