It's time to go

Time to peace out of Lome. This time tomorrow I'll be in Vogan. Not too much to report so far, but the upcoming week promises to be full of surprises. I'll be in the process of getting my house in order, and on September 3rd I may be leaving for an preliminary run of the bike route for AIDS ride. Sometime within the next two months Peace Corps is participating in a country wide bike tour broken down into regions. I'm too much of a newbie to really contribute to the whole planning process; I would just be making company for the person doing the real work. I think we would be covering about 150 kilometers in 5 days through relatively rural sections of Togo. The trip would be to locate people in each village that can house and feed the volunteers when the larger group travels through, and also to ensure that the roads are passable. Sounds like some good exercise, but I don't know if it will be appropriate to leave post so soon, but I might be going crazy after a week. Who knows, we'll see. I'll let you all know what happens when I get back to Lome again. And eventually there will be internet in Vogan. I think it might happen within the next three months. But you never know around here.

Sworn In; Verified and Authentic

Hello everyone, it's official, I signed and dated my name and took the oath to defend the consitution against all enemies both foriegn and domestic, that makes me an official Peace Corps volunteer.

We are staying in Lome this week running around and shopping til we drop, but I've been sick since Friday, the day after we swore in. Its nothing major, but I definitely didn't feel like braving the Lome market on market day, and that's just what I attempted to do on Friday with a fever and a slight hangover. For someone that dislikes shopping in general, it can be difficult to appreciate the African method of commerce.

Vendor comes up with post cards (speaking english): Very nice, do you like them?
Me: No, I don't want to buy your post cards.
He kind of hesitates, backs off, and then steps back up to be thumbing through them again, "I will make a very good price for you"
Me: Did you not hear what I said?
Vender: (with a smirk) Oh you are big man, okay.

Thank god something works. But it's really not wise to be like that, I was sick and my head was throbbing. Normally I would be a little bit more measured, you never know who or when you might need a friend around here.

I'm heading off to Vogan on Monday. I still don't have all of my shopping done, but I'm not too worried about it. Lome is only an hour long ride away.

Two very dated posts that never made it on here

Sunday July 15^th, 2007

Sundays are the worst.

This week has been full of activities and I’m glad that it’s finally over, but then again it’s Sunday, and Sunday is when everything calms down and I begin to reflect back on the previous week, two weeks, month, and look forward to the upcoming week, month, year, and years beyond that. Sunday is an empty hole in a tightly controlled routine. I usually feel emotional, like I do right now. I miss Lauren’s affection and conversation; I miss the excitement of departing for two years of work in another country, I miss flying several times a week; I miss driving (I didn’t think I would); I miss freedom to determine my own routine, I miss ease of communication; I miss living in a country with infrastructure; and I miss not being a minority.

Last night was a short lived experience worth reference. We had returned from a three day field trip across the southern part of the country. I was exhausted and had intended to spend the evening at home, but there happened to be a theater event going on that evening (it was more like a talent show) and another PCV’s host sister was scheduled to perform in a dance. Carolyn (the PCV) came by and we chatted for awhile until her sister stopped by. Her sister was so excited, she was all smiles and had all sorts of spring in her step, it was cute. We picked up David (another PCV) who lives next door to me and we walked over to the adjacent village where the party was happening, paid 200 CFA, and went inside. We had to wait about an hour for the show to get started and the first act was a guy with a guitar who played Hotel California, a Beatles song, and another English song that I didn’t recognize. The next act was where things got interesting. A guy came out who had white paint on his body and was dressed in western clothes. We couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he kept looking directly at us and was obviously using us as a reference point for his comedy skit. And we all got the feeling that he was being really offensive. People in the crowd were throwing money at him in what appeared to be an active participation in his performance. It was an extremely awkward situation to be in. I looked over at Carolyn and said that I didn’t want to stay, she went ahead and decided to stick it out with another PCV and I returned home with David. It was one of, if not the most, awkward moments since we have arrived in village. I still don’t know what happened afterwards; have not seen either of the two who stayed, hopefully that was the extent of things. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, but who knows, we didn’t understand what was going on.

And now there are the needs, chores to do. I need to go gather water from the river tonight, need to rinse my clothes (I already washed them), need to take a shower, need to eat, and I really need to study French. Everything takes so much more time here. I have an exam coming up on Tuesday. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t speak French all that well. So I should probably work on that. Looks like I’ve got some quality dictionary time coming up for tonight.

June 11^th, 2007

Hello everyone, I’ve been in the capital of Togo since Sunday evening. So far everything has been great. We are all well fed, housed, and even have our own personal Land Rover and 15 passenger van that we jump in even if we are only going down the block. We are staying at a small hotel and have all the food we could eat. All of the houses, and this hotel, are in walled compounds. The streets are made up of walls, outside the doorway of each wall you see people outside selling various wares and food. There are little phone “booths” attended by someone. These are all called cabines. There are quite a few bars around town, some are built into the walls along the street and others are larger establishments. The first night we went to a really fun place, and probably packed about 70 people or so inside. The people are great, which is good considering that we spend all of our time together. First impressions, pleasant people, humid, hot (but not that bad), and humid. The humidity level is comparable to what we get in August, and from what I hear it is like this all the time, and we even get a sea breeze here along the coast, cities to the immediate north are probably more humid. From what I have seen and heard, Togo is poor, but resilient. For the time being we are allotted the equivalent of $1.75 a day until we complete training, afterwards we receive about $9 a day. This is actually a great wage for a single person considering that housing and utilities are paid for. We can all live comfortably, most live on much less. If we step outside and walk down the street we catch everyone’s attention. We are on display all the time. You can definitely tell a difference between us and the volunteers that have been here for awhile. They are different from us, we don’t know what’s happening. I feel so naive.

We’ve been attending educational sessions all day every day. So far we have learned about fevers, malaria, shown how to make a slide with our blood, visited the health clinic (which is amazing), visited the peace corps office (nice too), received vaccinations for Typhoid, Diphtheria/Tetanus, Yellow Fever, Polio, Meningitis, and Rabies, learned how to use a kerosene lamp, cook with a gas stove, handle our initial experience meeting our host families, met the ambassador, received a security briefing, gone out to the bar twice, had lots of good food, sized and fitted for bicycles/helmets, taken a French placement exam, tomorrow we have a discussion about diarrhea and will receive our medical kits.

The next stage is the meeting of our host families. They will be providing me a place to stay while I am in training and will cook for me three times a day. They might speak a few words of English, and at least one member of the family will speak French. From what I have heard this is really going to be pretty intense. We are talking the real deal, chiefs, dancing, music, huge celebration when we show up, little children running up and hauling luggage over their heads, parading through the village. So it could be pretty exciting. This village has never housed Peace Corps volunteers before and apparently they are pretty pumped about it.