Just Another Weekend in Benin

The plan: Drive down the coast, pick up some friends, carry on to an estuary where there’s loads of place for kiting. Sounds simple? Absolutely.

The best laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry

We hit a snag. After two hours of driving, we see our goal, about one mile away: The broad river sweeping into the sea, with a nice wide and slow moving river mouth.

Ideal. Of course, the road was not a road, and the sand was a little loose, but it had hardly been the M25 since leaving Cotonou. And with Patrick’s mad driving skills at the wheel, what could go wrong?

That’s when we start skidding.

No problem, let’s get our rally heads on, and plough through this stuff. Remember, failure is not an option.

That’s when we stop skidding. Oh, and we stop moving too.

No problem. Just gonna slide the car into 4x4 mode, and – “Oh, no, this doesn’t have a 4x4.”

“What?”

“No it just looks like the sort of car that would have. Clever, isn’t it!”

“Well, yes, now you mention it, I always thought it was a 4x4. You must have got it at a very reasonable rate, and yet it gives a very satisfactory performance through the ruts. A little choked in the higher gears, but – WAIT A MINUTE HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS MASSIVE SAND TRAP NOW!!!!???????”

You see, our enthusiasm for rally style driving had carried us a good two hundred metres across what can only be described as a massive sand trap. In fact, if giants played golf, this would be the little bunker, just after chipping the ball across the Atlantic and before hitting the fairway of the Sahel.

Locals to the rescue

Luckily, we were near a fishing village. And the locals LOVE helping stranded white people. I have no idea why. Just for the fun of it, no doubt. Don’t ask questions, just get out of the sand.

So began our 20 minute wrestle, Patrick revving the engine beyond the red zone while attempting to reverse through the sand, and 20 local fishermen, women and children pushing the car for all their worth (after we got all of them pushing the same direction, and in the right direction...).

At midday on one of the hottest days of the year, on a sun-baked beach, with burning clutch fumes pouring out of the engine compartment as a thick black cloud straight in my face, my feet burning as I heaved the car across the scolding sand, I had a GREAT time.

A note: Patrick got us into this trouble. Completely and utterly him, no urging from anyone else. Yet he stays in the car and presses a couple of pedals while we basically carry him to safety? Typical.

So begins the wild, celebrating cheers from all around, as the simple joy of overcoming adversity fills us all with a common link, to be one together, helping your fellow man in the most altruistic sense of the – “So, you pay us for the help.”

“Ah. Yes. Rather burst my bubble there, old chap. Never mind, should have seen it coming. Not enough? No of course not, it never is, is it? Let me just get in the car and get out some more of my DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE!”



What a lovely picnic scene



In adversity lies opportunity

Regroup. Come up with a plan. Lunch. Definitely.

So, rather than a radical, extreme, mental afternoon of kite surfing crocodile-infested waters, we stop on the beach outside a small hut to have our picnic. And I play petanques with a couple of elderly local fishermen by the side of the road.

M-E-N-T-A-L.

To cap it all off

We head back, with one final drinks stop before the last hour’s drive home. We get a call:

“Are you guys ok?”

Of course, why?

“Only there’s been a huge deluge in town and we were wondering if you’d been caught in it and whether you could get home?”

Look up: bright sunshine – check. Look at my shoulders: lobster pink, verging on tomato red – check. Look around: beautiful equatorial scene generally with not a care in the world – che… actually, what’s that dark bit in the sky over there?

Five minutes later, the howling gale.

Ten minutes later, the rains fall. HARD.

“Don’t worry,” says Patrick, “I can drive us home in this.”

Well, flash floods can’t be as bad as a bit of sand can they?

We got home. Let’s leave it at that.

Short Stories

Here’s a collection of funny anecdotes from my time here...

Let's see the change:

Having paid the bill for a meal, we await the change, only to find that not enough was returned. On pointing this out to the waitress (who doesn’t even bat an eyelid), she promptly returns with the right change, stating “My apologies, but the cashier has a problem with her eyes and can’t see”.

Know your menu:

At our local (very local) haunt at the end of our road, we order meals from the menu – 4 chickens with salad and one spaghetti bolognaise. After a 20 minute interval the waiter returns to inform us there is no salad. “No problem, we’ll take the green beans”.

“And for the bolognaise?” he asks.

“Er… don’t worry, no salad” comes the reply.

“So, just the sauce?”

“Er…no, with spaghetti”.

“Ah yes of course.” The waiter hovers, with a puzzled expression. “Excuse me, but what is a spaghetti bolognaise?”

“I’ll take the chicken.”

Listed on a menu:

Mango ice cream:            without cigarette: 2,000FCFA

                                       with cigarette: 2,800FCFA

From the same menu:

Accompaniments:

Rice

Beans

Tagliatelle (rice and beans)

A kind notice from a hotel bathroom:

   

Well, the message is clear anyway...



And also a quick collection of scam stories from people in the streets:

One which is actually quite feasible:

Ah! Hello! How are you? You don’t recognise me? I’m Theo, from immigration, we met at the airport! Let me guess, you’re still getting your visa finalised yes? I can help, make it happen very quick! Just for a small fee… What? Without my help, it will never happen. I can stop you getting this. I can make it very difficult for you, I know the minister….

One to be rewarded for the sheer commitment:

Ah! Hello! How are you? You don’t recognise me? I’m Theo, from immigration, I stamped your passport! Yes, good to see you again!

Pause one week. Move to another random street in town.

Ah, hi again! How’s the family? Yes, great, mine too, all very well. How’s your stay in Benin? Yes, lovely isn’t it. Anyway, must fly, bye!

Pause one week. Move to another random street in town.

Ah, hello again! Isn’t it funny how we keep seeing each other! How’s the family? Yes, all good thanks, and the stay in Benin? Yes, it is very hot. Actually, now that I see you, my old friend, I have a bit of a favour to ask…..

One with some impressive research:

Hi there, how are you? Are you enjoying your stay in Benin? Yes, it is very beautiful! Where are you from? Ah, Geneva? I know Geneva, I have a brother there! Yes, just next to Carrouge, around the corner from the university. Yes, you see the bar “les deux lions”, his house is next to that one! He works at the university as a researcher. Yes, small world indeed!

Actually, since you are from Geneva, I was hoping you could help me – I have a flight booked for there in two days, but they have changed the flight time. I need to call my brother to get confirmation from him, but I have no credit. Could you possibly lend me 5,000FCFA to make the call – I’ll pay you back next time I see you, and bring you back some Gruyere from Geneva!

And finally, the RSC (Benin chapter):

(Bursts into tears) Oh, sir, please, sir, I need some help! My wife is in labour! But she needs a caesarean, and I don’t have the money for the blood transfusion… They cost 25,000FCFA each – you see I have enough for one here (shows the money) but I need a second or she will lose the baby! Please sir! (reply "no" – the man stops crying immediately, shrugs, and says “y’a pas de soucis” – no worries. Another white man walks by. The waterworks begin again…).

Rockin' it Africa style

Word of advice...

Right, that’s about it, apart from a hot tip if you ever come to Benin: “On se tiend”, although it literally means “let’s hold each other”, here it means “let’s stay in touch”.

DO NOT go in for the full body hug. It gets very awkward…

From Benin With Love (And Other Cheesy Bond Analogies)

Today, I celebrate my 2 month anniversary here in Benin. As such, it’s probably time to detail a bit of what I’ve actually been getting up to here (it’s not all surfing and kiting, but I’m trying to keep the ratio healthy…).

The task:

In San Francisco, the Kiva guys gave me a lovely “workplan” with lots and lots of “deliverables”, which were all cleverly thought out by someone partly in the States, sometimes as close as Dakar. But not actually here. The voiceover from Kathy (my regional coordinator, who keeps me linked to Kiva HQ) was more honest: “They’re not doing great, and we don’t know why. So, just go along, get involved, and see what you can do”.

Although unclear, that’s the kind of carte blanche direction I like. A bit like James Bond. The James Bond of microfinance. Not with a licence to kill, but with a licence to help. Oh, yeah.

So here’s what I did. The first two weeks were pretty quiet, balancing careful observation of how things run here with my stringent acclimatisation routine of going to the beach most days. You can’t put a value on spending time reflecting on your observations…

Then – Eureka. I pulled out my help-gun. And pulled the trigger.

Oh Yeah.

A bit of (probably boring) detail:

There are a couple of key methodologies for doing microfinance. The simplest is the “one loan to one person” approach, which needs some form of collateral such as obligatory savings alongside repayments.

The next level up is the Grameen-style group solidarity lending, developed in Bangladesh. In this approach, a group of borrowers get together and provide social collateral – in other words, if you don’t pay, the other members of the group will have to pay for you, and you will suffer some social backlash (not to mention being kicked out the lending group). This approach is good as it avoids material collateral (which often doesn’t exist, these guys are poor), and it gives authority to the lending group – the extent to which I want to punish someone for not repaying depends on whether it was a genuine problem (illness etc) or whether they were just not pulling their weight.

Now, the partners here operate mostly with the latter. Something we at Kiva had completely missed. So when we published loans on the site, we published individuals. With life stories and photos. Which takes a long time to gather. All for loans in the region of $250. The guys here got fed up with it, and thought it was too much work for the benefits of the interest-free capital we give them.

The Golden Bullet:

On the Kiva site we have a way of publishing group loans, with a story on a “featured member”. So I simply rolled out this mechanism to all the credit agents so they got the relevant information. Now, rather than finding 10 clients, writing 10 stories, and taking 10 photos, they find one group at their group meeting, write one story, and take one photo. That saves about 90% of the work, if my maths is right.

These are savings which can be passed on as decreased interest rates, greater outreach to marginalised communities, and increased client services in the form of support and business training (note these guys are non-profit so it’s not a case of celebrating better profits).

Simple solution. And it shows the value of having someone out here to really understand what’s going on.

Hitting the target:

Just like Daniel Craig



So followed two weeks of driving around on motorbikes, getting burned, and training agents at the branches and out in the field with clients.

Now we’ve just finished publishing loans for the month of March. Kiva imposes a fundraising limit on its partners every month. For the past few months the guys here have raised in the region of 5% of that limit.

This month we raised 150% of that limit.

Boom.