11/18/08 through 11/29/08

11/18/08 through 11/29/08

11/18/08

The Tuesday of my college friend, Kim’s, arrival, I took an early morning bush taxi to Lome from Notse. I arrived mid-morning and met Effoh at a gas station near the Lome drop-off. We continued to the house where he is now living – by route taxi, and foot through a sandy maze of streets – in a neighborhood of Lome I have never frequented. He lives quite far from Kodjoviecope, where the Peace Corps office is located, in a spacious compound that must house some forty plus people. It was chance and luck that brought him there. The man who had promised to find him a room in Lome had placed him with a fetisher where Effoh, being Christian, was not at all comfortable. He couldn’t eat any of the food that the man prepared because it was killed over the sacrificial stone and he was having bad dreams. As he explored the neighborhood one morning he happened on his cousin (Mana’s sister) selling bouillie outside of her house and she invited him to stay with them. At least three generations live in the compound, all one family with ties to Avassikpe. As I entered the compound, I said “agoo” as is customary in Ewe and was met with hoots of appreciation. For the rest of the day, the mother-in-law recounted the story of how I said “agoo” upon entering the compound (it takes so little to please them! =0). They were tickled to death by my meager knowledge of Ewe and were extremely welcoming. Effoh and I talked for a while and then I talked with some of the women in the compound and played with one of the five-month-old twins. Neither Mana’s sister or her husband were present when I arrived. Mana’s sister was at church. They attend a church that I have never heard of – the Celestial Church of Christ (I think) – and she was there praying. Her second youngest child is sick with stomach pains and has been staying at the church for over a month now in hopes that the holy space and prayer will heal him. The members of the church wear flowing white dresses or robes (it kind of reminds me of the ethnographic videos I have seen of Afro-Brazilian or Haitian synchronized (animist-Christian) spiritual practices) and take their shoes off before entering the sanctuary. They are apparently know for their power to heal through prayer and holy water. Mana’s sister’s husband was at work. He does the metal work at construction sites.

I met Mana’s sister as she took a break from prayer between 12:30 and 2:30. She seemed very nice, although a little distracted as is understandable considering the sickenss of her son. She has four children, all boys. The oldest is, I think, thirteen and the youngest nine months old.

Because going all the way to Kodjoviecope and then back to the airport at 6:30 to pick up Kim seemed like a waste of money, I decided to stay at Effoh’s house until it was time to go to the airport. Around five, after eating rice prepared for me by a young girl from Avassikpe who had come to Lome to escape the monotony of the village, we spontaneously decided to go to Elise’s house (Effoh’s school friend from Notse who is also now in Lome attending university), pick her up, and continue to the airport together. Unfortunately, it was getting dark as we neared her house and we got hopelessly lost. After many phone calls and much wandering, she came to us on a moto. It was getting late and I was getting anxious. There is nothing worse than arriving in a strange country, where you don’t speak the language, and having no one meet you. It inevitably causes a feeling of panic and I didn’t want to provoke that panic in Kim after she had come half way around the world to see me.

As we pulled into the airport I thought I saw her. It was like a movie. I ran up to this girl who was bent over her luggage, rummaging in a pocket, and yelled, “Kim!” But it wasn’t her. Somewhat embarrassed, but even more relieved, I went inside to the receiving area and less than five minutes later she walked out of those mirrored doors looking fantastic as usually. We hugged, got out of the way, and hugged again. Amidst our non-stop chatter I introduced her to Elise and Effoh and we went to get a cab to Kodjoviecope. We first dropped Kim’s stuff off at Mammy’s and then when to a bar christened “the cheap bar” by volunteers. It was the first time that I was placed in the translator role. Usually Effoh is translating for me (from Ewe into French), but because Elise and Effoh don’t speak English and Kim doesn’t speak French, I had to translate everything both ways. It was nice though. We chatted about Kim’s trip (before coming to Togo she had traveled through Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey), about school and career interests, about romantic relationships, about how Kim and I met and how Effoh, Elise and I met, etc. It was nice. Kim is the ideal guest; I told her she can come visit me anytime, anywhere and I mean it. She is friendly, social, adventurous, willing to try new things, a good sport, flexible, not too clingy. Perfect. It was such a fun visit. Tuesday night we talked until midnight and then finally showered and went to bed.

11/19/08

Wednesday morning I had a few things to do around the bureau. Strangely, there were no other volunteers there; it is almost always crowded! We checked mail and visited the MedUnit (I got a flu shot and an HIV test. I asked for the HIV test. Effoh had been telling me the day before that he had to have a medical exam and an HIV test to register at the University. He was going to pick his results up on Wednesday and was a little nervous about it; he asked me if I was HIV positive or negative and I answered automatically, “negative,” but then started second guessing myself because of an incident in which I came in contact with someone else’s blood and later realized that I had a small cut on my thumb. Usually, if someone gets hurt, I talk them through taking care of their injury (because, as a PCV, I’m not allowed to care directly for people), but this man had cut himself with a coupcoup and was spurting blood and didn’t speak French and my Ewe isn’t good enough to communicate in that sort of situation. I tried to explain in Ewe, but ended up just putting pressure on it myself and I got a little blood on my hands. Anyway, I just asked to have the test to ease my mind and it came back negative, but Ashley says that unless the contact was more that six months ago, it isn’t 100% reliable. So . . . my mind still isn’t completely at rest).

Midmorning we left Lome in a bush taxi and arrived in Notse just in time to go have fufu at Bar Marantha with Ashley. As we walked to the restaurant, I was feeling nauseous, but then Jorge called me and told me that he had been granted the visa to Italy (YAY!!) and so I was then very very happy, albeit still nauseous. I’m not sure why I ate lunch anyway, but I did, and then I had to rush off to my Peer Educator course in Agbatitoe. Kim accompanied me (very nice of her). The class was much more successful than the first. I had never seen the woman teacher, who is my counterpart for this course, teach a class, but I was very pleased with what I saw on Wednesday and it made me feel more relaxed about letting go of the reins a little. I now know that she takes the class seriously, prepares for it well, and doesn’t feed the students false information. She taught the first part of the class and I taught the second. The students participated a little more than last week, so that was good.

After the class we watched a bit of a soccer game and then hopped into a taxi and headed back to Notse. We went to ADAC to rescue Ashley from a meeting with her homologues and then I left Ashley and Kim at the bar with Jake (the volunteer in Tohoun who was also in town) and went to the internet to organize the buying of Togo-Italy tickets for Jorge and myself (Yay! Yay! Yay!). The tickets were still available and so my Mom bought two tickets for $1700. What a relief! I love it when everything falls into place! I only wish I knew it was all going to turn out from the beginning so I wouldn’t lose so much sleep over it! I am extremely excited about meeting Jorge in Italy and spending Christmas and New Years with his Mom (I haven’t spent time with his Mom in more than five years) and finally having a set date for our reunion: December 21st. YAY! Jorge arrives in Rome late on December 19th, but I couldn’t find a ticket leaving Lome until the 20th, so the 21st it is. Either he’ll meet me in the airport in Rome, or he will go ahead to Milan (to start getting quality time in with his Mom) and I will meet him there. My plane gets into Rome at 10 something in the morning, so I would have time to get to Milan before dark. We will see. I kind of want him to meet me at the airport in Rome, but I also think he should make the most of his time with his Mom, so . . .

Thursday

On Thursday Kim and I got a late start biking out to Jerome’s village, but she was a good sport even though it was terribly hot. Jerome, of course, treated us to a wonderful day and wonderful food. Soon after we arrived we ate fufu and then we chatted and rested our stomachs before going to visit a sodabe distillery. I think it is neat for people to try palm juice, then palm wine and then sodabe and taste the different degrees of fermentation and distillation and see the process. Palm trees are so useful and Jerome and I got into a discussion as to why people in my village don’t plant more palm trees. My area is largely deforested and palm tree products– indoor brooms, outdoor brooms, red palm oil (made from the palm fruit), white palm oil (made from the palm kernel), palm wine, sodabe, fencing, baskets – are expensive (because there aren’t many trees even though most people own their land and could easily plant them).

Our departure from Zitsou (Jerome’s village) was delayed because we had to go greet the chief and eat the beans and gari that Jerome’s wife had prepared. He really wanted us to spend the night, and lay on a bit of guilt when I refused, but finally accepted our thanks and allowed us to take our leave. I felt that we would be more comfortable at my house where I have a latrine and my own space and where no one would be bending over backwards to boil water for us to drink and take care of our every need.

We decided to take the “short-cut” to my village to avoid the dangers of the route national (big speeding trucks). It is a small path that, although shorter, takes about the same amount of time to bike because it is somewhat rough terrain. It is prettier though and we biked through the sunset, arriving in Avassikpe just after dark.

Of course the children were very excited by our arrival, but they eventually calmed down and left us alone to shower, eat pineapple and install ourselves under the paillote to chat and be cool.

Friday

Friday morning we made the rounds greeting everyone and their mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, aunt, uncle and cat. And the chief too. And Lili and the Infirmier (whom everyone calls “Major”). Then we rested (greeting people is exhausting!).

After a bit, DaJulie came to my door with a tiny kitten in her hand. It’s eyes weren’t even open yet. She handed it to me and told me that she had found it in the field and that its mom was dead. We went back to her house and she brought out three more identical kittens. She asked me what she could do. I said she should try to feed them milk. She said she didn’t have any milk. I didn’t want to say that I would take them and feed them because I didn’t want to get stuck with them, but when Parfait picked up one of the kittens and dropped it, I realized that their only chance at survival was if I removed them from the clumsy grasp of children. I got someone to make it clear that I was only taking the kittens to feed them not to keep them (Gizmo is enough of a hassle!) and then Kim and I carted them off to the house. I made up a solution of powdered milk, found an eyedropper and tried to feed them. Three of them started to suck on the eyedropper easily and hungrily, but the forth took a bit of coaxing. By the second feeding (Tig had advised us to feed them every two hours and then wipe their butts with a damp cloth so that they could pee and poo) they were all eating. I love it how they curl their tongues around the eye-dropper and suck the milk out! Mostly they just ate and slept and for the next three days our activities were punctuated by the feedings and but wipings. Somehow Kim got stuck with the butt wiping job. When we left on Sunday, I showed DaJulie how to feed them and wipe their butts, gave her the rest of my powdered milk, the eye-dropper, and some filtered water, and told the children that they were not allowed to touch them. I hope they are still alive when I get home.

Late Friday morning we went to the market. Kim bought three pagnes and we got soja and bean beignets for lunch. We were going to make sweet potato koliko, but the food we bought at the market was more than enough.

We spent the afternoon sitting under my paillote catching up on each others’ lives and future plans (the last time we saw each other was at Feb Graduation at Middlebury in February ’07). I thought that it would be interesting (she was also an anthropology major) to chill in my village and get a taste of village life; I just hope she wasn’t bored. Had she planned to be in country two weeks, we could have traveled more, but with just one week we risked spending the bulk of the time cramped in a bush taxi. Anyway, I enjoyed it and hope she did too.

Friday evening we walked to Midojicope and brought two of her pagnes to Mana to be made into wrap skirts.

Saturday

On Saturday we had tentatively planned to go with DaMarie to the field to pick soja, just for a few hours to witness the process, but it never ended up happening. We made lunch together – moringa, sesame, pâte sauce – I made her work crushing the tomatoes and moringa leaves with my crushing rock, and were going to eat it with pâte but the miller wasn’t around and I didn’t have any corn flour. We ended up eating it with rice which was good too.

Sophie’s mom came through Avassikpe on her way to Notse to take Pelagie (the eleven month old little girl who only weighs 4.7 kilos) to the hospital. I had tried to convince Mamane (Sophie’s mom, Effoh’s sister) to take her because I was/am afraid that she has a medical condition that prevents her from swallowing or sucking easily. For a while I debated accompanying them so that the staff at the Notse hospital would take the case more seriously (sad, but true), but decided against it. She stopped through again later that evening on her way back to Komlacope (her husband’s village) and said that the doctor’s hadn’t found anything irregular with her esophagus or heart, but had prescribed an appetite stimulant. Hopefully it will work. I am so worried about her development (or lack thereof).

Late Saturday afternoon we walked out to my moringa field, but the rest of the day was again spent in my place of choice: under my paillote. It was so nice to talk to a friend who has known me for so long.

We spent a lot of time talking about Italy (Kim studied abroad in Italy for a semester) and the places I should visit, but then Jorge’s mom called and, when I told her our arrival and departure dates, she expressed disappointment at the shortness of our stay. I thought a month was a pretty good amount of time (it eats up all the vacation days I have accrued to this point), but apparently she was hoping for more and I got the impression that she would like us to stay close to Milan for the majority of our visit. At first I was disappointed, but then I tried to look at it from an unselfish perspective and understand that she hasn’t seen her only child for three years and that she doesn’t know when she will see him again. I think this trip needs to be more about her than about Italy and even if I don’t get to travel all around Italy and see a lot of the sites, Milan is Italy and it is going to be amazing. AMAZING.

Sunday

Sunday morning we woke up early to go on a walk before church. I made Kim sit through church so that she would get a couple more drops for her bucket, but it was long and tiring and somewhat less animated than usual.

After church we made a sweet potato and egg scramble for lunch and then rested a bit before taking motos to Agbatit and (after a significant wait) catching a car to Atakpame. Once in the car, we arrived quickly in Atakpame, but were held up by a parade in honor of a Catholic holiday. There was a huge crowd and as we were waiting for the road to become passable, we heard a rumor that a car had hit and killed one of the participants in the parade. I’m not sure if that is true or not, maybe the person was just injured, but later, as we tried to make our way through the crowd on foot, I again heard murmurings about someone having been hit by a car. Yikes. On the other side of the throng of people we hopped in another car to take us closer to the transit house.

I was rather hoping that there would be a few nice volunteers for Kim to talk to at the Atakpame maison (she is considering applying to Peace Corps!), but there weren’t many people there. We dropped off our stuff and went to Pentagon for a nice, quiet dinner for two. That bar/restaurant is a favorite of PCVs because it is on the third story of a building and has a nice panoramic view of Atakpame.

Monday

Monday morning we had egg sandwiches and then went to the market and walked around a bit before going back to the house, picking up our stuff and heading to Notse. We got lucky and had a relatively quick, smooth, not crowded ride to Notse.

Upon arrival I immediately tore into a birthday box from my parents and found 8 pounds of cheese (HEAVEN!), oreos, nutrigrain bars and candy and the brainstorming started. What to make . . .? We decided on fajitas: tortillas, chicken, salsa and CHEESE. I headed off to the market to buy supplies and when I got back put Ashley and Kim to work while I looked at the pictures from Elizabeth’s wedding (a friend from high school who got married last May). We ate around 4:00 and it was delicious! (Thank you Mom and Dad!) – One of the best meals I’ve had in Togo. Absolutely delicious!

Tuesday

Tuesday morning we headed off to Lome, arriving there mid-morning. We checked into Mammy’s and then went to the Bureau to see if we could change Kim’s ticket to Thursday (she was supposed to fly out Tuesday for a week in London, but we wanted her to stay and spend Thanksgiving with us). We eventually gave up, went and had the best burgers in Lome for lunch, and then came back to the Bureau to try again. Finally we found a number and I called and found out that she could change her ticket for 45 Euros (less than she would spend in London in two days!) and so we b-lined it over to the AirFrance office to make the change. I hadn’t really thought it would be possible, but was super glad it was.

That evening we went to the Cheap Bar with another volunteer and polished off the two pound block of cheddar cheese that we had started devouring the day before.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning I walked downtown and went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see if I could get the man I spoke with several months ago to “make good” on his promise to write Jorge a letter so that the immigration officers at the airport would give him a one year visa right off the bat instead of a seven-day visa. It sounded too good to be true and it was. Apparently he recalled promising nothing of the sort and told me that Jorge would either have to apply for a visa from Rome or get a visa upon arrival in country and then apply to have it extended. He said that if Peace Corps writes a letter authorizing Jorge to stay with me, then it would be easy for him to get a visa for a year or two.

That stressed me out because I wasn’t sure Peace Corps would write a letter. Later that afternoon I went to speak with my Country Director. I asked her if we could get started on the background check portion of the “intent to marry” process now, before Jorge arrives in country, so that it will expedite the process. I feel as though my Country Director wouldn’t feel comfortable writing him a letter for a visa extension until he had been officially cleared through a background check. The Peace Corps manual that says that a volunteer may marry a third country national while in service IF the intended spouse satisfactorily passes a background check (the form is the same as that filled out by a person applying to a Public Trust position) and is approved by the Country Director with respect to three main points: that the intended spouse agrees to live the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer (no marrying and moving into an expat house with a pool and three cars; not a problem in our case); that the intended spouse shows adequate knowledge of the host country language and culture (Jorge doesn’t speak French, but neither do a lot of volunteers when they arrive in country, he has already started learning and will surely pick it up fast because of Spanish and he did his thesis on Ghana so I don’t think this will be a problem); and that the marriage will not interfere with the volunteer’s work in village (if anything I think Jorge will motivate me to do my work better because he will get me excited about it all over again and my village is very excited for his arrival).

I am pretty sure we can get “cleared” for marriage, but what I am not sure is whether or not we have to get married right away once we have been “cleared”. It is all so complicated what with Togo marriage laws (we need all sorts of documents – birth certificate, certificate of residence (3 months in Togo), premarital medical attestation, certificate of celibacy (what?), and a sworn notarized statement of eligibility to marry (is it this hard to get married in the States?) – and with the U.S. green card application process. I don’t know if it is better to get married in Togo and apply for the green card from here or apply for a Fiancée Visa and get married as soon as we get back to the States. There are pros and cons to both, but I guess it mostly hinges on whether or not we want to do a third year in Togo. We will see. It will be easier to talk about what we want to do when we are together and when Jorge has experienced Togo a little bit.

Moving on. Because Kim was staying two more days, she had time to accompany me to a HUGE shopping center called Lome 2 or Adjzrenawe (something like that) where they have piles and piles of second hand clothes. I was extremely glad she could be there with me because it would have been no fun on my own (I was a little nervous because I had never been there before, but it turned out not to be as crowded or chaotic as I expected) and because she served as my mirror, telling me what pants looked good and what pants didn’t. On my list were pants for Italy (I have no full length pants) and running shoes (my hiking shoes give me blisters when I try to walk in them). It was fun and I ended up buying six pairs of pants – one brown linen, two pairs of jeans, one pair of black and grey striped dressy pants, and two pairs of corduroys, one olive green and one khaki – for 6,000 ($12) and Asics running shoes for 5,000 ($10). The running shoes are, I think, $90 shoes in the states and are in very good condition.

After shopping we went to lunch with Ashley and then to the Bureau and then to the Beach Bar for drinks and the sunset. By this time there were a lot of volunteers in Lome and I was glad that Kim got the opportunity to talk to a wide variety of volunteers with a wide variety of experiences.

In the evening we went briefly to another and then camped out at the Bureau on internet until it closed.

Thursday

Unfortunately, Kim woke up Thursday morning with stomach issues and ended up spending the morning resting at Mammys. Ashley again refused to accompany me shopping (it isn’t her thing) and so I called Effoh to see if he’d like to meet me at Lome 2 for a second round of shopping (on the list were sweaters and long sleeve shirts and dress shoes). He agreed.

This time I made my way there for cheap (450 cFA instead of the 1500 I paid the day before) using route taxis and by the time Effoh arrived had already found a good sweater stand and picked a bunch of “possibles.” The man who owns the house Effoh is staying at (Mana’s sister’s husband) brought him to Lome 2 on his moto because he was afraid he’d get lost in the big city all by himself. I told him that he should let him get lost because that is the only way he is going to learn his way around. If someone is always driving him everywhere, he will never learn. The man was super nice, but it was awkward having someone I didn’t know following me around as I shopped. It made me feel rushed; I didn’t want to waste his time. We went back to the sweater stand where the man was holding my “picks” and I rooted through the pile again and then bought 17 sweaters (excessive, I know) for 4,000 ($8). Crazy cheap right? I bought all the ones that I thought might be good because I didn’t feel comfortable trying them on, Kim, my mirror wasn’t present so it would have been pointless, and figured I’d try them on at home and just bring my favorites to Italy. Then we embarked on the search for shoes which took the bulk of the morning. I wanted the Dansko shoes that everyone wore at Middlebury and that I could never afford (they cost around $120). I found one pair that was too small. Another pair that was reddish. And then another pair that was the right size and in relatively good condition except for a tiny slit in the toe (as though someone had stabbed it with a pocket knife). We continued looking, but finally went back for the pair with the slit in the toe and I bargained them down to 1,000 ($2). How cool is that? To thank Effoh for accompanying me and carrying my huge bag of sweaters around the whole morning, I told him to look for some shirts and eventually we found him some nice button up shirts and bargained them down to 4 for 1,000.

I then had to hurry back because I was going to be late for Thanksgiving Dinner at our Country Director’s house. Kim was feeling a little bit better, but not well enough to eat, so that was a pity. The food was good, but I didn’t stuff myself like I did last year (also a good thing). The company was very nice and I was glad to be with a lot of my friends and distracted from missing my family. Kim fit in perfectly and everyone kept assuming that she was a volunteer. I really hope she decides to go into the Peace Corps, I think she would make a great volunteer. After Thanksgiving dinner, we went to the Bureau and eventually hitched a ride to the airport with a Peace Corps driver who was taking a trainee to the airport (she was ET-ing). I hate good-bye’s, but it was still super wonderful to have Kim visit, I just wish she could have stayed a month =0).

Friday

I spent Friday morning running around getting an electronic copy of my passport and sending it to Afriqiyah Air (the Libyan airline Jorge and I are flying between Togo and Italy). They refused to issue my ticket before having a copy of my passport as a guarantee of my citizenship (unfortunately I had left my passport in village, but fortunately Ashley suggested that Peace Corps might have a copy and sure enough they did). Eventually I emailed them a copy and they issued my ticket so that is all taken care of and a huge relief.

I then messed around on the internet for the rest of the morning. We didn’t end up leaving Lome until around 4:00 and it took us several hours to actually get on the road (sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you aren’t), so we didn’t arrive in Notse until well after dark. Ashley and I were both exhausted and just showered and went to bed.

Saturday

I was planning to go back to village today, but, big surprise, I’m still here and it is now 5:30, too late to make it back before dark. I hope my kittens are still alive.

This morning I went to the market and bought some socks for Italy (too bad I sent all my socks home with my parents) and supplies for village. Ash and I ate some of my canned tomato sauce over pasta for lunch and then I started writing (better to do it while it is still more or less fresh in my mind). I will head back to village early tomorrow morning because they are having a fundraiser at church that I should attend. On Monday I have an Ewe lesson and the Peace Corps bike repair guy is coming (I’m excited for that because the kids have totally messed up my gears). Tuesday I have nothing planned, but Wednesday I have a Peer Educator course. After my course I will bike into Notse so that Ashley and I can work on our Peace Corps Partnership budget so that we can get that online before Christmas.

In three weeks from tomorrow I will be in Italy with Jorge! Yay! I hope those three weeks go by quickly!