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.