Joe and Bree: Life in Togo as a PCV

Last Togo Post!

2010-07-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

As we sit here in the Peace Corps office here in Lome with only a couple of hours before we head off to the airport for home, we thought we'd post one last blog to share our final thoughts on our service, leaving, and life in general. BUT.....

Then we decided that we'd rather tell you all about it in person instead. So, enjoy a couple of last pictures of us in Togo. What we have here are Joe and our groupement president (the grand charlatan who made our cat's voodoo collar) doing the local dance (yup, Joe dances); the waterfalls in Badou that Joe visited with our clustermate, Sierra; a goodbye fete with some guys we worked with in a nearby village (we gave them a couple bottles of liquor, and they gave us the lovely outfits you see here); our last goodbye to our dog, Awooyo (who will be inherited by the volunteer who's replacing us); and us with Sierra at our last goodbye lunch that took place in Lome just a few hours ago.

The next time you see us will be back home! Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Two Last Pictures for Today

2010-05-26T02:52:00.000-07:00

Here, for a comparative study, is a picture of our entire stage right before leaving for Togo during our training in Philadelphia. Don't we look clean and slightly clueless? The other is the ones who remained at our Close of Service conference we had at the beginning of May. Do we look the same to you?

Water Tower Pics Part 2

2010-05-26T02:45:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures from on top of the tower. Here are Joe and Matt, me and Sierra, and then me, Joe, and Matt together.

Water Tower Adventure Part 1

2010-05-26T02:37:00.000-07:00

Here are the first three pictures of our climbing excursion. First is our view of Joe and company from the ground; second, Joe's view of us from above; and third, a view of Tabligbo.

Two Months To Go, And Counting!

2010-05-26T02:27:00.000-07:00

So, we’re down to our last two months here in Togo! First, a report on final projects…

Our health clinic has been running since about mid-February now. Our first baby was delivered in March (it was a girl!)and another was delivered just a couple of weeks ago. Last month, we accepted applications and chose four recent high school graduates from the surrounding villages to do apprenticeships to learn how to be health agents by working at the clinic for two years. Also, we recently ordered and restocked a huge shipment of medicine from Lomé to replenish what we’ve used since we’ve opened, so the clinic is getting steady clients and is making enough money to cover costs so far. It’s been gratifying to see the villagers coming in to receive services they didn’t have access to before, but it’s been even better to watch the COGES (management committee) take their job seriously and work responsibly with the staff there to manage the project without me. I can only hope they’ll continue to do so after we leave. Thanks to everyone who helped get this project up and running!

The chicken farm project is also complete. The buildings are finished, and windows, doors, and the roof are all installed. Work on the farm has begun, and the owner of the farm is in the process of legalizing a groupement (like a cooperative) to help him with running the farm and everyday tasks. Joe has also been working with him on advertising and business networking so he can sell his chickens and turkeys to large grocery chains in the capital. He’s planning to start taking orders soon for Thanksgiving turkeys and is expecting good sales this year. Thanks to everyone who helped bring this project to fruition also!

For small projects, liquid soap is apparently the cool new thing to make and sell around Tabligbo and the small neighboring villages, so we’ve been teaching large groups and even individual families how to make it and bring in a little profit. At the end of April, I even visited another health volunteer in a small village on the other side of Togo to share our valuable soap-making knowledge with the population there. (I also got to try ginger-infused sodabi [Togolese moonshine] for the first time there, but that’s another story!)

Finally, we’ve started working with our friend Daniel (the above-mentioned poultry farmer) on a conservation and reforestation project. In collaboration with Daniel and his farm, we’ve purchased one hectare (2.5 acres) of land that has been soil depleted due to over-farming and land mismanagement about 5km outside of Tabligbo with the intention of restoring and reforesting the land with teak and baobab trees. The land currently has some trees already, such as palm, mangoes, and acacia trees. We’re also partnering with several local artisans and have begun constructing a web site for the project as well. There is an artisan expo scheduled in the capital at the end of June, and Joe and Daniel will be heading down there to pitch the preliminary project and see what people think of our idea there. More information will be available on this project soon, so stay tuned!

On to non-work-related things…

For the Togolese version of Labor Day, we recently attended a big party which was attended by all of the local unions in Tabligbo: tailors, mechanics, hairdressers, you name it. Included here are a couple of pictures from that fête: one of Joe doing the chicken dance with our neighbor, Lydia, and one of me with our neighbor, her daughters, and a fellow volunteer, Sierra, in our lovely matching pagne (fabric). I would have posted a picture of me chicken dancing, too, but that one (thankfully!) came out blurry.

This past weekend, we convinced the head guy at the local water company to allow us to climb inside the Tabligbo water tower to sit on top and take some aerial photos of Tabligbo. So, Joe, me, Sierra, and our friend Matt were joined by some water company staff, our friend Daniel, and our neighbor Dominique, as we ascended about 150 feet (maybe five stories?) up the interior metal ladder to a final platform and central ladder that led to the hole in the top of the tower. After a brief intermission to deal with some bees that had built honeycombs all around the door to the top (they were dispersed with some bug spray that seemed to have a mostly soporific effect, which was sufficient to get us past them without getting stung), we were able to climb out the trapdoor and sit, for all intensive purposes, on top of Tabligbo. Included in the next couple of posts are some pictures from our exciting ascension of the water tower, probably the highest point for miles around in our mostly flat region.

In mid-June, Joe will finally be heading off to visit the waterfalls on the western side of Togo, and has promised to come back with some good pictures. The rainy season is just about upon us, so we’re waiting for the nearby river to reach a sufficient level to allow us to go fishing and see where those alleged bird-catching spiders live as well. Hopefully, we’ll have some pictures to prove their existence!

And so, final thoughts for today…

We recently had what is called our Close of Service Conference here in Peace Corps, where we learned things like how to talk to our friends and family and potential employers about our Peace Corps service without causing yawns and glazed looks. We also got some surprisingly helpful information about how to translate Peace Corps work into statements that make sense on résumés and about how to readjust to life in the States. It was good to see our entire stage together again, too, as we haven’t all been in the same place since we swore in as Peace Corps volunteers way back in August of 2008. Of the original 31 people in our group, there are 21 remaining who will COS over the next couple of months (the other ten left early or were sent home for medical or administrative reasons). Of the volunteers we’ve met during our service here, we’ve made a surprising number of really good friends we hope to keep in touch with after we all return to the land of bacon and mint chocolate chip ice cream. I wasn’t really prepared to make AMERICAN friends when we got selected for service in West Africa, and it’s been interesting to meet a variety of people who are doing the same thing we’re doing for a myriad of different reasons and share this experience with them.

As we finish up our last couple of months here in Togo, we’re really starting to look forward to our return back home. Family, friends, and food are obviously foremost on our list of things we miss, but the other day, I realized we’re soon going to be experiencing some things we’ve kind of forgotten about. A funny story to illustrate: I had to call our credit card company the other day, and worried that my small task was going to take a lot of time and effort to accomplish (because I’ve become what we call here habitué to things taking much longer than anyone predicts them to take), I stocked up on phone credit for the call. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly and efficiently the representative handled my request, and I hung up the phone smiling. You know what was so great about that call? Customer service! Yup, the fact that someone helped me without trying to get something from me (like money, my phone number, a visa to America, or my hand in marriage) was quite refreshing. So thanks, Bank of America guy, for giving me yet another reason (not that I really need more than the promise of being clean and eating steak to get me excited about America!) to look forward to coming home. Just a couple of months left now!

Two More Obama Village Pics

2010-03-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

What a lovely place!

Reflections on Obama Village

2010-03-17T05:18:00.000-07:00

There is an Obama Craze in West Africa, and it has been going strong for two years now. As an American living in West Africa I was subjected to the Obama craze well before there was an Obama Presidency. During presidential campaigning, I was politely but firmly told by more than a dozen Togolese that I HAD to vote for Obama. During the inaugural address, which I was privileged to watch on a Dutch NGO television run on a generator in one small village, I was greeted with many handshakes and treated as a small hero for voting for our first African American president. But in recent months the infatuation with the president has morphed from idolization into industry in West Africa. There are Obama T-shirts, bumper stickers, and baseball hats coming out of Nigeria and yards and yards of cloth with the president’s likeness emblazoned on them being sold in Ghana. There are buildings with the president’s face painted on the side; local businesses are named after him (Obama Café in one village, and my favorite Obama Hairstylist in another); and one of the most popular baby names in the area where I live is Obama. There is even a village in Togo which is pushed back in the bush, four miles from the nearest road, which has changed its name from Agbassou-Kopé (translated from the Ewé language, it means “male goat village”) to Obama Village and erected a life-size statue of the American President, complete with big ears and great shoes.

But despite all the idolization and the influence the American President has had on African pop culture, the people I have spoken to have little or no knowledge of Obama’s personal or professional life or his administration’s stances on many issues. When I talked with a group of people sitting in a bar in the Togolese capital city of Lomé about what the Obama administration was doing in America, no one could give me an answer. And when I pressed them to answer questions concerning the administration’s policies toward things like health care, terrorism, torture, and unemployment all I received for a response was silence. But when asked about Obama’s African policy, the answer I received was a chorus of: “Obama is African and he is going to help Africa.” In fact, little is known about the popular American President beyond the fact that his father was Kenyan. Most people don’t even know that Obama’s party affiliation is with the Democrats or who Joe Biden is. Over the past year Obama has become a brand name in Africa, and sadly enough, the icon has become more important than the essence. It has become a way to sell products and services, make money and, in the case of Obama Village, attract the attention of NGOs, which are handing out grant money to organizers of development projects in Africa. What Africans are lacking in knowledge of Obama’s history, they are making up in their knowledge of marketing strategies and American-style capitalism: Obama sells - and Africa knows it.

During my time in Africa, the Obama craze has been a double-edged machete. On the one hand, President Obama has managed to rehabilitate the American image in Africa. He has done this partly with his moderate style of governing and his willingness to create a dialogue between himself and other countries, but mostly by having family ties to Kenya and by being black. Whether good or bad, this has made being an American in West Africa great. Here I’m a hero just because I’m an American. Besides having the random family scream “OBAMA!!,” at me I have received more cadeaux of chicken eggs, papayas, and what passes for moonshine from poor Africans than I and my wife can consume, thus making us bigger heroes when we re-gift the local hooch and fruit to our neighbors.

Remember, the machete does cut both ways. Because President Obama has African ties, many Africans believe he will “help” Africa. This I’ve come to realize is just a polite way to say that Africans expect Obama to send over boat loads of USD to the African continent and that obviously I must have been sent to Africa to be the distributor of this money. The people I have met in West Africa have become emboldened by the belief that Obama is sending “help,” for me this translates into daily requests for money and a constant badgering for “gifts.” Imagine a world where you are Britney Spears and the rest of the world is paparazzi watching your every move: that’s what it’s like being an American in West Africa.

Two more Pictures for Today

2010-03-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of on of the neighborhoods which now has access to the health clinic. This was during our 19-neighborhood walk.

The other picture is of a soap making demonstration I did with a women's group. Liquid soap is pretty cool!

Winding Down...

2010-03-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

It’s been an interesting couple of months. In January, I made several trips to Lomé with the nurse who’s running our health clinic to a pharmacy where we bought all the medicine and equipment we needed. After getting everything set up and organized, we finally opened the clinic in February. We had an opening ceremony and spent an entire Sunday driving around the 19 quartiers (neighborhoods) that will benefit from the clinic to inform people of the opening and to answer their questions about what we’ll be doing at the clinic. On that first day, the chief of the village made it a point to be one of the first clients to set a good example for the other villagers, and told everyone he was coming back to get a shot from the white girl to make him strong. The groupement president I worked on this project with has assured me that my presence there as a white person will make people even more likely to come. I was skeptical of this claim after hearing about the experience of a fellow health volunteer in a tiny village on the other side of the country who had the exact opposite experience: women in her village were afraid that she put curses, evil white people voodoo, and various other hexes and diseases in the birth control shots and implants that they were advertising at her health clinic. The president assured me that since “we live in a city, we know better and don’t believe that stuff – people will come if you’re here.” Of course, a couple of days later, we did a voodoo ceremony of our own to ask the gods to bless our clinic. So, I guess what I take away from that is that regular gris gris is okay, but we draw the line at believing in white people gris gris. That would just be too ridiculous! Oh, Togo, how we do love you.

We were also planning an official inauguration, but all of the important personages around the village (like the prefet and the mayor) asked us to wait till after the presidential election when they would have more time. So, we should be doing that in the next week or so. I’ve posted a picture here of two of the village chiefs consulting with the nurse in his new office. This past week, the nurse and his wife, who is a birthing attendant, selected four kids in their early twenties from the surrounding villages who recently finished high school to come and work as trainees and learn how to work at the health clinic for the next three years. It looks like things are well underway and under control out there, so I think we can finally call this project finished!

Joe has been working with another of our counterparts to build the new chicken farm that we raised the money for with our second Peace Corps Partnership Proposal for the last two months. The mason has built the foundations for the chicken cages and the other buildings, made hundreds of bricks, put up the walls, and he is now working on installing the beams, roofing, and windows. That counterpart has also gotten the official paperwork signed to start his own groupement to help run the farm and is working with them to write another proposal to a local NGO to pay for their first purchase of baby chickens for the farm. The other picture posted here is a picture of the outer walls of the farm, partially finished in this shot. The construction for this project has been moving along pretty quickly (unlike that damn health clinic!), so it should be done within the next month or so.

So, those are our two big projects. We recently got word from Peace Corps that Joe will definitely be replaced by a new business volunteer here in Tabligbo and that my health volunteer replacement will definitely be going to the nearby village of Ahepé (12km from us) where I’ve been working with a new counterpart to set up some work for the new volunteer. There’s a women’s groupement there who has asked me to work with them on some income generating activities, and so far, we’ve had meetings to talk about a community garden project and how to make and sell liquid soap. The garden idea is currently under discussion, and I went out and did a demonstration on how to make liquid soap there just last week. It went pretty well, and the women seem interested in hearing more ideas about income generating activities, so Joe may have to brush up on the soy milk making that he perfected last summer!

I also recently made the acquaintance of another women’s groupement in another nearby village attached to Tabligbo (a little en brousse, like the village where we put the health clinic). This group has 177 members (!!) and I did another soap making demonstration with them a couple of weeks ago, which they were really excited about. They’re working with their local village development committee to save up money to start a health clinic out in their village. At the end of the soap-making demonstration, the women were already selling some water bottles filled with soap to some curious onlookers, and were confident that they would be able to sell lots of it and save up money to put toward the health clinic project. I talked with their CVD members about the materials and equipment necessary for starting a clinic and gave them copies of all of our receipts from the other health clinic project, which should help them decide what they need. They seem like a really motivated group of women, and I hope I can help them get started on their project before we leave.

What else has been going on lately? Our neighbor’s baby, my little buddy Emmanuel, was really sick recently with fever, dehydration, and diarrhea, so I took the opportunity to teach the family and some high school kids that were hanging around for lunch how to make oral rehydration solution (volunteers swear by it!) to keep him hydrated and get him through the diarrhea. It’s sad how many kids die of that easily preventable and treatable problem because they don’t understand the concept of dehydration. Thankfully, Emmanuel got better and is back to his usual cheerful self, tearing around our compound and shrieking happily at the dog. Such a good dog to be so tolerant of kids! More than I can say for me and Joe, who have taken to waving sticks and yelling in English at the kids behind us when they throw stuff over our compound wall at the dog.

The presidential election was pushed back from February 28 to March 4 (does anyone else think it’s a little too much of a coincidence that the election was changed to March FOUR, when the president’s name is FAURE? Maybe I’m just weird). Anyway, a few weeks before the election, campaigners went nuts driving around villages in their “VOTEZ FAURE” shirts with huge speakers and music blaring and people yelling with megaphones turned up so loud that you had no idea what they were actually saying. We volunteers went on “lock down” status in our villages for a couple of weeks (restricted to village for safety), but things have been calm as ever here in Tabligbo. Joe and I walked past a voting station near our house on election day and were pleasantly surprised at the orderliness and organization of the voting process. The day after the election, the president declared unofficial victory with over 60 percent of the vote and then declared official victory a few days later. The opposition party claimed shady vote counting procedures and there were some initial protests in Lomé where opposition supporters were dispersed pretty quickly by the army with teargas. No one around our village seems to think the protests or the fact that the opposition party has contested the results will amount to anything, so it looks like President Faure Gnassingbe will stay President Faure Gnassingbe.

So, we’re winding down our service here in Togo. It’s hard to believe that we arrived here almost 22 months ago and we only have four or five months left! I suppose we’ll have to come up with a “things we’ve learned” or “how we feel about our service” kind of blog before we leave, but I think I’ll leave that till next time. In the meantime, we’ve come up with a little list of things in Togo that we’re looking forward to exchanging for things in America.

THINGS WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO EXCHANGING:
Lizards for squirrels
Hippie Chacos and bare feet for real shoes and socks
Mango trees for apple trees
Tampicos from the Fanmilk guy for banana cream pie shakers from the Twist and Shout
Celebrity status for anonymity
Vache Qui Rit for real cheese, any kind of cheese
Awooyo (the beer, not the dog) for Guinness
Laissez-Passers for Driver’s Licenses
A straw mat on the concrete roof to stay cool at night for a nice soft bed and air conditioning
CFAs for American dollars

Over the next few months, we’ll be finishing up the new chicken farm, monitoring the training of the health clinic trainees, working with the two women’s groups on ideas for other income generating activities, and trying to set up some potential projects for our replacements who will be arriving in Togo in early June. Before we go, we’d also like to see a few things around Togo, an initiative I started last month with a short stay at a hotel in Aneho, the former capital of Togo (when it was a German colony) down on the coast. We’d like to see the waterfalls over in Badou, for example, and the reputed bird-eating spiders near Zafi, that allegedly spin webs so massive that they catch birds in them. Worth a look, no? For those who know me best, I’m sure you’re impressed with what Togo has done to my fear of spiders. I can just hear my brother thinking: “Bree kills spiders? And she wants to go see a spider that’s big enough to eat a bird? What the hell happened to her over in Africa?”

We’ll be heading down to Lomé for our COS (close of service) conference at the beginning of May and should get to decide our COS date then, likely late July or early August. So, look for another blog in May – I promise to try to make that one a little more thoughtful and a little less just a list of what we’ve been doing (which I find boring, but hopefully you all don’t!). For the next couple of months we’ll be enjoying (yeah, right) the rest of our last hot season and planning what we’re going to do when we get home. Till next time!

New Year’s Report Part 4: Miscellaneous

2009-12-30T09:43:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-12-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-30T02:11:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-12-30T01:50:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-30T01:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-10T02:34:00.000-08:00

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

2009-09-18T03:07:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-09-18T02:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T05:20:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-25T04:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-29T04:46:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-29T04:19:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-07-29T03:27:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-08T00:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-06-07T07:27:00.000-07:00

Bug Pictures for Scott

2009-06-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

A Couple More "Work" Pictures

2009-05-12T03:27:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-05-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-31T05:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-31T04:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-31T03:37:00.000-07:00

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

A Couple More Party Pictures

2009-02-25T06:29:00.001-08:00

Here's that little girl in the fashion show I mentioned and another of guys playing the tam tams.

The Hot Season Begins...

2009-02-25T03:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry it’s been so long, but we’re still here! First of all, here are some pictures from a party we went to recently. The association of seamstresses and tailors that we’re working with got together for two big parties, on two different Saturdays, with all of the other seamstresses and tailors in the villages in our prefecture. During the parties, the apprentices did sketches (a favorite Togolese pastime!) of dances, songs, and theatre performances. They even had a comedian and a fashion show. All the sketches were in local language, but many of them were acted out so it was easy to figure out what was going on. There were traditional dances, a couple of which there are pictures of here, and then some not so traditional sketches: like a rap song complete with boys in sunglasses and baggy pants, an interpretive dance to show that a boy who helps with the laundry will end up getting the girl, and a girl who lip-synched and danced to a song from a pop culture artist. In another sketch, girls sang songs about being seamstresses and waved around scissors and measuring tapes as props, while in another, a group of men dressed in ridiculous clothes and pretended to play giant fake instruments at the behest of their “conductor.” During the fashion shows, the girls kept completely straight faces despite all of the catcalling and whistling, a behavior we found most impressive in a little girl who was probably no more than six years old and participated with all the teenage girls (see her picture here). To donate to various groups, people would get up and drop coins in a bowl during the performances, or, if the sketch was particularly good, stick the coins on the foreheads of the performers.

After the sketches, people broke off into various groups for picnics, during one of which we got to eat with all the notables in attendance, including the chief of the canton. The fare included two different kinds of rice and sauce, something that resembled stew with lots of vegetables, and pâte rouge (a version of a standard Togolese dish made from pounded corn, except made red from tomato sauce). There were some identifiable pieces of beef in some of the dishes, along with some unidentifiable pieces that were likely organ meat. So much food! After our meal with the notables, we managed to eat a little more with a family we’ve become friends with in our village; they served up standard pâte with fish and peanut sauce.

After the sketches and meals, there were soccer games: one for boys and one for girls on the first Saturday, and girls versus girls from other villages on the second Saturday. Our girls’ team won against another village on that second day because of an opportunity they got to take a penalty shot. Go Team Tabligbo!

So, in addition to work (description coming next!), we’ve also had some time recently to play, occasions I think have helped us with our PC goal of integrating into our communities. It also gave us a chance to dress in traditional Togolese clothes (made by our seamstress friend) in a public setting, a practice that always gets a positive reaction from the locals.

On to work. The catalog for Schalom is finally finished, and although it doesn’t look quite like I pictured it originally, the printer did a pretty good job turning my file into a finished product. Several copies of it are on their way to Rick in the mail, and we’ve asked him to show them around to our friends and families. Let us know what you think! Also with Schalom, I’ve just passed the halfway point in my ten classes with the apprentice peer educators (six classes done, four to go). We’ve done classes on malaria, HIV/AIDS, and family planning so far, and they’ll be performing sketches for the other apprentices to demonstrate what they’ve learned and take their final tests in the next couple of weeks. I’ll post pictures of their sketches and the final day of class in our next blog. My French is still not great, and neither is theirs (kind of like the blind leading the blind!), but we’re muddling through the subjects, and I’ve had a new homologue I’ve been working with to help with the last two classes, so things have been a little clearer for them lately because he translates the more complicated discussions into local language.

Joe has continued his work with elevage (animal breeding) that he’s doing with three different groups now: chickens with one, chickens and turkeys with another, and rabbits and guinea pigs with the last one. For the chicken farm, he facilitated a loan through the local microfinance so the group can buy more eggs and baby chickens to replace the ones they lost to avian flu. 400 baby chickens arrived on February 24! For the chicken and turkey farm, he’s working with a Ghanaian kid and his dad on advertising, accounting and bookkeeping, and the search for an incubator for turkey eggs. Joe spent several Saturdays in a row helping build rabbit cages for the last elevage guy, and those are finally finished. He also created an accounting book for that guy to track his sales, purchases, and costs.

We’re still working with the local village development committee, and after our recent trip to a PC conference up north where our homologues learned about how to create a project plan, we think the committee is ready to write up a proposal to ask for funds from the American embassy in Lomé for the first phase of the project they asked us for help with during our first few weeks in village: latrines at six of the primary schools in Tabligbo, to be followed by two more phases of six each, if all goes well. The committee also recently wrote a proposal to a local NGO to get equipment for the hospital, which is sadly lacking. We’re also working with the small village where the rabbit elevage guy lives to get them to create their own development committee because they want to install a water pump in their village. They recently got electricity wired there, and that was a pretty exciting development. They’re also working on a proposal to the embassy to help fund their water pump project.

The PC Partnership proposal to order supplies and create a health clinic in the village with the chicken farm is partially written; we’re waiting for a list of supplies and prices and also for the group to clean out the remains of baby chickens in the building they’re donating to become the health clinic. If we can submit the proposal in the next couple of months, the actual construction of walls and ordering of supplies might happen this summer. Patience is what I’m learning (or trying to, anyway!).

Another project that Joe started recently is his work with making soy milk. After about six or seven afternoons of trying different recipes and measurements of sugar, he’s finally found what he thinks is the right one to make it taste right. His plan is to teach some local people how to make it and sell it in sachets (little bags), like several other vendors who sell water, juice, and lemonade on market days. His plan is to call it Yovolait (roughly translated, “white person milk”) instead of the standard lait du soja (soy milk). It’s a designation that many people might be familiar with, since the moringa tree that a lot of volunteers work with and promote because of its abundance of vitamins is often called Yovoviti in local language, which translates to something like “white person vitamin tree.”

After about one short week of windy, dusty, non-humid weather (otherwise known as Harmattan), we had one crazy night with a huge thunderstorm to usher in the hot season, which recently started and should last a couple of months before it cools off again in May. Temperatures in the last couple of weeks have been around 100 degrees; in addition to that fact is the fact that water and electricity go out a lot more during the hot season. Sometimes, the electricity will be good for a couple of weeks at a time, and other times it will go out several times in one day and the water will go out for 12-14 hours. We’ve heard that the water can go out for several days, but thankfully, that hasn’t happened to us yet.

In other developments, after eight months in Togo and not liking Togolese food, Joe has finally found two dishes he likes! The first is the aforementioned pâte rouge, and the other is another form of pâte that’s fermented in the corn husk, called something that sounds like “comb,” although we’re not sure how to spell that one. According to Joe, it tastes kind of like a tamale without the meat. Me, I’m still partial to fufu (pounded yams) and plain old rice and beans.

We’re doing fine and feeling healthy, work is going all right, and our cat and dog are getting along quite well. Awooyo is a good watchdog and Elliott is good at catching (if not completely killing) cockroaches, so they’re both earning their keep here. All is well chez nous in Tabligbo, and we’ll be back in touch soon. Hope all is well at home, and that spring comes soon for you! To close out this blog, here’s a Togolese proverb we thought you might like: Nɔvitikplɔ me ŋena o (phonetically, that’s noviteek blow may nyayna o), and in English, “nothing can break family links.” Another is: Edɔ enye ame (phonetically, that’s edoh enyay amay), which in English means “work gives life value.”

More Good Spiders!

2009-02-25T02:52:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple shots that we promised awhile ago (sorry it took so long, D!). The first one was the one Joe took out with the machete because he was afraid the broom wouldn't kill him! Pretty, no?

Happy Christmas and New Year!

2008-12-27T04:38:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Joe and I spent Christmas “up north” this year visiting one of our PCV friends and having a little PCV Christmas party, the only version of a white Christmas we can get here in Togo (I know, what a lame joke, right?!). We managed to make it feel like Christmas despite our lack of snow, however. We played Christmas music, made Christmas decorations, and even made homemade egg nog (thanks to M – that was good stuff, man!). The usual Christmas fare was traded in for beef kabobs, chicken, rice, and hummus made from black-eyed beans, all of which turned out really well. Celebrated my dreaded birthday up there, too, and managed not to let it get me down too much. I guess I’m officially on par with the rest of my friends back home now, but feel pretty old sometimes here in Togo with all my 23-year-old PCV friends…

North of Kara, the big city up there, Togo is like a completely different country, at least now, during Harmattan. It’s mountainous, insanely dry (the air dries up your whole head, there’s zero humidity, and everything is brown), and it’s almost like fall weather in Michigan in the mornings and evenings – refreshingly cool. Wore my hair down for the first time in months up there! The dust is pretty crazy, though; there’s a haze over the sky and in the air, which made me think either someone was burning stuff or that my glasses were really dirty when we first got there. Quite a change from the flat, green, comparatively swampy-feeling air we have down in the Maritime region. Come February and March, though, the heat up there is supposed to be much worse than where we live in the south, so we’ll see who really has the best overall post weather-wise when we have to deal with the “real” hot season. Yikes.

Yesterday, on our way home from up north, our bus blew a tire, which also somehow affected the air suspension (brakes) and the battery, so we had to hang out on the side of the road for a couple of hours while they changed the tire, backed the brakes off, and recharged the battery. Might have taken a lot longer, but Joe came to the rescue and helped the bus mechanic with the brakes. Being a mechanic for 15 years paid off yesterday, as we were on our way a lot sooner than we might have been! Here are a couple of photos of Joe saving the day, too!

Things have been kind of slow for the past few weeks in regards to work; everything seems to be shutting down for the holidays: our village development committee meetings, school for the peer educators, etc. I’m supposed to pick up my work with them again January 12, so it looks like they get a little Christmas break from school, same as we do. The catalog for Schalom is almost finished and should be able to be printed very soon. I’ll be sure to send a couple copies home for those who are interested in their products. There are lots of versions of the tote bags now, along with some clothes and household items that I got them to add in (placemats, table cloths, things like that), so hopefully the variety of things will help with their plans for exporting outside of Togo. Joe is still building bunny cages and is now helping a new elevage enterprise with their chickens and turkeys. We’re also moving forward a little with the latrine project; we had the meeting with the school inspector that we’ve been trying to have for months, so that was a step in the right direction. Also, we’ve done a little more on the case de santé (health clinic) project and are writing up the proposal to get that funded through a mechanism called Peace Corps Partnership, where we ask friends and family to donate to our village projects via the Peace Corps web site. This is a pretty small project, compared to many, and we think it’s a good one to start with as far as being the first thing we’re trying to get funding for. The association that has initiated the project has found an infermier (nurse) to come from Lomé and live for two years in Tabligbo to run the clinic and train a woman in the village to become a sage femme (a little lower than a nurse, but higher than a birthing attendant in the health hierarchy here in Togo). The plan is for her to take over the clinic after the two years is up, with help from the association for financial and bookkeeping activities. We’ll keep you updated as this project moves along.

We hope everyone back home had a good Christmas and that you have a great start to 2009. More from Togo soon!

A photo of the "Tabligbo Cluster"

2008-12-22T06:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the six of us in the Tabligbo cluster of Peace Corps volunteers. We all live within 20km of each other, and Joe and I live at the center of the cluster (and are the only ones with running water, electricity, and a pretty big market). The girl on the bottom right just finished her service this month and was replaced by another guy, but this was the cluster up until a couple of weeks ago.

We will be heading up north to celebrate Christmas with some fellow volunteers tomorrow, so will have some pictures of "up country" to post later this week.

Tabligbo Flowers

2008-12-22T04:02:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures of the plant life (during the wet season!).

More Tabligbo Photos

2008-12-22T03:26:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more pictures of our village to give you a better look at where we live.

Around Town Pictures

2008-12-12T02:38:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures of us around town. Joey with
a local kid, Joey working on the computer with our cat,
Elliott, and me and our dog, Awooyo, up on our roof.

Tabligbo "Wildlife"

2008-12-12T01:32:00.000-08:00

Six Months in Togo so Far

2008-11-26T08:02:00.001-08:00

There are two recent incidents that came to mind when I sat down to write this blog entry. So, here they are, two things that made me shake my head and wonder why things go the way they go here in Togo. First, I think there was a rooster caught inside the (empty) house next door a couple of weeks ago. He started crowing at 3am, and since I couldn’t sleep with the crow echoing off the walls and bouncing around, I started counting the seconds between the crows. Where else in the world does a rooster need to crow every 6-12 seconds for at least an hour straight? He started tapering off eventually, but was back the next morning with the same routine. After a few days, there was an unexpected silence – I can only assume that he somehow got out of the house or that someone came in and ate him. The vengeful part of me hopes for the latter…

The second incident occurred this past week at the marché. We’ve been buying the wheels of Vache Qui Rit cheese (which is actually more like cheese-flavored butter) since we got here, and the price has been consistent each time. Last week, the price went up 100 CFA (which is, granted, only about $.20 at the current exchange rate), but irritated by this, I asked why the increase. The marché lady proceeded to show me the expiration date on the cheese, which is no longer August 2008, the date on all the cheese I’ve been buying without problems since we arrived at the end of August (with only a few bad pieces here and there). So, it wasn’t that I was paying more for fresher cheese, but that I was paying more for non-expired cheese. I wonder will the price go down when this new batch of cheese reaches the expiration date?

Joe has been working with three different people on three different elevage (farm animal breeding) projects. One is a group with a chicken farm, another is a guy who’s starting a rabbit and guinea pig elevage (yes, guinea pigs – apparently, they’re quite good for eating, although we haven’t tried it yet), and a third guy who’s starting a chicken and turkey elevage. He facilitated a loan at the local microfinance for the first group, who lost all their chickens to the avian flu recently. Also he’s been helping the second guy build bunny cages for the last couple of weeks, and is becoming quite proficient in the art of using the machete, an implement we originally bought to cut up whole chickens, but which has become quite the multi-purpose tool around the house. You might be surprised to learn that the machete is handy as a shovel, a weed whacker, a kitchen utensil, a saw for bamboo cages, and an axe. In addition to perfecting his couper-ing skills, Joe has also been working with the association that makes the tote bags on improving their accounting books and records and has been investigating exporting authorities and methods for them, along with potential buyers for their products.

As for me, I attended my first training for peer educators (mostly as an observer, although I did help a little with the condom demonstration), and have had exactly one meeting so far with my own group of peer educators at the apprentice school. It’s a group of five boys and five girls, all training to be tailors and seamstresses and hosted by the association that makes the tote bags. We’ve decided to meet twice a month, and our second meeting falls on December 1, World AIDS Day, so I’ve asked the association president to see if he can get permission for them all to go with us to a fellow volunteer’s village nearby that day, where Joe and I will be helping with a sensibilisation on HIV/AIDS. Hopefully, it will give them a better picture of what I hope they’ll be able to do themselves after all of our classes are finished. I’m also continuing to work on the catalog for the association, and will be sure to send some home for you all to see when it’s ready – it’s pretty close! And finally, I’ve been talking to the same chicken elevage guy that Joe is working with, and he wants to build a dispensaire (like a pharmacy with an on-duty nurse) out in his cartier, which is a neighborhood of Tabligbo that’s a little dans le brousse and not accessible by car. His is the center of eight small cartiers, and they all have at least a 2km walk or moto ride to the hospital. So, we’re setting up some meetings to talk it over with their neighborhood chief and the hygiene director at the hospital. More soon on this one.

We’re both still working with the local CVD (village development committee) and attending those meetings to see what the village is talking about. They still want to go ahead with the latrine project, and we’re slowly researching the possibilities for that. During one recent meeting, they were talking about gathering up the stories and memories of the older residents of Tabligbo and trying to consolidate it into a comprehensive history of the city. It sounds like it would be an interesting process, and last week, we visited the chief’s older brother, who gave us the history of the village as he heard it from his father. It seems the name of Tabligbo came from a story about a guy getting his head cut off at the marché and the people watching it roll away: the word for head (something like “tabli”), and the word for roll (something like “gbo”) got combined with a German accent, and apparently, Tabligbo was the result. How about that for a story to name your city after?

I managed to post the puppy pictures, and I have some more, but I'll have to try later or tomorrow to get them up. Sorry for the delay!

Puppy Post

2008-11-26T06:34:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures of our dog's puppies that she had our first month at post. Thankfully, they've all been farmed out to their new homes now!

Happy Halloween

2008-10-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

Tabligbo is starting to feel like home now for lots of reasons. First, we recognize people we’ve been working with around town and a lot of people recognize us (and our names!). Second, we’ve figured out where the good deals are on vegetables, street food, and how to navigate the marché on marché day. Third, we’ve added some things around the house that make it seem more like ours: curtains, furniture cushions (with fabric from Schalom, the association Joe is working with), and a garden. We never got around to that at home, but here it seems like the thing to do, so Joe is trying his hand at tomatoes, lettuce, onions, squash, and beans. We’ve also planted 11 pineapple plants out in front of our compound in the little strip of dirt we have. Fourth, we’re getting used to the water and electricity going out at random times, and while it’s sometimes a pain, we’ve mastered the charcoal stove, so no worries! And finally, we’ve found two good (if, albeit, expensive) tchouk stands that have pretty good tchouk (a type of home-brewed beer that is definitely an acquired taste); the stands are a good place to talk to people and learn (and relearn) a few words of Ewé (see items 4 and 7 below!).

We’ve also started to learn what’s around Tabligbo and which direction various things are. We’ve visited a few of the surrounding villages, one to visit another volunteer in our area, and another to investigate a Catholic mission that makes pagne, fabric like Schalom, and to visit a guy who does elevage (breeding) for chickens. In that village, we experienced the epitome of Togolese hospitality – we wandered into the Catholic mission and were immediately given a tour of pretty much the entire village and the two outfits we wanted to visit by the Togolese priest who had no problem dropping what he was doing for the afternoon and showing two white people around town!

Our latrine project with the 18 primary schools is still in the works and we’re negotiating with the village development committee, the local school inspector, and the school directors, to get that project under way. It’s hard to get everyone together for meetings, but we’re still in the very early phases of the project. We still have to decide what kind of latrines to build and where they should be built at the schools, who the masons will be and where the materials will come from, and who’s going to teach the students about the use of the latrines once they’re all built. So, it might take some time before we have an update on this one, but stay tuned.

Joe and I are now both working with Schalom a little. My new pet project is to help them create a catalog of all the things they can make with their fabric (besides the obvious things like the tote bags and clothes). I’ve begun working with them on one catalog in French and one in English, and they seem pretty excited to have something to send to businesses overseas. So, watch for a catalog soon!

In addition to the group that does chicken breeding here in Tabligbo, Joe has also started working with another elevage that has rabbits and guinea pigs. Both groups want to improve their business practices and capabilities, so Joe is trying his hand at the farm animal industry. Do guinea pigs count as farm animals? Anyway, Joe says it was pretty funny to see big fat bunnies and guinea pigs here in Togo – not the kind of animals we were expecting! And speaking of animals, Joe’s mom asked us for pictures of the local wildlife, but I'm again having problems with posting pictures from our cyber cafe, so they'll have to wait to be posted until we get back to Lome.

We’ve been to visit the local high school, and it turns out they already have a group of peer educators who are just getting started. School started late this year, so things are taking a little longer to get going, but the principal said we could meet with the peer educators once they get their meetings going. I also talked with the director of the local radio station and he was agreeable to allowing health talks with a few of the peer educators on the air a couple of hours a month. So, that might be a future project, if we can get someone to translate our talks into the local language.

My first sensibilisation (health talk) has been scheduled and cancelled three times so far. I was also planning to meet with some of Schalom's peer educators yesterday, to get them prepared to lead talks of their own, but it rained and no one showed up. Rain tends to put a stop to any plans people make here, so hopefully, I'll have a better update about this project soon. Patience....

Also, here are some fun random observations after five months in Togo:

1. Vendeuses (ladies that sell food in boxes or baskets on their heads) sell all kinds of things, but their “advertising calls” as they wander around the streets all sound like the same thing.
2. You can fit way more people (and animals) in the back seat of a bush taxi than you would think.
3. Discussing the price with a bush taxi driver can be a very long exercise in patience.
4. The name “Joe” actually means the equivalent of “go away” in Ewé.
5. A 5:00 meeting can start anywhere from 5:00 to 5:59, and be considered on time.
6. It’s best to avoid eye contact with local naked fous.
7. You know you’re starting to become a little Togolese when you find 100 CFA (about $.20) an appalling price for a calabash of tchouk (about a pint of beer).
8. Your compound isn’t really clean until you’ve swept the dirt for at least an hour, twice a day.
9. Togolese babies can sleep through anything, in what must be the best sleeping place anyone has ever found, ever – tied to their mothers’ backs with pagne.
10. No matter how many times you tell a marché mama that you don’t need a black sachet for your purchase, she will inevitably give you one anyway.

After One Month in Tabligbo...

2008-09-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

Joe and I have been at our post in Tabligbo for a month now, and we've been busy mostly meeting people (a lot of people!). We met the Chief (who had us over his house for dinner and a big dance), the Prefet, the Mayor, and the gendarmes.

We've also had meetings with the local village development committee (who want us to help them build latrines for the schools and build a library), the women's business Joe is working with called Shalom, another group of farmers who sell eggs, the doctor at the hospital, a local NGO, the Red Cross, and lots of union groups (mechanics, teachers, furniture makers)...oh, and I met the principal at the high school, who wants me to come back in a month when school starts (it's been pushed back a few weeks due to flooding in the region) to talk to him about teaching a class. So - we've been busy just learning our way around, talking to people about the community's needs, and making contacts. We have lots of ideas for projects to work on, but we're just getting started, and have a ways to go before we get settled in.

Here are some pictures of Tabligbo: our street, the main street, the Chief's house, and a picture of Joe buying cookies at our local version of 7-11. More coming!

Spider Post!

2008-08-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures that offer a glimpse into the arachnid life that we’ve seen so far here in Togo. There are two here for your viewing pleasure (if your name is Peter), and just to creep you out (if you’re everyone else!). Unfortunately, the one we got of the monster variety that so far, Joey has only seen in his shower and latrine in Agou Koumawou, is on our other camera and we can’t get it off there. These can get as big as two man-sized hands put together, and take at least a couple of whacks with the broom to kill. Resilient bastards, and apparently quite good jumpers as well! So, sorry you don’t get a look at that guy, but enjoy these two.

The first is a fairly common one that’s flat and ranges in size from a 50-cent piece to the palm of your hand. They're fast! This little guy was in my room in Agou Nyogbo, and many of you will be surprised (shocked? amazed? incredulous?) to hear that I managed to kill him all by myself with a shoe. Of course, I now realize how tiny he is in comparison to the other giants that awaited me (see below).

The other is a creepy guy that looks like he could be dangerous, the likes of which I’ve seen in a fellow volunteer’s case de santé and unfortunately also in my kitchen in Tabligbo. Our cat got to this guy (he’s missing a few legs, as you can see – good kitty!), and he was a little bigger than the cat’s head. The one in the case de santé was about the size of a grapefruit.

Hope this satisfies the curiosity of those of you who are interested in creepy crawlies (you know who you are!)…

Our House and Pets in Tabligbo!

2008-08-24T02:19:00.000-07:00

Here are photos of our compound and our living room at our house in Tabligbo, along with pictures of Apollo, our cat, and Awooyo (named after a local beer), our dog. The stairs go up to our roof.

Pictures from the Swearing-In Ceremony

2008-08-24T02:08:00.001-07:00

Here we are again with our host moms in the clothes they made us for the ceremony.

More Pictures from Stage!

2008-08-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures of Joey and I having a beer at the bar in Koumawou, the unfinished church by my host family's house, the road to the Tech House where we had all our classes, and a picture of us at the Togolese fashion show. More coming!

Pictures from Stage!

2008-08-24T01:20:00.000-07:00

Here, finally, are some pictures of my host family and home in Agou Nyogbo and of Joe's host family and home in Agou Koumawou.

End of Stage, Swear-In, and the Beginning of Month Four

2008-08-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

When our training (“stage,” to those familiar with the term) started in Agou Nyogbo and Agou Koumawou, time seemed to drag for the first few weeks. Now that we’re finished and have said goodbye to our host families, we’re here in Lomé for our swear-in ceremony, and it seems like we were here just yesterday for our initial orientation. We both agree that our French has improved, and that we’ve learned a lot of really helpful cultural information during our first three months. Our formateurs (technical and language instructors) are some of the best people in the world. They were very patient with our bad (but hopefully much improved now) French throughout our training. We hope we haven’t seen the last of them.

But as wonderful as everyone has been, we’re ready to get to Tabligbo and eat, sleep, drink, and live on our own schedules again! For those of you who are worried about our health (moms!), we’re both just fine, despite some weight loss. As soon as we get to Tabligbo and I can cook my own food, I promise to try to put some weight back onto my husband, whose diminishing frame has caused some alarm here. He worries that people might now confuse him with a certain slender friend of ours with the initials DMN – not to worry, though; I’ll try not to let that happen.

Some of our initial expectations of Africa have changed in the past 11 weeks (gee, what a surprise!). It’s a lot more tropical here and a lot greener than I expected, and our accommodations are a lot more technologically advanced than Joe expected (running water, tile floors, and electricity were not in our list of things to expect!).

Togolese food-wise, I’m a fan of foufou (a big dumpling-like thing that’s made by pounding the crap out of yams) and wagash (a type of fried cheese). Joe seems to be partial to soja (soy that’s fried with sauce). I’ve learned how to make peanut sauce and piment (hot pepper) sauce also. Our Togolese host families had a lot of fun making American-style meals for us with a Togolese spin. We’ve had French toast, garlic bread, pancakes, and spaghetti – all a little different than back home, but good! Things like turkey sandwiches with Sunkist orange pop in a can and strawberry milk are a luxury you can only get in Lomé, but are worth the price once in awhile! Jim Beam is also worth an occasional splurge in Lomé, and I’ve managed to find some tolerable red wine at a couple of “yovo stores.” Lomé is still two hours away from Tabligbo by bush taxi, so we’re not sure how often we’ll get there yet.

Other Togolese news: gas prices have sky-rocketed in Togo (675 CFA per liter last time we checked), 11 bridges in the country have collapsed due to rain and flooding, and both occurrences have made travel throughout the country a lot more difficult and more expensive. The cement shortage has also made for higher prices and had made repairs on bad roads next to impossible. One observation from earlier today: instead of road flares to mark an accident, the people here just tear up big chunks of grass and throw them in the road as a marker for people to watch out!

We hope you’re all having a good summer and doing fun things back in the States. For those who can, please go to Knight’s, have a good steak, and think of us. We’re doing fine, but familiar food seems to dominate our thoughts here! We’ll be back in touch soon!

Finishing up week 7 of Stage...

2008-07-26T02:29:00.000-07:00

Hello family and friends! Joe and I have just finished week 7 of our training, a week we spent visiting our post (the city of Tabligbo in the Maritime region). We have a compound that has a space for another family, but no one is currently living there, so it’s just us along with the dog and cat we inherited from the previous volunteer who lived here. It's nice to have pets again!

Training continues in Agou Nyogbo (for me) and Agou Koumawou (for Joe) for 3 more weeks. We’ve started a little bit of language training in Ewé, which we discovered this week will come in handy at post, since many people in Tabligbo speak a mixture of Ewé and French. Our French is improving a little, at least according to our language trainers, who rated us both as proficient enough to go to post during our mid-stage language test a couple of weeks ago. A subjective test, for certain, since they rated me as “Intermediate High,” and Joe as “Intermediate Mid.” (Those of you who know us know that’s completely impossible – I must have just been having a good test day!)

At the end of week 8, I have a project to do with three other trainees that involves teaching young girls in my village about AIDS and possibly starting a health club. The local president of the Red Cross is helping us and hopes to continue the club after we leave for post. Joe is currently business shadowing a seamstress in his village, and he’s supposed to make some recommendations about growing her business at the end of training. As a result of this experience, Joey has learned a new skill. He wants you all to know that he is now proficient in the art of the pedal sewing machine, and we promise to post a picture that a fellow trainee took of his experience when we can get it from her.

At the end of week 11, we’ll be heading back to Lomé for the swearing-in ceremony, and we’ll be back in Tabligbo at the end of August to settle in for good. Training is going by fast!

Our week-long visit in Tabligbo was spent learning where things are (like the Prefet, the police, the post office, the market, etc.), meeting a few notables, and drawing a map of our immediate area. We also met a couple of the volunteers who live nearby and came to welcome us. We also met two girls who teach the children of American missionaries who are living in Tabligbo until the end of this year. They made us chocolate chip cookies! It must be nice to have an oven, but we really can’t complain since we have running water and electricity, two things that many volunteers don’t have. We spent the week cooking on a charcoal stove (just like camping on the Au Sable – those were the days, weren’t they?!), but hope to buy a propane stove in Lomé after swear-in.

We spent a lot of time in the market on market day, which was a bit of an overwhelming experience. It was the biggest crowd of people I’ve seen yet in Togo! We successfully purchased a number of items, and managed to dispute the price (discuter le prix) a few times successfully as well.

We also got to know our homologues (the Togolese counterparts we’ve been assigned) and learned a little about what our work will be like in Tabligbo. These are just the possibilities so far, so things are bound to change once we get situated in village. One project that I’m going to work on is starting an organization for counseling people living with AIDS on health and nutrition. I also might work with one of the schools on teaching a health class. Joey has plans to work with a mechanics’ union, a women-owned and operated purse business, and a group of farmers on increasing productivity. We’ll let you know how those plans pan out in the coming months.

Thanks for the phone calls and the letters – we hope you all continue to stay in touch that way until we can get the Internet thing figured out. Hopefully, our letters home to you have been arriving without a problem. We’re sorry we haven’t been able to post much so far, but soon we’ll be in Tabligbo and may be able to get reliable Internet access and post more often. Bear with us!

Finally, happy birthday to Heather and Mommies (both of you!) from Togo! More information coming soon!

About a month into training...

2008-06-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

Joey and I have been at our training sites in Agou Nyogbo and Agou Koumawou for a few weeks now. The rainy season is in full swing, so it rains almost every day. We’re right at the base of Mount Agou, and the view is awesome. We both have electricity and no running water, which I haven’t missed as much as I thought I would. We’re both enjoying getting to know our host families and speaking French on a daily basis. I have a host mom, a sister (she’s 17), a brother (he’s 7), an aunt and a grandma in my compound, and Joey has a host mom, and two little host sisters (ages 9 and 13) in his village. We’re starting to learn a tiny bit of Ewé (ev-ay), the local language that they speak in this area.

We also found out this week that our post site is going to be Tabligbo, which is in the Maritime region about two hours northeast from Lomé. From what we’ve heard so far, it’s a city of about 18,000, and the main employer is a big cement factory. Ewé happens to be the local language there as well, so I think we’re going to start getting a little more education in that area soon. We’ll be doing a post visit to Tagligbo during week 7 of training (at the time I’m writing this, we’re getting ready to start week 4). We do our swear-in at the end of August, so that’s when we’ll be off to our post together.

Besides the French, my training so far has been on things like malaria, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, and gardening (you’ll be hearing more about the moringa tree soon!). The group of health trainees I’m with have been to a hospital and a dispensaire (like a pharmacy run by a nurse); we’ve also had practice doing baby weighing and been to a training session on how to make enriched food for malnourished kids. Joey’s training so far has mostly been about microfinance and tantines (the Togolese version of a personal savings). He also visited a microfinance bank in Kpalimé.
Our first experience at the marché (market) was interesting. The piles and piles of whole smoked fish made for an interesting aromatic experience, and it took a long time to figure out that there was a structure to the way things are organized. I managed to successfully buy some vegetables for my host mom there.

The wildlife in village mostly consists of sheep, goats, and chickens, with a few small dogs and cats here and there. The lizards are everywhere, and they’re fun to watch. For those of you who are interested in the insect life, the mosquitoes are a bit of a pain, and the spiders (at least the ones I’ve seen!) are fast, but not too big. Joey apparently has some killer spiders that live in his latrine, but no one else has seen one yet, and he’s promised to get a picture the next time he sees one to post on the blog.

Pictures are currently not posting, so I'm going to email some to all of you. Will be sure to try to post them here next time!

To call us...

2008-06-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

Joe and I now have an international cell phone number, but apparently my training area in Agou doesn't get good reception, so Joe is going to take it with him to his training area (the areas are 5km apart). We doubt we'll be able to be placed together for stage (we'll find out for sure tomorrow), but we'll be in class together twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and together on the weekends. So, you can get in touch with both of us on those days.

Our number is: 011 228 938 5479.

Calls to the States are rather expensive for us, but incoming calls are free. So, if international calls aren't too bad on your phone plan, give us a call!

Arrival in Lomé

2008-06-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

We’re now in Lomé, Togo, and have been here for a few days at a hostel owned by Mamy, a little Asian woman. She has a nice cat named Milo who loves the volunteers because they like to pet him, and she cooks excellent food. Spicy and good! It’s a little weird living with all these people after living on our own for more than ten years, though. But everyone seems to get along really well, so we’ve been having fun so far. We’re up to six shots with more to come, and have gotten educated on malaria and other maladies, and have gotten instructions on the basic day-to-day stuff. Our language tests were an individual question and answer session in French. We find out at stage what level we’ll be placed at. Yesterday was, I think, the most helpful training session so far – all about how to wash clothes, take a bucket shower, use the lanterns, etc. We also went to our Country Director’s house for a reception last night – une grande maison! We also met the U.S. Ambassador to Togo. This afternoon, we got to go shopping and buy shower buckets and supplies and cell phones. I’ll post our number tomorrow – we likely won’t be calling anyone in the States, but incoming calls are free for us.

Granda will be disappointed to hear that my only encounter with bugs so far has been flies (it’s fly season here), and a few mosquitoes. Once we get to our training site and live with our host families, I heard we’ll have all kinds of interesting things living in our latrine. So more soon on that front.

The kids between Mamy’s and the Peace Corps office a few blocks away seem pretty used to seeing the volunteers around, but they like to wave at us and giggle. This area of Lomé has lots of chickens along with a few goats and dogs wandering around. You can hear the Togolese playing American music from their homes and from local bars (I’ve heard Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, and Tina Turner). Lomé is interesting (and living conditions are much better than we expected), but I think we’re a little impatient (and a little anxious…at least I am) to see what life with our host families. Tomorrow evening we head off to meet them.

Also, for a fellow volunteer’s mom named Elizabeth T., your daughter loves you, and is telling you not to worry. She’s very happy, excited, and making a lot of friends (she’s one of my favorite people, so I promise to stay in touch with her as much as possible!).

To my own Mom, and to Joe’s Mom and Dad, and everyone else (family, friends, and ex-coworkers), we’re feeling good about everything so far. Please send us news of home (via the blog, email, or letter)!

Leaving tomorrow...

2008-06-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

We completed day two of staging in Philadelphia today. We head to clinic tomorrow morning for some shots and then we'll be off to the airport where we'll leave for Paris at 6:45pm. On Saturday morning we'll arrive in Paris, and take off for Togo in the afternoon. Orientation over the last two days has been long, but getting to know the other 29 people in our Togo class has been fun. There's actually one other married couple - we were surprised to see them! The demographics of the class (for my demographer friends) is generally younger than us with one exception. We heard today that the oldest current PC volunteer in Togo is 37 - we suppose we'll bring the age average up some more (the current average is 25).

Thanks to those who have posted messages in the last few days - we appreciate your support! Please keep in touch and let us know what's going on back home.

A final tip that we learned today: if you want to send mail or packages, it helps get them delivered if you draw a religious symbol on the envelope or address it to "Sister Bree Gunter" or "Brother Joe Gunter" - we'll let you know if it works!

The next time you hear from us, we'll be in Togo (finally...)...

Welcome to our blog...

2008-04-30T06:13:00.001-07:00

Off to Togo in about a month!

Joe and I leave for Philadelphia for our orientation on June 4, 2008, and from there we'll be off to Togo. We're told that after a few days in the capital city of Lome, we'll be heading to the Agou region southeast of Kpalime for our 11-week training. Our assignment locations after training are TBD for now.

Joe will be training for the Small Business Development program, and I will be a Health Extension Agent in the AIDS/HIV education program (otherwise known as a CHAP volunteer).

More to come soon!