Tender Togolese Christmas...

Merry Belated Christmas Everybody! I tried to post something before, but really for most of you it's only been 7 hours since Christmas ended. I spent my Christmas in Vogan with 9 other volunteers and 3 friends of Ashley (volunteer who lives in Notse and most awesome human ever) visiting for the holiday. 13 of us total. Lucky little number 13. We ate a big meal of bean loaf (for the vegetarians), chicken (killed right outside the window where I was sleeping the morning of Christmas Eve...somehow I slept through it all), cucumber and tomato salad, whole wheat bread (made by me and my fabo Dutch Oven), mashed taters (garlicee goodness), garlic cream sauce, and for dessert-apple pie and cookies. We ate this meal Christmas Eve, so for Christmas Day we ate a big breakfast of pancakes, hashed browns and scrambled eggs with Swiss cheese. We then opened our Secret Santa gifts. I got some glorious gifts. A very small stretch black tank top with a Titanic film poster awkwardly placed on the front (it doesn't really fit over my belly), a Twix bar, a Snickers bar, and a personally colored My Little Pony picture. I left in a rush for Vogan (by way of Lome), so I forgot several things: butter (lesson learned, never make a pie with margarine, I made 2 apple pies, one with butter, one with margarine and there was a large diff), underwear (lesson learned, um...I like to wear underwear) and my camera (no memory-maker). My Christmas was surreal this year. Being that I was hot and had what I think are allergies due to Harmattan (dust storm coming from the north, desert), it was not quite the Christmas' of yore. Also, Christmas Eve night starting at dinner time and ending around 2 a.m. there was a church revival happening right across the street from us with singing and drums so loud that we could not hear ourselves talking at the table. It actually sounded like they were going insane and about to enter into an orgy, but alas, it was just the "spirit" for the lord. The singing was off-key and it seemed as though they were just allowing people off the street to belt out a tune on the mic that didn't necessarily need to correspond with the drum beat or rhythm in general. Ear plugs would have only turned the volume down to a 10 (b/c 11 is even higher). And the only Christmas music we had to listen to was by Amy Grant. I did find a MP3 CD of Celine Dion (has 104 songs, well 103 b/c they must have miscounted somewhere) at the local boutique, no Christmas music but it did have that song that goes like this (dedicated to her son, Renee!):

"...hush now, I see the light in the sky, oh, it's almost blinding me. I can't believe I've been touched by an angel with luh woo wah ooh uhv. Let the rain come down and wash away my tears..."

Love it. It also has her famous song, "Je t'aime! Je t'aime....something sung in French. Je t'aime..." Intense.

Alexia, do you think you can cover some Celine with any one of your 4 bands? I might be able to sell the CD's here and make some cash. A moto driver told me his aunt lives near me in the states. Whenk I asked him where, he told me it was the same place as where Celine Dion is from...No m'am. Celine Dion and I do not and will never share location. Spreading cultural exchange and good cheer everywhere.

I saw my first funeral this past weekend in my village. 4 day event. Loud speakers. Music. Dancing. The night before the burial, they stayed up and sang and danced all night. That was an ear plug night and I slept like a little baby. But, then the next morning after the burial, the people in my village had a drum circle and danced. I have video and pictures from that and I will post it next time I can. It was really beautiful and almost like a wedding because it was treated more like a fete. A celebration of life, if you will. And my village doubled in size because family and friends from Lome and even Ghana came in and stayed during the whole event (actually next door to me). When I go back I will hopefully have my front porch back and can burn some trash (yeyas!) and wash some clothes. Happy New Year everybody! I'm still not sure what I will be doing for that, but I'm sure it will be a story. Can someone please e-mail me a plot summary of the most current events occurring on General Hospital (and by someone, I mean, Maren...). Also, Lee thank you thank you again for taking my cats. Please send me an e-mail or something with your address, so I can write you a letter and also get an update on the critters. Miss you all so much! It hurts.

So now for some words.

So this is Natasha, a.k.a "Natcho". Isn't her dress lovely? I am wearing a boubou. This photo was taken on the front porch of the director's home for Thanksgiving. I wore this boubou because I knew I was going to need some space. I ate a wonderful meal of corn pudding, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, mac and cheese, green beans, salad, stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie, cool whip, and mashed sweet potatoes. I was really uncomfortable afterwards, so we took a walk around the director's block and had to take several pauses. But it was amazing and I hope everyone elses' Thanksgiving was awesome, too. Have I explained to everyone what fufu is? Or pate? No? I will try...

1. Fufu is a staple in Togo and is made from either cassava or manioc, yams, cocoyams or plaintains. The root vegetable is first chopped into large chunks and then boiled until soft. The chunks are then pounded using a very large wooden mortar and pestle. Pounding the fufu is very laborious but the end result is very delicious, for some. I think it tastes like pastey mashed potatoes. You eat it with your hands and dip it into a usually boiling tomato based sauce.

2. Pate is made from cornmeal and water that they stir together with a magic wooden wand until it forms into a paste that they place into a bowl to keep its form. Like a jello mold. I don't like it very much and I have never made it. It's also eaten with your hands and with a boiling sauce that always burns the tips of my digits. And then there is beans and gari and I love it and eat it every day with a spoon.

I don't really know if I can explain how I am feeling. Some days I feel good and excited to be here. The next minute though I am ready to go back home and work at Magpies and forget this rollercoaster. It would be so easy to leave. But, I still feel like something really special is going to reveal itself to me. A buried treasure. A strength I didn't know I had. I want to cry just writing this because I miss everyone so much. I looked at the Magpies website today and showed everyone the bakery I keep talking about. I also saw an old picture of myself icing a cake (a sheet cake which actually didn't look too bad considering my history with building those bitches). I looked pretty and healthy even though I ate a pound of cake tops a day. I know being here is going to change me and maybe I need to just let it happen. My 3 months of integrating and accustoming myself to village life is over. It's time to start working. I feel useless and uninspired. It's hot. I'm a whiney baby and I want to help, but I still am not quite sure of what my role is here. I'm treated differently and with more respect that I don't see given to all. It's going to be weird to come back home and just be me again and not the yovo living in the big house that makes a specactle of herself when she pounds fufu with the kids. I miss home, but it will pass. It will come back again. And so will I in 2 years. I'm sending out lots of love to all of you. Please forgive me for not keeping up with e-mails. But, letters are so much better because I can read them over and over again at home. I read Alexia's letter to me about 10 times the day I got it. And I've read Mama's and Peggy's and Andrea's letters weeks after I first got them. Peace out y'all. Hi Niko and Chelsea you sweet little morsels...Bye byee-lo (this is bye in Ewe, Ghanaian influence?)...

And more...

My first bike accident during AIDS ride. I had 2. Came away with just one really long scratch.
Me at the bee-ach in Lome.

Ahh...the kids are pretty tender here. But I have no idea who they are. They saw some yovo action and they came running.

These are my favorite kids in village. Akbedje and MaFille in the front. Marie and Edouard behind them. Cousin and Benjamin behind them. Morsels. Akbedje helps me pound fufu. Okay I've only done it twice and she pretty much did it for me after I tried to do it for only5 minutes and got tired. It's no wonder that the women here have amazing arms and bodies. She also carries water for me and makes fun of me when I stand around awkwardly at the well waiting for my turn to throw the bucket down the well and hoist it back up.

Finally more pictures...

Taken night before I left for D.C. and jumped on the crazy train

Right before I became a volunteer. That's my homologue at the far left, my program director in the white shirt and me at my brand new house. That's my front yard!

Which one looks chunkier? I got a crazy bug bite that made my ankle into a cankle.

The view from my front porch right before a big storm.

AIDS ride sensibilisation. This one is about abstinence. "No, I don't want your fancy phone in exchange for sex. I'm busy studying pictures of men brushing their teeth, aight?".

Pedalon pour la prevention!

Hey y'all. I'm in Lome with faster than scheisse internet again! Yes. I just finished doing the AIDS bike ride for the Maritime region. Considering this had been the third time I had been on a bike, it was not too shabby. We biked 157 km in 5 days and did HIV/AIDS sensibilisations in about 10 or so villages. I fell off my bike twice with very little injuries. I was in an abstinence skit (the ABCD's of prevention: Abstinence, Bonne Fidelite (ie monogamy), Condom and Depistage (HIV test)) and also the stigmatisation skit where we asked people in the village if HIV was transmitted by sitting close to someon or eating fufu out of the same bowl with them...No! Anyhoo, the first day I wanted to ET (early termination y'all, I use this a lot) once again, but after that I had a great time. We spent the night in a dispensaire (walk-in clinic) one night where a woman was giving birth and where another woman was giving birth and crying in extra pain because she had been stung by a scorpion. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that much during the whole trip. We spent another night sleeping outside of a dispensaire on straw mats (pretty to wake up in the middle of the night to a clear sky of stars) as kids were staring at us on top of the wall surrounding the compound. I ate on this trip about 5 coconuts, 30+ bananas, 25 oranges and the mother load of street food which was rice and beans with gari (toasted and powdered manioc) and some hot ass piment sauce (my favorite food here so far, can eat it every day and i do). It was a great thing to do for me because it helped me actually see a sensibilsation done in French and Ewe and I also am now inspired to ride my bike more and possibly do more bike tours. It was also nice to be outside of my village and see other villages in the Maritime region. We started the tour in Assahoun and ended in Anecho. Our last sensibilsation was a big to do at the CEG (middle school) and the assistant to the U.S. Ambassador in Togo attended with his wife. This time I got to act in the condom skit. We used a large wooden penis to demonstrate how to properly put on a condom. It always got a pretty nice laugh. We also played a game where we tried to explain how HIV attacks the immune system using a lion and elephant metaphor. Baby elephant (the human body) is protected by it's elephant family (immune system) and HIV creates holes in the immune system that allows the lions (that represent other illnesses such as tuberculosis, diarrhea, etc) to attack the body. Pretty creative I thought and the crowd always loved it when we, the lions, came roaring out of the crowd to attack the volunteer from the crowd who was acting as the baby elephant.

This is a beautiful country and sometimes I would play my iPod as I would ride and it was really nice because then I wouldn't hear the yovo calling from the streets. But, in certain parts it was also nice to greet everyone walking on the street carrying large baskets of whatever from the nearby farms on their heads. Par example:

Me: Bon jour!
Them: Bon jouh! Efwa (are you fine in Ewe)?
Me: (screaming in the distance as I have just passed them) Eh! Mefo! (Yes, I am fine).
Them: (Laughter b/c anytime any volunteer speaks in Ewe it's funny, but I think it makes them very happy when we learn a little of the local language...but are they laughing at us or with us?).

And now I am in Lome taking it easy. I will leave for village tomorrow. Anytime I am in Lome I don't feel like I am in Togo because there is so much more available here. I am off to go to the grande marche (big market) to pick through the "dead yovo" clothes that the vendors spread out on large plastic sacks (dead yovo b/c a yovo would have to be dead to give up these awesome clothes--but they have just left them behind as I plan to do when I leave Togo--, sometimes I can find some pretty okay stuff). I bought some sunglasses yesterday that are Nicole Richie big except they have "gold" designs on the ear pieces that make them extra "coutoure"-ish. The vendor on the street told me they were the real thing. Has anyone ever heard of the brand "Feidi"? Pretty sure it's Fendi, aight?

I wish that there were a Fall here because it's so pretty and it's my favorite season. I saw a picture of Alexia wearing a sweater and a light jacket. I want to be cold. And wear socks. I feel like I have so much more to say, but it's sometimes very overwhelming to try to write about all of my experiences. I miss everyone. I'm doing Thanksgiving in Lome with the Country Director, so I am hoping there will be real Pumpkin Pie. Alrightee, off to go sweat in the hot heat. Peace out.

So the reason for the title below

29 October Monday
So, I was thinking that when the day comes when I am back in the states, I won't be so freakish to everyone. I won't be so fascinating to touch. My hair won't be so soft to other people and no child or adult woman will run their fingers through it. No one will find my armhair pretty. No one will restrict other people from visitng my compound. No one will think I am a big deal as they do in Agou Avedje. I have had 3 dreams where I leave Togo and in each of those dreams I regret leaving. I was evacuated in one because of the elections and I ET'ed (early terminated) in the other 2. So there, it's looking like I just might make the 2 years. I'm off to watch the sunset on the roof of one of the bars here in Atakpame. Happy Halloween everyone. I'm sad that I won't be home to celebrate because it is one of my favorite holidays along with Thanksgiving. Is that weird?

Xpovia Pola Baba! I'm sorry I missed talking to you on your birthday but sometimes the connections on Sundays truly blow. Xpovia Pola yia tin yiorti sou, xpovia pola yia tin yiorti sou...
And Biggie Smalls your birthday is also coming up this Thursday, so in case Togo does it to us again and your call doesn' get through on Wednesday (did you get my text message, I can't receive but i can give...erase those dirty dirty thoughts) at 5,30 pm your time, yes?

Okay, I'm okay and I hope everyone else is. I bought a mortar and pestle last week so I can now officially pound my own fufu. And I have tons more stories to tell, but that sun sets without me. So I will hopefully have more time in the near future to write them out. We have an AIDS bike ride next week, so I might be in Lome and able to use the fqster than scheisse internet. Love to all!

I'm kind of a big deal in my village

27 October 2007 Saturday night

Hello my lovely peeps. It's been a while, yes? So, I've been in village for almost 6 weeks. Definitely going better than when I was first dropped off. Today, I went to my friends village because she was having a birthday/father coming to visit her celebration. We pounded some fufu and since that whole process took 7 hours (including visiting her chief and visiting her dispensaire, which is a clinic for the village and touring her very large village), baby ate some chicken piment sauce because I was so freakin' hungry that not even the prospect of giardia could deter me from eating whatever was placed in front of me. And it was so good and her village was so nice. I did feel a little awkward eating outside while some of the kids looked at us because I knew that they wouldn't necessarily get a meal for dinner and whatever we didn't eat would be given to them later. So, now I'm a little tired, but I will leave you all with some stories. And Peggy if you are reading this... Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday sweet precious love Peggy, Happy Birthday to you!

Storytime:
My neighbor/moto driver/nightly visiter's name is Lolonyo, which means "love is good" in Ewe. He professes his love to me pretty much whenever we are alone and that happens to be when he has me on his moto or comes by to visit me. I was just told by the internet place to speed this thing up but here it is. He killed a scorpion for me which somehow crawled into my house and he also told me that god sent me to him because he wanted an older woman with small breasts. Got to go!

In Lome with faster than shit internet

What up you crazy ass mf's? I'm in Lome on my last day before I go on to my post. I have bought so much stuff the last couple of days so that I can somewhat comfortably move into my house. Who knew that I would need to bring a spatula, cumin or baking soda to Togo? Peace Corps knew and didn't tell me until now. They did, however, recommend a garlic press, which I thought was ridiculous, but that's neither here nor there. So I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but honestly not that much was happening. My last 3 weeks at the training site were spent watching movies with the other trainees, eating a lot in order to fatten up before post, reading during any technical training because listening would have sent my mind into a deadly spin towards dead inside town, and thinking about supplies I will need for the next 2 years or maybe just week. I bought an egg carrying case today (plastic container-like suitcase) at the Grande Marche in order to protect my precious eggs from breaking during the bumpy ride on the back of a moto. There are no eggs in my village (tomatoes and onions apparently in plenitude). I also bought a very large pot in order to "bake". We had a party last week for our "formateurs" (a.k.a. teachers, it's teacha in ewe which cracks me up) and made a pineapple upside down cake that was so good tastin'. We made it by using a dutch oven and I can't wait to bake more. What is a dutch oven? I had no idea until now...It's made by placing a baking pan inside your very large pot on some small metal empty cans, like tomato paste cans, (we also put some stones in there in order to increase the temp inside) and "baking" it over your gas stove. It only took about 45 minutes to bake. I also bought some Mueslix at the "yovo" store (means white person in Ewe, did I already mention this?) and oh a spatula!
This week in Lome has been a bit disconcerting because the resources that are available here are so dramatically different from the resources that are available in our villages. Being at the "yovo" stores where all the other yovos shop at (embassy workers with their gargantuous villas next door to possibly the poorest peoples shacks) made me feel privileged and wealthy in comparison. I was stressed over which cereal I should buy (it was between Corn Flakes and Mueslix, see above for results) and yet I'm not quite sure the wells where I will be getting my water in village will provide any water during the dry season. My skin color is seen as a status symbol and I can walk into the fanciest hotels here to pee just because I'm white. I don't know if I can truly integrate into the culture because what I can buy with my volunteer salary is so much more than what a family will live on for the year. So it's no wonder that the little kids on the street will ask us to give them bon-bons or money. We have it, we can afford it and it's not much for us to give it up. I'm on a tangent. My thoughts are all over the place and I wish I were sick so I could stay an extra week in Lome at the Med Unit with air-conditioning, very tasty cooked meals and a comfortable bed. I am constantly thinking about why I am here. I chose this. I chose this? I had a fantasy about what it would be like here and it's all happened, but it's definetely not as romanticos as the fantasy. On the other hand, I enjoyed being at the Marche today where I talked the price down on a plastic sack (from 2000 CFA to 1100!) and met a very nice Ghanian lady who gave me a fair price on my pot. It's surreal here at times and then also really boring. There aren't any movies, TV or cook-outs to distract me. I'm rambling. I'm reading The Village of Waiting right now and so far I can relate to his experiences in the book. Highly I recommend. Two of my teachers are from the village George Packer was posted in. I apologize for the excessive "quotes" usage. Forgive. So here are explanations for the pictures...
1. me and Innocente at swearing-in wearing matching pagnes (and her new hairstyle, do what?), her tailor made this outfit for me and i had no idea what it would be like, interessantes, eh?
2. me, natasha and alicia at swearing-in (my bitches)
3. me and alicia putting our "complets" on
4. me and ashley (she is wearing a bou-bou which is a moomoo and i have no idea how to spell either)
5. me and alicia at 5.30 am pre-run (we wore these awesome outfits to be funny and we were told we would never be hit by a moto wearing these...p.s. i need longer running shorts biggie b/c these are alicia's and they are a bit short for togo)
6. me in the marche (market) at agou gare which is near the training site
7. my host mother showing me how to do laundry
8. in the garden at the crack ass of dawn
9. in agou nyogbo with some random kids, mt. agou is in the background
10. me teaching a cat castration in french to the other trainees for language practice, notice the drawings
11. catching up on some news with another trainee, becka
12. i like baby goats and i cannot lie...
I hope you are all well...I will hopefully have more exciting news once I settle into my post!
Love, tig

August 25, 2007 - Photos

New photos from Tig!
My host mother, Innocenze, and me in our mother-daughter dresses for my swearing-in ceremony!

I'll add to my blog soon....

4 August 2007 Saturday morning

4 August 2007 Saturday morning

Greetings everyone. It’s been a while since my last post and it’s been a car-a-zee couple of weeks. I’ve been back 1 week since my post visit. It didn’t go so well. The volunteer I’m replacing talked to me for a couple of hours when I first got there and the minute she left I broke with a fever and was in bed for 36 hours. Not a good start. There isn’t any food (except for maybe some tomatoes and onions, I need protein and fruit people) that I saw in the village (and the village is so small), except for a market on Tuesdays that is 11 km away. I have motorcycle privileges once I get to post, but did not have them that week. I live off of a dirt road that is about 4 km from a main road where I can catch a bush taxi to food and such. E-mail is horrible today and I am about to scream. Staying positive, staying positive. I think my computer is possessed. We were joking last night that technology will change so much in the next 2 years that when we come back we’ll see flying cars! and talking computers! and robots! Is this true yet?

One of the other trainees’ mother sent them the “Shut up and Sing!” Dixie Chicks DVD and we watched it last night. It was really good. I am buying soybeans today because I am going to teach my host mother how to make soymilk and tofu tomorrow. I’ve only made it once, so it should be interesting. We are going to Lome on August 2^nd for swear-in (swear in= finally becoming a volunteer) and then off to our posts. My host mother is having an outfit made for me for the event, which should be very interesting indeed. The e-mail is so frustrating today that I think I am just going to call it quits.

I love receiving all of your letters so much! I am going to buy a cell phone today! The only problem is that phone calls to the states cost $2/minute. Someone told me that you can buy a long distance phone card online (gonoble.co or callnoble.com, may take some searching) and get the calls down as low as 10 cents/minute. Anyhoo, just a thought. I think e-mail is about to bust a nut, so I’m going to send this off before I bust a nut. I hope all of you are doing well and I miss the living scheitte out of all of you! A tout a l’heure!

7 July 2007 Saturday, Kpalime again

7 July 2007 Saturday, Kpalime again

I found out my post on Thursday! It’s in Agou Avedse! I’ll be working with an NGO named CADO. It’s actually really close to the training site village. I just met and am sitting next to the volunteer I will be replacing in 6 weeks. Yowzer. So, this week has been a pretty big week. Besides discovering where I will be for the next 24 months, we did our first “causerie” on Friday. I was really nervous because we had to discuss a health issue such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, nutrition, hygiene, etc in front of a large group in FRENCH. We didn’t really discuss any specific topic. We just told the parents that we are starting a health club for the kids and will discuss any topic they want us to discuss. They chose HIV, hygiene (washing hands, washing vegetables properly and covering food to avoid flies, etc), how to wash clothes? and sports. Tomorrow, we meet with the kids for the first time so we can figure out what our health club will be all about. We are going on a field trip on Thursday the 12th up to the northern region of Kara to see a traditional healer, a dispensaire (clinic) and other volunteers in that region. Okay, but more about my post. Here is what I know:
It’s in a small village of about 3000. The volunteer says the village is very welcoming and also very used to “yovo’s” which is, in my opinion, a derogatory term for white people.
There are a lot of Belgians because the NGO is organized by Belgians, hence why the village is used to "yovo's".
It sounds like I will be translating for them a lot (French and Ewe apparently). Ewe is the local language spoken here and I only know 4 words so far.
There is a baker in my training site, which is close to my post site, who is interested in working with a volunteer because she wants to enrich some of her cookies or bread for healthier treats. I am super excited about this because I was hoping I would be able to do some baking up in here. And her goods are good.
There is an orphanage and a dispensary that I will be working with. I am super pumped about the orphanage.
My house is apparently nice and there is a bucket flush toilet inside the house! This means no latrine (no 50 foot hole with critters crawling up my...).
When I find out more, I will post more. But, in the meantime, Mission Learn French and Ewe has begun. I hope everyone is doing well. Oh, could anyone do some research on Heaven’s Gate, the religion, because my host mother told me her brother is a preacher for them and I was curious to know if this was the same group as the Heaven’s Gate in the states where everyone committed suicide and wanted to climb aboard a comet. Just e-mail me. Oh by the way, I don’t check myspace at all, so please do not post anything on there. It takes too long for me to log in. I may not be able to post next week because of the field trip we will be on, so tootles until the next post. Hugs and kisses to all you sons of bitches!

30 June 2007 Saturday in Kpalime

30 June 2007 Saturday in Kpalime

So I just went to another internet cafι that took 20 minutes just to enter into my e-mail account. I got so frustrated waiting that I decided to try another internet cafι. This one seems to be a bit faster. I keep meaning to pre-write my blogs, but somehow the days are going by faster and I’m staying busy learning French and all the technical information we need to do our projects for our posts. I had French class yesterday for 4 hours and then I spoke with my family for another 2. We sit in lectures pretty much every day. I think next week we might have more activities outside of the classroom. I’m tired, hot, stinky and not very pretty right now. I had a good time last night, though. Some volunteers came into our town and hung out at the local bar, where I also happen to live, and we sang Cher, N’Sync, Mariah Carey (I had a duet) and Paula Abdul all night long until my host mother told me she needed to go to bed because she was still feeling sick. She says she has had a fever and has had what sounds like some muscle aches. We automatically think she has malaria, but it could be something else. However, no one here seems to take much precaution to prevent malaria (like mosquito nets, DEET or screens). It also seems that most people have had malaria at least once. We found out where our 14 posts will be, but no decisions have been made yet where we will be posted. Most of the posts sound pretty remote. It’s pretty exciting. I had my first dress made yesterday. I think they wanted me to have bigger hips than I do, so I had to have her fix it twice to finally fit my apparent small booty (all these years I thought it was quite large…basis of comparison, eh?). Anyhoo, I am homesick, but I know that it will pass (until I get it again next week), and I also know that this experience is something I have dreamed about for many years. Yesterday, in French class, we were asked if we were afraid of spiders, insects and frogs. I replied in French that I had no fear of spiders (d’araignee) or insects (d’insecte) or frogs (I couldn’t think of the word for frog in French, so I said froglement, which is not the word for frog in French or any other language). I laughed so hard, I peed just a little. Everyone in my group has a really great sense of humor and we have all bonded very fast. It feels so good to be able to vent my daily frustrations with people that are going through it at the same time. It makes me a little scared, though, for when I am at post and very isolated. Oh well, I just recently found out I have balls of steel, so I’m sure I’ll be fine, right? Kisses and hugs to all my bitches! More posts coming up!

June 16, 2007 Kpalima, Togo

16 Juin 2007 Saturday! At Internet Cafι in Kpalime.

I’ve been in Agou Nyogbo for the last 3 days since Wednesday. We are in our program and language training there for the next 3 months. I haven’t had diarrhea yet, but it seems as though everyone else has. I think that’s the only way to get over pooping in your latrine. I have yet to use it besides for urinations. I was pretty proud of myself for urinating in it at night! What is a latrine you ask? It is a large, deep pit dug into the ground with a cement “toilet” to sit on and do “your biz”. There are critters that like to hang around that area, but so far I have only seen the occasional cockroach. I am still terrified of it, but I have tried very hard to get used to it. At our training facility down the road from my host family there is a flush toilet and I have literally been using the shit out of it. Enough about the poop situation.

Food has been pretty good! My host mother has been cooking vegetarian food for me. She even uses tofu! The fruit here is so delicious and I think I have the whole breakfast thing down. Communication has been difficult and I basically sit down with my dictionary in order to have a conversation. They are all super sweet. The internet here is very slow so I am typing this on Word first. I am overall doing really well, but today I feel a little weak. Maybe dehydration. My host family doesn’t think I eat enough. They have been teaching me Ewe. I can say “Good day” and “Good night” and “Thank you very much” and “Goodbye” and “flip-flop” so far. Here it is in respective order…n’do, n’dee, agbe ka ka ka, mya ga dogo and po po po. They think it’s pretty funny when I say anything, especially in Ewe.

We lost our first trainee yesterday. There are a total of 14 people in my CHAP group (Community Health and AIDS Prevention). We are all girls. We had movie night last night (Friday night!) and watched Mean Girls. The neighborhood kids joined us and laughed occasionally if there was something visually funny. Enough babble. I do laundry tomorrow. We went to an open market yesterday and I bought laundry soap and a pagne (cloth for making my first Togolese outfit). I am doing well and am really excited about being here. I hope everyone is awesome and please please write me! Here’s the address once again…

PCT Antigone Pantanizopoulos
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 3194
Lome, Togo
West Africa

Au revoir! Mya ga dogo!

One year later, one year later...

I watched a really funny movie with Alexia and Katie called Obsessed starring Shannen Doherty and some guy with a very wrinkly face that I think was on some prime time soap like "Knots Landing". There was scary music at the end of the movie being played when she gets out of the mental ward for burning down his houseboat (she was obsessed and that made her insane) one year later. So, we started singing the eery tune with the lyrics, "one year later, one year later...". We laughed and laughed. Packing up my old stuff and have yet to pack my little backpack to Togo.

T-minus 3 days

I'm not really sure where to begin. This picture to the left was taken at a butterfly exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. So pretty. I leave for D.C. in 3 days (Wednesday!) and then leave finally for Togo on Friday. I'm trying to get all my "stuff" together and throwing out and giving away most of my stuff. Alexia loves her new jacket and shoes and what-not that I at once loved. I have very little to say at this point because the adventure is all about to begin in a week. I'm going to miss everyone and I am fighting not tearing up when I hug someone good-bye. I have been thinking about doing this since I was 16 and it's finally here. I found an old Chemistry lab worksheet from when I was a Nursing major (that's right, this was all after a Studio Art, German and eventually Zoology major) that I got a 9/100 on. My lab "instructor" (I put this word in quotes for a reason) wrote on my sheet, "you can't even subtract correctly" and also "this is really sloppy" and "why are your values different from your lab partner" and "absurd" and "did you even read the lab instructions" and "i can't find even one thing you did correctly except using the unknown I assigned you". I like to keep that lab sheet around to remind myself of how far I have gone and will continue to go. So cheers Mr. Gaines (his name is still on the lab sheet...for memories), here's to you being a scheissee instructor and encouraging me in your very odd way to pursue the unknown that was assigned to me.