During the month of November, I stayed in Kante all of the time, except for a small
excursion to Kara for Club Espoir, and was therefore able to be with the people
I work with and my neighbors. There were
some exciting things, like the bat that was trapped in my house (again) and a
rat that somehow appeared in my bucket of water. But, besides those incidences, November was
just a nice chill month.
JE CONNAIS
AND THE CHICKEN DANCE
Je connais
(I don’t know his name, but that is how it’s pronounced) is my neighbor’s
kid. He is two years old, likes to
dance, make weird faces, yell at animals, wear my shoes, and thankfully, no
longer likes to pee on my floor (this seemed to be a favorite pastime of his
until recently). Anyway, I have
successfully taught him the chicken dance.
Now whenever I start humming the “nanananananana nanananananana nananana
na na na na”, he begins dancing until he realizes that everyone is staring and
laughing at him. I have also taught him
how to do the “bump it” greeting (bump your fist with his) instead of shaking
hands. In addition to using this “secret
handshake” to form a type of exclusive club for me and him, I also use the
“bump it” greeting to avoid touching his hands and getting sick. (His hands are constantly covered in something
wet, sticky, smelly, possibly stain-causing, and more than likely diarrhea-causing.) My next goal for this kid is to teach him
English. I speak to him in English, which
my neighbors may see as a sign of my craziness, but I see it as individual
mentoring and training at young age. I
already taught his brother Maxime some phrases like “hello how are you I am
fine…” and “you are silly” and “I just want to be loved” and “show me the
money!”
SOCCER CLUB
The girl’s
soccer club has been continuing every Saturday morning. The directrice of the middle school found an
assistant coach for me. I have a love
hate relationship with him. He knows how
to coach soccer, which I love (because not much remains from my memory of
playing soccer in elementary school), but he is a martinet! He is so freaking strict and
punishment-oriented. I had
(idealistically as always) envisioned the club to be an avenue for girls, who
have so many more responsibilities than boys and always work hard, just to have
fun. I can tell some of the girls are
“on my side” too. One time they were
laughing because they screwed up, and then the assistant coach yelled at them
to stop laughing. According to him, soccer
must not be fun, it must be about winning.
I suppose that this battle of “Have fun” vs. “play to win” is
universal. *sigh* oh well.
HANDICAP SCHOOL
There are many
blind and deaf people in my town. I say
“many” because I know more people here than I’ve ever known –or have even seen-
in the US. There is a Togolese
missionary named Tcheou who works with them, and has been working and teaching
for years and years. Some of the kids he
taught are now adults and continue to help out at the school when they
can. One is a blind guy who works around
the corner from my house. His name is
Mensa and he works at a water pump; people come to him if they want water. Women line up with buckets on their head and
he turns the water on, turning it off when the bucket is full and collecting
the coins that he will hand over to the pump owner. He makes 7000 FCFA (about $14.00) a
month. Anyway, it was through Mensa that
my neighbor Alisha learned about the handicapped school. We visited the small school once. You need to walk along the national highway
for about ¼ or ½ mile before turning off and following the winding rut-filled
path to the small room where they have classes.
It’s about the size of a US laundry room or bathroom, and was full of 15
kids. Most of them were deaf; the blind
kids obviously have more trouble getting to the school, so often do not go. We started talking to Tcheou and listened to
his stories and ideas. How there are so
many handicapped people all over the prefecture (county) who cannot go to
school and are often just abused in their own towns. How it would be great to have a bigger room
to teach more children. How it would be
great to have a dormitory so blind kids could stay, not worry about trying to
find the school along the national highway.
How it would be great to have a garden or other income generating things,
so the kids could learn how to make money and be self-sufficient. We talked a lot- and now we are planning/brainstorming
ideas of what we can do to help this group.
It is seriously probably the best group I’ve worked with. Most groups, without fail, always seem to
have a hidden agenda of making money (which is not necessarily bad a bad hidden
agenda- but just annoying when you come here wanting to work with skills and
teach healthy living and behavior- and not just give out money). But, regardless of whether giving out money
is “good” or “bad”, it is just such a relief to meet a group of people who have
done so much work for themselves and their group without much outside
assistance. It means that they will continue-
they’ve continued for that past 20 some years- and they’ll continue after. But one thing is certain- there is so much
potential- any help would be well utilized and appreciated.
GIRLS CLUBS
So, I had
planned to start a girls club, and a science club- but it is so difficult
finding a lot of interest in science among girls L !
So, now I have started multiple girls’ clubs- 3 to be exact- and am
determined to somehow implement science in any way I can. I have this great super idealistic idea that
I can buy a cheap microscope in the US, bring it back, and then find out how to
get the ingredients for agar plates, have the girls go get swipes from
different surfaces around town, and then grow bacteria and see it under the
microscope. I have somehow convinced
myself that if girls are involved in this, they will start to like
science. But, for now, I have just been
getting things going. The three are all
different. You would not believe that
the three group meetings started from the same plan. One group likes to sing- a lot. I am not a singing type of person. But, I suck it up for this group, and most
recently taught them “We wish you a merry Christmas”. The other group, probably my favorite group,
likes to play games outside- like active sporty games. They somehow understand the directions right
away, whereas the singsong group is slow to catch on to sports. Then there is the last group. This group is best in the actual discussions
that go on in the classroom- they seem to understand what I’m trying to get at
whereas the other two groups seem completely lost sometimes. I like them a lot too. I guess the only group I have trouble with is
the singsong group just because I feel like I am always pushing them to work,
and must take breaks to sing songs- whereas the other groups don’t seem as
difficult to motivate. (Although maybe
it is just me who is difficult to motivate when you throw singing into the
program.)
ISMAEL
VISIT
My boss,
Ismael, comes and visits every volunteer a couple times a year. He is a great boss- it’s obvious that he
cares about the volunteers and somehow understands the unique type of
difficulties we have as Americans being in Togolese culture. So, his visits are always like a breath of
fresh air- I can get so bogged down, thinking about doing things and trying to
get things to work and getting frustrated, and then being elated when things do
work – his visits put everything in perspective. For example, I love the hospital- I used to
go there every single day. But, I
started to notice that when I arrived at the hospital and began helping with
the work, someone would leave- a nurse, midwife, etc... Would disappear. I began put two and two together, and
realized they were leaving because I was doing their work. This is something I knew I didn’t want to do:
take the place of someone else. So, I
scaled back my work at the hospital and now only go to say hi once in a while. After explaining this to Ismael, he said that
many volunteers feel this way: that they take the place of someone else. And he said that this is not true. At the hospital, there is a ton of work to
do; when I show up and someone leaves, they are probably just leaving to do
another job- more work that needs to be done.
I was really happy to hear this, and am going to start returning to the
hospital to work- I love the hospital; I think I just needed a reason to go
there. While he was here, we also
discussed the future of Kante, my town.
It looks like, with Peace Corps budget cuts, many villages will be
getting cut (regarding volunteer placement), and Kante might be one of
them. I have mixed feelings about
this. Of course, I love my town, and I
want the best for the people I work with, and more opportunities are available,
or just more easily accessible, with a volunteer. But, knowing that Kante doesn’t need another
volunteer makes it, in a way, a success story.
Volunteers have been here since 2002, have helped start organizations,
and worked with tons of individuals, promoting health and girls’ education, and
connecting people to opportunities they may never have had. Now, its time to leave – Kante is good. I suppose this sounds like a lot of blabber –
but I think I am just preparing myself emotionally, for something I assumed
would never happen: that I won’t have a replacement.
CLUB ESPOIR
Club
Espoir, the monthly club for children infected or affected with HIV/AIDS is
always a fun experience. They play
games, talk, dance, sing, and eat a nutritious meal. With all the amusement going on, it’s easy to
forget that these kids have been through much more than many people will ever
experience and most would care to know about.
But, once in a while, eyes are reopened. Something happens, someone makes a comment,
someone shows up with a weird rash – or worst of all—someone doesn’t show up
again… Anyway, this past club was
focused on time and money management. My
group, (who most volunteers refer to as the trouble maker group) was learning
about how you can save a little change every day in a tin can converted piggy
bank. But, some of the kids weren’t sure
how they could even begin to find change.
We started to ask questions around the room, trying to prompt them to
think of when and where they ever have spare change. It soon became clear that lots of kids had
change in the morning to buy something to eat at school. But, we came to one girl who said she did not
get money before school. We asked her what
she does for food- does she eat before or at school? “Yes,” she said, “sometimes if there is corn
mush that Papa didn’t eat the night before, we take the leftovers and split it
in half. One half is for the dog to
eat. The other half is for my sister and
I to share.
THE BAT
RETURNS
About a
year ago, a bat entered my house at night, causing me to run around and scream
for the neighbors, who henceforth guided it out the door. I thought it would never happen again- that
it was a once in a lifetime- experience, but apparently it was not. The bat-or his friend- returned. At night, my lights were on and the bat shot
into my room. A second later (after
realizing what it was), I ran out and over to my neighbors door. Like last time, I did not remember the French
word for bat, so I flapped my arms like wings and said “There is a thing that
does this in my room!” My neighbors knew
immediately what I was talking about and all the kids ran over to watch. The oldest kid, Yassime grabbed my broom and
started swinging at the bat. Soon he
made contact, and the defeated bat fell to my couch. The kids ran to see what it looked like and
see if it was big enough to eat, but after realizing it wasn’t big enough to
cook and eat, they focused on playing with its wings and asking me to take
their picture.
THANKSGIVING
Travis
lives in an incredibly small village.
There is one primary school, one small store, and a tiny one-room
church. If kids graduate from primary
school and want to go to middle school, they must walk the 7km to the
neighboring town every day. A small
village, like everything, has is positives and negatives, but one positive is
that it doesn’t take a lot to have a party for the whole town. In a way, Travis did this for thanksgiving; he
invited about 30 people, hired a woman to cook a ton of food, and gave any
leftover food to whoever was not invited.
Four of us volunteers were there, and after a lunch of fufu prepared by
the village’s midwife, we all waited until night. At dusk, students brought benches from school
over to the clearing in the center of the village, and everyone gathered
around. Travis made a speech, in the
limelight of the flashlight (his village has no electricity) and then the women
served food and tchouk (the local beer). A few more speeches were made, and then people
started to take turns telling jokes or stories.
Nothing is better than observing Togolese story time- People get sooooo
into the stories- both the storytellers and the audience. One guy continuously made comments, gasps of
surprise, and laughed hysterically at the jokes. WE stayed in the darkness listening to the
stories and drinking tchouk until most of the people left. It was such a wonderful- almost perfect-
Thanksgiving. The only thing that could
have been better was if we had eaten the racist turkey. Unfortunately, the other feast that we had
planned for Thanksgiving was canceled, and the turkey was left to live. I think I will just pardon it.
POLIO
VACCINATION CAMPAIGN
For years,
people have been predicting the eradication of polio. And, although no new reported cases have been
found in Togo in quite a few years, surrounding countries have had cases,
meaning that there is still a threat. The
many handicapped people are also a reminder that Polio is not an eradicated and
forgotten disease like it is in the US.
So, there are polio vaccination campaigns in which Togolese are hired to
go to regions of the country, vaccinating children in the large cities to the
most remote villages. In addition, the
WHO hires people to monitor the campaign, making sure that the vaccinators are
doing their job. I usually tag along
with these monitors and “show them around”; strangely, I know the prefecture
and the people better than they do. The
last two polio vaccination campaigns were in April and May- during hot
season. This time, it took place in the
mini hot season, meaning it was still hot, but not ungodly hot like April. My prefecture seems to be one of the most
disorganized, with only one paved road (the national highway) and many unpaved
and/or undriveable paths linking villages.
Some villages, because of the mountains, are more easily accessed from
Benin or other prefectures of Togo than from my prefecture capital. So, it’s always a challenge/adventure going house/hut
to house/hut and asking if the vaccinators had arrived and done their job.
MALARIA
ACTION COMMITTEE
Malaria is
one of those diseases that are completely non-existent in the developed world,
but a huge huge HUGE problem in parts of developing world. It’s the biggest killer in my prefecture and
one of the biggest killers in all of sub-Saharan Africa. When you go into the pediatric wing of the
hospital here, you walk into a big cement room with tons of beds separated by
little cubicle-type walls. Sick kids are
there with their mothers, and if you walk through the cubicle aisles asking
what this or that kid has, you will hear “palu,” the word for malaria, for
probably 8 out of every 10 kids. But
people have been used to living with it for so long that they often don’t seem
to take it seriously. Almost everyone
knows sleeping under a mosquito net helps prevent malaria- but so many people
choose not to- because its hot (it actually really does make it hotter- I
didn’t believe it at first) or stuffy or because they cut up their mosquito net
and use it for other purposes. Anyway,
the Health domain of Peace Corps Togo is getting re-vamped with a new malaria
initiative- and I get to be one of the coordinators! Yay!
First, every volunteer is going to do a house to house (hut to hut)
survey (leading to 50-70 houses) to try to get a real idea of what the mosquito
net situation is. (The malaria stats the
Togo provides aren’t quite accurate). Anyway,
this is just the start – and I’m excited to be one of the leaders in this group
and I will continue to talk about it as the month’s progress.
