May and
June are my last 2 months here in Togo, and as part of me feels like I’m
speeding along the road with my sight set on the US and the future, another
part feels like my speeding is out of control and I only have short term
vision- just looking at one bump in the road right in front of me. Because, when you have so much going on
around you here in Togo, how can you focus on your future in the US, which
seems like a world away? Anyway, many
days these two aspects seem to be colliding, and I can just sortof roll with
it.
MAY 1st:
LABOR DAY
Labor Day,
like last year, was a super holiday. Everyone
loves labor day here. The whole town and
nearby surrounding villages come to Kante to participate in a parade, which features
practically every single person- every ethnic group, every village, every
organization and group no matter how active or inactive, marches across the
soccer field. People dance, people
drink, and people eat. Everyone gets
together with their coworkers and feasts.
If an “office” is going all out, everyone will buy the same fabric and
make outfits to wear for this day, so that everyone in the “office” has the
same uniform. I arrived at the soccer field
late, hoping that I wouldn’t be as noticed as usual, and avoiding any “waiting
for hours and marching across the soccer field in the hot sun” that may be
expected. But, of course I was not
unnoticed, being the only white person there, but luckily no one asked me to
participate in the parade. Instead, I
spoiled my friend’s daughter, buying her a bag of cold juice and letting her
take a couple pictures. Then, we met up
with my friend and the other staff members of AED to eat and drink and
dance. After we were stuffed, I went
with another friend to a bar where more people were dancing. A group of older women were going from table
to table, dancing the traditional dance.
An older lady, her face lined with wrinkles, pulled me from my chair and
into the dancing group. She started
doing the traditional dance, characterized by really quick, almost jumping,
movements, with arms going in various directions. Then she stopped while I tried to mimic her
moves, and as I stopped she started again.
We went on like this for a while, with the group of ladies cheering us
on; It was almost like a dance off –
although I’m certain she won.
COS
CONFERENCE and GOODBYEs
Close of
Service “COS” is the final step of a Peace Corps Volunteer’s service. It stands, ominously or impatiently
(depending on the day), at the end of your service like the ribbons of a finish
line. When you’re having a bad day, you
fantasize about the day you COS and return to America. When you’re having a good day, you consider
extending, pushing your COS date into the future, so that you can stay in Togo forever-or
just longer. So, when COS Conference
arrived, everyone was in a strange limbo, ready to leave Togo and go home, but
at the same time not ready to leave Togo and go home. During the conference, we had sessions about
job-hunting, resumes, and all the paperwork that must be done before you leave the
country. It was so a wake-up call to
reality: that, whether we like it or not, we will be leaving our little
communities in Togo- and returning to the US to face our dreams(friends,
family, food…), and our forgotten responsibilities (9-5 jobs, resumes, health
insurance..). COS conference was the
last time we were all together as a group- and following the conference, people
started to trickle out of Togo. We had
already said goodbye to Stacie with a rice castle vs. bottlesaurus party, and
we began to say goodbye to others, who we may or may not see again.
PROMOHANDICAP
– PUMP
I am
totally in love with this PromoHandicap project; Actually, I have a love hate
relationship with it. Hate, because all
the little Togo things that are bound to go wrong and make things difficult
seem to be magnified when you’re actually trying to manage something you really
care about. And Love, because everyone
in the PromoHandicap team is amazing, and going through every part of this
project together-both frustrations and joys- has brought me to my favorite
parts of Togo. The first part of the
project involves all the health aspects of the school (building a water pump
for water access, building a shower are for personal hygiene, and latrines for-
obvious other hygiene. Although we
started this project for the school and the students who are deaf and blind, we
have found that there is a huge secondary (unintentional but greatly needed)
community who will benefit: the people of Deoute, where the school will be
built. The families of Deoute are
textbook examples of poverty and all the health and other negative aspects that
go with it. The chief lives in a mud
hut, with two wives and about 13 young children. The kids have swollen bellies and some have
bald spots, skin rashes, and reddish hair along with their scrawny faces, arms,
and legs. The dogs are tiny, almost like
toys, and incredibly skinny. Dirt is
everywhere and the naked kids, when not playing with the dirty dogs or machetes
or whatever else they can find, just sit and hang out in the dirt, watching us
as we come to discuss plans with their father, the chief. The older children walk away to pee and poop,
but the youngest of them usually just goes wherever he is, whether it’s on the
flat rock where they prepare food, or in the middle of the meeting area. Their water comes from the muddy stream nearby,
and I mentally cringe every time his wife brings out a cup of water, hoping I
won’t be expected to drink it. So, when
the team of water pump technicians began the construction of a water pump
(after an insane amount of delay), I was thrilled. Now, this community (as well as the future
PromoHandicap school) will have access to clean water. Little by little, I hope this project will
bring benefits to Deoute. A week or so
after they finished construction, we inaugurated the pump. Everyone- women, men, children, dogs- brought
benches and chairs and came to the pump to celebrate. Alisha and I talked about hygiene and did a
couple hygiene activities with them, and then we talked about how to use and
care for the pump, and then everyone said a million thank yous to everyone
else, before drinking tchouk (local beer) and celebrating till dusk
arrived.
PROMOHANDICAP-
building SHOWERs
My alarm
has been set for 4:50AM for a couple weeks now. Every morning I’ve gotten up, had some
coffee (while reviewing MCAT stuff), and then admired the sunrise while biking
off to Deoute, the small village where we will be constructing the school. One of these mornings I arrived to find that
the promised sand had not yet been ramassed by the community, and the
construction team who arrived shortly after and who needed sand to make bricks,
would not be able to start. We went to
the talk to the chief and after a lot of discussion and questioning realized
that the early rainy season this year meant that everyone spent all their time
in the fields farming; no one had time to get sand. It was obvious that my schedule (I had to
finish the shower construction soooon since I would be leaving Togo soon) did
not correlate with their schedule at all, which is fine, but incredibly
frustrating. So, after freaking out a
bit, Tcheou (the president of promohandicap) grabbed a bucket and headed to the
stream, ready to collect sand. We all
followed, and soon our group of five collected enough sand to get the construction team started. But it is seriously hard work! – it doesn’t
sound difficult- walking a quarter mile to the stream, filling a bucket with
sand, placing it on your head so that it hurts least, and then walking back-but
over and over again it starts to get painful!
(we later did this with really big bricks- which was the worst- at one
point I dropped my brick and it was too heavy to pick back up by myself) But, call me crazy- but part of me actually
really enjoyed this part- I felt like I was really involved and determined- “I
am going to get this school built if I need to carry every last brick there on
my own head” of course, I also think we
may have been delirious from fatigue, as Alisha and I kept on laughing randomly
as we were walking.
TOGO IS
KICKING ME OUT
The past
couple weeks, everything I own has become broken or lost. Maybe not everything, but certainly enough to
catch my attention. First, my
refrigerator broke. No big deal,
everyone lives without a refrigerator, and I mainly just use it during hot
season or when I have veggies that tend to spoil. Then, the screen on my camera broke. After 2 years and much abuse by everyone, the
screen suddenly broke when I sat on it.
But, it still worked- I just couldn’t see the pictures I was
taking. Then- in one week, I lost my
computer cord, lost my phone charger, my camera completely broke, and my gas
(for cooking) ran out. Luckily I was
able to trace my computer cord back to a town in the south and with the help of
some other peace corps volunteers, was able to get it back. But, my gas is a pretty significant thing to
run out. My neighbors, more often than
not, share their food with me, but never on a schedule. Previously, if they shared their food, I
would eat that, and if they didn’t, I would cook something. But now, I need to plan ahead and by street
food if I think they won’t share that meal.
It often ends up being that I buy street food on the days when they share
food, so I end up eating 2 dinners and going to sleep stuffed beyond capacity,
or I won’t by street food and they won’t share, so I go to sleep slightly
hungry. There is no medium. As I’m writing this, I’m hoping they have
extra corn mush pate to share, because there was a huge thunderstorm, so there
are no street vendors selling street food.
If not I will just eat some amazing granola bars that my amazing parents
sent – THANK YOU!!!
RAINY
SEASON with GOATS
Rainy
season came early this year, with giant storms soaking Kante in May, as opposed
to last year’s mid-late June. The first
storms are like a memory – a friend you haven’t seen or heard from in
awhile. The distance noise of rain smacking
tin roofs from across town, and then the sudden strong winds that slam doors
shut and cause everyone to run to the nearest shelter, all leading up to the
downpour- so loud that your voice can’t be heard and so fast that you can fill
up a 15 liter bucket with rain water in a matter of minutes. This year, my neighbors have begun raising
goats, so there are always baby goats running and jumping around. If I’m not paying attention, one will just
come right into my house while I’m working.
When the rains come, the goats completely freak out. They start sprinting in all directions,
screaming like toddlers in the midst of a temper tantrum, in an effort to escape
rainstorm, that I’m convinced they imagine to be the end of the world. The kids in the compound have the
responsibility to ensure all the goats get into this small shelter during the
rainstorm. But the goats, not realizing
they have their own rain shelter, sprint around the compound like a chicken
with its head cut off, eventually aiming for any kind of shelter they can find,
often my house. The kids are sprinting
after them, jumping and lunging, trying to grab a leg or torso, before the downpour
starts. Sometimes they catch one, bring
it to the goat shelter, only to have the goat run away again, leading to another
extreme game of “catch the goat”. If the
kids have no luck at all, like today, the downpour will start before all the
goats are caught, and they will be forced to chase the goats in the pouring
rain.
WHOA MY CAT
JUST JUMPED SUPER HIGH AND CAUGHT A MOTH IN MID-FLIGHT!
TCHEOU’s
WIFE
Tcheou, the
incredibly motivated president of PromoHandicap is one of the most amazing Togolese
men I know. He is respectful to women,
believing that we (women) are smart and useful beyond just cooking and cleaning. In fact, his daughter is the top of her class
in the physics and mathematics track!
This is amazing, because girls are soo underrepresented in the
science/math area. Most teachers automatically
just put them in the arts/linguistics tracks.
Of course this is not bad in itself, but a girl should be given the opportunity to
pursue science if she wants. Anyway, his
daughter wants to be a physics professor and I am so proud of her. Anyway, the other day, Alisha called me,
saying that Tcheou’s wife had been struck by a car and was in the hospital. She has a head injury and two completely
broken ankles that require surgery to be fixed.
GIRLS
SCHOLARSHIP
Like I’ve
mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been working with Shippensburg University
Honors Program. They raised $1300 just to
help girls succeed in education in Kante!
With this support, we were able to create a high school girls
scholarship for this coming school year, as well as buy some well-needed books
and notebooks to help them study. Each
girl interested in the program wrote an essay about what their dream is. There were so many different responses: mid-wife, physics professor, flight attendant,
international business woman, religious sister, teachers, researchers…. There
was enough money that all the girls who applied were able to receive the
scholarship, and there will be money left over.
So, at the commencement of the school year, if a girl who has need wants
to enter high school, she be able to talk to another peace corps volunteer here
and get financial assistance.
PREPARING
FOR HOME
So, I go home
on July 6. It’s weird. I have a plan, but at the same time feel like
everything in my plan is a priority and feel like om sprinting from one thing
to the next in an effort to ensure everything will be ok. First of all, I’m taking my dog Poppy
home. Arriving here, I didn’t think I
would ever take a dog home, but after spending every single day – the highest
of the days and lowest of the lows - with Poppy, I have become seriously
attached, and can’t stand to consider his fate as grilled market meat if I leave
him here. So, it’s been a bit of a
nightmare working out a flight to get him home – flights are already confusing
and difficult to plan here- where most agencies and airlines only accept
cash. Luckily, I worked it all out, and
now just need to get all his shots and stuff a couple days before leaving. Secondly on my list of “stressed out”-ness is
the MCAT. I’ve been studying basically
since I got here, but as the day approaches, and I realize how difficult it is
to take online practice exams from Togo- I’ve become stressed. I’ve realized I’m not used to sitting in front
of a computer or thinking of physics/bio for long intense periods of time, and
I’m worried how that will affect my performance. Thirdly – med school appplications. The applications became available May 31, but
it is so annoying and expensive doing everything from Togo…grr.. And finally, job- I need to find some type of
work between the time I get home to the time I hopefully enter med school. So, that’s my list. I’m stressed with this stuff- I feel like the
“US” side of me and the “Togo” side of me has a billion things to do these next
couple weeks. Who knew saying goodbye
and saying hello at the same time could be so stressful. But, I think the most important part is to just
realize that these next weeks might be tough and challenging, but exciting - and
I’m just going to roll with it.
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