They say this experience is one of extremes: days of high highs and days with low lows..this week proved such in some special moments and some indeed testing moments.
Highs:
A productive day on Sunday (12-18-11): Church, laundry, enjoyed my homemade tomato soup, prepared and executed a basic lesson on nutrition for the group of women who meet on Sunday afternoons that went decently well. I explained that three meals of starches (rice for breakfast, yams for lunch, and pate – corn flour- for dinner—a normal day’s meals for most people) was not a healthy, balanced diet and that they should try incorporating at least one source of protein a day (eggs, tofu, meat, beans, fish – it all exists here, but some consider it expensive) and one fruit or vegetable. I attempted to lead a matching game where they drew cards with different items on them and they had to discern if it was a balanced meal or not. For example: drawing a tomato card and a yam card would be ‘good’ whereas a yam and a rice card were not ‘good.’ Simple concept obviously and I think they got it, but will any of them make any changes? At least now I can remind them when I see them around… they’ve been informed so now I’m on the lookout!
I spent a few hours at my French tutor’s house that night translating a quick story I had written to French for Wednesday’s English Club. It was a pretty cool moment as one of his nephew’s (I’ve come to discover none of the kids are his, just living with him for the school year) who is about 12 and I sat there and translated into French. Not only could he read my scribbly handwriting but he understood the majority of the story! One of those sit back and smile, ‘this is PC’ moments.
Monday: two more nutrition discussions and English at the Middle school.
Tuesday: Biking to Sokode to retrieve the two packages from my sweet friends, Rachel and Legs (Katie). THANK YOU LADIES. I felt so special!
Wednesday was another high point as I made my way to Blitta, a town off the main road about an hour south of LT. Ryan and I were meeting PCVL Ben at his house to discuss Camp Espoir (the camp for kids affected or effected by HIV/AIDS). Along with my other good friend Connor, the three of us will be assistants to Ben in planning and executing the 5 week event this summer. I caught a car heading south, filled with young college students heading back to Lome. It’s always to be surrounded by educated young people, especially when they know Peace Corps and are respectful. Coffee in hand, I smiled and had a ‘oh, this is a pretty cool experience’ moment. I text Vanessa that too—have to make the deposit in the ‘good stuff’ account for later in the week when I was cursing this pace! The taxi motorcycle to Ben’s house was so nice too as the mornings here are cool and crisp and smelled and looked like fall.
We then proceeded to have a very successful meeting discussing the planning and preparation stages for the next 5months including lots of idea sharing (Ryan is creative), explaining (Ben is the Espoir expert) and organizing (my list-crazy, OCD brain finally coming into use here!). Color coded timelines, weekly objectives outlines and responsibility lists and I was a content girl! The excitement and familiarity for planning and executing a big event (thank you YESS Duck Derby) overrode any anxiety about the amount of work ahead of us.
That afternoon I had my third English Club meeting and we read the story I had translated earlier in the week. Each kid was handed a new vocabulary word they had to listen for in the story, then write them on the board when they heard it. This gave each of them a little responsibility and importance as we practiced definitions and pronunciations.
Friday and Saturday also fell into the ‘high’ category. As Connor came up with a counterpart who wanted to learn to Batik with Aposto. It was a relaxing day; I made a few things and ate a whole plate full of fufu with my favorite sauce (peanut/tomato with cabbage and wagash- local fried cheese) that Nima made. Melissa, a new PCV who lives south of me also came up to stay for the night. While we were too full on fufu to make dinner, it made for a killer run Saturday morning. We made delicious scrambled eggs and cinnamon/vanilla pancakes for breakfast and then they headed out and I packed up for my trip up to Bafilo.
Lydia a fellow SED PCV lives about 90 min north of me in Bafilo and I hadn’t been there yet and I have lots of Velveeta to use (thank you mom and Karen Mason) so I headed up to have a Mexican themed dinner. Bafilo is up in the mountainous part of the country and it was pretty walking around and meeting some of the people she works with. Dinner was awesome as we made salsa, guacamole, beans, tortillas and cheese dip.
If you’ll notice, I left out Thursday and Sunday from the ‘good’ list. Two days (which both had good endings) isn’t bad I guess. Thursday’s debacle involved my window. I was planning to spend the day videoing my host sister, Jamala for a ‘day-in-the-life-of-a-10-year-old’ but since the teachers are still striking in this part of the country there wasn’t any school. It worked out as the night before my carpenter called and said my window was done (finally). I was ready for him to come install it in my bedroom early Thursday morning. When he didn’t show up after two hours I called and he said he couldn’t find the mason (who would be the one actually putting a hole in my bedroom). Fine, I said, I’ll find him. So I went straight to his house and asked if he was free. Seeing that he was I called the carpenter and let the two discuss. They said they would come ‘bientot’ (soon). I went home and waited some more. Two more hours passed. Called the carpenter again and let my host mother talk to him this time. He was busy at his shop and couldn’t find anyone to bring over the window. Okay, fine, I said, I’ll go get the window. I make the 5 min walk across the road, pick up the window, keeping my frustrated thoughts to myself, thank him for his work , pass by the mason’s house, show him the window and say, ‘let’s go’. By this time it’s 1pm and I’ve resigned to the fact that this will be a day-long process. Fortunately, the mason arrives quickly, and does a great job with the window. I read the PC Lifeskills manual (for a girls club I’m hoping to start) and try not to think about the giant mess and hole he was creating in my bedroom. After few hours the work is finished and he cleaned up the mess; I was content. The best part was when I asked him how much he smiled shyly and said, ‘no it’s a gift.’ I think he had picked up my frustration in dealing with the carpenter. No, I insisted, this is your job. Grateful for his humbleness, good work and timeliness, I gave him a little extra and wished him a Merry Christmas. A long bike ride and lifting session as in store to finish out the afternoon and rid myself of any tension left from the morning!
Sunday, morning was wonderful as I enjoyed instant Starbucks coffee on Lydia’s roof, watching the sun come up over the surrounding hills, the afternoon took a nose dive as we headed to a small village close to Bafilo for an event that we were told was going to be about HIV/AIDS. Starting two hours late (standard) the entire village had gathered (including about 20 important, toothless, illiterate and French-less, old men –the village chief’s) and it made for a perfect setting to discuss the reality of this pandemic, how to prevent it, explain treatment and living with infected. Instead, the organizers spent the three hours skirting around the issue, stressing the importance of national identity cards, showing a variety of skits (in strange Togolese humor) and poems by the local ‘AIDS club’ kids- all in local language. Finally when the director of the medical services spoke, he mentioned HIV/AIDS ONCE. And that was the ‘HIV/AIDS’ portion of the event. Lots of ‘prizes’ were handed out—have to give presents here, you know and then they wanted us to stay to have ‘refreshments’ with the chiefs afterwards. I was about ready to scream. An hour later, holding back our super irritated and real thoughts on the event, we choked down the Coke they bought for everyone (great use of money) and finally got out of there. I was able to collect my frustration on the moto ride back to Bafilo. Sadly, I think this is how a lot of ‘events’ meant to educate happen in Togo. The NGO that organized the event said that people won’t come if you tell them it’s going to be about HIV/AIDS (for many, they are just beginning to accept that it exists here) and you can’t talk about how to prevent it (condoms) with men and women present. Did I mention we were in an all Muslim village? I knew these thoughts to be false from the events Aposto and the NGO in LT have conducted. They proudly display pictures showing condom demonstrations with huge groups of people and skits actually about the disease.
As I was leaving Lydia’s house in Bafilo, I closed my eyes, took a very deep breath and prayed God would ease my frustration, calm my upset stomach, and help me get back to LT (traveling on Sunday afternoons is risky as not many cars are running up and down the country) without too many travel headaches. I felt lighter right away and made it home in a timely fashion. Glad the day was over!
Now, this is my final week in LT until February. I’ve got work to do for Espoir, lots of manual reading and lesson planning for when I return to village. Hoping to spend tomorrow capturing Jamala’s day and visit a new PCV who is close to me on Wednesday. Thursday will be packing and preparing my house to leave and Friday I will head to Atakpame to join Vanessa for Christmas!
While it doesn’t feel like the holidays here, I’m thinking about my friends and family lots as you prepare for the celebration this weekend. I wish you all a safe and very joyous holiday, praying you remember the reason we celebrate!
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