May 2013

Vacatioooonnnnn - whoooooo!!!! Love vacations.

It was so good to be home - got to see Jordan & Linds get married and my lil sis wrap up her final days of high school. Hung out with lots of friends and family, ate my share and then some of Pancheros, coaxed a weekly back rub out of my sisters, saw the season finale of Dancing with the Stars, forced everyone to be the passenger when it came to driving anywhere, and made at least a weekly appearance at the mall. Reallllly good.

April 2013

24

In village! And feeling a lot better – started taking the malaria medicine they prescribed me and the fever and headaches stopped. Matt stayed over on his way back to his village.

 

22

Last night in Kpalimé – I’ve been feeling awful, so I called my doctor – she said to get a malaria test, so I went to a clinic and a hospital – the test came back negative, which is good news, but I am still really sick, so who knows =/

 

19

Talked to Grandma tonight! She is adorable and I love her so much!

 

18

Went to Lomé, met up with Julie, talked to Paul and headed to Kpalime in this little car – there were four women in the backseat which would have been a tight fit anyway (four pairs of female hips in a backseat is something akin to a jigsaw puzzle), but two of them were a little on the round side making it that much trickier.  We made it though and Kpalimé is gorgeous, so if you are ever in Togo, I’d highly recommend it.

 

17

Went to Atakpamé on my way to Kpalimé and stayed in the house – talked to Dad and Mandy – so excited for this vacation and SO excited that I’ll be home in about three weeks

 

11

There is a chicken who loves my house. I’ve caught her in my bedroom twice. Named her Henrietta.

 

10

Received a notification from PC today that female volunteers will no longer be able to request tampons or pads from the med unit. Received a package in the mail – what was in it? Tampons. Went to the bathroom that night. What did I have? My period.

Mah.

 

9

Had tortillas and jarred pizza sauce that was on the verge of being too moldy to eat – pretended it was chips and salsa – swear it tasted just as good, maybe even better.

 

5

Simplice came by my house at 6 AM this morning to go talk to the local agricultural advisor… haha had to change out of my pajamas and put the coffee on hold.

 

1

Had first official grain storage meeting – we’re planning on starting construction hopefully in July and have a training at the end of the month

March 2013

26

Went to Alicia’s village, about 20k away – her place is beautiful!

 

21

Cultural week at school – my club did the macarena and a skit to tell everyone that they shouldn’t cut down trees =] There were also a bunch of people who danced to Toufan, a Togolese singer. Lots of fun

 

10

Went to church with the Shanks

 

9

Carolina visited my site, made a quick stop at the cyber and then went to the pool =] 2 months till my flight leaves for the states!

 

5

Matt came over, the three of us climed the mountain n had a dance party with my host family

 

4

Sebastian came over

February 2013

I slacked off during February, so you guys are gonna get the paragraph version J

 

Early February I got back from Dapaong – loved it. Continued with the computer classes and environmental club. Computer classes are starting to get really busy – I now teach them 3-4 times every week, and we’re getting into Microsoft Word, etc. Definitely some tricky vocabulary involved now… “Click on the insert tab to choose which graph you would like to use; you can format it with a right click; in charts you can insert functions…” it’s definitely taking my French to the next level.

 

Environmental club is getting more fun – the kids are all good friends now. Our tree pepinaire is doing well – it think most of them have sprouted.

 

Paul, my boss, came for a visit and we talked about a bunch of projects to work on. I think soon we are going to get going on a grain storage project.

 

At the end of the month I had a training in Pagala. It was really good to see other volunteers again. My host mom went with me as one of my work partners – we learned about canning/jarring, animal husbandry, behavior change, funding, monitoring and evaluation, cookstoves, etc. It was really busy, but really good.