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!