I used up all my Beninese karma today.

You have to start things early here.

I have learned that several times the hard way. In a country where boutiques don’t stay fully stocked, school directors disappear without warning for two weeks and one rainstorm can bring everything to a grinding halt, if you have the chance to get something done, take it. Do it then. There will not be a more perfect opportunity to do it. Seriously. Don’t think that you’ll just be able to do it tomorrow.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cursed myself not thinking far enough into the future. I’m pretty good at planning things out, but this is a country where it’s hard to pick up that ball again once you’ve dropped it a first time.

But despite all this, I once again found myself in a situation where I had 24 hours to complete a task that I could have been working on completing for the past two months. 

I’ve been working to try to complete a mural of a world map at my school since last April. Waiting for funds, waiting for permission from the director, waiting for me to come back from vacation led me to seriously doubt whether this was ever going to happen.

And then I came back from my girls camp in Savalou and suddenly it was happening. The director gave me the go-ahead. We found the money to cement the wall. A mason did all the work in one day. 

And then I realized yesterday that I had nothing else that we needed to finish the project. The money had been sitting in my lockbox since the end of last May. And past experiences told me that there was no way that I would be able to get everything I needed in one day. This country just doesn’t move like that.

Then today, it did move like that. Two bicycle rides to my hardware store, one motorcycle ride to Savalou to buy what I couldn’t find in my village, then two more hardware stores, a boutique and a photocopy place later, I had crossed everything off my list, and then had money to spare.

The only explanation I have is that I must have done something right somewhere sometime in the past 13 months.