PDM

Periodically throughout service we have trainings with our fellow volunteers to hone our skills and disseminate new information.  This past week my stage (SED & CHAP) arrived in Pagala with our homologues for PDM.  Focusing on behavior change methods, family planning for CHAP, and perma-gardens for SED, we spent five days from 7:30am to 6pm in sessions designed to modify our way of thinking about projects and improve our technical knowledge.

We got one whopper of information near the end of the week. We were informed by the Country Director and SED APCD that PC Togo will be phasing out the SED program.  The West Africa Regional Director made the decision to eliminate SED in order to focus PC efforts in Togo.  As a result we won’t be accepting any new SED volunteers and our numbers here in Togo will be reduced for now by a quarter.  The current volunteers with finish their service, but it’s still hard to imagine only having three programs.

To the training I brought a homologue from a local NGO that works on women’s rights and health, and both he and others enjoyed the fact that he was at the training. He was excited to actively participate in activities, joked around, and caught the heart of volunteers as he rolled his eyes and inserted perfectly timed exclamations of exasperation that seemed to fit exactly with how we all felt about some activities.

One activity was home visits to practice some of the family planning training we had received.  We were separated into small groups of volunteers and their homologues, driven out of town into a small village, given three family names, and told to go talk to the family about family planning.  After being dropped off in a seemingly nowhere place, my homologue heaved a heavy sigh that rolled into an exclamation of “Mon Dieu.”  Yup, that is how we all felt, while home visits can be very effective and important, it was hot and sunny, dinner was approaching, and we had to go knocking on doors—a heavy sigh was appropriate. 

Once the home-visits began though, they were quite interesting.  We have heard about some of the rumors people in Togo believe about birth control, but I had not heard many of them personally.  On our third house we spoke with a man who understood the need for family planning, but was concerned that if his wife began a method of birth control such as Norplant she would take a lover.  It was confirmed, some Togolese actually believe that giving woman an opportunity to not get pregnant will automatically make them adulterous. Because of that fear he said he practiced abstinence during periods that they do not want children.  Sam’s homey had a great reply to his practice of abstinence. “Maybe you do practice abstinence and it is effective, but one day you will be feeling really happy, your wife will be there and soon you’ll have that kid you didn’t want.”  That got a quite a few LOLs.

The Peace Corps facility in Pagala is very similar to summer camp, and from what I’ve heard it was a retreat camp in the 70s that the Peace Corps bought years later.  The facility is very similar to a camp you’d think of in the U.S.—we stay in cabin-like bunks, eat together in a dining hall, and there is even an old swimming-pool that has long been abandoned.   One difference is that the camp has not been sue-proofed.  The pool is not fenced and there are few paths that do not have jagged rocks and roots traversing them.  It was with these rocks that I had my exciting interaction.

Just earlier in the day I had mentioned how no one in the U.S. could get away with grounds like those in Pagala, when, after dark, I was accompanying a friend to find hot water from the kitchen to tend to her own foot injury and I walked directly into a big rock sticking out of the ground. Stubbing my toe, I busted it right open.  Being the great friend I am I now had a sympathy food injury to compliment my friend’s. Thankfully it turned into only what resembles a really deep blister and after some washing, the removal of a substantial hunk of skin, exclamations of “oh gross!” and some bandages I was able to limp on.

Trainings at Pagala are a great time to catch up with other volunteers and gain important knowledge—my biggest lesson this week being to use a flashlight when walking around at night.  While taking a hunk off my toe was an effective lesson, I think I prefer the home visits.