Taking it All in and Letting it Run its Course

April 2014

Stung by a scorpion!! Thanks for the internet advice Joanna :)

I went to Farendé for an officer meeting and to meet with Simone about the nutrition training we are having next week.

Girls club – we talked about women that they admire.

Second student training – the students presented activities that they prepared for the presentation, then we started to organize everything. By the end of the morning, we did a quick run through of what they are going to do. We are going to meet one more time in May to go over everything one last time.

I stopped by the school in Tchikawa to schedule the presentation for Tchikawa, and brought the sign for the well back to Kuwdé.

I went to the school to schedule the presentation that we’ll be doing in Farendé. Théo and I talked about the schedule for Saturday. I went to Kara to hang out with Matt and the Shanks.

I had lunch with Eli and Simone.

Student training! We had six students come for a 4-hour training. We talked about the goals of our project, what their role is, and how to give a good presentation. Two nurses from the hospital came to teach them about the causes, signs, treatment, and prevention of malaria. The team of students will give three presentations on malaria in three villages.

I met with Théo and we went over the schedule for our first student training.

We made mango jam at girls’ club – it was medium successful.

I went to school for the cultural week picnic. So. Much. Food.

The environmental club presented their dances for cultural week! They did so well!

The well is four meters deep! Théo and I went to Tchikawa to talk to the school director.

Théo and I went to the school and the hospital to get our malaria project started.

The people who are digging the well came!

I tried to change my nose ring. The situation was almost disastrous, but fortunately, everything worked out in the end.

The three of us waited for three hours at the post office for the bus to take us up north; we finally made it.

Winter, Matt, and I met with AVPE to discuss the contract with the camp site and the women who will be cooking during camp.

March 2014

Austin is leaving the country! I am going to be a little lonely surviving the rest of my time in Togo without him, but I’ll be back in the States, too in not too long. I had lunch at Sultan’s with Julie, Austin and Kodjo before catching a taxi up to Atakpamé.

Julie came to Lomé! We got some pizza for dinner.

I took a taxi back to Lomé and skyped with Dad at the Peace Corps office. I ate dinner with Kevin and fell asleep during a movie, not because it wasn’t good, but just because I am that lame. I’ll blame it on jet lag.

21-28

I flew back to Berlin and was greeted by my study abroad friends at the airport. It was exciting to get to see everyone after three years – Aurelie came from Paris, Ulrike from Utrecht, Julia and Martina from Berlin, Petra from Sheffield, and Noops was on her way back to Albuquerque from Nairobi. The five of us invaded Julia and Martina’s apartments; I laughed so hard and ate so much mozzarella cheese. When I landed back in Accra I was greeted with a familiar wall of hot air as I stepped off the plane, and made my way to a taxi to spend the night at Hotel Obama.

15-20

I landed in Vienna and Veronica and Peter picked me up at the airport. We went to McDonalds and got some coffee before dodging the rain and heading to their apartment. It was great getting a chance to catch up with Veronica; just in case you don’t already know, she is a pretty incredible person. We ate a lot of good food, watched Freaks and Geeks, and reminisced about high school and our Peace Corps experiences. We took two daytrips, one to Salzburg and one to Linz.

I left Lomé for Accra and got on a plane for Berlin! Whoop!

I took the bus down to Lomé!

I made a brief visit to the environmental club, and we started to make plans for cultural week. I took a zed from school to Kara.

Andrea, a volunteer from Germany came to visit. She is so sweet – it was fun having her over.

I went to the granary with a couple groupement members to update the books and number sacks.

Claudine came back from women’s conference! Marie came and visited our girls’ club; they loved her.

I met with Théo, an officer of a local nonprofit, to talk about a small malaria project that we are going to start. After, I went to Kara and had lunch with Marie.

The environmental club made a compost pile for the garden that they will be starting.

I came back from Lomé. I helped maman make pâte and gmoba sauce at jeunesse en mission.

February 2014

First day of PDM (project design management) at Pagala with the new stage

Matt and I had a meeting in Datcha with AVPE for Camp Eco-Action. I was planning my COS trip and wanted to go to India – I was looking at flights and saw that it was really cheap to fly to Dubai from Accra – then realized from talking to Matt that Dubai is not in India. :)

Watched my host mom make oil out of palm nuts

Watched The Great Debaters with my girls club – we’re talking about self confidence and the importance of education

Sent in all the final forms for our well grant

Valentine’s dinner at Alicia’s with Michael – Italian pasta n French wine

Shawn’s birthday party at Shea’s

Superbowl party at the Shanks

Joshua’s birthday party in Kara

January 2014

Back to village!

I traveled back up to Pagala for a short training on Peace Corps’ new reporting system.

I went down to Lomé for a barbeque that I bid on at our mid-service conference. I met up with seven or eight other volunteers at our country director’s house.

Julie and her friend Andrew came to visit. In the morning we made soja with my friend Sabine and in the afternoon Julie and Andrew hiked the mountain while I went to club. Club went a lot better this time. We reviewed everything we learned about last week and went over any questions they had.

Traditional fete in my village! I went to it last year, too, with Austin. It’s still just as great. It’s only for men and women who aren’t going to have children anymore. The men dress up in masks and anything else they can find laying around the house (duffel bags, etc.) They all meet at the Catholic church, the drummers play and everyone is singing, then when the drums stop, everyone runs in every direction and screams away all the evil spirits. Random, I stepped on a really sharp rock. It broke through my sandal and cut my foot. Ria.

I went to Kara and met with Nestor to pick up the estimation for the well. Exciting!

Market in Ketao… environmental club… typical Wednesday. Environmental club was… not good. We are learning about soil fertility, which is a whole lot of new vocabulary for me in French and sometimes I forget that there are ten year olds in my club and that they can’t understand some things as easily as 17 year olds. I was trying to explain the Ph scale and they were all looking at me with blank faces. :) Next week.

Went to Kara to celebrate Jesse’s birthday!

September - December 2013

Hi everyone! Long story short, I left my laptop in the States when I was back in May, my flash drive and three of the laptops at the cyber were stolen in September, my dad came to visit me in December and brought my laptop back, and now I’m back in action as far as blogging goes.

September was busy! We had classes at the cyber with the one laptop that was not stolen. Four students finished the class, and they did a great job! They worked hard on their projects, and in the end, I think everyone was satisfied with how it went. I worked with the health clinic and the two health workers, Basile and Odile, on a small malaria project. We went to 21 households and talked with them about the importance of using mosquito nets and other ways to prevent and treat malaria. We took a picture of each family holding their mosquito net and made a photo board. We hung the board at the health clinic with some of the information we talked about at the home visits. We also started work on the granary! By the end of the month, the walls were up and the roof was on.

In October I did follow-ups for Camp Eco-Action in Farende, Pagouda, and Broukou, we started our girls club (my favorite thing eveeeerrrrr), I poisoned every mouse within a half mile radius of my house, our new country director, Lauren, visited my site, we finished up cementing the floor of the granary, the organization ICAT came to facilitate our grain storage training with 25 community members, and we restarted the environmental club in Farende.

In November the teachers went on strike and the students had a couple weeks off of school as a result, Austin left for America, Alicia came over and we did a short training on malaria with the whole community after church one Sunday, I went to Mango with the Shanks to go swimming, and I wrapped the month up with a trip to Benin with Julie and Riordan. Benin was a lot of fun. We went to Grand Popo and laid on the beach for a couple of days. In Cotonou we celebrated Thanksgiving at the ambassador’s house before making our way up to Natitangou for another round of Thanksgiving food. In Nati we also saw waterfalls and spent a lot of time at the Peace Corps house using the wifi.

DECEMBER. Dad flew in on the seventh and was welcomed to my village in almost the same way I was when I first came. They had a guinea fowl ready to sacrifice, a feast, and a small dance party. I worked with and ONG and the director of the social center in Farende to do a short presentation on abstinence and the importance of contraceptives at the school. The girls club wrote and practiced a sketch for the presentation, and they did such a great job! I was really proud of them. I kept Dad busy while he was here: we got water from the well, did laundry (three times I think!), went to the market in Ketao, went to the environmental club in Farende, climbed the mountain to visit Papa’s family, had tea with Eli and Simone, visited Kara, went to the market in Farende, went to girls club in Kuwde, stayed with the Shanks, and even made it to a funeral. I am so glad he came to visit, and my village was maybe even gladder. His last night here we stayed in a fancy hotel in Lome. It was about seventy dollars per night for air-conditioning, hot water, a mini rerigerator, and wifi. Worth it. After he left, I came back to village for a couple days before spending Christmas with the Shanks. It was so nice of them to invite me! It felt like being at home. I love them so much!

June 2013

I went to an informatique to print some documents and my USB got a virus, so everything that I typed up for June got lost. So I’ll give you the quick rundown.

Students from Duke University spent eight weeks in my village and the one next to mine. They worked on a variety of projects; it was fun having other Americans around. I worked with a couple students on the cyber project. We talked about how we can better organize classes and motivate students to come. There is a Duke student who is leading a class on how to use computers, and in July we are going to have a meeting to evaluate how it went and how we are going continue the classes in the future.

We wrapped up the environmental club for the summer. We had our last meeting – never did finish our compost project haha, but did an evaluation of the club and planned an end of the year party. Almost everyone came to the party except for a few who were travelling – they made rice and spaghetti and even bought a chicken =] it was a lot of fun.

The granary project is going well. We selected four people from the committee to conduct surveys, which will help us determine which topics to cover in our training this coming October. We received the grant money and plan to start construction at the end of July.

July is going to be a busy month with Camp Eco-Action in Datcha and the granary project, but it’s going to be good! I’m excited.

My host family is good – Lea finished up school and finished second in her class out of 114, lil smarty pants. In July she’s going to travel to Lomé to stay with an aunt for a month or two, so she’s lookin forward to that. Gabin can speak French now, so he likes to greet me every hour. He doesn’t get the difference between bojour and bonsoir yet though haha so he mixes them up all the time. Maman is busy working in the field, making tchouk and taking care of the family. Papa has been working on a couple of construction projects lately. Still spry as ever, riding his bike around everywhere.

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.