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.

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...

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...

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?".