Its a boy! again

I was happily asleep last night on my cot outside, in the fresh night air, breeze rustling my hair, the chirp of insects serenading my dreams, stars casting diamond sparks across the sleeping landscape when a couple of goats forced their way through the gate and came prancing into the compound like they had an invitation from God herself. I woke up to one of them with a bleat that sounded like it was run over with a cheese grater.  I just bought new batteries for my flashlight so is like a spotlight.  Goats don’t like it when you shine a light on them at night.  Most of them made tracks for the gate.  The one with the annoying bleat got confused.  then lost.  Then he felt abandoned.  He sounded like he’d just been separated from the sheep and cast into the left hand of darkness.  He couldn’t find the gate and stumbled around bleating his gravel crushing bleat.  I got up.  Opened the gate.  Found something heavy.  And threw it at the goat as it ran for the gate.  He was lucky I was not wearing any of my corrective eyewear.

Then I couldn’t sleep for the 3 hours so I finished Team of Rivals. It is really good.  After my grad school debacle I never thought I would actually read a history book again.  

Yesterday I got home at 1330.  I said hi to my host mom, then went to say hi to some other people.  Then I came back my house and slept until about 1445.  At which time Kodjo came over to see if I was ready to go to this funeral.  Oh, he said, by the by, your host mom just had a baby.  What. The. Hell.  I’d just seen her an hour previous.  In that time she’d gone to the dispansaire and popped out a baby.

 

Kodjo and I went to the dispansaire and sat with Petite.  David was there.  We joked with him and told him that he was replaced as the baby of the family and that he had to go sleep with his dad now.  David is like 2.5 and does not understand any French.  But Petite and Kodjo thought this was hilarious.  Such is Togolese humor.

 

Then I went to a funeral for Nikko’s brother in Kpamboa.  He was a bit older and died suddenly.  They had the dance in this ring of trees that the deceased had planted.  He apparently loved planting trees.  I amused myself by buying candies and giving them to random kids that I caught staring at me.  

I went from eating 3 good meals a day in Lome/Kara/at D’s house to eating at my house.  The night I got back I had bread with hot sauce.  Last night I had bread with hot sauce and cheese spread.  Then I had bread with peanut butter and cheese spread.  Then I couldn’t sleep after the goat incident because I was hungry. 

I cant be bothered to really cook anymore.  I am too tired

I need to get back to my house.  Jacques killed some kind of rat in his field this morning and gave it to my family for the new baby.  Namo rotisseried it.  they are waiting on me to get back to eat it.   

Petite asked me what I am going to name the new baby.  I am thinking "benjamin" after my little brother.  This, however, its problematic, yet it might be fitting.  I dont know if this is a francophone thing, but in Togo "benjamin" is a noun, not a name, usually.  It means the youngest child.  In this case, it might work since Petite was like "i'm done having children" yesterday.  I am running out of family members to name children after.  It doesnt help that most of them have been male babies.

Closing of Service

This past week I was in Lome with the combined stages -- EAFS, CHAP, SED, and GEE-- from 2011, with whom I have the pleasure of ending my service.  We were down there for COS (close of service) conference.  This is a three (ish) day event in which we learn how to prepare for life after Peace Corps, for leaving Peace Corps, for re-adjusting to the States, for finding work, etc.  We had language tests (to evaluate our language acquisition) and sessions on how to write resumes.  We were also, in a ceremony attended by the US Ambassador to Togo, 4 Togolese Ministers, and the representatives of 3 others, presented with certificates certifying that we have successfully completed our services. 

The highlight of COS conference was that we were put up in a really nice hotel for 2 nights.  Granted, a really nice hotel here-- A/C, hot water, wifi, big rooms, queen sized beds with nice mattresses-- is about like a Holiday Inn in the states.  But it was a treat.  We had sessions in an A/C conference room, with wifi.  The hotel was on the beach, although it is close enough to Lome that swimming in in the ocean is still scary.  We were well fed too.  I think I gained about 10 pounds. 

After COS conference was the trade fair.  Artisans from across Togo came to Lome to sell their stuff as part of a SED project.  I bought D a lot of nice silver jewelry.  The guy selling it loved me.

For the last two days, the fair was held in La Caisse.  This is the gated community in Lome were expats and embassy workers live.  Very swanky.  Its guarded by the military.  There are a bunch of RPCVs who live there and work for the US embassy and foreign schools.  They are great.  A group of them hosted a bunch of us Volunteers who were involved in/helping with the trade fair.  They had a BBQ for us friday night.  Amazing food.  The house D and I were staying at is huge. When we got there we werent sure what to do. The lady hosting us has a nanny/maid who takes care of her daughter and the house.  I have no how to act around a maid. At the BBQ I sat in a corner cause I have apparently developed social anxiety when I am around Americans who I  dont know.  There is a big grocery store in la Caisse.  D and I bought a whole grain baguette, goat cheese, and a pack of smoked salmon. It was delicious.  I ate all of the salmon in one sitting.

The RPCV at whose house we were staying has a nice sound system.  But I could not figure out why the music always stopped when she used her iphone.  Until she told me that the music was playing from her phone via bluetooth.  I thought it was magic. 

La Caisse was nice, but kind of scary.  I felt like I was in another world.  When we left yesterday, I felt a sense of relief when we walked out of the gates into Lome proper. 

Entropy is the one constant of the Togolese infrastructure.  Every time I travel, a new section of the route national has developed a pox of craters.  Children along the route make pocket money by filling in potholes with dirt and then trying to get tips from passing cars. 

When we first got to Togo back in 2010, we all had to take a French test to figure out what level of language class we would be placed in.  I tested in at novice-low.  In other words, I was put in the most basic French class.  At the end of stage, I tested at intermediate-mid, the lowest level I could have and still be able to go to post.  Last week, I tested at advanced-low.  I am pretty happy.  My level of konkumba is pretty low though.  I blame this on the fact that I am used to yelling at kids rather than holding conversations with people in Konkumba. 

I think that leaving Togo is going to be almost as stressful as coming here was.

I find it interesting how my reading interests go through cycles since I have been here.   I came in to PC fixated on fiction. I have, I think, plumbed the depths of interesting sci-fi/fantasy genres.  I have explored new genres, like steampunk and magical realism.  I have re-read books.  And, in some cases, re-re-read them.  Now I am finding myself drawn back towards non-fiction.  At least until my current favorite authors produce something again.  When I got to Togo, it was a tragedy when my phone died.  Now, I biked 12 miles in a day to recharge my Nook.     

the price of the Peace Corps

A mostly universal characteristic of Peace Corps Volunteers is that we are imbued with, and often exude, a strain of idealism.  Our idealism varies in direction and scope from person to person but, by and large, we are all inherently optimistic about something. We think we can change the world, or at least a small corner of it.  That is why we choose to join the Peace Corps, and why many of us stick with it.  What many people do not realize, upon joining the Peace Corps, is how much the experience will change them.  Sure, many people think that the Peace Corps experience will help them develop, discover, or hone new skills and aptitudes.  And this is definitely true. One thing that new Volunteers rarely realize, however, is how much they have to sacrifice to be Volunteers.

There is, of course, the well-publicized, and, by now, clichéd, list of creature comforts that many Volunteers do without during their services—hot water, running water, clean water, electricity, paved roads, cell phone service, cheese, personal space, pizza, sushi, air-conditioning, privacy, ice cream, etc.  These are what people expect, and anticipate, to give up.  No, what I am talking about are the true costs of Peace Corps service.

There have been something like 200,000 Peace Corps Volunteers since the organization’s inception.  To date, about 290 Volunteers have died during their services.  Stuff like disease, accidents, murder have claimed the lives something like 7 Volunteers since I swore in. It is not something we think about a lot—even taking the malaria meds that save many of us becomes second nature—but there are inherent risks in being a Volunteer. 

A not-insubstantial number of Volunteers develop with long-term health problems as a result of their services.  I know two people who have developed chronic headaches since coming to Togo, likely as a result of viruses.  Other Volunteers have long-term stomach problems when they get back to the States.  I am likely typing this with malaria and blood flukes kicking it in my system.  Hopefully nothing else at the moment.  I have been one of the healthiest Volunteers that I know, either by luck or design.  These are, however, the risks that we signed up for when we took this job.  They are risks that Peace Corps spends a lot of time and money educating us about and trying to minimize. 

No, the untold sacrifice that many Volunteers make is that they give up their homes for two years or more.  Often, when they come back, they find that home has unalterably changed.  Last week, for example, D got a call from her mother telling her that her great-uncle died unexpectedly.  He was suddenly hospitalized the previous week, and seemed to be improving, and then abruptly died.  D was really close to her uncle.  He was one of those people who inspired other people to do great and wonderful things. His death was tragic not only in its abruptness, but also in the void that it left in her life.  A Volunteer from the 2011 stage left when her mother died suddenly.  A Volunteer left here in 2010; his father died a couple weeks after he got home.  Just a few days ago, a Volunteer here got a call that her brother had suddenly died.   

Grief is bad enough when a loved one dies and you are there. You can, hopefully, be with the person, attend the funeral, have closure, and grieve with family and friends.  There is little solace to be found in a static-filled trans-Atlantic phone call nor in the bare concrete walls of your house at midnight when you alone with mountain of grief piled in your chest, when there is no comfort to be found in a sleeping world.  Grief is infinitely compounded by the knowledge that you could have been there but, instead, you chose to be Africa. Who would choose a month in village over a minute to say goodbye to a loved one?  Peace Corps service necessitates not seeing your loved ones for extended periods of time; the unspoken aspect to this is that you likely will not be there to say goodbye to them as well.  Even when return is a mere couple of flights away. That knowledge just makes it worse.

Beyond deaths in the family, home is never the same place it was when we left.  2 years or more have gone by.  That is time that we have spent here that we did not spend with our families and friends.  None of us are the same people we were when one of us climbed on a plane to sail out into the unknown.  To paraphrase Frodo, we can never really go back. We have changed. Home has changed.  Maybe even the definition of “home” has changed. It is, I think, telling that Volunteers approaching the end of their services coordinate their departure dates so that they can be back in the States in time for a family function.      

Ive written a lot in this blog about living here face to face with the reality of the transitory nature of life.  I had not viewed life in the States as also being transitory.  I think this was deliberate.  Humans are programmed to live in the here and now.  If not, we would go extinct as a species in a spasm of insanity.  I certainly would have.  Even now, as I begin to think of life after Peace Corps, I am painfully aware of the fact that, not only am I different than when I left, but the way I remember relating to the States is no longer valid.  It is three years out of date.  Home, or my perception of it, was not something I expected to sacrifice when I came to Africa.  However, my sacrifice is a lot less than that of many Volunteers.  In this, I am lucky.

premier may

Yesterday was Premier May.  This is probably the second largest fete in Togo after new years. the fete for 27^th April, Independence Day, is seen more as a functionare (white collar) holiday.  Premier May is for everyone- especially workers, ie farmers.  Basically, everyone hangs out, eats, and drink,s and are merry.  This is how my day went:

Woke up to drizzle at 730

Discovered one of my cats had knocked off, and broken, one of my shot glasses during the night.  I suspect Nighan

Took my bottle of cheap brandy outside, Petite declared that “il faut jour” so we did shots

Other people came wandering over during their pre-breakfast fete prominade.  More shots for them.

Kodjo came over for shots, and I sent apple vodka to Momma John/Joseph

Petite and I went looking for a chicken cause there was a fiasco with the chickens I bought.  We found one.  The fete could continue

Tchakpa was drunk

I had Adji roast me some peanuts for brunch

Some other stuff happened and I retired to my house to watch an episode of the Walking Dead

About 1300 lunch was ready.  Petite and I ate fufu and chicken.  David wandered over and tried to stick his hand in my fufu.  After lunch, we had brandy to degrease our throats

Food coma. Naptime.

About 1600 Petite and I went over to Kodjos for rice/chicken/wagash. 

1730 Kadar came to bring me into Kouka for beers.  All the bars were packed and there were dance parties in the streets

2000 Kadar’s garcon, Koutchala, took me home 

2030 Petite and I went back over to Kodjos for roast chicken and apple vodka.  I supplied both of them

2130.  Bedtime.  It was really cold and wonderful

Ntido has decided to move on with her life.  She came up to me a couple weeks ago and said that she wants to become an apprentice hairdresser in Kouka.  Apprenticeships (is that the correct word? english is hard) are how a lot of kids here who do not finish school, and who want to escape the farm, find work.  Dressmakers, mechanics, drivers, hair dressers, etc.  Its also a more flexible option for girls who have babies.  Ntido says that school does not work for her, she doesn’t want to be a farmer/housewife, and she wants to start her own life.  She came to me and asked if I could help her pay her apprentice fee—80 mille—and otherwise help her out.  So I have been making inquiries with Kadar’s help.  An apprentice signs on with a patron for a period of time—1-3 years depending.  At the end of the apprenticeship, the patron administers an exam.  If the apprentice passes the test, then she can go start her own business and take on her own apprentices. 

Ntido’s parents think this is a good idea.  Neither Petite nor my host mom want her to stay at the house and farm.  They want her to do something with her life since school didn’t work out.  Its kind of interesting to see the similarity between my host and actual parents in how they want their children to do something with their lives.  It was kind of funny that Ntido came to talk to me about her idea before she approached Petite about it.  I think that she was lining up her support in case her dad was not enthusiastic about the idea.  

It Finally rained Tuesday night.  Some storms passed us by that afternoon and everyone was depressed.  I woke up twice Tuesday night stewing in the miasma of my own body heat and sweat.  I slept inside because I saw lightening on the horizon as I went to bed.  Each time I woke up I looked anxiously at the horizon to see if the lightening was still there.  The storms finally arrived at about 0100.  And lasted until about 900 the next morning.  It was awesome.   

I still find it interesting how, after a rain, the air clears up and the mountains to the south of me get really distinct on the horizon and seem a lot closer. 

Apparently, "April is the cruelest month" holds true for Peace Corps this year.  Two PCVs-- one in Ghana and one in Uganda-- died last week.  They gave their lives for their country, and also in the service of mankind.   If it works, check out this link.

happy independence day

today is Togolese independence day.  I forgot this fact until I biked past the soccer field in Kouka this morning and saw that it was full of parading people.  then I remember what the date was.  this was troublesome cause my major reason for coming into town was to go to the poste to pick up my malaria meds.  oh well.

the other day, Bry's APCD (boss) Rose visited Kouka.  I ran into her on the road outside the poste.  Her driver pulled the white PC Land Rover over and Rose said hi.  She also gave me an apple from Lome.  I took it home to share with the family.  they had never seen an apple before.  they liked it.

Ntido's baby, Alix, is super cute.  He's like 7 months old and has yet to reach that stage in his cognitive development where he realizes that white is scary.  So when I walk over to him now he holds out his arms to be picked up.  I am pretty sure he only does this cause he likes to play with my beard.  In the mornings he grabs my glasses.  Alix has almost restored my faith in reproduction.  Invariably, however, David starts yowling because he wants meat, or bonbons, or peanuts, or cause he's mad cause Jidah got the yam chunk that he wanted or cause another kid took the stick he was playing with.  Yowling must go on for at least 5 minutes.  Petite was so fed up with the yowling the other night that he smacked him.  Togolese parents do not discipline children under 5. hopefully Alix doesnt turn out like that.

Speaking of babies, Kodjo's wife gave birth to a boy last week.  I named it Joseph (to go with his brother John).  cause it is apparently the chic thing in Nampoch to have me name babies. . . .

I remember the first year I was here, it did not rain much in April.  The first big rain we got was around the beginning of May.  Then last year, it started raining in the middle of April.  This year it has been raining off and on since March.  Weird.  Although i still sit and watch many storm clouds pass south over Bassar and Sokode.

I found a pile of bird feathers on my floor this morning.  I am glad my cats cant talk cause I am afraid to ask. I will say though that, after finding chicken crap on my floor, karma sucks.

As I announced on Facebook my official COS (close of service) date is now July 18th.  People have been telling me congratulations, but I feel more like I should be getting "in deepest sympathy" cards.  I cannot mentally reconcile life here with life in the US.  it is somewhat schizophrenic.  We go down next week for COS conference.  I did not go to my stage's COS conference last August because I was extending, but I think that this conference will be good.

Oh well, at least this way I'll be back in time to catch the beginning of football season.

So, the new road to Kouka is going petite a petite. The funding for it (from the Germans) is slow coming in.  that and there are a lot of bridges that must be built.  This has, however, not delayed the commencement of the next stage of the road project, going north out of Kouka.  I guess all of its funding has already come in.  Anyway, I biked down the main road to Kouka this morning for a change of scenery and seriously could not recognize where I was as I got into town.  So crazy.  Then two europeans on dirt bikes ripped past me like they were on some race to hell.  I hope they dont kill anyone before they realize that the road they are on goes nowhere.  Eventually. 

little Alix

Kapokia trees lining a road in some village near Mango

D and myself 100 ft above the forest floor in Ghana

the world is spinning

Its mango season.  Again.  

I was riding out of Nampoch this morning when Kodjo flagged me down.  He said his wife is having contractions.  She was walking around trying to see if they were real or not.

(update: its a boy)

If you want to know something of my current state of mind, know this.  I am switching between “Spancil Hill” by the Dubliners and the Dropkick Murphys’ rendition of the same song, “Fairmont Hill.”

Fruit in the States generally sucks.  Except for apples.  And grapes.  I was thinking about this when we were eating pineapple for breakfast at this Rasta place in Cape Coast.  The pineapple he served us, while lightly bouncing to a reggae beat, was pale white.  About the same shade as my stomach.  Bit into it and the flavor explosion on my tongue about took my head off.  It tasted like how you hope every pinna colada you’ve ordered will taste.  It tasted like how that ¼ of a golden pineapple sitting in a plastic tube in Meijer’s looks like it should taste.  It tasted like Rasta guy had just biked over to the Garden of Eden and picked it.  It was that good. Like the bananas that I wax vocal about.  Coconuts?  Speak not to me of those hairy uniformly sanitized things piled in Kroger’s like so many discarded Rocky Mountain Oysters.  Speak to me instead of those fuzzy little balls of goodness whose meat whispers to my mouth secrets of nature.  Give me an avocado sprinkled with salt, pepper, some lemon juice, and I will show you manna.  Last night N’tido gave me some ungrafted mangos.  Little things more string and seed than pulp, but containing more flavor than any two of those nerfball-sized, insipid mangos that grace your produce section.  Give me a fruit that tries to choke the life out of my taste buds, I don’t care what it looks like.  

Ive been watching American TV again since I was in Ghana and downloaded the 3^rd season of the Walking Dead.  I am, in my old age, or maybe in my isolation, somewhat surprised by the level of violence that permeates American TV.  Sure, I expect splattered brains on HBO shows, but on network TV?  What I find more interesting, however, is the ongoing, hypocritical Puritanism on the same shows towards sex.  Everyone (almost) has sex.  Not everyone joins biker gangs and beats up their rivals.  TV shows are rarely merely entertainment, usually they have some societal/cultural message they explore.  This is what makes good TV shows interesting. The violence in these shows suggests that America, as a culture, is more comfortable working through societal issues via the medium of fantasy violence.  That’s kind of scary.  Which kill more people, guns or boobs?  

Its been raining a lot recently.  Kadar took me down to D’s last weekend.  I was surprised how green Mt. Bassar was compared to my house.  Last Tuesday night a massive storm came through.  It soaked everything pretty well.  On my way into town this morning, I passed a lot of people out planting corn and other stuff.  

There is a natural gas shortage in Togo for some reason.  My egg sammie guy is down to his last tank.  Literally the next day after he told me about the gas shortage, D called me to say her gas tank was out.  We started a massive search to find someplace that had full tanks.  Bassar, no.  Kabou, no.  Sokode. nope.  Kara, maybe. . . nope, just kidding.  Not for a month.  Luckily, Kadar remembered that he’d bought a tank for his girlfriend in Kabou that she didn’t use, so we took that to D.  

I think that Nighan is pregnant. Again. 

My new favorite breakfast is spaghetti au gras with a hotdog omelet on top. or a calabash of tchapka

Another sign that rainy season is picking up is that a lot of people are walking around my village with plasters stuck to their faces.  Pasting together injuries from moto accidents on muddy roads. 

Something I’ve been thinking, from my weekly meander on Facebook, is the claim that guns are part of an “American” way of life.  I’ve just been wondering—how much time a year does the average American spend playing with his/her guns?  Couple hours a week? A month? A year?  A gun supplies what percentage of the average American’s yearly caloric intake?  25%? 10%? 1%?  I grew up with guns and I have a hard time seeing how my way of life would significantly change at all if strict gun control policies were enacted.  I certainly wouldn’t starve, or be somehow less “American.”