Harassment

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice
at the end of the day that says “I’ll try again tomorrow.”
~Mary Anne Radmacher

Okay, so being a “Yovo” (white) in Togo automatically makes me stand out. It’s almost the equivalent to seeing a woman walking down the street in the U.S. wearing a burka or maybe a clown costume. Not only do people here stare and do a double take when they see me, they shout out things or occasionally approach me to try and stop me while I am walking down the road. I try not to be too bothered by this, and just ignore them and keep moving. I’ve only once had to defend myself by smacking a man with my water bottle because he came at me and grabbed me hard by my arms. Usually people just shout things at me.

Here are some typical comments: 

•  "Whitey! Whitey!"
• "Hello my sister"
• "You are pretty to have"
• "You must give me something/100cfa"
•  "Hello my angel, how are you?"
• "I am hungry, you must give me money"
• "Where are you going?"
• "tsssss tsssss......tsssssss....tssssssss.......HEY, HEY!"
• "Yovo, come see"
• kissing, squeaky sound

I don't mean to complain or whine here. I just want to explain what it's like to be white living in a big Togolese city. I don't have trouble ignoring things the little kids say, since they are so innocent, just doing what they see the other kids doing. It's the adults who bug me the most, because it seems like they should be old enough to know better, mature enough to show some restraint, or manners, or at least empathy.  I mean, I would NEVER call out "Hey Asian/red-head/black/fatty, etc." across the street to get someone's attention. I guess different cultures have different ideas about what is and is not rude.

These episodes make me feel everything from annoyed, to scared, to ANGRY. I try to remind myself to find the courage and patience to see beyond it, and feel compassion for the people harassing me. Yes, I am white and American. I grew up having more than they will probably ever have. I am only here in Togo for two years, and then I will return to the pristine, shiny United States, and they will still be here in Togo. I can understand possible feelings of resentment towards me, but I can't accept it as a valid excuse for this poor behavior.

On my bad days I just want to scream back at these people, and I admit I have lost my temper a few times. On my good days I try to remember that before forming an opinion about someone or passing judgment on them, we should think about what it would be like to live in their shoes, or in this case, flip flops.

The Daily Grind

  "We cannot do everything in Africa,

but doing nothing is not an option."

                                                                ~Lee H. Hamilton

My main job as an English and Gender Education Volunteer in Togo is teaching English. I teach four days a week this year, Monday-Thursday. The level of my class is equivalent to 7th or 8th grade back in America, but, most of my students are older than the typical 7th or 8th grader in the U.S. Failing a grade and having to repeat 1-2 times is not unusual here; it is quite common. This means that in middle school there are many students in their mid to late teens.

  

Last year I only had 17 students and this year I have 53. Last year I was able to learn names pretty quickly, but this year is a little more challenging. It’s not more difficult just because I have more students, but also because many of my students like to be called by their last name, and 29 of my students have last names that start with an “A” and sound very similar.

Overall, I have come to love teaching, and the time I spend in the classroom is really the highlight of my day. However, it’s not all BLISS.  Some days are really hard. About half my students are very motivated, pay attention, take notes, and do their homework. The other half don’t do much and only take down notes if I hover over them like a hawk, which is no fun. These students are the older students in my class, kids who have failed many times and really have no interest in school. They sit in the back and make fun of my American accent. They are constantly chatting and 15 of them have never done one single homework assignment all year. Maybe when they have to show their report card to their parents at the end of the trimester they will clean up their act, but probably not.  

In the meantime, my good students lift my spirits. From time to time they have said to me during class “Just leave them and keep going,” (Referring to the students in the back who are talking and not paying attention). When I see these students doing well and getting 100% on quizzes, I know I must be doing something right and that the lessons seem to be sinking in. It is so gratifying to see those who are eager to learn, willing to listen, trying so hard to learn English, which is their THIRD language, after Ewe and French!

I suppose no matter where you teach, you are going to find students who are more motivated and less motivated. That’s not too surprising. Then there are cultural differences: Differences in the value placed on education, different family dynamics, children who quit school to work, different laws about educational requirements, lack of vision to see how education could change in their lives….. Part of my daily grind is to try to keep the hope alive that I might in some small way be making a difference in these students’ lives. Once I had a young girl tell me that she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up, because I was the first woman teacher she had ever known. I’m not moving mountains, but hey, it’s a start. 

My Library Project

“A library outranks any other one thing
a community can do to benefit its people.
It is a never failing spring in the desert.”
~Andrew Carnegie

I am trying to raise money to build a library for our school here in Kpalime, with construction work starting on February 1st.  We have a room, but it needs paint, flooring, a ceiling, bookshelves, furniture, and most importantly, BOOKS. We need text books for classes K-8, reference books, and it would also be great to have a collection of books for recreational reading. The way it is now, students only have notebooks in class to write info from the blackboard. That's it. And that's only the ones who can afford to buy their own notebook. 

Here is a link to my project, where you can make a tax-deductible contribution! ANY amount you can donate will be greatly appreciated...no amount is too small. Even one book is more than most of these classrooms have right now. Thank you so much for helping to improve education and introduce a love of reading to these very deserving children. 

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-693-001

Togo Trash

"The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it." 
~George Kimble

Probably the most surprising thing about Togo to me has been the contrast between this lovely country and beautiful people, with the trash alongside the roads, revealing an area where development work is still left to be done. Maybe with all the other challenges facing them, trash disposal is low on their list of ideas for needed improvements.  There isn’t an ingrained belief in Togo, like there is in America, that “littering is bad,” because in Togo it’s really the only way to dispose of your trash. Compounds are swept clean every day, but afterwards, trash is either thrown on the side of the road, or you can save it for later, when you can go out to the road and burn a whole pile of trash that you have accumulated. The trash will end up on the side of the road, either burned or not.

The smell of burning trash is a scent that you quickly become used to while living here. On my street there are about three burn piles along the side of the road where people dispose of their trash. Every couple of days someone will light the piles on fire and we kind of randomly take turns doing this.

The really disturbing thing isn’t just the environmental problem of having trash everywhere, but also the health hazard facing the animals and small children who like to go and pick through the trash. Kids love to search for anything that they can turn into a toy or just mess around with. The goats and chickens roam through and eat whatever seems appetizing. A volunteer friend of mine told me that once in her village they killed a goat to eat, and when they opened the stomach there were a bunch of small black plastic bags inside. Ewww.  Not good…for the people or the goat. 

 

My Water Tower

“Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle close to it. People move when there is too little of it. People move when there is too much of it. People journey down it. People write, sing and dance about it. People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every day, need it.” ― Mikhail Gorbachev

In the United States I never really had to worry about water, where it came from, or if I would have enough for tomorrow. In Togo it’s something that people are always aware of. They think about water every day. Most people here have to travel a block, quarter-mile, or maybe even a mile or more to get water. And when I say “travel” I don’t mean in a car with air conditioning. They walk and bring the water back balanced on their head, often in very hot weather, and that’s just for one bucket of water. And what happens if during the dry season the village’s water source has dried up? They have to travel even farther to find water. I know a few volunteers who have students and children help them get water, since the pumps/wells are so far from their houses. They are always conscious of how much water they have on hand.

To have running water in your house here in Kpalime, you can connect your house to the city water pipes, or you can dig a well and install a water tower. At my compound there is a well. Inside the well is a pump that pumps the water up into the water tower’s holding tank. To turn the pump on all I have to do is flip a switch on the wall outside, like a light switch. I watch the tank and when it is full, I switch it off, or else the water overflows from the top and splashes everywhere. The tank at the top is attached to the water pipes in my house, so the water just flows down into the pipes with gravity. The pressure isn’t that great, but I don’t care. With the water tower, I don’t have any water bill and I don’t have to worry when the city water lines stop for no apparent reason. One time the lines weren’t working for three days. In my first house here I used to keep a barrel full of extra water outside my door for times when the water was off, because I had no well.

I am very thankful for my water tower! It’s one of my favorite things ever. Most volunteers don’t have running water, so I know that I got really lucky with my situation. No bucket baths.  Also, since the water tank is dark and in the sun all day, my afternoon showers are warm!  After living in Togo, I will never think about water the same way I did before, and I have a new appreciation for things like American water fountains…..cold, clean, free water available in public places. Amazing. 

My Quote Wall

“Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; 

words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” 

~W.H. Auden

One of my favorite spots in my house is my quote wall. My parents always slip a quote into the envelope with their letters to me, and I decided to display these on a wall in my house. As you can see from my blog, I love quotes. They provide inspiration, enlightenment, and motivation for me whenever I read them. Here are some of my favorites:

“Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.” – Nicolas Chamfort

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Confucius

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

 “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We all seek guidance sometimes from other people: Friends, co-workers, neighbors, family, spouses, etc. Well for me, at the end of a hard day or at the beginning of what I expect to be a hard day, the “food for thought” comes from my quote wall. Thank you John Lennon, Anne Frank, Maya Angelou, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, Howard Thurman, Arianna Huffington, Martin Luther King Jr., Hillary Clinton……  

      

Happiness in the Heart

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” 

~Abraham Lincoln

For this blog post I’ve decided to talk about the things that make me happy. Living on your own isn’t always easy, especially when you are in a foreign country halfway around the world from everything familiar. Some days you feel like there’s no one you can really to talk to, but for me this loneliness has taught me to appreciate the little joys in life. Having low expectations can be a blessing in disguise, because now I am able to find joy in very simple ways. Here are some things that make me happy:

• A good cup of real coffee  

• Packages or letters from friends and family back home 

• My little neighbors running up to give me a high five or fist-bump when I am heading into my compound

• People downtown recognizing me and calling me by my name

• A good book 

• Jogging to the waterfall early in the morning when no one else is there

• Looking at pictures of my ADORABLE new nephew, Kai. He’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen in my life. Seriously, baby dolls should be modeled after his looks.

• Having no rain on the days I do laundry (I used to have the WORST luck with this)

• The Voice of America on Saturday mornings, when they play music that is currently popular in the U.S. I never recognize the songs now, but it makes me feel less out of touch. 

• When my students say “Miss Emily”

• Opera music (especially Puccini and Verdi)

• When it starts to rain AFTER I have finished my run in the morning

• The sound of the Fanmilk horn (Togo peeps will get that)

• Getting a good deal on pagne

• When I sort of understand what someone is saying in Ewe

• The movie, Pitch Perfect (“I’m doing horizontal running.”) 

On Peace Corps Togo Staff there is a woman named Blandine. She organizes all the training for volunteers and manages the training staff. Some of the volunteers have taken to calling her “Queen Blandine.” During my first few months in Togo, Blandine shared with us the motto that she frequently reminds volunteers of throughout their service in Togo: “Keep the happiness in the heart.” I think she is saying that you can’t rely on outside things to keep you happy. Peace Corps service is hard work, and staying happy on the inside helps get you through the hardships that come along.

Highlights from this Week

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back 

and realize they were the big things.”  ~Robert Brault

• Had a volunteer visit me in Kpalime for the day; I love having visitors!

• Watched the movie, Lincoln, for the first time. Daniel Day Lewis is amazing.

• Taught my little neighbors how to do a “thumbs up.”

• Received three postcards for the class project I'm doing this year. Thanks Natalie, Leslie, and Kelly!!

• I officially became an Auntie!!! My sister finally had her baby, the first of my siblings to have one. His name is Kai. He is beautiful, lots of hair, so sweet.

• Switched to a new malaria prophylaxis. I started my service with mefloquine, but had horrible, scary dreams and a little bit of depression (all typical symptoms of the medicine), so I switched to doxycycline. Now I am switching again because doxy caused a bad sun sensitivity (like only 10 minutes in the sun and I’m burnt) and also a burning feeling in my esophagus. So now I will be using Malarone.  

• Bought some new pagne fabric at my favorite shop in the market.

• Spent a stormy afternoon dancing around my house and singing as loud as I wanted to (makes the thunder and lightning a lot less scary).

Malaria

“There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. 

There’s a reasonable shot that because of his money we will cure malaria.”   

~Malcolm Gladwell

I’ve been contemplating whether or not I should write this blog post, but I’ve decided that I have to. Being a Peace Corps volunteer isn’t all fun and games; there are many difficulties and one of them is staying healthy. I want my blog to ring true, reflecting both the highs and lows of my time here in Togo. After a year of successfully avoiding malaria, it finally caught me. I’ve never felt so sick in my life.

It all started with an excruciating headache one day. Then I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, shakes, and chills like I’ve never had before. The next day I called my PC doctors and they told me to get a malaria test done at the hospital in Kpalime, which came back negative. That afternoon I had a repeat fever like the night before, only this time it was a little worse, 103.5. I was lying on my couch in a fleece jacket, wrapped in a blanket on an 85-degree day and still couldn’t stop shivering. I felt like I was going to die. I called the doctors back. They instructed me to go down to Lome the next day. I woke up feeling horribly nauseous, and the paralyzing headache was back. Next was a two-hour car ride squished into the back seat with three other people, thinking I was going to puke the whole way. I just had to keep telling myself “don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.” I saw my doctors in Lome, who determined a positive diagnosis and started the medicine. My first tests were negative, because malaria starts in the liver and isn’t detectable until it reaches the bloodstream. At first I wasn’t able to keep the medicine down. I spent the rest of that day in bed trying not to move because of my headache. Any tiny movement amplified the headache, so I tried to stay as still as possible. The next day I was able to re-start the medicine and keep it down. With each day the headache became weaker and weaker. It still took a week or so to feel normal again.

So that’s my malaria story. I hope there will be no sequels. It was not fun, but I am lucky I had access to good care. Since it’s the rainy season right now, there are more mosquitoes and more cases of malaria throughout the region. Within the last month five volunteers, including me, have gotten malaria in Togo. We volunteers are provided treatment, but that is not the case for many Africans. Thousands of children die from malaria every day in Africa. Bill Gates has devoted much time and millions of dollars to develop drug treatments, insecticides, and other techniques for controlling mosquitoes, such as the distribution of bed nets for sleeping, and working towards a safe and effective malaria vaccine. Bill and Melinda Gates are two of my heroes. They are selflessly working very hard to make this a world where EVERYONE has a chance to have a story with a happy ending when fighting diseases like malaria.      
                                         

Time Out

“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves,

or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are at play.”

~ Charles Schaefer

 

I’ve been taking a little break recently, after a really busy couple of months. I needed time to relax at home, do some housework, plan projects, and rest up before the start of another busy school year. A chance to unwind…simple days spent playing with my neighbor kids, reading books, catching my breath. I wanted to share a few book recommendations with you.

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk:  Huge novel about WWII. This author does a wonderful job of mixing together the story of a military family with the chronological timeline of the war. I like historical fiction, because it’s both entertaining and a learning experience for the reader.

Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Goldman Gelman:  I love travel, and reading this book had me adding a few destinations to my travel wish list. Although she spends the majority of her time outside the U.S., it was fun to read about her brief time spent in Seattle, and her trip to the REI store made me a little homesick!

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain: Very interesting. I think this is a book that should be required reading for all teachers and parents.

The Paris Wife by Paula McClain:  I just finished this today and thought it was great! Although not always a happy story, it was a fast read, and I enjoyed the references to places in Paris that I knew well when living there.  

Mid Service Conference

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens

can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

~Margaret Mead

We recently spent a week up at the Peace Corps’ Pagala center for our Mid Service Conference (MSC), a chance to reunite with all the volunteers who arrived to Togo with me one year ago. I don’t travel much outside of Kpalime, and seldom travel up north; it was a rare treat to see everyone all together again. MSC covered sessions in health, security, and other Peace Corps Admin. subjects. This conference had a Food Security focus, so there were discussions about gardening, sac gardens, drying foods, etc. Although working with gardens and promoting food security isn’t part of the EGE program’s objectives, it was fun to learn about these food security strategies, and I’m looking forward to sharing the information with my community and students.   

I have joined the Gender and Development Committee (GAD). The GAD Committee's main objective is to raise money which will be used to fund volunteers' projects that promote gender equality. Volunteers provide a major source of funding, and can also apply for GAD money to fund their own gender equality projects. The main fundraising events for GAD money are auctions. These take place during trainings or big events when all volunteers are together in large groups. When I first arrived in Togo there was a GAD auction at my swearing-in ceremony. As a member of the GAD committee,                             

I helped facilitate the auction at the MSC. Items up for bid included Togolese art, with paintings, wood carvings, and wall hangings. There were also practical things for volunteers like hammocks, headlamps, a solar shower, and a solar charger. The live auction in the evening had special items such as an REI sleeping pad and fold-out chair, Girl Scout cookies, and activities like a barbeque for 10 at the Country Director’s House in Lome and a two-day stay in the U.S. Embassy Complex. I donated a one-night stay at my house in Kpalime and dinner at the Belgian Restaurant nearby to be auctioned off. It was a successful event and I am looking forward to working on this committee over the next year.
                                                               

                                                                

MSC gave me a chance to reflect on what I have done over the last year and take time to brainstorm and make plans for the year to come. It was nice to connect with other volunteers and discuss some of the highs and lows of our jobs so far, refocusing on our goals, reminding ourselves why we are here, and celebrating friendships! I’ve heard from former volunteers that the second year of service seems to fly by quickly and is also much busier than the first year. With completion of our mid service conference, I feel I am really over the “hump” of my time in the Peace Corps. 14 months down and 12 months to go in Togo.

Teacher Training

"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember,

involve me and I learn."  ~Benjamin Franklin

When Camp UNITE was over, I headed down to Tsevie to start my two weeks as a trainer for the new group of volunteers who arrived in Togo on June 12^th.  It was nice getting to know them and hearing about their experiences in Togo so far, reminding me of when I was back in Tsevie one year ago as a new trainee…boy does time fly! Two years used to seem like such a long time to be away from home, living in Africa, haha, but it’s gone by so fast.   

After a couple of days in Tsevie, I left for Kpalime with the 12 new EGE volunteers, and their language and technical trainers for three more weeks of instruction before heading to their posts. The new group is doing their teacher training at my school’s summer program in Kpalime, participating in model classes. This gives them the opportunity to practice in the classroom, a chance to see what it’s really like to teach in Togo and what to expect from the students.

                                                                                

New volunteers ready for their posts

The first few weeks of teaching are tough. Students don’t participate much because they are embarrassed; they don’t always understand the American accent or vocabulary. Teaching English here has taught me to choose my words carefully, to speak slowly and enunciate very well, because if I don’t, my students won’t understand…they may just tune out and give up. You discover how to adjust your lessons on the spot, if the students aren’t quite getting it, and how to better manage your time. You learn which techniques work and which ones don’t. You figure out how to be approachable and welcoming to the students, but not so friendly that they don’t take you seriously. Ideally, these model classes will help the volunteers feel more confident and better prepared for their first day of school. While observing the classes, I am reminded of how hard those first few days of teaching are. I just keep telling the new teachers not to worry and that it gets better with time. I used to be nervous every day before class, but now I’m so excited for school to start and to be back in the classroom again. 

We took a break after one week of training in Kpalime and traveled back down to Lome for the swear-in ceremony for all the new volunteers. When the celebrating was over, the EGE volunteers returned to Kpalime for their final two weeks of teacher training before moving to their posts. It has been great fun to have all these new friends

visiting my town for a few weeks, a nice break from the regular routine.     I will miss them when they leave, but I think they  are going to do awesome work in their communities, and before you know it, they will be training a new group of teachers next summer! 

The Peace Corps Circle of Life :)