Teach Me English

Today I was cleaning my house and I walked outside to dump a bucket of dirty water. A man whose driving by, stops and says to me “hello” in English in an accent that usually means that person doesn't actually speak English
“Hello” I say back.
I have never seen this man before in my life. And I wonder what he's doing. The next phrase out of his mouth was “I want to learn English.”
Oh boy, I know where this is going. I respond, “Good.”
“Will you teach English”
“I am not an English teacher.”
“But I want to learn.”
“Go to the CEG and find the English professor.”
“But I want you to teach me English.”
“No”
This was the last thing I said to him. I went back into my concession and closed the door. There are a few reasons why I have my the decision to not teach anyone English while I'm here. The first is that I don't know how to teach English. Of course as a native English speaker I'm a great resource to someone learning. Like most resources my English skills are only useful in conjunction with other things, like a class for example. If someone wants help with their English homework for example, that's OK. I actually tutored a French woman in English but she had many books that helped her, and tapes and she also had been taught how to do linguistic studies. It is really hard to teach something that comes naturally to you. If you haven't been given the tools to teach something as complicated as a language you won't really get very far. Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) is something that people have to get certificates and degrees in before they can teach it within a professional setting. The TEFL program for Peace Corps is 9 weeks of training, in my opinion, it is more rigorous than any other program in Peace Corps Benin. I can't teach English, even with the French woman, it was tough. So even though I speak it, can correct it, and can translate it from French, I cannot teach it.
Another reason why I refuse to teach English is because people who just come up to me out of the blue and ask are normally not the people who I want to work with. Generally speaking they really only want to hang out with you because you're white or because you're an American. Kind of like in High School when there is a foreign exchange student, everyone wants to be their friend, because they're different and interesting. These people are tough to actually work with because their initial motives weren't what they asked you for. Once the novelty of hanging out with a white person wears off they generally lose interest.
I have also found that those who want to learn English sometimes want you to help with things like college applications, visa request forms, and job applications. I have a hard time accepting to help people with these things. I don't want to do it for them, it is their work not mine. Also depending on the degree to which I helped this person, it might not be a true representation of their knowledge of the English language. I have had people come to me and ask if I would help by correcting their English for jobs within the US Embassy. I looked at their resume and it was so bad that I couldn't in good conscious help them correct it as it would look as if that person wrote at a level of English that was far beyond the reality of the situation.
The biggest reason why I refuse to teach English is because that is not what I came here for. I came to Benin to do work involved in Environmental protection, not TEFL. If I had come to this country as a TEFL volunteer I would be more inclined to teach people English. But I didn't. I have a degree in Environmental Science and I wouldn't have joined Peace Corps if I wasn't doing something Environmentally related. There are people who join Peace Corps with the sole desire to join. They don't care what they do, where they go, or what they have to do to get there. They just want to be Peace Corps Volunteers somewhere. This is great. I applaud these people. A friend of mine told me that her dream was to join Peace Corps. Good for them! Peace Corps needs these types of people who are completely flexible and willing to help anyone in whatever way they can. As for myself. Why I joined Peace Corps was to gain experience in the environmental field. I wanted to improve the lives of others by giving them the tools to live more sustainably. In short, I don't teach English because it is not why I decided to join Peace Corps.