Into the West

In a few days I will celebrate one year at my work site. That's the first of hopefully two years of service with my community for improved agricultural production, community-wide nutrition, income generation and management, and gender equality. Also in a few days, the next generation of Volunteers will take their oaths of office and anxiously head to their work sites. I'm proud of my year's work at site and in helping train these new Volunteers, but I will unfortunately be absent from celebrating either of these accomplishments. That's because tonight, I'm traveling home.

Etoile Rouge, a central point in Cotonou

I will be in Minnesota (with a brief stay in Wisconsin) for three weeks to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. I will miss the charms of living and working with my community, from daily gardening and leading trainings to afternoons stripping corn and visiting with neighbors. An infinitely long series of joys, jokes, and connections have been life-sustaining this past year, but I have found myself irritable in the face of mundane inconveniences like flies, heat, and innocent cultural differences. Perhaps this must be taken in context of my knowing that this trip home has been planned for months, but a break of routine will be welcomed with relief and will likely restore patience and perspective in the year ahead.

What is more, I need my family. Fifteen months has been long enough. We lost  our beloved Grandma Merlaine in October and a Christmas together is what we all need. It's what I need to grieve and reconnect with those whose hands I can always hold and whose love is always shared. While I have often dreamed of western conveniences when at site, these appear as mere perks to the idea of spending hours on end, to whatever end, with my family.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't mention a few reservations. As I take my trip into the West, the image it has found in my mind's eye is troubling. Built by my reflections, media headlines, and the opinions of outsiders looking in, this image of America looks like a cacophony of unhinged materialism and compassion-killing division. A place where hearings for one Brett Kavanaugh evoked gut-wrenching fury, where products of all shapes and sizes wrapped in paper will release endorphins upon opening just to be discarded when feelings fade, and where no corner of our society is safe from the threat of gun violence. This place looks hardly worth visiting were it not for the people who make it home.

I will certainly return home while on vacation, but I'm beginning to recognize the slow pace and human connections of village life more than the America I read and think about. I suspect this murky image will likely slide away as I replace them with concrete and familiar sights and sounds in snowy Minnesota, but I find this anxiety all the more worth sharing for my sake and perhaps for yours. My plane departs soon and I with it, but part of my mind will stay in Benin, a new home of mine. Culture shock will challenge me, as will trying to explain my experience. My mind will find peace, however, in putting a hold on work while holding onto my hopes for year two in Benin. With the anchor of family and a supportive community at site, I'm ready to travel into the West -there and back again- and am happy to do so.