Thanksgiving in Africa

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation

is not to utter words, but to live by them."  ~John F. Kennedy

Like so many other Americans, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love the fall weather, running the Turkey Trot in Gig Harbor with my family, watching the parade and dog show on TV while cooking and prepping the meal, and making delicious pies. I miss these traditions! This year, of course, was different for me, far away from friends and family. Thanksgiving was just like any other day here in Togo. I gave my students their English exam and had a meeting with my Girls Club.

At home my family is pretty relaxed about the holidays, and I LOVE that. We don’t follow  rigid expectations. Last year we had our Thanksgiving meal on Friday, not Thursday, and instead made sushi together on Thanksgiving. This year my mom told me they were having Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday so that everyone could be there. I love that they do this. It’s not the day that is the most important, it's being together with family, right?

A similar thing happened for me in Togo. On Saturday, while I was in Sotouboua visiting another volunteer, we had a small Thanksgiving dinner. Three other volunteers and I cooked our dinner and ate by candlelight on a balcony. Our meal was beautiful and delicious. We made chicken, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, sautéed carrots, gravy, and cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries. It was amazing. I even made a pumpkin pie! I forgot how much I love pie. How is that possible? Well, I’ve been trying hard to forget foods that I love back home and can’t find here, pie is just one example.

Thanksgiving is different when you are away from home and family, but my celebration in Togo with my friends was no less special.  Living in Africa reminds me that there are so many things to be thankful for in life. I am thankful for being here in Togo, working with amazing people. I am thankful for my new American friends. I am thankful for my Togolese friends, the teachers at my school, my neighbors, and the people of Kpalime for welcoming me. I am thankful for my friends and family back home, and all the love and support they send me in the form of texts, letters, packages, phone calls, thoughts, and prayers. Thank you! I am thankful to my parents for raising me, being supportive of the decisions I’ve made, and putting me through school. A BIG thank you to you, Mom and Dad! I am thankful for every day that I have, every sunrise and every sunset. Life is so short and being here in Togo makes me incredibly thankful for my life and the opportunities that lie ahead.  

The Long and Winding Road

"A journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong
is to think you control it."
- John Steinbeck

Last week I took my first adventure up north, traveling to the Centrale region to visit another volunteer living in Sotouboua. Transportation in Togo can be crazy long, and heading north from Kpalime is a hassle. The road to Atakpame is horrible, full of potholes, and it can take up to four hours to get there.

To begin my journey, I headed out in the morning to the station near the Grand Marché. After I found a van and secured my seat, I went to the station cashier, where I paid for and received my ticket. I like that Kpalime has a cashier who handles this, because I know I’m not getting charged more by the driver, ripping me off because I’m a white person. We finally left Kpalime at 11:40am, after waiting in the station for almost three hours. The car was loaded up with 16 people squished inside and lots of cargo on top.

There are two options to get from Kpalime to Atakpame. You can go on the Lome-Atakpame route or you can go up to Adeta and cut across to the Route Nationale, a road that goes from the capital, Lome, all the way to Burkina Faso. My driver took the shortcut to the Route Nationale. This is a dirt road full of rocks. The car constantly vibrates and makes you feel like you are sitting in a massage chair, but not nearly as comfortable.

Along the way we got a flat tire, so we had to get out to change it. The driver and passengers told me, “C’est l’Afrique d’Ouest.” While I was waiting, a group of Togolese children in the fields chanted “yovo, yovo, yovo,” for a solid thirty minutes. Fun times. During our break, I finally noticed how dirty I had become from the dust and filth flying around and coming in the windows. I used Kleenex to wipe my face and arms and it was solid brown. Gross. I also noticed that my right arm had gotten sunburned while sitting in the passenger seat. Lesson learned for next time.

I didn't reach Sotouboua until 6:30pm. The last part of the trip was in the dark, which was a bit terrifying. Taxi drivers here are pretty crazy about passing and swerving to avoid potholes. There were a handful of times when I thought we were for sure going to hit the car coming towards us! I was very thankful that I arrived all in one piece, ALIVE, and it was SO nice to be reunited with friends....making all the hassles totally worth it.

Up in the Air

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt

What a day! This past Saturday was not like any other day here. I didn’t go on my weekly run up to the waterfalls. Instead, I just ran off the side of a mountain with a French man named Bruno and flew up in the sky with birds. It. Was. AWESOME!

I don't consider myself to be someone who has an extreme personality. I’ve never wanted to go skydiving or bungee jumping. Taking those kinds of risks simply doesn’t interest me. However, I like to try new things and I welcome new adventures. For example, during my vacation to Turkey in May I went hot air ballooning in the Cappadocia region....that was incredible.

When I heard about the paragliding near here, I just knew I had to do it. So on Saturday my site mate Gracie and I, along with Andy, another volunteer, traveled up to a village on the Danyi Plateau called N’Digbe. (I think that's how you spell it). The trip to the village reminded me of the drive up to Sunrise Park on Mt. Rainier. It wasn't nearly as long, but the switchbacks were steep and allowed for beautiful views of the landscape below.

The paragliding was out of this world! The experts we flew with are a couple from France. They have been in the area for about six years and also run a paragliding school in the south of France that they've owned for 20 years. They are in Togo only about 3-4 months out of the year. So we were very fortunate to catch them on their final week here.

I was the last to leap, so I had to wait a while, but this turned out for the best. The wind picked up a lot and we were able to go REALLY high up. High enough so that we could actually land at the same site that we took off from instead of the site at the base of the mountain, where my friends landed.

When I was up in the air, the reality of everything didn't register immediately. Then suddenly, I couldn't believe what I was doing. I saw a bird flying about 30 feet below me. That’s when it hit me. Wow!! Bruno told me we were going about 33km an hour. I have no idea what that translates to in mph, but apparently it’s fast. The fastest they can go is 35km per hour. I’m not sure how high we were, but he guessed that we were about 1,000 meters up in the sky. I got a little queasy towards the end, but I didn't get sick. (You can check out my flight on the video tab)

I always knew from the beginning that being a Peace Corps Volunteer would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but this little adventure went beyond all my expectations, giving me a bird's-eye view of my new country, new life in Africa. 

Stranger Danger

"Never underestimate the power of a woman."  ~Nellie McClung

School, lesson planning, club meetings. Busy days with not much time to write. I’m getting to know my students better and everyone in my neighborhood knows me. Whenever I walk to school people call out “Adzo!” (my name for being born on a Monday) or “Emily!” I only get “yovo”-ed by people from other neighborhoods now. So integration is going well, but there have been a few scary moments that definitely had me questioning my safety and what seems to be the acceptable behavior of men towards women here.

One day I decided to walk into town to do some errands instead of biking like I usually do. On my way home a young man started following me. He wanted to know my name, asked where I was going, what I was doing, etc. I was polite, but brief, answering that I am a Peace Corps volunteer living in Kpalime. I don’t feel comfortable telling random strangers any details. After this short exchange, he continued to follow me. He was asking for my phone number, saying that he wanted to come and see my house, and really making me nervous. I told him in my most demanding voice to stop following me. I repeatedly stated, “That’s enough, leave me alone,” but he continued his pursuit, and the Togolese people passing by didn’t offer any help. Finally, about four minutes from my house, I decided to step into a small boutique where I often shop, and ask the owner for help. She seemed confused, but I explained that this man was following me and I needed help to make him leave me alone because he wouldn't listen to me. She proceeded to talk to the man, along with help from two other women. He ultimately left, heading back where he came from.

I have to say that the shop owner wasn’t as forceful as I wanted or expected her to be with him. She merely shrugged her shoulders and said “He didn’t mean any harm.” What!? So he just followed and heckled a yovo for several minutes just for fun? Great, that makes me feel much better. I don't think harassment is even a part of their vocabulary. Apparently, it is perfectly reasonable for some women here to tolerate this type of behavior from men.

Another incident happened to me last night. This one scared me a little more because it was at my house this time, and even my neighbor confided in me afterwards that she was a little shaken up. Vera and I have a very secure main door to get into our compound. It has three locks, including a deadbolt. When my friends come over they always call or holler over the gate and I know it’s them. So if someone is knocking on the compound door and I haven’t been called, I don’t answer it. Last night there was someone knocking. I didn’t answer, but a few minutes later Vera did. I heard them speaking in Ewe, so I just assumed it was a friend of hers. Then I heard a knock on my front door.

I opened the door to find a man standing on my porch. Vera was on her porch staring over at us. It was someone I had never seen before in my life. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was there to see me. I stated that I did not know him and had never seen him before. Vera then cuts in, asking him questions about how he knows me, why he is here, and what does he want. She was very aggressive and direct with him. It seems that he saw me today walking in the neighborhood. He told us he was from Lome and that he had a problem. When we asked him what his problem was, he gave no answer. Then Vera really opened up a can of whoop ass! She got very angry and kicked him out of the compound, slamming the door in his face. After that we had a long conversation about what had happened. Vera concluded that he was probably here to check out the house for anything to steal in the future. She said  robbers are active this time of year, before Christmas. I wasn’t so worried once we had the door locked, but Vera later went to get a male friend to stay the night in our compound. I like living with Vera and her little boy, but she made a valid point that we would be safer having a man or even a dog here.

These two events really made me understand the importance of integration within my community. If I hadn’t known the mama who ran the boutique, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable asking her for help. If I hadn’t become good friends and bonded with my neighbor, maybe she wouldn’t have stayed out on her porch to question the man knocking on my door. Yes, in both of these instances I was pretty shaken and freaked out by Togolese men, but thankfully, there were also some strong Togolese women around to help me. We girls have to stick together.

*** Shortly after this incident I did receive a visit from the head of Togo Peace Corps Security and the Regional Director of Peace Corps Security, who runs security for 7 countries in Africa, following up on what happened. It made me feel good to know that they were concerned and quickly came to check things out. Don’t worry people! I am safe and well.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

"All I know is that every time I go to Africa, I am shaken to my core." 

- Horst Koehler 

Yesterday was a great day! The director of my program, Madame Rose, visited me in Kpalime and I had so much fun. My site mate, Gracie, hit the nail on the head when she said “Madame Rose is like the Togolese Oprah!” It’s so true! It was wonderful to see her, show her my school, and introduce her to my students; they loved her. Talking with Madame Rose about my life in Kpalime, my work at the school, and future projects in the greater community has made me very motivated and excited about the opportunities here.

This morning I took a bike ride up into the mountains with my awesome friend, Gracie! I rolled out of bed at 4:45am so that we could get an early start and see the sunrise. Like usual here, we were not the only ones out on the road at 5:05am. There were several kids running on the same road we were on. They were all dressed in typical soccer uniforms, but they were missing running shoes, which any American would probably consider essential. Instead, they run in flip flops, sandals, loafers, vans, or anything else that works. Yet, they could probably outrun any American kid their age. Amazing.

The ride was not easy, and we had to stop and walk a lot. It was absolutely worth the effort, because the scenery was out of this world! I couldn't believe it, there aren't words to describe it. We passed a beautiful waterfall and took tons of pictures of the incredible views. At some points I felt like I was walking up “the green tunnel” at home. It took my breath away. While we were riding down the mountain back to Kpalime, Gracie said “Hey Em, We’re in Africa!” Yes. We. Are.