May Creeping By

I thought that Nighan was pregnant again.  I was wrong.  She’s in heat right now.  She’s been crawling around my house on her stomach with her butt stuck up in the air.  Poor Tadji watches her bemusedly and develops stunted Oedipus complexes. Then he jumps on her and she freaks out and they fight.  Its wonderful.  At night she goes out and wanders around.  I came back the other evening and Adji was making fun of her yowling in the bushes.  

My clothes are disintegrating.  My briefs are falling to pieces.  My shirts are sprouting holes in already faded fabric.  The armpits are well ventilated now.  It is no longer a question of whether most of my pants are patched, but rather how much. My Chacos are sticked back together and run-down at the heels. My tailor in Kouka is, at this point, as well acquainted with my clothes as I am.  

I sliced my foot on a bit of rusty wire in Kouka last Sunday.  How I did it is a long story.  I thought it was fine, but I got to D’s house last night, looked at the cut, and saw that it was getting red and juicy. I have become somewhat versed in foot infections since I’ve been here.  And I have become painfully aware of the limits of the antibiotic cream that one smears on every minor laceration in the States. It is kind of amazing here how fast an infection can dive under your skin and thumb its gooey nose at every topical ointment to which it is subjected.  Volunteers walking around with suppurating sores, especially on their feet, from minor blisters and scrapes is not an uncommon sight.  Flies regard these as fine dining. This is more annoying that anything.  I can buy antibiotics here easier than I can a soda in the States.  

Togo has long had the reputation for having the best beer in West Africa—a legacy of its German colonial heritage.  Personally, I think that Ghanian beers are on par with Togo’s now, but that is beside the point.  Anyway, there are two breweries in Togo, one in Lomé, the other in Kara.  The one in Lomé has apparently broken, thus nearly halving the country’s beer selection.  Sadly, the half that is no longer in production—Flag, 33 Export, and Castle—are my favorite three. 

Bulldozers and graders are creeping up the Kouka/Katchamba road, almost to the Nampoch intersection.  Now, when I take that road to Kouka, I can see the mountains of Bapuré silhouetted on the skyline.  

My friend Karim, who is a saint, sent me a box full of salty crunchy stuff.  I am happily crunching on wasabi peanuts as I write this.  The box apparently went from London to Burundi, at which point no one could find Togo, and back to London.  Karim explained the realities of geography to the post and re-sent the box.  It arrived swathed in Togolese Poste tape and slightly smashed, but its contents were still salty and crunchy.  D and I promptly ate this box of stuff called “Cheese Straws.”  I shared with her because I am a nice person too.  Heaven, for 10 minutes, descended on Binaparba. 

The most annoying thing about going home after being anywhere else in Togo, aside from having to sweep out my house immediately, is that I have to feed myself.  I go from eating 3 meals a day in Kara, or Lomé, or at D’s house to having tchakpa for breakfast, popcorn for lunch, and bread with BBQ or hot sauce for dinner.  I just cant be bothered to feed myself.  Sometimes Ntido takes pity on me and feeds me pate, or Petite brings yams back to make fufu, or I send Ntido to the store with 2 mille and instructions that everyone is eating rice that night.   

D makes this amazing peanut sauce tofu stir fry.  I dream about it when I am sitting on my porch sourly wishing my stomach had an off switch.  

The other day, Kevin asked me how many books I have read since I’ve been here.  The last time I counted, I had been here like 6 months and I was sitting in Alisha’s house at the time.  I counted something like 40 books on her shelves that I’d read, not counting the ones at my house or elsewhere in country.  In short, I’ve read many.  

Petite took me out for a beer the other night in celebration for him getting his cotton money.  We spent most of the time talking about how its not raining in Nampoch right now. 

I have reached the point in my service where, every time I see another Volunteer now, I have to ask myself if I will see that person again here.   

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.