Dysentery Has It's Perks..

Namely hot showers, baths and air conditioning in the Peace Corps infirmary in Lome--which also means an internet connection fast enough to post pictures! Before I post a few, though, I'll briefly touch on my sickness a bit.

Three days ago I was working in the garden clearing some bamboo and trying to avoid a gnarly colony of ants and decided to take a break before lunch and head to the weekly market in a neighboring town for some cabbage and tofu (luxury ingredients for my village). I stopped back at my house to get my moto helmet and when I did I was stricken with horrible indigestion and decided to rest for a while. Within an hour I was incapacitated and vomiting into plastic bags in my bed. After consulting my health literature (see last entry) to see if this qualified as an emergency I called the after-hours health line of the Peace Corps and was told to rest, take some over the counter medicine that I already had and drink water with rehydration salts. By 11 at night I was in no way better and was told by my medical officer to wake up my homologue who lives next to me and have him run out and buy some antibiotics. It should be noted that in Togolese culture this is perfectly appropriate as sick people (especially guests) are looked after quite well, but this also meant that within 20 minutes the entire village would know I was sick and would want to send me well wishes. Luckily it was late enough that I didn't have any visitors coming to check on my health until the next morning...when I was already on my way to finding a car to Lome. After a horrendous taxi trip (worst than the typically horrid taxi trips that I've grown accustomed to), I stumbled into the med unit severely dehydrated, and looking admittedly pretty rough. Yet, it is amazing how your spirits are lifted once you step into air conditioning and taste cold water for the first time in months and I soon perked up. Now I'm just taking some extra tests to make sure that all I have is bacterial dysentery and not parasites or amoebas. All in all, nothing to out of the ordinary here, I should be back at post real soon!

Anyway, here are a few pics from the last couple months:

Me during training teaching junior high aged kids about reforestation

My host mom and I cooking on my last night of training

My village from above the Teak plantation, on the way to the top of the plateau

I took this at a fete that took place in my village at 8:00 in the morning after the government named the town as a new "canton": something like a township in the States. Basically my village will be the government seat or center for the surrounding area: which means more prestige and federal money coming in. The white powder on the lady is baby powder, which is thrown on you by party-goers (myself included). I was awaken by fireworks at sunrise on the day of the fete and when I made my way to where everyone was gathered there was already loads of Palm wine being ceremoniously spilled (and later drank) for the ancestors by one of the local fetish priests (we would call him a witch doctor).

So that is all I can put up for right now, but I'll be back in Lome (healthy hopefully) in a month or two and will post more then! Hope all is well with everyone back home!

J

Il Faut Laiser

As I lay down to write this entry (from my bed—not yet the café), I can’t seem to focus on my task of detailing all that is Togo to you. I’m rather convinced I’ve chipped the enamel of one of my molars and I just can’t stop inspecting it with my cell phone flashlight and mirror.

This time it was the salt…probably pulled straight from the sea, for all I know, it was only 100 franc (a quarter) for a big bag resembling what one sprinkles on their driveway in winter. Usually the culprit is a stray rock in the local rice, or a dried bean in whatever (today there was one in my crushed red pepper).

I’m not too worried about it, though; you can go crazy overanalyzing your health here, flipping through the pages of your peace corps issued health literature every night. I’m making a concerted effort to avoid that…besides, I think dental work beyond cleanings gets you a trip to Senegal, and I’ve heard Dakar is lovely this time of year.

****

At present, my first few months at post are moving along quite leisurely. Eventually I’ll start reporting back news of how I’m saving the environment of Togo and so forth, but for now I’m more occupied with seemingly small projects. I’ve been working a lot on my garden: hiring some kids to clear the dead brush and buying my own coupe-coupe (West African French for machete) and a big hoe, which works as a shovel, rake and incidentally a hammer. In fact, it is apparently quite out of the ordinary to see a white man weaving through the crowd at the big weekly market with such hardware. I don’t know why no one believed me when I told them that I was a farmer.

The garden itself is coming along quite nicely, though I’ve been diligently trying to select which trees and plants I want cut and which I want left for nitrogen-fixing, live fencing and so on and that has been taking up quite a bit of time. I’m also trying to avoid burning the dead brush covering the land (for the betterment of the soil)which is a revolutionary concept for my neighbors who burn the bush quite regularly in order to clear land but also prevent larger fires (which doesn’t work but I’ll save that for now). My land has a nice stand of banana trees which I’ll be able to harvest and an area with some sugar cane that I’ll cut back a bit to build a sort of thatch roofed, pup-tent shaped gazebo where I can set up my hammock. All in all, the privacy and natural setting of my garden is a wonderful change from my rather bustling compound.

****

Two quick updates as I post this from the internet café:
-First, I did partially nick my tooth on that salt, but I wouldn’t call it a chip. Regardless, my next purchase at the marché will be a good sifter!
-Second, I just was able to pick up some big packages here in my regional capital and want to thank those who sent items! A special thank you to my mother for sending meat from home, summer sausage, jerky and any other pork/beef/expensive meat that I can have sent from home blows people’s minds here. I try and tell them about the preservatives that we have in our food that make month long voyages possible, but I soon found out that preservatif apparently means condom in French. People, needles to say, were rather curious about Americans putting condoms in food…

J

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

Happy Holidays Everyone! I know this a little late for Christmas but I wanted to both thank everyone for the wonderful messages and gifts (!) and let everyone know that I’m doing well and have been having a delightful Togolese holiday season so far.

I spent Christmas with American friends, and after I leave the internet café I’m heading back to village where I am hopefully going to partake in a pig slaughter and feast (hopefully more feast than slaughter for me) if my quartier can find one for sale.

I have missed you all over the last week or so (and always do, of course), but I have great people around me that help to keep me company—and again, the mail I’ve been getting has been incredible.


Now, a few brief notes on my first few weeks at post:

-The first few days of life on my new village were basically occupied by trying to find the basic things for furnishing my small, yet near empty (I’m borrowing a table and two chairs) space. I have a carpenter up in a town that is about 15 minutes away by car/moto that I’ve ordered a bed and bookshelf from. Now, I should have probably gotten both by now, but of course that hasn’t really panned out…my carpenter did buy me some grilled pig back fat on market day, though, which smothered in hot piment and onions is delicious.

-Speaking of cooking, the transition to living by myself has meant that I have been able to start cooking for myself once again. I have been meaning to write something long on the food here in Togo, but to give you just a taste, everything usually revolves around yams, manioc, corn, rice and beans. That means that during my training I ate either some combination of that or something like pasta that your host family thinks you like but that tastes nothing like pasta you grew up with. Also, things like potatoes and other tubers (which there are a lot of) aren’t prepared like we might be accustomed to. Yet now that I am on my own with my own cooking setup and ingredients I can basically recreate most things I want. Cheese, though, is sorely missed by everyone here…there is laughing cow processed cheese but I miss the real thing more than any other food from home.

-As far as work is concerned we are generally discouraged from starting any serious projects the first three months, and rather focus on finding out what major issues there are affecting the community. I have been able to help out some around the garden (not mine yet, but that will be cleared soon), showing a man I know how to terrace garden beds in relation to a slope to help conserve top soil/slow erosion. Also I attended a groupement meeting, toured some more fish ponds I’ll be working with and went to an HIV/AIDS sensibilisation. Soon enough Id like to start on some soy milk demonstrations and other smaller jobs—yet for now, I’m just focusing on settling in…

Happy Holidays again!!!

J

The Internet is Overrated Anyway...

Ok that is a boldface lie...I'm sitting here in the volunteer lounge using internet that actually works and I'm in awe that I once had access to this splendid creation anytime I wanted.

Sorry I havent been on for a while (you're going to hear that a lot by the way). A mixture of blackouts, broken connections and a busy training schedule have made it near imposible.

Im here in Lome, after having officially sworn in as a volunteer last night, running around the town buying things at the market for the new house that I'll be permanently moving into tomorrow. What a change a few months have brought in my perspective on Togo...When I first arrived here Lome felt foreboding and dark, the nighttime drive across town from the airport was a culture shock in and of itself. I was thrown, it felt, into a crumbling city in an underdeveloped country in a region that we as westerners perceive to be at the heart of the third world.

Now, though, Lome seems downright cosmopolitan. The sandy streets of the kodjoviakope district, where the Peace Corps bureau is, seems as sophisticated as Lincoln Park, The Pearl or Dupont Circle. I can buy (and did just yesterday) heinz ketchup, kikoman(sp?) soy sauce, Aunt Jemima syrup, Bush's baked beans and Belgian beer.

It feels much more like home than what I could have imagined 11 weeks ago.

At 7:00 tomorrow morning I head off to post for good, and I'm thrilled after what I discovered during my weeklong visit some weeks back. On top of the great work oppurtunities with groupements for fishfarming, coffee and cacao, rice and reforestation my village is lovely and everyone is incredibly nice.

My house is small but has electricity, a water tap outside and a running toilet in my bathroom (which isnt connected to my house, but still great). As soon as I hire a carpenter for some furniture and settle in properly I'm sure the place will rival any studio apt I could have imagined back home!


Take care, I'll do my best to write again soon(ish)!

J

15 minutes at the (new and if anything worse) internet cafe and i thought idpump outr a quick post before going to my post tomorrow morning at 5:30.

First off a quick story... yesterday i caught word on the street that there was going to be a jazz concert in my little african village at one of the two bars in town. Something about italians building a road through town for a nonprofit and playing jazz on the side. I didnt believe it at first but decided i needed to investigate.

So i told my Togolese mama that i was off to listen to music (which involved me dancing and whistling as she does not actually speak french above salutations and basic instructions) and asked where my host brother was to see if he was going. She said she didnt know which was quite odd as everyone knows where everyone is at all times.

So i left and when i arrived at the bar i saw the generator driven lights flickering and a group of at least 300 people (including my brother missing brother) listening to an actual full piece jazz band.

I found my compatriots in the crowd and leaned over to one to ask for reassurance that this was in fact bizzare.

"dude, you missed the bagpipes at the begining of the show"

I turns out that the Frenchmen (not italians as i akwardly figured out while trying to speak in italian) do work solely in my training village and brought along a band a couple Brits with bagpipes.

The night capped off with me dancing to the drumming and singing which followed the group and finally returning home with my brother only to find my mother waiting outside my house on the road for us. And lest there be any doubt, the look of an angry mother whose son(s) come home too late is universal...

Post Assignments

First off, apologies for the delay in getting this post out to the masses. When I commented lasrt time that I found a functioning internet cafe that was a little misleading...really I found a cafe which has intenet half of the time they're open.

Really, I'm just trying to give everyone a taste of what is to come when I' actually in the bush, at post.

On that note, I'll start by saying that I received my much anticipated post assignment last week. During our training we're given a list of the available villages in which we can spend our two years here, along with descriptions of the availalable work at the site. The descriptions aren't very long at all--basically just the bare bones about the site and possible work options. We're then given a questionaire and told to list basic preferences in regards to the size of the town, distance from the city and so on. To be honest, I didn't have any burning preferences--only suggestions for what type of work I thought I'd be good. Though, I did say I wanted a new post rather then a replacement post (being the first westerner in a village has its charm, plus I really dont want to be compared to anyone who came before me).

Luckily, I got both a new post and a village which seems to be receptive to work areas like reforestation, fish farming and general conservation. All of which I understand and am enthusiastic about. Though I admit that with a degree like fisheries and wildlife science I should know much more about fish farming than I actually do.

I'm fairly certain I can't actually write the name of the village for security reasons, but I'm in the plateau region in the SW of the country. The area is hilly and receives the most rainfall in Togo with some of the coolest temperetaures. Which, as you might expect, I'm thrilled about.

Next Saturday we leave to go and visit the sites for a week. Which should be exciting, terrifiying and completely different then training with a bunch of Americans...

More to come soon (hopefully), take care tout le monde!

C'é Monsieur Yovo Pour Toi!

Touching down on the tarmac, the reality of the situation hit home...orientation in Philly hadn't done it, nor the layover in Paris (including trying to figrue out how to describe a solar charger in French to curious security guards). For the first time really, I came to see what I had gotten myself into--and I froze. Sitting in the middle seat of a giant Airbus, trying to make out what lie outside, I couldn't move...

When I finally got my wits about me and exited the plane down a creeky staircase I emerged at an aiport with just one plane--ours--and proceeded into a shuttle with a Togolese driver sporting a suregeons mask. At that time, the itch in my throat I had picked up at home seemed certain to be swine flu. I was a goner, I knew it.

The shuttle roared to life and drove us approximately 50 yards to the terninal...the absurdity of the 5 second ride calmed my nerves. The rest of my unease soon came to be put to rest as well when I was shuffled into a room inside the terminal by an unknown American. In the sanctuary of that cranped roon, with the 30 or so other trainees I collected myself and prepared for the rest of my long journey.


Two weeks in I can't say that I've been cool and collected the entire time (damn you malaria pill-induced dreams), but I can say that I have not come to regret my decision to come here. Togo is a delightful place, though not one that I feel I can describe readily quite yet.

I live in a small town called Gbatopé, outside of Tsevié where other trainees in Girls empowerment live and where I currently am writing this). Gbatopé is an agricultural based town of about 5,000, with no electricity besides for the generators at two bars that power cold beers and LOUD reggae and American hip-hop (prorities, priorities). My days here commence with the rooster calls outside my window, followed by a full day of French lessons and agroforestry/natural resources classes. We have and experimental garden where we work everyday and look over our own personal beds of vegetables.

My trainers are great, and incredibly intelligent at what they do. The family that I stay with is also wonderful. I have a host brother of 14 and a slew of cousins who live near me. My host father is a farmer and the chief's brother--which is sort of a bid deal. My host mother is delightful and force feeds me three times a day and gives me a 'snack' of three oranges or a bushel of bananas every day.

Those of you who thought I'd be starving here will have to wait until I get to post for that premonition to come true, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately I'm out of time, but now that I know of a internet cafe with actual internet I'll be sure to update sometime soon!

Love you all, Jonathan...