Imagine finishing a really good workout.

And you are dripping in sweat. Every pore is leaking. Even your forearms and upper and lower lip. Your clothes are soaked. Gross, right? Well, now imagine feeling that sweaty, but you haven’t done anything. You’re just standing in the kitchen preparing your dinner. Yup, that’s what I have to deal with.

I have learned to avoid going out in the middle of the day. Pretty much from a little before noon to just about 4:30, 5 o’clock. Any time in between those hours and one is just asking to sweat a little, and then some. If I am out walking during those hours I feel like I am baking.

And now imagine the hottest day of the summer. And it hasn’t rained in a while so perhaps it’s a little muggy out. the sun has been baking the house all day, and there’s a little breeze, but not much. Oh, and PS there is a robber in the neighborhood, so you have to sleep in lockdown mode where all the windows are shut tight, and the doors are all closed. The only thing to keep you cool is an old fan. Now, back home the power doesn’t go out all that frequently, and I don’t know why it would go out in the middle of the summer on a perfectly normal day…but it has. So the only thing that was keeping you cool will not work due to a lack of power. This is what I deal with on a here-and-there basis. Sometimes a shower is the only way to cool down. And even like that the feeling is temporary because as long as it takes to dry off (it’s really humid here) you are going to start sweating as soon as you are dry. How about that?

In other news/parts of my day-to-day life. Oranges are now back in season. I can get a pyramid of 4 oranges for 100 francs…or I guess that’s about 25 cents. And I eat the oranges Beninese style. Note, the oranges here are not orange. First you start by peeling off the skin with a knife, which makes it easier to eat. Then you slice off the top of the orange, or you can bite it off if you have bought the oranges on the street and they were peeled for you…but that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth cause of the bitter white part of the orange. And then you stick your mouth to the top and squeeze the orange and suck out the juice like a juice box and spitting out the seeds. I can’t imagine how Beninese people might react if they were to come to the states and see HUGE orange navel oranges that are SEEDLESS! I like to eat the little stringy mangoes like this too. Although, you gotta leave the skin on. It takes some time getting used to eating oranges like this. And sometimes you can find the oranges peeled real prettily. I should find one/some and take a picture to accompany this post.

I have been meaning to go to the market with my camera too, but the ladies really don’t like having their pictures taken and a lot if not, most of them do not speak French.

Wow. Sometimes I am amazed at myself for having been able to pick up a third language. And now I am working on local language. I am not taking any formal class, nor working with a tutor—I never found one. But I am able to pick up/notice a few words during a conversation. And it’s funny too because everything will sound like jibber-jabber and then there will be that one word that I recognize! I wonder how much I will be able to understand at the end of my service.

Sixteen more months! And that’s not counting the 40 or so days I have of vacation. So really, it’s like 15ish months left. And then if you count my work being just teaching I have like 10 months of work. And I really can’t believe that the school year is essentially over.