“How To…” According to Me

Three Day Fieldtrip Up Country: Sept 18 – 20^th, 2007

Or:  “How To…” According to Me

How To Drive in Togo

 

While theoretically one drives on the right hand side of the road, in reality one drives on which ever side is more practical, which ends up being more often than not the left hand side, employed often but not exclusively for the purpose of avoiding potholes, circumventing mud, or passing other vehicles.   This last in particular requires a certain technique, particularly on bad or curvy roads (although this does not automatically rule out risky maneuvers).   You must drive very closely behind the vehicle in front of you, then tentatively drift into the left hand side in order to catch a glimpse of the road ahead to see what else is approaching.    (Although again, no what matter is approaching, this may or may not have any bearings on your next steps. Driving is like a wild chicken mating dance, full of bluster and bravado.)   You then either pass the car  – honking madly to alert drivers, pedestrians, bikers, and goats – or swerve back onto your side of the road.  An example of when you would return to your side of the road would be when you see two huge trucks passing each other and coming straight towards you as they struggle for dominion of the road.   Actually, you might want to consider pulling over until they decide to return to their side of the road….  Anything less than these two dinosaurs battling it out is fair game, though.   Don’t forget to laugh at any Yovo’s who are making smart comments in the backseat, or are whimpering into their hands.   Be ready to brake at any sign of a living creature scampering across the road (we missed a child, but hit a dog, and possible a duck – see How To Be An Animal Lover In Togo).  

 

If you are not a scaredy-cat Yovo, you may choose to ride on the outside of an eighteen-wheeler, hanging from its back gate (photos to prove it)   or on top of a bush taxi, or perhaps four to a motocycle.   You may also choose to tie your goat on the top of a bush tax, or stuff your cow in the trunk of the car.  

 

(NB:  Peace Corps drivers are the best drivers and we love our drivers! They have been specially selected and they would never pull any dangerous stunts. )

 

How To Travel Like a PCT

 

Show up to meeting place with varying sizes of hiking backpacks and additional day packs to take in the van.   Toss backpack up to van driver to be lashed onto the roof.  Ask driver if you can ride on top to see his reaction. (Note: Only do this with a PC driver.   Any other driver would say yes.)   In your daypack, carry toilet paper, water, iPod or other entertainment device, hand sanitizer, and camera.    (If you’re me, you will also carry sunscreen, bug repellant, book, extra camera batteries, and extra snacks, but you risk mocking from your comrades.)  Take your place in the van or range rover.   In the van, natural air conditioning is provided because the air rushing through the open windows is both strong and refreshing.  Try and stay hydrated throughout your trip, although too much hydration has its disadvantages, and you can pass away much of your time deciding whether to continue to hold your bladder or whether you really want to be the person who has had to ask three times already to use the bathroom.  But you better not hold it too long, because requests for bathroom stops require their own procedure and can take a few more miles/kilometers to complete     The driver has a mysterious criteria, unknown to us mere PCTs, for which bushes are appropriate to use as toilets and which are not.   However, ideally there will be a small goat path leading off the main road, with some handy trees or uneven ground a few feet into the bush.    If you are me,  and you are not on a trail, you stomp your feet loudly and wave your arms while yelling “Pas de serpents! Pas de serpents!” (Translation :  Shoo snakes ! ) before continuing.    (If you are not me, you may join in the chorus of:   “You have to go again?!?”)

 

When you stop for lunch or dinner, bear in mind there are really no rules in Togo.  Thus, it is perfectly acceptable to go into a restaurant and pull out your packed sandwich from home and your bottled water.  (However, as there are some great drinks, such as Cocktail de Fruits or LionKiller – sparkling lemonade – I encourage you to buy a drink and save the water for the road.)    Always consider bringing your own food or having an arrangement with a restaurant to prepare the food ahead of the time, as food service can take two hours to materialize.    Do not turn up your nose, however, at yummy snacks available either in gas station shops or on the side of the road (collectively, we purchased multiple pineapples, breads, beignets which are made from beans but are sort of like doughnuts, beans and rice, and a million packs of FanMilk.   FanMilk is our obsession, and is sort of like icecream in a bag. It deserves its own blog post so more to come later about FanMilk.)

 

 

How To Be An Animal Lover In Togo / or, an Overheard Dialogue

 

Daniel:  “Look!  A duckling! It’s hurt! I think we might have hit it with the van when we pulled into the village and maneuvered our way through pebbly alleys.   I knew taking a mini-van off-roading was a splendid idea.”

Anna: “You should kill it now. Put it out of its misery.”

Daniel:  “I think its leg is broken. I’m going to make a splint out of floss and twigs.”

PCVs: “Put the duckling down.  We can’t take it into the school where we’re going to observe a Life Skills class.”

Daniel: “I’m going to put it here under the tree.  Oh look there’s a frog.   They can be friends.”

Anna: “Do not get attached like the baby goat. ”

Daniel: “It was love at first sight.  It snuggled right into my chest when I picked it up.”

 

 

How To Be A Beautiful Country / Make A Roadtrip Pleasant

 

For a small country, Togo packs a big punch…  From the mid-South, starting in Agou, the paved road is “paved”, in glaring quotation marks that hang meaningfully in the air.    Driving on the left hand side of the road, while surprising for the first few hours but soon becoming frighteningly normal, affords us the opportunity to get a close up view of the foliage (which itself changes from South to North).    Palm trees, termite mounds, green grasses, and the hills and mountains rising above us.  If you look carefully, you can see the white marks in the hillside which mark waterfalls, sprung from the caverns hiding in the rocky hills.  

 

The hills themselves change too.  In the South, they are bumps hiding under green quilts, villages nestled in between the folds.   In the North, near Kara, the mountains appear again – absent after a perilous climb through the mountains to get to Atakpame, then the hills dropping away to reveal lush savannahs, watered by the rainy season and rumored to turn brown in a few months.   But near Kara the mountains appear again, different from their southern cousins, these ones rocky and scruffy and somehow rather plucky-seeming.  There are two paved roads, one of which runs through Kara, but to reach Sara-Kabou (Kassie’s village) we turn off the Route Nationale and pass through the red dust road passing the circular houses with thatched roofs or the children who look up from their activities and chase after the cars.    (Substantially less romantic than it sounds.)

 

I feel like God, who looked upon the Earth and decided It Was Good.  Except substantially less graceful.

 

How To Sing The  Yovo Song

 

Note that this is only cute when you are four years old.  A note on pronunciation : Yovo is with emphasis on the second syllable, which always makes its speaker sound vaguely surprised.

 

” Yovo! Yovo !

Bon soir! Ca va ? 

Donnez-mois vint-cinq francs… »

[Yovo ! Yovo ! Good evening, how are you? Give me 25 francs…”

 

PS In the North « anasara » is the same as « yovo ».  Yovo means white person, but it’s applied to strangers in general.   Even our Togolese formateurs have been called Yovo, if they are hanging out with Peace Corps people or maybe they are lighter skinned than the local people.    African-Americans and Asian-Americans also get called Yovos.  (Conversely, yovos also get called chinois…)

 

How To Receive A Togolese Name

 

Be a twin.  My name is Akөulé, because I am a twin.  Sophia’s  name would be Akөkө (a-cocoa).  Female twins are always named this.  I forget what the male names are.  

 

You can also mention what day of the week you are born on, as names correspond to whether you were born on a Friday or a Tuesday, for instance.    My Togolese family were grieved and mildly disapproving that I did not know on what day of the week I was born.

 

How To … Visit Many Different Places…

 

From Agou, we drove north-east along the paved road that runs from Kpalimé to Atakpamé (where we stopped for lunch).   This road takes us straight through the heart of the Plateaux region, and along the left hand side of the country, where there are many hills and mountains and long grasses and foreign trees and waterfalls in the mountain sides.   We passed through all the towns that are directly on the road, including Adeta which is where the training site was held last year.  We stopped at Amlamé where a current PCV works with an NGO (and met her dog, which was a rare cute bundle of fur and was excited to see more people that would pay it attention).   We received yummy bissap juice (it reminded me of that ice tea that comes in the dragon cans … what’s it called) and kolico made from breadfruit and dipped in tomato paste.   Yummy.  After Amlamé we drove up a winding mountain, passing an overturned eighteen wheeler on the way.   We stopped in Atakpamé for lunch where we got to sit on the restaurant’s terrace.   Atakpamé is the regional capital of Plateaux.  This is also where the two paved roads merge into one (the other one comes straight from Lomé), and which we continued to drive upon due north, smack dab in the middle of the country.   It was fun riding in the car and seeing the turnoffs for the stagiares’ new posts.   Later we passed through Sokodé, the capital of the Centrale region, and finally arrived in Kara.    Our hotel was really nice (by Togo standards) and we took advantage of the pool a few times.  Kassie and I were roommates again (we were roommates in Philadelphia) and spent a lot of time laughing.   Before Kara, we had picked up another PCV who would hang out with us for the week (I have forgotten to say that every week during PST a current PCV stays with us at the tech house).    We got to see her house (with lovely sunflowers in her garden) which was two rooms and very homey seeming.   This is also the village where Daniel finally got a chance to hold a petit chevre – baby goat – and fell in love.    They are so cute.  =) In Kara we went out to restaurants and had the chance to have Western food,  but I missed my host mom’s cooking.    We met many other current Volunteers in Kara.  We also went to the maison de passage in Kara, all regional capitals have maisons de passage where PCVs can go to spend the night or exchange books or hang out etc.    We also got the chance to use the internet which is when the last update was sent in.  The next day we went to a COS-ing volunteer’s village, which will be Kassie’s village.   It turned out to be so beautiful and welcoming and everyone is hoping their own villages turn out like that. Kassie will be perfect for it.  It was surrounded by the rocky, scruffy mountains and has a huge mango tree under whose shade we sat.  The house was great (two rooms not including a little entryway where the couches etc are; a yard with the shower and latrine and a space for gardening).   After Kassie’s village, we came back to Kara for lunch, and then we went to Bafilo, a town on the main road.  There we visited AED, an organization   where PCVs work, which is an organization for Togolese living with AIDS and nearly everyone who works there is also HIV positive.  We were received with beautiful songs, and quite possibly the most beautiful child I have seen, less than three years old, who also is HIV positive.    After Bafilo we went back to Kara.   The next day, Saturday, some of us had the most delicious breakfast at the hotel (and was worth the price – croissants and coffee and fruit and hard boiled eggs…) and then we got on the road around 10am.   We got back to Agou around 5:30pm, after several stops to use the bushes, tired but excited from the fun times we’d had and the beautiful and diverse things we’d seen and discovered about Togo.  

 

 

 

The internet isn’t quite as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Yes, it’s slow, but it’s no worse than Mom’s dialup when the computer has been on for two hours.    So I think I am well practiced at being patient.   In an hour’s time I am normally able to cut and paste emails and read several other emails.   It helps that I try and type a lot ahead of time, which is why it may take a week’s lapse before you get a reply to an email, because I save new emails on my flash drive and then work on them on my laptop.    Because the keyboards are different, it takes  a long time to type an email at the internet café.

 

In less than 2 weeks we all have post visits and we will be gone for a week.  So possibly the next time   I update I will know what my house looks like!

 

 

Sept 10-17

Sept 10:

The trip to Kpalimé was just what everyone needed and we had a great time.  I emailed last blog update in and was able to check my emails.  Kpalimé had an awesome market and I bought more pagne to make a dress.

Sept 17

Hi everyone:
We are going on a three day field trip to various sites up north, just as far as Kara.  We are really excited to have a fun trip and I will update afterwards.  We’ll be traveling along the major road that cuts Togo in half lengthwise and so we’ll be able to see the countryside change and watch the different regions’ appearances.  I’m taking a notebook to record anything interesting that happens , so I’ll be sure and let you all know how our fieldtrip went.   However since rumor has it we will have internet in Kara I’m typing this update ahead of time.  **The big news is I have my post!!**

My village (town? Not sure)  is 12 k outside of Vogan (a major voodoo capital), in the south of Togo, which has one of the biggest markets in Togo (there are three major markets, or “grand marches”, in the country).  So once a week I will have access to pretty much anything I want. (And possible internet cafés?)  Within my village, there’s a small market so I’ll be able to eat fruits and vegetables when I want to.  I’m also only a couple hours away from the capital, Lomé.  (Other volunteers are two days’ travel from the capital, although this could be a positive thing.  You’re much closer to Ghana or Burkina Faso, for instance, where flights are often cheaper.) The south of Togo is not as hot in the summer but rather more humid.  (So, in other words, it’s a tossup.)   I will get to work with many NGOs including the Red Cross and an international woman’s organization.  I will probably also be doing work at the schools there, and I believe my homologue (who is rumored to be a super counterpart) is a teacher.  There is a youth center and a possible computer center where they want someone to teach girls computer skills (ie electricity?). The village is really excited to have a volunteer  and apparently very welcoming.  I get to go visit in two weeks and will let everyone know what’s like.  I am really really curious to know what my village is like.   I just feel excited knowing where I will be.  I think all the stagiares are at this point.  It’s fun to start to look forward to actual concrete experiences and projects.  I have no idea what my accommodations are like, what the village ( town?) looks like… You’ll have to wait to find out till after post visit.

Guess what was the deciding factor in my post?  My amateur biking abilities – hahaha.  While I was qualified for my first and second choices, the posts required too much biking for my abilities.  I thought it was pretty funny.  And I’m sure some of you will have some pretty snappy comments to make…  I managed to knock it over while it’s standing still, oh, at least once a day.  If it’s in my courtyard, my host family comes rushing out at the noise and crowds around saying “Doucement! It faut faire doucement!”  If it’s at the tech house, normally the stagiares know that that it’s just me knocking my bike over again…

I received two more letters, a second from my mom and another from my sister!  I was very excited.  I wrote back, although they will take longer to reach you.  (Mail is slower leaving from Togo.)

Thanks to everyone who has been leaving comments on this site, it was great reading them and feeling like someone was following along with my experiences.  I’m curious to see if Sophia was able to update my blog with what I emailed her, and if so, what everyone’s reactions were.

OK, time to save this on my flash drive and hope that I get internet in Kara…

an editor’s note

Hi all. The other half here. Anna emailed me her blog entry to publish so I split it up into entries by day to make it easier to read as well as to leave notes about specific things. It was really long to read but I printed it out and enjoyed reading it in lieu of writing a paper (still not finished and due today).  In her email to me she really stressed two things: 1. internet access being slow and unreliable, she can’t reply at length or quickly to everyone’s emails, although she may be able to at least read them; and 2. letters are very welcome, in fact seem needed, so keep sending letters (or start if you haven’t already).

enjoy reading.

-s

Tuesday October 9

Tuesday October 9

 

Tomorrow is the trip to Kpalimé and so I’m hoping to have the chance to send this to my sister to post to my blog.   Tomorrow we also have a lunch with our country director, and the day after tomorrow we receive the post descriptions.  Then we will have to interview with our APCD to give our input on where we would like to be posted.    Oh, tomorrow we also get mail again, and everyone’s hopes are high that they will have received letters. 

 

I realized that with all the overwhelming-ness (what’s the noun) I have not been very descriptive or informative.   As I get used to routines, this will get better.   One reason I know that I have been overwhelmed is that I haven’t been able to really write, but inspiration is slowly returning.   I imagine that tomorrow’s internet experience, if it occurs, will be slow and frustrating, so please know that even if I haven’t had the opportunity to reply to an email or communicate directly despite this blog post, know that I’m working on reading emails and writing responses.    

 

Here is a description of my training village (by the way, through the next couple of months, due to Peace Corps policy and to safety/security reasons, I can’t be specific about names/locations), or “What Africa Is Like”:

 

            Sunrise and sunset are one of the few things that happen quickly in Africa.   Togolese tend to view time as ambiguous, but the sun has its own agenda.   When I shower in the morning I can see the grey mists surrounding the tiny villages on the jungle mountainside, tinged with pink and silhouetting the trees and buildings.    By the time I’ve finished and wrap my bright green pagne around me, it is fully daylight, and dawn was merely seconds long.   Riding my bike to a meeting place, if it’s rained the night before (a symphony on my tin roof that cools the air) I must traverse red mud and puddles.   If not, the road is dusty, but beginning to be crowded with passers-by on foot or motocycle, goats, chickens, and the lizards ranging in size from a finger length to a foot length.   I greet passersby as we make eye contact, in French or Ewe.  Many are sitting on their doorsteps, by houses built out of brick or stone or wood, or their children are performing morning chores such as sweeping with bundles of sticks.   The small children look up and say “Yovo!” (white person) and sometimes run up to me, if they are particularly adventurous.    IU see clothing ranging from Western casual to beautiful pagnes, batik prints that wrap around as skirts or are tailored into full ensemble outfits.   Pagnes are used for everything – clothing, to tie a baby to one’s back, to use as a shower towel, to wear around the house, to cover oneself during a nap.   Coming back the same way at lunchtime, particularly if it is well after noon, the streets are quiet.  Everyone is taking their midday meal and then napping.   The morning is refreshing but often, unless it is raining (it is the rainy season now and often catches us unaware) the midday sun beats firmly as if to remind us that a dry and hot season will come eventually.     Biking is preferable at midday because of the breeze it creates.  The heat is not anything more than a hot climate in the USA, but the sheer strength of the sun’s rays remind me that I am closer to the equator.   Afternoons are often humid (unless, again, the rain has cooled the earth) and for post descriptions I am torn between a hotter north or a cooler, more humid south.     Rainstorms appear just as suddenly as night or day.  Sometimes the sky darkens and wind bends the trees ominously.  Then if we’re at school we hurry to put our bikes away before the rain comes – big, angry splatters.   The rain is always either a misty drizzle or a terrible downpour, sheets of water graying the sky and watering the earth.  Cycling back in the evening, night can fall instantly.   Like dawn, dusk seems elusive.  In one moment the sun is nearing the horizon, and suddenly it is dark, with no prolonged sunset.     Then flashlights and lanterns appear, bobbing on the side of the road and stepped aside for any random cars passing through.   On clear nights, which are often, the stars are more numerous than I have ever seen, and they are all different shapes and sizes and clusters and sometimes they are smudged across the sky like a pile of icing sugar that someone has pulled their finger across.    A full moon is said to make the night like day.  There are no city lights here to distract from nature’s lamp.    It is strange to me to think that so many people live like this and that this life exists.    The other continent across the ocean seems dreamlike.  

Sunday October 7

— Sunday—

 

The past 12 hours were very eventful.  When I returned from the tech house where I wrote the last segment, my host mother’s son told me we were going to a baptism.   So I went with him and his friend and Jouanelle but not to the church.  We went to someone’s house where there was the after party for the baptism.   The little girl who had been baptized was a toddler.   We hung out there for a while.  When we got home, I ate dinner and people were arriving for a party.   Well, I think the party was the next day, but it was a sort of pre-party to prepare for the next day.   It’s confusing.    Anyway, I didn’t get much sleep because music blared in the courtyard all night long.  I’ve never heard such loud music except at a club.  I put some earplugs in to sleep but it didn’t do much.  Suffice to say I didn’t get much sleep.   I woke up several times during the night and the music was still playing.

 

The next morning my family woke me up at 6am for church.  I wore my new complet that they made me.   Church was in Ewe and was three hours long.  It started by a procession down the hillside with drums and shakers and dancing and singing.   Most of the time I didn’t know what was going on.  The pattern was:  Gestures / phrases similar to an mass in English.   Then singing and dancing and the choir dancing around the church.  Then going up to the altar to deposit money – over four different times.   Lots of singing and dancing.  Very energetic and musical.  (Although hard when you have three hours  of sleep.) Everyone was dressed up in complets in traditional pagnes and their Sunday best.  I came back and took a nap and after lunch the party was continuing with the loud music, so I ate a bit and then I came to the tech house for some quiet.

 

Saturday Oct 6

Saturday Oct 6 –

 

Tonight I’ve been informed that we’re going to a drum ceremony.  Also tomorrow is a big deal , but I have yet to figure out why.   As far as I can make it out, it is the 21^st anniversary of a relative’s death and my family is making me a Togolese outfit to wear to church and there are going to be lots of people over in the afternoon.   So we’ll see how it goes.

 

Today after class we could feel the storm coming.  Just as I arrived home the skies opened up and washed the earth while I ate lunch.   Walking back to the tech house to school to use my laptop I saw that Mt Agou was covered in mist, rolling away as if wanting to cushion my village and hold it up by clouds.   Between noon and two pm, which is when I’m often walking to and from lunch, the streets tend to be deserted, everyone taking refuge from the sun, and so I picked my way through the red mud, dust washed by the storm, and waved occasionally at children who run up crying “Yovo!” (white person)

 

Things have progressed.  I love my Ewe classes, it’s fun to study a new language.   I’ve gotten over the initial culture shock and pangs of missing everyone, and I’m looking forward to new adventures.  I still miss contact with everyone, but I’m not ready to make phone calls yet because I think it would disorient me and make it worse.   I’m excited when I look at this week’s coming schedule – on Wednesday we go to Kpalime, the next day we will receive post descriptions and have to rank where we want to live for two years. (!)   The next week we will be going on a fieldtrip up north and we will also find out our post assignments. 

October 2nd

Tuesday October 2^nd

 

“Why are there so many people here tonight?” I asked Jouanelle.  She stopped chewing and tilted her head somberly.  

            “There is a baby who died,” she said, and went back to eating.

            Silence.

            “He died here?”

            “No, in Lomé.  He was six months old.   The mother took him to the hospital with a fever and the next day he was dead.”

            She took another bite of rice.  I had given her most of my portion, my afternoon snacking having rendered me full already.  

            “So everyone has come here?” I prompted.

            “The baby was in a house near here.  We took pagnes to wrap him in. His mother is from Lomé but his father is in France.”

            “Was it an only child?”

            “Yes, her first baby.  Her husband doesn’t yet know.   We must wait a little to break the news.”

            “But the baby will be buried soon.”

            “Yes. Eventually we will phone a cousin in France to go to the father’s house and break the news to him.”

            She eyed my method of eating oranges dubiously.   My mannerisms are a constant surprise to her seven-year-old habits.

            “In my grandmother’s time, if your baby dies and you cry, it means you will never have more children.   But if you don’t cry, it means you will have more children.  That was in my grandmother’s time.  So the mother has cried, but not a lot.   It is not good to cry a lot.”

            She remembered my family tree. “And if you have two children who are twins, and one dies, we say that the dead twin has gone into a forest.   So we take a piece of wood, and carve designs into it, and fasten it to the front of the twin who is still alive, so that the twins may remain together.   We leave it there until he has grown up.”

 

~*~*~

 

Mail came from Lomé and there was a letter for me from my mother!  Only four trainees got mail and everyone eyed us wistfully.   I took my letter but didn’t open it right away.  Just knowing I had it was an incredible feeling.  Later in my courtyard I read it, a swift skim at first, and then again put it away for later to savor.   By the end of the night it had been read several times, and will be read several times more.  It only took a week to arrive in Lomé, and had merely been waiting for my arrival at the training site.     I didn’t understand before now how important letters are so please if you’re able WRITE ME.   I will say it again : PLEASE SEND ME LETTERS.    It’s very difficult to understand if you’re not doing this but since we have not yet have access to email we are all starving for contact with friends and family.     I will do my best to write back if I have stamps.  I think I will start making Sundays my letter writing days. 

 

Tomorrow will make a week we have been with our host families.  On the one hand we feel like time crawled; on the other we feel like we have been gone for centuries.  

 

My daily routine goes something like this:

 

5:30am: wake up due to courtyard activity.

 

6am: Get out of bed, wrap my pagne around me, walk to shower.  Pee in shower.   Take a bucket shower (I mix hot water with cold) which I still enjoy very much. Wash underwear to hang in room – this is the one thing you don’t launder in public.  Come back to room, where I change into clothes and see what I need for class.

 

6:30am:  Breakfast.   Bread and jam and tea, which is what I asked for.   And whatever fruit there is.

 

7am:  Leave for class.  Bike or walk.   I have only just started biking to school, it is probably about btw 5 to 10 mins away on bike.

 

7:30am:  Class.  This could be language (most language classes take place in a host family’s house, actually) or what they call Technical Training, or culture training, or a self-directed activity, etc.   So the other day we had a panel on girl’s education in Togo; another day we will have lessons on how to take care of our bikes; yesterday the nurses came up from Lomé to give us information on nutrition; and so on.

 

12 noon – 2:30.  A break.  We go home and eat lunch with our host families.   I often have rice, tomato sauce (it’s so yummy), chicken, spaghetti… My favorite is avacado and tomato salad, which they make after going to market.   I nearly always have fruit afterwards.  (NOTE:  This is not actually typical Togolese food.  They are “easing” us into eating Togolese food like fufu and pate.   I’ve had peanut sauce which is really good.)   At lunchtime I sometimes take another shower, this time with cold water which feels pretty good and is the fastest way to feel refreshed.

 

2:30 – 5:30pm.  More class.  If we end early, which we often do, we go to a “bar” and have some refreshments, or else we hang out at the technical center.   By around 530 I’m getting ready to go back, since night falls quickly here, and by 6:15 it’s dark.  As long as I’m home by 6 it’s ok.

 

6 – 8 pm.  I talk to my family, eat dinner, maybe do some homework.   (Except I’m writing this instead of doing homework, so I’ll do my homework tomorrow at lunch.)  I take another shower (possible the third of the day.   I don’t think I’ve ever been this clean), then go to bed.

 

I think next week we receive post descriptions and start choosing what we want.  This is going to be bad for someone indecisive like me!    Also in a week is when we get to go to Kpalime and hopefully use the internet!

 

Because we are in the advanced French group, my language class gets to alternate between French and Ewe lessons.   

 

OK so this is on its 8^th page in a Word document so I can imagine everyone’s surprise when I finally do get to update my blog or email or whatever and see everything I’ve written…

 

A bien tot…

Sept 30 (sunday)

Sept 30 – Sunday

 

It’s hard to think that we have only been here four days .  Time both flies and drags at the same time.   We are just getting into training, and our formateurs (trainers) are great!   Since the last entry I have run through a gamut of emotions and experiences.  

 

I did laundry for the first time today.  My host family actually let me do it, too, and showed me how to use the soap.    So tomorrow when everything is dry I will see how I did.   I’m sure handwashing my clothes will get old, but I had fun this first time because I liked the soap smell and the water felt refreshing in the humidity.

 

On Friday we went to the market (25 min walk away up a big hill).  For our classes’ homework we had to research prices.   My host sisters ended up taking me which turned out to be great because they were able to tell me what was a fair price, where things were located, etc.   The market was fun!  I plan to return with some money to buy pagnes (the batik fabric) and other essentials.   Basically anything you wanted you could find at the market.   I bought a cup to brush my teeth with and the bar soap for washing clothes.  There were piles of “dead yovo clothes” and everything else from piles of toilet paper to fresh fruit to batteries to pots and pans to jewelry.   

 

Yesterday I went to a party with my host family.   There was dancing for several hours (I was a big hit) and then a sort of talent show followed.   Singing, skits, etc.  I had a lot of fun and was glad I went.  I had almost not gone because I thought I would just want to go to sleep, and was feeling a little down, but told myself that I should try new experiences, and I’m glad I did so.  

 

When I left the house to go to the party, I looked up and the stars were so numerous and so close, I have never seen a sky like it before.

 

I know that is very disjointed so far and I promise the writing will get back.  It’s a battle between wanting to describe everything that has happened so far versus time management (and battery conversation…)

 

Things I’m glad I brought so far:

• Headlamp and LED flashlight.   Indispensable even if you have electricity like I do.   I always take my headlamp to the latrine at night because you never know when the electricity is going to cut off, like it did last night.  The flashlight was   great for walking for the party last night, because when it is dark here it is DARK.
• A fan that I bought as a gag gift for myself which is shaped like an oversized iPod and hangs around one’s neck (can also stand up by itself).   I hung it around my neck while arranging my room this afternoon and it was so refreshing.
• A spraybottle.  A couple spritzes before lying down to sleep cools you off instantly.
• Neutrogena face wash.  Never underestimate the importance of a routine.
• Crucifix on chain and carouche bracelet.    When you’re away from everything familiar it’s nice to have symbols to hang on to.
• Digital watch.  The lightup ability is good when you wake up in the middle of the night…
• Wen shampoo – although it’s tough to rinse it all out with a bucket shower, so it’s not quite perfect, but it’s great not having to wash my hair for a week.

 

Tonight I went to French  mass.   The Mass in Ewe was in the morning, but I told my host mother I wanted to sleep in (and I did, to all of 8:30am, that’s late here).   There weren’t many people at the French mass, probably less than fifteen, but somehow they all knew what songs to sing next and how to harmonize and no one had a bad singing voice.  

 

Oh – my bike.  We received our bikes … I haven’t taken mine out on the road yet.   Let me just put it this way, after watching my first try taking it around my courtyard, the other stagiares taped a sign on it that said “Student Driver – Doucement!” (Go gently.)  However, I have improved tremendously and tomorrow might be the day I ride it home for lunch.

 

Training goes like this:  We have classes from 7.30 – noon.   Then we go home for lunch with our families till 2.30.  Then more classes till 5.30 theoretically.  Language classes started this week along with a few presentations about what the program is going to look like .   “real” technical classes start this week.  Language classes take place in a host family’s home and technical classes will take place at the tech house.   We have a couple fieldtrips, too. 

 

GEE is in this village and Natural Resource Management is in another.  We all get very excited when we get to see each other, as after just a week we have bonded quite tightly.

 

I wore a pagne as a skirt and all the Togolese were very impressed.  Too bad we don’t get paid for two more weeks and I need to budget my remaining money, so I think I have to wait a couple weeks before having clothes made.

 

I think I am lucky with my host family (although I like other people’s latrines better than mine) because they are pretty amenable to showing me how to do things.   They still won’t let me clean the dishes or anything, but at least they let me wash my clothes and they have promised to teach me how to cook and use my gas stove and things like that.   So that should help me a lot when I get to post.

 

The past couple of days were a challenge for me, but I feel much more positive tonight.  It’s very difficult when I’m alone or when every one is speaking Ewe and I am allowed to wallow.   I picked up my photo album the other night but put it back down because I couldn’t even look through it.   However I think I’m getting over the initial culture shock hump and whenever I am in training I get very excited about projects I could be doing next year.   Right now what’s most difficult is the isolation, we have a trip planned to Kpalime to use the internet but it’s not for another 10 days.  Everyone keeps eyeing the mail dropbox hoping letters will arrive.     Today I arranged my room (moved things out of or into suitcases, took out school supplies, arranged toiletries etc, put photo frame on my bedside table) and put up the map of North/West Africa which Ian gave me on my wall, so now I feel I actually have a room of my own.  

 

Well it’s almost 10pm and I like to hide my laptop away and the packing up is quite a process so I’ll close for now.

Arrival in Agou – 9/26

September 26, 2007

Arrival in Agou

 

Since our arrival in Agou this afternoon so much has happened that I do not know where to start.   To begin with, the good news is that my host family has electricity, although it is cut often, which means I am using my laptop right now to write this entry.   No more wireless, although that doesn’t stop me from obsessively hitting “refresh networks” ever so often.   (Read on for the ‘cons’.)

 

In the morning, after receiving a tour of the Peace Corps office, we piled up the luggage once again into a big truck and set off in a caravan of PC vans.    Agou (the region where our training is located) is about an hour and a half north of Lomé, and after leaving the city we drove through lush green countryside.   Mt. Agou soon arose in the distance, covered in trees and little villages.   Our village is right underneath Mt Agou (the highest mountain in Togo) and two other lesser mounts.  

 

On the way we stopped to buy Lomé bread (which is only made in the capital) as presents for our host families.

 

When we arrived in village, there were the townspeople waiting to greet us and from the vans they escorted us singing and dancing and shaking instruments to a gathering place.   A choir sang “You are very welcome here, we are happy to have you.”  There were babies strapped on their mothers’ backs, sleeping peacefully and enfolded in colorful pagnes.

 

A man taking the place of the chief (who had to be absent today), who later turned out ot be my host uncle, made a speech welcoming us.   Then we all moved to the Peace Corps technical house, where much of our training takes place.   The singing and dancing continued, and we found ourselves dancing around drumplayers in a big circle, having no idea what we were singing along to.   Eventually the song ended and we moved inside the building, where we found our host families and then ate together. 

 

My host mother and father gave me big hugs and I ate with them.

 

Children waited till adults finish eating and then obediently scampered forward when beckoned to receive the scraps.

 

The trucks with the luggage arrived and we unloaded our belongings.  No matter how much we had brought with us, it still would have seemed too much in comparison with our counterparts’ worldly goods.

 

We then waited for the Peace Corps vans to shuttle us back and forth to our new homes.  My host family seemed large and I am still pretty unsure as to how everyone is related.  By the time the vans arrived for us, my  youngest host sister (who is the granddaughter of my host mom) had stuck her hand in mine and asked to sit next to me on the bus.    My host mother had also already told me that on Sunday we will all dress up in pagnes and she will paint my arms with the white mud they use to decorate during festivities.   Another host sister turned out to be one of the leaders in the choir.  

 

Oh , there are some humongeous lizards here – beautiful, blue and pink and green!

 

We arrived at my host family’s house, which is basically a courtyard with single rooms shooting off it. My room is the only one with a mosquito net.   I was just outside and most of my family is outside lying on mats on the hard concrete floor to rest, although they have beds in their rooms, it must be to escape the heat.     When they are tired and ready to fall asleep, they move to their rooms.

 

My room is next to the bathroom.  Rather, the salle de bain, which is the room of the bath; le toilette is something different.   As it’s been explained to me, you bucket shower (there’s running water and a spigot right in the “shower stall” and you also pee in the salle de bain (no toilet, just a drain for the shower water), sloshing the floor with a bucket of water afterwards.    I have no idea how you actually accomplish this while wearing clothes (I never was good at finding a bush when camping).   Remind me to always wear shower shoes while showering!!   Pooping is done in the latrine.  The latrine is, yes, a real latrine.  I have used it twice and I’m thinking I should go to sleep soon so I don’t have to use it again in the dark.   The nice thing is there is an electric light, but I still took a flashlight in case the electricity cut while I was in there.  It is very very clean and does not smell, but I’m still leary.   However, being that most PCVs end up spending a lot of time in the bathroom, I am trying to get used to it.   You have to open a little door, walk through a path, and open another door to get to the latrine, saying hello to the chickens.   There are lights, though, which is good. 

 

There are kittens and baby goats wandering around the courtyard sometimes, which is adorable, but they are not so people-friendly, more used to begging for scraps while avoiding their owners’ rage.   I will take pictures soon.   I felt rude taking pictures while people are trying to welcome me, plus I will have three months.   Not to mention, I’m not sure the internet in Kpalimé is fast enough for photo uploading.  We’ll see.

 

I’ve already encountered questions such as “Why don’t Americans shower three times a day?” and “What do you like to eat for lunch?”   It’s hard to answer this question when I know the typical Togolese lunch is not a sandwich.  For dinner we had koli-koli (yams cut like French fries), chicken, and spaghetti.   I managed to escape the fate of most Volunteers who get food pushed down their throats by telling my family up front that Americans had small stomachs (“Like babies,” they replied) and that I would ask for seconds if I was hungry.   The food fills you up but right now I am hungry again, which is to be expected with the heavy emphasis on starches.  No worries, I will figure it out.   I figured it was best to eat very very little rather than gorge myself and be sick instantly.  Sigh… Anyway, I told my family that I like fruit and vegetables and rice.

 

My host family passed around a bucket of water, soap, and a cloth to wash their hands with before dinner.  

 

 

 

My host mom already told me I can help with the cooking in a few weeks (this is good because I will have to learn how to survive).   I also helped to stir “pâte” (not the same as French pâté – it’s basically boiling water and flour formed into a firm mold, then you eat with your fingers and dip into sauces, although my host sister is also learning and started crying when they took the spoon away from her to show me.

 

Oh, and my host sisters made me pray (in French) over the meal.  When they found out I was Catholic they proceeded to say Bravo and shook my hand.

 

Also, I ate with my host sisters, but the adults were outside.  I’m not sure if they were eating something different from me (I know they made pate but we didn’t have it) or if they weren’t eating.   We ate with plates and forks.

 

I still don’t know our language levels but I am sure we find out tomorrow.  Tomorrow our host families will escort us to the training center, then return for us at lunchtime.   They will walk us back in the afternoon.  In the evening, we will receive our bikes and we will bike back by ourselves.

 

Our filters and kerosene lamps are here, my host mom told me I could filter water tomorrow.

 

My host family is really into teaching me how to communicate.  I talk to them in French although I can’t always understand everything they say.   I’ve already filled up two notebook pages with Ewe (the principle local language) with phrases they’re teaching me.  When I went grocery shopping with my host sister, we would stop to say hello to various neighbors and I tried out the Ewe, which always provoked many laughs and smiles.   

 

That’s all for now.  It’s almost 9pm, and I’m going to get stuff out for tomorrow and then go to bed.  

 

Right now I’m happy I have my laptop, because all this would have taken a little while to write by hand.   I enjoyed ’showering’ at night tonight (my host family insisted on heating water to mix with the cold tap water), surrounded by four tall walls while the dark night sky overhead.  Obviously the latrine is going to take some getting used to, but it’s a reality that I will probably have one for the next two years so I am putting my best foot forward, as it were.   My host family is very friendly.  I will share more later.  Right now there are Grandmama and Grandpapa, a lady and husband who I am not sure how they are related, an uncle, a little girl whose mother moved her to this village after a bad experience at school, a seven year old granddaughter, another sixteen year old granddaughter who is visiting during the school vacances, and an eighteen year old girl (whose brother also showed up later).   Again, I have no idea who actually lives here or who is really related (“sister” can mean from your village as well), but these concepts are really different in Togo.   Anyway, they had a host son two years ago, so I’m assuming they are used to American eccentricities.  It’s odd being away from the other volunteers but I will see them tomorrow.     I didn’t realize how “American-ized” our hostel in Lomé was until I arrived here, but it was nice that they eased us into a transition period.  I’m not sure we would have appreciated all the new sights dealing with the emotions of jet lag and a long flight.   I’m excited for classes tomorrow, and to keep learning Ewe, as I think that may be one of the keys to making friends later when I move to a new community.   I’m nervous about these new habits (peeing in the shower?) and about finding food to eat but since there are a bunch of people sleeping outside right now, it doesn’t seem to have killed anyone yet.    I also felt, walking around with my host sister, that I was actually in an African village, which is an exciting sentiment.  So we will see what happens next, and “keep one’s eye on the prize”, as the saying goes.    Half of me is pretty nervous and the other half is pretty curious.