Thoughts from places: South African safari campfire

It was about three days into my vacation in South Africa that I realized how much I had needed this vacation. I was sipping red wine (from a bottle not a box) and talking to other guests at our safari lodge when I realized that this was the most comfortable I had felt in a long time.

I love Benin. I love the path that I have chosen to walk for the next 15 months. And really, I don’t want to be working anywhere else right now. But that doesn’t mean that path is easy all the time.

What I realized that night while I spoke in a language where I didn’t have to stop to think about any words before I said them, where I didn’t feel like I was a substitute for television for any kids, where I didn’t have to worry about anyone asking my for money was that I had not failed. My overwhelming need need to get out of the place that I’ve called home for the past year did not mean that I wasn’t integrated into my community, that I wasn’t good at what I’m doing, that I had chosen the wrong path.  It simply meant that I needed a break.

I realized that night that the person I was in South Africa was different than the person I had been in Benin for the last three months. And I liked the former much better. 

I realized that I had needed these 10 days off in order to allow that person to still be there when I walked off the plane in Cotonou the next Sunday.