Last night, a village friend told me about his great-grandmother who died a few years ago at 140 years old. His grandmother, he said, is 100 and his mother is 70. I naturally found this hard to believe, especially since his mother would have thus been 52 years old when she gave birth to her youngest child.
These astronomical claims of age are quite common in Benin. Another friend was unimpressed when I told her about a 94-year-old grandmother in the US; she said her husband's grandmother lived to be 120. One of my colleagues prints memorial t-shirts for people who have died, and it is not common to see t-shirts for couples where the wife died at 110 and the husband at 120. The televised obituaries are also full of centenarians. In western Benin, I even saw a tombstone claiming that the deceased had died at 242 years old!
In reality, most Beninese, especially the older generations, have no clue when they were born. To determine a person's age, you just eyeball it: that person looks really old, so he must be 100! Hence, they chronically overestimate their age. That must be even easier to do when everyone else is claiming to be 120.
These days, however, children and young adults often know their real age because births are now recorded and birth certificates are issued. Some children who started school late or fell behind even have fake birth certificates with fake ages to allow them to pass school completion exams that are normally capped at a certain age.
Still, even though births are supposed to be registered, every week I weigh babies with no date of birth recorded in their health booklets (which is a problem since I use a malnutrition chart that compares weight to age). When I ask the mother to tell me her child's date of birth, she often does not know. Sometimes she can estimate, saying that the child is two weeks old or two months old, but often we have to proceed by using holidays as landmarks. Was your child born before or after Christmas? Was your child born before or after Tabaski? Was your child born before or after Ramadan?
As you can imagine, birthdays are not significant here since few people know when they were born. Even one of my friends who does know her date of birth told me that as a Muslim, she does not celebrate her birthday. And the one birthday that is celebrated every year as a national holiday, that of the Prophet Mohammed, changes dates each year since it is based on the lunar calendar. Of course, Christmas (Jesus' birth) is also a national holiday, and it is always celebrated on December 25.
In any case, maybe I should just take it as par for the course that the few Beninese people who have estimated my age pegged me for older than I actually am. Still, it feels somewhat remarkable because Americans chronically underestimate how old I am. Or maybe I am just aging dramatically! I should use more sunscreen...
These astronomical claims of age are quite common in Benin. Another friend was unimpressed when I told her about a 94-year-old grandmother in the US; she said her husband's grandmother lived to be 120. One of my colleagues prints memorial t-shirts for people who have died, and it is not common to see t-shirts for couples where the wife died at 110 and the husband at 120. The televised obituaries are also full of centenarians. In western Benin, I even saw a tombstone claiming that the deceased had died at 242 years old!
In reality, most Beninese, especially the older generations, have no clue when they were born. To determine a person's age, you just eyeball it: that person looks really old, so he must be 100! Hence, they chronically overestimate their age. That must be even easier to do when everyone else is claiming to be 120.
These days, however, children and young adults often know their real age because births are now recorded and birth certificates are issued. Some children who started school late or fell behind even have fake birth certificates with fake ages to allow them to pass school completion exams that are normally capped at a certain age.
Still, even though births are supposed to be registered, every week I weigh babies with no date of birth recorded in their health booklets (which is a problem since I use a malnutrition chart that compares weight to age). When I ask the mother to tell me her child's date of birth, she often does not know. Sometimes she can estimate, saying that the child is two weeks old or two months old, but often we have to proceed by using holidays as landmarks. Was your child born before or after Christmas? Was your child born before or after Tabaski? Was your child born before or after Ramadan?
As you can imagine, birthdays are not significant here since few people know when they were born. Even one of my friends who does know her date of birth told me that as a Muslim, she does not celebrate her birthday. And the one birthday that is celebrated every year as a national holiday, that of the Prophet Mohammed, changes dates each year since it is based on the lunar calendar. Of course, Christmas (Jesus' birth) is also a national holiday, and it is always celebrated on December 25.
In any case, maybe I should just take it as par for the course that the few Beninese people who have estimated my age pegged me for older than I actually am. Still, it feels somewhat remarkable because Americans chronically underestimate how old I am. Or maybe I am just aging dramatically! I should use more sunscreen...
