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. 

I (H)Ate bugs

I do not like insects.  I am not one scream and run away when I see them, but they make me unhappy.  I think it is mostly an issue of personal space.  I like my own space, and only things I invite into my little bubble are welcome.  Now people, and animals such as cats and dogs, can be welcome in my space, but when I don’t want them I can close a door or simply say, “Leave me alone.” And I have my space back; this is not the case with bugs.  No matter what you do they will invade your space.  You can sleep under a net and the little ones will crawl through, you can spray noxious insecticide everywhere and they will soon appear again; bugs are persistent, annoying, and unwelcome.

Most recently bugs have invaded my food.  It started with rice weevils.  I opened my bin of rice and found a few little weevils crawling around in there.  Being a sizeable quantity of rice it would be silly and irresponsible (um hello, Africa?) to toss it out just because there are bugs in it. The solution: cook the rice as normal, just skim the little buggers off the top of the water when then float up.  Of course muttering to yourself with exclamations of, “Eeeww…, gross,” and, “I hate bugs, I hate bugs, I hate bugs” will come along naturally.  Any bugs left in are simply a bit of extra protein—yeah, delicious.

After the rice came the beans.  I bought some dried beans in the market and when I proceeded to sort through them to get rid of little rocks and bad beans I found more bugs.  This time they were sphere-like flying insects.  Their quick escape from the beans into my house freaked me out a bit and I had to take my bean sorting outside.  I did my best to shake out all the bugs and pick out beans that looked fishy, but still today I found one of these bugs hanging out in my beans.  No worries it was squished successfully.  The result of this? I am going to go on a bean diet for the next couple of weeks to use them all up before new buggies hatch.  I really should have bought a smaller amount of beans…

I have looked online for solutions to the “bugs in my grains” problem, but the number one suggestion is to freeze the rice or beans to kill the eggs and keep new ones from hatching.  If you remember I am without a refrigerator and getting anything below 85 degrees is highly unlikely.  The other option given:  Toss them out, but as I said before, I live in Africa…

Other than the bugs in my food my ritualistic spraying with insecticide, which will surely lead to cancer one day, has kept the buggers at bay.  Of course there is a constant parade of ants tromping though my bathroom, but without real ant traps there is no way for me to get my bug poison down to them. 

Another handy solution to my bug problem is that I have a lizard living in my ceiling... or that’s what I think it is… I’m pretty sure this friend, who I hear scurrying around on my drop ceiling periodically, eats up those more unpleasant bugs like big spiders and cockroaches.  At least I haven’t ever had any real problems with them, so I like to assume that that scary sound in the ceiling is doing some good.  Just like those extra bugs I eat give me the little boost of protein that is keeping me healthy, after a few “uggh’s” you have to look for the positives, it's the only way to stay sane. That, and liberal amounts of insecticide. 

Hello Pineapple Lime Preserves

Woale, Nenie atɔtɔ a?  Deka, biye dze eve. Etɔ, biye dze atɔ.

(Good afternoon, how much does the pineapple cost? One, 200CFA. Three, 500 CFA)

Well then… I must buy three and save that 100CFA (approx. 25 cents)!

While perusing the market yesterday I had a bit of a hankering for some fruit.  My usual fruit lady had pineapple and some bizarre looking African fruit I did not recognize at all so, rather than chancing my fruit purchase of the week on the mystery fruit, I turned my eye to the piles of pineapple.

Really all I needed or wanted was one pineapple, but they were so neatly stacked in piles of three and the price such a bargain… how could I not get three?  Well, I could have not gotten three and not had a big pile of pineapple sitting in my house that I needed to eat before the end of a few days or I would not only have a large pile of pineapple, but also a large pile of rotting pineapple sitting in my kitchen.  I needed to figure out how to use up this fruit I so frugally purchased. 

Tiger enjoying a pineapple lime preserve sandwich.

Of course I could eat it strait, but a bad experience in the past when I sat down by my lonesome with a whole pineapple and ended up with a tongue sore from the acid burning my tongue, makes me shy away from eating three pineapples straight.  There is always the oldie but goody, pineapple upside-down cake, but trying to limit some of my sugar intake that was out.  So I found a recipe for Pineapple Lime Preserves and they are delicious.

This was my first preserving experience and really I have not of the proper equipment to do it properly.  But after jerry-rigging a contraption made from an old margarine tub and the pot lid to keep my jar submerged beneath the boiling water, it was a go.  Amazingly, I did not burn myself once even though I was pouring a boiling liquid into a boiling hot jar with the limited equipment I could fin consisting of more margarine tubs and a dishtowel.

I now have a tasty treat for my toast, no burns, fewer pineapples, and, with a little luck, no botulism!

A Cool Holiday

France may just be the best place to be if you are feeling nauseous.  You may say with such delicious food and wine, and so many things to see and do? You want to be nauseous there?  Well, I’m talking about its ability to make you feel all better.  Thanks to differences in health care you can walk into a pharmacy ask for something to fix your stomach and, ba-da-bing, you have in your hand the medication they give to Chemo patients to fight their nausea.  One of these bad boys and you are ready to eat and do everything.  You can live like you are dying of that cancer that you no longer feel nauseous from, and with so much to see and eat, Paris may be just the place to do it.

I met up with Matt in Paris for one week of holiday from life here in Togo.  I must say I had a pretty good time and I think Matt did too, but I am still convinced he may have been experiencing a bit of a high and euphoria from those French drugs.

Of course one perk of leaving the equator is the weather.  For the week, Paris was a pleasant forty-something degrees during the day and thirties at night.  I was able to snuggle under blankets, wear warm clothes, and walk around throughout the day without sweating to death.  It was wonderful to wander through the city and explore without feeling like you are going to die of dehydration and sun poisoning. A nice warm hand to hold is not too bad either.

Being the wanderers we are, we walked all over the city seeing many of the typical touristy sites and exploring neighborhoods.  For lunch we tried to decide between the dozens of nearly identical cafes we passed and started thinking about what we would be doing for dinner even before we had lunch.  Of course the food was delicious and an apple crumble, with a topping that may have been a stick of butter, got us to come back for more.  I wish I could have more of this French food back in Togo, but without many of the ingredient like real butter or cheese I’m out of luck and can’t even make them for myself. 

As convinced of how delicious the food is, I am equally convinced that every table in Paris wobbles.  Hardly a problem for the average person a wobbly table can be fixed with a sliver of cardboard, but, put in the hands of one such as myself, a wobbly table is dangerous.  I will jar the table the precise moment you are trying to pour yourself a glass of wine or pick up a utensil, and I will enjoy it, then I will accidently do it again.

Together Matt and I saw weapons, bones, towers, and pigeons fighting over hotdogs and much more.  I finally was able to get clean and stay that way for longer than ten seconds and I got to see Matt after seven months of being apart.  Spending time in Paris made the idea of coming back to humidity and dirt feel extremely difficult, but it’s good to be back, getting a bear hug welcome home from my landlord’s wife and sitting propped in front of my fan listening to my tiny neighbor wail away.  Ah, Togo.

I’ll miss Paris, and even though I may be sweaty and covered in dust, I can’t imagine starting the New Year anywhere but here. Souhaitant une bonne et heureuse année pour tous.

Amenities

I have running water and electricity sort of…  It didn’t take me long to get over my disappointment of having electricity and running water.  Sure, I wanted to be in some small village somewhere getting the real Peace Corps experience, but the convenience of amenities like electricity and water cannot be denied and I’m grateful to have them when I do.

Sometimes though, it’s not about having it at all, but consistently having it.  And my water and electricity pretty consistently go off.  The best is when my power goes off in the middle of cooking dinner—I really like playing with boiling water and hot pans in the dark.  I also like having my water go off in the middle of a shower.  There are of course solutions to these problems, flashlights and bucket showers can go a long way, but if you aren’t prepared for it you can find yourself standing soapy in the dark.  Some people have said that in certain ways the people who never have running water or electricity have it a little easier because they are prepared for it and we spoiled people get stuck scrambling.

Back home in the US the only time the power goes off is from a major event like a big storm or some sort of accident.  The power or water being off for a few days is a news worthy event, not so much here.  Along with some grumbling, in the US the power going out was always noted by the need to reset the digital clocks, and I’m very glad I don’t have an alarm clock here that gets plugged in or I would be resetting the clock a few times each day and would only occasionally be woken up in time for work.

There are times when the power goes out for days at a time (providing an excuse for romantic candle-lit dinners) but mostly the power goes out for 15 to 30 minute intervals.  There is no apparent trigger and I really don’t understand why it goes off, or really why it comes back on.  While there is an audible sigh from my neighbors as their TVs click off and the whole city falls silent, there is no real complaining or calls made to the utility company, we’re in Togo, the power goes off sometimes, we are lucky to have it when we do.

Not having water can be a little more difficult than when the power is out.  I can have water fetched for me from somewhere else in town, but without water I cannot live.  So, I keep a big garbage can filled with water just in case the next time I go to wash my hands all the faucet does is gurgle a bit. 

I never really had to deal with these things in the States, things were much more consistent.  Living here teaches you to roll with it.  You can’t really be guaranteed anything, but with a little preparation and a deep breath it isn’t such a problem.  Give it some time, soon enough you’ll be enjoying the blare of your neighbors’ music and wishing the power would just go back off.

Sans Frigo

Like many volunteers here in Togo I live my life without a refrigerator (frigo).  Being lucky enough to have electricity I could choose to invest in a fridge, but in addition to the cost of even a small fridge being more than two months of my total living allowance (that would mean no eating for a bit) and a severely increased electricity bill, I would have to figure out how to get the fridge from Lomé to my house, which would consist of taking it on and off a minimum of three bush taxis—a feat I’m just not ready for yet.

Life without a refrigerator has been in some ways easier than I may have originally thought.  I come from a family where some members refrigerate nearly everything.  With peanut butter and bread in the fridge (cough grandma cough) and everything having labeled with “refrigerate after opening” the idea of living without a fridge seemed impossible.

Of course I have given up many things by living with out a fridge like cold milk, fresh meat, yogurt, and for the most part, leftovers, but I still eat many things I thought I wouldn’t be able to have in a life sans frigo.

You can find many things on my shelves that in the States would have always been in the refrigerator.  I have my jam, margarine, mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, cheese, fish, milk, eggs, and mayonnaise all out at room temperature and if room temperature didn’t happen to be 34°C (93ish°F) I think I could get away with even more.  And for the record I have never been sick yet since being here in Togo.

It is true that my cheese is Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow), my fish is smoked, and I must drink my milk the day I open it (or I drink milk powder), but while not the fanciest foods, there are an incredible number of products that don’t need to be refrigerated.  Volunteers have gotten some laughs asking for cured meats and hard cheeses or other products like Velveeta, babybel, Oscar Mayer fully cooked bacon, chicken and tuna packets, and other seemingly random goods that are expensive or you just can’t find here.

There are of course drawbacks of not having a fridge, like not having leftovers (though I have risked it and eaten some things the next day).  Everything goes moldy here extremely fast.  It’s hot and humid and I guess to be expected, but I buy things like carrots and if I don’t eat them in under a few days they start to go bad.  I can only really buy veggies once a week, on Friday market day, and by Tuesday they are gone or bad.  Saving produce is probably one of the things for which I most wish I had a fridge.  A cold drink every now and then would be nice too. 

I may end up caving in and buying myself a fridge to save my veggies, but for now I’m doing just fine.  It is amazing how much we refrigerate in the US that really doesn’t need it, but it is true that a fridge can really make things last much much longer and not having a moldy surprise after just a few days, will one day make a refrigerator a welcomed appliance in my kitchen

The Jewelry Makes the Woman

From infancy girls and boys are marked different by jewelry.  All baby girls’ ears are pierced, boys’ are not.  While this little fact comes in handy when doing baby weighing and guessing which one was which, this identification is very persistent and you are not really female unless you wear earrings.

Coming to Togo I didn’t know what I was expecting and the logical thing seemed to not bring much jewelry at all.  I guess it was some silly idea that I didn’t want to draw attention to myself even with cheap fake jewelry that someone might mistake for being of value, but now I wish I had brought more with me.  My two pairs of earrings, now one thanks to my clumsiness, are sufficient, but I wear them every day and it is only time until I wear them out or lose them.  

I remember the first time I dared to leave my house without my earrings in, OK more like I forgot to put them in; my host mother was a little shocked and with a worried voice asked what had happened to my earrings.  At the time I assumed she was just concerned that I had lost them seeing as how jewelry can be valuable.

A second time I didn’t wear my earrings in public, a midwife, whom I had just met, reached over and grabbed my earlobe, “hmm, just checking.  Why are you not wearing your earrings?”  I don’t know... I didn’t feel like it? I forgot? They were making me uncomfortable? There are plenty of reasons why on a perfectly normal day I might not wear them, but apparently this is somewhat unacceptable. 

Just this last week a male colleague of mine did exactly the same thing.  In the middle of a conversation about a project we are working on he reached over and grabbed my ear.  “Women wear earrings, why are you not wearing any?”  Considering this conversation was happening in my own courtyard after I had been woken up from a nap I assumed that it would be OK not to be wearing my jewelry, I guess not.

Can they not see my long hair, my dress, or my female form?  Are earrings really needed to let them know I’m not a man in disguise?  Yes, in the US earrings are stereotypically a female adornment, but rarely is a woman’s identity specifically focused on her ears.  Unlike in America, in Togo there are extremely few to no men with pierced ears.  I am so used to seeing body adornments on both men in women, in both the US and my National Geographic version of Africa; I am surprised to find piercings only on the ears and only on women.  It’s a practice I’ve had to get used to in order to be integrated in my community and it has taken effort, even now I find my hands subconsciously wandering to my ears, just checking…yup, no worries, female today.