Waking Up
The other day I woke up with the immediate need for contemplation. I wasn’t sure why and to what end, so I brought the thought right back to what I was doing: waking up. By now I was standing at the window, peering over the setting of this recent act. Tin rooftops populated my foreground with the expanse of lake emerging beyond them. It was not quite light, but a large harvest moon lit a fisherman heading early to his acadja with oar in hand and feet solidly planted in his pirogue. Distant drums beat the tune that had woken me up for a few moments earlier in the morning. They no longer seemed a nuisance with the impending dawn so near. A glance at the grove of trees a few blocks over failed to find any of the monkeys I happened to spy the previous morning. I marveled at these details and thought back to where else and how I had woken up this year. In Benin, I most frequently wake up in a village not far from Lokossa, the site of our training center. Kids are already giggling