Wake-Up

The sun rose sharply over the rocky hill, its luminance made less searing by the Harmattan winds billowing in from the North, which makes the atmosphere a smoggy collection of Sarahan sand particles. The trees crowded around me and the rocky crag of a colline I was on in a very African way, erasing my momentary wondering of where I was. I was in Benin, waking up on a local hill close to the village, seeing the day stretch itself and my new world awaken, life is good. Perhaps the understatement that best defines my experience here thus far, life is good.
The great outdoors is something different in America. A slogan for an air freshner, a poster in a classroom, here it's just everyday life, a fact made more clear to me by my first camping experience in Benin. Maybe that's why it was so hard to explain what we were doing sleeping out on the colline to the neighbors. "You're doing what?","What's camping?","You're bizarre, but nice." (That last one being my favourite response). It's strange to think that in America we've become so far removed from the outdoor experience that we've created an entire sporting lifestyle, complete with packaged goods and industrialized retail processes, called "camping". Camping, the hardest word to translate for me thus far. I settled on "faire du sport", as much as that falls short of the intended meaning. Either way, it was worth while. The "wow" moments seemed to multiply as the day went on, a fact owing, I think, to the fact that I was their for the day's birth, the nightly struggle of the sun against the night had been won yet again by the sun and life could go on. Marche day, Parakou bound; all facts making my day worth mention, but made all the more insignificant and wonderful at the same time by that red sun peaking over the hills. It's time to get up Brad.