Has it really been a year?

I arrived in Benin on July 24th, 2009. For the first few days I was confused, hot and surrounded by people I did not know. Over the next few weeks I grew accustomed to my surroundings and developed relationships with the people in my training class and my host family. I am still hot and I am often confused but I am now surrounded by some of my best friends in the world. It is especially interesting to reflect on the past year right now because our new group of trainees arrived last week and I have been with them from the airport to their first few days in Cotonou and then meeting their host families in Porto Novo where they will spend the next two months. Being here again reminds me of how hard the first few weeks and months were but it also reminds me of how far I have come and what I have accomplished. It is amazing to me that in the past year I have moved to West Africa, learned French (and a little bit of Zarma,) and lived on my own in a house with no running water and unreliable electricity in a town where I am the only westerner. I have survived malaria, a coup d’etat, motorcycle accidents and numerous other small incidents that I would have considered a big deal in the states.
Most of my accomplishments in the past year have been of a personal nature. I know that I can live here and enjoy it and I felt like that was the challenge of my first year of service. I now want to focus on serving my community and I have a list of things that I want to accomplish there in the next 14 months. These goals include starting a girl’s empowerment club at the local secondary school, starting microfinance groups in the impoverished villages surrounding Malanville and organizing a bike tour to raise awareness on Malaria prevention. I am really excited about all of the potential the next year holds for work opportunities in and around Malanville.
The new stage has been here for a week and that means that the older stage will be leaving over the next couple of months. It is exciting to have new friends arriving but it is sad that some of my close friends will be leaving Benin and moving on with their lives. I know that they are all happy to be finishing up their service and I hope that in a year I will feel the same way.