August reflection
I’m not entirely sure where to begin. So much has changed in the last few months it is hard to keep up with, and it would be an exercise in futility to try to trace back all that has happened since I left off; I will simply try to recreate what I see and feel everyday and hope that the blanks will fill themselves in.
Today was an absolutely beautiful day. One of those days where the rain sets in long and steady and you can feel the Earth growing all around you. We had an entire week without rain preceding this and people were beginning to worry their crops, I imagine like most any farmers would, except that these are subsistence farmers and they have slightly more (or less) at stake. They are growing what they will be eating until the next season. Granted, this is not to generalize everyone, there are many farmers who take their chances with cotton crops and seem to profit handsomely- that is to say they have some disposable income when all is said and done.
However hard it is to sit and think over these things for me, an outsider playing along; this is their lives. It is not the first season nor by far the last. The rains will come. Nobody will starve or go hungry for too long because if there is one thing I have figured out it is that Togolese people are masters of making do with what is available.
As I walked this morning through the water soaked landscape of green corn stalks basking in the long awaited moisture and the tree spotted hills surrounding Ataloté I felt at peace. Ironically,being a Peace Corps volunteer and all, I have be searching for this inner quietude since I set foot in Lomé. This is not to say I have not been enjoying myself or loving every minute of this experience good, bad or miserable; I most emphatically have. It is simply to say that somewhere between the unbearable heat of Mango season and the travel schedule I have been on since May, I have hit some kind of stride in my life here in Togo.
Everything in Peace Corps is accelerated and you either sink, swim or skate by so that you can enjoy your adventure.
For the first time since May I will be spending an entire month, nay five weeks, at home. I feel as though I can finally breathe a sigh of relief, pet my dog and fall into some kind of routine- any kind of routine would be fine by me, and it looks as though that wish will be coming true. My dad said to me before I came here, when I was waxing on about how I wanted to rough it and hoped to be placed in an ‘authentic’ PC post (no running water, electricity, amenities etc.), “be careful what you wish for.”
I started teaching English to four different level classes, five days a week this Monday. So routine it is; while I am yet again jumping in head first, under-prepared and learning as I go. It has been a nice change to the vast empty doldrums that come from having complete control over your schedule and no system to work in.
This last week has been incredibly encouraging and productive. Perhaps where the feeling of hitting my stride has emerged from. Teaching English, doing multiple farm visits, planting trees…