Riding up to Allada, all packed together in a Peace Corps Landcruiser, we knew we’d soon be separated, so we didn’t say much. Then somebody took out the photograph of her host family. The trainers had distributed them that morning. It was like getting a photo of your pen pal in middle school, except you’d be living with these people. Soon all of us had our photos out and were comparing families. One girl worried that her family looked too serious, but all of our families looked serious. Beninois, we’d been told, didn’t smile for portraits. Having your photograph taken was a formal occasion. “If this was the one photo you had of yourself,” our trainers explained, “you don’t want to look silly.” In the photograph, my host mother wore an indigo dress with floating starry hearts batiked into a deep midnight blue fabric. I clung to those hearts. Her gaze was inscrutable. With seven children surrounding her on all sides, she appeared a kind of goddess. There were three boys and four girls. Only Mr. Gounon was missing. The day the trainers came to take the photo he’d been working in the city, so I wondered if he would be there with the other host parents when we arrived. I wondered what he looked like, and if he was kind.
An excerpt from the essay which originally appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Barnstorm