Here is my interview with fellow TEFL volunteer in Benin and friend who joined the Peace Corps Benin Family in 2024, Lena Walker!
Check out her blog here! https://www.lenainbenin.com/
1. Can you tell us more about serving as an education volunteer in Benin?
Education volunteers in Benin are specifically Teaching English as a Foreign Language volunteers, as requested by our host country Benin. In practice, this means that we are paired with a Beninese English teacher and asked to co-plan and co-teach English classes with them. I’m so happy to be a co-teacher! Considering the many cultural differences between the Beninese and US education systems, it’s a huge help to have a teacher who is well-versed in what’s culturally normal in the same space as me. My counterpart and I learn a lot frome each other. We mostly speak in English so he can get more practice with the language. He’s a more experienced teacher than I am, too, so it’s great to learn more about teaching from him as well.
In Benin, TEFL volunteers are working through a certificate program, which requires us to teach a certain amount of hours. I co-teach 16 hours of classes, which makes four classes that meet twice a week, two hours each meeting. I teach two classes of 6ème students (6th graders), one class of 5ème students (7th graders), and one class of 3ème students (9th graders). It’s a lot to keep up with, but as time goes on, I’m connecting with more and more of my students.
I also run an English club and a Girls club. My school is very small and has never had any extracurricular offerings other than football (soccer), so my students are very excited to have the opportunity to do something fun and meaningful at school. I love talking to my students outside of class. It’s so interesting to discover what motivates them to learn inside and outside of the classroom!
2. What motivated you to join the Peace Corps and choose Benin?
I got an email. For me, it was a pretty spontaneous decision. I read the email and thought “haha, imagine if I did that.” But then later the thought returned to me. “What if I did that?” When selecting a post, I knew I wanted to use the French I had learned in high school, and as a senior finishing my degree in language arts education, I knew I wanted to teach English. When I toggled my search to suit those two requests, Peace Corps Benin was the first country to appear. I started my application, one thing led to another, and I eventually comitted to coming to Benin!
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. Tell us more about your home situation:
In Benin, volunteers live in their own house. My house is made of concrete with a tin roof. I have a living room, bedroom, and kitchen inside. Outside of the kitchen, I have a private walled-in courtyard where you can find my toilet and bucket shower area. While I have a toilet, I flush it manually by pouring water into it. My house has electricity, but not running water. Luckily, there is a tap in my compound, so it’s easy enough to fetch water.
My site is rural, although it isn’t far from some reasonably sized cities where I can get most of my groceries. There’s a western-style restaurant where I can get a slightly questionable burger and pretty good french fries. Usually, I eat local food. Most days, that looks like rice, beans, and an egg or two. Sometimes, I’m feeling fancy and head into town looking for wagashi (the local version of cheese: it has a texture like tofu) and tomato sauce, which I usually eat with akassa.
I exercise, but mostly it’s through things I already need to do. I stand and walk on average six hours a day as a teacher, and when I go into town, I usually bike. I did buy a yoga mat and I do pilates guided by my favorite downloaded YouTube instructors. I try to go on community walks at least once a week just to remind everyone I’m here.
Surprises, Challenges, and Personal Growth
4. What has surprised you most about Benin?
One big thing that surprised me was all the dust and then also the trash in the streets. There are actually two good reasons for both of these things. 1) Benin is rather close to the Sahara desert. It gets dusty as a result. 2) Benin isn’t organized to manage trash. At first, I didn’t like this, but I came to reflect that we produce a lot of trash in the United States. More, even. It’s just that we’re better at hiding it. With that in mind, I let my judgements go, because another interesting thing about the trash situation was that my trash no longer just disappeared, I could see it piling up on our street corner. It became very easy to realize that I contribute a lot of waste. More than the average Beninese person does.
5. What challenges did you face while working with community members in Benin?
Benin has a very warm culture, by which I mean, people tend to prioritize people over scheduling. This has many great benefits: greetings from everyone on the road, neighbors who are always concerned for me. One downside, though, is that as an American, I have a rather monochromatic perception of time. That is, I expect everyone to be on it. Benin is more polychronic with their time, meaning that they fully intend to come to one event or another, but when something delays them, they won’t feel stressed about that. Even several months into service, I find myself to be the first person to arrive to everything. I’ve started scheduling my clubs to start an hour before I actually plan to try to better anticipate when people actually arrive.
6. How have you grown and developed during your time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin?
There are a lot of small luxuries that I viewed as essential in the United States that I am totally capable of living without: running water, air conditioning, Taco Bell, smartboards in school, washing machines, ovens, and more. It’s true that life is more difficult without these things, at least for me, but nonetheless, I’m making my way and loving my time here, even without them. I’m not halfway through service yet, but even now, it’s been the experience of a life to really live a different lifestyle and experience the drawbacks and advantages. I spend a lot more time with other people here!
Community Projects and Interactions
7. Could you share some of the secondary projects you have been involved?
I’m in the planning phases for many! Stay tuned for this summer.
8. Any memorable experiences or interactions you've had with community members?
I have a local name (Afi) gifted to me by the community, and it’s really special to hear people calling me, “Afi, Afi!” It makes me feel accepted and appreciated, and that’s a great feeling to feel so far from home.
Advice and Support
9. What advice would you give to someone considering serving as an education volunteer in Benin?
Practice your handwriting with chalk! But actually, I think doing everything you can to prepare yourself for the language requirements of teaching will help you. It’s true that we’re there to teach English, but there are so many classroom management issues that can only be dealt with in French. High level French will also help teachers to build relationships with their students, which will make class go smoother and also make the teaching experience that much more rich.
10. What skills or qualities do you think are most important for an education volunteer?
It is critical to have grace for yourself. Teaching is so hard! It is completely inevitable that some activities and lessons will fail. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher or you aren’t doing your best. It just means there’s more to learn. There’s a lot of pure grit that goes into the job, and that is really hard to keep up. When things don’t go right, be kind to yourself and know that you get to try again tomorrow.
11. How has the Peace Corps staff and training helped you during your service?
Being taught by Beninese staff helped me to get an idea of what Beninese students might expect from their teachers. It gave me a role model to emulate. I also think the most important part of pre-service training is relationship building! You will need the friendships you build with other trainees, staff, and your host family later in your service when things get hard.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
12. Anything that you packed or didn't pack that you'd like to tell future Benin volunteers?
Bring a solar-powered lamp and solar-powered battery. Power outages are frequent, and many evenings have been salvaged thanks to my little lantern and charger to charge my phone.
Prioritize hobbies! I didn’t bring my Nintendo Switch because I assumed I would be too busy, but I think about it at least once a week. If there’s something that brings you comfort and joy, bring it!
13. How has learning the language been?
Benin is a post with two languages: everyone learns French, and everyone learns a local language specific to their site placement (I’m learning Adja, the best local language <3). With French, any French prep you can do before staging will help you so, so much. I’d prioritize listening practice, as to this day, it’s my weakest skill. If you are a total beginner, I’d recommend Duolingo, of course, but also to find important French vocabulary words online and start drilling. The more you pre-load, the better off you’ll be in the heat of language immersion.
Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
14. What advice would you give to aspiring PCVs who are considering starting a blog or YouTube channel during their service?
Do it! We need your voice! I myself started a blog and a YouTube channel at the beginning of service, and it’s been such a wonderful platform to share my experiences and feelings. It’s helping me to create time capsules of service that I can look back on. It’s helped me to capture my growth, which is really rewarding to look back on. My friends and family are really grateful I keep up with blogging and YouTube, as well! I’ve been told that my blog posts help people stay hopeful. They tell me I remind them there are people out there doing good work still. That makes me feel really validated, and I’m also happy that my work is having an impact in my community here, but also my community back home.
I aim for weekly posts on my blog (lenainbenin.com). Sometimes, I fall short because the only thing that happened that week is that I got sick and missed class. I try to do videos (my YT channel: Lena in Benin) monthly. I love intentionally framing moments of my life here to share with others. One challenge for content creation in general is limited network capacity. I can’t upload anything from my home, I have to go chase down better signal somewhere else to get things uploaded, which is a challenge especially for video. Overall, it still works and I’m so glad I started sharing my experience in this way.
15. Any last comments or observations you'd like to pass on to future Benin volunteers?
You’ll love Benin. You’ll be shocked by Benin. There are times you’ll roll your eyes and groan, “Benin!” It’s a transformative experience, and I wouldn’t change coming here for anything.
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