Alisha Williams

Well, I am feeling a bit better now. Health is fairly back on track and work is chugging away, as is the time. Getting very excited for both of my main current projects, the National Youth Camp for Environmental Action: Camp ECO-Action (which we got fully funded already! Thanks to the awesome efforts of the lovely ladies I am collaborating with on the project!) and the school project I am working on with my PCV neighbor Mary Bryson. Planning and programming phases for both projects have kicked into full swing and keeping me very busy.

Harmattan seems to be making a come back—nice dusty wind. Everything choked in a thick layer of dirt. I am definitely not complaining, but it makes us all worry a bit about how the weather for the next few months will transpire.

In a bit of a lull currently, a lull of lots of programming and busy meetings…planning for the big action to come down the line. June and July are going to be crazy full and so much fun. August is going to be full of relaxation and our Close of Service (COS) conference, when all of my stage gets together one last time to mark the beginning of our last three months of service, and get everything in order before we head out. Time is just flying by, it is unbelievable that I have been here for over a year and a half.

So I believe I will be applying for an extension as a fail safe in order to ensure I will have enough time to complete the school project if need be. I have been vacillating back and forth and back and forth for months now. I really believe in this project and am committed to seeing it all the way through. If that means adding three or six months onto my time here in Togo than I am ok with that. I have decided though that an entire year extension is not going to work for me. In short I am applying for the extension to cover my bases and we will see how the project transpires, hoping to raise all the funds in our originally allotted time of April and May. I still think I will be moving to the city, very soon in fact. There were some very frustrating hiccups on this front, but I think I have found a fantastic housing situation/solution to the ‘moving sites’ problem. Will keep info on this posted as it develops.

My Auntie dearest sent me a CD with videos of a snow storm back home and it made me cry. Not in an overwhelmingly sad way, just in a ‘I miss Colorado and I miss home more than I think I do’ way. It was a good stress reliever and I can’t wait to go skiing when I get back. It is strange to feel like you have more than one home; that you might belong in more than one place, that you can feel you need to be in more than one place at a time. Sometimes it can be really overwhelming. Sometimes it can be really comforting and liberating.

My dad just bought his plane ticket to come and visit Togo! I am very excited to show him what I’ve been up to and what my life here consists of. I think this is the only/best way for family and friends to really understand what a Volunteer’s life is like. Can be stressful, but definitely worth it.

I am going on a much needed vacation to a beach in Ghana for a week in early April. A very good friend of mine and I are going to an Eco-Lodge on the Western Ghanian Coast. Very much looking forward to sipping pina coladas and swinging in hammocks with a cool breeze and a beach-front verandah. Yes. You can be jealous if you want to…

Anyway, not much is new. Just didn’t want to leave it on such a sour note from the last blog post… feeling better.

Thank God for occasional overcast days. For American mac n’ cheese and pregnant kitties. Thank God for amazing friends and air conditioning. What would I do without these things?

Deep in the inevitable funk that comes after the period of hyper-activity and high points. Now we are at the bottom of the roller coaster, chugging along to get to the top again.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

The hot season funk. I have strept throat and it is bothering me more than it ought to. But here, the small quiverings of not feeling 100% have vast implications. The heat. The notbeingabletogetaway. Ever. The trip to Kara for a glorious pool day, only to find that the pool is undergoing repairs. These are the little things that add up fast. I am inescapably tired.

Fatigued. But I can’t seem to sleep right, my back has been killing me lately (no doubt effects of sleeping on a rock hard cot and/or cement floor/roof of a friends house for 18mo) and I can’t seem to quiet my mind. Nothing is helping. Watching a movie only makes it worse and I can’t seem to drag myself out to do the usual PCV show for the locals. I don’t care about greetings, about being in town for a fête. I just don’t care because I don’t feel good.

I know it will pass but for now it is miserable. Things that never used to bother me are like jabbing needles in my brain. The drunk men outside my door shouting at one another across the compound. The horrible and death defying driving of a chauffeur from Kara. Getting water. Being constantly covered in sweat. Like I said, tired. Fatigued. I know it will pass. This isn’t the first time by far. But couldn’t it just pass a bit faster? I need a vacation.

So here I am. It is March already!!!??? How is that possible?

Oh yeah, because I have been swamped with this school project. However…..It is now approved!! So I guess the hard work really paid off. Mary and I were a little worried that it wouldn’t get approved right away by the admin committee, which would pose some serious issues for our timeline, but alas, it went through!! Now the real work begins…
Most of February I was traveling throughout the country for a couple of previously mentioned projects, meetings etc. It flew by and now it is hot season. I guess that was the idea, get all the legwork done for projects before the heat set in, and boy did it. I am literally drenched in sweat right now, barely able to type, having to wipe sweat off the keyboard, and I just took a shower not an hour ago! Oh well, now that it is officially here, after about the first week or two, it is more acceptable. Barely. It seems a lot more intense this year… like living in an oven.

Met the son of one of the president of my woman’s group this morning. He was nice. Very astute. They want me to nominate him for camp. At first I resisted, he is a little older than we had agreed to, but we can always take nominations and decide later. He noticed that I was the only one in the compound today (maman is in kara, everyone else is scarce because without her it all falls apart…) and they seemed worried for me. Why? Because someone could come and there wouldn’t be anyone to protect me? No, because I would have too much time to think and I would have nightmares… interesting.

Another interesting cultural difference came up awhile back during a school meeting with our pump engineer, Kader. He had just come from having lunch with a ‘sister’ (meaning she could be any form of relative really) and her husband from Nigeria. He was really upset because he said that she had mortified him by getting up and pouring a beer over the head of her husband/fiance. He had arranged the meet to try to counsel them for a problem they were having. Now he was upset because he said the man would think he had known what she was going to do and invited him there so that she could humiliate him.

According to Kader, the action of pouring a beer over her man in a public spot is the most degrading thing you can do. Really, we asked? Worse than hitting him or something? Yes, the worst. If you hit a man, everyone will know that he deserved it, that a woman cannot actually hurt a man. However, to waste a luxury and to dirty him in public, everyone will think poorly of the woman. That he will have to walk down the street with his soaking shirt, shamed. Hmm. The views/judgements and the importance placed on physical appearance and dress here is funny. Seems the opposite of how that situation would be seen stateside.

Had a great evening with the kids in the garden today. It is my favorite thing to do. We have a nice little system going finally. I told them I came up with a name for our little club/group – Les agents Verts d’Ataloté (green-agents? doesn’t translate too well) I like that it ensinuates stewardship and has the cool word of ‘agent’ in it. The kids loved it! We joked around a little, weeded, applied our long-awaited goat manure…good times. I love the garden, it is such a great space. Much better this year, and will be even better once we get our Moringa trees planted in June! The kids are learning a lot about patience and team-work. At first I felt like it might be a pretty limited project, but we all really enjoy it, so as long as it is making positive progress I am content.

Saturdays are our garden days. I like the routine of it. They have learned about proper plant nursery management, watering techniques, the importance of plant spacing, and we have used nothing but organic means thus far—organic fertilizer—thanks to our friends the goats and chickens, and organic pesticide—thanks to our friend the Neem tree! Hooray for the Earth and all its wonders!! The kids have started selling some sauce leaves, the lettuce is nearly ready and we have okra, gboma (like a local spinach), cabbage, tomatoes and peppers on the way! I think they are starting to see the fruits of their labors, they have worked so hard to get there.

Hmm. What else is new? We had a fun theater club the other day. One of the teachers has committed to helping out, which makes my life loads easier and the project tons more sustainable and effective. Some of the kids are absolutely hilarious comedians. Very positive project. We are going to do sketches about themes that hit close to home for most of the Togolese population: The importance of condom usage against HIV/AIDS and avoiding stigmatization of AIDS victims, the importance of sending girls to school and the importance of protecting our environment! Yay for theater fun to make awareness raising less of a bore!

Caught up with an old friend from High School on the ole internet tonight. We haven’t talked in over eight years! That is crazy. It is amazing how time can just slip on by, year after year. It was really good to finally catch up a bit. Inspired me to try to catch up with some other long lost acquaintances. It is about time. Sheesh.

Moonlit bucket showers and sleeping on my porch in my hammock. This, is the stuff of legends.

Interesting day. Chicken eating Styrofoam on the side of the road.

Two car rides that are never mundane:

first one—had to jerk the steering wheel in order to make the horn work. Also. Hot-wired. Enough said.

second one—made three trips, no make that four trips, to ‘fill’ it. Fish from Mauritania. Flour from France. Flip flops from China. I asked the driver and apprentice where the fish came from. It comes from there, (pointing to the store they just brought it out from.) Yes, I can see that. But where before that? It came from Lomé. And before that? I don’t know. Ghana? Was sitting in the back seat and got covered in flour when one of the market men heaped it off of his back and into the already-too-full sedan with a completely shattered windshield. The poor axles. Carcass of cars on the side of the road. Slight sense of uneasiness when we careen around corners—knowing my fate lay in the strength of a door latch. Liquid soap kits, bananas and toothpaste are sitting on my lap. I will forever equate my time here with the lavender essence of the liquid soap.

Found a typewriter today. Or rather re-found it, one that I saw a month or two ago and had the better sense to keep walking. Bartered a bit for it. Thirty mille. Cher. He won’t budge. I can’t afford it, but I really want it. It has been a mission of mine to find one since I arrived in Togo. Do I need it? No.

Dad talked again about going to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro. That would be amazing. Expensive. And, amazing…

I had this vision. That I had found my way. My path. That I wasn’t afraid to take it. That I was finally at home in my own skin. Definitive living. In the moment, with a purpose. That is what it looked like. I was walking the streets in Valparaiso, I was farming in Madison WI, I fell in love with the right person and traveled the world, really seeing it. I had a beautiful family. It was all ripe and luscious, sweet aftertaste on my tongue.
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I can always tell when there is a problem with the Assamela brothers. I stepped out of the shower to find them sulking on my porch. They are absolutely my favorite people. I see Dieu-donné nearly twice a day. They are fraternal twins, but they couldn’t be any different. Dieu-donné is outgoing, super intelligent, respectful and receptive. Eliza is funny, light, not the best student, has a propensity to be moody.

Poor Eliza, always second fiddle. D-D skipped a grade ahead of his brother in primary school and is now first in his class for the third year in a row. Eliza is 17th in the class below him. The other day in club Eliza walked out because some mean girls called his ears big. D-D helps run the club, my partner in crime. I know that D-D will go on to university. I know that Eliza probably won’t make it out of secondary school, that he will stay in Ataloté, become a carpenter, drink tchouck under the baobab tree…

After some prodding, they tell me the problem. “What’s wrong?” “Is there a problem in the family?” Nope. It’s me, for a change. D-D and I had been talking about nominating certain kids in the community for the various Peace Corps summer camps, one of which I am an organizer. I know that Eliza wants badly to go to the environmental action camp; he is definitely the most adept at the gardening skills I have been teaching them. It is the one thing that puts a light in his eyes, something that could really afford him a brightness in his future. Anyway, D-D and I had talked about his reluctance to participate in club, how the need for active participation would only increase during camp etc. That maybe he wasn’t ready to go yet, maybe next year. Well, he told him all of this and it broke his heart. He cried and didn’t eat his lunch D-D says. I look at Eliza and tears are streaming down his face.

I realize that he, above all the others, really needs to go to camp. The wonders it could do for him. I look back and forth between the two boys, my best friends in village. I have to send him. I see the writing on the wall, how much this could help him. I tell him why I had said that— my concerns with his previous behavior issues. I tell him that if I nominate him (essentially an assured participant spot considering I am an organizer) I need to know that he will behave, participate and be prepared to handle it. He assures me, seems to understand. I tell him he needs to show his motivation for attending during our next few club sessions; he nods, lightens up a bit.

Maybe I’ll send them both, a brotherly duo? I don’t know, I feel bad sending D-D to another camp (sent him to a camp last year) but it could really solidify all that is promising about him. We could do a lot of stuff next year. However, with that last thread, it might be more beneficial to try to get another player on board. There are other camps though…

Well, nice evening. Sitting here drinking a nice cold beer and listening to tunes. Indulged after a week of hard work, furtive duck-in to the out-of-the-way bar to sneak the cold one back home. Had a great talk with Auntie J this evening. She only encourages me more to follow the path I have begun to set upon. Her approval/advice means the world to me, helps me feel that my thinking is on point. My mentor.
This month has been crazy, but a good au village crazy. Things falling together. Quiet internal chaos moving in the right direction. Invigorating. Exhausting.

A good day to be in Togo! Today was nice. Again. Another day when everything went perfectly. Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore….

I am in Lomé with my closest neighbor, Mary, to talk to admin about our project and run the proposals by them. It is a BIG project, and so we were a bit nervous to lay it all out on the table in front of our Country Director and CHAP (Community Health and Aids Prevention) project director. We have done tons of work on this project over the last three weeks, we know it in and out, we’ve attempted to foresee all problematic issues and assure sustainability. It is so big and a wealth of future work that I am considering adding another year onto my service.

So we had a nice breakfast of instant coffee and sweetened condensed milk and wrote down a full agenda of what we wanted to cover. It took us the better part of 30 mins and three pages. The meeting took an hour. Very exciting. We could see the looks of apprehension on their faces as we briefly described what the project entailed: building a school with dormitory compound, water pump and complete with showers and latrines; two different proposals under two different volunteers names and a cut-throat fundraising period of three months. But as we continued to throw down prepared answer after prepared answer to their many and valid questions their looks started to soften into nods and smiles, into casual asides about how nerve wracking it can be to launch a project like this, how to start small and work from there, how money can bring out the worst in people. We all agreed that this project sounded hopeful and by the end of the meet, Mary and I were breathing a bit easier. As soon as we left the admin building, we turned to one another and smiled. Beer celebration?

Definitely.

But not quite yet. We both still had to meet with Carolina, (the director), about respective end of service issues. Then celebration at the beach bar. Nothing like cold beer on a beach, cheezy bread with Mediterranean spices and sand on your feet after a phenomenally productive meeting and month of hard work. Felt good.

And now, what does this next week hold? Rest? Relaxation? NO!!! We are on a mission here people.Tomorrow we have to get up at 530AM to get on a bus up North again. 9hrs. At least we are planning to try to go to the pool after, if we are feeling up to it. Thursday we have a meeting with another contractor and then over the weekend we have subsequent meetings with a partnership missionary who works with a local engineer to build pumps throughout Togo and the Kara region and another volunteer who had helped start a similar project in Mali before her service. She will be a real asset to the project as well. I also have planning meetings for the National Environmental Camp in July and then have to jump on another bus to head South again for our third edition of ‘Farm to Market’ in Atakpamé. That should take us a few days, buy me some time to polish up a couple of proposals and head down to Lomé for some more meetings with fingers crossed.

I essentially got the go ahead from Carolina on the subjects concerning what I would like my service to look like if I extend for a third year. That was really encouraging. Now I just have to finalize everything with my boss Paul and the medical staff et al. Whew. Huge weight lifted off my chest, and by the end of next week I hope another ten pounds will be lifted. This is the good kind of stress though. It is exciting and exhilarating to think that we might actually pull this project off. It sounds trite, but it literally gives me faith in humanity and the universe. All things conspiring together when all is correctly aligned. Lovin’ it.

Smell of Rovita (hotel we stayed in when first arriving)… normalcy of the strange and once new and bizarre places that have become some type of home.

So good news. My Aunt called me last night and told me I didn’t have to worry about income taxes this year. Apparently I don’t even have to file; I don’t make enough to qualify. I guess 3,300$ annual income isn’t high on Uncle Sam’s priority list. At least now I know how to avoid that mess from now on, just stay infinitely poor, or continue living in a developing nation. Definitely not the same thing. I have it pretty good here, all things considered.

Nice day with the environmental posse ( read: my group of six or seven top boy students who kick it and are the closest thing I have to true friends). My family had made tchouck and invited workers to come and braid rope. They are going to replace the straw roofing on their granary and chicken coops. It was interesting to watch.

We hung out on my porch reading Time and Rolling Stone (always brings about colorful questions…) and listened to West African hip hop music I recently got from a friend in Kanté. The workers splayed out under the mango tree holding the rope in between their toes. All working individually in symphony; the same movements, rhythm of working together. Everyone drank, including us. Bonus for the club. Nice relaxing morning. Then the kids went off to do some work at the garden, I packed for two-and-a-half weeks of travel. Depressing. It has been so nice being home for awhile.

At least this trip is warranted. I have a handful of meetings concerning projects and two drafted proposals to run by admin. Whew, January is nearly over. It has been so busy, but in a good synchronized manner. I have a rhythm of my own now, a routine, finally. The cogs are in motion. All the work I have done over the last year is starting to pay off. It is beyond rewarding.

The mangoes are starting to pop up on trees all over village. Little mini-green bulbs of the onslaught to come in March and April. It’s exciting, daunting. Hot season is breathing down my neck, and I can feel it’s proximity. Those certain days when the heat settles in, when the winds die down, and I am stuck in the sag of hot season hinterland. It sort of makes your mind wander. The slow creep. The times when every area of my skin is prickled with beads of sweat. I remember most about cooking. Wiping the sweat pouring off my face with a dish towel as I cook as quickly as possible. The last few days I have had a couple meals that consist of nothing but popcorn, and piment salt. Bring on the popcorn and cous-cous season. Anything that cooks in under five minutes is deemed worthy. However, it has been a nice treat recently that my host family and friends have begun feeding me and inviting me over for meals often. A thing I have pined for since arriving at post.

Had a moment this afternoon when I really wished I had a good camera. We were headed to the garden to out plant our nurseries, I was bringing up the rear. Eliza and Arronda were leading the way with our nurseries on their heads. All walking together on the trail, chatting and laughing at this or that. The little peaks of green lettuce seedlings, of cabbage and tomato, piment; it was a beautiful moment of clarity, as we walked up to the garden, the kids so proud of all the work they had done. Nice mounds of freshly dug beds, albeit full of rocks, but full of hopeful potential. Some starting to show green. Our beautiful straw fence, with the side facing us composed of re-used metal fence material (I literally cannot think of the English word for griage! Funny how some words just become their French counterpart, have a better expressive feel, like manger) affords a nice preview of the prognosis. We worked together, arranging beds, planting, making another nursery. I reminded them of how and when to apply the natural pesticide that we had made that morning, how to check up on the nursery, how to properly space the cabbage plants when they continue their transplanting. Nice quiet of the garden, sun getting low, casting shadows and cooling the hot earth a bit. Learning together, hands dirty, sitting around the nursery and passing out the seedlings with care. No need to talk to much, we focus on the work. It builds an incredible bond, this work. I have a theory that this type of team building is what brings our sector closer together than some of the others. It’s a lovely feeling.