Wednesday, November 15, 2006 Everything is now brown.

It's amazing how fast the season has changed. Last week at this time we were still in what was known as the "Petite Chaleur", where it's hot and annoying. While it was hot, it wasn't really dry. There was quite a bit of humidity in the air still. No longer. Along with the cold, all moisture has been sucked out of there are. Lips are chapped, and what was green and beautiful before has now died. It's a little disturbing actually to have seen the change from green to brown happen so quickly.

Another side effect of the dryness is, as everything is dead and dry, the burning starts. One of my friends told me that for the village-bound, this is a great season. They start brush fires, and kill the animals that come out. It's free meat until all the brush is gone! As for the animals that come out, well... there are rats, bush rats (which aren't really that rat like... more like humongo guinea pigs), and bush chicken (or as the french dictionary translated the word: partridge).

We're getting to the home stretch now. I'm working on getting mentally prepared for heading home. This means finishing up essays, getting the last few reccomendations for grad schools and JET, not to mention running around buying gifts, taking pictures and all of the other crazy things one needs to do before travelling. It sucks.

Okay, it doesn't exactly suck. The problem is on top of all that, my projects are going well and for once I've got a fair amount of work to do. I miss last year where I could sit all day at my house reading and doing nothing! Well, that's not really true.

I've actually found that in my last few months here in Benin have been the best months so far. No longer are things confusing, I speak the language well enough to do anything that I need to do, the culture makes sense, I like the food and I feel like I've actually settled in. It's sort of a weird feeling actually. Interestingly, my stay in Parakou is now the longest I've lived in one house since the beginning of college (2000). Strange?