This time of the year in Benin, where we live, you start praying for rain. Every dark cloud you see sparks another conversation about how it’s been so long since it has rained, and that those clouds are certainly holding a wonderful secret. You see, it is nearing the end of the dry season. Water hasn’t fallen from the sky since at least November or early December before.
The dirt roads are so parched that they are cracking. Everything is dull, brown, dry, and dusty. The large cisterns have dried up, and we have to pull out the familiar yellow containers and head to the local water pumps, or, in our case, most of the time, hire someone or get the neighborhood kids to do it.
You wait…and wait…to hear those first drops of rain on the tin roofs. And then, one day, in late March or early April, the sky darkens, the air chills, and you hear it.
Pitter. Patter. Pitter. Patter.
Everyone rushes around to pick up anything that shouldn’t get wet. Windows are closed. Any type of bucket or basin you can find is brought outside to catch the rain. No more using the yellow containers! And then you run out on the front porch and breathe in the air heavy with rain, and you feel like you are in one of those CDs that get played while getting a massage, rain hitting the tin roof. A giant smile makes its way to your face, and conversations almost seem to get a bit lighter.
The brown landscape turns green in less than a week. And so begins the planting season.
Rain. So unbelievably happy to see it.
Something I’m sorry to say I’m tired of seeing right now as someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest.
A Little Background
That green, the one that arrives after the first rain, is exactly what I picture when I think about Kabole. Our property. The place where Hello West Africa is being built, piece by piece, from two continents at once.
For those who are new here, Hello West Africa is rooted in a specific place: our property in Benin, a small country nestled between Nigeria and Togo. The village of Kabole, where our house sits, is about 2.5 hours north of Cotonou, between the cities of Dassa and Glazoué. We have had this property for about 15 years, and began building our house on it around 2013. We surprised my parents with the build when we all traveled over in 2015. What a fun secret that was to reveal!
D’Aquin has been going back and forth to Benin over the last few years while I finished my doctorate and navigated various life things here in Washington State. I haven’t been back to Benin in a while. That’s a fact I sit with sometimes, the strange experience of building a company in a place you are temporarily far from. But the work has continued. We dug a well two years ago. We added a larger terrace along the side of the house last year. We’ve made it possible to add a second floor, where the Hello West Africa offices will eventually be located when we are in country.
The house currently has four large bedrooms. We want to renovate all of them to include en-suite bathrooms and add three guest bungalows on the property. Solar panels are on the list as well, since the sun is often out and electricity costs in Benin are high. Landscaping. Furnishings. All of it, piece by piece.
It is very much a construction project. D’Aquin has done an incredible job of managing various building projects in Benin from here in Washington.
This is what building Hello West Africa actually looks like.
So, here’s what has led to where we are today.
It started last September or October, when I finally believed in myself and got the ball rolling on developing the business plan. I reached out to a friend I had met during COVID in Benin, someone who was working for Peace Corps Benin (and had been a PCV there before) and was familiar with budgeting using local prices. Together, we worked out an initial financial forecast: what it would cost to run a tour, what the construction numbers looked like, and whether any of this was remotely viable. Without that conversation, I’m not sure I would have started.
From there, through a TikTok that my husband mentioned to me, I connected with a Certified Business Advisor at the Washington Small Business Development Center, and began drafting the business plan and financial forecast in earnest. Having someone else’s eyes on it, someone who asked hard questions and didn’t let me be vague about the numbers, was exactly what I needed.
Then December rolled along, and I noticed a trend on Instagram where people were doing various challenges, and I thought, well, why don’t I try to raise $300,000 in 30 days for the startup capital? I was excited about it. And then, well, it was a lot harder than I thought, and it didn’t happen. The momentum stalled, the holidays arrived, and I took a break. I won’t pretend I wasn’t feeling the weight of that. When you put something close to your heart out into the world, and it doesn’t land the way you hoped, it’s hard not to take it personally.
But here’s what happened instead.
I started talking about Benin. I put out posts in different Facebook groups and had the opportunity to speak at five or six events to real people. And something shifted. Talking about Hello West Africa out loud, watching people’s faces when I described the community and what it means to actually live in a place rather than visit it…it made the whole thing more real. The story got sharper every time I told it.
In one of those conversations, I met a returned Peace Corps volunteer who introduced me to a local RPCV group and recommended I reach out to SCORE. That’s how I found David, my SCORE advisor. We’ve met three times now. The first meeting was humbling; his feedback was hard to hear, and I had a choice about how to receive it. I chose to go back and make a better version. Draft two was significantly stronger. Last week, we moved on to draft three.
That’s where Hello West Africa stands today. Business plan in progress. Numbers are getting tighter. This newsletter has been launched. The dream is getting more real by the week.
What’s Coming Next
This week, I’m turning my attention to growing our presence on Instagram and LinkedIn and beginning to draft a pitch for potential investors. That second one is the one that makes my stomach flip a little.
I love talking about Benin and Hello West Africa. I love the conversations it starts. But asking for money, asking someone to believe in a dream enough to put real dollars behind it, is a different kind of vulnerable. I’ve done it before. I know the no’s will come, and I know that’s okay. But when something is this close to your heart, you protect it.
I’ll also be updating the Hello West Africa website. I put one together last fall, but things have changed a bit, so I want to make sure everything sounds cohesive.
So this week: Instagram, LinkedIn, the pitch deck (anyone want to be my guinea pig?), version four of the business plan, and the website.
All of it. One thing at a time.
What I’m Learning
There’s a quote I was reminded of this past week. It’s from Zootopia, of all places, Judy Hopps, during the speech at the Zootopia Police Academy graduation:
“The more we try to understand each other, the more exceptional each of us will be. But we have to try. And I implore you…try. Try to make the world a better place.”
I know. A Disney bunny. But I think about this more than I’d like to admit. (The boys and I just watched Zootopia 2, which is why it was fresh in my mind.)
Because what I’m learning…from the speaking engagements, from the SCORE meetings, from the conversations with people who lean in when I talk about Benin…is that Hello West Africa is not just a tourism company. It’s an argument. An argument that understanding each other, really understanding each other, is worth the effort. That the world gets better when curious people go somewhere unfamiliar and come back changed.
That’s not a business pitch. That’s a belief I’ve been carrying since 2007.
The other thing I’m learning is best said through the words of a children’s book by Michael Rosen:
“We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! I’m not scared…Uh oh…long wavy grass…we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it!”
Asking people to subscribe to the newsletter was uncomfortable for me. I am not someone who naturally promotes herself. But when I sent those messages, and people responded, when the conversations started, I remembered why I was doing it. It’s like finishing a workout. You have to remember how it feels at the end, not in the middle. Reading Influence Is Your Superpower by Zoe Chance has also been helpful in this moment.
You can’t go around it. You’ve got to go through it.
And Now, Your Turn
When you’ve had to ask for something that really mattered to you (support, money, a chance), what helped you actually do it?
Hit reply and tell me. Or answer the poll below. I read everything.
How I spent my free time last week…
Outside of the build, life has been full in the best ways.
I finished At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities by Heather Webber, a fantastic, light read that I highly recommend. (It fits in surprisingly well with what I’m doing right now, actually.)
I took the boys to Comic Con in Seattle last week. I grew up watching Star Trek, so walking into a space where people were dressed as their favorite characters, geeking out without apology, was something I wanted my kids to experience. Because there was certainly no way when I was their age that I would have done that. My oldest looked at me at the end of the day and said, “I’m so grateful for today. It was so awesome.”
As a parent, it doesn’t get much better than that.
The weather has been brutal. I grew up in Alaska, so I can handle cold, but the wind here is something else entirely. I’ve been watching The Pitt (I was a devoted ER fan as a high schooler, when my parents let me stay up until 10 pm on Thursdays to watch it). I actually enjoy how streaming shows are releasing once a week rather than all at once. Kind of nice! The boys and I also watched Zootopia 2, which, as you now know, reminded me of Judy Hopps's words.
Until next Tuesday,
P.S. — If you’re just finding this newsletter, Issue No. 1 is where the story starts…in an overcrowded van in Benin in 2007, with a young woman who was absolutely certain she had everything figured out. She did not.
