I can’t even remember the last time I wrote and don’t know where to start. A lot of things have happened in the past two months, so much that I think it would be better just to start with what is fresh and let it flow naturally rather than try to catch up play by play.
First, I just found out yesterday that Ashley and my Peace Corps Partnership Project: “Plant. Eat. Live. Moringa for Improved Nutrition” got fully funded. We are very excited to finally get started and our heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who donated to our cause. We have created a facebook group where we will post pictures of the implementation of the project. I think even people who don’t have facebook can view the pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=128596800369&ref=mf
Moving on. Having Jorge in village pushes me to analyze life in Togo, first of all because Jorge is very curious and analytical, and second of all because I have a person to share my reflections with and the verbalization of those thoughts draws them out and develops them more than if they just stayed in my head. In addition, the last month and a half in Avassikpe has leant itself particularly to the analysis of the state of development in Togo and what sort of future outsiders (like myself and Jorge) have in future development.
After being in my village for a year and a half I feel as though I have lost some of my capacity to criticize and I am almost too accepting of the way life is in Avassikpe. Jorge has, to a certain extent, snapped me out of my complacency. He is shocked by the underdevelopment and stagnation of Avassikpe, while at the same time he is fascinated by the integration of certain elements of modernity like cell phones and motos. Why, he wonders, do people not use animals to plow their fields or simple wheeled carts to transport goods instead of their own manpower, but they are huge fans of radios, cell phones and motos?
It is very interesting to ponder what factors contribute to the incorporation of new behaviors or objects. Jorge views the lifestyle of the people in Avassikpe as quite primitive on an evolutionary scale. Although they have incorporated plastics, metals, glass, motos, radios and cell phones into their lifestyle, they are still hoeing their fields with an instrument that Jorge and I saw in a natural history museum in Milan and drinking dirty water when they have been told over and over that boiling their water kills microscopic pathogens. Why? Because boiling drinking water isn’t part of their daily habit. Ever since they were children, women have heated water for bathing in the evenings but not for drinking and so even though they have heard that boiling drinking water would improve their health and that of their children, for some reason a gap exists between the knowledge and the actual change in behavior. Why? I think it is because the idea that their children’s diarrhea is caused by those microscopic pathogens hasn’t really taken root. Their children’s diarrhea is caused by the jealousy of their sister-in-law. But I’m gettting ahead of myself. I think that in order for change to be worth the effort, the benefits of that change (be it behavioral or material) need to be obvious. Part of the problem, though, is that unequal rates of development and the shrinking size of the world have created a time warp of sorts. I remember my Dad once telling me of a professor who suggested that perhaps the introduction of certain vaccines in Africa was actually a disservice to the continent because it wasn’t prepared to deal with the surplus population. I didn’t understand then, but I am beginning to understand now. I don’t believe in one universal process of developent, but I think that development is needs to be at least somewhat linear. For example, mosquito nets weren’t invented until we understood the way in which malaria is transmitted just like filters weren’t invented before we understood that parasites in water can make us sick. Public schools weren’t built until society placed value on universal formal education and hospitals weren’t constructed before the fundamentals of modern medicine were widely accepted. It is human nature to look for solutions to immediate needs, but because of different rates and stages of development, the West is providing “solutions” to needs that, in Togo for one, are not yet widely recognized as such.
During a week alone in village (Jorge was in Notse working on an annotated bibliography and finishing up his internship with Dad), missing Jorge’s company terribly and remembering how much I dislike going days at a time without having a meaningful conversation, I was watching a woman scrub her pots with sand and wondering why women would preserve that practice when a metal scouring pad costs only 25cFA (US$ 0.05)? I concluded that sand must work well enough that village women have not yet assigned a monetary value to a replacement. Cell phones and motos, on the other hand, fill a need that wasn’t met before. For whatever reason, a hoe must work well enough for the time being. The old adage, “need is the mother of invention,” seems to hold true and where there is no percieved need, there is no motivation to improve on existing methods.
Taking the time warp idea even further, things like television and photos and internet, give people here in Togo (and other “underdeveloped” countries) a glimpse of the “developed” world, creating a disconnect between what people here feel they need and what should be the next logical step in development. Let me see if I can explain myself. I think that, because of the “interferrence,” if I can call it that, of the products of modernity, people here feel a need for motos, cell phones, radios, cameras, televisions, etc. causing them to leap frog what, in my humble opinion, should be more pressing needs like access to clean water, improved nutrition, schooling for all children, and medical care. So you have a man with a moto and a cell phone who still can’t afford to take his children to the hospital when they have malaria. Or, in another example, farmers who are blinded to the use of animal power in their fields because all they can think of is the horse power of a tractor that they will never be able to afford. So instead of making minor improvements in efficiency, they are paralyzed by the knowledge of the existence of more sophisticated technology that is way out of their grasp, and the end result is that they continue using the same hoe that their great great grandfather used.
That is one dilemma Jorge and I discussed; the second has to do with belief systems. In a short period of time various incidents occurred that made us think about the role of organized religion and animist beliefs in development or the impediment thereof. I believe in God and consider myself loosely Christian, but more and more I see religion as just a tool for manipulating people. God’s intentions seem to always be interpreted based on the needs of the time and place. When the need is for consciousless masses, God’s word promises rewards in the afterlife for silent suffering. When the need is for a motivated work force, God will reward hard work and good use of the talents and opportunities he gave us. But the question is whose need? The need of the rich and powerful of course. That was one thought Jorge and I had (all these reflections are products of us bouncing ideas off each other). The other was the role of grigri (the Togolese voudou) in maintaining the status quo and essentially keeping people from advancing. Anyone who succeeds in any way inevitably has two fears – either being accused of using grigri to secure success or of becoming the victim of grigri sent by jealous neighbors. For example, if you have a bumper crop because you used fertilizer and worked really hard, everyone will chalk it up to grigri. Either you paid some charlatan to ensure a good crop or you are making spiritual trips in the middle of the night to steal the crop of your neighbors and pass it off as your own. The Losso, an ethnic group from the northern part of Togo, are notorious for their spiritual midnight flights. Jerome, my Ewe professor, told me the Ewe people don’t like to buy the ignam heads for planting from the Losso because after all your hard work they will spiritually steal your crop and leave you only with puny worthless ignams in your field.
The Losso were also the principal actors in a mysterious incident that happened last month. One day, Ashley called me and told me that 9 people had died and 30 more were being treated at the hospital in Notse because someone who had been trying to kill Fulani cows (the animosity between the Fulani and other ethnic groups is another story altogether), inadvertently poisoned and killed people. That was the first interpretation of the mysterious deaths. Then we heard that it was, in fact, an unidentified viral outbreak and that the Notse hospital had sent samples to Ivory Coast and Senegal for analysis. Apparently the hospitals in Abidjan and Dakar didn’t find anything conclusive and neither did the WHO and so the final conclusion and the last I heard about the affair was that the cause was neither poison nor a virus, but a spiritual Losso airplane that crashed in the night killing 9 and injuring 30. Ashley woke me up one evening to call me out onto her front porch to listen to Papa’s explanation of the spiritual Losso airplanes, but her real indignation came when the DPS (Prefectural Director of Health) gave her the same story. For lack of a better explanation, all the Notse hospital staff (the DPS has a masters in Public Health . . .) was of the opinion that the deaths were caused by the crash of a spiritual Losso airplane; no one questioned it.
That whole affair was shocking enough, but it wasn’t personal. The real smack in the face came the very next day when a huge commotion broke out in village. We saw people running around with sticks but had no idea what was going on. I didn’t think much of it (maybe they were going to burn brush and hunt mice) and went to Agbatitoe to teach my Peer Educator class, leaving Jorge alone in village for the afternoon. He biked to Agbatit around 5 to accompany me back to village and told me of more commotion – lots of yelling – and when we arrived in the village everyone and their brother and sister and father and mother was gathered in a circle around a tree in front of the chief’s house. We avoided the gathering (I hadn’t been invited and so figured it didn’t concern me) and went home. Curious, though, I asked Effoh what was going on and this is what he told me: The day before a little girl with spiritual powers was carrying a smaller child on her back when a woman approached her and tried to steal her soul and that of the baby. She cried out, accusing two village women (both Kabiye, from the North, how convenient) of being sorcerers and stealing souls. The case was brought before the chief and one of the women quickly confessed her guilt, directing villagers to the field where she had spiritually buried some of the forty plus souls she had stolen. Digging in the field they uncovered the stolen souls in the form of spiders (a certain type of spider that always represents human souls but that apparently only the charalatan (person with special spiritual powers) can see) confirming the woman’s confession. The other woman, however, denied her guilt. Guilty until proven innocent, she was told to come up with 40,000cFA ($80) to hire a charlatan to determine through spiritual powers her guilt or innocence. She scrounged around for 20,000cFA and they took her to a charlatan who, in order to judge her, put a woven palm basket on her head and asked her whether or not she was a sorcerer. She continued to deny the allegations. The charlatan then poured water into the basket. The water ran through the basket and she was declared guilty as charged (apparently if she were innocent the water would have stayed in the woven basket. Jorge and I later decided that this was on par with mideval witch hunts in which suspected witches were thrown, tied up, into a body of water. If they drowned, they were guilty (convenient). If they somehow managed to save themselves, they were innocent.) I had been doing pretty well, but at this point I couldn’t help but protest. She was declared guilty because water ran through a WOVEN palm basket?!?! Effoh assured me that they do a test run first, asking a question of an obviously innocent person and the water stays in the basket. Right. Then he continued relating what had happened. After declared guilty by the charlatan, the woman was beaten with sticks and ordered to reveal where she had buried the stolen souls. She started to waver and hinted that she had stolen the soul of her grandchild and buried it near her house. The whole operation was moved to her house and after much deliberation, digging, shape changing (what?!) and spiritual battles between the woman and the charlatan, spiders (souls) were uncovered. The woman was beaten until she couldn’t walk and her adult children were instructed to sell off all her belongings in preparation for her banishment. The next day, the two women sorcerers were forced to name all the othe sorcerers in the village so that the village could be purged of sorcerers. I guess they squeezed a list out of the women because Sunday at church the pastor said that he knew who all the sorcerers in the church were and that he was giving them one week to come to him and confess or he would take them before the chief. He also said that the villagers had wanted to burn the two women alive, but that he had begged them not to (I don’t know if that was just a dramatic touch (as if this story needed embellishment) or if it was true). Anyway, the two women were kicked out of the village, burdened with everything that had gone wrong in the past year (including several deaths, infertility, and bad crops).
After we got over our initial feelings of shock and disgust that the lives of two women had just been ruined, Jorge and I started a discussion about how these sorts of beliefs impede development. Everything is blamed on sorcery. It is an ever-available scapegoat, stripping people of all responsability for everything that happens to them. Bad crop? Sorcery. Child’s sick? Sorcery. Failed your exam? Sorcery. Lost your job? Sorcery. No one buys your goods? Sorcery. The sorcery card also strips people of all motivation to succeed or stand out in any way. Adjo, an eighteen year old girl from the village, said that her father wouldn’t allow her to sing in church because he was afraid people would be jealous of her talent and grigri her. Educated young people run away from the village as fast as they can to avoid grigri from the less successful. People are afraid to call attention to themselves and so mediocracy reigns. What can you do in the face of such a belief system?
My doubts about being able to positively impact life in “developing” countries like Togo were reinforced again when Jerome told me how the government purposely keeps the people in the South underdeveloped and dependent on the failing cotton industry because that is how they (the government) makes the most money. Jorge purposefully put Jerome on the defensive (for the purpose of generating a good discussion), by commenting on how the people in the North were much more hard working than the people in the South. Jerome, took the bait, and started to explain that the reason that the people in the South appear less hard-working and less motivated is because every time an NGO tries to “develop” the people in the South (and he gave the example of the introduction of soy as a cash crop), the government creates so many obstacles for the organization that it is just easier for them to move their efforts north. He said that an agricultural organization in Notse was encouraging farmers to plant soy. When the farmers realized how profitable soy was compared to cotton, they started to decrease their cotton production in favor of soy. The government noticed that the peasants dedication to cotton was waning, investigated, and forced the agricultural organization to stop promoting soy.
I have to admit I was shocked. No wonder things don’t progress here. How can I hope to make a difference in the face of so many uncontrollable obstacles? First, there is the question of whether or not “development” even helps. Might it not be best just to let things develop at their own pace? I don’t want to be selfish and make everyone re-invent the wheel for themselves, but is it really that helpful to throw futuristic technology down from the sky when the people you’re throwing it at don’t even understand the way it works or what its purpose is? Add to that, beliefs that make maintaining the status quo the only “safe” option and governments that economically enslave their population to enrich themselves, and my certainty that I want to do a masters in health communication and work in “development” goes flying out the window. Yikes. Funny how one month you can be so sure and the next month totally lost.
That summarizes the most interesting and thought provoking happenings in the last month or two. I have to say that I love having Jorge here and love the way he makes me think about the same old things in different ways and consider them from a different perspective. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it =0), now that he is here my number one motive for writing daily accounts of my experience in Togo has disappeared, but I will try to write every once in a while to keep you abreast of the big stuff. For now, I am looking forward to getting Moringa billboards up in and around Notse and working on radio communications about the nutritional benefits of Moringa.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
11/30/08 through 12/14/08
11/30/08 through 12/14/08
Busy or Lazy? Busy or Lazy? Perhaps a little bit of both. Maybe I’m just too excited about my upcoming trip to Italy and reunion with Jorge to write about the mundane details of my day to day life. Excuses, I know.
All of my kittens died. One the day before I arrived in village and the other three the morning I arrived. I never even saw them and didn’t care to ask what they did with their poor little bodies. I can’t help but think that if I had been there to care for them the whole time they wouldn’t have died.
That Sunday the Assembly of God church was having a fundraiser. The same kind Jerome held in his village a couple of weeks ago where everyone brings something to donate for an auction. I wasn’t in the mood for church after learning of the deaths of my kittens, and so I feigned illness, sent my donation (Ashley’s swear-in complet) with Tseviato.
I was only in village until Wednesday that week. I am sure an Ewe lesson factored in there somewhere, probably on Monday and I taught a Peer Educator course on Wednesday. It went relatively well, but that day I learned that the woman teacher who is supposed to be collaborating with me for the duration of the Peer Educator course (ideally so that she can take over when I leave), is being “affecte-ed” to the Maritime region. Teachers, nurses and other individuals on state salaries don’t have much control over where they are placed and they can be ordered to move at any time. So, half way through the academic year, she is being moved to another school and she isn’t being replaced. I feel like my Peer Educator course is rather sloppy this year and prefer to do it all myself, but that isn’t sustainable and so I will have to badger the Director until he finds me another collaborating teacher.
I spent several days in Notse because Ashley and I are working on our Peace Corps Partnership application. Peace Corps Partnership, as I think I have mentioned before, is an official Peace Corps vehicle for hitting up your friends and family (and any other voluntary victims) for money to support a project. Ashley and I are hoping to get our Peace Corps Partnership approved by our Country Director and posted online before Christmas so that all of our friends, family and acquaintances can spread the Christmas cheer and start the New Year on a good foot by donating $10 or $20 to our project. The goal of our project is to widely publicize the nutritional benefits of Moringa and encourage people in our area to plant Moringa and incorporate Moringa leaves into their diets. We plan to do this through as series of one-minute community service announcements (played on the radio three times a day), a Moringa song and four one-hour long Moringa talk-shows. We also plan to have three billboards constructed and adorned with informational messages about the nutritional value of Moringa. These will be strategically placed around Notsé. Finally, we plan to have a festival celebrating Moringa in late May, near Arbor Day, during which we will hopefully hand out seeds to be planted on Arbor Day, and have demonstrations on how to plant and maintain Moringa, how to transform the leaves into powder, how to extract oil and purify water with the seeds, how to cook it, etc. Leading up to this festival, we will go to all of the middle and high schools in Notsé to hold informational sessions on Moringa and to invite the students to participate in Moringa-themed sketch, poem and song contests. I think it is a very good project, I just hope it gets quickly approved and funded so that we can get started at the beginning of February. Don’t worry, as soon as I have a website address I will sent it out so that each and every one of you can help make “my dreams come true.” =0)
Anyway, we spent Thursday and Friday running around getting price estimates, arguing with the radio producer about how much we would pay for his services, buttering up the mayor, and hassling hospital personnel and anyone else who would help us gather the information we need to write our project plan and create our budget.
I went back to village on Saturday and on Sunday again skipped out on church. I don’t know why, but I have no desire to go to church lately. It is dizzyingly hot and all those praying, singing, dancing bodies don’t improve things any. Also, I feel like the sermons are frustratingly repetitive. Really, there are only three themes: “don’t cheat on your spouse or sleep around”; “don’t give in to sorcery, Jesus will protect you”; “give money to the church.” It gets quite boring.
Instead of going to church on Sunday, I built a shelf for my bathroom and replaced the screen on my door. Hopefully Gizmo won’t tear it up anymore now that he has his own, personal kitty-door.
Monday, World Aids Day, I was a bad Peace Corps Volunteer and didn’t even go to my EPP to talk to the students about AIDs. I know, I really deserve a slap on the wrist for that one. Instead, I got my bike fixed by the Peace Corps bike expert and had an Ewe lesson.
Tuesday kicked off a nation wide campaign to distribute free impregnated mosquito nets, Vitamin A and Albendazol (a de-wormer) to all children under five. Unfortunately, Lili and the Infirmier had a disagreement about transport costs that lead to a falling-out. Lili went over the Infirmier’s head and called his superior, angering the Infirmier, and then she childishly boycotted the campaign entirely (all because the Infirmier had said that there wasn’t a budget line for transportation costs). As a result, I was sent to hell on Tuesday. It became my task to fill in for Lili who was sulking at home (completely unprofessional) and go into the villages with community health agents to distribute the mosquito nets and medecines. It was a terrible day. I spent from 8:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon, surrounded by pushing, screaming women and children who absolutely refused to allow the process to be a calm, orderly and pleasant one. It is a miracle no children died and no pregnant women miscarried with the way in which they were pushing and shoving. When I would finally take a woman’s card to administer the Vitamin A and albendazol, I would say “where are your children?” and she would reach a hand back into the crowd of pressing bodies and drag a child up to the front. Sometimes children were passed over the women’s heads. That is how impossible it was. We tried everything from making a pathway with wooden benches to wielding sticks to stopping the distribution, but nothing made them calm down. By the end of the day I was near the verge of tears and the fact that curious hands had screwed the gears on my bike up to the point that the chain fell off and got wedged between the gears and the lever really didn’t help.
Thankfully, for the next two days of the campaign I stayed in the dispensaire in Avassikpe where doors shut out all the pushing and shoving and only five women with their children were allowed in at a time. It was a hundred times more pleasant and efficient.
Fiver years or so ago there was a campaign to distribute insecticide treated nets for 500cFA, but this year it was free (I’m not sure that was a good idea). Aside from the normal difficulties of mothers not knowing their children’s dates of birth, the biggest problem with the campaign was that certain families got up to four mosquito nets (because they had four children under five), making it so that some families got none. I can assure you that those four children don’t sleep in four different beds and think that the distribution should have been capped at two per mother. Curiously, part of the campaign instructions were that each carefully sealed bag containing the mosquito net should be ripped open before being given to the mother. The rational behind this was that women would be less likely to leave the mosquito net unused in a corner if its pretty packaging was still in tact than if it was opened. It doesn’t stop them from reselling the mosquito nets, however.
We had a freak rainstorm Thursday afternoon which delayed my departure for Notsé until Friday morning. Today is Sunday and for the past three days Ashley and I have continued working on our Peace Corps Partnership, finalizing price estimates and writing out the project proposal.
I will go back to village this afternoon. Tomorrow I have an Ewe lesson and will say “good-bye” to Gizmo. Jerome is going to keep Giz at his house until I get back from Italy. I hope that works out ok. Ashley can’t keep him because she has a friend coming from the States and is planning a trip to Ivory Coast with Natasha and Tig and even if Effoh comes back to village for the holiday’s, he still won’t be there to take care of Giz the whole time I am gone, so I think Jerome is the best option.
On Tuesday I will clean my house (I am so very glad I got the major, nitty-gritty cleaning done before Kim got here) and make sure everyone in village knows that I am leaving for a month but that I will be coming back. I have had mixed reactions so far when I tell people that I will be gone a month. Some people flat out don’t believe me. Others express disappointment that I won’t be spending the holidays in village even though I can guarantee I wouldn’t see most of them on Christmas or New Years even if I were to stay in village because they would be too busy fête-ing with their own friends and family. However, when I say that I am going to my husband’s mother’s house, most seem to find it only natural after such a long separation, and everyone is excited when I tell them that Jorge will be coming back with me. I think half the people think I am making him up. It will certainly be an exciting to have him in village. I think being with Jorge in Togo is going to change my whole experience here, but I am ready for that and awaiting it with anticipation. I am ready for a change, even if some of them are difficult to get used to, and ready to share this experience with him. Very, very ready.
On Wednesday, after my Peer Educator course, I will come to Notsé, finish packing and, with Ashley, put the final touches on our Peace Corps Partnership application. On Thursday we will go to Lome (I am hoping Ashley will accompany me). I have some things to do in Lome before my plane leaves on Saturday (I don’t know at what time, but I am guessing the afternoon). I arrive in Rome at 10:30 on Sunday morning. Jorge will meet me at the airport (he arrives in the evening of Friday the 19th) and, perhaps after enjoying my first REAL Italian meal, we will take the train to Milan and meet up with his mother. Words can’t express my excitement and “mélange” of feelings.
Busy or Lazy? Busy or Lazy? Perhaps a little bit of both. Maybe I’m just too excited about my upcoming trip to Italy and reunion with Jorge to write about the mundane details of my day to day life. Excuses, I know.
All of my kittens died. One the day before I arrived in village and the other three the morning I arrived. I never even saw them and didn’t care to ask what they did with their poor little bodies. I can’t help but think that if I had been there to care for them the whole time they wouldn’t have died.
That Sunday the Assembly of God church was having a fundraiser. The same kind Jerome held in his village a couple of weeks ago where everyone brings something to donate for an auction. I wasn’t in the mood for church after learning of the deaths of my kittens, and so I feigned illness, sent my donation (Ashley’s swear-in complet) with Tseviato.
I was only in village until Wednesday that week. I am sure an Ewe lesson factored in there somewhere, probably on Monday and I taught a Peer Educator course on Wednesday. It went relatively well, but that day I learned that the woman teacher who is supposed to be collaborating with me for the duration of the Peer Educator course (ideally so that she can take over when I leave), is being “affecte-ed” to the Maritime region. Teachers, nurses and other individuals on state salaries don’t have much control over where they are placed and they can be ordered to move at any time. So, half way through the academic year, she is being moved to another school and she isn’t being replaced. I feel like my Peer Educator course is rather sloppy this year and prefer to do it all myself, but that isn’t sustainable and so I will have to badger the Director until he finds me another collaborating teacher.
I spent several days in Notse because Ashley and I are working on our Peace Corps Partnership application. Peace Corps Partnership, as I think I have mentioned before, is an official Peace Corps vehicle for hitting up your friends and family (and any other voluntary victims) for money to support a project. Ashley and I are hoping to get our Peace Corps Partnership approved by our Country Director and posted online before Christmas so that all of our friends, family and acquaintances can spread the Christmas cheer and start the New Year on a good foot by donating $10 or $20 to our project. The goal of our project is to widely publicize the nutritional benefits of Moringa and encourage people in our area to plant Moringa and incorporate Moringa leaves into their diets. We plan to do this through as series of one-minute community service announcements (played on the radio three times a day), a Moringa song and four one-hour long Moringa talk-shows. We also plan to have three billboards constructed and adorned with informational messages about the nutritional value of Moringa. These will be strategically placed around Notsé. Finally, we plan to have a festival celebrating Moringa in late May, near Arbor Day, during which we will hopefully hand out seeds to be planted on Arbor Day, and have demonstrations on how to plant and maintain Moringa, how to transform the leaves into powder, how to extract oil and purify water with the seeds, how to cook it, etc. Leading up to this festival, we will go to all of the middle and high schools in Notsé to hold informational sessions on Moringa and to invite the students to participate in Moringa-themed sketch, poem and song contests. I think it is a very good project, I just hope it gets quickly approved and funded so that we can get started at the beginning of February. Don’t worry, as soon as I have a website address I will sent it out so that each and every one of you can help make “my dreams come true.” =0)
Anyway, we spent Thursday and Friday running around getting price estimates, arguing with the radio producer about how much we would pay for his services, buttering up the mayor, and hassling hospital personnel and anyone else who would help us gather the information we need to write our project plan and create our budget.
I went back to village on Saturday and on Sunday again skipped out on church. I don’t know why, but I have no desire to go to church lately. It is dizzyingly hot and all those praying, singing, dancing bodies don’t improve things any. Also, I feel like the sermons are frustratingly repetitive. Really, there are only three themes: “don’t cheat on your spouse or sleep around”; “don’t give in to sorcery, Jesus will protect you”; “give money to the church.” It gets quite boring.
Instead of going to church on Sunday, I built a shelf for my bathroom and replaced the screen on my door. Hopefully Gizmo won’t tear it up anymore now that he has his own, personal kitty-door.
Monday, World Aids Day, I was a bad Peace Corps Volunteer and didn’t even go to my EPP to talk to the students about AIDs. I know, I really deserve a slap on the wrist for that one. Instead, I got my bike fixed by the Peace Corps bike expert and had an Ewe lesson.
Tuesday kicked off a nation wide campaign to distribute free impregnated mosquito nets, Vitamin A and Albendazol (a de-wormer) to all children under five. Unfortunately, Lili and the Infirmier had a disagreement about transport costs that lead to a falling-out. Lili went over the Infirmier’s head and called his superior, angering the Infirmier, and then she childishly boycotted the campaign entirely (all because the Infirmier had said that there wasn’t a budget line for transportation costs). As a result, I was sent to hell on Tuesday. It became my task to fill in for Lili who was sulking at home (completely unprofessional) and go into the villages with community health agents to distribute the mosquito nets and medecines. It was a terrible day. I spent from 8:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon, surrounded by pushing, screaming women and children who absolutely refused to allow the process to be a calm, orderly and pleasant one. It is a miracle no children died and no pregnant women miscarried with the way in which they were pushing and shoving. When I would finally take a woman’s card to administer the Vitamin A and albendazol, I would say “where are your children?” and she would reach a hand back into the crowd of pressing bodies and drag a child up to the front. Sometimes children were passed over the women’s heads. That is how impossible it was. We tried everything from making a pathway with wooden benches to wielding sticks to stopping the distribution, but nothing made them calm down. By the end of the day I was near the verge of tears and the fact that curious hands had screwed the gears on my bike up to the point that the chain fell off and got wedged between the gears and the lever really didn’t help.
Thankfully, for the next two days of the campaign I stayed in the dispensaire in Avassikpe where doors shut out all the pushing and shoving and only five women with their children were allowed in at a time. It was a hundred times more pleasant and efficient.
Fiver years or so ago there was a campaign to distribute insecticide treated nets for 500cFA, but this year it was free (I’m not sure that was a good idea). Aside from the normal difficulties of mothers not knowing their children’s dates of birth, the biggest problem with the campaign was that certain families got up to four mosquito nets (because they had four children under five), making it so that some families got none. I can assure you that those four children don’t sleep in four different beds and think that the distribution should have been capped at two per mother. Curiously, part of the campaign instructions were that each carefully sealed bag containing the mosquito net should be ripped open before being given to the mother. The rational behind this was that women would be less likely to leave the mosquito net unused in a corner if its pretty packaging was still in tact than if it was opened. It doesn’t stop them from reselling the mosquito nets, however.
We had a freak rainstorm Thursday afternoon which delayed my departure for Notsé until Friday morning. Today is Sunday and for the past three days Ashley and I have continued working on our Peace Corps Partnership, finalizing price estimates and writing out the project proposal.
I will go back to village this afternoon. Tomorrow I have an Ewe lesson and will say “good-bye” to Gizmo. Jerome is going to keep Giz at his house until I get back from Italy. I hope that works out ok. Ashley can’t keep him because she has a friend coming from the States and is planning a trip to Ivory Coast with Natasha and Tig and even if Effoh comes back to village for the holiday’s, he still won’t be there to take care of Giz the whole time I am gone, so I think Jerome is the best option.
On Tuesday I will clean my house (I am so very glad I got the major, nitty-gritty cleaning done before Kim got here) and make sure everyone in village knows that I am leaving for a month but that I will be coming back. I have had mixed reactions so far when I tell people that I will be gone a month. Some people flat out don’t believe me. Others express disappointment that I won’t be spending the holidays in village even though I can guarantee I wouldn’t see most of them on Christmas or New Years even if I were to stay in village because they would be too busy fête-ing with their own friends and family. However, when I say that I am going to my husband’s mother’s house, most seem to find it only natural after such a long separation, and everyone is excited when I tell them that Jorge will be coming back with me. I think half the people think I am making him up. It will certainly be an exciting to have him in village. I think being with Jorge in Togo is going to change my whole experience here, but I am ready for that and awaiting it with anticipation. I am ready for a change, even if some of them are difficult to get used to, and ready to share this experience with him. Very, very ready.
On Wednesday, after my Peer Educator course, I will come to Notsé, finish packing and, with Ashley, put the final touches on our Peace Corps Partnership application. On Thursday we will go to Lome (I am hoping Ashley will accompany me). I have some things to do in Lome before my plane leaves on Saturday (I don’t know at what time, but I am guessing the afternoon). I arrive in Rome at 10:30 on Sunday morning. Jorge will meet me at the airport (he arrives in the evening of Friday the 19th) and, perhaps after enjoying my first REAL Italian meal, we will take the train to Milan and meet up with his mother. Words can’t express my excitement and “mélange” of feelings.
11/18/08 through 11/29/08
11/18/08 through 11/29/08
11/18/08
The Tuesday of my college friend, Kim’s, arrival, I took an early morning bush taxi to Lome from Notse. I arrived mid-morning and met Effoh at a gas station near the Lome drop-off. We continued to the house where he is now living – by route taxi, and foot through a sandy maze of streets – in a neighborhood of Lome I have never frequented. He lives quite far from Kodjoviecope, where the Peace Corps office is located, in a spacious compound that must house some forty plus people. It was chance and luck that brought him there. The man who had promised to find him a room in Lome had placed him with a fetisher where Effoh, being Christian, was not at all comfortable. He couldn’t eat any of the food that the man prepared because it was killed over the sacrificial stone and he was having bad dreams. As he explored the neighborhood one morning he happened on his cousin (Mana’s sister) selling bouillie outside of her house and she invited him to stay with them. At least three generations live in the compound, all one family with ties to Avassikpe. As I entered the compound, I said “agoo” as is customary in Ewe and was met with hoots of appreciation. For the rest of the day, the mother-in-law recounted the story of how I said “agoo” upon entering the compound (it takes so little to please them! =0). They were tickled to death by my meager knowledge of Ewe and were extremely welcoming. Effoh and I talked for a while and then I talked with some of the women in the compound and played with one of the five-month-old twins. Neither Mana’s sister or her husband were present when I arrived. Mana’s sister was at church. They attend a church that I have never heard of – the Celestial Church of Christ (I think) – and she was there praying. Her second youngest child is sick with stomach pains and has been staying at the church for over a month now in hopes that the holy space and prayer will heal him. The members of the church wear flowing white dresses or robes (it kind of reminds me of the ethnographic videos I have seen of Afro-Brazilian or Haitian synchronized (animist-Christian) spiritual practices) and take their shoes off before entering the sanctuary. They are apparently know for their power to heal through prayer and holy water. Mana’s sister’s husband was at work. He does the metal work at construction sites.
I met Mana’s sister as she took a break from prayer between 12:30 and 2:30. She seemed very nice, although a little distracted as is understandable considering the sickenss of her son. She has four children, all boys. The oldest is, I think, thirteen and the youngest nine months old.
Because going all the way to Kodjoviecope and then back to the airport at 6:30 to pick up Kim seemed like a waste of money, I decided to stay at Effoh’s house until it was time to go to the airport. Around five, after eating rice prepared for me by a young girl from Avassikpe who had come to Lome to escape the monotony of the village, we spontaneously decided to go to Elise’s house (Effoh’s school friend from Notse who is also now in Lome attending university), pick her up, and continue to the airport together. Unfortunately, it was getting dark as we neared her house and we got hopelessly lost. After many phone calls and much wandering, she came to us on a moto. It was getting late and I was getting anxious. There is nothing worse than arriving in a strange country, where you don’t speak the language, and having no one meet you. It inevitably causes a feeling of panic and I didn’t want to provoke that panic in Kim after she had come half way around the world to see me.
As we pulled into the airport I thought I saw her. It was like a movie. I ran up to this girl who was bent over her luggage, rummaging in a pocket, and yelled, “Kim!” But it wasn’t her. Somewhat embarrassed, but even more relieved, I went inside to the receiving area and less than five minutes later she walked out of those mirrored doors looking fantastic as usually. We hugged, got out of the way, and hugged again. Amidst our non-stop chatter I introduced her to Elise and Effoh and we went to get a cab to Kodjoviecope. We first dropped Kim’s stuff off at Mammy’s and then when to a bar christened “the cheap bar” by volunteers. It was the first time that I was placed in the translator role. Usually Effoh is translating for me (from Ewe into French), but because Elise and Effoh don’t speak English and Kim doesn’t speak French, I had to translate everything both ways. It was nice though. We chatted about Kim’s trip (before coming to Togo she had traveled through Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey), about school and career interests, about romantic relationships, about how Kim and I met and how Effoh, Elise and I met, etc. It was nice. Kim is the ideal guest; I told her she can come visit me anytime, anywhere and I mean it. She is friendly, social, adventurous, willing to try new things, a good sport, flexible, not too clingy. Perfect. It was such a fun visit. Tuesday night we talked until midnight and then finally showered and went to bed.
11/19/08
Wednesday morning I had a few things to do around the bureau. Strangely, there were no other volunteers there; it is almost always crowded! We checked mail and visited the MedUnit (I got a flu shot and an HIV test. I asked for the HIV test. Effoh had been telling me the day before that he had to have a medical exam and an HIV test to register at the University. He was going to pick his results up on Wednesday and was a little nervous about it; he asked me if I was HIV positive or negative and I answered automatically, “negative,” but then started second guessing myself because of an incident in which I came in contact with someone else’s blood and later realized that I had a small cut on my thumb. Usually, if someone gets hurt, I talk them through taking care of their injury (because, as a PCV, I’m not allowed to care directly for people), but this man had cut himself with a coupcoup and was spurting blood and didn’t speak French and my Ewe isn’t good enough to communicate in that sort of situation. I tried to explain in Ewe, but ended up just putting pressure on it myself and I got a little blood on my hands. Anyway, I just asked to have the test to ease my mind and it came back negative, but Ashley says that unless the contact was more that six months ago, it isn’t 100% reliable. So . . . my mind still isn’t completely at rest).
Midmorning we left Lome in a bush taxi and arrived in Notse just in time to go have fufu at Bar Marantha with Ashley. As we walked to the restaurant, I was feeling nauseous, but then Jorge called me and told me that he had been granted the visa to Italy (YAY!!) and so I was then very very happy, albeit still nauseous. I’m not sure why I ate lunch anyway, but I did, and then I had to rush off to my Peer Educator course in Agbatitoe. Kim accompanied me (very nice of her). The class was much more successful than the first. I had never seen the woman teacher, who is my counterpart for this course, teach a class, but I was very pleased with what I saw on Wednesday and it made me feel more relaxed about letting go of the reins a little. I now know that she takes the class seriously, prepares for it well, and doesn’t feed the students false information. She taught the first part of the class and I taught the second. The students participated a little more than last week, so that was good.
After the class we watched a bit of a soccer game and then hopped into a taxi and headed back to Notse. We went to ADAC to rescue Ashley from a meeting with her homologues and then I left Ashley and Kim at the bar with Jake (the volunteer in Tohoun who was also in town) and went to the internet to organize the buying of Togo-Italy tickets for Jorge and myself (Yay! Yay! Yay!). The tickets were still available and so my Mom bought two tickets for $1700. What a relief! I love it when everything falls into place! I only wish I knew it was all going to turn out from the beginning so I wouldn’t lose so much sleep over it! I am extremely excited about meeting Jorge in Italy and spending Christmas and New Years with his Mom (I haven’t spent time with his Mom in more than five years) and finally having a set date for our reunion: December 21st. YAY! Jorge arrives in Rome late on December 19th, but I couldn’t find a ticket leaving Lome until the 20th, so the 21st it is. Either he’ll meet me in the airport in Rome, or he will go ahead to Milan (to start getting quality time in with his Mom) and I will meet him there. My plane gets into Rome at 10 something in the morning, so I would have time to get to Milan before dark. We will see. I kind of want him to meet me at the airport in Rome, but I also think he should make the most of his time with his Mom, so . . .
Thursday
On Thursday Kim and I got a late start biking out to Jerome’s village, but she was a good sport even though it was terribly hot. Jerome, of course, treated us to a wonderful day and wonderful food. Soon after we arrived we ate fufu and then we chatted and rested our stomachs before going to visit a sodabe distillery. I think it is neat for people to try palm juice, then palm wine and then sodabe and taste the different degrees of fermentation and distillation and see the process. Palm trees are so useful and Jerome and I got into a discussion as to why people in my village don’t plant more palm trees. My area is largely deforested and palm tree products– indoor brooms, outdoor brooms, red palm oil (made from the palm fruit), white palm oil (made from the palm kernel), palm wine, sodabe, fencing, baskets – are expensive (because there aren’t many trees even though most people own their land and could easily plant them).
Our departure from Zitsou (Jerome’s village) was delayed because we had to go greet the chief and eat the beans and gari that Jerome’s wife had prepared. He really wanted us to spend the night, and lay on a bit of guilt when I refused, but finally accepted our thanks and allowed us to take our leave. I felt that we would be more comfortable at my house where I have a latrine and my own space and where no one would be bending over backwards to boil water for us to drink and take care of our every need.
We decided to take the “short-cut” to my village to avoid the dangers of the route national (big speeding trucks). It is a small path that, although shorter, takes about the same amount of time to bike because it is somewhat rough terrain. It is prettier though and we biked through the sunset, arriving in Avassikpe just after dark.
Of course the children were very excited by our arrival, but they eventually calmed down and left us alone to shower, eat pineapple and install ourselves under the paillote to chat and be cool.
Friday
Friday morning we made the rounds greeting everyone and their mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, aunt, uncle and cat. And the chief too. And Lili and the Infirmier (whom everyone calls “Major”). Then we rested (greeting people is exhausting!).
After a bit, DaJulie came to my door with a tiny kitten in her hand. It’s eyes weren’t even open yet. She handed it to me and told me that she had found it in the field and that its mom was dead. We went back to her house and she brought out three more identical kittens. She asked me what she could do. I said she should try to feed them milk. She said she didn’t have any milk. I didn’t want to say that I would take them and feed them because I didn’t want to get stuck with them, but when Parfait picked up one of the kittens and dropped it, I realized that their only chance at survival was if I removed them from the clumsy grasp of children. I got someone to make it clear that I was only taking the kittens to feed them not to keep them (Gizmo is enough of a hassle!) and then Kim and I carted them off to the house. I made up a solution of powdered milk, found an eyedropper and tried to feed them. Three of them started to suck on the eyedropper easily and hungrily, but the forth took a bit of coaxing. By the second feeding (Tig had advised us to feed them every two hours and then wipe their butts with a damp cloth so that they could pee and poo) they were all eating. I love it how they curl their tongues around the eye-dropper and suck the milk out! Mostly they just ate and slept and for the next three days our activities were punctuated by the feedings and but wipings. Somehow Kim got stuck with the butt wiping job. When we left on Sunday, I showed DaJulie how to feed them and wipe their butts, gave her the rest of my powdered milk, the eye-dropper, and some filtered water, and told the children that they were not allowed to touch them. I hope they are still alive when I get home.
Late Friday morning we went to the market. Kim bought three pagnes and we got soja and bean beignets for lunch. We were going to make sweet potato koliko, but the food we bought at the market was more than enough.
We spent the afternoon sitting under my paillote catching up on each others’ lives and future plans (the last time we saw each other was at Feb Graduation at Middlebury in February ’07). I thought that it would be interesting (she was also an anthropology major) to chill in my village and get a taste of village life; I just hope she wasn’t bored. Had she planned to be in country two weeks, we could have traveled more, but with just one week we risked spending the bulk of the time cramped in a bush taxi. Anyway, I enjoyed it and hope she did too.
Friday evening we walked to Midojicope and brought two of her pagnes to Mana to be made into wrap skirts.
Saturday
On Saturday we had tentatively planned to go with DaMarie to the field to pick soja, just for a few hours to witness the process, but it never ended up happening. We made lunch together – moringa, sesame, pâte sauce – I made her work crushing the tomatoes and moringa leaves with my crushing rock, and were going to eat it with pâte but the miller wasn’t around and I didn’t have any corn flour. We ended up eating it with rice which was good too.
Sophie’s mom came through Avassikpe on her way to Notse to take Pelagie (the eleven month old little girl who only weighs 4.7 kilos) to the hospital. I had tried to convince Mamane (Sophie’s mom, Effoh’s sister) to take her because I was/am afraid that she has a medical condition that prevents her from swallowing or sucking easily. For a while I debated accompanying them so that the staff at the Notse hospital would take the case more seriously (sad, but true), but decided against it. She stopped through again later that evening on her way back to Komlacope (her husband’s village) and said that the doctor’s hadn’t found anything irregular with her esophagus or heart, but had prescribed an appetite stimulant. Hopefully it will work. I am so worried about her development (or lack thereof).
Late Saturday afternoon we walked out to my moringa field, but the rest of the day was again spent in my place of choice: under my paillote. It was so nice to talk to a friend who has known me for so long.
We spent a lot of time talking about Italy (Kim studied abroad in Italy for a semester) and the places I should visit, but then Jorge’s mom called and, when I told her our arrival and departure dates, she expressed disappointment at the shortness of our stay. I thought a month was a pretty good amount of time (it eats up all the vacation days I have accrued to this point), but apparently she was hoping for more and I got the impression that she would like us to stay close to Milan for the majority of our visit. At first I was disappointed, but then I tried to look at it from an unselfish perspective and understand that she hasn’t seen her only child for three years and that she doesn’t know when she will see him again. I think this trip needs to be more about her than about Italy and even if I don’t get to travel all around Italy and see a lot of the sites, Milan is Italy and it is going to be amazing. AMAZING.
Sunday
Sunday morning we woke up early to go on a walk before church. I made Kim sit through church so that she would get a couple more drops for her bucket, but it was long and tiring and somewhat less animated than usual.
After church we made a sweet potato and egg scramble for lunch and then rested a bit before taking motos to Agbatit and (after a significant wait) catching a car to Atakpame. Once in the car, we arrived quickly in Atakpame, but were held up by a parade in honor of a Catholic holiday. There was a huge crowd and as we were waiting for the road to become passable, we heard a rumor that a car had hit and killed one of the participants in the parade. I’m not sure if that is true or not, maybe the person was just injured, but later, as we tried to make our way through the crowd on foot, I again heard murmurings about someone having been hit by a car. Yikes. On the other side of the throng of people we hopped in another car to take us closer to the transit house.
I was rather hoping that there would be a few nice volunteers for Kim to talk to at the Atakpame maison (she is considering applying to Peace Corps!), but there weren’t many people there. We dropped off our stuff and went to Pentagon for a nice, quiet dinner for two. That bar/restaurant is a favorite of PCVs because it is on the third story of a building and has a nice panoramic view of Atakpame.
Monday
Monday morning we had egg sandwiches and then went to the market and walked around a bit before going back to the house, picking up our stuff and heading to Notse. We got lucky and had a relatively quick, smooth, not crowded ride to Notse.
Upon arrival I immediately tore into a birthday box from my parents and found 8 pounds of cheese (HEAVEN!), oreos, nutrigrain bars and candy and the brainstorming started. What to make . . .? We decided on fajitas: tortillas, chicken, salsa and CHEESE. I headed off to the market to buy supplies and when I got back put Ashley and Kim to work while I looked at the pictures from Elizabeth’s wedding (a friend from high school who got married last May). We ate around 4:00 and it was delicious! (Thank you Mom and Dad!) – One of the best meals I’ve had in Togo. Absolutely delicious!
Tuesday
Tuesday morning we headed off to Lome, arriving there mid-morning. We checked into Mammy’s and then went to the Bureau to see if we could change Kim’s ticket to Thursday (she was supposed to fly out Tuesday for a week in London, but we wanted her to stay and spend Thanksgiving with us). We eventually gave up, went and had the best burgers in Lome for lunch, and then came back to the Bureau to try again. Finally we found a number and I called and found out that she could change her ticket for 45 Euros (less than she would spend in London in two days!) and so we b-lined it over to the AirFrance office to make the change. I hadn’t really thought it would be possible, but was super glad it was.
That evening we went to the Cheap Bar with another volunteer and polished off the two pound block of cheddar cheese that we had started devouring the day before.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning I walked downtown and went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see if I could get the man I spoke with several months ago to “make good” on his promise to write Jorge a letter so that the immigration officers at the airport would give him a one year visa right off the bat instead of a seven-day visa. It sounded too good to be true and it was. Apparently he recalled promising nothing of the sort and told me that Jorge would either have to apply for a visa from Rome or get a visa upon arrival in country and then apply to have it extended. He said that if Peace Corps writes a letter authorizing Jorge to stay with me, then it would be easy for him to get a visa for a year or two.
That stressed me out because I wasn’t sure Peace Corps would write a letter. Later that afternoon I went to speak with my Country Director. I asked her if we could get started on the background check portion of the “intent to marry” process now, before Jorge arrives in country, so that it will expedite the process. I feel as though my Country Director wouldn’t feel comfortable writing him a letter for a visa extension until he had been officially cleared through a background check. The Peace Corps manual that says that a volunteer may marry a third country national while in service IF the intended spouse satisfactorily passes a background check (the form is the same as that filled out by a person applying to a Public Trust position) and is approved by the Country Director with respect to three main points: that the intended spouse agrees to live the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer (no marrying and moving into an expat house with a pool and three cars; not a problem in our case); that the intended spouse shows adequate knowledge of the host country language and culture (Jorge doesn’t speak French, but neither do a lot of volunteers when they arrive in country, he has already started learning and will surely pick it up fast because of Spanish and he did his thesis on Ghana so I don’t think this will be a problem); and that the marriage will not interfere with the volunteer’s work in village (if anything I think Jorge will motivate me to do my work better because he will get me excited about it all over again and my village is very excited for his arrival).
I am pretty sure we can get “cleared” for marriage, but what I am not sure is whether or not we have to get married right away once we have been “cleared”. It is all so complicated what with Togo marriage laws (we need all sorts of documents – birth certificate, certificate of residence (3 months in Togo), premarital medical attestation, certificate of celibacy (what?), and a sworn notarized statement of eligibility to marry (is it this hard to get married in the States?) – and with the U.S. green card application process. I don’t know if it is better to get married in Togo and apply for the green card from here or apply for a Fiancée Visa and get married as soon as we get back to the States. There are pros and cons to both, but I guess it mostly hinges on whether or not we want to do a third year in Togo. We will see. It will be easier to talk about what we want to do when we are together and when Jorge has experienced Togo a little bit.
Moving on. Because Kim was staying two more days, she had time to accompany me to a HUGE shopping center called Lome 2 or Adjzrenawe (something like that) where they have piles and piles of second hand clothes. I was extremely glad she could be there with me because it would have been no fun on my own (I was a little nervous because I had never been there before, but it turned out not to be as crowded or chaotic as I expected) and because she served as my mirror, telling me what pants looked good and what pants didn’t. On my list were pants for Italy (I have no full length pants) and running shoes (my hiking shoes give me blisters when I try to walk in them). It was fun and I ended up buying six pairs of pants – one brown linen, two pairs of jeans, one pair of black and grey striped dressy pants, and two pairs of corduroys, one olive green and one khaki – for 6,000 ($12) and Asics running shoes for 5,000 ($10). The running shoes are, I think, $90 shoes in the states and are in very good condition.
After shopping we went to lunch with Ashley and then to the Bureau and then to the Beach Bar for drinks and the sunset. By this time there were a lot of volunteers in Lome and I was glad that Kim got the opportunity to talk to a wide variety of volunteers with a wide variety of experiences.
In the evening we went briefly to another and then camped out at the Bureau on internet until it closed.
Thursday
Unfortunately, Kim woke up Thursday morning with stomach issues and ended up spending the morning resting at Mammys. Ashley again refused to accompany me shopping (it isn’t her thing) and so I called Effoh to see if he’d like to meet me at Lome 2 for a second round of shopping (on the list were sweaters and long sleeve shirts and dress shoes). He agreed.
This time I made my way there for cheap (450 cFA instead of the 1500 I paid the day before) using route taxis and by the time Effoh arrived had already found a good sweater stand and picked a bunch of “possibles.” The man who owns the house Effoh is staying at (Mana’s sister’s husband) brought him to Lome 2 on his moto because he was afraid he’d get lost in the big city all by himself. I told him that he should let him get lost because that is the only way he is going to learn his way around. If someone is always driving him everywhere, he will never learn. The man was super nice, but it was awkward having someone I didn’t know following me around as I shopped. It made me feel rushed; I didn’t want to waste his time. We went back to the sweater stand where the man was holding my “picks” and I rooted through the pile again and then bought 17 sweaters (excessive, I know) for 4,000 ($8). Crazy cheap right? I bought all the ones that I thought might be good because I didn’t feel comfortable trying them on, Kim, my mirror wasn’t present so it would have been pointless, and figured I’d try them on at home and just bring my favorites to Italy. Then we embarked on the search for shoes which took the bulk of the morning. I wanted the Dansko shoes that everyone wore at Middlebury and that I could never afford (they cost around $120). I found one pair that was too small. Another pair that was reddish. And then another pair that was the right size and in relatively good condition except for a tiny slit in the toe (as though someone had stabbed it with a pocket knife). We continued looking, but finally went back for the pair with the slit in the toe and I bargained them down to 1,000 ($2). How cool is that? To thank Effoh for accompanying me and carrying my huge bag of sweaters around the whole morning, I told him to look for some shirts and eventually we found him some nice button up shirts and bargained them down to 4 for 1,000.
I then had to hurry back because I was going to be late for Thanksgiving Dinner at our Country Director’s house. Kim was feeling a little bit better, but not well enough to eat, so that was a pity. The food was good, but I didn’t stuff myself like I did last year (also a good thing). The company was very nice and I was glad to be with a lot of my friends and distracted from missing my family. Kim fit in perfectly and everyone kept assuming that she was a volunteer. I really hope she decides to go into the Peace Corps, I think she would make a great volunteer. After Thanksgiving dinner, we went to the Bureau and eventually hitched a ride to the airport with a Peace Corps driver who was taking a trainee to the airport (she was ET-ing). I hate good-bye’s, but it was still super wonderful to have Kim visit, I just wish she could have stayed a month =0).
Friday
I spent Friday morning running around getting an electronic copy of my passport and sending it to Afriqiyah Air (the Libyan airline Jorge and I are flying between Togo and Italy). They refused to issue my ticket before having a copy of my passport as a guarantee of my citizenship (unfortunately I had left my passport in village, but fortunately Ashley suggested that Peace Corps might have a copy and sure enough they did). Eventually I emailed them a copy and they issued my ticket so that is all taken care of and a huge relief.
I then messed around on the internet for the rest of the morning. We didn’t end up leaving Lome until around 4:00 and it took us several hours to actually get on the road (sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you aren’t), so we didn’t arrive in Notse until well after dark. Ashley and I were both exhausted and just showered and went to bed.
Saturday
I was planning to go back to village today, but, big surprise, I’m still here and it is now 5:30, too late to make it back before dark. I hope my kittens are still alive.
This morning I went to the market and bought some socks for Italy (too bad I sent all my socks home with my parents) and supplies for village. Ash and I ate some of my canned tomato sauce over pasta for lunch and then I started writing (better to do it while it is still more or less fresh in my mind). I will head back to village early tomorrow morning because they are having a fundraiser at church that I should attend. On Monday I have an Ewe lesson and the Peace Corps bike repair guy is coming (I’m excited for that because the kids have totally messed up my gears). Tuesday I have nothing planned, but Wednesday I have a Peer Educator course. After my course I will bike into Notse so that Ashley and I can work on our Peace Corps Partnership budget so that we can get that online before Christmas.
In three weeks from tomorrow I will be in Italy with Jorge! Yay! I hope those three weeks go by quickly!
11/18/08
The Tuesday of my college friend, Kim’s, arrival, I took an early morning bush taxi to Lome from Notse. I arrived mid-morning and met Effoh at a gas station near the Lome drop-off. We continued to the house where he is now living – by route taxi, and foot through a sandy maze of streets – in a neighborhood of Lome I have never frequented. He lives quite far from Kodjoviecope, where the Peace Corps office is located, in a spacious compound that must house some forty plus people. It was chance and luck that brought him there. The man who had promised to find him a room in Lome had placed him with a fetisher where Effoh, being Christian, was not at all comfortable. He couldn’t eat any of the food that the man prepared because it was killed over the sacrificial stone and he was having bad dreams. As he explored the neighborhood one morning he happened on his cousin (Mana’s sister) selling bouillie outside of her house and she invited him to stay with them. At least three generations live in the compound, all one family with ties to Avassikpe. As I entered the compound, I said “agoo” as is customary in Ewe and was met with hoots of appreciation. For the rest of the day, the mother-in-law recounted the story of how I said “agoo” upon entering the compound (it takes so little to please them! =0). They were tickled to death by my meager knowledge of Ewe and were extremely welcoming. Effoh and I talked for a while and then I talked with some of the women in the compound and played with one of the five-month-old twins. Neither Mana’s sister or her husband were present when I arrived. Mana’s sister was at church. They attend a church that I have never heard of – the Celestial Church of Christ (I think) – and she was there praying. Her second youngest child is sick with stomach pains and has been staying at the church for over a month now in hopes that the holy space and prayer will heal him. The members of the church wear flowing white dresses or robes (it kind of reminds me of the ethnographic videos I have seen of Afro-Brazilian or Haitian synchronized (animist-Christian) spiritual practices) and take their shoes off before entering the sanctuary. They are apparently know for their power to heal through prayer and holy water. Mana’s sister’s husband was at work. He does the metal work at construction sites.
I met Mana’s sister as she took a break from prayer between 12:30 and 2:30. She seemed very nice, although a little distracted as is understandable considering the sickenss of her son. She has four children, all boys. The oldest is, I think, thirteen and the youngest nine months old.
Because going all the way to Kodjoviecope and then back to the airport at 6:30 to pick up Kim seemed like a waste of money, I decided to stay at Effoh’s house until it was time to go to the airport. Around five, after eating rice prepared for me by a young girl from Avassikpe who had come to Lome to escape the monotony of the village, we spontaneously decided to go to Elise’s house (Effoh’s school friend from Notse who is also now in Lome attending university), pick her up, and continue to the airport together. Unfortunately, it was getting dark as we neared her house and we got hopelessly lost. After many phone calls and much wandering, she came to us on a moto. It was getting late and I was getting anxious. There is nothing worse than arriving in a strange country, where you don’t speak the language, and having no one meet you. It inevitably causes a feeling of panic and I didn’t want to provoke that panic in Kim after she had come half way around the world to see me.
As we pulled into the airport I thought I saw her. It was like a movie. I ran up to this girl who was bent over her luggage, rummaging in a pocket, and yelled, “Kim!” But it wasn’t her. Somewhat embarrassed, but even more relieved, I went inside to the receiving area and less than five minutes later she walked out of those mirrored doors looking fantastic as usually. We hugged, got out of the way, and hugged again. Amidst our non-stop chatter I introduced her to Elise and Effoh and we went to get a cab to Kodjoviecope. We first dropped Kim’s stuff off at Mammy’s and then when to a bar christened “the cheap bar” by volunteers. It was the first time that I was placed in the translator role. Usually Effoh is translating for me (from Ewe into French), but because Elise and Effoh don’t speak English and Kim doesn’t speak French, I had to translate everything both ways. It was nice though. We chatted about Kim’s trip (before coming to Togo she had traveled through Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey), about school and career interests, about romantic relationships, about how Kim and I met and how Effoh, Elise and I met, etc. It was nice. Kim is the ideal guest; I told her she can come visit me anytime, anywhere and I mean it. She is friendly, social, adventurous, willing to try new things, a good sport, flexible, not too clingy. Perfect. It was such a fun visit. Tuesday night we talked until midnight and then finally showered and went to bed.
11/19/08
Wednesday morning I had a few things to do around the bureau. Strangely, there were no other volunteers there; it is almost always crowded! We checked mail and visited the MedUnit (I got a flu shot and an HIV test. I asked for the HIV test. Effoh had been telling me the day before that he had to have a medical exam and an HIV test to register at the University. He was going to pick his results up on Wednesday and was a little nervous about it; he asked me if I was HIV positive or negative and I answered automatically, “negative,” but then started second guessing myself because of an incident in which I came in contact with someone else’s blood and later realized that I had a small cut on my thumb. Usually, if someone gets hurt, I talk them through taking care of their injury (because, as a PCV, I’m not allowed to care directly for people), but this man had cut himself with a coupcoup and was spurting blood and didn’t speak French and my Ewe isn’t good enough to communicate in that sort of situation. I tried to explain in Ewe, but ended up just putting pressure on it myself and I got a little blood on my hands. Anyway, I just asked to have the test to ease my mind and it came back negative, but Ashley says that unless the contact was more that six months ago, it isn’t 100% reliable. So . . . my mind still isn’t completely at rest).
Midmorning we left Lome in a bush taxi and arrived in Notse just in time to go have fufu at Bar Marantha with Ashley. As we walked to the restaurant, I was feeling nauseous, but then Jorge called me and told me that he had been granted the visa to Italy (YAY!!) and so I was then very very happy, albeit still nauseous. I’m not sure why I ate lunch anyway, but I did, and then I had to rush off to my Peer Educator course in Agbatitoe. Kim accompanied me (very nice of her). The class was much more successful than the first. I had never seen the woman teacher, who is my counterpart for this course, teach a class, but I was very pleased with what I saw on Wednesday and it made me feel more relaxed about letting go of the reins a little. I now know that she takes the class seriously, prepares for it well, and doesn’t feed the students false information. She taught the first part of the class and I taught the second. The students participated a little more than last week, so that was good.
After the class we watched a bit of a soccer game and then hopped into a taxi and headed back to Notse. We went to ADAC to rescue Ashley from a meeting with her homologues and then I left Ashley and Kim at the bar with Jake (the volunteer in Tohoun who was also in town) and went to the internet to organize the buying of Togo-Italy tickets for Jorge and myself (Yay! Yay! Yay!). The tickets were still available and so my Mom bought two tickets for $1700. What a relief! I love it when everything falls into place! I only wish I knew it was all going to turn out from the beginning so I wouldn’t lose so much sleep over it! I am extremely excited about meeting Jorge in Italy and spending Christmas and New Years with his Mom (I haven’t spent time with his Mom in more than five years) and finally having a set date for our reunion: December 21st. YAY! Jorge arrives in Rome late on December 19th, but I couldn’t find a ticket leaving Lome until the 20th, so the 21st it is. Either he’ll meet me in the airport in Rome, or he will go ahead to Milan (to start getting quality time in with his Mom) and I will meet him there. My plane gets into Rome at 10 something in the morning, so I would have time to get to Milan before dark. We will see. I kind of want him to meet me at the airport in Rome, but I also think he should make the most of his time with his Mom, so . . .
Thursday
On Thursday Kim and I got a late start biking out to Jerome’s village, but she was a good sport even though it was terribly hot. Jerome, of course, treated us to a wonderful day and wonderful food. Soon after we arrived we ate fufu and then we chatted and rested our stomachs before going to visit a sodabe distillery. I think it is neat for people to try palm juice, then palm wine and then sodabe and taste the different degrees of fermentation and distillation and see the process. Palm trees are so useful and Jerome and I got into a discussion as to why people in my village don’t plant more palm trees. My area is largely deforested and palm tree products– indoor brooms, outdoor brooms, red palm oil (made from the palm fruit), white palm oil (made from the palm kernel), palm wine, sodabe, fencing, baskets – are expensive (because there aren’t many trees even though most people own their land and could easily plant them).
Our departure from Zitsou (Jerome’s village) was delayed because we had to go greet the chief and eat the beans and gari that Jerome’s wife had prepared. He really wanted us to spend the night, and lay on a bit of guilt when I refused, but finally accepted our thanks and allowed us to take our leave. I felt that we would be more comfortable at my house where I have a latrine and my own space and where no one would be bending over backwards to boil water for us to drink and take care of our every need.
We decided to take the “short-cut” to my village to avoid the dangers of the route national (big speeding trucks). It is a small path that, although shorter, takes about the same amount of time to bike because it is somewhat rough terrain. It is prettier though and we biked through the sunset, arriving in Avassikpe just after dark.
Of course the children were very excited by our arrival, but they eventually calmed down and left us alone to shower, eat pineapple and install ourselves under the paillote to chat and be cool.
Friday
Friday morning we made the rounds greeting everyone and their mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, aunt, uncle and cat. And the chief too. And Lili and the Infirmier (whom everyone calls “Major”). Then we rested (greeting people is exhausting!).
After a bit, DaJulie came to my door with a tiny kitten in her hand. It’s eyes weren’t even open yet. She handed it to me and told me that she had found it in the field and that its mom was dead. We went back to her house and she brought out three more identical kittens. She asked me what she could do. I said she should try to feed them milk. She said she didn’t have any milk. I didn’t want to say that I would take them and feed them because I didn’t want to get stuck with them, but when Parfait picked up one of the kittens and dropped it, I realized that their only chance at survival was if I removed them from the clumsy grasp of children. I got someone to make it clear that I was only taking the kittens to feed them not to keep them (Gizmo is enough of a hassle!) and then Kim and I carted them off to the house. I made up a solution of powdered milk, found an eyedropper and tried to feed them. Three of them started to suck on the eyedropper easily and hungrily, but the forth took a bit of coaxing. By the second feeding (Tig had advised us to feed them every two hours and then wipe their butts with a damp cloth so that they could pee and poo) they were all eating. I love it how they curl their tongues around the eye-dropper and suck the milk out! Mostly they just ate and slept and for the next three days our activities were punctuated by the feedings and but wipings. Somehow Kim got stuck with the butt wiping job. When we left on Sunday, I showed DaJulie how to feed them and wipe their butts, gave her the rest of my powdered milk, the eye-dropper, and some filtered water, and told the children that they were not allowed to touch them. I hope they are still alive when I get home.
Late Friday morning we went to the market. Kim bought three pagnes and we got soja and bean beignets for lunch. We were going to make sweet potato koliko, but the food we bought at the market was more than enough.
We spent the afternoon sitting under my paillote catching up on each others’ lives and future plans (the last time we saw each other was at Feb Graduation at Middlebury in February ’07). I thought that it would be interesting (she was also an anthropology major) to chill in my village and get a taste of village life; I just hope she wasn’t bored. Had she planned to be in country two weeks, we could have traveled more, but with just one week we risked spending the bulk of the time cramped in a bush taxi. Anyway, I enjoyed it and hope she did too.
Friday evening we walked to Midojicope and brought two of her pagnes to Mana to be made into wrap skirts.
Saturday
On Saturday we had tentatively planned to go with DaMarie to the field to pick soja, just for a few hours to witness the process, but it never ended up happening. We made lunch together – moringa, sesame, pâte sauce – I made her work crushing the tomatoes and moringa leaves with my crushing rock, and were going to eat it with pâte but the miller wasn’t around and I didn’t have any corn flour. We ended up eating it with rice which was good too.
Sophie’s mom came through Avassikpe on her way to Notse to take Pelagie (the eleven month old little girl who only weighs 4.7 kilos) to the hospital. I had tried to convince Mamane (Sophie’s mom, Effoh’s sister) to take her because I was/am afraid that she has a medical condition that prevents her from swallowing or sucking easily. For a while I debated accompanying them so that the staff at the Notse hospital would take the case more seriously (sad, but true), but decided against it. She stopped through again later that evening on her way back to Komlacope (her husband’s village) and said that the doctor’s hadn’t found anything irregular with her esophagus or heart, but had prescribed an appetite stimulant. Hopefully it will work. I am so worried about her development (or lack thereof).
Late Saturday afternoon we walked out to my moringa field, but the rest of the day was again spent in my place of choice: under my paillote. It was so nice to talk to a friend who has known me for so long.
We spent a lot of time talking about Italy (Kim studied abroad in Italy for a semester) and the places I should visit, but then Jorge’s mom called and, when I told her our arrival and departure dates, she expressed disappointment at the shortness of our stay. I thought a month was a pretty good amount of time (it eats up all the vacation days I have accrued to this point), but apparently she was hoping for more and I got the impression that she would like us to stay close to Milan for the majority of our visit. At first I was disappointed, but then I tried to look at it from an unselfish perspective and understand that she hasn’t seen her only child for three years and that she doesn’t know when she will see him again. I think this trip needs to be more about her than about Italy and even if I don’t get to travel all around Italy and see a lot of the sites, Milan is Italy and it is going to be amazing. AMAZING.
Sunday
Sunday morning we woke up early to go on a walk before church. I made Kim sit through church so that she would get a couple more drops for her bucket, but it was long and tiring and somewhat less animated than usual.
After church we made a sweet potato and egg scramble for lunch and then rested a bit before taking motos to Agbatit and (after a significant wait) catching a car to Atakpame. Once in the car, we arrived quickly in Atakpame, but were held up by a parade in honor of a Catholic holiday. There was a huge crowd and as we were waiting for the road to become passable, we heard a rumor that a car had hit and killed one of the participants in the parade. I’m not sure if that is true or not, maybe the person was just injured, but later, as we tried to make our way through the crowd on foot, I again heard murmurings about someone having been hit by a car. Yikes. On the other side of the throng of people we hopped in another car to take us closer to the transit house.
I was rather hoping that there would be a few nice volunteers for Kim to talk to at the Atakpame maison (she is considering applying to Peace Corps!), but there weren’t many people there. We dropped off our stuff and went to Pentagon for a nice, quiet dinner for two. That bar/restaurant is a favorite of PCVs because it is on the third story of a building and has a nice panoramic view of Atakpame.
Monday
Monday morning we had egg sandwiches and then went to the market and walked around a bit before going back to the house, picking up our stuff and heading to Notse. We got lucky and had a relatively quick, smooth, not crowded ride to Notse.
Upon arrival I immediately tore into a birthday box from my parents and found 8 pounds of cheese (HEAVEN!), oreos, nutrigrain bars and candy and the brainstorming started. What to make . . .? We decided on fajitas: tortillas, chicken, salsa and CHEESE. I headed off to the market to buy supplies and when I got back put Ashley and Kim to work while I looked at the pictures from Elizabeth’s wedding (a friend from high school who got married last May). We ate around 4:00 and it was delicious! (Thank you Mom and Dad!) – One of the best meals I’ve had in Togo. Absolutely delicious!
Tuesday
Tuesday morning we headed off to Lome, arriving there mid-morning. We checked into Mammy’s and then went to the Bureau to see if we could change Kim’s ticket to Thursday (she was supposed to fly out Tuesday for a week in London, but we wanted her to stay and spend Thanksgiving with us). We eventually gave up, went and had the best burgers in Lome for lunch, and then came back to the Bureau to try again. Finally we found a number and I called and found out that she could change her ticket for 45 Euros (less than she would spend in London in two days!) and so we b-lined it over to the AirFrance office to make the change. I hadn’t really thought it would be possible, but was super glad it was.
That evening we went to the Cheap Bar with another volunteer and polished off the two pound block of cheddar cheese that we had started devouring the day before.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning I walked downtown and went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see if I could get the man I spoke with several months ago to “make good” on his promise to write Jorge a letter so that the immigration officers at the airport would give him a one year visa right off the bat instead of a seven-day visa. It sounded too good to be true and it was. Apparently he recalled promising nothing of the sort and told me that Jorge would either have to apply for a visa from Rome or get a visa upon arrival in country and then apply to have it extended. He said that if Peace Corps writes a letter authorizing Jorge to stay with me, then it would be easy for him to get a visa for a year or two.
That stressed me out because I wasn’t sure Peace Corps would write a letter. Later that afternoon I went to speak with my Country Director. I asked her if we could get started on the background check portion of the “intent to marry” process now, before Jorge arrives in country, so that it will expedite the process. I feel as though my Country Director wouldn’t feel comfortable writing him a letter for a visa extension until he had been officially cleared through a background check. The Peace Corps manual that says that a volunteer may marry a third country national while in service IF the intended spouse satisfactorily passes a background check (the form is the same as that filled out by a person applying to a Public Trust position) and is approved by the Country Director with respect to three main points: that the intended spouse agrees to live the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer (no marrying and moving into an expat house with a pool and three cars; not a problem in our case); that the intended spouse shows adequate knowledge of the host country language and culture (Jorge doesn’t speak French, but neither do a lot of volunteers when they arrive in country, he has already started learning and will surely pick it up fast because of Spanish and he did his thesis on Ghana so I don’t think this will be a problem); and that the marriage will not interfere with the volunteer’s work in village (if anything I think Jorge will motivate me to do my work better because he will get me excited about it all over again and my village is very excited for his arrival).
I am pretty sure we can get “cleared” for marriage, but what I am not sure is whether or not we have to get married right away once we have been “cleared”. It is all so complicated what with Togo marriage laws (we need all sorts of documents – birth certificate, certificate of residence (3 months in Togo), premarital medical attestation, certificate of celibacy (what?), and a sworn notarized statement of eligibility to marry (is it this hard to get married in the States?) – and with the U.S. green card application process. I don’t know if it is better to get married in Togo and apply for the green card from here or apply for a Fiancée Visa and get married as soon as we get back to the States. There are pros and cons to both, but I guess it mostly hinges on whether or not we want to do a third year in Togo. We will see. It will be easier to talk about what we want to do when we are together and when Jorge has experienced Togo a little bit.
Moving on. Because Kim was staying two more days, she had time to accompany me to a HUGE shopping center called Lome 2 or Adjzrenawe (something like that) where they have piles and piles of second hand clothes. I was extremely glad she could be there with me because it would have been no fun on my own (I was a little nervous because I had never been there before, but it turned out not to be as crowded or chaotic as I expected) and because she served as my mirror, telling me what pants looked good and what pants didn’t. On my list were pants for Italy (I have no full length pants) and running shoes (my hiking shoes give me blisters when I try to walk in them). It was fun and I ended up buying six pairs of pants – one brown linen, two pairs of jeans, one pair of black and grey striped dressy pants, and two pairs of corduroys, one olive green and one khaki – for 6,000 ($12) and Asics running shoes for 5,000 ($10). The running shoes are, I think, $90 shoes in the states and are in very good condition.
After shopping we went to lunch with Ashley and then to the Bureau and then to the Beach Bar for drinks and the sunset. By this time there were a lot of volunteers in Lome and I was glad that Kim got the opportunity to talk to a wide variety of volunteers with a wide variety of experiences.
In the evening we went briefly to another and then camped out at the Bureau on internet until it closed.
Thursday
Unfortunately, Kim woke up Thursday morning with stomach issues and ended up spending the morning resting at Mammys. Ashley again refused to accompany me shopping (it isn’t her thing) and so I called Effoh to see if he’d like to meet me at Lome 2 for a second round of shopping (on the list were sweaters and long sleeve shirts and dress shoes). He agreed.
This time I made my way there for cheap (450 cFA instead of the 1500 I paid the day before) using route taxis and by the time Effoh arrived had already found a good sweater stand and picked a bunch of “possibles.” The man who owns the house Effoh is staying at (Mana’s sister’s husband) brought him to Lome 2 on his moto because he was afraid he’d get lost in the big city all by himself. I told him that he should let him get lost because that is the only way he is going to learn his way around. If someone is always driving him everywhere, he will never learn. The man was super nice, but it was awkward having someone I didn’t know following me around as I shopped. It made me feel rushed; I didn’t want to waste his time. We went back to the sweater stand where the man was holding my “picks” and I rooted through the pile again and then bought 17 sweaters (excessive, I know) for 4,000 ($8). Crazy cheap right? I bought all the ones that I thought might be good because I didn’t feel comfortable trying them on, Kim, my mirror wasn’t present so it would have been pointless, and figured I’d try them on at home and just bring my favorites to Italy. Then we embarked on the search for shoes which took the bulk of the morning. I wanted the Dansko shoes that everyone wore at Middlebury and that I could never afford (they cost around $120). I found one pair that was too small. Another pair that was reddish. And then another pair that was the right size and in relatively good condition except for a tiny slit in the toe (as though someone had stabbed it with a pocket knife). We continued looking, but finally went back for the pair with the slit in the toe and I bargained them down to 1,000 ($2). How cool is that? To thank Effoh for accompanying me and carrying my huge bag of sweaters around the whole morning, I told him to look for some shirts and eventually we found him some nice button up shirts and bargained them down to 4 for 1,000.
I then had to hurry back because I was going to be late for Thanksgiving Dinner at our Country Director’s house. Kim was feeling a little bit better, but not well enough to eat, so that was a pity. The food was good, but I didn’t stuff myself like I did last year (also a good thing). The company was very nice and I was glad to be with a lot of my friends and distracted from missing my family. Kim fit in perfectly and everyone kept assuming that she was a volunteer. I really hope she decides to go into the Peace Corps, I think she would make a great volunteer. After Thanksgiving dinner, we went to the Bureau and eventually hitched a ride to the airport with a Peace Corps driver who was taking a trainee to the airport (she was ET-ing). I hate good-bye’s, but it was still super wonderful to have Kim visit, I just wish she could have stayed a month =0).
Friday
I spent Friday morning running around getting an electronic copy of my passport and sending it to Afriqiyah Air (the Libyan airline Jorge and I are flying between Togo and Italy). They refused to issue my ticket before having a copy of my passport as a guarantee of my citizenship (unfortunately I had left my passport in village, but fortunately Ashley suggested that Peace Corps might have a copy and sure enough they did). Eventually I emailed them a copy and they issued my ticket so that is all taken care of and a huge relief.
I then messed around on the internet for the rest of the morning. We didn’t end up leaving Lome until around 4:00 and it took us several hours to actually get on the road (sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you aren’t), so we didn’t arrive in Notse until well after dark. Ashley and I were both exhausted and just showered and went to bed.
Saturday
I was planning to go back to village today, but, big surprise, I’m still here and it is now 5:30, too late to make it back before dark. I hope my kittens are still alive.
This morning I went to the market and bought some socks for Italy (too bad I sent all my socks home with my parents) and supplies for village. Ash and I ate some of my canned tomato sauce over pasta for lunch and then I started writing (better to do it while it is still more or less fresh in my mind). I will head back to village early tomorrow morning because they are having a fundraiser at church that I should attend. On Monday I have an Ewe lesson and the Peace Corps bike repair guy is coming (I’m excited for that because the kids have totally messed up my gears). Tuesday I have nothing planned, but Wednesday I have a Peer Educator course. After my course I will bike into Notse so that Ashley and I can work on our Peace Corps Partnership budget so that we can get that online before Christmas.
In three weeks from tomorrow I will be in Italy with Jorge! Yay! I hope those three weeks go by quickly!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Ash and Dan's Peace Corps Partnership Cover Letter: Moringa for Improved Nutrition
Hello Everyone!
For those of you who haven't heard, "Ash and Dan" is the latest in a line of famous duos, up there with Batman and Robin, but instead of fighting crime, we fight malnutrition (oh yeah, and we're both women). It is unusual for two Peace Corps volunteers from the same training group (we are both Community Health and AIDs Prevention volunteers) to be placed near each other, but luckily for us we are only separated by an hour bike ride. Both interested in a tree called Moringa (google it!), whose leaves are packed with vitamins and minerals, we collaborated right from the start. We each saw a need for a response to nutritional deficits in our respective communities: Ash in the large town of Notsé and Dan in the small rural community of Avassikpé. In collaboration with a local non-governmental organization working for community health and development, Ashley started a plantation of 1,200 Moringa trees with a group of people living with HIV/AIDs (PLWHA). At the same time, Danielle planted 1,000 trees with her Village Development Committee. The projects were intended to meet two goals: improved nutrition and income generation for the community.
After attending a Peace Corps conference in Burkina Faso and sharing ideas with volunteers from five West African countries, we realized how important it was to make Moringa available to everyone. Also known as the "Miracle Tree," Moringa is one of nature's most incredible gifts to mankind. We plan to devote the last eight months of our service to promoting Moringa's nutritional benefits in Togo.
Through public service announcements, songs, and talk shows on the local radio station, strategically placed billboards, and a Moringa festival we hope for the heart of our information campaign to become a reality in the region by the end of 2009: "Plant. Eat. Live." ("Plantez. Mangez. Vivez").
Plant. Moringa is a fast growing, resilient tree that can provide an easily affordable, easily accessible and sustainable year round source of leafy greens for local families.
Eat. Gram for gram Moringa leaves contain 7 times the Vitamin C of Oranges, 4 times the Vitamin A of Carrots, 4 times the Calcium of Milk, 3 times the Potassium of Bananas and 2 times the Protein of Yogurt. In addition, Moringa leaves contain all the essential amino acids and, if incorporated into the local diet, could respond to many nutritional deficits.
Live. A cornerstone of good health, adequate nutrition is essential for a good quality of life. Moringa not only has the potential to improve the lives of people, but it is an indefinitely renewable resource that could help provide food security in upcoming times of global food crisis.
The community and their needs are the driving force behind this project and they will participate in every aspect of the design and implementation. In an impressive show of support, community members ranging from hospital staff, radio producers, musicians, traditional and elected authorities, and motivated individuals are donating their time, talent and services, covering 38% of our overall budget with community contributions and leaving our Peace Corps Partnership request for donations at an achievable $3,531.00. If only 100 people contribute about $35.00, the knowledge of Moringa's impressive nutritional benefits will be disseminated throughout this entire village in Togo.
"How can I help?", you say? What a wonderful question. Thank you for asking. =0)
If you are interested in supporting our project please go to www.peacecorps.gov and click on "Donate Now," and then on "Donate to Volunteers Projects" and finally, search for Togo and Danielle Naugle. Shortcut: https://www.peacecorps.gov/
Akpé kaka ("Thank you very much" in Ewe),
Efe nuyie loo ("Happy New Year")
Ash and Dan
Thursday, November 27, 2008
11/13/08 through 11/17/08
11/13/08 through 11/17/08; Highlights =0)
The past four days of my life, from Thursday through Sunday, were spent cleaning my house from top to bottom. Sometimes I think small houses are harder to keep clean than big houses because one often has just as much STUFF and so floor space inevitably becomes storage space making it hard to walk much less sweep or mop. And who wants to dust when cleaning one thing means dirtying another? It is just starting to be Harmattan, so I barely hit the end of my cleaning window; for the next couple of months, as clouds of dust roll in and over, cleaning won’t be worth the effort. Even now, dust already coats my shelves.
One of the great things about visitors is how they force you to clean your house. I probably never would have gathered the momentum to engage in battle with the spiders if it hadn’t been for the impending visit of a close college friend. The excitement of the visit dulls the pain of cleaning and provides an objective above and beyond just having a clean house (which sometimes isn’t enough to get one out of the hammock).
Breaking the monotony of my cleaning was a visit from one of my neighbor’s, Tseviato’s older sister. She asked me for some band-aids. When I asked if she was hurt, she pulled her pagne down, revealing her breasts and told me that she wanted to put band-aids over her nipples in an a attempt to trick Parfait (her two year old) into not breast feeding. I guess she wants to wean him and he is fighting it. It was hilarious. She put the band-aids over her nipples then and there and pretended that they hurt, but she wasn’t very convincing because she couldn’t stop laughing. Parfait crossed his little arms over his chest and pouted, not knowing what to make of it all. In the end, it wasn’t very effective because I saw him hanging off her breast later in the day.
The only other thing worth recounting was a conversation that I had with Jerome today during my Ewe lesson (by the way, I forgot to mention that he has started holding Ewe literacy classes for three village women before my Ewe class. We are only in the third week, but it is exciting to watch women who have never been to school begin to read and write). The women were still under my paillote after their literacy class when Jerome and I sat down to eat. After praying, he stood up and said that he forgot to “dire aux femmes qu’on a gagne un peu” (tell the women that we had “won” a bit to eat). He went to the door and called out to them to come and eat and they responded “nezo,” as expected. This exchange initiated a conversation on the very peculiar Togolese habit of always inviting people to share in your meal if you happen to be eating (anything from peanuts to a full meal) in the presence of others. As Jerome explained, it is customary always to invite others to join you (“mangions” – “let’s eat”). For the most part, however, the offer is an empty one. People don’t expect you to accept. This makes it particularly confusing for an outsider to know when an offer to partake in a meal is genuine. I was once criticized, after refusing such a call to eat, for never wanting to eat “their” food, but according to Jerome, I was right to refuse. A good rule of thumb, he says, is that if someone goes out of their way to make you aware of the fact that they are going to be eating and to invite you to join, then you know the invitation is sincere and that you should accept (for example, when Tsevi, Lili, or Effoh came to my house to call me to their homes to eat). If you happen upon people eating, however, it is obvious that your presence was not taken into consideration when the calculations of how much to prepare were made and you should refuse. If you were to happen upon someone eating and accept their invitation, even if you only took a few bites, the symbolic gesture of desiring to share a meal with someone means that you hold that person particularly dear. The logic is that you must really cherish the person to stop whatever you were doing and accompany the person during a meal however meager it may be. Jerome advised me not to accept casual invitations, however, because if I accept from one person and refuse another people will think I am playing favorites (so complicated!). After Jerome explained the custom, I explained my inability to invite people to eat unless the offer is genuine. I know it is the culturally correct thing to do, but I can’t get the words out of my mouth unless I really want the person to share my food. Mostly, if I have only prepared enough for myself, I don’t feel it is right to offer what I don’t have. What if they accept? I know it is unlikely, but when one invites someone to eat, from my point of view, one should have prepared enough so that the guest can eat his or her fill. I would find it terribly embarrassing to invite someone to eat, have them unexpectedly accept, and then not have enough food to share. In my head, I wouldn’t be able to help chastising myself: “why on earth did you offer if you didn’t have enough?” But, for a Togolese person, there is always enough to share – Tsevi once told me that if I shared a meal with him, he could eat more (that goes directly against an American, mathematical sense of logic, but makes total sense if you think about how sharing a meal with someone increases the enjoyment and makes eating more of a social event than just a means of satiating a basic bodily need).
You might commend the Togolese behavior as remarkable hospitality (and I wouldn’t completely throw that thought out the window), but when Jerome elaborated on the “why?” behind the practice of always inviting others to share your food, he likened it to the practice of greeting people you pass on the street. He said, if something happens to you while you are eating and you didn’t offer to share your food with the people around you, would they help you? Or, if you have an accident on the road and you didn’t greet the person you most recently passed, would he help you? And so, the way in which he explained it betrays an essentially selfish motive and harks back to a discussion I was having with another volunteer a couple of weeks ago in which we were debating the question: Are any human actions truly altruistic or does everything ultimately boil down to self interest?
9/30/08 through 11/11/08
Um . . . so . . . October, eh? Usually it is one of my favorite months, the trees are changing colors, it’s my birthday, Halloween, lots of candy . . . the only constant this year was my birthday, but even though my friends tried to make it special, it didn’t really feel like my birthday.
This year October was hijacked pretty much entirely by AIDS Ride. In the beginning of the month, Ashley and I took motos and rode (as passengers) the entire
Just after spending 15,000 cFA a piece (≈$37.50) to moto our route in final preparation we learned from one of our national AIDS Ride coordinators that the budget had been cut and that PSI was cracking down on spending and legitimacy of receipts because last year they were audited. In hashing it out with an ONG that PSI hired to make sure the AIDS Ride budget reports were audit-proof this year, we discovered that the problem wasn’t budget cuts, but rather imprecise and completely lacking line items. Last years coordinators assured us that the budged was adequate and so this year’s national coordinators submitted and identical budget. Last year, however, regional coordinators had the freedom to move money around to accommodate gaps and deficits, but this year PSI wasn’t tolerating sloppiness. They demanded legitimate receipts (meaning with the name, address and phone number of the retailer printed at the top and with the retailer’s personalized stamp) or money back. For certain purchases, like the 30,000 500mL bags of pure water and the gas for the chase car, that wasn’t a problem, but for most of our food it was impossible. The women selling peanut butter in the market don’t have a receipt book at all, much less one with a proper heading and a stamp. We were lucky if they even knew how to sign their own name and had some women just scribble in the signature box, make an “x” or a funny squiggle and we had to present those receipts to the ONG guy working with us. He would just shake his head and repeat over and over “ce n’est pas bon” (it’s no good). For transportation, they wanted us to go to the syndicates and get officially stamped receipts; in our better moments Ashley and I joked that next year they need to include a budget line for getting receipts because when you need a receipt and have to go through the most official channels, everything costs more. In our worse moments, we stressed that we were going to lose large quantities of money to AIDS Ride and end up giving money back to PSI that we had spent but didn’t have “legitimate” receipts for. What you will learn, however, when working in a country like
It was extremely frustrating and stressful at times, but in the end a great learning experience. I have never received any formal instruction on how to prepare a budget and report on expenditures and I learned what constitutes a legitimate receipt, what can cause problems in activity reports (for example participants initialing instead of signing), and how to bend the rules just a little bit. I spent the morning of my birthday nervously fidgeting in the office of the ONG’s financial expert as he reviewed our receipts and reports, but it all worked out and Ashley and I were reimbursed for the thousands of francs we had fronted for the project.
Amid all the budget concerns, Ashley and I had to organize for a chase car, buy mats for sleeping, arrange for food (in some villages no food was available on the streets and so we asked a woman to prepare us beans and rice), stock up on water for 18 people over five days and make last minute homologue substitutions. We were particularly stressed by the condition of the roads as we moto-ed them – after two months of rains and traffic they were gutted with ruts that in some places were several feet deep. We bought a shovel in anticipation of having to dig the car out of the mud on more than one occasion, and discussed the possibility of having to cancel our AIDS Ride half way through because of impassible roads (that would have been catastrophic for our budget report, not to mention all the people we would disappoint).
The night before biking out, a torrential downpour left me sleepless with nervousness about the condition of the roads, but in the end AIDS Ride went more smoothly than we could have hoped. It didn’t rain all week and the car only got stuck once (that mishap was the driver’s fault for recklessly and forcefully reversing the car to scatter school children). All of our sensibilizations took place more or less on time and with a significant audience. No one greeted us with blank stares that soundlessly inquired “what are you doing here?” Everyone was prepared to receive us, in some places with music, food, and dance, and listen to our message. Our sensibilizations, even our first, went really well. The volunteers and homologues took the task at hand seriously and made an effort to make every sensibilization a good one. Each sensibilization lasted about two hours and included lots of questions, games, skits and demonstrations. We began with basic questions to test the knowledge of our audience and then explained the difference between HIV and AIDS. That was followed by a game – in which the body is compared to a chick, the immune system to mother hens, HIV to a snake, and opportunistic infections to hawks – to illustrate how HIV attacks a persons immune system making him/her particularly vulnerable to common diseases. We continued with the modes of transmission and sketches to illustrate the ABCDE’s (Abstinence, Bonne Fidelite (faithful), Condom, Depistage (HIV test), Education) – modes of prevention. Then my infirmier (one of our homologues) explained how multiple concurrent sexual partners facilitate the spread of AIDS. New studies show that having more than one partner at a time (as opposed to many consecutive partners over the course of a lifetime) greatly increases the spread of AIDS because directly after infection a person is more infectious. If that person is having sex with five people at that time, he/she will likely transmit the virus to all five people before he knows he is infected. After “multipartenariat,” we did condom demonstrations, calling both girls and boys out to help us put banana flavored PSI condoms on wooden penises, stressing the need for girls to take responsibility for their own health and future by knowing how to use a condom and by bringing condoms to sexual encounters. Finally, we wrapped up with a sketch and discussion on the effects of discrimination and stigmatization and the answering of questions from the audience. Before leaving we sang a song that evoked, once again, the ABCDE’s (modes of prevention).
It was divided (albeit unintentionally) so that Ashley’s group got most of the village sensibilizations (which tend to be smaller and somewhat simplified due to the lower previous knowledge about HIV/AIDS (in comparison to middle and high school students) and the need to translate into local language) and my group got most of the CEG sensibilizations (from 200 to 500 students at a time). The students were for the most part well behaved, although we had a couple of schools in which the students mocked the volunteers’ French, which was unfortunate, but in general, our sensiblizations were relatively orderly. At two schools we had to stop handing out condoms as rewards for correct answers to questions and active participation during the sensibilization because the students would go wild yelling and laughing each and every time. But we avoided getting mobbed at the end of the sensibilization by giving boxes of condoms to the directors of the schools and instructing them to divide the condoms among their students. In doing it that way, we run the risk that the directors will “bouf” the condoms (keep them all for themselves, sell them, etc.), but we tried to minimize that risk by announcing how many boxes of condoms we were leaving with the director at the end of the sensibilization and threatening that we would send a volunteer (we have three volunteers on our route) to ask CEG students if they received condoms. It worked better than trying to hand out condoms to 500 yelling, pushing, shoving students and I am pretty confident that they will have all received at least one or two. You do what you can.
In my group I had a bit of an issue with a homologue (not my infirmier, but another homologue) who repeatedly went against my instructions not to hand out condoms at the end of a sensibilization. The first time I asked him about it, he lied and said he hadn’t handed out condoms. Then one of my volunteers said they had seen him handing out condoms and then I myself saw him handing out condoms and called him out on it. He acted all remorseful, insisting that he would go to a boutique and buy condoms to replace the ones he handed out. I retorted that it wasn’t a question of condoms (PSI had given us more than a million condoms), it was a question of following instructions and of how one person’s actions affect the whole group. When one of the members of the team hands out condoms after a sensibilization, the students inevitably swarm the other volunteers begging for condoms. Of course everyone has a sob story about how they don’t have the money to buy condoms, but at one point or another each person has to decide that their life is worth 25cFA for a condom because we can’t provide a lifetime supply. What angered me most is that I know he wasn’t handing out condoms because the students’ plea touched his heart, but rather because of the “big man on campus” syndrome. Here, as in many other cultures, important people prove their greatness by redistributing resources, and this homologue enjoyed having controlling the distribution of commodity that other people coveted; it made him feel important, special, powerful.
That wasn’t the only issue that I had with this homologue. He came with high recommendations, but I had never met him before AIDS Ride and wouldn’t recommend him again. While very animated and energetic, he butted in during volunteers’ parts of the sensibilization (I wanted everyone to have a chance to participate – AIDS Ride is a great chance for new volunteers to gain confidence – and I wanted my new volunteers to have the same opportunity to participate that I had last year). His attitude worsened over the course of the week and he started biking off ahead or leaving the sensibilization half-way through so that we had to sub-in for his parts, etc. We also had a transportation reimbursement issue. He and another homologue came from the same town but he asked for almost double reimbursement. I told him that I would only reimburse him the official tariff and that if he did, indeed, spend that much getting to and from AIDS Ride, it was his own fault for taking a more expensive route. Needless to say he was not happy. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
Our other homologues were relatively cooperative. I was really happy with my infirmier for the whole of AIDS Ride. He didn’t complain when the other homologues were complaining about the food (apparently bread and rice and beans is not adequate nourishment) or the sleeping arrangements. I wanted to admonish some of the homologues for complaining for going a week without eating pâte when we leave our homes for two years and come to a country where we can’t get any of the foods we are accustomed to. They even had one “free” meal a day that we had given them 500cFA for so they could go find whatever food they liked, but still they complained.
In terms of food and lodging, everything went more or less smoothly. We had a place to stay, a roof over our heads , and showering accommodations every evening. The first night, was the nicest – a new dispensaire. The next two nights were in CEGs and the last night, the worst – a primary school with a dirt floor, a makeshift shower and slimy pond water. The volunteers were really good sports about showering and bathroom arrangements (or lack thereof). No one complained, for which I was thankful. We also had very good luck with our rice and beans. In each of the four places we asked for someone to prepare us rice and beans (no small feat for 18 people) we were met with well prepared and sufficient food. Again, even though the homologues complained, volunteers agreed that rice and beans was probably the most economic and nutritious option. We had a little bit of a problem with breakfast; we had bought one loaf of bread per person per day and twice we ran out because people were consuming more than their allotted amount of bread, but I found bouillie (porridge) ladies to supplement our fare so that no one would go hungry.
We only had one serious accident, a volunteer who on the second day of biking fell off her bike, hitting her head, and momentarily losing consciousness. She wasn’t in my group and I didn’t witness the event, but the MedUnit wanted her in Lome as soon as possible so they could monitor her injuries and recovery and we had no way of getting her there. Besides our chase car, there were no cars on these roads and sending her on a moto was out of the question. There was a bit of discussion as to why our chase car couldn’t take her to Atakpame, but if that had been necessary, we would have had to call off AIDS Ride as our chase car had all our water and supplies and we had other volunteers in delicate states. She stuck it out with us until the second to last day when we finally found a car, but the MedUnit was not pleased and partially because of our AIDS Ride I think, we have been directed to suspend all organized rides until Peace Corps can look into the safety and security issues. What I don’t understand is why Peace Corps didn’t send one of their cars to come pick her up if it was that urgent.
Ashley flipped over her handlebars as well, but in true Ashley style, just got up and continued biking. She had some impressive bruises to show for her fall.
Lastly, we biked with a really great group of volunteers. Although it sometimes felt like I had just adopted ten children (“Danielle, where do I go to the bathroom? Danielle, where’s the toilet paper? Danielle, when will dinner be ready? Danielle, where are the matches, the spoons, etc?”), everyone was a great sport, working together as a team to make things go as smoothly as possible. When you’re trying to organize so many people, everyone’s individual efforts make a huge difference and I am happy to say that all of our volunteers contributed to the success of our AIDS Ride. The volunteers were also vey appreciative of our organizational efforts and as anyone who has ever tried to coordinate anything knows, a little bit of appreciation goes a long way and makes all the headaches worthwhile. And finally, it was a great opportunity to get to know some of the new volunteers (and get to know old volunteers better) that I wouldn’t have had otherwise (because I avoid big social gatherings like the plague). All in all, I am very pleased by how AIDS Ride turned out, but happy that it is over.
After AIDS Ride, I contracted a terrible cough that I am still recovering from. Ashley and I have decided that her weakest link is her digestive system and mine is my respiratory system.
Other than AIDS Ride, what stands out about this October is death and birthdays. I’ll go for birthdays first. One of my stagemate’s (a small enterprise development volunteer) birthday was on the 16th and we gathered in Atakpame to celebrate. It was a nice small gathering that provided a brief respite during the hectic AIDS Ride planning phase. And then, of course, my own birthday – a quarter of a century, yikes. I feel like 25 is really old. Closer to 30 than to 20. I feel like at some point I need to get serious, get a job, make money, get married, start a family, but then another part of me just wants to let it all happen in its own good time and I don’t see a real job or children in my near future. I would like to go to grad school, so . . .
On the Friday after AIDS Ride, Alicia made me (and another volunteer who shares my birthday) a surprise birthday cake and we celebrated with s’mores – it was a really sweet gesture. On my birthday itself, Ashley made me chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast (we were still hanging out in Atakpame due to AIDS Ride budget work) and took me out to dinner, so that was also really nice. I also got a chance to talk with my parents, with Jorge, and with Jorge’s mom – phone calls make any day special – and that was my birthday.
And now for death. I don’t know why, but October was a month for accidents. Jerome told me of a young man who died in a motorcycle accident – he was decapitated as he hit the curb. And then, right before AIDS Ride, Effoh texted me to tell me that two teenagers from my village died in a motorcycle accident. That one really upset me because I knew the boys. I didn’t get the details until much later, but apparently it was their fault because they were driving fast on the route nationale after dark without a headlight. An oncoming car forced them to the side of the road where, for lack of a headlight, they didn’t see a parked truck and ram-ed into it. And yet I still see twelve and thirteen year olds driving their fathers’ motos around village. It drives me crazy. Then, my Ewe lesson two weeks ago was based on another accident in which a young person from Jerome’s village was crushed by a huge teak tree that he was helping to transport. So many needless deaths.
On a different note, a longstanding mystery was resolved during another Ewe lesson. When I make my early morning rounds greeting my neighbors, I use the greeting “etsobedo” meaning that the last time we greeted each other was yesterday. But then, if and when they came by my house later in the morning, they too would greet me with “estobedo” and I couldn’t help but wonder if they had forgotten that we had already greeted each other once that day. Then I witnessed the same exchange one day with Jerome. He went to greet DaJulie and then she came by the house to greet him and when I asked him about it he said that it is a two way street, that if the person really likes and respects you, it is not enough for you to go to their house to greet them, but they should return the gesture and come to your house to greet you. Interesting.
Between AIDS Rides plans, I was also brainstorming an income-generating activity with Effoh. The idea was that I would lend him money to buy some animals (sheep, pigs and chickens) so that he could get into the animal raising business. I made him come up with a project plan and a projected budget with expenditures and conservative estimates of projected revenues. We figured that with a substantial initial investment, if all went well, he could make enough to pay me back in about a year an a half. If I didn’t extend, or if some disease ravished his animals, that would present a problem. (I later learned from Jerome, who’s help I had enlisted in the planning phase because he is someone I trust and an experienced livestock raiser, that one way for people who don’t have money to get into the livestock raising business is to ask a friend or acquaintance who does have animals to give him one to raise. The person is then in charge of feeding and taking care of the animal and the offspring are split between the owner and the person who is raising the animal. It is kind of like the “sharecropping” of animal husbandry except that in this situation, at least when it is Jerome doing the lending, it seems like a pretty advantageous deal for the borrower).
In the end, I was freed from having to make the decision “to lend or not to lend,” because Effoh decided to go to University in
On an entirely different front, the drama with Jorge’s visa to
Changing topics to a more hopeful subject – how about that election? It still fills me with a giddy glow when I think about it. A group of girls got together at a volunteer’s house in Atakpame to watch the election unfold on CNN. It was so exciting and I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to participate in this historic process even from
It is interesting experiencing the election in Africa (
My high from the election was temporarily extinguished by a mishap on the way home from Atakpame. I had brought Giz to Atakpame to get him (FINALLY) vaccinated against rabies. The vaccination itself went well, the vet knew how to hold him and administered the shot successfully on the first try. It was such a relief after the
The next day (and for the next several months I am sure), I had to laugh at myself for crying over my cat (even though I am sure I would cry again were it to happen again) as the Director recounted the incident with all the theatrics typical of a Togolese story-teller to a teacher and the priest. To boot, all the 500+ students at the CEG now call “Gizmo” at me when I pass or ask, in mock concern, “ou est Gizmo?” (where is Gizmo?). Whatever, I am just glad to have him back.
As for what I have going on in village, not much. I am distressed by the fact that the now eleven month old little girl I have been giving Moringa powder to has not gained so much as
Other than that, I will be starting Peer Educator classes tomorrow in conjunction with the woman professor at the CEG in Agbatit. We will be sharing the task so that she can take over the classes when I am no longer present. I hope it will be less of a burden on me and my time this year and, unfortunately, am not particularly excited about it. It is good that I am doing it with someone, though, because she will sub in when I am not present and will allow the class to progress more smoothly.
I hope to start health classes at the primary school in Avassikpe soon. I have 21 health related drawings that a Sunday School at home might help me photocopy so that each student can have a drawing to take home and ideally share the message with their family.
I have been emailing back and forth with a man I met at the Household Water Treatment and Storage Conference in
I spoke at church on Sunday about starting a workshop for married couples; we will see if there is enough interest to actually go through with it.
I am feeling a bit unmotivated and at loose ends. Because AIDS Ride occupied so much of my time in the past couple of months, I didn’t start any new projects in village and now don’t feel as though I have much going on. At least not much that excites me. I might try to organize a HEARTH workshop (ten day long workshop for mothers of under nourished children) in one or two of the villages around Avassikpe, but that will take several months to realize. Ashley and I are also planning a sensibilization campaign for Moringa (using the radio and billboards and a Moringa “festival” or “fair”), but she is busy currently with a different project and isn’t free to work on it yet. Right now I feel as though much of my energy is being drained in missing Jorge and worrying about how and when we will be together again, and I am hoping that his arrival in
I feel like I am just trying to get through the next couple of months (weeks now?) until Jorge gets here and then I will start living again. Is that sad?
To end on a happy note, I have a college friend coming to visit for a week on the 18th of November. It is almost unbelievable that she is coming all the way out here to visit me and I am really touched by the gesture. She will provide a much needed distraction. After her visit and after Thanksgiving, I will hopefully only have three more weeks (if we get visa and airline issues figured out) of suffering left before Jorge and I will be reunited. If the visa to
That’s it for now. Maybe I will be better about writing in the coming weeks, but somehow I doubt it. Later gaters.
9/9/08 through 9/29/08
9/9/08
I don’t feel like writing. Lately, I never feel like writing. Maybe I am finally boring myself.
Upon my arrival in village yesterday, I was please to see that the chickens had not completely destroyed my garden. This morning early I watered it and was getting ready to go to the field with Tseviato to harvest corn when Effoh returned with the tip of the pointer finger on his left hand sliced through to the nail. I brought him disinfectant to clean it, but when I saw that the tip of his finger was barely still attached, I suggested that he go to the dispensaire and get it sewn back together. We went, but he balked at the cost (a total of 2,000cFA = $5.00) and decided to take care of it at home. I am worried the tip of his finger is going to fall off. Yucky. Looking at it makes me sick to my stomach.
I picked corn all day. It wasn’t too bad. Easier, I’d say, than beans or cotton because you don’t have to bend down as often. I was wearing long sleeves and gloves which made it even easier. Otherwise the corn leaves and husks are rough on the skin. You just go down the row twisting the ears off and throwing them in a pile.
It would have been entirely pleasant had I not stubbed my toe on the way out to the field – I think the nail is going to fall off. Eve so, though, it was fine. We were all women – Tseviato, DaJulie, Mama, Tseviato’s older sister – it was nice working together in silence, or listening to their chit-chat, or joking around with Tseviato. We got home at dusk and I showered and am now going to go look for Giz who has begun bolting out the door every chance he gets. So far he has always returned (but not until he jolly well feels like it).
9/10/08 and 9/11/08
I ate my weight twice over in pasta primavera today. I was so excited when I saw the green beans in my garden that I went overboard: carrots and cabbage (from the market), green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, and moringa from my garden. It was delicious, but made enough to feed a family. I turned more than half of it into couscous to give away, but I am unfortunately not sure how it will be appreciated. So far, my prized vegetables: green beans, squash and zucchini, haven’t received very good marks in the Togolese taste index. DaJulie actually spit the green bean out.
Highlights. Hmm.
I think I am in the process of finally succeeding in drying moringa leaves; this time out in the sun but protected by a sheet (I hope that counts as “shaded”).
Tseviato’s sister said she would die (of sadness) when I leave and Tseviato said she will fall sick (nice to know I will be missed).
Yesterday I made another delicious moringa sauce for pâte for Jerome’s visit. I gave some to DaJulie and Tseviato’s older sister and they loved it. This morning I convinced Tseviato’s older sister to add Moringa leaves to her sauce.
This morning I went to see the field that Midojicope has chosen for their moringa trees. Hopefully it will rain tonight (a storm is menacing) and we can plant tomorrow. I am worried that it won’t be a community (but rather a family) affair in Midojicope, but, of course, they reassure me that everyone is welcome to participate (yes, but are they informed?).
Effoh’s finger seems to be healing. I was honestly worried that the tip was going to turn black and fall off (ironically, it turned white, but didn’t fall off). But it seems to be reattaching itself. Last night he cleaned it and this morning we bandaged and splinted it. I suggested a splint of sorts because he re-injures it every time he bumps it while working in the field.
I am working on a formation for young couples. Looks like I might be organizing classes ate the EPP, the CEG and for young couples. My “vacation” seems to be coming to an end.
I don’t know how to ask people to stop taking water from the cistern in my garden because I invited them to help themselves during the rainy season. Now I want to save my water to irrigate my plants when it doesn’t rain. Tsevi’s wife is currently taking water. Usually she asks first . . .
9/12/08 and 9/13/08
Yesterday I spent the whole morning making koliko (fried ignam) with an audience of a good ten children. That is the way it is lately; I can’t cook anything without an audience because I have to do it all outside over charbon (by the way, Dad, the lining in the bottom of my stove, that catches the cinders and ashes fell out). I used to try to get the charcoal to light without cheating (requires patience, a lot of matches and a lot of fanning), but I have discovered that a capful of kerosene makes the whole experience less frustrating and time-consuming. Now that I am cooking outside, my eating habits have become sporadic. Some days I don’t cook at all and revert to scavenger mode, and other days I cook as if for a Togolese family and inevitably share what I have made wit hmy neighbors. I feel badly cooking anything other than pâte (and even my pâte is better than theirs because it has fish, big fish, in it) and then hoarding it all to myself.
I shared my pâte sauce, shared my vegetable couscous and shared my koliko. I spent a good part of my afternoon sitting sullenly at the dispensaire. DaMarie had asked me to accompany her “younger sister” to a prenatal consultation so she wouldn’t be “scared.” Of course, I couldn’t refuse, but the woman has had 4 children, I don’t know what she could have to be afraid of. Had it been her first child, my compliance would have been a bit more willing. It took forever and a half because there were a lot of patients: a child wit ha severe case of malaria, three kids (all under 13) who go it an accident while driving their father’s moto and other pregnant women.
Other than that, my day was largely uninteresting.
Today I filmed another episode of my cooking show; this time corn bouillie for breakfast and beans and rice to eat with leftover sauce from my koliko. The in-studio audience was awed by my efforts.
I had a bit of a misunderstanding with DaMarie and thought she had canceled our plans to go to the filed and was surprised (unpleasantly) when she came to my door and said she was ready to go. Evidently my Ewe is far from flawless. I trudged behind her to the field, but it turned out to be a good day. I learned how to stack corn on the grenier (storage paillote for corn; what I have been previously spelling something like grenouille (frog) is actually grenier (grainery). I don’t know why it took me so long to figure that out). We made a four-sided corn wall twenty rows high all around the grenier and then through the rest of the corn inside. The huge mound of corn is covered with woven strips of paille – they shove sticks through the weave and into the corn rows to keep it in place. Once several layers of paille are in place, they pack more corn in from the top, dup water mixed with insecticide on it, and seal it up. Apparently water helps the ears (still in their husks) to stick to each other better when you’re stacking. Luckily for us, it had rained lightly, otherwise we would have had to manually sprinkle it with water before stacking.
Once the grenier was finished, the men left. I was going to stay and pick corn with DaMarie, but was thankful when rain bailed me out. The remains of their field is a mess – all toppled over – it would have been a pain in the butt to harvest.
9/14/08 and 9/15/08
I am so mad at Gizmo I could wring his scrawny little kitty neck. I’m not going to feed him for 24 hours. Maybe that will teach him not to pee on the moringa leaves I have spent four days carefully and painstakingly drying. They hadn’t been in the house more than a minute before he was peeing all over them. It was a lot of pee too – as though he had held it all day for just such an opportunity. Evil. Pure evil. And his litter box is perfectly clean so he has absolutely no excuse. I’m so angry. He has ruined so many leaves and I thought for sure this time I’d get to the powder making stage. =0( Grr.
Yesterday, at church, I felt so claustrophobic that I thought I was going to pass out, scream, vomit or all three. I have a bit of a head cold and that compounded with the heat, the proximity of bodies, the lack of air circulation and the pastor bellowing into a megaphone a few feet away made me feel positively ill. I escaped at the earliest opportunity (not early enough) and went home to drink lemonade and lie in my hammock reading Newsweek.
In the afternoon Effoh charged my cell phone with a gadget he has rigged up to charge phones with 7 D batteries. Whatever. It works. I just hope it isn’t bad for my phone. And then he made pâte with moringa sauce. I had told him that I wouldn’t cook for him again until he cooked for me, so he did. They crushed the moringa leaves on a stone which brings out the flavor more than with the whole leaves, but it might be somewhat of an acquired taste. It was good though.
Yesterday afternoon Ash texted me to let me know that our Country Director would be accompanying our APCD on his visit.
After bringing moringa seeds to Midojicope so they could plant, I spent the whole morning preparing for their visit: making pâte and moringa sauce, cleaning my house, doing laundry. The visit was fine. IT went more or less well, although I kind of felt like I’m not doing enough here, like I should be more active at the dispensaire, with the ASCs (community health agents), with women’s groupements, etc. And yet, somehow, I manage to fill the time.
Today Jorge has his thesis defense. I hope it goes well. I am sure it will. How I wish I could be there! At least I was able to get through with a phone call to wish him good luck.
9/16/08 through 9/29/08: The Highlights
(This is me indulging my laziness and trying to spin it as something positive). For the past two weeks I haven’t been writing on a daily basis, rather I have been jotting down the highlights in hopes of remembering them when I finally get around to writing. For some, this turn of events may be long overdue (you’re thinking: finally she stops writing about her bowl movements and what she eats!), but really, it is out of no consideration for the reader, just plain old laziness on my part.
9/16/08
Apparently on the 16th I lay in my hammock and read “Helping Healthworkers Learn” a didactic accompaniment to “Where There is no Doctor.” And that’s it.
9/17/08
On the 17th, Alicia’s birthday, I left my bike at the Director’s house in Agbatit and hopped in a car to Atakpame. Upon arrival I busied myself making a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Happily it turned out well. It was a nice day and I was glad to see many of my friends and have a chance to chat with Jorge (although I missed the water balloon fight ‘cuz I was ate the internet café).
9/18/08
On Thursday the 18th, Tig,
We checked into a hotel in Badou , after grabbing lunch, set out to hike up the mountain to the waterfall. We were accompanied by two teenage guides and had to ford rushing waters (Ashley almost took one of the guides down with her) and climb countless rocky steps. It definitely provoked heavy breathing, but it wasn’t killer. It was only about a 45 minute hike and worth every step. The waterfall was beautiful – bigger than I expected – and the best part was getting in the water at the base and experiencing the power of the falling water up close and personal. The water was only about waist high, but the water was pouring down off the mountain with such force (it is a vertical waterfall) that two meters was about the closest I could get due to the wind, spray and water that created an invisible, impenetrable force field around the bottom of the cascade. It was exhilarating and I would go back in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, the day was marred by a conflict of personality. When I am on a trip (we were only going to be in Badou for an afternoon and a night) I like to go, go, go, see everything, do everything, take advantage of every second and I think, in groups in which not everyone is that sort of traveler, I can rub people the wrong way and come off as pushy and inconsiderate. And so I will have to try to be more aware in the future of other people’s needs and desires.
9/19/08
We left Badou early Friday morning and returned to Atakpame in a torturemobile. The van was smaller than average and falling apart, and still we managed to fit fifteen people in it even though both Ashley and Tig had hard metal objects jabbing into their a**es.
In Atakpame I did some shopping and some internetting and was debating going back to village but succumbed to the temptation of watching a movie instead.
9/20/08
Saturday, Ashley and her friend, Meg, came to visit me in village, so that was fun. At my request, Meg had brought supplies for s’mores. The children were making all sorts of conjectures as to what this strange white thing on the end of the stick was actually made of. Some of them called it sweetbread and others candy. I told them that children under the age of 20 will die if they eat it and perhaps they believed me, but they still sat around hoping for the taste that never came (I know, I am selfish).
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
8/30/08 through 9/8/08
Lately, I have absolutely no desire to chronicle. It isn't that I am particularly busy, just that when the time comes to sit down and write, I feel a complete lack of motivation. In the last week I only wrote one day, but today I am in Notse and have an opportunity to use internet and so I ought to catch myself up so that I have something to show for the last week of living.
8/30/08
We checked ourselves into the Hotel Kara around 3:00 in the afternoon. The Hotel offers a special discount for Peace Corps volunteers and so we stayed, four to a room, for only 3,500 cFA and got full use of the pool and hotel disco. We spent the afternoon swimming and then went out to dinner. Tig, Nacho and Alicia had gotten me a small bottle of amarulla while in Ghana because it is one of the only types of alcohol that I will drink and so I had some with dinner: pizza and pasta that I split with Helen. After dinner we went back to the hotel, swam, went to the disco to do 80s power hour and dance, and then swam again. 80s power hour is a sort of drinking game or activity, excerpts of songs from the 80s that change every minute. You are supposed to take a swig of alcohol with every beep that signals a change in song. I didn't play; I lay on the couch in the disco (which was empty except for us) and played with the glow sticks Lauren had provided and watched Ashley and Tig burn up the dance floor. I couldn't help but envy their capacity to dance and have a blast while doing it; to completely let go and just have fun; neither was at all inebriated. I wish I liked to dance and didn't feel so self conscious doing it, because it the girls looked like they were having so much fun. Unfortunately, dancing isn't fun for me.
The party was fun, but a little bittersweet because we were missing Nacho – she got sick on her way up to Kara and had to go back to Lome – and because on the back of everyone's mind was the knowledge that Lauren planned to ET in the week following our party.
Sleeping four to a bed was a little crowded. We did a four way spoon and practiced rotating sides of our body all at the same time like rotisserie chickens on a stick.
8/31/08
After getting a lazy start, we went in search of breakfast, went swimming, and took group pictures with our Stage T-Shirts on - they are green with yellow writing: BAMAZE on the front (our APCD's last name), CHAP 07-09 on the back and "suck it like a FanMilk" on the sleeve.
At noon (funny how we always choose the hottest part of the day to be out and about) we walked back to the maison, tracked down street food for lunch and, while the bulk of the girls sat down to watch Sweeny Todd (some sort of murder musical), I went to the internet. I chatted with Jorge which was lovely because I got the play-by-play of his last hours as prisoner to his thesis and, after about a month of not talking about much in the way of future plans besides his thesis, we were able to discuss our plan to meet in Italy for Christmas and how we are going to realize it: (timing, visas, money, etc). It seems like every time one obstacle is overcome (thesis down) another obstacle takes its place and makes me wary of getting too excited about a December reunion in Italy. Jorge still has 300 hours of internship to complete, his last requirement before he will be entitled to his degree in International Studies and he also needs a visa to Italy which has become more difficult since his last trip to visit his mother in 2005.
Just as I was leaving the internet café, I got a call from my parents – that was a particularly special treat; it had been a while since I had spoken with them on the phone and as great as email is, it doesn't come close to actually having a conversation with a loved one.
The rest of the day was spent hanging out; nothing too exciting.
9/1/08
Monday we endured a seemingly endless ride to Atakpame where we had decided to spend the night in response to the news that another of our friends from the SED Stage that arrived in Togo with us was planning to "abandon ship." The ride was bad because the driver kept stopping, but fortunately we weren't squished in the car like we usually are. For a while there I even had a whole seat to myself.
In Atakpame we just watched movies, hung out, baked a cake, and used internet.
Ashley Tig and I left early Tuesday morning for Notse. It was one of the fastest rides to Notse ever – under an hour.
9/2/08
After a trip to the market in Notse to stock up on certain supplies, we ate a lunch of Doritos and Oreos (from a care package from the States) and watched The Little Mermaid (yay! That movie makes me so happy!) before I loaded up my bike and, after picking up Jerome's money from Western Union (a RPCV – Returned Peace Corps Volunteer – in the States sent him money to help with his childrens' school fees), biked home to Avassikpe.
Gizmo was happy to see me and I him, but I wasn't happy to note that the chickens have destroyed my garden by digging in it for worms.
I spent the evening pushing dried corn off the cob with Tseviato at her older sisters' house until my thumbs hurt and then I tried pâte made with red (as opposed to white) corn. It was good. I had started by helping the little boys push red kernels of corn off the cob, but then Tseviato arrived with a big basin full of white corn. Apparently when you go pick corn at someone else's field, all the corn that is not fit to be stored in a grenouille (one of those platform paillote structures for storing dried corn) because it is not fully sealed, is yours to keep. So Tseviato came home with a whole basin of corn, the profits of which were hers. I bought the corn from her – 3 bowls for 1050 cFA; not too shabby a profit for a day's work for a twelve year old.
9/3/08
It has been so long since I have been in village, followed my normal routine and written regularly that I almost forgot that that is what I do every night.
I ate the first fruits of my garden tonight with the exception of Moringa. It was a huge yellow squash that I doused with Italian salad dressing – delicious. Who knew vegetables could be such a treat. I don't think Togolese people – I tried it out on Patrovi – will like my squash, so . . . more for me.
The chickens have really done a number on my garden and so I am going to try to re-do it, make the beds lower to the ground and replant. I also spoke to DaMarie this morning and she said she will shut the chickens in their cages at night. I think most of the damage is done during the day, but we will see how it goes. If that doesn't work, maybe Jerome can speak to her on Friday about clipping their wings.
This morning I made pâte rouge and roasted soy beans to take to the Moulin. I was just finishing the soy beans when Jerome arrived around 9:30. Our lesson was unremarkable.
The rest of my day was spent dealing with my garden. I flattened one bed and transplanted tomato plants, one head of lettuce, one basil plant and my marigolds. I did such a good job turning over the soil the first time that it is still pretty easy to work, so that is nice. Tomorrow I will do the second bed and maybe try replanting some things.
I am writing by candlelight because something is wrong with both my lamps.
Effoh took my bike to Notse.
I brought some pants that I got from the grab bin to Mana to take in. She wanted to give me 1000 cFA from the money for the stage pagnes (in thanks, I guess, for helping so much), but I asked her to fix my pants for me instead.
Having to stay awake until a decent hour (or indecent – when I can no longer expect visitors) is annoying. I just want to go to bed, read and go to sleep, but I am afraid someone will come knocking.
9/4/08
Thursday I worked all day in my garden, transplanting tomato plants, ademan, gboma and okra to the first bed that I had flattened out the day before and flattening the other beds in preparation for reseeding. I think I killed some of the plants, especially the tomato plants in the process, but luckily tomato plants are one thing I don't have trouble getting to grow. I just have to throw the seeds on the ground and little tomato plants will sprout.
I weeded the rows of squash and piment with Tseviato's help and then cut three Moringa trees to start drying the leaves and to use their lovely straight stalks as supports for my sweet peas.
In the evening, I replanted the whole garden, placing a small Moringa twig to mark each spot that I planted a seed. That way I will know exactly where to look for sprouts and I will know if and where the chickens have been digging because the sticks will be displaced. I really hope my garden succeeds this time. Is it the second or third time that is the charm? Second I hope, because I don't have enough seeds for a third time.
9/5/08
Friday morning I spent doing laundry. I was going to cook, but decided against it and instead went to the market to see what sort of food was available. I bought some soja and bean beignets. Not the healthiest lunch in the world, but that is part of the problem of not having gas; you have to take what you can get.
Jerome and a man from an NGO in Notse that works with handicapped people, "Belle Porte," were supposed to arrive at 2:00 to do a sensiblization in my market on how to treat (both socially and medically) handicapped people. They arrived, drenched from a sudden rainstorm, around 2:30. The next couple of hours were stressful because I was paying 5,000 cFA for this dude to do a sensibilization and couldn't afford to reschedule, but the rain refused to let up. Finally, the rain let up enough for us to do the sensibilization and I think it was a success (we had a good audience of children and adults – perhaps forty to sixty people, which, for Avassikpe, is a huge crowd), but the timing was such that, by the time we were finished, it was already getting dark and there was no way I could bike to Notse before being blinded by darkness. To Ashley's disappointment (an my own – we had been planning a dinner of pasta primavera with squash from my garden), I decided to stay the night in Avassikpe and bike into Notse early the next morning.
In the end, I was glad I stayed because I got a surprise phone call from Jorge and that made me especially happy and then I went to bed early and hardly noticed the booming music of the "balle" that continued 'til dawn.
9/6/08
Saturday was Agbobozan, the traditional fête of the Ewe people and a sort of ignam fest. From what I understand, some of the ceremonies surrounding Agbobozan include offering the first ignams to the fetish. Before these ceremonies, animists won't eat the ignams from their fields for fear of angering their fetishes.
Apparently the ceremonies started on Thursday in Notse, but I didn't really notice anything special in Avassikpe. In Notse, on the days leading up to Agbobozan, people have to keep their animals carefully guarded because packs of men apparently run around killing any stray animals and carting them off to the ceremonial grounds as offerings to the fetishes. Normally Agbobozan is a huge fête. Last year the president and many ministers came and there were speeches and dancing at the Cultural Center. This year, because of the broken bridges and the corresponding expenditures (although the bridges aren't getting fixed very quickly so I'm not sure what real expenditures are being made) the bigwigs from Lome can't afford to support Agbobozan. When we went in search of a party Saturday morning, we found the Cultural Center empty; the only noticeable celebration was taking place at the king's house where many chiefs and a dance troupe of women painted white were in attendance. We stopped by briefly, feeling like intruders in a private fête, to greet the King and the chiefs.
The rest of the day was spent making a delicious pasta primavera for lunch, watching movies and sleeping. I was a little bummed that the fête hadn't been more interesting, but ultimately my goal had been to escape my village. Fête days in village inevitably translate into me spending a lot of money on food, a lot of energy on preparing and serving that food to people who feel that it is their right to come eat at my home, and the resulting feeling of frustration that something I do because I want to is turned sour by people who feel entitled to my generosity. My village was distressed to learn that I planned to fête in Notse. I told several people that if the village men promised to prepare the meals (fêtes are days of constant preparing and eating) that I would stay in village. They laughed and said that if the men prepared the food the women would be "gêne-ed" because men don't know how to prepare. Then the men should learn how to cook so that they can relieve the women of their duties the day of the fête. I think I will refuse to spend any more fêtes in village until the men agree to cook and, as that will never happen, it will get me out of village fêtes.
9/7/08
Sunday felt more like a fête than Saturday. Jerome had invited Ashley and I to his village and, as usual, had rolled out the red carpet of hospitality. We enjoyed delicious fufu and sauce and later rice and sauce (Jerome had killed a chicken for us), toured the village, visited the sodabe distillery and drank fresh palm juice, and enjoyed good conversation. It was a nice day and I was glad that Ashley finally got a chance to really meet Jerome, spend some time with him, and realize what a cool guy he is. She wants to bring her friend (who is arriving in a week from the States for a visit) to his village, so we will have another Zitsou experience in a couple of weeks. Jerome is a born host. He loves hosting people and is wonderful at it. You can also ask him anything and everything and he is accustomed enough to Americans never to be offended by our questions.
9/8/08
Today I plan to go to internet, do some work on my section of the Moringa manual, stock up on food and bike back to Avassikpe in the evening. I was going to go to Lome next weekend with Ashley to pick up her friend, but have decided to stay in village instead. It will be my longest stay (a week!) in village in recent months (maybe just the last month, when I was in and out of village every couple of days).
8/30/08
We checked ourselves into the Hotel Kara around 3:00 in the afternoon. The Hotel offers a special discount for Peace Corps volunteers and so we stayed, four to a room, for only 3,500 cFA and got full use of the pool and hotel disco. We spent the afternoon swimming and then went out to dinner. Tig, Nacho and Alicia had gotten me a small bottle of amarulla while in Ghana because it is one of the only types of alcohol that I will drink and so I had some with dinner: pizza and pasta that I split with Helen. After dinner we went back to the hotel, swam, went to the disco to do 80s power hour and dance, and then swam again. 80s power hour is a sort of drinking game or activity, excerpts of songs from the 80s that change every minute. You are supposed to take a swig of alcohol with every beep that signals a change in song. I didn't play; I lay on the couch in the disco (which was empty except for us) and played with the glow sticks Lauren had provided and watched Ashley and Tig burn up the dance floor. I couldn't help but envy their capacity to dance and have a blast while doing it; to completely let go and just have fun; neither was at all inebriated. I wish I liked to dance and didn't feel so self conscious doing it, because it the girls looked like they were having so much fun. Unfortunately, dancing isn't fun for me.
The party was fun, but a little bittersweet because we were missing Nacho – she got sick on her way up to Kara and had to go back to Lome – and because on the back of everyone's mind was the knowledge that Lauren planned to ET in the week following our party.
Sleeping four to a bed was a little crowded. We did a four way spoon and practiced rotating sides of our body all at the same time like rotisserie chickens on a stick.
8/31/08
After getting a lazy start, we went in search of breakfast, went swimming, and took group pictures with our Stage T-Shirts on - they are green with yellow writing: BAMAZE on the front (our APCD's last name), CHAP 07-09 on the back and "suck it like a FanMilk" on the sleeve.
At noon (funny how we always choose the hottest part of the day to be out and about) we walked back to the maison, tracked down street food for lunch and, while the bulk of the girls sat down to watch Sweeny Todd (some sort of murder musical), I went to the internet. I chatted with Jorge which was lovely because I got the play-by-play of his last hours as prisoner to his thesis and, after about a month of not talking about much in the way of future plans besides his thesis, we were able to discuss our plan to meet in Italy for Christmas and how we are going to realize it: (timing, visas, money, etc). It seems like every time one obstacle is overcome (thesis down) another obstacle takes its place and makes me wary of getting too excited about a December reunion in Italy. Jorge still has 300 hours of internship to complete, his last requirement before he will be entitled to his degree in International Studies and he also needs a visa to Italy which has become more difficult since his last trip to visit his mother in 2005.
Just as I was leaving the internet café, I got a call from my parents – that was a particularly special treat; it had been a while since I had spoken with them on the phone and as great as email is, it doesn't come close to actually having a conversation with a loved one.
The rest of the day was spent hanging out; nothing too exciting.
9/1/08
Monday we endured a seemingly endless ride to Atakpame where we had decided to spend the night in response to the news that another of our friends from the SED Stage that arrived in Togo with us was planning to "abandon ship." The ride was bad because the driver kept stopping, but fortunately we weren't squished in the car like we usually are. For a while there I even had a whole seat to myself.
In Atakpame we just watched movies, hung out, baked a cake, and used internet.
Ashley Tig and I left early Tuesday morning for Notse. It was one of the fastest rides to Notse ever – under an hour.
9/2/08
After a trip to the market in Notse to stock up on certain supplies, we ate a lunch of Doritos and Oreos (from a care package from the States) and watched The Little Mermaid (yay! That movie makes me so happy!) before I loaded up my bike and, after picking up Jerome's money from Western Union (a RPCV – Returned Peace Corps Volunteer – in the States sent him money to help with his childrens' school fees), biked home to Avassikpe.
Gizmo was happy to see me and I him, but I wasn't happy to note that the chickens have destroyed my garden by digging in it for worms.
I spent the evening pushing dried corn off the cob with Tseviato at her older sisters' house until my thumbs hurt and then I tried pâte made with red (as opposed to white) corn. It was good. I had started by helping the little boys push red kernels of corn off the cob, but then Tseviato arrived with a big basin full of white corn. Apparently when you go pick corn at someone else's field, all the corn that is not fit to be stored in a grenouille (one of those platform paillote structures for storing dried corn) because it is not fully sealed, is yours to keep. So Tseviato came home with a whole basin of corn, the profits of which were hers. I bought the corn from her – 3 bowls for 1050 cFA; not too shabby a profit for a day's work for a twelve year old.
9/3/08
It has been so long since I have been in village, followed my normal routine and written regularly that I almost forgot that that is what I do every night.
I ate the first fruits of my garden tonight with the exception of Moringa. It was a huge yellow squash that I doused with Italian salad dressing – delicious. Who knew vegetables could be such a treat. I don't think Togolese people – I tried it out on Patrovi – will like my squash, so . . . more for me.
The chickens have really done a number on my garden and so I am going to try to re-do it, make the beds lower to the ground and replant. I also spoke to DaMarie this morning and she said she will shut the chickens in their cages at night. I think most of the damage is done during the day, but we will see how it goes. If that doesn't work, maybe Jerome can speak to her on Friday about clipping their wings.
This morning I made pâte rouge and roasted soy beans to take to the Moulin. I was just finishing the soy beans when Jerome arrived around 9:30. Our lesson was unremarkable.
The rest of my day was spent dealing with my garden. I flattened one bed and transplanted tomato plants, one head of lettuce, one basil plant and my marigolds. I did such a good job turning over the soil the first time that it is still pretty easy to work, so that is nice. Tomorrow I will do the second bed and maybe try replanting some things.
I am writing by candlelight because something is wrong with both my lamps.
Effoh took my bike to Notse.
I brought some pants that I got from the grab bin to Mana to take in. She wanted to give me 1000 cFA from the money for the stage pagnes (in thanks, I guess, for helping so much), but I asked her to fix my pants for me instead.
Having to stay awake until a decent hour (or indecent – when I can no longer expect visitors) is annoying. I just want to go to bed, read and go to sleep, but I am afraid someone will come knocking.
9/4/08
Thursday I worked all day in my garden, transplanting tomato plants, ademan, gboma and okra to the first bed that I had flattened out the day before and flattening the other beds in preparation for reseeding. I think I killed some of the plants, especially the tomato plants in the process, but luckily tomato plants are one thing I don't have trouble getting to grow. I just have to throw the seeds on the ground and little tomato plants will sprout.
I weeded the rows of squash and piment with Tseviato's help and then cut three Moringa trees to start drying the leaves and to use their lovely straight stalks as supports for my sweet peas.
In the evening, I replanted the whole garden, placing a small Moringa twig to mark each spot that I planted a seed. That way I will know exactly where to look for sprouts and I will know if and where the chickens have been digging because the sticks will be displaced. I really hope my garden succeeds this time. Is it the second or third time that is the charm? Second I hope, because I don't have enough seeds for a third time.
9/5/08
Friday morning I spent doing laundry. I was going to cook, but decided against it and instead went to the market to see what sort of food was available. I bought some soja and bean beignets. Not the healthiest lunch in the world, but that is part of the problem of not having gas; you have to take what you can get.
Jerome and a man from an NGO in Notse that works with handicapped people, "Belle Porte," were supposed to arrive at 2:00 to do a sensiblization in my market on how to treat (both socially and medically) handicapped people. They arrived, drenched from a sudden rainstorm, around 2:30. The next couple of hours were stressful because I was paying 5,000 cFA for this dude to do a sensibilization and couldn't afford to reschedule, but the rain refused to let up. Finally, the rain let up enough for us to do the sensibilization and I think it was a success (we had a good audience of children and adults – perhaps forty to sixty people, which, for Avassikpe, is a huge crowd), but the timing was such that, by the time we were finished, it was already getting dark and there was no way I could bike to Notse before being blinded by darkness. To Ashley's disappointment (an my own – we had been planning a dinner of pasta primavera with squash from my garden), I decided to stay the night in Avassikpe and bike into Notse early the next morning.
In the end, I was glad I stayed because I got a surprise phone call from Jorge and that made me especially happy and then I went to bed early and hardly noticed the booming music of the "balle" that continued 'til dawn.
9/6/08
Saturday was Agbobozan, the traditional fête of the Ewe people and a sort of ignam fest. From what I understand, some of the ceremonies surrounding Agbobozan include offering the first ignams to the fetish. Before these ceremonies, animists won't eat the ignams from their fields for fear of angering their fetishes.
Apparently the ceremonies started on Thursday in Notse, but I didn't really notice anything special in Avassikpe. In Notse, on the days leading up to Agbobozan, people have to keep their animals carefully guarded because packs of men apparently run around killing any stray animals and carting them off to the ceremonial grounds as offerings to the fetishes. Normally Agbobozan is a huge fête. Last year the president and many ministers came and there were speeches and dancing at the Cultural Center. This year, because of the broken bridges and the corresponding expenditures (although the bridges aren't getting fixed very quickly so I'm not sure what real expenditures are being made) the bigwigs from Lome can't afford to support Agbobozan. When we went in search of a party Saturday morning, we found the Cultural Center empty; the only noticeable celebration was taking place at the king's house where many chiefs and a dance troupe of women painted white were in attendance. We stopped by briefly, feeling like intruders in a private fête, to greet the King and the chiefs.
The rest of the day was spent making a delicious pasta primavera for lunch, watching movies and sleeping. I was a little bummed that the fête hadn't been more interesting, but ultimately my goal had been to escape my village. Fête days in village inevitably translate into me spending a lot of money on food, a lot of energy on preparing and serving that food to people who feel that it is their right to come eat at my home, and the resulting feeling of frustration that something I do because I want to is turned sour by people who feel entitled to my generosity. My village was distressed to learn that I planned to fête in Notse. I told several people that if the village men promised to prepare the meals (fêtes are days of constant preparing and eating) that I would stay in village. They laughed and said that if the men prepared the food the women would be "gêne-ed" because men don't know how to prepare. Then the men should learn how to cook so that they can relieve the women of their duties the day of the fête. I think I will refuse to spend any more fêtes in village until the men agree to cook and, as that will never happen, it will get me out of village fêtes.
9/7/08
Sunday felt more like a fête than Saturday. Jerome had invited Ashley and I to his village and, as usual, had rolled out the red carpet of hospitality. We enjoyed delicious fufu and sauce and later rice and sauce (Jerome had killed a chicken for us), toured the village, visited the sodabe distillery and drank fresh palm juice, and enjoyed good conversation. It was a nice day and I was glad that Ashley finally got a chance to really meet Jerome, spend some time with him, and realize what a cool guy he is. She wants to bring her friend (who is arriving in a week from the States for a visit) to his village, so we will have another Zitsou experience in a couple of weeks. Jerome is a born host. He loves hosting people and is wonderful at it. You can also ask him anything and everything and he is accustomed enough to Americans never to be offended by our questions.
9/8/08
Today I plan to go to internet, do some work on my section of the Moringa manual, stock up on food and bike back to Avassikpe in the evening. I was going to go to Lome next weekend with Ashley to pick up her friend, but have decided to stay in village instead. It will be my longest stay (a week!) in village in recent months (maybe just the last month, when I was in and out of village every couple of days).
Monday, August 18, 2008
8/4/08 through 8/8/08
8/4/08 through 8/8/08
The traditional healers conference was a total bust.
Before leaving Notse to meet Midojicope’s traditional healer’s brother in Agbatit, I biked around in search of powdered milk and a baby bottle for the couple that I want to send to a couples formation in Atakpame (so that they can leave their two year old daughter with her grandmother for the week).
The traditional healer’s brother, henceforth referred to as Kodjotse (‘cuz that’s his name) was very punctual, but what with the 9 bridges that have collapsed all over Togo, travel is even more difficult than it was before and cars heading to Atakpame from Notse are no longer easy to find (because everyone coming from Lome has to bypass Notse and go through Kpalime instead, directly to Atakpame). A side note on the bridges:
Our ride to Atakpame and then to Langabou and Pagala was uneventful except for the fact that I was squished up in the front seat with three other people. It was a fast, if uncomfortable, ride. The only interesting thing about it was that Kodjotse told me that the traditional religion (I’m not really sure how to denominate it) doesn’t have a central god, but that it has several powerful and universal spirits like the spirit of the earth, the spirit of thunder and the spirit of snakes. If you sacrifice to one of them (I forget which) they will help you find it and if you sacrifice to the spirit of thunder it will strike a thief (or anyone?) down for you with a bolt of lightning.
I was the first volunteer to arrive in Pagala and so I showered and sat down to read about
Like I said before, the conference, workshop, formation (whatever you want to call it) was a bust, a total waste of time. The only thing I got out of it was a new contact in village (perhaps an “in” into the traditional healers’ circle and the fetish circle) and quality time with Tig. I also planned our (Jorge and me) trip to
In theory, the workshop should have been interesting. In reality, however, it was badly organized and based on a superficial (funding forced) connection between traditional healing and HIV/AIDS. Traditional healers should be warned not to claim to have a cure for AIDS and taught when to send AIDS patients to the hospital, but the connection was a little artificial.
Other than that, there was some antagonism between the traditional healers and the agents of modern medicine which made things a little more exciting at times, but the biggest problem was that we had no idea what they were talking about when they’d rattle off that - - - - (substitute the name for a plant in any of ten local languages) treats infertility. The bulk of the time was spent reviewing HIV/AIDS basics, Moringa basics, and identifying the scientific names and local names of trees. We went on a field trip in search of trees. I learned that if a bat eats the fruit of a certain plant and then vomits it back up, you can mix the fiber of its vomit with yesterday’s leftover pâte and give it to a woman who is having trouble having a baby and she will get pregnant. A branch of the same plant can be hung over your door to prevent would-be evil do-ers from entering. Other than that it was boring as all get out – either information we already knew, or information that was meaningless to us. At least the Togolese counterparts made contacts and networked between themselves, so at least they benefited from the workshop.
The food was good. I ate chicken at lunch and dinner – more meat than I have eaten in the whole last month and being with Tig for three days was fabulous. I also got to know some of the volunteers from the stage after mine a little better and that was fun.
My other big news is that yesterday, Thursday, the results of the BAC were announced. I was nervous about it because I really wanted Effoh to recieve his BAC (high school diploma), had no idea how I would respond to him if he had failed, and knew that if he had, it would be horribly depressing in village for the next few weeks. He beeped me after getting the results and he passed. I was so relieved (but not as relieved as he). Today, back in Notse, I learned that not only did he pass (you can pass with the “admisible,” meaning that you have to take an oral exam the following day, with “passable” meaning that you don’t have to take the oral exam, with “assez bien” meaning better than average, and with “bien” meaning practically impossible to achieve. Only four students, including Effoh, received the “assez bien” qualification and only one the “bien” qualification. Understandably, Effoh is on cloud nine. He is the first person from Avassikpe to get their BAC. He is practically going to be a village hero. We decided that we are going to celebrate on Sunday. I am going to make the sauce for a ton of fufu and he is going to get the manioc from their fields. (He also told me that they celebrate every August 10th, which happens to be this Sunday as well, because two years ago they got in a serious accident while driving to a soccer match, but everyone came out more or less unharmed and they went on to win all their matches afterwards and the tournament “cup”).
7/29/08 through 8/3/08
7/29/08 through 7/31/08
Ashley and I biked out of Notse at 6 :00. The ride wasn’t terrible. I felt a little low on energy, but the hills were only rolling and in most places it wasn’t too sandy. We had been told that we would have to ford a stream that had overflowed its banks, but luckily for us, the water had receded enough for us to pass; it was level with the road, but not covering it. We could see however, the damage done by the water. On the route national between
We had four stops to make during the ride at four CEGs. We didn’t find any of the school Directors, but we managed to get their contact numbers anyway. We took a little detour to hit a CEG 3 km off the road – it was a rough 3 km, but it is important to sensibilize populations off the beaten track as well. I almost got into an argument with an elder because as we biked towards the village he yelled at me to stop. So many people yell at us to stop and then ask us for money or to give them a “cadeau” that I just pedaled on. A few cycles later and we stopped to ask someone for information about the Director of the CEG. The elder (not that old, or wise, or probably respected of an elder) came running after and started yelling, “See? See? You should have stopped! I am an elder! You should have stopped!” I told him that perhaps if he had asked “Est-ce que je peux vous aider?” (can I help you?) rather than ordering us to stop, than we would have stopped to ask him about the Director of the CEG. The other three stops were less of a hassle.
We ate beans and rice at a village called Kati, about 10 kilometers before Tig’s village and then pushed on, arriving at Tig’s village around noon. We had biked around 60 kilometers. Tig wasn’t in village, so we rested and ate more beans and rice on her porch and then we locked our bikes together and to a post and walked the 3K to the hard road. If we had had our helmets we could have taken motos because the new moto policy allows for motos on all low traffic routes where it is difficult to find a car, but we didn’t and so we walked. At Notse-Mono, where the Notse-Kpalime road connects with the Lome-Kpalime road, we got a taxi to the Prefet. The Prefet was welcoming and accommodating and didn’t even make me apologize too much for having picked the wrong letter out of my folder (it was the letter for the prefecture Wawa and this was the
There were a lot of people at the house (including Nadia and Tristan) that I haven’t seen for a while and it was really nice to reconnect. It is a sad time in our Peace Corps service though. As we near our one year mark, many of the volunteers who arrived in my stage and vowed to stick it out at least a year are throwing their hats in. Their reasons vary from family problems back home, to not feeling productive, to wanting to get on with their lives, to hating Togo, but we lost a volunteer a couple of weeks ago and I know of six more who are definitely or most likely leaving. That discounts all the volunteers from the stage after us who have left for various reasons and the fact that all the second year volunteers who stuck out the two years are COS-ing. It feels like a mass exodus of volunteers from
We chatted, made dinner, and played a game called Apples to Apples before going to bed.
On Wednesday, after a lazy morning, we walked into town, bought ingredients for lunch and then took a taxi to Notse-Mono. We tried to get a car to take us all the way to Tig’s village, but they wanted too much money. Tig had her helmet, so she moto-ed and Ashley and I walked. Unfortunately, it was noon and I was hot, hungry and sweaty and the walk felt never-ending.
It was so great to be with Tig again. She just got back from a month-long vacation visiting family in
Aside for a visit from a young Togolese rapper from Lome (dressed in baggy jeans, a baggy shirt, big white shoes, gold chain, bracelet and ring, with corn spirals (as opposed to corn rows) in his hair – he stuck out like an alien from another planet), we just chatted until bedtime. The rapper wants Tig to help him get a CD out and wanted, like everyone else, to know how we could help him get to the United States. Unfortunately, a torrential downpour extended his visit longer than necessary; we were trapped on Tig’s porch.
On Thursday, after a more than twelve hours of rain, Ashley and I biked out of Agou Avedje towards Notse. The road was terrible. It was coated with a layer of slippery mud that sprayed up as we pedaled making artful designs on the backs of our shirts and was gutted by the combination of rain mud, and the spinning wheels of tractor trailers stuck in the mud. Normally, tractor trailers never go down the Notse-Mono road. On a normal day, you would be lucky to see a car, but because of the bridge that collapsed between Notse and Lome, the Notse-Mono road has turned into a principal thorough way for cargo destined for Lome. The mud, traffic, and people along the route made the ride somewhat unpleasant. All along the route, people were trying to fix the roads by filling pot-holes and muddy tracks with brush and logs, anything to allow for a bit of traction. They tried to extort money out of us, the whities, for their efforts when the people who should be tipping them are the drivers of the huge cargo trucks that are tearing up the road. We refused to pay mostly because the men asking for payment were belligerent (one even grabbed Ashley’s butt – I don’t know why she always gets her butt grabbed, Togolese men must like it). We saw two tractor trailers stuck in the mud and two that had toppled over, not to mention the long traffic jams of tractor trailers lined up behind the ones that were stuck and consequently blocking the route.
Even so, we made good time and were in Notse by around 10:00. We ate, showered (but not before taking pictures of our mud covered bodies – I even had mud in my hair!) and sat down to finalize our AIDS Ride route, and participants list. It is a bit of a pain to organize a huge event like this. I much prefer to participate than to organize, but someone has to organize . . . So . . .
We did as much as we could and then called it quits and went out for an early dinner with Heather (the other volunteer in Notse) to a fufu bar. In the evening I continued studying to become a certified lesbian (meaning I watched more episodes of the L word). I finished the third season, my junior year, so after one more year (season) I will get my certificate. Yay! The third season was a downer, though, very depressing; I hope the fourth season is a little happier. I need happy not depressing.
Today, Friday, I am biking back to village for an Ewe lesson and a soccer match. I just decided to go to a workshop with traditional healers Monday through Friday of next week in Pagala and so I have to try to find a community health worker and/or a traditional healer to accompany me. One that speaks French – that is the clincher – and I only have two or three days. We will see. If I have to go alone I have to go alone. The reason it is sloppy and last minute like this is that my APCD didn’t want to ask me to go because I have gotten to go to every other special workshop and he doesn’t want other volunteers to complain, but when he invited some of my peers to this workshop, all but Tig said they were unavailable, so I’m going. I hope it is interesting. At least a little.
8/1/08 and 8/2/08
Biking home from Notse yesterday I stopped briefly to see the Director of the CEG in Agbatit. First think upon arriving in village I tracked down Tsevi and asked him about traditional healers that speak French. I am attending a workshop in Pagala next week and ought to bring two homologues: a traditional healer and a community health agent. Tsevi said he knew of one and would speak with him. I then went home. Gizmo wasn’t in the house. I couldn’t help but imagine the worst: he died and they had removed his body. I tried not to panic and went to look for Effoh who had Gizmo in his house with him. I sat for a little bit, but had to go prepare lunch for Jerome. Gizmo was mad at me and it made me really sad. Evidently he was well-cared for in my absence because he ignored my arrival and presence, reusing to stay in my arms and be cuddled. I can’t help but wonder how much it must hurt when your child rejects you if it hurts when your kitten rejects you. Everyone wants to feel needed and loved.
Jerome arrived before I was able to finish preparing rice and beans for lunch. We had our lesson and then he helped me with lunch by crushing the onions, garlic, piment and little fish on the stone in my garden. I was thankful for the help because I hate how my hands burn after crushing piment. Jerome suggested soaking the piment for an hour beforehand and adding rock salt when crushing to expedite the task and rubbing palm oil on my hands afterwards to ease the burning.
While I was preparing lunch, the catechist from Komlacope arrived with a father and daughter to see Jerome. The young girl (12? 13?) apparently had an infected cut on her leg. The father tried to “dig” out the infection (?!?!), whatever that means, and it only got worse. He took her to a traditional healer who said the wound would heal by itself and advised against taking the girl to the hospital. The infection spread and her leg fell off right below the knee without her ever being treated by a trained professional. Now she hops around on one foot doing her best to get by, but she is severely handicapped. Jerome works with some Catholic nuns who help handicapped children find treatment, but they usually require some sort of family contribution be it 20,000 cFA, a goat or a sack of corn – whatever the family has to offer. Unfortunately, her father stubbornly insisted that he has absolutely nothing. Everyone has something. Palm fronds, a chicken, something.
The children were supposed to have a soccer match, but the team from Avovocope never showed. I think they don’t want to conform to a height regulation. That is unfortunate because if the two teams don’t play against each other, I don’t know how they will paly. They had practice anyway. I watched for a bit, played with the younger children and then went home to shower.
In the evening I had perhaps the longest (an hour!) purely Ewe conversation I have ever had. I was sitting with DaJulie and her mom and even Tseviato wasn’t around to translate, so I was on my own. We talked about Mama’s lack of condiments to make pâte sauce and about her accompanying me to the States when I leave and how long I have left in Togo and how men chez moi help with the household and how chores whereas men here don’t and how female praying mantis eat the male after he has fertilized her eggs. Effoh arrived just in time to help me out with the last topic which is good because I wasn’t successfully getting my point across.
I don’t know what Effoh and I were talking about when one of his married friends walked by and commented that he was going to visit a girl launching me into a lively argument about faithfulness, polygamy, religion and sex. The young man argued that men in the Bible had multiple wives, why shouldn’t he? That he needs more than one woman to satisfy his desires, that there are more women than men in Avassikpe and Togo in general (I need some statistics) and that it is practically his duty to take a second wife so that women won’t be left husbandless. He also said sex with his wife who has had a baby isn’t as gratifying as sex with a younger, childless girl who has tighter breasts, stomach and vagina. Great. I fought the urge to plug my ears. HE couldn’t seem to recognize how disgusting and hypocritical his behavior is: to reject his wife because she bore him a child? I didn’t roundly win the argument even though I held my own and was frustrated by having failed to make him understand that everything he can do with a random woman he can do with his wife if only he would take the time to cultivate the sexual side of their relationship.
People here could use some serious sex counseling/education. They lack basic knowledge on foreplay and men and women’s centers of pleasure, how to please the respective sexes, varying sexual positions, everything really. Sex here is pretty much limited to missionary position, man on top doing his thing, women lying there like a lifeless receptacle for the man’s pleasure. When I suggested trying sex with the woman on top, the young man actually voiced the fear that his penis would break off (jokingly I think/hope) and then said that the woman would refuse. Women here are shackled by the idea that during sex it is the man who works (sex is referred to as “travail,” work). No wonder they are bored with their sex lives. They don’t know what they are missing by stifling the sexual expression of women. I tried to explain that if they show themselves willing to try new things and eager to please their wives, that, once they have gained trust and confidence, their wives will open themselves up to experimenting and initiating. One of the big complaints they voiced was that women here never initiate and never respond to men’s sexual advances with caresses of their own. Maybe because society tells them that their sexual desires don’t count, that women are just there to satisfy the sexual drives of men. Therefore, of course they wouldn’t feel “brazen” enough to initiate a sexual encounter or suggest that things be done differently in the bedroom. Gender inequality permeates the whole society, but men don’t realize what they are missing by extending that inequality to the bedroom. I feel like the whole country could use some serious “marriage” counseling. Maybe the best approach to the new HIV/AIDS prevention strategy of limiting long-term concurrent sexual partnerships is to teach men and women how to enjoy each other sexually so they don’t feel a constant desire to go in search of something younger, better, more exciting. I foresee a book: A Sex Doctor for Togo. Is that presumptuous of me? It isn’t a society that shies away from sex, but from what I have heard, sex here isn’t very exciting or imaginative. They need some guidance in thinking outside the box. Restructuring family housing setups would help as well. Currently, the woman has a house where she sleeps with her children and the man a separate house where he sleeps. That doesn’t facilitate spontaneous sexual relations. I wonder how you could counsel a whole country, generation, society on sexual relations without being perceived as corrupting society and youth.
Today, Saturday, was a relatively uneventful day during which I did a ---- ton of laundry, tried to track down a tradition healer that speaks French (an elusive combination), studied Ewe, slept in my hammock and read my book on women and Islam.
I eventually found someone who speaks French who says he knows a little about traditional medicine (he is actually the brother of a traditional healer, but not really a healer himself). Whatever, it will help me get to know and work with more people in the community. He is from Midojicope, so that is also good . . . it widens my base.
8/3/08
Today, attending church was like reading the gossip column in your local newspaper. I learned that so and so is courting women even though he is married, that one of the diacres (leaders in the church) took a second wife and then shortly afterwards died in a car crash (deserved punishment?); his second wife took all his money and went back to her family in the north. I learned that a young girl, betrothed to someone in the village, had gone away for school and returned pregnant and that the choir was being punished for having gone to the marriage in Kpegbadja “behind the pastor’s back.” I don’t know how it could have been behind his back considering the fact that it was his wife who informed me of the marriage and invited me. The whole sermon centered on people’s sins and how it is not a joy but a duty for the pastor to punish them, to inform them of their wrong-doing so they can repent and be saved.
After church I went home to finish cooking my beans for lunch and make banana bread. The young man I chose to attend a couples’ formation in Atakpame with his wife came to see me. He said that their difficulty is that their daughter, who is almost two, still breastfeeds especially at night. I explained that children can’t go to the formation and tried to find a solution. After speaking with him, with his wife (separately) and then accompanying her to their house to speak with his mother (who will take care of the baby in their absence), we decided that I will buy a baby bottle and powdered milk and they will try to give her the bottle instead of the breast for a week before attending the conference to see if she will accept the substitution. I hope this doesn’t wean the baby off the breast entirely. Babies here need the nutritional boost of the mother’s milk as long as possible. I also can’t help but be afraid that the mother will stop producing milk after two weeks of not breast feeding. The purpose of this formation is to improve husband-wife relations and make couples better parents, not wean a child prematurely off breast milk.
After speaking with the couple and their mother, I went to track down my brother of a traditional healer. I spoke with his brother and would have preferred that he accompany me (he is both a traditional healer and a fetisher), but he said he wasn’t available to go to Pagala this week. The traditional healer/fetisher speaks French as well; I don’t know why people didn’t take me directly to him. Oh well . . .
After arranging to meet the brother, who is a primary school teacher, in Agbatitoe at 10:00, I decided to bike to Notse that afternoon so as to have time to find powdered milk and a baby bottle. The powdered milk will be easy, but the baby bottle is a different matter.
It took me a while to get everything in my house ready for a week-long absence and by the time I was ready, it was raining. I rain-proofed Gizmo’s carrier and biked out anyway. Luckily it wasn’t raining hard and stopped before I got to Agbatit. Nevertheless, I ended up biking the last kilometer or so in the dark. Not fun.
7/9/08 through 7/28/08
7-9-08
Yesterday wasn’t exciting. After spending the whole morning typing and retyping emails I lost when my computer screen clouded over and out, I went to internet, did errands and biked back to Avassikpe, arriving just before dark.
The two best parts of the day: chatting with Jorge briefly and macaroni and cheese for lunch (made with Velveeta that Ashley’s mom sent).
In the evening, the young teenager who manned the phone at Tsevi’s petrol stand and who is now in Modojicope came to say hello. He commented that there seem to be a lot of mosquitoes where he is now and I asked if he sleeps under a net. I told him that I would ask how much they cost at the dispensaire. I did and they are 500 cFA, but only for pregnant women and infants. Everyone else has to go to Notse and buy a net for several thousand cFA. I get that pregnant women and infants are the target population for subsidized nets, but doesn’t anyone care that the bulk of the population still goes largely unprotected? And who is going to go to Notse and pay 2,000-3,000-4,000 cFA for a net that they know a pregnant woman only pays 500 for?
This evening, the infirmier cam to say hello and suggested that I front the cost to bring subsidized nets to Avassikpe so that they could be made available to everyone who wants one. I suggested 5,000 cFA worth; he said he was thinking more like 100,000 (100,000 cFA!?!?! = $250). First of all, I don’t understand why they can’t foot the bill themselves and second of all, I am not sure I’m willing to take the risk that they won’t be sold. And when would I get my money back anyhow? Once all the mosquito nets are gone, more should be purchased and so on. I don’t know what to do . . . I think people should have access to affordable mosquito nets, but I don’t understand why I have to be the one to front the money.
Other than that, today I swept my garden – the beds have flattened considerably with the rain, but they are holding up ok. I debated planting, but decided to wait until I get back from my week of biking so I can keep a closer eye on my tiny plants. I am going to take a risk and direct seed everything. We will see how it goes. Also, I want my crops to be ready as we are nearing dry season so that I will have less trouble preserving a portion through drying.
After sweeping a while, I brought the pagnes to Mana. Lili’s sister was there already and we chatted and ate pâte. After a bit I came home and started laundry. Halfway through I took a break to make lunch – curried rice and red lentils and Moringa leaves. I cut a whole tree so that it will sprout two stalks (at least I hope that is what it does!) put some leaves in my lunch and the rest I spread out in the bedroom to see if they will dry there. I did more laundry, baked spice cakes to take as a thank-you gift for the Director of the CEG in Abatit (tomorrow is our PE party) and finished sweeping my garden.
7-10-08
I am exhausted and a little worried about my wrists and hands – granted I haven’t given them much rest but they still hurt and riding my bike is quite painful. Doesn’t bode well for seven days of biking. Oh well, I’ll deal.
This morning I went to help “clean” the village – cut the grass along the road so that it can eventually be hoed and mad neat. I wasn’t particularly motivated to go; I would have preferred to work in my garden, but I figured that considering how much I complain when no one participates in my community activities it would by hypocritical not to go and help in a necessary community activity (snakes are surely hiding in the brush as overgrown as it is now).
Cutting grass and small bushes with a coupcoup is hard work. After Tsevi cut me a crooked stick to hold the grass with my left hand and chop with my right it was a little more efficient but still tough. I kept thinking what a wonder a weed-wacker would be. It is funny how eventually the machines that you have start shaping your life. Almost all buildings and even landscaping are designed with machines in mind. Here none of that is taken into consideration because there are virtually no machines to facilitate your daily tasks.
I worked cutting grass for about 3 hours and only cleared a small 3m x 3m patch. At first there were only three of us – me, Tsevi, and the president of the CVD. I was hoping my presence would shame more people into participating. Eventually some fifteen men showed up. I was the only woman. At one point someone spotted a mouse – you should have seen all these grown men diving (literally) after this mouse. It was hilarious – even funnier than watching grown men trying to catch a chicken. The mouse eluded them for more than five minutes until they finally whollopped it with a force that would kill a cat and then swaggered off with their prize. It amazes me that a mouse and the tiny bit of meat it provides is worth such effort by so many men. Or maybe they do it more for the fun of it than the meat. Perhaps that is why they don’t eat house mice: no chase.
After working, I cut some Jatropha and used it as an excuse to leave. I think Jatropha can be grown from cuttings and so I decided to give it a try. After planting them (I don’t know how well it will work, they look pretty wilted), I worked on improving the drainage in my garden. It is a bit of a challenge because I’ve slanted the whole garden towards the far end, but the problem is that outside the garden the land is higher and so my water won’t have a final outlet unless I dig forever. We will see. Waiting for a rain is going to be my excuse to be lazy.
I made lunch – spaghetti with wagash (I bought two wheels from some Fulani children yesterday), made popcorn and fried up the remaining wagash for another day. I prepared the little gift bags – popcorn, 2 pieces of candy, 2 cookies, gum . . . and made sure I had everything ready for my PE awards ceremony. I then showered and biked to Agbatitoe.
The ceremony/party, whatever you want to call it, went fine, although the only reason it was anything special was because I brought goodies. The Director heavily chastised my students for not organizing themselves to prepare something and make it more of a fête, but promised that next year after another round of Peer Educating we will have one big party (I will believe it when I see it). I was missing two students, so that was unfortunate, but I handed out copies of Lève-toi jeune fille, pens and goody bags to each student and then let them pick prizes from my spread – toothbrushes, toothpaste, chapstick, soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc. – for participation, never missing a class, always arriving on time, etc.
I made a mini speech thanking the students and the Director and then he made a speech thanking me. He praised my punctuality, preparation and teaching style and gave me a 20/20 on all accounts. I should have asked my students if they had anything to say, but I didn’t.
I also spoke to them about the possibility of selling condoms to their peers. PSI makes it possible for Peace Corps volunteers to make a bulk purchase of condoms. They have special Rebel condoms for youth that are half the price of their condoms for adults. I would purchase boxes of condoms, each interested student would get a box to sell (only to other young people) at 50cFA for four condoms. The box costs me 1,000cFA and they would sell all of the condoms for 2,500cFA. If they want a second box, they will have to pay 2,000cFA (1,000 for the first which I will have given them on credit and 1,000 for the second), and the 500cFA is theirs to keep as profit. On the second box, however they will make 1,500 profit which they can then reinvest again in another box and so on. Unfortunately, if they do the math, they might conclude that they might just as well run with their 2,500cFA from the first box.
We took pictures and then the Director insisted on taking me out for a drink. Next school year he wants me to train more Peer Educators and help with a garden. I didn’t really want to work at the CEG next year, but I should take advantage of having such good people (the Director) to work with, so . . .
One of the boys just asked me to please attend their soccer match tomorrow in Avovocope. I am touched – that is sweet. I have never seen them play a match so I am excited. I will have to take pictures.
7-11-08 through 7-17-08
Invariably when I defer writing for a day because I am too tired, I am more tired the next day. Then I am tempted to defer for a second day.
Yesterday I don’t know what reason I had to be so tired; I think my excuse is more that I had a killer headache which stubbornly persists albeit in a more mild, ignorable form.
Yesterday morning I cleaned up my house a bit, nagged the president of the CVD to come fix my paillote (the paille thatch is sliding off the wooden frame) and made pâte rouge in preparation for Jerome’s visit.
As I was wandering about greeting people after tracking down the president, a teenage boy of one of the primary fetish families asked me if I have chameleon eggs in the same way you might ask if someone has salt, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary but none-the-less a little tricky to come by. Later Jerome informed me that in fetish circles, chameleon eggs are reputed to help you get rich with little or no effort. I can’t help but wonder if I personally (or even white people in general) am perceived as being wealthy with little effort and therefore assumed to be a likely source of chameleon eggs. Jerome said it wasn’t that, but rather that I have a lot of strange things in my house, why not chameleon eggs?
I crushed piment on my crushing stone and afterwards my hands burned almost unbearably for a good two hours. I put aloe lotion on them to see if it would calm the pain – it didn’t. If the piment has that effect on my hands, I’m not sure it can be any good for my esophagus or stomach.
I made pâte rouge and then prepared mini-lesson plans to guide Jerome’s son in making coloring-book style drawings to accompany health classes at my EPP (primary school).
Jerome and his son arrived late, around 11:30 (they had a flat tire en route) but our lesson was good and his son seems nice. I will be curious to see how the drawings turn out. His son also says that they have a 3 person hip-hop group that composes and sings (raps?) about HIV/AIDS and child trafficking and would be interested in trying to make a Moringa song. That’s cool. I wonder if they are any good . . .
After my lesson, I changed clothes quickly and biked (with Patrovi on back) to Avovocope (about 3 km, between Avassikpe and Agbatitoe). The kids were so cute – they all wore mismatched white shirts and stopped to organize themselves on the outskirts of the village before marching to the soccer field military style in two columns. It was a little uncomfortable when the other team swaggered in wearing shiny new florescent green uniforms. I felt badly for my kids, but learned later that the Avovocope team had worked to earn the money to buy their uniforms. If they really wanted to, my kids could probably to the same.
We lost 1-0, but I was very glad I went because the kids from Avassikpe had no other adult (this is perhaps the first time I have ever referred to myself as an adult) there to support and represent them. I felt that having me there as a supporter gave them a much needed boost in confidence in face of the shiny uniforms, nicer ball, and multiple coaches of the other team.
It was also a good opportunity to hang-out in a village that I normally just bike through at high speeds to avoid yovo-yelling children. I met some people in the village, informed the children of my name and took advantage of an opportunity to talk about Moringa.
I had agreed to go plant soy with Tseviato and her older sister on Saturday and so I did. We left the village mid-morning and with several other children – Robert, Richard, Sherida - planted soy until late afternoon. It isn’t as hard as hoeing, but neither is it pleasant. One person pokes holes in the raised rows with a stick as others follow along dropping two or three seeds in each hole and covering them with dirt. Unfortunately the ground was hard and dry, making the task more difficult than necessary and again I was reminded of the incompatibility of farming and perfectionism. At some point you need to sacrifice quality for quantity. Tseviato and I were working as a team; she would drop seeds in the holes and I would push dirt back over them with a stick. Every few minutes she would get far enough ahead that she would just start filling and covering the holes herself. We took occasional breaks in the shade, but none-the-less worked through the hottest parts of the day, leaving me with a lovely red glow. Our sustenance was composed of pâte and sauce (actually quite palatable when you are hungry and tired) and freshly harvested corn-on the cob grilled in its husk in a roaring fire. Apparently there is a second variety of yellow corn and to me it tasted sweeter than the regular white corn.
On Sunday my departure from village was delayed by various tasks around the house in preparation for leaving Gizmo alone for a week and giving Effoh a key. Saturday night, after many tries I managed to get through to Effoh on his cell phone and ask him if he would be willing to check in on Gizmo every day, replenish his food supply and change the sand in his litter box. He agreed, and so, though I trust that he would never take anything, I preferred to put things away and out of sight and neaten up a bit. I closed off the bedroom and left Gizmo in the front room with one open window and biked out of Avassikpe around 10:30.
Upon arriving in Notse, I stopped first at Effoh’s house, but he wasn’t there. I left a message that if he “beeped” me (made my phone ring once) when he arrived home, I would come meet him to give him the key. When I got to Ashley’s house she was sitting amidst piles of “things” and looking overwhelmed. She had just arrived from Atakpame and we were planning to leave bright and early the next morning to bike the first leg of our practice AIDS Ride route: Notse to Tohoun (54 K). I think she was really nervous about the trip and I teased that I didn’t have to worry about a thing because with the way she was worrying excessively and double and triple checking our packing list I could rest assured everything would be taken care of. She groaned and rolled her eyes in response.
After an hour or so I left Ashley to her packing (mine had mostly been done in village) and biked to Effoh’s house. He told me all about the BAC, the five day long exam he had just finished two days before that will determine whether or not he will receive his high school diploma. He showed me the exam papers for each subject and I can’t help but wonder if I could pass the BAC. I know with enough studying and preparation that I could pass, but even with a university education under my belt, I am not sure I could spontaneously write the BAC and pass. He was tested in math, English, French, geography, history, philosophy, accounting, marketing and I don’t know what else, oh, drawing. There were eleven subjects, so I am obviously forgetting a few. He has to get at least 10 out of 20 points on every exam (or more on some to make up for lost points on others) to pass. There are two ways of passing: either your score is good enough for you to pass non-categorically or you’re on the fence and have to pass an oral exam the day after the results are proclaimed. According to Effoh, however, it is just a distinction of degrees of achievement because everyone who shows up to take the oral exam passes. He also told me that the results of the BPC (the general test after troisième which identifies the students who are ready to go on to high school) had been proclaimed on Saturday. I was aware because the Director of the CEG in Agbatit had called and elatedly informed me that all of his students had passed (Selom, one of my Peer Educators, was scored, as the Director predicted, first out of all the students to take the exam in Notse and second out of all the students in the entire Plateaux Region – I feel undeservingly proud), but Effoh informed me that Hevihevi (otherwise known as Titi) had passed but that Adjo, Marie, and Etonam had failed. He also informed me that Yawovi had passed the BAC 1 allowing him to progress from premier to terminal, the last year of high school. I already in the know, though, on that account because Yawovi had called to inform me.
I returned to Ashley’s house and we consolidated our supplies onto our bikes: three pairs of biking clothes, one pair of Prefet clothes, pjs, toiletries, medical supplies, a sleeping bag, tent, tarp, random tools, bike-repair equipment, maps and letters of intent, water and food. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but we managed to stuff our saddlebags full and each strap a bulging package to our bike rack. Most of it was food and water – we wanted to make sure not to lack either. Again, Ashley was doing all the worrying so I was able to be chill and just have fun, although, after a while another person’s nervousness starts to affect you as well.
Yawovi stopped by while we were packing up our bikes. It is so funny how you can talk to some people so easily and with others even simple conversation is painful. With Yawovi it was of the torturous variety and he pretty much just watched us pack our bikes for an hour.
On Monday we left Notse around 7:00. We would have left earlier, but we were waiting to stock up on bread. I felt that the ride was very do-able and we made it the 54 K to Tohoun in four hours with a stop at the half-way point for some rice and beans. It was a picturesque ride on dirt roads over stout hills and through what we will pretend are enchanted forests with majestically tall trees. At the time, we weren’t planning to include Notse to Tohoun on our AIDS Ride and so we didn’t stop in all the villages with CEGs (middle schools) along the way as we should have. I surprised myself by my endurance. I guess biking a couple of hours a week has paid off, because, although I was tired when we rolled into Tohoun I was by no means completely exhausted and could have biked further had it not been for the life-draining force of the sun. Ideally we would have started earlier and avoided the more intense heat. Throughout our three day ride I also came to the conclusion that your physical state depends a lot on your mental state. If you give in to being exhausted and start focusing on how tired, hot, and sore you are than you will feel tired, hot and sore. If you give yourself encouraging pep-talks, you won’t feel as though you are over-exerting yourself. My only major difficulty was the alternating shooting pain and numbness in my hands and wrists that I had wrapped in ace bandages in an attempt to minimize discomfort with extra support (I think it eased even though it didn’t eliminate the pain).
Jake (a fellow volunteer) met us in the center of Tohoun (only a couple kilometers from the border with Benin) and after inhaling some more beans and rice, we followed him to his house where we showered, did a bit of laundry, cleaned up the eggs that had broken in our food chest (what possessed us to bring raw eggs, or eggs at all really, on a four-hour bike ride is beyond me), and sat in front of his fan. After “repos” (for us and everyone else) we walked to the prefet’s house to ask his authorization to execute a part of AIDS Ride in his prefecture. The prefet is a very interesting character who spent several months in military training camps in the
Afterwards we went out for a cold soda and met with some of Jakes homologues who helped us identify the villages on our route with middle schools. To Jake’s dismay (he doesn’t often get PCV visitors) we turned in early and, to his even greater dismay, got up at 5:00 to beat the heat.
The first five of the fifteen kilometers to Tado were killer – huge sandy hills that we finally surrendered to; we got off and pushed our bikes to the top. It was the only time in our ride when that was necessary; even the Togolese were pushing their bikes up these hills. Had it been just steep hills and no sand, we probably could have made it, but the combination required a much stronger biker than I.
Jake’s dog followed us all the way to Tado. Jake had assured us that he would just “show us the road” and then turn around and go home, but he loyally jogged along for the entire 15 kilometers. In Tado we met with the Directors of both the public middle school and a private religious middle school to ask permission to do sensibilizations in their villages and to get contacts. We also met with the infirmier (who had been Kate’s homologue, a CHAP volunteer from my Stage who ET-ed a couple of months ago) and the president of the CVD who would then inform the chief of our impending bike tourney.
From Tado to Saligbe was another, remarkably more pleasant, 15 K high up on a plateau. Again we met briefly with the Director of the CEG and the infirmier to explain our intentions and get approval and contact information. After Saligbe we found a shaded spot to sit and have a picnic. That morning we had opened the package of sharp cheddar cheese that my parents brought in April. It was still could, albeit, perhaps a little sharper than normal. I made delicious sharp cheddar and apricot sandwiches. It was a treat that I was glad I had saved for such an occasion.
It was another 15 K to Kpekpleme and we arrived at the volunteer’s house around 12:30, just before it started to pour. We sat out the rain in her house and then decided (for better or for worse) to get a head start on the next long day of biking and try to make another 25 K (on top of the 45 we had already biked that morning) to Nangbeto. That was a very lofty (and unrealistic) goal considering the state of the road (or should I say river?) after the rains. We stopped in a village called Atome and spoke to the Director of the CEG, the infirmier, and the chief and then arrived in a village called Ountivou. Some people led us to the director of the CEG’s house. He brought out chairs, had his wife serve us water and listened receptively to our spiel. We indicated that we had hoped to make it to Nangbeto that evening (it was 5:00 and Nangbeto was still another good 17 K on bad, water-logged roads), but our hosts quickly informed us that that would be impossible unless we wanted to ride after dark (which we didn’t). We asked if we could set up our tent in one of the classrooms of the CEG, but, as Effoh had warned, the Director refused. The hospitality codes here would never allow “prestigious” white foreigners to sleep in a tent. Immediately the entire household went into hospitality prep mode. The salon was turned into a sleeping quarters for Ashley and I, water was fetched, we bathed and changed and, after a shot of sodabe (Ashley, as she likes to remind me, “took one for the team”) were escorted off to meet the chief and the head gendarme who received us with soft drinks. Ashley and I marveled at the fact that we, total strangers, were able to show up and be taken in at a moments’ notice; a show of hospitality that would not be replicable in the States. Back at the Director’s house we were served a dinner of pâte and sauce (the Togolese option) and fried spaghetti (the “American” option – Togolese would never eat spaghetti alone) with slices of mango for desert. We were then graciously allowed to indulge our exhaustion and go to bed, but not before a (very urgent – for Ashley) trip to the latrine. I hadn’t expected there to be a latrine . . . Even though Ashley was about to explode, she made me go first. Distracted by the swarming cockroaches, I squatted and missed the hole and then made Ashley find me a stick to push my rebellious poop into the latrine while she danced around outside trying not to poop her pants and begging me to hurry up. After both of our bowels were refreshingly empty, we laughed ourselves sick at the fact that I had actually missed the hole while pooping in the latrine.
We slept on a traditional mattress (made out of woven plastic sacks and perhaps cornhusk stuffing?) on the floor, and except for the fear of having to get up and go to the bathroom (it reminded me of girl scout camp and dreading having to pee in the middle of the night), slept well.
Wednesday morning we got up around 4:30, got ready, fixed a flat tire on Ashley’s bike, ate a belly-warming breakfast of rice bouillie (like rice pudding), took pictures with our hosts, expressed our undying gratitude and thanks and hopped back on our bikes. The riding wasn’t too difficult and we stopped in a couple big villages to get contact information even though there was no CEG (the most convenient location to sensibilize because the audience is already assembled and translators (in the form of school teachers and directors) are already present). After an hour or so, the road suddenly became paved complete with red and white road markers, street lights and signs. It was very strange, but only got stranger. We took a wrong turn and ended up biking unnecessarily down a hill to a dead end at the base of a HUGE dam. We biked back up the hill and over the dam (which I think provides much of Togo’s electricity). We thought we could do a sensibilization in Nangbeto and biked off the road a bit to what was not a normal Togolese town, but rather a gated community that Ashley and I christianed “the cult.” It was creepy. I guess it is just a town for the people who work at the power-plant, but it is very odd. We actually didn’t make it past the gate before we were sent back to the “headquarters.” We got contact information and ran (or biked, rather), neither of us too keen on the idea of doing a sensibilization there.
The next 25 K or so was paved and the streets lined with huge red-hot peppers drying in the sun. I decided that the volunteer who had assured us that the route wasn’t hilly had never biked it because it was constant ups and downs (with more ups than downs as we gradually climbed in altitude towards Atakpame). We made it to Akpare around noon. Over the course of our three day ride, our game plan had gradually changed to eliminate the Atakpame-Badou segment and include the Notse-Tohoun segment. We thought perhaps we could have our final big sensibilization and fête in Akpare, a big town with two CEGs, one public and one private. We scoped out the town, spoke with the Directors of both schools and then biked out, anxious to find a shady secluded spot to sit out the hottest part of the day undisturbed. As we biked up a hill we saw what might have been a mirage. Do you see what I see? Fanmilk. It was like a pat of encouragement from God. It was market day in Akpare and the Fanmilk vendor had biked from Atakpame. He wanted to charge us 25cFA extra for each of our 6 FanJoys (like orange flavored ice pops), but I convinced him that we had ridden further than he and deserved the FanJoys for the regular price. We then cashed our bikes behind some tall grasses and laid our tarp out under a mango tree on the edge of a corn field. We prepared our picnic, ate and then rested until the strength of the sun abated.
Around 3:00 we set out again for what would be, for me, the hardest leg of the trip. The road had degenerated back to dirt and the not-so-stout hills refused to let up. It was another 25K to Atakpame, 25K that we don’t plan on biking for AIDS Ride because after our final fête in Akpare we will pile into the chase car. We had no stops to make along the way and I think I felt that biking it was somewhat superfluous. In addition, somewhere in the middle of the 25K I pulled a muscle in my thigh that made it hard to pedal with force (or at all for that matter). As we neared Atakpame my mood was degrading and the last hill actually made me quite angry (oddly enough). We finally made it to the transit house: water, food, showers, bed.
On Thursday Ashley and I went to see the prefet in Atakpame. We actually met with his General Secretary. The differences between the Tohoun prefecture and the Atakpame prefecture are striking. The Tohoun prefet doesn’t even have a secretary, while the Atakpame prefet has a Prefectural Secretary, a General Secretary and Secretaries of the Secretaries. Afterwards we made up little informational blurbs about AIDS Ride 2008 in Plateaux to encourage volunteers to sign up (or discourage them from signing up). Our region is the most Peace Corps populated region. I think we have some 38 volunteers and only 12 spots on AIDS Ride, so we might have to farm volunteers out to other regions which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I enjoyed being in Centrale region last year – it just makes things a little more complicated.
For the rest of the day I rested, watched a movie (Blood Diamonds), chatted with Jorge on the internet, and ran errands. I was debating biking home from Atakpame, but wasn’t sure how the muscle in my thigh would tolerate the ride and so Ashley arranged for a car.
7-18-08
I can’t write a lot today because I have to catch Giz up on five days of lost loving.
I’m also five days behind on my chronicalling, but I will catch myself up when I go to Notse.
Today we packed up our bikes in Atakpame and loaded them into a car. We decided not to try biking home, but we paid attention to the hills and I don’t think it would be that bad biking home from Atakpame because it is mostly downhill, but biking to Atakpame from Notse or Agbatitoe would be pretty challenging.
Upon arriving in Agbatit, I went to see the Director of the CEG. Today is the last day of school, the day they receive their report cards and learn whether or not they passed. The Parent-Teachers Association in Agbatit had ordered food for a little fête and the Director insisted that I eat. It was fermented corn, called kom, but luckily not too fermented. I managed to polish off the four corn patties, but couldn’t stomach the piece of goat skin and fat I had been served. I left it on my plate and just sheepishly smiled at the Director, willing him to understand and not be offended.
I biked home. On the way I realized that it was vaccination day at the dispensaire in Avassikpe. Bummer. I was sort of hoping for a relaxing afternoon.
When I arrived I cuddled with Gizmo for a few minutes, staked two of my Moringa trees that had blown over with heavy wind and rain, and thanked Effoh for taking care of my baby.
I then went to the dispensaire to help and spent the rest of the afternoon weighing babies. They handed out the report cards in Avassikpe too today. I wish I had known that it was a public event, I would have gone. As is, I only saw the masses returning after the ceremony. Tseviato was first in her class. I am so proud of her and really want to find some way to fund the rest of her schooling all the way through high school. Not only is she smart, but very spirited.
I guess they just read out the names in order of achievement. The first, second and third in each class, as I understand it, get notebooks as prizes. Tseviato got five notebooks. Patrovi was eighth in his class. Koffi was second and Xola third. Barthe failed, but most of the other children I hang out with passed – Richard, Robert, Cherida etc. Effoh said about 70% of the students passed. He also commented that more boys than girls passed and that the Director remarked that disproportionate domestic responsibilities interfere with their studies.
The vaccination took an extremely long time today. I am not sure why. It is a little discouraging to note that when I am not there, they don’t put up the tent or use the numbers. Fine. Whatever floats their boat. If they want to work long hours amidst total chaos, that is their choice.
A young woman interning for part of her degree in social work accompanied the team from Notse. I chatted with her a while and we exchanged numbers. She will be in Notse for a couple of months until classes start back up in June.
After receiving their grades, all the kids who passed ran to the market, yelling joyously all the way. Those who failed slinked home, trying not to be noticed. I went to the market to see the kids, but came home quickly as there really wasn’t much to see.
Tomorrow I hope to plant my garden. I hope a torrential downpour doesn’t wash all my seeds away.
7-19-08 and 7-20-08
Yesterday I planted my entire garden – green beans and cucumbers around the outside, a row of eggplant and spinach, beets and cabbage, next a row of carrots and lettuce, tomatoes and basil, then a row of broccoli, sweet peppers and salad mix and a row of zucchini, squash and peas. The last thin row was already planted with the piment plants that Jerome gave me.
It took all morning to plant and I was just finishing when Ashley arrived. I want Ashley to come to my village all the time, but when she does, my village seems boring and I can’t seem to figure out how I fill my days.
We made macaroni and cheese with the left-over sharp cheddar from our trip. Effoh came by to greet Ashley and I gave him a piece of cheese. He tasted it, said it wasn’t good and gave it back. I guess cheese is an acquired taste, but I bet some cheeses are more acceptable to the Togolese palate than extra aged sharp cheddar.
After eating lunch, we rested under the paillote surrounded by wide-eyed children – wow, two yovos. We then took a walk out to my Moringa field. The trees are doing ok, but the weeds are almost as tall, causing the lower leaves to fall off the trees.
Other than that, we greeted people, made a sign-up sheet for AIDS Ride, took showers and went to bed. In the late afternoon, though, I received two phone calls, one right after the other: one from Jorge’s mom and the other from Jorge himself. Of course I was happy to hear from his mom, but I was delighted to hear from him. Lately we haven’t talked hardly at all and it is wonderful to hear his voice. I can’t even express how happy it made me.
Today, Sunday, I went to a wedding. It was in Kpegbadja and so I biked with Tseviato on back. It drizzled as we biked, but we arrived right before it started pouring.
This marriage was better than the last, but according to Effoh, it still wasn’t a great marriage. There were a lot of people. Kpegbadja’s choir was dressed in matching purple shirts and black bottoms with pincushion hats for the women. The ceremony moved out under a tree when the rain passed. First the choir marched down the aisle singing, followed by a flower girl (12 years old or so) dressed in a pretty lacy pink dress and matching hat. Then came the bride dressed in a lacy white long-sleeved wedding dress with a hideous flower flopping at the waist. It was too big and probably a hand-me-down from a grandmother, mother or older sister. She was also wearing a makeshift lacy veil, baggy white gloves, white socks and Dorthy red-ruby slippers. The groom was dressed in a suit (also not a great fit) and white gloves and was attended by another man in an identical suit. Women were throwing confetti on the couple, spritzing them with perfume and lolololo-ing joyously, but the couple was quite solemn. They marched in one by one and then sat down in chairs facing the pastors for a sermon that I didn’t understand. After the sermon, there was the exchanging of vows and also the exchanging of rings. Both the bride and groom received rings. Then the man lifted the woman’s veil and put his cheek next to hers. I was hoping to witness my first Togolese French kiss, with the way the crowd got noisy with anticipation, but no such luck. The bride then gave the groom a cheek kiss (cheek to cheek, no lips involved – the crowd whooped and cheered as if it were a real kiss) and then they knelt in front of the pastors who laid hands on them and blessed them.
The now married couple sat down again, this time facingthe crowd and, still looking sternly solemn, listened to the choir from Avassikpe. Then the choir from Kpegbadja sang while the groom and bride’s families paraded in with gifts – metal basins, metal bowls, metal molds for pâte, plastic storage containers (buckets, baskets and an insulated container), metal storage pots, cooking pots, pagnes, a chicken and money. At this point I left the inner circle because I was getting claustrophobic with all the steaming bodies pressed together, each person trying to maximize their view.
There was lots of food to buy on the outskirts – rice, soja, kluklui (crunchy sticks made of either corn or peanuts and fried), beignets, etc. and as Iwas leaving I was invited to stay and partake in rice made by the couple’s families (probably the bride’s family). I tried to gracefully decline because it seemed as though the rain was coming. As it turned out, it never rained.
When I got home, I sewed the gaping hole in the knee of my workpants and then I fixed the screen in my door because Gizmo had destroyed it to the point of being able to escape through the hole.
My neighbors informed me that while in Kpegbadja I had visitors: four men from Lome including Emmanuel – the man who gave me a lift with my bike several months ago. He calls me frequently to the point that I blocked him on my phone so that I no longer hear it ring when he calls. Sometimes, though, he tricks me by calling with a different number. I am very glad I wasn’t home, that would have been awkward and uncomfortable. The next time he calls, I guess I am going to have to ask him not to call and not to visit. I thought he would get the message from passive non-responsiveness, but I guess I will have to be more assertive.
In the late afternoon I sat and chatted with Tseviato and Effoh. I learned that you can’t buy land around here – the villagers will refuse to sell which I think is a good thing. Their land is their only real long-term asset. If they sell their land, they will become entirely dependant on others.
7-21-08
I went to the field today. I was supposed to go plant soja with DaMarie and her gang, but she postponed it until tomorrow and so, as I was already lathered up with sunscreen and had nothing else to do, I decided to plant cotton with Tseviato and her family. Cotton in more fun to plant than soy because you don’t have to bend down. I was advised to wear a long-sleeve shirt and was glad I did because we planted the cotton in between the corn and I bet you would get some nasty paper-cuts from the corn leaves. They plant cotton like they do corn, by sinking a heel into the raised row, dropping several cotton seeds in the hole and sweeping dirt back over them with the ball of the food; all in three smooth motions. I, on the other hand, awkwardly plant my heel, step back, carefully drop seeds that I struggle to separate from the mass I am cradling in a flap of my shirt, and then step forward again to kick dirt over my hole; three or four jerky, almost lose your balance motions. No wonder Tseviato would help me finish my rows and when Effoh was loftily assigning rows in the late afternoon he gave Tseviato 25 and me only 15. No one finished their rows, though, because the dark storm clouds that Effoh assured just looked menacing decided to release their fury upon us. While we were waiting out the rain, Effoh and his older brother, Kodjovi, were having a conversation in Ewe. Of course I didn’t understand and perhaps if I had I wouldn’t have gotten upset, but it seemed to me that they were talking about me and perhaps laughing at my failed attempts to do community projects in Avassikpe. Again, I could have totally misinterpreted the conversation, but it just reinforced the sentiment that no matter how friendly I feel with the people here, I will always be a yovo, a stranger, practically a different species and that made me sad.
It was a solemn sunset march back to the house after the rain stopped. I came to understand why Effoh picked up a stick before we set out; not to ward off snakes as I first suspected, but to provide balance in the slippery mud and to rid the grasses of their coating of rain before swishing through.
Effoh told me something disturbing today: that they published on the radio that only 25% of the people who took the BAC (high school end of studies exam) will pass because the two universities in country are already overflowing. That is one of the most ridiculous policies I have ever heard of. First of all, it assumes that all the students taking the BAC plan to enroll directly in university and second it discourages students from even striving for the BAC (encouraging early dropouts). How can a country even hope to develop with such stupid policies. Make the universities more selective if you have to, but don’t randomly decide that on 25% of students should receive their BAC this year and throw all semblance of fair scoring out the window. Students who rightfully earn their BAC can go on to more productive things like jobs and families rather than squandering another year in a futile attempt to receive high school diplomas that are jealously guarded by the state. It makes me so angry; it is unbelievably stupid and I hope just a rumor.
--
So, right after talking to almost all my family members on my mom’s side of the family, I dropped my cell phone into my latrine. Just kidding. About my cell phone, not about talking to my family, but both happenings are equally unbelievable. I mean, here I am sitting at my table reading Peace Corps Togo publications and waiting for it to be a reasonable hour to blow out my lantern and go to bed and I get a phone call in which, one after another I get to speak with at least twelve family members. Not it is an appropriate bed-time, but I think I am too hyped up to sleep.
7-22-08 and 7-23-08
Again I was supposed to go to the field to plant soja with DaMarie’s family, but it started to rain around four in the morning and didn’t stop until 1 pm. I read some documents on Moringa and then passed the time with Effoh, Tseviato and Xola. I gave the girls (eleven and twelve or thirteen respectively) extra copies of Lève-toi Jeune Fille and had them read one of the articles aloud. Then Effoh went back through and explained the article to them – a very appropriate article about the obstacles facing young girls like beliefs that girls are born only for domestic work and baby-making. He then asked them questions about the article and it was fun to see the satisfaction they got from answering the questions correctly. We then moved outside and played UNO for a while under the paillote with more children. I eventually left the game, tired of the boisterous yelling of the children, and returned to my Moringa readings.
It was a weird day for me. I think I was a little bored – I had been planning to go to the field and so didn’t have other activities lined up for myself – and the boredom gave way to sadness and a feeling of depression. I miss Jorge with a deep and constant ache in the core of my being and when not distracted by my daily activities, I tend to dwell on the pain of missing him. To escape my sadness I walked around village after the rain let up and greeted people. Some kids were digging a huge hole and harvesting rocks to pile around the bases of their houses to keep the walls from collapsing (a real danger during rainy season), many women were doing laundry, the young men were playing soccer . . . I spent a couple hours circulating and holding babies – I first rescued Anani from a four year old who looked like she was about to drop him, and then I held Rodrique – one of the fattest babies in village – and walked around with her. We visited Tsevi’s wife and her newborn, Espoir, and I held her while a small boy balanced Rodrique on a bench. When Tsevi’s wife finished preparing the sauce, she took Espoir and I took Rodrique back and wandered around for an hour longer with her in my arms, giving her mom a chance to shower in peace. It was a distraction at least. Children were still playing UNO under my paillote and so I watched and wandered and greeted people. Rodrique pee-ed on me, but other than that she was super good and didn’t cry at all. In my wanderings a woman pointed out a chameleon in the brush – the first chameleon I have seen in Togo. Dad had said that people are afraid of chameleon’s here, but when I asked if it was a good thing the woman responded yes.
After returning Rodrique to her mother (another of Tseviato’s older sisters), I lay in my hammock reading a Newsweek until it was too dark to see at which point I just lay in my hammock. After a while Effoh came to join me and we talked until late about the BAC, gender relations, children, sex. He told me that most of the kids here start having sex at eleven, twelve, thirteen years of age. I was shocked. I had been under the impression that my Peer Educators could still be virgins and realized that all my talk of “saying no” was probably wasted on kids who had already said “yes” too many times. I was shocked and dismayed. I also learned that traditionally, fetishers would perform a ceremony that would determine whether a young girl was a virgin and officially authorize her to start having sex, but that that practice is falling out of use and there are no controls on young people’s sexuality. I asked if virginity was not prized or valued and he said that you would have to marry a twelve-year old to find a virgin around here and so most people just accept that a virgin spouse is an unrealistic expectation. I was disappointed to learn that both his brothers – Victor and Kodjovi – had taken second spouses. Up until that point I had respected them for being some of the only non-Christian men in village to have a monogamous relationship.
At 4:20 in the morning I was awakened by the sound of a collapsing wall. Afraid someone might have been hurt, I went outside and was relieved to see that it was only the wall of an already abandoned building that had collapsed. I couldn’t fall back asleep and as I lay awake in bed I heard the unmistakeable barking and whistling of a fetish ceremony. I debated going to check it out, but decided to stay in bed, wrapped in my fleece blanket.
When it was light out, I got up and got ready to bike to Notse. The power was out and so I decided to run my errands. I went to the market and bought wire mesh form my door so that Gizmo doesn’t keep tearing up my screens, wire for the food dryer that I hope Mana will finish sewing soon so that I can dry Moringa leaves (they aren’t drying in my room – they haven’t molded or gone bad, but they definitely haven’t reached the point of dryness necessary to pound them into a flour), and food staples. I then sat in the house reading a book on Muslim women called Nine Parts of Desire and waiting for the electricity to come on. If it didn’t come back by 4:00 or 4:30, I was planning on biking back to village, but it came back at exactly 4:00. I started typing up my emails until the electricity went out again. I showered and then read until it, fortunately came back. I typed emails for several hours and then gave into my fatigue and desire to watch episodes of the L-word. I watched four episodes and have no idea what time I finally went to bed but it was far after midnight.
This morning, Thursday, I am finishing my typing and then will bike back to village. I plan to do laundry, fix my wire mesh to my door, work on the drainage in my garden, perhaps go see Mana about my solar “dryer,” and make a pâte sauce replacing ademan with Moringa leaves for tomorrow’s Ewe lesson with Jerome.
7-24-08
After typing my emails I left Notse and biked to Avassikpe. Everybody and their brother passed me on the way. I later learned that half the village had been summoned to Kpedome (a “suburb” of Notse) for a judgment. Effoh’s father had leant land to a man (a “brother,” but I’m not sure if he was a blood relative or not) through a verbal contract back in the day. The man died recently without making the terms of the contract clear to his sons. The sons want to sell the land and Effoh’s father has refused as he is the rightful owner. I guess the sons don’t recognize him as the owner because it has turned into a big problem requiring the presence of the chef de canton and pretty much everyone in village.
Once in village, I did laundry, made an egg sandwich for lunch and made a pâte sauce with okra and Moringa leaves. Happily, it turned out pretty good. The Moringa leaves don’t have a very strong flavor and so they don’t alter the taste hardly at all.
In the late afternoon, I did little things around the house. Some of the green beans, broccoli, gboman or gombo and sunflowers have sprouted already. I think some of the plants may take up to two weeks to germinate.
After showering I took the last of my corn to the mill. It costs 125 cFA to mill a small bowl of corn. That is quite expensive and I think the price has gone up a lot in the past months because of the price of whatever fuel they use to power the mill.
I waited at the mill until dark for my corn to be milled and then I brought Moringa sauce to DaJulie, Effoh and their mom. I am trying to encourage people to use Moringa in their sauces. I’m not 100% sure if they liked it or not, but at least I don’t think they disliked it. They thought I had mixed Moringa with ademan, but all the leaves were Moringa. I sat with them as they discussed the meeting in Kpedome to determine land ownership. When it started to drizzle, I went to bed.
7-26-08
This morning I went to Midojicope to see Mana. She wasn’t there, but I took advantage of the walk to greet people. I went to the dispensaire where the infirmier said he had suggested to Tsevi that he become responsible for the community Moringa field and that all profits would go to him. It made me a little angry. I don’t know why the infirmier thinks he can make an offer like that especially without talking to me first. I told him that that wouldn’t be feasible considering the fact that the land doesn’t belong to Tsevi and that even though they don’t participate regularly, many people have participated and would be angered by a heavy-handed decision to turn the filed completely over to Tsevi.
Once home I made pâte, neatened up a bit and lay in my hammock reading until Jerome arrived.
Our lesson was unremarkable. A bit short. Jerome brought me his son’s drawings for my health class coloring sheets. They are ok – his people could use a bit of work, but you get the idea. I was neither overly impressed nor overly disappointed.
The team from Avovocope came to play soccer against the kids today, but the match got rained out. It was just as well because there was a disagreement as to the height/age of kids allowed to play. As age is difficult to determine (no one has a birth certificate or reliable documentation), we agreed on a height limit and called it a day.
I just got back from the market where I spoke for a while with the Director of the EPP and the infirmier. We got on the topic of having another PCV of a different domain, probably NRM, in Avassikpe. I told them frankly that I’m not sure I will recommend it because Avassikpe isn’t very motivated as a community and doesn’t know how to take advantage of the presence of a volunteer.
Then a teacher arrived and informed us that the pregnant woman the infirmier had evacuated to Notse because of birth complications had asked (more likely, her husband asked) to be taken to a charlatan (traditional healer) instead. The problem with traditional healers is that quality control is difficult.
7-26-08
I forgot one of the most interesting parts of yesterday. DaMarie asked me to accompany her to the dispensaire to get the 3 month birth control shot. She said that she had been taking the pills, but that she got pregnant with Isabel (her 11/2 year old baby and fourth child) whle on the pills. She said she cried and cried when she realized that she was pregnant. She said her husband has five wives and many many children. She looked rather disgusted. I wish my Ewe were good enough to really understand everything. I would like to know what a woman in her position thinks.
Today we went back to the dispensair because the woman is supposed to get the shot at least 5 days after her period. I was touched that she would ask me to accompany her. It shows at least some level of trust and confidence. I wonder if she would have asked me if Lili were there (Oh, I learned something disturbing. Effoh says that Lili raises the prices of medicines and then skims off the margins. He said that Lili charged DaJulie 700cFA for the birth control shot and the infirmier charged DaMarie 500 for the same shot. Seems like something fishy is going on and I have to look into it).
Before and after going to the dispensaire with DaMarie, I worked in my garden trying to improve the water drainage. Jerome had suggested that I try a channel to the side rather than the ends, so I did. I also fertilized my piment plants with 15-15-15.
I was going to see Mana to get some pagnes that I have to return to the girls in exchange for better quality choices for our stage pagne project, but before I got very far her sister informed me that she was on her way to Notse. I went chez le carpentier to ask for some pieces of wood to affix the wire mesh over the window in my door so that Gizmo doesn’t keep destroying my mosquito screen. HE must have gone to the filed, so I asked Tseviato to bring some palm stalks instead – they are usually pretty straight and flat and should work.
Tseviato’s sister left her four and two year old in village today when she left for the field and I felt a certain responsibility to watch over them so after I chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil in preparation for lunch, I brought out crayons and paper and had them color and then I made paper airplanes with our papers. We flew those for a while, but I cut the fun short because I was afraid it was going to rain and wanted to collect sand for Gizmo’s litter box before it got all water-logged.
I got two bucket’s of sand with help from my bike and then I showered, made lunch, ate and repainted my toenails.
I looked over the drawings Jerome’s son made for my “health” coloring book and noted the modifications to be made. Some are fine, others need some minor additions/subtractions and others need a complete makeover.
Afterwards I read about Moringa. The amazing thing about Moringa is that it has the power to excite me all over again every time I read about it; it is just too impressive.
Now I am sitting in my hammock with Gizmo on my lap writing and taking advantage of the waning sunlight. It is chilly and preparing to storm and so I am enjoying a rare opportunity to snuggle in an oversized sweatshirt.
7-27-08
I learned a lot last night about fetish practices. I asked Effoh about it because I heard the whooping and found it curious that they would have a ceremony in the rain. I guess there is a difference between evoking the spirits with drumming and singing and when the spirits spontaneously take over a fetisher to communicate a message. I guess last night was that sort of occasion. When they hear the whooping, people congregate to hear what the spirit has to say. Effoh says the spirits are not ancestral, but rather devilish spirits. I bet a non-Christian wouldn’t consider them devilish. Only the people (I forgot to ask if only men can be fetishers, but I suspect so) who cut their arms and chest can be possessed by spirits because through the ritual cutting they buy spirits from more experienced fetishers. I asked if a non-fetisher could be randomly possessed and he said no. He explained that to be released from the spirit, helpers have to tear the fetisher’s grass skirt (what gives him strength, “la force”) before he swallows a sip of corn flour mixed with water. If he swallows before they rip the skirt off, he will be forever possessed. Yikes. I also forgot to aske if that has ever happened in Avassikpe. The whistling, I learned, was traditionally thought to call serpents, but it is also used to call spirits. I learned that there is a ceremony to become a fetisher in which one is left alone en brousse. The next day people join the person for sacrifices. If a spirit possesses the person, he “graduates” to the rank of fetisher and al lthe animals are left in brousse, untouched. (Earlier in the day I saw some children playing fetisher. They had ripped up banana leaves to make grass skirts like the fetishers, smeared some corn flour on their faces and were drumming, dancing, waving around gourds (as if they were maracas) and tree branches and trying to whistle. It was too cute. I should have gotten my camera).
I didn’t sleep well last night – I dreamt that I had just given birth, but I forgot to feed my baby and they wanted to take him away from me. When I recounted the story to Tseviato’s older sister, she interpreted it as meaning it is time for me to have children. I interpret it as meaning I am not yet responsible enough to have children.
It started raining around 4:30 in the morning and didn’t stop until 1:00. I spent the bulk of the morning with Tseviato, her older sister, Khosoivi, Julie, Richard, Robert, Barthe, Charles, Parfait and Effoh. I taught the kids how to limbo. Tseviato is really good at it, like at everything else. We decided to hold a limbo competition one day complete with music and little prizes to amuse ourselves.
Other than that, we defied the pastor’s declaration that today is a day for fasting and prayer by eating beignets made of soy flour and pâte in Kodjo’s one room house and then moving to my house to make sugar cookies (after we hammered my wire mesh screen to my door with a palm stalk frame). We picked sugar cookies because most of the ingredients are available here. I had never tried the recipe before, but they were pretty tasty.
I spent most of the afternoon reading a book on Muslim women and baking cookies.
I just finished showering – it was a heavenly shower because I heated the water. Even though it isn’t too too cold out, the water from my cistern was freezing. It was a luxury that I might give myself more often.
Tomorrow I am heading to Notse and on Tuesday we will bike to Agou Avedje. I can’t wait to see Tig!
7-28-08
Other than being reunited with Ashley, today isn’t particularly interesting. After cleaning my house up a bit, I biked in to Notse and after chatting with Ashley and catching up on the last week of her life, I started typing emails. I plan to go to the internet, the post office, the hospital, and the prefet and then having class, aka trying to get through as many episodes of the L word as possible. I hope the electricity doesn’t go out.
6/22/08 through 7/8/08
6/22/08
Gizmo is sleeping on my neck and shoulders as if he were a fuzzy extension of my shirt. Unfortunately, it is a little hot for a fur collar. Oh well, I oblige him because I don’t want him to stop being the sweetest, most people-friendly cat in the world.
I stayed in Notse yesterday to send Jorge my emails. The internet in Notse isn’t usually connected on the weekends, but I must have looked particularly desperate because the manager agreed to connect for 1,000 cFA the hour – more than three times the normal price. But I was feeling a desperate need to be in contact with Jorge after almost two weeks of disconnectedness. His mom called me earlier in the afternoon and told me that he had passed all of his exams (I am so happy and proud!) and I wanted to congratulate him myself. The university in Uruguay can be extremely challenging at times and it is a huge and praiseworthy accomplishment to have passed all the exams. He now has an intermediate degree of international analyst as he finishes his thesis and eventually receives his complete diploma in International Studies. I am so excited and relieved and I am sure he is also breathing easier and sleeping better. I’m so proud! Anyway, so I was dying to congratulate him myself and ended up calling him for six minutes after my expensive hour of internet. Unfortunately, his neighbor got savvy and password protected his wifi so Jorge no longer has internet at home. It was lovely to hear his voice.
For the rest of the night I entertained myself with episodes of “the L word,” the rather shocking and very explicitly sexual lesbian sister of Sex in the City. I went to bed when my computer battery ran out due to a power cut.
Today I left Notse around 7:00 and biked to Agbatitoe where I stopped to speak with the Director and the student I chose to attend the boys’ camp. He is leaving for camp tomorrow and I wanted to solidify departure times and travel arrangements. I will go to Agbatit tomorrow to make sure he catches the bus heading north to Pagala. My student, Selom, seems a little nervous; I hope he has fun and finds it to be a constructive learning experience.
The rest of the day I spent doing laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. I went to say “hey” to the infirmier. Apparently Lili left for the weekend and next month she is taking a whole month of vacation. They have changed the dispensaire around a bit so that both Lili and the infirmier have their own office. The infirmier said that he is working to get his room in a strip of rooms across the road ready, but that it isn’t good that the dispensaire doesn’t have a separate lodging for the medical personnel. He expressed discomfort at living amongst the villagers and fear that they would try to poison him. Yikes. Not fear that they will grigri him but that they will literally put poison in his food. Apparently people here are jealous of his ethnic group, the Adja, because they have a reputation for being more successful and consequently wealthier. Hm.
I also went to visit Mana and bring her cloth I bought yesterday to make into curtains for my windows and door. IT will just be nice to have the option of shutting people (mostly children) out without suffocating myself.
I studied a bit of Ewe, greeted everyone and not I am writing and that was my day. Tomorrow I will hoe my garden and maybe try to make beds, go to Agbatit and hopefully learn from Mana how to make pâte rouge – red pâte.
By the way, several of my Moringa trees are taller than I am with stalks almost
I made myself a fabulous fruit salad with mango, pineapple and banana, but unfortunately, I have a sore in my mouth that impedes complete and utter enjoyment.
6/23/08 and 6/24/08
I spent the better part of the day (and night) at a fetish ceremony yesterday, so I am going to breeze through my comparatively boring morning and move on to more exciting things. Early yesterday morning, I went out back and hoed my garden. Actually, it was more like manual rotatilling because I wasn’t only looking to nix the weeds, but to turn over and aerate the soil and remove rocks and trash. Needless to say, I made very slow progress. At 10:00 I showered and biked to Agbatote to see my student off to Camp Unite. We waited on the side of the route nationale for an hour shrouded in awkward silence but fortunately shaded from the noonday sun by a vacant market stand.
When I got home I ate lunch and then tried to compile a comprehensive “attendance” list for all the Moringa community work days. I would like to reward the people who participated with Moringa seeds, maybe two for each day they came. IT was as I ventured out in search of Tsevi to look over my list that I first suspected something was a brewing. Pardon the pun, but it was. A group of people were gathered at the home of the “president of young people” (even though he himself isn’t young 50s or 60s, he is also Tseviato’s dad). It could have been an informal gathering, but Tseviato’s father was getting drums out and tightening their skins by pounding the sides of the head with a rock. I sat and played with Tseviato’s older sisters’ baby who peed on me, twice. I spoke with Tsevi and then went home again.
Around 3:00 I decided to go to Midojicope to see Mana and ask if we could postpone our pâte rouge cooking lesson until the next day (I already had more food at the house than I could eat). On my way I again passed Tseviato’s dad’s house and the gathering had grown: mostly children circled around a few men with as of yet silent drums, but also men who obviously had returned from the fields early for the event (including DaMarie’s husband, Effoh’s older brother, Kodjovi, the president of the CVD and several others. I asked a woman what was going on and she responded that they are going to play the drums. For the children? I asked. Yes. I asked a man what was going on and he said a fetish ceremony and pointed to a clay mound with sticks jutting out of it on all sides. I knew it was part of the traditional religion (fetish is what they call it and less frequently voudou), but I had never seen exactly what it was used for. I decided that this was an opportunity I could not miss – it was broad daylight and the people in attendance were almost all people I know and am pretty sure like me. I decided to take my bike back home and bring a bench out to watch. As I walked away, I heard the men commenting on my decision to return and watch with what I interpreted as approuval. I put my bench down off to the side, between Kodjovi (Effoh’s older brother) and DaMarie’s husband. I asked them what the ceremony was for and Kodjovi explained that one of their fetishers (people who have certain powers and go into trance during fetish ceremonies) had disappeared that morning. NO one knew where he was and this was an impromptu ceremony to try to use spiritual powers to locate his whereabouts. I was amazed by how such a well-attended event could have been organized on such short notice. It was obvious that people deemed the ceremony important enough to cut the workday short, but it wasn’t a somber affair.
Shortly after I sat down, shots of sodabe were poured and libations made to the ancestors. Then the men started drumming (one with his hands and one with two sticks) and the women singing, clapping and dancing. We moved from our spot on the periphery to the inner circle and I clapped along with the music waiting expectantly for what might come next.
For what seemed like a long time, nothing happened. The drumming and singing was punctuated by the metallic ding of the gongonneur’s bells (like two toned cow bells that are hit wit heither a metallic or wooden object) and an airy whistle. Men and women took turns singing the lead and even children were encouraged to participate in the dancing. Of course I would have loved to understand the words to the song, but I couldn’t even make out one word.
During the singing and dancing, a man poured a milky white liquid on the clay mound and then a yellow liquid and an orange liquid. He also spewed sodabe through his lips onto the mound and crushed some sort o leaf on top. Grass skirts were laid out at the base of the mound and the bright yellow powder sprinkled over them and on the ground in the middle of the circle formed by singing, dancing and clapping men, women and children. On the far side of the clay mound was a small mud brick one-room building with a door facing towards us and no windows. I must have passed it one hundred times in my meanderings around village, but I never stopped to wonder what it was. Its ceiling is lower that that on a house and not peaked, but rather slanted slightly to one side. It looks like a shed and I guess that is what it is, but not a tool shed, rather a fetisher’s shed. It seemed to be the base of operations, but, to go inside, both men and women had to take their shirts off.
After what seemed like an extended period of singing and dancing, one of the drummers somersaulted off the bench and out from behind the drum and proceeded to somersault erratically in every direction and make a whooping sound somewhat like a man’s imitation of a dog’s bark. The crowd scattered as he somersaulted towards them and DaMarie’s husband put out his arm to shield me much like my Mom does when braking suddenly while driving, only this time I was thankful for the arm – no seatbelt to protect me from the possessed fetisher. Eventually he came to a halt and froze on all fours to the right of the fetishers’ shed. Another man went over to him and took off his shirt and pants (he had shorts on underneath) and proceeded to dress him in grass skirts. He then went into the fetishers shed and came back out with yellow and orange paste smeared all over his face, chest and a Mohawk like stripe down the middle of his head. He went around the circle holding the pointer finger of his right hand out to everyone to shake and then, after being giving branches of a particular plant to hold, started whooping and dancing in the middle of the circle, swishing the grass skirt back and forth, digging his feet into the ground so that the sand flew everywhere, dropping down flat on his stomach and jumping high into the air, legs together and pointed forward. Everyone else continued singing, dancing and clapping, but leaving him the center stage.
He danced and then ran off. After a long while of non-stop singing and dancing (I was just clapping along), another man somersaulted out of control and into a “trance.” He actually plowed down a little girl in his somersaulting frenzy. When he came to a rolling stop, the same thing happened: he was undressed and dressed in a grass skirt and then painted himself with yellow and orange paste. Rather than his pointer finger, he offered his whole hand for people to shake. It was as if the person who normally occupies his body was gone and a new being was using his body as a host. This recent arrival needed, then, to greet the important people present.
Each of the men had a knife – the first with a curved blade and a bell in the handle, and the second like a dagger. At one point, the first man to go into a trance grabbed a dog by the neck and held it over the clay mound, with his curved knife in hand ready to sacrifice the poor animal who was so scared it lost control of its bladder. I guess someone pleaded on the dog’s behalf and it was released. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog run away so fast.
The two fetishers took turns dancing. The second fetisher’s dance was more low to the ground – hopping from one foot to the other all while crouching down.
After dancing a while, they ran away, out of sight towards the village boundaries.
By this point, it was nearing dark and although energy was not lacking, there were mutterings of going home to prepare pâte.
At dusk, everyone went home to make dinner. I went home briefly, cam back and just waited, but nothing was happening. Some elders from Midojicope (I think) arrived, spewed sodabe on the clay mound, took their shirts off and went into the fetishers’ shed. One introduced himself to me as the president (of the fetishers perhaps?). He seemed pleased by my presence and said that Emmanuelle had once attended one of their ceremonies. He reiterated that this particular ceremony was because one of the fetishers was “lost.” I was invited to attend part of the ceremony that would take place “on the road,” but when the men headed out, the invitation was not reiterated and so I stayed put. I went home for a bit (I was already sleepy) and when I heard drumming forced myself to venture out again.
They had set up a generator wit ha string of lights. People trickled back and the drumming, dancing and singing started again. I felt very welcome. A chair appeared out of nowhere for me and I was even given the bells to play as things got started. The children got a kick out of trying to show me how to play.
It was pretty much a repeat of the afternoon performance. Occasionally the possessed fetishers would dance, but otherwise it was just the accompaniment and sometimes nothing at all. Everyone just waited around for something to happen. The two possessed fetishers were eventually joined by the 13? 14? Year old boy who somersaulted past my paillote once in a trance. He also has the thick scars on his arms and chest that seem to mark a fetisher, but his “trance” was a little less convincing this time . (I am not sure how much of it is acting and how much a real trance-like state. I have no doubt that they can work themselves into a trance with the singing, dancing, drumming and sodabe – by the way, the sodabe kept flowing the whole afternoon and into the night, - but I find it hard to believe that a possession or trance state would persist through so much down time. Then again, I have no idea what they were doing when they ran off).
The possessed fetishers started whistling a lot after dark – I guess that is why whistling is associated with calling the spirits and is prohibited after dark under normal circumstances.
A chicken and goat were paraded around presumably awaiting a sacrificial end that I am not sure ever came. After much down time, sleepy and shivering from the cold, I gave up. IT was 1:30 and almost everyone else had already left except the chief and elders. I learned today that the lost fetisher re-appeared around 1:40. Bummer. I just missed it.
Surprisingly, today Tseviato’s Dad, who normally doesn’t pay too much attention to me, came specifically to thank me (for my presence?). My proprietor’s wife and the chief also thanked me. Everyone seems pleased by my presence which is a relief and encourages me to attend future ceremonies.
The way Patrovi explained it to me this morning, the lost fetisher had sleep walked out of village in the early morning, but I don’t know how all of this was interpreted or if he received some sort of message from the spirits or what.
It was very interesting, but I was most excited by being included and welcomed, even made to feel like an honored guest. Unfortunately, there was a lot of down time and I was exhausted, but now maybe I won’t be afraid to venture out when I hear the drumming.
Today after on four hours of sleep I got up and went to continue rotatilling my garden wit ha hoe. I worked until 10:30 – luckily the day was cool and cloudy, then Mana came to show me how to make pâte rouge. First you roast the corn flour and then you cook piment, tomato paste, onions, garlic and little fish in oil. After a whle you add water and proceed as if you were making regular p^ate and the result is twenty times as good. Mana and I ate together and then I went back out to my garden to continue working. It is hard on the back and after another 2 hours I was more than ready to use the rain as an excuse to call it quits. It is lovely and cool and I think I will go to be early, as soon as it is dark.
By the way, Mana says Gizmo is a girl. That just wouldn’t be right. He is such a boy. I hope he is a boy
6/25/08
Jerome arrived early for our Ewe lesson today and I was in the midst of digging up my garden. Our Ewe, lesson was good, however, and afterwards Jerome explained the difference between fetishers and sorcerers. According to Jerome, the Ewe don’t have sorcerers - that is something that belongs to the northern ethnicities. Sorcerers can actually leave their bodies, take the form of animals and “fly” places. He said that some Kabiye sorcerers used their powers to “fly” in spirit for to Germany to watch a soccer game a couple of years ago. Fetish, which is the practice of the Ewe, embodies objects with certain powers and spirits and practitioners make sacrifices to the objects and request that the spirits do favors for them.
After our Ewe lesson, I got ready to go to Notse. Gizmo and I biked in, stopping at Effoh’s house on our way to drop of hot peppers his mom sent and some leftover beans from lunch. We chatted for a while about my hopeful water-filter project and Giz’s sex (?! No one knows for sure if he is a boy or a girl! We need Tig!) and then continued to Ashley’s house.
In the evening we had a meeting with Laurent, Ashley’s homologue to explain the Moringa advertising campaign that we would like to wage and why ADAC, Laurent’s organization, needs to take a back seat role. The organization, ADAC, is primarily associated with people living with HIV/AIDS and unfortunately, because of strong stigmatization against HIV infected people, if Moringa becomes associated solely with HIV, we will have difficulty expanding the market and production. I thought he took it pretty well, but Ashley, who knows him much better, thought he was annoyed. Oh well.
6/26/08 and 6/27/08
Ashley and I went down to Lome early Thursday morning and met with our Country Director and APCD to talk about our ideas for a Moringa marketing awareness-raising campaign. Then we vegged out on the internet.
The other reason (besides good food and we ate a lot of good food: rotisserie chicken, ice cream, hamburgers, chicken burgers, French fries) that we were in Lome was an AIDS Ride meeting. We have our work cut out for us in the month of July. Before July 31st we have to have our routes for AIDS Ride charted, biked, we have to have talked to the local and regional authorities, find homologues and participants etc. It is going to be a lot of work.
I also took advantage of my time in Lome to go to the MedUnit and get my ringworm reappraised. It isn’t getting better and actually had turned into open, infected oozing fly-attracting sores. I got more of the same medicine and an oral medicine as well (I am breezing past this because it was almost two weeks ago and I already wrote about it. Unfortunately, it is saved in my now useless and inaccessible computer).
6/28/08 and 6/29/08
We left Lome yesterday around 7:30 in a car full of Peace Corps volunteers so it was a more enjoyable ride than most; we laughed all the way to Notse.
I got to Notse around 9:30 – the rest of the volunteers including Ashley continued on to Atakpame. I went to Ashley’s house. Gizmo was still alive and seemed fine albeit a little hoarse from meowing so much and very in need of some love. I did my errands (wheeling my bike around the market on market day isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I needed to stock up on supplies. I bought little dried fish, onions, garlic, flour, pineapples, mangos, eggs and some beans, rice, wagash and sauce for lunch. I then typed up the emails I had been too distracted to type while in Lome and finished around 3:00. I closed up Ashley’s house and tried to remove all traces of the cat, loaded up and started home around 4:00. I stopped briefly at the house of the Director of the CEG in Agbatito to arrange a meeting time and place with my girl student who is going to camp on Monday. Unfortunately, as we rode through Agbatitoe, Giz and I got caught in the rain. Talk about a water torture. Not for me (well, his meowing was torture for me), but for the cat. I ripped the rain cover off one of my saddle bags and tried to shield him a bit, but he still screamed bloody murder.
Luckily, I soon biked out from under the rain cloud and neither he nor I got soaked. I arrived in Avassikpe around 5:30, stopped to greet Lili and the infirmier and went home to unpack. I was going to greet DaJulie when I saw that Effoh was in village. I made the women – DaJulie, Khosoivi and another woman laugh when I tried to explain in my baby Ewe how Gizmo got mad when it rained and when I praised Khosoivi’s husband Victor for doing his own laundry.
I greeted all the women and then sat down to chat with Effoh. He grilled me a young ear of corn and then I went to shower because I was damp and chilly from the rain. I figured that I might just as well get it over with. On chilly nights people here heat water to bathe; just an observation
After showering I returned to sit around DaJulie’s wood cookstove. Da Julie’s mom taught me how to say “I am shucking corn” in Ewe. Among the other things that stand out in the conversation that followed: Effoh told me that the white, yellow and orange pastes that the fetishers smear all over themselves during the ceremonies are simply corn flour mixed with different amounts of palm oil or none at all (white). I also lectured Effoh’s father on why smoking is bad for your health.
Today I made myself mango crepes for breakfast. They were just ok - my flour is a little old. Effoh came to say good morning and we talked about water filters and the seeds I have for my garden. He has never heard of some of the vegetables (squash, peas, green peppers) and others he has heard of but never tasted (beets, green beans). It will be fun to share my vegetables with people in my village (if they grow!) because it will be something new for them - the only vegetables they eat on a regular basis are green leafy veggies like ademan and gboma and okra, onions and tomatoes.
Effoh left and DaJulie came to visit. I also showed her the seeds. Then I went to church. The service today was more energized than usual of late - I only realized as I was walking home after the first part of the service (around 12:30) that they are fasting and praying today. No wonder we prayed so much! I prefer to pray in silence and privacy. With everyone praying at the top of their lungs I can hardly think, let alone pray.
The pastor gave the congregation a half an hour brek to go drink water; I took a break for the rest of the day (week even) and went home and made fried ride for lunch. No fasting for me (although maybe I should because later in the day the infirmier told me I am getting fatter; I don't think that is true, but, nonetheless, I didn't appreciate the remark).
After making and eating lunch, I hung my curtains to have the option of more privacy if I so desire and then I went to visit Lili and the infirmier. Afterwards I worked in my garden until the sun began to set. Now I am batehd with a tummy full of mango and pineapple. Bed time.
6/30/08
I decided to try being a Togolese child today and experience what it is like to collect water during a torrential downpour. Koffi and Tseviato came to my door asking to scoop water out of my overflowing cistern into their buckets and it just looked like too much fun, so I went out to help. And it was fun. A little chilly and I couldn't help envisioning myself getting electrocuted by the lightning, but very amusing nonetheless. Both my cisterns were overflowing and filling with water faster than I could bail them out. Eventually, we ran out of storage containers and had to give up.
That was teh second interesting thing about my day that made it out of the ordinary. The first was that on my way back from Agbatit where I had sat unshaded from the noonday sun (yes, I was wearing sunscreen) for two hours waiting for my student's ride to camp to arrive, I happened upon a ceremony hosted by DaMarie's family.
As I biked into the village two things caught my attention and prevented me from going directly home to satiate my hunger and thirst: the desperate screaming of a woman at the dispensaire and blood in the middle of the road. The two were not, in fact, related and I realized that as soon as I saw the dead chicken and goat that were being prepared after having been sacrificed during the ceremony. The woman who was screaming had just lost her baby, whether as a miscarriage or during childbirthe I am not sure. When I went to ask the infirmier about it he was busy with patients (I later learned that it was a two year old baby that died of anemia, probably after having malaria).
When I saw that the ceremony was primarily DaMarie's family, I felt less shy about sticking around. Just this morning I went out of my way to make a huge pot of pâte rouge for them - I had thought that DaMarie wanted me to teach her ow to make it, but she just wanted me to make it for her (whether because she doesn't know how or because she didn't have all the ingredients I am not sure). Anyway, she invited me to sit down and so I did. In front of me, over a wood fire, some adolescent boyse were preparing a chicken. To my right on the edge of the road, young men were torching the stiff body of a goat and scraping the hair off. To my left, DaMarie's husband and an older man, who I have never seen before (somewhat light skinned with thin scars from ritual cutting criss-crossing his arms and chest) were sitting. The older man had obviously drank his fair share (and more) of sodabe and was behaving quite strangely. The children just laughted at him when he started licking a black leather purse, almost as if it were a woman he was sloppily making out with and swinging his hips to the music on the radio. I thought it strange that a radio would be present at such a cermony, but it was. In between the two men was a small warty calabash filled with sodabe and perched on some sort of stand, black figurines (wood? clay?) embedded with cowery shells, a curved knfe with a bell in the handle, and bowls covered in blood. Next to them were mounds of dirt with clay bowls embedded in them (
The rain chased me away from the ceremony (not sure how it ended, but it did end). Afterwards I studied Ewe. I took advantage of a break in the clouds to go check on my trees. They are alive, but not thriving. Whereas the trees in my garden are taller than I am, the ones in the field are overgrown with weeds and the majority not yet waist high. But it is no longer my problem. If they don't organize themselves to hoe and the trees' growth is stunted, so be it.
Other than that, this morining I worked in my garden, continuing the neverending task of removing weeds, rocks and garbage and to loosen and turn over the soil.
7/1/08
Perfectionism in its extreme form can be quite a debilitating disease. I think I suffer from it. This morning I swept my garden. Literally. The rain last night washed away the sand aroudn all the pebbles and fragments of charcoal, leaving them balanced on pedestals of sand. I couldn't resist, they were too exposed, too blatant to ignore. It took me about three hourse to sweep it all up. As I did, I thought that perhaps I was doing myself mor of a dis-service than anything else, ir i the process I was removing the topsoil. But I had already rotatilled that part and so the topsoil is now about two feet under. Good or bad, I don't know, I've never really gardened. One thing I do know, though, is that my veggies wouldn't have grown well with all the garbage buried back there, so that IS a necessary task.
I stopped working at noon and ate leftover pâte rouge wit ha fried egg. I studied Ewe for a bit and then went to the dispensaire and chatted with Lli's sister until Mana joined us. I listend to them chat and then I went home to continue hoeing my garden which I did until dark. Some children eventually joined me and helped me pick out rocks. When Patrovi arrived, he started re-hoeing the part I had already hoed, which was great - the looser the soil the better, but I was a little discouraged to see that he was still pulling out all sorts of garbage and rocks =0(. This is an unterminable job and is making me rethink my site selection. It would be worth it if I were going to live here for ten years, but . . .
7/2/08
Never rely solely on the rain for your shower. Rain stops. Unexpectedly. Luckily, today I was prepared and it was a deliciousl cleansing because the rain was chillingly cool, but my bucket of water had been sitting in the sun the entire day and was surprisingly warm. The contrast was like moving betwen the pool and the hot tub (ok, a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but you have to appreciate what you've got). It was particularly soothing after six hours of digging (
The best part of my day was a brief phoncall from Jorge. IT is always so special to have a chance to hear his voice. I don't know what I will do with myself when I have him here 24/7! I'm going to be on cloud 9!
7/3/08
Sometimes I wish I had the option of ordering takout. Today Jerome was scheduled to come for an Ewe lesson and I'm out of piment. And there is none for sale in teh boutiques. I know I could ask my neighbors for some, but they would refuse paymetn and I'd feel badly. I can't make anything without piment, though. I ended up making curried red lentils and rice and it was fine.
My Ewe lesson was good - Jerome is such a natural story-teller. He recounted a story about how he cunningly forced a wife-beater to mend his ways. He witnessed the sever beating of one of the wives and knowing that he could not confront the man in such an agitated state, explained how he had circumvented the husband and encouraged the wives to take the abuse to the faimily court. The man was heavily fined by both of his wives' families and approached Jerome for financial help. Jerome took advantage of the man's position to lecture him on the consequences of wife-beating. All this was not only retold, but re-enacted in my little house turned theater.
I also learned that these big bugs that I have been digging up in my garden are eaten by children - cook in the fire, pop the wings and head off, pull out the intestines and its ready to go! Yummy proten snack! (Right).
We also talked about how sorcerers and fetishers can send lightning bolts to kill people.
Except for the time I spent with Jerome, I spent the whole day hoeing my garden. I am excited because tomorrow I will begin making the beds and my garden will really start taking shape. Yay! I hope it succeeds and transforms into a beautiful lush garden.
I just learned from the infirmier that the baby of the woman who was screaming as I biked into village on Monday died of anemia. He was 2 years old. They waited too long to bring him to the dispensaire. Today another baby died of anemia, a one year old. I think this is the time of year for babies to die because it is the low resource period - perhaps food is somewhat scarce and money even scarcer and the mosquitoes are out and about. So an already undernourished child is ravished by malaria, if that doesn't kill him, anemia very well might. Malaria and anemia are intricately related and the two are partners in crime (Ashley later explained that malaria attacks the red blood cells, the cells that carry oxygen to the brain, and can cause anemia. I feel like a better nourished child would be better poised to combat malaria). I don't know why there aren't campaigns to sensibilize against anemia. I think we need to start one.
Ashley has malaria. She got tested at the hospital in Notse. She has to go to Lome tomorrow and is afraid they will ad-sep her. I don't see how they could she's been taking her drugs. The people who have been ad-septed for getting malaria have flagrantly neglected to take their antimalarial medecine whatever it may be. I guess I shouldn't judge because I have never suffered any of the side effects of the mefloquine (and they can be quite terrible - nightmares, panic attacks, anxiety, depression), but to stop taking your drugs altogether is stubid and I know Ashley takes her drugs.
7/4/08
I wonder if it is that sharp shooting pain in my back that makes it hard to bend over means that I am developing muscles or that I have hurt something. It hurts to movie, ti hurts to sit; as soon as I finish writing I am going to go to bed. The reason I am whining is that I worked nine hours in my garden making beds. Big bedds. I don't know why I mad the beds so mountainous. I will probably rake them down. I wish I had a rake. At first i was using my little ho and then Effoh's older brother, Kodjovi, came and doubled my two hours of work in under twenty minutes with a big hoe called a taba. He leant the hoe to me and although it is much heavier, the work went a lot faster.
I had children (Patrovi, Tseviato) helping me off and on and we did all four big beds I have mapped out. I had thought I'd get two done at most. There is a lot of polishing to do and I still have to make round mounds for watermellon and canteloup and inevitably I will find more than enough to keep me busy all day tomorrow, but the worst of the work is more or less done. Unfortunately, I am in pain sitting here and so I am going to be brief.
Let me just comment that while I work people trail in and out of my garden to watch. I can't imagine what they must be thinking. I bet I look pretty awkward tield an instrument that is like an extension of their hands, but completely foreign to me. But even if they are laughing inside, I know I get points for working hard and not being laxy. When people see me caked with dirt from head to toe, they exclaim "Miato!" and shake their heads smiling slighting. Miato is sort of the equivalent of "Would you look at that!?"
The only other relavant part of my day is that, in honor of the 4th of July, I ate only American food. Ok, I was really just being lazy, I mean, how often do I eat these things at home? - fruit loops, kraft macaroni and cheese (expired, but still good), beef jerkey, and peanutbutter and chocolate chips on a spoon! Yummy.
Ok. Bedtime. I am going to collapse. I wonder what the rain is doing to my garden. I am gong to be afraid to look tomorrow morning.
7/5/08
I realize that as i have gotten older, I haven't learned how to better deal with things not turning out as I'd like them to, rather I have become better at making sure things turn out as I'd like. Unfortunately, in Togo, I am out of my element and so this moring, as I patted down the sides of my mountainous beds and Tsevi informed me that it won't do any good, that the rain will wash them half away, I felt the old urge to throw a temper tantrum. But I settled for pouting instead.
I worked in the garden again today, finishing the beds around the fence for beans and cucumbers, making round beds for watermelons and canteloup and making two extra beds just because I had the space. I also made drainage holes. When I wasn't working in my garden I was preparing lunch - DaMarie gave me an ignam the other day to make the dish she taught me how to make a few weeks ago. I think it turned out alright except that I put so much piment in it that it was almost inedible (for me). I also baked a white cake. I had promised Ashley (and myself) that I would make us a 4th of July cake, but then she had to go and get malaria and go to Lome instead. So I made us a belated 4th of July cake. Three layers, with vanilla buttercream icing and little red candy stars as decoration. I impressed even myself.
In the evening, Tsevi invited the infirmier and me to eat manioc fufu. He himself pounded the fufu (his wife gave birth to a baby about a month ago and he said that in her state she can't pound the fufu so it is his duty to help her). I told him that the fufu tasted better because he had pounded it and he laughed. Women here get no respite before they give birth, but for a couple months after giving birth (depending on the family situation, I think) they are exempt from going to the fields.
After showering and icing my cake, I painted my toenails. I'm not much for painting my toenails in the States, but here it is almost as necessary as brushing your teeth. I wouldn't be able to stand looking at my feet if I could see all the dirt that is inevitably under there. Did I ever mention that women here can't pain the nails on their right hand because they eat with that hand. Curious. When Tseviato and Xola painted their nails at my house, I asked them if they weren't going to paint their right hand, or if they wanted me to do it, thinking, perhaps, that it was a problem of dexterity. They looked at me as if I had two heads and said that if they painted the nails of their right hands they wouldn't be able to eat.
7/6/08
I left village around 7:00 this morning and biked to Notse. It took me longer than usual because I was tired, sore, stiff and lacking in energy. Gizmo exteriorized my pain and cried the entire way. Usually he quiets down once we hit the paved road and even snoozes a bit, but not today. Also, I was worried about the cake I had in a cardboard box on the back of my bike. Sure enough, when I got to Effoh's house and peeked inside, it was cracked down the middle and smashed up against two walls of the carton. I took advantage of the wreckage to serve some to Effoh and eat some myself in lieu of a more nutritious breakfast. I spent a couple of hours at Effoh's house as I waited for Ashley to get back from Lome. He starts his exam tomorrow, his BAC. It is the culmination of all his years of study and will earn him a high school diploma. He has been studying hard for it since October and sleeplessly since January. He already failed it once and his family won't have the money to put him through another year of school if he fails it again, so it is very serious. We chatted as he packed up all his notebooks to take to a room he is renting with a friend closer to the testing site. I tried to distract him from his nervousness. Sometimes I think the build-up for an exam like that is more torturous than the exam itself. I really hope he passes.
Before I left for Ashley's, I meant to ask him if he needed money, but it slipped my mind. I later texted him about it. He said he could use 3,000 cFA (about $7) and I was happy to lend it to him because I know he will pay me back and I don't want anything stupid to prevent him from passing the exam.
For the rest of the day Ashley and I vegged. Me mostly. I felt in need of a vacation, bodily and metally, and watched about six episodes of the second season of the L-word. Ashley and I joke that we are taking classes and that after watching all five season of the L-word I will be a certified lesbian. Right now I am at the 200 level, about a sophomore in my studies. I think a show like the L-word is interesting because young lesbians across the United States, who perhaps don't have access to lesbian role models or a lesbian community watch the show and emulate the behavior of the characters on the show. And so, a show that maybe reflects (how accurately is, of course, debatable) the reality of a community of lesbians in Los Angelos, now creates reality as young people identify with and model themselves after these fictional characters. There is even an entire jargon that most would never be exposed to if not for the show. So fiction infused with elements of reality creates reality. It also provides me insights (however real or fictional) into a lifestyle that I might never otherwise have so fully exposed before me. Interesting.
7/7/08
I am bummed. Really really bummed. I was typing up emails when my computer screen went cloudy in places. For a second I thought it was a trick my eyes were playing on me because it immediately went back to normal. Then the screen faded out into blotchy clouds for another second and returned to normal. It faded in and out several times until it went completely grayscale and cloudy. =0( I dared to hope that if I turned it off and turned it back on, everything would go back to normal. No such luck. Maybe if I turned it off and left it off for a while, gave it a break. Nope. What about all night? Nope.
Ashley has two computers, so it isn’t the end of the world – she is of course nice enough to allow me to use her computer freely as I am doing right now, but everything is on my computer and now I have to retype my emails from last week (I dug through Ashley’s trash to find them). The only redeeming factor is that, if it is just a problem with the screen, the information should all still be there and in tact. Ashley seems to think that if I could hook it up to another monitor or projector that we could pull all the information off and onto an external hard-drive. I am still super bummed and there is nothing that I can do about it.
This morning Ashley and I went to Heather’s house (she isn’t there) to do laundry. Well, Ashley did laundry while we discussed AIDS Ride and Moringa and I took notes. We are planning AIDS Ride and starting next Monday, July 14, we are going to bike from Notse to Tohoun to Tado to Kpekpleme. Kpekpleme is a town near the border of Benin where we would like to start AIDS Ride 2008 for the Plateaux Region. And we are going to bike all the way to the other side of the country ending in Badou. Luckily, Togo isn’t that wide, but it will still be between 250 and
We came home and made macaroni and cheese for lunch and then my computer died. I started typing again on Ashley’s computer. Around 3:00 we left the house to go to the local radio station. We talked to the director about doing mini radio shows to sensibilize the population on the nutritional benefits of Moringa. He received us better than I could have ever hoped. Two weeks ago they ran an interview with a Moringa “expert” in Lome on the broad-based characteristics of the plant and so he is already on-board and didn’t need to be convinced. He seemed really excited that we were interested in doing the show and ready to help us in any way possible. The idea is to do many four to five minutes radio skits that highlight one aspect of Moringa and the radio will run one of the microprograms as they call them two or three times a day. (I just lost my steam and enthusiasm; Ashley and I got into a small disagreement I think because she is stressed and can’t really think too much about our Moringa awareness raising campaign because she has too many things going on this month already. And I am gung-ho and ready to go (I have fewer responsibilities this month). I think I just need to do what I can myself in my free time this month while she is at camps for children living with HIV/AIDS and then we can pick it up again next month).
Another idea, which he was also very supportive of, is to use local musicians and lyricists to make up a song in local language about Moringa that can be played on the radio and hopefully be catchy enough that it makes its way into the minds and mouths of children and adults in the region. He seemed pleased by the idea and ready and willing to find us musicians and composers to work with. He then gave us a tour of the studio where they have a sound-proof room and recording equipment. We left the radio station in high spirits, not having expected to be received so enthusiastically.
We then went to the hospital and met with various people to talk about doing Moringa information sessions with the women who come on vaccination day and with the midwives and nurses who come in from all the clinics in the prefecture once a month. The higher-ups want concrete information first, which I think is reasonable, and so we have to find some reliable Moringa information in French and compile a sort of packet for them and then do a mini-formation with them. But again, all of that will have to wait at least until next month because this month is full of Camp Espoir (for Ashley) and AIDS Ride (for the both of us).
When we finally got back to the house I felt deflated for some reason. I think I was just tired; worn out from the week of working in my garden and feeling a little overwhelmed. I also think I overworked my hands and wrists in my garden because it hurts to ride my bike, it hurts to try to squeeze the brakes, it hurts to make a fist, it even hurts to hold a pencil. I spent the rest of the night watching the L word and stayed up way too late.
7/8/08
Today I am feeling unmotivated and uninspired. I am in a little bit of a funk, sad because of my computer, frustrated because of my lost emails, and absorbing some of Ashley’s stress I think. I have to retype the emails I typed last Saturday (because they are lost in the fog of my computer) and I am dreading the task. Not because it is so difficult, but just because I stubbornly resist the idea of retyping and reliving something I already lived once, wrote out and typed up. Suck it up. I know. Then I will go to internet, run errands and go home in the rain holds off.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
6/1/08 through 6/21/08
6/1/08 through 6/10/08
Yikes. I have a lot of catching up to do. Even though I had my computer with me while I was in Ghana, I was too distracted to write, so here goes . . . I spent the Sunday before going to Ghana with Ashley in Lome. It was wonderful because there were very few people in the bureau and so we had internet and the space itself mostly to ourselves. I was able to chat with Jorge for a while and do aimless things on the internet. For some reason, though, I didn’t accomplish the things I should have accomplished like answering letters from the third grade class at home that is writing to me and looking for appealing grad-school programs.
For dinner Ashley and I treated ourselves to over-priced pizza at a fancy restaurant called Phillipats. The ambiance there is certainly very nice – warm woods, reds and candles – and the pizza was pretty good, but I later regretted having spent so much (4,500 cFA = $11.00).
Monday morning, after checking the exchange rate online, I walked to the Togo-Ghana border. It is about a fifteen minute walk from our office which would be a piece of cake except I was a bit loaded down with baggage and unsure of the precise location. Anyway, I arrived without a problem, but almost got cheated out of five dollars by the man who changed francs into cedis (Ghanaian currency) for me. He purposely (I am pretty sure) short changed me, but, unfortunately for him, I counted the money and instead of allowing him to correct his mistake, took, my francs back and my business to someone else.
Crossing the border was a bit of a pain – you have to fill out paper work for both the Togolese and Ghanaian immigration officials, but no one hassled me or tried to extort money out of me so I count myself lucky. The tricky part came when I was swarmed by countless taxi drivers who all wanted to take me to Accra. I wished I was traveling with someone who had done it all before and made Ashley call me twice in the course of finding a car just to make sure I wasn’t getting “taken for a ride.” I was thoroughly confused by all the choices (small cars, vans, buses) and the different destinations (different stations in Accra depending on what part of the city you were headed to). To make matters worse, Ghana recently devalued their currency and what used to be 50,000 I don’t know whats is now equal to 5 cedis which is about equal to 5 dollars. That in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad, although it seems to cause inflation (particularly for low-priced commodities because there is nothing smaller than 5 peswas (like cents), people still quote prices in the old currency and leave the math to you. For someone not particularly “forte” in mental math that creates a bit of confusion especially before I figured out that the number to divide by is 10,000. With Ashley’s help, I eventually settled in a large van that promised (the driver, not the van itself) to take me right to the Novotel hotel (actually called the Novotel Accra City Center) for 5.5 cedis. On one of the phone calls with Ashley she informed me that she had just spoken with our APCD and that he had decided not to go to the Moringa workshop in Burkina Faso because the new CHAP trainees will have just been in country a week and that he wanted to send me in his stead. I was cautiously excited, knowing that nothing was set in stone.
I waited for about forty minutes for the van to fill and then we were on our way. What with all the other volunteers’ talk of hopping over to Ghana for a long weekend, I was under the impression that Accra was only a stones throw away. I guess it is Ghana and not Accra that is a stones throw away, because it took about three hours of weaving back and forth on a pot-hole filled road to get to Accra. Add to that the border crossing and waiting for a car and it is a four to five hour ordeal – not something I would do just for a weekend unless it was a particularly special occasion.
The ride was uneventful, except that I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything before leaving Togo (I was just too focused on crossing the border and getting a car) and afterwards I was too nervous about the money and getting cheated to dare buy anything on the Ghanaian side.
As we approached Accra, I got nervous again. I was not confident that the driver would really drop me off at my hotel and was worried about finding transportation to my final destination. My first impressions of Accra were overwhelming. It is a real city (not just an overgrown, overcrowded town like Lome) and has real highways that are well paved, with well tended and landscaped medians, overpasses, multiple lanes, working (respected!) traffic lights and stop signs, good public transportation, and the city is relatively clean (it is actually illegal to litter and you will be fined). I was impressed and intimidated. Fortunately, the driver pointed out my hotel and dropped me only a block away, so I didn’t have to worry about finding another taxi and getting ripped off on the price because I had no clue where I was going.
Stepping into the Novotel Accra City Center I felt a little like that poor relative that you have to let into your house because she’s family, but who’s presence is embarrassing and unsettling, because I was dirty and sweaty and this was an elegant, four-star (a legitimate four-star) hotel. Probably the only the doorman opened the door for me was the color of my skin. (Sad but true). Between early morning and my arrival, the receptionists changed shifts and somehow Dad’s instructions to give me a key to his room and the envelope he left with more precise directions to his conference were lost in the shuffle. The receptionist asked if I had a phone number, but I didn’t and so she directed me to a very friendly lady who called Dad’s Ghanaian country director to ask where the conference was taking place. I left my bigger backpack full of clothes at the hotel and went off in search of the Ghana School of Surgeons. I found it without a problem – I only had to ask for directions once and it was only about a ten minute walk from the hotel. When I got there, the participants were still in session. I didn’t want to interrupt and so I waited downstairs for about forty minutes, until around 1:30 when I finally saw Dad book it out of the conference hall, down the stairs and out the door, presumably to go to the hotel to find me. I ran after him and we walked to the hotel together to get me settled in and, most importantly, showered.
Lunch was provided for Dad at the conference and so he returned while I stayed at the hotel to shower (I later learned that all that was left of the buffet-style lunch spread when he arrived was a spoonful of rice . . . ). My plan had been to go in search of street food after showering and before joining up with Dad at his conference for the afternoon session, but after appeasing my growling stomach with a whole bag of beef jerkey and a pack of chips ahoy and a pack of oreos (all things Dad brought me from the States and mistakenly showed me before leaving the hotel room) I didn’t think I needed street food =0).
I joined Dad at the conference and ended up spending that whole afternoon and the whole next day attending the 2008 International Symposium on Household Water Management. It was very interesting not only to learn about the existing technologies for purifying water, but also to see the interactions between the various professionals (and organizations they represent) involved in the effort to make clean drinking water available to everyone on the planet (there were engineers, social scientists, microbiologists, marketing representatives, epidemiologists – a wide array of perspectives). I really enjoyed being a tag-along and getting a taste for what work in the development/public health/appropriate technology circuit might be like. There are many challenges that these professionals face. First of all, there is the problem of technology/product. You have the filters: filters made of different grades of sand (BioSand Filter – relatively easy to manufacture, but bulky and difficult to transport), ceramic filters (both flower-pot style and half-globe style – also potentially made locally, but difficult to transport due to shape, size and weight), fancy, high-tech, expensive on-the-spot straw filters, siphon filters with silver (that prohibits the growth of bacteria in/on the filter itself – smaller and easier to transport, but perhaps more difficult to manufacture locally). Then there are the methods of killing the microbes (parasites/bacteria/viruses) that many filters fail to remove: diluted liquid bleach solutions, water purification tablets and, of course, if you want low-tech/low-intervention: the sun (the SODIS method advocates putting water out in the sun in clear plastic bottles to heat it to a temperature that kills microbes). Then there is the question of implementation methodology. Should the product/technology be manufactured on site? Should it be imported? Should the technologies/products be sold? If so, should they be sold for a profit or just to recuperate costs? Should the technologies be given away to the poorest of the poor who might not be able to buy them? Should we embrace the idea of “sweat equity” (buying into a technology/product through manual labor) or vouchers (receiving vouchers for a technology after having participated in a formation on its importance and proper use)? Should the international community working towards providing clean water for everyone embrace only one technology/product or multiple technologies/products? These are only some of the questions that these professionals face.
I was glad that I had just read two thought-provoking books on economic development and solutions to poverty and felt well positioned to think about some of these issues for myself. Nevertheless, I have to admit that most of what follows is not 100% original thoughts (let’s break it down: 85% Dad’s thoughts, 10% other people’s thoughts, %5 original thoughts based on my experience so far in a small, relatively poor village in Togo with dirty water and not many options for making it potable), but, hey, everyone has to learn from someone or some experience, so here goes.
As I try to work these issues out in my head, I think my Dad is right on track with his thought process and so that forms the bulk of what I am going to lay out here. He says that we have to stop thinking of people (even very poor people) in developing countries as beneficiaries and start thinking of them as clients. As Paul Polak shows in his book, even people living on less than a dollar a day have purchasing power if the right product is available at the right price and he even suggests that more money can be generated by designing products for the 1.1 billion dollar-a-day customers rather than for the handful (in comparison) of wealthier customers that the majority of designers currently focus their efforts on (hence his initiative: Design for the Other 90 Percent; Out of Poverty, 63-81). Giving things away, even once, has been proven to destroy the market for that technology/product (by artificially under-valuing it) and limit ownership/value. In the past five (I think?) years, a large initiative to combat malaria included distributing free or highly subsidized mosquito nets to all women with children under five. Like my Dad says, however, you can’t measure the impact of an initiative solely on distribution, especially if that distribution was free. Very few people will refuse a free product, but in Togo, where the free distribution of insecticide impregnated mosquito nets took place, many people never took those nets out of their packaging and others hung them over a rafter, but not over the bed. Relatively few people actually sleep under the mosquito net on a nightly basis either because they don’t understand exactly how the mosquito net protects them from malaria or because it is too hot. Distribution, particularly free distribution, says nothing about proper utilization. On the other hand, if you convince a person to buy an insecticide impregnated mosquito net by explaining all of its attributes and how it protects a person from malaria and why it is particularly important for pregnant women and small children, and they dish out even 500 cFA of their hard-earned money to pay for that net, then they are much more likely to take care to use it properly and get the full effects AND, as my Dad pointed out, are much more likely to replace it when it is worn out and no longer effective. The problem with giving things out for free (or even subsidized) is that you can’t reach everyone in need and you can’t re-supply people for all of eternity (not to mention the fostering of dependence and a hand-out mentality). A mosquito net probably won’t last a lifetime, much less several life times and so what happens when the mosquito net wears out? Perhaps the family that was using the mosquito net correctly, and fully understood its value, will pay to replace it even if they got the first one for free, but many others will balk at the idea of paying to replace something that cost them nothing initially. Do we continuously distribute rounds of free insectide impregnated mosquito nets or do we create a market for the product and in the process educate people as to exactly why they should spend x amount of their limited funds on a mosquito net? My Dad would suggest the latter and I would have to agree.
The problem is that everyone want results now, now, now, but behavior change takes time and I don’t know but I would guess that consumer habits are indicators of behavior change. For example, people are starting to get more conscious about plastics and their effect on health, particularly the health of children and pregnant woman, and I read in one of Ashley’s science magazines and also saw reference to it, I think, in a Newsweek, that there is now a huge demand for baby bottles without whatever the component is that makes plastic particularly dangerous to babies. My guess is that people aren’t just buying the new bottles to let them sit in their cupboard, but rather to replace their old, and now perceived as dangerous bottles. However, if I had a bunch of regular plastic bottles for my baby and you gave me one of the new ones without explaining why it is better, safer, healthier I might not use it at all or I might use it intermittently with the other bottles that I already have but I certainly wouldn’t discard all my other bottles to use the new one exclusively.
Think about the same scenario but with a water filter. If you give me a water filter without explaining exactly why and how I should use it, then I may use it sometimes because I like how clear the water is when it comes out, but other times I may just drink dirty barrage water because it is more convenient (not realizing that even one sip of barrage water can cause a bout of diarrhea). On the other hand, if I save up my money to buy myself a filter, I probably understand that the filter is removing things in the water that are dangerous to my (and my children’s) health and I will make more of an effort to use it consistently.
So I agree whole heartedly with my Dad and Paul Polak that it is better to design products to fit the needs and budgets of the poor and then let the market determine the price, rather than design fancy smancy solutions that way surpass a poor persons budget, need to be distributed for free, and have no hope of ever being fixed or replaced if broken. It is the only way to achieve true sustainability and a better way of achieving behavior change.
Moving on. At the conference, there was a lot of discussion about finding the “insecticide impregnated mosquito net” of household water treatment and storage; one relatively simple solution to a world-wide problem. The man really pushing this angle was the representative of a large company that I think manufactured the insecticide impregnated mosquito nets. If the global donor community really gets behind one technology and his company gets to manufacture it, then, of course, that is in their best interest. He seemed to genuinely subscribe to his pitch, but other people seemed to feel that he was simply pursuing the best interests of his company and not necessarily the best interests of those in need. My Dad and others are of the opinion that a variety of products needs to be available because the scenarios in household water treatment are too varied and multifaceted to find one global solution. But some consensus needs to be reached because too many technologies with each organization peddling their brain-child, might be counter-productive.
Finally, I know my Dad prefers in-country production (like teaching local manufacturers to make a product), but as he has realized in thirty (he always says twenty, but I think he is nearing thirty – he probably just doesn’t want to give away his age) yeas of experience, when you manufacture things on site and teach people of different skill levels how to make your product, quality control is difficult. That is especially true with something like a filter where, for example, if the ceramic that makes up the candles is too porous or not porous enough, the effectiveness is greatly compromised.
All of this lead me to think that I should study public health, social marketing and behavioral science.
Anyway, it was a great learning experience. I just detailed a bit of what I learned, but that isn’t even the half of it. I also met really interesting people who are doing really interesting things, things I might like to do some day.
The first two days of the conference were presentations – fifteen minutes per presentation and after five or so presentations, time for questions. I wanted to attend both days and Dad ended up paying the $20 entrance fee so that I could officially participate and eat the food at breaks and lunch. I talked with a BioSand filter distributor in Ghana who told me that one day he would show up in my village with a truck full of filters. His particular BioSand filter is called HydrAid and is produced by International Aid, Inc. and, from what I understand, at this stage they are giving the products away for free. If he were to bring filters to my village, I wouldn’t give them away for free, but Dad and I were discussing an idea (and this was my idea – yay! One point for me!) of setting up water filtering stations around the village at boutiques, gas stands, telephone stands and mills (places where people already “man the booth” so to speak and having it so that the person running the place pours the first basin of water in early in the morning and then washes out his basin with bleach water and lets the water filter into his basin. When someone comes they dump their basin of dirty water into the filter, wash out their basin (contaminated with dirty water) with a provided bleach water solution and then pour the owners basin of clean water into their, now clean basin. He could even put bleach in their water to make sure all the microbes were killed. The problem in Togo right now is that there are no filters (much less low cost filters) on the market and even water purification tablets (Aquatabs – brand name) are not available. The only thing available is alum (a coagulant that makes the larger particles sink to the bottom, but doesn’t kill bacteria and huge bottles of bleach that are too expensive and too inconvenient (who in Avassikpe, besides myself, has an eye-dropper to make sure only three drops of bleach goes into one liter?). If some product were available that made it possible to buy bleach or some other microbe-killing product in small quantities, that would be ideal, but the problem with those products is that their effectiveness is reduced in turbid (really dirty) water.
So anyway, getting a bit off track, my plan now is to enlist the help of the new infirmier to do a survey of the village and talk to people about water – where do they get their water, what do they think about it, do they use alum, how much does it cost, do they understand what causes diarrhea, would they like access to clean water, how much would they be willing to pay for it, etc. Then, maybe I will contact the BioSand distributor and see if he could really bring me filters. . . it could be interesting . . .
Ok, enough about the conference, how about the hotel – pure luxury. Our hotel room had a double bed and a really comfy couch that turned into a really comfy bed (where I slept), a color tv, free wireless internet (apparently a fluke, they were having a problem with their password protection), a fabulous hot-water shower, a pool, bar with live piano music and stellar buffet breakfast (included in the price). I wouldn’t have needed to eat lunch any of the days that I stayed in the hotel because I ate so much for breakfast. I tried to only eat things that I can’t get in Togo, so I ate waffles, scrambled eggs (I can get those) mixed with olives (olives is the key word here), mini croissant sandwiches with ham and cheese, sausage and pure mango juice – all very yummy.
After spending Monday and Tuesday at the conference, I devoted Wednesday to a walking tour of Accra. I had two primary goals: find contacts for Jorge’s thesis and get to know the city. I failed miserably on the first (a bit of a half-a—ed attempt after I went to the parliament to see the clerk and asked for the contact information of the ministers). You would have to be on site to contact these people and be willing to go back again and again and again and track down people willing to talk to you. There is no such thing, even, as a simple printout of all the ministers, much less contact information for them. I did a pretty good job on the second goal, though. I didn’t get lost at all and walked from the hotel, through the ministries area, down past the stadium to the beach and Independence Square, over to Osu (an upscale commercial district with lots of expensive shops and restaurants) and then back to the hotel (that took about three hours). I sat out the hottest part of the day in the hotel room on the internet and then at 3:30 left again to do another loop and found myself in the heart of the down-town market areas. Again, I never got really lost. At times I wasn’t 100% sure which road to take, but never utterly lost. Look at a map of Accra and you will understand why it can sometimes be confusing and easy to get lost. It looks like someone took a box of tooth-picks, threw them on the floor and each toothpick became a road. Dad told me that he once got so lost in Accra that he had to hop in a cab which then took him about half a kilometer to his hotel =0). So I was proud of myself for not getting lost. On my way back to the Novotel I bargained a watermelon down to 1 cedi (about $1) so that I could realize my fantasy of eating a whole half of a cold watermelon with a spoon.
Dad arrived back at the hotel shortly after I did (he had spent another day at the conference – mostly policy stuff on how the international household water treatment and storage community should proceed) and I went swimming in the pool while Dad drank a beer and did some more networking. I am afraid that might be my one of my greatest challenges working in development. I don’t think I am a good net-worker and, being an introvert, I find it exhausting, but it is absolutely essential to the field (probably to most fields so I might as well get used to it). After swimming for about an hour I showered and then we went out to dinner. A whole section of this report needs to be devoted to the food I ate in Accra. Monday night we had gone to a restaurant/hotel/ice cream parlor called Frankie’s for ice cream for dinner. I had four scoops: mango, chocolate, black cherry and coffee. The mango was by far the best. The next night there was a cocktail after the conference, so we didn’t go out for dinner (but I ate a whole lot of yummy chicken – Accra has really meaty chickens compared to Togo and poultry seems to be more available and cheaper in comparison. On Wednesday we went to another legendary (among Togo PCVs) restaurant called Champs. It is a sports bar owned by a Canadian and I had a chicken tortilla wrap. It would have been good except that it wasn’t spicy enough. I had apple cake with vanilla icing for dessert. There weren’t enough apples in it, but it was still pretty good. We went to Champs a second time later in the week and I had barbecued ribs and French fries which were delicious and a real treat.
On Thursday we moved out of Paradise (the Novotel) and into a hotel nearer to Dad’s office. It was a step down, but not bad. It still had all the necessities and Dad even managed to connect briefly to a wireless connection by balancing his computer on the windowsill. I guess since he poured beer on his keyboard, accidentally “dropping” his computer out a second story window would give him an excuse to get a whole new laptop =0) j/k. Dad went off to the office to work and I hopped in a cab and went to the University of Ghana.
My goal there was to get the contact information of professors who might be able to help Jorge with his thesis. To give myself some credit, this wasn’t a half-a—ed attempt at all, but I failed again. First of all, the university is huge and sprawling – like a city in and of itself, all set apart on its own beautifully landscaped plot of land. The buildings are nice and more or less well tended – better anyway than the buildings in the public university I studied at in Uruguay – I was extremely impressed and couldn’t help but think that I would enjoy studying there. I went first to the information center, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they would have something to make my task a little easier. They did to a certain extent – an annual with the names of the professors in each department and their areas of interest/expertise. I copied down all the professors that might be of interest. Unfortunately their emails weren’t included and so I decided to visit the individual departments to see if I could track down any of them personally or at least their emails. At the first building, the professor’s office hours were posted at the door, but no contact information and, of course, I didn’t happen to get lucky with the times. I finally made my way (stopping at the bookstore and the library to see if I found anything useful – I went in the bookstore but decided not to go in the library because they wanted me to leave my bag and I had my camera and video camera and didn’t think leaving them would be such a great idea) to the social science area and went to see the secretary. I asked her if she had a list of the professors in the social sciences. She was very helpful and said that she herself didn’t have that list, but that she would call the registry and ask someone to help me. She sent me over to the registry and on the way I got hopelessly lost. I was getting frustrated and tired and hot and worried because it was nearing noon and I was afraid to find the registry only after it closed for lunch so I hopped in an overly-priced cab that took me to the registry. The 1.5 cedis would have been well-spent had the people at the registry: human resources department been able to help me. They looked at me like I had two heads and said that they don’t have the emails of all the professors and even if they did, they couldn’t give them to me because that is personal information. Eventually they took pity (I probably looked as if I was about to cry) and gave me a general email by which Jorge can send an email to all the hundreds of professors at the university of Ghana in hopes that some might read it and even, perhaps, respond. By that time I was ready to high tail it out of there and that is just what I did. I then hopped in a cab (wary of the much cheaper vans because I couldn’t understand what the apprentices were yelling and had no idea which one was going where I wanted to go) and went to the new shopping mall. The mall could be in the States. It is small for a mall, but has a Wal-mart like store on one end, a grocery store on the other and a food court and small shops in between. I was impressed, but didn’t buy anything except yeast (I just learned today that I can buy yeast in the market – not sure how effective it would be considering it has been packaged and in the heat) and a box of baking soda, but it was fun to walk around in the air-conditioning and see what was available. I then took another cab back to the hotel and devoured half of a cold juicy watermelon (yummy!) and, because there was nothing interesting on tv, laid down to take a nap.
Dad got back around 5:30 and we went out to eat dinner. We were going to go to a Chinese restaurant, but we saw a little street-side joint with Ghanaian dishes and decided to eat there. I had chicken with rice and a spicy tomato-onion sauce and coleslaw and Dad had fufu with sauce and goat meat. It was all very good and much less expensive, so we treated ourselves to a dessert from a near-by French bakery. The dessert probably cost just as much as the meal itself.
On Friday one of Dad’s colleagues picked us up at the hotel at 6:00 and we headed west, across the city towards Ivory Coast. The traffic was terrible and it took us over an hour and a half to get out of the city. Once we were out, though, it was smooth sailing (driving, whatever) and we drove to a town called Takoradi which is closer to the border with Ivory Coast than to Accra, so I got to see a good bit of the coastline. The road was paved the whole way, but covered in pot holes. Most of the towns we passed seemed to have electricity – many of them had long antennas sticking up to better capture the television channels. They also have a neat way of doing roofs with bamboo – they split the bamboo length-wise and fit them inside each other in such a way that they are rain tight (by alternating whether the “u” is facing up or down). It was neat just to get a glimpse of the lay of the land and rural (albeit coastal) Ghana.
When we arrived in Takoradi, we went directly to a part of town that houses the metal workshops. We visited the metal workers who have been trained to make the more efficient charcoal stove that EnterpriseWorks/VITA markets in Ghana. The stove sells for more than the traditional stove, but it is more labor intensive. It was interesting because the metal workers are not dedicating all of their time to making Dad’s stove even though EnterpriseWorks subsidizes their material costs, provides them with the filters and buys every stove (provided it meets the standards) that they make. So they have a guaranteed market and yet, for some reason, it is still not profitable enough, I guess, to earn their undivided attention. I think Dad and his co-workers are hoping that once the metal-workers get proficient enough at making their stove that they will be able to dedicate themselves to it. It seems also that there is a problem with the amount of money that EnterpriseWorks has available in a rotating fund for buying raw materials – it isn’t large enough to supply them with a steady stream. After visiting the metal worker and chatting with them for a bit we drove around the town to visit the retailers of the stove. Dad asked questions like how much it sells for, why people buy it, do they themselves use it, are their customers happy with it after having bought it, etc. It seems like most people are very pleased with the stove. It is advertised as paying for itself in six weeks with what it saves in charcoal (because it is more efficient) and people seem to be noticing and appreciating its value, so that is good.
We had a less positive visit to Cape Coast in that we visited a shop of metal workers who were trained to manufacture Dad’s stove and given money to buy the raw materials but have yet to produce the stoves. Dad’s colleague thinks that they used the money for something else and are now having trouble coming up with the money to buy the materials for the stoves they are being held accountable for. Dad told them that if they don’t produce the stoves they will not be given a second chance to work with EnterpriseWorks (who again loans them money to purchase the raw material and guarantees the purchase of every stove they make that is up to par – all they have to do is make the stoves); they promised to have the stoves ready by next Friday. I am very skeptical. It is odd because they had several metal bodies ready to be completed with ceramic liners, but instead they were rusting in a pile. It doesn’t make much sense.
We left the metal workshop around 4:00 and went to the Cape Coast Castle. According to my Lonely Planet book for West Africa, Cape Coast was the largest slave-trading center in West Africa (p.359), and the enslaved-Africans were imprisoned in the “castle”/fort before being loaded onto ships for the trans-Atlantic passage. At first I was a little disappointed because, upon entering, we were lead to a museum with a generic history of the slave-trade and what I really wanted was a tour of the castle. I got my tour of the castle afterwards, but delayed our return to Accra by an hour and a half. Oops. I can’t really say I enjoyed the tour, because that isn’t an appropriate word when you are walking in places where thousands of people were enslaved and imprisoned in inhumane conditions, but I found it interesting and was glad to have had the chance to see that bit of Ghanaian history. It wasn’t the first time I toured a fort like that – Dad and I visited the Ile de Gorée in Senegal when I was sixteen, but it was still impressive to be in the same damp, dark dungeons where people were held captive hundreds of years ago. The dungeons only had two little windows for air and light and a space through which a spy could eavesdrop on the enslaved people’s conversations. Ironically, the chapel was built right over the dungeon.
By the time we got back to Accra, it was dark and after eight. I felt a little badly because Dad’s colleague still had one to two hour drive across the city before he would be home.
After getting dropped off at the hotel, we went out for brochettes at the same little roadside restaurant we had frequented the night before.
On Saturday Dad and I explored the city together. We first checked out the station where I could get a bus ticket back to the Ghana-Togo border. I bought a ticket for 5:30 on Monday morning. We then walked through the market – for some reason it seemed just a little less claustrophobic than Lome’s market. I think that because Accra has many large markets, no one of them is as big as Lome’s Grand Marche, but that is just a thought – I have no way of confirming it.
We walked to Osu and got ice cream at Frankie’s. We shared eight scoops of mango sherbert. It was heavenly and we saved $3 because 4 scoops costs 4 cedis and 8 scoops only costs 5 cedis, so instead of getting four and four like we had the other night, we got eight and shared it. I love saving money and eating ice cream at the same time! We then got really brave and hopped on a tro-tro (vans that cruise around the city on somewhat pre-determined routes and pick up passengers). We were surprised at how cheap it was. We had been dropping between three and five cedis every time we took a cab and this was only 35 peswas. It wove in and out of Accra’s haphazard streets and we had to walk a bit before arriving at our destination, Palm Hotel (a super upscale, must be five star plus hotel). We were going to have a drink there, but the beach looked too alluring and so we walked over to a place where you could pay to get beach access and spent the late morning, early afternoon strolling and sitting on the beach. It was the first time I had walked in the ocean since arriving in Togo and had I brought my suit I might have swam. The water looked relatively clean even if it did have some plastic bags floating in it. The beach wasn’t exactly what you would call peaceful because there were a lot of ambulatory vendors hawking all sorts of touristy items, but it was still lovely to be right by the ocean, walk on the sand and in the water, pick up sea shells, and drink pineapple juice.
We were a little hungry and Dad had been raving about a Ghanaian dish called “red red” for days, so we decided to order a plate and share. Beans probably wasn’t the best idea because it took about two hours to be ready and ended up being only a plate of black-eyed peas with palm oil and fried plantains. The fried plantains were good, but I wasn’t impressed by the beans. I can get the same thing in Togo for about 50 cFA (about $0.20; minus the plantains, but still) and at this beachfront joint it cost 5 cedis ($5.00). Around 2:00 we left the beach and took a tro-tro to a station called 37 (after a military hospital) and then a multiple person taxi to the neighborhood of our hotel. We ate dinner at our friendly local restaurant except this time I had fufu and chicken and Dad had rice and chicken.
Sunday, after eating breakfast at the hotel, we waited for a man to show up with Lowell Fuglie’s moringa book (according to Dad, Fuglie is the Father of Moringa). We had been trying to cross paths with this man all week and finally got to meet him. His name is George and he has a moringa “plantation” in the Ho district of Ghana and said that Ashley and I can visit him there. Lowell Fuglie lives in the northern part of Ghana and apparently has 90 or 900 (?), anyway, a lot of acres of moringa, so hopefully, after our moringa workshop in Burkina Faso, Ashley and I can convince our APCD to let us visit those two moringa experts in Ghana.
After meeting up with George Dad and I decided to go on a self-guided city tour using tro-tros. We figured it would be fun, allow us to see the city, help us figure out our way around and in the long run (and even the short run) save us a lot of money on transportation. So we hopped on a tro-tro going to “circle” (Nkrumah Circle). You really have to get a hang of the trotro system before being able to use it effectively because they yell out incomprehensible things like “circircircircircle” and you are supposed to understand that that means Nkrumah Circle. But since our purpose was the riding of the tro-tros in and of itself and not to arrive at any particular destination, it was fun. After “circle” we jumped on one to “La Paz” (on the outskirts of the city) and then to 37 and then out to Quarshie and cruised around the shopping mall and then we jumped in a tro-tro to Osu and had eight more scoops of mango sherbet and then continued on again towards circle, but before we arrived we got out to meet friend’s of Dad’s for lunch at Champs. We had burned up several hours riding tro-tros around the city, but we were still early for our 3:00 lunch date. We sat in Champs and drank for an hour before they arrived and then had a nice lunch with them. The woman was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger when Mom was the PCMO there and the man now works for CARE. They had said that I could stay with them while visiting Ghana, but, unfortunately for me, they are moving to Madagascar next month. They extended the invitation to Madagascar, but somehow I’m not sure I’ll get there.
After lunch we tro-troed back to our hotel and then Dad paced around the room until it was time for him to leave for the airport and I watched a movie. He left for the airport around 6:00 and I just finished the movie I was watching and then went on to watch four more movies. One diamond-seeking-adventure movie, a movie with Jennifer Anniston and Jane Cusack, and then a short South-African movie about this rich white man that needs to get to the airport and has all these problems in the process (like a baby in the middle of the road and getting locked out of his car) – it was hilarious. And then I watched Armageddon and cried until my eyes were puffy. I had forgotten how good a movie it is.
Before going to bed I spoke with the night clerk about getting a taxi at 4:00 in the morning to take me to the bus station. I didn’t sleep well, though, because I was nervous about not waking up in time (I set the alarm on my phone, but didn’t trust it to work) and kept waking up every fifteen minutes or so to check my watch. I got up at 3:30, got ready and then went downstairs to ask them to get me a taxi. I didn’t think they would find one so quickly, but they did and it was a nice one. Again, I was nervous because it was dark and I was in a city I don’t know particularly well and headed to a rather shady part of town, but everything was fine and I was at the taxi station before 4:30. That was a relief, but I still had an hour before the bus was supposed to leave. Better safe than sorry I guess. But real kicker, though, was the fact that the bus didn’t actually leave until 6:30. I was annoyed, but tried to sleep it off and slept most of the way to Aflao on the Ghana-Togo border.
Crossing into Togo was annoying and tiresome, but again no-one gave me a really hard time. I ended up walking from the border to the Peace Corps office, though, because the taxi drivers wanted to charge me 2,000 cFA to go a distance that I know shouldn’t be more than 300. I was dripping with sweat (my hair looked like I had just stepped out of the shower) by the time I arrived and then had to run around the office dealing with passport issues for Burkina etc. and catch up with friends from my stage that I hadn’t seen in a while like Tig, Steph, Natasha, Regina, Allison, and Ashley (not my Ashley). A lot of people were in Lome because the new CHAP/SED Stage just arrived on Saturday. Believe it or not (I don’t), yesterday (the 9th) was our one year anniversary of being in Togo (pat on the back =0).
After doing errands, chatting with friends, and struggling through the painfully slow internet to at least send emails to my parents and Jorge to report my safe arrival back in Togo (home sweet home), I loaded my stuff up went to the bank and then had the easiest, quickest Lome departure of my life. Fabiola, a GEE volunteer from the Stage after mine, accompanied me to Notse. We tried a new strategy, going to the University of Lome rather than the taxi station and got a car to Notse in less than two minutes. We left the Bureau around 2:45, went to the bank, and were in Notse, at Ashley’s house, by 5:00. That is Guiness record timing.
It was great to see Ashley again and Giz (my kitten) has grown a lot. He is still peeing on everything though, I don’t know how to get him to stop that . . .
Ashley, Fabiola and I hung out and had French toast for dinner. This morning (Tuesday) Ashley and Fabiola headed up to Atakpame and I decided to delay my arrival in village by another day so as to catch up on this fabulous log =0). Today I went to the market, picked up Gizmo’s padded lining for his chariot, fixed one of my soccer balls and then pretty much just sat in front of this computer typing away. Now I am sick and tired of looking and little letters on my screen and am planning on watching a movie or something. Tomorrow I will bike to Agbatit – I have to be there by 6:45 because one of my groups of Peer Educators should be presenting – and the I will only be in village until Friday when I will come back to Notse because on Saturday a Peace Corps driver will pick Ashley and I up in Notse to take us to Dapaong where we will spend the night before continuing to Burkina Faso for the moringa workshop.
6/10/08 through 6/13/08
That was the shortest time I have ever spent in village – 48 hours at most. Wednesday I left Giz at Ashley’s house and biked to Agbatitoe in time for the 7:00 presentation of my Peer Educators after the raising of the flag. Ironically, the Director of the school chastised the students for being late when he himself was late. The trio was presenting HIV/AIDS and did a very good job. I was proud of them. Afterwards I backtracked to Rodokpe to speak with the director of the primary school there. I tried to arrange for one of my groups of Peer Educators to do an HIV presentation there and then I biked to Avassikpe, arriving around 9:30. I was very happy to see all the empty space in my garden, meaning all my moringa seedlings have been planted (or stolen, is it bad that I don’t really care which?). The other surprise that awaited me was that both Tsevi’s wife and a woman who lives near me gave birth to baby girls while I was away. I visited the women, gawked at the babies, did laundry (lots and lots of laundry), made okra and ademan sauce for pâte and collected prizes for my Peer Educators. I am going to recognize the students who came to every class, the students who have the least lates, the student who participate the most in class, etc and I am putting together a box of things that they can pick from as a reward – things like soaps, toothbrushes, little tubes of toothpaste, chap stick, shampoos, body soap, little deoderants, etc. and the best part is that I didn’t buy any of it, they are all things that I have gradually collected.
I spent some time sitting with DaJulie in the afternoon and in the evening I went to thank the Pastor for planting the remaining seedlings. Apparently he and Tsevi planted them – I can’t believe even he wasn’t able to mobilize more people that than . . . anyway, somewhere in the course of our conversation, I explained the concept of WWJD to him (what would Jesus do). I told him that it used to be a big thing in the States and that it was on T-shirts and things, but for some reason he thought it was very original and profound and now thinks I am called to be an evangelist. When I tried to explain that not everyone’s calling in life is evangelism, that I prefer to allow my actions and my life “preach” for me, he read a verse from Mark that says that everyone is called to preach the word of God and informed me that I was just scared, but that that would wear off as I gain experience. He is determined that I will be a preacher by the time I leave Avassikpe, asked me to give a sermon one day at church and loaded me up with reading materials. Great. So the planting of my trees comes with a price. Just kidding, I don’t think it is that contrived.
Early Thursday morning I biked to Agbatitoe for another presentation by my Peer Educators, this time on teenage and unwanted pregnancies and again I was impressed and pleased by the way in which my students pulled everything together. Afterwards I biked to Rodokpe again to try to reschedule the presentation there. We couldn’t find a convenient date for both parties, though, so I decided that the last group would just do a repeat HIV/AIDS presentation for the youngest of the classes at the CEG (middle school) in Agbatit? I wanted to get it done and over with, as did, I am sure, my students.
I went home to Avassikpe and made pâte on my charcoal stove and roasted corn that the director of the CEG had given me. Jerome was scheduled to come for an Ewe lesson, but he called to say that he would be late. In the meantime I wrote up a list of questions about water use and preference that I want him to translate into Ewe and then I filled in the names of my Peer Educators on their certificates and signed them. And then I puttered around. Jerome hadn’t specified how late he would be, but he didn’t arrive until after 2:00. Just before, I went to the dispensaire to drop off the numbers for the vaccination day on Friday and to inform them that I wouldn’t be present. I also asked about the medication for the Shisto that they keep saying they will order and their answer angered me. They (Lili and the infirmier) say that the dispensaire isn’t willing to invest in buying a medication that they are not sure will sell. They aren’t convinced that people are willing to pay for the medication to cure Shisto and don’t want to buy a shipment of it and then end up high and dry. The matter is complicated by the fact that the dosage is a multiple of the patient’s weight and so could end up being quite expensive. Inconveniently, I can’t go around saying that the treatment is only 250 francs because one pill is 250 francs and for every so many kilos the person needs to take an additional pill. They want me to foot the bill, but I don’t know why I should be willing to foot the bill when they are not; the dispensaire has the money. It makes me angry that they aren’t taking a more proactive stance on this issue.
My Ewe lesson went fine, except that Jerome didn’t eat enough of the pâte I had prepared and left me with more pâte than I knew what to do with.
After the lesson, I went into my garden to weed/hoe it and worked until dark, managing, with the help of some small boys, to hoe the whole thing. As a happy side note, some of the moringa trees I planted around my garden are as tall as I am.
Today, Friday, I got up early amidst a steady drizzle. It had poured during the night with ferocious winds, so I guess I should have been thankful that it had now tapered to a drizzle. I packed my bike, trying to waterproof my things as best I could, closed up my house and biked to Agbatitoe in the rain. Lately, whenever I want to bike out, the rain has turned the road into a mucky, muddy mess. It took me more than double the time it normally takes me and I just kept thinking that leaving Giz at Ashley’s was a great move – if he had been riding with me in the rain it would have been torturous for the both of us.
My students’ presentations started late because of the rain, but they went well – one on self affirmation and another one on HIV/AIDS. I am relieved to have them over and done with. I biked out of Agbatit at 9:00 and was blessed by a momentary “cease-drizzle.” I arrived at Jerome’s village right on schedule; we had agreed the day before that I would stop by on my way to Notse to see his newborn baby girl (three weeks old). She is precious. I ended up spending more than three hours holding the sleeping angel in my arms while chatting with Jerome, eating bean beignets, pâte and sauce, and then some fried manioc balls.
I learned that the reason people in my village are talking about cotton and debt is that they receive fertilizer and pesticide on credit and some of them sell it for much less than it is worth just to make a quick buck (or a quick franc) and then the cotton they produce is not enough to cover their costs. What I don’t understand, though, is why they don’t realize that they are the ones who will pay the difference in the end. If it is a 11,000 cFA bag of fertilizer that they sell for 6,000, they themselves are out 5,000 cFA. It’s stupid.
Other than that we just chatted and I ooed and ahhed over the baby. The rain continued until finally, around 1:30 it seemed to be clearing and I took my leave only to find the front tire on my bike completely flat. Jerome helped me pump it up and it got me the rest of the way to Notse where I was happily reunited with Ashley and Giz (who just peed on my toothpaste, Giz, not Ashley. Anyone know why a cat might insist on peeing everywhere other than his litter box even though he poos in his litter box?)
Now I am going to try to make Ashley some hummus because she has been craving it and I failed in my mission to bring her some from Lome.
6/14/08 and 6/15/08
The last two days have been long, but stimulating (in both good and bad ways =0). We spent nine hours in the car yesterday and eight hours today. Yesterday Ashley and I got picked up in Notse around 8:30 and rode in the Peace Corps car all the way to Dapaong. Gizmo rode with us. At the beginning he was a little whiny, but eventually he calmed down and slept most of the way. I was proud of him until we got out at the maison (Peace Corps transit house) in Dapaong and he got into a tiff with a dog and scratched me in the face as I tried to lift him to safety. That’s what you get for trying to save a life.
The ride was long and tiring. I can’t imagine what it would be like in a bush taxi – I do not envy the volunteers who live up north and have to make the trip on a regular basis. Other than that, what can I say? We saw a lot of scenery. Northern Togo is definitely has less vegetation than southern Togo, but it is rainy season and so it is still pretty green (nothing compared to Burkina Faso which is brown brown brown even though it is rainy season – maybe the rainy season hasn’t even started here yet). The biggest difference I noticed in the north is that the villages are structured differently. The family compounds are very separate from other family compound and form these cute little rings of rectangular and round mud-brick buildings complete with grain storage and often surrounded by fields whereas down south, the fields are far away from the villages and all on the outside of the houses which are clumped haphazardly together. There is so much space between the compounds in the north that they resemble miniature villages in and of themselves. It is really quite picturesque right now with the brown houses against a vibrant grassy green background, you know, the green of new shoots of grass. Personally, Ashley and I don’t know what the northerners complain about in terms of scenery, but I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Ok, enough about the grass.
Dapaong seems like a large, spread out town, with mostly mud-brick houses and washed out dirt roads. I didn’t get a great idea of the lay of the land because by the time we arrived and settled into the maison it was dark. I went to Helen’s house (another CHAP volunteer from my stage) to drop Gizmo off (she is babysitting him for the week; I kind of feel badly because I am not sure she knows what she is getting herself into; it is like when you have children and babysitters only come once and then run for their lives because your children are so poorly behaved =0). Ok, so he isn’t that bad, just hyperactive and pees on everything). We then walked to get dinner, but like I said, it was dark so I didn’t see too much.
Today we left Dapaong at 7:00 and headed north. The Togo-Burkina Faso border wasn’t nearly as crowded or difficult as either the Benin-Togo or Ghana-Togo borders and we didn’t have any problems crossing. Ashley and I were in the back of the land-cruiser for the whole trip today (sacrificing ourselves for the greater good, such martyrs that we are) and so it was a little uncomfortable and at times sickening, but we did alright. As we drove north, the landscape got more and more barren, to the point in which it was just rocks and trees. I couldn’t help but think that the people in Avassikpe have no idea how good they have it. Here (in Burkina Faso) the land is so rocky and infertile that they dig holes fill them with compost and then plant a grain of millet. Inevitably, the size of their farms ends up being much smaller because it is much more labor intensive to get the land to produce. I can’t imagine trying to hoe the dirt here – it is so hard and dry.
The other differences I have noticed so far are that there are a LOT of bicycles, a lot of women on bicycles (with babies on their backs =0) and perhaps less taxis and motos, interestingly enough. Even though Ouahigouya is a pretty big town, there is no public transportation. There are a lot of donkeys, though, which is something we don’t see too much of in Togo. Here they use the donkeys for transport and for plowing the very rocky ground (and so the raised rows are less pronounced than in Togo).
Other than that, we ate some wild grapes. Well, ate is a bit of an overstatement, sucked on because you can’t really eat them. On the topic of food, some volunteers told us that you could get great hamburgers, French fries, and milkshakes at the American cultural center and the other people in the car (NRM – Natural Resource Management – APCD and Togolese homologues and drivers) led us to believe that we would stop there for lunch, but we didn’t. Ougagdougou .looks really nice, but we had no time to explore and just drove through it. There is a big ecological reserve inside the bounds of the city, lots of nice buildings, a cool looking museum, and working traffic lights (but the streets are more congested than in Ghana). The others promised that we will have hamburgers on the way back and explore a bit; I’m not holding my breath.
Our conference is at the Burkina volunteers’ training center and it is quite nice (although a dump compared to the hotel with a pool where the APCDs are staying; go figure . . . =0). The best part, perhaps, is having the opportunity to speak with volunteers from all the surrounding countries (Benin, Ghana, Niger, but, oddly enough, not Mali) and share stories and experiences. We just got back from dinner and lots of chatting, but are pretty pooped from the ride and are planning to crash. Ahead: three days of moringa, but I am excited and hope to learn a lot even though it is much more of a workshop than a conference. In fact, I heard that there really isn’t anyone from outside leading the conference, just a facilitator to make sure things run more or less smoothly.
6/16/08 and 6/17/08
Two days down. Aside from the water conference in Ghana (and that was a REAL conference, not a Peace Corps event), this is by far the best training I have attended since being in Togo. Even though we have to translate everything into three languages (English (for the Ghana volunteers and counterparts and some of the Niger volunteers), French (for Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso and Niger) and Zarma (for two Niger counterparts who don’t understand any French), the topics of discussion manage to keep my attention and interest. On that note, I am really impressed by the Niger volunteers. Of all the volunteers, they are the only ones who have serious local language skills. Perhaps they can’t speak French (some of them honestly can’t), but they can speak either Zarma or Hausa and to me that is impressive. I don’t know if they are showing off just a little, but they even speak local language amongst themselves. They are started on local language as soon as they step foot in country and don’t really receive any French training at all because local language is so much more important. Apparently Zarma is a little like Ewe in that it is a relatively “simple” language (no verb conjugation, composite, few tenses, few pronouns), but Hausa is more “sophisticated” – this is one of the things that I like most about this conference – the volunteers are amazing, really an amazing group of people. There is none of the pervasive negativity and cynicism that sometimes gets overwhelming in Peace Corps Togo (and the other countries as well I am sure). Everyone is excited and more or less positive (they aren’t naively idealistic, but they are well settled into their Peace Corps service, more-or-less comfortable in their roles and maintain a more-or-less positive outlook) and that is a very refreshing change from the “b*tchfests” that often monopolize conversation in Togo. It is exhilarating to hear about everyone else’s experiences, interests, and activities and meet fascinating new people. We have a lot of similar experiences, but a lot of different experiences as well and right now I am most thankful for having had the opportunity to interact with such a great group of people while attending this conference (that sounds a little cheesy . . . oh well, its true).
In addition to interesting volunteers, there are interesting counterparts. We have among us the uncle of the King of the Ashanti people of Ghana who is himself an important chief. He wears an extremely thick (thicker than my thumb) gold chain around his neck and a huge gold turtle ring (the Ghana volunteers say that it may just be real gold), a special pagne that he wraps around himself and over one shoulder and funky black leather sandals with a black leather pom-pom (it looks like a spider) on top. We also have two men from Niger, one of whom is from a certain ethnicity that, according to cultural norms, must cover their heads with a turban (apparently rather common in Niger), but also, when around strangers, their mouths. There are only three women counterparts attending the workshop, two from Niger and one from Burkina, and, actually, they are not counterparts, but rather Peace Corps staff.
Now about the content of the workshop itself – yay moringa! Surprisingly, I haven’t yet (there’s still tomorrow) had an insuppressible desire to shoot myself in the head during this workshop as I frequently do during other Peace Corps trainings. Yesterday we spent the whole day talking about what everyone is doing in their respective countries, at their respective posts. For the most part, that was very interesting. The APCD from Niger is a little overbearing (apparently she was recently promoted to the position of APCD and is trying to “prove herself”). She was dominating the dialogue for a while which was grating on the nerves not only because we wanted to hear from everyone, but because every five seconds she punctuated her speech with “you know, I mean.” I actually counted and in one minute she repeated that phrase thirteen times! It seems as though Benin and Niger have been riding the moringa train for the longest and so their programs are more advanced and well-developed. Togo and Burkina are in the same car and Ghana is just getting on board (not to say that there isn’t moringa production in Ghana, but Peace Corps volunteers are just starting to get moringa training).
We have been discussing the technical aspects of moringa production, but also how to most effectively train Peace Corps Volunteers to work with moringa and how to develop a comprehensive Moringa manual with all the resources currently available. We also talked about the medicinal properties of moringa in treating diabetes, hemorrhoids, tape-worm, eye/ear infections, amoebic dysentery, typhoid, arthritis, snake bites, asthma, etc, but were strictly warned not to try these home remedies on ourselves without PCMO authorization or to prescribe these remedies to others. It was made clear that our emphasis needs to be on the value of moringa as a nutritional supplement and not as a medicine. We spoke about pest control and some of the suggested concoctions include and combination of ash, pepper, tobacco, or neem leaves and soapy water. I also read in one of my gardening books that if you collect a couple of handfuls of any pest, mash them up, dilute with water, strain out the liquid and spray it on your plants that it will discourage the pest. Another person suggested spraying a manure tea on your plants for fertilization and to discourage goats and sheep from nibbling.
Today we talked a lot about the compilation of some sort of Moringa manual. We broke into groups and my group was assigned the topic of community involvement in moringa trainings. At first I thought it would be boring, but it developed into a good discussion even though two overbearing counterparts (the chief and one of the Nigerienne women) dominated the exchange.
The best part of the day, however, was the cooking demonstration lead by the team from Niger. They made a moringa bouillie, moringa beignets, and two variations of a dish called copto. The bouillie was pretty much just enriched bouillie (corn or millet flour, milk powder, peanut butter, sugar, water) that was further enriched with moringa powder. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to taste it. The beignets were plain wheat flour beignets with moringa powder and were good with sugar. They sort of tasted like a tea doughnut if you can imagine such a thing. I think it might be a good addition to a slightly spicy bean beignet. The copto, however, was my favorite. First you steam the moringa leaves and then, after letting them cool, you mix them with white hibiscus flowers (that have been boiled to reduce bitterness), peanut butter, pounded garlic and hot pepper, thin slices of onion, pounded chicken stock and perhaps a little water. The variation is to add couscous or gari and tomatoes to that mixture. Perhaps it doesn’t sound too appetizing, but it is delicious and would be a fantastic spread on crackers or bread (for Americans) and perhaps a new meal for Togolese. I am excited to experiment with moringa in my cooking and slowly introduce it to the people in my village through the women who engage me in battles of culinary reciprocity. I ate so many moringa packed products that I wasn’t hungry for dinner – I probably got a weeks’ worth of vitamins this afternoon =0).
Two other tidbits that I learned today: every year at the beginning of the rainy season you should cut your moringa tree off completely at its trunk (so just a stalk remains) and, you know that the seed pods are ready to harvest if you hit them with a stick and they explode sending seeds in every direction (apparently a fun activity to do with village children).
6/18/08 through 6/21/08
The last day of the workshop in Ouahigouya was ok, but not as interesting as the previous two days – it was more bureaucratic stuff and I have to admit I tuned it all out for a while; some discussion about Peace Corps Volunteers relationship with government policy . . . The main task for the third day was to design a table of contents for a moringa manual and divide up the different sections by country so that we will have a comprehensive document on how to grow, maintain and use moringa. Right now, as far as anyone knows, there is no such document. The information is out there, but scattered all over the place and so the task that we have given ourselves is to compile all that information in one, easily accessible place. A pdf document is our primary goal, but perhaps someday the document will be published. The task was complicated by differing views on whether we should have lofty or more practical goals. In other words, should we aim for a comprehensive manual or a more concise packet with the most important points. We decided to aim high. Ashley and I are going to work on the many uses of moringa – how all the different parts of the plant can be used, but also, for example how moringa can be intercropped with other plants, used as a live fence, used for animal feed or fertilizer etc. I wanted to do the Nutrition section, but a volunteer from Níger was selected; however, the uses will be interesting and not too complicated because there is a lot of information on how moringa can be used.
We ended the day around 3:30 after a visit from the local authorities so we could mutually pay our respects. The Niger volunteers left immediately, but Togo volunteers + one Ghana volunteer took a little tour of the town courtesy of Tomas, our driver. We went to see the tomb of an evil king who, according to local legend, cemented virgins into the pillars of his palace and had all the baby boys killed King Herod style. Apparently he died after a mother, who had been instructed to pound her baby boy to death with a mother and pestle, turned on him instead. Any king who makes a full circle around the tomb will meet the same death. None of the people in the car were royalty, but we only drove three-quarters of the way around the tomb just to be safe. We then walked around the market a little and went back to the hotel to join the rest of the volunteers for a drink. Ouahigouya is Burkina Faso’s Peace Corps training site and so the town was full of current volunteers who were helping with the training and also trainees who had arrived less than a week before.
We left Ouahigouya at 6:00 on Thursday morning so that we would have time for “the Quest for the Holy Hamburger” upon reaching Ouagadougou. We had been told that the hamburgers at the Rec Center on U.S. Embassy grounds were to die for and so we decided that we were up for the challenge. It didn’t matter that we ended up eating cheeseburgers and French fries (and milkshakes!) at 9:30 in the morning; it was the first hamburger I have had since being in Togo and it was DELICIOUS and not even overpriced. Afterwards we continued on our merry way, bellies full and happy. We (the PCVs) later regretted not having gotten one to go. =0)
Ashley and I sat in the way back of the landcruiser on bench seats that face each other and talked about our plans for a moringa social marketing campaign. We want to get funding through a Peace Corps Partnership to market moringa in and around Notse. Right now we are thinking along the lines of billboards, radio shows, perhaps a song about the virtues and multiple uses of moringa, skits, T-shirts, pamphlets, and maybe even a fair with different “booths” to demonstrate moringa’s multiple uses. All of this will depend on how much money we are able to raise. We decided that we will make a graduated budget, prioritizing on what we will do if we raise x amount, what we will do if we raise 2x amount and what we will do if we raise 3x amount, etc. A Peace Corps Partnership is a program by which you solicit funding from your family and friends, Girl-Scout cookie or Band-Trip style. I told Ashley that most of my family and friends already donate a large chunk of their income to various charitable organizations and that I might not be able to raise much, but even $20 here goes a long way and Ashley says that many of her friends and family have asked about ways in which they could “help out” so . . . we will see. We aren’t planning to market a particular moringa product, just moringa in general and so anyone who is forward thinking enough can hop on the moringa train and profit from the moringa social marketing campaign that we hope to stage. One of our primary obstacles will be convincing Ashley’s organization and homologue that they need to stay out of the campaign. Because ADAC (Ashley’s organization) is mostly known as an organization for people living with HIV/AIDS, we are afraid that if moringa becomes irreversibly associated with ADAC that, first of all, no one will want to sell it for fear that people will assume that they are HIV+ and, secondly, that no one will want to consume it for fear, obviously misplaced, of somehow contracting HIV through the moringa or just because it is associated with the disease. Unfortunately, Ashley’s homologue likes to have a hand in every pie on the planet and so our first challenge will be to convince him that, in order for the marketing campaign to succeed, ADAC needs to remain very low profile. It is unfortunate that we have to tip-toe around HIV/AIDS here, but the reality is that the stigmatization that accompanies the disease and the misconceptions that surround it could easily sabotage our efforts.
We got to Dapaong around 3:30 and then Ashley and I borrowed bikes and followed an older volunteer to a weavers co-op. They make absolutely beautiful hand-woven cloth. I thought some placemats would be a nice wedding gift for someone, but as of now, I don’t know anyone who is getting married and so I didn’t buy anything. Maybe another day.
Afterwards we went to visit Gizmo at Helen’s house. He was doing well and managed to get along, more-or-less, with Helen’s cat. Helen’s cat is full grown, but he tolerated Gizmo’s hyperactive childish play pretty well and was gentle with him. We went out to eat and have a drink and then we were going to watch a movie but we were all too tired and after only about half an hour we went to bed. Ashley, myself, and two other girls ended up talking to midnight, though, so needless to say on Friday I was exhausted. I felt as though I had been deprived (deprived myself really) of sleep for many consecutive days. Gizmo and I slept together in the back of the car on the way down through Togo. Ashley got off in Kara to visit Lauren, another CHAP volunteer from our stage. I wanted to stay, but I had Gizmo with me and didn’t want to pass up on the free ride down to Notse in a Peace Corps car. Also, I have been out of village so much lately and I am going down to Lome on Thursday for a AIDS Ride meeting so I need to get back and show my face in my village before they forget who I am =0) and plant my garden and get busy on my new projects: garden, water survey, baby-weighing, moringa social marketing campaign, my sections of the moringa manual, etc.
Yesterday I arrived in Notse around 3:00 and fixed the flat tire on my bike. It was a bit of a hassle because I had to take Gizmo’s cage off and then the tire etcetera, etcetera, but I was proud of myself for doing it successfully. I then showered and started to watch the movie Love Actually. Effoh stopped by after his study-group and I showed him pictures from Ghana and Burkina before he left. He is worn out because he has been studying really hard for his exam on July 7th. I really hope he passes. He has already failed once, and I don’t think his family will put him through another year of school. He deserves to pass.
I tried to finish watching my movie, but my computer was misbehaving and I tried Ashley’s but it didn’t work either and so I gave up and went to bed exhausted around 8:00.
Today, Saturday, I am planning on going to the market and then to do internet (I hope, I hope it is open and working!) and then I will bike back to village this afternoon.
Yikes. I have a lot of catching up to do. Even though I had my computer with me while I was in Ghana, I was too distracted to write, so here goes . . . I spent the Sunday before going to Ghana with Ashley in Lome. It was wonderful because there were very few people in the bureau and so we had internet and the space itself mostly to ourselves. I was able to chat with Jorge for a while and do aimless things on the internet. For some reason, though, I didn’t accomplish the things I should have accomplished like answering letters from the third grade class at home that is writing to me and looking for appealing grad-school programs.
For dinner Ashley and I treated ourselves to over-priced pizza at a fancy restaurant called Phillipats. The ambiance there is certainly very nice – warm woods, reds and candles – and the pizza was pretty good, but I later regretted having spent so much (4,500 cFA = $11.00).
Monday morning, after checking the exchange rate online, I walked to the Togo-Ghana border. It is about a fifteen minute walk from our office which would be a piece of cake except I was a bit loaded down with baggage and unsure of the precise location. Anyway, I arrived without a problem, but almost got cheated out of five dollars by the man who changed francs into cedis (Ghanaian currency) for me. He purposely (I am pretty sure) short changed me, but, unfortunately for him, I counted the money and instead of allowing him to correct his mistake, took, my francs back and my business to someone else.
Crossing the border was a bit of a pain – you have to fill out paper work for both the Togolese and Ghanaian immigration officials, but no one hassled me or tried to extort money out of me so I count myself lucky. The tricky part came when I was swarmed by countless taxi drivers who all wanted to take me to Accra. I wished I was traveling with someone who had done it all before and made Ashley call me twice in the course of finding a car just to make sure I wasn’t getting “taken for a ride.” I was thoroughly confused by all the choices (small cars, vans, buses) and the different destinations (different stations in Accra depending on what part of the city you were headed to). To make matters worse, Ghana recently devalued their currency and what used to be 50,000 I don’t know whats is now equal to 5 cedis which is about equal to 5 dollars. That in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad, although it seems to cause inflation (particularly for low-priced commodities because there is nothing smaller than 5 peswas (like cents), people still quote prices in the old currency and leave the math to you. For someone not particularly “forte” in mental math that creates a bit of confusion especially before I figured out that the number to divide by is 10,000. With Ashley’s help, I eventually settled in a large van that promised (the driver, not the van itself) to take me right to the Novotel hotel (actually called the Novotel Accra City Center) for 5.5 cedis. On one of the phone calls with Ashley she informed me that she had just spoken with our APCD and that he had decided not to go to the Moringa workshop in Burkina Faso because the new CHAP trainees will have just been in country a week and that he wanted to send me in his stead. I was cautiously excited, knowing that nothing was set in stone.
I waited for about forty minutes for the van to fill and then we were on our way. What with all the other volunteers’ talk of hopping over to Ghana for a long weekend, I was under the impression that Accra was only a stones throw away. I guess it is Ghana and not Accra that is a stones throw away, because it took about three hours of weaving back and forth on a pot-hole filled road to get to Accra. Add to that the border crossing and waiting for a car and it is a four to five hour ordeal – not something I would do just for a weekend unless it was a particularly special occasion.
The ride was uneventful, except that I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything before leaving Togo (I was just too focused on crossing the border and getting a car) and afterwards I was too nervous about the money and getting cheated to dare buy anything on the Ghanaian side.
As we approached Accra, I got nervous again. I was not confident that the driver would really drop me off at my hotel and was worried about finding transportation to my final destination. My first impressions of Accra were overwhelming. It is a real city (not just an overgrown, overcrowded town like Lome) and has real highways that are well paved, with well tended and landscaped medians, overpasses, multiple lanes, working (respected!) traffic lights and stop signs, good public transportation, and the city is relatively clean (it is actually illegal to litter and you will be fined). I was impressed and intimidated. Fortunately, the driver pointed out my hotel and dropped me only a block away, so I didn’t have to worry about finding another taxi and getting ripped off on the price because I had no clue where I was going.
Stepping into the Novotel Accra City Center I felt a little like that poor relative that you have to let into your house because she’s family, but who’s presence is embarrassing and unsettling, because I was dirty and sweaty and this was an elegant, four-star (a legitimate four-star) hotel. Probably the only the doorman opened the door for me was the color of my skin. (Sad but true). Between early morning and my arrival, the receptionists changed shifts and somehow Dad’s instructions to give me a key to his room and the envelope he left with more precise directions to his conference were lost in the shuffle. The receptionist asked if I had a phone number, but I didn’t and so she directed me to a very friendly lady who called Dad’s Ghanaian country director to ask where the conference was taking place. I left my bigger backpack full of clothes at the hotel and went off in search of the Ghana School of Surgeons. I found it without a problem – I only had to ask for directions once and it was only about a ten minute walk from the hotel. When I got there, the participants were still in session. I didn’t want to interrupt and so I waited downstairs for about forty minutes, until around 1:30 when I finally saw Dad book it out of the conference hall, down the stairs and out the door, presumably to go to the hotel to find me. I ran after him and we walked to the hotel together to get me settled in and, most importantly, showered.
Lunch was provided for Dad at the conference and so he returned while I stayed at the hotel to shower (I later learned that all that was left of the buffet-style lunch spread when he arrived was a spoonful of rice . . . ). My plan had been to go in search of street food after showering and before joining up with Dad at his conference for the afternoon session, but after appeasing my growling stomach with a whole bag of beef jerkey and a pack of chips ahoy and a pack of oreos (all things Dad brought me from the States and mistakenly showed me before leaving the hotel room) I didn’t think I needed street food =0).
I joined Dad at the conference and ended up spending that whole afternoon and the whole next day attending the 2008 International Symposium on Household Water Management. It was very interesting not only to learn about the existing technologies for purifying water, but also to see the interactions between the various professionals (and organizations they represent) involved in the effort to make clean drinking water available to everyone on the planet (there were engineers, social scientists, microbiologists, marketing representatives, epidemiologists – a wide array of perspectives). I really enjoyed being a tag-along and getting a taste for what work in the development/public health/appropriate technology circuit might be like. There are many challenges that these professionals face. First of all, there is the problem of technology/product. You have the filters: filters made of different grades of sand (BioSand Filter – relatively easy to manufacture, but bulky and difficult to transport), ceramic filters (both flower-pot style and half-globe style – also potentially made locally, but difficult to transport due to shape, size and weight), fancy, high-tech, expensive on-the-spot straw filters, siphon filters with silver (that prohibits the growth of bacteria in/on the filter itself – smaller and easier to transport, but perhaps more difficult to manufacture locally). Then there are the methods of killing the microbes (parasites/bacteria/viruses) that many filters fail to remove: diluted liquid bleach solutions, water purification tablets and, of course, if you want low-tech/low-intervention: the sun (the SODIS method advocates putting water out in the sun in clear plastic bottles to heat it to a temperature that kills microbes). Then there is the question of implementation methodology. Should the product/technology be manufactured on site? Should it be imported? Should the technologies/products be sold? If so, should they be sold for a profit or just to recuperate costs? Should the technologies be given away to the poorest of the poor who might not be able to buy them? Should we embrace the idea of “sweat equity” (buying into a technology/product through manual labor) or vouchers (receiving vouchers for a technology after having participated in a formation on its importance and proper use)? Should the international community working towards providing clean water for everyone embrace only one technology/product or multiple technologies/products? These are only some of the questions that these professionals face.
I was glad that I had just read two thought-provoking books on economic development and solutions to poverty and felt well positioned to think about some of these issues for myself. Nevertheless, I have to admit that most of what follows is not 100% original thoughts (let’s break it down: 85% Dad’s thoughts, 10% other people’s thoughts, %5 original thoughts based on my experience so far in a small, relatively poor village in Togo with dirty water and not many options for making it potable), but, hey, everyone has to learn from someone or some experience, so here goes.
As I try to work these issues out in my head, I think my Dad is right on track with his thought process and so that forms the bulk of what I am going to lay out here. He says that we have to stop thinking of people (even very poor people) in developing countries as beneficiaries and start thinking of them as clients. As Paul Polak shows in his book, even people living on less than a dollar a day have purchasing power if the right product is available at the right price and he even suggests that more money can be generated by designing products for the 1.1 billion dollar-a-day customers rather than for the handful (in comparison) of wealthier customers that the majority of designers currently focus their efforts on (hence his initiative: Design for the Other 90 Percent; Out of Poverty, 63-81). Giving things away, even once, has been proven to destroy the market for that technology/product (by artificially under-valuing it) and limit ownership/value. In the past five (I think?) years, a large initiative to combat malaria included distributing free or highly subsidized mosquito nets to all women with children under five. Like my Dad says, however, you can’t measure the impact of an initiative solely on distribution, especially if that distribution was free. Very few people will refuse a free product, but in Togo, where the free distribution of insecticide impregnated mosquito nets took place, many people never took those nets out of their packaging and others hung them over a rafter, but not over the bed. Relatively few people actually sleep under the mosquito net on a nightly basis either because they don’t understand exactly how the mosquito net protects them from malaria or because it is too hot. Distribution, particularly free distribution, says nothing about proper utilization. On the other hand, if you convince a person to buy an insecticide impregnated mosquito net by explaining all of its attributes and how it protects a person from malaria and why it is particularly important for pregnant women and small children, and they dish out even 500 cFA of their hard-earned money to pay for that net, then they are much more likely to take care to use it properly and get the full effects AND, as my Dad pointed out, are much more likely to replace it when it is worn out and no longer effective. The problem with giving things out for free (or even subsidized) is that you can’t reach everyone in need and you can’t re-supply people for all of eternity (not to mention the fostering of dependence and a hand-out mentality). A mosquito net probably won’t last a lifetime, much less several life times and so what happens when the mosquito net wears out? Perhaps the family that was using the mosquito net correctly, and fully understood its value, will pay to replace it even if they got the first one for free, but many others will balk at the idea of paying to replace something that cost them nothing initially. Do we continuously distribute rounds of free insectide impregnated mosquito nets or do we create a market for the product and in the process educate people as to exactly why they should spend x amount of their limited funds on a mosquito net? My Dad would suggest the latter and I would have to agree.
The problem is that everyone want results now, now, now, but behavior change takes time and I don’t know but I would guess that consumer habits are indicators of behavior change. For example, people are starting to get more conscious about plastics and their effect on health, particularly the health of children and pregnant woman, and I read in one of Ashley’s science magazines and also saw reference to it, I think, in a Newsweek, that there is now a huge demand for baby bottles without whatever the component is that makes plastic particularly dangerous to babies. My guess is that people aren’t just buying the new bottles to let them sit in their cupboard, but rather to replace their old, and now perceived as dangerous bottles. However, if I had a bunch of regular plastic bottles for my baby and you gave me one of the new ones without explaining why it is better, safer, healthier I might not use it at all or I might use it intermittently with the other bottles that I already have but I certainly wouldn’t discard all my other bottles to use the new one exclusively.
Think about the same scenario but with a water filter. If you give me a water filter without explaining exactly why and how I should use it, then I may use it sometimes because I like how clear the water is when it comes out, but other times I may just drink dirty barrage water because it is more convenient (not realizing that even one sip of barrage water can cause a bout of diarrhea). On the other hand, if I save up my money to buy myself a filter, I probably understand that the filter is removing things in the water that are dangerous to my (and my children’s) health and I will make more of an effort to use it consistently.
So I agree whole heartedly with my Dad and Paul Polak that it is better to design products to fit the needs and budgets of the poor and then let the market determine the price, rather than design fancy smancy solutions that way surpass a poor persons budget, need to be distributed for free, and have no hope of ever being fixed or replaced if broken. It is the only way to achieve true sustainability and a better way of achieving behavior change.
Moving on. At the conference, there was a lot of discussion about finding the “insecticide impregnated mosquito net” of household water treatment and storage; one relatively simple solution to a world-wide problem. The man really pushing this angle was the representative of a large company that I think manufactured the insecticide impregnated mosquito nets. If the global donor community really gets behind one technology and his company gets to manufacture it, then, of course, that is in their best interest. He seemed to genuinely subscribe to his pitch, but other people seemed to feel that he was simply pursuing the best interests of his company and not necessarily the best interests of those in need. My Dad and others are of the opinion that a variety of products needs to be available because the scenarios in household water treatment are too varied and multifaceted to find one global solution. But some consensus needs to be reached because too many technologies with each organization peddling their brain-child, might be counter-productive.
Finally, I know my Dad prefers in-country production (like teaching local manufacturers to make a product), but as he has realized in thirty (he always says twenty, but I think he is nearing thirty – he probably just doesn’t want to give away his age) yeas of experience, when you manufacture things on site and teach people of different skill levels how to make your product, quality control is difficult. That is especially true with something like a filter where, for example, if the ceramic that makes up the candles is too porous or not porous enough, the effectiveness is greatly compromised.
All of this lead me to think that I should study public health, social marketing and behavioral science.
Anyway, it was a great learning experience. I just detailed a bit of what I learned, but that isn’t even the half of it. I also met really interesting people who are doing really interesting things, things I might like to do some day.
The first two days of the conference were presentations – fifteen minutes per presentation and after five or so presentations, time for questions. I wanted to attend both days and Dad ended up paying the $20 entrance fee so that I could officially participate and eat the food at breaks and lunch. I talked with a BioSand filter distributor in Ghana who told me that one day he would show up in my village with a truck full of filters. His particular BioSand filter is called HydrAid and is produced by International Aid, Inc. and, from what I understand, at this stage they are giving the products away for free. If he were to bring filters to my village, I wouldn’t give them away for free, but Dad and I were discussing an idea (and this was my idea – yay! One point for me!) of setting up water filtering stations around the village at boutiques, gas stands, telephone stands and mills (places where people already “man the booth” so to speak and having it so that the person running the place pours the first basin of water in early in the morning and then washes out his basin with bleach water and lets the water filter into his basin. When someone comes they dump their basin of dirty water into the filter, wash out their basin (contaminated with dirty water) with a provided bleach water solution and then pour the owners basin of clean water into their, now clean basin. He could even put bleach in their water to make sure all the microbes were killed. The problem in Togo right now is that there are no filters (much less low cost filters) on the market and even water purification tablets (Aquatabs – brand name) are not available. The only thing available is alum (a coagulant that makes the larger particles sink to the bottom, but doesn’t kill bacteria and huge bottles of bleach that are too expensive and too inconvenient (who in Avassikpe, besides myself, has an eye-dropper to make sure only three drops of bleach goes into one liter?). If some product were available that made it possible to buy bleach or some other microbe-killing product in small quantities, that would be ideal, but the problem with those products is that their effectiveness is reduced in turbid (really dirty) water.
So anyway, getting a bit off track, my plan now is to enlist the help of the new infirmier to do a survey of the village and talk to people about water – where do they get their water, what do they think about it, do they use alum, how much does it cost, do they understand what causes diarrhea, would they like access to clean water, how much would they be willing to pay for it, etc. Then, maybe I will contact the BioSand distributor and see if he could really bring me filters. . . it could be interesting . . .
Ok, enough about the conference, how about the hotel – pure luxury. Our hotel room had a double bed and a really comfy couch that turned into a really comfy bed (where I slept), a color tv, free wireless internet (apparently a fluke, they were having a problem with their password protection), a fabulous hot-water shower, a pool, bar with live piano music and stellar buffet breakfast (included in the price). I wouldn’t have needed to eat lunch any of the days that I stayed in the hotel because I ate so much for breakfast. I tried to only eat things that I can’t get in Togo, so I ate waffles, scrambled eggs (I can get those) mixed with olives (olives is the key word here), mini croissant sandwiches with ham and cheese, sausage and pure mango juice – all very yummy.
After spending Monday and Tuesday at the conference, I devoted Wednesday to a walking tour of Accra. I had two primary goals: find contacts for Jorge’s thesis and get to know the city. I failed miserably on the first (a bit of a half-a—ed attempt after I went to the parliament to see the clerk and asked for the contact information of the ministers). You would have to be on site to contact these people and be willing to go back again and again and again and track down people willing to talk to you. There is no such thing, even, as a simple printout of all the ministers, much less contact information for them. I did a pretty good job on the second goal, though. I didn’t get lost at all and walked from the hotel, through the ministries area, down past the stadium to the beach and Independence Square, over to Osu (an upscale commercial district with lots of expensive shops and restaurants) and then back to the hotel (that took about three hours). I sat out the hottest part of the day in the hotel room on the internet and then at 3:30 left again to do another loop and found myself in the heart of the down-town market areas. Again, I never got really lost. At times I wasn’t 100% sure which road to take, but never utterly lost. Look at a map of Accra and you will understand why it can sometimes be confusing and easy to get lost. It looks like someone took a box of tooth-picks, threw them on the floor and each toothpick became a road. Dad told me that he once got so lost in Accra that he had to hop in a cab which then took him about half a kilometer to his hotel =0). So I was proud of myself for not getting lost. On my way back to the Novotel I bargained a watermelon down to 1 cedi (about $1) so that I could realize my fantasy of eating a whole half of a cold watermelon with a spoon.
Dad arrived back at the hotel shortly after I did (he had spent another day at the conference – mostly policy stuff on how the international household water treatment and storage community should proceed) and I went swimming in the pool while Dad drank a beer and did some more networking. I am afraid that might be my one of my greatest challenges working in development. I don’t think I am a good net-worker and, being an introvert, I find it exhausting, but it is absolutely essential to the field (probably to most fields so I might as well get used to it). After swimming for about an hour I showered and then we went out to dinner. A whole section of this report needs to be devoted to the food I ate in Accra. Monday night we had gone to a restaurant/hotel/ice cream parlor called Frankie’s for ice cream for dinner. I had four scoops: mango, chocolate, black cherry and coffee. The mango was by far the best. The next night there was a cocktail after the conference, so we didn’t go out for dinner (but I ate a whole lot of yummy chicken – Accra has really meaty chickens compared to Togo and poultry seems to be more available and cheaper in comparison. On Wednesday we went to another legendary (among Togo PCVs) restaurant called Champs. It is a sports bar owned by a Canadian and I had a chicken tortilla wrap. It would have been good except that it wasn’t spicy enough. I had apple cake with vanilla icing for dessert. There weren’t enough apples in it, but it was still pretty good. We went to Champs a second time later in the week and I had barbecued ribs and French fries which were delicious and a real treat.
On Thursday we moved out of Paradise (the Novotel) and into a hotel nearer to Dad’s office. It was a step down, but not bad. It still had all the necessities and Dad even managed to connect briefly to a wireless connection by balancing his computer on the windowsill. I guess since he poured beer on his keyboard, accidentally “dropping” his computer out a second story window would give him an excuse to get a whole new laptop =0) j/k. Dad went off to the office to work and I hopped in a cab and went to the University of Ghana.
My goal there was to get the contact information of professors who might be able to help Jorge with his thesis. To give myself some credit, this wasn’t a half-a—ed attempt at all, but I failed again. First of all, the university is huge and sprawling – like a city in and of itself, all set apart on its own beautifully landscaped plot of land. The buildings are nice and more or less well tended – better anyway than the buildings in the public university I studied at in Uruguay – I was extremely impressed and couldn’t help but think that I would enjoy studying there. I went first to the information center, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they would have something to make my task a little easier. They did to a certain extent – an annual with the names of the professors in each department and their areas of interest/expertise. I copied down all the professors that might be of interest. Unfortunately their emails weren’t included and so I decided to visit the individual departments to see if I could track down any of them personally or at least their emails. At the first building, the professor’s office hours were posted at the door, but no contact information and, of course, I didn’t happen to get lucky with the times. I finally made my way (stopping at the bookstore and the library to see if I found anything useful – I went in the bookstore but decided not to go in the library because they wanted me to leave my bag and I had my camera and video camera and didn’t think leaving them would be such a great idea) to the social science area and went to see the secretary. I asked her if she had a list of the professors in the social sciences. She was very helpful and said that she herself didn’t have that list, but that she would call the registry and ask someone to help me. She sent me over to the registry and on the way I got hopelessly lost. I was getting frustrated and tired and hot and worried because it was nearing noon and I was afraid to find the registry only after it closed for lunch so I hopped in an overly-priced cab that took me to the registry. The 1.5 cedis would have been well-spent had the people at the registry: human resources department been able to help me. They looked at me like I had two heads and said that they don’t have the emails of all the professors and even if they did, they couldn’t give them to me because that is personal information. Eventually they took pity (I probably looked as if I was about to cry) and gave me a general email by which Jorge can send an email to all the hundreds of professors at the university of Ghana in hopes that some might read it and even, perhaps, respond. By that time I was ready to high tail it out of there and that is just what I did. I then hopped in a cab (wary of the much cheaper vans because I couldn’t understand what the apprentices were yelling and had no idea which one was going where I wanted to go) and went to the new shopping mall. The mall could be in the States. It is small for a mall, but has a Wal-mart like store on one end, a grocery store on the other and a food court and small shops in between. I was impressed, but didn’t buy anything except yeast (I just learned today that I can buy yeast in the market – not sure how effective it would be considering it has been packaged and in the heat) and a box of baking soda, but it was fun to walk around in the air-conditioning and see what was available. I then took another cab back to the hotel and devoured half of a cold juicy watermelon (yummy!) and, because there was nothing interesting on tv, laid down to take a nap.
Dad got back around 5:30 and we went out to eat dinner. We were going to go to a Chinese restaurant, but we saw a little street-side joint with Ghanaian dishes and decided to eat there. I had chicken with rice and a spicy tomato-onion sauce and coleslaw and Dad had fufu with sauce and goat meat. It was all very good and much less expensive, so we treated ourselves to a dessert from a near-by French bakery. The dessert probably cost just as much as the meal itself.
On Friday one of Dad’s colleagues picked us up at the hotel at 6:00 and we headed west, across the city towards Ivory Coast. The traffic was terrible and it took us over an hour and a half to get out of the city. Once we were out, though, it was smooth sailing (driving, whatever) and we drove to a town called Takoradi which is closer to the border with Ivory Coast than to Accra, so I got to see a good bit of the coastline. The road was paved the whole way, but covered in pot holes. Most of the towns we passed seemed to have electricity – many of them had long antennas sticking up to better capture the television channels. They also have a neat way of doing roofs with bamboo – they split the bamboo length-wise and fit them inside each other in such a way that they are rain tight (by alternating whether the “u” is facing up or down). It was neat just to get a glimpse of the lay of the land and rural (albeit coastal) Ghana.
When we arrived in Takoradi, we went directly to a part of town that houses the metal workshops. We visited the metal workers who have been trained to make the more efficient charcoal stove that EnterpriseWorks/VITA markets in Ghana. The stove sells for more than the traditional stove, but it is more labor intensive. It was interesting because the metal workers are not dedicating all of their time to making Dad’s stove even though EnterpriseWorks subsidizes their material costs, provides them with the filters and buys every stove (provided it meets the standards) that they make. So they have a guaranteed market and yet, for some reason, it is still not profitable enough, I guess, to earn their undivided attention. I think Dad and his co-workers are hoping that once the metal-workers get proficient enough at making their stove that they will be able to dedicate themselves to it. It seems also that there is a problem with the amount of money that EnterpriseWorks has available in a rotating fund for buying raw materials – it isn’t large enough to supply them with a steady stream. After visiting the metal worker and chatting with them for a bit we drove around the town to visit the retailers of the stove. Dad asked questions like how much it sells for, why people buy it, do they themselves use it, are their customers happy with it after having bought it, etc. It seems like most people are very pleased with the stove. It is advertised as paying for itself in six weeks with what it saves in charcoal (because it is more efficient) and people seem to be noticing and appreciating its value, so that is good.
We had a less positive visit to Cape Coast in that we visited a shop of metal workers who were trained to manufacture Dad’s stove and given money to buy the raw materials but have yet to produce the stoves. Dad’s colleague thinks that they used the money for something else and are now having trouble coming up with the money to buy the materials for the stoves they are being held accountable for. Dad told them that if they don’t produce the stoves they will not be given a second chance to work with EnterpriseWorks (who again loans them money to purchase the raw material and guarantees the purchase of every stove they make that is up to par – all they have to do is make the stoves); they promised to have the stoves ready by next Friday. I am very skeptical. It is odd because they had several metal bodies ready to be completed with ceramic liners, but instead they were rusting in a pile. It doesn’t make much sense.
We left the metal workshop around 4:00 and went to the Cape Coast Castle. According to my Lonely Planet book for West Africa, Cape Coast was the largest slave-trading center in West Africa (p.359), and the enslaved-Africans were imprisoned in the “castle”/fort before being loaded onto ships for the trans-Atlantic passage. At first I was a little disappointed because, upon entering, we were lead to a museum with a generic history of the slave-trade and what I really wanted was a tour of the castle. I got my tour of the castle afterwards, but delayed our return to Accra by an hour and a half. Oops. I can’t really say I enjoyed the tour, because that isn’t an appropriate word when you are walking in places where thousands of people were enslaved and imprisoned in inhumane conditions, but I found it interesting and was glad to have had the chance to see that bit of Ghanaian history. It wasn’t the first time I toured a fort like that – Dad and I visited the Ile de Gorée in Senegal when I was sixteen, but it was still impressive to be in the same damp, dark dungeons where people were held captive hundreds of years ago. The dungeons only had two little windows for air and light and a space through which a spy could eavesdrop on the enslaved people’s conversations. Ironically, the chapel was built right over the dungeon.
By the time we got back to Accra, it was dark and after eight. I felt a little badly because Dad’s colleague still had one to two hour drive across the city before he would be home.
After getting dropped off at the hotel, we went out for brochettes at the same little roadside restaurant we had frequented the night before.
On Saturday Dad and I explored the city together. We first checked out the station where I could get a bus ticket back to the Ghana-Togo border. I bought a ticket for 5:30 on Monday morning. We then walked through the market – for some reason it seemed just a little less claustrophobic than Lome’s market. I think that because Accra has many large markets, no one of them is as big as Lome’s Grand Marche, but that is just a thought – I have no way of confirming it.
We walked to Osu and got ice cream at Frankie’s. We shared eight scoops of mango sherbert. It was heavenly and we saved $3 because 4 scoops costs 4 cedis and 8 scoops only costs 5 cedis, so instead of getting four and four like we had the other night, we got eight and shared it. I love saving money and eating ice cream at the same time! We then got really brave and hopped on a tro-tro (vans that cruise around the city on somewhat pre-determined routes and pick up passengers). We were surprised at how cheap it was. We had been dropping between three and five cedis every time we took a cab and this was only 35 peswas. It wove in and out of Accra’s haphazard streets and we had to walk a bit before arriving at our destination, Palm Hotel (a super upscale, must be five star plus hotel). We were going to have a drink there, but the beach looked too alluring and so we walked over to a place where you could pay to get beach access and spent the late morning, early afternoon strolling and sitting on the beach. It was the first time I had walked in the ocean since arriving in Togo and had I brought my suit I might have swam. The water looked relatively clean even if it did have some plastic bags floating in it. The beach wasn’t exactly what you would call peaceful because there were a lot of ambulatory vendors hawking all sorts of touristy items, but it was still lovely to be right by the ocean, walk on the sand and in the water, pick up sea shells, and drink pineapple juice.
We were a little hungry and Dad had been raving about a Ghanaian dish called “red red” for days, so we decided to order a plate and share. Beans probably wasn’t the best idea because it took about two hours to be ready and ended up being only a plate of black-eyed peas with palm oil and fried plantains. The fried plantains were good, but I wasn’t impressed by the beans. I can get the same thing in Togo for about 50 cFA (about $0.20; minus the plantains, but still) and at this beachfront joint it cost 5 cedis ($5.00). Around 2:00 we left the beach and took a tro-tro to a station called 37 (after a military hospital) and then a multiple person taxi to the neighborhood of our hotel. We ate dinner at our friendly local restaurant except this time I had fufu and chicken and Dad had rice and chicken.
Sunday, after eating breakfast at the hotel, we waited for a man to show up with Lowell Fuglie’s moringa book (according to Dad, Fuglie is the Father of Moringa). We had been trying to cross paths with this man all week and finally got to meet him. His name is George and he has a moringa “plantation” in the Ho district of Ghana and said that Ashley and I can visit him there. Lowell Fuglie lives in the northern part of Ghana and apparently has 90 or 900 (?), anyway, a lot of acres of moringa, so hopefully, after our moringa workshop in Burkina Faso, Ashley and I can convince our APCD to let us visit those two moringa experts in Ghana.
After meeting up with George Dad and I decided to go on a self-guided city tour using tro-tros. We figured it would be fun, allow us to see the city, help us figure out our way around and in the long run (and even the short run) save us a lot of money on transportation. So we hopped on a tro-tro going to “circle” (Nkrumah Circle). You really have to get a hang of the trotro system before being able to use it effectively because they yell out incomprehensible things like “circircircircircle” and you are supposed to understand that that means Nkrumah Circle. But since our purpose was the riding of the tro-tros in and of itself and not to arrive at any particular destination, it was fun. After “circle” we jumped on one to “La Paz” (on the outskirts of the city) and then to 37 and then out to Quarshie and cruised around the shopping mall and then we jumped in a tro-tro to Osu and had eight more scoops of mango sherbet and then continued on again towards circle, but before we arrived we got out to meet friend’s of Dad’s for lunch at Champs. We had burned up several hours riding tro-tros around the city, but we were still early for our 3:00 lunch date. We sat in Champs and drank for an hour before they arrived and then had a nice lunch with them. The woman was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger when Mom was the PCMO there and the man now works for CARE. They had said that I could stay with them while visiting Ghana, but, unfortunately for me, they are moving to Madagascar next month. They extended the invitation to Madagascar, but somehow I’m not sure I’ll get there.
After lunch we tro-troed back to our hotel and then Dad paced around the room until it was time for him to leave for the airport and I watched a movie. He left for the airport around 6:00 and I just finished the movie I was watching and then went on to watch four more movies. One diamond-seeking-adventure movie, a movie with Jennifer Anniston and Jane Cusack, and then a short South-African movie about this rich white man that needs to get to the airport and has all these problems in the process (like a baby in the middle of the road and getting locked out of his car) – it was hilarious. And then I watched Armageddon and cried until my eyes were puffy. I had forgotten how good a movie it is.
Before going to bed I spoke with the night clerk about getting a taxi at 4:00 in the morning to take me to the bus station. I didn’t sleep well, though, because I was nervous about not waking up in time (I set the alarm on my phone, but didn’t trust it to work) and kept waking up every fifteen minutes or so to check my watch. I got up at 3:30, got ready and then went downstairs to ask them to get me a taxi. I didn’t think they would find one so quickly, but they did and it was a nice one. Again, I was nervous because it was dark and I was in a city I don’t know particularly well and headed to a rather shady part of town, but everything was fine and I was at the taxi station before 4:30. That was a relief, but I still had an hour before the bus was supposed to leave. Better safe than sorry I guess. But real kicker, though, was the fact that the bus didn’t actually leave until 6:30. I was annoyed, but tried to sleep it off and slept most of the way to Aflao on the Ghana-Togo border.
Crossing into Togo was annoying and tiresome, but again no-one gave me a really hard time. I ended up walking from the border to the Peace Corps office, though, because the taxi drivers wanted to charge me 2,000 cFA to go a distance that I know shouldn’t be more than 300. I was dripping with sweat (my hair looked like I had just stepped out of the shower) by the time I arrived and then had to run around the office dealing with passport issues for Burkina etc. and catch up with friends from my stage that I hadn’t seen in a while like Tig, Steph, Natasha, Regina, Allison, and Ashley (not my Ashley). A lot of people were in Lome because the new CHAP/SED Stage just arrived on Saturday. Believe it or not (I don’t), yesterday (the 9th) was our one year anniversary of being in Togo (pat on the back =0).
After doing errands, chatting with friends, and struggling through the painfully slow internet to at least send emails to my parents and Jorge to report my safe arrival back in Togo (home sweet home), I loaded my stuff up went to the bank and then had the easiest, quickest Lome departure of my life. Fabiola, a GEE volunteer from the Stage after mine, accompanied me to Notse. We tried a new strategy, going to the University of Lome rather than the taxi station and got a car to Notse in less than two minutes. We left the Bureau around 2:45, went to the bank, and were in Notse, at Ashley’s house, by 5:00. That is Guiness record timing.
It was great to see Ashley again and Giz (my kitten) has grown a lot. He is still peeing on everything though, I don’t know how to get him to stop that . . .
Ashley, Fabiola and I hung out and had French toast for dinner. This morning (Tuesday) Ashley and Fabiola headed up to Atakpame and I decided to delay my arrival in village by another day so as to catch up on this fabulous log =0). Today I went to the market, picked up Gizmo’s padded lining for his chariot, fixed one of my soccer balls and then pretty much just sat in front of this computer typing away. Now I am sick and tired of looking and little letters on my screen and am planning on watching a movie or something. Tomorrow I will bike to Agbatit – I have to be there by 6:45 because one of my groups of Peer Educators should be presenting – and the I will only be in village until Friday when I will come back to Notse because on Saturday a Peace Corps driver will pick Ashley and I up in Notse to take us to Dapaong where we will spend the night before continuing to Burkina Faso for the moringa workshop.
6/10/08 through 6/13/08
That was the shortest time I have ever spent in village – 48 hours at most. Wednesday I left Giz at Ashley’s house and biked to Agbatitoe in time for the 7:00 presentation of my Peer Educators after the raising of the flag. Ironically, the Director of the school chastised the students for being late when he himself was late. The trio was presenting HIV/AIDS and did a very good job. I was proud of them. Afterwards I backtracked to Rodokpe to speak with the director of the primary school there. I tried to arrange for one of my groups of Peer Educators to do an HIV presentation there and then I biked to Avassikpe, arriving around 9:30. I was very happy to see all the empty space in my garden, meaning all my moringa seedlings have been planted (or stolen, is it bad that I don’t really care which?). The other surprise that awaited me was that both Tsevi’s wife and a woman who lives near me gave birth to baby girls while I was away. I visited the women, gawked at the babies, did laundry (lots and lots of laundry), made okra and ademan sauce for pâte and collected prizes for my Peer Educators. I am going to recognize the students who came to every class, the students who have the least lates, the student who participate the most in class, etc and I am putting together a box of things that they can pick from as a reward – things like soaps, toothbrushes, little tubes of toothpaste, chap stick, shampoos, body soap, little deoderants, etc. and the best part is that I didn’t buy any of it, they are all things that I have gradually collected.
I spent some time sitting with DaJulie in the afternoon and in the evening I went to thank the Pastor for planting the remaining seedlings. Apparently he and Tsevi planted them – I can’t believe even he wasn’t able to mobilize more people that than . . . anyway, somewhere in the course of our conversation, I explained the concept of WWJD to him (what would Jesus do). I told him that it used to be a big thing in the States and that it was on T-shirts and things, but for some reason he thought it was very original and profound and now thinks I am called to be an evangelist. When I tried to explain that not everyone’s calling in life is evangelism, that I prefer to allow my actions and my life “preach” for me, he read a verse from Mark that says that everyone is called to preach the word of God and informed me that I was just scared, but that that would wear off as I gain experience. He is determined that I will be a preacher by the time I leave Avassikpe, asked me to give a sermon one day at church and loaded me up with reading materials. Great. So the planting of my trees comes with a price. Just kidding, I don’t think it is that contrived.
Early Thursday morning I biked to Agbatitoe for another presentation by my Peer Educators, this time on teenage and unwanted pregnancies and again I was impressed and pleased by the way in which my students pulled everything together. Afterwards I biked to Rodokpe again to try to reschedule the presentation there. We couldn’t find a convenient date for both parties, though, so I decided that the last group would just do a repeat HIV/AIDS presentation for the youngest of the classes at the CEG (middle school) in Agbatit? I wanted to get it done and over with, as did, I am sure, my students.
I went home to Avassikpe and made pâte on my charcoal stove and roasted corn that the director of the CEG had given me. Jerome was scheduled to come for an Ewe lesson, but he called to say that he would be late. In the meantime I wrote up a list of questions about water use and preference that I want him to translate into Ewe and then I filled in the names of my Peer Educators on their certificates and signed them. And then I puttered around. Jerome hadn’t specified how late he would be, but he didn’t arrive until after 2:00. Just before, I went to the dispensaire to drop off the numbers for the vaccination day on Friday and to inform them that I wouldn’t be present. I also asked about the medication for the Shisto that they keep saying they will order and their answer angered me. They (Lili and the infirmier) say that the dispensaire isn’t willing to invest in buying a medication that they are not sure will sell. They aren’t convinced that people are willing to pay for the medication to cure Shisto and don’t want to buy a shipment of it and then end up high and dry. The matter is complicated by the fact that the dosage is a multiple of the patient’s weight and so could end up being quite expensive. Inconveniently, I can’t go around saying that the treatment is only 250 francs because one pill is 250 francs and for every so many kilos the person needs to take an additional pill. They want me to foot the bill, but I don’t know why I should be willing to foot the bill when they are not; the dispensaire has the money. It makes me angry that they aren’t taking a more proactive stance on this issue.
My Ewe lesson went fine, except that Jerome didn’t eat enough of the pâte I had prepared and left me with more pâte than I knew what to do with.
After the lesson, I went into my garden to weed/hoe it and worked until dark, managing, with the help of some small boys, to hoe the whole thing. As a happy side note, some of the moringa trees I planted around my garden are as tall as I am.
Today, Friday, I got up early amidst a steady drizzle. It had poured during the night with ferocious winds, so I guess I should have been thankful that it had now tapered to a drizzle. I packed my bike, trying to waterproof my things as best I could, closed up my house and biked to Agbatitoe in the rain. Lately, whenever I want to bike out, the rain has turned the road into a mucky, muddy mess. It took me more than double the time it normally takes me and I just kept thinking that leaving Giz at Ashley’s was a great move – if he had been riding with me in the rain it would have been torturous for the both of us.
My students’ presentations started late because of the rain, but they went well – one on self affirmation and another one on HIV/AIDS. I am relieved to have them over and done with. I biked out of Agbatit at 9:00 and was blessed by a momentary “cease-drizzle.” I arrived at Jerome’s village right on schedule; we had agreed the day before that I would stop by on my way to Notse to see his newborn baby girl (three weeks old). She is precious. I ended up spending more than three hours holding the sleeping angel in my arms while chatting with Jerome, eating bean beignets, pâte and sauce, and then some fried manioc balls.
I learned that the reason people in my village are talking about cotton and debt is that they receive fertilizer and pesticide on credit and some of them sell it for much less than it is worth just to make a quick buck (or a quick franc) and then the cotton they produce is not enough to cover their costs. What I don’t understand, though, is why they don’t realize that they are the ones who will pay the difference in the end. If it is a 11,000 cFA bag of fertilizer that they sell for 6,000, they themselves are out 5,000 cFA. It’s stupid.
Other than that we just chatted and I ooed and ahhed over the baby. The rain continued until finally, around 1:30 it seemed to be clearing and I took my leave only to find the front tire on my bike completely flat. Jerome helped me pump it up and it got me the rest of the way to Notse where I was happily reunited with Ashley and Giz (who just peed on my toothpaste, Giz, not Ashley. Anyone know why a cat might insist on peeing everywhere other than his litter box even though he poos in his litter box?)
Now I am going to try to make Ashley some hummus because she has been craving it and I failed in my mission to bring her some from Lome.
6/14/08 and 6/15/08
The last two days have been long, but stimulating (in both good and bad ways =0). We spent nine hours in the car yesterday and eight hours today. Yesterday Ashley and I got picked up in Notse around 8:30 and rode in the Peace Corps car all the way to Dapaong. Gizmo rode with us. At the beginning he was a little whiny, but eventually he calmed down and slept most of the way. I was proud of him until we got out at the maison (Peace Corps transit house) in Dapaong and he got into a tiff with a dog and scratched me in the face as I tried to lift him to safety. That’s what you get for trying to save a life.
The ride was long and tiring. I can’t imagine what it would be like in a bush taxi – I do not envy the volunteers who live up north and have to make the trip on a regular basis. Other than that, what can I say? We saw a lot of scenery. Northern Togo is definitely has less vegetation than southern Togo, but it is rainy season and so it is still pretty green (nothing compared to Burkina Faso which is brown brown brown even though it is rainy season – maybe the rainy season hasn’t even started here yet). The biggest difference I noticed in the north is that the villages are structured differently. The family compounds are very separate from other family compound and form these cute little rings of rectangular and round mud-brick buildings complete with grain storage and often surrounded by fields whereas down south, the fields are far away from the villages and all on the outside of the houses which are clumped haphazardly together. There is so much space between the compounds in the north that they resemble miniature villages in and of themselves. It is really quite picturesque right now with the brown houses against a vibrant grassy green background, you know, the green of new shoots of grass. Personally, Ashley and I don’t know what the northerners complain about in terms of scenery, but I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Ok, enough about the grass.
Dapaong seems like a large, spread out town, with mostly mud-brick houses and washed out dirt roads. I didn’t get a great idea of the lay of the land because by the time we arrived and settled into the maison it was dark. I went to Helen’s house (another CHAP volunteer from my stage) to drop Gizmo off (she is babysitting him for the week; I kind of feel badly because I am not sure she knows what she is getting herself into; it is like when you have children and babysitters only come once and then run for their lives because your children are so poorly behaved =0). Ok, so he isn’t that bad, just hyperactive and pees on everything). We then walked to get dinner, but like I said, it was dark so I didn’t see too much.
Today we left Dapaong at 7:00 and headed north. The Togo-Burkina Faso border wasn’t nearly as crowded or difficult as either the Benin-Togo or Ghana-Togo borders and we didn’t have any problems crossing. Ashley and I were in the back of the land-cruiser for the whole trip today (sacrificing ourselves for the greater good, such martyrs that we are) and so it was a little uncomfortable and at times sickening, but we did alright. As we drove north, the landscape got more and more barren, to the point in which it was just rocks and trees. I couldn’t help but think that the people in Avassikpe have no idea how good they have it. Here (in Burkina Faso) the land is so rocky and infertile that they dig holes fill them with compost and then plant a grain of millet. Inevitably, the size of their farms ends up being much smaller because it is much more labor intensive to get the land to produce. I can’t imagine trying to hoe the dirt here – it is so hard and dry.
The other differences I have noticed so far are that there are a LOT of bicycles, a lot of women on bicycles (with babies on their backs =0) and perhaps less taxis and motos, interestingly enough. Even though Ouahigouya is a pretty big town, there is no public transportation. There are a lot of donkeys, though, which is something we don’t see too much of in Togo. Here they use the donkeys for transport and for plowing the very rocky ground (and so the raised rows are less pronounced than in Togo).
Other than that, we ate some wild grapes. Well, ate is a bit of an overstatement, sucked on because you can’t really eat them. On the topic of food, some volunteers told us that you could get great hamburgers, French fries, and milkshakes at the American cultural center and the other people in the car (NRM – Natural Resource Management – APCD and Togolese homologues and drivers) led us to believe that we would stop there for lunch, but we didn’t. Ougagdougou .looks really nice, but we had no time to explore and just drove through it. There is a big ecological reserve inside the bounds of the city, lots of nice buildings, a cool looking museum, and working traffic lights (but the streets are more congested than in Ghana). The others promised that we will have hamburgers on the way back and explore a bit; I’m not holding my breath.
Our conference is at the Burkina volunteers’ training center and it is quite nice (although a dump compared to the hotel with a pool where the APCDs are staying; go figure . . . =0). The best part, perhaps, is having the opportunity to speak with volunteers from all the surrounding countries (Benin, Ghana, Niger, but, oddly enough, not Mali) and share stories and experiences. We just got back from dinner and lots of chatting, but are pretty pooped from the ride and are planning to crash. Ahead: three days of moringa, but I am excited and hope to learn a lot even though it is much more of a workshop than a conference. In fact, I heard that there really isn’t anyone from outside leading the conference, just a facilitator to make sure things run more or less smoothly.
6/16/08 and 6/17/08
Two days down. Aside from the water conference in Ghana (and that was a REAL conference, not a Peace Corps event), this is by far the best training I have attended since being in Togo. Even though we have to translate everything into three languages (English (for the Ghana volunteers and counterparts and some of the Niger volunteers), French (for Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso and Niger) and Zarma (for two Niger counterparts who don’t understand any French), the topics of discussion manage to keep my attention and interest. On that note, I am really impressed by the Niger volunteers. Of all the volunteers, they are the only ones who have serious local language skills. Perhaps they can’t speak French (some of them honestly can’t), but they can speak either Zarma or Hausa and to me that is impressive. I don’t know if they are showing off just a little, but they even speak local language amongst themselves. They are started on local language as soon as they step foot in country and don’t really receive any French training at all because local language is so much more important. Apparently Zarma is a little like Ewe in that it is a relatively “simple” language (no verb conjugation, composite, few tenses, few pronouns), but Hausa is more “sophisticated” – this is one of the things that I like most about this conference – the volunteers are amazing, really an amazing group of people. There is none of the pervasive negativity and cynicism that sometimes gets overwhelming in Peace Corps Togo (and the other countries as well I am sure). Everyone is excited and more or less positive (they aren’t naively idealistic, but they are well settled into their Peace Corps service, more-or-less comfortable in their roles and maintain a more-or-less positive outlook) and that is a very refreshing change from the “b*tchfests” that often monopolize conversation in Togo. It is exhilarating to hear about everyone else’s experiences, interests, and activities and meet fascinating new people. We have a lot of similar experiences, but a lot of different experiences as well and right now I am most thankful for having had the opportunity to interact with such a great group of people while attending this conference (that sounds a little cheesy . . . oh well, its true).
In addition to interesting volunteers, there are interesting counterparts. We have among us the uncle of the King of the Ashanti people of Ghana who is himself an important chief. He wears an extremely thick (thicker than my thumb) gold chain around his neck and a huge gold turtle ring (the Ghana volunteers say that it may just be real gold), a special pagne that he wraps around himself and over one shoulder and funky black leather sandals with a black leather pom-pom (it looks like a spider) on top. We also have two men from Niger, one of whom is from a certain ethnicity that, according to cultural norms, must cover their heads with a turban (apparently rather common in Niger), but also, when around strangers, their mouths. There are only three women counterparts attending the workshop, two from Niger and one from Burkina, and, actually, they are not counterparts, but rather Peace Corps staff.
Now about the content of the workshop itself – yay moringa! Surprisingly, I haven’t yet (there’s still tomorrow) had an insuppressible desire to shoot myself in the head during this workshop as I frequently do during other Peace Corps trainings. Yesterday we spent the whole day talking about what everyone is doing in their respective countries, at their respective posts. For the most part, that was very interesting. The APCD from Niger is a little overbearing (apparently she was recently promoted to the position of APCD and is trying to “prove herself”). She was dominating the dialogue for a while which was grating on the nerves not only because we wanted to hear from everyone, but because every five seconds she punctuated her speech with “you know, I mean.” I actually counted and in one minute she repeated that phrase thirteen times! It seems as though Benin and Niger have been riding the moringa train for the longest and so their programs are more advanced and well-developed. Togo and Burkina are in the same car and Ghana is just getting on board (not to say that there isn’t moringa production in Ghana, but Peace Corps volunteers are just starting to get moringa training).
We have been discussing the technical aspects of moringa production, but also how to most effectively train Peace Corps Volunteers to work with moringa and how to develop a comprehensive Moringa manual with all the resources currently available. We also talked about the medicinal properties of moringa in treating diabetes, hemorrhoids, tape-worm, eye/ear infections, amoebic dysentery, typhoid, arthritis, snake bites, asthma, etc, but were strictly warned not to try these home remedies on ourselves without PCMO authorization or to prescribe these remedies to others. It was made clear that our emphasis needs to be on the value of moringa as a nutritional supplement and not as a medicine. We spoke about pest control and some of the suggested concoctions include and combination of ash, pepper, tobacco, or neem leaves and soapy water. I also read in one of my gardening books that if you collect a couple of handfuls of any pest, mash them up, dilute with water, strain out the liquid and spray it on your plants that it will discourage the pest. Another person suggested spraying a manure tea on your plants for fertilization and to discourage goats and sheep from nibbling.
Today we talked a lot about the compilation of some sort of Moringa manual. We broke into groups and my group was assigned the topic of community involvement in moringa trainings. At first I thought it would be boring, but it developed into a good discussion even though two overbearing counterparts (the chief and one of the Nigerienne women) dominated the exchange.
The best part of the day, however, was the cooking demonstration lead by the team from Niger. They made a moringa bouillie, moringa beignets, and two variations of a dish called copto. The bouillie was pretty much just enriched bouillie (corn or millet flour, milk powder, peanut butter, sugar, water) that was further enriched with moringa powder. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to taste it. The beignets were plain wheat flour beignets with moringa powder and were good with sugar. They sort of tasted like a tea doughnut if you can imagine such a thing. I think it might be a good addition to a slightly spicy bean beignet. The copto, however, was my favorite. First you steam the moringa leaves and then, after letting them cool, you mix them with white hibiscus flowers (that have been boiled to reduce bitterness), peanut butter, pounded garlic and hot pepper, thin slices of onion, pounded chicken stock and perhaps a little water. The variation is to add couscous or gari and tomatoes to that mixture. Perhaps it doesn’t sound too appetizing, but it is delicious and would be a fantastic spread on crackers or bread (for Americans) and perhaps a new meal for Togolese. I am excited to experiment with moringa in my cooking and slowly introduce it to the people in my village through the women who engage me in battles of culinary reciprocity. I ate so many moringa packed products that I wasn’t hungry for dinner – I probably got a weeks’ worth of vitamins this afternoon =0).
Two other tidbits that I learned today: every year at the beginning of the rainy season you should cut your moringa tree off completely at its trunk (so just a stalk remains) and, you know that the seed pods are ready to harvest if you hit them with a stick and they explode sending seeds in every direction (apparently a fun activity to do with village children).
6/18/08 through 6/21/08
The last day of the workshop in Ouahigouya was ok, but not as interesting as the previous two days – it was more bureaucratic stuff and I have to admit I tuned it all out for a while; some discussion about Peace Corps Volunteers relationship with government policy . . . The main task for the third day was to design a table of contents for a moringa manual and divide up the different sections by country so that we will have a comprehensive document on how to grow, maintain and use moringa. Right now, as far as anyone knows, there is no such document. The information is out there, but scattered all over the place and so the task that we have given ourselves is to compile all that information in one, easily accessible place. A pdf document is our primary goal, but perhaps someday the document will be published. The task was complicated by differing views on whether we should have lofty or more practical goals. In other words, should we aim for a comprehensive manual or a more concise packet with the most important points. We decided to aim high. Ashley and I are going to work on the many uses of moringa – how all the different parts of the plant can be used, but also, for example how moringa can be intercropped with other plants, used as a live fence, used for animal feed or fertilizer etc. I wanted to do the Nutrition section, but a volunteer from Níger was selected; however, the uses will be interesting and not too complicated because there is a lot of information on how moringa can be used.
We ended the day around 3:30 after a visit from the local authorities so we could mutually pay our respects. The Niger volunteers left immediately, but Togo volunteers + one Ghana volunteer took a little tour of the town courtesy of Tomas, our driver. We went to see the tomb of an evil king who, according to local legend, cemented virgins into the pillars of his palace and had all the baby boys killed King Herod style. Apparently he died after a mother, who had been instructed to pound her baby boy to death with a mother and pestle, turned on him instead. Any king who makes a full circle around the tomb will meet the same death. None of the people in the car were royalty, but we only drove three-quarters of the way around the tomb just to be safe. We then walked around the market a little and went back to the hotel to join the rest of the volunteers for a drink. Ouahigouya is Burkina Faso’s Peace Corps training site and so the town was full of current volunteers who were helping with the training and also trainees who had arrived less than a week before.
We left Ouahigouya at 6:00 on Thursday morning so that we would have time for “the Quest for the Holy Hamburger” upon reaching Ouagadougou. We had been told that the hamburgers at the Rec Center on U.S. Embassy grounds were to die for and so we decided that we were up for the challenge. It didn’t matter that we ended up eating cheeseburgers and French fries (and milkshakes!) at 9:30 in the morning; it was the first hamburger I have had since being in Togo and it was DELICIOUS and not even overpriced. Afterwards we continued on our merry way, bellies full and happy. We (the PCVs) later regretted not having gotten one to go. =0)
Ashley and I sat in the way back of the landcruiser on bench seats that face each other and talked about our plans for a moringa social marketing campaign. We want to get funding through a Peace Corps Partnership to market moringa in and around Notse. Right now we are thinking along the lines of billboards, radio shows, perhaps a song about the virtues and multiple uses of moringa, skits, T-shirts, pamphlets, and maybe even a fair with different “booths” to demonstrate moringa’s multiple uses. All of this will depend on how much money we are able to raise. We decided that we will make a graduated budget, prioritizing on what we will do if we raise x amount, what we will do if we raise 2x amount and what we will do if we raise 3x amount, etc. A Peace Corps Partnership is a program by which you solicit funding from your family and friends, Girl-Scout cookie or Band-Trip style. I told Ashley that most of my family and friends already donate a large chunk of their income to various charitable organizations and that I might not be able to raise much, but even $20 here goes a long way and Ashley says that many of her friends and family have asked about ways in which they could “help out” so . . . we will see. We aren’t planning to market a particular moringa product, just moringa in general and so anyone who is forward thinking enough can hop on the moringa train and profit from the moringa social marketing campaign that we hope to stage. One of our primary obstacles will be convincing Ashley’s organization and homologue that they need to stay out of the campaign. Because ADAC (Ashley’s organization) is mostly known as an organization for people living with HIV/AIDS, we are afraid that if moringa becomes irreversibly associated with ADAC that, first of all, no one will want to sell it for fear that people will assume that they are HIV+ and, secondly, that no one will want to consume it for fear, obviously misplaced, of somehow contracting HIV through the moringa or just because it is associated with the disease. Unfortunately, Ashley’s homologue likes to have a hand in every pie on the planet and so our first challenge will be to convince him that, in order for the marketing campaign to succeed, ADAC needs to remain very low profile. It is unfortunate that we have to tip-toe around HIV/AIDS here, but the reality is that the stigmatization that accompanies the disease and the misconceptions that surround it could easily sabotage our efforts.
We got to Dapaong around 3:30 and then Ashley and I borrowed bikes and followed an older volunteer to a weavers co-op. They make absolutely beautiful hand-woven cloth. I thought some placemats would be a nice wedding gift for someone, but as of now, I don’t know anyone who is getting married and so I didn’t buy anything. Maybe another day.
Afterwards we went to visit Gizmo at Helen’s house. He was doing well and managed to get along, more-or-less, with Helen’s cat. Helen’s cat is full grown, but he tolerated Gizmo’s hyperactive childish play pretty well and was gentle with him. We went out to eat and have a drink and then we were going to watch a movie but we were all too tired and after only about half an hour we went to bed. Ashley, myself, and two other girls ended up talking to midnight, though, so needless to say on Friday I was exhausted. I felt as though I had been deprived (deprived myself really) of sleep for many consecutive days. Gizmo and I slept together in the back of the car on the way down through Togo. Ashley got off in Kara to visit Lauren, another CHAP volunteer from our stage. I wanted to stay, but I had Gizmo with me and didn’t want to pass up on the free ride down to Notse in a Peace Corps car. Also, I have been out of village so much lately and I am going down to Lome on Thursday for a AIDS Ride meeting so I need to get back and show my face in my village before they forget who I am =0) and plant my garden and get busy on my new projects: garden, water survey, baby-weighing, moringa social marketing campaign, my sections of the moringa manual, etc.
Yesterday I arrived in Notse around 3:00 and fixed the flat tire on my bike. It was a bit of a hassle because I had to take Gizmo’s cage off and then the tire etcetera, etcetera, but I was proud of myself for doing it successfully. I then showered and started to watch the movie Love Actually. Effoh stopped by after his study-group and I showed him pictures from Ghana and Burkina before he left. He is worn out because he has been studying really hard for his exam on July 7th. I really hope he passes. He has already failed once, and I don’t think his family will put him through another year of school. He deserves to pass.
I tried to finish watching my movie, but my computer was misbehaving and I tried Ashley’s but it didn’t work either and so I gave up and went to bed exhausted around 8:00.
Today, Saturday, I am planning on going to the market and then to do internet (I hope, I hope it is open and working!) and then I will bike back to village this afternoon.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
5/21/08 through 5/31/08
5/21/08 – 5/23/08
I am reluctant to write because my funk persists in hanging over my head and I don’t have that many positive things to say, so I will just hit the particularly high and low points so that everyone knows that I am still alive. I have decided that my mood is not due exclusively to my monthly cycle (although its beginning stages may have been aggravated by that, but rather to the fact that I am in between projects, restless and ready to begin new endeavors, but held back by the prolonged completion of old projects, particularly my moringa seedlings and my peer educator course. I am anxious to be finished with both and to be freed to move on to different activities like baby weighing in surrounding villages to identify malnourished children and work to improve their health.
The good news is that I am pretty sure my funk will go away once my moringa trees are in the ground and my P.E. certificates in the hands of my students. In the mean time, my mood is bungy jumping off cliffs every few minutes.
The last to days have been rough. I had a hard time getting out of Lome on Wednesday. After picking up my passport at the Ghanain Embassy, complete with a two year multiple entry visa that cost me $150.00, I tried to avoid the gare (taxi station where vans take hours to fill up) and waited for a car on the side of the road. Strangely, though, when the van was full, instead of heading straight north, up the route nationale to Notse, the chauffeur drove us to the gare where we all had to get out and buy official tickets and wait for the authorized car to fill. I climbed into the van when it looked like it was ready to leave and ended up suffocating in the far back corner for over half an hour. I had to experiment with calming breathing tactics in order not to scream or frantically make everyone move so as to escape my prison of metal and firmly packed, seating, stinking bodies. None of this improved my mood and I as also stressed about not getting to my PE course on time.
I ended up having to take a car to my course from Notse after a brief stop and shower at Ashley’s. It has also been uncustomarily hot and humid which added to my discomfort and annoyance.
My PE class was disappointing as well. When I arrived at 3:00, the class was empty. Eventually students trickled in, but all my troisieme (the highest grade level in my course) were in a class next door. I had been hoping to finish my PE course and my trees before going to Ghana to meet up with my Dad, but it isn’t to be. Due to exams and things, my students won’t be able to finish their final projects until the week after I return. Whatever. Every cloud, or almost every cloud, has a silver lining if you look hard enough. So now I will have more time to get my certificates signed by my APCD and the final projects hopefully won’t be rushed and mediocre. Unfortunately, I can’t help but wonder what, if anything, my students have gleaned from the course because they can’t seem to reproduce anything but memorized fragments of what I have tried to teach them.
After class, the Director got me a ride back to Notse with the local Director of the Ministry of Fish and Agriculture who told me where I could buy fertilizer for my garden. I spent the night at Ashleys and then did some errands – I went and bought fertilizer and foodstuffs. The fertilizer delayed me a while because I had to wait for the man in charge to return and advise me on how much fertilizer I would need and how to use it.
I also picked up the kitten carrier I had made. It had been grating on my nerves as well because it wasn’t exactly what I thought I wanted, but now that I have it mounted on my bike I realize that the metal-worker did a very good job. Not only is it functional, but also pretty and I have modified my mental vision to accommodate its non-conformity. Flexible of me, eh?
In the afternoon, after disposing of two batches of baby mice birthed in Ashley’s bedroom (I just put them in a field where they will probably die because they are not yet self-sufficient), and eating fried rice for lunch, we went to Heather’s to chat. Gizmo and Heather’s huger German Shepherd – Zemijan – began a rather rocky friendship. Zemi was very well behaved, friendly and not at all threatening, but Gizmo turned into a spitting cobra with a mohawk and bottle-brush tail. He kind of looked like he was being electrocuted because of the way his hair was standing on end.
I biked back to village with Gizmo in his new chariot. He didn’t love it, but he didn’t hate it. It was a little difficult because I have to adjust my balance to accommodate the unusual weight on the front of my bike, but we did alright. Halfway to Agbatitoe, a car with two screaming yovos, Heather and Ashley, pulled over in front of me. After asking “what are you psychos doing?” I realized that Ashley had my purse, including my keys and wallet, in her hand. Ashley really saved my butt, I don’t know what I would have done when I pulled up to my house as it was getting dark and realized that I didn’t have my keys.
While at Heather’s, Ashley and I fashioned a harness and leash for Gizmo out of strips of pagne and so, after settling back into my house and showering, Gizmo and I went to lie in the hammock. It was very refreshing.
Today, Friday, I don’t have much to do. I am pretty much just hanging out until the afternoon when I have a peer educator course. I think I will study Ewe for a bit, make lunch, go to the market and just bum around.
--
I went to the market in Agbatitoe and found a fish pagne to use to make a protective padding for Gizmo’s carrier. I like it. I also bought a heavy duty mosquito net for drying fruits and vegetables. My parents brought me a tent-like structure with shelves in it, but it is pretty airtight and so I am going to ask Mana to copy it with this mosquito netting. Keeping bugs out while allowing air circulation is what is most important I think. We will see.
I also paid a long overdue visit to the dispensaire in Agbatitoe to ask permission for my PE students to give a talk on diarrhea. I felt a bit sheepish because I really should have gone and introduced myself months ago.
My PE class was just ok. Even with the detailed lesson plans that I made for each of the groups, their presentations were mediocre and I made each group except one do it two, three times.
5/24/08
Today Ashley came to Avassikpe on her own for the fist time and distracted me from what might have otherwise been a depressing day. It is my mom’s birthday and one of my good friends from high school’s wedding. Ashley was specifically coming to Avassikpe to pick up cookies that I made for Tig as a birthday present. Her birthday is May 27th and the girls are all going to Ghana to celebrate. I decided not to go because with Dad’s visit a week later it would be too much vacation and too much Ghana. And so I sent cookies in my stead. Craisin, almond, oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip. The cookies might even be more appreciated than my presence =0). I started baking at 6:00 this morning and finished around 2:00. In between I neatened my house. Ashley arrived around 11:00 and we chatted, finished baking and then made spaghetti and garlic bread and had a delicious lunch.
I tried to convince her to spend the night, but she is going to Lome tomorrow and had some things to do at home first. She left around 4:30.
Around noon I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday. In the evening, after Ashley left, I received a call from Jorge’s mother which was very nice. She is delighted by the prospect of Jorge and I visiting her in Italy.
For some reason I feel as though this week is going to be a long one. Perhaps because I don’t have much to do. Maybe I ill make the “beds for my garden. If only the seedlings weren’t in the way . . .”
5/25/08 and 5/26/08
This is decidedly my longest lasting funk since coming to Togo – right about at the year mark. I guess I was long overdue for a funk that lasts more than a day or two, everyone else has had them.
My motivation to write is just about non-existant but I will make an effort.
Saturday night we had a violent rainstorm around 2:00 in the morning. The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming in through the cracks in between the window and the frame and dripping through the roof. The leaks weren’t too too bad, but the next day I saw the real damage – the wind had blown one side of my garden fence down. Luckily, the thick brambles around my garden prevented the sheep and goats from feasting and the cistern caught the fence before it totally flattened my little trees. As is, they were just bent, not broken. Tsevi helped me prop the fence back up until later in the day when he and Effoh restaked it.
Effoh arrived unexpectedly in village Sunday morning. When I asked why he came and how long he was planning to stay, his response was vague and elusive. He finally told me that he hadn’t been able to pay the last of his school installments and he wouldn’t be able to go back until his brother could come up with the last 10,000 cFA (approx $25). The problem is that now is the moment that everyone’s finances are particularly tight because they are using the last of their food reserves to plant next season’s crop. I didn’t need to think twice. He only has a month left and it would be stupid to miss critical class time that will help him prepare for the exam he will take in July that will determine whether or not he receives a high school diploma. I told him that I would lend him the 10,000 francs. $25 is relatively insignificant to me and to them it is an impossible sum. It made me stop and think about how well off I am, on a PCV salary of $4 a day in comparison. I have no idea what the yearly income is for people in my village, but I would be curious to find out.
I went to church – it was unremarkable except that the Pastor asked me to say a prayer. I did it in English so that no one would understand. He also invited me to participate in the women’s day festivities next Sunday by buying the matching outfit (pink skirt, white top) and singing a song. Me? Sing? Right. I considered the whole business for about two seconds because I was touched that they thought to include me, but I have decided to use my trip to Ghana as an excuse to get out of the whole affair. I don’t particularly want to waste money on an outfit I will never wear again and I definitely don’t ant to sing in public even if it were in English and a song they have never heard before.
After church, Effoh and Tsevi fixed my fence and then I fed them rice and beans with burnt sauce. Yes, unfortunately, I burned the sauce, but they didn’t complain. Tsevi tried some of Gizmo’s dried cat food and then, at Effoh’s suggestion that it probably had lizard meat in it, went outside to spit it out. I doubt it, but it was still pretty funny to see Tsevi’s whole demeanor change visibly as he considered the possibility and then got progressively more disgusted by the thought.
In the afternoon I did laundry and chatted with the infirmier who is bored by the lack of work. I try to encourage him by telling him that even if he only sees two patients a day, they are to people ho more desperately need his services than the ten or fifteen people he might see in a larger town because they might not have the funds to go any further than Avassikpe in search of medical care. I also tell him that perhaps after high-planting season passes and more people become aware of his presence, more people will come for consultations. It would be terrible for him to get so discouraged that he actively wants to leave. Avassikpe has waited so long for a nurse.
We talked about how stigmatized couples who can’t have children are here and about what we could do in terms of educative/preventative campaigns and a bunch of other things like immigration to the U.S. and the visa lottery that I don’t have the energy to detail.
He left as it got dark and Effoh came back from the field. He told me that his older brother had danced with joy at the news that I would lend them the 10,000 francs. I asked them to be discreet about it because it is not a gesture I am willing to repeat with anyone and everyone. His brother also came to thank me. Being thanked so profusely embarrasses me a little, but again signals the different relative values of the sum to me and to Effoh and his family. No wonder people think I am filthy rich. It is all relative.
In the evening, I chatted with Effoh a bit and then we helped Tseviato with her math homework. Mostly Effoh helped and I looked at the stars.
Today I didn’t do much. At least, I don’t feel very productive. I went to visit Mana and then she came back to the house to see the tent I want her to replicate and take the Niger pagne Dad brought me. I wanted a bubu like the one she had made for me with material Lili bought me for my birthday, but tomorrow I will have to take it back to her and ask her to reduce its size. Feeling fat and lazy is part of my current funk and I didn’t particularly need her to make me a dress the size of a tent to exacerbate it. Maybe she confused the two projects I want her to do. What annoys me is that she uses way more material than necessary.
The resteof the day I studied Ewe, played with Gizmo, read a book called “Out of Poverty” that Dad brought me and sweated. I really wish the stupid trees were out of the stupid garden so I could make my beds and at least feel a tiny bit active and productive. Grr. I would move them, but I am not sure it is worth the aggravation if we are planting on Thursday. Seriously, I’m going to get rid of whatever is left if they don’t plant all the trees on Thursday. (Yeah, you are . . . )
And that is it. That was my day. If it weren’t for Gizmo . . .
5/27/08
Today is Jorge and my 6 year anniversary. 6 years! I just calculated and we have been physically in the same place for only 25 of those 72 months. Just over a third. Crazy. I can’t help but hope that this will be the last (it is already the longest) separation.
The highlight of my day was, of course, a thirty minute phone call from my Love. That is always a special and treasured treat.
Other than that, my day has been unremarkable (I am noticing as I retype this that “unremarkable” describes most everything about my week. Ok, that is not true – Jorge’s phone call and Ashley’s visit were out of the ordinary). I spent the bulk of the day lying in my hammock finishing “Out of Poverty” and starting “Ripples from the Zambezi.” Both are books about small enterprise development. My problem in deciding what path to take for the rest of my life, what grad school course to embark on is that everything excites me. Moringa excites me, public health excites me, even small enterprise development excites me when the right people write about it. I just want to do something that really helps other people because I feel that that is the only way I will feel fulfilled in life. I am not adamant about how or where, I just really want to spend my time and effort working to make a positive difference in the lives of others. That has remained a constant in my mind since about the age of twelve when I reneged on veterinary medicine after concluding that I’d rather help people than animals. Now I just (JUST?!?!?) have to decide how I can best use my particular talents (yet to be defined) and interests (too many to be defined) to accomplish that task. Any enlightened suggestions?
5/28/08 and 5/29/08
Yesterday I didn’t do anything. Really. Ok, well to give myself some credit, I studied Ewe for a while. Other than that, I slept (yes, during daylight) and lay in my hammock reading Newsweek.
Today is Thursday. I don’t know why I ever wake up in a good, optimistic mood on a Thursday because invariably it is all down hill from the moment I open my eyes. Thursday is the day I try to coerce and/or cajole people into planting the moringa seedlings. I was really hoping we would finish planting today. I don’t know why I hoped that, even two-hundred trees appears to be too much to ask. Only a couple of people came out to help. Ok, to be fair, a couple times 3 = 6 people. I was oscillating between anger and tears the whole morning, but a quote from the book I am reading kept reverberating in my ears: “don’t ever initiate anything and don’t ever motivate anybody” (Ripples from the Zambezi, p.42). The more I think about it, the more I think he’s got the right idea. The author, Ernesto Sirolli, calls his approach to development Enterprise Facilitation and people come to him with a business idea or problem and he helps them realize it. That is exactly what all the small enterprise development volunteers should be doing and I should probably be staying out of that arena entirely because I have been asking to get my butt whupped from the very beginning by tackling things I know nothing about. I am trying to appreciate the whole business as a learning experience. Very important lessons: 1 – Community projects are very challenging (not to say impossible. Even if some people are enthusiastic at the beginning, the lack of participation by the rest of the community will discourage them); 2 – I think Sirolli has got it right – don’t initiate; don’t motivate, just facilitate. Two strikes on that level. It is going to take me a while (and probably more frustration and failure) to really internalize that, but I think it is wise. Still, where exactly are the boundaries? Can you suggest? Inform? I will have to keep considering his approach, but, even so, what I am doing right now is half cheerleader, half disappointed mother and certainly not what Sirolli has in mind.
After planting a few trees I made beans and rice for lunch and welcomed Jerome and Nicolas into my home shortly after. My Ewe lesson was good as usual, not spectacular. After eating we talked about my plans for a vegetable garden, Nicolas’ gardens, and birthing babies. Jerome’s wife had a baby girl about two weeks ago and he said his wife went to the field and carried home a load of firewood right before (by right I mean, like an hour) giving birth all by herself. Only after the baby was out did she call for another woman to help tend to it. Yikes. When I think about it, it is so different from our coddling of pregnant women (don’t get any ideas Love, I want to be coddled!). Here I see extremely pregnant women lifting water and wood onto their heads and going about their daily tasks as if they didn’t have a bowling ball, watermelon, whatever you like, in their belly. Jerome says keeping active makes the pregnancy easier and some women just pop the baby out on their way home from the field. Nicolas shared a sad story, though. He said that his wife lost her second baby because she was delivering alone and the baby hit its head on the ground when it came out.
The carpenter was supposed to come yesterday morning to install my gutter out back but he never showed so this afternoon, after Jerome and Nicolas left, I did it myself. It was hard – especially cutting the corrugated metal sheet into four pieces. Luckily, I had my wolverine gloves that my parents brought me that protected my hands from being completely shredded. I then rolled the metal strips to flatten them, shaped them into gutters and found a way to mount them all by my lonesome. It took me four hours, but I did it and saved myself 500cFA ($1.25). Yay me. And I get to feel productive to boot which is worth even more than the 500 cFA. =0)
Tomorrow I will pour water on the roof and see if it actually works. I am a little worried that I haven’t sloped it enough.
5/30/08
Today I did random tasks until 10:30 when I went to Agbatitoe. One of my PE groups was scheduled to do their presentation for the women gathered at the dispensaire in Agbatit for the weekly vaccinations. We had to wait over an hour for ten or so women to accumulate, but I was pleased with the way my students really rose to the occasion.
Afterwards I wandered around the market, found none of the things I was looking for, and then went to the school to read and wait for my students to arrive. Luckily, they had all made an effort to learn their respective parts of the presentations and we were finished by 4:00.
I spent the rest of the day getting ready for my VAY-K (vacation): Notse, Lome, Accra, here I come!
5/31/08
I got a late start this morning a cause de la pluie (the rain), and didn’t arrive in Notse until around 9:30. I also underestimated the challenge that is biking through mud. It is much more difficult than biking through sand because it sucks you in and then doesn’t give way as easily. Gizmo, true to his nickname “biggest crybaby in the whole wide world” (BCB3W for short), meow-ed the whole way. I mean, I get it, he is bouncing around in a cage and probably scared, but I wouldn’t mind trading him places. He can sweat while I alternate between dozing and enjoying the scenery. And sweat I did. It was exceptionally humid (it had rained all night) and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to wear a long-sleeved shirt AND I had to pump up a flat tire right as I was leaving village.
But we made it. Shortly after arriving and getting Gizmo settled, I went to find Effoh. We had agreed that he would take me to see the wife of my proprietor who is sick and has been staying in Notse for the past couple of weeks. I first thought I should probably visit her when I encountered a group of five women from my village walking back from Agbatit one day as I biked out towards Notse. When I asked why they had gone to Notse, they said to visit the “mama.” If they went all the way to Notse to visit her, the least I could do is pay the same respects on one of my frequent trips to the “grande ville.” Effoh waited as I showered and then I bought some hearty staples like eggs, canned evaporated milk, sardines and avocados (we were trying to come up with nutritious foods that would put some meat back on to the emaciated woman’s bones). We walked to the house which was out near Effoh’s house. We stayed for about an hour an a half. The visit and gifts were very much appreciated, but the visit was painful at times. Later I talked with Effoh about the cards people will always play for amusment’s sake. The first: “I want to marry you;” the second: “give me money;” the third: “take me to the United States.” According to Effoh, the first is used on Togolese women as well; the last two are reserved for yovos. Apparently, Togolese women will just agree with a lighthearted “yo-oo” to the marriage request thereby ending the conversation. He says that when I engage the speaker by refusing, it creates the opportunity to push the merriment a little further. Maybe I will try accepting the next marriage proposal and see if that works for me.
When we finally escaped I was a little weary of the fun and games and it was high-noon. I waited out the hottest part of the day chatting with Effoh in the shade of his house and then returned to Notse-center to order the padding for Gizmo’s car. I tell people that it is his car and that I am his driver (chauffeur) and they get a big kick out of that.
This evening we were going to go see one of the students in my children’s rights group who has been gravely ill, but we got rained out (by the way, while chatting with Effoh this afternoon I learned that DaJulie has an eleven or twelve year old daughter who is working in Lome. I was shocked. Here he is the president of a group advocating children’s rights and his niece is currently working in Lome as a trafficked child. Fantastic.). Effoh came by on his way home from the market amid scattered thundershowers and we chatted until the next break in the clouds.
I am reluctant to write because my funk persists in hanging over my head and I don’t have that many positive things to say, so I will just hit the particularly high and low points so that everyone knows that I am still alive. I have decided that my mood is not due exclusively to my monthly cycle (although its beginning stages may have been aggravated by that, but rather to the fact that I am in between projects, restless and ready to begin new endeavors, but held back by the prolonged completion of old projects, particularly my moringa seedlings and my peer educator course. I am anxious to be finished with both and to be freed to move on to different activities like baby weighing in surrounding villages to identify malnourished children and work to improve their health.
The good news is that I am pretty sure my funk will go away once my moringa trees are in the ground and my P.E. certificates in the hands of my students. In the mean time, my mood is bungy jumping off cliffs every few minutes.
The last to days have been rough. I had a hard time getting out of Lome on Wednesday. After picking up my passport at the Ghanain Embassy, complete with a two year multiple entry visa that cost me $150.00, I tried to avoid the gare (taxi station where vans take hours to fill up) and waited for a car on the side of the road. Strangely, though, when the van was full, instead of heading straight north, up the route nationale to Notse, the chauffeur drove us to the gare where we all had to get out and buy official tickets and wait for the authorized car to fill. I climbed into the van when it looked like it was ready to leave and ended up suffocating in the far back corner for over half an hour. I had to experiment with calming breathing tactics in order not to scream or frantically make everyone move so as to escape my prison of metal and firmly packed, seating, stinking bodies. None of this improved my mood and I as also stressed about not getting to my PE course on time.
I ended up having to take a car to my course from Notse after a brief stop and shower at Ashley’s. It has also been uncustomarily hot and humid which added to my discomfort and annoyance.
My PE class was disappointing as well. When I arrived at 3:00, the class was empty. Eventually students trickled in, but all my troisieme (the highest grade level in my course) were in a class next door. I had been hoping to finish my PE course and my trees before going to Ghana to meet up with my Dad, but it isn’t to be. Due to exams and things, my students won’t be able to finish their final projects until the week after I return. Whatever. Every cloud, or almost every cloud, has a silver lining if you look hard enough. So now I will have more time to get my certificates signed by my APCD and the final projects hopefully won’t be rushed and mediocre. Unfortunately, I can’t help but wonder what, if anything, my students have gleaned from the course because they can’t seem to reproduce anything but memorized fragments of what I have tried to teach them.
After class, the Director got me a ride back to Notse with the local Director of the Ministry of Fish and Agriculture who told me where I could buy fertilizer for my garden. I spent the night at Ashleys and then did some errands – I went and bought fertilizer and foodstuffs. The fertilizer delayed me a while because I had to wait for the man in charge to return and advise me on how much fertilizer I would need and how to use it.
I also picked up the kitten carrier I had made. It had been grating on my nerves as well because it wasn’t exactly what I thought I wanted, but now that I have it mounted on my bike I realize that the metal-worker did a very good job. Not only is it functional, but also pretty and I have modified my mental vision to accommodate its non-conformity. Flexible of me, eh?
In the afternoon, after disposing of two batches of baby mice birthed in Ashley’s bedroom (I just put them in a field where they will probably die because they are not yet self-sufficient), and eating fried rice for lunch, we went to Heather’s to chat. Gizmo and Heather’s huger German Shepherd – Zemijan – began a rather rocky friendship. Zemi was very well behaved, friendly and not at all threatening, but Gizmo turned into a spitting cobra with a mohawk and bottle-brush tail. He kind of looked like he was being electrocuted because of the way his hair was standing on end.
I biked back to village with Gizmo in his new chariot. He didn’t love it, but he didn’t hate it. It was a little difficult because I have to adjust my balance to accommodate the unusual weight on the front of my bike, but we did alright. Halfway to Agbatitoe, a car with two screaming yovos, Heather and Ashley, pulled over in front of me. After asking “what are you psychos doing?” I realized that Ashley had my purse, including my keys and wallet, in her hand. Ashley really saved my butt, I don’t know what I would have done when I pulled up to my house as it was getting dark and realized that I didn’t have my keys.
While at Heather’s, Ashley and I fashioned a harness and leash for Gizmo out of strips of pagne and so, after settling back into my house and showering, Gizmo and I went to lie in the hammock. It was very refreshing.
Today, Friday, I don’t have much to do. I am pretty much just hanging out until the afternoon when I have a peer educator course. I think I will study Ewe for a bit, make lunch, go to the market and just bum around.
--
I went to the market in Agbatitoe and found a fish pagne to use to make a protective padding for Gizmo’s carrier. I like it. I also bought a heavy duty mosquito net for drying fruits and vegetables. My parents brought me a tent-like structure with shelves in it, but it is pretty airtight and so I am going to ask Mana to copy it with this mosquito netting. Keeping bugs out while allowing air circulation is what is most important I think. We will see.
I also paid a long overdue visit to the dispensaire in Agbatitoe to ask permission for my PE students to give a talk on diarrhea. I felt a bit sheepish because I really should have gone and introduced myself months ago.
My PE class was just ok. Even with the detailed lesson plans that I made for each of the groups, their presentations were mediocre and I made each group except one do it two, three times.
5/24/08
Today Ashley came to Avassikpe on her own for the fist time and distracted me from what might have otherwise been a depressing day. It is my mom’s birthday and one of my good friends from high school’s wedding. Ashley was specifically coming to Avassikpe to pick up cookies that I made for Tig as a birthday present. Her birthday is May 27th and the girls are all going to Ghana to celebrate. I decided not to go because with Dad’s visit a week later it would be too much vacation and too much Ghana. And so I sent cookies in my stead. Craisin, almond, oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip. The cookies might even be more appreciated than my presence =0). I started baking at 6:00 this morning and finished around 2:00. In between I neatened my house. Ashley arrived around 11:00 and we chatted, finished baking and then made spaghetti and garlic bread and had a delicious lunch.
I tried to convince her to spend the night, but she is going to Lome tomorrow and had some things to do at home first. She left around 4:30.
Around noon I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday. In the evening, after Ashley left, I received a call from Jorge’s mother which was very nice. She is delighted by the prospect of Jorge and I visiting her in Italy.
For some reason I feel as though this week is going to be a long one. Perhaps because I don’t have much to do. Maybe I ill make the “beds for my garden. If only the seedlings weren’t in the way . . .”
5/25/08 and 5/26/08
This is decidedly my longest lasting funk since coming to Togo – right about at the year mark. I guess I was long overdue for a funk that lasts more than a day or two, everyone else has had them.
My motivation to write is just about non-existant but I will make an effort.
Saturday night we had a violent rainstorm around 2:00 in the morning. The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming in through the cracks in between the window and the frame and dripping through the roof. The leaks weren’t too too bad, but the next day I saw the real damage – the wind had blown one side of my garden fence down. Luckily, the thick brambles around my garden prevented the sheep and goats from feasting and the cistern caught the fence before it totally flattened my little trees. As is, they were just bent, not broken. Tsevi helped me prop the fence back up until later in the day when he and Effoh restaked it.
Effoh arrived unexpectedly in village Sunday morning. When I asked why he came and how long he was planning to stay, his response was vague and elusive. He finally told me that he hadn’t been able to pay the last of his school installments and he wouldn’t be able to go back until his brother could come up with the last 10,000 cFA (approx $25). The problem is that now is the moment that everyone’s finances are particularly tight because they are using the last of their food reserves to plant next season’s crop. I didn’t need to think twice. He only has a month left and it would be stupid to miss critical class time that will help him prepare for the exam he will take in July that will determine whether or not he receives a high school diploma. I told him that I would lend him the 10,000 francs. $25 is relatively insignificant to me and to them it is an impossible sum. It made me stop and think about how well off I am, on a PCV salary of $4 a day in comparison. I have no idea what the yearly income is for people in my village, but I would be curious to find out.
I went to church – it was unremarkable except that the Pastor asked me to say a prayer. I did it in English so that no one would understand. He also invited me to participate in the women’s day festivities next Sunday by buying the matching outfit (pink skirt, white top) and singing a song. Me? Sing? Right. I considered the whole business for about two seconds because I was touched that they thought to include me, but I have decided to use my trip to Ghana as an excuse to get out of the whole affair. I don’t particularly want to waste money on an outfit I will never wear again and I definitely don’t ant to sing in public even if it were in English and a song they have never heard before.
After church, Effoh and Tsevi fixed my fence and then I fed them rice and beans with burnt sauce. Yes, unfortunately, I burned the sauce, but they didn’t complain. Tsevi tried some of Gizmo’s dried cat food and then, at Effoh’s suggestion that it probably had lizard meat in it, went outside to spit it out. I doubt it, but it was still pretty funny to see Tsevi’s whole demeanor change visibly as he considered the possibility and then got progressively more disgusted by the thought.
In the afternoon I did laundry and chatted with the infirmier who is bored by the lack of work. I try to encourage him by telling him that even if he only sees two patients a day, they are to people ho more desperately need his services than the ten or fifteen people he might see in a larger town because they might not have the funds to go any further than Avassikpe in search of medical care. I also tell him that perhaps after high-planting season passes and more people become aware of his presence, more people will come for consultations. It would be terrible for him to get so discouraged that he actively wants to leave. Avassikpe has waited so long for a nurse.
We talked about how stigmatized couples who can’t have children are here and about what we could do in terms of educative/preventative campaigns and a bunch of other things like immigration to the U.S. and the visa lottery that I don’t have the energy to detail.
He left as it got dark and Effoh came back from the field. He told me that his older brother had danced with joy at the news that I would lend them the 10,000 francs. I asked them to be discreet about it because it is not a gesture I am willing to repeat with anyone and everyone. His brother also came to thank me. Being thanked so profusely embarrasses me a little, but again signals the different relative values of the sum to me and to Effoh and his family. No wonder people think I am filthy rich. It is all relative.
In the evening, I chatted with Effoh a bit and then we helped Tseviato with her math homework. Mostly Effoh helped and I looked at the stars.
Today I didn’t do much. At least, I don’t feel very productive. I went to visit Mana and then she came back to the house to see the tent I want her to replicate and take the Niger pagne Dad brought me. I wanted a bubu like the one she had made for me with material Lili bought me for my birthday, but tomorrow I will have to take it back to her and ask her to reduce its size. Feeling fat and lazy is part of my current funk and I didn’t particularly need her to make me a dress the size of a tent to exacerbate it. Maybe she confused the two projects I want her to do. What annoys me is that she uses way more material than necessary.
The resteof the day I studied Ewe, played with Gizmo, read a book called “Out of Poverty” that Dad brought me and sweated. I really wish the stupid trees were out of the stupid garden so I could make my beds and at least feel a tiny bit active and productive. Grr. I would move them, but I am not sure it is worth the aggravation if we are planting on Thursday. Seriously, I’m going to get rid of whatever is left if they don’t plant all the trees on Thursday. (Yeah, you are . . . )
And that is it. That was my day. If it weren’t for Gizmo . . .
5/27/08
Today is Jorge and my 6 year anniversary. 6 years! I just calculated and we have been physically in the same place for only 25 of those 72 months. Just over a third. Crazy. I can’t help but hope that this will be the last (it is already the longest) separation.
The highlight of my day was, of course, a thirty minute phone call from my Love. That is always a special and treasured treat.
Other than that, my day has been unremarkable (I am noticing as I retype this that “unremarkable” describes most everything about my week. Ok, that is not true – Jorge’s phone call and Ashley’s visit were out of the ordinary). I spent the bulk of the day lying in my hammock finishing “Out of Poverty” and starting “Ripples from the Zambezi.” Both are books about small enterprise development. My problem in deciding what path to take for the rest of my life, what grad school course to embark on is that everything excites me. Moringa excites me, public health excites me, even small enterprise development excites me when the right people write about it. I just want to do something that really helps other people because I feel that that is the only way I will feel fulfilled in life. I am not adamant about how or where, I just really want to spend my time and effort working to make a positive difference in the lives of others. That has remained a constant in my mind since about the age of twelve when I reneged on veterinary medicine after concluding that I’d rather help people than animals. Now I just (JUST?!?!?) have to decide how I can best use my particular talents (yet to be defined) and interests (too many to be defined) to accomplish that task. Any enlightened suggestions?
5/28/08 and 5/29/08
Yesterday I didn’t do anything. Really. Ok, well to give myself some credit, I studied Ewe for a while. Other than that, I slept (yes, during daylight) and lay in my hammock reading Newsweek.
Today is Thursday. I don’t know why I ever wake up in a good, optimistic mood on a Thursday because invariably it is all down hill from the moment I open my eyes. Thursday is the day I try to coerce and/or cajole people into planting the moringa seedlings. I was really hoping we would finish planting today. I don’t know why I hoped that, even two-hundred trees appears to be too much to ask. Only a couple of people came out to help. Ok, to be fair, a couple times 3 = 6 people. I was oscillating between anger and tears the whole morning, but a quote from the book I am reading kept reverberating in my ears: “don’t ever initiate anything and don’t ever motivate anybody” (Ripples from the Zambezi, p.42). The more I think about it, the more I think he’s got the right idea. The author, Ernesto Sirolli, calls his approach to development Enterprise Facilitation and people come to him with a business idea or problem and he helps them realize it. That is exactly what all the small enterprise development volunteers should be doing and I should probably be staying out of that arena entirely because I have been asking to get my butt whupped from the very beginning by tackling things I know nothing about. I am trying to appreciate the whole business as a learning experience. Very important lessons: 1 – Community projects are very challenging (not to say impossible. Even if some people are enthusiastic at the beginning, the lack of participation by the rest of the community will discourage them); 2 – I think Sirolli has got it right – don’t initiate; don’t motivate, just facilitate. Two strikes on that level. It is going to take me a while (and probably more frustration and failure) to really internalize that, but I think it is wise. Still, where exactly are the boundaries? Can you suggest? Inform? I will have to keep considering his approach, but, even so, what I am doing right now is half cheerleader, half disappointed mother and certainly not what Sirolli has in mind.
After planting a few trees I made beans and rice for lunch and welcomed Jerome and Nicolas into my home shortly after. My Ewe lesson was good as usual, not spectacular. After eating we talked about my plans for a vegetable garden, Nicolas’ gardens, and birthing babies. Jerome’s wife had a baby girl about two weeks ago and he said his wife went to the field and carried home a load of firewood right before (by right I mean, like an hour) giving birth all by herself. Only after the baby was out did she call for another woman to help tend to it. Yikes. When I think about it, it is so different from our coddling of pregnant women (don’t get any ideas Love, I want to be coddled!). Here I see extremely pregnant women lifting water and wood onto their heads and going about their daily tasks as if they didn’t have a bowling ball, watermelon, whatever you like, in their belly. Jerome says keeping active makes the pregnancy easier and some women just pop the baby out on their way home from the field. Nicolas shared a sad story, though. He said that his wife lost her second baby because she was delivering alone and the baby hit its head on the ground when it came out.
The carpenter was supposed to come yesterday morning to install my gutter out back but he never showed so this afternoon, after Jerome and Nicolas left, I did it myself. It was hard – especially cutting the corrugated metal sheet into four pieces. Luckily, I had my wolverine gloves that my parents brought me that protected my hands from being completely shredded. I then rolled the metal strips to flatten them, shaped them into gutters and found a way to mount them all by my lonesome. It took me four hours, but I did it and saved myself 500cFA ($1.25). Yay me. And I get to feel productive to boot which is worth even more than the 500 cFA. =0)
Tomorrow I will pour water on the roof and see if it actually works. I am a little worried that I haven’t sloped it enough.
5/30/08
Today I did random tasks until 10:30 when I went to Agbatitoe. One of my PE groups was scheduled to do their presentation for the women gathered at the dispensaire in Agbatit for the weekly vaccinations. We had to wait over an hour for ten or so women to accumulate, but I was pleased with the way my students really rose to the occasion.
Afterwards I wandered around the market, found none of the things I was looking for, and then went to the school to read and wait for my students to arrive. Luckily, they had all made an effort to learn their respective parts of the presentations and we were finished by 4:00.
I spent the rest of the day getting ready for my VAY-K (vacation): Notse, Lome, Accra, here I come!
5/31/08
I got a late start this morning a cause de la pluie (the rain), and didn’t arrive in Notse until around 9:30. I also underestimated the challenge that is biking through mud. It is much more difficult than biking through sand because it sucks you in and then doesn’t give way as easily. Gizmo, true to his nickname “biggest crybaby in the whole wide world” (BCB3W for short), meow-ed the whole way. I mean, I get it, he is bouncing around in a cage and probably scared, but I wouldn’t mind trading him places. He can sweat while I alternate between dozing and enjoying the scenery. And sweat I did. It was exceptionally humid (it had rained all night) and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to wear a long-sleeved shirt AND I had to pump up a flat tire right as I was leaving village.
But we made it. Shortly after arriving and getting Gizmo settled, I went to find Effoh. We had agreed that he would take me to see the wife of my proprietor who is sick and has been staying in Notse for the past couple of weeks. I first thought I should probably visit her when I encountered a group of five women from my village walking back from Agbatit one day as I biked out towards Notse. When I asked why they had gone to Notse, they said to visit the “mama.” If they went all the way to Notse to visit her, the least I could do is pay the same respects on one of my frequent trips to the “grande ville.” Effoh waited as I showered and then I bought some hearty staples like eggs, canned evaporated milk, sardines and avocados (we were trying to come up with nutritious foods that would put some meat back on to the emaciated woman’s bones). We walked to the house which was out near Effoh’s house. We stayed for about an hour an a half. The visit and gifts were very much appreciated, but the visit was painful at times. Later I talked with Effoh about the cards people will always play for amusment’s sake. The first: “I want to marry you;” the second: “give me money;” the third: “take me to the United States.” According to Effoh, the first is used on Togolese women as well; the last two are reserved for yovos. Apparently, Togolese women will just agree with a lighthearted “yo-oo” to the marriage request thereby ending the conversation. He says that when I engage the speaker by refusing, it creates the opportunity to push the merriment a little further. Maybe I will try accepting the next marriage proposal and see if that works for me.
When we finally escaped I was a little weary of the fun and games and it was high-noon. I waited out the hottest part of the day chatting with Effoh in the shade of his house and then returned to Notse-center to order the padding for Gizmo’s car. I tell people that it is his car and that I am his driver (chauffeur) and they get a big kick out of that.
This evening we were going to go see one of the students in my children’s rights group who has been gravely ill, but we got rained out (by the way, while chatting with Effoh this afternoon I learned that DaJulie has an eleven or twelve year old daughter who is working in Lome. I was shocked. Here he is the president of a group advocating children’s rights and his niece is currently working in Lome as a trafficked child. Fantastic.). Effoh came by on his way home from the market amid scattered thundershowers and we chatted until the next break in the clouds.
5/24/08 through 5/20/08
5/14/08 and 5/15/08
The last two days haven’t been particularly interesting. Mostly I have been pensive because many of my friends relationships (with people back home) are reaching their breaking points. Perhaps because we are nearing our one year mark and the prospect of having to endure another year of painful separation is too daunting for most. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about it and been a little morose as a result.
Yesterday morning I went to see the Chief of Hygiene at the Hospital in Notse to speak with him about the shisto problem in my village. I guess the best I can hope for is to make the treatment available to those infected without requiring that each and every person go to Notse for a lab test.
Afterwards I did some shopping and ordered a kitten carrier to be made out of wrought iron for my bike. I hope it isn’t too heav.
Nori, one of the CHAP volunteers from my stage and a good friend that we hadn’t seen in a while surprised us for lunch. We spent several hours catching up before Gizmo (my kitten) and I headed back to Avassikpe. My PE class had been canceled because the students have exams this week.
Today, Thursday, we planted trees. “We” being me and five or six other people. I was annoyed by the low turnout. I worked in the field from 5:30 until 9:30 and then came home, neatened up the house, showered and made pâte in preparation for Jerome’s visit.
Our Ewe lesson was good but unremarkable and afterwards I brought the remaining pâte and sauce over to the dispensaire (for Lili and the new infirmier) and then I pushed corn off the cob and bruised my thumb with Tseviato’s older sister (Parfait’s mom, Kodjovi’s wife).
In the evening I took a walk around the village with the infirmier – I think his name is Emmanuel – watered my trees, showered and am writing and now I’m going to go to bed. Fascinating I know. I’m thrilled as well.
5/16/08
Today was rather boring and I am in a bit of a melancholy funk so I’m recounting the quick and dirty – planted trees in garden, filled big trash bucket with sand for kitten’s litter box, filled jar with water in case it doesn’t rain, neatened my house, showered, painted my toenails, ate lunch, went to Agbatitoe to teach my PE class, came home. I’m not sure if I’m PMS-ing or what, but all day I have been feeling out of sorts. So, in brief, that was my day.
5/17/08
And the funk continues. The good think about my funk for you all is that you have less to read. Today I prepared lesson plans to help my Peer Educators with their final projects – to teach one of the things we learned to a group of people of their choosing. That took me all morning.
I chatted with the Chef D’hygiene for a bit about our shisto problem and then chatted with the infirmier a bit before returning to the house to start studying for the GRE. Fun, fun.
I thought I’d study for a bit in my hammock, but the children invaded and I almost ended up beating them because they are disrespectful and badly behaved. The biggest mistake possible with the children here is to show that you are annoyed; they think it is hilarious which of course annoys you even more. “Don’t let it annoy you” needs to be my mantra.
In the afternoon the director of the EPP accompanied me out to the field to check on my trees. I decided that the ones we planted last Thursday were looking a little dry and so I watered them with the help of a young boy who works the cabine (public phone).
Jerome just called to inform me that his wife finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl. We have been expecting the baby since my parents visit.
5/18/08 through 5/19/08
Hm, can’t remember what I did on Sunday. All I know is that the funk still hangs overhead. It is lifting a bit now (Tuesday). Sunday I did laundry, went to church, studied for the GREs and wasted the afternoon tying strings to numbers for the vaccination day.
On Monday I woke up around 4:30 and got ready to leave for Notse. I didn’t start biking until around 6:00, though, what with making sure I had everything and boxing up my kitten.
Once in Notse I kitten-proofed Ashley’s house, went to the market to buy Gizmo some dried fish and check on his carrier. The young man is trying to make the wrought iron carrier pretty – I guess he took my comment about my kitten feeling like he was in prison to heart. Anyway, he is doing a nice job, but it will be more expensive than I anticipated.
I showered, made French toast, gave Effoh the corn his mom sent for him, closed up Ashley’s house, kissed my baby good-bye and went to catch a bush-taxi.
After an uneventful ride to Lome I walked to the U.S. Embassy. I was early and so I sat down to eat a sandwich of beans and avocado. As I was sitting there, a young man and young woman approached me wanting to speak English (and then Spanish) and “be my friend.” They were part of a group of people protesting outside the U.S. Embassy. Apparently they all entered the Visa Lottery and all won (I don’t understand how so many people from one tiny country can win the lotto). They invariably spent lots of money only to have the Embassy personnel refuse them their GreenCard without really explaining why. And so everyday these people come and protest with signs like “don’t leave us here to die.” A little dramatic, but I can see how they would be annoyed. I spoke with them for a little while and then went to the embassy to speak with a consular officer about eventual visas for Jorge. He has a visitor’s visa, but I am looking into getting him an immigrant visa (Greencard). The woman I spoke with was young and very nice, unfortunately, though, any way I swing it, it is complicated. After the Embassy I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and good news from a man (I don’t know if he has the authority to promise me this) but he said that Jorge can get a visa at the airport and that he can write a letter so that it isn’t a problem for him to board the plane without a Togo visa. He also said that he can write a letter to see if they can give him an extended visa right at the airport. Otherwise, the visa would be for seven days, which I could get extended for one month and then three months and then a year and then three years and then five years and so on. That is very good news – I got the guy’s card because he is my new best friend if he can make it easy for Jorge to stay in Togo for a long period of time.
I then walked around the market, tried to go to the bank (but was ten minutes late), and walked back to Kodjoviecope to get a room at Mamys (aka the brothel). The evening, I spent chatting with Jorge in a refreshingly not crowded Peace Corps lounge.
I didn’t sleep well because I have too many things swirling around in my head. This morning (Tuesday) I walked to the office of Royal Air Maroc to check out prices to Italy. Jorge’s mom want him to visit her in Italy before coming to Togo which is great news for me because it means that I only have to pay for the Italy-Togo leg of his trip. I am also excited because I am going to see if I can afford to meet him in Italy and then we would stop in Morocco on our way back to Togo (Royal Air Maroc makes it easy for you to stop for up to two weeks in Morocco no matter where you’re flying). We are considering spending Christmas in Italy with his mom (about twenty days total in Italy) and then ten days or so in Morocco. That would be exciting. The ticket is about $1,500. Hm. We will see. I can’t get excited yet, but the wheels in my head are turning (My plan would be to leave Togo on the 10th of December, fly to Milan (Jorge plans to leave Uruguay November 30th so he would have some alone time with his mom before I crash the party), tour Italy with Jorge, spend Christmas with his mom and leave for Morocco on the 26th. Travel around Morocco until January 6th and then fly to Lome. Mom and Dad, are you interested in a trip to Morocco?
After speaking with the airline and going to the bank, I took a taxi to the Ghanaian Embassy to apply for a multiple entry visa and dropped 60,000 cFA (approx. $150 – ouch). Now I am doing some administrative things in the bureau and going to enjoy free high speed internet. I am heading back to Notse tomorrow after picking up my passport hopefully with a two-year visa to Ghana in it.
Oh, I forgot my very sad news (I’m trying to not dwell on it) – I can’t go to the Moringa conference. My APCD wrote me an email and for some reason it isn’t possible for me to pay my own way because of the way the conference is set up. Man, I wish they’d be organized enough to get their information straight to begin with. Oh well, Ashley will go and when she comes back, she’ll tell me all about it.
Now I’m going to go in search of some sort of cheap food because I am starving. And then I am going to chat with Jorge and research gradschools. Go ahead, ask me if I know what I want to study - ?? – no, not really, just checking out my options. =0)
Did y’all know that I am meeting my Dad in Ghana for a week from the 2nd through the 8th of June? I am super excited about that. Also, one of my close friends from high school is getting married on Saturday (May 24th) – I am really bummed that I am going to miss it, but have already asked my Dad to bring me lots of photos, so I will get to see pictures even before the blessed couple is back from their honeymoon.
The last two days haven’t been particularly interesting. Mostly I have been pensive because many of my friends relationships (with people back home) are reaching their breaking points. Perhaps because we are nearing our one year mark and the prospect of having to endure another year of painful separation is too daunting for most. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about it and been a little morose as a result.
Yesterday morning I went to see the Chief of Hygiene at the Hospital in Notse to speak with him about the shisto problem in my village. I guess the best I can hope for is to make the treatment available to those infected without requiring that each and every person go to Notse for a lab test.
Afterwards I did some shopping and ordered a kitten carrier to be made out of wrought iron for my bike. I hope it isn’t too heav.
Nori, one of the CHAP volunteers from my stage and a good friend that we hadn’t seen in a while surprised us for lunch. We spent several hours catching up before Gizmo (my kitten) and I headed back to Avassikpe. My PE class had been canceled because the students have exams this week.
Today, Thursday, we planted trees. “We” being me and five or six other people. I was annoyed by the low turnout. I worked in the field from 5:30 until 9:30 and then came home, neatened up the house, showered and made pâte in preparation for Jerome’s visit.
Our Ewe lesson was good but unremarkable and afterwards I brought the remaining pâte and sauce over to the dispensaire (for Lili and the new infirmier) and then I pushed corn off the cob and bruised my thumb with Tseviato’s older sister (Parfait’s mom, Kodjovi’s wife).
In the evening I took a walk around the village with the infirmier – I think his name is Emmanuel – watered my trees, showered and am writing and now I’m going to go to bed. Fascinating I know. I’m thrilled as well.
5/16/08
Today was rather boring and I am in a bit of a melancholy funk so I’m recounting the quick and dirty – planted trees in garden, filled big trash bucket with sand for kitten’s litter box, filled jar with water in case it doesn’t rain, neatened my house, showered, painted my toenails, ate lunch, went to Agbatitoe to teach my PE class, came home. I’m not sure if I’m PMS-ing or what, but all day I have been feeling out of sorts. So, in brief, that was my day.
5/17/08
And the funk continues. The good think about my funk for you all is that you have less to read. Today I prepared lesson plans to help my Peer Educators with their final projects – to teach one of the things we learned to a group of people of their choosing. That took me all morning.
I chatted with the Chef D’hygiene for a bit about our shisto problem and then chatted with the infirmier a bit before returning to the house to start studying for the GRE. Fun, fun.
I thought I’d study for a bit in my hammock, but the children invaded and I almost ended up beating them because they are disrespectful and badly behaved. The biggest mistake possible with the children here is to show that you are annoyed; they think it is hilarious which of course annoys you even more. “Don’t let it annoy you” needs to be my mantra.
In the afternoon the director of the EPP accompanied me out to the field to check on my trees. I decided that the ones we planted last Thursday were looking a little dry and so I watered them with the help of a young boy who works the cabine (public phone).
Jerome just called to inform me that his wife finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl. We have been expecting the baby since my parents visit.
5/18/08 through 5/19/08
Hm, can’t remember what I did on Sunday. All I know is that the funk still hangs overhead. It is lifting a bit now (Tuesday). Sunday I did laundry, went to church, studied for the GREs and wasted the afternoon tying strings to numbers for the vaccination day.
On Monday I woke up around 4:30 and got ready to leave for Notse. I didn’t start biking until around 6:00, though, what with making sure I had everything and boxing up my kitten.
Once in Notse I kitten-proofed Ashley’s house, went to the market to buy Gizmo some dried fish and check on his carrier. The young man is trying to make the wrought iron carrier pretty – I guess he took my comment about my kitten feeling like he was in prison to heart. Anyway, he is doing a nice job, but it will be more expensive than I anticipated.
I showered, made French toast, gave Effoh the corn his mom sent for him, closed up Ashley’s house, kissed my baby good-bye and went to catch a bush-taxi.
After an uneventful ride to Lome I walked to the U.S. Embassy. I was early and so I sat down to eat a sandwich of beans and avocado. As I was sitting there, a young man and young woman approached me wanting to speak English (and then Spanish) and “be my friend.” They were part of a group of people protesting outside the U.S. Embassy. Apparently they all entered the Visa Lottery and all won (I don’t understand how so many people from one tiny country can win the lotto). They invariably spent lots of money only to have the Embassy personnel refuse them their GreenCard without really explaining why. And so everyday these people come and protest with signs like “don’t leave us here to die.” A little dramatic, but I can see how they would be annoyed. I spoke with them for a little while and then went to the embassy to speak with a consular officer about eventual visas for Jorge. He has a visitor’s visa, but I am looking into getting him an immigrant visa (Greencard). The woman I spoke with was young and very nice, unfortunately, though, any way I swing it, it is complicated. After the Embassy I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and good news from a man (I don’t know if he has the authority to promise me this) but he said that Jorge can get a visa at the airport and that he can write a letter so that it isn’t a problem for him to board the plane without a Togo visa. He also said that he can write a letter to see if they can give him an extended visa right at the airport. Otherwise, the visa would be for seven days, which I could get extended for one month and then three months and then a year and then three years and then five years and so on. That is very good news – I got the guy’s card because he is my new best friend if he can make it easy for Jorge to stay in Togo for a long period of time.
I then walked around the market, tried to go to the bank (but was ten minutes late), and walked back to Kodjoviecope to get a room at Mamys (aka the brothel). The evening, I spent chatting with Jorge in a refreshingly not crowded Peace Corps lounge.
I didn’t sleep well because I have too many things swirling around in my head. This morning (Tuesday) I walked to the office of Royal Air Maroc to check out prices to Italy. Jorge’s mom want him to visit her in Italy before coming to Togo which is great news for me because it means that I only have to pay for the Italy-Togo leg of his trip. I am also excited because I am going to see if I can afford to meet him in Italy and then we would stop in Morocco on our way back to Togo (Royal Air Maroc makes it easy for you to stop for up to two weeks in Morocco no matter where you’re flying). We are considering spending Christmas in Italy with his mom (about twenty days total in Italy) and then ten days or so in Morocco. That would be exciting. The ticket is about $1,500. Hm. We will see. I can’t get excited yet, but the wheels in my head are turning (My plan would be to leave Togo on the 10th of December, fly to Milan (Jorge plans to leave Uruguay November 30th so he would have some alone time with his mom before I crash the party), tour Italy with Jorge, spend Christmas with his mom and leave for Morocco on the 26th. Travel around Morocco until January 6th and then fly to Lome. Mom and Dad, are you interested in a trip to Morocco?
After speaking with the airline and going to the bank, I took a taxi to the Ghanaian Embassy to apply for a multiple entry visa and dropped 60,000 cFA (approx. $150 – ouch). Now I am doing some administrative things in the bureau and going to enjoy free high speed internet. I am heading back to Notse tomorrow after picking up my passport hopefully with a two-year visa to Ghana in it.
Oh, I forgot my very sad news (I’m trying to not dwell on it) – I can’t go to the Moringa conference. My APCD wrote me an email and for some reason it isn’t possible for me to pay my own way because of the way the conference is set up. Man, I wish they’d be organized enough to get their information straight to begin with. Oh well, Ashley will go and when she comes back, she’ll tell me all about it.
Now I’m going to go in search of some sort of cheap food because I am starving. And then I am going to chat with Jorge and research gradschools. Go ahead, ask me if I know what I want to study - ?? – no, not really, just checking out my options. =0)
Did y’all know that I am meeting my Dad in Ghana for a week from the 2nd through the 8th of June? I am super excited about that. Also, one of my close friends from high school is getting married on Saturday (May 24th) – I am really bummed that I am going to miss it, but have already asked my Dad to bring me lots of photos, so I will get to see pictures even before the blessed couple is back from their honeymoon.
5/2/08 through 5/13/08
5/2/08, 5/3/08 and 5/4/08
It is mango season and I’m in heaven. I bought grafted mangoes in Notse and I have more ungrafted mangoes (given to me as gifts) than I can eat. Mangoes (and their remnants – pits and peels) are everywhere. I wonder if eating so many mangoes causes your sweat to be sweeter and therefore attract more mosquitoes. It would be an interesting study, a correlation between mangoes and malaria other than they both begin with “ma”?
Yesterday I was angry. All day. For no apparent reason. I think I was anxious about coming back to village after so much time (2 weeks) away.
Friday, after arriving at the Bureau around 11:30, I did a couple of errands and had a chance to chat with Jorge for a bit before the electricity cut. Usually the generators kick in, but for some reason they didn’t and when I left Lome around 4:00, the electricity was still off. In the meantime, I went to the market and bought brown sugar, curry powder, ketchup and kraft macaroni and cheese and a cake mix (those last two were impulse buys because they were on sale – they expire next month, but expiration dates (unless on condoms) do nothing to phase a Peace Corps volunteer).
Rather than going to the gar (official taxi station) I got a car on the side of the road and was in Notse before dark and in record time. Ashley and I spent the evening chatting about anything and everything.
Saturday morning, after a lazy start (I slept in until 7:30!), I showered and biked to buy pineapples, mangoes and pick up the mail (nothing exciting). Then Ashley and I walked to the market and I bought other supplies for the week. On the way back to Ashley’s house, I stopped to see if my bag was ready yet (it wasn’t) and I think that is where my anger started (partially at myself, I think, for having been somewhat rude to the dude who told me the my bag still wasn’t ready – it wasn’t his fault at all, he was just an intermediary). Then the soja (fried tofu) lady had no piment and when I went to pick up my cassette recorder, some big fat guy, who looked me up and down as I walked in, waved it around in front of my face before finally handing it to me. That fueled my anger. Luckily Ashley knew exactly how to make me forget: macaroni and cheese and a movie. We watched Matchstick Men with Nicolas Cage; it was pretty good.
Earlier in the day I had called Effoh and arranged for him to take me to the taxi for Avassikpe. It is a little bit of a tricky business because it only comes once and not at a scheduled time. I had never taken the Saturday market car to Avassikpe before and didn’t know when, where, with whom. Effoh came by at around 4:30 and we walked to the market. We sat waiting for the car for over an hour and when it finally arrived arranged with the driver to pick me and all my stuff (2 boxes of rocks + a bag of fruit +2 bags) up on the edge of the route nationale nearer to Ashley’s house. Effoh and Ashley helped me transport. By the time I got in the unusually full car, it was already dark. The car overheated twice on the way to Avassikpe. I was afraid that I’d have to call Ashley out to rescue me, but we eventually made it.
Oh, I forgot my biggest news! I happened upon Lili in the market and she said that the State is sending us a nurse. That is fantastic news for Avassikpe. I just hope that he is competent and not on a power/ego trip.
My trees are still alive, but looking a bit peaked. I think they are starting to get pot-bound and so my plan is to plan on Thursday and, if need be, transport water to the field to irrigate them.
This morning, Sunday, after weeding my garden (how waist-high weeds can sprout from nothing in two weeks is beyond me) and showering, I went to church. On the way, a woman I stopped to greet congratulated me on how fat I’ve gotten. Granted, I think I did gain weight from all the good food I ate while my parents were here, but really, these powers of observation for weight gain/loss are remarkable. Needless to say, I didn’t appreciate the comment.
Church wasn’t out of the ordinary and in the afternoon I did laundry, ate boiled ignams (that DaMarie brought me) with ketchup and scrambled eggs, started planning my garden, made five trips to the barrage and watered my trees.
I am so excited by all my seeds. I have green beans, cabbage, spinach, green and yellow squash, peas, broccoli, tomatoes, beets, green peppers, lettuce, carrots, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, eggplant, okra, ademan (those last two from Togo), and basil, marigolds, and sunflowers. I unpacked all the things my parents brought me so quickly and there was so much that I didn’t have time to get excited about each and every thing. This way, though, the excitement is going to last forever as I gradually rediscover all the gifts. Today I got particularly excited by the black pepper, seeds and beef jerky. Tomorrow I am going to use the dry erase sheets to map out my garden and I am stoked for that.
5/5/08 and 5/6/08
They aren’t kidding when they advise you to drink lots of water. Holy moly, I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick. I was sure my grandmother had left me with a not-so-welcome parting gift. I ruled out malaria only because I haven’t missed any doses of mefloquine.
Yesterday morning I transplanted some trees (where there were two in one place) and then I made four trips to the barrage. After that (it seems so long ago, I can hardly remember), I made fufu for lunch – lots of sweating and hard work. I didn’t feel very hungry once I finished even though I had been craving fufu for the past couple of days, but I ate anyway because fufu doesn’t keep. I then pounded piment and garlic together to make a pesticide for my moringa seedlings – some rotten caterpillar is eating all the leaves and I boiled neem leaves with village-made soap, also for the pesticide. Afterwards, I sat down to plan out my garden on my new dry-erase sheets. I wanted to check how many moringa trees I had planted around my garden and so I went out back – I couldn’t even finish counting, though, because all of a sudden I felt woozy, as if I were going to faint. I had had a throbbing headache since mid-morning, but I was ignoring it, chalking it up to the sun and all the pounding I had done, but it reached the point that I could no longer ignore it. I went inside, took an extra strength motrin and lay down. My whole body hurt – I thought it was regular muscle soreness from working in my garden and all the trips to the barrage, but it wasn’t only my muscles that ached. My skin and bones hurt as well. About an hour after lying down, I started to get chills. I decided to take my temperature and scared myself with a fever of 102. Somewhere in all of this, my diarrhea started. Eventually the chills and headache eased and my fever lessoned. Mid-afternoon, I was able to get up, plan my garden a little and shower. By evening, though, my headache was returning and I popped another motrin and lay down.
Around 7:00, some children called to me to come see. I groaned no, but then thought better of it and I am glad I did because they handed me a kitten. I took it and closed the door. I had no idea who it belonged to or even if it was for sale, but I managed to feed it some fish and milk. It distracted me from my discomfort for a while. It is white with caramel colored patches on its ears, a caramel spot on its back, a caramel striped tail and blue eyes. He? she? is cute and curious and friendly and playful. I was immediately attached and would have been more excited had I not been so ill.
The kitten took my mind off my bad state for a little while. I shut up the house and lay down again around 7:30. The night was very long. I don’t know how many times I peed/had liquid diarrhea. I was freezing cold, shivering, covered in a fleece blanket and simultaneously burning up. At one point I took my temperature and it was 102.5. An hour later, it was 103.5. I took another motrin and knew my fever had broken when I kicked off my fleece covering. Still, I was up all night with diarrhea; the kitten provided comic relief, entertainment and comfort as I tried to fall back asleep after each explosive burst into the bucket sitting on my floor. He had fallen asleep on my chair, but eventually found his way to the band and even found the opening in the mosquito net.
Towards morning I decided to do a MIF kit (poo samples to test for amoebas). I was sure I had amoebas and was admonishing myself for being cocky. Yes, I told myself, you have built up a resistance, but you aren’t immune. At daybreak, I brought the MIF kit to Lili to bring to Notse so that Ashley could EMS it to Lome. I barely made it back to my latrine without dribbling diarrhea down my leg.
I finished preparing my pesticide and then went with Tsevi to speak with the owner of the kitten. Apparently he had already been sold. I was disappointed. There was another kitten, a black and white one, but like I said, I was already attached, especially after the night we had hared. The man said that he must have escaped the person who bought him and the children, upon finding her, offered her to me. The owner of the mother cat told me to keep the kitten and that, when the person who lost it comes by, he will give them the other one. I was happy with that arrangement and ready to pay the 505 cFA for the “precious little morsel” as Ashley would say. Apparently kittens are always sold for x amount + 5cFA – a tradition that has something to do with how wise and special cats are. I don’t know where I am going to find 5cFA.
Happy, I went home with my kitten. He? She? (nobody seems to be able to tell for sure) is nameless. I am waiting for Ashley to help me pick a good name. Ashley is good at names. I then patched the screen in my door so the kitten can’t excape me like he did his previous owner and I made a littler box.
Mid-morning, I was feeling a little better when my PCMO returned my call. She was of the opinion that I was just dehydrated. Just. Remind me never to get dehydrated again. She told me to rest and drink lots of fluids, so I did.
In between resting, I cleaned up my house a bit, prepared my Peer Educator course for tomorrow and made a sauce for Jerome for tomorrow’s Ewe class.
My kitten is really sweet, but he is a baby. He cries when I leave him inside alone and when I don’t pay him enough attention. HE is cute though. I am smitten.
I didn’t eat anything all day except for some popcorn. In the evening, I was feeling pretty good and made myself some pasta with olive oil, basil, garlic, onion and parmesan cheese. It was really good, but as my stomach starts rumbling I am starting to wonder if that was a good idea. We will see. Hopefully tonight will not be a repeat of last night. I shouldn’t be dehydrated, though, I’ve drank my weight in pink lemonade.
5/7/08
Have you ever felt pure joy at the realization that you just farted? Meaning that your bowels are now enough under your control that, at the least relaxation, liquid diarrhea doesn’t come spewing out? That is how I felt today before going to my Peer Educator course.
I am feeling better today. I was able to sleep almost straight through the night – I only had diarrhea twice. Only. Much better compared to the twenty plus times the night before.
This morning I took it easy – cleaned up a bit, did a tiny bit of laundry and waited for Jerome to arrive. He came late morning, around 11:00. ‘Til then I puttered around. I didn’t end up using my pesticide on the trees. Tsevi, after seeing how eaten the seedlings are, decided that it would be best to use the pesticide for cotton (turns out it is a little too strong and is making the leaves shrivel). Anyway, I dumped my pesticide in ant holes. Maybe it will kill them . . . who knows.
I might get my second cistern built on Friday. That would be great. Tomorrow I need to get sand for it though . . . lots and lots of sand.
My Ewe lesson was fine – nothing great. Jerome was really excited about the dry-erase board and markers. My PE class was also unremarkable, although I am thankful that I made it through without pooping my pants. I think we are all (my students and I) have had enough. Luckily, I only have one more class to teach and then the final projects and presentation of certificates. I have enjoyed the experience, but I must admit, I am ready to be done with the classes and move on to new and different things.
Tomorrow we are going to try to plant the trees – we will see how it goes . . .
5/8/08
Today would have been just an ok day except that it rained really hard for about half an hour therby watering the trees we planted this morning. Otherwise, I might have tried to water them and that would have been very hard.
As is, I worked pretty hard today. By 5:30 I was already transporting trees out to the field. People showed up to work, but not nearly enough people. We worked transporting, digging and planting until around 9:30 and planted 300 and some trees. That isn’t terrible (and I should be thankful because I know Ashley is having a hard time getting her 500 seedlings planted because she only has one or two other people to help her and her field is further away and more inaccessible), but I still wasn’t happy.
After planting seedlings, I started to collect sand for my cistern that is supposed to be built tomorrow. I collected 5 buckets full (using my bike and child labor – hey, they wanted to help) by 11:30 and then called it quits because the sun was just too hot.
On one of my first return trips from collecting sand, DaMarie brought me pâte and sauce and on my second to last trip, a nice woman who has a store and sells me oil and other things (including the kitten) called Patrovi (one of my little helpers) over. She reportedly asked him if I had eaten anything. He told her no, which was more or less true, and so she filled a bowl with rice and sauce and sent it over. I devoured it as soon as I got in the house. I had started some beans in the morning, but they would take a while and I was hungry.
I ate, called my APCD and learned that only one CHAP volunteer (Ashley) is on budget for the moringa conference in Burkina Faso in June. I almost cried with disappointment. Not that Ashley shouldn’t go, she should, but I wanted to go too. There is still a small chance that I can go if I pay my own way. I wonder how much that will cost . . . I still want to go and will pay for it if it isn’t outrageously expensive. I don’t know who is hosting it, so I don’t know if there is an entrance fee. If it is exclusively Peace Corps . . . there shouldn’t be an entrance fee, but I will still have to pay for meals, lodging, and a visa to Burkina Faso. Hmm. I’m so disappointed. I thought for sure I’d get to go if 3 CHAP volunteers were in the budget. If it is only one, I’m glad it is Ashley, but I am still disappointed. Even with a relatively slight chance of being able to go to Burkina, I bailed on Camp Unite because the dates conflict. I decided that I would be more bummed to pull if my APCD said I could go and I was committed to doing camp (too committed to pull out), than if I gave up camp and don’t go to Burkina. That would just mean more time in village, which doesn’t bother me as I have lots of things on my agenda. So. We will see.
After that whole business, I baked banana bread with some rotting bananas so as to have something to give back to the two women who gave me food today and the woman who gave me the bananas. Again, my flour is bug and larvae infested. The fine sieve my mom brought me worked for the bigger ones. Once again I resigned myself to banana bread +larvae, convincing myself that all the bread I eat in Togo is probably made with larvae-infested flour. You can’t escape it. Give in. Embrace the larvae. I’m already salivating over my planned breakfast of larvae infested pancakes with real maple syrup. Yum, yum.
I managed three more trips for sand before I got caught in the rain. I decided to shower as I was already soaking wet and then, even though I really should have made several trips to the barrage, I worked to complete the number system for the vaccination day tomorrow. I am getting to the point where I dread vaccination day – it is stressful and exhausting.
This evening I am feeling rather melancholy. I think I will lie in bed listening to the radio until I am tired enough to sleep.
5/9/08
This morning the bulk of my second cistern was built. It was interesting how they do it. First they dig out the ground and make the base and then they put plastic over the wet cement and use dirt to create a mold for the rest of the cistern. The children helped me bring seven more buckets of sand. Next Monday the men will return and remove the sand that served as a mold and finish the cistern wit ha layer of pure cement.
Other than that, my day was unremarkable. I did baby-weighing and I like that much better than the registry stuff because I get to hold babies. Only a few of them are old enough to be scared by my white skin.
We finished around 4:00. There weren’t as many women today as in the past two months because the rains have started and there is more fieldwork to be done. Soon after I got home, DaMarie called me over to show me how to make an ignam dish that she has given me in the past. It is pretty easy – boiled ignam, salt, piment and pounded fishies. Afterwards I went to the market, but I was too late to find anything but Tchouk. Like I said, not particularly exciting.
5/10/08 through 5/12/08
Thursday I wrote Effoh a text at his older brother, Kodjovi’s, request telling him that he had cut his foot and needed help planting corn. When he didn’t show Friday evening, I decided to offer to help plant the corn myself. After all, how hard can planting corn be? If you can’t walk, pretty difficult, but I can walk perfectly fine. Early Saturday morning I went over to Kodjovi’s wife’s house (Tseviato’s older sister) and asked Tseviato if they would be planting corn that day and, if so, could I help. They informed me that Effoh had arrived late the night before, but it didn’t make a difference, I still thought I could help. Effoh and Robert (the eldest of Kodjovi’s children – Robert (9-ish), Charles (5-ish), Parfait (1 ½)) went out to the field around 6:00 and Tseviato and I followed two hours later. When we got there, Robert had already lanted most of the rows that were ready for their kernels. Tseviato and I did two rows (there is a definite technique to it: a plant of the heel, swipe out, drop three kernels and swipe back) and then the planting was done. What now? Oh, just a whole huge field to hoe before corn can be planted there. The field had already been given a once-over by a tractor, but none-the-less, the dirt was pretty hard. Later, when Effoh told Kodjovi that we hoed the whole field, he at first didn’t believe it and then admitted that he had been dreading the job because the ground there is so hard. We hoed at four different intervals between 9:00 and 4:00, taking breaks under the paillote when we got too tired and the sun got too hot. During our second break, around noon, Tseviato and Robert went on a search for mangos and came back half an hour later with fifty or sixty small wild mangoes. We feasted. The work was pretty hard, but it was fun because Effoh made up games for the kids as we worked like, name these animals (he gave the French name) in Ewe, or name four domestic animals, or name as many animals as you can with four legs. Silly things like that, but it helped pass the time faster. Hoeing a rocky field was not what I bargained for, but it felt good to really help and not feel like people were just humoring me by allowing me to do a job they could do twenty times faster and better.
When I got home, I ate the mashed ignam dish DaMarie made me the day before with pieces of beef jerky and fried egg. I was starving because I hadn’t eaten anything but mangoes since my 6:00 breakfast of gari, peanuts and sugar. At ten in the morning, they ate pâte, but I wasn’t feeling it and so declined . . . a decision my tummy later regretted. I made mango crisp, did dishes, cleaned up my house a bit, watered the trees and then showered (I was filthy, filthy like you can’t even imagine). When you’re dirty, really really dirty, and every part of you is dirty, it gets to the point where you don’t even care anymore, you hardly even notice and then you happen in front of a mirror. . .
After showering I went over to sit and chat with Effoh, DaJulie and their mom. Kodjovi’s wi
It is mango season and I’m in heaven. I bought grafted mangoes in Notse and I have more ungrafted mangoes (given to me as gifts) than I can eat. Mangoes (and their remnants – pits and peels) are everywhere. I wonder if eating so many mangoes causes your sweat to be sweeter and therefore attract more mosquitoes. It would be an interesting study, a correlation between mangoes and malaria other than they both begin with “ma”?
Yesterday I was angry. All day. For no apparent reason. I think I was anxious about coming back to village after so much time (2 weeks) away.
Friday, after arriving at the Bureau around 11:30, I did a couple of errands and had a chance to chat with Jorge for a bit before the electricity cut. Usually the generators kick in, but for some reason they didn’t and when I left Lome around 4:00, the electricity was still off. In the meantime, I went to the market and bought brown sugar, curry powder, ketchup and kraft macaroni and cheese and a cake mix (those last two were impulse buys because they were on sale – they expire next month, but expiration dates (unless on condoms) do nothing to phase a Peace Corps volunteer).
Rather than going to the gar (official taxi station) I got a car on the side of the road and was in Notse before dark and in record time. Ashley and I spent the evening chatting about anything and everything.
Saturday morning, after a lazy start (I slept in until 7:30!), I showered and biked to buy pineapples, mangoes and pick up the mail (nothing exciting). Then Ashley and I walked to the market and I bought other supplies for the week. On the way back to Ashley’s house, I stopped to see if my bag was ready yet (it wasn’t) and I think that is where my anger started (partially at myself, I think, for having been somewhat rude to the dude who told me the my bag still wasn’t ready – it wasn’t his fault at all, he was just an intermediary). Then the soja (fried tofu) lady had no piment and when I went to pick up my cassette recorder, some big fat guy, who looked me up and down as I walked in, waved it around in front of my face before finally handing it to me. That fueled my anger. Luckily Ashley knew exactly how to make me forget: macaroni and cheese and a movie. We watched Matchstick Men with Nicolas Cage; it was pretty good.
Earlier in the day I had called Effoh and arranged for him to take me to the taxi for Avassikpe. It is a little bit of a tricky business because it only comes once and not at a scheduled time. I had never taken the Saturday market car to Avassikpe before and didn’t know when, where, with whom. Effoh came by at around 4:30 and we walked to the market. We sat waiting for the car for over an hour and when it finally arrived arranged with the driver to pick me and all my stuff (2 boxes of rocks + a bag of fruit +2 bags) up on the edge of the route nationale nearer to Ashley’s house. Effoh and Ashley helped me transport. By the time I got in the unusually full car, it was already dark. The car overheated twice on the way to Avassikpe. I was afraid that I’d have to call Ashley out to rescue me, but we eventually made it.
Oh, I forgot my biggest news! I happened upon Lili in the market and she said that the State is sending us a nurse. That is fantastic news for Avassikpe. I just hope that he is competent and not on a power/ego trip.
My trees are still alive, but looking a bit peaked. I think they are starting to get pot-bound and so my plan is to plan on Thursday and, if need be, transport water to the field to irrigate them.
This morning, Sunday, after weeding my garden (how waist-high weeds can sprout from nothing in two weeks is beyond me) and showering, I went to church. On the way, a woman I stopped to greet congratulated me on how fat I’ve gotten. Granted, I think I did gain weight from all the good food I ate while my parents were here, but really, these powers of observation for weight gain/loss are remarkable. Needless to say, I didn’t appreciate the comment.
Church wasn’t out of the ordinary and in the afternoon I did laundry, ate boiled ignams (that DaMarie brought me) with ketchup and scrambled eggs, started planning my garden, made five trips to the barrage and watered my trees.
I am so excited by all my seeds. I have green beans, cabbage, spinach, green and yellow squash, peas, broccoli, tomatoes, beets, green peppers, lettuce, carrots, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, eggplant, okra, ademan (those last two from Togo), and basil, marigolds, and sunflowers. I unpacked all the things my parents brought me so quickly and there was so much that I didn’t have time to get excited about each and every thing. This way, though, the excitement is going to last forever as I gradually rediscover all the gifts. Today I got particularly excited by the black pepper, seeds and beef jerky. Tomorrow I am going to use the dry erase sheets to map out my garden and I am stoked for that.
5/5/08 and 5/6/08
They aren’t kidding when they advise you to drink lots of water. Holy moly, I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick. I was sure my grandmother had left me with a not-so-welcome parting gift. I ruled out malaria only because I haven’t missed any doses of mefloquine.
Yesterday morning I transplanted some trees (where there were two in one place) and then I made four trips to the barrage. After that (it seems so long ago, I can hardly remember), I made fufu for lunch – lots of sweating and hard work. I didn’t feel very hungry once I finished even though I had been craving fufu for the past couple of days, but I ate anyway because fufu doesn’t keep. I then pounded piment and garlic together to make a pesticide for my moringa seedlings – some rotten caterpillar is eating all the leaves and I boiled neem leaves with village-made soap, also for the pesticide. Afterwards, I sat down to plan out my garden on my new dry-erase sheets. I wanted to check how many moringa trees I had planted around my garden and so I went out back – I couldn’t even finish counting, though, because all of a sudden I felt woozy, as if I were going to faint. I had had a throbbing headache since mid-morning, but I was ignoring it, chalking it up to the sun and all the pounding I had done, but it reached the point that I could no longer ignore it. I went inside, took an extra strength motrin and lay down. My whole body hurt – I thought it was regular muscle soreness from working in my garden and all the trips to the barrage, but it wasn’t only my muscles that ached. My skin and bones hurt as well. About an hour after lying down, I started to get chills. I decided to take my temperature and scared myself with a fever of 102. Somewhere in all of this, my diarrhea started. Eventually the chills and headache eased and my fever lessoned. Mid-afternoon, I was able to get up, plan my garden a little and shower. By evening, though, my headache was returning and I popped another motrin and lay down.
Around 7:00, some children called to me to come see. I groaned no, but then thought better of it and I am glad I did because they handed me a kitten. I took it and closed the door. I had no idea who it belonged to or even if it was for sale, but I managed to feed it some fish and milk. It distracted me from my discomfort for a while. It is white with caramel colored patches on its ears, a caramel spot on its back, a caramel striped tail and blue eyes. He? she? is cute and curious and friendly and playful. I was immediately attached and would have been more excited had I not been so ill.
The kitten took my mind off my bad state for a little while. I shut up the house and lay down again around 7:30. The night was very long. I don’t know how many times I peed/had liquid diarrhea. I was freezing cold, shivering, covered in a fleece blanket and simultaneously burning up. At one point I took my temperature and it was 102.5. An hour later, it was 103.5. I took another motrin and knew my fever had broken when I kicked off my fleece covering. Still, I was up all night with diarrhea; the kitten provided comic relief, entertainment and comfort as I tried to fall back asleep after each explosive burst into the bucket sitting on my floor. He had fallen asleep on my chair, but eventually found his way to the band and even found the opening in the mosquito net.
Towards morning I decided to do a MIF kit (poo samples to test for amoebas). I was sure I had amoebas and was admonishing myself for being cocky. Yes, I told myself, you have built up a resistance, but you aren’t immune. At daybreak, I brought the MIF kit to Lili to bring to Notse so that Ashley could EMS it to Lome. I barely made it back to my latrine without dribbling diarrhea down my leg.
I finished preparing my pesticide and then went with Tsevi to speak with the owner of the kitten. Apparently he had already been sold. I was disappointed. There was another kitten, a black and white one, but like I said, I was already attached, especially after the night we had hared. The man said that he must have escaped the person who bought him and the children, upon finding her, offered her to me. The owner of the mother cat told me to keep the kitten and that, when the person who lost it comes by, he will give them the other one. I was happy with that arrangement and ready to pay the 505 cFA for the “precious little morsel” as Ashley would say. Apparently kittens are always sold for x amount + 5cFA – a tradition that has something to do with how wise and special cats are. I don’t know where I am going to find 5cFA.
Happy, I went home with my kitten. He? She? (nobody seems to be able to tell for sure) is nameless. I am waiting for Ashley to help me pick a good name. Ashley is good at names. I then patched the screen in my door so the kitten can’t excape me like he did his previous owner and I made a littler box.
Mid-morning, I was feeling a little better when my PCMO returned my call. She was of the opinion that I was just dehydrated. Just. Remind me never to get dehydrated again. She told me to rest and drink lots of fluids, so I did.
In between resting, I cleaned up my house a bit, prepared my Peer Educator course for tomorrow and made a sauce for Jerome for tomorrow’s Ewe class.
My kitten is really sweet, but he is a baby. He cries when I leave him inside alone and when I don’t pay him enough attention. HE is cute though. I am smitten.
I didn’t eat anything all day except for some popcorn. In the evening, I was feeling pretty good and made myself some pasta with olive oil, basil, garlic, onion and parmesan cheese. It was really good, but as my stomach starts rumbling I am starting to wonder if that was a good idea. We will see. Hopefully tonight will not be a repeat of last night. I shouldn’t be dehydrated, though, I’ve drank my weight in pink lemonade.
5/7/08
Have you ever felt pure joy at the realization that you just farted? Meaning that your bowels are now enough under your control that, at the least relaxation, liquid diarrhea doesn’t come spewing out? That is how I felt today before going to my Peer Educator course.
I am feeling better today. I was able to sleep almost straight through the night – I only had diarrhea twice. Only. Much better compared to the twenty plus times the night before.
This morning I took it easy – cleaned up a bit, did a tiny bit of laundry and waited for Jerome to arrive. He came late morning, around 11:00. ‘Til then I puttered around. I didn’t end up using my pesticide on the trees. Tsevi, after seeing how eaten the seedlings are, decided that it would be best to use the pesticide for cotton (turns out it is a little too strong and is making the leaves shrivel). Anyway, I dumped my pesticide in ant holes. Maybe it will kill them . . . who knows.
I might get my second cistern built on Friday. That would be great. Tomorrow I need to get sand for it though . . . lots and lots of sand.
My Ewe lesson was fine – nothing great. Jerome was really excited about the dry-erase board and markers. My PE class was also unremarkable, although I am thankful that I made it through without pooping my pants. I think we are all (my students and I) have had enough. Luckily, I only have one more class to teach and then the final projects and presentation of certificates. I have enjoyed the experience, but I must admit, I am ready to be done with the classes and move on to new and different things.
Tomorrow we are going to try to plant the trees – we will see how it goes . . .
5/8/08
Today would have been just an ok day except that it rained really hard for about half an hour therby watering the trees we planted this morning. Otherwise, I might have tried to water them and that would have been very hard.
As is, I worked pretty hard today. By 5:30 I was already transporting trees out to the field. People showed up to work, but not nearly enough people. We worked transporting, digging and planting until around 9:30 and planted 300 and some trees. That isn’t terrible (and I should be thankful because I know Ashley is having a hard time getting her 500 seedlings planted because she only has one or two other people to help her and her field is further away and more inaccessible), but I still wasn’t happy.
After planting seedlings, I started to collect sand for my cistern that is supposed to be built tomorrow. I collected 5 buckets full (using my bike and child labor – hey, they wanted to help) by 11:30 and then called it quits because the sun was just too hot.
On one of my first return trips from collecting sand, DaMarie brought me pâte and sauce and on my second to last trip, a nice woman who has a store and sells me oil and other things (including the kitten) called Patrovi (one of my little helpers) over. She reportedly asked him if I had eaten anything. He told her no, which was more or less true, and so she filled a bowl with rice and sauce and sent it over. I devoured it as soon as I got in the house. I had started some beans in the morning, but they would take a while and I was hungry.
I ate, called my APCD and learned that only one CHAP volunteer (Ashley) is on budget for the moringa conference in Burkina Faso in June. I almost cried with disappointment. Not that Ashley shouldn’t go, she should, but I wanted to go too. There is still a small chance that I can go if I pay my own way. I wonder how much that will cost . . . I still want to go and will pay for it if it isn’t outrageously expensive. I don’t know who is hosting it, so I don’t know if there is an entrance fee. If it is exclusively Peace Corps . . . there shouldn’t be an entrance fee, but I will still have to pay for meals, lodging, and a visa to Burkina Faso. Hmm. I’m so disappointed. I thought for sure I’d get to go if 3 CHAP volunteers were in the budget. If it is only one, I’m glad it is Ashley, but I am still disappointed. Even with a relatively slight chance of being able to go to Burkina, I bailed on Camp Unite because the dates conflict. I decided that I would be more bummed to pull if my APCD said I could go and I was committed to doing camp (too committed to pull out), than if I gave up camp and don’t go to Burkina. That would just mean more time in village, which doesn’t bother me as I have lots of things on my agenda. So. We will see.
After that whole business, I baked banana bread with some rotting bananas so as to have something to give back to the two women who gave me food today and the woman who gave me the bananas. Again, my flour is bug and larvae infested. The fine sieve my mom brought me worked for the bigger ones. Once again I resigned myself to banana bread +larvae, convincing myself that all the bread I eat in Togo is probably made with larvae-infested flour. You can’t escape it. Give in. Embrace the larvae. I’m already salivating over my planned breakfast of larvae infested pancakes with real maple syrup. Yum, yum.
I managed three more trips for sand before I got caught in the rain. I decided to shower as I was already soaking wet and then, even though I really should have made several trips to the barrage, I worked to complete the number system for the vaccination day tomorrow. I am getting to the point where I dread vaccination day – it is stressful and exhausting.
This evening I am feeling rather melancholy. I think I will lie in bed listening to the radio until I am tired enough to sleep.
5/9/08
This morning the bulk of my second cistern was built. It was interesting how they do it. First they dig out the ground and make the base and then they put plastic over the wet cement and use dirt to create a mold for the rest of the cistern. The children helped me bring seven more buckets of sand. Next Monday the men will return and remove the sand that served as a mold and finish the cistern wit ha layer of pure cement.
Other than that, my day was unremarkable. I did baby-weighing and I like that much better than the registry stuff because I get to hold babies. Only a few of them are old enough to be scared by my white skin.
We finished around 4:00. There weren’t as many women today as in the past two months because the rains have started and there is more fieldwork to be done. Soon after I got home, DaMarie called me over to show me how to make an ignam dish that she has given me in the past. It is pretty easy – boiled ignam, salt, piment and pounded fishies. Afterwards I went to the market, but I was too late to find anything but Tchouk. Like I said, not particularly exciting.
5/10/08 through 5/12/08
Thursday I wrote Effoh a text at his older brother, Kodjovi’s, request telling him that he had cut his foot and needed help planting corn. When he didn’t show Friday evening, I decided to offer to help plant the corn myself. After all, how hard can planting corn be? If you can’t walk, pretty difficult, but I can walk perfectly fine. Early Saturday morning I went over to Kodjovi’s wife’s house (Tseviato’s older sister) and asked Tseviato if they would be planting corn that day and, if so, could I help. They informed me that Effoh had arrived late the night before, but it didn’t make a difference, I still thought I could help. Effoh and Robert (the eldest of Kodjovi’s children – Robert (9-ish), Charles (5-ish), Parfait (1 ½)) went out to the field around 6:00 and Tseviato and I followed two hours later. When we got there, Robert had already lanted most of the rows that were ready for their kernels. Tseviato and I did two rows (there is a definite technique to it: a plant of the heel, swipe out, drop three kernels and swipe back) and then the planting was done. What now? Oh, just a whole huge field to hoe before corn can be planted there. The field had already been given a once-over by a tractor, but none-the-less, the dirt was pretty hard. Later, when Effoh told Kodjovi that we hoed the whole field, he at first didn’t believe it and then admitted that he had been dreading the job because the ground there is so hard. We hoed at four different intervals between 9:00 and 4:00, taking breaks under the paillote when we got too tired and the sun got too hot. During our second break, around noon, Tseviato and Robert went on a search for mangos and came back half an hour later with fifty or sixty small wild mangoes. We feasted. The work was pretty hard, but it was fun because Effoh made up games for the kids as we worked like, name these animals (he gave the French name) in Ewe, or name four domestic animals, or name as many animals as you can with four legs. Silly things like that, but it helped pass the time faster. Hoeing a rocky field was not what I bargained for, but it felt good to really help and not feel like people were just humoring me by allowing me to do a job they could do twenty times faster and better.
When I got home, I ate the mashed ignam dish DaMarie made me the day before with pieces of beef jerky and fried egg. I was starving because I hadn’t eaten anything but mangoes since my 6:00 breakfast of gari, peanuts and sugar. At ten in the morning, they ate pâte, but I wasn’t feeling it and so declined . . . a decision my tummy later regretted. I made mango crisp, did dishes, cleaned up my house a bit, watered the trees and then showered (I was filthy, filthy like you can’t even imagine). When you’re dirty, really really dirty, and every part of you is dirty, it gets to the point where you don’t even care anymore, you hardly even notice and then you happen in front of a mirror. . .
After showering I went over to sit and chat with Effoh, DaJulie and their mom. Kodjovi’s wi