Out of Africa

Some of our neighbors on the military base where we lived and worked.

Street scene from Parakou, the big city where we stayed on the weekend.

A local gas station.

A typical village with cooking charcoal for sale.

On the way to school.

Typical room at the Visiting Officers Quarters. Neither the light nor the air conditioning worked in my room.

Our favorite local restaurant.

The kitchen of our favorite local restaurant.

The well just outside our rooms. The water looked a bit brackish.

Our "office".

The bathroom in one of the "visiting officer's" rooms. The far left corner is the shower. We actually had water for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

The Visiting Officer's Quarters from the outside.

The last supper at our "upscale" weekend hotel in Parakou. "Upscale" meant the air conditioning worked, there was water all day and the showers had shower curtains.

If you haven't already figured it out from all of the pictures, I have just returned from Benin on one of my exciting globe-trotting trips. Why are these trips so exciting? Because you inevitably get the trots, and that's pretty exciting when there are no toilets available as is often the case at the places I end up working. This post is my farewell (for a while at least) to Africa. All that globe-trotting has given me pause (as well as chafing), and I'm taking a break at least until January from my job training peacekeepers. After that we'll see.