11/11/07 through 11/22/07

11/11/07 – 11/13/07

I am going to summarize the last couple of days because they were pretty much uneventful. Sunday I sat around feeling a little sick, watching t.v., visiting with friends and in general doing nothing. I used the internet and made a peanut butter pasta dish for dinner which ended up giving me terrible stomach cramps and I eventually threw it all up. Nice, right?

On Monday I was planning to come back to village, but I spoke with the PCMO and she told me to stay in Atakpame until I was feeling better. You don’t need to tell me twice; I readily accepted the opportunity to justifiably baby myself for a day and so I spent the whole day stretched out on the couch watching movies and Prison Break in French and sipping lemonade. I also used internet again and got a chance to chat with Jorge.

Today, Tuesday, I got up early, finished packing and caught a taxi-van to Agbatitoe and then biked back to village. As I was biking I could feel the lack of energy – I have hardly eaten in the past couple of days and most of what I did eat I think I pooped out or threw up before it could be absorbed, so . . .

I am happy to be back in village, but a little sad because Lili just told me that Mana has moved to Agbatitoe to cook for the priest and do her seam-stressing there in hopes of earning enough money to open her own shop. That makes me sad because she was one of my friends, on of the people I could sort of communicate with and now she is no longer here. I know, I’m selfish . . .

Once back in Avassikpe I said hello to Lili. She said that even though the COGES (village health committee) didn’t get the posts up for the pavilion for vaccination day, the number system worked really well. I am still a little skeptical. I will wait and see how it goes next time before thinking of a way to make the system more permanent.

Then I came home, swept out the house, put up the world map that Emmanuelle left me, swept out my house, took a shower, did laundry, played UNO with the kids and did more laundry.

I think I was missed because I got very hearty welcomes, so that is a nice feeling.

A wasp had made a nest on one of my windows and the boys nicely scraped it off for me. Inside were all these big green larvae that I assume would have eventually grown into wasps.

After I finished doing laundry for a second time – a second “load” =0) I went to see the director of the school about doing an HIV/AIDS sensiblization with the older classes near World AIDS Day (December 1st) and also about finding a student who can draw well and can help me with my health coloring book. I am trying not to let my expectations soar too too high, but I am hoping to find someone who can at least draw better than I can. I am not a horrible artist, but I am looking for someone better.
My plans for the week are to study Ewe – I feel like I need to renew my Ewe learning efforts, work on my sketch book for causeries, talk to the COGES about posts for the dispensaire, figure out what is going on with my baskets idea (shelves made of woven baskets) and my table and benches. My garden, of course, is all over-grown with weeds AGAIN and my fence is still non-existent, so . . . I am going to try to get on that, but we will see. I should go check on my moringa plants as well and perhaps trim the bigger ones. At some point I need to figure out what is going on with my children’s rights club in Notse and I need to start baby-weighing in the villages. So I definitely have things to do, things to keep me busy and entertained.
11/14/07
I am feeling a little sad today, a little out of sorts. Perhaps it is because I am still not feeling perfectly well. I spend the day lying in bed fiddling with the shortwave radio Dad brought me and reading a book – a luxury I don’t usually allow myself except at bed-time. I feel in a little bit of a funk that I hope I snap out of soon. I feel quite alone, what with the few friends I had made in Notse for school, Mana in Agbatitoe to cook for the priest and Lili left this morning to visit her sister who is sick in Vogan. I am not friendless – the children and women are still very friendly towards me, but our communication only goes so far.
After eating breakfast, my stomach voiced its displeasure and so I decided to follow Dad’s advice and try a home remedy for amoebas. Boil a clove of garlic in a liter of water and drink an ounce every hour until it is finished. The garlic water is not as disgusting as I feared. We will see if it helps.
Pretty much it was an uneventful day in which I pampered myself, refused the children’s clamors for UNO and read a book. I can’t wait to have my hammock so I can relax and read outdoors where it is cooler.
Tired of bread, I boiled chunks of ignam for lunch and ate them plain. Of course, an ignam makes more than any one person can eat and so I gave the rest to the family in front.
An uneventful, unproductive somewhat unhappy day, but I am trying to be lenient with myself and allow myself to recuperate my energy. Oh – I forgot the one productive thing I did was study a bit of Ewe.
Hopefully tomorrow I can eat normally and my energy will return.
11/15/07
The children are really testing my patience today and I am actually consciously weighting the pros and cons of beating them and of course that goes against all my beliefs and principles. Unfortunately I think I understand the urge to throw rocks and other things at the children. I think it stems from a deep rooted frustration at not being able to express yourself. I can’t “use my words” as the old day-care refrain goes “use your words, not your fists” because they don’t understand my words. They don’t understand when I say “don’t poke holes in my screen” or “stop banging on my door.”
Today was a much better day than yesterday although not particularly productive either. I wanted to hoe my plot of land I call a garden, but I couldn’t find Lili’s hoe and Kassim was busy with a patient, so I studied Ewe and brainstormed ideas for the coloring/activities/health book for children.
I actually ate a normal breakfast – French toast and a normal lunch – a particularly yummy lunch of tuna, noodles, tomato paste, onions, garlic and spices. It was fantastic. I miss meat here more than I did when I was pretending to be a vegetarian back in the States. I am very glad that I successfully ate two big meals today without upsetting my stomach. It is the first time in over a week and a half. I hope it continues that way because I want to recuperate my energy, patience and playfulness.
I have also learned that I should do the bulk of my cooking before 11:30 when school lets out because I inevitably have kids at my door shortly afterwards wanting attention. I did a bit of laundry, showered, and played UNO with some younger children.
It is harvesting time right now and so the women are gone all day every day which I think contributes a bit to my loneliness. Maybe I will go to the field on Saturday if I continue to feel better and better. I would like to experience harvesting rice and cotton – I figure try everything once, but no need to repeat a back-braking experience twice (like picking beans).
In the afternoon I wandered around doing a lot of nothing and then I baked mango upside down cakes with jam I feared would go bad.
Tomorrow I have an Ewe lesson, so I also bought sardines and I plan to make koliko (ignam fries).
My APCD is coming for a visit on Monday morning, so I will have to stay here at least until then, but that isn’t really a problem considering that I only got back on Tuesday.
I showed my pictures to more people today – mostly women and children. I love showing pictures of my family and Jorge to people. It makes me happy. People always mistake my mom for me and they can’t believe she is my mother =0). I hope I got the “look young all your life gene” =0).
6:15. Hm. What to do until bedtime? What to do? What to do?
My finger – the one that something got in through a cut and then migrated across the tip to the other side really itches. It is tender, as if bruised or burnt, but not unbearably painful. The itching, however, sometimes wakes me up at night. I don’t know why it would itch and I am not too pleased about the trail it left in my finger, but my PCMO didn’t seem very concerned and whatever it is seems to have settled right above my knuckle, so at least it isn’t moving any further. When I go to Lome for Thanksgiving I guess I will go show it to the nurse.
The weather is changing in a strange way – at least it seems strange to me. In the mornings it is overcast and almost foggy and the days seem a little cooler with occasional gusty winds. Up north I don’t think it rains anymore, but it does here and it is actually raining right now which maybe means that I can go lie down and read my book and I won’t have any visitors.
Oh. I also took the latch off the outside of my door because two nights ago, when Tsevi came to visit and I tried to open the door for him, he had to open for me because the children had locked it from the outside. At least if they lock my in my shower I can potentially climb over the wall, but if they lock me in my house I would have to cut the screen on my door and that wouldn’t be good. (Not that it would take too much cutting to connect the holes the children have already made in my screen by pressing their grubby little noses and fingers against it).
11/16/07
Today was a good day, I think, although again there were times when I feared I might give in to my urge to beat small children. Which reminds me, I almost forgot that my day didn’t start out well at all. I got up at my usual time, 5:30, and made myself tapioca pudding for breakfast and started making koliko for my Ewe teacher. I was about to go say good morning to the women in front when screams attracted my attention to the fact that one of the older boys who lives in front was seriously beating (punching) Yawovi – the little obnoxious kid that lives next door. Yawovi is about 10 years old and the other boy around fourteen. My imagination tells me that Yawovi was picking on a younger child of the clan who lives in front, and the retaliation was cousinly solidarity, but I might have completely mad that up. I didn’t go out to stop the beating. I’m not sure hwy not or if it was the right decision. I guess I felt it was out of my jurisdiction. When children fight right in front of my house or under my paillote, I feel that I have the right to tell them to stop fighting or go home, but this was much closer to the other family’s territory and their mothers weren’t doing anything to stop it. I reconciled with my own conscience by telling myself that Yawovi wasn’t really doing anything to top it. I reconciled with my own conscience by telling myself that Yawovi wasn’t really physically hurt badly as he only cried for a minute or two after he escaped (and he has been know to wail for long periods of time right outside my door) and I vowed to refuse to allow the child who had delivered the beating to play cards with me that day. I planned to inform him that I had witnessed the beating, found it cowardly and mean and didn’t want to play with him today (does that sound childish?). I thought that might make an impact considering he is one of my most devoted UNO players, however I didn’t get a chance to pull out that pack of ammunition because I didn’t play cards at all today due to Ewe lessons and I don’t think it will be nearly as effective several days after the fact. I especially hate the glee with which other children view and cheer on the fights, especially when they are so mismatched that it isn’t a fight at all, but like I said earlier, a beating.
Nevertheless, it didn’t’ stop me from wanting to smack Yawovi myself when he comes and bangs on my door as if it were a drum and essentially tells me that if I give him what he wants (in this case the koliko I was preparing), he will go away. I have decided that stubborn-ness can fortify patience. I stubbornly refuse to give in and so he continues pounding on the door until he gets bored. I think there will come times when I curse myself for being so lenient with the children, but they (in general, not Yawovi) are my greatest source of happiness in village as well, so . . . Most good things have a flip side and I guess you just have to weigh one against the other and I hope I continue to feel that being friends with the children and suffering from their pestering is better than chasing them all away.

I ate my tapioca which was very good and a new breakfast option which, of course, is always welcome. The only difference with commercial tapioca pudding is that there weren’t smooth, uniform balls and it eventually turned into a snot and booger-like consistency, but that was fine because I am much more of a taste person than a texture person – most textures don’t bother me and it tasted good.

I made the koliko and the sauce. I needed some tomatoes and was on my way to buy them when I stopped to say hello to Julie (Efo’s older sister who lives in front). She asked me where I was going and I said to buy tomatoes and she went into her house and came out with a bowlful and wouldn’t let me pay anything for them. So this evening I brought her the leftover koliko and sauce. I love the way she gave me the tomatoes without expecting anything in return. That makes me happy to give back. The same thing happened later in the day – the old man who is the owner of the house and in whose field I picked beans for a day, brought me a big bowl full of dried beans – enough to make a good 10-15 meals. It was a totally unexpected gift and I know he expects nothing in return, but I made banana bread which I will bring to him in the morning.

Oh – I also sort of said I would go help pick soy beans tomorrow. We will see if that actually happenes and what it is like . . . =0) drops for my bucket, drops for my bucket . . .
Jerome, my Ewe prof, arrived late (around 9:30-10:00), but the lesson went well. As always, I am impatient to be fluent and so it is difficult for me to gauge my own progress. After the two-hour lesson, we ate lunch and went to find the other man who was to have a lesson – the Catholic catechist who helped me cut trees for my garden fence. I had to sit in on his lesson as well (which I certainly hope doesn’t become the norm) because it took place in my house, but out of the deal I might just get a fence for my garden finally. The man, Nazir is his name, said he would ask someone about woven grass fencing and that once it is made, he will put it up for me. HE also seems excited to the point of being giddy (like a small child) over the fact that I plan to plant a garden. It is strange how a garden can excite someone who spends all day every day toiling in a field. What is the difference? Anyway, all I can say is that I am glad I started this garden endeavor early because maybe it will actually be ready by March when I am told I should plant.

In between the two Ewe lessons, I had a visit from the man and woman who work with IDH – a microfinance organization. Apparently they work with a women’s groupement here in Avassikpe that stockpiles grains for the season in which they are more expensive. I am not sure how I will be of help to them exactly, but they are very persistent visitors.

In the evening, I showered and was in the process of making banana bread – when I received an unexpected visit from one of the boys in my children’s rights club (the only one who ever pesters me at home). I guess his visit was legit considering he wanted to inform me that the group wants to meet this Wednesday (which unfortunately doesn’t work for me). He stayed a long time though, but his presence was thankfully overshadowed by a surprise visit from Mana. I was really happy to see her although it was a little awkward because I felt I should entertain her somehow considering she made the effort to come and see me and I didn’t even have much to offer in the way of food except pineapple upside down cake and a mandarine orange.

Now I know she plans to come to Avassikpe on Friday so maybe we can plan to have dinner Friday evenings.

I am going to bed now – it is 8:15 – later than I have stayed up all week.

11/17/07

Man oh man. By the time we actually to the field (I thought I was going to harvest soy beans), I am going to be completely worn out from the waiting. It is now 10:30. Why wait until the hottest part of the day to go to the field? And the second thing I don’t understand is why the women shower right before going to the field?

I could have hoed my whole garden by now . . . The problem with waiting to go somewhere or do something is that you are reluctant to start anything else and therefore sit around doing nothing which makes time seem to drag on and on forever.

In an attempt to look for the positive to not leaving until noon (the hottest part of the day) I am focusing on the fact that the later we leave, the less time I will spend in the field because we will never come back later than 5:30.

So I never went to the field. Around noon, DaJulie (Da is like Big Sister Julie) stopped by on her way to the field and saw that they weren’t going to harvest soja but rather to find firewood. Remembering my bruised head, I opted out.

Instead, I made myself a lunch of ginger rice and red lentils and then I showered. After showering, I played UNO with the children. Just as we were finishing something quite odd happened – a boy, perhaps 12, 13, or 14 years old started crawling in the dirt, throwing dirt over his shoulders (and inevitably onto himself) and into his face. He crawled in our direction followed by a crowd of children and women. He was also brandishing a palm frond and when he got close enough, I could hear him muttering and then all of a sudden he would spastically do summersaults over one shoulder. My UNO play-mates said it was Voudou. I asked why he was doing that and they didn’t know how to answer or didn’t want to. It went on for quite some time and no one (except children) was laughing. Everyone seemed to be taking the boy’s trance-like state and what he was saying quite seriously. After about 15 minutes, he summer-salted back in the direction of his house.

Right afterwards, an older lady that I didn’t recognize told me to come with her. I didn’t know where or why, but I locked up my house and followed her to a far corner of the village that I had never before visited. I was relieved to see the majority of Efo’s family ther – familiar faces. His older brother explained that some outsiders are coming to the village tonight for a ceremony and that the women were preparing a meal. It must be quite the occasion because they slaughtered a pig and a goat. I was delighted to be included, even a little. I helped pound peanuts into a paste for the sauce and then sat around, trying to linger as long as possible. I wonder what kind of ceremony and who is coming. The men put a post in the ground and the women seemed to be trying to explain that something would happen around the pole. The men were off to the side, sitting on benches smoking (a rare sight in village) and drinking tchouk while the women prepared. I wished Efo were there to explain what was going on, but perhaps if I could understand I wouldn’t have been invited. Because I can’t understand, perhaps I can be present because the meaning is still largely hidden from me.

At sunset, the women (Efo’s sisters in law) said that we would go home, shower and come back – I hope that means that I get to go back as well.

So it wasn’t any sort of Voudou ceremony and no one danced around a pole – see what happens when you let your imagination take the lead? It was a vieille – the celebration the night before the funeral – just when I went to Lili’s uncle’s funeral and the post was to string up lights powered by a generator and not to dance around. It was still nice to be included. The children came to get me as I was writing and we went over. I was given a plastic chair that I didn’t move from the whole night. At first nothing much happened at all – the men were drinking and talking; the women were preparing pâte and the children were playing and fighting and running around screaming. Eventually we ate – I was served my own dish, but invited a woman I didn’t know (one of the out-of-towners I think) to eat with me – it is awkward to eat alone – and so she did. It was pâte with a sauce with chunks of pork in it. The pork was really fatty, so I ate what meat I could find and gave the rest to a small child. The same small child (four years old maybe?) sat on my lap the whole evening and kept me company. After eating, benches were set up in a circle and some of the older men of the community gave small speeches and then poured alcohol – tchouk and sodabe – on the ground for the ancestors. After the talking was finished, the drumming and dancing started. At first only a handful of adults and excited children were dancing, but eventually they set up a speaker system with music and many more people joined in. I didn’t dance, but I stayed until around 11:30 when I was just too tired to stay any longer and my stomach was starting to act up again. DaJulie walked me home. As I woke up periodically throughout the night, I could hear the music and drumming droning on. I think it only stopped near daybreak.

I have self-diagnosed myself with either amoebas, giardia or both and they have kicked in gear again. I wonder how I will do if I go to church? I will only go if Tseviato – the twelve year old or so child of Efo’s older brother comes to get me.

11/18/07 – 11/20/07

It is the morning of the 20th and I am in Notse. I arrived yesterday and tried to do internet, but both times that I went it wasn’t working. I am so anxious to receive and read your email that I can hardly concentrate on anything else, but I will try to be patient just a little bit longer and take advantage of the time to write about the last two days and type up my emails.

On Sunday I wasn’t feeling well stomach-wise, but the night before Efo’s sister in law had given me a container with cooked pieces of pork in it and so I tried to think of something to make in return. I decided to make curried chickpeas and rice, but for some reason I made a huge amount. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I overestimated the size of the container that they had given me because I made about three times what could fit in the container.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to church, but I had told Tseviato (Efo’s niece, his older brother’s first child) that I would go with her. I decided not to seek her out, but to wait and see if she came to get me. Meanwhile I was preparing the chickpeas and rice and starting to clean up my house for my APCD’s visit Monday morning. The day before I had made the mistake of letting Richard, DaJulie’s youngest, into my house and giving him a mandarine orange and on Sunday he came again. I don’t know why I let him in. I need to maintain a “no children in the house” policy. I like the child – he is sweet and well behaved (most of the time), but on Sunday morning he took a mandarine orange from my basket after I had told him that he couldn’t take one and so I used the pretext to justifiably boot him out of my house (after taking back my orange) and I am not going to permit him or any other child to come in anymore. It was silly of me to allow him in in the first place.

As I was finishing the rice and chickpeas, Tseviato came to get me – around 9:30. We were late (church starts at 8:30) but I didn’t mind because it meant that I would have to sit through less. We missed the fun singing and dancing part and got there right in time for the sermon which was all about giving money to the church. Next Sunday I guess they are having a big fund-raiser to generate money to rebuild the church – I received a personalized invitation, but I won’t be in village. After church Tsevi said that we could go to Avassikpevi, the village next door, to see the basket maker and if he had made any progress on my baskets. I am glad I didn’t sit around waiting for him because he didn’t come for three hours. I continued with my cleaning, brought the chickpeas over to the families in front, received a gift of the fattest bananas I have ever seen from another neighbor woman (Yolke’s co-wife I think), made banana bread and took a little nap while I waited for it to bake.

I am so paranoid about wasting food that it becomes a real problem on the days I can’t eat. For example I had the pork that the women had given me the night before and I had made the sauce a little thicker with some peanut butter and tomato paste, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it because of the way my stomach was feeling, and of course it won’t keep, so I had to find someone to give it to. But then I have to make it worth giving to someone, so I made some rice to complete the meal and planned to give it to Tsevi. I burned garbage and swept out my house and just neatened up.

Finally Tsevi came and we biked to the other village. The basket maker wasn’t there, but it was evident that he hadn’t done any work on my project. His brother promised that he would make a basket for Tuesday morning to see if it corresponds with what I want and then we will negotiate a price and he will make the rest. I am doubtful it will be ready and am considering telling him to forget about it. It has been over two months and he hasn’t even tried to make one basket in the way that I want them made.

In the late afternoon I finished cleaning, happily got rid of all the food I had made and rested a bit. At dusk I went to try to find Yawovi, but he had already left for Notse, and so I sat with Yolke and some other women and played with a small baby until it was dark. At 6:00 I went home and slept on the mat on my floor until 7:00 at which time I officially went to bed.

The thing in my finger is moving again. It has made new roads in my finger and is now on the topside of my finger between the nail and the first knuckle. It itches like crazy and I plan to call the MedUnit to make an appointment for while I am down in Lome for Thanksgiving.

I had been planning to bike into Notse on Tuesday, but I had tentatively scheduled a meeting with the Children’s Rights Club students for Monday evening and I didn’t want to stay in Avassikpe just to go see the basket maker Tuesday morning (he probably won’t have anything made anyway) so when I woke up I decided to hitch a ride to Notse with my APCD. I packed and finished readying my house and then did various things on my to-do list such as – speak with the director of the school about the HIV/AIDS talk I want to give in the week after World AIDS Day and give him a Peace Corps Publication about Girls Education and Empowerment to use as supplemental materials in the more advanced classes. I also talked to the boy who was safe-guarding my soccer ball and told him that I wanted it before I left that morning, that I would leave it with Lili and she would return it to them once they have satisfactorily weeded the dispensaire. Lili was back from the trip she had made to her home town over the weekend and so I saw her and chatted with her briefly before my APCD arrived around 9:30.

I told my APCD about my ideas for projects and what I have been working on – pretty much I just babbled on and on about all my ideas for work considering I have done a whole lot of nothing. He liked that I have planted moringa already (however I have sorely neglected my plants and must attend to them when I get back to village) and he liked the boit d’images that I am making. He also met with Tsevi and the proprietor of my house who, as I expected, now wants to exact rent. Apparently the Peace Corps paid to finish the house when they were placing Emmanuelle there and so she had not paid rent, but Peace Corps had told the man that if a second volunteer was placed in the house (me) they would talk about rent. I don’t consider it anything personal – if I were a villager and could get some money out of the Peace Corps I would do it too – and he is asking for a very reasonable sum (3,000 cFA a month = $6.00). I even got my soccer ball back from the children and handed it off to Lili right before we left and so I was able to leave village feeling that I had tied off at least a couple loose ends. I don’t think I will be back to village for two weeks what with Thanksgiving in Lome and then the 45th Anniversary Celebration in Lome on the 28th of November (Peace Corps is celebrating 45 years of service in Togo and all volunteers are invited – Sue Rosenfeld, a family friend who heads the Boston University program in Niger is coming for the occasion and I am excited to see her) and World AIDS Day on December 1st which I want to spend in Notse, so that makes two weeks away from village.

I rode in the comfy cushy air-conditioned Peace Corps car to Notse. When we arrived Ashley wasn’t home and the cell phone service was being finicky and so we went to a fufu bar for lunch. I am glad to have discovered this fufu bar because it is not too far from Ashley’s house and a good meal option when we don’t feel like cooking. There were three sauce options – fish, agouti (bush rat) and beef. I didn’t feel adventurous enough to try the agouti and so I took the beef even though the woman warned me that it was really tough (and she was right – so tough that even though she cut it into small pieces for me, as if I were a child, I still couldn’t eat it). The fufu and sauce were good though. Some day, when I am more sure of my stomach status, I will try agouti =0).

Ashley met up with us at the restaurant, but didn’t eat anything because she doesn’t like fufu and because she is also recovering from stomach issues that landed her in the MedUnit in Lome for much of last week.

Our APCD paid for the meal and then dropped us off at Ashley’s house and left us for a couple of hours while he went to visit someone. That was nice because we hadn’t seen each other for THREE WEEKS! and had a lot of catching up to do about our respective AIDS’ Rides and sicknesses =0).

When our APCD arrived to talk to Ashley I went to internet to give her some space. The director of the school that the internet café is affiliated with saw me and emphatically told me that I have gained weight since he last saw me (a month or so ago). I am pretty sure that that is not possible after taking AIDS Ride and my stomach problems into account, but it still is not pleasant to hear. Internet wasn’t working and so I went back to Ashley’s house and was going to shower when I got roped into going to make courtesy calls on important people at the hospital – that part of the excursion was fine and probably good for my work here, but then I also had to sit in on our APCD’s meeting with Ashley’s homologue and I had to listen to him whine for over an hour about how his organization doesn’t have any funding. The way he speaks (slowly, painstakingly) and his office and just everything about his manner makes me feel claustrophobic and like pulling my hair out. I don’t know how Ashley deals with it every day. She must have incredible amounts of patience or self-control or I don’t know what to tolerate the way he speaks and how he drones on and on about the same thing: “we have all these plans but no money . . . if we just had a television and dvd player . . .” AGGGGHHHH!!!

On the way back to Ashley’s house after drinking a final beverage with our APCD, I ran into Yawovi. I was thankful for that because he had called me earlier in the day when I was at the fufu bar and he said that he would come meet up with me but he never showed (apparently he came, realized we would all be eating and left) and because I have no way to contact the students (none of them have cell phones) I just have to wait for them to contact me. We arranged for him to meet me at 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon and so that he could show me the way to Efo’s house were our club meetings will be held.

In the evening we went to Heather’s house to borrow some movies and then I showered and while Ashley was showering I went to see if internet was working. Of course it wasn’t and I had to run into the evil director again (who asked Ashley to be (and this is her wording, not mine) his “f--- buddy” even though he is married) and he again insisted that I have gotten fatter – I must really eat well in Avassikpe. When I told him that American women find it rude when someone tells them that they have gained weight, he responded “what am I supposed to say? That you took on weight?” I said, “no, you’re not supposed say anything at all, it is IMPOLITE” and I walked out. Even though I am sure he is blind, stupid, or confusing me for Heather who weighs 98 pounds (in which case I would have gained a whopping amount of weight in a few weeks), I still left feeling fat and unhappy. Stupid men.

On the way back from internet, a girl called out my name and introduced herself as one of the high school students from Avassikpe. She and three other girls told me that they had just been talking with Efo about the club meeting and before I could say anything she ran off to get him. I chatted with the girls for a few minutes and then went back to Ashley’s house and a few minutes later Efo and the four girls showed up. I hadn’t seen Efo since he left for Notse a month ago and so I was pleased to see him again. We talked about the club meeting – I told them that they should go ahead and hold it without me. I introduced them to Ashley which is good because she is the one who will be here in Notse all the time and maybe she can come to meetings with me and stand in for me if I can’t make it. Today I will meet up with Efo and Yawovi and any of the girls who are available just to learn the way to Efo’s house. Ashley, hopefully, will come with me.

Right now we are discussing which microbe we have in our stomachs – I saw blood in my poop last night which is a sign of amoebas, but I still think I might also have giardia. Ashley is also sick so we are comparing our symptoms and reading in Where There is no Doctor. I started a MIF kit this morning which means I am preserving samples of my poo for analysis when I go to Lome. Fun fun. Actually, it is really disgusting.

11/20/07 and 11/21/07

On Tuesday morning we went to run some errands in town between bathroom runs if you know what I mean =0). I wanted to buy pineapples and visit the microfinance organization whose agents have visited me several times in Avassikpe. Ashley needed to visit the Office of Social Affairs and wanted to look into buying a fan. The most important of those missions, the pineapples, was accomplished with success. The others, well, we found Affaires Sociales and Ashley delivered a gift she had been entrusted with by a COS-ing volunteer (COS = Close Of Service) and we found IDH, the microfinance organization, but the two people I know weren’t there. The fan shop only had fans with plastic blades and Ashley is holding out for a metal one, so we returned to the house to be close to the bathrooms.

I had bought some sweet potatoes to make koliko for lunch. Who would have guessed it, but the sweet potatoes here are almost impossible to cut! It is like trying to cut through a piece of wood. They are so much harder than ignams. But it was worth the effort and the fries were yummy. Because both Ashley and I were a little indisposed of the “ventre” (stomach), we had a lot of koliko left over and so when Yawovi finally arrived to show me the way to Efo’s house, I brought them with me to share. Ashley was going to go with us, but right as we were about to walk out the door she had to make a run to the bathroom which left her feeling as though a fifteen minute walk would not be a pleasant experience for her bowels and so she opted to stay behind. I laughed at her because she was doing okay until Yawovi arrived – I told her it was psychological, but I was just teasing, I am sure that it is not.

We walked to Efo’s house which is on your way out of town heading North, towards Avassikpe. I think I would be able to find it again. It is a little difficult because after you turn off the Route Nationale you have to walk a ways on dirt roads and paths. He lives in one small room that I guess he rents that has a table to use as a desk, chairs and a bed. As usual here, the bed was hidden by a sheet hung from the ceiling that separates the room into two parts. I have seen this same set-up in Mana’s room and in another woman’s room. We chatted for a while about our club and afterwards about the past couple of weeks, cell phones and other mundane topics until Yawovi had to leave because he had class at 3:00 and I wanted to get back before Ashley left for her meeting at the organization she is working with at 3:30. Efo walked us back most of the way into town. Yawovi walked me back all the way to the house because he had left his bike there. Then he had to turn around and go in the other direction to go to school.

In the afternoon Ashley went to her meeting and I, believe it or not, was bored! The electricity had been out since mid-morning (apparently the electricity for this region is generated by hydro-electric power and now that it is starting to be the dry season we are told that power cuts will be more and more frequent). And so I couldn’t use my computer to type up emails and I couldn’t watch a movie. I read some articles in the most recent Newsweeks (Ashley has been hording them and not sharing =0), but then I got a little lonely and went to see if internet was working (even though I knew it wouldn’t be). I thought there might be a TINY possibility that they would have a generator, but they didn’t. Either way it got me out of the house and I stayed chatting with the two women who work in the café for half an hour. I think living in a big town could get quite lonely sometimes because everyone is doing their own thing all the time and it is more difficult to meet people and more difficult just to go hang-out with people. In the village there are always people (well, kids, little people) around if you’re feeling lonely and often there are some adults sitting and braiding hair or doing some other sort of stationary work who don’t mind if you join them.

The electricity came back on right at 6:00, when it gets dark enough that you need to light a lamp in the house and so it seems that the power cuts are intentional. That is all fine and good for lights because perhaps lights aren’t really needed during daylight, but what about computers? And people who want to work? And television? And people who want to relax and have mindless entertainment? Like me that afternoon in Notse when Ashley was busy tearing her hair out in an exasperating meeting with her homologue and others. Selfish, I know.

In the evening I made a pasta, olive oil, tomatos and basil dish that was very good and then I went to do internet. I got lucky and found Jorge on gmail chat and so we messaged back and forth until 8:00 when the internet closes.

On Wednesday, we got ready to leave for Lome. I am working on a MIF kit and that means preserving three stool samples from three different days in a liquid solution so that when I get to Lome it can be analyzed for what ever it is that might be causing my frequent stomach upsets. Yesterday morning I was again feeling nauseous, but when Regina (an SED volunteer from my stage who lives up the route nationale from us in Glei) arrived with a gift of candy corn (she had overheard from my Dad over my birthday that I love the sickly sweet candy), I ate some anyway. My stomach hurts no matter what I do, so I might as well still eat right? That philosophy works sometimes and at other times I want to kick myself in the shins (that would be pretty difficult) for eating something that causes me major stomach cramping afterwards. Yesterday wasn’t one of those times, though, and so I ate my candy corns with no aggravating effects.

We finally got ourselves organized and out the door around 10:00 and the trip to Lome was relatively uneventful and the same chauffer took us all the way to our destination, so that was nice. Otherwise we would have had to get out and find another taxi to take us to the particular neighborhood where the Peace Corps Offices are located. We found a room at Chez Lien, the hotel where I had made a reservation for Dad when he came but that his taxi driver couldn’t find. It is nice enough. Three of us can stay in a room for 10,500 cFA, so that is pretty good.

After settling in, we took a cab to a restaurant where I had a Lebanese (I think) “sandwhich” called a schwarma (spelling?). It was like a Panini with pieces of chicken, potato, pickles and mustard – it was yummy. The other girls (Regina and Ashley) had hamburgers and fries.

Afterwards we visited a couple super markets – I bought some soy sauce, some more red and brown lentils and dried split peas – then we went to the bank and the last stop was the MedUnit. I was seen first. The PCMO thinks that the thing moving around in my finger is a fungus; she is going to make me an appointment with a dermatologist for Friday after doing some research to try to figure out what it might be. The first thing she asked me was “are you NRM?” (a Natural Resource Management volunteer), “do you go to the fields a lot?” I said I am not NRM, but I do go to the fields. I probably got some sort of fungus from the beans I picked for eight hours. Some of them were covered in a moist fungus like thing . . . GREAT =0). And about my stomach issues, she said to finish the MIF kit and bring a fresh sample in on Friday and that they would do a lab analysis and I would have the results by noon. I have little red bumps on my chest and she said that it was probably just heat rash. Then, to top it all off (like the icing on the cake or the cherry on the ice cream sunday), I got two shots – the flu shot and the HPV shot (I should probably have consulted my Mom on that one – it is a new shot, but I opted to get it because it is very expensive in the States and protects against . . .).

I spent the whole evening at the Peace Corps Bureau using the internet. I was able to chat with Etienne a little and then skype with Jorge AND, the most amazing thing in the whole world, he got a webcam and so I was able to SEE him! LIVE! ON MY COMPUTER! It was the most wonderful thing ever – to see the smile on his face as he read something I wrote over chat or heard something I said. It was like a revitalizing experience and left me energized and almost hyper-active. It was an explosion of the senses – to both be able to HEAR his voice and SEE him in the same day, AT THE SAME TIME! I felt so blessed!

11/22/07

Happy Thanksgiving!! Yesterday I spent the morning at the bureau doing email and trying to type up emails and talking with my lovely parents on skype (happiness!) and then we went back to the hotel to shower and change and arrived at our Country Director’s house at the appointed time – around 3:00. The invitation was open to all volunteers and staff, but surprisingly, relatively few people came – perhaps twenty to thirty and many of them were from my stage, so it was a comfortable setting. The food was absolutely amazing – both in quality and quantity: two turkeys! A Virginia ham (a little salty), white sweet potatoes, orange sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad, green salad, green beans, chicken jambalaya, a corn bake, macaroni and cheese!, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, fried plantains and for DESSERT: pumpkin pie, apple pie, apple crisp, cookie bars, fruit salad and Cool Whip. Needless to say, I ate way, way, way too much and coupled with my stomach issues and the fact that my stomach is not accustomed to rich food means that I paid for it for hours afterwards (I might still be paying for it right now – a day afterwards – because I am not feeling well). It was nice, though. If I couldn’t be eating my Mom’s turkey dinner, it was a good place to be. It is easy to be thankful when you’re in Togo eating TURKEY! with my friends on Thanksgiving.

11/23/07

Today I am not feeling well – I have severe stomach cramps and nausea, but I went to the Med Unit and gave them stool samples to send in for analysis. They won’t have the results today, but when I come back next week they will hopefully know what I have and be able to kill it because it is wearing me out a bit and definitely getting annoying. The good thing is that they think they know what is wrong with my finger – a parasite called creeping eruption (you can look it up on google and see some great pictures). It’s name sounds fitting anyway and what I read about it on the internet makes it sound like an accurate diagnosis.

The best news of the day is that I received the duffle bag that Dad sent over with Peace Corps Ghana, so that is super exciting.

I am thinking of spending the morning in the Peace Corps lounge and then heading to Kpalime in the afternoon to spend the night with the volunteer couple that came in with my stage and then tomorrow I am thinking of going to say hello to my host family in Agou Nyogbo and then continuing on to spend a couple of days with Tig in Agou Avedje before coming back to Lome early next Tuesday morning for the 45th Anniversary Celebration (of Peace Corps in Togo).

11/5/07 through 11/10/07

11/5/07

It is the morning of Monday the 5^th and AIDS Ride is scheduled to begin in about an hour and a half (it is now 5:40 in the morning) and I would be excited except for the fact that I am not feeling 100%. My stomach is upset for some reason and I have severe diarrhea.

We left around 9:15, biked to a town on the edge of the route nationale where we could get a car headed north, found one that could accommodate all three of us and our bikes and then waited for an hour and a half for them to find enough passengers to start. The trip was relatively fluid and uneventful with only a couple of brief stops to drop off or squeeze in more passengers. At one of the stops we bought some delicious watermelon – a very yummy treat.

We arrived in Stoubuoa around 2:00 in the afternoon and biked to the volunteer's house. Her name is Joelle and she is a CHAP volunteer who has been in Togo a year. I asked her about internet places, but she said they hadn't been working lately. The one I saw was closed completely. As we were arriving, a van-load of other volunteers arrived and so we met all of the people who we would be biking with – 12 volunteers and three host country nationals. Allision, Kate and I (the two girls from my Stage who came up from plateaux Region with me) went in search of food and found a fufu bar. It was the first time that I had bought fufu – it was pretty good and the whole meal only cost $1.00. It is interesting, though, that I can already tell and appreciate the difference between well pounded and not well pounded fufu. Well pounded fufu is very sticky and smooth. Not well pounded fufu is of a less elastic consistency and sometimes even a little lumpy. This fufu was not particularly well pounded.

In the afternoon we sat around chatting and then had a semi-formal organizational meeting to plan our sensibilizations. The AIDS Ride is funded by an international organization called PSI (Populations Services International) and they also provided us with T-shirts (for ourselves and to hand out) and baseball hats, pens and condoms to hand out as well. We decided that the seasoned volunteers will do the first sensibilization to show us how it is done and then we will be incorporated. This morning we will bike 14 k to the first village where we will do a sensibilization as one big group, but on other days we will split into two and sometimes three groups so as to hit more villages or disperse ourselves throughout the larger towns. I am just going to go with the flow and do whatever is asked of me considering I don't really know how this is done.

In the evening we went to dinner at one of Joelle's work places. The woman who received us owns a bar but she also runs an orphanage for about twenty children from perhaps three to sixteen years of age. I was really impressed by her – she seemed like such a wonderful, loving person – one of those people that just exudes warmth and caring. The children came in to greet us and sang us songs of welcome and danced. It was very well done. I am not feeling well at all right now and so I am not doing justice ot how nice it was – a very good and upbeat start to the week.

We were then fed a meal of an amazing salad and then watchi (a local dish that is a mixture of beans and rice all mashed together) and it was served with a red sauce and soja. It was really good, but just the thought of it is exacerbating my nausea . . .

The other think I wanted to mention, because I have forgotten every other day, is that I have another infected finger. I cut myself with a knife at the beginning of the week and the cut us healed closed but there is a red mass and swelling underneath and it seems to be slowly spreading. It isn't as painful as the last time because it is on the side of my middle finger on my left hand which is less sensitive and used than my thumb, but I am still a little worried about it. I hope it clears up on its own. I definitely don't want to go down to Lome again.

10/6/07

I am in a good mood this morning because I am feeling much much better. All day yesterday I was on the verge of vomiting or pooping in my pants and having terrible terrible stomach cramps. The only time I wasn't in pure agony oddly enough was when I was biking and then I was in sporadic agony. And so I biked the 35k even though I didn't eat anything except a coupld of oranges. We left Sokade around 8:00 in the morning and biked 14 k to a small village. The road was a rocky dirt road with only a couple hills and aside from the tingling numbness in my hands from the bumpiness and the wrenching in my stomach, it was a pleasant ride. The first sensibilization was a group sensibilization at a CEG (high school/middle school). I did not participate – I had just vomited up the salad from the night before after trying to choke down some nasty oral rehydration drink (if you have never had it, it is like drinking sea water). I even put the juice of four limes in it, but it didn't affect the taste at all. And so I sat out and observed. We were under some trees for shade. The students were standing in a big circle around us. First we introduced the topic, HIV/AIDS, and then we established the difference between the two. Someone then asked some true/false questions to feel out the groups' knowledge level and then another person asked for the three modes of transmission (unprotected sex, fresh blood, mother-to-child). Then we did three silent mini-skits to illustrate the ABCs (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms) and asked the students to tell us what was happening in the skits. One of the Togolese counterparts then did a part on condoms – where to buy them (boutiques, hospitals, pharmacies – not the market), how to choose condoms (by looking at the expiration date), how to open and put on and then dispose of condoms. We then took questions and asked questions and handed out T-shirts and pens in reward for good answers which of course boosted participation. All the while the director of the school was walking around wielding a switch and the teachers were standing in the back being disrespectrul and unhelpful. For example, when a kid asked if the whit people hadn't put AIDS in condoms (a common misconception), the teachers stood there muttering, "well, its possible, the white people could have put AIDS in condoms." Great.

I think the sensibilization went ok, but really I was a little embarrassed by our, and I include myself, lack of preparation. It seems strange that so much preparation would go into planning the route, preparing the audience and then literally no preparation goes into the presentation itself – the most important part. Right before the presentation we divvied up parts and people presented them, but I feel like if we are creating such hype around our ride that we should have well put-together, well thought-out, well-organized presentations that we discuss beforehand how to adapt/modify for different audiences.

After the first sensibilization – which ended in a fight for condoms between eight year olds – we biked another 11k down the road to where we would do our afternoon sensibilizations. We had a long break which was painful for me because I had nothing to distract me from my severely cramping stomach and no where to go to the bathroom. I tried drinking a warm Fanta. It didn't help except perhaps by putting some calories in my body and boosting my energy a little.

In the afternoon we separated into two groups. My group stayed in the village we were in and the other group continued 3k down the road. Our afternoon sensibilization was with a primary school and the director, although knowledgeable and on-target in his understanding of HIV/AIDS, largely refused to translate any of our presentation into local language. Our French is far from perfect and the children's French didn't go much beyond "ça va tres bien. Oui. Non." And they answer yes to everything anyway. If you ask if they understand, you get a chorus of "Oui," but if you ask them to repeat what you just said you get blank stares. The sensibilization was like pulling teeth and I am doubtful of what, if any, information the children retained. I am not sure how productive it is to do sensibilizations at primary schools. I think the children are too young and their French levels too undeveloped for them to get anything out of it. It was a frustrating experience. I think if I were to coordinate AIDS Ride, I would not include primary schools in the program or I would limit it to the oldest grades of the primary school.

We biked off to catch up with the other group and then biked another 11k to the town where we would spend the night. When I got off my bike, I actually felt better. Finally, when it was my turn, I took a bucket bath in a urinal that we used as a shower stall. But because it was a urinal and not a shower, the drain wasn't on the floor and so it held dirty water. It was still deliciously wonderful to shower and be clean. Afterwards, I ate some peanuts – the first bit of solid food I had had all day and chatted with the other volunteers about our dream jobs. The village had been paid to prepare us dinner – bean beignets, rice, spaghetti noodles (rice and noodles often go together here) and a sesame sauce. It took a really long time for the dinner to be ready, so I was glad I wasn't hungry. Well, my body was hungry, but I had absolutely not appetite, no desire to eat anything that wasn't a fruit or included oil (which means anything I don't prepare myself). While the others ate, I brushed my teeth and made on final trip to the latrine – a hole in a concrete slab on the ground. I slept all right considering I was sleeping on a hard concrete flor. I love the fleece sleeping bag my Dad left me – my sleeping bag is too hot, but this one is perfect and provides a bit of cushioning.

11/7/07

Today I woke up around 6:00, got ready for the day, packed up my stuff and ate some beanut butter and bread for breakfast. Our sensiblization at the school wasn't until 8:00 in the morning and so I wrote a bit and we went on a search for fruit but came back empty handed. Overall, the sensiblization went well, but during I wrote down some suggestions for improvement. 1). No primary schools – only sdecondary schools; 2). Yes or no rather than true/false at the beginning; 3).Bring along life skills book (French copy) to help with preparation; 4). Plan for one full day of preparation before AIDS Ride; 5). Brainstorm ways to do audience/age appropriate sensibilizations; 6). Prepare for a translator in each village; 7) Invite the general population to attend; 8). Present a coherent, organized information (clear, concise); 9). Schedule brief sessions after sensiblizations to constructively critique and brainstorm ways to improve; 10). Incorporate anti-discrimination component. 11). Incorporate more information on the depistage (HIV test). I write these here mor for me (to have a permanent record of them) than for you. Perhaps if I decide to coordinate AIDS Ride one of the years I am here I can refer to this email =0).

This morning at the sensiblization, I did the modes of transmission part again. For the second and third sensibilization, we separated into two groups. The first group rode 8k down the road and we, the second group, rode 12k down the road (and since it is already the morning of the 8 ^th, everything is blurring together). Our second sensiblization was at a primary school and it went really well. They had separated out the older, more advanced students which helps with comprehension and cuts down on the noise and movement of restless little children. There was one little kid, around 8 years old, who had all the answers. Most of the other kids were in their teens. I think he was the director's child. Luckily, only at the first school did the director stubbornly refuse to translate into local language. At the other schools they were more accommodating and either repeated what we said in more understandable French or in local language. They seemed to understand that comprehension of the subject matter in this case is much more important than exercising French language skills. (Interestingly, almost every time we ask whether you can get HIV from a mosquito that bites someone with HIV/AIDS and then bites you, they answer yes. A common misconception. Interesting.

The sensibilization went well and I stopped feeling embarrassed about our lack of preparation because we really have it down now and everyone seems comfortable and confident in their role.

Afterwards, we biked to a bigger town where we would spend the rest of the afternoon. An easy day in terms of biking, but the sensibilization in the afternoon turned out to be quite challenging. There were more than four hundred people of all ages in attendance and it was quite the unruly crowd. Luckily, someone scrounged up a loud speaker, otherwise the whole thing would have been pointless. All I remember about the sensiblization is feeling claustrophobic as the crowd pushed inward and that it dragged on way too long. I had a really small part in the sensibilization – just a small role in the ABC skits (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom – Abstinence, Bonne Fidelite, Condom), but the sensibilization was stressful because it was so huge and out of control. Right afterward, I just left, grabbed my sugar covered and my salty peanuts and headed to the buvette wit ha couple other volunteers. Avoidance is my strategy. There were hundreds of kids surrounding us and leering at us. It was strange and over-whelming. Eventually, the other volunteers joined us and we hid in the buvette which was just a walled-in paillote. We had to cover the windows with pagnes to avoid the children's stares and eliminate the entertainment value of sticking around. We left when we heard that dinner was ready. It was fufu with an unidentifiable, but good sauce and soja (fried tofu). It was yummy, but I could only eat a little bit. Besides oranges, bread and peanut butter, and peanuts, it was the only thing I had eaten all day, but I was afraid to get sick again. Afterwards, we took turns taking showers (bucket baths) in the school director's compound, ate some candy and immersed ourselves in girl talk. The boys and some of the girls were at the buvette.

11/7/07

Yesterday morning my group got an early start because we had an 8:00 a.m. sensiblization in a town around 14k away. The road, for the most part, has been really good with only occasional difficult spots to maneuver – either rocky or sandy. The sensiblization was at a primary school, under a grass paillote, but it was with a small group of the oldest students and it went really, really well. I was happy afterwards because every time I do the modes of transmission and ask the audience to give them to me one by one, I am always told that razors transmit HIV/AIDS. People aren't clear on the fact that it is blood, fresh blood, that can potentially transmit HIV and I thought the children eventually grasped that important detail (and also the fact that mosquitoes can not transmit HIV). The teacher, who translated for us was very helpful and at the end we shouted out the ABCs and sang a song about working together to fight AIDS.

We left feeling good and with lots of energy and biked another10k or so to a village where we were supposed to do three, but ended up doing two sensibilizations. Ours was very large again, but much more well behaved than the day before and also a very good sensiblization. Sometimes we play a game to illustrate the role of the immune system in the body. It is an elephant and lions game, but for this sensiblization, we tried to modify the analogy a little and tailor it to Togo and so we used a chick and hawk analogy. The mother chickens protect the chick like the healthy immune system protects the body and the hawks (which represent opportunistic infections like tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea, etc.) try to attack the chick (which represents the human body). The hawks can't get to the chick because of the protective barrier formed by the mother hens. Then HIV attacks the immune system and eliminates some of the hens and now the hawks can easily attack the chick. That is the idea, anyway, and it would have worked well except the hawks attacked with a little to much vigor and got to the chick the first time. Note to self: choose big children to protect the chick and slightly smaller children or of the same size as hawks.

The whole sensibilization went well, though, and we left feeling satisfied and good about the message we had presented. Afterwards we rested at a bar. I bought 24 oranges (to share of course) for 200 cFA (around 40 cents) and some koliko (ignam fries) for lunch and then just sat around and chatted wit hthe volunteers who weren't sleeping. Around 1:30, we set off on another 10k or so ride for a third sensiblization at a dispensaire. When we arrived, there was no one there and so I climbed a tree and rested in it. It was lovely. Our sensiblization started about half an hour late wit ha small and assorted audience. Like our two previous sensiblizations, it went really well until the very end when someone asked a confusing question about whether or not it were possible for a woman and her child to die of AIDS and for her husband to test HIV negative. We answered no and then rethought the question and that it could technically be possible considering that HIVE is not transmitted every single time. Then again, perhaps the woman had cheated on her husband. Who knows. It is hard when they ask questions like that, that obviously stem from a real-life situation. It was still a good sensibilization over all. We biked another 6k or so to a large town called Cambole where one of the SED volunteers from my stage is posted.

We were able to shower and stay at her house and dinner was planned for us at a bar in town only I didn't eat because I started feeling sick to my stomach again. I drank a grapefruit soda and pooped all night long. Literally. I got up five times to go to the latrine and each time stayed on it for about twenty minutes. Even though I was in pain, I was thankful for a close, clean latrine – always have to look on the bright side.

11/8/07

This morning, I woke up feeling a tiny bit better, but I still haven't eaten anything except some bread, bananas, oranges and I just ate some chocolate because I need energy from the next stretch of biking. We have already biked 30k today and it is only 2:00. This morning, a smaller group of us (because the group was divided into three) rode to a village that had been talked-up to me as the cutest village in Togo or at least in Centrale Region and so of course I had to see it and compare it ot my own. I still think my village is cuter, but this one was greener and the people were definitely more animated (lots of clapping and smiling). They were very welcoming and pleased to see us. Again, it was an assorted audience under a tree. This time I helped out with the sketches and ABCs – it went well, but again we came across the same major misconceptions: AIDS comes from razors and can also be transmitted by mosquitoes. The village (it one of the new NRM – Natural Resource Management – stagiares posts and she joined us last night in Cambole and accompanied us to her village – they are on post visit this week) made us sign their guest book and offered us tchouk. Then we biked a grueling 25k to our lunch stop. The good – it was mostly paved, but it was constantly up and down hills at the hottest part of the day and I was pooped, not to mention feeling a little nauseous, when we finally arrived.

In five minutes we are going to bike to our next sensiblization, but it is only about 4k away.

When we arrived at the school, the professor was surprised to see us – I think they had forgotten we were coming and so we had to wait a little while as they prepared for us. Our audience ended up being a combination of the older primary school students and townspeople who trickled in throughout the presentation. Like all the others, it went reasonably well and we left in high spirits happy to have finished our last small group (we had dubbed ourselves Team Awesome) sensiblization. We biked another 6k to Tchamba where two volunteers are posted and stayed the night in their houses. I was able to eat a little rice and peanut sauce for dinner and do a little laundry because I was completely out of clean underwear.

11/9/07 and 11/10/07

Yesterday we woke up early as usual. The group that spent the night at Silas' house joined us at Tami's house around 7:30 and we ate breakfast and talked about our sensiblization. I volunteered to do the modes of transmission part again. A little before 9:00 we biked over to the gare (the taxi station) where our sensibilization was to take place. Our Country Director arrived a few minutes later, but we didn't start until around 9:30 because we didn't have much of an audience even though we had pavilions and chairs and a sound system blaring music. As I expected, however, once we started talking a crowd formed. The sensibilization went well except for an old crazy man who got a little excited when we started doing the condom demonstration and began to unzip his pants. I was mortified. Luckily some bystanders removed him from center-stage before he could whip his penis out right in front of us. Another little complication was the suggestion from a male member of the audience that fidelity is only for the women because, well, it is only problematic when women sleep around, but men are still allowed to have sex with women who are not their wives when they are traveling or when they are on the prowl for a second, third, fourth wife. Right. Joelle, one of the volunteers, stomped on that idea pretty quickly and said that fidelity doesn't work unless both the man and woman are faithful to each other. We also had an unplanned performance by a man in a wheel chair who rapped a song about AIDS in three different local languages. The sensibilization went well and the audience was a little more knowledgeable on the subject so for the most part it moved along quickly and smoothly and for the first time I got member of the audience who told me that blood (rather than razors and/or syringes) can transmit HIV.

Afterwards we packed up the van with our bikes and bags and drove to Sokode. The first thing I did upon arrival in Sokode (after helping to unpack the van of course) was go to internet to send off the emails I had meant to send last weekend. I got an unexpected opportunity to chat with Jorge which was nice. I spent two hours at internet and then went back to the maison where I helped cook dinner. I made the guacamole while others made tortillas, refried beans, a cheese sauce, etc. The dinner was very good, but I could only eat a little. I find that lately I get physically hungry, but I have very little appetite and eating mostly makes me feel nauseous and have to run to the bathroom with explosive diarrhea. Oh, I forgot to mention that the reason we were going to so much trouble to make a nice dinner was to welcome the four new volunteers that have been posted in the Centrale Region – three girls and a boy; three NRM volunteers and one GEE volunteer. Anyway, most everyone was drinking and a dance party (and a silly game of spin the IPod) followed dinner. I, of course, abstained (A; Abstinence!) from all the wildness, but I observed and was amused. I got super sleepy around 8:00, but I couldn't go to bed because I was going to sleep on the floor in the common room. By 10:00 I felt like I was trying to pull an all nighter. Finally they ran out of steam and everyone went to bed.

This morning Allison (the other girl from my stage and from Plateau Region) and I packed up, ate banana and peanut butter sandwiches and headed out. We got really lucky because we stopped an almost empty mini-van bush taxi immediately after reaching the Route Nationale and rode all the way to Atakpame without too many stops and without ever being too squished. All in all it was a relatively pleasant ride until the very end when a smelly man got in the van and wouldn't stop turning around in his seat and staring at us. We were dropped off near the maison, which was fortunate because we were both on the verge of peeing (or worse) in our pants.

All the new stagiares (I think there are seven or nine of them) posted in Plateau Region were in the maison, but I was happiest to see Alicia and Nori, two CHAP volunteers from my stage that I haven't seen since before standfast.

Right now I am not feeling very well stomach wise, but I am going to try to type up my emails and help out with the cooking preparations for dinner which promises to be a nice picnic-y style dinner. Yay. I only hope I can eat.

I helped out with cutting up fruit for the fruit salad and then I chatted with the new stagiares and with my stage mates as I waited for dinner to be ready. Dinner was amazing – pasta salad, green salad, hot dogs, soja, fruit salad, cookies and ice cream – and I ate a lot even though I thought I might regret it later. For some reason, though, they wait to have the house meeting while we are eating and when everyone is already starting to get a little drunk and so of course it is a little disorderly and unruly. At one point, as we continue to discuss the possibility of buying a generator to tide us over during the frequent power outages, one of the very drunk volunteers took a one hundred dollar bill out of his pocket (who carries $100 around in his pocket?) and said that he would give that towards the generator if we could just stop talking about it and get it done. It was a good point, but still kind of ridiculous.

After dinner everyone, except me, was planning to go dancing and when they finally left I got a bit of alone time – the television and I. I put the movie Marie Antoinette in the dvd player and fell asleep on the couch (there were no free beds anyway) before it was finished. The others trickled back and I was vaguely aware of the fact that they watched two movies and didn't go to bed until 2:00 in the morning – late by any standard, but extraordinarily late for Togo.

10/23/07 through 11/3/07

10/23/07

I think I am going to make myself sick on pineapple tonight. I was so hungry when I got home to Avassikpe that I ate three big bananas and then, after showering I chopped up a huge pineapple. And I sort of have to eat it all or find someone to give it to. We will see . . .


I am happy to be back in village. I received a nice welcome from the kids on the road (I think they were filling in the pot holes as a community service activity for school) and from the women in front – my adopted host family. By the way, I just solved my excess pineapple problem and created a new problem by making two small pineapple upside-down cakes. Now I have to wait for them both to bake and I still have four really really ripe (black) plantains that I have to try to do something with. Hmm.

Anyway, I had a good, productive day today. I woke up around 5:00, organized my things, made pancakes, ate pancakes and left. I rode in the opposite direction from Avasskpe to buy pineapples, oranges and bananas and then turned around and by 8:00 I was wheeling into Jerome's compound in Azitou for my Ewe lesson. The lesson today was quite frustrating. Jerome couldn't seem to explain certain elements of the language to my satisfaction or in a way in which I could understand how they are employed. I guess I should have just let it go from the beginning and accepted that I won't understand right now, but eventually I will piece the usage together if I tune into it. But I wanted a neat explanation, a rule, something and I got a bit frustrated. We went around in circles and finally I gave up and requested that we just move on. The rest of the lesson was a bit the same with somewhat shabby explanations for the usage of connecting words. I was relieved when we finished and also happy to be served a meal of pâte with two different sauces – an okra and ademan (grean leafy vegetable) sauce and a sauce made from the leaves of bean plants. I had never had the bean leaf sauce before and it was very good and in it were whole little fishies that I ate without realizing it. They weren't bad at all – they were actually sort of yummy, so maybe I will get over my fear of the smoked fish here. I can hardly believe that I ate a whole little fish – brains, eyeballs, tail, scales, bones and all and didn't die. And it is even more difficult to believe that it didn't taste bad, but it didn't – just salty and smoked. We talked for a while about the atmosphere of Notse versus villages and then we went to visit a palm wine distillery out away from the village in the middle of the fields and that was really neat. [Before I write all about it, I just want to say that I am beating myself up a bit because one of the women in front (the one I first went to the fields with) just called me over and invited me to eat with them and I refused. I am not hungry, but I should have stayed and eaten with them because perhaps now she will be reluctant to invite me again and sharing a meal provides an opportunity to fortify relationships. Grr. Kick in the butt, kick in the butt . . Also, if I had shared a meal with them I would have a good destination for one of the pineapple upside-down cakes I am making. Shoot. I hate it when I stupidly close the door in the face of good opportunity.]

Sigh. Ok. Enough self-berating – other opportunities will arise – it is only a minor set-back. Ok, so about the palm wine processing – even though I don't drink any of the derivatives of the process, it was still really neat to see how it is done. First they uproot a palm tree, tip it on its side and cut all the fronds off (I wonder why they can't tap it like we do maple trees – it seems almost wasteful). Then they cut a square hole in the trunk, but not quite all the way through to the other side. They drill a hole and put a hollow reed in it through which the sap drains into a hollowed out gourd. I drank some of the pure sap juice, fresh from the tree and let's just say that while I wouldn't drink a whole glass of it, it was better than the slightly fermented stuff. The taste is a little difficult to describe – sort of tangy and sweet. Each evening and each morning, they make the rectangular box of a hole a little longer by shaving more off one end of the rectangle. They also burn it a bit to kill insects. Apparently they collect about 2 ½ liters of liquid each day and each palm tree is tapped for about a total of 25 days I think they said. Then they take the juice, the sappy liquid, and put it in huge metal barrels and let it ferment (I don't know for how long). Then they pour the fermented liquid (palm wine) into a special metal barrel set atop a big three stone stove fueled by wood. Coming out of the top of the barrel is a metal tube that snakes its way through three more barrels and eventually ends above a big glass container topped with a cotton filled funnel. The palm wine is heated and what evaporates into the tube and cools as it moves progressively through the tube and the three metal barrels full of murky water and then drips into the funnel where it filters through the cotton and into the receptacle becomes sodabe. Then you can take a shot the Togolese gin. What isn't evaporated through the tube is a by-product and it is drained into a pit in the ground while still steaming hot. It was all very interesting.

We sat there for a while and talked with the man who makes the sodabe. The conversation turned to why we have so few children in the States – only two or three per couple. I like answering questions about how and why we do things the way we do because it provides and opportunity for cultural exchange and for discovering insights into both my own and Togolese culture. Jerome said that here you get married at a young age so that you have someone to prepare meals for you when you're working in the field and you have children to supplement and/or replace your wife's labor if she falls sick. As the children successively reach school age more children are needed to fill the void.

When we got back to hi house, I ate a piece of boiled manioc and scheduled the next class and took my leave. It was just starting to rain as I pedaled off, but Jerome said it wasn't really going to rain, that nature is "gate" – ruined. I don't know why he said that – perhaps because the dry season is almost here. Anyway, it rained enough to get me quite wet, but at the same time it was a nice ride because the rain cooled off the air substantially and it was eerily beautiful with the steam rising off the road and the cloud coverage making it seem later that 3:00 in the afternoon.

I rode to Agbatitoe and a young boy took me to the priest's house. He had requested to see me some time ago and I hadn't gotten my act together. It was awkward. He was in lounging apparel – shorts and a T-shirt. He invited me in and we got right down to business for which I was thankful because I found the whole situation a little creepy. He had several ideas he wanted to talk to me about in hopes of eliciting my help, namely a public latrines project, a daycare (for under school-aged children) and building churches. I am not sure any of those things will be projects I will work on. I nixed the building churches idea right away by saying that I can't be affiliated with only a certain church – something that will only benefit a certain group of people. As for the others – they are project ideas for Agbatitoe. I will have to think about how thin I want to spread myself. I can help with ideas for the daycare, but I am not going to construct them a building (which is what he seemed to be asking) especially when they have a huge church that could easily double as a daycare when not in use as a church (but I doubt they would like that idea). As for the latrines – that is another big money project and I sort of feel that if I try to do a big money project, it should be in Avassikpe and not Agbatitoe. However, it was good to hear his ideas and continue spinning the wheel of my mind.

I biked home and showered and now I am waiting for my second pineapple-upside down cake to bake and still berating myself for not having accepted the woman's invitation to eat with them. A missed opportunity. Echoue. Failed.


10/24/07

I'm not sure why I wandered around all day as if I had nothing to do and now it is 8:00, already past my bed-time and I am just starting to write. Nevertheless it was a productive day. This morning I used my terribly rotting plantains to make a peanut butter, banana, oatmeal thing. The recipe I sort of followed was for a cookie, but it turned out a little more like a cake. It isn't bad, but after eating a whole pineapple upside-down cake, I wasn't much in the mood for more sweets. Tomorrow morning I will give it to the women in front. I took half a pineapple upside-down cake to Mana and the other half I gave to Tsevi later in the day. I have to give it away, otherwise I will eat it all in one day or it will go bad and I can't have that. Mana was going to work on an outfit for someone today so I thought I'd watch. I went home, called the driver to confirm again for Saturday and Sunday, received a surprise call from my Dad and picked up some scissors, paper and pens to work on my number system for the vaccination day that is coming up on Monday while I watched Mana make the complet. It was fun. We also talked about food for Saturday. Mana is going to help me cook. I am going to try to keep by budget under 5,000 cFA ($10.00) but perhaps that won't be enough . . . Today I was thinking that the chauffer my Dad hires can bring the girls (the other PCVs from my stage who are coming to Notse for my birthday) to Avassikpe and then back to Notse in the evening. If it works, it would be great, but I am still a little worried about the food issue. Maybe I should make something else to complement the fufu – some of the girls don't like fufu anyway, so I could make beans for beans and gari or beans and rice. Hm. I'll mull it over.

I stayed at Mana's until around 2:30 and then I was heading home to do laundry when I got intercepted by some women who called me over and offered me boiled ignam. Remembering how I kicked myself for refusing yesterday, I accepted. I sat with them, ate some ignam and then pushed corn off the cob and gave myself a blister on my thum. Man! Am I ever delicate! =0) I eventually made my way home and did laundry – just a couple of really dirty outfits that I had biked in. I was finishing up when I received a surprise visit from the PCMO. I knew she was coming to Notse today, but I didn't know that she would come out to Avassikpe too. The first thing she said was that Avassikpe was the most Peace Corps looking village that she has seen yet. I am not completely sure what that means, but she said it like it was a good thing. It was nice to have a visitor – she just asked me general questions about my health and security. All is well in Avassikpe, but she did say that if I ever have difficulty getting water I should call her and she will make sure that I get some so that is a bit of a relief.

She offered to give me a ride to Notse which I would have gladly accepted, but the DPS is coming tomorrow and I really should be present considering I haven't even met him yet. After the PCMO left, I sat with one of the women in front Yolke (or something like that) and we tried to have a conversation. I learned that she is twenty-seven (not too much older than me) and that her son is seven. Then Mana came by because I had told her that we would make more pineapple upside-down cakes – so we did. Only after that did I start doing what I should have done all day – cleaning the house a bit, finishing my number system, making lists for what I need in Notse, etc. I didn't do a very good job of cleaning, but I will finish up tomorrow morning before the DPS arrives. Maybe, just maybe, I can hitch a ride into Notse with him if he comes in his own vehicle. I plan to give him one of the pineapple upside-down cakes to win him over . . .

I stink, but I am not going to shower until morning. I am changing the sheets anyway for Dad, so . . . I gues it doesn't matter I will wash them soon.

Oh and I just wanted to mention that the moon has been so fantastically bright the last couple of days that you can walk anywhere after dark without a flashlight.


10/25/07 and 10/26/07

It is around 5:30 on the morning of the 26th and like last night I am feeling anxious, sad, and a little sick. Upon arriving in Notse yesterday afternoon, I was bouncing with excitement, but then things began to deteriorate piece by piece. First I found out that there was a mix up with some of my friends who were going to come for my birthday, but it just isn't going to work out travel and time wise because they are in Kara for another friend's birthday on the 26 th and because I am planning the bulk of my celebration in my village (and villages are more difficult to access and require extra time and planning to reach) it just doesn't make sense for them to try to make it. Then it seemed as though there was sort of a domino effect and now most of the people I thought were coming aren't going to be there. It is ok, because my two closest friends – Tig and Ashley – are already here, but then I received a text message from Dad saying that his flight (I am not sure from where to where) was delayed three hours and that he thinks he will miss his flight to Accra. And so the most important person and the reason for my excitement might not be there either. =0( I am trying to convince myself that it could still work out for him to come, but I hadn't realized that he would be coming from India to Ghana and then almost immediately to Togo. For some reason I was under the impression that he was already in Ghana when he called me on Wednesday morning. So, that is how my plans have been falling apart over the last 24 hours and I don't care about any of it if only my Dad can make it. And I am not sure if I am having diarrhea and feeling queasy as a result of my anxiety or if I ate something that didn't sit well with my stomach, but either way, physically I am not feeling great either. So . . .

Yesterday morning I woke up early with excitement and energy. I cleaned up my house, preparing it for my Dad's arrival (I even changed the sheets on the bed for the first time since I have been here!), showered and headed over to the dispensaire. The DPS (Prefectural Director of Health) was a little late in arriving, but eventually he showed. He seemed very nice and down to earth, not too pretentious like some people become when they are in positions of importance. They came as a team of three – the DPS, the head midwife, and the accountant – plus the chauffer. They spent a lot of time going over the books, looking around the dispensaire, talking to Lili. I left them to their work and didn't have much involvement, but I did gain a better understanding of the problem of staffing a dispensaire. Avassikpe has a birth attendant (Lili) because her salary can be supported by the dispensaire itself – what people pay for consultations, but in order to have a nurse, the Government has to pick up the cost because the dispensaire itself could never cover a nurse's salary. And, of course, the government doesn't have enough money to put a nurse in every dispensaire. I just sat around all morning observing their observations and waiting for a good opportunity to ask if I could hitch a ride back to Notse with them. Like I said, I buttered them up first with the pineapple upside down cakes that I had made (that turned out perfectly) and made my request and they said it wasn't a problem. We ate a very yummy lunch of fufu with a chicken sauce that Mana had prepared and as I was heading to my house to pick up my bag who did I see but the FanMilk man on his bicycle!!! Apparently he comes through Avassikpe on Friday. I told him to come find me at my house when he passes through, but afterwards, when I couldn't bring myself to buy a FanMilk because of the children surrounding me, I realized that if he comes to my house, the children will inevitably be present and so perhaps I should continue to consider FanMilk a delight reserved to "la grande ville."

I got a comfy cosy ride to Notse in a beautiful four door pick-up truck and then walked from the hospital to Ashley's house. She wasn't there, but through the wonderful miracle of cell phones and text messages, I tracked her down in under five minutes. She was at the hotel behind her house drinking a bottle of wine with Tig, Heather and the PCMO. I joined them and we stayed there for several hours until a meeting pulled Ashley away and prompted Tig and I to go to internet. It was working a little slower than the last time, but still incredibly well for Togo. I wrote to my Mom and Dad and Jorge and then saw some of Tig's pictures online. In the evening we went to Heather's to make pancakes.

This morning (the 26th) Tig and I wandered around the market. I wasn't very successful in finding the things that I need because it isn't market day and anyway I was a bit unfocused. I am nervous about whether my Dad is coming or not, whether I should cancel the driver or not . . . I feel a little anxious to know how everything is going to work out. Three more girls just arrived, so we are going to go over to Heather's to make lunch.

So aside from my anxiety at whether or not Dad was going to make his flight to Accra and whether or not to cancel the chauffer (which I am sure is absolutely NOTHING compared to his anxiety and exhaustion) I had a good day. I was feeling quite nervous because I hadn't heard from him, but around 7:00 he called and told me that he had arrived in Accra and would be heading to Lome. The poor man must be absolutely exhausted, but I was so excited and relieved to know that he will still be coming. My bag didn't make the connection, but at least Dad did.

For lunch we made fried rice and in the afternoon we talked and watched a movie while Tig made me a pound cake. For dinner we made tortillas, guacamole and had real cheese that Ashley's mom had sent her in a package. It was fabulous, but I think we all ate to the point of being sickly full and then we ate some more – cake, fufu style (as in we put the cake in the middle of where we were sitting and dug in with our right hands =0). I saved Dad a piece, but I am not sure he is going to want it – the presentation isn't super lovely, but it tastes great. I am feeling a little nervous about Dad coming because I know he is going to be dreadfully tired and I want everything to run smoothly, but that is unlikely.

10/27/07 and 10/27/07

I am sitting here on the eve of the 28th typing on my computer in my little house in Avassikpe for the first time since I have been here. No, Avassikpe didn't get electricity as a happy birthday to me present, but since I have my computer here with me I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to type my email for as long as my computer battery will allow. I brought my computer with me from Notse (where I usually leave it), so that I can bring it to Atakpame and type up my emails the weekend before and the weekend after AIDS Ride which is taking place next week (starting Sunday the 5 th).

The past two days have been good and busy and at moments a little crazy. The night before my birthday I didn't sleep at all. I was awake almost every hour throughout the night. I was partially at fault for stuffing myself with rich foods including cheese and cake (foods my stomach is no longer used to digesting) and making myself uncomfortably full, but the other part of my insomnia was just nervous excitement for my Dad's arrival. Nervous because of how utterly exhausted I feared my Dad would be after the long journey, nervous that everything would go smoothly with the chauffer, just nervous. Excitement for the obvious reason that I would be seeing my Dad and my Dad would be able to experience my village and meet my friends.

I officially got up at four in the morning, but like I said I had been up pretty much every hour before that. I got up, emptied my bowels of some of the excess consumption of the night before and showered. I didn't know what to do with myself until it was a decent hour to be out and about and so I sat on Ashley's porch and read Newsweek. It was difficult to concentrate, but it was an effort to speed up the passage of time. I ventured out once before six and still no venders were out, so I came back. I was having severe stomach cramps (whether caused by the food or the nervousness I am not quite sure) and so not in the mood for breakfast, but around six thirty I went out again to look for the ingredients Mana had instructed me to buy for the fufu sauce: tomatoes, onions, garlic, hot peppers, and white eggplants. I couldn't find any of them except the tomatoes and so after I had called the coordinator of the car that was scheduled to pick Dad up (to make sure that they had found each other), I went to the market. I was relieved to know that they were on there way and very relieved that the driver had been punctual. It would just have been too frustrating to have wasted precious time. With about an hour and a half to kill before Dad would arrive in Notse, I went to the market and bought my ingredients and also bargained a woman selling used sheets down 3000 cFA. I bought six huge sheets to sew together to make a shady place for the women to sit on vaccination day. It cost me a total of $12, which I don't think is bad considering what I acquired, but none-the-less it seems like a lot of money to me. Anyway, I was happy to have gotten them at what I considered was a fair price.

I went back to Ashley's house and then out again on a search for frozen chickens and had just met up with Tig, Allison and Natasha who were on there way to Ashley's house when a taxi with a white guy in the back seat pulled up alongside us. Boy was I excited! I can't even express the relief/excitement/happiness that I felt when my Dad got out of the car and gave me a big hug. It was also a relief that he seemed in good spirits and still energetic – I had been a little worried that he would be too tired to enjoy his visit, but he did a good job of hiding his exhaustion from several days of travel. I introduced him to some of my friends in the street and the rest back at Ashley's house and then we went off together on a search for frozen chicken (Lili later said that she could tell that it was frozen and not fresh by the taste, but I think she was lying =0). We bought several huge chicken thighs and legs (much meatier than most of the chickens you can get here) and wandered back to Ashley's house, enjoying each others company after so much time apart and in these new and special surroundings. We piled into the taxi – Dad and two of my friends, with all my stuff and drove out to Avassikpe. After dropping us off the driver went to get the other girls. Of course our grand entrance (in a car!) into the village did not go un-noticed and many of my favorite people (and plenty of others) came to greet my Dad and my friends. Tsevi was a little miffed at the way that I had left the village (abruptly with the DPS) on Thursday, but I explained the situation and he was appeased. I told him that we were awaiting more of my friends and that after they had arrived we would go greet the chief. Of course the girls and my Dad brought out their cameras (something I have yet to do in village really) and generated an even larger crowd. We waited for the others who took about an hour to arrive. Just after they got here, when we were comfortably installed under my paillote and Tsevi had gone off to see if the chief could receive us, a storm blew in bringing really cold gusts of wind and driving rain. I handed out pretty much all the warm clothes I have – two long-sleeve shirts, my Middlebury sweatshirt, my raincoat – but eventually we were chased inside by little rivers running through my paillote which was problematic because Dad and I were sitting on a grass mat on the ground. When I get my act together I will build a moat around my paillote to deflect the runoff, but it is almost dry season anyway.

We moved inside – the upside being it was dryer, warmer and we could eat popcorn and peanuts; the downside being that it was very crowded. I offered the popcorn and peanuts because I figured that at this rate it would be a very long time before we were sitting down eating a yummy meal of doughy fufu (and I was right). It rained for about an hour (and at times I wondered if it would ever let up). When it finally slowed to a drizzle, I found Tsevi and we paraded over to a house that had been set up with chairs to receive us indoors. We greeted the chief, I introduced my Dad and my friends introduced themselves and their posts and then we were presented with a bottle of Coke and a bottle of sodabe. I am so glad I remembered how Emmanuelle had shared the bottle of sodabe with the chief and his entourage rather than taking it with her and so I asked that we do the same and drink it together. Constant (the coordinator of the car, who I will talk more about later) took a drink and Allison "took one for the team," but the other girls deferred (as did I). Dad took a shot (and later told me that it was stronger than the vodka they drank on their trip to Russia) and everyone abstained from a second round. The Coke was a very nice gesture of consideration towards me and the fact that I don't drink and ended up being more popular than the sodabe. We were all served a demi-glass off coke and then we thanked the chief and took our leave.

We walked over to the dispensaire to see Lili and went through the introductions again. Then we walked to Mana's house to get the ignams. She said that she would bring them to my house in a few minutes (I think we disturbed her nap and she definitely wanted to prepare herself (make-up and clothing wise) for the occasion). I asked if she needed help to carry the ignams and she said that she would get some children to help her. We then paraded (and paraded is the perfect word because we were not alone, but rather had a tail of more than twenty children following us) to Lili's house to borrow the mortar and pestles and back to my house. After a little while, Mana arrived with eight or so ignams in a bowl on her head (that must have hurt, but I guess she is used to it and not a wimp like I am).

For some reason I had thought that Mana would just guide and direct the preparation, but that I would be directly involved. Yeah right. Mana took charge and enlisted the help of several other woman including Efo's older sister (whose name I have finally learned is Julie) and another of Mana's friends named Nana (I think). Part of the reason other women became involved is that I didn't have adequate cooking utensils (such as a HUGE pot for boiling the chunks of ignam) or a hot wood fire so that they didn't take an eternity to cook serving pots or enough glasses or chairs. It was a good thing that these wonderful women took charge like they did because I would never have successfully fed so many people. While they did all the peeling, chopping, washing, boiling etc., I watched and gave them things that they asked for. The preparation took quite a while. First they peeled the ignams and cut them into chunks and then washed them and put them in a huge pot to boil. They didn't even cut up all the ignams, though, because they couldn't fit in the pot. I wanted to use the stove Dad brought me from Ghana (yay!) but I asked Locke (Yolke? – the nice woman who lives in front who had told me the other day that she had charcoal) and she and a bunch of women told me that there was no charcoal to be bought at the moment. We tried putting the huge pot on my gas stove (it is a wonder it didn't break or bend it), but it just didn't do the trick – the flame wasn't powerful enough and so Julie put the steaming pot in a big metal bowl and put the whole thing on her head and brought it over to her house to heat over her wood fire. I helped her lift the bowl onto her head and I was terrified of dumping hot water on her. Luckily, there were no mishaps.

For the sauce, Julie and Mana (who are cousins I think) hacked up the chicken into small pieces (so that everyone would get some – but it was a lot), washed it and then made the sauce with all the ingredients I had bought plus some spices (anise, black pepper, a little seed like thing) that the other woman, Nana, furnished. Mana also put chicken stock and a can of tomato paste in the sauce. I am so glad I decided to go with chicken rather than fish. It smelled heavenly. When the ignam chunks were cooked, Julie brought the pot over and really hard labor of pounding began. They didn't allow us to pound much – only Tig and I took a turn at it, but pretty much they just allowed us to pound a bit to humor us. Other than that, many women, including my neighbor lady and one of her sisters, Yocke, Julie, Mana and Nana pounded the fufu into beautiful delicious balls. I am so glad Mana was there as well because she knew how to divvy up the food so that everyone (well, not EVERYONE, I can't possibly feed the whole village), but all the people that I really wanted to share the meal with, got some. While they were pounding the fufu, I received three surprise phone calls that left me delighted. Jorge's phone call was the first and I had all but given up on getting to talk to him. It made me so very happy to hear his voice! No matter how nice a birthday it was, had I not heard from him I would not have been able to help feeling sad. I loved hearing his voice and getting that chance at contact between us especially considering we hadn't connected at all through internet. It was absolutely heavenly and made my day perfect (within the realm of the possible of course, absolutely perfect would have been having Jorge and my other family members at my side).

Right after Jorge's phone call, I received a phone call from his mother. That was also a huge surprise, but I was so embarrassed because I couldn't talk to her!! The only thing that would come out of my mouth was French. After about four minutes, we got cut off, but it was so wonderful and special to know that she was thinking of me and that she had actually called me and gotten through!

And then, as if just for that half an hour the telephone lines cleared up and everyone could connect, Grandmama called. Another lovely surprise. The only thing that put a tiny damper on things was that I knew my mom was probably trying to call me but that she couldn't get through. I knew she would be frustrated and sad and that made me sad, but between the two of us Dad and I tried to keep my cell phone in a place with service (which means moving around trying to make the little bars appear and moving again when they disappear). My mom never got through to me, but the next day, when Dad had the driver buy me a 5,000 cFA phone card, I called her and learned she had tried calling up until midnight. I used up the whole phone card, but we got to talk for a good ten minutes and it was wonderful to hear her voice.

Around 4:30 or 5:00 we ate a fabulous meal of fufu and a deliciously spicy chicken sauce. I ate and ate and ate. It was lovely and worked out nicely. I was so glad to have Mana there because she made sure that everyone got some food. I don't know how she did it – how everyone seemed content afterwards – but she did and they even did all the dishes and cleaned up my house afterwards. And then next day, THEY thanked ME!?!?!? (I of course also thanked them, but I wasn't too sure why they were thanking me. I mean, I know they got a free meal, but they definitely earned it and all the people who helped were people I wanted to share the meal with anyway.)

After eating, my friends had to leave rather suddenly so as to beat the darkness. It was fine, though, because their departure sort of served as the cue for everyone to clear out and Dad and I got some quiet time. He showed me the video from their trip to Russia and then photos until his computer's battery died. It was very nice to see the video and particularly exciting to catch glimpses of Mom and Mimi here and there. At 7:30 we decided that it was an acceptable hour to go to bed and so we did. It is a good thing we went to bed early too because we were woken up around 3:30 in the morning by chanting, singing, drumming and clapping that circled around the house. It was eerie and even seemed a little menacing. I could make out a couple words (with the tiny little bit of Ewe that I know) and they were yovo (which, as you all know, is what they call white people) and God and something that I thought sounded like "go away". We listened until dawn (5:30-ish) when the happenings ended abruptly. Later in the day we questioned Tsevi about it and he said that they were prayers (Christian and not Voudou prayers) asking God to chase away some birds that were pestering the villagers, but he seemed a little unsettled by the question. It is possible that they were chasing away birds – that would explain the "go away" and it is semi possible that it was Christian and not Voudou because the chanting alternated with hymn-like songs, but it is still very strange that the word "yovo" was so involved in the chants and that they circled the house. Hmm. I taped some of it with my minidisc recorder, but have yet to listen to it to see if it is audible. Perhaps I will ask my Ewe teacher to listen to it and tell me what they were saying.

We ate pancakes for breakfast – Dad made me shapes to rival the shapes Etienne supposedly makes when he makes pancakes =0). At my request, he made me an elephant, a dolphin and a butterfly. Then we both showered and went out to make the thank-you rounds as is custom the morning after a gift or service rendered. We thanked them and they thanked us. We went to see the soccer field and the Catholic Church and happened upon a few other important people in the village like members of the COGES (village health committee) and of the CVD. And that was it. There wasn't much else to do or see and we were just hanging out until Mana came to invite us to the Catholic church service. I was assured it would only last an hour (and not four like the Assemblea de Dieu service) and so we went. It was nice, but very few people were in attendance and it was probably the most subdued Church service ever to take place on the African continent. That is an obvious exaggeration, but there were no accompanying musical instruments except for a maraca. True to their word, it was over in a painless hour and we went back home to sit under my paillote until it was time for me to start preparing lunch. I then left Dad to converse with Constant (who had accompanied us through the walk around the village and the church service. It seems as though he just organized the driver and makes sure he is on time, etc. He is an artist who lives in Lome and he is a wonderful find because he made my Dad's trip run unbelievably smoothly and that meant a lot to me considering that time was so precious. I am sure all my friends will want his number for when their visitors come. He also seems very nice, wholesome and well-educated and not at all a nuisance to have around).

I made beans and rice for lunch – a concoction with whatever I had around the house. As I was preparing, we received an unexpected visit from the Catholic priest at Agbatitoe and a very welcome gift of pineapples (which sustained me throughout the week considering I had been distracted while in Notse and hadn't stocked up on fruits). We ate lunch and then Dad said good-bye to Tsevi and Lili and after giving me a series of hugs from the family members he left me in a cloud of dust. Dramatic flair. Corny, I know. I was sad when he left, but I immersed myself directly in the next thing on my to-do list which was getting Mana to sew the six huge sheets I bought in Notse into a pavilion. I spent several hours at her house watching her sew and then I went home. Lili and Mana were thinking of coming over to learn how to make pineapple-upside down cake, but it started to rain for which I was thankful because I was tired and in need of a little down time.

10/29/07

I am feeling lazy about writing today – perhaps because I am sleepy and I have a belly full of fufu. Today was a good, productive day even if it didn't go as planned. After a breakfast of fried plantains and a fried egg, I headed over to the dispensaire prepared for a strenuous day of vaccinations only to have Lili tell me that it wouldn't take place because the hospital in Notse has run out of the DT Coq vaccine. For my purposes it is probably just as well because it gives me a little extra time to get organized and get supports for my makeshift pavilion. I need to bully someone into doing that for me because it is something the community can and should provide.

With an unexpectedly free day, I decided to weed my garden which I did until the sun got too hot aournd 10:00. While I was weeding, I made some new acquaintances – several men who speak relatively good French – one is a cook and I thought that he and Jason might be able to write and exchange recipes or tricks or something, but I forgot to ask ir he reads and writes in English. Small matter . . .

Afterwards I went to the dispensaire and fashioned some outdoor brooms out of a certain kind of shrub. I hope to use them to sweep the goat and sheep poop out from under my paillote. Afterwards I came home, did laundry for a long while and then made a lunch of boiled ignam and a peanut butter, tomato paste, and red lentil sauce. After eating, I showered, plastered more duct tape on the soccer ball and played two games of UNO with the children before they had to go to school at 2:30. Then I started working on my boite d'images for my causeries because Dad brought me a perfect sketch book in which I can arrange my drawings. I made some more drawings and started to think about how I will organize my book and my presentations.

Around 4:00 I headed over to the dispensaire where I got caught in a discussion about the need for a jardin d'enfants (preschool/day care) in Avassikpe. Perhaps if a volunteer is really posted in Avassikpe, we could collaborate and do some sort of formation for whoever will teach in this day-care. Then I went with Lili to her house where she said Mana was waiting to do her hair and I was unpleasantly surprised by the presence of Nicolas, Lili's sketchy husband. I couldn't think of a way to take my leave politely and so I stayed through the fufu pounding and chicken killing and plucking process – hence the reason my tummy is full of fufu. It wasn't too uncomfortable because Nicolas didn't say anything awkward this time, but either way his presence makes me withdraw into myself and of course Lili notices. I excused myself by saying that I am tired, which is true, and Kassim (who arrived as we were preparing dinner with yet another brother that I hadn't met) walked me home. Bed time!

Tomorrow perhaps I will go to the field with Yolke or perhaps I will weed my garden some more and work on finding someone to put stakes in at the dispensaire. I have decided not to go to Atakpame for the Halloween party – I will be out of village all week next week for AIDS Ride and so I think I should stay this week. In addition, I would really like to fence in my garden . . . hm . . . we will see. . .

10/30/07


I am exhausted. Wowee. I spent the whole day working in the field – first in my little field, from seven until 9:00 and then I went to the field with Yolke. I didn't know what I was getting myself into – eight hours of picking beans. My body is angry with me now, but it is going to hate me tomorrow. Eight hours bent over at the waist – it reminds me of when mom and I went strawberry picking except there was no juicy sweet reward every once in a while to keep up moral – just the dry rattle of black-eyed peas in the pod. I went through phases as I was picking – first focusing on the idyllic side of subsistence farming – a whole family working together to secure the next year's food supply. Grandfather, husband, two wives, each of whom dote over the eight month old baby girl. . . After a while, though, I started comparing the work to my stint at Proctor and Gamble – monotonous, repetitive and endless. And then I reached my "I am going to break down and cry if I have to pick one more row of beans" phase. Of course my pride didn't let me cry, but that is how tired I was. In true P&G fashion, we took two little breaks – one for some roasted peanuts and roasted corn and one for some pâte. Unfortunately, I had only brought one liter of water and so was a bit parched – but that eliminated the problem of having to figure out where to pee . . . As we were getting ready to come back to village, Yolke's husband dug up six ignams. I carried them back in a metal basin on my head and Yolke told me to take them home. I protested, said it was too much (1,000 cFA worth of ignams) and ended up taking three home. It is funny, in the States, I would never work eight hours for $2.00 in pay and here I protest. Then again, I didn't go for the pay but for the bonding and the experience. All in all a rewarding day, but I haven't seen Lili at all. I hope she isn't worried. And Julie (Efo's older sister) just brought me a little dish of fufu. How perfectly wonderful! I wonder what the occasion is because the sauce has chicken in it. Chicken here usually signifies something special. I adore fufu. I can't wait until I have my own mortar and pestle and can make fufu whenever I please.

10/31/07

I am sore all over and I can hardly bend down. All those muscles were so over-used yesterday. This morning I made fried plantains for Julie to thank her for the fufu from last night. Then I made pancakes for myself and ate until I was stuffed. Then I went to see Lili. She missed me yesterday – I didn't know I would be gone all day or I would have informed her. After saying good-morning, I took my bike out and headed off with my machete trying to cut some trees from the enclosure to my garden. People laugh at me and ask why I don't get someone to cut them down for me (easier said than done) but they respect me mor for trying to do things myself. On my way out of village on my bike, I met up with the Catholic catechist – a very nice man who slurs his words and seems to take the directive "be humble" to an extreme. When I explained my mission, he told me that he didn't have time to help me today as he was headed to the field, but that he would point out a good place to cut wood. I was relieved a that because I was a little nervous at cutting down something I wasn't supposed to. Anyway, he ended up cutting down several trees for me (small trees, but trees none the less) and all I did was hack off the extraneous branches. Even so, I quickly realized that my coup-coup is in dire need of being sharpened. Another man came along and told me to use his and the difference was amazing. The two men (and others who had stopped on the road to observe the spectacle) helped me load the wood onto my bike and strap it down and then I wheeled it back to my house. I now have a bruise on my side from where I supported a good bulk of the weight in an attempt to keep my bike from falling over. Most of the work was done for me, but even so I was tired and left it at that for the day.

Today was another one of those days when I have had food coming at me from all sides, but for some reason I have had the munchies all day – an unquenchable appetite. I ate pancakes (a whole batch – seven big pancakes) between six and four in the afternoon and on top of that I ate some pâte and sauce with a nice lady who always greets me on my way to and from the dispensaire, then I ate pâte with Lili (both times with a green leaf and fish sauce) and then I came home, made two pineapple upside-down cakes with Lili, played UNO with the kids while they baked and then went back to the dispensaire and ate boiled peanuts and boiled corn and for some reason I still felt hungry and so I came home and ate more peanuts and a fermented pineapple. Today revolved around food. I was planning on eating beans and gari for lunch, but considering I had already eaten pâte twice over, I made the beans to give to the woman who fed me the first time (I will give them to her tomorrow morning). So after eating some pineapple, I went to sit outside and the girl next door (the younger sister of my neighbor lady) gave me a boiled sweet potatoe and boiled peanuts (some of which I gave to Yawovi who very surprisingly gave them to another little boy). And just now, as I was writing the beginning of this paragraph, Tsevi came to invite me over for fufu (an invitation I couldn't refuse). He said he needed someone to eat with so that he could eat more. That is a very interesting concept, but it really sums up Togolese hospitality – even when there seems to be very little food, everyone is invited to partake and somehow the food stretches to fit the number of people.

And so, yet again, I have a happy tummy full of fufu – yay Buddha belly, here you come. It was a nice dinner and I actually ate some fish and it was good. I think I will ask Mana to teach me how to choose fish at the market and how to prepare them because I have unwittingly eaten big fish and little fish and they are all surprisingly tasty. Lots of piment fixes everything and speaking of piment, it is quite a unique sensation to have your right hand (your eating hand) tingle (for some time after the meal) from being dipped repeatedly in spicy sauce. For example, my hand is still burning (tingling sounds more pleasant) as is my esophagus, but how my carbohydrate loving self adores fufu. Yum. Contentment for my belly (I think I might be turning into a Togolese person and my stomach doesn't think it has eaten until it is heavy with fufu. Uh-oh. That doesn't bode well for my waist-line.)

11/1/07

November already. All Saints Day. Day of the Dead. When I realized yesterday that today was the day of the dead, I thought perhaps that there would be some interesting goings on, but Tsevi informed me that it is just a Catholic celebration (even though it is a holiday from school) and as far as I could tell, the day was just like any other.

I am trying to prepare myself and my house for my week long absence. The fact that I have an Ewe lesson tomorrow complicates matters a bit, but I will work it out. I am also a little disappointed that I won't be here for the vaccination day which will take place sometime next week. I can't decide whether I don't want them to implement my number system at all or whether I want them to give it a try without me. It is the control freak in me showing through. I don't think it will work well without me and so perhaps I will "forget" to leave the numbers. I am doubtful as to whether they will get the posts in the ground for the make-shift pavilion anyway. Grr. I am afraid that I am of the mindset that they won't get it right without my supervision and so the whole thing should be put off a month. Grr. . .

About my day, I think it was productive . . .

Early this morning, I went to give some beans and gari to the woman who fed me pâte yesterday and then I tried to bring a pineapple upside-down cake to the man who helped me cut down the trees (and by helped I mean did it for me), but he wasn't home. I went back to the dispensaire and joined a group of women I know in ooh-ing and ah-ing over a newborn baby (by the way, Dad, if you could get that picture of Lili and the newborn developed and send it to me, I am sure Lili would be tickled to death). It was nice to be in the recovery room with women I know and who know me because before I have always been to timid to venture in – unsure whether or not my presence would be welcome. Today I was definitely welcome and as it was a young girl from Avassikpe who had given birth, many people I know filtered in and out to see the baby and congratulate the mother.

After spending some time basking in womanly bonding that I could neither understand nor really partake in, but nonetheless enjoyed, I went home to put my fence posts in the gournd. I was unconsciously smart in my choice of day (a holiday from school) because I had a little helper and I was very grateful for it. I already have a painful blister on my hand from the little bit of chopping I did yesterday (I am beginning to understand why they think I am so fragile) and the little boy (no older than ten) chopped the tops off all the posts to make thme even to please my perfectionist self (can't have uneven posts!). Every once in a while he would hand me the machete and let me take a couple of wacks just to humor me, but I didn't even make a dent compared to the way he quickly finished the job each time. I was glad for the help, but reluctant to admit that I just couldn't do the job. After he evened up my posts, he dug holes in the ground for me. I could have done that part but he, and then two older boys, insisted. One asked for food in exchange – a request I ignored and the other two asked for nothing. I gave the little one (the boy who had helped me from the very beginning) a pen as thanks. He seemed pleased.

I showered, returned to the dispensaire and had a run-in with the coordinator of the vaccination program in Notse that I handled badly. He made some remark about me finding the funds to fix the wear and tear in the dispensaire and rather than making light of it or saying that I would help brainstorm for ways to come up with the funds, I went off about how it isn't my job to find money to fix the dispensaire. I don't know why I reacted that way. Perhaps because I am a little ambivalent about my purchase of 6,000 cFA worth of sheets for the vaccination day. I am not sure that was smart – like everything that is given free of effort, it will be less valued as a result. If it works well, perhaps I will request reimbursement from the community health committee and if not, I will find some other use for my very large patchwork sheet. Tomorrow I have to make meeting with the "responsables" a priority to emphasize the importance of them doing their part to match me doing mine. They have to at least meet me half way and provide the posts which they could easily do at no cost to themselves except a little time and sweat.

I made beans and rice for lunch and after eating (and while dripping with sweat) I worked on my boite d'images and completed the food groups pages. I think/hope it will be worth the effort and will work well. In any case, I am improving my skills as an artist.

I had told the children (mostly to get them to leave so I could make and eat lunch) that we would play cards at 2:00. It is amazing how punctual they can be when it serves their interests. I played UNO for a while and eventually stopped to wash some clothes. I only washed what I absolutely need for my trip because the blisters on my hands were hurting too much.

In the late afternoon I visited Lili at the dispensaire, accompanied the woman who fed me yesterday to the field to pick up some vegetables she had left out in the sun to dry and showed Yolke and company my photos. Then I tried to start neatening/packing and now I will go to bed and read. I have a lot to do tomorrow and I am tired so I will probably sleep soon.

Oh. Brushing my teeth reminded me that I chewed on a piece of the stick they use to clean their teeth today and perhaps it works, but I bet it is difficult to get children to use it because it tastes nasty – very bitter.

11/2/07

Today Jerome, my Ewe teacher, didn't show until around 11:00 and so I had plenty of time to clean the house, burn garbage, take a shower, do some laundry, wash dishes and in other ways prepare for my departure. I wasn't sure whether or not he would come at all because my cell phone battery was dead and had been for a couple of days and so even if he had tried to contact me he would have been unable to reach me. As it turned out, he had had a flat tire en route and had had to wheel his moto back to Agbatitoe and get it fixed by the mechanic. It is lucky that I asked about the cause of the delay before letting my annoyance show through as it wasn't the poor man's fault at all. Dad left him a really nice briefcase, but I have decided that it is still too early for such a nice gift. We had a nice Ewe lesson and only went off on a couple of tangents. They were good tangents, though, about Dad starting a project in Togo (stoves, water filters, hint, hint, wink, wink) and I can't remember what else. Anyway, in comparison to the last lesson it was relatively painless. I had made popcorn and two types of peanuts – boiled and roasted – to muffle the growling of our stomachs and just as we were finishing, the Catholic catechist to be (the one who cut the posts for me) conveniently arrived so that I could thank him in person (I had left the cake with his wife early in the morning). Apparently Jerome is going to take advantage of his weekly trips to Avassikpe to give the catechist lessons in reading and writing in Ewe and he would also like to plan an alphabetization program for January, February and March (the months with the least amount of field work) so we started making plans for that as well.

After Jerome left, I finished closing up my house and made one last attempt to pester the members of COGES into getting posts for the dispensaire, but they weren't anywhere to be found. I then biked to Agbatitoe and only had a little difficulty finding a taxi. The trip to Atakpame was uneventful and the rain luckily held off until my bike was safely stowed away at the maison. It is a little awkward to be here without anyone from my stage, but there are only a few people here and they are all friendly. I got to see Emmanuelle again, so that was nice. Lili was planning on coming up to Atakpame this afternoon as well, but apparently her meeting lasted longer than she expected. Perhaps she will come tomorrow and she, Emmanuelle and I will do something together. That would be nice.

11/3/07

I have just spent hours writing emails to Jorge and so I am going to make this short, sweet and to the point. This morning I woke up early, took a shower, read emails on my computer, went to eat an egg sandwich with another volunteer and then went to the market. After going to the bank and buying a few necessities, I tried to look into getting a new cell phone number (one that doesn't start with zero). Apparently (as I found out after almost an hour of back-and-forth) with the cell phone people, all the numbers of both cell phone service providers now start with zero. My only option now is to try to get a COS-ing volunteer to sell me their number or perhaps Ashley will sell me her Togocell number.

I then came back to the maison and made roasted peanuts and sugar covered peanuts "en quantité" as snacks for AIDS Ride. In the afternoon I went out briefly with Emmanuelle to meet up with Lili for about an hour and have a drink. It was a strange reunion and seemed a little forced, but it was still a really nice gesture on her part to come all the way up to Atakpame to say a final farewell. I think the whole process of saying good-bye after two years really sucks, no two ways about it, and I am not looking forward to it, but lucky for me it is a long way off.

In the evening, after getting some rice and wagashi (something between tofu and cheese) for dinner I have been writing emails until the present moment (it is now midnight – way way way past my bedtime and resurrecting unpleasant memories of all-nighters in college).

Tomorrow three of us will make our way up to Sotouboua and on Monday the AIDS Ride adventure will start.