It’s official: I’m an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer)! They cut my ID card this morning as the last step in my COS process.  I’m now sitting in the bureau on my last full day in Togo, packing and repacking my bags and getting super stoked for my trip to Tanzania which starts tomorrow. I’ll be there for two weeks, then back to Wisconsin on Oct. 7^th.

As much as people tell me goodbye and congrats, it still hasn’t hit me that I’m leaving. My last week in Mogou was a blur—cleaning out my house, giving gifts, having my last dinner with Affaires. He was so, so great! We hung out all week, set up an email account for him, and reflected back on my two years. It all went well, that is, until my last night in village when I started not feeling well. After a quick check up at the clinic in Dapaong, I found out I’d contracted malaria and amoebas at the same time. No fun. I felt terrible, which I think diverted my attention from the emotions of leaving, but recovered after a few days and am feeling better now. It’s funny, I had a relatively very healthy service right up until my very last day in Mogou. Saved it all for the end!

Well, I’ll have to keep this short, but will be home soon enough to update you all in person! A bientot!

Well, to be honest with you, I did write two blog posts since my last post. I just never uploaded them. And I think it’s for the best… they were, um, a little bitter sounding. I was in an eager to-get-to-the-end-of-my-service rut for much of July, and when you’re sitting at the bottom of the culture shock roller coaster it’s best just to keep your mouth shut.

But now! I’m still riding the “post-camp high” from Camp Etoiles du Nord—what a blast! It was an even bigger success than last year, in my opinion, and the girls didn’t want to leave. We packed the schedule with activities, but the girls were still not too tired for dancing and singing every night. I especially loved working with our awesome team of women who organized, led sessions, cooked delicious food, and sang and danced right along with the girls. We had 6 university girls who are originally from the Mango area, and they were a big help to us and inspiration to the girls. The 3 law students led a really interesting session on girls/women’s rights in Togo, and they all talked with the girls and shared their stories in the evenings. On the last night, we held a certificate ceremony with all the people who’d helped out throughout the week. One of the university girls insisted that each of the “staff,” including our panelists, the university girls, facilitators, and organizers, do their own ethnic dance to go up and collect their certificate… and the place went wild. Everyone was so happy and cheering each other on, my PCV friend had to elbow me and tell me not to cry, because I was starting to tear up. It just hit me: this is Togo, and I’m leaving this in a month. Of course I pulled it together, but since then I’ve been looking at Togo through some rosy, nostalgic glasses.

Immediately following camp, we went down to Lomé for our Close of Service (COS) conference, which was amazing. We stayed at a beautiful hotel on the beach, complete with hot running water showers and butter on the breakfast table. It was extremely helpful: we got sessions on resumes and interviews, how to explain our service to employers and family alike, and tips for dealing with readjustment in America. And again, the butter. I loved it. Even the more so because it was all Peace Corps doing it, saying “thank you” and “good job”, which was a big departure from the usual “don’t be late to turn in your VRF” and was not lost on us. It was also really nice to hang out with my stage, all together for the last time. I realize I’ve made some fantastic friends here, and just being in a group of volunteers is something I’m going to miss.

I’m down here again in Lomé for the new stage’s swearing-in ceremony, which is going to be a big deal this year: 50 years of Peace Corps in Togo. Rumor has it the President might come… We all have matching pagne and are going to look sharp just in case. It will be great to see my replacement swear-in, and I’m also taking advantage of the opportunity to get some COS paperwork/ stuff done.

Then, back up for my last days in Mogou! My replacement moves in around the 14^th, so I gotta be out before then. Last marché day, last drinks of tchakpa, last time with some of my friends. Affaires and I are going to go into Mango to set him up with a gmail account, so hopefully that will make staying in touch with him easier. It’s weird, I have days when I can’t wait to get home and get started on my life back in America, and then others (or even later in the same day) when I don’t want to leave. I mean, I will never see most of these people, people I can call my friends, ever again. I will never live in a village in Africa again, and from this experience I’ve gotten to see so many things I otherwise wouldn’t have. I’ve really benefited from getting a first-hand account of Togolese culture, which would have been very difficult to do from living in the capital. And it’s given me the inspiration for planning the rest of my life! Which was always the goal… along with challenging myself, a goal accomplished a thousand times over.

So, I’m off to buy presents! I’m getting matching pagne for Affaires, Beau Père, Salamatou, and the gang, except they won’t know they’re matching until they start wearing it around village after I’m gone, haha.

2 weeks to go!

Pictures from Mogou: Ruth's visit!

The cotton truck came to collect the harvests of Mogou's cotton farmers... which is pretty much everyone. They weigh the cotton on site and then issue a receipt. Another truck is supposed to come soon with the payments.

Toby, ready for a walk around town.

Pounding fufu, a staple dish made from boiled yams pounded into a sticky jello-like ball. Really good with peanut sauce.

Heading into the marche

Ruth drinking tchouk at my neighbor's stand in the marche. Yum! ; )

Pictures from the Men As Partners Training of Trainers- Savanes Region

Me and Madame Rose leading a session called "What is Gender?"

Our newly-trained participants leading a practice session on violence with moto-taxi drivers

Participants from neighboring villages meeting to discuss plans for implementing MAP activities their communities

Pictures from the Women's Wellness and Empowerment Conference- Kara/ Savanes 2012

Learning about food groups in a nutrition session 

Our opening ice-breaker activity about diversity and helping each other 

The candlelight ceremony on the first night: Madame Rose passed the light around the circle of participants, explaining the importance of sharing the information we learn with our sisters

Yoga!

Hello, everyone! It’s been too long. I’ve got a lot of stuff to report, so I’ll break it up into segments for easier processing. I’m in the last four (can you believe it??) months of my service now, and while it seems like I just got here, I’m also really getting excited about coming back home. But first, a re-cap on all that I’ve been up to in the last few months…

Women’s Wellness and Empowerment Conference

This conference had been in the works since last September, and I was really, really pleased with how it turned out. Our 27 participants from all different backgrounds, villages, towns, ages, religions, and ethnic groups came together for a week to focus on health, confidence, family, and life goals. It was a pleasure to see how enthusiastic and participative all the women were, how well-organized the PCV and Togolese facilitators were, and how smoothly it all came together. Some of the themes we covered were: Nutrition, family planning, being a role model, self-esteem, planting and cooking with moringa (a really healthy tree—lots of protein, vitamins, etc.), stress, water filtration, raising livestock techniques, and everyone’s favorite: yoga! We had all the ladies up at 6:00 doing yoga and talking about fitness. One of the participants from last year’s conference led the yoga with me, which was really fun. 6:00 is definitely sleeping in for women in Togo… one morning I got down at 5:45 to set up the mats and saw women running laps around the courtyard to warm up. They continued with high energy through a packed day of sessions and activities, fueled on weird food like salads, burritos, and stir-fry. One important aspect of the conference is promoting an “open to new ideas” attitude, including trying new, balanced meals to mix up the usual Togolese diet of corn pâte and a handful of sauces. The burritos were a real miss; the women just ate the rice and beans off the corn tortillas that PCVs spent hours making with the kitchen staff at the hotel, confirming the cooks’ suspicions that we Americans eat strange food. But other things, like the moringa powder we put on the tables to add to each dish, were a huge hit, and like I said, the yoga was a major success. One of the participants that I nominated, Salamatou, now does yoga every morning at her house here in Mogou, and has even started running laps around the soccer field at the school, in spite of comments from her neighbors and friends about her unusual behavior. “The doctor had been telling me for a while that I needed to change my diet and work on my fitness,” she told me a few weeks after the conference. “But after the Women’s Conference I really decided to do it. I’ve cut back on salt and oil in my cooking, I work out everyday, and look at me! I’ve started to slim down. And I’ve never had more energy!” I’ve joined her for yoga sessions a couple of times, which was a great experience. While doing “chat et vache” (cat/cow) poses in the courtyard, chickens are running around, kids come in and out of the house getting ready for school, neighbors stop by to buy sugar (she sells small groceries in the market every day)… it’s all chaos. But Salamatou isn’t phased. “Breathe innnnn, breathe outtttttt,” she says, and “sugar’s in the room on the left, 50 fCFA for the small bag, 100 fCFA for the big one. Breathe innnnnnn…” I love it.

Men As Partners (MAP) Training

This conference just wrapped up—May 8^th through the 11^th. It was the first of its kind for the Savanes (my) region, even though many PCVs have organized MAP trainings in the other 4 regions of Togo. So, this was a highly anticipated event, and it fulfilled and surpassed everyone’s expectations. We had other PCV friends come from down south to help out, and they told us this was the best MAP event they’d ever seen. All we do is win! : ) It really was fun to do; a nice challenge, and it was wonderful planning it with my friend, the lead on the project, Christy.

            Like the women’s conference, this was a 3-day training for 28 participants from all over the Savanes region, with different backgrounds, levels of French, etc. But unlike the Women’s Conference, it was a training of trainers, meaning the participants were expected, at the end, to be able to train others in the community in MAP. Also, the message was much more specific: gender equity is in everyone’s interest. Here’s how you, as a man, can and should care about women’s rights. This is a tough message to sell given the entrenched traditional ideas about gender roles in a patriarchal society. But the MAP framework is a really interesting, really effective approach to gender. It places men and boys as the main beneficiaries of gender equity. Instead of railing against sexual harassment and unequal division of labor in the home, MAP goes back to the basics. What is gender? Why do we have different tasks for men and women in the family? How does violence negatively affect our families and communities? All sessions are based on questions and interactive activities which help the male participants think through and challenge preconceived ideas of gender in their society and come to their own conclusions about what needs to change, and how. Some of the activities were hard to watch, like “Sharing our attitudes about gender.” This is the very first activity of the training, and is intended to get participants used to sharing their ideas and hearing others’ with respect. That said, some of the perspectives are less than enlightened. In the activity, multiple statements are read and participants decide if they ‘Agree,’ ‘Disagree,’ ‘Totally Agree,’ or ‘Totally Disagree’ with the statement. For example: “Men are more intelligent than women.” Most participants were ‘Disagree’ with this one, thank goodness. So it seemed we were on the right track. But then, “If a woman dresses in “sexy” (skirt hem above the knees, etc.) clothes, she deserves to be raped.” Almost all of our participants were ‘Totally Agree.’ Throughout the training, Christy and I tried to stay out of the discussion as much as possible. We had a really capable team of Togolese facilitators and pretty much left session management up to them. But on this one I couldn’t help myself… deserved to be raped?? Come on, guys! So I ‘shared my attitude’ that no one can deserve a crime, and that I think men are strong enough to resist these girls, and they all laughed. I think part of it is the cultural expectation of dressing correctly. Here, you dress UP for things. Going out of your house is an event. Even if you are the farmer-iest farmer, you put on your best clothes for the marché or a bush taxi ride. So not dressing properly is seen as intentional and a major faux pas. Also, people kind of do believe that you can deserve a crime by not taking proper precautions against it. Locking doors, closing windows (very small windows, so people can’t go in or out of them), not leaving anything of value out in plain sight, it’s a national obsession. But anyways, I digress. The point is, it was very interesting hearing people’s views on gender issues in such a candid way, and then watching how they changed throughout the course of the three days.

            On the last full day of the training, we organized community groups to come in and be audiences for the participants to so they could lead sessions as practice before heading home. This was a great part of the conference. We sent some of the participants (the teachers, mainly) over to the huge middle school in Dapaong to lead sessions with students and teachers on sexual harassment and consent. The other groups stayed on site and led sessions with groups of taxi moto drivers, social workers, and a small environmental volunteer group. It was all a big hit. The moto guys, in particular, loved their sessions on ‘New types of courage’ and ‘What is violence?’, and the environment group had so much fun with ‘Agree/Disagree’ that they played for an extra hour. Then, two days after the conference was over, one of our facilitators ran into the environment group in the marché. They had set up shop in a cafeteria (sells egg sandwiches, rice, spaghetti, etc.) on Saturday morning, and were leading ‘Agree/Disagree’ with everyone who came in for breakfast. Just like that! We hadn’t even really trained them, they were just there for a couple hours to do one activity, but I guess they really loved it and got to work right away.

            So, overall, a great event. We sent everyone home with certificates (like gold in Togo—folks LOVE certificates), their very own MAP manual, and had a dance party on the last night with tchakpa. One thing I really, really appreciate about Togo: grown men will literally drop whatever they’re doing and get up and DANCE, I’m talking booty shakin’, linking arms with their friends, laughing and running around DANCING when their song comes on. I couldn’t imagine a group of teachers, for example, dancing it out at the end of a conference in America. But, for the record, the women at the women’s conference out-danced the men three times over—we had to shut the ladies’ party down at midnight. They’d been having a traditional dance stomp-off competition. The men all went to bed of their own accord around 8 pm : )

Premier Mai, 2012

Once again, Premier Mai proved to be my favorite holiday in Togo. This year, one of my Mango cluster friends came over to celebrate with me, as her village is mostly Muslim and doesn’t party it up quite like Mogou. Apparently, few places party it up like Mogou. We started the day with a parade through town, featuring all the workers of Mogou. Teachers, moto drivers, health workers, couturières and taillers (tailors), me and Affaires. Aichetou got me in on the teachers’ uniform, so I was wearing the matching shirt and looking very official. We got into very organized lines and marched around town, those in front carrying a Grey Goose Vodka promotional tablecloth or sign or something, cuz we needed a banner. M. Akata, the class clown of the teachers, let the parade yelling ‘Left! Left! Left right left!’ and Salamatou led everyone in singing, “We are the workers of Mogou!” The parade went to the Régent du Chef Canton’s house (head guy for the canton, like a county? but smaller), where all of the notables were seated, waiting for us. We then had our spokesperson present our group and give a short history of Premier Mai: labor day. Shout out to Dad and Brian for doing research for me on the world history of labor day… they loved it. He then read the list of things we, the workers of Mogou, appreciate in our community (the new electricity, the cell tower, the road construction from Mogou to Tchimonga, etc.) followed by our list of demands/ requests for this year. Those included: new road to Mango, a parking lot in the marché for the cars/ trucks that come in, a police post, electricity for the health clinic, etc. I really liked this part. Everybody got together the day before and made a list of things they liked and didn’t like about Mogou, and what we should ask for to change from the Chef. How great! Let’s do it, guys! Some of that stuff, like electricity for the health clinic and the parking lot, should be pretty easy. New road to Mango? Well, at least I know I’m not the only one who thinks it’s bad.

            After the parade, it was marché day as well, so we hit up the beans and rice, got some mangos, and headed back to my house to take a nap before the afternoon festivities started. Affaires had already been by. “Where are you?” was scrawled on my porch in charcoal. This is his favorite day out of the whole year, and he was busy getting his people together. At around 2pm, Aichetou came by with another woman from our group to collect us. They tied my pagne on my head for me, and off we went to get the others. There were about 10 of us who ended up together that afternoon… part of the deal is walking around collecting everyone so that the people of the village can see how pretty and fancy you all are. So after 2 hours of that, we ended up at the bar to watch the impromptu dance party that went into the night. We called it a day pretty early, like 9pm…. the rest of the village stayed out all night.

Everything in between…

Besides all my activities, life has been going pretty well. I had the pleasure of hosting my fourth American visitor (Mom, Dad, and Kev, I’m counting you guys as one visit…), Ruth Marks! She was so fun and such a trooper, and we had a great trip running all up and down Togo. We saw Lomé, Kpalimé, and the mountains of Danyi, all the way up to my village and back down again. It’s always nice to get a fresh perspective on life here and catch up on what’s going on back in America. She also took some great pictures of Mogou, which I normally don’t do because it would be a bit awkward for me. I was trying to post them now, but the internet is not cooperating… I’ll get a bunch up when I go south next month.

            So now, here I am up in Dapaong on a very unscheduled trip… I ran out of cooking gas three days ago and finally couldn’t eat another meal of mangos and crackers, so I came up to refill. I had a rough weekend in general: snake in my latrine (killed it!), baby mice falling from my kitchen ceiling, bug outbreak in my house after a big rain, etc. so I’m kind of glad for a quick, one-day break. I’ll head back tomorrow and will be in village for about 3 weeks, studying for the GRE. Fun, fun! But really great as far as free time goes… I can literally spend days just studying without much worry. The kids are all in their final exams, and since the rains started all their parents are planting in the fields, so nobody’s really around to do anything with me. Perfect! After the GRE, my main (and last, really) thing is Camp Etoiles du Nord, the planning for which should take most of my time until the end of my service. I officially got my COS (close of service) date: September 21^st! Since I’m getting replaced, and the new group is coming early this time around, I have to be out of my house by September 14^th instead of the usual November. It’s still a full two years, and I feel like I’ll have done a significant amount of work by then, so it works out well for me. I’m really glad I’m getting replaced in Mogou: the village has changed so much since I first got there, and I’m hoping with some of the groundwork I laid, the next volunteer can really get a lot done. Or at least enjoy the electricity : )

            One last thing, sad news: Toby got sick and passed away yesterday. There’s something going around with the dogs in the area, so I don’t think it was anything intentional (at first, Affaires thought it could be poison). It was very sudden, but as all my neighbors tell me, you never know what’s going to happen in life, and “we don’t cry over animals, Ellen.” He was a great dog, and I miss him a lot, but at least I know he was the most loved (and spoiled) dog in the whole canton.

'Til next time... which I hope will be much sooner : )

Hello, all! Long time no post... and sorry, this one is kind of a teaser. I promise more to come very soon (right after I finish my Men As Partners training conference this week).
In the meantime, Camp Etoiles du Nord is back again this year! Like last summer, we're bringing 30 top female students from villages all over our prefecture into Mango for a week of fun! The girls will meet professional women from the area, tour workplaces and learn about different careers, and gain life skills through sessions on self-confidence, contraceptive use, time-management, setting objectives, etc. This is a really great project and one of the best things I've done during my service; last year's participants still talk about their time at camp, and I have seen such a difference in their confidence, leadership, and schoolwork. Check out the link for more info (and to donate!): https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projdetail&projdesc=693-401

Grand merci! : )