11/11/07 through 11/22/07

11/11/07 – 11/13/07

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11/17/07

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11/18/07 – 11/20/07

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11/20/07 and 11/21/07

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11/22/07

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

11/23/07

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

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

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