And So It Begins...

August 13^th

Swear-in was this past Thursday, August 8^th. So, I’m now a real PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) instead of a PCT (Peace Corps Trainee).

We had a ceremony at the Country Director’s house that included many Togolese officials, the U.S. ambassador, the entire Peace Corps Togo staff, our host families, and many of the old volunteers. Those of us who have been taking classes in local language got to give short speeches and we ended with taking an oath.

I guess I should cover the few important events leading up to the event:

We had our final language test. I needed to achieve intermediate-mid level French on the language test or else I’d have to stay for an additional week. Not sure how, but I got it!

I had to say goodbye to my wonderful host family. It was much harder than I could have ever imagined when first arriving in Davie. During my last night they had a small “fete” for me and my maman cooked my favorite meal for us to eat as a family. They also had a guy come over and take our “family portrait”. I took this opportunity to give them a small cadeau (gift) that I had brought with me from home. It was a ceramic Texas ornament with “Someone in Texas is Thinking of You” written on it. I told them it meant I would always remember them. They loved it, hugged me, and we spent the remainder of the evening dancing to Michael Jackson one last time. The next morning, I woke up to one of our goats screaming and when I went outside, my sister said that the goat had a present for me too. First thought, “Oh shit, they slaughtered the goat and are giving me meat to take with me.”… turns out, one was giving birth!! They had told me it’d be a few more weeks until she was ready! The goats here are miniature already, so miniature miniature goats are almost as cute as puppies. Even covered in blood and placenta.. After that interesting hour of my life, I met the other volunteers at the tech house and we were off to Lome.

We returned back to Amy’s Hotel, the place we stayed for our first three nights in Togo. We would spend the next couple days shopping and exploring Lome. I was able to buy a mattress, gas tank, and groceries (including an emergency bottle of wine) to take to post. We also found time to check out the beach and eat pizza and hamburgers! They weren’t exactly as I remembered them, but delicious all the same.

. . .

Now I’m back at post.

We had a slight issue during the evening of my arrival.

Driving up to Ketao (the city between Kara and my village) a large crowd of men carrying hoes and machetes had blocked off the road. When we reached the barrier, they picked up the road blocks and let the Peace Corps Vehicle through. My driver proceeded slowly while they pressed their faces to the windows and yelled at us. Once we were through the crowd, we could see that the city was being occupied by military and there were fires being put out. My driver pulled over and decided we should call the Peace Corps’ safety officer to determine how to proceed. They said they’d call us back, but in the meantime, to leave the city. So… we went directly back through the angry mob we passed at the entrance and parked a mile or so up the road. My driver got out of the car briefly to determine what was going on. There apparently was an ethnic battle between the Kabiye and the Kotikole muslims concerning which mosque they prayed at on the final day of Ramadan. After waiting it out for a bit, the person in touch with my driver called and said I needed to contact my homologue and determine how safe Kemerida was. After learning there was no threat there, the Peace Corps suggested he meet me and we continue through Ketao because they’d prefer if I made it to village that same day. It turned out that while we were passing time up the road, the mob had subsided and the city had become slightly more peaceful. We were able to meet my homologue and proceed with no further issues. When we arrived, my neighbors helped me unpack and set up my new mattress. Soon after, I was off to bed.

After surviving the first night, I’m now a few days in to my two years of service! And so far, things are really good!

For the first three months here, I have a lot of free time. I can’t go straight to work until I know the community and what their needs are. Therefore, I’m supposed to spend my days trying to integrate… and speak better French.

I try to get out of my house at least once a day. I visited the church on Sunday, have taken a couple walks around the village, and today am planning on going back to the Benin marche. I feel sort of useless, but I know it will all come in due time.

In the meantime, I have a lot of things to keep me busy:

I’ve started doing a more thorough job cleaning. Right now, my living room is completely in order and I’ve moved the table and chairs out of the spare room and into the front room to create a dining space. In the now empty room, I have only my grass yoga mat and mirrors. I plan to build a bookshelf and buy a comfy chair for this room as well. I also want to paint a mural on the wall eventually. I still have the kitchen and bedroom to go. I need to fix the armoire (wardrobe) I have so that I can finally unpack my suitcases. I’ve also talked with a carpenter about cutting the pieces I need to fix my bed.

I’ve started teaching myself guitar.

I’m almost finished with my 4^th book – The Brothers Karamazov. After Into the Wild, I conquered War and Peace, and quickly read through Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

I’ve used my empty room for yoga and random dancing so far and plan to keep it up almost daily.

I’m experimenting with cooking. I’m still not as good as my host mom, but I’ll get there.

I study French. Not as much as I should, but hey, it’s only day 4! Before the end of stage, Mark installed Rosetta Stone on my laptop (Thanks again, Mark!). After I feel comfortable with my French level, I have Latin America Spanish, German, and Italian at my disposal. Although, I have to learn Kabiye too, so those may just be wishful thinking.

Besides a dirty house, the old volunteer left me a few things to keep me busy, including movies and books to study for the GRE (which I’ve learned you can take in Ghana!)

I’ve also been trying to start on my list of promised post cards and letters.  If you’d like to be included, shoot me an email: shea_flynn@utexas.edu. I’ll get it and send you one eventually.

Finally, it’s been just over 2 months here in Togo. Some of the random things I miss the most (besides family and friends because that’s to be expected):

-Mexican food (QUESOOOO)

-And not just queso. All cheese. All of it.

-Dominoes pizza

-Chai Tea Lattes (especially from Tazza Fresca)

-Good beer (particularly 512 IPA and drinking it at Spider House)

-My favorite pair of high-waisted shorts (or really just shorts in general)

-SWEET ICE TEA (emphasis on the ice)

-Whole Foods

-Juiceland (I would commit terrible crimes for a smoothie right now)

-Internet Radio (my iTunes has not be updated enough over the last 2 years...)

-Record Player (and spending an afternoon at a record store)

-Zilker Park

-Photography (more specifically having a good camera that I’m not afraid to take out in public)

-Town Lake trail (still working up the courage to run around alone in my village)

-Water that doesn’t taste like bleach

-Mostly just having options.. options for food, music, activities, people to spend time with, etc.

These were all things I expected to miss. What will be more interesting is to see how this changes and gets more specific as the months go by…

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope you don’t feel you’ve wasted your time learning how I am spending mine. I just felt that after reading about my first post visit experience, you all deserved an update to know that things are going well!

Also, I will be getting a new mailing address soon. Look for it as my next blog post! Other than that, I plan to blog again after my first full month at post.

Unless anything truly thrilling happens before that, talk to you all then!

Koumealo

Post Visit: "This is Africa"

July 27^th

This past week was our post visit – the first time you go to your village of service, see your house, and meet your work partners.

Originally, it was scheduled to be from the 20^th  to the 27^th, but because of the political elections on the 25^th, we only stayed through the 24^th. This was done as a precaution in case any unfortunate events were to take place on election day.

We left around 8am Saturday morning. In our Peace Corps vehicle was Malcom, Funmi, and I, along with our three homologues (work counterparts we met the day before). Malcom was the first to arrive in his village. There was a huge community gathering outside the school he would be working in with music and dancing. After he stepped out of the car, they dressed him in a traditional shirt and hat. Funmi was next and had a similar homecoming celebration. We dropped her off in her village’s market with an equally as overwhelming community gathering, complete with more traditional clothing, more music, and more dancing.  After our departure, we were finally headed to Kemerida, my village. It’s located in the Kara region just off the border of Benin. My homologue warned me that there was not a grand “fete” waiting for me because I was not the first volunteer in my village. I’m a replacement for the guy that left a week or so before. Instead, he told me they’d have a huge celebration once my “mission was complete”. Fine with me. I was happy to avoid all the awkward attention. Only downside is that there wouldn’t be an opportunity for me to showcase my dance skills as a way to break the ice like with the people of Davie…

The drive from Funmi’s village to mine took us through Kara, the regional capital. It is nestled into a cluster of mountains, one of the most beautiful parts I have seen of Togo thus far. I live about 30 minutes on the east side of it. Driving through this region as the sunset, made me very optimistic for my two years here. I had Radical Face’s “Welcome Home” playing in my mind as we got closer and closer to our destination.

We arrived at my compound shortly before 7pm, just as it was getting dark. I was greeted by my neighbors and a few of the healthcare workers in the village. They brought a batch of Tchuk (the local alcohol) as a traditional way to welcome me. We each drank a calabash(?) and then my neighbor brought out a bottle of Sodabe (a liquor popular in the South that’s similar to moonshine). He makes it and sells it himself. I tried to decline, but they said it was, again, a means of welcoming. I sucked it up and took a shot with everyone. We all hung out for a bit and I learned that my Kabiye name would be Koumealo. Like in Ewe, it just means I’m a female born on Friday.  From this point on, no one would let me refer to me as Shea. I was now Koumealo of Kemerida. Shortly after assuming my new identity, I was able to go inside and prepare to spend my first night in village.

When first walking into my house, I was pleasantly surprised by how big it was. I have four rooms: a huge living area, small kitchen, bedroom, extra room, and small closet space to use as an indoor shower. It was also full of unpleasant surprises…

I won’t go into detail, but I’ll give a brief summary:

I had been in contact with the volunteer I was replacing prior to my arrival. He offered to sell me all the furniture and kitchen stuff in his house for 70 mil. I wasn’t able to see the condition everything was in, but it sounded like a pretty good deal to me. He did tell me the couch and bed were broken, but that he’d fix it before I came. He didn’t fix them. He’d also told me he didn’t clean it like he had wanted. I was okay with that. I can handle dirty living spaces. However, after exploring my house a little more, it was worse than I could have ever imagined. I ended up sleeping on an extra mattress with my mosquito net pulled over the couch and two chairs because I refused to touch the bed in the condition I found it. I tried to take a bucket shower in the space available inside, but the drain was so clogged there was still standing water (I hope it was water) from when he last used it. I decided to save my bucket of water and locate a new shower space in the morning. 

I could say more, but I’ll focus on some of the positives:

All the furniture is easily fixable, so I’ll just do it myself. Though it all needs to be cleaned, he left me some pretty sweet stuff. I don’t need to buy any more furniture or kitchen supplies for a while. I have a collection of books and health promotion materials to use. I have a small fridge that smells terrible, but just needs some bleach. Also, between repairs and cleaning, there are plenty of projects to keep me busy during my first few months at post.

After spending the night on a mattress in the living room, I woke up the next morning and got busy cleaning. I swept the entire house and started a pile of all the stuff I needed to throw out. After a couple hours, I took my bucket to look for the outdoor shower. I found it… with no door. My neighbor’s informed me that my spot was inside. Reluctantly, I returned in my house and rinsed off as quickly as possible in my foul-smelling indoor shower space. (I’d later find a second outdoor shower space behind my compound. Again, there was no door, but it was private enough that I’d risk it. I don’t plan on showering inside that little room anytime soon.)

I met my homologue, Ben, for lunch at his house. He had invited a few of the most important men from the village and told me it was good to network with them. I agreed and when I tried to introduce myself as Shea, my homologue quickly corrected me and said I had to go by Koumealo. They all started speaking to me in French very quickly and when it was obvious I didn’t really understand, they asked my homologue how I was going to work there if I didn’t even speak French. I was frustrated with myself and my language level, but even more so now that they now took to treating me like a child. I fell silent as we shared more Tchuk and they carried on in local language. I was anxious to get home to study so that I could avoid feeling this way in the future.

Instead, we then took a walk around the village and met up at a local bar where a political meeting was taking place for the upcoming elections. We were offered dog and I declined by just saying “Non, merci.” They offered it to me several more times and told me how delicious it was. Each time I refused and gradually got more and more uncomfortable. At the end of the meeting, they held up the remains of the dog and asked who wanted it. I don’t know if I’ve ever tried harder not to cry than in front of all these African men. Immediately after, my homologue took me home and I called my mom saying I wanted to leave. I just didn’t know how I could ever fit in and make a home for myself in a place where they drink around the clock and feast on dogs. After relaxing the rest of the day by just studying and reading, I chilled out and knew I wasn’t going to leave after one bad day. It was just overwhelming and I over reacted. It doesn’t help that my French isn’t strong enough yet to fully express my thoughts and be more assertive. I understand I will feel a lot more comfortable here as I gain confidence.

The second full day went a lot smoother and my spirits were lifted again. We visited the dispensaire (local clinic) in the morning and a lot of the village women seemed happy to see me. It made me excited about working with them in the future. We took another walk around the village so that I could meet the chief and the gen d’armes (police). We even walked to the border of Benin (3k down the road) and met the officials there so that I could go to the Benin market for the next two years without obtaining a Visa. On the way back from the border, we stopped at a house for (surprisingly) more Tchuck. There were puppies I played with and a woman told me she’d sell me one once I was back at post! (I’d thought previously about getting a dog here for some company, but I’m paranoid, for good reason, that someone will steal it and eat it…) I was home by lunch and again, spent the rest of the day reading and studying.

That evening, there was a political rally at the school across from my compound my homologue came by and told me I should attend. I declined because the Peace Corps advises us to avoid being associated with any political activities for security reasons. Instead, I moved a chair outside my door to read and watch from a far. I figured this way people in my community could see me out of my house without making assumptions about my political opinions. It turned out to be a great idea. People would wave to me as they were coming and going from the rally and a couple came over to meet me. One woman I met returned later, after the event had ended, with food for me to eat. I told her I’d eaten already, but as soon as I opened my screen door, she rushed in, shut the door behind her, sat on the floor with the plate and told me to eat. I was hesitant, but it was clear she wasn’t leaving until I put some food in my mouth. It was a plate of bean/pancake things that seemed okay, but with each bite, I just kept thinking, “Please don’t let this make me sick. Please don’t let this make me sick.” After I’d tried it and we awkwardly sat staring at each other for a while, I told her I was really tired. She understood and got up to leave. On her way out the door, she pressed he finger to her lips as a sign to be quiet and told me to be sure to lock my doors immediately and that I shouldn’t trust my neighbors. That’s always encouraging to hear… (However, I want to note that my neighbors are very nice people though and lived here with the previous volunteer. I don’t feel threatened by them in any way and just assumed this woman was just trying to be overprotective.) Happy to be alone again, I read until I fell asleep.

The next day, after lunch, my homologue and I made plans to walk to the Benin marche. Along the way, we stopped to “saluer” more people in the village. My homologue insisted that I greet people in Kabiye. I knew a few phrases already, but the dialect here turned out to be slightly different. He told me the ones I needed to know and the appropriate responses for things people may say to me. Each time I messed up, he would seem impatient and told me I needed to listen better. It was stressing me out and causing me to have more reservations about visiting the marche. Once we arrived, instead of looking around at the different booths, we went straight for the Tchuk huts. I wasn’t feeling well that morning and was already not in the best mood from the walk over, so I declined the offer of alcohol. It did not go over well. Since it’s supposed to be a way of welcoming, I apparently offended some people with my refusal. I tried to explain I wasn’t feeling well, but they didn’t seem to be phased by that reasoning. A man started yelling at me in French and told me I was being rude. We left that first Tchuk hut for another, and then another, and it was the same scenario at each. I felt similar to my first full day at post: incompetent and like I would never be accepted. At one of the last places we stopped, a man came over to me and started tapping me on the shoulder. He would ask me questions, I would answer politely, and then turn away. He would not leave, kept tapping me, and telling me that he loved me. I turned to my homologue, obviously upset, and told him I wanted to leave. I was heading to Kara that afternoon to meet up with other volunteers to stay the night there and leave early the following morning. I could not get out of there soon enough. He walked me back and told me he’d return on his moto in an hour to take me to Ketao and from there I could get a taxi to Kara. He asked me to explain what was wrong and, as best I could, I told that I don’t drink very much and was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted.  He told me I just need to be better at standing up for myself and to be patient.

During the moto ride, the sight of the mountains immediately improved my mood. Once we reached Ketao, I thanked my homologue for everything and waved down a taxi for Kara. I crammed into a car with 8 other people. As I took the spot of the guy getting out, he slammed the door, leaned down to the open window, and jokingly said, “This is Africa.”

During the 20 minute drive, practically sitting on the lap of the woman next to me while two other strangers held onto my belongings, I stuck my head out the window and reflected on all that happened the last couple days. I concluded that this was going to be hard, but not impossible. I also realized that most of the problems I encountered could be mitigated by being better at French. I was not going to let my post visit apply as a generalization for my next two years. I would finish training, and return in two weeks with an open mind. I got out of the taxi with weird yellow shit on my pants and an improved perspective.

I vented about my experience to the volunteers I met in Kara and enjoyed the rest of the night with them. We returned to Davie the next afternoon after a 7-hour bus ride. My host family rushed out and hugged me and told me how much they had missed me. I remembered how awkward I felt first coming to stay with them, and now it was actually like they were my family. It took over a month to get to this point with them, and I think Kemerida has that potential too. I just need to be patient.. and less stubborn. Rather than being offended that people refuse to know my real name, don’t understand my drinking habits, and insist that I start speaking Kabiye, I need to appreciate how much they are trying to accept me as one of their own. I know it’s still going to be very hard and that future frustrations are inevitable, but there’s a lot of room for it to get better over the next two years.

I’m sure I’ll have more interesting stories than this to come. After all, “This is Africa.”

Best,

Koumealo