Alisha Williams

Quick timeline…. Cause I’m sick of playing catch up….sorry if there is overlap or complete irrelevancy…

Sept: Arrived in country. Bewildered. Whirlwind of mixed language, new faces, new living.

Oct-Nov: Stage= ten hour days of hell. Language. Language. Language. Technical sessions. Only to go home to more work, trying to figure out how the hell to live here. How to communicate with my host family. How to work on a bike? How to see how much one’s brain can absorb before exploding. Sticky humidity. Blah.

Nov: Post. Harvest.

Dec: Harvest. Fetes.

Jan-April: see blog posts, they are extensive.

May: What the hell did I do in May? I don’t know, everything was just trying to figure out something.

June: June I started getting into the bureaucracy and then decided to bail. Did a little dittie for the language trainers on teaching English as a foreign language (As if I’m an expert!!?) It was unnerving, because whenever I get around people who speak real French, mine freezes up and I sound like a child. It was cool to go back and visit with my host family from stage. The village has electricity now, crazy. All they do now is watch television. Ah yes, development for everyone. Visited a friend in the South and braved traveling in country, in the South—which is almost an entirely different culture—and made it back up the country in a run down bush taxi with over twenty people crammed in. It was great. Met some fun people on the ride. It poured rain, which was wonderful if a bit claustrophobic. My great big slow boat to Sokode. Had wanted to stay the night with the Nurse’s wife in Sokode (a big city halfway up the country in the region of Centrale, before Kara), but couldn’t get a hold of her. Splurged on a big fancy hotel room for equivalent of 12USD. Fell asleep before hitting the bed. Amazing real mattress, soft, clean sheets. Waves of blissful sleep.

July: July marked our first issue of “Farm to Market”, the NRM and Small Enterprise Development (SED) collaborative publication. It has both English and French sections and is used to disseminate information and successful projects, insights throughout country. It is also sent to all Peace Corps country desks in Africa and Washington D.C. Yeah resume builder… It essentially consists of us bunkering down for about four days straight of editing, re-editing and designing until we get it done. Lome is expensive and time limited. Like all things in Togo, so we knock it out as best we can. I was able to get to know the country capital better during this time; eat some expensive and delicious pizza with real cheese. Get my Ghana visa etc. etc.

Also in July a group of us went on a little sortie to an agroforestry farm near Kara, to see what this guy Ali was up to. It was fun and informational; like a stage session but self-driven, with beers afterward. The highlight? Besides me butchering French? As we were trekking along the road back to town to undoubtedly wait for a car for hours to take us back to Kara (we were about 30min out of the city) a Chinese road worker (they do tons of infrastructure work here and don’t speak a lick of French…) in a brand new pick-up truck stopped and offered us a ride into town. YES! A Volunteer’s dream come true. Maggie and I rode in fine form in the back of the truck bed, enjoying how easy traveling could be in Togo if one had a vehicle.

Also I rounded out July with a trip to a friend’s village just outside of Kara; stomping grounds of the president Faure. There is a famous fete here called Evala every July. It consists of tons of Kabye (the ethnicity in and around the city of Kara and the Southern part of Kara region) young men wrestling. An initiation ceremony. It felt like a big party

August: Rain rain rain. August it rained like every day. Yup. My roof has myriad leaks in the tin, thus propagating my ceiling (plywood) to begin to rot. One day I came home and there was a big hole from a storm in it, a place that rotted out. I duct taped it closed. One day I came home to a three foot high termite mound in my kitchen. August I was mainly in village. I taught English to to grade levels for the Togolese equivalent of summer school. It was great, super small classes—one with only two kids, at the highest level though—and an afforded vrai schedule. It was a great reason to stay in village and dress up in pagne everyday. Felt a bit professional, if not useful. So that was M-F for five weeks. It was a little unnerving at first (no curriculum to go off of and a deeply engrained ROTE system of learning) but I caught a groove pretty quickly (cause I had to!) and turned out enjoyable and educational. Also, I noticed afterward that I garnered a bit more respect around village, even though it was only a handful of kids, word gets around quick here. Kids started greeting me with little genuflects and saying “Bonjour Madame” (often times monsieur) instead of chanting my village name at me or slyly laughing at me, or averting their eyes. Good change. Gave me confidence to continue to pursue work opportunities with the youth.

At the end of August we had our Mid Service Conference. I wrote a couple of blogs concerning the remainder of August, a bit of Sept and October that you can relate back to. Yam fête shenanigans.

Sept: September I had the Training Deseign Workshop to be a trainer for the new stage. Also, at the end of the month, we welcomed them to Lomé in fine form. The traditional “welcome party” had been nixed by admin because of some previous issues, so that was less fun. Not very many volunteers came down to welcome the new trainees, but they seemed to be enjoying it. A bit bewildered, as to be expected, but a really solid group. I came down to greet them, but also because Sky and I were planning a quick four day getaway to Ghana. Beach time. A cocktail or two.

There is this little sort of backpackers retreat at a beach just outside of Accra called “Big Milly’s Backyard Resort.” It is cute, little bungalows, bucket showers and bucket flush. Nothing we couldn’t handle. They have big reggae nights on the weekends but we were there during the week so it was fairly quiet. Relaxing. We didn’t have enough time though and are looking forward to doing another trip during hot season, go and see Cape Coast and on to a well know eco-lodge further West.

Headed back and forth to village during this time. Back and forth. Back and forth. Since MSC. But I felt the need to come back to village as often as I could, even if it was only for a couple of days. A lot of this was for Jack. When I got back from Ghana, gone for just a week, he was sick. He died a day later. It was heartbreaking.

October: The morning Jack died, I got on a bus headed South to carry out my week as a PCV trainer for the new group. It was challenging. Probably better that I wasn’t at the house. Somehow I was able to pull it together and the week of training was immensely rewarding. I had a really good time getting to know all the new trainees and was glad to be there to support them and try to answer, or at least give my take, on the zillions of questions they all had. It was a nice feeling to see how far I had come, if only in the integration aspect and feeling so much more at ease with life in Togo; having some points of navigation to guide me.

After that I headed back up to Atakpamé to do our second issue of “Farm to Market.” I was a day later than the team, due to training schedule conflicts, but we got it done.

Back up to village but didn’t have much time to work really. A meeting here. A meeting there. Trying to sustain interest in things I had started, germinate seeds I’d planted. Juggling also trying to be there for the newbies, go to their post visit party to support them and encourage them for the homestretch of training etc. This was what they call “mid-service crisis” time. We were all going a little cuckoo.
November: Same as above. We had a little shindig up in Dapaong for our first year in Togo celebration. 11/11/11. First time I had been North of Kanté. It was ‘dead-yovo’ formal. This bears some explanation:

So in Togo, we are always called (or rather chanted at by packs of ravenous Togolese children ‘Yovo yovo, bonsoir!’ –absolutely infuriating and mortifying at the same time), it carries with it a sense of disrespect as it literally means white person/foreigner. In David Packer’s book “The Village of Waiting” about his service in Togo neary twenty years ago, he says it means ‘cunning dog’ and dates back to colonialism days.

In Togo (and from what I can tell most of Africa and I would imagine the rest of the developing world), there is a huge market for second hand Western style clothing. Every marché you go to there are these clothing stands, or rather mounds of clothes one digs through, with some fancy items hung up to draw you over. The source of all this comes from the deep water port in Lomé, they come off the boats en masse, not sure really where the clothes are coming from though. I imagine a lot of Western families who think they are doing Africa a favor. Can’t verify that though. So this is called ‘dead yovo’ apparently because Togolese in villages etc. with a smaller view of the world, think these must be the clothes of a dead foreigner. You would have to be dead to give those perfectly good clothes away. Right.
Anyway, we live off of dead yovo clothes and pagne. And there is some pretty epic gems to be found in those stacks. A hot pink mid-drift with some furbie creature from the eighties on the front? Done. Full track suit in florescent pink and green? No problem. Sea foam green prom dress from 1992? Perfect. You get the idea, a large group of us dressed this way. It was fun. What can I say? We’re starved for entertainment.

December:
The beginning of December marked my return to Togo from the lovely South African vacation I took with my Aunt and Uncle to a game reserve North of Durban. It took about a week to re-adjust to Togo (read: took me a week to travel through country and make it back to post, where I would inevitably be all alone.) There were university student riots in Kara (my regional capital), which gave me an excuse to stay in a PC transit house in the South, in Atakpamé for a couple of days. It felt like a guilty indulgence considering how much time I had already spent away from village but it was necessary. It was nice and quiet, with only one or two other people around, and it was exactly what I needed to readjust. I spent a lot of time loafing, watching television etc. I finally made it up to Kara, to celebrate some volunteer b-days and see off a number of friends that were heading stateside for the holidays.

After that, I made my way with melancholy back to post. All the excitement and chaos over, nothing to look forward to, all the bustling and madness quieted with the dust in the air. Just me and my small corner of the world. It got better quickly, as soon as I was back around those people that make it all worth it and back in the country I’m comfortable in— the North.

Being back home was short lived though… For months I had been telling people that I was going to bike up to Dapaong for Christmas festivities. So, I decided to push myself, to stick to what I said and not bail like I normally would. Last Christmas I stayed in Ataloté and while I don’t personally celebrate the holiday ( I celebrate the solstice!), I felt that this year it would be nice to be around PC friends. My friend Sky and I hoped on the bikes, packed with sparse clothing and lots of quick protein fixes and set off from Kanté. We met up with our friend, and newly sworn-in volunteer, Manda about 40K North of town. We took our time getting to Dapaong and spent the night in a town about half way up. The ride was surprisingly enjoyable (probably because we were on pavement instead of sandy gravel) and we really enjoyed seeing the countryside that way. I am going to be obsessed with biking when I get home. I love it; your legs can take you so far in this world. The last stretch was a bit difficult—a couple of hefty hills and harmattan headwinds—but we made it and had a fabulous weekend with friends. Probably one of the best Christmases I’ve ever enjoyed.

Absolutely breathtaking. Amazing. Once in a lifetime experience. There are not enough adjectives and gushing expressions to encapsulate today’s experience. Not even the pictures and videos do it justice. It is something you truly have to experience to understand. Between the hours of 8am-8pm I saw not only breathtaking scenic views from the gorgeous reserves surrounding our lodge and those in the area, I saw Nyalas, Impalas, Giraffes, Zebras, Warthogs, Wilde-beasts, Elephants, Hippos, Rhinos,Water Buffalo, Lions, Leopards, and Cheetahs. It is indeed indescribable and hard to believe. What’s more is that I got to this with my very close family and can only hope we have such adventures together in the future as I make my way across this crazy, beautiful planet.
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The last two days were equally cool as the first. Today we went on another game drive to see a host of large game on the reserve where we are staying at the lodge. It was a bit quiet at first but turned into Giraffe day—we saw tons of them it seemed around every corner and they are so beautiful and statuesque.

The afternoon was also great—we went to a African cat rehabilitation center and saw African Wild Cats, Caracals, Cheetahs and Serval Cats whom are being rehabilitated from various circumstances and then their young being re-introduced back into the wild through various reserves and preserves. The Wild Cats are like large feral cats with the difference being that they have never been domesticated and have a few other defining characteristics. The Caracal cats were feisty and could jump higher than their enclosure fencing to get their food! They remind me of cougars back home. The highlight of the experience was with the Cheetahs, there are two brothers there that had been brought to the center before they had opened their eyes and so are essentially tame and very used to humans. We were all able to pet them and hang out in their enclosure! It was awesome and they were so cute, purring just like my kitty back home, only they had massive unretractable claws… We ended with the Serval cats, and were able to enter an enclosure with like five of them. They are like mini cheetahs and very sweet. There was one, Jane, who likes humans a lot and as I was trying to take a picture of one that was resting up in a tree, Jane walked by and rubbed against my legs! She did that a couple of times and I was also able to pet her. Near the end she found and killed a small bush snake in the enclosure and then the handler came over and played with her and the snake just like you would with a cat at home. Very cool.
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This trip, thus far, has been rewarding in many obvious and unknown ways. I have had time to spend with my dearest Aunt and once again re-connect with nature at its best, something believe it or not, I have been yearning for since I left Colorado. Strange considering my work, but life in Togo is a different type of connection with nature, more ruthless and in your face—there is little sitting back and drinking in, it is more of a battle to survive it. I miss reserved forests and spaces and land that is let be. I realize why this is not a reality in Togo and that the environment takes on an entirely different meaning all together when you rely on it to survive—it is beautiful to breathe again, to dry my skin out from the sweat baths of 14months and once again feel a chill upon my soul.

Yawning green vistas shadowed by blue rolling hills, twisted aged bark and uprooted trees ; some primal being resides in these patchwork lands and the whipping breath of time runs along the songs of birds. But it is the quiet that speaks to me. The simple green, the smell of deep earth—it settles like sediment into my bones and lifts my spirits up into the ceiling of never ending cloud. I cannot see one building on the horizon and if I listen hard enough I hear nothing. The call of the ancestors reaches into my thoughts and hushes the chatter. I am calm now. I am here.

There are animals here. And not just the ones that people come from all over the world to see. There is a healthy ecosystem, something that has become foreign to me. It reminds me of reminding times. It is going to be infinitely difficult to return home—that home being a bereft land of scorched grasses and cracked earth. Of pleading people donning the shroud of apathy. I know I want to return and part of me misses much of my little spot of Africa, but I miss home also. The real home. I miss the small comforts, I miss the mountains and being able to explore without social repercussion. I want to smell the mountains again, to shovel snow and wear a parka. I know that the next year will be fulfilling beyond my current knowledge but I know this is not my place in the world of things. I am still looking to find that niche but I know in my blood that it must be found amongst the land and nature.
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This morning was yes, yet again, amazing. We went to an elephant preserve and participated in an elephant ‘interaction’ program. The preserve has two elephants around 25yrs old Rachael and Rambo whom were spared as calves from a culling in a reserve in Namibia. Because they were initially, from a young age, accustomed to interacting with humans they began causing issues at subsequent reserves until they were brought to the one we visited this morning where they are allowed plenty of interaction with humans—whom they have identified as part of their ‘family’ due to their experiences as impressionable calves etc. They recently had a calf of their own named Jubilano (the last of four that has survived due to the lack of a herd to show Rachael how to care for her young) and they were a real treat. So they are indeed still wild elephants that live on their own accord on the reserve but due to their special circumstances they are not accepted into the other herd of 80 elephants on the preserve and also provided with daily human interaction. We were able to feed them, stroke them—feel their legs, tusks, behind their ears and I even got to stick my hand in the bull’s mouth and touch his tongue! The baby was very playful but we were instructed not to interact back with him because they are wanting to attempt to integrate him into the herd so that he has a chance at a normal Elephant life. It was beautiful and soul stirring to get so close to these wise and gentle giants.

The guide today with the Elephants was really nice. She is originally from Sweden but decided she wanted to live in South Africa as a young girl and lived for a year in the bush to learn and become a wildlife guide. She and I talked about what I was up to and how she wanted to visit West Africa. I just thought it was another nice reminder of how you can make something happen for yourself if you want it badly enough.

The weeks leading up to Auntie J’s visit were jam-packed: with our first year anniversary party and swear-in I had my hands and my head full trying to keep everything straight. And while you can do everything you can to plan accordingly, to plan ahead and schedule itinerary after itinerary, Africa has other plans… As I found my way to Accra, delightfully meeting up with some COSing (Close of Service- alas, in PC there is never a lack of acronyms) volunteers at the border and sharing a car into the city, the realization that I was going to see my family for the first time in over a year set in.

The trip, overall, I must say was a success. Togo set before us a wide array of her trials: bad chauffeurs, broken hotel door locks, mufflers ripped from undercarriages of cars and a festive wait on the side of a bush road… it all adds to the experience. The authentic one that is, and that is indeed what my family got. My village really turned out, exceeding all my expectations and we had a fête that was beyond what I could have dreamed up. Traditional dancers, drumming yummy tofu and beignets, calabashes of tchouck and of course round after round of my ladies dancing it off. It was heartwarming and lovely. Even though my chief asked my family for money, I was able to overlook it (and the crazy foule that molested my uncle right off the bat) and truly sit back in awe of what was going on before my eyes: two of my very favorite people enjoying and experience my other life.

So I am getting ready to leave the new stage. It is strangely sad. This is a real embarkation into the second year of my service, and it feels real now. This has been due to a couple of things= namely the new stagieres arriving. Also due to a few personal changes, my dearest Auntie will be here soon and in a flash a new group of volunteers will be swearing in.. They are an inspiring group and a much needed breath of fresh air. I can’t wait until they get through stage and come join us en brousse. While it was difficult to make it down here, due to the loss of Jack, it has been immensely rewarding to be a PCV trainer and I thoroughly enjoyed my entire week back here in Gbatope.

Heartbreak

So in between my brief respite in Ghana and the week I was scheduled as a trainer for the new arrivals I decided to run back to village for a couple of days. Since this mad-man roller coaster begun with Mid-service conference I have done this a couple of times—I think it is better to make it back for a couple of days, make it to some meetings and reassure people that I am still here and committed, than to be completely absent for long periods of time. This has its disadvantages as well, and seeing as how expensive it can be to travel, this tends to exacerbate the image of me as a wealthy American here to hand out gifts and monetary assistance, which is the most difficult and frustrating part of my day to day service. I came home expecting my pup Jack to run up and give me the warm welcome I have come to expect when I arrive back from traveling. Every time I turn the corner and head towards my compound after being gone for a week or two I have the sinking suspicion that something may have happened to my pets while I was gone.

This time I was right. Jack was nowhere to be found. Maman told me that he ‘wants to die’ and has been very sick, that the other puppy died while I was gone and the mama dog probably won’t make it through the night.

Pulling it together

At five o’clock in the morning I buried my dog. After an hour of comatose crying I pulled myself together and assembled a massive stack of ems packages to be sent out to my fellow volunteers—I had been in charge of both ordering and sending out our NRM 2010 stage t-shirts as well as the trainer pagne for the swear-in ceremony in November. At nine o’clock I was at the post in Kanté, eyes swollen and in a daze waiting for the bus South. The post woman had asked me if I was being affectéed (transferred) to another post and I wondered if my host family thought I might not return as well. I was a mess. It is amazing though, how life goes on. I suppose I could have stayed, I could have talked a friend into staying to train a couple extra days for me while I wallowed in grief at my house, but I think it was better that I wasn’t there. After a few hours on the bus, silently crying intermittently, I began to function again, if only for appearances.
I finally arrived in Tsévié and met up with some friends at a bar to drown out my sorrows and then made my way out to Gbatopé where the new NRM trainees are based. Heidi, a good friend and the trainer for the previous week, and I had a really good talk and she prepped me for any information I might need to know for the next week.

Training

I must say, being a trainer was one of the most rewarding experiences I have had here in Peace Corps Togo. Just the sheer fresh attitudes, the inquisitiveness and exuberance that new situations and the aura of new possibilities this experience can bring were contagious. It was exactly the breath of fresh air that I needed at that point. I love when things work out the way they should. At first I was really worried that the Jack situation would put a massive damper on the whole experience but I truly think they helped me as much as I helped them get through that week. It felt amazing to realize how far I have come this past year spent here in Togo, how much I have learned about myself and a host of new materials, about culture and coping. We had a blast! I feel that while the actual session part of the week is instrumental for trainees but that is not really the asset we bring to the table. Why it is so important to have Volunteer trainers is because we break down that barrier of empirical knowledge and overwhelming amount of new information with personal experience and empathy for what they are going through. We are there to answer questions, to assure them that all this will pass or at least become easier to deal with.

It is at a crucial time for us as well. We are reaching our mid-service mark. Just like a mid-life crisis, there are very real and tangible mid-service crises. It is a pattern that is scarily on point for nearly all Volunteers—these stages of service that we all experience in one way or another.

The euphoric busy body behavior that at first was refreshing has begun to wear me down a bit. Or, perhaps it is more the melancholy dampening I’ve felt from my village, the palpable sense that this is no longer playtime; we are here and stuck with one another for a little over another year. I have been thoroughly resisting the pathogenic downward spiral of cynicism many volunteers in country have begun adopting. I have had incredibly disheartening hiccups but I refuse to lose faith in the good and potential in others.

That being said, I think Peace Corps is a long series of mutual disappointment (at least at first). We have both come into this odd couple relationship with grand expectations that neither one of us will ever live up to. As we both slowly begin to realize this, through our gradual day-to-day struggles to understand one another, we begin to cower in a deep shadow of mistrust we have cast in an effort of self preservation. The people in my village were expecting a rich, somewhat gullible white girl from America to help them in the only way they see how: to give them money and assistance with securing what they need. I, on the other hand, have had the pretentious dream of helping these poor unfortunate souls, of living an exotic adventure in a beneficent manner, since high school. It was the dream that pushed me on through college and back again. Now, together we are beginning to realize the truth; neither one of us is going to get what we expected.

I had a bit of a breakdown today. The constant demands for money, gifts and food were starting to wear my skin thin. After a particularly touchy conversation about the failings of our soap groupement, I couldn’t stand it and had to rush home. I feel slightly betrayed by Victor, the one who is supposed to help me navigate the cultural undercurrents of this village, to ward off the beggars and inform the community what it is I am here to do. He has completely failed me on this end and on top of it has made no effort to repay a debt he owes me, not even to invite me over for dinner. Frustrated.

So I have been here nearly one year. It is surreal and fantastic; I feel as though this great wash of change has enveloped me and I know in my heart that the next year is going to hold twice as much growth. I have challenged myself. I have challenged myself to come to Togo and work for the Peace Corps and that I have accomplished. Further, I now challenge myself to learn as much as I can- about myself, about this lovely culture I am enmeshed in, about international development, about gardening and agriculture. There is too much learning to regurgitate it all, but I know that this experience will define the rest of my life. I know that in the next year I will challenge myself in ways I can in no way perceive in this moment. It will be the time in my life that I chose and learn the skills that will bring me to the next stage of evolution. This pinnacle of experience and personal growth is valuable beyond comprehension and I feel the internal twinings and cogs of excitement and nerves beginning to whir.

I have just returned from mid-service conference, and while it is not quite the mid-service point for my program I know that it is quickly approaching and that the next year is going to fly by at an incredible velocity. There was a lot of sharing of information, tips and what not. Everyone presented something successful they have completed in village- daunting but interesting to see what others are up to. I talked about a demonstration garden I worked on throughout the summer. The various one on one gardening and farmer consultations I have given. Small potatoes but work nonetheless. The conference ended with a hilarious talent show (yes we are starved for good entertainment) and an auction for the Gender and Development small projects fund. Both were all good fun, considering nearly all the volunteers in country were present. Many memorable items were auctioned off for ridiculous prices- example: A warm bottle of Corona went for something like twenty dollars. A five night stay at the Country Directors house (with the use of a real washer and dryer!) in Lomé sold for two hundred dollars. Good times.

I am looking forward to all of my prospective work options but hope I can find a balance between them and looking inside to find the peace within. I have met and cultivated friendships that I know will last a lifetime. I will execute projects that will catapult me into new realms. I look forward to what there is to find.

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…

March:

Getting to know Akantos

After being at post for a little, Akantos came out to visit me. Akantos is the head of an agricultural NGO in Kanté that focuses on gardening and elevage and takes in orphans to work and learn from him and his staff. A few of the University students from Kara accompanied him and they dropped in with no notice as I was doing laundry and went out to inspect who had just pulled up in a car- which is odd. It was great to chat with him and we visited my garden. They gave me tips for what I was growing and also to help my compost along faster. Akantos then invited me to go have lunch at a new restaurant that was in town and wanted me to come along right away, which I did. It turned out to be quite a big deal though and I was entirely under-dressed; the prefet (like a mayor) and pretty much any VIP in town was there. It was good to finally meet them and enjoy a nice meal for free!

Akantos’ wife Florence (very popular name around here), was really gracious and let me into their home to meet their children and wait for them to get ready. Akantos has a great yard with all kinds of plants growing in all seasons and is a good resource to go to to double check any technical questions I have. Their house is beautiful and grand with open rooms and nice furniture. The office looks just like one would back home – complete with laptop and printer and a very spoiled and under-disciplined little six year old girl. It was one of those gems that pop up every now and then here, when you have nothing planned and great opportunities just fall into your lap if you go with it.

Dangerous times

What I remember most about march was trauma. One night away in Kara to run errands and cool off for a night my closest volunteer neighbor, Mary in Kanté, called me to let me know about a wreck that had happened in Ataloté. I returned home the next day to grim tales of horror that didn’t end all month. Apparently, from what I have been able to piece together from many a fantastic and animated story, was that a standard van style bush taxi, fifteen seats in the states = twenty one seats in Togo if not another five or ten riding on top of the already piled high with goods roof, essentially exploded in front of my marché. Fifteen people died, burned alive in front of all of the villagers while they stood watching helpless. Three were children, two were pregnant women, three people and the driver escaped with minor injuries. It was absolutely horrendous and maman and the soap ladies told stories of trying to pull out screaming people and getting charred flesh instead, of burying the remains beside the charred skeleton of the taxi that now stands ominous at the base of the hill leading down to the marché.

This needs some explaining: apparently the apprentice to the chauffeur was driving which was the first mistake. This was an apprentice that had already had another accident before that led to people dying. This time to say it was a vehicle accident would be a stretch. Like I alluded to earlier taxis here are always full to the brim and extremely top heavy from all the cargo loaded onto the roof. However bad this is on the main paved route through Togo, it is greatly exacerbated the further you get away into the more rural areas. The taxi in question was a taxi that took villagers and cargo for the marché from outlying small villages that surround Ataloté, which is the center of the canton (kind of like a district- smaller than a county) and has the largest marché for miles away. From the stories I gathered that once he reached the top of the hill a mechanic stopped him and told him the engine was badly overheating and needed water. In most taxis, old Mazda vans from the eighties and nineties beat up beyond comprehension most times, the engine block in underneath the front row with the driver and the second row gets a lot of heat from the engine on hot days or if there are radiator issues etc. Also many drivers carry extra jerry cans of gasoline, petrol or other flammable materials and stash them directly behind the driver’s seat, beside the hot engine block. Dangerous recipe for disaster. I was told that one passenger told the apprentice his pant leg was on fire, the apprentice jumped out at the top of the hill and let the vehicle go free wheeling down the hill where it turned over into a culvert and exploded. People said there was a big bang and cloud of black smoke that rose above the marché and everyone ran from their stands to see what happened, others stayed behind to loot the empty stands. Maman said she had lived here most of her life, but she had never witnessed anything so horrible. The apprentice got hauled off to jail. I was so glad that I was not there.

Tsilim

Tsilim is a big fête for three of the surrouding clans of Kanté: There is the Tamberma whom live East towards Benin, the Lamba in an around Kanté and Loso to the South. It is really an exercise of multitasking and they get together not combining clans but also combining reasons for the festival; March is the lull between harvest and rainy season and so marks the celebration of the harvest and also serves as an initiation time for the Tamberma. Naturally it is also a plea for a good following season with plenty of rain.

Daniel came out to see what all the fuss was about and we spent the weekend in Kanté. It was held at the stadium in town and there were some covered bleachers and a tent with rented plastic chairs for the notables and important guests. Akantos arranged for us to get seats
The Tamberma people have a really engaging dance where they attach bells to their calves and do a fast foot movement shaking dance while wearing impressive cow horn helmets and clanging cow bells to the beat and chanting.

April:

April was hot. Nuff said. Treacherous, ruthless heat. Lots of people got sick. I harvested what wasn’t scorched in my garden. I learned how to love love sleeping outside in a hammock. Learned to navigate the big city of Lome…retreat to air conditioning. Near the end we had a week long training with counterparts about project design management which was mainly a repeat of stage stuff for us, with the added bonus of feeling pressure to finance projects. Stage is all capacity building, capacity building and then they are like “Ok, it’s been a couple months…where is your big bad financed project?” The highlight was getting the counterparts in on some hands on NRM learning. Went to see a beekeeping project, learned how to graft mango trees, build improved cook stoves etc. Good stuff.

So I’ve decided to do this weird little re-cap of the months that I’ve been at post: A) to inform you of what I have been up to over here in this land of sorghum and mosquitoes. B) to remind myself of all that I’ve been up to over here in this land of sweat and bucket showers (and to give myself a reason to go through my journal and gain some perspective). Hopefully it isn’t too dry.

January:

Shortly after we arrived at post we were supposed to visit a nearby second year volunteer to ‘shadow’ them in their respective work. So myself and another new volunteer in the region went to follow my neighbor Carla in Kanté who is with the GEE program (girls empowerment and education). Carla was holding a benefit concert to raise funds for her cultural center project. Navarro, a local musician and counterpart of the project was performing along with Carla, the kids she taught music to, and some university student dancers from Kara. We sat in on one of their practices at the center, which is just a big abandoned building but had doors to lock and great fixer-uper potential.

There was a morning concert and one scheduled for the evening as well, so by the time we made it to the end of the late night we were pretty exhausted from all the festivities. It was really interesting, with some real talent performing, and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves. There was lots of traditional dancing and some more contemporary West African music (played by Navarro, Carla and an amazing djembé (sp?) drummer from Kara), recorder solos, a theatrical raconteur, and even some modern dance. The shadowing program was helpful; Emily stayed longer than I did because she had other instructions and also because they are in the same sector, but it was interesting to see the differences between volunteers, posts and program.

Daniel and I took our first trip to the city Kara for my birthday in January. It was fun and on the way back we met up with one of the volunteers in my cluster, Travis. We all decided to share a taxi back to Kanté because the faster you fill up the available seats in the car the faster you leave. Unfortunately about four kilometers outside of Kanté the axle on the car blew and started spraying sparks. So, the three of us got out and started walking because we were close and didn’t want to wait on the driver to fix the car. The walk was the closest thing I had done to a hike since arriving in Togo. However, I fell down and scraped up my leg because I was trying to walk and apply sunscreen to my face at the same time and didn’t see the jagged drop off of the pavement to the shoulder. Lesson learned: stop what you are doing when you have your glasses off and apply sunscreen before leaving the house. Check.

January 30st was Daniels birthday and so I made the trek out to Nampoch, about 40km to the southwest of me, over a river and through the woods… I went all out and baked him a chocolate cake complete with multicolored sprinkles and packed it up for the ride. Halfway there we had a flat and had to walk a couple kilometers back to the nearest village to get it patched, Nandoonja. Once we got there some men hanging about the empty marché stands sent for help and I sat and waited while Yanga patched the inner tube four times before it was ready again. I smelled a distinctly sour smell hanging on the air and noticed half the carcass of a cow sitting out in the open air about four feet away from me with a discernible cloud of flies hovering above it. The guys turned out to be good sports and we joked around and I tried out a little Lamba, which they thought was hilarious. They suggested I take one of them as a second husband, seeing as how my other ‘husband’ was so far away; I could have a husband for every village along the route! Huh – why didn’t I think of that?

The trip to Nampoch was nice and it was good to get to know Daniel’s house and village for the first time. He has a two room house without much air flow but he has a very nice compound and sitting area that is all concrete. The morning after my arrival we attended a fetish ceremony that Daniel had set up for health and good luck. Of course it devolved quickly into a fertility ceremony for me, seeing as how I haven’t given any kids yet, but it was a unique experience. Christian and Muslim religions are widespread and practiced here in Togo but the animist belief system runs deep. We arrived at the charlatan’s house (like a priest, fortune teller and therapist rolled into one) and had our first calabash of tchakpa (like filtered and stronger tchouk that is sweeter) at something like 7:30AM as we waited for his first appointment to clear out. Kodjo, Daniel’s village counterpart, told us that he was in the process of finishing up a marriage counseling session.

We entered the small earthen hut and took our seats on small raised stone seats on the floor and in front of us lay the shrine to the fetish. There was the skull of a bull in the center of it covered with dried blood and so I believe that was the fetish to which we were appealing. There were also strings of cat and other small ruminants’ skulls hanging from the ceiling- offerings. We brought our own offerings: a rooster, some kola nuts (small red nuts that have stimulant properties) and a bottle of cheap Togolese gin. The charlatan asked us what our request was and after speaking a flurry of local language, dropping kola nuts like dice to see how they landed and multiple shots of gin it was time to kill the rooster. He slit his throat and let it run onto the shrine, then he dropped it in front of us. If the chicken flails wildly than your request to the fetish has been received. If it lies there and slowly bleeds out it is bad news, but generally someone will prod it to flail if that is the case. We were lucky, it flailed plenty, nearly spattering blood all over us and then was taken off to be prepared. Daniel had warned me about the shots of gin first thing in the morning, he also warned me that I might have to take a bite of chicken, but I was not ready to eat the chicken’s cooked liver. But I took a small bite under the pressure and watchful eyes of the charlatan and the fetish – hey, you only live once right?

I visited Guerin-Kouka while there, the larger town nearby where Daniel gets his mail, and together with two other nearby volunteers we cooked Daniel a nice little b-day dinner of gnocchi (shipped from the states) and salad! It was nice to meet more volunteers, and Daniel’s cluster is a great group of people who do lots of great work. The volunteer who lives in Guerin-Kouka had kittens and I decided to take the last remaining one home to try to chase out the spiders and mice. We raided the old Geurin-Kouka volunteer transit house, a house to sleep during long trips, a place to do work etc., of books while we were there. There used to be transit houses all over the country but they are nearly all shut down now because of volunteer abuses and budget issues. There are two remaining ones in Daopong and Atakpamé but are now called work stations and kept under much better management to avoid them becoming frat houses. The ceiling was falling in and the building was in various stages of disrepair and it is a shame because West Kara volunteers are fairly isolated and travel for them is arduous and expensive. It is not fair that now they have to impose on the volunteer’s house, but I suppose that is just the way it goes sometimes. Conditions of hardship if necessary.

Yanga arrived to take me back at the end of the week and brought along another friend on a moto to accompany us back home; they had been visiting friends in Kouka. I wrapped up the kitty in a box duct taped closed with necessary breathing holes. As we pulled out of town it was a calm and lazy afternoon and I felt a sense of camaraderie, our twosome of motos on a road trip. Easy Rider came to mind. Just before the river though, not more than a quarter of a way in, the kitty started to freak out and bit open the hole to stick out her claws and swipe at me. She got me once pretty good. She was determined to get out and after crossing the river I had to wrap the entire box in a pagne cloth and hope she would be alright. Turned out to be not such an easy ride, but highly memorable.

February:

After the end of the January festivities I started on my garden- this was a great project to keep me busy during the first couple of months at post, helping me to integrate into the community and the group of gardeners because I had to go and water twice a day and walk through village to get there. This kept me busy for most of February.
Near the end of the month we were summoned to the training center in Pagala, in the Centrale region near the middle of the country. It is like a beautiful forested NRM paradise there! We did lots and lots of learning about more techniques to promote in village like container gardens, contour planting and even got to vaccinate some chickens by giving them shots against Newcastle disease! It was great to see everyone again, and fun to learn more neat o techniques and hang out with our technical trainer Blaise and our program director Paul who are always enthusiastic and easy going. We took a really great nature and tree identification walk through an empty river bed, then crossed the remaining river to check out a garden on the other side – Paul gave one volunteer a piggy back ride across the water and good times were had all round. It was odd however, having a schedule again and it was a little tiring all those day long sessions of classroom learning style. Good thing in NRM we get to do fun little hands on demonstrations and get out to stretch our legs once in awhile- even though the ‘classroom’ is in an open air room with a roof …

The end of February marks the beginning of the hot season, or Mango season to the locals. The winds of Harmattan ended one nondescript day and then the heat settled in.