Stories do not watch themselves

Happy Mothers' Day!

2009-05-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Mothers' Day Mama! I wish I could celebrate it with you and the family, but I'll see you in less than 1 month and we can make up for all lost celebrations with a frappe and kukubeenya! Have a wonderful day and I love you! And Happy Muthas Day to all my other lovely mothers. Kisses.

Chocolate and Farewells!

2009-05-05T02:08:00.000-07:00

I am getting ready to go to my COS conference. I got my visa to India and my tickets to Greece and India. I have 3 more weeks in village. I saw Slumdog Millionaire in a movie theater in Accra and it was so cold in the theater that my feet were frozen by the end of the movie. I made chocolate. I finished reading Audacity of Hope. I think this will be my last blog entry...I will see you all very soon, so I leave you with some pictures and a chocolate sauce recipe.

1. Ferment the cocoa beans.

2. Roast the beans until they balloon up and begin to pop.

3. Shuck the outside shelling of the beans.

4. Take your shucked beans to the mill...mine was mixed with corn flour.

5. Take the powder back home and create a double boiler. I did this with my closest neighbor, Chrissy. Isn't she pretty?

6. Add un-sweetened condenesed milk and sweetened condensed milk (depending on taste, add more sugar) to the double boiler and then once the milk is boiling add the chocolate powder.

7. Stir until the chocolate melts.

I made brownies with some of the remaining powder and it tasted delicious. I think the more you process the chocolate the less green it tastes. I plan on showing my women's group how to make this because there are so many coffee/cocoa farmers who sell the beans, but don't know how to transform them. I'll be bringing some of this back home for shizzle.

And here are some pictures from the weekly baby-weighing/vaccination appointments in my village.

See you soon!

2009-04-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

So I just officially found out my Close of Service (COS) date. It's June 4. I will be off to Greece and then India (hopefully if my visa works out b/c I just got back from Accra and left my passport at the Indian Embassy and will pick it up again in May) with Charlotte until July 3. And then home. So, I just want to put out an official APB that sending letters and packages should be put to an end. I'm not sure they will get here in time. I love you all (well those I know who are reading this because they know me) and I will be back in Lome in 3 weeks for my COS conference. And I want to send out a huge shout-out to Leah and Ashley on their wedding in t-minus 4 days. I wish I could be there. I am sending you 10,000 kisses.

Trippin'

2009-02-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

I just got a note that my blog was black as night and had only its past entries. Please let me know if this continues.

Anyhoo, what have I been up to? I celebrated an awesome New Years in village. Marthilde and Bienvenu made a vegan salad (they don't eat eggs, so she made a vegan mayonnaise using vinegar, oil, salt n'pepa, and mashed taters...delish) and fufu. I made a spice cake and bread. God bless my Dutch Oven.

In January, I went on a grand tour of the West African coast with 2 other volunteers, Natasha ("Nacho") and Ashley ("Block"). We started off in Accra, Ghana and then headed off to Cape Coast to see the slave castle (the dungeons where slaves were kept before they were shipped off). I didn't feel so great about humanity after that, so we decided to relax at the "resort" (nice but food and drinks and service lame) and shake off the day. It was also Nacho's birthday. Block stepped on a snail and created an avalanche from the sound of the crunch of the shell. The next day we went to Kakum National Park and walked the canopy walk (350 meters long 30 meters above the ground of the forest floor). It was kind of scary, but really gorgeous (see pic of me with sweat-soaked long sleeve shirt posing with a skinny tree). Et puis, we went to Abidjan. I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the trip, which made my day. I knew it would be a doozer of a trip, especially at the border, so the sandwich gave me "la force" (a term many Togolese use, which I think means strength, power and maybe sometimes sexual prowess). I was silent for about 12 hours after we crossed the border because it was so stressful. I think we had about 10 dudes on us who wanted to "help" us cross into Cote d'Ivoire, speaking in both French and English. And we had no idea where we were staying, but we figured it out, made some mistakes, but all in all, I just love traveling because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and makes for some pretty awesome stories. Sorry for the run-on sentence. I am used to writing texts or journal entries where I don't concern myself with grammar. Abidjan was like baby Manhattan and we ate attieke (couscous made from cassava) and aloko (fried plaintains) and drank Ivorian beer from Denmark. We, then, stayed at Green Turtle Lodge in Dixcove, Ghana. Beautiful and all environmentally friendly (solar panel powered and composting latrnies). See beach pictures. I lost the top and bottom of my bathing suit several times from the harsh waves of the Atlantic. My bathing suit has a chunk of sand in it still and I found a grain of sand in my ear last week. And now I'm just continuing my work in village and realizing that this journey here is almost over. I think my village respects me more now because they know I'm a bad ass for sticking it out for 2 years. So, I'm at a point in my service where I am absorbing as much as I can because I know it's coming to an end. I feel more at ease. There are 6 Belgian volunteers in my village now working at the primary school and pre-school. I am planning on collaborating with them on some small projects in village because 2 of them will be there until May.

This past week, I made enriched cereal to teach the women at the dispensary about proper nutrition for their babies and themselves. It's made from black-eyed peas, peanuts and corn. I roasted the beans and peanuts (peanuts are alway sold unroasted in the market by really sweet market women, I'm actually going to miss Togo a lot) myself and then took all the ingredients to my friendly village miller. Some kids then helped me cart it all home so I could put it into little bags for the ladies. Pictures below.

Later taters!

Inyams, Nanners and Christmas wounds

2008-12-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

I have been taking random pictures of fruits and tubers in village lately and I wanted to share them. This is the real Togo, l-l-l-live! Inyams and nanners. They were Christmas gifts from my lovely peeps in village. I also have some interesting skin wound (contact dermatitis) and I had some professional pictures made with it. I spent Christmas in Notse and had a wonderful one-on-one time with its volunteer, Ashley. We drank tchouk, locally made millet beer that tastes like apple cider with a kick, with 2 of her friends in village Christmas Eve. Christmas day, we ate fufu with her homologue and family and Christmas was almost ruined (according to her homologue, not us) when Ashley, trying to help pound the fufu and then take it out of the wooden mortar, received a large splinter shoved up her pinky nail as a Christmas surprise. I took it out with her leatherman pliers and Christmas was saved until I noticed the beginning of my contact dermatitis. Some say it's from a blister beetle (dragging its ass across my arm?). I think it's from a caustic inyam peel that somehow found its way on my right wrist even though I NEVER touched an inyam that day until it was transformed into fufu.

Ashley and I watched a horrible film cleverly named, Noel, with an all-star cast and guest surprise actor Robin Williams! later that afternoon. Never watch this film on Christmas or ever. We also watched the DVD's of "The Soup" that Andrea had burned for me. Somewhat disturbing actually. Reality TV makes me feel odd about Americans. We saw some clips from "The 2 Coreys" and Feldman sang to his wife, extremely close to her face and very loudly with a microphone, "na na na na na na na i love you, on and on and owhun..." Terrible.

But, I am ready for 2009. I feel really good about 2008 and have no regrets from last year because I learned a lot. My new resolution for 2009 is...drum roll, ta ta ta dah! Living in the moment.

I made some enriched cereal and did a formation on nutrition at my dispensaire for the women. It was fun making it because I got to go to the mill and grind corn, roasted peanuts roasted by moi-meme, and roasted black eyed peas ( it was actually delicious, especially with a sliced banana in it). So, I took a picture of the sacks of enriched cereal that I gave to the women after the talk. Oh and my carrots are ready finally and I ate one and it was super sweet. I gave some to my friend, Marthilde, and when looking at them, she told me that everyone is not the same because these carrots are all carrots, but totally different. I loved that, so I decided to send the picture of her with my carrot garden and the carrots I gave her that inspired her comment. Okay so here are some pictures to enjoy. Love to you all. Happy New Year!

I am stubborn.

2008-11-27T03:33:00.000-08:00

My Peace Corps experience has truly allowed me to reflect. I am stubborn as I just titled this blog. But, I am also learning that I can not be stubborn if I know I am being stubborn. And I feel like this may just be the secret to my future success. Did I just jinx myself? I also need to work on being less superstitious. But, I would just like to clarify that even though this experience has been challenging, I would never trade it for anything. I have wanted to be a Peace Corps Volunteer since I was 16. And I'm finally in it. To win it. Living in a developing country is not easy and so maybe my previous blogs reflected my frustration or misunderstanding of the culture in Togo. But, isn't this part of the process in being here, living here, eating here, sharting my pants here, crying, giggling, being bored here? So, if I came across as being unhappy or ready to leave, I was just being honest. My emotions are up and down daily, hourly, secondly. At some moments, I am so bored or frustrated that I get a little nutty. At some moments, I am so glad to be here that I can't imagine what it will be like to leave and re-enter what my life was. I am scared to come back. I am scared to stay here for the full 2 years. Will I just fall back into myself? But, I have learned to cope. I have learned to not react immediately to a situation. I have learned to try to understand why someone reacts a certain way to a situation. I am learning patience. I am learning that nothing ever turns out the way you want it to, okay, maybe occassionally it does, but to be okay with it.

As far as work is conerned right now in village, things are going well. I am starting home visit sensibilisations on latrine use (i.e. how to use the EcoSan latrine, washing hands, etc.); I just finished a health coloring book; I am working on introducing solar cooking to my village (CookIt and fruit drying) and am still working with the NGO in Kpalime. I am organizing a small event in my village for World AIDS Day. I am not coming home for Christmas. I am going to Abidjan and Ghana in January. My dream is to go to Morocco before I leave. I hope I haven't cheesed anyone out with this posting. I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving. Later my taters!

Lee Greenwood's song finally makes sense...

2008-11-07T07:52:00.001-08:00

That's right, I am finally proud to be an American. I have had so many conversations in the last few days about Obama. Every Togolese person I know, knows Barack Obama. They are really excited about him and I am speechless. I stayed up until 5 A.M. watching the coverage in Atakpame at another volunteer's house who has satellite television. I saw both his and McCain's speeches after the results came out. Ahhh. I can't wait to come home.
I recently went up to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso for an artisanal tradeshow. I had fun. But, the most important part of my trip was the food. Togo and apparently Burkina Faso are rampant with street food and snacks. I wrote down all the scrumptious snacks and have decided to list them:
1. Egg omelette sandwhich with cafe au lait: this is served pretty much throughout the day and usually has some pieces of onion and tomato chopped into it. The cafe au lait is just nescafe but with something very magical. Sweetened condensed milk. So good.
2. Sweetened black tea shots: a man with a roll cart walks around selling this in shot glasses. I think further up north, more mint would be used. This excites me.
3. Frozen coconut milk: bought this in Burkina Faso right out of the bus. It was on a stick. It cut my tongue.
4. Minty Bissap juice: Hibiscus juice with mint in a sac. Cut a hole in the sack with your front teeth and sip away.
5. Oranges, Watermelons, Boiled peanuts, Bananas: fruit right out of the bush taxi. Always fresh, always good.
6. Beans and gari: black eyed peas and toasted grated cassava. With piment (hot pepper).
7. Alagba: frozen baobab juice in a cold sac that you suck out. Tastes like apple juice.
8. Sesame bar: found more north. I thought I could only find this in Greece. I bought a bag of heart-shaped bars once again right out of the window of my bus.
9. Soy milk: frozen and in a sack. Sweet. Right out of the bus window.
10. Yellow melon: shaped like a cucumber, but tastes like honeydew.
11. Wild peanut, "arachide sauvage": tastes like a chickpea and peanut. Found this at a station heading back to my village from Atakpame.

12. The picture that I posted is from a coffee shot stand in Ouagadougou.
I am being disturbed by another volunteer right now blocking my attention from this blog, so I cannot put any concentration into this beyond listing. I am sorry. Blame David Johnston. But, these are all things I can easily get at most stops when on a bush taxi. This is why I love Togo. I guess it's like fast food, but healthier and more spontaneous because you never know what will be offered. I love you all and I am really happy that Obama won. Really happy. Later taters.

Resistance is futile

2008-10-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

I am back in Lome for just 2 days in order to do some quick work on the computer and will leave bright and early tomorrow morning to head to Atakpame for a quick birthday celebration and then head back to village so I can be present for my liquid soap formation on Sunday. My host mother from Agou Nyogbo has offered to come to my village to show my women's group how to make it and I am so excited. I am also here to buy some coconuts because I want more jam. I think they are starting to come into season and I can't seem to find any further north near my village. So, I never got to talk about the marathon and I sent some letters out but I decided it would make for a pretty good post.
The marathon was in Accra, Ghana September 28 and it was sponsoring the Longevity Project (programs to increase the average life span of Ghanaians). It was my first. I ran the half, but here it why it kicked my ass:
1. It started at 7 a.m., not 5:30 a.m., as advertised. West Africa is hot.
2. The half-marathon was 24 km not 21 km as all other half-marathons in the world (a full marathon is 42 km).
3. We were running in traffic (it was a Sunday, so it was just church traffic, but by just, I mean more traffic than usual because everyone goes to churchee here).
4. There were only about 200 people who ran the marathon, so I ran alone for most of it. There was no crowd cheering me on, only people greeting me and screaming things at me like, "Run faster! Everyone is so far ahead of you! You only have a little more to go(this was at mile 8)..."
But, I am so glad I ran it and I can't wait to run another one in the U.S.A. I have no pictures to post because I could not fit a camera on my person for the run. However, we had some parents present for the marathon and there are pictures posted on my Facebook site. Under Linda Golden.
My work in village is going. I am currently working on a Health and Hygiene coloring book for the Ecole Primaire students (similar to grades 1-6). It's something I really wanted to do when I first got to poste, so I am excited to finally be able to do it. I am also working with an NGO in Kpalime called Vivre Mieux that works with HIV positive people. I have started a support-type group with men and women and I plan on introducing Moringa and other income generating activities.
I hope everyone is doing well. I hope to have some pictures up next post. Bye-byee-lo.

Coconut Jam-On-It

2008-09-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Greeting earthlings. I am in Lome once again not preparing for someone to ET, but for the marathon I have been training for since March. I'm having some personal problems, so instead of writing about them, I would like to share a recipe. It's coconut jam and it was born out of the womb of a Ms. Allison Green. Here it is:

First and foremost, one must know how to open a coconut. I do not really know how to do this, so I asked my friend, Bienvenue, to do it for me. He used a machete quite craftily. We poured the water out into a cup, which I then later used (for evil) in the jam. We then used knives to crack the "meat" of the coconut out of its shell. We then scraped the brown skin off of the coconut and washed the pieces before chopping them into very fine little pieces. Next time, I will probably use a grater. Here is Marthilde, my friend in village, demonstrating the cut coconut pieces.

After that hour long process, Bienvenue crushed the coconut pieces on a stone slab (Togolese use this to 'ecrase' most things they put in sauces, such as tomatoes, onions, piment, etc. especially for their fufu sauces. I think this is sort of like using a chopping board, except no choppy choppy, only crushy crushy.) Note picture of him in action. His girlfriend, Marthilde, made fun of him and started singing a booty shaking song as he was doing it. I laughed a lot.

So, next we added the coconut water along with enough water to cover the coconut bits. We used 3 coconuts for this recipe, which yielded 3 small jars of coconut jam. I used about 2 cups of water. I also added all the cinnamon I had left (about 2 tbsp), 1 tbsp of vanilla and about 1 1/2 cups of sugar. We then boiled the living scheisse out of it for about 45 minutes. Here is a picture of the hotter than hell fire we used to create this jam. Once, the "jam" had a sticky or "gel-ly" texture to it, we set it aside and boiled our jars and lids so that we could add the hot mixture to the hot jars. We then placed the filled jars back into the boiling water and let them sit in the hell for about 1 minute. I then carefully removed the jars and placed them on their lids to "seal the deal". And that's that. It's delish and I recommend everyone try it.

Maybe next week, I will send a more personal story of my travails here in We(s)t Africa. It's rainy season and everyone is out in the fields. Except for me. This last picture is of Marthilde acting as a chief of the coconut jam jars (Chiefs in Togo wear fabric draped over them as she is demonstrating here). Wish me luck on the marathon this Sunday. And I would like to send a shout out to Ivy Antigone Chiavarini. M'waezo lo (Welcome in Ewe)! I can't wait to meet you, you little precious morsel!

I'm not sure what to title this blog entry, so it's going to be a long one about how I don't know how to title it...

2008-08-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

I am on an impromptu trip to Lome because my Kpalime cluster mates, Nadia and Tristan, are ET'ing (early termination). And it's sad because now 3 people from my already small cluster have left in the last 3 months. But, on a really great positive note let me tell you all about my trip out to Notse and Avassikpe after my awesome pelvic exam required by Peace Corps after 1 year of service. Oh yeah, I have been a volunteer now for 1 year. Bon travail Antigone! So, in total, I have been in Togo for 15 months. Crazy, right? I went to my friend's village in Notse and it was quite interesting because there are about 9 bridges down in Togo, which is causing a lot of problems. List of problems: 1. There are really only 2 main paved roads (the Route National and the Lome-Kpalime-Atakpame road) 2. There are mother loads of semi-trucks that need to transport materials, food, gas etc 3. I live off of a dirt road that connects the Lome-Kpalime road to the Route National. List of solutions: 1. Re-route all semi-trucks through my dirt road so they can avoid the flooding and cluster of damaged bridges that are all concentrated south of Notse 2. Re-route people by making them walk ~1 km with all of their luggage and what-not to the other side of the Route National. I did this in order to get to Notse and it was almost like mass exodus, like the scene in "Fidder on the Roof" when everyone leaves Anatevka together. However, this is a problem and if the roads do not get fixed soon, then travel in this country may come to a halt. I saw 3 semi-trucks yesterday on the Notse mud road that had fallen on their sides and will probably be there for a very long time. No cars are allowed to pass that road now because they would only get stuck in the huge holes the heavy trucks have created day to day during the rainiest season Togo has had in a while. But, once I did actually get to Notse I spent 2 days lolly-gagging around and went to my friends' Moringa fields (see picture with sunset) and then did the same in another volunteer's village about 18 km away that we happily biked to. In Avassikpe, we made Moringa oil and I have attached the pictures. I love going to other volunteers' villages because I get to see how different they all are. Whether it's the reaction to the volunteer or the access to resources such as food, gas, or cold water (electricity, te amo). I also like to see how motivated people in the village are. It's given me a better perspective on my village. Anyway, all is well and as always I miss all of you. Adios Nadia and Tristan. If you read this, know that I just can't quit you two...I miss you guys already and you haven't even left the country yet. But, I'm a big girl and as Peggy once wisely said, I'm going to put my big girl panties on now...

Moringa Oil recipe

After removing the outer casing of the Moringa seed (initially using our hands, then teeth, then a garlic press), we pounded the seeds until they became...
this! Because it is rainy season, I don't think the seeds were completely dry, which made the powder more "gewy", but it still worked when we added that "powder" to hot boiling water...
and waited for the oil to start pooling at the top like this. We had to keep adding water in order to continue boiling the solution and allowing for more oil to pool at the top.
Unfortunately, this is all the oil we got. I tasted the seed and Ashley correctly stated that it had a "flavor burst". I had to drink a lot of water and add several of Danielle's Swedish Fish candies to my mouth to get the rubbery paste of the seed off of the roof of my mouth. The oil was also very bitter, but I would imagine that it would be good in a sauce. The process of making Moringa oil took a lot of time, so I don't know how useful making it for consumption would be, but I think adding it as an essential oil to a soap or lotion recipe would be nice. It smelled like fresh cut grass to me.

Back in the A-F-R-I-C-A

2008-07-19T02:31:00.000-07:00

What it is. Yes I am back in Togo after a very tender, magical time spent in wonderland, a.k.a. Greece. I would post pictures, but I cannot find the cord necessary to plug into the computer to do so. It is somewhere hidden in Nacho's tender, magical locker that I think has about a week's worth of dirty laundry, a whiskey sachet, her iPod cord, a solar charger, some flip-flops and other various important necessities such as a camera cord. My trip to Greece was great. Let's just leave it at that. The trip back to Togo is what makes my life so much more interesting. I missed my flight from Athens to Dubai because my flight into Athens from Thessaloniki was late. They also made the flight out of Athens early, which gave me absolutely no time to get my luggage out of baggage claim and check in to Emirate Air. So, they booked me on a flight with Olympic Airlines into Dubai. Olympic Airlines. Where to begin? They ran out of blankets, they gave us only one choice for the meal (beef pastitsio--a Greek noodle casserole--that I actually did eat. I'm so glad I practiced eating meat before I came to Africa, but who knew I would have to put it into use in Europe?), the headphones did not work and there was only one TV monitor with only one choice of a show per 1000 seats, the flight attendants were saucy as hell, and the bathroom would put even a latrine at a bus station in Togo to shame. But, before all of this even happened, my leave-in conditioner was taken from me at the security check in Athens. That's right, LEAVE-IN CONDITIONER. The woman tried to also take my Tom's of Maine Cinnamon-Clove toothpaste that was given to me by my mother, Biggie Smalls, but when I started crying and pleading to her that where I was about to go was so undeveloped that they didn't even have Tom's of Maine toothpaste, she placed her pointer finger vertically over her mouth and told me to keep quiet and furtively threw the toothpaste back in my bag. Afterwards, ss I was trying to cover my red, swollen eyes from my fellow travelers with my favorite big, Togolese, haute coutoure sunglasses, I noticed that one of the lenses had fallen out (they finally broke-I knew it would happen, it was only a question of when, because these are the second pair of these glasses, but the first pair had a different demise. The ear piece fell off). So, I just let them all have it. I was sad and couldn't hide it anymore. I spent the night on a chair in Dubai (8 hour layover), but not before checking out the Duty Free Shop. To make up for my sadness and loss of leave-in conditioner, I bought a big bag of almonds, Haribo gummy bears, and anti-wrinkle eye cream. My friends met me in Accra and it was like a gift from god.
The marathon in Togo has been cancelled because only 3 people are running it. I am still running the Ghana marathon, but have decided to participate in a bike tourney that runs across Togo and supports the same scholarship for girls' education. It is in November. Today, I will be leaving for my village and I am nervous and also scared to see the state of my house. Bat guano and mice turds fall down from the cracks in the ceiling, especially in my bathroom, and it is not a very welcoming site. I will have a lot of work ahead of me and I am tired and too lazy to wash my hair that has dusty mud in it from yesterday's bush taxi ride back to Togo. I think about all of you and miss you all so much. I have to keep reminding myself that this is all an adventure even when I am twiddling my thumbs, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure why I did this and how much longer I can do this. I am lucky to have this opportunity and I am experiencing new things all the time, even though they are not always very comfortable. I am okay. I am okay. This is an adventure.

Fat lady a-singin'

2008-06-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have been in Togo for 367 days. The new training group just arrived here the day before yesterday and we had a big welcoming party for them last night. I have been out of village for about 2 weeks. But, let me tell you all about Camp UNITE. C'est bananes! It was a week long camp (I never went to camp as a child) for female apprenties (what is an apprenti/apprenticeship, you ask? An apprenticeship is like a trade school. They can do apprenticeships in carpentry, sewing, mechanics, etc.) They are also doing camps for male apprenties and girl and boy students. My camp though was the first camp and even though I am now exhausted, it was well worth all the hard work. The camp consisted of sessions on Family Planning, HIV/AIDS, Gender Equality, Nutrition, Adolescence and Puberty, Self-Confidence and Techniques to Good Communication. The mood of the camp was positive and all the girls after the 2nd day really came out of their shell. We sang and played games and taught the girls some income generating activities (jewerly making using bottle caps and magazines pages...prettier than it sounds; lotion making...). I got to play the role of "Pagi" the negative villager who tries to discourage the girls all week, but somehow learns from them too. The last day of camp I was a changed girl who had gained self-confidence and a positive attitude. Voulour c'est pouvoir (to want is to be able)! I am leaving Togo on a very positive note. I will be in Greece from mid-June to mid-July and I am super pumped but also super scared because I am afraid I will not want to come back from the land of milk and honey (actually yogurt and honey). But, I have a lot of support from other volunteers and they keep me here happy, most of the time. Kisses and hugs to all of you. Barack, eh? Sweet.

2008-05-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Holy Janet! You send me a comment with absolutely no information about yourself. Like an e-mail or an address. Please do this. Here is my address: antigoni_yes@yahoo.com or
PCV Antigone Pantanizopoulos
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 3194
Lome, Togo
So good to hear from you. Janet, why the long face? We found each other again. This is so exciting...dreams do come true. Please send me your info. And hello to everyone else!

Pictures speak louder than words

2008-05-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! So I've been doing stuff...biked the pathway for the marathon with Alicia, my co-coordinator. It was lovely and really hot and rained immediately after we arrived in my village. I went to Tchifama, Alicia's village, with my host mother from our training site, Agou Nyogbo, and Julia, my cluster mate who had the same host mother as I did (she's a Natural Resources Management volunteer). We had a good time, drinking tchouk, dressing in the same pagne, wandering around Tchifama looking ridicoulous and then eating fou-fou of course made by Alicia's host mother. So I've decided to just leave you a bunch of pictures this time and little word. I'm doing well, settling in. I read 3 books this week...Gone to Soldiers, The Village of Waiting and The Alchemist. I also started a girls' soccer team (the SexEd class was a bust, so I decided to approach it by talking about SexEd issues during practice) and started on the home visits with the water committee to teach the peeps in village about potable water and fecal-oral transmission. I said little word, didn't I? Okay. Enough. Here. I miss you all...oh and that spider was not killed, fortunately I had a friend come by and catch him in a broom and place him outside unscathed. I call him Biggie Smalls. No relation to the rapper or my mother. Peace out.

Kalo Mina en Avril!

2008-04-02T02:34:00.000-07:00

Dear All! I hope you are all well and happy in this beautiful month of April. It is hotter than all get-out here right now and I am really missing a beautiful spring in Tennessee. I am in Lome just for the day to do some computer work and check e-mail. What to say? What have I been doing? I've started training for the marathon and I've decided to run a half-marathon in Accra, Ghana in Septemeber as part of the training. I rode my bike to the dispensaire in Akplolo after not riding it for 3 months (I rode it all the way to Notse and left it there for 3 months...). I made date nut bread, actually 3 times because it's good tasting. I'm being kicked off the computer because someone else has to use it for evil. Just kidding...I miss you all and I hope you haven't forgotten about me b/c I think about y'all all the time. I leave you with several attractive pictures of me pounding foufou and of my beautiful village from the view of Mt. Agou. Tootles!

2008-02-18T03:09:00.000-08:00

Me, Alicia and Natasha in Tchifama, Alicia's village. She lives in the chief's compound with his 19 children and 2 wives (he has a total of 5).

Huge spider I found in my bathroom, stared at it to make sure it didn't move during my bucket shower.

Me and the kids sitting on a mat outside my house New Year's Eve.

Me and the kids at my first funeral in village. Akpedje is to my left and was sucking on a sack.

2008-02-18T02:11:00.000-08:00

I meant to post this blog at the beginning of this month. This is not Akpedje because the video clip I wanted to add here is not working, but I will send via e-mail so some of you can see it, k? This is me in my house and those are my brooms behind me.(This is Akpedje, my best friend in village, singing "Kalo Mina!" to me Feb. 1. It means "Good Month" in Greek and it is always said at the beginning of any month. I had told her the day before to say it to me and she remembered the next morning. She is shaking a bottle of "tchouk" as she is singing because this was a gift given to me by my Ewe language teacher and she was delivering it to me.) It has been an interesting month so far. I am back in Lome working with another volunteer, Alicia, on organizing a marathon from my village to my friend Ashley's village in Notse. We are planning it for next December and we want the money raised to go to a scholarship fund created by Peace Corps to pay for boys and girls to go to school. The students are nominated by volunteers and their grades are monitored in order to keep their scholarship. Just an idea so far, but I am hoping that it works out because I want to finally run a marathon! I am also working on having a 3-day training for the women's groups in my village focusing on nutrition and better farming practices (i.e. compost and maybe trying to grow more nutritious vegetables instead of the same manioc, yam and corn...). I also want to start a Health (i.e. sex) Education class for the young girls and possibly boys in my village. I am doing a small talk on Moringa at my dispensaire in my village this Wednesday and Thursday. I am planning vacations...so far Burkina Faso and Ghana. I am feeling a lot more settled here and I think having work has actually helped me feel better living here. I just got my ticket to Greece and I am super pumped. July 2-16, y'all. For anyone who wants to come visit me this summer, do not plan anything for those dates. And please come visit me...just let me know ahead of time so I can plan something, but also so I can make sure I can take off for a little bit of traveling, eh? Alrightee, everybody. Hope all of you are well. Here are some more pictures...

Oh Irlene...

2008-02-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I knew it was going to happen. I just wished she would have waited for me to be there with her. My sweet precious lovebird Irlene passed away January 29, 2008 on her own. I just want to dedicate this blog to the most wonderful sweet best kitty that a mama could ever have (except for Joc of course). Irlene came to me as my first foster mom with her 2 little kittens when I was still working at the animal shelter in Vestal. It was in January 1997 actually. She was found huddling under a porch in the cold with her 2 live kittens and 2 dead kittens. Her other 2 kittens died a week after I started fostering them, and since she got along with Joc so well, I decided to adopt her. I loved her sweet nature and her freakish lobster claw front feet (one of her kittens that died had the same polydactyl mutation...typically seen in Hemingway cats). Irlene loved to do high flips in the air that could have won a gold medal in the extreme sports olympics if only they weren't so racist and exclusive. Right? She also loved to sleep at my feet and curl her claws around my toes and purr to wake me up to feed her. I think this picture of her is funny because the picture in the blog before this one has me almost making the same face. The second picture of her is more flattering and noble. Thank you Lee so much for taking care of her and Joc and I have decided to send a letter to you at Magpies, but wait have you guys moved already and has the address changed. I will send it to Peggy's home address. It's settled. And thank you also goes to Amy for taking such good care of her (best veterinarian in the universe and I hear Mars has some pretty good ones, hee hee). I wish I would have received your e-mails sooner than 2 weeks later, but I knew you would treat her the same way I would have treated her. And of course thank you Alexia for being so awesome in general but also for spanking Irlene the way she liked it so hard and firm and hard. Rest in peace my precious little gentle morsel Irlene.

Tender Togolese Christmas...

2007-12-26T04:03:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-23T08:41:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-11-23T08:20:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-11-23T08:03:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-11T02:32:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-05T03:57:00.000-07:00

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^ndfor 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

2007-07-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-28T01:09:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-06-04T17:33:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

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.