Tuesday, August 25, 2009

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!