Je me fais recenser!

Today I was censused by a Beninese census taker.

The Beninese census started earlier this month.

Between being in Cotonou and the fact that at night fall I close up the house (and it probably looks like there is no one home to outsiders).. it is possible that the past few days the census taker missed me and probably would have continued missing me if I wasn't in the living room doing some typing for my neighbor (Even when typing in French I type faster than the average Beninese – well as long as I change the keyboard recognition thing-a-ma-jig to EN).

It was pretty late and I was sitting typing out a document I could barely read about agriculture and enhanced rice.. and some guy comes to my door “ko ko ko-ing” I say “Oui” and he just does his ko ko ko again.. I say “C'est qui!!” and I get another ko ko ko. At this point I'm annoyed because I am hard at work.. and anyone who (as far as I'm concerned) has any right to be stopping by my house after sunset would have probably just walked in.. and now I'm going to have to get up and go to the door!

So I get up to see who it is. Here is this kid (late teens early twenties) looking really official. He has a brief case. He is carrying a stack of papers. Has a census themed t-shirt on.. and an identification card with the rules of who needs to be censused on it. He proceeds to explain to me that he is here to take the census... to which I respond ok.. but I'm American.. (and if sarcasm existed in this country he would be thinking “No, really? I thought you were Beninese!?”) He picks up his little ID card thing and starts reading me a blurb about how everyone who currently lives in the country needs to be included in the census.

He asked if he could sit down about 5 times, even though I made it clear that I was fine with taking his census if it made his life easier, at least it would be an interesting experience. After insisting I verbally say “Yes! You may sit in the chair!” I kind of felt like he was a chair vampire or something.

Anyway the census was funny.

It was very short, and unlike at home where you get your census in the mail fill it out and send it in, he had to read me the questions and fill it out himself. This is probably to avoid embarrassing anyone who can't read or write, but it lead to a bit of confusion with things like spelling my name.. and me just not knowing certain french words. I can only imagine what its like for foreigners in the US who fill out the census on their own :-/ – I'm really not surprised that some people just don't do it.. between the length and just being culturally confused.

I gave him the basics - my name, when I was born, what country I was born in.. he couldn't spell Etats-Unis and my accent is really bad for spelling.. so he gave up and wrote USA for that and for my nationality. I told him I was married out of habit.. oops. He didn't believe me when I told him how little I make. He was shocked that I don't own a television and asked if I needed his help finding/getting one. There were questions about how I cook my food and how I get my news. His list asked if I had a bed (could you imagine if that was a question on the US Census).. and then asked if I had something else which he described as for sleeping. I think it was a mattress.. so I said yes, but he was really confused when I said I had both and went back to the original questions to make sure I understood when he had asked if I was the only one living in the house. So I'm not really sure what I told him I had.

He didn't care for any information about my “husband” or parents, since they don't live in Benin... but like all Beninese he was shocked that I have no children. When (as always) I told him not until I go back home – he went into the typical “No you will stay and have a family in Benin” speech that every HCN memorizes at some point in their childhood.

Overall it was a very interesting experience.. filling out a census as a foreigner.

I know I made a few mistakes but I am sure I would have made even more if I had been filling it out on my own, and it was great to see this strangers facial expressions as I answered his questions. Mostly I think he was just happy to get out of the rain for a bit.. and I'm sure he deals with a lot of hostility from people who don't want to fill out the census.

Hopefully I didn't screw it up too much!

Z