I'm off to Cotonou tomorrow for a 11-day soujourn in the south. I have my mid-service medical exam, where I shall be tested for everything under the Sahelian sun, will say goodbye to my good friend and Alibori teammate, Alex, and will assist in training the new group of health volunteers. I know that mentally, I really, really need to get out of Kandi. While I'm super grateful that I live in a regional workstation town and can now bank here, it means I never really leave. Still, going to the south has me riddled with anxiety. Having to negotiate taxi prices (even when I really don't know what they should be), dealing with Cotonou traffic, and just the palpable difference in the pace of life have me worried. Surely I can handle it for eleven days. Surely.
This week, in anticipation for the trip, has been more stressful than most. For whatever reason, I didn't go to the bank yesterday when I had time (aka laziness set in - it was awfully hot yesterday afternoon), so a line was added onto today's to-do list. Here's the thing about living here: it seems almost inevitable that you become paranoid. Case in point: this morning at circa 3:30, and I know because I was awake thinking about this trip, it started to rain. Usually rainstorms here are downpours that are deafening on tin roofs like mine. Oh no, I thought, there goes my morning run. The problem was, it didn't stop. At 8:45, I really started to panic. Why didn't I go to the bank yesterday? What if it doesn't stop raining, and I can't get there? (Because of course when it rains, the world stops here, and that most certainly includes moto taxi drivers.) Is the bank even open? I paced; I fretted some more; I cleared cobwebs from the flourescent lights; I tried to work on sodoku puzzles that I still can't seem to master. Finally, finally, at 10:45 the sky cleared up a bit, and I donned my rain jacket and set out. Very quickly, I noticed the fields around my house (some of which are rice fields) were completely flooded. All this gushing caramel-colored water had actually flooded the road, too. Lovely. I actually ended up just standing there, wondering how disgusting my feet would look after I waded through it, and if that would be acceptable in the relatively tiled and pristine Bank of Africa, Kandi branch. How has this become my life?!? Just then, a pickup truck of unknown origins, though somewhat official in appearance, pulled up to cross the river of liquidified goo, and you bet I flagged them down. I hopped in the back and made the acquaintance of three cotton executives from Cotonou. They drove me to the bank, where I thanked them profusely. Hitchhiking is not something I normally do, but desperate times.
The rest of the afternoon has been relatively uneventful, save for my annoying trip back to the tailor. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but there is a fundamental misunderstanding among African tailors/coutouriers regarding the average Western woman's body type. This time, this resulted in some extremely ill-fitting pants and a shirt, which although merely a copy of one I brought in for her, was much too small in the shoulders. "Ah," she said, "you've gotten fat." Thanks, madame, that's exactly what I needed. And fyi, I weigh exactly the same as when I arrived in this country. Telling a woman she's fat or has gotten fatter, is actually a compliment here; I've tried to explain how it's quite an insult in America, but somehow it just didn't register. Tomorrow, another day. Dieu merci.
No comments:
Post a Comment