I'll Be Home For Christmas

I'm safely home! I arrived at JFK after a nightmare of a trip with Air France. After missing my flight in Paris, they lost my bag and it took 3 days to track it down. But I'm here now. I wanted to let everyone know, now that I have the time and the internet, that the youth center is going really well. The roof has been replaced and we have the dividing wall almost finished. We've ordered the doors and windows and those should be delivered while I'm here. Here are a few new pictures for all of you. Thanks for your continued support...we hope to inaugurate the building in February!








On another note, I have been accepted to the Fletcher School of Tufts University for their master's program. I am still waiting on American and George Washington Universities, but it's nice to know that I WILL be going to grad school in '09! I will be home until the 31st, so if you would like to call I can be reached at 207-838-4020.
Happy holidays to everyone!

Giving Thanks

People have been asking why I haven’t posted a blog lately, and the truth is I just haven’t been very inspired. But as I was cooking my plain pasta up for dinner tonight (and drinking wine, I’ll admit), I started thinking about Thanksgiving tomorrow. I began fantasizing about the amazing meal we’re going to have at the PC country director’s house, by far the best I get in Togo. I also began thinking about the graces we used to say around our family table, when we shared what we were thankful for. Obviously, in a crowd of 50 volunteers we don’t do this. So instead, I thought my blog would be a fitting place to express what I’m thankful for on this Thanksgiving.

First and foremost, I’m thankful for my family. I have parents who not only support me in my various wanderings, but can relate to me as I take a more winding route to figure out what my calling is in life. When I decided to uproot myself, move halfway across the world, make 8 dollars a day and put off grad school, they not only supported me, they were enthusiastic. I’m thankful for a sister who tries to understand me even though we could not be more different, a sister with whom I can have entire conversations in movie and SNL quotes, a sister who reminds me that the simple things in life matter most: family, friends, home. I am thankful for the rest of my family, my (amazingly generous) grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I am so fortunate to be as close to them as I am, and am SO VERY thankful that I am able to be with them this Christmas. I am thankful for my friends, who have, over and over, listened to me ramble on about the mundane details of Africa, when I know I’m talking too much but just can’t seem to keep myself quiet. Sarah, Deborah, Kate and all my friends who call, email, write, facebook, and give their support from afar. Your love means so much.

One of the reasons I’m still here is my fellow PCVs, and I am so thankful for them. Ashley and Anna never fail to respond to my texts when I’m worrying about my cats, my health or my sanity. They remind me that I’m not alone on this strange, fascinating, frustrating, amazing journey. I’m thankful for my Togolese families, plural. My host mother in Agou who somehow remembered and found the money to call me on my birthday. Mawussi, Amelavi, Didi and Gloria, who challenge and uplift me every day. I’m thankful for Michel, an amazing man and fantastic colleague, who shows me what motivation is.

Living here has made me thankful for the simpler things in life. I must say, I am thankful for electricity. For running water. For fans. For the fact that cockroaches seem to be afraid of my house now. For flushing toilets. For my cats, who worry me to death but provide me comfort and companionship. For Wheat Thins. Oatmeal Crème Pies. Cheese.

It’s easy to wallow in the negative here in Togo, as my last blog clearly shows. But I try to remind myself that although I sometimes feel as if I’m exiled in a foreign land, I have much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

October Blues

As the weather at home grows chillier and it becomes brutally hot here in Togo, I find myself in a slump. As early as a week ago, I was feeling pretty good about life in general. Anna (a neighboring volunteer) and I held a great training of trainers here in Vogan. A local Christian women’s association asked us to train a few of their women in HIV/AIDS and how to teach it. So for the past month or so, Anna and I have been planning that program, and the actual training went really well. The association picked women who had a good grasp of French, and hopefully they will take what they’ve learned back to their villages and share it in local language with other women. The schedule was packed full of sessions about the immune system, HIV and the vulnerability of women, teaching methods and what works best when teaching about HIV/AIDS, transmission, prevention, and a quick lesson on nutrition. We were all exhausted by the end of it, but I think it went really well. It was the first time I’ve run full sessions by myself, and I was glad I overcame my fears about speaking French in public, because now I feel like there is more I can do in Vogan. I’ve seen that language is no longer a barrier to my work. (Go to the "My Pictures" link on the right and see "Vogan Training")

One of the interesting things about the Peace Corps is the mood of a PCV changes on a regular basis. Just when I thought I was feeling settled, busy, dare I say it? happy, an inexplicable sadness and fatigue overcame me in this last week. I’m always amazed how homesickness can punch me right in the gut. Since I live alone (except for my two cats, which you all have heard way too much about) I have a lot of time to analyze my feelings, probably more than is healthy. I’ve started confronting them from an almost objective position, finding them fascinating. I doubt a time in my life will come again where I am as volatile as I am here. Reading back over my diary as I did the other day, I sound like I should probably be on some sort of medication. This experience is emotionally, physically, mentally draining for all of us, even when we don’t consciously feel it. Talking to my mother on the phone the other night, I came to a sad realization. I am 26 years old and have spent the last year counting down the months of my life, and will continue to do so for the next eight. I’m happy I’m doing this, and will never regret it, but it strikes me as sad that by the time I return, I will have been waiting for the last 2 years of my life to just be over. I long to be in a place in my life where I’m not doing that. For now, I am sad and unmotivated, feeling like the eight months ahead of me are an eternity. Next week, who knows? Perhaps I’ll feel, as I did two weeks ago, that I’m on the home stretch. Such is the emotional state of a PCV!
Part of my doldrums is due to work slowing down a bit. Our training is over. There’s nothing active for me to be doing for the center at the moment (see the latest pictures in "My Pictures, Center"), since they’re digging the well (by hand, check out the photo) and we need to find water before proceeding. Our Karren Waid scholarship program is still an organizational nightmare, but at least a majority of the girls have their money for the school year. So the past three days have included me wandering aimlessly through my house, finishing two books, and wandering into the kitchen to look for food that is never going to magically appear. I’m trying to look forward to a fun November, with Thanksgiving, my birthday, and a little travel thrown in. But when I let myself think about the crisp, cold days of autumn in New England, my heart hurts. As I hear about all of you starting to freeze as the winter rolls in, I’m sure I’ll start feeling a little better…for all I complain, I don’t miss Boston winters!

Developing Country Road Warrior

When deciding what to write about for my next blog, I realized that I have very few entries that describe particular parts of life here in detail. I recently traveled up to Kara (in the North of the country) so I decided this was as good a time as any to write a blog about travel here in Togo. As volunteers, we travel in bush taxis. Bush taxis come in two different sizes, but are inevitably in terrible condition and usually from the 1980s, with a cracked windshield and windows that may or may not roll up.

First, you have your run-of-the-mill 5 place hatchback. Legally, the driver is allowed to have 7 people in the car; himself, two people in the passenger seat, and four in the back. Children don’t count, and neither does livestock. More than once, I have found myself in the back with 4 adults, a baby, and a child, and live chickens. The trunk is regularly loaded down with huge sacks of yams, corn, fish or live goats. If the car is not going by a toll, the capacity regulations are tossed out the window. Two people can sit in the driver’s seat and it IS possible to fit five people in the back and a couple in the trunk.

Now, that’s the cushy ride. For longer trips, there are 15 place vans. These regularly take 18, 19 or 20 people, and things get piled on top (see picture) to the point when one becomes convinced that the car is going to tip over of its own accord. I have been in a 15 place van that was completely gutted and the seats replaced with wooden benches. They would fill up one bench, push it forward and then fill up the next. People rode on the top and hanging out the sliding door. I counted 25 people in the car that day. Add some bad hip-hop music on static-filled speakers, the bleating of the goats on the roof, 90 degrees of heat, lots of dust, and voila! you have a bush taxi journey.

There are no set timetables for travel here. For instance, when I decide it’s time to go back to Vogan from Lomé, I go to the station. Either I get lucky and there’s a 5 placer waiting, or I find myself the only person waiting for a 15 placer to fill up. I have it very easy, however, compared to my fellow volunteers. Many live in villages only accessible by motorcycle taxi or they wait an average of 3 hours for a car to fill up. People also wait on the side of the road, so the cars are constantly stopping to drop people off or pick people up. When I was back in the US, I almost missed both a train and a flight because I had forgotten that things actually left at the time indicated.

Lately travel here has been far worse than usual. There is one main, paved road that runs all the way from Lome, on the coast, to Dapaong, the northernmost city in Togo. The Route Nationale is the only direct way to travel up country. While I was away in the States, two major bridges on the Route crumbled away, the result of flooding, age and shoddy workmanship. All traffic throughout the country was rerouted through the West of the country, adding an average of 4 hours onto any particular trip. The alternate route was not built to accommodate big trucks, so its condition became increasingly terrible, until it was impassable as well. They have now fixed one of the bridges, and at the next place there is a small train trestle that they have started using as an alternative. As you can see from the picture below, they haven’t even begun the repairs on the big bridge. I especially enjoy the ironic “bon voyage” sign right before the sheer drop.

I can still remember my first bush taxi ride during my post visit in the middle of training. David and I found ourselves in a 5 placer with a terrible smelling SOMETHING in a basket covered with flies, 4 women with babies and two goats in the back. There was a song in terrible small-small English on the radio, and the goats kept bleating in perfect time with the lyrics. I began to giggle and couldn’t stop, laughing so hard that I was crying. What else can you do in those types of situations? I learned early on to find the amusement in them, and I’ve become much more flexible and patient because of it. Now, I just sit back, put in my earbuds, and resign myself to the fact that I’ll get there eventually, with or without chicken poop on my lap.

More Pictures of the Project Site

Project Update!

Hello everyone! There has been a lot of progress with the center since I returned in August. We ran into a big roadblock right at the very beginning; the landlady of the building we were planning on buying doubled the price on us. The recession and rising food prices have both hit Togo hard, and she was complaining that everything was more expensive now (which is true). We had to abandon the original site and a fairly stressful search for a new building commenced. The hardest thing about this process is that I couldn’t be involved. If the broker or any of the sellers had gotten wind that a “Yovo” was behind the project, they would have doubled or tripled their asking prices, so I had to stay completely out of sight.

The good news is, we found a building! For the same price, we found a site very close to the high school that is about 3 times bigger than the original building. It has a good yard for large trainings and information sessions, four rooms and a latrine. Repairs will include replacing the windows, doors and parts of the roof, and building a new wall to separate us from the neighbors. Overall, I think this space will work even better than the original site. We have purchased the building and repairs are slated to begin in about two weeks. I’ll continue to post more as the repairs start. I have posted two pictures of the building so that you can get an idea of what it looks like.

Again, we couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you for all your donations and I’ll keep you updated!

Back to life, back to reality...

(Written August 13)

It is my first day back in village without my parents, and it seems strange to be alone again for the first time in 6 weeks. My trip home was wonderful. I managed to see a lot of people and although it was a whirlwind, I’m glad that I traveled as much as I did. At the moment when the wheels of my plane touched down at JFK, I felt an enormous sense of relief. I felt as if the longest, hardest year of my life was finally over. I know the next year will hold a lot of challenges, but when I hugged my family, it was if the weight of all those months of loneliness were lifted off of me. I arrived on July 4^th and my parents, my sister, my dear friend Deborah and myself all headed directly home for a cookout. Although I fell asleep well before the fireworks, I couldn’t have asked for a better independence day.

My travels took me to Philly, our lake house in Wolfeboro, NH, Boston, Concord for Kate’s wedding (a fantastic time!), back to Wolfeboro, and then back to Philly. Along the way I managed to see all 4 of my grandparents, three of my aunts, three of my cousins, Julia’s fiancé, all of my best friends in Boston and my fabulous Mt. Holyoke women. Before leaving for the States, I was extremely nervous that I would no longer be able to relate to my friends. I thought perhaps I had changed, that maybe my social skills had atrophied from lack of use. Although I did humiliate myself on more than one occasion, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support I felt from everyone back home. They graciously let me ramble about my experiences and put up with my French- and Ewe-smattered English.

The culture shock was not nearly as pronounced as I thought it was going to be. Although I found it very strange to be surrounded by a majority of white people and I found myself utterly overwhelmed by the number of chewing gum choices, I acclimated back to hot showers and American food pretty quickly. It is not until you are forced to go without for an extended period of time that you can truly see the excesses in American culture. I was amazed at the sheer quantity of things. I would exclaim “that’s a SMALL?!” every time I ordered something, and Julia would admonish me for seeming to be angry at the cashier. Every time I sat with a menu in front of me, I would become stressed out because I didn’t know how to handle so many choices. For someone who has eaten the same exact thing every day for the last year, choosing between four cheese ravioli and shrimp pesto pasta is a huge decision. However, I was pleased to realize that living in Africa has instilled in me an appreciation for these things that I never had before. Although these things will one day again seem commonplace for me, I will never again take them for granted.

Boarding my plane for Ghana, I felt a sense of dread. I had a moment of serious hesitation. Then I sat down in my seat, and the gentleman next to me instantly turned to introduce himself. The back six rows of the plane were quickly chattering and laughing in local language. I felt like I was back in my element, and I relaxed and settled into my seat. I didn’t really realize that I was uncomfortable with certain aspects of America until I was back in Africa. I have learned how to comport myself in a certain way to get by here, to fit into the culture and to belong in a society where I am inherently different. In ways it has made me shyer, in others it has made me much more aggressive. This behavior was a little difficult to reconcile with being in the States. As I struck up a conversation in English, French and Ewe with the man next to me, I felt the languages come tumbling out of me, as if I had been holding back a flood for the last 3 weeks. I missed the openness of West Africa, the willingness to engage with people. I thought I was going to be really sad to come back, but in actuality, I was relieved.

My parents arrived the next night in Lomé and spent two weeks with me here. Their visit was everything I could have asked for, barring some mysterious stomach ailment that felled both my mom and me for a few days. My parents were flexible, adventurous, and open to pretty much everything, which made my role as a tour guide fun and interesting. My dad, who had never been outside the Western world, seemed to look at Togo with a wonder that was really interesting to watch. My parents were able to ask the difficult questions (i.e. about politics, religion) that I as a Peace Corps volunteer usually avoid. Through translating for them, I learned a lot from the local population about their views on their government and their quality of life that I think will help me as I move forward in my work. My parents kept their humor through everything, which is invaluable when traveling around Togo. Even when we found ourselves in a hotel directly adjoining a nightclub whose music started pounding at 10pm, they laughed it off. We spent a lot of time in my town, and then traveled to my training village in Agou to visit my host mother. We also went out to my best friend Anna’s village of Sevegan, where they were able to experience a more typical Togolese village.

It was amazing for me to finally be able to introduce my parents to all the people who have been integral parts of my life here. It was also fantastic to see how excited my Togolese friends were to meet my parents. My host mom was so excited she literally picked me up off the ground and swung me around. Mawussi, my host mom in Vogan, came bolting out the door to hug all of us when we drove up to the house. For a culture that frowns on physical contact, I was amazed at the outpouring of affection.

Putting my parents on a plane back home was difficult and although I was somewhat envious, I was glad I wasn’t going with them. More than anything this trip has shown me that I’m not ready for my time here to be over. I love America, I miss my friends and family, but my work here is just beginning. I am more than halfway finished with my service, which is hard to believe. But looking forward to the next 11 months, I feel like it’s going to fly by. I find myself suddenly busy; my center project is beginning, I’m teaching computer classes and I’m in charge of the Peace Corps’ national girls’ scholarship program. Soon I’ll be working on grad school applications. I’m hitting the ground running this time around, and it makes the challenges completely different. They are welcome challenges, however, as I have been struggling for a year to find a purpose to my time here. It seems as if, moving forward, I am slowly starting to shape that purpose.

A Good Day

One day until America, and I find out that my Peace Corps Partnership Project is fully funded! This means upon my return to Togo, I will get to start building the youth center I've been advocating so hard for. Thank you SO much to everyone who promoted and gave to my project. I truly couldn't have done it without you. I'll be back updating my blog in August after my parents' visit. Happy Independence Day!

America Here I Come!

One week from today, I am boarding a plane for the good old US of A! 3 weeks of food, air conditioning, non-bush taxi travel, spring mattresses....it's the little things in life. Just wanted to let you all know that my "My Pictures" link now goes to my picasa page, where I have posted a good amount of pictures. I'll be posting more, along with videos, when I'm home and have reliable internet. Can't wait to see you all!

A Difficult Day

May 26
Many days are difficult in Togo, for various reasons. Slowly, you become accustomed to the emotional rollercoaster you’re riding, and you realize you can pull through. Yesterday was a day that challenged me more than any has in a long time. Yesterday one of my kittens, Molu, died. Molu was a great cat. She would beg on her hind legs for just about anything, reminding one of a meerkat. She loved to sleep on my lap and be snuggled. About 48 hours before her death, I had noticed she wasn’t eating, but figured it would pass. I tend to be very nervous about my cats, so I figured this time I wouldn’t get worried too early. By the next morning, she was crying and in pain and by noon she had died.
I know we all have pets and they die, and it’s sad, but in Togo it’s somewhat compounded. For me, the hardest part was feeling helpless. We think she probably had a bladder infection, something that is easily treatable. However, we live in Togo. There are no vets in my village and even in Lomé you’re hard-pressed to find any vet that will work on a Sunday. We didn’t have the drugs to put her to sleep, so I just had to watch as she got worse and worse. In a crisis, I, like many Americans, like to be in control. Even if a vet could have done nothing, at least by taking her I would have been taking control of the situation. In many instances, this is impossible to do in Togo. One has to simply accept what’s happening. “Ca va aller”, I hear over and over again. It will pass. But as an American I’m still not accustomed to just letting things pass. I want to be active, I want to be in control. I was deeply sad watching Molu die, but I was also surprised at my level of anger and frustration towards the country as a whole, its inefficiency, my helplessness.
Molu’s death came at an already difficult time for me. I haven’t written in awhile, mostly because very little has been going on. Vogan has entered the rainy season, so going to the villages to give lectures is nearly impossible. The roads are impassable and people have to work to plant their fields. Students are studying for exams, so school directors have no time or interest in extra-curriculars. I’m sitting around my house a lot feeling relatively useless, counting down the impossibly slow-moving days until I come home in July. April crawled by, and the end of May is proving no quicker. I look towards June with a certain dread; no work, no travel planned, no meetings, nothing. Just me sitting around waiting to go home. My project, thanks to a few extremely generous donations, is coming along, but not very quickly. My limited access to internet makes it difficult to do as much work and promotion for it as I would like, which is another frustration.
On the plus side, my little sister Julia graduated from college yesterday! We add another Mount Holyoke alumna to the family, making it a whopping 5. It was really difficult to hear that my whole family was together at the college, participating in traditions I should have been in and getting to support Julia. Missing big events in the States always makes me take a step back and realize the gravity of the choice I made coming to Togo. I will always believe it was the right choice, but missing the big things always gives me pause. But regardless of all that, Jules worked really hard and I’m really proud of her. A new job and a marriage await her in the coming year, and she deserves all of it.
I hope this post hasn’t depressed any of you too thoroughly; no matter what is going on here, I’m glad I’m here. I look back on yesterday and remember how my Togolese friends rallied around me, sympathizing with the crazy yovo who cries over a dead cat. They buried her for me and my kids put flowers on her grave. My neighbor Anna came in from village to be with me and my other two cats have been extremely affectionate, sensing the loss and seeking comfort. Another difficult day, but in Togo I’ve learned how to cry, pick myself up, brush off the dirt, and keep going.

Peace Corps Partnership!

Hello all! My Peace Corps Partnership for the youth center in Vogan is up and running! You can read more about the project at voiceoftheyouthvogan.blogspot.com, or donate directly at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=693-308

I'm really excited and hope you can all help spread the word to your friends and family. On another note, I am currently in Ghana, and it truly is the land of milk and honey. I went to an actual mall, ate nachos and fajitas, and bought froot loops. There are lines on the roads here and everything! I took my GREs this morning and I'm happy to say that it looks like I am smart enough for grad school after all (I know some of you were wondering). I'll write more on my adventures in Ghana soon!

Shameless Plug for My Project (Yay!)

I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’m here. My excuse is that I’ve actually been productive lately!
I have registered for the GREs (April 29th) and have begun studying in earnest. Since I’m so bad at math it’s actually taking up a lot of my time at post. Getting myself motivated to study was hard at first but as the time looms near, I’m embracing my geeky side and spending hours making vocabulary flashcards and looking up words in every magazine, book and newspaper I read. David (my sitemate) is taking them the same day in Ghana, so we’ve been quizzing each other on random vocabulary words (perfidious is my current favorite) and keeping each other motivated. We get three paid days off to go over and take the test, so we plan on going to the mall (!!) and the beach…and somewhere in there hopefully take the test as well. I’ve heard Accra’s streets are paved with gold. I can’t wait to see.

This past week I went up to the Peace Corps training center for the yearly All Volunteer conference as well as my in service training. AllVol is a two day event that is mostly made up of drinking and spending money on auction items such as peanut M&Ms ($25), dinner with the director ($140), a shirt with an eagle eating a cobra on it ($200), etc. Amazing what our $8/day goes towards. I bought overpriced salsa lessons from my friend Jesse, which seemed like a really good idea after a few Sex on the Beaches and beers. There was a talent show as well that included choreographed dances, a back flip off a table, and one girl who can audibly flap her butt cheeks together. Togo PCVs are a classy bunch. Overall it was really fun, although when I first got there I realized I was going through culture shock, since it’s been so long since I’ve been around 100 Americans. After two nights with an average of 3 hours’ sleep, training for the next 4 days was rough, but somehow I made it through. The training was motivating, which is always welcome.

I have also been putting a lot of effort into a Peace Corps Partnership proposal that will hopefully go up on the web in the next couple of weeks. My Togolese counterpart, Michel, is an amazing youth educator and advisor. For the past few years he has worked with an NGO called CASIEJ and has basically been paying out of pocket to continue lecturing kids on issues such as HIV/AIDS transmission, risky behavior, life skills and other health topics. He’s the most motivated individual I’ve ever met. Since the beginning of my service he has expressed an interest in starting his own NGO and opening a proper youth center for the youth of Vogan. I put my foot down at the beginning, since building a center would simply be too expensive. However, recently his own landlord came to him with an interest in selling the house that Michel currently rents. He and his wife have decided that if we can come up with the money to buy the building, they will move and we can use the building for a youth center.

Peace Corps Partnership isn’t a grant program; rather it’s a way for people from the US to be able to donate to a specific project as a tax-deductible charitable donation. 100% of the funds go directly to the project. I am finishing the budget now and it seems that the total cost of the project will be about $10,000. However, the community is coming up with 30% of the cost, so I will be appealing to Americans (like YOU!) for about $7,000. I’m extremely excited about this project, although I realize the cost is huge. It would be absolutely amazing to be able to do this for my village. The area is plagued by child trafficking, prostitution, a low rate of girls continuing school, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, illiteracy, and malnutrition. We’re hoping that a youth center will give us the opportunity to offer classes in literacy, computer skills, income-generating activities and life skills that will give kids the tools to make good decisions. I’m going to be making a facebook group once the project is up on the web, and hopefully through word of mouth (start talking!) and the internet I’ll be able to raise the funds. This project is truly my baby here in country.

The house we're hoping to buy and renovate

Regardless of what happens, it’s been transformative having something useful to do here. For so long I felt like I was relatively useless, since my counterpart is so capable of doing everything much better than I can, and in local language to boot. This project has given me something tangible to work on that will hopefully make a difference. Between the proposal and studying, my days are full and productive for the first time since I’ve been in country. Michel and I also recently received a small grant from Friends of Togo to tour the countryside, giving lectures on health issues to students and apprentices in neighboring villages. I usually just go along for the ride, since Michel is so great with the kids, but I’m getting to see a lot of the surrounding area, and it really is breathtaking. It’s so easy here to look around and just see the trash, the naked children, the malnutrition and the ramshackle houses. Riding to these villages reminds me to stop and look around at what a beautiful country I live in. Since the rains have started again, everything has become green and lush again, which is a beautiful contrast to the red soil of Africa.

Pictures!

I got Picasa on my computer, which is much much better than Flickr. I have lots going up so feel free to look. I'll change the link on the side of my blog, but for now the link is:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bfriedrichs

Yay!

Yes, I'm Alive

And I have a computer! Sarah came to visit and brought me a laptop generously donated from a family friend. Now I can write my blogs sitting in the comfort of my sweltering house. Hot season has descended here with a vengeance. The season before hot season was marked by the Harmattan winds; winds sweeping down from the Sahara, covering everything in a thick layer of dust and making it hazardous to your health to travel in bush taxis with open windows. However, the tradeoff was that the days were hot, but the nights were downright chilly (which, for me, means about 60 degrees). I would wake up wearing every layer I had and hang out in pajama pants and a fleece. One morning while Sarah and I were in Ouidah, Benin, we woke up and the Harmattan was just over. No warning, no memo. I felt a little betrayed. It left without saying goodbye and left in its place oppressive humidity and stifling heat.

However. The weather is not the most interesting thing going on in my life so I guess I should move on to better topics. I’m sorry to all who have been wondering if I’m still alive: I am. January was busy with everything except work. I spent New Year’s Eve in Lome with my friend Aimee, and then headed back to Vogan for New Year’s Day. New Year’s here is a huge deal, much bigger than Christmas. Spirits and parties were somewhat dampened, however, when we were hit with an apocalyptic rainstorm at about 10 in the morning that lasted a solid 2 hours. My compound was so flooded that I had to wade through it in the middle of the storm and bring my neighbor’s puppy upstairs, fearing that he could actually drown. The party I was going to go to got relocated to my terrace, since I’m the only person we know who has a second story. It was subdued and with what I’ve now started to refer to as my normal crowd.

I’m not really sure where the middle weeks of January went. I finally traveled up country to Notse to visit Ashley and to hand off my dog to Jake, a fellow volunteer. I realized after I got a dog that I am a cat person. The kittens I had been caring for at the beginning of my service were miserable at the NGO where they were staying, and everyone kept telling me people were going to steal them and eat them. So I got rid of Mick and took back the kittens. 3 cats in my little apartment officially classifies me as a crazy cat lady. The 3rd week in January, I traveled to Pagala, in the Centrale region of Togo for a Peace Corps training. It was incredible how much more pronounced the Harmattan was up there; I attended morning meetings wrapped in my mohair blanket and pajama pants and then by noon we were all sweating. My nose, my eyes and my throat were all dry and scratchy and my hair was so dry I didn’t wash it once (I was also just kinda lazy and filthy the whole week). The training was really good, because it re-motivated me to get back to post and branch out from my counterpart and find more work. From training I went directly to Lome and picked up SARAH, who flew in to see me for 10 days.

The relief at seeing Sarah overwhelmed me and I got all teary in the airport. So much of my time here is spent with people who don’t really know me, like the Togolese I live with at post, or with volunteers who know the “Peace Corps” me, a version of myself I haven’t been able to completely reconcile with the “America” me. For the first time in 8 months, my best and oldest friend was with me and I was able to be me again. It was so good to have someone from home see first hand what I’m doing here, because no matter how many blogs I write and how many phone calls I get, there’s no way to describe it. I loved that by the 3rd day here, Sarah was ready to punch the kids singing the Yovo song and she had tasted adoway, my favorite Togolese street food. She pounded her own fufu (she wanted to cause she said it sounded dirty) and ate it like a champ, only getting disgusted by it after the fact when looking at pictures. We spent the first few days in Vogan, changing our plans over and over to accommodate both Sarah’s stomach and our hatred of spending time in bush taxis. We finally settled on a day trip to Togoville and then going to Ouidah, a town on the Benin coast where the Portuguese had a slave port and a fort.

After a stressful border crossing and visas bought for 20 bucks, we spent an expensive but really nice day on the beach in Ouidah. We then decided it was too expensive to stay there, so we walked the 4k into town the next afternoon. The path is the same one that was taken by the slaves as they were led out of Africa and onto the slave ships. Ouidah is also the voodoo capital of West Africa, so all along the road are statues to the voodoo kings and random fetish souvenir shops. It was definitely the most touristy spot I’ve been to here and it was a little surreal. The next day we went to the slave museum/voodoo museum/old Portuguese fort and the Temple of the Pythons, where we got to play with live pythons…to my delight and Sarah’s horror. We then caught a bush taxi back to Togo, and I actually got really excited to be going “home”. In Ouidah they don’t speak Ewe and it was strange to be somewhere where I didn’t understand ANYTHING in the local language. The sound of Ewe has become comforting to me now, and I know southern Togo pretty well, so it was really good to be back in my comfort zone. We then spent a couple nights in Lome by the pool at a couple yovo hotels, and I got to take my first hot shower since arriving in country. It was pretty incredible.

After Sarah left I fell into a “I-hate-Togo-this-is-stupid-I-want-to-go-home” mood for a few days. I hated that I didn’t have work and it was hard to watch Sarah get on a plane for America, while I was stuck here and had to go back and face village life. But I’m coming out of it now, and Michel, my counterpart, has been really receptive. I told him I could no longer wait around waiting for work to come to me. So he’s been helping me find things to do. I helped out at baby weighing at my local hospital this morning and I’m (hopefully) starting a health club at the local CEG (middle school). I have at least 1 thing to do each day this week which is a refreshing change. My new goals are as follows:

Register for the GREs
Go to Ghana and rock the GREs and then rock grad school applications
Start learning real French
Learn Ewe (it can’t be THAT hard to pick up a tribal language, right?!)

So, thus is my life right now. I hope this looooooong entry makes up for my absence. I’m now counting down the days till my parents get here for a visit and then I come home for 3 weeks for Kate’s wedding! Mark your calendars now….July 5 to July 29!

Happy Valentine’s Day!