Hello from Lomé! This summer is really flying by… I can’t believe it’s July already. June was a blur. I was a counselor for Camp Espoir, which is a Peace Corps-organized camp for kids infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, and they have a week for each region in Togo. So I was there for the Savanes week and was the counselor for the little girls (aged 9-11). Really cute. So many games, songs, dancing, talent shows, soccer games… I don’t know how camp counselors in America go for entire summers with that much energy.

But, moving from one camp to another, we in Mango cluster are really busy with our preparations for Camp Etoiles du Nord: a career development camp for middle school girls in the Oti prefecture. One of my fellow organizers, Megan, made a blog for the camp: http://campetoilestogo.wordpress.com/ Check it out! We’re down here in Lomé to buy supplies, meet with PC staff, and get all of our sessions and documents organized... and to eat some delicious food. Next week we’ll trek out to all of the villages to meet the participants and make sure they’re ready to go, double check transportation, food, and lodging arrangements, organize speakers… it’s all happening. It’s nice to have some real worky-work to do, especially because my village is really busy with planting season right now.

It’s been raining in Mogou about once a day or every other day, which really cools the temperature down. I’ve been enjoying sitting on my porch with a cup of tea and watching it rain… while Toby whines because it’s chilly and hides under my chair. Now that the kids are out of school, I’ve had more visitors to my porch library. A HUGE thank you to everyone involved in sending me French books—the kids love them. I had a boy about 9 or 10 years old come over one afternoon asking to read who I know from around village; He’s kind of a sassy kid who gives me a hard time and teases me when he can, but I told him to take a seat and brought out some picture books. As I handed them over, he took them so carefully and had such wide eyes… I could tell it was the first time he had ever held books. He opened the covers and just felt the paper of the pages, and then sat for hours reading. It was pretty cool to see. I’d like to work out someplace to have a permanent library in village, but in the meantime the porch is working pretty well. There’s one girl who just came back to Mogou after working as a nanny in Nigeria for 5 years, so she speaks English and together we’re working on the English picture books as well as the French. And then there’s one boy who comes every evening after dinner, and we sit together with our respective books and read with the lantern. Pretty cute. I’m flying through books by the way… no electricity has its perks, I guess. Recommendations, anyone?

Hope everyone’s doing well! LOVE LOVE!