New Braids for the New Year

Season’s greetings. December in Togo - what a memory to add to my life story! This was my first Christmas away from home. And while my thoughts and heart every so often pined for my family in Danbury, the company of one, Taylor Schaa, was terrificJ. She and I spent a quiet few days in Atakpame waiting for her departure to the States. We ate very well, thanks to her mom and friends back home. I, in memory of my Dominican Navidad, tried to make my mom's platano casserole. Some of the ingredients diverged from the beloved recipe so it didn't quite amount to a product from my mom's kitchen. Yet this helped us leave room for the apple pie we devoured between the two of us - my chipmunk cheeks have made their triumphant return! (And if you need more cheeks, check out my beautiful nephew on Facebook J, can’t wait to meet that lump of love!)

A question I've received from a few people back home - how do the Togolese celebrate this time of year, if they do? And the truth is, for the Togolese that do observe Christmas, the party taking place at home is very similar to that taking place in an American home...at least, in the essentials. Family travels from different corners of the country, a lot of food is prepared, there's enough booze to last until the next holiday season, and there's a greater willingness to give and to share. No there isn't an evergreen mounted with lights in the corner, or a sexy Leg-lamp in the window, but the market is just as absurdly busy as any mall in suburban America. I have never seen the Badou marche as chaotic as it was last Thursday, the last marche day before Christmas. Every inch of the square had a momma selling anything from ginormous yams to false gold jewelry. Not very many Togolese children will receive remote controlled corvettes or a Barbie beach house, but parents try to get them little knick knacks. Madame Bakadi was testing out a pair of kid sunglasses - in both purple and white - to give to her youngest child. The kids also like to get, what in the states would be gumball machine, trinkets. I was sitting at a boutique when a few 7 year olds bought a handful of tiny toy "guns" that came with sticks of gum. The gum was casually discarded but the little pistols, man, they provided wonderful distraction. They are about an inch long and the magic to them is that when the trigger is released the end of the barrel shoots off at your un-expecting target. My ladies – Madame Bakadi, Chang, and Bide – were all demonstrating. It made me laugh. Besides these, children also enjoy balloons and, rather naturally, any chocolate or sweet goodie they can get.

While the town is very lively for Christmas, only half of the population celebrates it (for my Muslim brothers and sisters, it’s cool but not that cool). Moreover, it's much more of a religious day (imagine that) than a "party." The biggest celebration takes place within the walls of your church. I went to an Assembly of God “convention” two Sundays ago. Members from 10 surrounding villages joined the Badou congregation. I arrived at church at 8am and around 1pm decided that I had all the religious blessings I needed for the day. In all seriousness though, I was very moved by the welcoming I received. After sitting with the “young girls” club for half an hour, the pastor invited me to join him at the front. As though I needed the extra attention? Yes, there was dancing, and yes I did join. 

So what I started to say is that while Christmas is nice and all, New Year’s Day…well let's just say for anyone who can, it's perfectly alright to become heavily indebted in order to throw the fete everyone in village wants to be at – “mo’ money, mo’ problems”? No joke, the marche today brought me back to the Black Fridays I had as a frightened cashier selling Mrs. Field's Cookies in the mall. Everyone likes new things - a new outfit, a new set of earrings, new shoes – we all want to be all that and a bag of Cheez-its. And this must include new braids.  

As I've written before, my neighbor has a small "salon" next door, i.e. women come to her house to get their hair done by one of the 14 apprentices she has. And getting new braids is what you DO if you're a young and trendy Togolese woman. I've lent my porch to be used when her space gets too crowded. And oh the weave that's bought!! Lucian was telling me about a book concerning the money choices of the less-privileged (disclaimer: I have not read this book so I am simplifying hundreds of pages worth of research) - how limited means do not imply that resources will all be devoted to necessities, such as food. The poor, just like so many of us, invest in what entertains them, what distracts them, what makes them happy. Some of these girls struggle to find 50 CFA for a bowl of beans, yet this does not prevent them from choosing their favorite color weave and getting new braids to welcome the New Year. Today, as we were sitting on the porch, one of the apprentices suddenly runs off around the corner. I ask the girl sitting next to me what happened and she tells me that the girl owes the jewelry woman, who is now walking towards us, some money. I laugh with them although part of my brain is a little distressed for these girls' choices.  Is this rational or productive? No, I don't think so, and I give them older-sister financial hints. However, I'm not self-righteous enough to criticize them either. Have my financial choices been rational? Many people would say I could have gotten the same quality education at a public university as I did at the private one I chose…without the daunting debt. But I was very happy and at the end of the day that is what mattered to me. And while the consequences of these instances are different, I think that the irrational? choices we each made are rooted in the same basic tendencies. And it’s not a revelation to any of us: what we want isn’t always what is sensible and sense only satiates one source of our feelings.

As a final note, I will be spending the New Year with some of my new Togolese friends (and a couple of my new American buddies too J). Veronica and Ryan will be joining me here in Badou to indulge in the wonders of fufu, tchouk (aka chuque), waterfalls, and Togolese family. I’ll make sure to dedicate some pages on this after I recuperate from end of the year celebrations.

Trades, crafts, and la creativite Togolaise (in la photographe)

The following are pictures from the PC Foire (Trade show) this past November (pictures courtesy of Lydia Grate - thank you for giving use to my idle camera!).

Woven computer sleeves - Bafilo 

Traditional fete outfit for men

Women weavers

Dolls from Dapaong (northern Togo)

Dapaong

Zam-Ke (Sacs et accessories en plastique recycle) (presque de Lome)

Kafe Kuma from Kpalime 

Batiques from Kpalime

Chantelle (clothing, accessories, batique) - Kpalime

Weavers - Dapaong

Avec le Harmatan arrive...

Harmatan – or the winds from the Savannah that blow south during the last months of the year. December has arrived. I came back home after a weekend in Atakpame to floors, table tops, and all other surfaces covered with a light spread of dust. The permanent haze that has settled throughout Togo makes for beautiful sunrises and sunsets – yesterday the evening sun looked like a perfect orange yolk in the dusty skies.

With harmatan, we have fared-the-well to the rains. I’d say it’s been over a month since we’ve been graced with the slightest drizzle. The drive from Atakpame to Badou has turned from one of lush champs (farms) to dry lands. What was green now is a sandy brown. Farmers are also going on a slash-and-burn rampage, creating half mile clouds of smoke along the road.  The raging fires add a little extra drama to my already exhilarating bush taxi voyage.  Plus as we leave the windows down in the bush taxis, we all arrive in Badou with a coating of dust in our hair, on our faces, and on our clothes. Hopefully my lungs will develop hyper-resiliency these next two years.

All the dust has made my nasal passages resemble the Togolese road in that there’s no unobstructed path through. Despite this discomfort, I am quite content with having to pull a sheet over me at night. After my morning run yesterday was the first time I’ve needed to boil water to shower with – I was feeling a little chilly. The main part of the day, from say 9AM to 4PM, remains hot as hell – your body is very much aware of being in West Africa. But you can enjoy your warm coffee during a cool morning and fall asleep to a nice draft through the house at night. I get a kick from my neighbors. I leave my house with a t-shirt in the morning. “Vanessa, il fait froid maintenant, non?” You see the below 80 degree temperature has got my neighbors wrapped up in the sturdiest clothes they have – including sweaters, scarves, and socks underneath their sandals. The Zed-men (motor cyclists) often sport nice neon ski jackets or wind breakers, dazzling all of us with great nineties moda.

Everyone is preparing for the holiday season. Every church is hosting a number of visitors from surrounding towns. A friend in village Madame Bakadi, member of the VSLA and une femme modale (a.k.a. a cool Togolese woman), was helping prepare her church, Assemblie de Dieu, for the beginning of the celebrations. They’re anticipating thousands of visitors over the next few weeks. I’ll be one of these estrangers this Sunday – looking forward to three hours of faithful jubilation.

A couple weeks ago Kat and I went with our friend, Emmanuel, to his family’s Baptist congregation. It’s a small community compared to the large Evangelical church I visited before. It’s a humble structure with ten to twenty wooden benches organized ad hoc in a small room. The decorations involve tinsel, non and semi-inflated party balloons, and other miscellaneous American party favors. It all makes for a wonderfully tacky festive ambiance. But where the interior design might fail to capture the fervor of African spirituality, the dancing, prayers, and general jubilee of the members make more than amends. Kat and I joined in on some of the dancing. I would awkwardly clap my hands off-rhythm and follow along rather clumsily, if I say so myself. I can’t seem to escape the natural impulse to dance merengue whenever any tropicalesque music (heavy on the drums, you know) is being played. Every time the women got up (which was after anyone spoke), Emmanuel would urge us to join. It was a special celebration to honor the women of the congregation. Each woman wore a dark red skirt with a white blouse. They had their hair pulled back into a white head piece. They looked very beautiful. They were commemorating the work they’ve done for the church and within the greater community. Thus, the women presented the sermon and lead all the prayers. For a moment, I was transported back to Danbury CT, where so many of the women in my life are heavily invested and thus are the columns of support for the church. It’s like the global diffusion of the spirit of Santa Maria - women as the bearers of grace, sacrifice, and spiritual patience.


In work related news the VSLA starts saving on Sunday!! As I write, I sit at my kitchen table basking in the smell of undried stained wood - the caisse (box we'll use as the safe) was delivered this afternoon.    I am prayin' that Sunday, after religious blessings, full servings of fufu, and a few calabashes of chuque we will be ready to get the savings ball rolling!!

Pintards after Thanksgiving

10 decembre 2011

Pintards after Thanksgiving

I have an affinity for the pintards at Taylor’s house in Lama Tessi, hence I sort of dedicate this post to them, those harbingers of morning light.

La Foire, organized by fellow SED Volunteers, was awesome. It took place at the same time as the Swearing In for the new group of volunteers – GEE (Girls Empowerment and Education) and NRM (National Resource Management). There were around 20 Togolese artisans present from all over the country including Kpalime, Bafilo, Lama Tessi, Sokode, and Dapaong. I was so impressed by a number of stands all which showcased beautiful, original, elaborate Togolese work ranging from woven bags, Batique paintings, accessories made out of recycled plastic water sachés, and woodwork. I spent more than I should have, but I see it as promoting Togolese creativity the result of which is a jolie batique for my living room and Christmas gifts for friends J Taylor and I gave a presentation on Professional Communication – much of which was improvised but seemed to have been well received by our artisan audience. We spoke of keeping professional etiquette at your boutique, i.e. not sleeping on your mat during working hours.

Woven hats created by the weavers in Bafilo

Aposto's Peace Corps collection :)

Potters from Tsevie

Ritually, a few of us returned to the Belle Vue Annex for pizza. And then the night was given to dance, champagne, the welcoming of the new volunteers, and a fair well to those returning to the land of Starbucks and warm showers. It was a time bien passe! However, Lome is exhausting and, as characterized by fellow PCVs, somewhat of a black hole for money. Despite any budgeting you might ambitiously attempt, you somehow always find yourself foraging for the last few CFAs in your purse to get back to post.

I came home only for a few days during which I met with the town’s CDQs, la Comité pour la Development de Quartier (aka Committee for the Development of the Neighborhood). Keeping my toes crossed, I want to work with these groups to improve the non extant waste management in town. One of the CDQ members in my quartier walked me to the ad hoc garbage dump in our neighborhood. The site was affecting. You watch as black sachés whirl in the wind against the backdrop of the otherwise beautiful Plateau hills. The whole neighborhood deposits their trash here and the dump appears to be the collection of a year’s worth of garbage. The black plastic has become part of the soil and I’m forgetting it shouldn’t actually be there.  

After a visit from my PCVL – the wise Ben J – I left again, this time for the village of Adgengre for our PCV Thanksgiving FEAST. For those of you who don’t know me well, I’m a big fan of Turkey Day. Although this year’s meal was not spent in the company of my mom, dad, brothers, and cousins (Alicia, Alana, and Alexa were sorely missed) it has no less obtained a special place in my memory. Around 40 volunteers got together for turkey, mashed potatoes, casserole, and a bucket load of pumpkin and apple pie (one furnished through the joint effort of V and Luc). It lacked some of the intimacy that is so beautiful about TG but spent in great company nonetheless. If nothing else, it was a culinary break from an otherwise routine diet of oatmeal, soja (tofu), and peanut butter.

I spent the next day with Taylor in Lama Tessi. That morning we received the customary pintard serenade. We spent that evening with her refreshing, imaginative, and all around awesome counterpart Mr. Aposto. We tried to explain the meaning of Thanksgiving. He had a previous volunteer before Tay. She’d told him about the binge eating that happens during the celebration but he didn’t understand its significance. We kind of ventured into an explanation of the Native American-Colonist relationship - how the meal represented a peace (imaginary or not) between the two groups after the arrival of the colonists to North America, blah, blah, blah. But importantly, how now TG is a day a person spends with those she loves the most and a celebration of the graces in life.  Next year Aposto will have a front row seat to the American shebang.

Aposto is to be admired. I had a small conversation with him about Togo cosas. His appreciation for his country, his faith in its people - in himself - is invigorating. It can be overwhelming when so many of the Togolese men and women we live with give themselves so little agency in their lives. Someone else always has control over change, be it the government or les estrangers. It’s always “ca va aller.” I was telling a friend in village (who hasn’t received a salary in two years, despite showing up to work every day) that sometimes things won’t “just go” if there’s no force to make the initial push. I, perhaps insensitively, suggested that she demand a wage or strike (a la American Progressives). It’s difficult considering that employment is not easily found in this country but to take a stand for your well-being should be instinctive. Aposto has a shop where he creates batique, clothing, and his own African-centric art pieces. He represents the very real struggles faced by the poor African population - health, economic, social - in stark pieces. Yes, subtlety might be lost (condoms separating a scene of death from one of life). Yet it’s good to see a community leader using art as a medium to reach his audience, rather than the doldrums of “development politics.”   

Plus, he’s super sweet to his girlfriend. When Tay and I arrived, they were having an intimate picnic underneath his peyote (until the tactless Americans interrupted). We don’t often witness affection between couples here and so it makes my soul smile when I do. Hence we arrive at Lennon’s - too often sited but not any less valid - words of wisdom, “all you need is love.” And with that Vache Qui Riz, I leave you for now.

A visit to La Poste

A visit to the post office.

Today, I am sending a letter and paying my electrical bill; both which I do at the same place - the Badou Post Office. I prepare myself in the morning before going. In my bag I place the book I’m currently reading; the Volunteer Information Newsletter; a notebook to write down things I remember to do; and my water bottle. Upon walking up to the building I take a preliminary glance into the office in order to register if today I’ll spend 30 min, an hour, or the entire morning waiting for the surly man behind the counter to call me up.

See here’s the thing.  La Poste in Togo is much more than a (wo)man in blue knee-length shorts driving a little white van, depositing mail into a cow shaped mailbox.  Of course you can send your letters and receive your packages. But many Togolese use the post as their primary form of banking and to make money transfers. The Western Union sign outside of a post office has become an ominous sign for me. Normally, there will only be three or four persons (out of twenty or so) there for correspondence-related activity. Otherwise, one is stuck waiting behind the ten or more people that need to send money to Tanti in Lome. Over the course of three months, I’ve learned and have now become practiced in the art of daydreaming. I’ll read for about thirty minutes and then spend the rest of the time imagining how best to usurp the system, i.e. sneak behind the counter and retrieve my mail.  

Since nothing is delivered to residences, I make a weekly trip to the post. You quickly understand that it is of dire need to keep bonne relations with the post officer. We just got a pair of newbies here in Badou that have so far been ill-disposed to make life easier for Kat and me. Our transactions, like getting our mail or sending a letter, take less than five minutes to complete in contrast to the longer process of money transfers. The post man will look over at me, smile, exchange salutations (a little brown-noising on my part) and then he’ll return to his computer screen. I sit back on the bench, slip my book out, and take only occasional glances towards him to remind him that I’m still there although not wanting to hurry him or anything…I’m not pressé.

As a kicker, the Badou post also acts as the electrical company’s office…for the whole of the prefecture.  That is, if you are so lucky (as I was a couple months ago) to want to pay your electrical bill on the same day as everyone else, you might spend the ENTIRE DAY WAITING to pay a bill; man if it made sense to introduce online billing in Togo, I’d make that my primary project. However, to my delight, it has come to my attention that I can simply leave the bill and payment with the guard, walk away, and come back whenever to get my receipt. A little secret that I just started to take advantage of J

Are you keeping count? our lone postman must 1) manage the post (although this is last priority) 2) carry out money transfers 3) act as bank clerk and 4) cashier for the electrical company.

You will always need to bring a good book, just in case.  Around the beginning of every month everyone files in to pay their bill.  This means that all other less-pressing transactions, like sending a lowly letter, settle in at last place on the post office totem pole. I squeeze my way up to the counter only to be asked to come back in two hours. I just need to send a letter, says the whiny voice inside my head. But as with everything in Togo, things eventually do go – “ca va aller, non?” In the meantime, I’ll nurture that lady of personal growth, patience. 

Wesan-lo!

10 octobre 2011:

That much Ewé I do understand – Welcome! Whenever you are arrive somewhere, even if it’s your own home, people greet you with these words letting you know they are grateful you arrived well. You respond, Yooo, thanking them for their acknowledgement.  So wesan-lo October! Thank-you for the rain showers and clean notebooks.The school year has started and students as young as 4 and as ripened as 21sport the khaki uniform of public school. I walked past the lycée on the first day of classes and saw what appeared to be the whole student body working on grounds’ maintenance. Kat and the Social Worker we were with explained how maintaining the school is very much a part of public education in Togo. This was unexpected for me. My comrades in high school had to be reminded not to leave cigarette ash on the toilet seats in our bathrooms, let alone mow the school’s lawn.  The kids sit for classes in the mornings and then every so often are required to do manual labor in the afternoons.

My stage is preparing for a week at In-Service Training (IST) at the end of October.  November 6 will mark the end of the first three months at post – yet another stripe of PCVism. I’m looking forward to spending a week with my fellow stagaires. They quell my mounting anxiety, which can be only partially ascribed to malaria drugs. We’re to present the work we’ve done with PACA and a report on our site that enumerates the demographic, physical, and social details of our current residence au Togo. True to form, I’m just getting started on these.I might take a trip down to the beach afterwards to check out Lucian’s swanky pad and wave at the ocean.

During this past month I hope I’ve become a real person to those I live with – something more than a <<voluntourist>>. Sharing a meal validates you in a way that no SWOT session ever can. My neighbors invited me to dinner a couple weeks ago. I was happy to receive the invitation – going home to a solitary meal can be harsh sometimes. And while I hadn’t gained much appreciation for Togolese cuisine during training, I sincerely enjoyed the pate and ademe sauce that was prepared. It’s proven true that eating with your hands makes a meal of pate taste better. I ate inside their small room with dad and a brother from Lome – mom, as is irksomely customary, sat outside. The meal was spent with everyone urging me to eat my body weight in pate – thanks, but it’s not everyone that enjoys the paralyzing bloated belly that accompanies a large Togolese meal. By material standards, they are a poor family. The three live in a space about half the size of my living room.  The parents are still students – although only mom is attending high school now. Dad continues to study in hopes of passing the BAC exam at the end of May. High school students need to pass this national exam in order to progress into university.  They have both failed to do so three times, but yet the motivation remains. They have a three-year old son named Eve who pays me a daily visit. Sometimes we’ll sit on my stoop and share a few bananas.

Ahh, my constant supply of bananas! Someone is always handing me a bunch, a cadeaufor a new amie. I have become friends with a young girl named Chimen (not the same as my neighbor).  Her family lives in a village about a 15 minute moto ride outside of Badou. She spotted me in the marché one day and asked if she could pay me a visit. On one of my biweekly trips to Atakpame, she dropped a note by my house telling me she had some cassava to give me. Upon my return, she paid me another visit with a bag full of cassava and bananas.

You realize I live by myself and that there is no way I can eat half of this before it goes bad? I told her. She laughed and said that I needed to eat more.

 A person needs to eat upon every hour, being hungry is not good, she replied.

 So we prepared one of the 5 large cassava (manioque) she brought me. We fried it in small pieces and ate them like fries, with ketchup and mustard, à la Togolaise-American. I ended up giving the rest to my neighbors.

I was invited to have brunch at her house last Sunday. I took a moto out of Badou and after about 10 minutes we ran into a girl who pulled my driver over.

Chimen sent me to pick you up, she told me.

Alright, I said. Where is it exactly that we’re going?

Oh, we just need to walk a little further.

Knowing all too well that <<a little further>> means something very different to Togolese, I asked her to be a little more specific. She told me the house was about a kilometer up the mountain. Well then, I’m glad I’m wearing my Tevas.The climb was beautiful – you could see far out onto the surrounding mountain sides, many of whose forests remain untamed. I felt like a hobbit, walking along the mountain.

When we finally reached the compound, I was drenched in sweat thinking regretfully about the half liter of water I’d brought with me.  Chimen was still preparing the meal so I sat with her uncle for a little while. Like many farmers, the man spoke not a word of French so our conversation was composed mainly of smiles, nods, and pointing… then silence. The compound consisted of three mud structures – two for bedrooms and one as a kitchen. The family cultivates their own food. Alongside the compound grow a number of fruit trees – banana, orange, guava and mango. They produce cacao and coffee to sell.

Most Togolese cook with charcoal over clay stoves.Chimen prepared pate with sauce arachide (peanut sauce). She also wanted to make noodles, as a safe backup if the pate disagreed with her guest’s tastes.  I told her that the full plate of pate in front of me was more than enough. And it really was – I kept eating despite the growing discomfort around my waistline.  Afterwards, we visited her neighbors, who offered me fufu. I told them I had just finished a big meal of pate chez Chimen. Well, yes that was pate and now you eat fufu with us!Insert nervous laugh...In the end, they accepted my refusal to fufu but there was no escape from sharing a calabash of local brew with the fam. Chuque – fermented palm juice or something. Anywho, considering I was somewhat dehydrated to begin with I ended up offering most of my calabash to the dirt floor. I came back home with a full belly, thoughts of a good friendship, and very tired from a day that started off with an ambitious run, in anticipation of a big meal and no knowledge of a mini-hike.

A month au village

10 septembre 2011

Salut, tues la?

Greetings from a Togolese melting pot. I’ve met people in Badou from Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, and from all over Togo itself. Marche days bring in marche mommas across the Ghanan border and I find myself speaking broken English as I buy my tomatoes and onions. 

Music springs from the barbershops that occupy every inch of town. The other day, I got a bit nostalgic as I heard Daddy Yankee blaring out from one of these deafening speakers – Gasolina seems to haunt me however far I travel.

Religious sounds carry through all of Badou-meme. From my porch, I can hear a couple calls of prayer – I can clearly see one mosque from where I sit but the voice of another reaches me. The two calls do not play simultaneously, making it sound as though one is responding to the other. And, most thrilling for me (I can assure you) is the church service that takes place next to my house. It really gets going when my bedroom light turns off and I climb under my mosquito net.  The drums and the faithful chanting battle my IPOD as I close my eyes to restless sleep. But religion in Togois not something you grudgingly concede to on Sunday mornings. Christianity and Islam exhibit new qualities – colored by their African environment. As the SED APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) said, Togo is 50% Christian and 50% Muslim but 100% Animist. During Ramadan, the faces of Muslim women were done up elegantly – their eyes appearing the more astonishing with heavy black liner. The children were dressed in the liveliest medleys ofpagna patterns. In the marche I saw a group of matching siblings – all four children were wearing the same purple green pagna, personalized only by their chosen accessories .  I’ve attended one service in my three months in Togo. I went with my host family in Tsevie who belonged to a Pentecostal assembly. Of the three hours I sat on the pew, I can confidently say that about 2 of them consisted solely ofsinging, dancing, and drums.  As for me, this is a part of Togo that I am appreciating more as an observer than as a participant.

This past month my mind has moved past sensory overload and has begun to comfortably settle down, although it still receives a jolt every once in a while. I have now added a couch, chair, rug, and bookshelf to my living room – whoop for having a place to sit! The girls next door, Chimen and Gabriella (13 and 18 respectively) come over occasionally. I was painting the other day and Chimen just sort of joined me in my living room. We had a nice conversation about the beginning of the school year. She’s 13 and has just started the Togolese equivalent to middle school.

My walk to town involves very robust greetings from a handful of little ones.  The calls of Yovo are now, thankfully, interspersed with Yawa (my name au village) and Tanti (a term of endearment for a woman here). “Vanessa” comes out more like Eessa or Vaneesa. There are two really little ones who live in a compound about half way down that run up to me (still screaming Yovo), and wrap their tiny arms around my legs. On cloudier days, this has been smile producing.

I’ve been slowly getting into work. This past week was exciting for me – with little things, yes, but they make life seem more normal. Kat invited me to work with Club de Mere (Mothers Club) organized by the Red Cross. She’s done work with them before; this past spring they organized an event in celebration of International Women’s Day. Together, we are going to help the club start a “Village Savings and Loans Association.” As the title implies, this functions as a group in which the women can save money as well as take out small loans from. The money is all their own thus the members themselves finance their own loans. Along with the Loan fund, there is a small Social Fund in which the women deposit a small amount each week and is used for emergencies arising in the group. The money from the Social Fund can be given as a grant or as a loan. I got to run the informational meeting this past week. And while I stumbled through some of it, it helped push me out of the proverbial PC nest and get the wings flapping.It’s heartening to see how growth can come from the simple step of a community’s self-awareness.

I’ve recently become involved with animal raising…and I can’t say I know much about it although I have now become acquainted with the town’s goats, chickens, and turkeys. Animal husbandry in Badou is picking up, especially as those ambitious few have noticed that there is very little meat sold in the market although there is demand. A member of MUREC and a friend took me to see their own animals. They raise turkeys, goats, and chickens. We decided that it would be good to have a technical session for those interested in starting their own farms and also to teach some financial literacy. Later that night, he stops by my house to tell me that there are other people interested in our session and I tell him to invite them along. They all want me to visit their farms. And so over the course of a week I visited a hand full of goat and chicken farms in neighboring villages. I had little to do half the time besides smile to myself, as very few understood French well, I didn’t have a good translator, and I had no technical advice to offer them.  I guess I will be reading up on goat elevage. Maybe I can also learn how best to keep my friendly goat visitors off my porch (and put an end to the gifts of pellet poop I open my door to each morning).

Notwithstanding my misgivings about motorcyclists in this country, the moto rides were surprisingly enjoyable. Once you leave town you can see the depth of farming in themilieu – monoculture has yet to reduce the area to plainness. Cacao, maize, coffee, plaintain, cassava, mango, rice, and so many others reach my eyes from the road.  Most awesome of all, my hosts gave me fruit and I have since been enjoying some lovely guayaba with my oatmeal J

Swear-in and my first week in Badou

14aout 2011

Swear-in passed without a breath or thought to spare. We left our host families and Tsevie on Wednesday, August 3. That morning, Lucian, Taylor, and I found ourselves trapped on my porch as we watched the rain pour down around us. It hadn’t rained over the past two weeks - the driest time we’ve spent in the Meritime Region. And suddenly, through strokes of luck (?) and Tsevie love, the rains came. I was standing on my porch with my two large packs, water filter, bike and motto helmets, backpack, and bucket feeling very silly. Taylor and Lucian arrived completely soaked through and equally as overburdened.   Our house manager (the man we turn to for most of our Togolese advice), Cyrille, kindly sent a car to retrieve the stranded stagaires. The road to our homes turns into small ponds and streams when it rains so the likelihood of arriving at the Tech House well manicured for the PC Bureau in Lomé were dim if not for Simplice and his Land Rover. Henok and Ruth had yet torealize I was leaving the house. The family has had other volunteers so the experience wasn’t new, but they looked mildly confused and asked when I was coming back from Lomé. Ruth attached herself to one of Taylor’s legs as we began packing up. Hurriedly, we said our goodbyes and made a rapid dash towards the door. There was melancholy, nostalgia, relief, and anticipation as we drove away that morning. The rain was a very fitting farewell to our Tsevie stay.

We were administratively sworn-in (i.e. our John Hancocks placed on the all-too official fed docs) on Wednesday. We shared in the energy of declaring ourselves servants to the US Constitution. It was pretty cool and probably the most significant thing I’ve done in my life thus far. Our minds were momentarily swept away with the arrival of mail. I got a wonderful letter and package from the all too sweet Liz Hernandez (thank you!). The rest of the day would be dedicated to the bank and supermarkets in an effort to buy ourselves some peace of mind for the months to follow. The supermarket made me very antsy and here’s why. Although many of you might call me melodramatic, the thought of not having access to the staples of my diet in village was nibbling away at my, otherwise, practical judgment. I would put things into my cart and then five minutes later return them. I kept making decisions based on my American sensibilities, e.g. a set of frying pans, rather than just the one or two that I would actually use; to get two or three jars of peanut butter, honey, and coffee?; three different types of pasta; sauces etc etc. I spent over half the time just walking up and down the aisles hoping that a rational, all-knowing light from above (current PCVs??) would shine on those items that I actually needed and wouldn’t find at post. And so it went. In what turned out to be over 4 hours, we visited two supermarkets, swarming around the modicums of comfort we craved for our village lives.

A bit on Lomé: although, the city is a world of lux compared to our “quaint” towns, it is a far cry from a Paris, New York, or even a Santo Domingo.  As we drove down the avenue along the beach, we saw the vestiges of what was once a city indulged by its colonial patrons. The old German castles stand abandoned, by now completely overrun by moss and other natural trespassers. But as compared to my experience in Niamey, Niger, where I rarely glimpsed a world of privilege, in Lomé we saw billboards advertising high-end pagna (pagna couture - it’s the new Coco Chanel), car dealerships (and no, not parks of broken down bush taxis), and “yovo” stores - one, heralded by gasps from our car, that was selling washing machines! In Lomé, we pampered ourselves. The night before swear-in, a few of us went out for pizza - it was MAGICAL! I got myself a Sicilian - thin crust, lots of cheese, anchioves, olives, and mushrooms. We all parteger-ed slices - letting our taste buds explode with glee! We then parteger-edthree deserts (enough gluttony to last us for three or four months). These included: a chocolate mousse, apple pie with ice-cream (!!!!) and a nutella banana baked pizza item. We walked out of the restaurant with that serene, content feeling a good meal renders its beneficiary.

The swear-in ceremony was beautiful. We all got dressed up in our best pagna - many of us sporting outfits given by our host families. We were addressed by the PC Country Director, the Togolese Minister of Finance and the American Ambassador - all with words of advice and assurance in the Peace Corps hope.  One of the trainees, Cameron, also prepared a speech in French. It had a good amount of humor and candor, which placed knowing and empathetic smiles on our faces.  We had a little shindig that night - yay for dancing!! And then we were off the next morning after the chaos of packing 10 cars with luggage, mattresses, and all things necessary for 23 people.

The ride to Badou can give your lower back some serious pains! But the destination is worth it. The town is situated amongst the hills of the Plateau Region. It’s beautiful to stand at any particular spot on the road and look up onto green mountain sides. There are two semi-paved roads (they might as well not be) that run perpendicular in the town. My house is located on a hillside, giving me a beautiful outlook from my porch. It looks down onto a small quartier. I like to leave the door open around sundown to allow the orange and pick hues to streak into my living room. Above, the vultures encircle the palm and Baobab trees. As I’ve told a few of you, I have more space than I know what to do with or need - three bedrooms, a large living/dining space, kitchen and bathroom. The space adds to the emptiness of the house. The only pieces of furniture currently residing in it are a dining table, two chairs, and most recently, a bed. For the majority of the week, my mattress lay on the floor. I’d tie my mosquito net to the windowsill and drape it across to a chair. Needless to say, a bed was a nice addition. I’m looking forward to home décor - giving the place a bit of life and making it my home. While I will eventually have running water, I’ve been living off of two cisterns this past week, something that has made me a little angsty. My thought is that the expectation of running water has made it more annoying to live without it.On a cheerier note, through good fortune, I have a site mate Kat, who has been so sweet and helpful. We’ve prepared a few meals together - including apple pie in a Dutch oven!

I’m going to work closely with a local microfinance, MUREC. My counterpart, Monsieur Aku, has been a great help this past week - answering my 101 questions, having his girls bring water to my house, and just being a really amiable guy.These last few days I got the chance to meet with him a few times and discuss work prospects. Right now, I’m hoping to start off with simple training sessions (i.e. formations) on bookkeeping, financial literacy, and best practices in using credit - financial sensibilisation.

Depending on the time of day, I feel very anxious to get work started, especially around 8h in the morning. In Togo, my body has taken to shooting up around 6h. So, this past week, I’d get out of bed, stretch, make breakfast, and then sit out with a book.The hairdressers next door would wave me down. I’d go over to saluer, though few speak any French (plan: work on my Mina). They have intentions to braid my hair despite my current buzz cut!

When 8h rolled around, my restlessness set in. I’d stroll down to the market, observing, lingering, and buying bread. I spent a lot of time preparing food or getting ready to prepare food. After these twitchy morning hours, in the early afternoon, I’d begin to enjoy the time to myself. It’s been good - a lot of reading, writing, and thinking.I had a moment the other day when I stood at my doorway and glazed over for a minute. It was one of those flashes when where you are and what you’re doing suddenly dawns on you - almost as though you’ve been estranged from it up to then. So yes, I’ll be living in Badou, Togo for two years as a PCV! Right now I’m in Atakpamé, getting money and furniture and also, as you have most graciously partaken in, updating my blog!

Peace Corps Training (June 3, 2011 to August 3, 2011). You’re not a volunteer until you’ve paid these dues.

31 juillet 2011

Bien arrivez!

                The following is a summary of my first few months in Togo. I didn’t have regular access to internet during training and so I thought these happenings would be a veritable introduction to my PC blog. I spent the last two months in Tsevie, Togo living as a PCT – Peace Corps Trainee. I am here as part of the Small Enterprise Development Program. In Togo, we work with small-scale individual entrepreneurs, microfinances, NGOs, and youth organizations – most, if not all, for the improvement of management and business techniques. I guess I’ll be putting Planning on an easily accessible shelf for two years – I can’t help but turn an amateur planner’s eye towards the state of infrastructure here, transportation and sanitation most prominently.

As I sit here writing this, it’s hard to feel as though two months will soon pass since I arrived in Lome. This Wednesday (Aug 3) we will be administratively sworn-in as brand new Peace Corps Volunteers! We landed around 6pm on June 3 at the very small Lome International Airport. We had left the hotel in Philadelphia at 3pm on June 2, took a 7-hour flight from NYC to Paris then a 6-hour flight from Paris to Lome. As we disembarked the plane, we were speedily whisked away on snazzy shuttles and about a minute later stopped in front of what we would soon find out was the presidential lounge – a cozy room where the crème de la crème of foreign relations (i.e. diplomats and the like) are received. Getting our luggage took more time than expected – appetizer to the state of logistics here. We migrated to the hotel, where a lovely (very American) dinner was waiting for us. We were also given our prophylaxis to stave off any first-night Malaria infection.The next three days in Lome passed in a blur of administrative dealings. We were given many of the necessary trimmings for PCT and PCV-ism, including our well-furnished medical kits and bikes.

We left Lome on June 7 for Tsevie, our training site and home for two months. We met our families at the training/tech center under the same peyote we’d soon be having sessions in. Everyone was jamin’ – families, trainees, and our formateurs (trainers). Some people had brought a set of drums. The moms all started to dance while the stagaires(trainees) stumbled awkwardly along. It was an appropriately West-African meet-and-greet. My host mom, 5-year-old sister (Ruth), 7-year-old brother (Henok) and a family friend (Ella) came to pick me up. When they called out my name, Ella came up to greet me and took me by the hand to our seats. I was under the impression that she was my host-sister or at least someone I’d be living with. I asked her who the lady was that was sitting next to her. The woman hadn’t introduced herself and so I thought that she was another host mom. Turns out, she was my momma. It didn’t take me long to realize that she was a very shy person, particularly for the Togolese.

My mother’s personality was the negative image of her 5-year-old daughter, Ruth. This little one was always the first one to holler at me when I came home. She had a booming voice which she used to call out my name from 10 meters away. She would run towards me and jump onto a part of my body, normally clinging on to one of my limbs. Nor did she reserve this enthusiasm for just me. My two good friends that lived close by, Taylor and Lucian got the same unbridled attention. I also had two little brothers, a 7-year-old and a 1-year-old (Junior), both whose company I really enjoyed – they were a little more chilled out than my sister. I brought the family a board of checkers as well as mancala. Henok and I played just about every day, whenever I was home, for about the first month. Afterwards though, I noticed that the pieces and boards slowly disappeared. Like most young children, Henok was never too conscious of where his toys ended up.

Things I took away from stage include:

·         FRENCH – it’s hard not to really, seeing as how there are some days when you have language class for 4+ hours and then you go home to, yes, more francais. It’s treated me kindly, although I still sound like a duck when asking quand something is happening.

·         Bathrooms or the lack thereof. Forget latrines, most people still use the very public road or open spaces, including the beach (insert frowny face here), as a “Water Closet.” At first, it was startling to have a child “yovo” us as he or she was carrying out his or her business, but by now it’s become nothing less than commonplace.

·         How wonderful it is to have functioning sanitation and waste management systems. To be greeted every morning by eighteen piles of trash (we counted) on our 20 minute walk to class is not gratifying, to say the least. For one, whenever you purchase anything at a boutique here, be it ONE egg or pagna, they put in a black plastic sache (and they give you the evil eye if you tell them that you’ve brought your reusable instead). Hence the streets are largely colored by black plastic, other rappers, and the daily trash we all generate. Props to the projects currently sponsored by volunteers that reuse some of these wrappers to make such neat things as handbags and wallets (images forthcoming).

·         SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action) feasibility analyses, la bonne gestion, strategic planning and other tools of the trade. Plus, how every other person feels that they can keep all of their accounting (business and home) in their heads. No friends, you won’t remember how many haircuts you gave in a week, or how much it cost you to prepare batique, or who paid for what dress. Remember B-O-O-K-K-E-E-P-I-N-G is key.

·         Food – Yep, one thing I’m looking forward to at post is being in control over when I have to eat pate, gombo sauce, beans and gari(cassava crumbles) with healthy amounts of palm oil (never, hopefully), and ablo. Pate and fufu are the main staples of a Togolese meal. Many people have either one of these every day, for lunch and dinner. Fufu is a mélange of cassava and igname and is rather tasty especially when paired with sauce arachide (peanut sauce). But my taste buds have no affinity for pate - pounded corn meal. It just kind of is - essentially fuel rather than food. And what’s amusing is if they simply add a tomato sauce to the thing (to create the wonderful pate rouge) it’s a completely different experience, 100x more appetizing. My mother prepared some wonderful meals and I am greatly appreciative to her (especially for her patience). I know that there will be evenings when I’ll daydream about her sauce arachide and her pate rouge.  But if I never have to gouter a plate of beans and gari again, I’ll consider myself a very lucky gal.

·         Laundry – hand-washing all of your clothes in two buckets of water while never successfully managing to rinse out all of the soap…or dirt for that matter. Lucian and I chose to do our laundry together, in hopes that shared pain would be lessened pain. His family never understood why he lugged dirty clothes around; we did - commiseration. Taylor tells a rather telling anecdote in her own blog. The first time she tried laundry, as she was scrubbin’ away, she turned to her mother and said, “you know, in America we have machines that do this.” Her mother responded casually, “machine one” as she raised her left hand, “machine two” as she raised her right (T. Shaa). Du courage.

·         New friendships. One thing I am grateful for is that I have found myself in the company of great people. My fellow trainees are pretty special individuals, and I am looking forward to working, sharing, struggling (some days), and more generally shooting the breeze with them for the rest of these two years (and hopefully stateside as well).

I remember looking over our calendars when we began training with disbelief that we would still be in Togo at the beginning of August – nine weeks seemed…VERY – FAR – AWAY. But here we are a week away from being sworn in and now considering the prospect of the first three months at post!