Yovo, Yovo, Bon Soir

 Hello from Tsevié! Pronounced just like it’s spelled, Chev-ee-ay : ) I’m having a great time learning how to live in Togo, and I’ve met some really awesome people, volunteers, PC Staff, and Togolese alike.  I know it’s been a while… sorry! The internet works on average 2 days a week, and I’ve been guessing all the wrong days lately. 

We found out our posts! I’m going to be in the village of Mogou, about 35 km to the east of Mango, in the Savanes region (the northernmost region, bordering Burkina Faso).  Cindy, I heard I can grab a taxi to Ouagadougou for about 10 mille CFA (about 20 bucks)! Get excited.  At first I was not thrilled to be in the north… I really like water. And Savanes is very dry heat, almost desert-y.  But, there are 4 other stagiaires, one other GEE and 3 NRM that will be up there too, and they got me pretty stoked about it.  I’ve also heard the PVC’s in Savanes are really close-knit and super chill. AND, how perfect that my closest large town is called Mango?  Mogou has about 2,000 people who mostly speak Gangam, which I’m just starting to learn in addition to French.  We have poste visit week starting this Saturday, so I’ll be able to see my house, meet my homologue, tour the schools, and saluer everyone.  Should be fun! I hope they like me… and I hope I eat. I’m bringing a charcoal stove to cook my meals on for the week.  Oh yeah and I have neither electricity nor running water. I can’t believe I didn’t open with that…My host maman has been teasing me about the no electricity thing, saying things like “you’re going to be so well rested because you’ll go to bed at 6:00 when it gets dark!” Akpe, Maman. C’est trop gentil.

My host family is really super. They have 3 kids all under age 6, and still make time to help me with my laundry, cook me special meals (aka everything boiled, easy on the fish bones), and sew gorgeous pagne clothes for me. I have my own room, which is more like its own building in the family compound.  The weather is so temperate here that my fam spends at least 80% of their day outside.  And when I say temperate, I mean it's really hot, but they're used to it. We have electricity but no running water, and my host maman cooks all of the meals over little charcoal stoves out in the yard.  I’m slowly getting used to the latrine… last week there was a beetle on the floor the size of a small chipmunk. More annoyed that it was in my way than scared, I went back outside, got a big rock, and killed it. See, Sasha? I’m making strides : )

Just about my favorite part of the day is my bucket shower at night. Our “shower” is a cement cube with an open roof, and I love washing my hair and looking up at all the stars. It gets realllyyyyy dark, and on clear nights you can see the Milky Way.

Our days as PCTs are packed. We have between 2 to 4 hours of French per day, and we just started to add in local language classes. We also have technical sessions about GEE programs, how to fix our bikes, Health and Admin presentations, and a mélange of other activities.  We’ve passed the one month mark, and things are getting easier, I think. We'll see what I've actually learned after poste visit!

To explain the title, the kids sing a song on the street when we pass, that goes “Yovo, yovo, bon soir, ca va bien merciiiiiiii!” If they’re old enough to talk, they know the song, and they scream it. ‘Yovo’ directly translates to ‘white person,’ but carries no connotation that I know of.  If you’re white, it’s just good to have that pointed out to you, I guess. Pretty much everything we do is weird, but I’m trying my best to not be quite so yovo.  I did my laundry a couple days ago, which Maman was convinced I could not do unassisted.  She had one of the maids help me, and she made me feel about as lazy as a rock.  I was struggling, to say the least, and she asked me “Well, don’t you do laundry at home?” And I explained yes, but we have a machine, so you just put the clothes in with some soap and it just...goes.  She made a confused face and told me “We don’t have machines here. We are the machines.” And it’s true. People are allll the machines here. I felt so dumb for complaining about hauling my laundry down to the basement of my apartment building last year. I had all my clothes washed and dried for me in 2 hours! I did my laundry last week on Sunday, and it kept raining so they weren’t dry until Wednesday. I’m getting a lot of perspective in a hustle.

I miss you all and hope all is well with you! I have a cell phone, and it works to call me from skype or google phone, if you feel so inclined: 011-228-722-6312. Ttysss xoxox