how do you explain 'sleigh' to people who've never seen snow

11 December 2008

The AIDS sensibilisation at the lycee was supposed to happen on 1 December – International AIDS Awareness Day. It was pushed back due to the week of composition – kind of a mid-term exam – it’s administered regionally; all the students in the region take the same test at the same time. I offered to do the sensi the Friday before the test week, but the proviseur told me to leave it until the Monday after mid-terms, 8 December. No problem. Imagine my surprise when on Saturday, 6 December, at my chorale rehearsal, one of the girls in the peer educator group I’ve been forming told me that Monday is a Jour Ferie – a holiday due to a Muslim Holy Day. I showed up early to school on Tuesday and asked the Proviseur how he didn’t know about the holiday? Grr. So we moved the sensibilisation again – to this Friday. It WILL happen. No matter what. Come rain or shine (I might back down if it miraculously snows).
{Speaking of snow – it’s very difficult to explain what a sleigh is to people have never even seen a picture of snow.}
I’ve started teaching conversational English classes at the CEG Kovie. The CEG is new – a state-created school that doesn’t actually have any buildings yet. They only moved out of their temporary lodging at the Catholic primary school this week. They now have three little thatch-roofed “classrooms”: packed-dirt floors, thatch roof supported by thick branches buried into the floor. The design of the roofing makes a lovely little microclimate that keeps the classrooms several degrees cooler than the surrounding area, and the roofs are so severely slanted that I imagine any rain will slip right off and away from the room’s occupants without problem. There are enough wooden benches that only a few students have to be three to a bench.
I’m starting my English classes with easy stuff – introducing myself and getting the students to do so, talking a little bit about where I come from and why I’m here in Togo. After the introductions, I’ve been teaching them Christmas songs – Jingle Bells and Silent Night. They seem to already know the melodies at least a bit, which helps. I almost sang myself raw today, though – two hours of teaching songs was surprisingly hard on my voice. I guess I need to work on some vocal exercises to keep up my endurance :)
I’ve decided to head to Lome tomorrow to do internet, but more importantly, to get to the bank. I’ve got to get some money – and start being more careful about how I spend it!
Last time I was in Lome, I was standing on a street corner waiting for some friends with a bag of watermelons between my feet when a man came up, chatted to me, and upon learning my name was Rose, promptly bought me a pretty pink rose. It was bizarre but not creepy, which is nice – he didn’t pressure me to give him my number or anything. Huzzah.

Les Moucherons

10 December 2008

Today was the beginning of football season at the Complexe Scolaire Mission Tove. It was the “moucherons” today – 6emeA versus 6emeB and 5emeA versus 5emeB. “Moucherons” basically means “fleas”. It’s a cute nickname for the youngest classes in the school. 6eme roughly translates to American 6th grade and 5eme to 7th grade. The actual ages of the students varies a lot more than in the U.S. – from the itsy bitsy 11 year old that all the teachers tease for his size (except me, of course – I’m not up the teasing, yelling at, or corporal punishment that the teachers rely on to keep order). There is one 20 year old in 6eme. He’s recently married – I think it’s really cool that he’s decided to come back in and try to get his formal education. There’s no Togolese GED, so he’s got to go all the way through Billy Madison-style (although without the joy of quick promotion.).
Because of this age disparity, the football team members are generally much larger than the average 6eme or 5eme student. Some of them are pretty tall and muscular for 6th graders. And REALLY good football players (football as in what Americans call soccer).
I’ve never actually played soccer on a team – I was a linesperson for AYSO one year, but I’ve only ever kicked a ball around in very informal settings. So I really have no idea of the rules, much less an understanding of the worldwide obsession with the sport. And obsession it is. Football is everywhere. The majority of my notebooks have football players on the covers – I have to look really hard to find non-football themed notebooks (the one I use to write up my blog has a gorgeous sea turtle on it which makes me think of Crush from Finding Nemo and keeps me “chilled out.”
Anyway. Football here looks pretty much like AYSO. Adults on the sidelines cursing out the referee for ‘bad calls’. Girls on the sidelines screaming out cheers and dancing, paying much more attention to their own shouts than the actual game. If you look a little closer though, you can see clouds of dust bursting up from the field around the players, slipping and sliding on uneven terrain. But why are they slipping so easily? possibly because only two of the players have shoes on. They are running around on a huge field (that we continuously had to shoo chickens off of) where the “grass” (shrub-like green stuff) has been trimmed by 12 year olds with dull machetes. The grass is patchy with dirt – especially after last week’s heavy rain that eroded much of the loose soil away. Two boys wore shoes. About 5 others wore mismatched socks. The lucky ones even had two pairs. I even saw a boy with only one sock on (and a huge hole through the heel).
It was an amazing game.

C Match 4 December 2008

Dear LR;

In looking over the last email and questions, I realized that I didn't answer the question about chores very completely.

Sometimes I forgot how very different simple chores are here. Every morning I wake to the sound of roosters crowing and my host family sweeping the compound (the land around the 3 small houses that are all part of the household). They sweep away the leaves that have fallen during the night, the various bits of trash, and chicken droppings. I joined them a couple times for sweeping, but 5.30am is very early and I've become used to having a little bit extra sleep.
During repos (the extended lunch hour that usually goes from about 12 – 2.30), though, I go around collecting the piles of leaves to add them to my compost pile. One of my most frustrating things here is the lack of trash collection – people throw candy wrappers, plastic bags and packaging wherever they've finished using it. It gets swept up in the morning and left on the side of the road as if people expect them to decompose along with the leaves! I have to sort through the piles of leaves before adding them to the compost. I'm working on a craft project that will use these pieces of litter. Hopefully this will not only provide a source of income by selling the crafts, but also provide an incentive for not littering.
In order to get rid of my own trash, I have to burn it. I do my best to set aside the things that I can recycle and of course I set aside the kitchen waste for my compost, but the rest has to be burnt so that it won't take over the house or spread germs.

Laundry is washed by hand and dried on clotheslines in the sun. I realized quickly that I'm not very good at hand-washing so I hired a local girl to wash my clothes. She is 13, named S, and is an orphan. She moved in with her aunt here in Mission Tove last year because the village she was from doesn't have a junior high and she really wanted to continue at school. The money I give to her is going toward her school fees and a new outfit for her baptism in the spring. Every Friday I bring my dirty clothes to her to wash and dry at her house. She brings them back by Monday. (I wash my own undergarments, though, because it's considered very rude to have someone else wash them for you. I have a clothesline hanging above my shower area to let my things dry in a private place. My main clothesline is in front of my house, so anything I hang out there will be seen by everyone passing by.)
Washing dishes is also by hand. Because I don't have running water, I use a 3-bucket method: one bucket with water and soap, a second bucket with rinse water and a third bucket with holes for drainage for drying. I get the water for washing from my cistern. I've attached a photo that shows my set-up for getting water:my cistern, which luckily is just next to my little house
the black bucket for carrying water inside (it's also my shower bucket)
the little metal bucket for fetching water out of the cistern (the rope is almost not long enough, the water level is so low already!)

the cloth frame I put together to help filter out the bugs and leaves before bringing the water in the house where I will boil it and filter it before drinking it.
I put my waste water from washing clothes and dishes into a bucket that I keep next to my toilet for flushing. No running water means no handy flush lever. I have to pour water down to empty the bowl.
You can do this in California – it saves a lot of water in drought season! Just set a bucket under your showerhead to catch the cold water while you wait for it to warm up. Then use the bucket to flush your toilet or water your plants (If you use it to water plants, try not to get any soap in it!)
One of my favorite authors wrote: “Abundance in a system comes not just from how much energy or resources flow in, but how many times that energy and those resources recirculate before flowing out.” In Mission Tove, where water is scarce, I am doing my best to make that water recirculate so I can create abundance rather than being a drain on resources.
Cleaning the house is also a fairly new experience. Lizards, spiders, and ants don’t seem to recognize any difference between indoors and outdoors. This means that I am constantly battling insects, webs, and droppings. My floor is just cement, so I simply sweep every room every day (or as often as I have the energy and time for it). Brooms here don’t have handles, so they can be a bit tough on the back. Sometimes I hire a couple local kids to come help me clean. It’s a big, sweaty job to do it alone. It’s nice to have the company and I always give them kool-aid, candy and some money for their help.
Well, that’s a pretty good summary of my chores. For the question about what I eat: here are a couple recipes for Togolese food that you can make from ingredients you can find in California.

Peace,
Rose

“Dirty Rice”

Ingredients:
2 cups rice, washed (I use locally grown rice, and I have to be really careful to pick out any small stones when I wash it. It’s no fun biting down on one!)
3 cups water
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
2-3 large cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
1 or more hot peppers, cleaned and minced (we use dried red peppers here)
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp ground cumin
Salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:
Wash the rice well, add water, salt, tomato, onion, garlic, minced pepper, and oil. Bring to a boil uncovered over high heat. Stir once. Reduce heat and simmer, covered with a tight lid for 15 minutes or until rice is done. Remove from heat. Fluff with fork. Cover and allow to steam an additional 5 minutes. Add plenty of cumin and black pepper.


Pâte Rouge

Ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped
1 cube of bouillon
1 small can tomato paste (70 grams)
1 ¼ Cups corn flour
1 green pepper, chopped
½ tsp piment powder
1 ½ Cups water

Directions:
In a saucepan, sauté onions, green pepper in a little oil until tender. Stir in piment, bouillon and tomato paste. Cook together before adding water. Bring to a boil. Stir in corn flour and mix vigorously to get rid of lumps. Scoop balls of pâte into small plastic bowls or small tupperware containers and allow it to cool for a bit. Invert onto a plate to serve. (perhaps with the pepper sauce below...?)


Pepper Sauce

Ingredients:
6 large tomatoes, chopped
Salt to taste
Hot dried peppers to taste (or piment powder)
1 large onion, chopped
Water

Directions:
Boil tomatoes and onions in a little water until soft, adding salt and piment to taste. If you have a grinding bowl (mortar and pestle): transfer the mixture to the grinding bowl and grind until the consistency is smooth.

3 December 2008

3 December 2008

I just finished a VIH/SIDA workshop with the girls club at the lycee in Tsevie. I arrived a bit late, but we still had lots of time and a really good class. I was worried that there would be too many participants for me to give out condoms to each – but it was relatively small (22 girls). They were already pretty well-educated about VIH prevention, etc. so we went through the activities and questions very quickly.
That gave me lots of time for the condom demonstration and the follow-up questions. I felt really successful and even my French felt really clear. Huzzah!
It's L's birthday, so we had a good little celebration – just a few sodas at the little buvette and then L made a yummy dinner just in time for I to return from working in Lome. After hours of good conversation – exes, law school, good books, religion, etc. L introduced me to Samurai Jack (a Cartoon Network series). Specifically the Scotsman episodes. I'm not sure I can do justice to the fabulousness of them.
Highly recommended.

1 December 2008

1 December 2008

Argh. My bike is shot. By which I mean there's a hole in the inner tube right next to the air input –in such a way that it's impossible to patch – I will have to actually replace the tube. Luckily, the "bike man" from Peace Corps is coming on his semi-annual bike check this weekend. So he should be able to fix/replace everything. The list is getting long, mostly due to my tumble during AIDS ride:
both mudflaps have fallen off (a necessity for the muddy paths)
my bell was crushed so I can't alert people to get out of my way when I crashed my right handle got pushed out of place
my bike seat slides down as I ride, making my knees ache if I don't adjust it often enough

Anyway, what this means is for this week I have to walk everywhere. This means chub rub. My thighs rubbing together cause a friction rash that really hurts. It's a major reason why I didn't wear skirts much before coming here. I've successfully avoided it since arriving at post mostly by cycling most of the time, but just a few 10-minute walks has brought it all painfully back. Grr. This is not productive and bad for the ol' self-esteem and positive mood necessary for being effective in village.

I'm finding that I am much more moody than normal here. I cry really easily and not just at 'that time of the month'. I wonder if it might be related to taking Larium as malaria prophylaxis. I've heard it can often affect mood. I imagine it's also because I'm far away from home and a bit frustrated about feeling obligated to lie to people every single day, whether it's about small things like "yes, I'll buy you a present while I'm in Lome" or big things like "actually, I'm married, so I'm not interested in having you 'drop by' so we can 'relax' together".

I've been having trouble sleeping lately – to the point that I took a Benadryl last night to try to help me. I still didn't fall asleep until 1am, and I had to get up at 5. Made me rather cranky today despite my best intentions.

Today is the Journee Mondiale du SIDA – I went to the chief's house to be introduced to all the notables and watch my homologue give a sensibilisation on the importance of registering births, deaths and marriage. She is a parajuriste which seems to be someone who actively encourages local populations to find out about their rights especially pertaining to women's rights and family law. There's an element of health education, too. I learned all this from skimming through the parajurist handbook.

Current reading: Homeland by R.A. Salvatore

Official Stuff

30 November 2008

Official Stuff

I've had a really busy two weeks.

Two big "meetings" – the first was for the program Junior Achievement – an organisation based in the states that's currently being introduced in Togo. The meeting was to look over a program for developing enterprise skills in high school students. We're adapting the manual to work in the Togolese context. It was really interesting and inspired me to do a trial program next year (it has to start at the beginning of a school year in order to have enough time to do the whole project).

I made a couple good contacts in the business sector in Togo – plus the West African director of JA who is from Mali. He invited me to visit (my trip to Timbuktu next year!)

Last week on Monday and Tuesday, I was at a meeting of the Project Advisory Committee. There were seven SED volunteers and 8 Togolese counterparts (both present and former) to talk about the SED program, why it's important for Togo, what volunteers are here to do and how we can encourage improvement and effectiveness by encouraging constant and regular reporting and collaboration. It was an odd sweet n sour mix of bland and interesting. Some of the sessions went on forever and seemed largely pointless, other sessions really helped me come to grips with my purpose and generate great ideas for facilitating cooperation among volunteers and homologues around the country. I left feeling like I could really influence things and do great stuff.

I got back to Mission Tove just in time to go to choir. Instead of singing, we also did "official stuff": we elected a new set of officers. The pastor's on a big renewal kick and getting strict about attendance at groups, including the chorale. I learned that people who arrive late are supposed to pay 25F and if you miss a meeting you have to pay 50F.

My friend V was elected "policier" which means she gets to reprimand people with bad attendance, or if they aren't paying attention to the director, etc.

Current reading: Testament by John Grisham

Correspondence Match 28 November 2008

Hi LR,

I am currently in Lome, I have come into the capital city so that I can celebrate Thanksgiving with other volunteers. Every year, the country director hosts a big party with traditional holiday treats including two turkeys imported from the states and cranberry sauce.
It's an amazing feast especially for the volunteers who haven't been home since arriving in country.

In response to the students questions:

My Typical Day

On a typical school day (Monday through Friday) I wake up at about 6am (dawn). Most of my neighbors wake up an hour before me and begin sweeping the paths around the houses, starting the fire for cooking breakfast, etc. The roosters start crowing about 5am and continually compete for who can be loudest and longest, and therefore prove their ability to be good fathers for chicks. It's amazing, but after 5 months in country I've become able to sleep through rooster calls.

I wake up and open up the shutters around my house so I can have enough light to see by. I usually warm up some water from my filter to make coffee (instant nescafe) or tea with sugar and powdered milk. I also put on a big pot of cistern water to boil. I let the big pot come to a rolling boil and stay there for one minute before turning the heat off.
The water then sits in the covered pot until it cools enough to pour into my filter. It usually takes about 8 hours for the water to cool enough to pour into the filter. I boil and filter all my water because if I do not it tends to taste like my tin roof. This is understandable since all the water is collected from the runoff from my roof.

How I cook:
My stove is a gas stove. I don't have an oven or anything like that; the gas bottle connects directly to the stove and when the gas runs out I have to lug the bottle to the capital city and search for several hours to get it refilled. There's currently a gas shortage in the country so it's often hard to find gas. When I first arrived at my post, I didn't have a gas bottle yet so I had to cook on a charcoal stove. It's kind of like using a grill, except that charcoal does not come in nice easy long-burning briquettes here. I had to fan the coals to get them hot enough to cook my dinner. It was very frustrating and took hours to cook and boil my water, I am very glad to have my gas stove now.

With my morning coffee or tea I tend to eat a piece of fruit - I have an orange tree outside my house - or some bread. I can only buy bread on market days, though (Wednesday and Saturday) and bread here doesn't have preservatives so it doesn't last much more than a day, so I don't have bread very often.

If I am quick enough, I have time to take a bucket shower. Then I hop on my bike to go to the complexe scolaire (college/lycee) where I will chat to the other professors about my programs, work on my french exercises and generally gather ideas and promote my own ideas. I use the other professors at the school to help develop my ideas for the area and work on my French.

There is a break at 9.45 for the whole school, I usually buy 100CFA (approximately 25 cents) of rice and beans and spicy sauce to eat. For the break, several women come to the school to sell snacks to the teachers and students. In addition to rice and beans, there are little fried cakes that usually have a bit of fish or tomato sauce in the center. I can also find a warm drink called "bouille". It's made out of the local starchy staple food, manioc, and is mixed with milk and sugar to make it tasty. All the professors meet together at a table either underneath the mango tree or in the new library building. Often the proviseur (principal) will use the time to have a quick meeting with all the teachers about school things.

I usually leave the school after the break and head to my homologue's house. "Homologue" is the term for the host country national that serves as my guide/liaison with my community. My homologue's name is Da E. She is a couturiere (dressmaker). She has a small dressmaking workshop at her home where she teaches three girls the trade. Normally apprentices have to pay for the training but my homologue offers the training for free to girls who come from poor families who don't have the money for the fees. I generally spend two hours at her house. We talk about my projects and the apprentices teach me how to use a foot-pedal sewing machine and how to replicate African fashions.

At noon, I bike home (it's about a 10minute bike ride). I do a little sweeping, gather water from the cistern, and gather leaves and kitchen waste to toss into my compost heap. Once the chores are done, I do about an hour of yoga. Yoga is really important to me - it helps keep my body in shape and is great for clearing my mind of the busy-ness of running about the village. I'm not always hungry at lunch, I find that the intense heat of midday wipes away my appetite, but I make sure to drink a lot of water and I'll often have some fresh papaya or banana if I can find them.

After yoga I usually take a quick bucket bath before heading out for afternoon activities. Some days I have a club in the afternoon at the high school, other days I go back to Da E's workshop. If I don't have anything in particular planned, I will stay at home to work on French exercises, clean the house, develop lesson plans for the various groups I'm working with, or just read for fun.

What I eat:
Sometimes I will go out and chat with my host family in the afternoon.
Often they will invite me to eat with them. They tend to eat one of two staple food: pate or fufu. Pate is made from cornflour, fufu from manioc or igname (two root vegetables that are grown and eaten all over West Africa). With the pate or fufu, they have sauces. There's a peanut-based sauce, a slimy sauce made out of 'gboma' which is a leafy vegetable kind of like spinach, and tomato-based sauces.

If I'm making dinner for myself, it's usually based around vegetables: tomato, onion, and a tiny little yellow version of eggplant. I'll either make a vegetable soup, a stir fry, an omelet, couscous or pasta.
On market days I can find fried tofu pieces called soja that are really yummy and go beautifully in a stir fry. I was a vegetarian for 5 years, but since arriving in Togo, I have started eating meat again because I worry about getting enough protein. Vegetarianism is also not very well understood here. When people invite you over to eat at their house, they will specifically make a meaty dish to honor their guest and often set aside the largest bits of meat for their guest. It is nearly impossible to refuse the meat without being rude. In general, though, I prefer not to eat meat. I get my protein by eating beans and lentils, eggs and milk and soja. I recently bought a chicken so that I can have a ready supply of eggs. (I've named her Arabella after a character in a book I just finished reading called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell).

I make dinner around 5.30 and usually settle in for the night with my books afterward. On Tuesday and Saturday nights, though, I have choir practice at 7. But I don't have to go far for that - the choir practices on the steps of the church that's only about 20 yards from my house.

I tend to go to bed around 10pm, tucking my mosquito net in carefully around me so that I won't get bitten while I'm asleep.

Happy Thanksgiving!

22 November 2008

22 November 2008

I'm at the wedding of a fellow professor – M. Z (I think that's his
name – it was very embarrassing showing up here and being asked which couple I had come to see – I stumbled out a bit of "Z...Z...? he's a professor of science at the lycee in Mission Tove?" big smile please believe me. But who's going to turn away a yovo who wants to come to a wedding. No one. Especially not an exceptionally pretty yovo wearing a Togolese complet.)
The church the wedding was held at is Deeper Life (Vie Profonde). It originally started as a non-denominational Christian prayer group but has become a successful small church in its own right. There are branches in several cities around West Africa. The premise is that he man who founded it was frustrated with "Sunday Christians" and called them to live a deeper life – their faither calling them to lives of morality, social justice and evangelisation not just weekly celebrations.
Anyway, they keep things quite simple – no photos during the ceremony for one thing - . It's 9.30, the ceremony was supposed to start at 9.
Only one other professor is here so far – the German teacher. He and the groom had a long conversation about Deeper Life on Wednesday when I asked for direction how to get to the church. Apparently the German professor, who is a pastor for the Evangelical church, was part of the prayer group in university. Deeper Life is particularly interested in attracting intellectuals to their teachings. Pastors for the church must have at least their Bacc (Baccaleaureate- rather difficult test at the end of high school). All the church teachings are in English because they were developed in Nigeria and therefore pastors need a good level of English.
I had a small adventure getting here, but it was actually easier than I'd feared. Nobody thought I'd be able to make it without taking a moto
– but I did fine. I took a taxi from Tove to a toyota dealership in Lome, then walked up to a crossroads and spent a little while trying to hail a cab. I had to "louer" which means pay for the whole taxi rather than share the fare with others that the driver picks up along the way. This means it was almost as expensive as the hour-long trip from Tove
to Lome, but it was easy and I feel like I know a new part of Lome (a little bit) now!
As soon as I arrived, I made some friends. I walked up to a couple women who were in the street and asked it they were here for the wedding, they said they were and then we all giggled a bunch over my attempts to speak Ewe. I went with them to get some beans and rice yumyum. Really good red oil/piment mix.
After ridiculous deliberations, I've decided to go to a birthday party in Vogan after the wedding, then go straight from Vogan to Tsevie for I's birthday and a training on developing the SED program on Monday and Tuesday. This means that I've got a stupidly huge bag with me – mostly because I wanted to bring my laptop. Being without electricity in village means that anytime I leave village to spend the night somewhere with electricity, I have a hard time keeping myself from bringing my laptop along. The additional space and weight to take the laptop with me is a bit silly, but it will be good to be able to type up emails and sort out photos, get everything ready for the next time I have internet.
The whole wedding service was performed in French and translated into Ewe. This was great for me as I could actually follow the whole thing (as compared to Sunday services in village where I often sit for an hour or two just letting incomprehensible words flow over me). But the drawback to interpretation is the delary. The speakers really didn'tlike losing their flow in French so they kept interrupting the interpreter, who started shooting frustrated glances at the speaker. It made me giggle.
The chorale was quite good – they had two electric keyboards, two standing microphones and one handheld microphone!!! The handheld was for one woman who sings solos. She unfortunately didn't have any idea how to handle a mic and continuously moved it around, magnifying the sounds of the mic brushing against her complet and causing those awful screeching noises that come from a mic getting too close to a speaker.
The keyboardist frequently punctuated various moments in the presentation of the couples with synthetic drums and cymbals.
Brilliant.

14 November 2008

14 November 2008

Interesting morning at the atelier, which – in case I haven't explicitly defined it before – is Da E's couturiere workshop. The old couple who live just behind Da E had visitors from Lome arrive. They told the woman her younger brother had died. She began to wail in mourning, but by the time Da E had run over to see what had happened, they realized that someone had stolen the woman's goat.
A death and a goat-theft. Lots of wailing. Who would steal a goat from a little old lady? Her husband was sitting near the goat, but he's nearly blind (and almost always blind drunk). It appears that the thief came up to the old man, chatted for a bit with him, calmly untied the goat and led it away when he left. It's almost unthinkable here. People let their goats roam everywhere, eating whatever the can find and somehow each family recognizes their specific goats and no one touches someone else's livestock. If you were going to steal a goat, why not take the one wandering around the road instead of the one tethered to the house of an elderly couple?
awful.

Current reading: The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin

15 November 2008

Here M is having a snack before getting ready to plant manioc. When I say 'getting ready' I mean she's cracking jokes and making all the rest of
us have fits of giggles.

15 November 2008

Apprentices

Here a couple great pictures of the three lovely apprentices at the couturiere workshop that my homologue runs.

Sometimes they do work in the fields at the end of the day.