2/12/08 through 2/19/08

2/12/08 and 2/13/08

I am just going to hit the highlights of the past two days so as not to bore you all. Yesterday I received an email from the Nutrition specialist at UNICEF in Lome. I had written UNICEF at the suggestion of one of my friends who heard me whining about the cost of a baby-weighing scale ($100!). I asked UNICEF if they could help me acquire a baby weighing scale. It was a shot in the dark. I totally expected to receive some sort of generic response saying that they couldn't satisfy the request. Instead, I got a personalized email from a woman who said that UNICEF would LOVE to give me a baby-weighing scale. She wanted to meet with me on Friday, but I called her and got the meeting pushed back until Monday morning a cause de my PE class on Friday. And so I am headed back to Lome this Sunday. I'm not too excited about going to Lome again, but it will give me a chance to talk to the NRM APCD and get moringa seeds and bags for seedlings (which I thought I could buy in Notse, but apparently are only available in Lome). I was super excited (and still am) about UNICEF's friendly and helpful response. I can't wait to meet this woman!

Other than that (and that was my big excitement of the day), I typed up emails and sent them out, chatted a bit with Jorge online, went to the bar with Ashley and Heather to hear about heather's budding romance with an American Fulbright Fellow in Lome (he teaches English to college students), and went to "saluer" (say hi to) Hevihevi (whose real name is apparently Titi; Hevihevi is a nickname from when she was a child) and Adjo and her sisters.

Today I went to the market to buy some sort of container to keep the mice and bugs out of my food stuffs and some roofing nails and pieces of metal to repair my gutter system among other things. Then I puttered around until 4:00 – talking with Ashley, trying to use internet, making lunch – because it was just too hot to bike home any earlier in the day.

As soon as I arrived in Avassikpé, I dumped my stuff in my house, opened the windows – it was like a solar oven inside, and went to talk with Bebe about organizing a moringa meeting tomorrow in Midijicope. I saw Mana; she is back in town so I went to say hello – her mother scolded me for only coming to visit now that Mana is back. I went to say hi to Ignace as well just out of courtesy.

My paillote fencing (called bongo) has fallen down with the wind. I think it broke the posts – I have an awful lot to do in the few days I will be home. Tomorrow I need to speak with the director of the school and request that he have the students find me more solid posts for my garden fence. I have the meeting first thing in the morning, an Ewe lesson and I have to prepare my PE class for Friday. I should also really do some laundry, talk with Lili, complete my fencing, fix my gutters . . . the list continues. Oh well, I like being busy.

2/14/08

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone (but most particularly to Jorge!!!! =0) Today was a busy and eventful day.

First thing in the morning Tsevi helped me roll up the bongo (woven straw mats for fencing) that had fallen to the ground with the wind. Evidently I didn't place the stakes deep enough or well enough and the wind uprooted them.

At 6:30, I walked to Midijicope for the moringa meeting. Only about twenty people showed up, but I set up my video camera on the tripod Jorge gave me and gave and videotaped my spiel. Before I even started, though, they were asking for a moringa field for Midijicope. They say that the people of Avassikpe are no good and that they (the people of Avassikpe – as usual, the other is always to blame) won't cooperate in a group project. I asked them to hear me out and then we would discuss. They continued to request their own field. I refused. It makes no sense to have three fields and three competing products (one for Chalimpota, one for Avassikpe and one for Midijicope). If the Affairs Social guy thought that the CVD should serve CHalimpota, Avassikpe and Midijicope and if I am here to serve all three then one moringa field and community project will also serve all three. At first I was shocked and dismayed to learn that Avassikpe won't allow people from Midijicope take water from the barrage, but I later spoke with the Director of the school and Tsevi and learned that the people from Midijicope (some groupement) was asked to help raise money for both the digging out of the barrage in 1993 and repairs to the barrage in 1999 and they refused both times. Well, then, it sort of makes sense that they can't get water there. I am being introduced to the ethnic (territorial?) divisions that Emmanuelle spoke of that make it challenging to work with the village as a whole. After I refused the separate moringa fields idea, they asked for separate parts of the field. I don't think that is a good idea either, but I can see that this is going to be challenging. I would like to try to address the division itself and use the communal moringa garden as a springboard to better relations, but it is so hard for me to get a clear picture of the situation because everyone has their own story and inevitably the other is always and completely to blame. I later learned from the director of the school that Midijicope wanted their own school and from Tsevi that they wanted their own CVD. But their desire to be separate from Avassikpe in all things must have its origin somewhere. I guess I will just keep speaking with people and asking them about it and trying to piece together a story and a solution.

I continued to refuse the separate fields and even so they agreed to participate because they realize that if they refuse they only stand to lose. Essentially they said that they will give collaboration with Avassikpe a try, but if it doesn't work, they will still want their own field. Moringa is so easy to plant that there is nothing stopping them from making their own competing field, they just won't have my help. I have to make sure, though, that the people of Avassikpe are welcoming and inclusive. I think I will pay another visit to the pastor to try to get a clearer picture of the problem causing the division.

After the meeting three men – Ignace, Bebe's husband, the "chef" of Midijicope and another man – accompanied me to check out the designated field. I wanted to make sure they agreed that standing water won't be a problem, that the field is far enough from village to be safe from goats, and that the water sources would be adequate. This time we checked out the water source Tsevi had pointed out. It is quite far away and down a slope which would make it very difficult (I think) to eventually acquire a pump to help with irrigation. We then found another closer water hole. Both were mostly dry, but the idea is that we will dig them out so that they can collect and hold more water. I wonder if we could reserve them for the trees so that people don't "puise" them dry. It sets my mind more at ease to know that we have two potential water sources.

I am glad now that the land is not near the barrage because that would cause additional problems with the people from Midijicope because they would fear that the people from Avassikpe would claim ownership over all profits because their water source was used to irrigate the trees.

I then went to speak with the director of the school to fill him in and bring him on board the Moringa band-wagon. I also asked him to have the students cut posts for the fence around my garden. He said he would get them for me by Monday. He also spoke about a village clean-up project and appropriate trash disposal so I guess that is something that I and the CVD should get busy on. I need to look into that. At least it is a project that doesn't require any funding.

I looked for Lili at the dispensaire, but she was MIA and so I came home and got busy making lunch and doing laundry. Jerome arrived late – after 11:00 – and we had a very usefull lesson in which I learned how to express certain feelings in Ewe. He was really pleased by the conversational German text book I picked up from the Peace Corps trash pile for his son who studies languages, but I didn't show him the Ewe-French dictionary – I am a little ashamed for him to know that I spent 27,000 cFA on a book.

During our lesson, a Fulani (Peul) woman whom I bought wagash from last week came to sell me more. I bought a wheel for 100 francs. After she left, Jerome started talking about the Fulani (Peul). He says that Peul is the French name and Fulani the Ewe name but that the people are one and the same. He then went on to say that the Fulani live in the brush like animals and so sometimes they behave like animals; that they aren't normal. For example, just the other day he had to go to the gendarmerie because of an incident between a Fulani man and some young men from Rodokpe (a village on the route national between Agbatitoe and Notse). According to Jerome, the Fulani man was bathing in the part of the barrage reserved for drinking water (a particularly incomprehensible offense considering the fact that another half of the barrage is reserved for the watering of their cattle). The young men confronted the man and he brandished a coupcoup at them, prepared to slice them through and through (Jerome says the Fulani don't think twice about killing someone), but they were able to get the upper hand and then the course of events goes fuzzy, but apparently the Fulani man went to the gendarmerie and said that the young men had beaten him up and stolen 20,000 cFA from him. The gendarmes arrested a young man who wasn't even involved in the incident and the people from Rodokpe were forced to come up with the 20,000. Jerome said that the Fulani are "not right in the head," not normal and he seemed to despise them. He recounted that once a Fulani herder drove his cattle right through his (Jerome's) field and to his corn storage where they proceeded to destroy the storage with their horns and eat his corn. It was unsettling to see someone who is usually so fair and open minded dead set against a whole group of people.

Shortly before Jerome left, I received a phone call from my APCD saying he was on his way. As I accompanied Jerome out of village, I stumbled on a voudou ceremony for a sick infant. Apparently a man (the mechanic), dressed in a grass skirt and face painted yellow, took the baby into the fields. Everyone was waiting for them to come back. It was interesting to see who was participating – Marie and my proprietor's wife, Tseviato's mom (who I used to think was her grandmother), another older woman I greet often, Hevihevi's dad and a bunch of other people that I interact with on a day-to-day basis. I was also pleasantly surprised by the welcome I received. Hevihevi's dad tried to explain what was going on and they offered me a seat to wait with them for the baby's return. When my APCD arrived, they seemed sorry I was leaving and so, after Tsevi had signed the contract of rent payment in the proprietor's stead (he can't read or write), I returned to the group of people awaiting the return of the baby. Eventually the man dressed in a grass skirt and adorned with yellow face paint brought the baby back and into a room. I don't know what they did next because it all took place in the room, but women were rushing in and out of the room as if assisting with the "remedy" that was taking place to cure the child. I was playing with a baby too young to be scared of me who peed on me – one of the many negative side effects of not wearing diapers.

Today was also seemingly a good day for the hunters. I saw people bring in three rabbits, two huge rats, my first Agouti (not splayed on a stick frame and smoked like we saw on our way to Lomé) – it looks like a beaver without a tail or a woodchuck – and more mice than I would have liked. I also went and sat with DaJulie, her sister from Chalimpota (Victor's wife), and their mom and watched DaJulie cook up some mice. Yuck.

I went with Tsevi to pay my rent, and spoke with him about organizing regular biweekly meetings of the CVD to help them settle into their roles and start working on community projects. I did more laundry, sat with Khosoivi and helped her push really bug-ridden corn off the cob and then showered and now I am writing a book -0). I finally got smart and moved myself, my lantern, a little table and a little bench (plus seat cushion) outside where it is cooler and I won't be heating up my rooms unnecessarily with my kerosene lamp.

2/15/08

Today was an ok day. Just ok because I am feeling frustrated right now and that taints the whole day. I am frustrated with my Moringa project. I think I am going to have to work on my "want things to go the way I planned" complex or I am just going to be frustrated for the next two years. It is all so experimental as well. I have to work out every little detail. If someone can find some sort of document on managing a communal garden I would be extraordinarily appreciative. Chalimpota wants their own Moringa field as well now – not because they don't like the people of Avassikpe (as is the case with Midijicope) but because of the distance. They have a point. It will be doubly hard to motivate people to work in a communal garden if they have to walk for forty-five minutes. I can't just ignore this point, but like I said, multiple gardens complicates matters. At least they agree that all the profits should be compiled. I don't know how to go about this so that each community (Chalimpota, Avassikpe and Midijicope) participates and profits. Avassikpe has more people and so if it is a question purely of votes, they will hijack all the benefits. I thought of requiring that if a project is realized with the communal funds in Avassikpe that a project should be realized in Chalimpota and Midijicope before another can be realized in Avassikpe, but then you have the possibility of conflict due to different cost projects and certain sectors of the population slacking on the work after a project has been realized in their part of town. Certain projects like a latrine project, could be realized in all three and pump projects in Avassikpe and Chaplimpota, but part of Midijicope's beef is that the school, the dispensair and the barrage are all in Avassikpe (well, the barrage isn't IN Avassikpe, but it is nearer to Avassikpe than to Midijicope; Effoh later told me that the people in Midijicope can't choose the land for public buildings/institutions because most of them are Kabiye and don't own land (because they are the new arrivals and forever will be it seems). If anyone has suggestions, they would be more than appreciated. I am also worried about where I will get the seeds and how much they will cost me because Ashley said that the NRM APCD doesn't have a lot of seeds to hand out even though our APCD gave us the impression that he would give us as many seeds as we could possibly ever want. And so I may have to pay . . . oh well.

Today was kind of boring. I spent the whole morning preparing for my PE class and was thrice interrupted – one by Marie, the woman in front who wanted me to greet her father. It is like showing off four well-trained dog to the guests. Sit. Shake. Roll over. Greet the guests in Ewe. Then the same woman wanted to know if I could cure her father's distorted vision. I explained that I'm not a doctor, but I had an opportunity to talk about Moringa which is good. Then the President of the CVD invited himself into my home and it was awkward because he doesn't speak French and so . . . And then, towards noon, the IDH dude – mircrofinance guy who works with a women's groupement stopped by before his meeting with the women. He brought me four pineapples – a really nice gift, but I wasn't sure of his intentions and so I mentioned my husband in the course of conversation. Sure enough, a bit later he asked me to find him a "female" correspondent in the States. Right. We talked about the price of corn and how the price regulation works. The government doesn't have enough money to pay their functionaries and so, to keep them from going on strike, they lower the price of corn. The farmers aren't organized and so they can't strike, so they just suffer and people just die. Today Ignace told me of a twelve year old girl who died yesterday in Midijicope. No one knows of what. They brought her to the dispensaire, but not to the hospital – I have to ask Lili what was wrong with her. Twelve year old children don't just die . . . but here, they do.

I worked on my lesson plans with only a little time to prepare lunch – a macaroni dish with the wagash I bought yesterday – and then I biked to Agbatitoe. My class was also just ok. The students seemed tired, a little bored and not energetic, enthusiastic or particularly interested. I guess the class was a little boring . . . the trajectory of HIV/AIDS and positive behaviors to improve quality and length of life. Anyway, it wasn't a particularly good class. I tried to wake them up at least for the oral rehydration solution which I threw in under opportunistic infections and diarrhea sections. I gave them homework – to save a baby's life this week by teaching the mother of an infant suffering from diarrhea how to make ORS and rehydrate their baby. I hope they do it. Too bad the information was mixed in with tons of other more or less non-related information. Next week I will ask them if they completed their assignment.

After biking back I sat with the women in front and then decided to be lazy and instead of making pineapple upside down cake for the director of the school and the pastor, to just bring them pineapples now that I have more than I can possibly eat.

Presently I am writing outside where it is cooler, surrounded by a circle of children who are fascinated by my tiny English script.

2/16/08 and 2/17/08

I have a lot of nervous energy right now (it is the morning of the 18th) because I have a meeting at UNICEF this morning around 9:00. I am not sure how to get to their office and it will inevitably be an adventure.

I guess I will catch up on my writing as I wait for it to be time to leave although I am afraid I will find it difficult to concentrate.

I wasn't planning on leaving village until early Sunday morning, but on Saturday morning, as I was frying up some banana doughnuts, I ran out of gas. I wandered around to find Tsevi and asked him if he knew where I could buy some charcoal. There was a huge bag of charcoal (I'm not sure whether or not it was for sale) on the side of the road, but when I explained my problem to Tsevi, he gave me a small box full of charcoal and even came over to help me start a fire for the first time on the stove Dad brought me. It worked really well and was kind of fun, but I was cooking outside and so of course I had a huge audience. I made a joke, so as to eliminate a bit of the awkwardness of all these people watching me cook: I pretended to be selling the doughnuts for 25 cFA a piece. One little girl, Sofie (Effoh's sister's little girl – her mom lives in Komlacope, a village several kilometers away, but for some reason she is staying in Avassikpe with her grandmother), thought I was serious and brought me 25 francs. I would have given her one but there were a lot of children around and I was making the doughnuts specifically for the director of the school, the pastor, and I wanted to give some to Tsevi too in thanks for the charcoal. And so I didn't hand out any banana doughnuts, but I did give the children fried egg; I tried frying the egg like they do (dumping it into a frying pan full of oil) – it was gross. It bubbled all up and filled with oil. Marie (the woman from in front who invited me over for dinner last week) came over to help because apparently I put too many eggs in at the same time, making it difficult to flip. I was trying to get rid of eggs because I was traveling and they were already about two weeks old; I didn't want to leave them rotting in my house. Anyway, I had no desire to eat the eggs myself and so I divided them up among the eleven or so children who were standing around.

I then cooked my beans for lunch. The big drawback with charcoal, as I see it, is that 1). you can't control the temperature very easily and 2). you can't just turn it on and off at the twist of a knob. And so I tried to get everything done at one time (unsure exactly how to stop the charcoal from burning and unsure if I could get it burning again once I had let it burn out. I have seen the women pick the burning coals out of the stove and put them on the ground and then pour water on them to put them out; I guess I could use a big spoon or something . . .). After cooking my beans and the spicy, oily tomato, garlic and onion sauce to go with them, there were just a few small pieces of charcoal left in the ceramic liner and so I just let them burn out by themselves (any tips Dad?).

I started cleaning up my house a bit and then left to deliver the doughnuts. The school director wasn't there and so I left them with his wife. The pastor was at home; he had several men there helping him to build a paillote, but he seems like the sort of person who is always willing to engage in a conversation and he pulled up a chair for me. I get the feeling that it will never be just a quick visit with him unless I am really passing by, on my bike for example. I asked him about the bad blood between Midijicope and Avassikpe and I told him what Tsevi had said about the barrage and how the groupement from Midijicope had refused to cotiser. He asked the men working for him and they said that they had cotise-ed (contributed money) but that the people from Avassikpe "ate it" (meaning they bouffed it, stole it, didn't use it as it was meant to be used. That doesn't make much sense, though, because the barrage was dug. . . ). Then we talked about development ideas for Avassikpe – a garbage clean-up, public latrines, a pineapple plantation, chicken raising – the pastor has a lot of big ideas and seems really energetic and ready to work. He also seems like the kind of guy who will roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty, not just stand by and watch and give orders and he seems like he has a good idea of his place – he knows that it wouldn't be good if he meddled in the affairs of the CVD, but he is open to collaboration. He has also started a church fund for loaning money out to the parents of children in urgent need of medical care. I think that is great because he has the means (village contacts) to know whether a family really needs the money or not and the fact that they have to pay it back makes them responsible. Then we got to talking about how a twelve year old girl died in the village on Thursday. Ignace had told me about it and then the children, in the evening as I was writing my letters outside told me about it again and that she was their classmate and they buried her. The pastor said that it was sorcery and had they called the Assemblea de Dieu members to pray over her, she would still be alive, but she is Catholic and the Catholics don't have the power of prayer to the extent that the Assemblea de Dieu have it, and so she died. I didn't have a chance to ask Lili about her symptoms, but I will. All I know now is that she had some sort of pain in her leg. Strange and sad.

After speaking with the pastor, I went to drop some doughnuts off at Tsevi's house and as I was walking home I saw that Effoh was in village. I went to say hi and then went home to continue cleaning as I was preparing to go to Notse in the afternoon in hopes of getting my gas tank exchanged in Notse (I was afraid that it would be harder on a Sunday). After cleaning and eating the beans that I had prepared for lunch I went and sat with Effoh, DaJulie, their mom and the kids. I asked Effoh about the bad blood between Avassikpe and Midijicope (I'm trying to get as many separate accounts as possible, to see if they check out). He said that when Avassikpe's groupement was cotise-ing for the barrage, Midijicope's groupement said that they didn't need to participate in Avassikpe's project, that they would cotiser to make their own barrage and so Avassikpe dug a barrage on their own. Midijicope apparently bought a generator and sound system before Avassikpe, but they never managed to collect enough money to dig out their own barrage. Now their sound system is broken and they don't have a barrage, but according to Effoh, they are too proud to come to the elders of Avassikpe and admit their mistakes and try to negotiate a resolution. Effoh says that the elders of Avassikpe would allow Midijicope to use the barrage (he said that it is water and water is the first thing you give to a guest, why wouldn't they let their neighbors, brothers even, use the water?) if they just came to formally make the request, but that they can't just let the people of Midijicope get water at the barrage because it would be like silently giving in. He also said that his uncle (Mana's father) was the first "settler" in that part of town and that he owns all the surrounding land. The Kabiye can't own land because they are foreigners to the area and so they have to ask permission of the Ewe landowners to use their land and they are supposed to pay some sort of tribute to the owner of the land but they might not actually pay. Effoh's father's family was one of the founding families of Avassikpe and the extended members of that family own most of the land in the area. Anyway, it was all interesting.

He also talked with DaJulie about my pâte problem because I needed a translator. I want to somehow have an arrangement where I can buy pâte flour from her so that I can make pâte every once in a while, but don't have to worry about it going bad. People here eat pâte everyday, two or three times a day, and so they bring basin loads of corn to the mill to be ground. I have a huge quantity of corn sitting in a woven basin on my floor, but if I grind it all I am afraid it will go bad before I can eat it and so I want to give the corn to DaJulie and then buy corn flour from her when I need it. We will see how it works out.

I went to the barrage with the whole family (except I brought my bike because I wasn't about to carry that huge bidon back on my head). I went just to help Effoh's mom out because getting water must be especially hard on the older women and then I got ready to leave. Effoh had arranged with someone who had a moto to take me to Agbatitoe (with my gas tank and bags), but we had a little trouble fitting everything on the moto in a way that felt safe. Also, the kid with the moto was just that, a kid (like fourteen or something), and I didn't feel particularly great about him driving me to Agbatitoe. It is probably just in my head, he can probably drive a moto as well as anyone, but moto's are unsafe enough, no need to borrow trouble. And so we took my stuff to the side of the road to wait for either a car (a possibility because it was Saturday, market day in Notse) or a moto driver that I know and trust that has the sort of moto that might more easily accommodate a gas tank (an older more scooter-like model that dips down in the front, between the driver's legs). We waited and waited but neither came along and so we called the same kid over with his moto and tried to fit everything on again. This time we put the gas tank in the back and the bag in the front (unlike before where, had we gotten in an accident, the gas tank would have been driven into the kid's stomach) and Effoh offered to drive me to Agbatitoe so I felt a little bit better about that. Once we got to Agbatitoe (without mishap) I was in a car and on my way to Notse in less than two minutes and the guy didn't even try to overcharge me.

Upon arrival in Notse, Ashley and I did some sleuthing and found out that there was no gas in Notse meaning that I would have to take the tank to Lome. I also went to greet Hevihevi and Adjo and then I prepared some materials for my Peer Educator class next week while Ashley played solitaire on the computer.

On Sunday we got up early and were driving out of Notse by 7:30. The ride to Lome was fast and uneventful but painful. Literally and physically painful. There were eight people squished in a tiny five (or four) person car and I wanted to cry from the pain. Just as I was seriously going to have the driver pull over so I could get out and stretch for a second, someone got out. Relief. You don't know the pain of being packed so tightly into a bush taxi that you literally can not move any muscles except your face muscles and perhaps one arm, until you have experienced it first hand.

Lome – Kodjoviecope (the Peace Corps neighborhood) – Mammys – (the cheap hotel, rumored brothel where we stay) – no problem. We checked into a room and went straight to the bureau. At first it looked like it would be the a perfect opportunity to get all of our "business" – meaning some legitimate project related research and a lot of emailing and chatting – done because there weren't a lot of volunteers in Lome, but then the internet went down and it hasn't come back on since. (It is now Monday afternoon and the internet is still not working and we are none too hopeful because today is apparently a holiday for Peace Corps Employees (not volunteers) and so there is no one around to fix it). I got a chance to chat with Jorge for a long while on gmail chat on the stationary computers, which was wonderful, but the real beauty of Lome is the possibility of skype and that isn't possible unless my computer is working. =0( So that took a bit of the fun away. We went out to the Lebanese restaurant for lunch and then spent the rest of the day in the bureau aimlessly searching the internet and being bummed about not having the direct connection to our computers.

2/18/08

Today I got an came to the Bureau and luckily got a chance to speak with my APCD and find out how to get to the UNICEF office for my meeting. It cost me about five dollars to get there and back (a lot of money for a PCV), but it was worth it. I got really lucky. The woman who answered my email and request for a baby weighing balance arrived in Togo (from Niger) in October to fill a new UNICEF position dedicated to child nutrition. In Niger she worked for the Helen Keller Foundation and they worked in close partnership with volunteers and so she was excited to have a volunteer contact and called my APCD right then and their to re-establish a relationship between UNICEF and Peace Corps. She seemed very nice and I am excited about the collaboration because I think it will help not only me but especially the Health volunteers who work in their focus regions (Savannes, Kara and Maritime). She said that even though I don't work in one of those regions, they are there for the children and so if they have something I need they want to help. She seems to know and appreciate the value of volunteers who are on the ground and in contact with the population so that is great. She gave me a baby weighing scale, five of the little shorts to put the babies in to hang them from the scale, a digital scale to weigh pregnant women (I she asked me if I needed one and I said that if they had one to give it would be great as the one at the dispensaire is broken – Lili is going to be so excited!!!!!), a big wooden thing to measure people's height with (a little superfluous if you ask me, but I wasn't going to turn down a free handout and it will probably be useful as I am not sure Lili ever bothers to measure anyone because I don't think she has a measuring tape long enough), and a huge laminated chart that shows the healthy and not healthy weight for height curves. Everyone I met at UNICEF seemed extremely nice, friendly, welcoming and ready to be of help. Except for the taxi rides there and back it was a very pleasant experience. I even learned of some recipes for moringa that they use in Niger and I left the office arms loaded with packages.

Other than that, my day (and my trip to Lome in general) has, once again, been largely unproductive. Ashley and I have been trying to track down moringa seeds and bags to plant seedlings in, but it just isn't happening. Tomorrow we have a meeting with the NRM (Natural Resource Management) APCD, but we didn't want to leave it all until the last minute because we want to leave tomorrow, preferably in the morning.

In a few minutes I am going to go see what I can do about exchanging my empty gas tank for a free one.

No luck yet with the gas and my computer cord is completely fried so my computer won't work because it isn't receiving any charge. Bummer. Luckily Ashley has two computers in Notse and Jorge already ordered me a new cord for the computer so my parents can bring it to me in April.

I treated myself to a really nice dinner last night. The girls and I went to a new restaurant called Festival des Glaces. It has real ice cream (don't get me wrong, FanMilk does the trick in a pinch, but it isn't real ice cream) and I had a chicken sandwich (it was super yummy) and then a ball of mango ice cream on a cone. It wasn't ridiculously overpriced either - $5.00. I am already daydreaming about the restaurants we will go to when my parents are here. Hey, you can't blame a poor Peace Corps volunteer for wanting to be spoiled with some really good food. =0)

2/19/08

Today I hung out in the bureau for a while doing nothing because even though the internet is now working, my computer cord isn't. Ashley and I met with the NRM APCD at 8:30 and he was helpful. I learned that I can space my trees pretty close together if I am planning to harvest them for leaves, but that I have to make a choice between harvesting for leaves and harvesting for seed because once I strip them of their leaves they won't produce seeds. I can leave some trees for seed production, though. I also learned that the best crops to intercrop with Moringa are peanuts, black-eyed peas and soja because they are low to the ground and Nitrogen fixing plants. We talked about the pros and cons of planting directly into the ground as opposed to planting into black sachets. As I later found out, black sachets (seedling bags) are pretty expensive and require a lot of extra work (filling the bags, watering the tress, digging the hole to plant them in – big holes). The advantage is that you can get an early start on your trees and monitor them (to protect them from the goats) and so they will be more likely to be well established by the next dry season when sheep and goats apparently roam more freely and are more likely to discover and destroy our plants. The NRM APCD also gave us each a small bag of seeds – we estimate that there are between 500 and 700 seeds in it and contact numbers for seedling bag retailers. After much deliberation and indecision I decided to buy 1000 seedling bags (for $24!! I don't know about you, but that is a lot of money for me) and plant some trees in bags now and later plant more directly in the ground when the rains are sure to fall. Hm. We will see how it works out. I don't want to think about it any more and I am still waiting on my gas . . . the Peace Corps driver says maybe at 2:30. I don't know what I am going to do if there is no gas. If I knew that they would fill my tank and send it up to me when gas is available, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, I would go back to village and buy some charcoal for the meantime, but the problem is that if I am not here hounding them, my gas tank will probably just sit, but I can't stay here. Ugh.