Approaching 6 years in Benin, I decided to leave. I spent the last few hours before my flight day drinking la Beninoise at a Rasta bar with Willy.

The slogan for la Beninoise is “Plus qu’une bière, notre bière” (more than a beer, our beer). Slightly modified, it captures how I was feeling during my first sip. “More than a country, my country”.

But that feeling is at best mawkish and at worst presumptuous. Integration is the raison d’être of a Peace Corps volunteer,  but there is a limit to what is permitted or appropriate. That limit is found somewhere in the answer to the question: How is my cultural fluidity – feeling at home in Benin – anything more than a function of my privilege as a white American?

On my last sip, I was ready to leave, maybe not my country, but a country with many incredible people and one incredible beer.