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!
Great post cvaness! Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait to read more! Beautiful V.
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