23 To Go

So I’ve been at post for a little over a month.

Not too many exciting things have happened since I last posted a blog. I am starting to get the hang of things though, so I figured I’d write you a brief update on my day-to-day living.  Forgive me if I repeat something I may have already mentioned. Just trying to provide a complete picture.

Utilities:

I do have electricity. Although it’s not very reliable. Goes out every time it rains and sometimes even for no reason.

I use a gas camp stove for cooking, but I plan to get a charbon (charcoal stove) soon for meals that take longer. There’s a gas shortage in country, so once your tank runs out, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to refill it or replace it. I have one tank, and two years so I figured I’d start on a plan B for cooking early on.

I do not have running water. There’s a well in my compound that I use. A bag (that looks like it’s made of recycled tire rubber) is attached to a rope that I throw 20 feet down and then haul back up. It usually takes 5 bags to fill one bucket. It was a huge hassle getting water every time I wanted tea in the morning, needed to do dishes, take a shower, etc. So, I bought a large trashcan with a lid to keep in my kitchen that I fill up every so often so that I don’t have retrieve water every time I need it. I also fill buckets when it rains and recycle that water. The water I drink, I run through a filter provided by the Peace Corps and then add a couple drops of bleach to it.

I’m sure it could be inferred, but just to specify, I do my laundry by hand in my compound. Underwear I have to do inside and hang them so no one can see them. There’s a superstition here that if anyone else touches your underwear, they can put a spell on them.

I have a squat latrine (bathroom) that’s outside my house and across my compound. It’s also home to probably a thousand mosquitoes. No joke. I keep a container with a lid next to my bed known as a “chamber pot” to use at night when I don’t want to unlock my door and venture outside.

I still only use the outdoor shower space I discovered during post visit. I’ll probably never use the one inside my house because despite being cleaned, it still smells terrible. And the drain doesn’t work.

I burn my trash behind my house. A lot of times people look through it just out of curiosity. Sometimes they also take things.. Anything I don’t want to be found goes in the latrine, just in case. Sorry, Mother Earth.

Food:

As far as cooking goes, it depends on what I can find in my marche. Right now, the closest one is in Ketao (about 10k away) on Wednesdays. I can always find dry pasta, beans, rice, oil, tomato paste and things of that nature. Produce is more limited. Not the avocado and mango paradise I was originally hoping for. So far, I’ve really only been able to find tomatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, and pimante (hot peppers). On the occasion I make it to Kara (35k away), I can bring back pineapple, apples, lettuce, eggplant, and cucumbers. I usually eat pretty well for the three or 4 days after the marche, then live off starches and tomato sauce until the next one. I try to buy eggs if I can find them, but I don’t get nearly enough protein. I haven’t started buying meat in the marches yet.  Still a little skeptical…There’s also a frozen food store in Kara I need to check out. I’m sure I’ll develop a better routine with time. I’ll also be able to go to the huge market in Benin on Tuesdays once I grab my passport form Lome. Hopefully there will be more options there.

“Fast food” wise, it’s really easy to find street food. In my village I can usually get coliko (fried yams), watchi (beans and rice), soja (like tofu), spaghetti, riz de graz (rice with fat), and an assortment of fried bread balls. Pretty much the same for all of the places I’ve been so far in Togo. With my neighbors or at some of the cafes around, I can get pate and fou fou. Pate is a flavorless flour (corn?) mixture with the consistency of dough that I’ve only had with gumbo sauce (sticky green sauce with okra). It has the consistency of snot, but tastes pretty good depending on who makes it. Fou Fou is delicious. It’s also a dough-like food, but made from boiled yams. It comes with various sauces, but my favorite is tomato sauce with goat. You eat both with your hands. In Kara, there are a couple French bars where you can get pizza and burgers, but they’re nothing like the food back home. Maybe in a few months I’ll be desperate enough to think differently.

Transportation:

I walk everywhere in my village. I also plan to buy a bike soon to get to the neighboring villages. The one we had for stage we had to give back.. womp womp. For now, outside my village, I mainly use zeds (motorcycles). The Peace Corps issued us helmets that I haul around pretty much everywhere. When you grab a zed, any big belongings you have will go in front of the driver, and then you’ll hop on the back. Catch is.. you can’t touch the driver. You’re either hands-free and balancing or holding on the bar under the back of the seat for dear life. You have no idea how fast the driver is going (I have yet to see a single odometer that works) and you’re dodging around pot holes and flying over bumps in the road. I always feel like I’m in a racing video game. It can be scary at times (especially when your butt loses contact with the seat), but I LOVE IT. Riding motos is one of my favorite things about Togo. I also feel like a total badass walking around carrying the sweet helmet we were given.

When you’re traveling too far to take a moto, you take a car or bush taxi. I’ve been in cars where they put up to 5 people in the back seat and 3 in the front (not including the driver…). Personal space isn’t an issue here. I’ve been on a couple of laps already. Also, each car looks like it will fall apart at any given second. I’ve been in several that have broken down mid journey. Once, I had to hold the door shut as we traveled because it wouldn’t latch on its own.  Another time, we had to compression start in reverse! It’s also no surprise to get leaks in the roof or see the road flying by through the holes in the floorboard. At least the drivers are considerate enough to hang air fresheners… usually in place of the rear view mirror.

Bush taxis are the same story. I’ve only taken one bush taxi at this point and it was with 8 other PCVs, so it was slightly more comfortable than what it would be normally.

Luckily, when I travel from Kara to Lome (a 7 to 8 hour trek), there’s a bus that goes directly from a station in Kara. That’s the furthest I’d ever have to travel, so I’m glad I have that option.

Community Activities:

I go to the dispensaire about three days a week. Mondays are CPN days (pre-natal consultations). I’ll go in from 8-11 and help fill about paper work during the women’s check ups. Thursdays are CPC (infant vaccinations) and baby weighing. I’ll also go in 8-11 and help fill out the vaccination cards on file at the hospital. Other than that, there’s not too much for me to do. I’ll go sit and hang out with the staff a couple hours on the other days, but generally feel pretty useless. I’ll start working on my own projects with time.

When I can, I go to the Catholic church on Sundays. Afterwards, I’ll usually grab food with someone and then drink Tchouk at my homologue’s house.

Other than that, I usually just walk around my village to saluer (greet) people. Sometimes I’ll be invited places for Tchouk or food. I’ve hung out with the courtiere (seamstress) a few times at her house and spent some time with one of the street food vendors.

Mostly, I spend a lot of time in my house or with my neighbors. Lots of reading, guitar learning, and yoga. Needs to be more studying of French and Kabiye…

Other notable things to mention about Africa life:

Everyone asks you… for everything. It’s kinda funny in the beginning. But it’s everyday. All the time. People started calling dibs on my stuff already for when I leave. It’s very frustrating. I can’t tell who genuinely wants to be my friend and who just wants things from me. Every time I come back from the market, people ask what I brought them. Every time I take tea or coffee to work, someone asks to drink it. Mostly it’s just a joke and you can laugh it off, but other times, people are serious. I’m also accumulating a very long list of people who have asked me to take them to America. I think I’m at about 10 now…

Everyone tries to sell you…everything. Every car or moto you pass, the driver hisses (yes, actually hisses) at you and asks where you’re going. Every marche mama yells at you to buy from them. If you stop to look at pagne, they’re going to start picking patterns out for you and hovering over you. It’s like when you walk through a shopping mall and the people at the booths in the center have a 10 second catch phrase to get your attention and explain why you need to be interested in their product.. but times 100 and every single place you go. It’s like I’m walking around with a giant dollar sign flashing above my head. Sometimes people carrying things on their head will just come stand by you and look at you awkwardly. It’s like they’re expecting me to all of a sudden have an immediate desire for bread and they want to wait until it happens so they’re the one to sell it to me.  Children are usually the worst about it.

I don’t need the weather channel when I have Togolese friends. They can all predict the weather… like it’s a science. All I’ve picked up so far is that when it gets really really hot, that means it’s going to rain sometime in the near future. The hotter it gets, the bigger the storm that's a brewin'.

The children here are very destructive. Babies are so silent and peaceful tied to their mothers back, but then it’s like once they’re too big to be strapped to the back, they enter this demolition phase. The kids in my compound have come into my house a few times. At first I didn’t mind, until they started making it a habit. Even when my door is closed, they stand outside the screen and peer inside and yell until I come to open it. I finally told them when it’s open, they’re welcome. When it’s closed, it means I’m busy or tired. It didn’t help at all. I do still leave it open on occasion. Last week a girl came in and started playing with a deck of cards I had. She took them out of the box and started throwing them all of the room and bending them and biting them. Finally I took them away. Then she found markers and I gave her a piece of paper to draw on. She decided my chairs and walls would be more fitting. And they were permanent. Now I can only let them in when I can keep them under complete supervision.. which I usually don’t feel like dealing with. Sorry kids..

There’s apparently tons of different fetes (parties) that vary between cultures and regions. In my village, there’s a whipping fete, where boys are publicly lashed across the left arm with a rhino-skin whip to signify that they’re now men. There’s scarring fetes for the different ethnicities. Fetes where boys are publicly circumcised (sorry if anyone thinks that's inappropriate to share.. just trying to be thorough). Funeral fetes. And I’m sure many more I have yet to hear about.

A couple weeks ago, I visited Kelsey with some other PCVs. She lives in Bassar and in that area they have Yam Fest! It’s a fete to celebrate that yams are in season. It wasn’t quite as elaborate as I had pictured, but there was a huge yam marche and a traditional tribal fire dance. Everyone sat in circle underneath a huge tree in the middle of the street. They started a fire and men came out in costumes. They had pagne skirts, horse tail whip things, and their shins were covered with metal pieces that clanked together (I might have taken one). They took turns walking across the fire and then danced around it for a few hours. We were able to sit in the front row and a few of us got up and participated in the dancing.

I got a weave! Because.. why not? Passing time before meeting other volunteers, Iain and I walked around a hair shop. The woman working said if I bought one, she'd call up her hair dresser to come put it in immediately. It was 7pm at night, pretty late for Togolese standards. I figured it was a once in a life time opportunity, so I agreed. It hurt so bad!! They braided my short hair into corn rows and then sewed in the extensions. They were about 18 inches long and actually looked really good... until they greased it. I ended up taking it out the next day for several reasons: 1) Most importantly, we were going swimming and I wasn't allowed to get it wet. I was not not going to jump in the pool.. 2) It gave me a terrible headache. I couldn't even sleep with it. 3) I wasn't a fan of looking like a mermaid. It was cool to do for a day, but it was more like a Halloween costume that needed to be retired after one night out. 

Also, I have my first intestinal parasite! (named Mildred.. Thanks Frieds!) Amoebas. Not the most fun thing I’ve ever had to deal with. I’m getting meds sent to me this week to kill ‘em off. First of many, I’m sure. And I’m 95% sure I have bed bugs… which are even more uncomfortable than my new intestinal friend.

So there you go. Not the most thrilling news, but hopefully you’re getting a better idea of what my life is like here in Togo.

If you want to know more details or have questions, shoot me an email: shea_flynn@utexas.edu.

One month down. Twenty-three to go.

Koumealo