Alisha Williams

I realize that many of you who might be reading this may need a bit of a re-cap, a summary, a synopsis of my day to day life here (and maybe I need one too). So here goes:

Typical (Non-work) day:

I wake up around 6-6:30 to the comforting white noise of my host mom and/or sister sweeping the compound of debris: leaves, random trash, chicken feathers and so on. I roll out of bed from underneath my mosquito net, something I have now gotten used to and find it reassuring, if a bit stifling. My bed is essentially a woven cot, many volunteers spring for a ‘real bed’ but I have found the lit picot, (literally woven bed), far cooler. I generally dress and head to the garden in my daily race to beat the heat and the mounting sun, by 8 it is too late.

I water the garden and greet my fellow gardeners in the gardening group that cultivates around the small scale dam in my village. If my plot requires any manual labor for the day I try to get that done in the morning, such as aeration or weeding, as opposed to the evening when it never really cools back down until night and the mosquitoes, chiggers etc. are en mass!

If I am feeling social and don’t have too much to do at the house I will make a round to ‘downtown’ Ataloté to grab something to eat and greet the people hanging around drinking/selling Tchouk and eating bouille (porridge). This is generally if I have had a bit of work at the garden and it is farther on in the morning.
Otherwise I return home, sweep the porch/house, make my pets food, make breakfast and enjoy it on my nice lounging chairs and watch the compound activities or do a bit of leisure/work reading.

Generally, around 11 o’clock I will go to the pump and get my water. I am highly lucky; my village has solar powered water pumps with faucets…this is very rare, normally there are wells or hand pumps in village. However, there are times when the pumps do not have enough solar energy to pull the water up. I have found closer to noon to be the best time, also it serves as a social opportunity because normally all the kids on lunch break from school are there as well as my women neighbors. Not to mention the water splashing from the bucket onto my head and body after a few trips serves as a much needed refreshment, and lets me evade a mid-day shower to cool down. I have estimated that, on average, I use less than five gallons of water a day, that includes drinking water and showers (not including garden but that is not drinkable water)…how many houses in the States use that much just to flush the toilet? And I am far from suffering.
After that I think about lunch, I either decide to make it or head down to the village to see what I can find. From noon-2:30P.M. is considered ‘repose’ time and most people nap under trees in the shade and doing much of anything is unthinkable, it is too hot and the sun is at its height.

My garden is fairly large for one person, twenty-one beds and counting, and so requires loads of work. Because of the heat and dry climate it needs watering twice a day- in the morning to prevent the plants from wilting, burning, drying up and in the evening for optimal growth. It is too hot to water/work until around 4 in the afternoon, this is also the time when I transplant seedlings and apply natural pesticides if necessary.

I generally stay at the garden until dusk, and often go have a calabash with Victor afterwards if we have time and try to make it home before dark. Then I shower, make dinner if I have the energy and read/organize/plan work etc. by the light of my kerosene lamp and/or candles until about 9-10 o’clock or so and then snooze off. I used to be asleep by 8:30! but as I become more accustomed to my routine and environment here I have found 9-10 hours of sleep is too much and struggle to find time to get everything done for planning work projects.

All of this is keeping in mind that I rarely have days like this…
Often times, more often than not, something- an opportunity to bike out to an outlying village, greet an ill friend, will crop up. Patience and flexibility, the eternal Peace Corps mantra. Other days I have work meetings: Thursday mornings from 9-12 I have my woman’s liquid soap groupement meeting, Sunday and Wednesday evenings I have club meetings with the local middle school students. Tuesday is market day and I am generally there all afternoon if I can stand it, being the biggest social event all week. Friday is the market day in Kanté and I come in every/every other week to get veggies etc. and my mail. Saturday mornings I have local language tutoring. Sunday I do my laundry and clean my house. As I get busier with work, my schedule is continually evolving. It took me until now to get this routine down and is key to keeping my sanity, but flexibility is essential to community development.

This may seem like a light schedule to Americans who are so used to jam-packed days…but believe me it is exhausting, and I am as busy as could be.

Togolese life:
I live in a three room row house, (which is HUGE for one person), in a compound, (like almost all Togolese), which is a group of buildings, sometimes interconnected sometimes not, facing in to a common courtyard area.

I do not have the luxury of electricity or running water (believe it or not many volunteers here do have one or some combination of these); I get my water from a pump and store it in big plastic trash cans.

I use a simple latrine.

To shower I fill a bucket with water and pour it by the cup full over my head and body.

To do dishes or laundry I fill basins with water and air dry everything…which is super fast here because of the arid heat up North. Down South is different and nothing ever seems to dry because of the humidity.

To cook I have a tank filled with butane natural gas and a two burner camp stove that I light with matches, (most Togolese in village use two rocks and branches, or a simple charcoal stove and a palm fan).