Beers for Peace

The censeur (academic dean) at my school and I have not been the best of friends. In fact, he is the most intimidating man I’ve ever met. His voice is what you would get if you combined James Earl Jones and a serial killer. He’s over six feet and big – unusual in Benin.

And he is absolutely, always, always right. If he told you WWII started in 1960, and you politely disagreed and brought a WWII vet to give evidence otherwise, he would still be right. You don’t so much argue with him as listen to him yell about whatever he wants to say, and then get so frustrated that there isn’t an opening to contradict him you give up and just nod your head and hope he stops talking soon and lets you go.

We had had some disagreements in the past – mostly stemming from the fact that he wasn’t at the school when they first applied and got a Peace Corps Volunteer, so he had no idea that a) I had training in teaching; b) I wasn’t stupid; and c) there are requirements I have to fulfill for Peace Corps and the school, in taking me on, agreed to help me fulfill them. And when he disagreed with me, he had the option of taking it out on my homologue (work partner) Appolinaire, since he controls the payment to part-time teachers such as Appolinaire.

But at the end of the school year, one of my supervisors in Peace Corps came and spoke to the administration, including the censeur. This woman has stage presence. She is the only person I know, including my director, who won’t allow herself to be steamrolled by him. And she politely explained Peace Corps, our mission, and the TEFL program to him. So I had high hopes that things would go better this year.

I had also spoken to my director about my schedule. Peace Corps made changes to our program – this year, I have a second homologue, and I team-teach once a week with both of them. I had explained this to my director, and some other scheduling requirements (no classes Friday so I can go to the office/bank, and hopefully I’d follow at least one of my classes from the previous year to the next grade level). I was full of hope that this year, my schedule and the rentree would go smoothly.

I should have known – nothing ever goes smoothly or as planned here. My schedule turns out to be, well, awful. It was clear that I had not fully communicated my requirements and polite requests to the director, or he had not clearly communicated them to the censeur. The librarian looked at my schedule, looked me in the eyes, and said “you must refuse this.”

I won’t go into the details of what was wrong, but I tried to bring this up to the censeur several times. each time rather than letting me get past “excuse me, Mr. Censeur, I think there is a problem and – “ he would cut me off and yell at me for being a bad teacher and a pain in his bum.

This went on for several days, me becoming successively more panicked and angry and sad. eventually, The Monday after the official start of school, I arrived at school early, and soon after the censeur arrived too – the only other teacher or administrator, though there were about ten fathers of students. I approached him once more, and once more he yelled at me, telling the parents in local language how annoying I was and how I wasn’t a good teacher.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked away, and started to unlock my bike – I would just take this to the director, I thought! By then I was crying, afraid I’d spend my entire year frustrated like this. The censeur saw me, and I think it startled him. People in Benin don’t generally cry unless there is a death, so the sight of me with tears in my eyes must have been jarring.

“What’s wrong?” he said to me.

“You!” I burst out, ignoring all cultural rules that direct confrontation is to be avoided (apparently here it’s better to talk behind someone’s back). “You won’t let me finish my explanation for why there are problems with my schedule or how we can fix them!”

He seemed a little confused, but agreed that if I let him give his whole side of the story (in front of me, but to another teacher), he would let me say everything I had to say.

As it turns out, we did not need to be enemies. I never thought it was his fault, and he didn’t want to change my schedule only because he thought I held him at fault – he agreed with most of my wishes to change my schedule. I think we were both a bit surprised that we had so much common ground. He promised that when someone came with the key to the room with the master schedule, we would work it out.

A few hours later, we changed my schedule together, both very civil and professional. He looked at me and said “you know, Kate, this is thirsty work.”

Taking a hint, I said “oh yes. What do you prefer – sodas, tea, beer?”

“Kate. I am Beninese.”

“Ok. Grande Beninoise beer it is!”

A few days later I brought beers for myself, the censeur, and the director. The director and I shared our beer – getting caught in a rainstorm and forced to retreat into the secretary’s office. We talked about this and that – cultural differences, politics, news. And as we talked and drank our beers (ok, I drank, he chugged), I could tell that the ice was thawing.

We may never be friends – I doubt he would feel comfortable being friends with an “employee” – but we are no longer adversaries. My tears, and the beer, healed a rift that could have prevented lots of good work in our school community. So the next time I have a problem, I know that the answer is beer.