Lil' Update of your favorite African

I have just returned from the City of Fog, to find myself in nearly the same place, except replace the fog with haze (a lovely mixture of smoke and sand) and the modern land of England for the backwards land of Benin. Returning to my life in Benin allows me to recollect and understand what I am doing better than I did before. This return is not shrouded in my excitement and wonderment of a new place at the start of a new adventure, it is just a return from a vacation to my home on the west coast of the Dark Continent. I am able to further understand the difficulties that stand before me, attacking me on a daily basis for the remaining 20 months that I have left here. (Yes, I did just say 20 months.) The people are different, the land is different, the food is different and the lifestyle is different. Nothing in my life has ever been like this. I am accustomed to constant change but have been able to blend in with the culture, become "one with the people" and become "one with the land" but not here. I was easily reminded of this the second I stepped off teh plane and the first person to great me said, "Bienvenue Yovo" ("Welcome Whitey/Foreigner"). Welcome back to the land of misunderstandings, the homogenous land, the difficult land. The happiest person/thing to see me was my dog, Dounyan. My homologue (boss) was as welcoming as a Beninese person could be, until I told her the great news of my meeting with a friend that could potentially (fingers crossed) end up with a partnership, greatly increasing production and the overall size of the cashew factory.

This may sound extremely negative, but I am glad to be back. Glad to be back to the normal life of waking up in the morning, showering with a bucket, working, and stress. I am masochistic in that way, enjoying fully enveloping myself in work, ignoring everything else that potentially could cause problems. I have so much in front of me, that I doubt I will be able to finish it in time, but I will call back to my college years (now seeming so far behind me) and may have to pull all-nighters to finish the work, draining the life of myself staring at Excel worksheets, doing accounting work. (Can't Wait!) The factory is closed for the season until February until we receive our first shipment of nuts. Preparation work for the new stock, that has never been done before, will take up most of my time. This comes at the worst time, as the holiday season starts here. Most of the country takes the next three weeks off, but not I. My homologue thinks I am crazy because I end up at the factory, even though it is closed, all day, staring at the computer.

I have great news though that does not have to do with anything to with work: I have new additions to my house that I am proud to announce. I have a FRIDGE/FREEZER and a COUCH (arriving on Saturday)!!!!!! My house is finally going to be actually livable. Now, all that rests, is some bookshelves for storage and something to put my clothes on. The final touch that will make my house a real house is some paint for the walls, erasing the dreary grey of concrete.

There list of books that I have been reading if you are interested in some good books, everything that I have read has been good except for the ones that I wrote "bad book"  next to. I am gonna start writing a blog on each book I read if you are interested.

Good night everyone, tomorrow I have friends coming down and am going to the North for Christmas and/or New Years (Nattitingou, if you wanted to look at a map).