I have decided to write about one person who has impressed, amazed, empowered, helped or generally given me good vibrations. Like a good Samaritan or inspiration of the month. For the month of May I have dug into old journal entries to find what I wrote about Lucuis who I met in Benin. Next time the entry will be specific for the person of the month.

Last night I had the best conversation of my whole placement. I sat down at the dark table of the boiled manioc lady and started eating 12 cents worth of supper. A guy whose face I couldn’t even really see sat down in front of me. After I’d finished eating he asked me if we could chat. I said yes, since I hadn’t had many good random conversations lately. He took about 4 more minutes eating before we started.

It started slow with how’s it going, and the family and the job. Soon I realized this was not a normal Beninese guy. In fact he was from Chad, N’Djamena to be exact. He asked me tough questions about what I liked in Benin, always making me explain my answers. He knew of Canada’s bilingualism and where to find Quebec. He told me he also spoke English because he’d studied computers in Ghana. We began chatting about Ghana. I sat spell bound while he weaved stories about gold and buses and religion into a beautiful tapestry that made me feel like I had already been wrapped up in the country. I was like a child listening to his father tell stories of a far of land that I could only imagine. He had great insights into the role Christianity played in making Ghanaians so friendly. He lived in a hostel there with people from many countries because it was cheapest and you could use as much water and electricity as you want. Ghana sounds like the Promised Land to a guy sitting in Benin.

He is going back when he can get organized. In Cotonou he makes 25 000 CFA ($62 CAD) a month which is less than my volunteer stipend gives me. It became apparent he was both smart and wiser than me although his options are more limited. He has friends in Accra and will go back to continue working where he can save money and enjoy a higher quality of life.

We spoke of travel and the richness it brings the traveler. He felt he had gained great wealth because he had traveled to Sudan, Niger, Burkina, Ghana, Togo and Benin. His Anglophone friends tell him he speaks English but thinks like someone who speaks French. I told him that the difference might come from the education systems of each colonial power. We agreed it made one a better person by viewing how others live and trying to think like they do. He will travel for a lot longer. His year in Benin will soon come to a close. Although he loves Ghana he won’t stay. He wants to see the whole world. Normally I would have been sad for him. Sad because he cannot see the whole world because he doesn’t have the money or the right citizenship. I have both. It isn’t fair. Instead I was happy because he was a man following his heart. He was upbeat and positive. Gaining everything he could wherever he was. He didn’t concentrate on what he didn’t have but what he did have. That’s what was important to him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t able to go to Quebec it was that he could and would go to Cote d’Ivoire and take the most out of it.

I feel very lucky to have met him. Only after we finished did I learn his name is Lucius. Maybe we’ll meet again in Ghana in a month. He taught me a few things and further solidified my opinion that true richness is not in the material realm. He is much richer than many people I know with thousands of dollars.

As a follow up I saw him again a couple days later. We hung out at his friends tailor shop and chatted for a few hours the day before I left for Ghana. It’s too bad we didn’t meet sooner; I would have loved to have spent more time together.