Not Here, Not Now

I’m usually a pretty big zombie movie fan.  It can be an interesting subject to think about and I enjoy imagining how I’d fare if this unlikely scenario was to occur.  Besides an old sports injury that would keep me from sprinting away too quickly, I figure I could hold it together and could survive maybe a little above average-ly well. 

But this afternoon I found myself thinking, “Please don’t let there be a zombie apocalypse while I am here in Africa. Not here, not now.” –OK, yes maybe thinking about zombie apocalypses may not always be categorized under normal activities, but I have a lot of time alone, so work with me here—Why did I find myself saying this? Because, I am almost 95% certain that I would not survive a zombie attack while I am here in Togo.

First of all I have no weapons.  If I was forced to defend myself from a zombie I would be out of luck.  Taking stock of what I would be able to find in my house: a frying pan, which I’m pretty sure the handle is going to fall off soon, so just a few whacks and I’m done for; and a hammer, a little too close range for my comfort; in a pinch I could probably grab my bench and use that but none of the options are optimal.  I have none of the typical sports or lawn equipment that represents the typical weapon choice and there is a zero percent chance I that will happen upon some avid hunter’s gun collection.  There are extremely few guns in Togo and hardly any private citizens own or possess a gun.  Some security guards and military personnel carry guns, but from what I understand bullets are often not included. So, in a fight to defend myself I’m basically handing myself over on a plate.

Actually escaping would be pretty much as impossible as defending myself. Particularly during the rainy season, roads can be impassible on a normal day, much less one with zombies. Roads are often barely wide enough for two cars and one overturned truck would block the only road to get where you are going.  There aren’t very many cars in good condition around either.

 With many windows that are cracked or don’t close, when your car inevitably stalls you are dinner in a take-out box.  There would be no stopping them from breaking the already weakened windows or clambering right into your lap as you reach for the window crank only to find it doesn’t exist.  And don’t bother trying to make a dash for it, the door you need to leave though probably doesn’t open or at the very least needs to be opened from the outside.  One positive note though is that you are unlikely to fumble with keys when trying to escape; many cars are old and the keys have been lost, so they are hotwired to run—just pinch the wires sticking out of the dashboard together and away you go!

In every zombie film the heroes are running to somewhere. They choose a spot they think may be safe and set that as their goal. I have no clue where I would try to run.  I am not familiar with the official or secure buildings in Togo or its surrounding countries and would be hopelessly lost.  I guess I may head for the U.S.  Embassy, they have marines and a building that is more soundly built than my own house.

If I wanted to hunker down and hope for it to blow over I’d be at great risk because my house itself is not an ideal zombie proof hideout.  You may think, “but Liz you have a walled in compound. Surely that will stop them!” My wall is maybe six and a half feet tall, and I have myself contemplated climbing over it when I have been locked out at night a couple of times. With a few zombie bodies piled up against it, it would be a cake walk to amble your zombie-self right over it.

My door would likely provide little to no extra protection, as I am quite sure a small child could break it down if they put a little effort into it.  The weight of a zombie horde would definitely be too much for my already splintered door to bear. I wouldn’t even be able to try the “be quiet and everything would be alright” tactic, because every sound in my compound is amplified ten times. I can hear my neighbors brush their teeth, one move and those flesh eaters would know I was in here.  On a positive note I do have bars on my windows, so at least they wouldn’t get in there.

Finally, I don’t know if I could mentally take a zombie apocalypse.  A while back I got my hands on the second half of the first season of the Walking Dead and I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it; I get to the truck being turned over in the first scene and I’m done. I rather like the show,  and watched it alone and at night plenty back home, but I feel too uneasy to watch it by myself here. I think it’s from being so far from my friends and family and being in a country where I can’t talk to half the population, it has sapped a lot of my confidence and mental stability.   If I can’t hold it together enough for a TV show, how would I ever be able to survive a zombie attack?

I would never wish for a zombie apocalypse, but if there ever is going to be one, let it happen once I back home, where at the very least Matt could try to save me with his self-professed awesome zombie survival skills.

Being a Peeping Tom, I Mean Surveyor

Planning the survey and organizing the training for volunteers and host country nationals was only part of my work in the evaluation of the bed net distribution of last year.  Even as one of the organizers I still participated in the survey itself.  My team of four, myself and three counterparts, had four villages we had to go out and survey.

The first day we all went out together to one of the villages to make sure we all were on the same page with the instructions and to each practice interviewing a household.  While we got a later start than we had planned everything else went pretty smoothly.  Except for a drizzle here and there the rain held off while we did our survey and we were able to get finished in the early afternoon.

This first village was incredible; nearly everyone possessed a bed net, had them hung and reported the whole family sleeping under the nets.  Honestly I was sort of surprised (in a good way) I rarely get to see inside the bedroom of my community members and with everyone behind walls in my city I don’t even get to play role of Peeping Tom to peer through windows and see if there are nets. My only experience with malaria and bed nets had been prior to the campaign, and the campaign itself fell into that awkward period when I was just moving into my town and hadn’t really established any personal or work relationships.

Everyone also seemed to know why it was important to use a mosquito net and how malaria is transmitted. You often hear of people believing that eating too many mangoes, working in the sun, or drinking dirty water gave you malaria, but everyone seemed to know that it was caused by mosquitos.  One man let us know that he used to believe that it was something you ate that gave you malaria, but after the campaign he now understood that it was mosquitoes. Having him say that he had his mind changed about the cause of the disease was encouraging because surely there were others like him that were once mistaken but now understand malaria a little better.

The second day of surveying our team split up into two letting us complete two villages in one day.  These villages were not nearly as encouraging as the first.  Those we surveyed still sighted mosquitos as the cause of malaria, so at least there was some understanding of the disease, but very few people were using mosquito nets.  There were people who didn’t receive enough nets for their entire family, or who were traveling on one of the days and missed getting nets all together, but the bigger issue was just people not using the nets they had.  Very few people had their nets hung at all and the majority said they didn’t sleep under the nets.  Some said they were just too tired to hang it, others said there were no mosquitos, and one woman said she refused to use the one she did receive because she was angry that she didn’t receive a second for the other members of her family.  Further still there seemed to be a lack of understanding about how to use the nets.  One woman said she wrapped herself in it like a sheet she’d go to sleep in.  The man I was with asked her to demonstrate and she through it over her head and laid down wrapped up head to foot like a mummy.  My surveying partner couldn’t help but be discouraged and kept sighing heavily every time we found another family not using their nets.

With our fourth village my surveying team decided that they all wanted to do the village together, but this time I sat out in order to save money on transportation costs.  This village seemed much like the second two, there were nets but people weren’t using them.  I had been excited for the first village and the apparent success of the campaign in all aspects, but out of my cluster of villages it seemed to be the exception instead of the rule.  I cannot know about the bigger picture in Togo until we do our final analysis, but it was interesting to see other villages besides my own and get to peer into a bunch of people’s bedrooms. 

Phase One (mostly) Complete

Just about two months ago it was confirmed that Peace Corps Togo would be the independent evaluator for the Global Fund funded mosquito net distribution that occurred last October in all regions of Togo (excluding one piece of the Maritime region).  Togo received roughly 70million dollars from the Global Fund to complete last year's bed net distribution and 20million dollars more has been promised if the first phase of the distribution goes well.  To determine if the distribution went well, and to give the organizations and the government who distributed the nets an idea of how close they came to reaching their goals, an independent evaluator is needed (A.K.A. us).

With funding from the WHO, UNICEF, and Plan Togo, two other volunteers and I were chosen to lead the study.   Our task was to perform a nation-wide survey of households to determine bed net usage, how many more nets are needed to achieve the goal of universal coverage, and of course the effectiveness of the bed net distribution itself.  To do this we have organized six trainings for Peace Corps volunteers and their Togolese counterparts to educate about the importance of the collection of good data and the protocol for performing the survey.  With five regional trainings (one for each region) and training for the trainers we will have trained over 220 people in everything from why this survey needs to be done, to what is bias, to how to ask a question.  The majority of these trainings occurred this Monday, except Savanes which is a week later, and the Training of Trainers which was a week earlier, all of which seem to have gone pretty well. 

I am glad Monday is over. Leading up to these trainings we have been working tirelessly booking hotels, writing manuals, negotiating budgets, creating computer programs, mapping villages to be surveyed, and so much more.  There were days that I would come into the office around 6:30am and not leave ‘til midnight, only to show up again the next morning at six.  I spent three straight days staring at a map on the med-unit wall, because it was the only map available that had on it (nearly) all the villages I needed.  It has been a tiring couple of months and it is nice to have a good portion of our work over with.

After these regional trainings, volunteers and their counterparts will go out to their assigned villages and perform a survey of household in those communities.  Once the surveys are completed volunteers will send us their data and we will compile our report analyzing the results.  Until we begin to get data back from the volunteers we have a little break where we will get to think about our report in a more relaxed setting, and I will finally get to return to my own bed and will no longer be sharing a cot the size of a twin bed with another volunteer or eating street food every night of the week.

For now we must wait to see if our survey goes well. I’m hoping for some good data and lots of bed net use!

A Machine that Does Your Laundry

Wow, a laundry machine, who would have thunk it?  I believe I have said that after hand washing my clothes for over a year I will never complain about doing the laundry again back home in the States.  Yesterday confirmed that.

A couple of weeks ago one of our Peace Corps Togo organizations Gender and Development (GAD) had an auction to raise money to support gender related projects and one of our medical staff donated five loads of laundry in her laundry machine, and I won.  I redeemed by first load yesterday morning. It was awesome.

I stuck my clothes into the machine, added a little soap, and pushed a button.  A couple hours later I moved my clothes to the dryer and BAM! my clothes were clean.  No blistered fingers, cracked skin, or aching back necessary.  I lounged around read my book and napped.

And can I talk further about that amazing out of the dryer feel?  That warmth that is so dry it is cozy? I was sweating as I folded my clothes, but I wanted to wrap myself in my freshly laundered clothes and I don’t know, just cuddle with them.  It was great.  If I had the plumbing hook up I might have gone right then and there and bought myself a laundry machine and dryer.

Heaven. 

A Year Down With Many Changes

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my arrival here in Togo.  Since my arrival here much has changed and I want to share some of the changes that have occurred between when I first got here and now.

Eighty degrees is cold.  When I first arrived the heat killed me.  The first few nights we spent in Lomé I hardly slept because I was too hot.  As a native Northerner I never thought I could ever get used to the heat.  Of course I still get hot, but the other day I was feeling distinctively cold and when I looked at my thermometer it was a whopping 82 degrees.

I feel naked wearing anything that exposes my knees.  Like a typical young American, back in the States during the summer I wore shorts and skirts that fell above my knees.  I rarely had a second thought about having my knees exposed in an everyday casual setting, but here I never wear anything that doesn’t fall below my knee.  I have one dress that is below my knee, but as a result of slit positioning, if it is windy they skirt will slightly rise to or above my knee and I am constantly pulling my dress down.  Even with my fellow Americans, wearing shorts feels bizarre. Being anywhere in public and having my knees exposed I feel like I am walking around in my underwear.

If it’s not spicy it’s not food.  I ate some spicy things and had no problem tolerating them when I was back home, but my more typical daily cuisine usually didn’t include hot peppers (“piment”).  Now, even when I am cooking for myself, nearly all my food must be spicy.  I add piment to everything.  As ubiquitous as salt normally is to bring out flavor in a dish, for me, piment is in everything.

Waking up at 7am is sleeping in.  I have never been a morning person; I much prefer spending most of my waking hours at night.  At the beginning of my time here it was much the same; I needed an alarm clock to get up for my morning lessons and meetings, but now anything much later than 5:30am is sleeping late.  Part of this is that my neighbors somehow manage to wake up just before the sun begins to rise around 4:30am and they make a fair amount of noise or play music early in the morning.  Everything here seems to get going earlier than back home.  Businesses open around 7:30am instead of 9am and having an early morning meeting is not out of normal.  In some ways I hope the habit of waking up early continues when I return home so that heading to work at 9am doesn’t feel so much like torture.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of how things have changed since I have been here but they are some of the most apparent.  I still have a year here and plenty of time to settle even more into my Togo life ways.  I am interested to see what the next year has in store.

C’est Mon Choix

As a result of a number of contributing factors, teen pregnancy is a significant issue here in Togo.  Many young people feel pressure from peers to engage in sexual activity, rumors run rampant about the dynamics of sex and love, girls get bribed into having sex for gifts, teens often receive no education about their developing bodies, and there is little awareness about contraceptive options available.  

Partly for these reasons, as part of my rounds talking about family planning, I of course found myself talking to students about not having children until they have finished their studies and were ready to support a family.  I found that talking to students is a bit different than talking to adults.  With such a mix of ages and maturity levels, getting students to participate can be a challenge and talking of sex can set the group into nervous giggles.

This time around I was with a team of Red Cross workers.  We began by explaining why waiting to have children is important for them as students, followed by a brief discussion about using contraception if they do choose to have sex.  At this point the school director who had been lurking in the doorway cut in. He spoke of abstinence and that it was the only method of family planning the students were to use.  Later when we were saying our thanks and goodbyes in his office, the director brought up once again—to the Red Cross director of their HIV/AIDS program—that he should not be talking condom use with students, only abstinence.  He “knew his students, and if you open the door just a little there will be a flood of sexual activity.”

The school director is not alone in his thinking about teaching “abstinence-only” to students.  In the U.S. there have been a number of pushes to implement this type of sex-ed in public schools; even withdrawing funding from school who choose to teach about condom use and other contraception.  Distributed by PSI, the slogan “L’Abstinence, C’est Mon Choix” (Abstinence, That’s My Choice) can be found on billboards and T-shirts all over Togo.  And these believers in abstinence are right, the only surefire way of avoiding teen pregnancy and the spread of STIs is by having teens abstain from sexual activity, but abstinence-only is also misguided in its belief that talking about sex and contraception will cause teens to start having sex.

I for one—someone who started getting a sex-ed, including contraction, in middle school—can attest that, upon hearing that things such as condoms could keep me from getting pregnant or a nasty STI, I did not run off to have sex.  Assuming that contraceptives are the key towards teens starting their sex lives is very naive, and over-estimates the amount of thinking that goes into some teenagers’ sex lives.  Yes, we very much want to think that the number one concern of a newly sexually active young person is their health and babies, but in reality when that moment strikes, if they have never been educated to think about protecting themselves, they won’t.

The reality is that teenagers often mature sexually before they do mentally.  Unfortunately teenage sex is not a decision purely driven by a logical assessment of the possible consequences of their behavior, no matter how many times someone tells them, just say no.   There are of course many youth who do abstain from sexual activity, but it isn’t because they have never discussed sex or contraception.

Youth should be taught to value their bodies and wait to have sex until they are mature enough to evaluate the consequences, but a balance needs to be struck.  Even if we close our eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist or hope desperately that it will just go away, time has shown us that teen sex happens.  In Togo teen pregnancy is a large contributor to girls not finishing school and apprenticeships.  It is not because someone didn’t tell them not to have sex that they became pregnant, it is because they were never told to use contraception. We need to show these youths, who—besides our pressure for abstinence—still choose to have sex, how to protect themselves and avoid having to suffer from the very real consequences of unprotected sex.

Grab the Cooking Pot Too!

It rained this morning, no, it poured.  Usually the rain seems to calm everything down as everyone runs to seek shelter, but not my compound, not today.

Our pump is broken and we have been living without water for just about a week.  Some of my Peace Corps friends may give me a, “boohoo, you poor thing.” As they live without running water everyday, but being used to running water and being unprepared to not have running water can be somewhat more of a hassle.  Now I am not completely unprepared; my water situation has been notoriously finicky and after a few times of wanting to cook or take a shower and having no water I have started keeping a large plastic trash can filled with water.  But that water store is not meant to last for weeks at a time and my water supply is becoming perilously low.   Do not worry that when my water runs out it perilously means death—there is another pump a few hundred meters away—it just means a little more lugging of water.

Other than our privately owned pump we do not have any other super conveniently close water source.  So when it rained we all jumped into a flurry of action.  Unlike my host family who had cisterns to collect rainwater our compound is hopelessly pump-bound, but that didn’t stop us from making the most of heavy rains.

At the inside corners of the U that is our building, where the roof comes together, there is an amazing spigot of water when it rains and we all took advantage of it.  Grabbing our buckets, bowls, and as my neighbor shouted, “Grab the cooking pot too!” we filled up as much as we could with water.  I hastily washed some dishes and did some laundry so that I could run out and collect more water.  Only the littlest ones sat back dry and laughing as everyone else dashed around filling one container then the next.  I managed to finish with three large buckets of water after doing a load of laundry and my stack of dishes.  I am so glad for that rain.  Though I’m still hoping my pump will be fixed soon, it is a relief to know that I have a few more days’ worth of water.