Ca va in Kpalime

“Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.”

William Shakespeare

This morning the volunteer I’m replacing showed me a small loop that she runs sometimes. It wasn’t very long, but the scenery was pretty and it was peaceful. Walking in the morning mist in Kpalime is pretty magical. It reminded me of the scene from Pride and Prejudice when neither Lizzy nor Mr. Darcy can sleep, and they meet in the meadow where he tells her “I love, I love, I love you,” but with African things, like roosters crowing, music playing, people working on their little farms, and curious neighbors staring at you as you pass by. Sorry for the weird Pride and Prejudice reference, but it’s one of my favorites. 

After our walk, I prepared to visit my school. The school is only about a five-minute walk from my house. Upon my arrival, I was greeted by all the students in the summer term, along with the teachers, the chief of the community, leader of the PTA, and a prefect representative of the government. The small ceremony lasted a little over an hour. I was introduced to the students, and thanks and recognition was given to the volunteer I am replacing. She was not a teacher, but she worked with the school to promote gender equality. Throughout the ceremony, the children performed for us with dancing, singing, and chanting. It was adorable!

It was exciting to see the school, and meet the students and teachers I will be working with. I am happy I will be teaching at a small, private school where the class sizes are more manageable. In the average Togolese public school class sizes can range between 60-90 students. In comparison, I will probably have somewhere around 30 students. I think this is wonderful, because I will be able to give individual attention to my students, something that would be almost impossible to do with a class of 90.  

First Day in Kpalime!

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson

 As we were driving into Kpalime, I just knew that I was going to love it. I believe in signs, and traveling along, I felt more at home with every kilometer. The route to Kpalime is surrounded by lush green trees and shrubs; it's just like driving up “the green tunnel” at home. What really made me happy was the rain! I was excited when sprinkles started falling on the windshield! Ha-ha I know this would not make most people happy, but I guess I’m not like most people. Kpalime is in the mountains and not far from the highest peak in Togo. It rains a lot here and is known to have a milder climate than other parts of Togo. I’m looking forward to regularly falling asleep to the sound of rain on my roof. I guess you can take the girl out of the Pacific Northwest, but you can’t take the Pacific Northwest out of the girl.

To celebrate our first night we went to a Belgian restaurant in town that is owned and operated by the lovely Mary and her son Yan. They came to Togo from Belgium eight years ago and have settled down in Kpalime. I ate the best bœuf bourguignon of my life! Melt in your mouth deliciousness! Mary introduced us to her favorite drink, “the Obama.” The drink is a Togolese beer with a little bit of grenadine. Mary says that it’s mixed and it’s sweet, it’s an Obama! I can’t wait to take friends here when they come to visit. Dining at this restaurant and talking to Mary made me feel like I wasn’t in Togo for a little while. I think it will be nice to come here if I ever get frustrated, have a bad day, or am feeling really homesick and lonely. I’ll be able to sit back, eat yummy European food, and relax with an Obama.

an obama

To get home from the restaurant we had to take motos. Riding a moto is not my favorite thing to do yet, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. When I was in the U.S., I never rode on the back of motorcycles. It’s still scary to me and the helmet makes me feel a bit claustrophobic. Kpalime is a big city, very spread out. Because I won’t be living in the center of town, I will have to either ride my bike or take motos a lot. Thankfully, I live fairly close to my school, and will be able to walk to work. The roads can get pretty muddy so I want to say “Thank You!” to my mom, who bought me some short rain boots before I came. They will definitely come in handy here. Overall, I’m really happy with my post. I’m looking forward to exploring the city in the next week and having friends come to visit in the future. Meet me in Kpalime!  

pagne, pagne, and more pagne!

"You can be too rich and too thin,

but you can never be too well read or too curious about the world."

~Tim Gunn

As a group, we trainees have developed an addiction to pagne. Pagne-buying trips to the market have quickly become part of my weekly routine here. So far, I’ve only had one skirt and two dresses made, but I’ve bought five pagnes which are waiting to be made into a skirt, dress, shirt, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Pagne (pawn-yuh) is what all Togolese women wear. Most of the time I see them just wrapped around their waists as a long skirt. You can buy it at the market and then take it to a couturier in town to get clothes made. One pagne equals two yards of fabric and can range in price from 1,500cfa to more than 5,000cfa; it all depends on the quality of the fabric. 500cfa is about one U.S. dollar, so that’s only 3-10 dollars. At the couturier it usually costs 1,000cfa for a skirt and 2,000-3,000cfa for a dress. That’s less than 10 USD for the fabric and the production!

my pagnes

I’m looking forward to creating a whole new wardrobe for myself here. It’s hard sometimes to describe exactly what I want, and things can get lost in translation. So it is best to draw the design, show a picture, or bring in clothes to the couturier that you want to replicate. Designing clothes in my notebook makes me feel like I’m on Project Runway, only without the judges and the motivating Tim Gunn, telling me to “make it work.”

a traditional boubou

I love my couturier. She and her husband own a shop where they sew clothing for men and women. Last time I was there I met their goat, who is about to have six babies! Usually they only have three, so she is special. I’ve seen her walking around the neighborhood for a while, but now she’s getting ready to pop them out. This goat reminds me of my dogs back home, and how they would always  crawl under my mom’s desk while she was working.

Buying pagne, sketching clothing designs, and having outfits made has become one of my favorite things to do here. Togo has a thriving textile industry that is known for its beautiful selection of good quality pagne and Batik prints, and I plan to take full advantage of this over the next two years. 

Forgotten Deliciousness!

“I know there is strength in the differences between us.

I know there is comfort where we overlap.”  - Ani DiFranco

My sister Adzo 

 Last week was a pretty great week. The highlight was definitely the packages I received from my mom and sister. I love my family!! Thank you SO MUCH. That beef jerky was amazing! Beef here is expensive, hard to find, and hard to eat. One time my host mom cooked me a version of beef stew, and the beef was really tough. I remember actually counting my chews for one bite and it was 40 chews! So I was very happy to receive the jerky and I ate the first package way too fast. I’ll try to make the other one last longer. That wasn’t the only food I savored this week. Finding a PayDay bar inside my sister’s package felt like finding the Holy Grail! I made it last quite a while, individually pulling off the peanuts and savoring them for a moment. Mmmmm. Sorry about all the details for just a couple of random American snack foods, but I’m already missing food and have a new found appreciation for the lyric “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” At home I would maybe eat beef jerky and a PayDay bar once a year, and yet I got SO incredibly excited when I received them.

Yummy meal I made with my EGE friends: rice and spicy

 peanut sauce with tofu 

The two most popular and traditional foods that the Togolese eat are pate and foufou. Pate is a white blob of mush; well, that’s how I describe it. It's what my family eats for almost every meal of the day. My host sisters make it over their charcoal stove in a pot by combining water and a type of corn meal that is white. It looks just like flour to me, but it’s not. After it’s done, you eat it with your hands and dip it into a sauce. I really don’t like pate, because it tastes like nothing. It also doesn’t help that my family’s favorite sauce is the one volunteers have nicknamed “snot sauce” because of the stringy, gooey consistency. I’ve been able to drop a few hints that I don’t like pate, so my family doesn’t give it to me anymore. I think  most Togolese eat pate because it is cheap to make and it fills you up, but it is completely lacking in nutritional value.

Foufou is much more tolerable for me because it is similar to mashed potatoes. To make it, you boil yams and then smash them up in a mortar with a long wooden pestle. As you smash you add water to make the mashed consistency. I still prefer real mashed potatoes because of the creamy consistency you get from adding milk, but foufou is not nearly as bad as pate, because it actually has some taste to it. However, foufou is also eaten with your hands and dipped into a sauce, which can make or break the meal. In general, I’m having a hard time adjusting to the whole eating-with-your-hands tradition here; I still use utensils.

My favorite Togo soda brand is Youki. This one tastes like

 root beer with a hint of coffee and has foam like root beer. 

My favorite Youki flavor is pamplemousse (grapefruit).

I eat foufou only once a week and don’t get pate anymore. So most of the time my host family makes me rice, boiled yams, salad, or beans. They also love to make sauces mixed with slices of hot dogs. For someone who never eats hot dogs unless I’m at a baseball game, that was a little hard to get used to, but it is better than the “40 chew” beef. My family has figured out that I really like oatmeal and coffee, so that is awesome! Breakfast always reminds me of making coffee in the morning with my mom back home, and the sound of her opening up the top of the Quaker oats container. It may not be Starbucks, but it’s the little comforts like a hot cup of coffee in the morning that make me feel at home here. Thanks again for the American treats! They were delicious!!!! 

My host mom heating up some stew on their charcoal stove 

Teaching in Togo

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do."

~Edward Everett Hale

When I was in college studying political science, international area studies, and French, I never would have guessed that I would end up as an English teacher, but that is what’s happening. As part of the TEFL International training, EGE volunteers are going to be doing model classes at a local middle school during its summer program. Last week we went to the school to sit in and observe how the classes are run.

Arriving at the school, we were first introduced to the teachers, all of whom were male. I have been told that this is very common in Togo and that I should expect to be the only female teacher at my school. While entering the classroom, I also noticed a gender disparity among the students. Of the fifty students in the class there were less than ten girls. It was a little hard to tell which students were girls because of the school rule that all students have a buzzed hair cut (I think it’s because of lice). Looking at the students’ ears was the key, because almost all the girls wear earrings.

We were also informed that another norm in Togo is corporal punishment for students who misbehave or show up late. The thought of this going on in my school makes me very uncomfortable and I’m trying not to think about it. I know it is something I will never do. My parents did not believe in physical punishment for children and I have definitely inherited that belief. I could never spank a kid, let alone hit one with a stick across their hands, something a current volunteer told me teachers do at her school. There are ways to change behavior without physical violence, and I don't think it’s wise to teach kids that hitting is a way to solve problems.

I have been feeling a bit nervous and anxious about becoming a teacher. Tutoring in college, teaching tennis, and volunteering in my sister’s classroom is the extent of my teaching experience, but I’m sure that teaching in Togo for two school years will be an opportunity I will always be thankful for. The TEFL training is going well, and each day I’m feeling a little more ready. I hope to be a role model for the girls at my school, inspiring them to continue on with their education and to dream big. I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason, so I’m looking forward to what lies ahead. Who knows, maybe I will fall in love with teaching like my sister, and will want to continue as a teacher when I return to the U.S.  

Bonsoir Finally

“Where you come from does matter --
but not nearly as much as where you are headed.”

― Jodi Picoult

Bonsoir tout le monde! Sorry for the delay, but I’ve been REALLY busy these last few weeks. I want you all to know that training is going well, and I love the volunteers I’m with. My days are usually packed! If you’ve been wondering what my life has been like so far, here is a typical weekday for me.

1. 5:20am go for a run (get called “Yovo” by every kid I see!)

2. Breakfast after my bucket shower

3. Two training sessions, each 2 hours long

4. 2.5 hour break for lunch and to relax

5. 3 more hours of training

6. Hang out with friends, go home, take another bucket shower

7. Dinner with my host mom (I usually hope for rice because it is safe and makes me feel at home)

8. Hang out at the bar my family runs, read, journal, do homework, listen to music, etc.

busy, busy, busy!

Because I am an English and Gender Education volunteer and will be an English teacher at a CEG(middle school), I am becoming certified TEFL International. The training is great, but I feel a little rushed. I hope that by the end I don’t feel inadequate to the other teachers in my school who have been teaching for years. TEFL International certification can be expensive, so I’m VERY thankful for the free education, especially because this could open up doors for me in the future.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I’ve survived my first mystery illness! I’ve never felt so sick in my life. It started one morning at 6am (vomiting and diarrhea), my fever spiked up to 102F, I joined the Peace Corps Level 10 Club*, and by 2pm I was sent to Lome to stay overnight at the Peace Corps Medical Unit because I got to a point when I wasn’t able to keep down any fluids, even just a few sips of water. I was finally able to keep down some water at about 5pm that day, after taking an amazing purple pill that settled my empty stomach enough for water. Nothing came up on the tests, so it must have been some type of stomach bug. I’m feeling a lot better now and hope it is a long time until I get sick again!

The day after this bout of illness was the day I found out my post! Ready? For the next two years I will be living in Kpalime! Kpalime (pronounced Pah-Lee-MAY) is the fourth largest city in Togo, with approximately 96,000 residents. It is located in the Plateaux region of Togo, which is known for being very mountainous. Kpalime is near the border with Ghana and is a big tourist destination in Togo. My host mom calls Kpalime “petit Paris” because it is beautiful and the most European city in Togo. I’m not kidding myself, living in Kpalime will be nothing like it was, living in Paris, but I’m happy that I will be living in a cultural center in Togo. I’ve heard that Kpalime is surrounded by mountains, it rains a lot, and the weather is milder than other places. Woo! So it’s the Seattle of Togo? Haha. Every post comes with its pros and cons, but I’m relieved to be living in a city that is used to white people and foreigners coming through, that is easily accessible, and where I will have electricity and running water. In addition to teaching at a private school, I’m looking forward to collaborating with other NGOs already established in the area to promote gender equality in Togo.

Well this blog seems to be going long, so I’ll try to wrap it up. Once I get an internet key I will be online much more often. I just wanted to let you all know I am happy and really enjoying myself. Aside from random people yelling  “Yovo!” (white person) when I pass by, the Togolese people are very friendly and smiley. I’ve been running like usual, reading, going on long bike rides, watching movies, spending fun nights with friends, hanging out with my three little sisters, and really enjoying my time here. I miss everyone back home, but I’m also very excited about the future, making a new home for myself in Kpalime, and bonding with my Peace Corps family here in Togo. Au revoir! Miagadogo!

*For Peace Corps, diarrhea is rated on a scale from 1-10. Level 10 is the point when it’s just brown liquid. Joining the Level 10 Club happens when the diarrhea is so uncontrollable that you poop your pants. Welcome to Africa :/