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.