Being a home-body

Trip Start Jun 30, 2008
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Trip End Sep 04, 2010


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Flag of United Kingdom  , England,
Thursday, January 1, 2009

'Home' is a great thing, and I am a grateful PCV, who being the Briton, could return to London for a 2week break so early on in my service (with the condition that this will not be my only time to see my parents over the course of my 2 years service).  After an exciting lead up to departing, I danced a little jig onto the Air Maroc flight leaving Cotonou at a spry 3am.  I marvelled at the purchasing opportunities on offer at the Casablanca departure terminal for 5 hours (all unobtainable - they may have a LaCoste shop, a food court etc but no way to change money into Moroccan Dhiram).  Casablanca to London, with the excitement growing, I met 3 COSing Niger PCVs on their way home - Peace Corps following me home.  After an overenthusiastic greeting with the unenthused border officials, too long waiting for my one small checked bag, I managed to completely miss my Mom, walking right by her.
 
To go into such small detail here would be ridiculous, and impossible.  I somehow managed to fit in HUGE amounts of stuff, movies, friends, Studio60 on the Sunset Strip, a more fully-grown Poppy, decorate the banister   ...etc ...etc ...etc.  The family Christmas was as wonderful as always, with the attention to detail being key.  There was all the good food I had wanted to eat, all the new movies I needed to watch, and all the new Wii games to play.  There was also my wardrobe to rediscover - including my personally coveted scarf collection.  All of these things were expected, and of course all were fully appreciated.  I also did a silly thing in slamming the Apple Mac onto the hardwood floor, effectively killing it.  So with only a few days left in the UK, I made a trip to PC World to obtain a new laptop, mostly to aide my sanity through the long days at post with the West Wing Collection I also received for Christmas. But then there were a few things that caught me off guard.
 
First of all there was the cold and the darkness.  First bear in mind that I left England at the end of June, when the weather was relatively warm and the days long.  I then went to Benin, where the proximity to the equator means it's always hot and the length of the day is generally the same the whole year through.  So after my 6 month perpetual summer, I was caught off guard when darkness fell at around 4pm.  The cold was expected, yet I didn't realise just how acclimatised I had become to the heat, and how I seemed to feel the cold more than my family.  On New Years Eve, I sat bundled up and shivering in the boy's apartment - despite them telling me it was 'sweltering'.
 
Second; there was the economy.  Partly protected by my set USdollar PC -stipend, and my lack of access to international news, the reality and all-consuming nature of recession-talk hit me.  I wandered around a closing down sale of Woolworth's, 'just saying goodbye', and I watched 'Year in Review' after 'Year in Review' show talking about all the news (including economic) that I had missed.  Listening to my friends talk about the struggle to find jobs, and then to hold on to them with the hope of making ends meet, if not paying off their student loan, was depressing.  Again I was thankful for the relative security I have over the next 2 years as a PCV *knocks on wood*.  This helped to put the thought of ET-ing further from my mind, realising just what little prospects I would have to go back to instead of finishing my service.
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