Camps

September 21, 2012 - UNITE and Espoir

The boat challenge and a Pagi interruption. This was during UNITE , the girls needed to get their boat, i.e. two planks of wood, across a line about 8 feet away. Pagi is the camp 'spirit' who tries to discourage them by teasing them - in super weird costume. He wears a stuffed Spongebob as a mask and tutus on his feet. What's funny is that some of them were genuinely frightened by him - grigri is no joke here.

To educate a girl is to educate a nation. Get 'er done.

It’s been almost four months since I’ve written to you. I placed much of my routine on hold over the school vacation. Let’s start from the end of June and work our way to present. I had a beautiful 24^th birthday in country thanks to a few good friends. This was followed by our Mid Service Conference – the SED and CHAP group had made it past their year mark in country. The only thing I remember about MSC was the Talent Show where lots of us attempted (and succeeded) to dance, sing, compose, recite poetry etc. Upon return to Atakpame, a few of us spent three dollars for tickets to a TooFan concert. If not thrilled for the music, we were definitely all curious to see the performance. Of course, the first two or three hours we watched dance troops stepping to Coole Catche – which does not involve a whole lot of acrobatics. But the young hip Togolese crowd loved it. There had to be a few hundred people packed into le Centre Culturale d'Atakpame.  Then the stars of the night showed up and continued in much the same vain – lip-sinking and unremarkable dancing. What’s funny is that the back-up dancers putting on an athletic display were much more entertaining than the performers. The two guys that make up TooFan were pacing back and forth across the stage and miming into their microphone. Needless to say, not impressive – a week’s worth of lunch money for something I grew up watching my older cousins do in front of their mirrors.

In the bar around the corner, Atakpame, before the 2fan concert 

July was remarkable for the beginning of camp season – Espoir and UNITE. Espoir is dedicated to children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. UNITE promotes leadership among Togolese youth – students and apprentices alike. Both camps were redeeming – for a week you felt the potential influence positive energy can have on a kid, her family, and community. At UNITE I witnessed how witty and resourceful adolescent Togolese girls can really be - how a week of camp can begin to inspire youth. We watched these videos from one of our donors about food security and the protection of the environment. They depicted stories of agricultural communities from around the world; and this was great because so many of the girls were surprised to see that places outside of Africa experience many of the same struggles as do poor families in Togo. Rather, that the color of your skin does not determine the lifestyle you lead. I felt very touched during the candle ceremony when Chimen told us that the week of camp had motivated her to continue her education. I never had much of an inclination to learn any of Togo’s ‘boncs’ (i.e. icebreakers) - and now I have at least 48 hours’ worth of camp songs inscribed into the folds of my mind. Espoir was an awesomely humbling experience – you could not have guessed that these girls had a history with HIV/AIDS in observing how high-spirited they were. Honestly, they were just like any other teenage girls sometimes – flirting with the young guys on the kitchen staff, seeming uninterested in anything and yet getting into our sessions just as much as their younger friends.  A teenage girl like Samira – patient, sincere, empathetic, whose mother passed away when she was 8 years old – put my life into perspective. I had a lot of fun with my cabin; these hormone-ridden girls gave me a lot of sass, but it was illuminating to observe how ubiquitous adolescent anxieties can be - despite differences in geography and culture. After camp season ended we celebrated the entry of a new class of volunteers and said our final farewells to the volunteers that had welcomed us a year ago. It's strange to think that we could give advise to others. I feel just as silly most of the time, as I did when I first arrived. 

My Espoir cabin - Australia. I had to knock for a whole minute on their doors so they'd get to their sessions on time. They would then drag their feet all the way to the center for our sessions.

Alex and I having pizza in Lome before Swear-in of the newbs

December 2012
Time is enigmatic – you blink and you find yourself in the middle of the holiday season again. But this time around, I’m sitting at my kitchen table in Danbury. I’M HOME! For Christmas. I met my nephew – he is a beautiful, mischievous, charismatic little boy. This is really all I want to do - dance to Thriller with him in my living room. He had the most curious expression on his face as I was trying out my moonwalk. I'm in love :)  Hopefully, we spend enough time together these next few weeks that he won’t forget me during the next 8 months that I won’t be around. Now I settle into the home stretch. 

Titi and Tata

A whole lot of nothings

Lately, I’ve noticed how much I’ve grown attached to Badou. Last week Taylor visited me. It’s cool to share your post with a good friend – makes it feel more like home. We went to the falls; had dinner with a really special family, who made us fufu with a mushroom and goat stew (freakin amazing – I wish more Togolese would collect mushrooms); and watched some TV avec au-village sundaes (involving Fan Choco, bananas, peanuts, and Parle-G crackers) and popcorn. I love that girl’s company.

Fufu, the meal of choice for a Togolese and by association PCVs.  First, one boils ignames, nothing like American yams, (in addition to yuca, platanos, or taro). After boiling the ignames, women place them in a large wooden mortar to be pounded into a paste-like consistency. Two people with large wooden pestles consecutively pound into the yams for about 10 minutes - you have to work up the appetite needed to injest about a pound worth of straight starch. The pestles are continuously dipped into untreated water, and I like to believe that since I’ve been here for a year the use of this water no longer has an immediate (operative word) effect on me. There’s nothing that fills the belly like a bowl of fufu.

Chimen and Penobe –  some of my favorites. They change between surprisingly, too-mature-for-their-age, independent young women to silly annoying school girls. They both prepare most of the meals for the family; help sell food stuffs in the market; and rent a room for themselves in Badou during the school week. And they don’t realize how independent and capable they are.  Penobe, 18, has been ‘proposed’ to by a teacher in her school. The man is married with children. The freedoms that teachers take in this country with students are one of the most exhausting things we have to see. If you want more details, email me. All I can do is to remind her of how young she is; how many other options she has; and how capable and uncommitted she is right now.

 For me, it’s kind of like having the younger sisters I wanted when I was growing up. They live about 15 minutes outside of Badou, on a small farm. They climb these hills with simple flip flops, carrying all sorts of things on their heads – from fire wood to fruit to large silver basins of water; while I fall on my ass with a good pair of Teva sandals, reminds me of how coddled we are chez nous. Chimen prepared a meal of pate and sauce arachide for me. I’m swept away by her generosity and a little embarrassed at my dull reciprocity. I don’t like to cook so I give her American snacks I get in packages; yet I feel the missing element of care that is so endearing when I am invited to eat with them. I watched a storm roll in while I was at their farm, big clouds and creeping fog over the green mountains – breathtaking. If you get the chance, pay me a visit.

And lastly, my house and puppy. There it is folks. Three bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. More space than I know what to do with. Seriously, in one room I hang my underwear to dry and in another I put boxes I need to burn.  My puppy’s name is Kau and he’s going on 6 months. He’s a cutie-patutie who likes his bellied rubbed; dry fish with pate; with the most heart wrenching big ears this new puppy mom has ever seen.

Independence and the fete

Hiya,

I returned to a Badou that was preparing for a couple of national celebrations: le Jour d’Independence et Le Premiere Mai (or Labor Day as it’s known to us across the sea).

I spent that week loitering around town – mostly shooting the non-existent breeze with Bide and Ourkoabe at the former’s boutique. I shared in on some Tupperware gossip – who, what, when, with whom. We were also getting ready to host Kat’s mom who would be paying us a visit in a few days. The ladies were really sweet and anxious about preparing an appropriate welcoming for her.

But before this meal arrived Independence Day on April 27th and Badou went balls to the wall. The schools, social groups, citizen clubs (political parties, farming groups, karate club, and all other sorts) filed out to march in front of their local and regional political leaders and an anticipatory Badou crowd. The schools had been practicing for a week. I was pumped, naturally; I had enjoyed the exhilaration of parades in my day – proudly donning my D.A.R.E. t-shirt in 5^th grade for Danbury’s Memorial Day Parade. And so I was ready to see a raucous mass of people drifting from the Mayor’s office to the Lycee across the market to the Catholic Church. At this time, I was talking to my friend about how much it might suck to march in the noon sun, a comment that seemed lost on him. ‘We’re only walking across that patch of route in front of the lycee so that the Prefet can see us.’ Ah bon? The morning arrived and I sat with Kat and her mom behind the village chiefs, the Prefet, the mayor, and some other honored guests. For the Independence celebration, we received some friends from across the border. The Ghanaian Prefet and his accompaniments were celebrating with us – so we looked xxtra chic.   The groups were beautiful and the event allowed me to pull out my dormant camera. The most memorable moments include: a women who was carrying a basket full of Badou produce – bananas, avocadoes, mangoes –on her head that she deposited at the Prefet’s feet; the breakdancers and karate club that put on two-minute full-out demonstrations for us, including head tilts and 360 kicks on uneven pavement; the girl scouts that were carrying the flag and the twin boys that were leading the boy scouts with the most serious facial expressions I’ve seen on a pair of 8-year-olds; and, always the show stoppers, the Zedmen (moto drivers), who poured out from the four corners of Badou to show off their pink and yellow Aviators, fur trimmed windbreakers, and their ability to drive sidesaddle on their bikes. Here’s to you.

That afternoon, we joined the Kabiye party. The Kabiye are an immigrant, but large, ethnic group in Badou originally from Kara, a northern region. Bide’s husband is the Kabiye chief and an invitation was extended to their fave estrangers in town, wink-a-dink. The traditional dance is called ‘Kamu’ and depending on whom you ask this either happens only once a year during a very special occasion or whenever the hell you want to have a good time. According to an unknown informant, it’s a celebration of the earth, which might explain why everyone – from grandmammas to 4-year-olds – wave branches around and some are draped in animal skins. Every Kudjo, Koffi, and Adjo was under the deeeep influence of Tchouk; covered in Talcum powder; and getting us to dance. There was a crowd of kids hovering around our chairs in hopes of being captured in a picture. One man asked that I give him my watch as a cadeau. I gave him my quizzical-eye-brow-raised face and asked when-EVER did he wonder what time it was?? and then I returned to my calabash. The two less inhibited souls – Kat and her mom – joined the dancing. Are you surprised? I didn’t dance? I know, I love to shake like a child spazzing out but I am still incredibly self-conscience at these parties. Mais, ca va aller. Give me a little more time and pass me the tchouk calabash more frequently – I’ll be covered in Talcum, with branches in my hair like the best of them. Plus, I reeeeallllyy need to show this town that I can, in fact, shake, cumbia, merengue, Poulet, etc. etc. like it is nobody’s business.  And with the sounds of these drums and stamping feet ended le Jour d’Independence. Happy Birthday to you Togo J

That weekend, a number of women from our VSLA prepared a meal of sauce arachide(peanut), rice, and fish for Kat, her mom, and I. It was wonderful – we ate well, drank well, and relaxed in the honest-to-goodness best sort of company. 

A Sabe Repos.

A sabe repos.

Bom tarde indeed! I am just returning from my first vacation and a week later find that part of my brain is rather doubtful that I ever left Badou. When I was in Cape Verde I imagined that resettling in to Togo would be mighty cumbersome but here I am, phased more by how natural my Togolese routine seems (and how dreamlike my last two weeks feel) rather than how foreign this all still remains. But first let me relate how sabe my petit repos was.

I visited Richard on the island of Fogo and was enchanted by the place and its people. Witnessing how great he’s doing made my soul smile :)  I felt really comfortable in Cova Figuera. Island life just calls to me and so most of the time I was nostalgic for the summers I'd spent in the Dominican Republic. Everyone still loves Tia Rosa who sends American apparel and iphones from America to her sobrinos on the island. Sporting my African pagne, I felt more ‘from-the-motherland’ than most of the young girls there who more often than not swanked around with skinny jeans and hoodies. The faces of the girls, boys, aunts, and grandmas reminded me of someone I'd known. The light green eyes, caramel complexion, nappy hair are all so happily familiar to me. By the end of the two weeks, I was gleefully mumbling bits of Criolou to Richard's neighbors. 

Cabo Verde is beautiful.  My friend Laura used the term ‘other-wordly’ to describe an image -appropriate to the scenes of the volcano and the sea of black rock at its base. The town of Cha sits here, a moment of a quaint developing world. When I was atop the volcano, I chatted with another friend-of a-volunteer that was visiting. I was telling her about how I never could have imagined where I was at that instant, on a volcanic rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Sweetness is in the unexpected. I found myself thinking of my parents, too, often throughout the trip. When I was little, I feared being out of sight of my parents. I always clung on to them; as we say in Spanish “de bajo de la falda de mami” – literally “underneath momma’s skirt.” And so my parents never expected me to leave Danbury. The course of my life hasn't taken me to that many places just yet. It started in Boston then to Niger, Florida, now Togo, and my plans are to go, go wherever it is life wants to go next. For me, seeing things as awesome  as the scene from the volcano made me think about home, about my parents and what they’ve seen and I felt so grateful for who I am and for what life has brought so far. La vie, it’s a beautiful thing.

A view from the top onto the valley of Cha

Katchupa after a VERY LONG NIGHT

Cova Figuera

Enjoying creamy popsticks in Villa

The beach in Mosteiros

So, yes, I was treated very kindly in Cabo Verde. Buried my legs in a black sand beach, hiked a pine forested trail up to Cha, climbed a volcano, slept outside on a stoop, floated in blue-green tide pools…pure honey. The in-betweens are just as noteworthy, involving several scrumptious fried corn breakfasts, goat cheese, fresh bread, a block-wedding-party, listening in on band practice, and all the other nooks and crannies of la pura vida.  

Bien-etre Bien Fait: Our Women's Conference

I have worked with Madame Chang for eight months and I have not seen her as happy, excited, and energized as I did this past weekend at the Women’s Conference. 13 PCVs, 4 Togolese formatrices, and 26 Togolese participants spent 4 days at the Sahelian Hotel in Hiatro. The only men we interacted with were the wait staff and the manager of the establishment. Besides these, it was a whole bunch of ladies hanging out, having a good time.

We did yoga every morning at 6am - the women are still working on the breathing exercises, though. Let’s just say it wasn’t as quiet as a yoga session will normally be. We heard many exclamations during downward dog and the dancer poses J. Veronica, Mimi, and I presented on financial management. Making information on budgeting and savings entertaining is a hefty task. Mimi, our Togolese counterpart, was spectacular. She’s a 26-year-old director of a local NGO that works with women farming groupements. I think the women really valued seeing a young Togolese woman with a command in her life and future.  Plus she broke it down for them…in Ewe, which inspired shouts of agreement and head nodding. One woman was so encouraged that she promised to either open her own account or begin a Village Savings and Loans Association. Who run the world? Girls. 

This same woman also provided us with one of the more memorable moments of the conference during the family planning session. Imagine a 50-year-old conservative Togolese mama demonstrating how to use a female condom. She walked up to the front of the room, pulled out the condom and was very forward as to how to place it. I love the people who surprise you. 

The following are images from the conference. Enjoy!

"The female oragan is BELLE, comme une fleur..." - Sage femme, Charite 

The team 

Candle ceremony - sharing our light

Madame Ourkoabe aka Tanti Superb breaking it down during our self-confidence session

Exfoliate

Yoga 

Badou crew after morning yoga

Team building exercise. They needed to turn over the pagna while remaining  on it

The hotel invited a group of traditional dancers to perform for us the last night.

I should learn at least one local language…

That being said, I am incredibly apathetic towards language including my native tongues. I feel most comfortable in my Danburian Spanglish. Despite my five plus years of French (albeit the majority in high school), I struggle to say “I need a cup of rice” on some days. On any given day, I may be addressed in any of the following in Badou: Ewe, Akposso, Kabiye, or Kotokoli.  I play it cool, slip in my “So be do?” and “Eee” and “Wesans” when I can. Rather, I can say “how are you;” “yes” or “okay;” and “welcome.” As one can imagine, my communication with many people (all those who have had little to no schooling) is largely, if not entirely, based on body language – hand gestures, pointing, fervent nodding, and the like. There are the routine minutes with my neighbors when they try to teach me new phrases. Tonight I learned, “Abvle” (good morning) and “Azaa” (good night) in Akposso. I ate dinner with a friend’s family last night during which I received an impromptu language lesson from their 4-year old daughter. I wish all my language teachers had been as charming as little Denise.

Why is this important? Well, when you’re trying to inspire honest participation (a la Sherry Arnstien) you want the people who you’re speaking with to understand you (and be able to respond) without the need of a translator. It is hackneyed to say thus, but some frankness will be lost in translation.  I spent a few hours this afternoon at a community meeting in one of the 11 quartiers of Badou. These past two weeks, I’ve been going around with the Mayor’s office to the neighborhoods to get a feel for what people would like to see change in their most immediate surroundings. The mayor’s office chose to call our group a “delegation” –I don’t think I’m spiritually prepared to be part of a bureaucracy just yet (despite the obvious transgression I’ve already made).  Naturally, the majority of the meeting was held in Akposso, and only for my benefit was French involved at all. As I started to talk, I awkwardly apologized for not speaking the native tongue; “il faut m’excuser…” I tried looking around to as many faces as I could in order to get a feel for their perception of me – will their facial expressions give their thoughts away? I wanted to ask them what they would change, what they envision for Badou. These words were then left to the mercy of the translator. From this point on, I sat in my chair catching the few French words used and piecing together the meeting. The mayor would give me brief 2 minute summaries of 30 minute dialogue. The granmammas in the crowd would grant me a smile and I imagined grand schemes of becoming fluent in Akposso and leading a Jane Jacobs, West Village, community charge.  I do still have 18 months.

Another item I’ve been tinkering with the last two weeks is a trash collection project. Along with the Affaires Sociales and the Mayor’s office we are coordinating the beginning steps, the planning stage, the ground work for community wide trash collection. Edmond (Affaires Sociales) has had this idea for some time. While the idea of funded projects makes me a bit uneasy, now that I’ve started, I am really excited! Like really. Our vision: have a day (or week or month) of “A Clean Badou” initiative, wherein voluntary participants will collect trash in some key places in town (the market, large primary schools, the middle school, etc.); use large pushcarts to collect trash household-to-household;  and find a more environmentally friendly way of disposing the waste. The last item will prove the most difficult. What’s an “environmentally friendly way” of getting rid of vast amounts of plastic sachets? Right now, we are concentrating on building a motivated committee of leaders to lead the waste management expedition.

Oh and lastly, MORINGA. Can it really be that cool? My friend Maxim and I have started some seedlings expecting to distribute them to farming groups. We are also trying to get an information session planned. Some people believe this is a saving grace to many areas struggling with malnutrition, so this is our bid to support the movement – we’re planting trees.

Maxim also breakdances, writes music, and aspires to be a “Pop-Star comme Michael Jackson”– a tale for another time. 

Algunas cositas

Samedi, le 18 fevrier 2012

The fact that I am writing to you in English

Already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.

My subject:

How to explain to you that I don’t belong in English

Though I belong nowhere else.

Every once in a while we come across an author, a story that means something real to us. Peace Corps is great for many reasons but one of my favorites is the amount of time I have spent reading stories – items that transport me to my home base. The above lines are borrowed from Junot Diaz’s collection of vignettes “Drown” – a beautiful recollection of Dominican immigrant family social scars assembled in New York and Jersey. I sat here in my bare Togolese home, reading these pages, and thinking solely of my mother’s kitchen and the tempting smell of sofrito. Tengo un deseo por el español que no se me quita.

It’s freaky February (to take a vocab note from Rebekah Chang). It’s hot. After tutoring this morning, I left my house during the hottest part of the day. The sun was hot enough to burn through any inkling of motivation I could have created on a Saturday.  Right now, clouds are beckoning but for naught. We won’t have a real rainfall until the end of March. I’m” thrifty” so I’ve chosen not to get a fan or fridge for now. But today, as I felt the skin on my neck melting into my couch, I imagined the glory of an iced tea or even just a gentle artificial breeze from a fan. Everything quiets down (minus the call of prayer) during these interminably warm hours. Movement decreases to an absolute minimum, as people try to exert as little energy as they can. What we must do, we’ll do before 11 at which time we’ll seek the comfort of shade beneath a tree or lie down on our mats. The quiet is punctuated by a relentless child hollering for some attention; the machine to grind corn, soybeans, etc.; and, as mentioned, the call of prayer at 13h00 and 15h00.

“Where people are mistrustful because they’ve been kicked around, they become apathetic” – Jane Jacobs. As Peace Corps Volunteers we work with many “agents of development” as counterparts. In Badou, I work (or have spoken with) a number of well-educated Togolese men and women. Most recently, I’ve been working closely with the two agents of “Affaires Sociales” – social workers. They have a difficult job. They are charged with insuring that social rights are carried out in their communities, e.g. that all children under the age of 15 are put into school. This requires both institutional and financial support from the state, neither of which exists in abundance or even in a sufficient amount. They are underpaid and overworked. Predictably, their sentiments have become sort of corrupted and downcast. I’m always left with this need for Ben and Jerry’s 7-layer coconut ice cream whenever I talk with them about a project. “Chez nous…” or rather “That may work where you’re from, but in “our house” here in Africa, things just don’t work that way.”  It’s an ingrained mistrust in the belief that things can change.  But I’m getting better at poking, prodding, and getting them to cheerlead. Besides, I witnessed how excited Edmond (one of the social workers) was about permagardening. It takes a renewed faith, not in the system, but in yourself as the most powerful agent in directing the course of your life.

None of this was neither here nor there, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m keeping happy here in Badou J  

With some fire under feet and luggage in hand nous saluons 2012

2012, I don't believe it. The past five years have fluttered past, one minute here and the next just memories. I was telling my friends how I still have vivid memories as an 8-year-old in Mill Ridge Intermediate School. I was sitting in the hallway with the other third graders waiting to board the school bus. I remember feeling so little compared to the 5^th graders that were walking along beside us. Fifteen years later, I find myself a third of the way done with Peace Corps service in West Africa. 

Wesan-lo, 2012. What a beautiful end to 2011 and encouraging beginning to 2012. This past year treated me kindly – the warm glow of nostalgia carried me into 2012, accompanied by the greatest presence of mind I have had in Togo thus far. Veronica and Ryan arrived in Badou on the 30th. They came in high spirits considering the soul suppressing bush taxi ride to get here. The next day, Dec 31^st, we went on our waterfall adventure.

We set out with Martin, counterpart and friend to a slew of present and past volunteers. The falls are the best source of revenue for the small village of Akloa. The people had the wits about them to charge cushy tourists to have their Discovery Channel/ National Geographic moment.  As we walked up to the falls, the three of us had the same reaction – we were not expecting the sight to be so SPLENDID. The size and purity of the fall was breathtaking. It was one of the first locations in Togo where there was not a single black sache to be seen. The water was clean and icy-cold; while the fall itself was about 200-300 feet. I don’t have enough dexterity with language to fully relate neither the sight nor the serenity it induced. It is a remote site that receives only occasional visits – the four of us were the only ones there for the duration of our visit. There are plenty of pictures of yours truly staring open mouth up at the water. We had a small lunch; chatted with Martin about how small the world turns out to be; and dipped our feet in the water (we probably collected some ill-intentioned parasites, whoops).

The Akloa Waterfall

We returned to Badou in the afternoon and prepared ourselves a nice New Year’s Eve meal of bean burgers and pineapple up-side down cake.  We welcomed midnight with a couple of traditions from Ryan and Veronica’s homes. For Ryan, we built three fires in front of my house. We jumped over them while saying a Persian poem to bring in the New Year with positive karma, releasing any negative energy. For Veronica, we ran around the house with our luggage to invite travels for our new year J J. And so, I welcomed 2012 with the reassurance that good friendships always produce.

Along with these good vibes, we also gained the customary 20 pounds over these past few days. I am so grateful to have such accuiellant Togolese friends. I have like three mommas who fed us constantly!! On New Year’s Day, we were invited to a brunch at my friend’s house. Just as we stepped on to my porch and I was reaching for the key, one of the girls from next door walked over with a tray of food – fufu and chicken sauce, enough to feed ten people. Well, we couldn’t just leave so we took it inside and nommed a few bites. After these morsels, we walked to Anonwe (30 min) – making room, you know. Here we sat with Augustine’s family. Ooooh, their cheer and good-nature is infectious J We were served large plates of foughnou (i.e. Togolese couscous). We also gulped down some palm wine, tasty stuff, pinky swear. Eventually feeling the lids of our eyes becoming heavier, we left for home.

At Augustine's for New Year's Day brunch

At 9am the next morning, we walked our sleepy bodies over to my neighbor’s house for more fufu and sodabe (fermented palm wine, ahhh!), what a breakfast. We came back to my house in need of a detox. Just as the fufu was beginning to settle, my hairdresser ladies brought over a large plate of rice and red sauce. Mind you, we had an invitation for 2pm at Chimen’s house. The amount of food had reached a daunting volume. We took a few bites of the rice - we talked of controlling ourselves but the rice was a little too tasty. At Chimen’s we were invited to fufu, rice, pork, and tchouk. Mercy me!! We arrived at my house envisioning having little to nothing for dinner – well maybe a few chocolate chip cookies. Thus arrived the end to my friends’ visit and the beginning to a new year in Badou.

My neighbor's rice, lunch #1

Chimen's family's compound is nestled on the hills rising above Badou

Two days after New Year’s Day and the party is still hoppin’. I just got back from a morning of two lunches. Golly, I feel like one of Tolkien’s pleasantly-plump hobbits! For tonight, I am praying for a single, sweet, simple coconut. 

These pictures were contributed by Ryan's camera. Mine rested comfortably uncharged in my room :/