Between Here and Benin

Dry season in Benin starts with smoke. The rains stop, Harmattan comes down off the Sahara, and men and boys pick up sticks and walk toward a field that is about to be on fire. Nobody calls anyone, they know what they are doing.

I thought about that on a smoky walk here this week, and then I thought about preparation.

In this one: Part 1 of the three parts of transformative travel, and the half of it that rarely gets talked about, which is the guide's half. What I want to know about you before you ever get on a plane, and what I do with the answers. Reflection as the box the whole thing sits inside rather than a step you tick off.

Plus a confession about how much I hate talking about myself, a podcast that proves I can do it anyway, and an invitation.

→ Read Issue 18 https://tinyurl.com/3ew6jcny

→ Listen to Episode 177 of the Travel Coach Network podcast https://tinyurl.com/5943yhad

→ Join the Founding Circle https://tinyurl.com/2af4xexa

Episode description

I should have started this journal the moment that I found out that Africa wanted me.

In 2003 I was a senior at Oregon State, newly accepted to an internship at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia, and about $7,000 short of being able to go. So I wrote a letter to 85 people, put a return envelope in every one, and asked them to come along.

They said yes. And once I got there, I sent an email home every week for eleven weeks.

My dad recently found the printouts. This is the first one, read aloud, exactly as I wrote it at 21. Typos included. Before it, the story of how I got there, and after it, what all of this eventually turned into.

The Founding Circle is open. Thirty people, $300 for the year. Once a month we meet, and I take you to Benin. Join here

About this publication

Hi! My name is Debra. My husband and I are building Hello West Africa, a transformative immersion experience in Benin, West Africa, for people who want to change how they see Africa and themselves. We have three incredible kids and a piece of land where we're making it real, one day at a time.

Issue No. 17 — Podcast Show Notes

I've been circling this idea for years, and it took one conversation to say it in plain language. Transformative tourism is so much more than the trip. The experience is only one part of a three part system.

Part 1 is preparation, before anyone gets on a plane. Part 2 is the experience itself, which is where almost everyone puts their attention. Part 3 is integration, when they go home, and it's the part almost nobody builds for. If you don't support somebody there, everything you did before it is at risk of being lost.

I also walk through an example from higher education for each part, because transformative learning theory came out of adult education in the first place. Applying to college, going through college, and then the alumni office, which is where the comparison gets uncomfortable.

Two other things in this one. This newsletter is turning six months old, and I'm merging my two series into a single weekly letter. And a few weeks ago my dad handed me a folder of every email I sent home from Namibia in 2003, when I was interning at the Cheetah Conservation Fund. I'd been doing Part 3 for twenty years without a name for it.

Mentioned in this episode

The 10 Phases of Meaning (earlier issues of this newsletter)

Cheetah Conservation Fund, Namibia

The Kabolé Research Lab

Cape Verde versus Argentina

Transformative Travel Can Be Designed. Here Is How PDF → https://thekoudacompany.com/store/p/transformative-travel-can-be-designed-here-is-how

About two weeks ago, I started getting the newspaper delivered...not for the news, but for the crossword. And it got me thinking about how rarely we put ourselves in front of ideas that challenge us, and what happens when we do.

In this episode, I'm using the World Cup as a lens for transformative learning theory: Cape Verde's thirty-year journey to the round of 32, the African teams shifting assumptions in real time, the US loss to Belgium and what it means for soccer in this country, and the visitors posting videos saying America is nothing as they expected. All of it is transformative learning, happening in public, on a global stage.

From there, I get into the problem the field of transformative tourism hasn't solved yet, why time matters more than anyone is measuring, and the idea that came out of a phone call with a new friend from Dubai.

Issue No. 15 | Building Hello West AfricaA trip in the Wayback Machine to understand why I'm building Hello West Africa

Links mentioned in this episode:

Goals for Peace → LINKTransformative Travel Can Be Designed, PDF → LINK

Someone reached out this week after reading one of my LinkedIn posts and told me he could finally put a name to the experiences that had been shaping him. His words brought tears to my eyes and sent me all the way back to the beginning.

In this episode, I'm sharing the origin story of Hello West Africa: growing up in Fairbanks, hosting exchange students from Ecuador and Russia, hearing all the warnings before Namibia, joining the Peace Corps, and eventually landing in Benin. It's the story of how I came to believe, really believe, that people are just people, and why I want others to experience that too.

I'm also talking about the Goals for Peace soccer tournament D'Aquin is organizing this December in the Dassa-Zoumé region of Benin, what's been happening with the business, and why the World Cup has me feeling like it really might be time for Africa.

This week's episode is a shorter one — because I pulled a muscle in my back. The same muscle I first pulled in the summer of 1999, mopping floors at the local vet clinic while "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls played on the radio.

But a shorter episode doesn't mean nothing to say. This week I share:

The early mornings and late nights in BeninWhat it was like waking up before sunrise in the scholfis — our little schoolroom and office — with twinkly lights and a candle, working on my doctoral program while the rest of the house slept. And why lying on a full sack of unshelled peanuts under the night sky, watching for the Southern Cross, is one of the experiences I most want Hello West Africa guests to have.

What's happening with Hello West Africa My first investor conversation is scheduled for next Tuesday. I'm also shifting my language from "investors" to "founding partners"...because Hello West Africa is communal at its core, and the people who help build it should feel that. Plus: the pitch is coming together, two podcasts are on the calendar, and digital nomads are on my radar as a new market.

The World Cup The African teams are showing up. The US team surprised me completely. And I took a drive after the Paraguay game, rolled down the windows, and played Magic in the Air by Magic System. There really was magic in the air that night.

All games are on the Fox One app.

Transformative Travel Can Be Designed. Here Is How. The guide people kept asking for. Seventeen pages, plain language, a framework you can actually use. Find it at the link below!

Get it here!

Show Notes — Issue No. 13 | Building Hello West Africa

From a panther enclosure in Florida to believing in myself again

In this episode of Between Here and Benin, I take you back to a zoological conservation center in northern Florida, where I was 24, raking leaves and picking up sticks in a Florida panther enclosure — and stumbled onto Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on the truck radio.

That job, and what came after it, is the story of how I learned to trust myself. And how, at some point, I stopped. And how I finally got it back.

This episode covers:

Working as a carnivore specialist at a private conservation center in Florida

The move to Pier 55 Starbucks in Seattle

Standing in front of the ferry terminal and hearing a voice that said: take the French class, everything will be okay

The Ted Lasso speech on belief that has been living in my head all week

The first Hello West Africa advisor meeting

The first investor inquiry

The launch of my new guide! Transformative Travel Can Be Designed. Here Is How. Sixteen pages, plain language, and a framework you can actually use.

Get the guide → HERE

Between Here and Benin is written and hosted by Dr. Debra Kouda, co-founder and CEO of Hello West Africa. New episodes every Tuesday and every other Thursday.

Hello West Africa is currently seeking aligned investors and Founding Supporters. Reply to this episode or reach out directly if you want to be part of building this.

The Transformative Travel Guide People Kept Asking Me For

In this episode of Between Here and Benin, I share the story behind a guide I finally made after being asked the same question twice, and finding myself with nothing good to send.

Transformative travel is gaining traction in the industry, but the research behind it lives almost entirely in academic journals and doctoral dissertations. This guide brings it out into the open, in accessible language, for the people who are actually building experiences.

What's inside the guide:

The transformative learning theory, clearly explained.

Mezirow's 10 phases of meaning, with real examples

The five conditions that have to be present for transformation to occur

The Transformative Learning Arc: a four-step framework developed from doctoral research

16 pages. Plain language. A framework you can actually use.

Find the guide here → TAKE ME THERE

Between Here and Benin is written and hosted by Dr. Debra Kouda, co-founder and CEO of Hello West Africa. New episodes every Tuesday and every other Thursday.

A lot of soccer-related things have happened in the last few days.

Arsenal won the English Premier League title.

Paris Saint-Germain beat Arsenal for the Champions League Cup.

And then, of course, coming up this summer, the FIFA World Cup comes to Canada, the US, and Mexico.

You might be wondering, why is she talking about all of these soccer things? Well, I used to be one of those people who didn’t understand the pull of the sport, but then I went to Benin…and the day my future husband rode up on his motorcycle with his soccer socks around his neck, everything changed.

The First Date

It was either Christmas Day or the day before Christmas in 2007. At CPN les Papillons, the organization I worked with during Peace Corps, we had been doing a Christmas drive, giving out clothes to kids in the village. D’Aquin rode up on his motorcycle, soccer socks around his neck, and said, “Hey, you want to come watch me play soccer sometime?”

I said sure, he was cute, and what else did I really have to do on a Sunday afternoon?

My experience with soccer up to that point was watching my sister play recreational games as a kid. I had never wanted to play myself, too much running. (This is funny to me now, because even though it has been a bit, I enjoy running longer distances these days!) I thought, here is this guy asking me to come watch him play. Let’s go and see what this game is really all about.

He picked me up a couple of days later on his moto, and off we were to the soccer field behind the Sokpunta high school. I stood on the sidelines with everyone else, and as it turned out, he was pretty amazing at the game (still is!). He had been playing for a long time and was regularly asked by different village teams to come play with them because of his skill. That was my introduction to football, because from that day forward, I would call it football, which is what the rest of the world calls it. (Unless I’m around a lot of people who are used to talking about American football, it's just easier to avoid confusion!)

Not long after, D’Aquin took me to watch the African Cup at an elder’s house in the village who had a television. Flat screen TVs were not as common then. No Wi-Fi. No iPhones. We sat on wooden benches in a small room packed with people, and we watched football.

I was the only woman in that room, mainly because of who I was in the village and because D’Aquin had brought me. (I remember my dad questioning whether it was a good idea that I had gone to the game, being the only woman. The things you recollect!) When things went well, people cheered. When things went badly, there was real frustration. I think the team we were rooting for won, which meant shots of sodabi for all at the end!

From that point on, football became part of my life. I became a Chelsea fan, as D’Aquin had been devoted to Chelsea for as long as he could remember. I learned the players’ names. I started to understand the game. And I fell in love with it, just like I fell in love with my husband.

What Football Looks Like in Benin

Watching football is different depending on what league or country you are watching. Premier League football is unlike anything else. The difference between European football and American soccer is enormous. But what I love most about football in Benin is how it belongs to everyone.

You don’t need shin guards or fancy shorts or a water bottle. You don’t need to pay $90 and sign up for a rec league. You just go out and play. Kids as young as three are already out there. They organize themselves. If they have a ball, great. If they don’t, they find something else, an orange, a mango. As long as they can kick it, it works.

(The boys playing in their own game of football while the men play.)

The games in Benin are their own experience entirely. People don’t sit in stands at most village games, they encircle the field. Community members yell at the players throughout the entire game, not just coaches. Friends, family, cousins, neighbors. Everyone has an opinion on how you should be playing. And kids start up their own games on the sidelines. Referees are never hard to find, there are always people who want to officiate. And if a fight breaks out, which sometimes happens, the game can end halfway or three-quarters of the way through. Things usually get resolved afterward, and those who were upset with each other end up getting a beer together. That always makes me laugh.

Going to the games always made me feel like part of the community. I suppose my experience was a little different because my husband was usually one of the players.

When we moved to Fairbanks as newlyweds after Peace Corps, D’Aquin played in a men’s league. The team he ended up playing with had players from Vanuatu, Greece, India, Denmark, Japan, Turkey, Russia, Honduras, Benin, and Fairbanks. It is so simple, you don’t need to speak the same language. All you need is a ball and your feet, and the whole world can play together.

If you ever travel somewhere and have the chance to go to a local football game, I highly recommend it. You learn something about a culture at its sporting events that you can’t learn anywhere else.

The World Cup This Summer

Benin was very close to qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The system of how they determine who gets complicated, but I know they were closer than they have been in a long time. I am proud of that, even from a distance.

I am excited about the World Cup coming to North America. And I am also a little sad. Tickets to attend a game in Seattle are upward of a thousand dollars, and that is if you are even invited to purchase one. Visa issues are making it difficult for people from many countries to come and watch. That feels wrong for a sport that belongs to the whole world.

So, like many people around the world, I’ll be watching from home. But I’ll pretend like I’m there!

What Really Happened Last Week

A quieter week in some ways, but things kept moving.

I have continued to nurture the relationships that have been developing over the months, all of which started with me talking about my love and interest in transformative learning theory, tourism, and Benin. I suppose the right word for it is “networking”, but that almost seems too cold a word to use. And yet, I guess I’ll stick with the industry standard until a better word pops up!

I started posting regularly again on LinkedIn, as well as commenting on other posts. I find that I can have pretty incredible conversations, or at least the start of them, right in the comments.

What’s Coming Next

This week is the most call-heavy week I have had in a while, and I honestly didn’t realize how many calls I had until I sat down to make out the schedule.

Tuesday morning, I had two early calls. One with Sonia, a consultant with the Transformative Tourism Council who just finished guiding a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. It was my first time meeting her, and I tell you, it is so wonderful to find people you can talk to about things you are genuinely passionate about. A few hours later, I had a second call with Dr. Suzy Ross. Dr. Ross has done research specifically on the integration part of transformative learning, what happens when you return home and try to weave your experiences back into your regular life. That piece is the most critical and the most overlooked, and I never get tired of talking about it with someone who has studied it as closely as she has.

Thursday afternoon is the first-ever Hello West Africa advisor meeting.

I have been putting together a small agenda, pulling together the threads of where the business is and where it needs to go, and I am so curious to see what comes out of getting everyone in the same virtual room together. These are people who believe in Hello West Africa (and me!) and bring very different perspectives to the table. I will absolutely report back next week.

The Learning Lens also goes out this week. It’s going to be a busy week at the computer!

What I’m Learning

Things take time to develop. I should know this by now. I tell my kids all the time to be patient and that things take time. And living it continues to teach me in a way that just saying it never could.

It takes time to build relationships. It takes time to grow something real. Being patient enough to let those things happen is hard in a society that equates being busy with moving forward. Most of the time, things will not happen on the timeline you want to follow. Better to let go of that control piece sooner rather than later.

In My Free Time

The weather has been windy today, but this morning was beautiful, and we went to the park. Summer feels like it might actually be on its way, maybe.

It was a nice enough evening, so we went to watch the spectacle of the small town circus that visits once a year. Nothing like the big tops of Barnum and Bailey, but it is a pretty neat thing to go and watch on a Tuesday night!

That is what I have for this week. Stay tuned for the advisor meeting report next week.

And if you have the chance to watch any World Cup games this summer, find a way. Watch it with people who love the sport. You will understand something about the world that is hard to explain any other way. I’ll keep you posted on the best viewing options!

Until next week,

P.S. — Hello West Africa is looking for aligned investors and Founding Supporters. If you want to be part of building this before the doors open, reply to this email and let’s talk.

My parents have been to Benin three times.

The first time was in 2008, mainly out of curiosity about where their daughter was spending twenty-seven months of her life. The second time was in 2009, for my wedding, which they learned about during that first visit when I introduced them to my future husband and my dad gave his blessing. English to French and back again, translated by... well, that is another story for another time. The third time was in 2015, when we surprised them with our fully built house in Kabole. That was such a fantastic trip, the looks on their faces as we kept passing hotels that we were supposed to be staying at, and then driving through a bush cut path and arriving at our house (because at the time, there wasn’t a great road going to our house).

I am so grateful they made the trip each time, even more so that they were able to see it more than once. It gave them context. They could understand what I was talking about when I explained things happening in Benin, see where my husband grew up, meet his family, and, in general, just have a picture in their minds when I say the word Benin.

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet in person one of the participants in my doctoral research. The first thing she said after we hugged was, “I feel like I know you already.” And all I could do was nod yes, I feel like I know you too.

And what blows my mind is that comment comes after only five weeks of an online tour. Not even an in-person visit. Five weeks of a virtual experience of Benin, and she felt like she already knew me. How incredible is that?!

My dad happened to be sitting nearby and asked her whether she would like to travel to Benin someday. She said, “Absolutely! Of course! I would love to go there.”

My dad responded, “Well, it’s different.”

I love that word. He didn’t say it was a third-world country. He didn’t say people are poor there. He didn’t reach for any of the tired connotations that would put it down or flatten it. He simply said it was different. Which is true. It is very different from the United States. And different is exactly the right word.

The Two-Year-Old’s Way of Walking

This morning, my youngest reminded me of something important.

He is two and a half, and when we go for a walk, he does not have a program or an agenda. He is not counting steps or watching the clock. He is just walking, exploring, being curious, and learning. He picks up rocks. He collects snails to carry all the way home. He stops and looks at things that the rest of us walk right past.

I remembered that each of my children has gone through this phase, and that this was, again, for the third time, a reminder for me to slow down. To remember that as humans, we are learning from the very beginning, and that no matter how fast I try to rush them, my little guys are just learning behind me, without a care in the world.

That is the mindset I would love for people to bring when they visit Benin.

Come to learn about a place that is different from where you come from. Don’t arrive with a fixed idea of what it should look like or how it should feel. You will have expectations and filters built in, we all do, we have been around long enough for that, but hold them loosely. Stay curious. Stay slow enough to pick up the rocks and notice the snails.

Because sometimes those moments of slow, curious learning become something more. Sometimes they shift a perspective in a way that stays with you long after you come home. That is transformative learning. And that is what I am designing Hello West Africa around. (Who knew you would end up talking about transformative learning here, LOL.)

Development in Benin

Benin has a new president, and chances are you didn’t hear about it on the evening news.

On May 24th, Romuald Wadagni was inaugurated, making him the country’s first new head of state in a decade. He’s a finance guy, a technocrat who spent years at Deloitte before President Talon brought him in as Minister of Economy and Finance. Ten years of steady growth above 6% later, he now runs the country I call my second home.

The new president has a focus on manufacturing, particularly cotton. Benin is one of the top cotton exporters on the continent, yet it exports raw cotton and imports finished materials to make clothes. There is a real opportunity to change that, to keep the value inside the country rather than sending it out the door. I am watching that with a lot of interest, because I’m so excited to finally see it come to fruition. These are ideas that were talked about when I was a Peace Corps volunteer. When I left Benin in early 2022, they were beginning to build manufacturing facilities north of Cotonou in an area called Calavi.

The region where our property sits, about 140 miles north of the city of Cotonou, is also growing rapidly. The third-largest market in Benin is about three miles from our village in Glazoué, and they recently rebuilt it into a large, permanent marketplace where people can sell every day, not just on the major Wednesday market day. More people are coming. More roads. More electricity.

Which brings me to something a little bittersweet.

We are selling our cashew tree farm.

We bought the property about twelve years ago when it was just open farmland, no houses, no roads, just a small path, almost a mile from our house to reach it. We planted cashew trees, peanuts, chickpeas, among other things. The kids used to climb the trees. We used to go just to sit and watch things grow.

Today, roads and electricity poles run through it. Houses and apartments are going up everywhere. There are buvettes (outdoor bars and restaurants) on the corners. The area has developed so much around it that a cashew farm is no longer practical. We can’t really control people coming and going. Funny story about that. My mother-in-law went to the farm one day to check on the trees, and she noticed a man picking the cashew apples. She let him know that this was her farm, and his response was, “The trees are for everyone, right?” Maybe not so funny, but culturally, that is just the way it is. So we are letting it go.

We spent ten years nurturing those trees. And development has been nurturing the region too. I should be happy about this, right? This is what everyone in the outside world says should happen — development. I think I still have mixed feelings about it. But there is still land available elsewhere, so there are other farm ideas in our future. And don’t worry, if you come on tour with us, we will still take you to see some cashew trees!

What Really Happened Last Week

A quieter week, with life things still happening. At times, I wonder if I should talk about those, but then I realize some things need to stay private, need to stay mine. I posted the newsletter, but didn’t spend much time on LinkedIn or Instagram.

But I did notice something that stopped me in my tracks: the Learning Lens issue Can Transformative Travel Be Designed has nearly a thousand podcast downloads!

A thousand. I almost can’t believe it. I refreshed the page a couple of times just to make sure. For a newsletter that is still finding its audience. That tells me something about what people are hungry for, and it confirms the road I need to travel down, outside of building Hello West Africa. I could talk about transformative learning and travel all day. I am so excited about where this is going.

I attended a Women Who Thrive in Travel Zoom conference on Sunday, featuring about 13 speakers, all women, discussing their businesses and the travel trends they are seeing in the industry. It was incredible. This was put on by the Travel Coaching Network, the same community where I have my very first podcast recording scheduled for June 17th. Silently saying Woohoo in my head!

I also emailed the Hello West Africa advisors to get a group Zoom on the calendar. Hopefully, we can make that happen in the next couple of weeks. Everyone in the same virtual room, sharing ideas, seeing where the business is and where it needs to go.

And I have been getting back to the brass tacks of Hello West Africa. Identifying the key tasks. Working on the pitch. Editing the business plan ahead of the advisor meeting.

What’s Coming Next

I am working on something related to transformative learning that I hope to share with the world next week. A way to help people see that it is possible to design for transformation, and to give them something practical to take away. Stay tuned.

The Learning Lens goes out next week.

And the advisor Zoom, whenever we can get everyone together, is going to be a good one. I will certainly have some good stories to tell after that!

What I’m Learning

Last week, a woman on LinkedIn posted this phrase:

An invitation into something they can only do with you, in this place, right now.

And it was like finding a north star for how I should be talking about Hello West Africa. For a long time, there has been a bit of a haze around that, but now I have that sticky-noted to my bulletin board, and I look at it to center myself when I sit down to write posts, or newsletters, or talk about Hello West Africa. Or even transformative learning.

Which is why I keep coming back to the nearly thousand podcast downloads on one Learning Lens issue.

Not because it is a vanity metric, but because it shows that the conversation around transformative learning and travel is one people are ready to have. The research is young. The field is new. And there is a real gap between the theory and what is actually being practiced in the industry.

I want to help close that gap. And I want to do it by inviting people into something they can only do with me, right here, right now.

Ooh, just writing that makes my eyes twinkle!

In My Free Time

The weather has been beautiful almost every day, except Memorial Day, when we had a barbecue anyway because, well, even when it’s raining, a BBQ is a good idea! Cloudy the last couple of days, but sunshine is back now. Not super warm, but I will take it.

Doves are cooing outside right now, which always takes me back to visiting my grandparents in New York. Hot, humid days, where I would wake up to the family sawmill next door coming to life, and walking down to the kitchen to breakfast with Gram and Pop.

Oh, how wonderful life is. Learning more every day.

There is always room for a little more learning.

Until next week,

P.S. — Hello West Africa is looking for aligned investors and Founding Supporters. If you want to be part of building this before the doors open, reply to this email and let’s talk.