7/12/07 through 7/20/07

7-12-07 to 7-15-07

Hmm, let’s see, overall reflections on our field-trip: we covered a lot of ground (geographically) – going from Kpalimé to Atakpame to Sokode to Bassar to Kara and back Kpalimé – but I don’t feel as though we learned all that much. It was nice to see a lot of the country; I was amazed by how green the whole country is – I was expecting the north to be a lot dryer, but the main difference was that the vegetation is low grasses and bushes, spotted with trees, rather than dense forest like it is in Kpalimé. It is the end of the rainy season, however, so that may have a lot to do with how green it is right now.

In the middle of the Plateau Region, it gets flat and then it gets hilly again. I think my post is in the flat part of the region, but Atakpame, my regional capital, is nestled in the hills and very beautiful. I am excited to get a chance to explore it as I will probably be going there at least once a month. We didn’t get a chance to see the “maison de passage” – the Peace Corps house – there is one in every regional capital (except Lome), but I will probably get to see it towards the end of my post visit (in a week). The volunteers in the region pay monthly dues for the upkeep of the house and then they can stay there for free whenever they go to the regional capital. Volunteers can also stay in the “maison de passage” in regional capitals other than their own, but they ought to pay a small fee (1,000 cFA = $2.00). We saw the maison de passage in Sokode and also in Kara and they both seemed quite nice – like a good place to take a break – a mini vacation from life here whenever necessary (sort of in the same way I use the tech house here at our training site).

Other impressions:

None of the mountains were as high as I expected based on my memories of being scared as a child as we drove through Togo and seeing clouds beneath me as we drove over the mountains. (Thinking back, though, it could have just been fog =0) At the same time, I have to admit that I am skeptical that Mount Agou is really the highest mountain in Togo. What I mean is that I am sure that it is the highest point above sea level in Togo, but there are mountains that look much bigger when you are at the base of them because the change in altitude is more dramatic and severe.

The roads are much better than I expected – the main highway that goes from Lome to Burkina Faso – is really very good and even many of the secondary roads are quite good.

We drove through this famous point in the road near Bafilo where they have blown through a boulder to make a road and so there is a huge standing rock in the middle of the highway – I think I vaguely remember having driven through there as a child and think that it was probably around there that I was scared of the hairpin curves in the road and the altitude, but I could be completely fabricating that “memory.”

What we did:

We spent a lot of time in the car, which was really ok with me because I like road trips and I loved having the opportunity to see the countryside.

We visited a Togolese Red Cross unit in Atakpame. They train volunteer emergency health responders for emergencies such as floods, forest fires, land slides and intercommunity conflict. We can contact them for help in training community health agents and in doing mass HIV/AIDS sensibilizations.

In Sokode we visited a Family Planning Organization. I think the most common form of family planning here in Togo is condoms, but they seem to have ever-increasing numbers of women (particularly young women) accepting birth control pills. Contact with organizations like these can help us learn how to appropriately speak about family planning here in Togo so as not to alienate certain sectors of the population. We can also help someone in our village start selling condoms for a profit – they can buy them in bulk from Family Planning organizations like the one we visited and sell them in village (there would have to be an understanding of the importance of condoms first and a desire to buy them on the part of the target population). This particular center also helps women who have had abortions that go wrong, but they do not do abortions themselves (from what I understand, abortions are sometimes legal in Togo – I am not completely sure yet under what circumstances, but it seems that even though abortions are legal, woman are not always getting the proper care).

In Bassar we visited an Association for People Living with HIV/AIDS. They form a support network for people who have HIV/AIDS, counsel them after they have been diagnosed, help them gain access to ARVs, help keep their children in school, help them learn how to take care of themselves, how to eat well, how to avoid opportunistic infections etc. They do a lot of activities with the orphans and vulnerable children (the children of people living with HIV/AIDS. Some of the children were there and sang several songs for us and some of the same children came to play soccer with us in the afternoon. We also heard several testimonies from people who have HIV/AIDS which was interesting, but felt a little intrusive to listen to – I know they have probably shared their “story” many times, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to listen to.

In Kara we visited another Association for People Living with HIV/AIDS that was started by a Peace Corps volunteer. It was an impromptu visit and we just walked around the facility for about twenty minutes. We were supposed to meet with a traditional healer in Kara, but he got into some sort of accident and we ended up only meeting with him briefly in Atakpame on our way back to Kpalime. It was interesting, but not as interesting as it could have been I think because the man sounded (perhaps understandably if he had recently been in an accident) a bit bored or unenthusiastic himself. I am very excited to find the traditional healers in my area and see how I might be able to learn from them and work with them. I think it would be great if I could go spend the day once a week with a traditional healer and work with them on certain health issues.

On the food front:

My first meal at a restaurant here in Togo was very disappointing – spaghetti covered with palm oil with fatty chunks of beef. It was quite expensive as well (much more expensive than had been indicated to us – around $3 – and everyone knows how cheap I am and how much I hate to overspend, so . . .). Our lunches and dinners in Bassar were prepared for us by a Togolese friend of the PCVs there and they were pretty good, but none as good as my host mom’s cooking, so I return to my site with an even greater appreciation for her cooking skills. Also in Bassar, the PCVs there made us an American breakfast with hash-browns, crepes (with nutella!!), fruit (mangos, pineapples and star fruit), sausage and juice (juice here means cool-aid or tang). In Kara we went to a restaurant that caters to the expat crowd and we had pizza which was much better than I was expecting after having seen what came of ordering pizza at the other training site a few weeks ago. So, all in all, food was so-so and I was forced to spend more money than I would have liked, but we were given extra money for that purpose, so . . .

Other comments:

The trip was a bit unorganized in part because our coordinators hadn’t considered the fact that the “coming of age” wrestling ceremony was taking place in Kara and therefore there were no hotels with enough rooms to accommodate our needs. They discovered this only a week or two in advance and so we could not spend the night in Kara and instead we spent two nights in Bassar. I did not sleep very well as we were sharing beds with another girl and I got “stuck” with the PCV who accompanied us. I say “stuck” because normally she would have had her own room, but one of the trainees was sick and requested having a room to herself, so I “volunteered” to be the one to stay with the PCV who wasn’t at all thrilled to have to share a room and much less a bed. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very freely as I was sort of afraid to move out of my edge of the bed.

This same PCV was getting on our nerves a bit during the trip because it seemed as though she didn’t want to be there with us and when she translated from French to English for our group she would often roll her eyes, speak in a bored tone and lose half the information in translation. We felt as though she was representing us and we didn’t appreciate her attitude which we interpreted as bordering on rude towards the people we were interacting with.

We got back to our training site at 8 Satruday evening. Our host families had expected us at 5 and had dinner waiting for me when I arrived. I felt badly, but I wasn’t hungry and just wanted to go to bed. My host mother tried to get me to eat, but for some reason I really didn’t want to and so I refused, but I refused in Ewe which made my host mom laugh even though I think she was a little upset that I didn’t eat. This morning she told my host father that I didn’t eat (he lives in a different house, but comes over almost every day at different times throughout the day – I think I forgot to mention that the other day he told me he spent some time in Ghana and in Ivory Coast, I don’t know why he left Togo, but I think that perhaps he made money while in Ghana and Ivory Coast and then came back to settle down and have a family.) Anyway, he said that I got home too late to eat dinner and thereby sort of diffused my host mom’s chastising.

I also lost my mangos last night – I had bought five mangoes for 200 cFA (five mangoes for 40 cents!! Can you believe it?!?!?! I am in heaven!!). I meant to put them in my backpack or something and hide them in my room to take to class as a snack in the morning or afternoon, but the van dropped me off right outside my house and Felicite and my host mom helped me carry my stuff inside, so I felt badly hoarding my mangoes in my room (I don’t like my host mom to see me eating aside from what she makes for me because I don’t want her to think that she isn’t feeding me enough or that I don’t like her food – neither of which is the case – I just get hungry often in the morning because I eat breakfast around 6:30 and it is a long time until lunch around 12:30). Anyway, so I told Felicite that the mangos were for everyone and so she put them in her mom’s room and I can’t access them (although I did have mango in my fruit salad tonight, but I think my sorrow at losing my mangos made me eat way too many peanuts (they were available) this afternoon). There are no mangoes for sale in my training village itself which makes me think that not much at all will be available in at my post.

I also brought my host family some honey from Kara. I asked my trainers if they thought my family would like some honey and they said that they don’t use honey like we do, but more as a medicine (in combination with lemon when someone has a cold or a cough), but that they would appreciate the gesture, so I brought them a jar. I think my host mom liked the gift.

Today, Sunday, I got up a little later than usual, lazily showered, ate breakfast and then, because my host mom wasn’t around I washed my own dishes for the first time. Usually as soon as I lift my dishes off the table they get taken out of my hands and whisked away, but I was able to wash and rinse my dishes before my host mom got back (Felicite and Fidele were still sleeping) and when I told her that I had washed my dishes she laughed good naturedly. Then I scrubbed out my filter (it is kind of gross to see the dirt residue on the candles, but nice to know that that dirt is no longer in my water). I don’t understand why PCVs get lazy about filtering their water, it isn’t that hard – you just have to be a little organized. Many PCVs we talk to say they have amoebas and treat it as if it were inevitable, but when you ask if they filter their water, they say no. Maybe I have yet to discover some of the difficulties of filtering water, because for now it seems pretty easy.

This morning I watched my host mom prepare the meat for the week. I am pretty sure she buys the meat for the whole week on Sunday (last week it was pork or beef – I’m not really sure) and this week it is chicken. She cleans it and then she prepares it with spices – prepared mustard, crushed garlic, onion, anise, ginger, black pepper and red pepper. Then she steams it with a little water (for a long time) until it is mostly cooked and then she fries it in oil. I think this is how she keeps meat for the week without a refrigerator and I have yet to get sick from it. I am not sure, however, if she reheats it every day or just what I am eating.

I also watched her light one of the clay one-pot stoves – she places small pieces of charcoal in the stove and then lights pieces of a dried patty made from palm tree scraps (perhaps the husks) and puts it in the hole in the bottom of the stove to light the charcoal from beneath. Apparently the palm tree patties should have enough palm oil in them to serve as a lighter fluid and no petrol is needed.

Finally, I watched her make peanut sauce – she cooked a peanut paste and tomato paste and then cooked the vegetables separately (each vegetable was cooked separately – I think because of different lengths needed to properly cook, but not overcook, the green beans, carrots, cabbage onions and green peppers). After having already cooked those vegetables, she sautéed them in oil left over from frying the chicken, then she added some left over chicken broth to the sautéed veggies and threw them in the peanut and tomato paste mixture. She added left over crushed spices from the chicken (onion, black pepper, anise, ginger), some chicken stock, some salt and some already cooked pieces of chicken. She let it simmer a short while and then removed it from the flames (I write in detail for my own benefit so that when I am at post and I have forgotten how to make yummy peanut sauce I can look it up =0).

I also learned that they take the corn from their farm, take all the kernals off and take it up to the mill and from that they make a sort of porridge which Fidele and Felicite had for breakfast.

I decided not to do laundry today and instead studied a bit of Ewe while Felicite and Fidele did their laundry. Then I ate lunch and played UNO for two hours. It was nice to spend the whole morning with my family (especially after having been gone for a couple of days), but by 2:30 I was needing a break, so I went down to the tech house and studied Ewe for a bit while waiting for the power to come back on to charge my laptop. When the power did finally come back on I tried to catch up on writing email while I watched one of the trainees teach a couple of other trainees jujitsu (a combination of wrestling, martial arts and self-defense).

The evening was non-eventful – I ate a wonderful fruit salad and then played cards until the light in the hallway failed (even when the power itself is not cut, the light-bulb in the hallway often goes out).

7/16/07

This morning I had Ewe class, which was good. We learned how to form the present, past and future. It is very fun and rewarding to learn Ewe because it is a language very different from any I have learned before, but also because I am surrounded by Ewe and I love understanding words and phrases here and there from what my host family is saying and finally because ever time I try to say something in Ewe I get a very positive response from my host family. People here really REALLY appreciate it when you try to learn their language.

After Ewe, we had time for private studies. Private study usually translates into anything but studying so a group of us went over to the soccer field by primary school and had a jujitsu class. I actually didn’t participate because one, I am scared (I am partially kidding) and two, I don’t have any clothes that I can afford to roll around in the dirt in. It was fun to watch the other girls do it, but luckily we didn’t have too many spectators because the locals would have found it really strange to see one white girl on top of another in a simulated rape position. We did have a few kids who got a little excited and worked up wanting to wrestle with each other.

After I ate lunch, I watched Felicite cook little smoked fish in an okra sauce (what a combination!!!) – I can’t express how glad I am that I said that I don’t like fish right from the start because I honestly wouldn’t know what to do with whole little fish on my plate. They eat the whole thing and just spit the bones out on the ground.

In the afternoon we had our mid-training language exam, an oral exam to gage our progress thus far and to give us an idea of how hard we have to work to reach the necessary intermediate-mid level required for CHAP (Health) volunteers. We each had time slots and so those of us who weren’t first went to Afrikiko to wait for our turn. On the way there I bought a huge (like six feet long) stick of sugar cane. It isn’t sugar cane season, I am told, but I saw it in the little market place and it was only 50cFA (10 cents!!!!) and I could not possibly resist. I got laughed at as I carried the stick down the road and into the bar – I think that everyone who saw me was wondering if the yovo (white person) knew what to do with the sugar cane. I was as happy as a little girl with a treasure in her hands as I sat down in Afrikiko and proceeded to cut the “bark” off the sugar cane. My friends laughed at how happy I looked with my sugar cane and, as most of them had never eaten sugar cane, so I got to introduce them to the sugary goodness. It really made me extremely happy (similar to the way Fanmilk does, I think because my subconscious associates it with good memories). I chopped up the whole stick with Jorge’s swiss army knife and put it in a ziplock to continue offering to my friends. I made a mess in the bar, but of course, when I tried to clean it up myself I was immediately shooed aside and the bar-owner’s young daughter cleaned up after me. I thanked her with several pieces of sugar cane.

My language exam went well, not flawlessly, but well enough, I think. I am not really worried about it, but it will be interesting to see what level I am at according to the Peace Corps rating system. (It will also be interesting to see what my French level is at the end of my Peace Corps service when they test us again so that they can provide our future employers with our French level. Many people here seem to think that their French has worsened over their two years here. I don’t think that will be my case, but I have noticed that the volunteers here speak with a funny lilt that I am not sure I really want to pick up).

After the language exams it was pouring rain (POURING, just like it is right now) and the electricity was out (just like it is right now) and so we just hung around the tech house having a good time. When the rain let up a bit we went to Afrikiko and Felicite soon found me there with instructions from her mother to bring me an umbrella (they are so sweet and thoughtful). She stayed with me for a little while and then we walked home together.

This evening I ate dinner and we played cards for a little while. I am happy because one of my language professors told me today that my host mom was really happy that I had brought them a little gift (the jar of honey) from our fieldtrip and that, of course, made me feel great.

7/17/07

Yesterday (I am writing this the morning of the 18th) I had a difficult morning because I overheard a conversation between two of my fellow trainees that made me wonder if I had not upset someone the day before with something I had said. I don’t like to upset people and I think I ought to be particularly careful with my words here because all of us are a little more sensitive here. Anyway, I agonized the whole morning until I had an opportunity to apologize to the person. I actually don’t think that I had upset her because she reacted as though she hardly remembered the comment, but I was already exhausted with having worried all morning over it. In the morning we had a tech session during which I cut up flashcards for Ewe and then we had a bicycle session in which we learned how to grease our brake cables, how to replace our brake cables and how to replace and align our brake pads correctly. I am not sure how much of this I will remember when I need it, but luckily I am relatively close to both of the girls who are great bikers and know all about bike repair, so if I am in a bind I am sure they can help me out.

I felt all drained of energy after the morning yesterday and so I wasn’t up for UNO after lunch and I made Ewe flashcards instead. In the afternoon I was able to improve my mood a bit – we had a health session and the group from the other training site came over. During the session one of the girls (one of the CHAPers - Health) “boob-tagged” me – they started this “boob-tag” game the other day and I made the mistake of saying leave me out of it, I don’t play games like that, they are beneath me (only half jokingly =0) and so I of course got myself declared the next target. The funny thing was that the girl who did it seemed awfully paranoid afterwards, as if I were going to try to get even (which I might, but definitely not through a boob-tag – water on the head at an unexpected moment sounds like and appealing revenge to me . . . =0)

So anyway, my mood was a bit changed in the afternoon, which was good because I needed a bit of a “pick me up” and it got me through the drama of the evening. It was a drama because we were trying to organize a movie night for our families but there was no electricity in the school, but it all turned out fine because the electricity came back on before my computer battery ran out and so we were able to watch the whole film.

All in all, not a very exciting day . . . the rest of this week will be pretty busy though – I have to do laundry and pack for post visit (I want to take as much of my STUFF as possible and leave it at my post so that when I acquire more STUFF I can manage carrying it all to post the second time around). This time I am not buying much except a pot and a cup and perhaps another bucket for bathing and food supplies to get me through the week because I have no idea what the girl I am replacing left at my post for me to use/have/buy off her, so next week I will make an inventory and then decide what I need to buy to complete my house “set-up” (in terms of cooking supplies, cleaning supplies, furniture, etc.). Tomorrow my host mom is going to teach me how to make jam, so I am very excited about that and on Friday we are meeting our counterparts (mine is a woman, a midwife) and participating in a workshop with them, so that is also exciting.

I just got my “evaluation” back from my language exam and they rated me “intermediate-high” so I fulfill the requirement to be a CHAP volunteer, but of course it is always good to keep improving so that I leave the Peace Corps with the highest language level that I can. I hope to read a lot in French, but the book I am reading right now isn’t too exciting and I don’t have a lot of time to read. Once at post, though, I think I will try to read more and particularly in French because otherwise I am not too sure that my French will improve very much – the vocabulary I use here is rather limited.

7/18/07

About my day . . . it wasn’t exciting. The most exciting part was that I bought TWO huge sticks of sugar cane and had lots of fun chopping them all up and sharing them with everyone. Other than that, it was actually quite unremarkable. In the morning we had a health session – a boring health session, then we had a boring safety and security session and then I went home for lunch and then in the afternoon we had a boring session on our post visit. So – it was a boring (but not necessarily bad) day. I did get a little revenge on the girl who “boob-tagged” me yesterday by pouring some water down the back of her dress, but I wasn’t too mean and I only poured a very little bit.

Other than that, I came home, ate dinner and started packing up my stuff and organizing all my papers.

On Saturday morning we leave at 6:00 for our posts with our homologues (we will meet our homologues on Friday). I will be at my post for Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then on Thursday morning I will go to Notse where I will meet up with three other people from my staging group and we will travel up to Atakpame, our regional capital, together because on Friday the current PCVs are holding a welcome party for all the new PCVs in the Plateaux Region (and in each of the other regions as well, but I am in the Plateaux Region, so that is the only one that really concerns me). It will be interesting I am sure, but I am happy because there are a lot of people in my region that I like and even some that aren’t in my region geographically but will claim my region for logistical reasons and they are girls that I like a lot as well, so that is all good.

The only other thing I have to share is that all the trainees are very fed-up with training right now. I am not as frustrated as most of them, but for some reason everyone seems ready to tear their hair out. I think it is good that we are going to get a taste of post soon because maybe that will help everyone appreciate and take advantage of the last three weeks of training.

7/19/07 and 7/20/07

Yesterday I didn’t write to you because we celebrated one of the other CHAP trainee’s birthday – her birthday is on Saturday, but we decided to celebrate two days early. Anyway, I was at the tech house eating cake until nine o’clock or so and then I was too tired and I left my computer at the tech house to charge.

About my day yesterday, it wasn’t very exciting. This week, all in all, has not been the most interesting week, but luckily I am going to my post tomorrow and so I am sure I will have lots of new and interesting things to tell you!

Yesterday we woke up early and went to the garden for a technique session on bed preparation, planting and transplanting. There is a gardener here who takes care of the garden for us, so pretty much the beds were already made, but we turned them over with the short-handled hoes they have here and then we mixed in some chicken poop fertilizer (I stayed far away from that part of the process what with the smell and the rumors of bird flue . . . just kidding, about the bird flue, not the smell – it did smell really badly and as far as bird flue is concerned, we DID get a memo about it, but I don’t think it has been found in Togo). Then we transplanted some little cabbage plants using a triangulation method of placement or spacing (sounds really technical doesn’t it? well, it isn’t. you just cut a stick and make little triangles putting a plant at each of the three points of the triangle). Then we planted some lettuce seeds. Our moringa seedlings are already over a foot high, so hopefully we will be able to take some plants to post with us and plant them.

Afterwards we wrote evaluations of our trainers – both technical and language. I am afraid I was a bit harsh, but I think they caught us all at a bad (meaning frustrated in general with everything) moment.

Afterwards we got only more frustrated as we proceeded to go to the other village, wait half an hour for bank representatives to arrive (so that we could open bank accounts) only to be told that we needed our Peace Corps IDs. Those who didn’t have them had to go and get them only to be later told that actually we also needed our passports. By the end of this exercise we were all pretty fed-up with the lack of organization and communication. I am less fed up than the rest of the trainees, but I think some of them have real issues with the way things are done here. I have my moments, I guess we all do, but I would have to say that my overall impression of the Peace Corps is that it is actually more organized and well-run than I expected and for the most part our trainers and the administrative personnel are very competent.

We were supposed to have time for cooking with our families to prepare us for our post visit (can one cooking lesson prepare you for a week of cooking for yourself?), but with the banking fiasco we got home an hour late and my lunch was already on the table. Luckily, I have already spent some time watching my host mom cook and I know how to cook some things myself.

We had the afternoon off for packing, but I had already packed some because my host mom and I had jam plans. We made mango jam first (equal parts sugar and fruit, measured by weight – I wonder if I could cut out some of that sugar . . . ) and later in the afternoon we made pineapple jam. The process is pretty simple – you cut up the fruit, at it’s weight in sugar and let it sit for about an hour once mixed with the sugar. Then you smush it around a lot to break up the pieces of fruit a little and you bring it to a boil and let it boil for fifteen minutes. Then you put it directly into little glass jars that have been boiled (and are still steaming) and you put the lids on tightly and turn the jars upside down – I guess to force any air out. And that’s it. With the pineapple jam, my host mom threw half a lime in while boiling and then took it out before putting the jam in the jar. She gave me a jar of each to take with me to post. I am not sure whether to eat a whole jar in a week or save it for when I get back to post permanently . . .

In between the two jam making sessions I (or rather Felicite) washed my laundry. I wanted to do it, I actually like doing it – anything that deals with water when it is hot out can be fun . . . but Felicite insisted that I let her do it and since her mom called me to watch the jam making process I wasn’t right there to insist that she not do my laundry for me. Then I showered and I washed the mud off my sandals and I met with some friends and did a bit of shopping for post – I bought another bath bucket and gobelet (plastic cup for dumping water over your head).

I was supposed to go help make decorations for the birthday party, but the second jam session interfered. Once the jam was finished, I ate dinner and then went to the party – we were all pretty pooped, so it wasn’t much of a party, but the cake was really good (one of the other trainee’s host mom bakes bread and cookies and little cakes and brownies and she made the cake which was sort of like a lemony pound cake which we topped off with some sweetened cream).

Around nine I came home and went to bed. This morning I tried to get up early so that I could go to the tech house (where I had left my computer) to write a quick email and burn a CD with all the emails and the blog posts of the week, but I got a bit behind schedule and only got to the tech house twenty minutes before our scheduled departure for Kpalime (and the workshop with our homologues). I turned on my computer and it seemed to be booting up correctly, until it suddenly turned blue and said that I should uninstall any recently installed hardware (there is none) and then that I should disable BIOS memory options if the problem continued of restart the computer in safe mode. I tried to restart the computer and it didn’t boot up at all, but went to another (blue or black?) page that said that a media test failure had occurred and that the operating system was not found. Then it said that it was initiating a dump of physical memory . . . so I am sure you can understand why I almost burst into tears – a dump of physical memory cannot be a good thing. Luckily I have all of the things on the computer backed up on DVDs, I did that before I left, but I really like having a computer here to write emails on and even though I won’t have electricity, having access to a computer on the weekends (I think I will leave it at my friends house to minimize moving it around too much) will be important. Anyway, the problem with my computer put me in a fowl mood, but I decided to bring it with me to Kpalime because some of the people in the other training group (the Small Enterprise Development group) are IT (information technology – computer) people and I thought maybe they could help me.

When we got to Kpalime, I enlisted the help of half the married couple, but the computer booted up fine – just as it normally would. I tried to burn a CD (but found out later, when I was already at the internet café without my computer that it didn’t burn well) and then ran a virus check which came up clean. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to have my computer again, but I can’t help but feel as though it is a sign that the end is near . . . a friend of mine (a fellow trainee) said that her computer started to do that a little while before the hard-drive crashed, so I don’t think it is a good sign, but the IT person I talked too didn’t seem to think it was too too serious . . .

The workshop with the homologues went ok – it was a bit long and tiring, but I was excited to meet my homologue. At first impressions, she is a nice, very pretty young woman (late twenties, early thirties?) who seems well educated (her French is good and she writes easily in French and very intelligent) and who’s mother tongue is Ewe. Her name is Lily and she is one of only two women homologues (all the rest are men!). I have to say that I am very happy that my homologue is a woman because I feel as though we will be able to have a closer working and personal relationship than if my homologue were a man. She is married, but her husband works in Lome. She is not from Avassikpe (my post), but has been working there since 2004. She was trained as a mid-wife in Lome and then assigned to Avassikpe. Originally, she is from Agou, the same prefecture that we have our training site is located in and that I am in at this very moment =0). Anyway, all and all I am very pleased with my homologue. She seems interested, motivated, open, friendly, flexible, intelligent . . . great really. I wonder if I will witness my first live birth this week . . . I hope, I hope . . . =0). It was interesting that she wore western (jeans and a blouse) clothing rather than Togolese – just a comment. I don’t know if she has any children yet, perhaps tomorrow I will find out.

After the workshop – which was just a lot on the roles and responsibilities of the volunteers and the homologues, we got dropped off in the center of Kpalime. Two girls and I went to internet first (while others went to search out food). The internet itself was working alright, but I was disappointed when I realized that my CD hadn’t burned properly and I wouldn’t be able to send my emails and blog posts. However, it made me really, REALLY happy to receive emails and Jorge, thank you so, SO, SO, SO much for compiling all my emails into one email. I would never have been able to read them all if it hadn’t been for that – I wasn’t even able to sign into my Middlebury account, so thank you so very much – it was so thoughtful! Anyway, it just makes my day to receive emails because I feel very far away and disconnected and I love know what is going on in the lives of people important to me.

I am so excited for my mother and the possibility of her getting a new job – one where she will be able to reach her full potential and where she will be happy and appreciated. I am also very excited that my Dad might be coming to Ghana (AND TOGO! =0) in October – that would make me unbelievably happy.

I put all your emails in a word document, condensed them down to three pages (really small font size) and was just about to print them when the electricity cut. Luckily we had already saved the document to the server and so I was able to come back later in the day and print them (I would have been so very sad had I not been able to print your emails, but I was!).

After the electricity cut we went shopping – I bought a big woven plastic bag (I think I was a little too extreme – it is HUGE and I stupidly didn’t check the zipper, which isn’t great, but I did bargain it down 500cFA (about a dollar)), some green beans, onions, carrots, garlic, cabbage, pineapples, oranges, mangoes, Milo (Nestle chocolate vitamin energy drink that I drink every morning), laundry soap, a shower pagne (since I made my shower pagne into a skirt) and I can’t remember what else. Eventually we got picked up by the Peace Corps vehicle and driven back to our village. Then I went on another shopping expedition with Felicite to buy dish detergent and kerosene (for my lantern). I wanted to buy an extra wick as well, but they didn’t have the right size.

Once home again I ate dinner and finished packing. My host mom is so sweet. Not only did she give me two jars of jam, but she wants to give me a little table (to put my stove on) and she gave me two plates because she said it wasn’t good enough for me to eat out of my Tupperware containers (which was my plan). I am not sure, though, if I am supposed to bring the wooden table back or not. The plates I can bring back easily, because they are small, but I am really not too keen on bringing a table back with me. Maybe tomorrow morning I will ask her . . . we leave bright and early, at 6:00.

Then I took a shower in the dark so I won’t have to do it tomorrow morning.

7/7/07 through 7/11/07

7/7/07/ and 7/8/07

So, just after having spoken with Jorge and told him that I hadn’t cried yet, I broke my record and shed a few tears on Togolese soil, but don’t worry, it didn’t really have anything to do with Jorge except that I was perhaps feeling a little more vulnerable after having spoken with him. What caused my tears was that the guard of the cabine (the man who unlocked the little telephone booth for me) told me that I had used the phone for too long and that lots of people had come to use the phone and gone because I was using the phone and he told me that I owed 600cFA (over a dollar). Even knowing that technically I shouldn’t owe anything because I had just received and not made any calls, I paid him the 600 francs without arguing. Those 600cFA he could probably have just put in his pocket because nothing would have been charged to the phone because I didn’t make a call, but he just wouldn’t leave it at that and kept repeating that lots of people had come to use the phone while I was talking and that I had talked too much. It made me angry because he kept repeating it and repeating it and because I hadn’t been paying attention and I had the door halfway closed, I couldn’t argue with him and tell him that he was lying, that no one had come to use the phone, but in the half an hour I was sitting there waiting for Jorge to call me (I arrived early) NO ONE came to use the phone. He made me so angry I asked him exactly WHAT he was charging me for since I didn’t make a phone call and the number that ticks as you make a call (to calculate what you owe) hadn’t changed at all. He fumbled a bit and said that it would be 100cFA for ten minutes (I think he pulled that number out of his ass), so then I said, well I only talked for 30 minutes so give me back 300cFA and he did. At the end of this argument another one of the trainees walked in. She was going to use the phone and then left because she saw that he was not being friendly – I couldn’t help a few tears. I don’t like confrontations. Anyway, I am in my tech house right now and I am going to stay here and update you on yesterday and today because last night I watched half of a movie with my family and so I ran my computer battery down and couldn’t write to you and tonight I am going to watch the other half with them so I want to write to you before.

Yesterday morning we had a session called “Sharing American and Togolese Culture.” We performed the skit that we had prepared for our host families. In our skit we emphasized how sometimes in American culture the men stay at home more and cook and the women go out and work at offices. We also had fun with the place of pets in the American family (some of the trainees have been having a hard time with animal rights issues because they have seen their families abusing animals – for example: catching a little bird and giving it to the children to play with – the children, not knowing how to handle such a tiny and fragile animal, end up hurting it or keeping kittens in bags). In our skit, one of the girls played a dog who slept on the bed and was well loved. We also wanted to show how our education is participative and how we have a wide variety of after-school activities. We also depicted how our dinners are often a family affair where parents and children eat together and ask each other about their days. Our last scene (the one I was in) was a restaurant scene where the girl offered to pay for the couple (rather than the boy) and the single people each paid for their own consumption (rather than the person who invited the others having to pay for everyone as it is here).

Our host families seemed to enjoy our skit, so that was gratifying. Then our host moms performed their skit. It was a skit about the problems and jealousies between two co-wives. One of the wives only has one child and the other had several, plus one on her back and one in her belly. In the skit, there was a problem with the child of the first wife being favored and I don’t know exactly what happened, but for some reason the husband beat the wife and so the wife left for her parents’ house with all her children. Eventually the husband came to ask forgiveness and get his wife and children back. The mother of the wife said that he could only have the wife back if he promised not to hit her anymore and to take her to family planning so that she wouldn’t get pregnant again because it wasn’t good for her health (or the baby’s) to be constantly pregnant. It was also funny at times (even though the subject was pretty serious) and it was really fun to see our host moms acting. I think people here really like theater, so maybe I will get a chance to experiment with it more than I ever have before. I am not a huge fan of participating in theaters, but it IS a good creative mode of expression and communication that I think I could get really into if I put my mind to it.

After our respective skits came the fashion show part of the morning’s events. First a couple of the girls came out in American clothing. Because my French is good, I described what they were wearing and what occasions those clothes might be worn on. We had a girl in a jogging outfit, a girl in an evening dress, a girl in a business suit, a girl in hiking clothes, a girl in casual every-day clothes and a girl dressed as a skater (with her pants around her knees, a wife-beater (white tank-top) and a side-ways hat. It was very funny (she played the “brother” in our skit and was hilarious).

Then came the Togolese portion of our fashion show. Our host moms had donated two or three outfits that our trainers helped us put on. We walked out in front of the crowd and then read a couple lines about what occasions the outfit we were wearing might be used for. It was fun – I modeled two outfits – my modeling debut =0). Felicite had called it the Miss Togo competition and later I asked her if I had won and she (of course) said yes.

After the fashion component, our trainees handed out FanMilk, cookies and popcorn to all the people. We were so excited to get FanMilk because in our village there isn’t any. I had two – a chocolate one and a yogurt one. My favorite is still the vanilla one (and I had TWO of those later in the day when we went to Kpalime). After everyone had eaten some snacks, there was a band (with drums and a trumpet and I’m not sure what else) and we danced around in a circle with our host moms. By “we” I mean the other trainees danced around while I took pictures. I danced a little, but I am more comfortable in the role of photographer. The trumpet solo seemed to scream “time to shake your booty” because every time the trumpet blared out above all the other instruments our host mothers would bend at the waist and really shake it. It was fun – I got a lot of great pictures.

Right afterwards we went to Kpalime – we had to wait a while for the taxi. Internet yesterday was particularly frustrating. The place we usually go was closed, the second place was full and the third place wouldn’t let me use the CD I had burned my twenty page email and blog posts onto. I returned to the second and waited for a computer. When I finally got a computer it took 45 minutes just to LOAD the Middlebury webpage so that I could sign onto my email and another 15 minutes or so to actually sign on. Those of you who know how impatient I am would have been proud of me because I was surprisingly quite calm and still in a good mood – as long as I can get one email out to Jorge (and have him forward things to others) I am happy and reading the emails makes me very happy as well.

After internet I got TWO vanilla FanMilks (like milkshake in a bag) and then walked around the market a little with some other trainees. There are a lot of white people in Kpalime because it is one of Togo’s biggest tourist areas. I bought a mango which I devoured as soon as we got back to the tech house (It is pouring elephants and hippos right now (not cats and dogs)).

Then I got a little depressed because the mail had arrived and a lot of the girls had packages from home. It isn’t that I really even want packages from home it is just that being around people who have gotten packages (and the emphasis that the other trainees place on having gotten a letter or a package) makes it depressing not to have gotten anything. It was a big show as everyone who had gotten a package opened it in front of everyone else and emptied its contents. I think it will be much better once we are at post and none of us really knows who has received a package or not, but here it is so evident and so communal that it makes you feel the lack a bit more. (No one should interpret this paragraph as a plea for a package, I would prefer that people do not send packages – it is too expensive and I really have almost everything I need here – I am just sharing my feelings =0).

Then I went home and ate a wonderful fruit salad for dinner and then watched the first half of a movie (Bend it like Beckham – a movie about a girls’ soccer team) with my host family. Fidele fell asleep on my lap, but the others (my host mom and Felicite and two other neighborhood girls) seemed to be enjoying it until my computer battery ran out. We will watch the second half tonight I think (Even though it is in French I am not sure how much of the dialogue they really understand, but I am glad they enjoyed it).

This morning (Sunday, July 8), I woke up early (around 5:15) and headed out to learn how to make soja (tofu) with Valerie (this is the girl who saved me from the rain one day, who ended up being related to my family somehow and who I treated to a coke another day and who sometimes walks me home from school. She is really nice and I like her a lot (even if she did tell me that I have big hips). Another trainee and I went with her to the mill. Soy has to be one of the first things ground in a day because it isn’t good if it mixes with other flours and also it hast to be ground with water so it makes a mess of the mill. We watched them grind a huge basin of soja – the little beans came out looking like a paste. Then we went to Valerie’s house where they put a rice sack in a big woven reed basket (to act as a huge strainer) and then put the soy paste in the basket. They put the basket atop three sticks over a huge basin and then added water that slowly dripped through the rice sack and basket into the basin below. They kept adding more and more water and occasionally moving the soy around in the basket so that it wouldn’t block the little holes in the rice sack (it reminded me of our pool cover at home and how we try to get the water to go through it when there is all sort of sediment blocking the holes). This process went on until there was a huge caldron full of white milky liquid. This caldron was then put over a wood fire and allowed to boil. Once it had boiled, the foam was scraped off the top (and thrown away) and then Valerie’s father (they make tofu every day to sell) added fermented soy water (what is left after removing the tofu product is allowed to ferment for three days and then used to make more tofu – vinegar or lemon can also be used). This fermented soy water caused the soy milk to curdle – the curds floated to the top and Valerie’s father scraped them off and put them in a smaller caldron. He kept adding more fermented soy water and scraping off the curds until no milky soy was left, just yellow soy water. Then they put the curds back on the fire for a bit (I can’t remember why, I will have to ask). Then they took the soy off the fire, added salt and transferred it to a rice sack which they twisted tightly and then put inside another rice sack. They put the rice sack between two huge round pieces of wood and on top of the wood they balanced about six concrete blocks (A LOT OF WEIGHT) to press all the excess water out. Valerie’s father said that after about half an hour the tofu would be ready to cut. They sell it fried with hot sauce, but we tried some the other day before it had been fried and it was even better and without all the excess fat added by frying. The tofu here is better than any tofu I have ever had in the States, it is actually really tasty.

As a side note, Valerie is fifteen and she helps her parents make tofu every day (at least during the three months of vacation – I am not sure what happens during the school year), but she has an older brother who is eighteen who doesn’t even know how to make soy (just to illustrate the division of labor here – the girls do a large quantity of the work).

I also learned that all the soy they made would sell for around 2,000 cFA and if I understood correctly the soybeans cost them $1000, so they aren’t making that much money, but they are making some.

Valerie’s little brother (he looks about three or four perhaps) was scared to death of us and started screaming and crying every time he had to walk past where we were sitting. Each time someone had to hold his hand as he walked past or he wouldn’t go.

Also, somewhere in this process, I asked what they do with the leftover soy product (what was left after flushing it with water and collecting the soy milk. Valerie said that they sell it as food for animals. I asked if you couldn’t make some sort of people food with it and she said yes, that you can make beignets (I don’t know how to spell that, but they are fried dough balls) with it and so I asked why they don’t do that (I meant in general – I thought it might be more lucrative to make and sell beignets as well rather than just selling the leftover soy for animal feed). Valerie said that they don’t make it (I don’t know if she meant in general or that they weren’t making it today) because they she didn’t have the money to buy flour. I got the impression that she was suggesting that we could buy the flour and then we could make beignets and so I asked the other girl with me if she wanted to and she said yes. I asked if we needed any other ingredients and Valerie said eggs – after consulting her mother we decided that we needed ½ a kilo of flour and three eggs and so we said we would buy that and then tomorrow afternoon after class we could make the beignets. So we went to the store and there Valerie said, well, we need oil as well and I think she threw an onion into the bag and then she had us by charbon (burnt wood pieces). Then a bit later she came back to my house and said that her mother said that we needed butter and sugar as well, so all in all we have spent 2000 cFA on these beignets between the other girl and I – (that is $4 which is a lot here) and the whole thing has left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth because I sort of feel as though they are taking advantage of us and milking us for every penny they can get out of us. It isn’t about the money, it just isn’t a nice feeling to think that people who are supposedly your friends are trying to cheat you. On the other hand, I would like to do something to thank them for showing us how to make tofu (they don’t usually make tofu on Sundays, I think, but they made it today because it is the only day that we are free to come watch) so I don’t really mind if they benefit a lot from these beignets as well. I want them to have lots for their family to eat and I would like to be able to bring some to my family as well, but I just don’t like feeling as though I am being taken advantage of by people I consider my friends. AND, on top of all the expenses for the beignets, right after buying the sugar and the butter today, Valerie said “buy me some bread so that I can drink some milk.” I didn’t know exactly what that meant and later asked some of my trainers – apparently it means that the person wants you to buy them bread to accompany the milk that they have, but I had just spent a lot of money on ingredients for these beignets and didn’t really appreciate her asking me to buy her bread (especially after she had just eaten three pieces of the French toast I made for my family). So I guess tomorrow we will see if these beignets were worth all the expenses. I just really hope I can bring some home to my family.

This morning, after watching the tofu-making process, I went home to make breakfast for my family. I got there around 8:30 in the morning and there were already lots of people in the compound. Apparently what Felicite calls a “marie” was taking place. It happened once before and from what I understand it is when the families of two betrothed people meet each other for the first time. So my host Dad’s sister is getting married and her husband-to-be was meeting my host family for the first time. I said hello and then went inside and made French toast. I think it was quite a success. We didn’t have syrup, but it was still quite yummy all by itself and my host family seemed to enjoy it even though they were already sort of busy preparing lunch (fufu) for their guests. I might have enjoyed the French toast more than anyone else, but that is fine with me. Just making the effort to cook for them made me happy.

Then I went out and watched them pound fufu (they were making it with a combination of cassava, ignam and plantain). I wanted to do my laundry and shower, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing either with all the goings-on. At eleven I went to the tech house and worked on a group project for a bit. We are leading a jeopardy-style game on the information surrounding Hearth or FARN as it is know in French which is a method of rehabilitating malnourished children through teaching mothers how to prepare more nutritious food with the foods that are available to them. It sounds really interesting and like something that I might try to implement at my village eventually. To give you a very brief outline (anyone really interested could google it I am sure), you first way the babies in your area to identify the malnourished children and also several mothers (who have average levels of education and income) who have healthy children. These mothers are called positive deviants or “maman lumière” and the idea is that they work with the PCV and health workers to see what they are doing “right” and working with them to change the habits of other mothers so that their children will be healthier as well. The families of the children who will be directly involved in the FARN have to commit to twelve consecutive daily sessions in which they learn how to make an enriched porridge and learn a health lesson.

After about an hour of group work I went home again and pounded fufu for my own lunch. The fufu is quite sticky and so the difficult part isn’t really slamming the pestle down (especially because you have gravity working in your favor at that point), but pulling the pestle out of the gooey sticky fufu so that you don’t get hit by your partner’s pestle (you pound fufu in pairs). Felicite took pictures of me pounding it – I only pounded two little batches which took a maximum of five minutes of actual pounding time and I got two blisters. I didn’t show my family the blisters because they would have laughed at me and maybe not let me pound ever again. They got a huge kick out of me pounding fufu.

I forgot to tell you that an eighty year old man proposed marriage to me today. It was my host dad’s oldest brother – apparently my host dad’s father had five wives and over sixty children of which about thirty are left. Anyway, this very old man asked me to be his wife and was giving me a lecture on the virtues of Jesus Christ. I just laughed and said that it wasn’t possible for me to marry him, that I already had a “husband.” He let it go at that.

The fufu is just this big ball of dough that you break sticky pieces off of and dip into a sauce. The fufu is fine – I don’t love it, but I don’t dislike it either and my mother served it to me today with the peanut sauce which is my favorite.

After lunch I did my laundry with Felicite’s help and then I took a shower. Then I swept out my room and went to talk with Jorge for the first time since I have been in Togo. It was wonderful. It actually worked and it made me both happy and sad to hear his voice, but it was wonderful and we were able to talk for thirty minutes which then got me in trouble with the cabine guy who tried to cheat me out of 600 cFA – and so, as you can see, this story has come full circle.

7/09/07

Last night, right after I shut down my computer, my friend who had happened by the phone booth as I was arguing with the guard walked into the tech center almost in tears. She said that, as a last resort, she had gone back to use the same phone that I had used because none of the other public phones in the village were working. She asked how much it would be to call the States and the guard said that it would be 50 francs she asked, “a minute?” and he said yes. Well it must have been a “click” – on a little apparatus that clicks away while you talk and then you get charged based on the number of clicks and she talked for fifteen minutes and was told she owed 24,000 cFA (around $50) which of course she didn’t have and she also thought the guard was probably trying to cheat her (which he probably was in some way or another – don’t mistake me, I am not saying Togolese people are cheats, just this particular man seems to want to cheat us). The guard walked into the tech house just about a minute after my friend and he started to explain to the Peace Corps guy in charge here . . . anyway, there wasn’t much that my friend could do but pay, but now I have a good idea of how extremely expensive it is to call the States from a phone booth here.

I have a few things that I want to tell you before I tell you about my day – things that I forgot to tell you on previous days. First of all, Felicite told me that black is the color a woman wears when her husband has died and that I shouldn’t wear black.

I also learned the other day that Felicite failed fifth grade and will have to repeat it. That makes me very sad because I think she is quite an intelligent little girl and I don’t understand why she would have failed. I saw her report card and she got a total of about 40 out of 120 possible points. When I asked her if she did well, she said “no, I played.” She didn’t seem too upset about it and her parents didn’t either even though I feel as though they really value a good education (Felicite goes to the private evangelical school in the village). Maybe I just don’t know how to read their reactions yet and maybe they have a way of showing their displeasure that I don’t recognize. Either way, it makes me sad that she failed.

Last night as I was eating dinner, Felicite told me that her aunt (the one who is getting married) offered to take her back to Lomé for a vacation, but that when she (Felicité) realized that I would be left alone she told her aunt that she didn’t want to go. I of course said thank you, but it makes me feel even more indebted to her and as though I ought to make the fact that she stayed here worthwhile by doing even more things with her than I already do. I suggested that maybe she could go to Lome the same week as my post visit. That way she could have the benefit of spending time with her aunt in Lome without feeling as though she were abandoning me.

I think those are all the miscellaneous things I wanted to comment on. Last night we watched the rest of the movie – it was good, I think they enjoyed it. Unfortunately, my friend who lent me the dvd only has a certain number of movies that can be played in French and most of them probably aren’t a great choice when all age groups are present, so I am not sure how many more movie nights we will be able to have. She does have Finding Nemo in English, though, so that might be worth watching even though they won’t understand everything. They can make the story up as they go along.

Today my bladder woke me up early like it does every day. I showered (and by showered I mean took a bucket bath) ate breakfast and went to the tech house an hour early to do some reading. This morning everything was boring to me for some reason. It started with my language class which bored me to tears (almost literally). We were covering the gender of certain words, but it was just so pointless because I am not really going to retain any of that information and we could have accomplished just as much with a five minute review of a handout and instead it took over an hour. At the end of the class I told the professor that I would like to do more cultural activities and discussions rather than grammar, grammar, grammar. I don’t like our new French teacher, as a French teacher, he is perfectly fine as a person.

Technical (health) class bored me as well today. For some reason everyone seemed impatient and irritable and I think it was contagious. We talked about income generating activities, but we didn’t really CONCLUDE all that much.

In the afternoon we did soy transformation. I carried all the soybeans up to the mill on my head and got a lot of laughs from the villagers as I walked through the town. I couldn’t let go of the bucket, though, so I will have to practice with something that I am not afraid of dropping. Then I carried the ground soy paste back to the tech center on my head. At the tech center we pretty much repeated the process that I described yesterday except that first we made soy milk which is just the first part of the process towards making tofu. The soy milk with sugar is absolutely delicious. I don’t understand what they do to soy milk in the States to make it taste nasty (and tofu as well) but here it is really delicious. They put some citronella grass in the soy milk as it boiled, but I prefer it without I think (here they put citronella grass in everything – tea, coffee, hot chocolate). Some of the girls described the taste of soy milk with citronella as the milk leftover after you have eaten a bowl of fruitloops =0).

In the second half of the process I spent a lot of time cooking the by product – what is left after you flush the soy milk out of the soy paste. I cooked it to break down the tripson inhibitor and so that we could use it to make the beignets. It took a lot of effort and stirring (I sort of felt like a witch stirring a sticky brew because we were cooking in huge cauldrons) and when we eventually got to Valerie’s house she told me that actually her mother said that we can’t really make beignets out of that byproduct and that she had roasted some soybeans and had them ground into flour so we could make beignets. I was quite disappointed, not only because of all the work I had put into cooking the byproduct, but mostly because the whole point of the exercise was to USE the byproduct in something rather than just feeding it to the pigs. So to humor me I think, they mixed up a batch of beignets with soy flour and then they mixed up a batch of beignets with the byproduct. They were both really good. I think even Valerie and her family were surprised at how good the experimental beignets were. Do I think they will stop selling the byproduct as animal feed and go into the beignet making business? No, I don’t. But I am excited to experiment a bit with all soy products once I get to post and I can’t even begin to express how excited I am that I actually know how to make soy milk and tofu from scratch. I feel so industrial!

Tonight, though, I am pooped. I am glad that I had enough inner strength to say no to Felicités UNO pleas and to just sit down in my room to write. I am quite tired and think I will get ready for bed and then read a bit until I get sleepy enough to fall right to sleep.






7/10/07

I forgot to tell you that yesterday, while we were in the yard in front of our tech house making tofu a fight broke out between some teenage boys. I got really angry because the men (meaning our teachers who were there) didn’t do anything to stop the fighting, so a woman with a baby on her back got between the two boys who were fighting to try to make them stop. It made me so angry that the men would just stand around and watch while a woman with a baby on her back tried to break up the fight and they were hitting and grabbing her as well. Finally one of the other trainees – she is very tall and very big – went out and stood next to the woman and the boys stopped fighting and went away.

I was doing really well with not getting bitten by bugs, I wasn’t even putting on bug repellent because I didn’t find it necessary, but right after we did the home visits I noticed that I had a lot of itchy bites (I don’t think they are mosquito bites, but something else) around my ankles and since then I feel as though I have been getting bitten a lot more. It is almost as though once they discover that you are tasty, the insects spread the news to all their friends and now all the insects bite you. This morning I woke up with more that twenty bug bites on each of my legs. I hope they are not in my bed, but I am not sure where else I would be getting bitten.

This morning we had a technical class first and four of us led a jeopardy game that we had prepared on today’s topic – FARN – the nutritional rehabilitation program that I talked a bit about in an earlier email this week. It went well and made the time pass a little faster. Afterwards, the three of us who are in the highest level language class went to the other village to do local language training. I guess they aren’t going to start the other students on local language until their French is pretty good because French is the first priority. I really need to start focusing and practicing my Ewe. It is hard because I have so little free time – whenever I am free Felicite wants to do something with me.

In the afternoon we went to the other village to have a health session on good nutrition – it was interesting to hear about what foods are available here and what foods the Togolese use to prepare more nutritious meals. I am excited about experimenting with new ingredients. We also got our “Where there is no Whopper” cookbook – specially prepared by PCVs in Togo for other Togo PCVs. It looks like it is going to be a fantastic resource and not only has recipes for yummy meals, but also tips on ways to keep insects out of your food supplies, ways to kill certain insects, ways to preserve certain foods better, recipes for shampoo and all sorts of other things – so that is very exciting and I can’t wait to have time to sit down and read through it all. There are so many things I want to read, but I just don’t have all that much free time.

After the health class, we got our third rabies shot and then we came back to our village. Nothing exciting happened after dinner – we just played UNO for a while (Felicite, Fidele, Maman and I and then later two other kids). They brought a dvd to watch on my computer, but I said that it wasn’t charged enough for a movie. I don’t know if it will even work, though – I am not sure what region it is.

That is about it for today – not a super exciting day.


7/11/07


Tomorrow we leave on our field trip and that is very exciting because we are going to see more of the country and it is also good to have a break from our host families and allow them to have a break from us. We are leaving around 6:30 in the morning and we are going to Atakpame and then to Sokode and then to Bassar. We will spend both nights in Bassar and then we will go to Kara Saturday morning and we will arrive at our training site Saturday evening.

Today was a relatively uneventful day – we spent the whole day at the other training site and we had first a health session on insect and animal bites and skin care. Then we had a safety and security session in which we talked about filing incident reports if something happens to us and what we should do and then the U.S. ambassador came and spoke with us for about an hour – none of which was too exciting. I spent a lot of the time making Ewe flashcards.

At lunch I washed my sandals with Felicité’s help – she wouldn’t let me do it all by myself. I also washed my stinky watch and put my solar battery charger in the sun. I think/hope it will work really well because when it is in direct sunlight the little meter goes up to the highest bar, but I haven’t been able to leave it out for a long enough time to really charge the batteries because I can’t leave it out if I am not there to watch it because it could either get stolen (it is not fair to ask my host mom to watch over it) or it could get rained on, so . . .

In the afternoon we went back to the other training site and had a session on our post visits. We leave for a one week post visit on Saturday, July, 21st. We just talked about the logistics of the post visit, it wasn’t too too exciting. Hopefully I will have more exciting things to share from our fieldtrip, although I am not sure when we are going to have internet access.

I had two yummy semi-new things to eat today – one was corn on the cob grilled over the fire. It isn’t sweet corn, but it is still tasty. The second was fried plantains which I have had before in Bolivia, but I had almost forgotten how yummy they are.

After dinner I packed and then played a couple games of UNO with Felicite, Fidele and another little girl.

I keep getting more and more insect bites on my legs – I am afraid I might have bed bugs.

Felicite sort of asked if she could come stay with me (permanently) in my village. I said no and explained that there isn’t a good school there, that there isn’t a hospital or even a nurse at the dispensare and that I will be working and can’t take care of a child. I told her she was more than welcome to come and visit, but I am a little worried about subtle suggestions (coming from both Felicite and her parents), that Felicite would come live with me. I think the idea is that she would take care of (helpless, little) me, but all around the suggestion makes me uncomfortable and even if they might believe that she would have better opportunities living with me, that is not the case and either way I can’t be responsible for a ten year old no matter how mature she (sometimes) seems. So hopefully the idea of her staying with me permanently won’t really be brought up again. Luckily I am going to such a remote place that there are many good arguments of why she should absolutely definitely not come stay with me for more than a week or two.

6/30/07 through 7/6/07

6/30/07 and 7/01/07

This morning we had a bike session and we learned how to take off our front and back wheels, how to change and patch a tire and how to put our wheels back on – it was fun. Then we went to the other village and some volunteers presented the different groups that exist that we can belong to if we want. Anyway, it wasn’t very interesting except something that I learned and that is that many Togolese men have a preference for “dry sex” (which is, as I learned today, sex without lubrication) and that sometimes they even use sticks and leaves to dry the woman’s vagina out before sex. I was pretty much horrified. How unpleasant for the woman and I can’t imagine why it would be more pleasant for the man. I was really shocked and disturbed by that bit of information.

Then the Peace Corps van took us to Kpalime. They have been babying us quite a bit (not that I mind . . . =0). I think they are afraid that if they don’t take us we will insist on biking to Kpalime because it isn’t that far. A group of us went to do internet. It was a tiny bit less frustrating this time or maybe I am actually learning to have a bit of patience (!!!) =0). After internet we got some fanmilk (like a vanilla or chocolate milkshake in a bag) and walked around a bit. Outside a store, a young guy came over and hit me (kind of hard) on the upper arm – to get my attention, I guess, or I don’t really know why. I turned around and just stared at him really fixedly (I would have reamed him out but I was caught off guard and momentarily speechless). He quickly turned around and walked off. I like to think that my cold icy stare scared him off. The Peace Corps car took us back to the tech house and I devoured my first huge whole mango that I had bought for 50cFA (10 cents!!!) I was in heaven. Then I went home and ate fruit salad (with mango, pineapple and banana in it) for dinner, so I was all fruited out, but it was yummy.

After dinner I played UNO for awhile with my Ewe teacher and then went out for the first time by myself after diner (actually, it wasn’t even by myself because I had another of the yovos come over to pick me up so that my host mom wouldn’t question me going out after dinner). We went to Afrikiko (the bar), but it really just wasn’t all that much fun.

I am writing this whole part of the email in the tech house on the first day of July! We have just cooked our first meal together (my group of trainees in Togo) and it was ok. I don’t feel the same sense of satisfaction as everyone else I think, but it was fun I guess. We made brunch: French toast, scrambled eggs, potatoes and had it with pineapple, coffee, orange juice. Everyone was really excited about having real coffee and not Nescafe. The pineapple was good. It is a little hard to cook here because we don’t have the basic cooking ingredients – all the spices, utensils, salt and pepper even.

It is funny how sensitive I am to people referring to the United States as America here, because of how sensitive people are to it in Latin America. Everyone here says “America” instead of United States and it actually gets on my nerves a bit.

I don’t have too too much to tell you about the rest of today. We went for a little walk and then to Afrikiko. It was fine, not too lively. I am quite tired because I can’t sleep well because I am coughing too much. I went home around 4:00 and drew a bit with Fidele and then ate dinner. My host mom tries really hard to find me fruits and vegetables for dinner. I think it might be getting to a more difficult season to find vegetables. One day she sent all sorts of people out looking for green beans and today she said she couldn’t find lettuce so she made me something (really yummy) with peas. I don’t want to cause trouble, so I will have to try to convey to her that I just don’t like to eat a lot for dinner, but that it doesn’t HAVE to be only fruits or vegetables. I would be perfectly happy eating a mango every night for dinner, but I don’t think my host mom would think that were sufficient.

After dinner I read a bit of my French book (the novel I am reading in French) and then my host mom played UNO with us for the first time, so that was fun, and afterwards I sat outside and looked at the stars (they were beautiful tonight, but then it got cloudy). Felicite charged my flashlight by winding it for a really long time (it works pretty well by the way) and then she played with my hair. She thinks I have tons of hair and asked me (half jokingly) to give it to her and then she asked God to give her some hair like mine.

Then, for the first time, we went out and sat on a bench on the side of the street outside the compound to watch the people walk by and to say hi. And now I am going to bed.

7/2/07

Today I learned some disturbing things and had some disturbing conversations. In our technical session today we were talking about some myths that are common here in Togo with respect to health and sex. Going back to the preference for “dry sex” that I mentioned the other day, today I learned that some women use lemons to dry themselves out before sex and/or line their vaginas with SAND (!!!!!) so that sex is more pleasant (?!?!?!?!) for the man. This, of course, leads to easier transmission of HIV/AIDS because sex is much more abrasive. I also learned that some women put alum (which my fellow trainees said is a chemical cleaning product) in water and then insert it into their vaginas to clean them out and/or dry them out. To say the least, all of us (we are all girls) were grimacing. And as if that weren’t bad enough I learned that some women think the soft spot on a newborn baby’s head is a defect and when they bathe the baby they put steaming hot water on its head and attempt to push the harder parts of the cranium together. And if you want to hear something still worse, apparently some women think that shoving crushed red peppers (the really really spicy kind) up a baby’s bottom will cure diarrhea. For some slightly less shocking beliefs: there is a belief that giving eggs and meat to children will turn them into thieves (this, of course, is a way to rationalize the scarcity of meat and protein and to divert what little protein a family consumes to the adult male members) and, finally, many women stop breastfeeding if they get pregnant because they think that a pregnancy spoils their milk.

After the health session we had language class – an hour of French and then an hour of Ewe. Then I came home, ate a lunch of mashed up cassava in a tomato-y sauce with carrots, green beans, green pepper, and meat (not sure if it was beef or pork, but so far all the meat they have given me has been really good, non-fatty meat or chicken (the chickens are pretty skinny, though)). Then I made some flashcards for Ewe and played a bit of UNO before returning to class. We had another technical session and then more language. I think I might have mentioned that our language teacher has changed and our new teacher is super nice and a good teacher BUT he tends to try to lead the conversations in the direction of religious/moral debate which, if it continues, could get pretty annoying. Today we discussed women as heads of state and feminism and then did a silly exercise in which we read a short story of a woman who was cheating on her husband because her husband is never home and gets murdered on the way home from her lover’s house and we were supposed to place all the characters in order from most responsible for the woman’s death to least responsible. It was rather pointless. After class I went and visited another trainee’s house briefly and then I spend about 45 minutes in Afrikiko talking with some of the other trainees. Unfortunately, the woman who owns the bar has realized that when I come to Afrikiko I don’t consume anything and so she has got me pegged, but I figure that the other trainees consume enough to balance out my lack of consumption, but it still makes me a little bit uncomfortable . . .

This evening my host mother made me an awesome salad with cabbage, carrots, beets, tomatoes, onions, green beans, and eggs. She shredded up a green papaya to put in it but then forgot. I don’t like ripe papaya, but green papaya is pretty good. Unfortunately, after dinner something happened that made me feel pretty badly. As I was eating my salad – alone at my little table in the hallway outside my room, my host mom told me that I should eat the whole salad. I probably could have eaten the whole salad, but I remember that a volunteer said that sometimes if you finish all your food your host parents will worry that they haven’t given you enough and that you might still be hungry, so I left about a quarter of the salad on the plate (it was a pretty big salad). When I finished eating, my host mom and Felicite and Fidele (the ten year old and the four year old) ate the rest of the salad (between the three of them) with bread. They ate it quite hungrily and it hurt to watch because it makes me feel as though they are not getting enough to eat or perhaps that my desire to eat a light dinner is negatively affecting them because it means that they, by default, also eat a light dinner. It also made me think – what if I had eaten it all? Often they have different food then me for dinner and it is the first time that I have seen them eat my “leftovers” as if it were the only food they would get in the night. Usually they eat my leftovers after having eating some of their own food. Anyway, it made me feel really badly and I don’t think I will ever clean off a plate now because I can never know if they are waiting to eat what I leave . . .

I tried, of course, not to show my feelings (they didn’t seem at all uncomfortable eating the rest of the salad in front of me). I even made a joke and said “il faut manger tout” (you have to eat everything - what my host mom always says to me) when Felicite ate everything in the salad but the tomatoes. Then I gave them each a piece of cinnamon chewing gum – I didn’t think that they would like it because from my experience in Latin America, cinnamon chewing gum isn’t a universal, but they all liked it a lot and I got some pleasure out of hearing and seeing them smacking away. We played UNO for a while with the light of a lantern (the power went out again like it does pretty much every day). The smell of the kerosene lanterns reminds me of a time in Niger when we went camping. The smell is just related to those memories.

7/03/07

Can I insist again how beautiful the stars are here? It just feels like they are so much closer and the sky is so much bigger.

I also want to say that I have been think A LOT about the post assignments (of course, how could I not be thinking about that) and that it feels like this week is going by very slowly because I am so anxious to know where I will be posted. I thought I had my top three choices exactly in the order of preference, but I am not so sure anymore. My top three choices have remained the same, but I don’t know which is my first choice. I think I am going to try to just trust the process and God – God, meaning any sort of higher spiritual force. God has often come through for me and us in terms of our relationship in the past and I think, to a certain extent, I need to trust that I will get placed where I am meant to go and that it will all work out for the best as it often does. The reason I am a bit undecided now is because I talked with a volunteer and she told me that the previous volunteer in the Agou post (the one near here) has had some difficulties with Belgian and French volunteers coming in for a few months, throwing a lot of money at the village, living in a way not entirely respectful of local culture and customs and then leaving – so to a certain extent she has to deal with them undermining her efforts to do grass roots projects. If they come in with a lot of money the people are going to want money from the PCV as well. Anyway, what I am thinking of doing is saying that my top three choices are Agou Avedje (or Avedze spelling?), Avassikpe and Nyassive and that, in general, I am interested in living in a small town, but I would like to have weekly (or at least biweekly) access to internet, that I don’t care about having running water or electricity, and that I really want to learn Ewe. I am not sure what to say about how important cell phone reception is to me . . . I think I will just state my top three choices, but then leave the final decision up to the decision makers because they are the ones who know the posts and the information that we have on paper all sounds so similar that it is difficult to differentiate between the options. I think that is also a healthier state of mind for me to have because it means that I am not fixated on only one post. I don’t want to stress about it too much and I think I can make any of those three posts work and each will have its own particular challenges. So that is where I am concerning the post assignments. We have our interviews on Thursday and Friday and by Friday evening we will know where we are going.

As for my day . . . hm . . . this morning we had a really annoying language class for which our instructor was not fully prepared and it just frustrated me greatly because I felt as though he was giving us wrong or partial information. It wasn’t even something crucially important, just the difference between an and année, soir and soirée, jour and journée etc., but he gave us this rule which works fine for some cases, but, at least as far as I can tell, does nothing to explain certain other cases. Anyway, it was annoying.

Then we had a technical session in which we learned about baby weighing, about how to fill out the growth monitoring chart, about problems we might encounter while doing baby weighing and how we should address cases of malnutrition. From what I understand, mothers of malnourished babies are either spoken to one on one later in the day or invited back for mini workshops on breastfeeding or proper nutrition or proper hygiene etc. depending on the specific issues at hand. Then we all marched up to the school and participated in a baby weighing with some very nice mothers who had agreed to let us practice on their babies. First the woman in charge of the technical (health) portion of our pre-service training gave a causerie (a short talk) about the importance of breastfeeding. The actual baby-weighing part of the experience was quite interesting – not too too different from when I did it once in Niger. The younger children tolerated us pretty well, but the two and three and four year olds had screaming, kicking fits – I think they were petrified by all the yovos. I got to weigh and eighteen month old baby and a two month old baby, both girls. The two month old baby’s mother was only sixteen, but both babies were with in the normal, healthy weight range. In fact, all the babies that we weighed except two were in the acceptable range. This is quite unusual for Togo I think, but as I have said before, this is a rather wealthy village with a rather high level of average education and a private German hospital, so . . . it is apt not to be a typical scenario. It was fun however – the babies are absolutely adorable (I am afraid that if I end up working with orphans in Agou that I will be tempted to adopt them!!!!)

Afterwards I came home for lunch, played a bit of UNO and then went to Afrikiko to meet with the other trainees in the nutrition group. For the big projects that we will be doing over the remainder of preservice training, we have divided into three groups: HIV/AIDS and Sensibilizations, Nutrition and Peer training/Youth Health Club. I chose the nutrition group and we just learned today that we are supposed to give a fifteen minute causerie (talk) to a group of women on Friday, so we were beginning to come up with ideas for that. We have many things going on this week. On Thursday we will be doing our first home visits, on Friday we give a causerie, on both those days we also have post interviews, and on Saturday we are supposed to perform skits portraying American culture for our host families. We have not started working on ours yet and our moms have gotten together at least twice to practice the skits that they will be performing for us.

In the afternoon today we had a cross-cultural session on relationships – professional, friendships and romantic. I learned a lot of interesting things that I am sure will help me in my interpersonal relationships and keep me out of trouble. I learned that men here expect a woman to refuse the first (and maybe even the second, third, fourth, fifth) invitation to go out, to have a drink, whatever . . . but that they are patient and persistent and they think you are just playing hard to get because that is what Togolese women do. Even if they are interested in a man, they say no the first time or first few times he asks them out. So, I will have to be firm and persistent and consistent in refusing advances. I plan not to try to cultivate friendships with Togolese men. I am going to assume male-female friendships here are not really possible and will stick to searching out the women for friendship. I also learned that you should never really invite someone (most importantly a male someone, but it is even not necessary to invite female someones) into your house. It is perfectly appropriate to receive people in your yard where you might have chairs or benches. I think that it is an absolutely necessary policy with men, but also with women because if you don’t let people into your personal space, people aren’t seeing what sorts of material objects you possess and there won’t be as much temptation to steal. It is also very important (especially in small communities) so as to avoid the fomentation of problematic rumors. For example, if all visits take place in a public (your front yard) space where everyone can see you, rumors that you are having a relationship with someone else’s husband are unlikely to form or at least unlikely to be believed and perpetuated. The same rule applies for going into other people’s houses. I think this is a little trickier, because control is less in your hands, but I guess you would request to be received in the yard rather than indoors, especially if you are unaccompanied. I also thought about, if I get a cell phone then I will tell people who ask for the cell phone number that it is a work only phone and that I am not allowed to give the number out. It was also suggested that we try to set up “office hours” at some place where we spend a large part of our time – perhaps at the local dispensaire (clinic) because that way people would have no excuse to come bothering us at home. It was a long but relatively useful session.

Afterwards we received our weekly allowance and then I went home, learned how to play a clapping, hopping and kicking game that the girls play here (by learned I mean watched some girls do it, tried to understand their explanations of how one wins in this game and hopped a couple times myself with little success). The game takes a great deal of coordination, energy and willingness to get sweaty. Then I ate a wonderful dinner of heavenly pineapple, banana covered with a milky oat mixture. It was super yummy. After dinner I went to Afrikiko, aided by the excuse that I had money belonging to the other trainees that I had to return (which was true). I stayed for a while chatting with the volunteer who is staying with us this week and some other trainees. I learned that child trafficking and sex trafficking is a problem in Togo and that children are often trafficked to Nigeria. I hadn’t told my mom that I would return late, so after about an hour I went home. I found my mom sitting outside our compound on the side of the road watching the people go by so I sat with her. Soon another trainee’s host mom arrived and then we all went back to Afrikiko because the moms were rehearsing for the skit they will be performing for us on Saturday. So I got a little more time to hang out, but it cost me 375 cFA =0) – I bought a soda for Felicite and Fidele who came with us. Then I had an embarrassing moment when the volunteer was saying that they have been known to auction off vibrators at ALLVOL (All Volunteer Conference) to raise money to send girls to school. I stupidly asked “used vibrators?” and of course the answer was no, but my silly question got exaggerated (by the people at the table) into them telling the rest of the table that I wanted to sell my used vibrator at ALLVOL (and I, of course, do not own one and have never owned one). Everyone thought that was a huge riot because of course I don’t really share a lot about my sex life and I think people consider me relatively tame and so everyone found this hilariously funny. Luckily it was sort of cleared up by the end of the conversation.

My host mom gave me four apples – a really great gift because apples are quite expensive here and it will be a perfect energy food tomorrow as I hike three hours up and three hours down. Do you think I can do it? I think my pride will help me . . . =0) Then in the afternoon we are having a 4th of July party which the other group of Small Enterprise Development has mostly organized, but that will conveniently take place at our village. I hope it is fun, but I have my doubts about how well these collective endeavors will work. Also it makes me somewhat uncomfortable because now it will be two times where we have had a “party” and prepared food and our families have not been invited. Of course the logistics of inviting (and COOKING for) all of our families are quite impossible, but both times the mother of another trainee has asked me if they can come and told me that they should be invited. I try to say that we are practicing our cooking that we don’t want to invite them yet and today I told her that I plan to try to make something for my family, but on an individual me for my family basis and not all the trainees for all the families because the numbers just make it too complicated. Anyway, I am pooped and am going to go to sleep now. So far the sleeping on my back thing has lead to a good night’s sleep two days in a row. Last night, though, I had to get up and pee in my shower bucket again. Actually in the cup and I filled a huge cup with pee, I was quite amazed with myself. It was also quite tricky getting my pee to the latrine this morning without making it obvious. I put it in a plastic bag . . . =0)

7/04/08

Happy fourth of July! (I think I celebrated the fourth of July today here in Togo more than I ever have in the States).

I am doing very well. I am quite tired, but not exhausted or bad mood tired, just tired. We walked up the mountain this morning. You would have been proud of me. All the way up the mountain I was leading the pack, right behind the guide. The mountain isn’t super huge, only around 1000 meters (986 meters to be precise – I just looked it up in my Lonely Planet), but it is still quite a hike and some parts were like walking up uneven rock steps and other parts were quite slippery but there is a very nice and well kept (and well traveled) trail all the way up the mountain from our village, so it wasn’t as though we were carving a path through the jungle with machetes. There are several villages hanging on to the side of the mountain and they are amazing. How I would love to live in one of them were I step out of my house in the morning and see a whole beautiful lush green valley fall away in front of me. The houses are built on terraces and on pretty steep slopes. I took lots of pictures because it is really hard to paint an adequate picture with words, but pretty much all the paths through the villages are steps and I assume almost all the houses have been built on plots of land that were made flat. Anyway, it was quite the climb and I was super tired, but it was beautiful and completely worthwhile (although I am not sure I would do it again . . .). At the very top there is a security checkpoint and some gendarmes. They told us that we couldn’t pass the checkpoint if we didn’t have written permission from the prefect UNLESS we slipped them 2,000 cFA which we refused to do. So, we didn’t go to the tippy tippy top, BUT we were about five feet from it, so we all consider that we made it to the top. The walk back down took just as long because we had to be very careful because it was quite slippery – my legs were trembling the whole way down, but thankfully I made it back all in one piece.

The first thing I did when I got home was take a bucket bath. I don’t think I have ever sweat so much in my entire life as I did this morning walking up the mountain (and we left at 6:30 in the morning so it wouldn’t be too hot – it gets light around 5:30 in the morning). So I took a wonderfully refreshing bucket bath and then ate some lunch. Then I sat and talked with my host mom a bit as we watched some of the teenagers who live in the compound (and cook for themselves) pound fufu. I haven’t had fufu yet, but my host mom bought the plantains for it – apparently they sometimes mix cassava with plaintain to make fufu and it is supposed to be really good and my mom said we would have it on Friday. It looks like tough work pounding it, but they pound very rhythmically, two people at a time and it seems that if you put some energy into it, it doesn’t take too long – so it is hard work, but at least the pain is not long in duration. I didn’t offer to help today because I was pooped, but I will definitely try my hand (or hands) and pounding fufu the next time.

Then I watched my host mom get her hair fixed because each Wednesday the host parents have a meeting and then I went to Afrikiko where I “helped” to make a pasta salad and by “helped” I mean chopped half an onion and watched =0). After a long time of lingering at Afrikiko we made our way down to the tech house where most of the trainees (from both villages) were already making merry. They had also already eaten all the hotdogs, but we had plenty of food – fried chicken, French fries, guacamole with bread, pasta salad, brownies and a cake, mangoes, bananas, and fried soy dipped in hot sauce (really yummy – this is the soy that I hope to learn how to make . . . ) So we all ate a lot and stuffed ourselves. It still makes me feel badly, though, when we do things like this because of course our families would like to be invited, but like I said with the Sunday brunch, the numbers would be just too much to handle and families here aren’t easily delineated so if we opened our events to our families I think the whole village would come. It was a nice afternoon and went quite smoothly, although I have to say that I am very happy that I was not organizing it. Luckily there are PLENTY of people here who are the organizing and take charge type, so I don’t feel as though I have to get involved. I stayed until around 7 and then came home even though the others were going to Afrikiko. I am pretty tired and plan to go to bed early and I also have some homework to do to prepare for the causerie (talk, on nutrition) that we are giving on Friday.


7/05/07

The big news for today is that I have gotten my post assignment!! We had our interviews in the morning – they were very short and quick and to the point and we convinced the CHAP (Health) APCD to give us our posts by 6:00 and he did! So, I won’t leave you in any more suspense . . . I am going to Avassikpe. I have to admit that I am still a little cautious about my post assignment in the sense that I am not super excited, just calm and contented. The reason I am not super excited is because even though I now know the name of the place I will spend the next two years, I still know very very little about it. I am happy though because it is a small village, they speak Ewe (and many other languages there), there is no running water or electricity, but it is only 18 kilometers to the east of Notse where there is internet (so I think I can bike there, once a week – on Saturdays – to do internet and stock up on fruits and vegetables at the weekly market in Notse which conveniently is on Saturday. Also, one of my fellow trainees, a girl I get along with well, will be posted in Notse and she will have electricity and I am sure that she will allow me to charge my computer at her house and write up emails at her house before going to the internet café. I am thinking that I am probably going to have to write some of my daily letters to you by hand and then type them up in Notse because I won’t have electricity in my house. I may consider getting a solar charger for my laptop, though, and even if the bike trip to Notse is too long, I can take a taxi for only 300cFA. Taxis leave from Avassikpe for Notse every day, so that is great. Anyway, I am going to type up all the information that I know about my site for you (all this information was prepared by the current PCV):

+ It is a replacement post. I will be replacing a female CHAP volunteer.
+ My official homologue is a midwife (I am so excited – I am going to see babies be born!! YAY!!). She is the ONLY trained person at the dispensaire (clinic) in Avassikpe that serves the needs of 24 surrounding villages.
+ Possible projects I will be working on are: inadequate potable water supply; village hygiene, specifically latrine construction and the need for designated garbage dumps; the fight against malaria, especially focusing on bed net use; sensibilisations during baby-weighing sessions; dispersal of information regarding the importance of vaccinations and proper child nutrition; inadequate access to vaccinations due to once monthly vaccination sessions; these sessions serve the populations of approximately 24 villages; information on moringa cultivation and benefits; health education at the local primary school and the CEG (middle school) in Agbatitoe (6 kilometers away); delivieries mostly done at home due to poverty and distances to the dispensaire; Education on HIV/AIDS: its prevention, testing, and stigmatization.
+ My counterpart (the midwife) has expressed a desire to work with a Volunteer on: awareness raising (sensibilisation meetings in the villages of the health zone); health education on various topics of community health development; counseling for behavior change with mothers and youth; assistance in baby weighing and vaccination sessions; community organization for participation in health development projects; health classes and life skills training at the EPP and CEG (middle school).
+ For the first three months, I will be: getting to know the place; taking a bike tour to visit the surrounding villages and the farms of the health zone for self introduction with community leaders (I am really excited about having to use my bike A LOT – I am going to become and expert! =0); participating in monthly CPC (baby-weighing)/vaccination sessions; participating in weekly prenatal consultations and causeries (every Wednesday morning); contacting EPP/CEG teachers for possible health education activities; participating in and assisting with CVD (Village Development Committee)/ counsel on activities/project development; doing an assessment of possibilities for community organization; women associations, youth groups; assessment of local NGOs and the possibilities of partnerships with the CVD.
+ About my village: The community has a low crime rate and is essentially politically and socially stable. However, 5 ethnicities live together in the village (Ewe, Kabiye, Moba, Losso and Lamba) and this creates some challenges when trying to do village-wide activities. Frequently people will not attend meetings that are not held in their quartier. Furthermore, the village has a history of people on committees (ie the water committee and the committee linked to the dispensaire construction) bouffing funds so there is a certain level of distrust among the different ethnicities and quartiers that makes development work involving funds difficult.
+ Market days in surrounding area: Friday – Avassikpe; Friday – Agbatitoe (6km); Saturday – Notse (18km); Saturday – Wahala (18km) – I hope I can get mangos and pineapples!!
+ Water supply: Cistern by front dorr fills to overflowing during the rainy season from roof runoff, may run out during dry season. For the bulk of the year, this was sufficient to meet water demands; boor well equipped with pump in village
+ Closest PCV neighbor – 18km (Notse – there will be both a CHAP volunteer and a SED volunteer from my stage in Notse)
+My House: At least two separate rooms, one for cooking and one for sleeping; a hard solid floor and plastered walls in good repair; windows that provide adequate ventilation and light and that can be secured from inside; window and door screens that are in good repair; a leak proof roof and drop ceiling; #12 or thicker burglar bars on all windows spaced no more that 10cm apart; proper security locks on the doors; a latrine and shower that are walled for privacy and available for the exclusive use of the PCV. The shower is not covered, which I am very happy about – I like my open air showers. On the downside, my house has mice (the current PCV suggests that I get a cat . . . we will see . . . I’m not exactly a cat person and won’t particularly enjoy seeing the cat eating the mice . . . ).
+ Taxi service: There is a taxi in the village and daily transportation to Notse (300 cFA; 30 minutes) and to my regional capital, Atakpame (1000cFA; 1.5 hours).
+ Phone coverage: There is no cabine (telephone) in the village, the cabine in Agbatitoe is often not functioning. Avassikpe has inconsistent cell phone reception, but reception can usually be found somewhere in the village (I am unsure whether I will get a cellphone or not. I will wait until my post visit and see what the PCV there right now thinks – maybe I can buy her cell phone if she has one).
+ PCV history: There was a PCV in Komlan-Cope, a village about 8km from Avassikpe in the early 90s. She was involved in the Guinea worm eradication program (1991-1996).
+ Potential NGOs for collaboration: Opportunities Industrialization Center in Notse on the road to Tohoun, but they have funding problems; Croix-Rouge Notse; ADAC in Notse is an NGO engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS, care for PLWA and OVC.
+ Sociocultural Overview: Ethnic Groups – Ewe, Kabiye, Moba, Lamba, Losso; Languages – Ewe, Kabiye, Moba, Lamba, Losso – there is no common language, especially among the women, but many people speak Ewe; Religious groups – Animism, Assemblies of God, Ministère de la Foi, Catholic; Community Attitudes – The community is open to change, but as a whole seems to lack a measure of willingness to work towards change themselves. I (the PCV who is there now wrote this) believe this is partly due to the rigorous subsistence farming lifestyle villagers lead; it leaves little time for outside work. I have encountered some resistance to self-initiated change. People are more interested in having things done for them or given to them rather than to take responsibility for their own development. I don’t think this is an uncommon problem among villagers. However, there are motivated people in the community who are willing to contribute time and energy to development work and who serve as important links to the other villagers; Gender Roles – gender roles are very traditional in Avassikpe, a patriarchal structure; most married men I know have 2 or more wives; Educational Levels – Educational levels vary, but they are not very high. Most men in village speak at least a little French, and others are fluent. The women’s educational levels overall are much lower, and many do not speak French beyond typical greetings; Facilities – USP, EPP (primary school), CEG (middle school).
+ Infraestructure – There is no electricity in village. People use wood and charcoal stoves. There is no irrigation. Based on my (the current PCV) observations, the variations in the prices of crops such as cotton and corn and the relative success or failure of the planting season are what have the most effect on community life and development projects.
+Physical and economic – Avassikpe is situated on a vast plain. The primary source of income is agriculturally based. Primary crops cultivated are corn, cotton, inyams, cassava, and beans. Some people also cultivate peanut, rice, tomatoes, peppers, and gboma. The majority of the villagers work in their fields daily from the start of the long rainy season (early to mid April) through early December. During the long dry season, January-April, there is little field work and people are more available. Income is usually at a low ebb during the dry season, because much money is spent to celebrate Christmas and especially New Years.
+ Host Family Information: House owner lives nearby with one of his wives and children. Next door neighbor is a single mother with 3 children, ages approximately 9, 6, 2 years old. They are friendly but respect my (current PCV’s) privacy.
+ Suggested Repairs: There are no necessary repairs, though the cement around the doorjamb is crumbling a bit (it doesn’t affect the functioning or safety of the door). There is no compound wall or fence around the house, so there is not much privacy from village life. However, I have found that people are very respectful of my space and I (current PCV) have not had a problem with the lack of fence. For example, after a few weeks the children learned that they must not stand at my door and windows and stare in, and they do not bother me when I am in my house. I recommend that my replacement wait until post visit to see the setup of the house before deciding if he/she wants a fence or not.

So that was the information that I knew yesterday . . . Today I have a bit more information, but I am going to make you wait for it until I recount my day yesterday =0).

All of yesterday was a bit strange and non-routine. In the morning it started absolutely pouring rain while I was in my latrine (with a tin roof). It was thundering and lightening so I thought it probably wasn’t a good time to try to convince my host mother to let me shower in the rain and consequently, I just didn’t shower.

In the morning we had individual evaluations, so one by one we went into a room where three of our trainers were sitting (the man in charge of the host-family/trainee relationship, the language professor and the woman in charge of our technical (health) session). It was a little intimidating, but really they just asked us how pre-service training is going in general and if we have any comments, complaints or suggestions. I just said that we would like more of a heads’ up about our activities, especially the activities that require preparation, so that we can work the prep-time into our schedules. Then the man in charge of the host-family/trainee relationship said that he has noticed that I am very well integrated into my family and that we seem to get along well. He also said that one day my host mother asked him how did he know which girl to place in their family and that it seems as though he had made a perfect fit. That was really nice to hear. Then my language professor gave me some language suggestions – grammatical stuff; and the woman in charge of the technical sessions seems to appreciate my presence because I often translate for her because she doesn’t speak English and she says that even when the other trainees are lacking in energy and enthusiasm, I am always ready to listen, learn and participate, so that was also nice to hear.

While the others were having their individual feedback sessions, the rest of us just sat around and read or looked at each others photos from home. Then all of a sudden our CHAP APCD arrived and they handed out some forms to fill out that asked which of the CHAP domains we were most interested in working in, what were are top three post choices in order of preference, if we prefer a small or large village and a village near or far from other PCVs. The form also asked about our bicycling skills, any food restrictions we might have and religious preferences. On my form I said that I want to work with women and children on nutrition and also with youth and that I would like to have a midwife as my counterpart. I put Avassikpe, Agou Avedze, and Nyassive as my top choices but in no particular order. I emphasized that I wanted a small village and that it didn’t matter too much to me how close or far I was from other PCVs. I also said that my biking skills aren’t great but that I would like to have the opportunity to use my bike a lot. Right after we got the forms we started our interviews. They had allotted fifteen minutes for each interview, but most only took five minutes. In my interview, the APCD just read over my paper and that was it – he didn’t really even ask any questions. Present in the interview were the CHAP APCD, the woman in charge of our technical (health) sessions, and the volunteer that has been here for the week.

While we were having our interviews, we were supposed to be working on our skits, but everyone was in too much of a nervous tizzy to concentrate on anything. After everyone had had their interview, we (meaning the trainees in general) descended on our APCD like a pack of dogs and begged him to give us our results that afternoon (he was planning on waiting until the next day when the SED volunteers were scheduled to receive their post assignments). We promised not to tell them of our assignments so as not to influence their choices and so he agreed to have our post assignments to us by 6:00.

In the afternoon we did home visits in small groups. My group was lucky because we had both the woman in charge of our technical sessions and the volunteer with us. The home visits are mostly geared toward children’s health, so questions concerned the number of children under five, if they have had their vaccinations, the presence of a latrine, the use of bed nets (for malaria prevention), the water source, and spontaneous questions generated by the particular situation. Each group of trainees (accompanied by a trainer) went to two houses chosen randomly – so pretty much we looked for children and then asked if we could speak with the mothers. It was interesting, a little uncomfortable at first, of course, because in the States you could never just show up unannounced at someone’s home and start asking questions about the health of their children and the hygienic properties of there house. Here, however, it is permitted (and sometimes even welcomed) because it is assumed that you are a person of some authority and knowledge and therefore have the right to ask and advise on matters concerning health. As much as I rationalize it though, I think it will still be very uncomfortable until I actually get to know the people that I am visiting. I would really like to get involved in home visits right from the start. Hopefully my homologue (a midwife) will do home visits and will let me tag along. Then maybe when my Ewe gets better I can do some home visits by myself.

After the home visits we waited around the tech house until 6:00 so that we would be there when our APCD arrived with our post assignments. It was quite the flurry of excitement when he did arrive (punctually I might add) and the very nice thing is that I think everyone is very happy with their assignment. I am really quite amazed (and can’t help but attribute some of the good work to the PCV who was present) that they managed to make everyone happy. Like I said, I am very happy with my post assignment, but I can’t help but be wary at the same time of being overly happy because I know that every place will have its particular challenges.

I went home for dinner and then spent the evening hanging out with the kids (meaning young teenagers and younger) in my compound – there are always different people around, people who don’t live there but stop by to chat or to see what is going on, so I don’t know half of the kids who were there, but it was funny and it was explained to me very seriously that you can’t whistle after dark because the demons would come out. When I asked if that was really true (because they were joking around and trying to scare me with demon faces) they said that no, but then I asked – so I can whistle after dark and they very seriously responded that no. I think they were afraid to scare me, but that deep down, they really believe that whistling after dark brings out demons. Felicite said that her mom had said that they are not to whistle after dark. One of the boys there said that if I believe in God I would be protected from the demons.

7/06/07

It is the afternoon now and I am waiting for all the other trainees to arrive at the tech house so that we can practice our skits for tomorrow. Our hosts moms have been working really hard on theirs and we haven’t even started to work on ours yet.

This morning we had a bike session (I learned how to grease my gear cables and how to fix a broken chain) and then we had our causeries (talks). It went very well except that the expected audience didn’t show, so I think they just rounded up some villagers that happened to be nearby. All in all, though, I think they went well. My group was presenting the hygiene surrounding food and food preparation and my little part was on flies – I made this big fly and then taped pictures on top of the pictures of a HIV/AIDS education flipbook that we have. The pictures were drawings of animals pooping, of poop, of a plate with corn on the cob, a cup, and a spoon, and then of a woman eating the corn on the cob and then becoming sick. My fly walked in the poop and then on the food that the woman ate, causing her to become sick. Then I said that ways we could prevent this are: covering food, wrapping utensils in napkins, and turning cups upside down on the table. It seemed to get the message across.

At lunch my host mom brought out several tops of outfits for me to try on – they all fit, but of course there were no mirrors . . . Tomorrow we are having a fashion show in which we will wear Togolese outfits that our host moms have provided and parade around. We are also doing our skits – it is going to be fun.

Like I said, I have more information about my post to share with you, but I am going to tell you about the rest of my day first. After lunch we practiced for our play tomorrow – we are just depicting a day in the life of an American teenager – I think it will be ok for having just practiced one day, but I still think our host moms’ skit will be better. I have a pretty small role in our skit (I play a waitress), but I am very happy having a small role and I did some of the drawings that we are using as props.

In the afternoon we went to Afrikiko for what our trainers are calling the Cocktail Francaise – essentially we sat around and ate popcorn and cookies and spoke in French. It wasn’t too too bad. Then we went back to the tech house to work on our skit. We found out where the SED people are going – Nadia and her husband, Tristan, are posted in Kpalime, so that is good – maybe we will be able to stay with them sometimes if we meet in Kpalime. In the evening I came home, ate dinner (a whole salad of avocado – I wished you were here to eat it for me, you know I am not a huge fan of avocado), and then played cards with Felicite and Fidele. Felicite is a horrible cheat, she cheats so badly – looking at the cards before deciding if she wants to pick one up or telling Fidele to play certain cards based on what she herself has in her hand. I told her that if she cheats I won’t play and she started to pout – she has the sad faced pout perfected – I almost felt sorry for her. It is interesting because her mom just thinks that it is funny that she cheats, but she doesn’t scold her for it or seem to regard cheating as something horribly negative.

I sort of rushed through my day so that I can spend more time sharing the new information that I have on my post – apparently the volunteer who is currently posted in Avassikpe will not be there when I do my post visit (a big bummer), but she sent me a packet of information some of which she had prepared herself and some photocopies, a map, etc. I haven’t had time to go through it all yet, but I have read some of it and will share what I learned. The bad is that she won’t be there to introduce me to people when I go for my one week post visit in about a month. The good news – at least I think it is good news – is that she has been staying only part-time in Avassikpe and part-time in the regional capital Atakpame. The reason this is good is because I sort of wanted to go to a new post where I wouldn’t be constantly compared to the previous volunteer – Avassikpe isn’t a new post, but it seems as though the current volunteer spent more time in Atakpame so it will be a little like a new post but with the advantages of a replacement post (ie – I won’t have to buy new furniture. I will still have to pay the current PCV for her furniture, but I won’t have to put a lot of effort into furnishing my house because she said that I can have everything that she has left there . . . we will have to see how that works out. I have no idea what she has, but I assume she has at least a bed and a mattress which is a start. She should also have cooking utensils – pots and pans. I don’t know what will happen if I don’t want to buy some of her stuff though, especially since she won’t be there when I arrive, but I am sure I will meet up with her eventually and we will figure it all out.

She wrote me a sort of letter, I will retype it here (I just want you to know everything I know about my village):

Site Journal

Village:

Avassikpe is a village of about 2000 people; Ewe and Kabiyé make up the bulk of the population with some Moba, Lamba and Losso. You live in an Ewe quartier. The landlord is a very friendly old man. You can have Tsévie introduce you. Just don’t forget to salué (greet) him whenever you see him, or he is apt to criticize you about it at embarrassing moments. I learned this the hard way :) Tsévie is an ASC (Agent de Sante Communautaire – Community Health Worker) in Avassikpe who lives behind your house across the dirt pathway. He is like “dad” to me in village and helped me with everything from getting meetings organized to anything concerning the house. For example, he got my cistern built and helped me buy furniture, and I am sure he will help you out too. He speaks French well and can read and write. He is also the village gongonneur so if ever you want to call a meeting he is your man. Your neighbor is a single mom with three kids. She is one of the chief’s daughters. She used to ask me for things, but doesn’t do that anymore. I established that I won’t give things that are asked for, but I do giver her things sometimes when I am able. She knows now not to ask for stuff, and that if I have something I feel I can give her, I will. She may test your boundaries on this at first and it is up to you to establish the norm with her. Her children are friendly but they will push boundaries as well. She speaks a little bit of French, but her children don’t go to school and only know a few words of French. The chief is an old man with a tendency towards drink. He is not widely respected in village, but protocol must still be followed (ie. Getting his permission for meetings, permission for Tsévie to gongonne, etc.). He has never told me that I can’t do something or refused a meeting.

The village may be a little quiet when you get there. My recollections from last August-September are that people are in their fields most of the day, from dawn until dusk. The village will get livelier come October-November when field work starts to diminish.

The Dispensaire (clinic):

The dispensaire at Avassikpe was built 3 or 4 years ago (I think), with funds from the Ambassador’s Self-Help fund. As of now, the only full time health care worker is Lili (your homologue), who is trained as an accoucheuse (midwife). The hospital in Notse has been promising Avassikpe a nurse for the dispensaire for some time now, but due to a national nurse shortage non has been placed in the village yet. Subsequently, Lili treats anyone who comes to the dispensaire along with performing her role as an accoucheuse, although she is not formally trained to diagnose and prescribe for medical problems outside of pregnancy and delivery. The dispensaire is the closest health care facility for about 25 villages in the area. The next closest health centre is in Agbabtitoe and then the hospital in Notse. When a patient needs something the dispensaire cannot provide (like a c-section) the patient is sent to Notse.

CPN: Lili offers prenatal consultations every Wednesday morning. Sometimes they are very busy and sometimes few women come. I think it depends on the weather and the amount of fieldwork the women have. Together we have started giving little causeries to the women before beginning the individual consultations. Lili now gives the causeries herself and has a boite à image for maternal health.

CPC: We obtained a prone baby-weighing scale from Notse and a Salter scale from an ASC in Kpegbadja. Initially, I tried to establish CPC as a weekly event every Friday, just like the CPN is on Wednesdays. Despite notices to the villages and sensibilizations, women only brought their babies for weighing on vaccination days. I think it was a problem of travel; I’m assuming most women figured that since they already have to come to the dispensaire for vaccinations, might as well kill two birds wit hone stone and get their babies weighted at the same time. Vaccinations tend to be incredibly busy and hectic, since they only happen once a month. Subsequently, women are poorly informed as the purpose of CPC and much work could be done in this area. I have trained 2 people, Bébé from Midodji-Copé (the Kabiyé part of Avassikpe) and Mawugna (an ASC from Kpegbadja) to do the baby-weighings (yay sustainability) but they are not well trained in counseling the women, since I have been mostly in Atakpame since November 2006 I haven’t been able to do much about that. You will have an idea of what you are in for after your first vaccination.

Vaccinations: Initially these were regularly scheduled for the last Friday of every month. Since Fridays are Avassikpe’s marché day, turnout is good. However, recently the vaccinations have been scheduled erratically, but they will still happen about once a month and always on a Friday. A vaccination team from Notse comes with the vaccinations in a cooler and get to work. Vaccination days are typically insane, though of course some are busier than others. For example, at the las vaccination we saw over 100 new patients (women and children) and over 50 former patients (women and children who already have a vaccination card). We ran out of every vaccine except yellow fever and meningitis. The vaccination started at 8 am and went til 15:30 – and I’ve been at vaccinations that have lasted longer – with no repos (break) and 15 minutes for lunch. You’ll see. Along with the Notse staff, people who help with the vaccinations are typically Lili, Bébé and Mawugna, Koffi (COGES secretary who helps fill out the carnets) and Tsévie and Victor (ASC and COGES president, respectively, who distribute completed carnets).

I think that is about all for the dispensaire. Some days are busy, others there are no patients at all. It seems to vary a lot depending on the amount of fieldwork people have and the time of year (whether people tend to have more versus less money).

My (the current PCV’s) Activities:

I have included photocopies of the quarterly reports that I was able to find; a few are missing. Hopefully they will give you some idea of what I did for the 11 months I spent in Avassikpe before I moved to Atakpame. But here is a brief list anyway:

- Obtained baby-weighing scales and initiated CPC
- Initiated CPN causeries
- AIDS sensibilisations in surrounding villages
- Attempted infant nutrition sensibilizations – fizzled after I got medevaced and people got too busy with field work
- Attempted moringa planting at the dispensaire – failed after fences were removed too soon from the trees and the goats ate them.
- A few health classes at the EPP – if you are interested in teaching, check out the CEG in Agbati
- Formation with the catechists of the Catholic church in Agbati on HIV/AIDS
- CVD (Committee Villageois du Developpement – Village Development Committee) formation in Avassikpe

The CVD formation has been a long, drawn-out process, which I will try to explain a bit . . . As you can see, I didn’t get a whole lot done in village. Part of the problem is that I found there was no unifying body in Avassikpe. The different ethnic groups tend to stick to themselves and there is a history of mistrust among them, especially between the Ewe and the Kabiyé. If I held a meeting in the Ewe part of town, only Ewes would show up, and vice-versa. So, I thought that to work more effectively it would be useful to have a CVD that represented the different groups in village. There was a CVD formed in 1998, but it was no longer operational. So, I started talking to people about forming a CVD and giving sensiblizations on how a CVD would be useful. People expressed interest and I received a go-ahead for the idea. I went to Affaires Sociales to find out what the process involves and how much money it would cost. Then I applied to Friends of Togo for the funds necessary to do the project. At that point, I had already moved to Atakpame and was planning a trip over Christmas, so the actual work with Affaires Sociales was put off until January ’07. Anyway, between January and today (May 26, 2007), Affaires Sociales and I have had te necessary meetings in Avassikpe for population education, elections, formal installment of the CVD, the actual CVD training, and creation of statues. Hopefully next week the statues will be officially accepted and the CVD will be good to go. Part of the reason this took so long was coordinating everybody’s schedules for meetings and difficulty getting people together once the rainy season began. In any case, the CVD should be operational by the time you arrive at post. I hope that the presence of a new CVD makes it easier for you to start projects and overcome the challenge of ethnic differences. The members are men and women, from three of the five ethnic groups (Ewe, Kabiye, Moba, I think). Sometime after you get to post you can have a meeting to formally meet the CVD and that should clear up some confusion. I hope that they are helpful to you during your service.

Well that is about all I can think of for now. If I have any other brilliant insights about the village I’ll just add it on later. My apologies for not being present during post visit, but I am back in the states for my sister’s wedding. Everything I have left in the house you are free to use and keep; I was hoping you would want to buy all the furniture and stuff I left for you. We can talk about prices later :): For now, I hope stage is going well and not too painful and that you have a good post visit. I know it is scary, but you’ll be ok. I would love to meet you sometime in Atakpame or come visit you in Avassikpe and have a chance to talk about whatever questions you may have about the village. So if I don’t see you at swear in, give me a call sometime so that I can come out and visit or let me know when you are in Atakpame so that we can meet. I am sure that you will do great work in Avassikpe and I know that the villagers are excited to have a full-time volunteer again.

_______________

So that is it for what the current PCV assigned to Avassikpe wrote to me. I am disappointed that she won’t be there for the post visit, but it was very nice of her to prepare the informational packet for me. There is a lot more information, but I need time to assimilate it and then I will share it with you of course. For tonight, however, typing up this information has used most of my battery time. Tomorrow I will be going to internet in Kpalime to send email..