6 Months?

December 12th. I’ve been told it’s the second day of Channukah—somehow, it’s approach never even came to mind, given that even if it gets below 60 Fahrenheit in the morning, it’s still well over 85 by midday.

We made a makeshift menorah, using emptied beer and coke bottles. Christmas approaches, too. All the Christians in Thyou (that’s my village) are getting psyched up for it. My first trimester teaching here is almost over. Tests are done with, and I have to correct them, calculate grades (not so easy when lacking Excel), and continue teaching material to test on in January.

Planning a hiking trip in Mali for the break. You can count on pictures. It will be a nice vacation, and it’s the coolest time of year in the desert. Plus, it should all cost under 200 bucks: travel, lodging, food, etc. Not a bad deal. Other than this, there isn’t much that’s new. The exciting things in my life today involve all of YOU. Whether you’ve moved out of your parents’ house since I left, or you’re graduating soon, or you’re getting the kitchen cabinets redone, or you’ve recently gotten engaged… these are the things I’m thinking about on an average day after classes are out. There are a lot of changes happening on the home turf. Heck, a health care bill in the senate? Wow! I’ll tell you what health care is here:
“Don’t eat too many peanuts or you’ll get sick.”
“Don’t let a woman kill the chicken before you eat it or you’ll get sick.”
“Don’t take pictures during a storm because your camera attracts lighting. And if that doesn’t at least burn down your house and electrocute you, you could get sick.”

The other day, while rifling through my bookshelf for something or other, I happened upon the first little packet I received in the mail last April, inviting me to teach science in Burkina Faso. I highlighted the phrase “Your counterpart may help you hook a used car battery up to a fluorescent lamp to do work by at night,” because it sounded so foreign, so post-apocalyptic, so adventurous. Now, in retrospect, this little packet is more of a checklist: Hooked up the battery. I charge it with a solar panel every day. Taught photosynthesis to kids in French (at least a couple of them understood it). I wake up daily to the torturous sound of whining donkeys. There was a screaming goat under my seat on the three-hour bush taxi ride into the capital.

All these things are normal, though. Heck, expected. Unless it’s a particularly existential moment, I’m not stricken that my source of light is velcro-ed to a battery that runs it. The packet I got in the mail—the latter half of a year ago—didn’t lie, but everything in it is just normal happenstance now. What’ll be strangest is the things I have to reacclimatize to upon my return…

Well, my evenings are very free. It’d be sweet to get a call from you. If you don’t already have my number, talk to someone who does!