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..