Two Packages

Two packages were waiting for me when I walked into the Parakou workstation, my khaki shirt had been turned orange from the road and I hesitate to think of the color it had turned my skin to. While my eyes hurt from the day's sun they attempted to defy their fatigue in order to take in the Christmas decorations set up around the station. What a strange idea, Christmas trees and music while you sweat from the heat and can see palm trees, the idea doesn't seem to get easier to digest the second time around but only serves to remind you where you are. Benin, West Africa, an ocean and a world away from what had been and what is still, despite new cultural ideas and norms, so familiar to you. Thanksgiving has come and gone and I'm as thankful as ever for this experience, for new people that have changed my life and for new ways of thinking about home, family, and the world. And to finally be allowed to hum Christmas songs without feeling ashamed (as Thanksgiving is the legal limit when one can start the buildup to the Fourth of July in December that is X-mas). The packages, while from Halloween circa October, were appreciated as if they had been wrapped in gold, as missives from the other side of the Atlantic always are. The first tests of the semester have been composed and and this little reprieve away from the village was a bit of a reward to myself for completing one semester, and what a reward it was.