Community Study DONE!!

One community study done, first and last I hopefully will have to do here about Bassila. Next time I write Peace Corps Ill be telling them about my projects instead of my town. While Bassila is cool and everything, it is not my most engaging writing assignment, but i can honestly say Ive had crappier writing assignments. But regardless its done and it was sent to my boss. YAY!! time to celebrate, I think as a gift to myself Ill watch a movie. So is it sad that Ive been here long enough to think that watching a movie is more special event rather than a normal everyday option?
Staying in Natitingou has been good. Ive been discussing with a few Peace Corps friends about how we dont realize the amount of stress we are having to deal with living away from what we're used to. Physical stress is mostly brought on by lack of variety in diet, eating beninese food instead of american, having to walk more in your daily life to get from one place to another (i dont mean an excessive amount of walking takes place here, i mean that i just walk more having come from college where i stayed in class and also wasnt needing to walk very far to study). then theres the emotional stress. i dont really understand the beninese very well, sometimes i think i get it and then someone will do something completely strange to me and its not strange here. like having to dance barefoot at church for hours on end. body language also gets me sometimes, its tough to pick up on social ques because its not how i communicate. of course coupled with language barrier being away from home and living without other luxeries such as hot showers and a refrigerator id say that i was under a little bit of stress. Im not really complaining though this is just to give the folks at home a better picture of life as a volunteer and why workstations and very important for destressing. honestly i forget how much i like to spend a night or two at the workstation getting some work done. its our little slice of the states in west africa. anyhow that is how life has been going here in benin. even though i just talked about stress id just like to remind everyone that i am really comfortable here and that life in the states also involves some amount of stress.