TIT (This Is Togo)

Mom comes to visit!

2013-01-29T15:12:00.001-08:00

I recently returned from Togo, West Africa where I visited my daughter, Katy. I was there for 17 days and she asked me to writing a little something for her blog. Please read and enjoy it. Also, I would like to thank all those who made a contribution to the Women’s Conference that Katy is facilitating in March. I have met the other two Peace Corps Volunteers that are involved in it and both women are very warm and intelligent. I was able to spend a day with them while they worked on some of the details. They are still in need of some funding ($200), so if you still would like to make a donation, that would be so helpful.

-Lori Todd

[Update: The project is fully funded! Thank you so much for your support.]

Lori’s Togo Trip

So, I finally made it Togo this past month to see my beautiful daughter Katy. She greeted me at the airport with a sign saying "mommy". When I saw her, I had a feeling of relief after the long flight. She was wearing a beautiful dress made of flower sacks. She sure can wear the dress.

It was definitely a transition there. It was very hot and humid in the capital (it's by the ocean) and my hair was one big curl. Katy lives up north and it is still hot but it's a dryer heat so I was a much happier camper once we made the 13 hour trek up there.

The beach in Lomé.

In the first week I was able to meet many of Katy’s Peace Corps friends. They are all so nice, friendly and very intelligent. I can tell they appreciate one another.

Having dinner with other PCVs in Lomé.

The women there were so kind to me. They offered me gifts, food and drinks. They share what they have, even if they don't have very much. They have made me feel very special and I can tell that they appreciate the work that Katy has done with them during her time there. It is very much like a sister bond.

Traveling of the roads of Togo is quite the experience. You really never know what to expect each day. I have been in/on a bush taxi (communal transportation system that is the main way of traveling for most Togolese), Peace Corps van, post office bus and moto. Some rides are pleasant and some are challenging with not enough space and often requires bargaining about the price. I would say this is one of my least favorite parts of the trip.

Standard bush taxi

I brought small gifts for the family where Katy lives and a few of her special women friends. The children were so excited to receive them and they laughed and giggled as I took pictures.

Kids in Katy's compound

As we walked through her town, children sang out "yovo" (white person) to me, so I would say I have been christened by Togo.

I have enjoyed tasting the different foods. Surprisingly, there wasn't much that I didn't like. The main meals they serve are rice, corn, beans or yams. A different spicy sauce accompanies each. It is very tasty and yes, you eat it with your fingers. They serve your plate full and what you don't finish, they will. Nothing goes to waste. They are also very proud to serve the fermented millet beer. I took it slow being that the weather was so hot but eventually I came to find it very refreshing.

Drinking tchakpa, the local millet beer.

So, who can say that they spent their 55th birthday in Africa, riding on the back of a moto, climbing a mountain, spending time with lovely people, having a nice quiet dinner and a summer night walk home all with their daughter? It was a lovely day. The hike up the mountain was a challenge in the ninety plus degree weather. As I stopped for break halfway up, a women passed us coming down the rocky path carrying a large pot on her head loaded with vegetables she was going to sell at the market. I took a picture of her and shook my head. The women here are amazingly strong in many ways, both mentally and physically.

One day we took a long morning walk to visit the village of Cecile, Katy's dressmaker friend. It is where she grew up and it was a wonderful venture. The people in her village were so kind and happy to see us. Most Togolese people love having their picture taken. They stand still and straight like the Old Italian photos of my ancestors. Smiles are hard to come by but as time went on I found that I could sometimes get them to crack a smile. The oldest woman in Cecile's village was close to 100 (well, she has a son that was 82) and blind but with a beautiful smile. It reminded me of the visits I have with my family in Italy. Everyone is so happy to see you.

A son and his mother

One afternoon was spent in a classroom of 30 children. Katy and another Peace Corps worker, Sam, hold weekly Geography clubs at two different elementary schools. They talked about the continents, countries, north, south, east, and west and also about the different languages that are spoken throughout the world. The children seemed very excited to learn.

Rachel is a woman that Katy has worked with very closely. She helps to promote her sewing projects. I visited her shop, which is a very small shed right on the main road. It's hard to believe the quality products that are made there. I bought a purse and wallet from her and was also gifted a couple more items. She told me how much she appreciated the help that Katy has given her with her business. She is a single mom who sends her three boys to private school. They want to become doctors and a judge someday.

Rachel (left) and her family

Another morning we took a moto ride to one of Katy’s women's groups. They were very happy to meet me. They showed me the box where they store their money. There are three locks and three different women hold he keys, and a fourth keeps the box at her house. They can borrow money from the group if needed but pay it back with interest. Their year-end is coming soon and they will divide it up. Katy said that it will probably the largest sum of money that they've ever had, as they are usually accustomed to spending money as they make it. Then they danced for me, gave me a traditional woven pagne (a skirt and head wrap), three jars of peanuts and a live chicken. It was the second chicken I was gifted during my time there. The chicken was prepared the very next day for a lunch of bean meal with tomato gravy. It was tasty.

For dinner that night, I met with more Peace Corps volunteers. I enjoyed hearing about their background and they all seemed content in why they were there and what they wanted to do.

Savannes Volunteers

One evening I was able to see the process of making fufu, (the pounded yam dish). It reminds me of the hard work that went into some of the Italian dishes my grandparents would make. I finally tasted something that I did not care for. It’s a mustard paste that they use in sauces. It smells awful but the Togolese love it. My favorite food was pintade. It is guinea fowl. You see the pintades walking all through the towns and villages just like all the other animals. The animals never seemed to be fenced in.

Fufu with peanut sauce and cabbage and chicken.

Pintades

Katy treated me to what they would call frozen yogurt. It was very delicious, especially on the warm days. You suck it out of a plastic bag. Lots of plastic bags are used around here. Anything you buy off the street is put into one and they even sell water in a small plastic baggie.

I picked up my dress and shirt that I had made by Cecile. There was extra material so she surprisingly whipped up another dress! The material cost more than she charged me for the labor.

Many of the families here have no running water, no stove and no refrigerator. They are living their lives like we do when we camp in tents. It is something you can get used to and after being there for over two weeks I found that it can be easy to mold to if you have to. It seems like the people are very happy with their lives. They don’t have much and don’t seem to need much to be content.

Katy did a wonderful job showing me what her life has been like for almost the past two years. I took many pictures that I am happy to share. She has met wonderful people that have thanked me over and over again for allowing her to come to Togo and work with them. I would say "you’re welcome", although really it was all Katy’s idea. Katy has made a difference here in Togo and they appreciate her.

My last few days we did the most tourist thing you can do in Togo, we went to Kpalime. It’s the prettiest region surrounded with lots of green mountains. As I took a walk towards the mountains, it brought me back to my walks in Italy–very peaceful and beautiful. The hotel we stayed at cost $27.00 a night and Katy considered it to be one of the nicer, more expensive hotels in Togo. It came with air conditioning that worked poorly. They gave us one towel that we ended up using for the water that leaked all over the floor when you took a shower, but we had hot water! You have to take the good with the bad. They also had a pool, but we had to pay $3.00 each to use it so I made sure to get my moneys worth! Our dinners here were at a restaurant owned by a Belgium family. They spoke English and were very nice, a mother and son operation. Good food too. I only had one coffee the whole time I was here, and it was in Kpalime–Nescafé with canned condense milk. It also brought me back to the days when I would have a spoonful from my grandmother’s sugary sweet cup of coffee.

During harmattan, men migrate south from Mali and Niger to sell the camels.

Katy asked me what my favorite moments were in Togo. I said meeting all of the people that she has been working with, enjoying time and meals with other Peace Corps Volunteers, and also seeing and living what she has dedicated her last two years to. Not everyone could do this and I admire the hard times she has gone through and will still go through in her last few months. She is a strong woman and I am very proud of her. I also enjoyed meeting her puppy, Lux. She is a cute, well-behaved dog and I look forward to her coming home to California.

I'm published!

2012-12-30T02:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's not my actual work that is published, but it's articles that have recently been published about the work that I do in Togo. You can check them out here:

The Press Democrat

Peace Corps Press

AllAfrica.com

Merci!

Préparation de Kalma

2012-09-02T14:30:00.002-07:00

*It’s been a while since I last posted. Nothing has really struck me as worth writing about recently. I think it’s because my life here has become so normal that things don’t surprise me as much anymore and I’ve gotten into somewhat of a routine. Well, here’s a little write-up of a Togolese dish I made today with my counterpart Rachel. This week, the new Volunteers swear in and Peace Corps celebrates 50 years in Togo. They’re renting out a large concert hall and it’s set to be a huge event. They’ve even invited Faure Gnassingbé, Togo’s president! (Doubtful he will come though.) I’ll be showcasing Rachel’s work with the other artisans PCVs work with in country, along with promoting the Women’s Conference (WWEC). Then, this weekend I leave the African continent for the first time in over 15 months and travel to the amazingness that is America, the land of bacon, ice cream and blocks of cheese.

Over the past year I’ve grown to love Togolese food. Long gone are the constant cravings for Oreos and my mom’s tuta. I now find myself craving white, pounded yam mush with fish sauce and beans cooked in palm oil. Don’t get me wrong, I am mentally prepared to gain 10-15 pounds from overindulgence on my next vacation, but cravings tend to be for foods that you eat regularly.

One of my favorite Togolese dishes is called kalma. It’s a Moba word and there’s no French translation that I know of. I’ve only ever seen it in the Savannes region and other Volunteers down south have never heard of it. The best I can describe it as is like a bean tamale. Essentially, it is crushed beans made into watery dough and cooked in bags or leaves eaten with tomato sauce or simply oil and hot peppers.

The Kalma:

We started by pounding the fresh beans in a mortar to break them from their shell.

Next, using water, we separated the shell casing from the beans.

Now we were ready to take the beans to the mill. The mill was a metal, gas-powered engine that was housed at Rachel’s neighbor’s house. Togolese use the mill to grind corn, soybeans, etc. and in Dapaong, you can find one every few blocks.

After adding some water, it was time to add the potash, a mined salt containing potassium.

Next we poured the batter in little plastic baggies. I have made this once before au village and we cooked the batter in leaves, but plastic bags are so much neater.

The bags were then added to a giant pot of boiling water. Fun Togolese fact: Togolese don’t use potholder when cooking. They just pick up steaming hot caldrons with their hands without even flinching. I have still yet to acquire “pâte fingers” (where you can eat the still steaming corn mush with your fingers. I either have to wait for it to cool or have someone pull apart tiny pieces for me like a mother would cut meat for her child) so I have no hopes of attaining this level of awesomeness.

The batter cooked for about an hour and when we took them out it looked like this.

The Sauce:

We prepared a tomato fish sauce to dip the pieces of kalma in. Rachel cut up the onions after Sam failed due to a lack of table to cut on. (Another amazing Togolese feat: they cut food while holding it in their hands. Luckily, the knives tend to be pretty dull.)

Next, we crushed the peppers, tomatoes (no seeds), green spices and garlic.

The tomato substance was then poured into a pot with a cup of oil already in it (we later added more oil), salted to taste.

Rachel then peeled the fish and added it to the sauce.

Lastly came the whole peppers. Before coming to Togo, I couldn’t eat anything spicy. Now, I sometimes have to ask for more in my food otherwise it doesn’t taste the same. I’m quite proud of myself for this.

And that’s your Togolese cooking lesson for the day!

Quick Update

2012-07-12T13:59:00.001-07:00

It's summer time which means camp season for PCVs in Togo. I've been traveling around the country the last couple weeks. To check out what I've been up to, you can view photos, read our first issue of Farm to Market and watch a video clip that was shown on national Togo television about Camp Joie, a camp for handicapped Togolese youth where I was a counselor (can you spot me?!). More updates coming soon!

Work Happenings

2012-05-27T15:20:00.003-07:00

So I recently realized that I have mainly focused my blog on goals #2 and #3 of PC (#2: teach Togolese about Americans, #3: teach Americans about Togolese) and have not touched much on goal #1, which is transferring skills to Togolese. Most of you are probably what exactly it is that I’m doing here besides eating strange food and playing with my dog. To be honest, most of my actual work activities didn’t really come about until a few months ago when I changed sites, but now things are starting to get rolling and this summer is going to be crazy busy for me.

*Also, May 31st marks one year from the day I left California. June 3rd will be a year in Togo. Wow, time sure goes by fast.

Rachel

Rachel is my official homologue and an amazing woman. Her trade is upholstering, but her skills and ambition surpass that. Upholsterers (in French, tapissiers) are usually male and she did her apprenticeship with a male employer and other male apprentices. She now owns her own workshop and has 15 all-female apprentices (she had 9 when I moved in February). Our first project that we’re doing together is collecting photos of her work to ultimately make into a catalogue to show potential customers. She tends to only do made-to-order because otherwise people (mainly family and friends) come to her and say that they like something and then they take it promising to pay later but never do. It stems from a cultural belief that family members who are more well off should help those that are less well off.

Christoff (Sam's Homologue), Sam and Rachel enjoying a burrito lunch we served them the other day. Goal #2.

We are also working to expand her merchandise to offer bags, wallets, etc. She already makes the bags for CEDAF (see below) using their woven pagne but has the ability to use other materials (pagne and leather, for example). I have given her some sample pictures that she is using to replicate, but in her own artistic way. I’m really looking forward to working with her throughout my next year of service and hope to help her improve her business in any way that I can.

The bags Rachel makes with the CEDAF pagnes.

CEDAF Weaver’s Group

CEDAF is a co-op group of women in Dapaong that offers support to women and young girls with few or no other options and teaches them skills and life lessons. They are known for their production of traditional woven pagne. There have been many volunteers before me who have worked with them and I was eager to see how I could add to their already well-established organization. I recently helped the women receive and process a very large order from an NGO in the US, and taught them skills such as how to create an invoice, exporting and quality control. The NGO was pleased with their work and, if they should receive future orders, I hope to make them self-sustainable in the process. We just shipped off the first order last week so now we’re discussing what will be our next step.

World Map Project

My site mate Sam and I share a love of geography, so I was excited when we both wanted to do a World Map Project and decided to do it together. What is a World Map Project? It is a tool that was designed by a PCV in the 80s to help spread geography education to areas where maps and textbooks are not widely available. It allows you to draw and paint a detailed and proportional world map on a wall or floor area. We found an elementary school in Dapaong that was interested and held a drawing contest with the CM2 students (the US equivalent of 5^th grade). We picked 25 of the best artists of 100 students to assist us. At our first meeting, we began by asking them to draw what they could of a world map from memory. Most were able to draw Togo and a few more could draw Africa, but nothing more than that. We asked who had ever seen a world map before, thinking that in a regional capital it would be more likely than in the smaller surrounding villages, and two students raised their hands. In a country where adults commonly ask me “Where in Europe is America?” I shouldn’t have been too surprised. It took a week and a half, and lots of patience and trying to suppress my detail-focused OCD, but the end result looks amazing and the kids were so excited. One of my favorite parts was when Sam (who’s from Michigan) and I showed where our hometowns were on the map and then the kids realized the distance compared to the size of Togo and their mouths would just drop. Togo is their whole world and my attempt was to try an open their world up a little. We already have a request from another school for another map and I’m excited to start!

The school's director even got in on the action.

Togo–PC Partnership

Women’s Groups

Must like in the US, women here commonly form interest groups amongst their community. They aren’t groups that play Bunko, however, and use the groups to form a coalition of women who sell the same thing in the market or women who live in the same quartier and profit from the security formed between the group members. Many groups either save money or take out loans together, but they could just meet to share advice about family and ways to improve their lives.

I have met a few times over the last several months with one women’s group in Dalwak and have taught basic business skills such as marketing and how to see if your product or service you are selling or want to sell is profitable and a good business venture. I did an example on how much capital it requires to start selling tchakpa, a local fermented millet drink. Start-up materials alone are over 50,000cfa ($100US, a lot of money here) and after half the total quantity was given away as a cadeau, most women would lose money for the day–not what the women expected but they had never took the time to calculate it before so therefore never knew. To see it just click in their minds was amazing. Throughout the next few months I will be presenting on other topics to this group and a few others nearby as well.

A popular savings technique that is surpassing microfinance and even basic tontines (rotational savings groups where each week a different member receives the “pot” of money) is a village savings and loans association, or VSLA. The original success of microfinance was based in the idea that it allowed the poorest of the poor to secure loans but the original design has been commonly been modified into a for-profit business and the result has made microloans inaccessible to the poorest of the poor. A VSLA aims to use the security of locally formed groups to help members save amongst themselves and give each other loans, usually closing out a year later with a substantial (30-40%) interest rate. I knew coming into PC that I wanted to help start a VSLA but it’s important that the interested group actually is interested, otherwise the project won’t work. My Dalwak women just asked me if I could help them set up a savings group so that’s another project I’ll be working on over the next few months.

Business Club

I had a group of high school students approach me a couple months ago about the possibility of starting a youth business club. We now have a group of ten students and together are starting our first project. We will be selecting between 5-10 female students to give a small loan to for the summer to start her own small business. She will learn basic business and management skills, as well as the fundamentals of taking out a loan and the business club members will be the ones teaching them these skills. I will be supervising. It’s a model that former Togo PCVs have used and I hope to help these girls save money for their school fees in the fall and instill my students with the ability to teach these skills to other groups.

Additionally, the business club wants to open a computer informational learning center in Dapaong, catered mostly to students. Computer/Internet café type centers exist, but few places teach how to actually use a computer and classes are expensive. This is an expensive endeavor but ultimately one that I think could greatly benefit the community and be very useful in today’s technology-based society. The students (and me, actually) will be learning how to write a business proposal and investigate funding options. If successful, this will be a lengthy process but also hopefully very rewarding.

Lastly, to work on their computer and Internet skills, they students have asked to be put in touch with students in the US with whom they could converse in English. If anyone knows any high school kids who may be interested, please let me know.

WWEC

I’ve talked about WWEC a few times already on this blog, but I never wrote a follow-up post to our regional conference in March. Basically, it was a huge success and the women were amazing and fun to interact with. We taught them a variety of things from yoga to nutrition to gardening to accounting. I was chosen to be a national coordinator of the event for 2013 so you’ll be hearing a lot about it in the coming months. It’s going to be a lot of work but I truly believe that it is an extraordinary event that really empowers women and brings together women from a variety of backgrounds to share information and work towards bettering their lives, that of their families and of their communities.

WWEC women doing yoga.

Club Espoir

Club Hope, as is the English translation, was started as an expansion of the summer Camp Espoir to help reach youth affected by HIV/AIDS throughout the year. Once a month, Savannes PCVs host a morning of fun, games and a little bit of educational lessons. While my schedule doesn’t allow me to make every month’s meeting, when possible it’s a fun and rewarding experience.

Duck, Duck, Goose

Farm to Market Newsletter

Farm to Market is a quarterly newsletter produce in a joint effort between the SED and EAFS (Environmental Action and Food Security) programs to link the work that we both do. Although produced by Togo PCVs, it is shared throughout PC West Africa and with similar programs. I am one the new editors for the next year and am very excited to collaborate with my fellow editors and put my design skills to use as well. Our first issue is out in July.

Camp Joie

PC Togo offers many summer camp opportunities for Togolese youth. Camp Espoir, as mentioned above, is one and Camp Joie (Camp Joy) is another. Camp Joie invites children who are physically disabled to participate in a week-long summer camp where they have fun and come together with other disabled kids in a setting not really found anywhere else in Togo. I’ll report more after the camp but this is another one of things on my upcoming busy schedule.

Musings

2012-04-24T15:19:00.000-07:00

I knew when coming to Togo that most Africans had a different outlook on time than Americans. Americans hate when people are late, rush to complete errands and view their time as a valuable work component. Togolese, in my experience, operate on ”l’heure africaine" and only show up at meetings once they know you have already arrived, they bike slowly on the road until they notice you passing them (at which point they speed up), they can space out for hours in a long bush taxi ride, and they wake with the sun, not an alarm clock. Despite this, I have learned that they are surprised when I am on time and respect me for it. I have learned that they get impatient when a bush taxi is full yet the driver takes an additional 30 minutes to leave and we form a comradeship over our shared frustrations. I have learned that they don’t like to wait in line and will march to the counter and demand service immediately without thought of the others already waiting. However, when I refuse the instant service offered to me because of the color of my skin and declare that I will wait my turn, their irritation quickly diminishes. I have learned that they will continue with a time-consuming task even after you show them a faster way, purely for the enjoyment of the company they share. Most importantly, I have learned to slow down and take the all that I can during the quickly depleting time I have left here.

Hot Season

2012-04-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hot season. Those two words have haunted me since the day I came to Togo. Conveniently, my stage arrived in June, the beginning of rainy season (and also the end of mango season–yum!) so I had a good 9 months to ask Togolese and older PCVs how they survive and how hot it really gets. The answers I received didn’t calm my fears at all. One PCV said that during hot season she would quickly run inside to house to retrieve something and then rush back to the safety of the mango tree shade. I can now officially say that I have survived hot season (or so the Togolese say–I don’t know, today was HOT). It normally lasts through mid-May but the weather this year has been odd. Rain usually does not touch the Togolese Savanna region from mid-October to mid-May, but this year it rained–no, poured–in the beginning of February, again at the end of the month, and a few more times, as recently as last week. Some villagers have started planting and, with one more rain, the rest will follow.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that I have escaped a fiery hell of heat, but it has still been hot. Probably hotter than I’ve ever experienced living in California. There have just been more “not so unbearably hot” and “still hot but with a breeze” days than there are usually. A PCV who lives about 5k north of me clocked the temperature one day at 122°. We’re not sure of the accuracy of that reading though because his digital thermometer may not be able to record temperatures higher than 122°. You can look up the weather for Dapaong online but I can’t verify the validity of their resources.

What is like to live in extreme temperatures? Well, for starters, every pore in your body exudes sweat. Your thighs sweat, your shins sweat and area where you butt becomes you legs sweats. Your bottom looks like you wet yourself when you stand after sitting for just 5 minutes. Your clothes have salt lines from your massive pools of sweat. Sleeping naked at night with a fully powered fan pointed at you still causes there to be a wet sweaty body outline on you sheets when you get up. Food rots and starts to smell within a day of buying it. Your dog would rather be locked in the house all day than forced to be outside because he’s found a special cool spot under your bed. It’s completely acceptable to do absolutely nothing from 11am-3pm every day. You continually have a salty layering on your skin despite the 4 showers you take daily. You avoid cooking because it means that there is a good possibility that the epic beads of sweat cascading down you face will make it into your meal.

I have had the added pleasure of experiencing an extreme heat rash. It’s normal to have little spots of it on different parts of your body but my body has chosen to have it all over my neck, back, chest, stomach and face consistently for the past few weeks. I had experienced a few cases earlier on in hot season but they only lasted a few day. Heat rash is also called ‘prickly heat’ because it can feel like someone is sticking a thousand needles into you skin. I’ve tried everything recommended to lessen it but nothing seems to be working. I have had Togolese pointing at my red spots and expressing their sympathy (or asking why my face looks like that of a pubescent 13-year old–Togolese get heat rash but the red spots show up a lot easier on my light skin).

So how exactly does one survive hot season? Find a magical mango tree to snooze under (it’s amazing how much the temperature drops under one of these things), flag down a fan milk (essentially frozen flavored milk) guy, order a sport actif (closest thing Togo had to Gatorade), wrap yourself in a wet pagne with the fan blasting on you, befriend the workers in the air-conditioned post office, and befriend the workers in the air-conditioned bank (you can never have too many friends). Or you could just strategically plan a long vacation and escape West Africa all together.

The Real Peace Corps

2012-03-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

I came across a blog post from a PCV in Ethiopia and, despite coming from a different country, felt it summed up well my experience in Togo. I, as most would, tend to write about my experience positively. People generally don't enjoy hearing the bad parts. However, there's a reason's PC's catchphrase is "The toughest job you'll ever love". I often claim that I have a love-hate relationship with Togo. There are definitely things that I would rather not endure (persistent and price-gouging moto drivers, par exemple) but there are also the parts that make everything worth it (the exclamation people have when I tell them I like fufu AND I eat it with my hand). As the author says, no two Peace Corps services are alike, but he does a good job of summarizing it.

The Real Peace Corps

FAQs

2012-02-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

I want to update the FAQ page but would like to solicit questions from all of you. If there's anything that you're wondering about, post it in a comment below! Thanks!

-Katy

Updates

2012-02-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

So I’m a little behind on updating this blog… (like two months!) I’ve been moving around quite a bit lately and then whenever I had time to write a post it just felt so daunting since there was so much to write about. I apologize and promise to (try to) not let it happen again. I also apologize on my letter and email writing back habits, which unfortunately have also not been too great…

I’m going to try to give some quick updates on what’s been going on in my life. I’ll start with Christmas since that was the first big event that happened after my last post.

Christmas in Togo

I was a little worried about the holiday season as it was the first time I would not be with family and I’m surrounded by an environment that I’d only been a part of for a few months. It actually wasn’t as hard/awkward/sad as I thought it may be. Now, California is not known for it’s cold temperature but my house at Christmas time is usually pretty cold (with frost as proof) since it’s in a canyon so having Christmas when it was 90° didn’t exactly feel real. Add that to the setting and it seemed (almost) like any other day in Togo.

We (Savanners who did not go home for the holidays) threw a Christmas party in Dapaong. Lots of PVCs made the trek up north and we had a great time together. I got to meet a lot of people from the newest stage that swore in in November. We’ve really got a great group here in Togo. There was a minor problem with the hotel people were originally going to stay at (two girls sharing a room were told they must pay 6,000cfa a night when a guy and girl sharing the same room would only have to pay 4,000cfa because the guy would obviously be paying for the girl and it wouldn’t be fair to make him pay the full 6,000cfa) so the house was a little crowded… It made Christmas feel cozy though.

We had a huge Mexican feast on Christmas Eve, followed by a white elephant exchange. I received a pagne (which I made into a dress, see below) and a carved wooden calabash (half-spear shaped bowl used to drink tchakpa-the local drink). Christmas day, we were invited to APCD Paul’s house (EAFS director) and fed extremely well. The food just kept coming and coming and I was surprised that they had enough food for everyone. There were maybe three or four different types of meat and fish. I ate rabbit for the first time. We were also served taro and it was delicious. Nothing really exciting happened but it was just a nice Christmas spent with some great new friends.

(Shout out to everyone that sent Christmas cards/packages and called. Really meant a lot to me so thank you!)

Camp Nadjundi

Fellow Savanner Heidi held a winter session mini camp for some sixième students in her village. She invited other PCVs to come help and I volunteered because it sounded like a great event and I was interested to see how it went. She had set up a couple people to be formateurs and teach several different topics at the camp. They had a meeting a couple days before it started and the formateurs asked about getting a per diem for their time. Heidi was a little thrown off guard by this because they had written the budget for the camp together and had never included per diem in the proposal. She told them she would not be giving anyone money which, unfortunately, resulted in the formateurs not participating in the camp.

Playing red rover.

Immediately, more PCVs offered to come and help at the camp. I was unexpectedly chosen to present a session on goal setting, which thankfully was co-led with one of her jeune leaders (older students chosen to help with the camp due to their enthusiasm and knowledge). Honestly, the jeune leaders were the saviors of the camp (along with Heidi who is always awesome). They volunteered to lead or co-lead almost every session, sang songs in between sessions and organized games during breaks. It was great to see them step up to the challenge and I think they might have gained more from the camp than the students who the camp was for. Overall, it was another PC Togo lesson in how as hard as you try you can never be fully prepared but that things will work out well in the end.

New Years

I was fortunate to spend New Years with two awesome Savanners Aaron and Sam in Aaron’s village called Timbu. He’s part of the newest group of PCVs and it was the furthest north I’ve gone in Togo. New Years is pretty big here. Every woman gets a new outfit made and it was awesome seeing everyone dressed in their “Sunday bests”. Most of the celebration is on New Years Day, which is an interesting contrast to our traditional NYE festivities. I didn’t even stay up to watch our phone clocks strike 00:00 L

Aaron had informed some people in his village that Sam and I were coming and they wanted to have a party. Somehow this party turned into us making fried chicken (or as they called it, American style chicken) for about 8 other people. We were initially informed that they would be bringing food to accompany the chicken for dinner but there was lost communication somewhere and it ended up just being our chicken with some rice we had thankfully decided to make as well.

Our making the chicken was on the condition that they would kill, clean and gut it for us so we would only have to cook it. They got the first two done but missed the last step. I’ve never actually cut up a chicken before so I kind of winged it (hehe) and cut off the legs and head with no problem but then had some difficulty with the body. Togolese knives are not known for being sharp so you have to sort of whack at it. After about 5 minutes of me trying Aaron comes over to take a whack at it and quickly decides to bring them over to his local meat stand man and have him do it for us. While this was all going on, Aaron and I (Sam was sick and she played DJ from inside on the floor) took turns cleaning and sifting through the rice for rocks. The proper way to do it is similar to how you pan for gold but with 3 giant bowl of rice that took about 3 hours to do. Aaron was in charge of cooking the chicken so that left me with the rice. He’s a new post so he’s still in the process of getting stuff for his house. Alas, he had one pot and one frying pan. The chicken won the pot and that meant I got to cook rice in a pan, which took foreeeever.

The Togolese seemed to like the chicken but you can never tell for sure. They ate a little bit of the rice but since we had not prepared a sauce to go along with it (because we were under the impression that THEY were bringing that) they confessed that they could not eat too much. Overall though, it seemed like a success and I know I finished dinner with a big belly full of meat.

Prepping for Benin

Sam and I decided to take our first vacation in Togo together and go to Benin. She wanted to see animals in the North and I wanted to do beaches in the South, but we compromised with animals (OK she won but I don’t like to admit that). In order for this to happen though, we needed to get visas. So, we trekked down to Lomé.

Without knowing exactly where the Benin Embassy was, we chose the route of hopping in a car and just telling the driver where to take us. After asking him if he knew where it was, he said yes and asked if we knew too. Now, here’s the problem with being white in Africa. If you don’t know where you are going, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will be ripped off so Sam replies that we do and says it’s la bas, over there, and points in the direction opposite of the beach. We settle on a price and hop in the car. As I’ve come to find out, however, Togolese are famous for saying they know where some place is and then stopping every so often to ask for directions. Apparently though, no Benin Embassy even exists in Togo and our driver took us to some Benin governed area and tried to leave us there. A man holding a machine gun informs us that we cannot be there and the car must turn around. The driver asks the man with the gun where we can go to get visas and he informs us that “Togo and Benin are brothers and you do not need a visa to visit family”. Yeah, maybe you don’t but we kind of stand out a little more than you and might have some difficulties visiting our “brother”.

After calling several PCVs to see if they know where it is, I decide to call a PC staff member. (While on the phone, the driver continues to ask people in the cars next to us if they know where the embassy is, even though at this point we know it’s a consulate and not an embassy that we’re looking for). Come to find out, the consulate is a 5-minute walk from the PC Bureau and not a 2,000cfa taxi ride away. Good to know. The actual getting the visa part went smoothly and we picked up our passports the very next day.

In other Benin news, my dad works with a guy who is originally from Benin. I never met him before coming to Togo but he went back to Benin for the holidays and promised my dad that he would meet up with me. He had emailed me in the beginning of December asking where in Togo I was. Being that I had not heard from him come January, I thought being in Savannes (a 9+hour journey for him) had changed his mind. Knowing that I was going to be in Lomé (a 13hr bus ride for me!), I emailed him and asked if he had time to meet up. The 2-hour journey was a lot easier for him to make and we were able to meet up, have some lunch, and talk about the differences between West Africa and the US. It was a very interesting conversation and great to hear someone’s perspective on things who understands life in both worlds.

Puppy Training

Achu update. He is getting bigger every day, despite me not feeding him so he’ll stay small forever (joking). My aunt sent doggy treats so I’ve been using those to teach him “sit”, “stay”, “down” and “shake”. He’s a smart little boy and has no trouble at all commanding when treats are involved, but we’re still working on situations when there’s no reward…

Despite having a couple chew toys, his favorite (besides my hand) seems to be my mosquito net. It’s cushy so it’s great for him to bite into, plus it also doubles as a humping toy!

In other dog news, I’ve yet to read it but there’s apparently a recent National Geographic article that talks about how Togo has the “Original Dog” and all other dogs in the world originated from it just like humans are believed to have initially inhabited Africa. Togo really only has one breed of dog that comes in a few different colors with the occasional extra fury tail or shaggy-haired pup. On animal vaccination cards, vets write “local breed” as the breed of dog.

Oh, Hi Mouse

So I’ve had a mouse problem since November. It’s just one mouse, but it’s amazing how much one little mouse can do. My friend Rebekah named him Mickey after she slept over one night and experienced the mouse/ants/spiders/cockroaches that I have to deal with every night. I’ve woken up to the mouse crawling over me (accidentally left some food next to me on the bed… oops!) and also a cockroach–both equally unpleasant. I have one shoe that I designate as my insect killing utensil and sleep with it by my side.

Mickey likes to live in my closet. Theoretically he shouldn’t be able to get in there but the cabinet thing was made really poorly and the wood has started to warp. Occasionally, I’ll pull out a shirt and he comes scrambling out with it causing me to scream and Achu to be put on high alert. He’s eaten through a canvas bag that I had hanging on the wall to get to food that was left inside of it. He ate through a pagne I left covering my bed one weekend to keep the dust off in order to get to a can of nuts, which he tried to eat through but I’m guessing the plastic lid may have gotten him sick because he stopped before eaten through the lid. He scurries around at night making loud noises and keeping me up. He also chews on my closet, which makes the biggest noise of all and is right at the foot of my bed.

PDM and Breaking News

Mid January, my stage reunited for PDM, which is a week of training for you and your homologue. The two main topics we discussed were behavior change and permagardening (a garden designed to grow things all year round, but requires a lot of water and isn’t feasible for most areas in Northern Togo), both of which were very interesting but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to apply either to my work here. Here are some pictures though that show us hard at work!

On the last day, Admin gathered every volunteer present at the Pagala training center. We were all a little confused as to what was happening. Carolina, the PC Togo Director broke the news to us that we will be phasing out the SED program, i.e. my program. This means that the new stage that was supposed to come in June (1 year after my arrival) is temporarily suspended and the new CHAP volunteers will be combined with the incoming EAFS/GEE stage. The tentative date for them to come is July. What does this mean for me? Well, not too much. My fellow SEDers and I will continue to do work as we normally would but we will not be replaced at the end of our service (there is the possibility that another sector could replace us, but I don’t see that happening for me). Thus, it is more important than ever for us to focus on sustaining our projects now so that they’ll continue once we leave. The thing I am saddest about though is that I won’t get to help train the incoming stage, at least not in the same capacity that I would if it were a group of SED stagiaires coming in. The older PVCs really helped me adjust to Togo during my first few months in country and I was looking forward to doing the same for the next group.

Why SED? Well, PC, just like most government programs, is getting budget cuts across the board. A higher up person came to Togo last fall to investigate the state of our programs and he decided that SED was the program to close in order to allow more resources for the remaining three sectors. It’s feels like a light slap in the face to know that the work I’m doing here is seen as more expendable than the others, but I do believe that the three remaining programs (CHAP, EAFS and GEE) work in areas that must be strengthened before we can address small business development. If you have any more questions about the reasoning behind this and/or its effects, please let me know.

New Phone

I brought an old, unlocked phone with me when I first came to Togo. I had gotten it back in 2007 so it had already had a good life and I didn’t expect it to last my whole two years here. Well, it finally died. One day it just wouldn’t turn on anymore. This meant I got to get a new phone! I chose one that has a double kit, a phone where you can insert two sim cards. Still have my old number but I now also have another number (on the Moov network, which has better rates both in Togo and for calling/texting the States). If you text me and I respond with a different number, this is why. Feel free to use both, as they both reach the same phone and I don’t believe it makes a difference on your end.

WWEC Updates

Preparations for the 2^nd annual Women’s Wellness and Empowerment Conference are well underway. The Savannes/Kara conference is on March 8^th (also International Women’s Day) so were hurriedly trying to get everything in order. Lydia, fellow SEDer, and I will be presenting four sessions for our sector, which are how to do a feasibility study using moringa juice, family planning and budgeting, the importance of saving, and how to save. There’s still a lot of work to be done in the next couple of week, but I’m really excited for it. I nominated a woman from Tandjoaré. She’s 25, married, with two little boys (aged 3 and 9 months) and she sells beignets at the local primary school. She along with two other women have been my companions on marché day. They take me around to all of the best tchakpa stands and teach me words in Moba. I thought the conference would teach her a lot and that she would return to village and pass on what she learned to other women. I’ll be sure to update you all after the event and let you know how it goes.

Filming

Back in November, a youth peer educators group from Bogou (a village neighboring Tandjoaré) and I submitted a script about HIV/AIDS prevention for a film contest that another PCV organized. I found out in January that they had been selected (along with two other groups in country) to film their script. Jeremy came in the beginning of February and it was a lot of fun. I think the kids really enjoyed it and learned a lot since it was the first time they had acted while being filmed. There were simple things we had to remind them about, such as speaking loud, not having their back to the camera, etc. Once he edits the film, I’ll show the kids the final project and hopefully it’s going to air on a Togolese TV station.

As we were wrapping up the day, something happened though that reminded me that I am a foreigner and, despite my attempts to integrate, I will always be viewed as an outsider. The president of the peer educators group is a local primary teacher and worked extensively with the previous volunteer in Bogou. She introduced me to him and he’s been a great friend to me here. We had walked to Bogou, but since the return trip was uphill and it was almost dark, we planned to moto back. Normally, I ride my bike between the two villages so I had no idea how much the trip should cost. Every price in Togo is negotiable, but as foreigners we often end up paying more than Togolese either because we don’t know what price we have to haggle them down to or because of the color of our skin. This is a continuous problem, especially when taking moto-taxis, made worse recently by the laxation of the oil subsidy in Nigeria which cause gas prices in most of West Africa to skyrocket.

I asked this guy, my friend, how much the trip should be and he said I would have to discuss it with the moto driver. Getting ripped off on moto rides is the thing about Togo that pissed me off the most and can easily put me in a bad mood. I asked the driver how much he wanted He replied “700 cfa”. I gasped and made a face that said “you must be kidding me” and the driver laughed, as they typically do. I offered 500 and he refused saying 600. I felt uncomfortable with this price, as the trip was less than 4km and he wouldn’t be using gas on the way back since it’s downhill. In Dapaong, I once paid 500 cfa to go to a village 12-15km away so I knew the price was steep. Moto drivers in Bogou are limited though and I didn’t have much bargaining power so I agreed to 600. The driver left, as we weren’t quite finished filming yet, and I turned to my friend and asked what he thought. He said “I normally only pay 400”. I was furious! How could he stand by me and watch as I got ripped off? I trusted him as a friend to protect me from something like that. I asked why he didn’t say anything and his response was that I was white and therefore had to pay a higher price and if he had tried to help lower the price at all it would have been since as disrespectful to the driver because it would be cheating him out of gaining a little extra money. This made me even angrier because a bond that I thought I had formed with this man was just proven to be illusory, and it made me question the relationships that I have made with other Togolese.

To top off the day, when we got back to my house, Jeremy realized that his headlamp and iPod had been stolen. Realizing that the chances of getting it back were slim but knowing that thievery is not tolerated in Togolese culture, we called the same guy who hadn’t helped us with the moto to ask if he would help us find the stuff. He called back the next day with news that everything had been found. Three sons of the Muslim leader were the culprits, and while it was great that Jeremy got his stuff back, I wonder how hard of a beating the boy got.

Some Togo Life Changes

This is a really long post so I’m going to end it with one last topic. Work in Tandjoaré has been slow to progress so I requested a transfer to another site. I don’t want to get into the details on this blog as to why, but feel free to email me if you want to know more. My request was approved last Thursday and I moved into my new house in Dapaong on Monday. I wanted to stay in the Savannes region and in an area that speaks Moba, since that is the culture that I have come to know and feel comfortable in.

I’ve moved up in the world for living conditions as I now have running water, electricity all day, a spare bedroom (for when you all come to visit me!), and a giant living room I need to furnish. I share a compound with a very nice, large family. There’s the husband, his three wives and their 12 children. Achu’s adjusting well to being a “city dog” and I’m enjoying supplementing my diet with a lot more fruits and vegetables.

My new homologue is a woman named Rachel who is a seamstress but specializes in making things such as bags, cushions, wallets, etc. I’m still learning about all that she does and will be sure to post about it as I know more. I will also be working with several women’s groups, some local schools, a women’s weavers group and hopefully be helping develop a tourism directory for the region. Sam, my new site-mate, and I are working with a local elementary school to paint a world map on the side of a building in their school. It’s a project many PCVs all over the world do and it address a topic–geography–that both she and I feel everyone should be knowledgeable about. When a grown Togolese man asks you where in Europe is America, you know there’s a problem.

That’s all for now. I’m going to make a big effort to post again soon. If you have any questions about anything, post them in the comments below or email me. I love reading the comments because then I know people are actually reading my blog. J

Placard for a barber in Dapaong.

Bring on the Harmattan!

2011-12-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of questions about the weather here in Togo. Last week, my stage celebrated 6 months in Togo (crazy, right?), so I’ve now experiences half a year of the country’s weather cycles. When I arrived in June, rainy season was just beginning. It actually came a little late this year, which delayed the planting season and thus delayed the start of the school year (harvest was later and the kids were needed to tend to the fields). My first two months during training were held in the southern-most region of Togo, Maritime, which has a much different climate than my current region, Savannes. I told my APCD that I couldn’t handle the humidity (and mosquitoes) in the south and wanted a post in northern, drier Togo. I was in Lomé last week and it’s still incredibly humid and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. So, in Savannes, rainy season lasted until the beginning of October. It rained every 2-3 days, only for an hour or so during the day and night rains were incredibly loud and torrential. Togolese do not like the rain and any time a sprinkle begins to fall, you can expect any meetings to be cancelled. Personally, I love the rain, but I received serious concerns from random Togolese on the streets if I walked around while it rained, even with an umbrella.

Rainy Season

Dry Season (Photo cred: R. Chang)

After rainy season came une petite chaleur, or a tiny hot season. Everything dried out and the gorgeous green landscape turned brown. This also meant it was time for the harvest. They burn the dried stalks left over from the crops and little brush pile fires have cluttered the landscape the past couple of weeks. As a Californian, I am particularly concerned about the safety of this method and think that every burn pile is going to get out of control and turn into a wild brush fire–especially when it’s burning right next to a house (including my house). There was one night last week where a fire off in the distance seemed to be larger than they had originally intended. It burned all night and I could hear the crackling from inside my house. I made up an emergency action plan that night. Despite my fears and the dryness, the fires seem to be well controlled. People apparently do die in fires annually, so we dutifully taught a group of 50 kids at Club Espoir (a monthly meeting for kids affected by HIV/AIDS) how to stop, drop and roll–arrêter, tomber, et rouler. The kids had a lot of fun rolling around on the ground.

Stop, drop, and roll

Harmattan has really picked up in the last week. What is harmattan, you ask? It’s when the winds from the Saharan Desert blow south, carrying with it lots of sand and dust. There is now a permanent haze everywhere and my nasal passage is greatly suffering. (Don’t worry mom, I’m using the netty pot!) It’s also the coldest time of the year–high mid 90s, low mid 60s–which means that the Togolese pull out their parkas, scarves and ski masks. No joke. The babies are bundled up so much that they become immobile. It’s really cute. I actually have to sleep with a blanket at night. I’ve heard contradicting remarks about when harmattan usually ends, but most say mid to late February.

(Photo cred: R. Chang)

After harmattan comes la saison seche, or dry season (i.e. hot season). I picked a random day in March 2011 and looked up the weather. Lows were mid 90s and highs reached 110°, with humidity peaking at 56%. Kill me now. I don’t know how anyone survives that type of weather. Most insects don’t (mosquitoes…), which is one benefit. Apparently people are active between sunrise and 10am, then disappear under a mango tree to repos for a few hours, and reemerge hours later when the heat has lessened a little.

Some people have asked me when would be a good time to visit. The answer really depends on what kind of experience you want. I don’t have a choice–I’m here for all of it!

A Togo Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

This was the second thanksgiving I have spent abroad. I was in Italy for the first. While I had had a good time, I remember thinking that it didn’t feel like thanksgiving, and I was scared that I would have the same feeling here in Togo.

I’m not sure if I’ve explained this before, but PC Togo groups volunteers into clusters, for safety and also for sanity. I’m part of the Dapaong cluster, which is the biggest in country with eleven PCVs. The Savannes region is the furthest north (thus furthest from Lomé, i.e. admin and availability of Western food) and mainly rural, so they try to keep the volunteers close together and it creates a sort of family. I’m really grateful to be a part of this great group of people. Well, most PVCs went to a big thanksgiving party in the Centrale region, but us Dapaongers decided to throw our own fête.

We arranged to have the dinner at a hotel. Hotel Campement is one of the nicest and most Western hotel/restaurants in Dapaong. I had actually been there the week before for my birthday. (My birthday, btw, was great! I bought a Roman candle and we set it off that night, but I found out after the fact that fireworks are actually illegal in Togo. Oops!) The chicken cordon bleu is absolutely mouth watering. Based on this experience, I knew the food was going to be good. The hotel prepared servings of French onion soup, mashed potatoes and green beans for everyone. Two Volunteers (one of which recently COSed and had already left Togo) received packages from their moms full of thanksgiving dinner essentials, such as stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie filling and even themed napkins!

The PC Togo Country Director decided to make the trip of north to fête with us. Her name is Carolina and I give her major props because the trek from Lomé to Dapaong is no easy feat. We had tried to find turkeys locally but had some difficulties so she brought two with her. They had put the turkeys in cages and loaded them on top of the car. As they were driving down the Route, they heard a big thump and stopped the car. One of the turkeys, probably knowing his fate, had escaped from his cage and jumped off the car. Yes, the turkey committed suicide. Not wanting to waste the meat, they loaded the dead turkey into the car and kept it on ice for the last 8 or so hours of the journey. (I have no idea where they found the ice and must have had the AC on full blast the whole way to keep it from melting.) Knowing that we were expecting to cook two turkeys, they stopped along the way and found another turkey. We ended up cooking the suicide turkey so we had three turkeys for twenty people. It was probably the freshest turkey I have ever eaten and completely void of any hormones.

The suicide turkey

In unrelated recent news, I got a puppy! I had wanted one for a while but wanted to wait until I was more settled in at post. I’d been searching the last few weeks and finally found one that seemed healthy. It’s a boy and I’d guess that he’s probably around 6 or 7 weeks, although I was told he was two months old. I named him Achu (like the sound when you sneeze) and so far he’s been very well behaved. He whined to be let out of my house, went outside and then exited the compound before pooping. Who knew Togolese dogs came potty trained?

yes, I know I have dirty feet...

Le Marché

2011-11-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

“A lot of money changed hands on Fridays, but more than anything else the market was Lavié’s weekly social occasion: a sort of shopping center, bar, restaurant, pool hall, and ladies’ club packed under one cluster of grass roofs.” – George Packer, The Village of Waiting, 1982

Every sizeable village has a marché. The size of the village usually determines the size of the marché, as well as its frequency. Most dedicate two days for the marché (one is normally larger than the other), chosen to correlate with the surrounding villages. For example, Tandjoaré’s marché days are Wednesday and Saturday, attendance, however, on Saturdays is pitiful. I can visit Bombouka’s marché on Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s a larger town located directly on the Route Nationale where I can find bread and mail letters. Or I can bike 10 minutes west (return trip is 30 minutes uphill…) on Mondays and Thursdays to enjoy Bogou’s marché. Nano is another large village about an hour bike ride away whose days are Sunday and Thursday.

It’s not only the day of the week that you visit the marché that is important, but also the time. Some tend to be more bustling during the morning while others don’t really get going until 14-15:00. I have found the atmosphere to be a little too rowdy after 17:00, as there are likely to be people who have spent the entire day at the marché drinking tchakpa (“chauk-puh”–a fermented millet drink I will talk more about in a later post). If one wants to purchase any type of animal, they must go around 7:00. I went last Saturday at this time to look for a puppy and the area was crowded with men and boys selling chickens, guinea fowls, pigs and goats. I did find a boy selling two puppies, but they were too young to leave their mother so I passed on them.

Marchés usually consist of a collection of stalls built with trees and a thatched grass roof. Sometimes, in the larger villages and towns, there will be covered cement structures with numbers designating each spot. Every person who takes a permanent spot for the day must pay for the spot. I’m not positive on the price, but I think it’s a couple hundred francs–less than a dollar. Controlled by the local governing body, this process is overseen by one person who goes from stall to stall to collect the day’s fee. To avoid this, many women walk around the marché selling stuff that they carry on top of their heads.

The size of the village also alludes to the variety of things one can find at its marché. Tandjoaré, despite its political advantage of being the prefectural capital, is a small village (I’ve been told pop. 5,000) and thus has little variety. Over 50% of the vendors are selling tchakpa. Then there’s the food section, which in my village I can usually find pâte, koliko (fried strips of yam eaten with a tomato sauce, similar to French fries…), beignets (fried bean dough balls), and kalma (kind of like a bean tamale, dipped in a pepper sauce). Mini boutiques are scattered throughout selling the basics such as various condiments, pasta, cans of tomato paste and small bags of beans and rice. Women also sell produce, such as corn, onions, tomatoes, okra, etc… As per Togolese culture, one is given a cadeau (or gift) when purchasing these items. I base how many onions I buy on the idea that they will cadeau me one or two extra ones. Every marché also has a meat section. Au village, the men nail the leg of an animal to a post and carve off sections of meat as it’s ordered. Let’s just say that I try to avoid walking through this area… The meat section is generally the only place where you will see men selling stuff. Women control the majority of the marché.

The last main sector of the marché is dead yovo. What is this, you ask? Well, it’s the Togolese equivalent of a mall–where they buy all of their Western style clothes. Why is it called that? The idea is that no living white person would ever give up clothes as nice as the ones found there unless they were dead. My first experience buying dead yovo came last week in Lomé. A group of us went to a marché in the capital where all the clothes come after leaving the ships in the port. We hoped this meant that there would be a good selection. I ended up buying three shirts for 1,500cfa (approximately $3, bartered down from 3,000cfa), one of which is from H&M and I have the exact shirt and color hanging in my closet back home and had actually wished that I had brought it to Togo. The amount of clothes (and shoes and bags and belts and underwear) was overwhelming and I was ready to leave after an hour, but au village, dead yovo stands are smaller and much easier to navigate.

Side note: My fellow stage Savanners and I want to make bingo cards with various Togolese fashions in each square. Togolese fashion ranges from President Obama’s and Togo President Faure’s face plastered on a t-shirt to crocs to silk pajamas.

An interesting note: The further en brousse one gets (in the countryside), the more isolated a village is. This creates an internal economy, where the same money is exchanged on a daily basis. One woman today buys tomatoes from her friend and the next day the friend visits the women’s tchakpa stand a buys a calabash from her. Thus, the money becomes very worn and dirty–but then, Peace Corps volunteers enter these villages with their new, crisp banknotes and break the cycle!

If you get a chance...

2011-11-06T14:38:00.003-08:00

The first big project that I'll be working on is a Women's Wellness and Empowerment Conference. It's a national event, 2nd annual, that brings together all four sectors of Peace Corps Togo to put on a conference for 30 women in our region. Please, if you have the time, take a look at the link and donate if you can. I'll write more about my involvement as it gets closer, but let me know if you have any questions about it.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=693-389

Out of Village

2011-11-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

I just got back to village after almost two weeks away. We had IST (In Service Training) in Pagala. PC has a training center there and it will be the first of many trips for me, especially if I participate in the summer camps that are held there also. It’s located in the middle of the country so it’s easy to get to, but our savannes group was still the last to arrive. I’ll spare you the details of training but I will say that it was very inspiring and I’m excited to apply what I’ve learned in my village. Our whole stage was also together again for the first time since we swore in as Volunteers. At the end of a week we had a Halloween party. The other two girls in savannes and me dressed up as the three hyenas from The Lion King. Other costumes at the party included Mario and Luigi, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Ghadaffi (does anyone know the real spelling of his name?) and his ghost, pirates, a crayon and black swan. Many people used clothes that they found in village marches, also known as dead yovo because the Togolese think that the only way white people would get rid of their clothes would be if they died.

After IST, our savannes crew headed to Atakpame for the post visit party for the new stagiaires. They arrived in Togo back in September and will swear in as volunteers Nov. 17 and I will officially become a sophomore! I met the 5 new people coming to my region and they all seem really cool. Then my friend and I headed to Kpalime. Other than Lomé, it has the highest concentration of foreigners that I’ve seen so far in Togo. It’s also one of Togo’s only tourist destinations, meaning there are nicer hotels, restaurants and tours geared towards travelers. I got to take a hot shower and felt clean for the first time since I’ve been in Togo. The scenery reminded me a lot of Costa Rica. We hopped on the back of motos and when up the mountain. From the top you could see miles in all directions and I got my first glimpse of Ghana. We also explored a small village on the crest of the mountain and saw some gorgeous drawings by local artists using colors made from nature. It was a nice escape from Togo but after a couple days I was ready to get back to my small, quiet village where life is cheaper and people don’t try to rip me off.

I just finished my first three months at post. That means… I’m allowed to have visitors now! Anyone who wants to come visit, start planning your trip now! Email me if you have questions. Also, I’ve been trying to have a theme to each of my posts but let me know if there is anything specific that you have been wondering about that I haven’t touched on yet.

Laafie

2011-10-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived in Togo, I was given the task of learning French. Then two months later I was sent to my permanent site and advised to start learning the local language, Moba. I will be working with numerous women’s groups in the Tandjouaré prefecture and, on average, maybe only 2-3 speak enough French to be comfortable conversing with me. Either way though, I need to have somebody with me in order to translate. Speaking the local language is a great way to integrate in the community. Passing someone on one of the numerous paths usually involves an inquisitive stare, but then I say duan guam (dwan gwaum) and their face breaks into a smile as they respond with the standard laafie (lah-fee-eh).

At the beginning of September, I started Moba tutoring with a guy who teaches English at the elementary school in the next town over. He reads Moba, which is not very common, as Moba is historically a spoken language and the spelling of most words is debatable. Although his English is very good, he teaches me in French. Yes, I’m learning an indigenous language through a language that I started learning in June.

When I was 10, I remember inventing a language with a friend of mine. We spent hours creating vocabulary lists and testing each other. The words were simple, one or two syllables, and had no connection to the English language. Learning Moba reminded me of this because of how foreign both languages seemed. (We lost interest in creating our own language after a few days.) Even the quarter of Russian that I took in college seemed less foreign, and that included learning the Cyrillic alphabet.

One of my teachers in training told the Savannes group, “Don’t worry. Moba is the easiest of the Togolese languages to learn.” I don’t know what he based that statement on, but I wonder about its validity. Essentially though, Moba is a basic language. Verbs have no conjugations. Bé means `to be’ and the conjugations `I am’, `you are’, `he is’ need only a pronoun added before the verb–n bé, a bé, b bé. But that’s where the simplicity ends (in my opinion).

Moba is a language, as are most West African local language, in which intonation denotes a word’s meaning. A word can have one spelling with multiple definitions depending on the inflection of your voice. I have chosen to ignore this tiny detail, focusing on pure memorization of the words for the time being and hoping that I don’t say a bad word while trying to buy onions at the marché. I won’t even get into pluralization. It’s a concept with no systematic order than I have also chosen to ignore for the time being.

For those of you unfamiliar with the French language, they have adopted a unique style of counting. Up through sixty-nine, there exists a logical, continual progression of numbers. Seventy, however, can be literally translated as `sixty-ten’ and continues with `sixty-eleven’ up to `sixty-nineteen’. Then, at eighty, you switch and say `four twenties’ and ninety becomes `four twenties ten’ so by ninety-nine it’s ‘four twenties nineteen’ or quatre-vingts dix-neuf. I thought that was confusing; then I learned Moba. First of all, there exists two separate sets of numbers, depending on what you’re counting–individual items or money. I learned basic counting first. Yent, bãnle, bãnta, bãnna, bãnmu, bãnluob, bãnlele, bãnnii, bãnyie, piig. “Okay,” I though, “I can do this.” From there, the numerical progression made sense. Twenty took the first part of ten and combined it with the last part of two, piinle. Same for three, piinta, and so on. The West African Franc currency, however, is based on a system of five. Thus, 20 beans (piinle tua) can cost 100 francs (piinle), with the idea being 5x20=100. I won’t go into it any more than that, but let’s just say that saying 715 francs in Moba takes quite a bit of brainpower (multiplication, addition and knowledge of an indigenous language), and that’s coming from someone who likes math.

So just when I get comfortable saying something, I can go down the road 20 minutes and learn another way to say the same thing. It could be something subtle, like laafie changes to laafia, or something a bit more drastic. This originates from the time when traveling was limited to within walking distance, although, for many Togolese, this remains their main mode of transportation. One Moba can identify the village another Moba comes from based on the dialect he speaks. In the northern Savannes region, there are two main local languages–Moba and Gourma. I’ve been told that Gourma can understand Moba but Moba can’t understand Gourma, but who knows how true that is.

Greetings are the most important part of learning local language. It’s the best way to assimilate into the community and can help you to quickly make friends with anyone. Most foreigners are just passing through and don’t bother to learn any local phrases and they usually appreciate the attempt by a yovo. The basic good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night are duan guam, tun-po (toon-poh), juog-po (johg-poh) and yë nyiog (yehn nee-yohg)–because I know you all were wondering. This is a typical Moba greeting for me that I have maybe 5-10 times a day:

Togolese: Ye soml!

Me: Nfa, tun-po.

Togolese: L man-i?

Me: Laafie.

Togolese: A tuon po-i?

Me: Laafie.

Togolese: A naag-i?

Me: Laafie.

Togolese: Sie-yog nnya.

Me: Nfa.

Which roughly translates to:

Welcome! / Thanks. Good afternoon. / How are you? / Fine. / How’s the work? / Fine. / How’s the house (including all people and animals, it’s different if you’re only asking about the people)? / Fine. / See you later. / Thanks.

Yeah, I try to be on the receiving side of the conversation. It’s a lot easier. The funny part is that once you engage in this greeting, they assume that you’re fluent and start babbling on in Moba with the assumption that you can understand everything that they’re saying. I usually just smile, nod and say laafie.

BTW: The picture of the women bending over and pounding the ground is the traditional Moba way that they make cement floors. Only the women are allowed to partake in this activity (while the men sit lazily and watch). They combine cement, water and sand, pour it on the ground and repetitively pound it with a wooden implement. A space of 20ftx30ft took 20+ women about 6 hours to complete. With the sun shining on their backs, they broke only to throw on more water or to take a shot of palm wine.

How "To Go" in Togo

2011-09-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

"Roads are in appaling conditions, and getting around without your own transport requires the patience of a saint and the determination of a fighter." – Lonely Planet West Africa guide book on Togo's transportation options

In my last post, I mentioned transportation in Togo as one of the reasons why PC considers this country to be one of the hardest to serve in. Now, I’d like to elaborate a little more on the transportation options in Togo and how I get around from place to place. When going somewhere, I essentially have four options–I can walk, ride my bike, take a moto, or get in a bush taxi.

I enjoy walking. I think I get this from my mom (hi mom!), although she likes to walk for fun and I need a destination. Around Tandjouaré, this is mainly how I get around. It’s rainy season right now so everything is green and it’s almost harvest time so the corn stalks are as tall as me or higher. Despite Tandjouaré being a “big” village, it’s very rural, hilly and spread out, thus it takes a while to get anywhere. The walk to my marché is about 15 minutes. I take these paths that wind in and out of family compounds. They’re wide enough to take a bike or moto through but some parts get pretty rocky. I seem to take a different way every time I go or come back from the marché. Using a cell phone tower as my reference point, I seem to navigate the maze quite well. I stop along the way and saluer (greet) the people I pass. I met a man yesterday who used to teach English at a local school and was 82 years old! That’s pretty impressive, as the average Togolese man lives to be 60.

Biking. Before coming to Togo, I was not a fan of biking. I’m still not, but I’ve come to find it to be a convenient way to get around, plus it allows me to fare le sport (exercise). When I go visit my neighbor Assibi (a GEE PCV in the next town over) or go to the bigger marché in Bombaouka (the next town over) I ride my bike. I’ve also taken it to Dapaong, which is about 20k and takes about 1 hour 45 minutes. PC has supplied us with nice mountain bikes and taught us how to take care of it (such as repair a flat tire or fix a broken chain). We have helmets that we must wear, which are a good safety precaution but PCVs are the only people in Togo who wear bike helmets. My chain fell off once while riding around Dapaong and a man came over to help me put it back on. As I was leaving I heard him tell his friends “Elle est avec le Corps de la Paix”, so it definitely makes us identifiable.

Moto-ing. Most Togolese walk or bike, but those wealthy enough buy a moto. I always smile to myself when I see women on their own moto, as most moto drivers are men. A woman on a moto is a sign that she’s a badass. When I say “moto”, I’m referring to a variety of two-wheeled machines–street bikes, dirt bikes, mopeds, etc. As PCVs, we’re not allowed to actually drive the motos, although I’ve heard tales of rebellious PCVs in other countries who secretly buy their own moto… While Togolese law states that helmets are required, the only enforcement of this that I’ve seen was a piece of paper posted at the gendarme (police) station in Bambaouka. Before being issued our moto helmets, we were required to take a moto safety class. It taught us how to mount a moto (swing your right leg around from the left side so as not to burn yourself on the exhaust pipe), hold on to the rack behind you (as putting you hands anywhere near the driver would signal possible sexual intentions), and it’s okay to tell them to slow down or stop if you feel like your life is in danger.

Few countries allow PCVs to ride motos, and the fact that Togo is one that does proves how bad the transportation system here is. Without them, we would have a very difficult time getting from place to place. So how do you “get a moto”? It’s easy. You basically just have to be on a populated road while holding your helmet and magically 5 men with bikes will appear. I have a friend who hastily jumped on the back of a guys moto and directed him to her destination only to find out when he dropped her off and refused payment that he was just a guy on a moto who had nicely given her a lift. Around village, a moto ride costs between 100-300 CFA (roughly $.20-.60). PCVs in Savannes have formed good relations with some moto drivers who will come directly to your house or the workstation and are reliable and safe drivers. They also happen to be Muslim. Muslim moto drivers are preferred because they don’t drink and therefore, theoretically, should be sober but that isn’t always true.

The Togolese are pros at hauling things on motos and bikes. Seriously. Whether it’s a family of five, a 20-kilo bag (or 3) of grain or a cow, they’ll find a way to transport it. It takes mad skill to secure everything onto the bikes–a skill I hope to master during my time here–and you rarely see things fall.

Bush taxis are the most popular form of transportation for long distances, i.e. more than between a few villages. These are cars where seats are rented out. However, the drivers have a different idea of what constitutes a seat. Essentially, it’s however many people, babies, bags and animals you can cram into open airspace and not suffocate. You catch a bush taxi by flagging one down on the Route that’s going in the right direction, or, in the regional capitals, by going to a gare routière (a station).

Last weekend, I wanted to leave Dapaong but I had my bike and it looked like it was about to rain (yeah, and I was lazy) so I decided to take a bush taxi. I went to the gare and was told a car had just left but I may be able to catch it. So I biked further until the next gare and was again told it had left but we could see in the distance that it had stopped for gas. I quickly rode up to it and catch the driver just as he put the car into gear. I asked if there was room for me and my bike. A stupid question–of course there was room! There were only three full-grown men in the front and three women each with a kid (one breastfeeding) in the back of a economy sized 5 seat car. The driver threw my bike on top of the car and shoved my bag in the hatchback trunk, which already couldn’t fully close and was being held down by a 100 CFA ($.20) bungee cord. More gas was needed so I watched as they poured a liter from a glass bottle and closed the tank with what looked like a ball of duct tape. I climbed in the front seat through the driver’s side and was instructed by the two men to my right to put one leg on either side of the shifter. Yes, the car was a manual and yes, every time the driver needed to shift he had to reach between my legs. The road between Dapaong and Tandjouaré is pretty bad–lots of potholes–so he had to shift a lot as he sped up, braked and swerved to avoid them. We got pretty cozy and by the time we reached my destination, I’d garnered a marriage proposal. I’d also like to mention that young boys try to earn some money by “repairing” the holes and begging for tips. I say “repairing” but really all they do is shovel a dirt/sand mixture into the hole and pile it about 6 inches above the ground, creating a reverse pothole (or speed bump?) and probably speeding up the erosion of the road. The driver had to spot the holes and watch for oncoming trucks from behind a cracked windshield. When he hit a pothole, he’d look at his cracked side mirror to make sure nothing had fallen out of the back. The only mirror/window fully intact was the rear view mirror, which was useless as the back was piled too high with stuff to see anything. Just another day of travel in Togo…

The newest and most convenient form of travel is the post bus. La poste began offering a daily bus route that extends the length of the country. You buy a seat (your own, personal, cushioned seat) and can get on or off at any of the post offices along the Route Internationale where the bus stops to deliver mail. It even runs on Sunday. Theoretically, it’s a good option, but I’ve heard stories of the bus breaking down and the voyage taking 15 hours. My one experience with it was pleasant enough. We were, however, stopped on the Route for a little over an hour because President Faure’s family (he was not part of the group) was leaving Kara and the motorcade got blocked-off access on the route to the airport and back. That meant we had to wait as the plane loaded and took off. The plane entranced the Togolese. Air travel is rare and only a handful of flights leave and come into the Togo’s capital daily, let along it’s second largest airport. Planes also just don’t seem to have a reason to fly in Togo’s air space.

Other togo PCVs

2011-09-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

So there are quite a few other PCVs who have blogs as well. you can find most of them through peacecorpsjournals.org but I wanted to highlight one specific post written by a fellow SEDer back during our first week in Togo. He's a great writer and very comical. Check it out if you get a chance. http://talesfromtogo.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/poop-management

Today was a good day

2011-09-03T13:44:00.003-07:00

Today was a good day. A really good day. But I can’t say that all days are good. There’s a reason Togo is considered to be the second hardest country for PCVs to serve in (used to be third, but the program in Mauritania was closed not too long ago), based on things such as transportation options, food availability and variety, and internet/communication accessibility. Why am I writing about this? Well, that’s the reality of where I am right now. Life is not always easy. But today was a good day.

I found out last week that the NGO I am partnered to work with would be holding a sensibilisation, a town hall style meeting, to inform the villagers of Tandjouaré about malaria today. There are four types of malaria in the world, and the most deadly is prevalent in Togo. It is the most common cause of death for children in Togo, and there are simple things people can do to prevent it. (Don’t worry, I wear mosquito repellant, sleep under a net and take a weekly anti-malaria pill.) Well, I’m a small business advisor, not a health advisor, so I invited two of my fellow CHAP Savanners to come. It was our first experience with this type of event, and good for all of us to see. SM arrived last night and we made a delicious dinner of American mac and cheese (compliments of my aunt PT, thank you!) and sautéed cabbage, onions, tomatoes and green beans. This morning was on the chilly side, so we had a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows (thanks again PT!). MM met us at the marché, I found a woman selling green beans and tomatoes (the first I’ve seen in my village since arriving at post), and we enjoyed some tchackpa, a local drink of fermented millet. Then we headed over to watch the presentation. There was a really good turnout and the people seemed excited and interested. I was impressed with the speakers and microphone setup that they had, although they couldn’t quite figure out how to get it to work properly. At the end, they brought the three of us in front of everyone to introduce ourselves and say a few words. My French pales by comparison to the other two, as does my knowledge of malaria, but it went well and at the end they asked us to dance. In front of the entire village. And we did. They loved it. After, my coworkers invited us to have a beer with them and we all talked for about two hours. It may not sound like much, but days like this are the reason why I am here. It was a good day.

Many PCVs talk about the volatility that one can experience through the course of a day. Perhaps you ripped your pants or were called yovo or la blanche one too many times that day or were overcharged for a moto ride or somebody rambled on to you in local language expecting you to understand. These things happen. But then you come across a spectacular view or somebody says bon arriver and offers a friendly smile or you find green beans at your marché or a child shyly peeks around a wall and squeals with delight as you say good morning in local language and wave, and in an instant your mood switches.

I started this blog in order to share my experience with friends and family back home. It’s going to be a long two years filled with lots of new experiences. I hope you continue to read the blog and enjoy it. However, there are reasons why I am here and why Togo is ranked 220 in the world in GDP per capita ($900 USD) and why the average Togolese only receives 10 years of schooling. Life here is hard and from time to time I will share stories of my struggles or of the hardship, poverty, and despair I sometimes see around me. But today was a good day, and I wanted to share it with you.

Written August 31, 2011

Food, Glorious Food!

2011-08-19T10:12:00.003-07:00

This post is about… food! That wasn’t obvious, was it? I’ve had a lot of questions about what I eat, what food is available, and how the Togolese food is. I’ll begin by saying that–apart from people–food is what I miss most.

When I was living with a host family, the meals were decent, but there were about 5 or 6 different dishes that rotated. For breakfast, I always got a loaf of bread. On good days, there would be vache qui ri (VQR), or laughing cow cheese, i.e. the only type of cheese readily available in Togo because it doesn’t require refrigeration. Sometimes I would get oatmeal, which was good but different because the oats had been pounded into a powder before being added to the water. Tapioca (a favorite dessert of mine back home) also made frequent appearances at breakfast, but it was unsweetened and more watery than what I’m used to. Other days I would get peas, carrots, green beans, cabbage and onions cooked in oil and drenched in mustard (and I’m not a fan of mustard…). My favorite thing to see was spaghetti with any sauce. It may just be because it’s so familiar, but I’ve come to realize just how much I love pasta. Plantains were a common dish, mixed with tomatoes, onions and carrots. Sometimes soja, or tofu, would be added to the meals as well. Soja is very prevalent here, a good source of protein, and much better here than the times that I’ve tried it in the States. One dish I really didn’t care for was beans soaked in palm oil, which you then add this floury grain called gari to it to soak up the oil. It was just very dry. Couscous and rice with varying sauces are some other examples. Overall, I found the food during my homestay to be good but not very satiating.

Togolese Food: The two most common Togolese dishes are pâte (pronounced ‘pot’) and foufou. Pâte is usually made out of farine de mais, or corn flour, but sometimes rice is used. There are a few different types of sauce that can be added to it, the most common one that I’ve seen is called adémè, made out of a leafy green (the smell is familiar but I’m still trying to figure out what it’s called in English) with either chicken or dried fish added to eat. I had pâte with a colleague of mine the other day with fish and she encouraged me to eat a lot of the fish, which is very kind of her because fish, or protein in general, tends to be more expensive and is saved for the head of the family. So I ate the fish. Head, bones, tail, eyes–everything. It really wasn’t bad; it was more of a mental block that I had to get through. Togolese live off of pâte. They eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and never tire of it. I had a running joke with my host mom where she’d have me guess what my host dad had requested for dinner and I would hesitate and then say “umm…pâte?” She got a kick out of it. Pâte rouge was the Togolese dish I requested whenever friends came over for dinner with my host family. My host mom even taught me how to make it. It’s farine de mais with the red sauce and chicken cooked into it. The texture reminded me of polenta, although the taste is completely different. Foufou is another dish that I really enjoy, especially with sauce arachide, peanut sauce. It’s made with yams or cassavas that have been boiled and then pounded into a doughy ball. Unfortunately, foufou is more of a southern Togolese food than northern, so I’ve had a difficult time finding it in the north, but I hear it is possible to get it in Dapaong.

Before coming to Togo, I thought I would be craving sweets the most. I’m not sure if it’s because we sweat so much, but I really crave salty foods. As a snack (alright, occasionally it’s a meal when I’m lazy), I make popcorn, add a ton of salt and wish that I had the liquid movie theater butter to drizzle over it. The only types of chips I would eat back home were Pringles, Ruffles, Fritos and tortilla chips, and lucky for me, Pringles exist in Togo! They’re a little hard to find, but I’ve been told it’s possible to get them in 3 of the 5 regional capitals (sadly, Dapaong is not one of them). I’m going to send friends in those capitals to find them and send them to me J

VQR is an amazing invention (granted, I’m saying this as I dream of eating a fresh ball of mozzarella cheese). Why is it amazing? No refrigeration required, long shelf life, can be melted and made into a mac and cheese sauce or nacho-like dip (had this once with a Mexican inspired meal and it was delicious!), and it supposedly makes a pretty convincing cheesecake. I have yet to try the last one, but am excited for the possibility of it.

Another amazing invention is powdered milk. Those of you who know my family know that I was brought up drinking a glass or two of milk with every meal. In college, my milk drinking decreased significantly because, with six people sharing one fridge, there wasn’t enough room to stock the amount of milk I was used to drinking and I therefore had to ration my milk. Sans refrigerator here in Togo, milk is almost as uncommon as cheese is, the exception being powdered milk. I’ve found myself adding it to everything–my oatmeal, mac and cheese, the dough to make flour tortillas, and my corn flakes. Yes, corn flakes. I got them in Lomé and have been eating them the past week for breakfast. I feel a little weird pouring my filtered/bleached water over my cereal, but it tastes good, it just isn’t as cold as I would prefer it to be.

When I first found out my post, every Togolese I talked to would mention the abundance and cheapness of meat and eggs. While the north heavily lacks a good variety of vegetables (I can only find onions, garlic, okra and adémè in my village marché right now), I assumed I would not have a hard time getting an appropriate amount of protein in my diet. Well, I can find pork, goat and dog meat in the marché. (I try to avoid walking past the dog butcher. It’s depressing.) If the meat is already cooked (and being sold on the side of the road, for example), I have no problem eating it (with the exception of dog). However, I have yet to buy meat and cook it myself. I know I will eventually but I’m just hesitant to do it. I’ve also seen whole, live chickens and guinea fowl for sale but I’m not yet to the point where I could kill and cook it by myself, so my protein diet is still pretty limited. Eggs (both chicken eggs and guinea fowl) are abundant, but most people au village keep them for themselves rather than selling them in the marché. I plan on asking around though and finding a reliable and constant personal supplier of eggs.

The other night, some colleagues of mine at Code Utile invited me to have a drink with them. They had gotten a chicken, cooked it and were bringing it to a bar. It was the first time in village that I’ve left my house after dark, and the chicken was amazing! They were speaking too quickly for me to understand everything, so I mainly just listened and enjoyed the company, but it was really nice to be included. Once I get my kitchen organized and better stocked, I plan on making them an American dish.

The medical unit is very concerned about our diet while in Togo. They want us to remain healthy and have adequate and balanced meals. Many Americans don’t follow a balanced diet, and this becomes a lot harder to do in Togo. To help us, they provide all PVCs with a cookbook called “Where There is no Whopper”. It’s a compilation of recipes one can make with the resources available here. Some call for ingredients that are rare or only available in the regional capitals (like ground beef), but it’s great to have. I try not to look through it when I’m hungry because it only makes me salivate. There’s also a section on baking, which requires and oven, so I’m thinking about investing in the supplies to make a dutch oven…

So that’s my overview of food in Togo. The food here is a lot fresher than it is in the States. No preservatives make everything last only a couple of days. (Bread gets moldy in two days.) I look forward to discovering my cuisine capabilities here in Togo. Older PVCs, I’ve found, are great resources and they have made some of the most satiating food I’ve had in country. I’ll be sure to update on any new culinary discoveries.

Don't worry, I'm alive

2011-08-13T16:20:00.001-07:00

So that was my rapid update of posts. I hope to have better access to internet now and I plan on buying a mobile internet access key soon, so expect more timely posts. I’m going to try to have more themed posts from now on. I have a couple topics in mind but if there’s anything that you’re wondering about that I haven’t mentioned, just let me know.

Other updates:

I have a new phone number. Togo changed all the phones from 7 digits to 8. Apperently, this is something that the US might have to do soon as well. I have updated that as well on the contact page. Also on the contact page, you can find links for cheap calling cards to Togo…

I also have a new address. It’s been added to the contact page. I can still receive mail at the old address, just this one is (theorhetically) supposed to be faster. Any package sent needs to have Corps de la Paix written under my name. It helps it pass through customs with a fixed price. Also, if there are any liquids in the box, they should be placed in a ziplock bag and should not be declared.

Now that I’ve been in Togo for over 2 months (it’s strangely gone by very fast but has felt very slow…), I have a better idea of things that I would enjoy receiving in a care package. There’s nothing on the list that I absolutely need, but people have been asking. I’ve already gotten two packages (shoutout to my mom and Peggy), which were both amazing, but I realize it’s not cheap to send them. Letters, on the other hand, are only $0.98! If you write to me, I promise to write back :)

Alright, that’s the end of my updates for now. There are 3 other new blog posts, starting with July 5. Love and miss you all!

August 9, 2011 - Swear in and first week at post

2011-08-13T16:18:00.003-07:00

I officially swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on Thursday, August 4. All 23 of us made it through stage. It was a nice ceremony. The country directed gave a speech, along with the interim ambassador (the previous ambassador retired at the end of July and a new one should be chosen by the end of the year), a Togolese representative and the 23 of us. One person in our group gave a long speech in French, which I was really impressed with because he didn’t come in speaking the most French and right before we left for the ceremony he discovered that he’d spilt water all over his speech. The rest of us gave speeches in our local languages, although I must admit there were very short. I have a recording of my formateur saying my speech which I’ll try to post so you can hear what it sounds like. There were multiply press people there and they broadcast the ceremony on Togolese television the following Monday.

We had two very short days in Lomé that were spent doing administrative stuff, buying supplies for our new houses and enjoying our last moment as a group. The next time we’ll all be together is in 3 months when we have in-service training (IST). My big purchases included a mattress and gas stove and my indulgent purchases were a bottle of champagne and a ball of mozzarella cheese. The night before we left we had a swear-in party. A lot of current PCVs came into Lomé especially for the event and it was so much fun hanging out with them and dancing to American music.

We got up super early the next morning (Friday), loaded all of our stuff onto bush taxis and said goodbyes. Admin decided to make our trip a 2 day one, so I didn’t arrive at my post until the next morning (Saturday). I had left my keys with my homologue because they were going to paint the walls in my house. Well, there was a lot of confusion as to who had my keys and where that person was. I ended up spending the night elsewhere and not getting into my house until Sunday afternoon and not having all my stuff moved in until Monday afternoon. But it all turned out alright! I’m excited to start organizing and decorating my house. It’s nice to have my own space and to finally unpack, since I’ve been living out of my suitcase for the past two months.

The first 3 months at post are meant for us to get settled into our houses and get familiar with the community. It’s not until after IST that we can start projects, which is nice to not have pressure to immediately jump into things. I’m still learning French and now I have to learn some basic Moba too. My French comprehension has definitely improved but speaking (and actually being understood) is still a struggle. It’ll come though.

Two of my closest (distance) neighbors hosted a science camp for girls in their villages this week and I was able to go and observe one day at each of their sites. Watching them was really inspiring, especially because they both came in with little to no French and now can easily communicate in both French and basic Moba. One is about to finish up her two years here (she should be replaced so I’ll be getting a new neighbor in November, exciting but I’m sad I only get a couple months with the current PVC) and the other is SED like me and just celebrated his one year. It was the first time I’ve been able to observe PCVs working in their community and I really appreciate them letting me come.

July 17, 2011-Post Visit

2011-08-13T16:17:00.001-07:00

We met our homologues the Friday morning before we left for post visit. A homologue is a person who introduces you to your new community, helps you get settled into you house, and is the first person you will work with (but not the only person). My homologue is named Roger and he works with an NGO in Tandjouare called Code Utile Afrique. I’m still trying to figure out everything that they do, but I know they work with groupements (a group of people work together on a collective project), most specifically with women, and they have a health clinic. I’ll learn more when I return to my post after I swear in, but my French is still very basic so this is all that I was able to figure out for now.

The five of us that will be posted in the Savannes region were put into one rented bush taxi, along with our homologues and all of our stuff (bikes included, it’s amazing how the Togolese are able to stack things on top of the vans–sometimes the load is taller than the van! I’ll try to get a picture and post it). I’m not sure if I’ve described bush taxis before but they’re usually a 12- or 15-passenger van used in place of public transportation. The driver works along with “sidekick” who sits in the seat closest to sliding door with the window open and whose job it is to flag down other passengers along the road going in the same direction. Oftentimes, the vans will be filled way over capacity. However, since PC rented the whole vehicle, they weren’t allowed to pick up anyone else. Lucky me, I got sick the night before we left. It made for a very fun journey up north, one where I really didn’t eat or drink anything for fear of my stomach not agreeing with it.

We left Tsévié at 7:30am and I got dropped off at 10pm. We made a couple stops along the way, once to repair a flat tire. It was really refreshing to see the whole country and pass through many of the towns where other volunteers are posted. I was under the impression that the further north you went, the dryer and less green the scenery got, but it’s rainy season right now so everything is green and it’s absolutely gorgeous. There are a lot of hills in the northern two regions and they’re a mixture of grass, dirt, rocks and trees. Upon being dropped off, I was greeted by about 7 or 8 people and ushered to sit down. I was first offered a drink made with flour and water, which I was told was only tradition and I did not have to actually drink it. Next came dinner, spaghetti with chicken. I love spaghetti and the food looked really good, yet I was still wary about my stomach. I tried to eat as much as I could, but I hardly made a dent in my place. I felt really bad, as I didn’t want to offend anyone. (Later, I found out that they had prepared the food at 4, not knowing when exactly I would arrive and one women told me that she was on the toilet all night after eating it so I felt a little better.)

The place where I got dropped off is called Soukala. It’s a hotel and restaurant located directly off the Route Internationale and is where the director of Code Utile and his wife reside. There’s also a mini museum which is basically a traditional Moba family compound used to teach tourists and modern Togolese about the local people and the way they used to live. It’s a really cool setup and I hope to be able to work with them and help make it an ecotourism site. After dinner, I (along with all of my stuff) was strapped on to a moto and transported to my house.

My house is very cute. There are two rooms in the main building. One will be my living/dining room and the other my bedroom. There’s a traditional styled hut right outside that will be my kitchen, although it’s a little small and the floor is concave so I may build an outside cooking area for when it’s not rainy season. Maybe I’ll build myself a stove...(you can’t find bread in my village, which was a huge disappointment so maybe I’ll just learn how to make my own). I also have a brand new latrine and shower room. The latrine has a western toilet on top so it seems relatively normal, although you don’t have to flush so therefore the bowl gets really dirty… I just know that when I go back to the States I’m going to forget to flush toilets. So there’s no running water. There’s a pump not too far away but I was told I’m not strong enough to carry my own water so I have and 8 year old girl who will fetch it for me. I’m not insulted by that because I’m pretty sure they’re right, although I would like to try carrying the water on my head sometime. I do have electricity, but it’s only for the hours 8am-noon and 3pm-11pm, which is honestly all that I need. There’s no light in the kitchen though so if I wait to long to start cooking I have to use my headlamp, which results in me having to swat away bugs every 10 seconds or so.

I live by myself, which has its pros and cons. Pros: I have more privacy and am free to come and go and do as I please. Cons: I lose out on the social aspect of living with others and learning the local language easily by speaking with them. There’s also some security that comes with living with others, but my neighbors all seem very nice and I’m planning on getting a dog.

So post visit went well. There were many awkward conversations, but that’s to be expected. I met a few of the chiefs (or chefs in French) of the surrounding villages and they were all very nice and welcoming. One gifted me about 15 guinea fowl eggs. They’re as common as chickens are up in the Savannes region. The shells of the eggs were so hard that I had to use my kitchen knife to chop them open. The taste is the same but the yokes are this bright orange color. I made omelettes and I kept thinking that someone put food coloring in my eggs.

Friday morning my homologue took me into Dapaong. It’s tradition for the current PVCs to throw a post visit party for all the newbies. Since Savannes is the furthest region north, we split our journey back down south into two days and got to have two parties! PC provides us with a work station in Dapaong, which is great to have because there are a few beds if you need to stay the night, internet access and a kitchen. Being so isolated from the rest of the country makes the workstation essential because it’s the main meeting point for my cluster of PCVs and it’s great to have a place to work when we come into town. The food at both parties was amazing! First, to have a variety of dishes available to choose from was a luxury, and second, I was really impressed by the food they were able to make with limited resources. Some of the highlights included fudge, apple pie, a Mexican lineup featuring beans, homemade tortillas and an amazing cheese sauce, and milkshakes. The newest volunteers are in charge of planning the next stage’s post party so I’m already thinking of ideas for the new stage that comes in September.

July 5, 2011-Lord of the Flies

2011-08-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

It was one stagiaire’s birthday last Thursday and she wanted to celebrate by killing, cooking and eating a chicken. None of us had ever actually killed a chicken, let alone defeather it before cooking it, but that didn’t stop us. We forgot to designate one person to buy the chicken, which resulted with us having two chickens to kill. Even better. Before entering PC, I had always thought of killing a chicken as a sort of right of passage for all PVCs. Well, the birthday girl ended up being a lot more scared of killing the chicken than I think she had thought she would be. After about 10 minutes of her screaming that she couldn’t do it, another stagiaire volunteered to do the first chicken. You know that saying “run around like a chicken with its head cut off”? Well, it’s actually true. The chicken’s body was still jerking around for a few minutes after its head was cut off. Definitely a strange thing to see happen. The birthday girl eventually went through with it and killed the second chicken. Good thing we had two chickens! I helped defeather them and we ate it with stir fry.

This was all good preparation for our 4th of July celebration plans. Our big idea was to roast a pig. One stagiaire’s family helped him kill and gut the pig and then brought it over to our training house on Sunday. I don’t know how much a pig costs back home, but we paid 30,000 CFA ( ̃$60) for it. The guys dug a hole in the ground and lined it with stones. The plan was to put the pig in the hole, cover it with charcoal and then bury it and let it cook over night. Someone saw it done like this on TV – how hard could it be, right?

Another girl and I attempted to make tortilla chips. We had another person making the salsa and the vegetarians were making bean burgers. We wanted to make corn tortilla chips, but couldn’t find any corn flour–an oddity because the Togolese staple, pâte, which they eat 2-3 a day is made with farine de mais. The marché sells to corn kernels and then everyone grinds it into flour at home. You’d think someone would get the idea to sell already ground corn flour... So instead we used regular flour, added salt, oil and water, and fried up small pieces in a frying pan. It took forever but turned out wonderfully. They weren’t crisp, more like pita bread, but everyone thought that they were delicious. Togolese make an oil with palm trees called huile rouge, and it gave the chips a fun and patriotic red color. And just as we were finishing up the rest of the food, the guys dug up the pig.

It turned out that the coals hadn’t been evenly placed around the pig and the part that hadn’t been cooked had begun to rot. At this point, most people lost their appetite for pork, but some were more determined. The guard stepped in and helped the guys cook it using more charcoal and placing it strategically. After another hour or so, they took out the pig, brought it into the kitchen and began to carve it. There were three piles–cooked, rotted, and good but could be cooked some more. One guy brought some homemade BBQ sauce from South Carolina and it went perfectly with the pork, although I was only able to have a few pieces. Not sure if I was full from munching on all the other food or if I had a mental block, but I at least tried it. There was a lot of meat left over so we offered it to the guard and the (non-Muslim) formateurs. Overall, the day was a success. It was fun and turned into a great story. I titled this post “lord of the flies” and, if you’ve read that book, my 4th of July was eerily similar.

*Shout out to all those who were at my parent’s house for the 4th. I just received what you guys wrote to me and I loved it. It was nice to hear from everyone and it made it seem like I received a stack of letters that day. Thanks!

Don't Call Me Yovo

2011-07-01T10:40:00.001-07:00

*Hey guys, so internet is hard to get to and slow right now during training. I've writen a few blog posts over the past couple weeks and have just now gotten them up. My togo cell phone on the contacts page so feel free to call me. I'll get back to your emails as soon as i can but realize it may be a while...*

Yovo is the term here in Togo for “light-skinned person”, aka white people. This does, however, include asians, latinos and even African-Americans, so basically anyone not from Africa. It’s not meant to be demeaning, it’s just a matter of fact here. On my 5 minute walk to class I probably hear “Yovo” at least 10 times, and those are just the people who say it loud enough for me to hear it. In general, I think calling out any word to a stranger passing by is inappropriate, so this has been something that I’ve really had to adapt to.

The majority of the time, it’s kids who call out Yovo. (Sometimes, though, adults do it too, which I have been assured by my host mom is not okay for them to do.) The kids get all excited when they see us and start singing a little song that goes like this: “Yovo, yovo, bonsoir. Ça va bien? Merci!” Picture a group of 3 years olds trying to sing this in unison when they don’t even speak French yet, and it can sometimes get pretty entertaining. I’ve found that some days it makes me smile. I try to always be polite to the kids, but there have definitely been days when I just want to yell at them to shut up. Unfortunately, this is something that I’m going to have to get used to.

Volunteers have different methods for trying to combat the yovo callout. Occasionally, a simple bonsoir or bonjour back quiets them, but this generally only works until you turn away from them and then the singing resumes. Another one is to stop and say “Je ne m’appelle pas Yovo. Je m’appelle Katy”, but that only works with the ones who know english and in a town as large as Tsévié there’s no way you can tell every kid your name and have them remember it. I walked the same path as another female volunteer and I’ll sometimes get called her name. Some people have also tried, in the mornings, to tell the kids that the song is incorrect because it says bonsoir (good evening) and the correct way would be to say bonjour (good morning). We visited one PCV in her village her would do a special handshake with the kids only when they called her by her name and not Yovo. My favorite response, although I have yet to do it, it to say “Ameeba” back to them, which means “black person”. I’ve been told this one really stumps them. We’ll see.

The Yovo calls get worse worse we are in groups. One day, we had a bike lesson where we all road on the Rue Nationale (the main road in Togo, their equivalent to a highway). Not only were there 10 of use riding in a row, but we all have to wear bike helmets that make us stand out even more because the Togolaise never wear them. We started singing the baseball chant that goes “Everywhere we go, people wanna know, who we are, so we tell them, we are the Yovos, the mighty mighty Yovos…” It was a great comic relief for us and now someone will occasionally break out into song and make us all smile.

In other news, I found out where I will be living for the next 2 years. It’s a town called Tanjouaré and it’s in the northernmost region of Togo called Savanes. I’ve been told the town has about 15,000 and it’s right on the Rue Nationale so it should be easy to get to. I’ve heard that there’s a really good group of volunteers up there, which is important because it’s definitely isolated from the rest of the country. I’m going to be working with an NGO that focuses on helping women gain business skills, but this is probably just going to be a small fraction of what I do. More on it later though, as we have a post visit week starting on July 10.