Feeling the Global Economic Strains in one Corner of Bénin

The high price of gas, global food shortage, and the American “recession” are all threads describing some of the present global economic condition. It’s been interesting and sobering to see how some of these trends have been playing out locally in my corner of Bénin.

The Drop in the Dollar’s Value has brought sudden and unforeseen problems for many government and NGO-supported programs that rely to some extent on American money. For example, I am working with a local NGO on a shea butter project which receives much of its financing from an American fund. Since the project was launched a year ago, however, the Dollar has weakened, effectively lowering the purchasing power of our funds, which most be converted to the Beninese currency to be used. As a result, we can now only afford to buy two of the three shea-butter processing machines we had planned for and ordered (one for each of the three womens groups we are working with). This shortage of machines, in turn, has threatened to cause stresses in the project: progress was halted as we ran around looking for other options, project donors became impatient, the local government was put in a tight spot as we petitioned it for supplemental funds, and discord among the 3 women’s groups/project beneficiaries was foreseeable as one group (at leasty for the time being) will be evidently be short-changed a machine that was promised to them.

The High Price in Gas also causes problems in and around Nikki. While Nikki is less than 20 miles from the border of Nigeria, Africa’s leading producer of crude, there is a chronic shortage in the supply of [legally-sold] gasoline in the town, as in Benin in general. As result, our town’s power—supplied by generators—has been cut regularly from 8 in the morning till sundown. And everyone feels the effects of this and right where it hurts. NGOs and government offices cannot write their reports and artisans and businessmen of all kinds must either invest in a gas generators or else (in the more likely case) put off their work until sundown. This is neither profitable nor necessarily safe for most folks: one Sodeur I have been working with complained to me that working welding after dark is not at all good for his eyes, even with the safety goggles he wears.

The Cost of Living is driven up also by the high price of gas as transportation costs augment the price of goods. Production costs go up as well, for items such as locally produces flours, which rely on gas powered mills for their processing. The global food shortage, itself partially spurred by the cost of oil (and fertilizer) has also reared its head in Nikki. My comfortable stipend here cushions and desensitizes me a bit to the effects I feel by such a shortage (you’d do better asking your average farmer here how he is coping). I'm not convinced yet of what many locals are telling me: that the recent increase in the price of local foods are just a seasonal thing (for things like rice, yams, peanut butter, or soy cheese). When the harvest arrives they may be surprised that prices don't drop back down in historic manner. Prices of imported goods such as dried milk and canned and packaged goods have certainly risen over the last months.

To ease the effects of the high cost of living I’ve heard that the World Bank has given some financial assistance to Bénin, along with other African nations, and that the national government has tried to ease the burden of the poor by subsidizing what it deems as “basic” consumer goods. I’m told also that fertilizer is to be distributed to farmers to improve this year’s crop yields. However, slow decision making, profiteering commerçants and food traders, and inefficient distribution systems slow or effectively blocks the impact of these state interventions at the rural level.

While I was out.

Some of the things that have been happening around town in Nikki while I was traveling about:

Chaleur. The Chaleur or hot season arrived and went full speed ahead in my absence. Yesterday was 102 Degrees F. Basically this means that from about 11 am until about 4 pm you are in a semi-coma state. As one of the few dividends of being driven out of your house during chaleur, I and my neighbors have been sleeping outside. Dusty wind and screaming goats aside(do they ever sleep?!), sleeping under the stars is a beautiful thing.


Power Outages. Nikki’s electricity, normally powered by a number of gas-generators, was recently brought to its knees, presumably by the heat. Now Nikki’s 5 quarters are taking turns with 2 small generators, which works out to 8 or 9 hours of power every other day.


Mango Season. One of the other silver linings to the hot season. These start ripening and dropping in April or so. Because it hasn't rained much yet, the big ("vrais") Mangos haven't yet dropped in Nikki. So I eat lots of the small ones. Yesterday I ate 9.


Elections. I came back to local elections week in full swing. This meant campaign posters everywhere and other political fare. And that pack of men gassing their motorcycles through center town? To the untrained eye, frat boys just getting out of a football game, but local closer and that's someone's campaigning centerpiece. Sunday the town went to vote, at one place in a booth partly corridored by a turned over car. When all the dust settle on election day, I was told that all went smoothly. Long live democracy.


My dog. The saddest piece of news coming home was that my dog Cowboy had fallen sick and died. Ostensibly, in the course of his daily rummage through a rubbage heap just outside my concession, Cowboy had found and eaten some really bad meat that someone had thrown out. Since Cowboy was the only dog in Nikki to have a name, a collar, and regular walks, I'm pretty sure many folks will miss him.

La Cuisine a Beninoise

Several travel books make the claim that Beninese food is some of the best in West Africa. While I can't comment on the comparative element of this assertion, I think that this culinary judgment should probably be made with some qualifications, or at least some divulsion regarding what exactly composes Beninese cuisines.

Beninese food for the most part consists of 2 parts:

A) Starch. You have your starch, sometimes rice or cous-cous. But most of the time it is "Pâte," a lump of paste made out of either corn mill or garri. Here in the North "Ignam Pilé" is in my opinion a more palatable alternative to Pâte. It is basically boiled yam (not the yam found in the states…these are huge…starches on steroids) pounded (w/ gigantic mortars and pestols) into a thick disk-shape perhaps very roughly resembling the closest thing they get to mashed potatoes here.

B) Sauce. The sauce is usually composed of some variety of the following ingredients, all easily found in your local village market: tomatoes and/or T paste; Maggi cubes (think bullion cube); onions, piemont (peppers), garlic, oil, and often some meat (beef and chicken are best, but goat and fish are the other more lowly of God's creatures who frequent these sauces more often). Sauce "legume" will have a greenish vegetable in the ensemble, and sometimes "Wasagi" cheese. And "gumbo" is a slimy concoction made using okra…perhaps the Beninese salute to Southern cuisine?

And that's about it as far as variety goes. On the streets one might also find "boie" (think oatmeal, but made with corn meal instead of oats); fried yams, or fried balls of dough (sometimes made w. bean-curd) and surved w/ a hot sauce. Outdoor "cafeterias" will offer you one of the above staple/sauce combinations, perhaps also with additional options of spaghetti noodles, beans, and cheese (rice, beans, cheese are my own daily staple here). Often you can also find an omelet stand, a "salad lady," someone selling bread, and in most towns you can find some guys grilling meat in the open market.