Yams Make Great Gifts

Bonne Année!! Happy Deux Mille Onze, everyone! My year so far has been a series of ups and downs, mainly a function of just trying to get used to living and working in Mogou, mais on va se débrouiller (I’ll figure it out).

Eloise caught some sort of bug that wiped out almost all of our chickens and she died before New Years Eve. Luckily, Affaires and I had very strategically planned a CVD election meeting in a neighboring village a couple days before la fête, and they sent us back with 2 roosters, a chicken, and a sack of yams as a thank you. On the ride back to Mogou, Affaires gleefully told me that a village once gave him a whole goat to thank him for his work. We divided it all up and I got one big rooster and about 6 yams. To clarify, yams here (ignams) are not like the cute lil orange potatoes. These things are about as long as half your arm and look like logs. They’re super starchy and white on the inside, and when boiled and pounded up, become fufu. The thought of trying to make a meal that other people would want to eat out of 6 yams, a live chicken, and no vegetables really scared me. Luckily, a few things happened. One, my boyfriend came up from his post in the south and brought bread as a gift for my neighbor. She then agreed to cook the rooster. Two, not very many people came to greet me on New Years, and the ones who did were my homologue (who just gave me a hard time about not knowing how to cook), Affaires (same choses), and packs of kids, to whom I handed out candy. Three, everyone was busy giving us food and didn’t seem to notice we weren’t giving much back. We had chicken and rice and sauce with actual tomatoes and cabbage in it…mmmm. And everyone seemed pretty appeased with my offers of café-rum.

After Bonne Année, things settled down quickly in Mogou, and I got a lil post-holiday blues-ish. Classes started up again, the teachers went back to work, and everyone got back in their routine. I don’t have a routine yet per se, so I was feeling a little lost and it took me a few days to figure out what to do with myself. The combined forces of Affaires and my Gamgam teacher gave me the kick in the bum that I needed, and helped me set up some meetings, which then turned into more meetings, and now I’m as busier than ever. Latrine projects for Mogou centre, fixing more broken water pumps, organizing sensibilisations for apprentices, and the girls’ club.

About the girls’ club: last week gave me a very clear idea of where we’re at. Some of the other PCVs in larger towns told me that they had a hard time with girls’ clubs because the girls say “they’ve heard it all before” about HIV/AIDS, self-confidence, goal setting, early pregnancy, etc. My girls have heard none of it. Now, this is at the middle school, but the average age of these girls is around 15 or 16. We’re now down from 48 to 47 girls out of 300 students—one girl is pregnant and dropped out last week. When I asked them what they wanted out of the club, they said songs and dancing and games. So, we’re going to do all of that, plus life skills and the importance of staying in school. Really hoping we don’t lose any more.

Another, un-work related project I’ve got going on is my latrine. Right now, it’s a hole in the cement about the size of my foot. While that’s manageabe-ish for the time being, it’s really only a matter of time before I’m sick and wishing the hole was a lot bigger than my foot. So I biked out to my landlord’s house in the next village over and asked him about making a seat.

“There’s no cement. There’s sand. How much do you need?” “No no, I need cement, and by me I mean the mason or someone because I’m not skilled in concrete.” “Well why do you want a seat? You have a hole.” “Yes but it’s not big enough. And I would really like a seat.” “Are you sick or something? What are you eating that you need a hole bigger than that?” “Please sir I just want a seat…” “Ok fine I’ll get you cement. But you’re paying the mason for this, tu comprends?”

The conversation was immediately turned around when all of a sudden the landlord’s wives and children rushed outside. They surrounded me and greeted me for 5 minutes straight, and then started strapping yams to the back of my bike. Grand merci! Yams for days! I tried frying up one yam, the smallest one, and then decided to give the rest away. With the yams from the CVD elections, I had a small harvest piling up in my kitchen. So I handed them out to my neighbors who loved them and then fed me dinner for the next 3 days. Everyone wins!

 GEE stage 2010!

 My host maman and Junior. Someone please call Baby Gap and tell them to call this kid. Adorable.

 When I had my hair braided...which lasted 4 days. Ouch. On doit souffre pour la beaute, I'm told.

Chez moi! The view from my terrace, before all my neighbors moved in. Now there are also 6 hens, 2 roosters, 3 ducks, 2 dogs, and a cat out roaming the courtyard.

Me and my host sister Ruth at swear in...she was so excited to be there, she jumped into all our group pics too.

Joyeux Noel!

I think this is going to be the most unusual Christmas ever, but I’m looking forward to it just the same. After a month of Mogou (with a couple breaks up to Dapaong), I’m ready to kick back at my friend’s house with some running water, electricity, and vegetables. She’s been a great hostess: overhead shower, yogurt, vegetable soup, Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”… it’s been quite the vacay, and it’s just started. It was so nice to talk to my fam and hear about the snow and Christmas-y things.  It was about 90 degrees again today, and since her town is about 80% Muslim, it’s not exactly “beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” But we’re celebrating just the same. I splurged and bought 2 music video DVD’s: Toofan and Akon.  We jammed to “On va vous deloger” all afternoon, which roughly translates to “Our music is so good it’s gonna drive you out of your houses.” I love how French has a verb for that. But anyways, tomorrow we’re killing a chicken and making chicken fajitas, decorating the house, and probably singing “Deloger” all day. A very joyeux Noel.

To update, Mogou is going well. It’s been slow moving, but I’m getting more and more comfortable living there. I had quite the pump saga, which is actually still continuing, but is getting better. There are 6 pumps in Mogou, 3 of which are functional right now, for 2,000 people. With the end of rainy season, the creeks dried up and the pressure on the pumps is really starting to be noticeable. There were a couple days in a row in which I couldn’t get water because there were too many people at the pump (so my water girl told me—don’t worry, I’m still too wimpy to carry all that on my head across town). So I talked to Affaires about it, and the next day he had organized meetings to discuss fixing two of the broken pumps. Great! Let’s get to it.

Pumps in Mogou come with committees, I’ve found out, so we met with the committees and discussed what was broken, where we can get parts, and how much it’s all going to cost. Unfortunately for the pump closest to my house, the part is a $40 cable that may or may not be in Lomé (the secretary of the committee is going to call his brother down there and see what he can find). At one point during one of the meetings, (after we had decided that families with multiple wives did in fact have to contribute more to the fundraising for new parts) someone turned to me and asked, “Damigou, what does your village do when the pump breaks?” Ummm, call the plumber?  Togo is teaching me more and more about what I don’t know about infrastructure. Similarly, after contemplating my gas stove, which runs off of a tank that I have to refill, I asked my parents how the gas gets to our stove in our house in America. And why don’t we have to turn the gas off when we’re done? Gas lines, I’m told, that run underground all over the country. And then there’s a meter that says how much we use. Magic! Stuff I should have thought about more… or should have asked Carrie about.

Besides problemes d’eau, I’ve been doing lots of hangin’ in Mogou. I’ve been to all the churches and the mosque, and even the Catholic churches’ picnic last Sunday. They had a clothes auction to raise money for the church, and some ladies made rice and beans and tchakba. So fun.

It was exams last week, so the director of the CEG asked that I not come up to the school because the students would be distracted. Fair point. When I head back this week it will still be winter break, so my activities will have to resume after New Years. Have I mentioned I have a chicken? Her name is Eloise, and I’m planning on cooking her up for New Years.  It sounds kind of like Halloween: people come to your house to greet you, and you serve them food and drinks, and then they continue on to the next house.  I might hand Eloise over to my neighbor to cook… she actually knows what she’s doing with la sauce.  I’ll let you know how it all goes!

Happy Holidays to everyone! I’m thinking about you and sending all my good vibes westward. Daz, I totes thought of you the other day when I was having a moment… Forward, forward, forward! ; ) THANK YOU for the letters! Megan, I’m writing back as soon as humanly possible!! I miss you all tons and will post again soon!  Xoxox

Welcome to Mogou

Good morning, Mogou! I’m working on getting used to my new routine: which involves waking up at 5:45 am. Which, come to think of it, isn’t that much different from my old routine…

It’s Harmattan season right now, which means "cold" and windy. People wear winter coats and ski caps in the mornings. I was really curious how cold it actually was when I woke up shivering, so I checked my thermometer: 71 degrees. And by 5:45 I was late and had already missed a visitor: the girl who does my laundry and gets water for me from the pump on the other side of town. In my head, I had grand designs of fetching all my water, doing all my laundry, and cooking all my meals for myself… reality set in pretty fast.  Cooking a meal (that I actually want to eat) is enough of a challenge to keep me preoccupied. I bought a bottle of ketchup in Dapaong that has saved a few meals this week.

I’ve learned quite a lot since moving to post. Number one: while “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is a really excellent book, it’s about serial killers. DO NOT read this book at night, in a house all alone, by candlelight… thought I was going to die. I’m going back to “Last of the Mohicans.” It’s at just a high enough literary level that even it there are scary parts, I’m sure they’re lost on me. Number two: Mogou is getting electricity! The electricians have been here from Lomé for the past two weeks, and they tell me they’ll be done by New Years. Really though, besides charging my computer, I don’t have much need for electricity.  Mom sent me a really baller solar charger that can charge my cell phone up to full battery after about 6 hours of being in the sun—just two days of repos. And I go through my full battery about every 3 days, so it works out perfectly.  I have another smaller solar charger I use for my iPod, and that’s it. I am, however, looking forward to what other people are going to do with the electricity. TVs? Refrigerators? This could mean a whole new world of food and information availability in Mogou. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the world right now, and have been craving yogurt for days.

It’s been really fun slash nerve-wracking getting settled in my house. I ordered furniture from the town carpenter, which is all done and looks… solid, at least. I’ve got a large bookshelf that I’m using as a dresser, and I had him put pegs on the sides so that I can hang some stuff. The cement walls are kind of tripping me up. I wanted to put nails into the walls to hang curtains over my door and front window, so I asked my neighbor if he had a hammer that would work for cement walls? Is there such a thing? I didn’t know the word, so I just said “Can you help, I don’t have the right *hand motion like I’m using a hammer*”. “Oh, right, you don’t have the strength for that! I’ll come help, I put up the curtains in my house, I know what to do.” So he shows up with a rock. And pounds the nail into the concrete wall, with the rock. Well heck, I guess I could have done that. I asked him to borrow the rock, and finished the job. I was feeling so pleased from how handy I was, I then decided to sew my own curtain for my bedroom door. Well, it’s up. It’s a curtain. As it turns out, Mom, my hand sewing skills are still just as good as they were when you taught me at age 8 : ) I’ll be leaving my front door and window curtains up to the couturière.

The really fun part, though, has been every time I walk out of my compound. Just when I start to get bored or frustrated with something (like my terrible sauce d’arachide), it’s time for me to go and meet up with someone or go do something, and that’s what turns my day around. Yesterday was World AIDS Day, but unfortunately I was not organized enough to put anything together. So I went with Affaires to Brotouga, a neighboring village, to supervise elections for their CVD: Village Development Committee. It’s kind of like a local government, in collaboration with the chief and other local officials, and they’re in charge of all new development projects. The whole process took all morning, mainly because of the time it took to translate French-Gangam. The coolest part was the actual voting. All the candidates for a position would stand in a row, and then the village members got up and stood behind whomever they wanted to vote for. Literally, standing behind their candidate.  Affaires had a lot of sway over who was nominated, and thus convinced the people of Brotouga to elect women, young people, and members of the often-excluded Fulani ethnic group to the 9-person committee.  All in all, a really interesting experience.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I met with the girls from the CEG (middle school) to talk to them about starting a girls’ club. There are 48 girls officially enrolled (out of 300 total students), and about 20 of them came to the meeting: the perfect size for a club. I don’t know how much they really understood of what I said… I got kind of nervous actually talking to them and choked on my French a bit, but I think they just liked being in the same room as “the American,” and they all were really enthusiastic about the idea of a club. We’ll try again next week.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!!

I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted… I’d first like to blame how busy things have been, and second blame my own rapidly decreasing dependence on the internet.  I can’t believe how much time I used to spend online in my American life. But I’m here, so update!

As of November 18^th, I am officially a sworn-in Peace Corps Volunteer. We had a big ceremony in Lomé at the U.S. Ambassador’s house, complete with Togolese media coverage.  Each stagiaire gave a speech in their local language (for about a minute), and we all raised our right hands and promised to “protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies”… a pretty hefty charge, I think.  Our host families came too, and it was sad to say goodbye. I gave them a parting gift in Tsevié: a live chicken. It was quite the ordeal. I went to the marché with about 4 other girls to buy chickens, and although none of us had the slightest clue what to do, we tried to pretend we knew what we were doing to get a good price. Then we had to carry them home by the feet… I got about 4 meters away from the chicken stand before I got a bag for mine. But my fam was really pleased with it, (and the Frisbee I gave the kids). I also gave them a lil bag of Cheez-its that Mom and Dad sent. True fact: cheez-its are not a universal taste. They were so excited to try them (American snacks!!), and then promptly spat them back out. Oh well.

Lomé was about the 3 most stressful days I’ve spent in Togo so far. The swearing-in ceremony hit me like nothing else has yet. It was just finally so real: Two years! In Mogou! After the oath and speeches, they opened the bar and people went nuts over the free food and drinks. Pictures left and right, so many hugs and people… I was freaking out. But as Christina says, people are other people’s medicine, and my friends got me through. The next day was banking, shopping, and eating. I had a real hamburger! So delicious. But again, it was all a blur and I was worried the whole time I wouldn’t have everything I needed. Saturday morning I was not ready to leave, but they packed us into the vans and we started our 10 hour drive north.

So now I’m really living in Mogou! Post visit week was a series of “Wow, this village is the best!” and “OMG I hate it here,” so these last 3 days I’ve had time to take a step back and analyze Mogou with a level head. Tuesday was marché day. The people of Mogou, when asked, will tell you that you can find “everything!” in the Mogou marché. But then you say “Well how about tomatoes? Or a bucket?” and they say “Oh no, not that.” In reality, the marché is mainly tchakbalo: a local drink made of fermented millet. And dead yovo stuff (meaning second hand goods from America and Europe… they are of such ‘bon qualité’ that people can’t believe yovos parted with these clothes, etc. willingly). So, I’ll be spending more time than I thought biking over to Gando, about 15 km away, to go to their marché.

It was also vaccination day at the dispensaire (health clinic) for the kids. Measles, vitamin A, and two more that I’m not sure what they are in English. Definitely NOT like vaccinations in America. The day was sponsored by WHO and UNICEF, so it was free for the kids, but as a result people showed up in droves. The mothers were literally banging down the door to the dispensaire, trying to get in. It was marché day after all, and they had shopping to do. And what if they ran out. Luckily, I was put on form filling out, not crowd control. The place was a mad house all day… I had the sound of screaming children ringing in my ears for hours after. No suckers, no stickers. No smiling doctors telling you it’ll all be over soon. It was line up, hold the kid’s arm tight, pass the paper along and move out. But, better than measles, I guess.

I’m still figuring out what to do for food… we’re a lil low on veggies up here in the north. And long on millet. And there is no Trader Joes...my reliance on that place becomes more apparent everyday. As for right now, Affaires Sociales and I have a plan set up that goes like this: for 2/3 days, I eat Luna bars, oranges, and rice, and he drinks tchakbalo, then usually on the third day someone in the village gifts me a chicken or guinea fowl. He cooks it, and we eat it. I’m hoping to break this cycle with trips up to Mango and Dapaong. Like today!

I’m in Dapaong with the rest of the Savanes volunteers. We woke up to the sound of our turkey gobbling in the yard… it feels like a very real Thanksgiving. Brett made like 3 pumpkin pies, and Christy and I are in charge of mashed potatoes. Yummm.

I hope you all are doing well, and I miss you like crazy!! Please write/ send packages ;-) to my new P.O. box in Mango: Ellen Van Cleave, B.P. 102, Mango, Togo, West Africa. LOVE!!

Damigou

I survived post visit! Which was more of an accomplishment than I had anticipated.  Mogou is awesome, and I’m really happy to be there, but it is not without a couple challenges. First of all, it’s about an hour by moto to the route nationale (the big paved road that runs up and down Togo). There is also no cell reception… yet. They were building the tower the week I was there: by hand. Like guys carrying large metal beams, scaling a half-built cell tower. It is so impressive watching people build things without serious equipment. Anyways, besides the far-away from it all-ness, Mogou is great. The people are so stoked to have a PCV and seem totally on board with the promotion and education de la fille. And my homologue is a God-send. He’s the social affairs agent (people in the village call him ‘Affaires Sociales’) for the canton of Mogou, so he’s already doing a lot of GEE work on his own, which is awesome.  I think for the first month or two, I’m just gonna shadow him around and watch him at work.  I had a series of defining moments during post visit week… I guess I’ll go in sequential order.

Number one: not in Kansas anymore. My homologue de contact (a guy from the village who came to get me in Tsevié) and I arrived at about 9:30 pm—very very late at night for a town where the nearest electricity is about 20 kilometers away. But never the less, about half the village was awake and ready to greet me! There was a large crowd of women singing and dancing outside my new house, and all the kids helped unload my stuff from the van. Then they pulled me into a circle of people to watch the chief kill me a chicken. Affaires Sociales told me that a white chicken means welcome, and after they cut its neck, if it flaps around a lot, that is a sign of luck and good things to come. It flapped a lot. Then he asked if we do the same thing to greet visitors where I’m from. Nope, it’s a lil different.

Defining moment number two: when I realized what I’ll actually be doing for the next 2 years. Affaires and I were on our way to a meeting in the next village over, and we saw a girl who was about 10-12 years old walking on the path.  Affaires stopped her and asked why she wasn’t in school, and she explained. She was actually from Dapaong, about a 2 hours drive north, but her brother brought her down to Mogou to get married. Well Affaires wasn’t about to stand for that. He brought her into town along with the brother and the fiancé, sat everyone under the big tree and worked out a contract.  The girl would get to go back to Dapaong, go to school, and best of all, not get married. Good work, Affaires! Then he told me how forced marriage was a big issue in the area, and that he has to deal with it often. In Mogou proper, the middle school has 250 boys and 48 girls. In the nearby village, the ratio is just as skewed even in the primary school. So I think the majority of my work is going to be on getting girls to go to school and then stay in school. But we’ll see. Affaires told me he’s going to let me see for myself exactly what’s going in on Mogou, come to my own conclusions, etc. It’s going to be interesting, that’s for sure.

I have a village name! Damigou. Meaning “God/the Ancestors Protect Her.” For the swearing-in ceremony, I’m giving a 2-minute speech in Gangam, pretty much just saying my name, where I’m from, where my post is, and what I’ll be doing there. I’m really excited for swear-in: there’s a big party at the U.S. Ambassador to Togo’s house, all our host families will be there, and we’re gonna be looking fly in our complets. I heard a rumor that if you fan/ friend Peace Corps on Facebook, you’ll get to see pics from our swear-in… try it out! I’m thinking about all y’all a bunch, and hope things are going well! Take care : )