8/4/08 through 8/10/08

8/4/07 and 8/5/07

Yesterday was the most frustrating internet experience I have had yet. First of all, internet was very very slow and on the first computer I tried, there was an electrical problem and the screen was flickering, so I changed computers. On the second computer, right as I tried to attach a document, internet explorer froze and I couldn’t get it to unfreeze, so I changed computers. On the third computer I was able to read the emails from my parents, but I couldn’t send anything. I tried to paste the text of my emails in the email and I tried to attach them and I tried to save them as a draft – I tried everything I could think of and it didn’t work. Then I had to leave the internet place because I had arranged to meet my friends at 1:00 (I had already been in the internet place for three hours, but luckily they only charged me for a little over an hour because of the problems I had had with the computers). I met my friends at FanMilk and then Tig (another trainee) and I bought cell phones for $50, so now I have a cell phone number: 010-2095, but I don’t often have service at my training site. Depending on which server works best at my post, I might change servers and get another number – then I can switch between servers depending on where I am in the country. After I bought my cell phone, I walked around with the girls a bit and bought a pagne (cloth) to make a skirt out of and then I asked my friends if they would mind meeting up with me again after an hour, that I wanted to go back to the internet place and give it another try. By the way, the place we usually do internet was closed for some reason. I went back to internet and tried again. The only thing that kept me from crying at the slowness of the connection was that I had received Jorge’s emails and I printed them and read them as I tried to attach my emails and send them. I was so relieved when it worked, but I can’t help but feel a little doubt as to whether or not it really sent. I had ten minutes left of internet time, but it was already 3:00 – the time I was supposed to meet my friends. I stayed to try to send my blog posts and I left the email sending. I don’t know if it ever sent or not. I offered to pay the girl working at the internet café 100 cFA if she let my email keep sending and then closed my email account after ten minutes if it didn’t send. She didn’t accept my money, but seemed like she was ok with letting my email keep trying to send. We will see what happened.

I ran to FanMilk because I knew I was late to meet my friends and they weren’t there. I asked the FanMilk guy if they had already left and he said yes. I walked quickly to the taxi station to see if they were still there. They weren’t. I asked the taxi guys if a group of white girls had gone to Nyogbo (my training site) and they said yes. I asked how many and they said four (we had been seven). I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless because I realized that I had no way of contacting my friends, that I didn’t even have their phone numbers. I didn’t know whether I should wait there or go back to FanMilk. I tried to get FanMilk’s number to call and eventually (after about an hour) I got it from one of the FanMilk venders. I went to call and the man who answered me was not very clear. He didn’t seem to understand my French. As I was walking back to the taxi (which was waiting for another person to arrive so that it could leave) I saw my friends. I was so happy to see them. Apparently they had just stepped out of FanMilk for a few minutes - it just happened to coincide with the few minutes I was there =0( .

Yesterday evening we watched V for Vendetta at the tech house and then a bunch of us slept over. It was fun, but I stayed up way past my bed-time. My normal bed-time is 9:00 or earlier and I was up until 11:30.

I had a good day with my family today (Sunday). Fidele brought me to see her little brother (he was born yesterday). He was so small and cute and I got to hold him. I was a little afraid – I have never held such a small baby before – but it was fine. A neighbor woman came in and picked up the baby roughly and was sort of throwing him up and down in the air like you might with a one year-old. I think she was trying to prove to me that he is less breakable than I think, but it made me cringe.

Then I helped pound fufu (this time a mix of ignam and manioc – last time it was plantain and manioc) for just about two minutes. My host mom wouldn’t let me pound it any longer because she said I would get blisters on my hands. I then watched my host mom prepare lunch and I learned another food preservation tip. My host mom said that if you open a small can of tomato paste and you don’t want to use it all at the same time you can just pour oil on top of the tomato paste (in the little can) and it will keep until the next day. They’ve got living here all figured out. My host mom made a sauce for me (with carrots, green beans, onions, green pepper, hot peppers and what might have been sesame, I don’t really know) while Felicite made a sauce for them. Their sauce was a palm nut sauce. Felicite boiled the palm nuts and then she pounded them apart. Then she took boiling water and poured it over the pounded palm nuts, extracting a red liquid which serves as the foundation of the sauce. Then she added fish, spices, and lots of hot peppers. My host mom only puts one or two hot peppers in my sauces, whereas she puts ten or so in theirs. I wanted to try the palm oil sauce, but by the time I was finished eating I was so full that I just couldn’t do it.

We also took some food over to Fidele’s mom – a nice gesture on the part of my host mom.

After lunch we made pineapple jam. It was funny because my host father came in and said something about him cooking. I jokingly asked him if he was going to cook. He said yes. I asked him if he was going to cook for a week and allow my host mom to rest and he laughed and said yes. I really like my host father – I think he is a genuinely kind person.

I also wanted to mention what a character Fidele is. I can’t wait for you to meet her – I can’t understand most of what she says and still she is hilarious. Today she was imitating the bent-over shaky walk of an old woman and also the movement of pounding fufu – it was great. She is such a little actress and beautiful to boot.

After we made jam, I took a shower and then I went down to the tech house. I spent the afternoon chatting with the girls – it was so nice to have two days off from training, but I think we all can’t help but dread the prospect of having training again on Monday. Only two more weeks left – that is both exciting and sad. Exciting because we will be full fledged volunteers and won’t have to sit through training any longer. Sad because we will no longer be together and we will miss each others company very much.

When I came home for dinner Felicite wasn’t around and so I studied Ewe a bit. It is hard for me to study now because I want to spend time with my friends, but I think once I get to post I will get into a routine of studying for a good long time every day.


8/6/07

I am going to go to Lomé tomorrow because my mole isn’t healing like it should. Each side of the part that lifted up is healing separately, but that is bad because it makes it particularly susceptible to further injury (like for example today I just rubbed it against my side by mistake and made it bleed again. I called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) this morning to tell her what it is doing and she said that perhaps I could try to hitch a ride on one of the Peace Corps cars going to and from Lomé just come in for the day so that she can look at it. Then later this afternoon I got a note saying that I will be going to Lomé tomorrow. I am really hoping that she will take the whole mole off, but I don’t know if they have the ability to do that kind of procedure at the MedUnit. If they do, I hope they have some sort of local anesthesia – otherwise it will hurt a lot. Either way, though, I would just be happy to have it off my arm. I have to be so careful now – even putting a shirt on (or worse, my backpack) can be disaster. So, ideally I will go to Lome, get it taken care of and come back to my training site in the same day. I am a little bummed because I will probably miss one of the interactive sessions – making enriched porridge – that I have been looking forward to, but I will have another chance to learn how to make it, so . . . that is that.

The most interesting part of today was a guinea worm presentation by an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) who is now employed by the Jimmy Carter Foundation and working in Togo to oversee the eradication of guinea worm in Togo. Guinea worm is a very nasty affliction that comes from drinking contaminated water. The water becomes contaminated when someone who has guinea worm puts the afflicted body part in a water source and the worm lays its eggs. The eggs or larvae are eaten by a tiny water bug and then, when people drink unfiltered water, the guinea worm larva gets into the human body. In the body, the larva grows into a meter long worm over the course of nine months during which a person has absolutely no symptoms and no idea that he/she has guinea worm. After nine months, the full grown female guinea worm (the males are much smaller and they just fertilize the female and then die and leave the body through the feces) makes her way through the stomach wall, through muscle tissue and usually to a lower extremity (foot or leg) where a blister will form. When the worm senses the contact of water on the blistering extremity, it bursts through the blister and lays its eggs in the water – millions of eggs. Each time the worm gets in contact with water, it lays more eggs. There is no medication for guinea worm and the only solution once you have it is to wait for it to work (all three feet of itself) out of your body, a process that can take up to two months. Sometimes dripping ice water on the exit point can speed the process, but oftentimes people will twist the exposed end of the worm around a matchstick and wind it once or twice every day to gradually pull the worm out. If you break the worm (it is no bigger around than a spaghetti noodle) it will retract inside the body and can cause infection and there is really no way to get it out. We saw all sorts of really disgusting pictures and also a jar full of worms that the guinea worm eradication team had pulled out of people’s bodies. Usually people only have one worm, but there is a horror story of a nine year old girl who had more than forty worms coming out of different points on the body. Now, after this rather frightening paragraph, the good news is that: 1). Guinea worm needs the human body to complete it’s life cycle and so if we can eliminate the human link we can eradicate guinea worm entirely; 2). The water bugs that carry the guinea worm larvae can be filtered out of water with a fine cloth; 3). As far as the Carter Foundation knows, there are no autochthonous cases of guinea worm in Togo – the only two cases that they have discovered this year are believed to be cases imported from Ghana (where guinea worm is still a big problem). So, hopefully I won’t see any cases of guinea worm and I am not at too great a risk of experiencing that hell myself (I am not sure I could endure a worm coming out of my leg – I think I would have to be sedated for the whole time it took for the worm to leave my body). However, it is good to know about it and to be able to recognize it, because it is a very present reality in neighboring countries and also in Togo’s not too distant past. To top it all off, we got free T-shirts and filter straws – plastic straws (that look kind of like a whistle) that have a little screen in them to filter water as you drink – a good on-the-go filter.

In the afternoon we had an activity called “Cocktail Français” in which we have to speak French for an hour with our trainers and we get to eat popcorn and cookies. Then we played an interesting game called Americanisms in which we each got several slang phrases in English that we had to either explain or act out for our peers to try to guess. I wasn’t very good at the game because I didn’t know what most of the phrases meant – half of them I hadn’t even heard before. I had to pick the tame ones like “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and “more bang for your buck.”

Afterwards I went to the tech house to work on a review game that I am preparing for my fellow trainees. It is supposed to be a review, in French, of all the topics that we have covered so far in our health technical training. It is extra work for me, but I don’t mind doing it because in the process I am learning. Our tech trainer asked me to do it because she knows that I can manage the French and that I will do it without complaining. I am hoping that she will keep me in mind for next years’ CHAP (Health) training and that I will get to be one of the volunteers that comes to spend a week or two with the new trainees.

In the evening I ate a lovely fruit salad and helped my host mom and sisters (Felicite and Fidele; I call Fidele my sister just to simplify things – she is actually my host mom’s granddaughter) take dried corn kernels off the cob. It is so funny because they really don’t want me to exert myself in any way shape or form. It is hard to get the first row of kernel off, but after that it is easy to break off the rest. My host mom would start each ear of corn for me and then let me do just the easy part. Even Felicite and Fidele would start their ears of corn and then let me do the easy part. The corn has been drying in the sun for a few days and it will be taken to the mill to be ground into corn flour which can be used for all sort of things (for example today, for lunch, I had a really yummy dish consisting of beans combined with toasted corn flour and topped with vegetables).

8/7/07 and 8/8/07

On Tuesday morning I left for Lome around 7:00 in the morning and it took us less than an hour to arrive at the Med Unit. It was just me, another trainee from the SED group and two drivers in a huge twelve passenger van. Once we arrived at the Med Unit, the PCMO took a look at my arm. She thought that perhaps we could just wait and see if the detached part fell off, but I asked if we couldn’t just remove the whole thing so that it wouldn’t plague me anymore (do you appreciate the extra drama? Plague? =0) She called a doctor that the U.S. Embassy uses and he referred us to a dermatologist colleague. Even though he was busy, he worked us into his schedule at an hours notice. I was really impressed by the experience – the clinic, a private clinic, was very nice and we didn’t have to wait at all. The doctor saw us right away (the PCMO and her assistant accompanied me). He took one look at my mole and said that he could remove it easily. We waited for a few minutes while they rounded up the proper equipment and then they cleaned it, injected a local anesthesia at several points around the mole (yes, they stabbed me several times) and without any delay they started to burn it off. I didn’t look at first, but I could smell it (sorry, I know that is gross) and I could also feel electric shocks vibrating through my arm – they weren’t really painful, but definitely uncomfortable. I looked at it twice during the process and it was really nasty, but when they were finished it just looked like a flat black mark. I can’t express how delighted I was/am to have it off my are – I feel lighter, liberated. You might think that that is an exaggeration, but after having a blemish (that you don’t like) on your arm for over ten years, knowing that it is no longer there is a source of pure joy (even when the anesthesia starts to wear off).

My day got even better after that because I went to the Peace Corps Office and used the internet at the Volunteer lounge even though we technically aren’t allowed to yet because we aren’t full-fledged volunteers. It was AMAZING. All of you with fast speed internet don’t realize how very lucky you are. Using the internet was a pleasant experience for once and I was just sorry that I hadn’t prepared myself for the opportunity (I didn’t know that we would be staying the night in Lome, we were supposed to go and come back to our training site in the same day, but because I ended up getting my mole removed, the PCMO decided to have us stay the night). Had I known, I might have brought pictures to upload or at least the emails that I had typed to everyone. As it was, though, I got a chance to read and answer several emails, to write messages to Jorge’s cell phone, to see my blog for the first time since I have been in Togo, to actually upload my blog posts myself (rather than asking Jorge to do it), to see a picture of Elizabeth in her wedding dress (that’s right!! She looks beautiful!! =0) and to chat with Jorge for a half an hour on msn. It was fabulous. I can’t express how wonderful it was to have a non-frustrating internet experience.

In the evening we ate a yummy dinner of fried chicken and French fries (prepared for us by the “housekeeper” of the Med Unit) and we watched three movies: Gone in Sixty Seconds, Face Off and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding after the other trainee had gone to bed. If you can’t tell by the first two movie selections, the other trainee was a guy, hence the action movies – but they were good. It was just nice to be able to relax in front of the television even if the VCR wasn’t working very well and the tracking was off.

We left the Med Unit at 7:00 on Thursday morning and we were back at our training site by 9:30. When I arrived, my friends told me that I had received a package. I thought they must be mistaken – I didn’t know who would have sent me a package, but sure enough, there it was. Thank you Mom and Dad! That was very sweet of you – it made my day and I am going to savor the chocolaty goodness for as long as possible. =0)

Right before lunch we learned how to make yogurt from one of the trainees’ host moms. I didn’t really like the way it turned out, but the others did. We used a whole can of full-fat powdered milk and, to me, the taste of the powered milk was still too evident in the finished product. The yogurt didn’t become a yogurt texture either – it was more of a thick liquid. I probably can’t make yogurt at post anyway, because I don’t have any form of refrigeration, but I think the yogurt making needs to be perfected.

Some of the trainees from the other village had come for the yogurt making session and I brought one of them over to my house briefly to meet my host mom and see my house. My host mom, for some reason thought she was coming to lunch even though it was only ten in the morning when we stopped by the house. At lunch time she asked me where my “sister” was . . .

After lunch Fidele showed me that her newborn brother was lying on my host mom’s bed. He started to cry, so I picked him up and sat with him for about twenty minutes until he started to wail. Unfortunately, my host mom was taking a shower and so I had to listen to him scream for what seemed like many many minutes, but was probably only five, before she came to take him to his mother to be fed. I have decided that newborn babies are not that cute, but that doesn’t keep me from wanting to hold them.

Then we started to make jam at one of the other trainee’s house, but I was so hot that I went home and took a quick shower before we all went over to the other training site for a session on collaboration between Peace Corps volunteers in the four different domains working in Togo: Girls Education and Empowerment, Natural Resource Management, Community Health and AIDS Prevention, and Small Enterprise Management. We met the APCDs for the GEE and NRM volunteers and heard about their program goals which was okay, but I just half listened while I made up questions for the health review game I am supposed to organize for Friday. It is going to be a combination of jeopardy, charades and pictionary all in French.


In the evening, after dinner, we went to the tech house to have a going-away party for one of our trainees. She had finalized her decision to ET that afternoon, because she would prefer to be somewhere else, doing something else, and admin. told her that she would be leaving the next day. Many of the girls were spending the night at the tech house, but I decided to go home because I was tired and knew I would get a better night sleep at home. (That was probably a good decision because all the girls who stayed the night stayed up until midnight and today (Thursday) they are dead-tired).


8/9/07

I took the bandage off my arm during my bucket bath this morning and the spot where my mole was doesn’t look so bad – it is just a reddish-black scab, but I am kind of afraid that the doctor missed a little bit of it. I just hope that it doesn’t grow back.

This morning after breakfast I went with Felicite to the tailors to get my measurements taken for the outfit that my host mom is making for me for swear-in. I am not particularly excited about it because I don’t like the material she chose. I was excited when I thought that the material was a classy black and cream color, but that was actually the material Felicite had chosen for an outfit she will have made. My material is harvest gold and florescent green . . . I am trying to remain mildly optimistic and keep telling myself that I might be pleasantly surprised by the end result, but even I don’t believe myself.

Then I had a frustrating and unpleasant beginning of French class because apparently my class was supposed to prepare presentations to give to the other class today, but no one told us and so we didn’t do it. My frustration stemmed from the fact that I would have prepared the presentation without complaint had I just known, but I find the lack of organization very very frustrating. And so, instead of having French class, I prepared the health technique review game that I am supposed to be leading tomorrow (Friday).

In the second half of the morning we had an administrative session (money matters) – but it was made much more pleasant by chocolate croissants and chocolate chip cookies that they brought for us from Lome.


Then we had a very sad moment because another one of our CHAP trainees left permanently and so we are down to 13. We were a little more prepared for her departure because she had been thinking about the possibility of ETing (Early Terminating) since post visit, but it was still very sad.

This afternoon we did home visits again, I wasn’t in a very good mood and so I wasn’t very participative, but the idea is to ask people about their water sources, their use (or not) of mosquito nets, their latrine (among a million other things that you could ask to get an idea of the community health situation). I think I will go to bed very early tonight, perhaps after a few rounds of UNO – I am unusually tired.


8/10/07

This morning the four of us who are doing our final projects on nutrition walked around and invited all the women who sell hot porridge to come to a formation next Tuesday on enriched porridge (porridge with some sort of protein – from bean flour, soy flour, peanuts, fish powder – not just empty carbs). Then we had a technique session on forming health clubs in schools. For the second half of the morning, we were supposed to have a talk with a representative of UNICEF, but that fell through and so we had free time. I studied Ewe for a bit and then slept. For some reason I am extremely tired lately.

For lunch I had beans, vegetables and these fermented corn patties that I didn’t like very much. I think they are very similar to something made in Bolivia that I don’t like either. After lunch I sat with my host mom and Fidele in the kitchen and Fidele played market with me in Ewe and so I practiced buying and paying for a tomato, a spoon, a sponge and a pen. Children are wonderful language teachers especially if you involve them in a role play that allows you to test out new vocabulary before you really NEED it. I hope to find some willing little friends at post as well. Then we went together to bring food to Fidele’s mom and I got to hold the baby again.

This afternoon we played my health review game. I think the girls liked it even though their was a little bit of griping about the rules I had made up and threats of “tity-twisting,” but our Health trainer (who calls me her right arm) protected me from any sort of retribution. The game was made even better by cookies and soda provided for us by our trainers. Afterwards a group of us went to Afrikiko and talked about the “thank-you” party that we are planning for our trainers. We were trying to think up funny awards to give them, like “most likely to . . .” and “best . . .”

This evening I ate dinner and then sat in the kitchen for awhile (there are extra people in my house – a half sister of my host dad I think and her son) and then Felicite, Fidele and I played UNO.