New Year’s Report Part 4: Miscellaneous

First, thanks to everyone who sent us boxes to help us celebrate the holidays! We really appreciate the things (read: food!) from home. Awooyo and Elliott von Tusky were very happy with their treats as well, so thanks again!

Second, we finally figured out where Mr. Tusky goes when he jumps over our compound wall every night. Turns out that there’s a little brown and white female cat that lives kind of around the corner from us, and lots of people in the neighborhood have seen the two of them running around together at night. So, he’s got a little girlfriend, who we’ve dubbed Cinnamon, who also, according to her owner, happens to be pregnant. Maybe we should get a gris gris collar made for her and all her babies, too? Seems to be working pretty good so far!

Presidential elections are coming up here in Togo on February 28, and a lot of people are getting things ready around village by setting up voting places. As our cluster’s “contact volunteer,” (volunteer who serves as the organizer and meeting place in the event of some kind of crisis), Joe will be heading off to a Peace Corps conference at the beginning of February to hear more about the election and what kind of local response the administration is expecting. I imagine it will get more interesting as things get closer, so we’ll try to post an update before the big day arrives.

Here are a couple of last pictures, one of Tusky peeking over our back wall in search of his girlfriend, and the other of Awooyo, chilling in her favorite spot under my chair.

Happy 2010 to everyone! Oh, and 2010, is it? We come home this year!!!

New Year’s Report Part 3: Work!

Well, to turn to the serious side of things, we currently have three big projects going. Number one, the health clinic project that I started writing the proposal for this past March. After three rewrites of the budget, giving an extension to the groupement to raise their local contribution money, reducing the amount of the local contribution, kicking out a management committee treasurer who didn’t have time to help with the project then appointing a new one, and a fight with the groupement president about honesty, money, and beds (a long story, but suffice to say that the beds will be real mattresses, not old rice sacks stuffed with straw), I finally made the trip to Lomé to meet up with the infermier to order medical equipment, medicine, and a examination/birthing table on December 23. I was pretty impressed with the infermier and his confidence choosing and ordering what he deemed would be necessary for the clinic, so hopefully that’s a sign of good things to come with him. We’re ordering a few more types of medicine and a few other small things, but I think that immediately after the New Year, we’ll be able to open for business. I can’t believe that it’s taken almost a year to get this project done, but we’re finally almost there.

Number two, is the new Peace Corps partnership that Joe is doing to expand a chicken farm and provide training for local farmers who want to learn how to do poultry breeding. As we wait for the last few hundred dollars to accumulate for the project on the Peace Corps web site, Joe has been working with the owner of the farm on marketing and selling his turkeys commercially. He got a few orders for turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas from Peace Corps and American Embassy employees in Lomé, but the most exciting thing that’s happened recently is that the he’s had meetings with a couple of large grocery store chains in Lomé for really big turkey orders. For that, he has to get a tax ID number and become a “real” business instead of just a local farm, so he’s looking into that process. He also just had a talk with his first potential paid employee who wants to come work on the expanded farm once the project is fully funded. Ultimately, things are looking promising there, too.

The last big project is the community garden, which we’ve had a lot of problems with the in the last few months. First, the owner of the land we’re renting for the garden apparently neglected to tell his brothers who are partial owners that he was renting the land to us. Hence, he was apparently just pocketing that rent money and not dividing it between all the brothers. Second, the people who are renting the adjacent land and were using the garden part rent-free before we got there, are angry that we “took” the land from them (although they were perfectly happy to buy our lettuce when our neighbor was selling it). Needless to say, this has been frustrating, but the real kicker is that our neighbor’s nephew who was doing most of the weeding and watering went back to school and took his labor with him. Hence, a lot of vegetables died recently. Our neighbor is convinced that the previous users of the land cast some bad gris gris (aka voodoo) on the garden, despite our efforts to convince him that simple watering would have prevented the problem. Either way, our contract for the land is up at the end of the year, and with all the problems we’ve been having, the best thing seems to be to pick up and move the garden to a more hospitable location. The neighbor recently bought some land of his own, and he’s expressed interest in starting a new garden over there, so we’ll see how that goes.

So, that’s all for big things. For little things, Joe recently did a small training project with a farmer on how to grow better corn, which turned out pretty well. On World AIDS Day in December, I went to another volunteer’s village to help her organize a race and some health-themed games for her middle school students. The day was kind of taken over by the local NGO, but it was well done and it was good to see how many right answers the kids gave to the questions about AIDS. Also, I’ve started working with a traditional healer to investigate the possibility of putting the next health volunteer (my replacement) in his village rather than in Tabligbo (Peace Corps would still send a business volunteer to replace Joe here). So far, we’ve had meetings with the chief, village development committee, and a local NGO to talk about their needs; we also found a potential house for the new volunteer. We sent the request off to the Director of the health program, who says they’ll likely make a decision in January or February. Since they haven’t had a volunteer in that village for many years, it’s been kind of fun talking to them over there and having some excitement about the possibility of a local Peace Corps volunteer. While people are always excited to see a yovo, it’s another thing to be excited about working with a yovo, which we’ve had a little difficulty with here.

Like last year about this time, things have been a little slower than usual with the holidays, so I think that’s all to report about work for now. In the absence of interesting work pictures this time around, here are a couple of Joey and me enjoying the things our wonderful friends and family sent us for Christmas. Thank you!

New Year’s Report Part 2.3: Fêtes Continued!

Here are a couple more pictures from our Christmas fête. Even in Africa, kids can’t resist the temptation to play in a cardboard box! You might recognize the animals in the second picture; despite popular belief, these are likely the only tiger and elephant in Togo. ;-)

New Year’s Report Part 2.2: Fêtes Continued!

As Christmas approached for 2009, the bar across the street from us celebrated by pointing a speaker out into the street (I think they pointed it right at our house on purpose) and blaring music from about 6:00am till about midnight for several days in a row. That’s really not at all an unusual way to celebrate, so we were kind of expecting that. What we weren’t expecting was the soundtrack: a standard repertoire of the usual African music, but as background to the music….every few minutes….to celebrate the Christmas season….you could distinctly make out the sound of….a howling wolfman. Wolfman is always a good way to ring in the holidays, don’t you think?

On Christmas morning this year, we celebrated with our neighbors across the street. A lot of volunteers were getting together to celebrate Christmas with a yovo party, but as we did that last year, and are kind of yovo partied out besides, we decided to fête village-style this year. And we’re glad we did! My Christmas present to Lydia and her two daughters was to have matching complets made for all of us, with fabric that Lydia chose herself. Her husband, Dominique, reciprocated with matching complets for himself, Joe, and the two boys. So, here were all are in our fancy Christmas attire! I’m only sorry (wait, who am I kidding?) that you all didn’t get to see us doing the famous dance locale, otherwise known as the infamous CHICKEN DANCE. And yes, you really do look like a chicken when you do it, in case you were wondering…

New Year’s Report Part 2: Fêtes!

After our Catholic church experience, we went to celebrate baby Natalie’s baptism with Amelie and her family. We ate fufu with peanut sauce and fish, Togo pancakes (made of beans and soy) with oil and peppers, popcorn, and red wine: quite the mélange for the stomach, although I think our stomachs are biens habitués after all this time! Here are two pictures from that fête, one of Joe trying his hand pounding fufu and the other of our little friend Stella enjoying a glass of watered-down red wine. It’s a novelty for the yovo to try pounding fufu, but the experts took it away from him after less than a minute, of course. Stella had a fancy new tresse hairdo (what back in the States would be called a weave) to make her look way older than her three years, hence, I suppose, the celebratory glass of wine to make her feel even more a part of the adult crowd.

New Year's Report Part 1: Church!

So, we recently had our second experience at the churches of two families in our village. The first was at the Baptist church attended by our neighbors across the street, which we attended at their request; it seems an important preacher, who had studied in America, was “guest preaching” that day. The place was full, there was a special segment for the kids to get up and sing, and we got a taste of fire and brimstone Togo-style. I think you could kind of tell the guy learned his technique in the States – his animation (excitement? fervor?) really reminded me of those guys you see on TV who really have the “spirit,” and it was kind of fun to see something that was reminiscent of that - in French. The downside, of course, was that the service was three and a half hours long! Yikes. Here’s a picture I took of the congregation that day; see if you can find Joe amid the sea of faces!

The second church experience took us back to our friend Amelie’s Catholic church for her baby’s baptism. About 30 women had their babies baptized that day, and they went up to receive multiple blessings (a candle once, holy water another time, and something else after that we couldn’t see) in a nice orderly line (I guess church is the one place where line order matters, ‘cause it certainly doesn’t matter at places like the bank!). The priest at that church is an old Italian guy, who has clearly been in Togo an unfathomable amount of time, as his Ewé is damn near perfect, so perfect, in fact, that when we approached him after the service to take a picture with our newly baptized friend Natalie, he said to us inquiringly: “Yovo?” I had to ask: “Did we just get yovo-ed by a yovo?” I guess he really has been in Togo too long. I think the most disconcerting and ironic part of the experience was that two Americans met an Italian. In Africa. And they spoke French to each other. Yup. Internationality is interesting, isn’t it? Anyway, nice priest, nice service (only two and a half hours this time), and a little calmer than the fire and brimstone we got with the Baptists.

I rather appreciated this second, more peaceful version of worship, but Joe says he couldn’t sit still and much preferred the vibrancy and liveliness of the Baptist preacher. Two unique experiences, either way! Also, here’s a picture of us with Amelie and her family with the Italian priest after the service.

A Little Bit of Everything

So life continues here in Togo, although the countdown to COS (close of service) has begun for our group that arrived in June 2008. The group that came in right before us is COS-ing over the next month, which will make us, as we say here, the plus âgé, and therefore the next to leave. With only about eight or nine months to go, we’ve started thinking about what we’d like to do with the remainder of our service.

First on the list is to finish up current projects, including the health clinic, which was fully funded last month. Although we received the Peace Corps contribution about a month ago, the groupement has had some financial trouble lately, and while the reasons for that are sketchy and convoluted at best, the president has assured me that the furniture is currently being made. To ensure that they provide the total amount for their local contribution, I’ve decided to wait until the furniture is installed before I start ordering the other supplies. I’m still hopeful that all the equipment and materials will be in place by the end of the year.

Secondly, the community garden. The leader of that project, our neighbor across the street, is keeping good records and has an order from a local marché mama for nine beds of lettuce for the Christmas season. We’ve asked him to start thinking about more long term goals for the garden, such as continuing to rent the land and the possibility of installing a well on the property.

Of our two sort of ongoing projects with the CVD, the first, the project to build latrines at six of the primary schools in Tabligbo, has reached an impasse because the technician who is writing up the project plan has asked to be paid for his work and the CVD has asked him to make the work on the plan part of the community contribution. With no solution to this problem in sight, we’ve considered trying to mediate a resolution, but are reluctant to take sides in the matter. The second project involves the supervision of the ordering and installation of new equipment at the local hospital, a project which was funded by a local NGO. As an advisor on the management committee for that project, I (and the other members of the committee) have been waiting for the NGO to send the check, which we’ve been assured is on the way. The hospital recently got a new head doctor, who the entire committee had a meeting with a couple of weeks ago to talk about our roles for the project. The new doctor has insisted that the alleged corruption of the previous administration is finished and that he’s excited to work with the committee and ensure transparency on all financial matters. Everybody seems to like him, so this could be the thing to hospital needs to turn itself around.

For the main projects, that’s pretty much all right now. Over the next few months, we have two other new projects that we’d like to get going. The first is to start a cultural exchange club at the high school, which would ideally involve me hooking up with the French teacher at our old high school and seeing if she has any students who would be interested in corresponding in French with some African high schoolers who want to learn about American culture. Currently, this project is just an idea, but I had a couple of high school kids visit last week, and their excitement at reading some old Time magazines that I showed them made me think the idea could be fun. Next time they come over, I’ll pitch it to them and see what they think, and in the meantime shoot an email off to the French teacher (could it be the same French teacher that was there when we graduated 13 years ago??) at old RHS to see what she thinks.

The other project is one Joe just started to expand the chicken and turkey farm that he’s been working with over the last several months. We thought we’d try one last funded project, and as the family that runs the farm has been doing really well with keeping up on their accounting lately, Joe thought he’d like to give a boost to their operation. The project will ultimately build bigger cages for the chickens, expand the walls of the farm, and build a well on the property (the family currently has to walk to a neighborhood pump to get their water). Also, the farm will be opening its doors to other local éleveurs who want to learn about the practice of chicken and turkey breeding, and will ultimately provide training and advice for how to start their own small élevage project. He just got a Peace Corps Partnership approved and posted on the Peace Corps web site, so if you’d like to help out with a small contribution, you can visit the www.peacecorps.gov, click “donate,” and do a search on Togo for volunteer projects.

Our last PCPP was funded so quickly by donors who were former Peace Corps volunteers (thank you all so much for your help! We hope you got the letter and pictures we sent you) that our family and friends didn’t really get a chance to contribute or even know about the request for contributions for the health clinic project before it was taken down off the Peace Corps web site, so hopefully you can all help out with this other project.

So, that’s enough about work! In recent non-work news, our cherished cat , Elliott von Tusky, lost his fancy gris gris collar a week or so ago, and came back the next morning after going out for the first time without it looking like he got into a fight either with a dog or a really pissed off chicken. He’s healing up fine now, and our friend made him a new collar, so he’s once again bien protégé against all forms of mishap, we hope. The coincidence makes you think that maybe gris gris works over here, you know?

In other non-work related news, we’re looking forward to celebrating Christmas in village this year. Last year’s volunteer party up north was fun, but we’ve decided to hang out in village this year and fête with our neighbors. After being served that plate of goat face last July (I seriously maintain that my plate was smiling at me), I’m a little leery about buying a goat to roast for the party, so maybe we’ll just stick with some chickens from our friend’s farm.

Sorry it’s been so long since we last wrote. We hope you’re all still keeping up with us and enjoying our little anecdotes. In deference to the gris gris that is currently protecting our cat, here’s a photo of the local fetish market on marché day. The other photo is the health clinic management committee that was elected along with a few members of the groupement outside the newly painted building. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and we’ll write again soon!

Photos from the Beach Bar in Lome

Sadly, we've been informed that the beach bar that is frequented by volunteers is to be no more. The government has decided that the "beach shacks," as they're known, are no longer appropriate, economical, or an attractive addition to the waterfront, and that they will very shortly be demolished, forcing the bars to move back to regular buildings on the other side of the beach road.

So, for nostalgic purposes, here are some photos taken at the beach bar: one of me, one of Joe, one of our friend Matt, and one of a bunch of kids playing soccer on the beach. Bub-bye-lo, beach bar!

Another Month Rolls By...

So the funding for the health clinic is all set, and it barely took a month. Thanks to everybody who donated to our project! My contact in DC tells me that the money is on its way and that we should be able to pick it up at the bank within the next couple of weeks. The groupement has started painting the building already, and we've established an 11-person management committee (with representatives from all the villages that will benefit from the clinic) to work with the nurse and midwife and monitor the finances of the clinic. Once we get the money from Lome, we can start ordering supplies, many of which the nurse tells me will only take a few days to arrive. I'll be posting some pictures of the clinic once everything is installed.

Joe's community garden project has expanded with the creation of several new beds, and lettuce is selling like crazy. Our neighbor says the carrots should be ready in a week or two, so we'll try our hand at selling that, too. We've been discussing the possibility of digging a well on the garden property to make watering easier, but we're just in the talking stage for that so far.

What other news? We've gotten over (well, mostly) what volunteers call the "mid-service crisis," which hits between the year in Togo and the year in village marks (anywhere between June and August) and often involves intense periods of frustration, anger, depression, or all three. Our crises were exacerbated by several of our good friends from our stage ET-ing (early terminating), getting med-sepped (medically separated back to the States), or getting ad-sepped (administratively separated, for doing something against the ol' PC rules), which has been harder to deal with than I would have expected. I didn't really expect to make such good friends, I guess, and we've taken their departures as best we can.

On a brighter note, we're looking forward to the holiday season and are debating whether we should spend Christmas in village or on a petite vacation in Ghana with one of our good friends who's still here. Will post more updates soon, so in the meantime, enjoy a couple of random "Around Lome" pictures!

Last Two Pics for Today

Here’s a picture of our friend Amelie and her new baby the morning after she gave birth at the hospital here in Tabligbo. Tiny little Natalie showed up five days before my brother’s baby, Layla, was born back home. I showed a picture of Layla to Amelie, and she was pretty happy to hear that the two new babies have the same middle name: Marie. Natalie’s big sister, my little friend Stella, is happy to have a little sister to take care of, and Amelie is doing well.

The other picture needs some explanation! Obviously, it’s a shot of our cat, Elliott von Tusky, but take a close look at the fancy necklace he’s sporting. Joe and I paid our friend I’m working on the health clinic with who does gris gris (that’s voodoo) to, as we say here in Franglais, faire some gris gris to proteger our cat, who has recently taken to jumping over the compound wall after dark and sneaking around doing whatever cats do at night. In order to protect him against getting stolen and eaten during his nightly promenades, we asked our buddy to make a charm to let people around the neighborhood know that Mr. von Tusky is protected by gris gris. After a ceremony that involved sacrificing a rooster, sprinkling some sodabe around, exploding some magical powder, and asking the god in charge for help, our friend made us two charms to help protect our cat from potential thieves. The first, he buried in a corner of our compound with instructions to sprinkle the occasional shot of sodabe over the spot, and the second, he made into a necklace (complete with chicken bone adornment) for our cat to wear to warn anyone who’s thinking about snatching him that he’s protected by gris gris and that if they are foolish enough to try it, something bad will happen to them (i.e. they will die a slow and painful death). After seeing several goats and sheep around the village sporting similar neckwear and asking about it, we learned that this is a common practice people use to protect their animals that wander freely around the village from would-be thieves. So, we thought, if it works for others, why not us? Indeed, why not?

More Garden Pics

Here’s a picture of me with our neighbor across the street and all the neighborhood kids who help us water the community garden every evening (and by help, what I really mean is run around and mostly get in the way, but they like to see what we’re up to!). The other picture is of me and our neighbor across the street’s youngest kid, Emmanuel. He’s used to seeing Joe and I, unlike another baby that hangs out across the street who cries every time he sees me. White people are scary, you know!

A couple more pictures coming, so scroll up yet again…

A Petite Update

This past week, Joey and I hit our one-year anniversary at our post (12 months in Tabligbo, 15 and a half months in Togo!). That means, for those of you who keep asking, that if we come home sometime between June and August of next summer, we only have somewhere between nine and eleven months left here in Togo. Our COS (close of service) conference will be held in May, I think, and PC will assign COS dates to all the volunteers in our group then. We’ll be sure to let you know what our date will be when it gets assigned.

So, in our less than a year left, we’re going to keep working on two projects that have become our pet projects in the last few months: the community garden and the health clinic. We have some other secondary projects still going (like the latrine project and clean-up projects with the CVD, working with peer educators, and working with the chicken and turkey farm), but these two projects have become our focus, at least for now.

The community garden project is going pretty well, so here are some pictures of that. One is of Joey and two of our neighbors planting carrots, and the other is of Joey and our neighbor making their first harvest and sale of lettuce to a local marché lady. Other vegetables that are currently growing are zucchini and a local green leafy thing called gboma. We also have a few scraggly beets and a few peppers. We should probably get another harvest in before the next dry season, and the neighbors are talking about the possibility of using some of the money from selling to build a well next to the garden to make watering easier.

The health clinic is still under construction, although we’re almost ready to paint. The walls, windows, and doors are up, and the masons have installed a concrete ramp leading up to the door (for those who can’t manage stairs, they tell me). Last week, we had a meeting with a couple of the quartier chiefs and representatives from all the quartiers that will benefit from the clinic. About 25 people attended the meeting, and they voted in an 11-member group of people to serve as a committee to manage and oversee the income and purchases of the clinic. The group who donated the building and is organizing the project has met with the nurse and birthing attendant (a husband and wife team) who will be coming to run the clinic, and we’re all now waiting for our project web site to earn the rest of the money we need to order the furniture, equipment, and supplies. We’ve already raised more than half of the money we need, so things are looking pretty good. Thank you so much for your donations and for helping to fund our project! Once the clinic starts to look like a clinic, I’ll be sure to post some pictures.

I’m going to post some other pictures after I post this update, so scroll up!

Health Clinic Project Online!

The project we're doing to fund the health clinic is now on the Peace Corps web site where volunteers projects are listed for friends and family to donate if they want to. The direct link is:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=693-337

If that doesn't work for you, you can go to www.peacecorps.gov and click "donate," then search on our last name, by the project number, which is 693-337, or just type in Togo and look for the health clinic project with our last name attached (there are only a few Togo projects, so you won't have to look too hard).

You can read a description of the project on the web site, and if you have any questions, please let us know. Thanks to any and all who can help with the funding of this project!

Oh, and the two photos posted here are a couple of gris gris (voodoo) displays in our village that we thought you might find interesting.

More Clean-Up Project Pics

Here's a shot of us in action and another of the whole group of volunteers who helped with the clean-up project around the hospital and on the road to the prefet's house. All the machete-users were men (except me, of course!), and the women showed up with their palm branches to sweep all the cuttings off the road.

Another Rainy Season....

Well, we’ve passed the one-year mark here in Togo. After writing our first several blogs as, in essence, a work report, I thought I’d start this one with some reflections about our service here. First of all, we’ve learned that it’s not true that you don’t do any “real” work your first year in Peace Corps, because just living here and adjusting to the people and the environment is itself work. We’ve learned that while the phrase “development work” sounds pretty great on paper and even in theory, it’s a lot harder to explain it to the people you’re trying to work with than you might think. Even after more than a year in Togo, we still regularly get people asking us for money for things ranging from huge construction projects to eyeglasses to a lunch of rice and beans. Development work as a concept sounds good to us, but it’s a little too abstract for people who don’t have a latrine at their school or whose kids are given chicken heads to eat.

Although we’re here to teach health and business practices and are trying to convey that, they’re looking for resources and money, and after fifty years of having those things handed to them, it’s no wonder that they’re having a hard time getting up the motivation and confidence to try to organize those things themselves. With so many people like missionaries and development workers handing out resources, it seems like it’s partially our own fault that people can’t seem to take the initiative and do things without those outside people doing it for them; that practice has ultimately succeeded in instilling an attitude of learned helplessness and lethargy that have been difficult for us to try to diminish. Coming from a background that focuses so strongly on work ethic and self reliance, it’s frustrating to be faced with such a lack of self confidence and all-encompassing feelings of futility and impotence. After thinking about things like this, the inevitable question becomes “what exactly are we doing here?” We’ve established that we’re working (if the concept is loosely defined), but what are the effects of that work?

We’re certainly learning about another culture and giving that culture a chance to see what Americans are like, two outcomes that essentially qualify as official Peace Corps goals number two and three. As far as that elusive concept of development goes, though…well, I guess it depends on the specific project. If we’re not sure where we rate on that last, I guess two out of three isn’t so bad.

So far, we’ve done some teaching projects on health-related issues and accounting practices. If those things add to the educational experience of those involved and potentially increase their knowledge, I guess those are good things, and even better if those people go out and share that information with others (which I’m in the process of doing with those peer educators).

We’ve created a catalog of products for an association that makes and stamps fabric, although in retrospect I’m wondering if it will ultimately help them in the long run. We did get them to send one of the catalogs to an artisan center several hours west of here and are trying to get them to do some sales calls in Lomé, and if those things work, maybe that will become a sustainable form of income for them. That association is still trying to finish an artisan center that they started building with the volunteer before us, and the money going into that project has been hard to track, making us leery about donating any of our time to that project. Again, the potential is there for creating a sustainable income, if they could just clean up their books and make the project more transparent.

Two chicken farms are working on expanding their business, and it remains to be seen whether we’ve helped solidify good bookkeeping and accounting practices with those groups. We facilitated a loan from the local microfinance to help the expansion process for one and have worked on advertising and facilitated the purchase of an egg incubator for the other, but only time will tell if increased output or efficiency is a feasible end product.

The latrine project with our local village development committee and the creation of the health clinic, both of which are making minimal progress with regard to getting the paperwork together and trying to secure materials and funding both fall under the category of infrastructure, and if we could get those two things going sometime before we leave next summer to give us a chance to evaluate the impact, that would be ideal, but I’m not sure if we’re going to have enough time to really assess those projects. In theory, both seem like they would benefit the community, but it remains to be seen whether the management of those resources will be good.

One of our most recent projects, the community garden, is one where we’re also waiting to see how the management of the harvest goes. We’ve helped with the preparation of the soil, installation of a fence, and the planting of seeds (which are growing, yay!), but once harvest time comes, we kind of want our Togolese neighbors to take the lead on the selling of the produce to see how that goes.

The latest project that we’ve started with the CVD is one that I’m particularly happy about, probably because it involves no search for funds (how refreshing) and volunteers donating their time. The CVD is calling this a “self-help” project, essentially because the population itself is helping clean up various areas around the village. A couple of weeks ago, Joe and I took machetes in hand (which was cause for much amusement, you can be sure!) and helped about 30 Togolese volunteers clear the brush around the hospital and down the road to the prefet’s house to help minimize the mosquito and rat problem. We’re supposed to schedule some other clean-up spots around the village in the coming weeks, and we hope that this will help instill feelings of accomplishment and ownership of this project in the participants. Ultimately, we’d like to be able to say, “see, you don’t need money to take small steps to improve your community!,” which always seems to be the reason why it’s difficult start or finish a project.

Along with the blog, I’ve posted some pictures of our first clean-up project with the CVD. With these pictures, I feel like it’s possible to end on a positive note, because it demonstrates that there are people who are willing to donate their time and effort to projects without immediately asking where the money is going to come from first. The local volunteers in these pictures are inspiring, if only in a small way, and I’m hoping that the spectacle we made of ourselves (we drew lots of curious onlookers, especially with Joe and I taking our turns with those machetes) will stick in people’s minds as an illustration of ways locals can contribute to their own development.

On another happy note, Joe had his mid-service health exam recently, and you’ll be pleased to hear that he’s put on four pounds. Must be all those cookies you guys are sending from home. Keep ‘em coming! ;-)

A Couple More Pictures

Here's one last picture to illustrate the joys of the hot season. This was at about 11:00 in the morning at our house; the best part is that after registering 120 degrees outside, we went inside the house where it was a refreshing 25 degrees cooler: 96!

The other picture is of the masons who are working to make a new door and put up walls at the health clinic that we're starting to get going. The building was a former chicken house that the groupement donated for the clinic. Now it's chicken-free and waiting for walls and materials. More on that soon!

Some Work Pictures

Joe and I recently started working on a community garden for the people in our neighborhood, but before the fun part of planting and watching stuff grow (yes, actually, that would be fun!), it was necessary to clear the field and prepare the soil. So, here's a picture of Joe helping clear the field, and the results of that work.

More Wildlife for Scott...

Bug Pictures for Scott

A Couple More "Work" Pictures

Here's a picture of Joe working "dans le champ" (out in the field). He spent all day hoeing and planting corn, and was sore for three days after.

The other picture is me giving out prizes to my peer educators for their good test scores, with help from a fellow volunteer who was visiting us that day.

If there are other pictures of specific things you'd like to see, send us an email and let us know what you'd like to see. And Scott, do you really want pictures of animals? 'Cause all we've got are goats, sheep, and chickens - nothing more exotic in our area, sorry! ;o)

Approaching One Year...

Almost a year in Togo. In less than a month, on June 7, to be precise, Joey and I and most of the other volunteers we arrived with will be celebrating our one-year anniversary in Togo. Before I give the usual recap of what we’ve been up to since the last blog post, I’ve decided to include a top-ten list that was inspired by a similar list we found in an old 1980s edition of the PC Togo newsletter. We call this the “You Know You’ve Been in Togo Too Long If…” So, here goes. You know you’ve been in Togo too long:

1. If you’re not turned OFF by girls’ armpit hair, but you’re not turned ON by naked breasts.
2. If you believe having a sink is a sign of affluence.
3. If the highlight of your week is receiving a month-old newspaper from the States in the mail.
4. If hearing “même mère, même père” [same mom, same dad] to explain filial relations is necessary to achieve familial comprehension.
5. If YOU find yourself saying “même mère, même père” to describe you and your siblings back home.
6. If you show up for your 4:00 meeting at 4:55 and congratulate yourself for being five minutes early.
7. When you start referring to your hometown as your village without thinking about it.
8. When you wash your hands after eating but not before.
9. If you seriously consider schemes to domesticate the cockroaches in your kitchen and ask around to see who has a copy of Joe’s Apartment so you can see how that guy did it.
10. If you’re craving something besides pâte [pounded corn] for dinner, and you think to yourself: “You know what would be really good right now is some kɔm [FERMENTED pounded corn]!”

So, on to what’s new. Project-wise, things are still moving along (albeit, at a snail’s pace) for the plan to build latrines at six of the primary schools in our village. We’ve gotten a schematic drawn up by a technician and have selected the six schools for the first phase of the project (we’re hoping the next volunteer will take on the next two phases after we’re gone), and we’ve also sent a request to the local cement company asking them to donate some cement for the construction. The village development committee wants to submit a proposal to the U.S. Embassy to get the funds to pay for the rest of the materials, and we’re helping them with that.

To reward my four best peer educator students for their good test scores, I nominated two girls and two boys to go to a Peace Corps-organized week-long camp for students this June, and they’ve all been accepted. I hope they have fun and learn a lot! I also sent eleven of them out into the community recently to do family planning surveys to find out what the local community knows about family planning methods and whether they use contraceptives. The kids surveyed ten women and ten men each, and I got some pretty interesting responses. There seems to be a lot more variety with regard to types of contraceptives used in our village than I thought, and a lot more women are familiar with the timing of menstrual cycles than I thought, so that was interesting. One of my counterparts works for the local Red Cross, and he’s interested in doing some home visits on family planning this summer, so the surveys were a good way for us to find out what people already know and what they’re interested in knowing about.

Joe is still doing accounting with the chicken farm, the chicken/turkey farm, and the group who makes the tote bags, and he’s also started doing some accounting with a small printing and copying place near our house. They’ve been really interested in working with him, and seem to be one of the only groups that really understand in detail what he means. For the chicken/turkey farm, he’s also been working on some advertising ideas. For Schalom, Joe has signed up a local resident to go to some local businesses in the capital with the catalog I made and try to sell some of their products to boutiques there. Oh, and speaking of that catalog, I finished it and mailed them out to Rick a couple of months ago, so many of you should already have seen what I worked on for the first few months of our stay here. What do you think?

The last project that’s currently in the works is this health clinic that I’m attempting to use a Peace Corps Partnership Proposal to fund. I submitted the project in March, but there were some problems with the budget, and I’m currently rearranging that to accommodate Washington’s demands to make the project feasible. Once it’s resubmitted with the changes, the project should be listed pretty quickly on the “donate” section of the Peace Corps web site. I’ll be sure to let you know when it shows up there. It’s my hope that the clinic will be fixed and stocked by this fall. Not sure if that’s a reasonable timeline or not, but we’ll see.
Other things we have in the works for this summer are a clean-up project using local apprentices and the village development committee, a community garden in our neighborhood (thanks for the seeds, Aunt Pat!), a nutrition class to take around to local schools, and a training class to teach mothers how to make soy milk and sell it as one of those ever-popular “income generating activities.”

In non-work-related news, we made a recent trip to the Mono River, which serves as the border between Togo and Benin, a couple of pictures of which you see here. We looked for the hippos we were promised, but never saw any; they’re apparently a lot rarer than we were told originally, unfortunately! We survived our first hot season and are coming up to the rainy season once again, so we’ll be changing back to mud from all the dust we’ve gotten used to in recent months. With only two “seasons” (wet and rainy or hot and dry), it’s hard to notice the passing of time, but the weeks are slipping by us. We’ve been having dinner with our neighbors across the street quite a lot recently, and they’ve become pretty good friends of ours. My plan while I’m here in Lomé is to buy some good chicken and make them some fried chicken and French fries. Not sure how well that will go over, but they’re excited about trying a meal cooked American-style!

Togo recently celebrated the 48th anniversary of its independence, so we went to the celebration for that on April 27, and we went to another party for the Fête du Travail on May 1 (Togo’s version of Labor Day). We celebrated with our neighbors across the street and another couple they know for the April 27 fête; the wife is from Cotê d’Ivoire, so spoke both English and French, as well as local language. It’s kind of surprising how many people you meet around village who speak English! We’ll be sorry to miss the big celebration that’s being planned for Togo’s 50th anniversary in 2011. That should be fun for the next group of volunteers.

So, we’re looking forward to celebrating the one-year mark in a few weeks. Other volunteers say it will all be downhill from there… (we’ll get back to you on the veracity of that claim) ;o). Till next time!

A Couple More Pictures

Here's a picture of me and my friend Stella - she's two, and the daughter of a good friend of ours who is a seamstress in our village. The other picture is us after we went to the seamstress party that I posted a couple of pictures of awhile ago. Thought you'd appreciate the Togo-style clothes. My outfit was actually made by Schalom, the group that makes the tote bags we sent home and who I made the catalog for (recently sent that home to Rick to show you all!).

I'm in the process of writing another blog entry to let you know what we've been up to lately, but in the meantime, hope these pictures will suffice to let you know that we're still alive and well. Stay tuned!

Work Pictures

Here's a picture of Joe working with the groupement who runs the chicken farm. They're at the local microfinance organization in the picture and are signing the paperwork for the loan that Joe helped them secure to order more baby chickens.

The other picture is me with my group of peer educators, right after they finished doing their skits to demonstrate something that they learned in our health class. They touched on the subjects of HIV/AIDS, stigmatization and discrimination, abstinence, and the proper use of condoms - they were all really well done, and I was proud of them!

Pet Pictures

Here are a couple of pretty good pictures of our dog, Awooyo, and the cat, Elliott. More pictures coming in a few...