Finally getting the hang of things...

Bon dimanche tout le monde!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today has been such a productive day for me, which has inspired me to write this blog about how I am finally starting to get the hang of life here in Benin. To start off this blog, I thought I would just give you a run down of my day. This morning I woke up at 7am, to the lovely sounds of church music and the sound of my dog whining for me to get out of bed. Now if you didn’t know, religion is a huge part of life here in Benin, and Sunday’s are for church. There are also many other religions here such as muslim and voodoo, but if you are a part of a Christian faith, Sunday’s are for church. After waking up and getting ready for the day, I decided to go on a run around 7:45am. Exercise has been one of my biggest coping skills in life, and even though my methods are limited right now, I love to get out of the house for a run at least once a week. After my run, I stared on all my house chores for the day. For me Sunday’s are not for church (unless I am invited by a friend), they are for cleaning. So that is what I did until about 3pm. I cleaned everything! The kitchen, the floors, my room, the living room, the back area, and I even did all the dishes and all my laundry. I never understood the luxury of having a dishwasher and laundry machine until now. After that mountain of chores, I decided to take a break and watch a Netflix show. Later in the afternoon, one of my coworkers invited me over to have dinner. Which leads us to now, sitting here writing this blog post. As you can see, I got a lot accomplished during my day, but what you don’t realize is how difficult those things used to be for me. For some reason during my fifth month of service stuff just started to click. Let me give you some examples. Things such as laundry and cleaning my house used to take me twice as long, but now I have a system and I know what I am doing. Another example is that my work used to be so intimidating, and I felt like I literally had no idea where to even start. Well now I have plans that are actually starting and road bumps don’t discourage me like they used to, they motivate me to try a different way. The biggest example is that my general confidence has skyrocketed because I have put in the work to learning the language and the culture. Even though there is so much more to learn, I am in a sweet spot where I know just enough to push forward with my work here in Benin.

Now let me tell you how I would have been feeling 2 months or even 1 month ago on a Sunday doing the same exact tasks. First of all it would have taken me about an hour to decide to go on that run because I would have been paralyzed by the “judgement” that awaits me on the other side of me door. This “judgement” was mostly all in my head. Then after my run, I would have maybe accomplished all my chores, but it would have taken me way longer especially because I would have had anxiety about getting water or drying my clothes outside my house. Always being afraid not to offend anyone or make the wrong move about even the smallest things such as laundry. Then I would have just felt overwhelmingly tired to the point where I would close my door and stay in for the rest of the day and watch TV. Then I definitely would have beaten my self up over the fact that I was not out in the community integrating myself, but instead I had decided to stay in my house by myself. Now you are probably thinking, “Damn that sounds like a rough day. Why would she put herself through that”. Well it was the adjustment period. It happens with everything in life. Without all the anxiety, fear of judgement, and unknown, I never would have been able to grow as much as I have. Because let’s admit it, we never know when something gets better if at first it sucks a little bit. I am defiantly not saying that I hated my life for the past 4 months. I had some amazing experiences, but I am saying that I was extremely uncomfortable most of the time. Now I still feel that uncomfortably, but I have learned enough about the culture and language to be able to survive my way through those moments. Overall I just feel happier and more confident. I understand that I need balance between my Beninise life and my American life, and that I also need take time for me which includes some bad days of staying inside watching TV. Now I feel like I have made a home here for myself and things that used to seem impossible or extremely difficult don’t look that way anymore. I have made relationships with people and I feel excited to continue to grow those relationships. I know that this moment in my life is a high, so I am going to ride it for how ever long it will last. Everyday here is hard, but little by little those hard days just don’t feel as heavy anymore.