Saturday, September 22, 2007

Premier Post of Vogan

Hey everyone, I wanted to give an update on my situation here in Vogan. I arrived here along with another Peace Corps volunteer during the morning of the 27th of August. The Peace Corps was in a bit of a rush to find a house for me at the last minute. The house I was originally supposed to take did not pan out because the landlord decided that he wanted to change the contract at the last minute and the Peace Corps was not happy with whatever has been included in the revised edition. So during my visit to post which occurred during the last week of July my homologue and I walked around town looking at potential alternatives. The most suitable option was located near the government office where my homologue works. It was in a really beautiful area, but I still felt like it was too large for one person and the PC administration was concerned because the nearest access to pipe born water was about a kilometer away. If I moved into this house I would have to pay a sizeable amount of money each week for someone to make multiple trips back to my house. After returning back to Agou, I heard that another house had been found that appeared to be better than all of the others, but the owner of the house was in Paris and either could not be contacted in time or was not interested in renting the house for two years. So at almost two weeks prior to my arrival here in Vogan there as no house for me to move into. With one week remaining this house was located and PC security gave the go a head and my program coordinator also approved. They scrambled to get screen doors put on all the windows and doors and to get as much fresh paint on the house as possible.
So this house is situated on the far side of town. If you were coming into town the direction of Lomé you would take a right after the taxi station and then immediately see a huge collection of covered concrete platforms for the regional marché that occurs every Friday. You could continue down the dirt road and eventually come across a concentration of vendors selling fruits and vegetables as well as other daily wares. This is what we call the petit marché. You would continue down the road until it merged with another and then cross a river. On the other side of the river there would be a fork in the road and you would take the left fork marked by the sign reading “Togoville” and would then soon pass the Lycée on the right. My house would be located within the first compound on the right hand side of the road. It has white walls with red trim and
I believe that this compound was built relatively recently. The buildings are all in pretty good shape with paint in good reasonably good condition. Five single men live within my compound, two are teachers at the Lycée and the other two work at an NGO. We have an open courtyard area with room for three mango trees, a well, a cistern, and a reasonably sized garden of about 12 x 20 feet growing tomato, citronella, and a couple aloe plants. My house itself has a covered porch that leads into an open living area that I use as both a common area and a kitchen. I have a sofa along one wall facing the entry door and along another wall I keep a raised table for preparing my food and a separate screened cupboard. Along the floor I have three plastic bowls for doing my dishes, pre-wash, wash, and rinse. I keep a 75 liter plastic container next to the cupboard and another 100 liter container in the bathroom. From the living area there is a door leading to the two rooms in the back. At the end of this short hallway is a back door that I open up each day to allow air to circulate through the house. To the right is a room that I use for putting all of my excess items that I am unable to organize and to the left is my room. In my room I have a full sized bet, a work table, and eventually hope to have another piece of furniture to put my clothes and books. A door opens from my room into a small room that has a shower drain and a toilet that is manually flushed with a water bucket. The room also has a sink with a drain where I put a small plastic bowl for washing my hands.
To take a shower I heat some water with my gas stove and mix it with cool water in a bucket to reach the desired temperature. I use a 17 liter graduated bucket for showers and generally need about 13 liters of water. I stand in a larger sturdy plastic basin that fits both of my feet comfortably inside and allows me to kind of crouch down and sit if I need to. I take a large plastic cup that you could use to drink out of and pour the water over my head, use a piece of mesh fabric to make lather with the soap and proceed to scrub down and then rinse. The majority of the water drains down into the basin in which I stand and after finishing I pour this water into another bucket that I keep next to the toilet to use for flush water. I don’t really miss taking showers with running water that much. The bucket shower can be relaxing and warm and you’re not left with a guilty feeling for letting the water run over your body to waste, and moreover you can reuse the same water to flush the toilet, further conserving water and eliminating as much waste as possible.
I have electricity in my house and, unlike in Agou Akoumawou, it rarely goes out. When the power does cut it usually only lasts for a few hours. I’m able to use my computer and charge all of my electrical appliances that include my radio, fan, hair clippers, and a AA/AAA battery charger. Unfortunately the voltage fluctuates so it is necessary to use a voltage regulator between my more sensitive electrical appliances and the current coming out of the wall. But at time it fluctuates so rapidly that the regulator itself is unable to keep up with the changes, so I’m hoping that my computer’s power pack has some additional protection to compensate. I’ve also got a 300w capacity 220 to 110 volt step down converter compliments of Lauren Twist. I use the thing every day to minimize the risk of damaging my PC with a voltage spike and it allows me to charge my batteries and my radio without frying the electronics (already fried one charger supposedly rated for 220 volts).
My typical day begins at around 6-8 am. I then walk next door to buy a loaf of bread for about 20 cents, come back and boil some water to make tea or coffee and then sit down in front of the computer to watch an episode of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report that my dad sends on a regular basis. Afterwards I usually devote a couple hours to language study and then spend a little bit of time keeping up with current events in magazines that my dad also sends on a regular basis. I do this until I get hungry and then cook up something in the kitchen either listening to the BBC or Radio France depending on whether or not I feel like exercising my brain further with French and also on the programming (I would rather listen to pretty much anything on Radio France than listen to an in depth feature on the BBC on British sports). Both of the stations are broadcast out of Lomé in FM so I get great reception without having to use an extended antenna. After lunch I do whatever else I can fill my day with. Sometimes I’ll go out and get some shopping done, or I’ll go over to my homologue’s house and see his family, or more often than not I’ll stay here and find something else to read. I have an intimidating stack of books, binders, and plastic bound booklets with information on various projects that I could start. In the past few days I’ve come across some apparent opportunities so I have some homework that needs to be done.
This pass Saturday I had mentioned to my homologue, Mr. Eklo, that I was interested in visiting with the man who works to prevent the traffic of children for labor. So on Tuesday the 11th, a day after returning from a trip to Lomé, I get a phone call at 7:45 in the morning and we agree to meet at 8:30. At the ONG, named Terre des Hommes, I learned a little bit about the projects that are undertaken. The man, whose name I know but am not sure how to spell, goes out into the surrounding villages and tries to convince people that they should not let their children be taken abroad to neighboring countries or even to Lomé to work with the hope that they will be able to send money back home. He gave me several examples of projects that he works on to help train kids thus making them more valuable and self sufficient within their own communities. The focus appears to be on coming up with income generating projects, or finding funding to send the kids to school so that they can learn a life skill. I wasn’t a prepared for the meeting as I had hoped so I wasn’t able to phrase the questions that I wanted to ask. I want to know more about how these kids are recruited from the villages, where they go, what happens to them when they leave, where does the money come from to fund these projects, what can I do to help with this operation, etc. I promised to return in the near future with more questions and expressed my sincere interest in working with him in the future. He welcomed my offer and said that he has worked with another Peace Corps volunteer in the past.
As we were walking out the door another man walked in who operates a Microfinance organization in the same building and he invited me back into his office with Mr. Eklo. The operation ran by this man also appeared to offer numerous opportunities for me to explore. His microfinance operation focuses not only on providing finds for entrepreneurs in the community, but also works in education about health issues and HIV/AIDS. He has also worked with Peace Corps volunteers and showed me pictures. I recognized one of the girls as Lydia who had come to our training site and stayed with us for one week. I feel like these two organizations, located within the same building, could potentially offer me enough work to stay comfortably busy for the foreseeable future. Although I’m not exactly sure what it is that they will need, I am sure that there will be something I can contribute to both. As of right now I’m pressed with coming up with some questions for another interview in which I hope to gain some more insight into their operations and get one step closer to finding regular work. I’ve still got another two months before I’m expected to have identified and integrated with some organizations throughout town, so I think that I might be right on track at this point.
I’m also excited about the start of the school year. I am so close to the Lycée and have enough potential contacts with the school that I will hopefully have the opportunity to teach one or two Junior Achievement programs at the school. There is an introductory economics class that I am interested in teaching and also an economics of education class that I could also run. I’m also exploring the possibility of starting an English club in town, either at the Lycée or with an NGO operated by Becka’s counterpart. I expressed this desire to Mr. Eklo, and he told me that he will be feeling out the situation and looking for some interesting people in the community. I wouldn’t really be teaching English in a formal way, but would instead provide and opportunity for people to practice using grammar in speech and to learn vocabulary in lexical groups through topic discussion and role play.
I have also started to attend Mr. Eklo’s Assembly of God church. I think that it is an excellent way to gain recognition within the community, learn more about the culture, and also to exercise my French comprehension and reading skills. This past Sunday the children had an hour and a half long program where they entered into the church with choreographed movements and sang and danced at the front. Then they had a skit emphasizing the responsibility of parents for paying for children to go to school and also for the children’s responsibility to use their education to aid their parents later in life. I felt like I learned a lot about the culture and really had a good time. Church always seems to be fun here; it’s more like a celebration with people up and dancing in a circle singing. The first part of the service is always in Ewe, but my homologue translates to me in French in a lowered voice the points that he sees as interesting. When the pastor is not speaking in French and Mr. Eklo is either busy or not translating I open up a copy of the new testament that he gave me in French. I’ve found the book to be surprisingly accessible to me because I’m already so familiar with the books, especially the gospels, and therefore can work my way through and learn new words through context and get exposure to verb usage more complex than I can currently use verbally. I’m already looking forward to next Sunday. People are happy to see me there and I get to bump into various people like the computer teacher at the Lycée that I would not have otherwise acquainted so soon.