Holidays: Christmas in Kara

To fight off the holiday blues, I traveled to Kara Christmas Eve in order to spend the holiday with my good friends from my training class, Peter and David. Kara is the capital of the Kara region, which is just north of the Central Region where I am posted. Though smaller than my regional capital, Sokodé, a wider variety of alimentation can be found in Kara because of it's larger expat population. Further, the president's family is from Kara and it therefore receives more attention from the government.

So on Christmas Eve we dined at “La Douceur” and enjoyed scalloped pork and roasted potatoes. We then woke up Christmas morning, munched on cookies and fruitcake, and listened to Christmas carols played on my computer. Afterwards, we began our preparations for Christmas dinner. While the scalloped potatoes were cooking, we played Simpsons' Monopoly and drank gin & soda. Peter won.

After stuffing ourselves on steak, spinach and potatoes, we took the traditional nap. Wrapping up the festivities, we watched “It's a Wonderful Life” and enjoyed warm apple crisp.

Shout out to ...

... All my family and friends that took the time to send me a card or note during the holidays. While I am able to find joy in most of my days here, I definitely experienced strong pangs of homesickness at Christmas. Therefore, I very much appreciated all the well wishes at the turn of the year. Though not all cards arrived before Christmas, I kept my cards on display until the hot season arrived in full force in March.

My First Vacation: The Africa Cup of Nations

My first chance to escape the borders since arriving in Togo 7 months ago, I traveled to Ghana. This year was Ghana's turn to host the Africa Cup of Nations, a 3-week-long football (soccer) tournament between the top teams from across the continent. Games were played in 4 cities across Ghana, but my friends and I decided to catch a couple of matches in Tamale, a large city in the northern Ghana.

Tamale was a wonderful city to choose for my first vacation from being a volunteer in Togo. The city itself was very peaceful and the people were very friendly. When in search of an egg sandwich for breakfast the first morning, I made fast friends with a young, bright-faced Ghanaian woman named Abou. In between pouring coffee and flipping omelettes, Abou would circle back over to flirt with my friend and teach us some of her local language. “Despa”, that means “Good Morning.” And then you respond “Naa.”

Though Ghana continues to struggle, it is evident that its level of development is a cut above Togo. The streets are clean and there are public trash cans. The busy intersections have cross-walks and signals for pedestrians. There are more cars than motorcycles. These aren't scientific measurements for development, but it makes a different impression. Driving through the bush and the surrounding villages, however, you can see that there work is not done. The Ghanaians are still threatened by poverty and hunger: “

Nevertheless—I still felt like I was on vacation. Tender and juicy fried chicken and fried rice were a nice treat from the chewy cuts of 'meat' more frequently found on the streets in Togo. And compared to the oft skunky beer one finds in Togo, Ghanaian vendors presented a very impressive selection of brews—from the dark and creamy Castle Milk Stout to the refreshing Stone Lager. (And no—I have received no money for this endorsement).


My good friend and fellow volunteer, Amy, hooked us up with free V.V.I.P. tickets to watch Senegal vs. Tunisia and Angola vs. South Africa. I rooted for Senegal, but all the scores ended up tied. Angola played sharp and had some good-looking players—I really enjoyed watching them play.

It was disappointing, however, to see the brand new stadium half empty. We sat in the press section with our V.V.I.P. tickets, which would have otherwise cost 75 Cedis (more or less $75 U.S.). Seats behind the goals cost 4 Cedis—which is about a day's earnings for many Ghanaians. Other seats were 15 Cedis.

Overall, it was nice to get away from work for a couple of days, visit another country and see the diversity of the African continent.

Home Sweet Home

I inherited my house from the health volunteer who preceded me in Kaboli. It's taken me sometime to make it my own—which is only one of the many excuses that I have for not posting about my living situation sooner.

Nonetheless—now I can introduce my new kitten, who is only 2 and a half months old. I've named her Catherine (her Christian name) Idàlé (her Kaboli name, which means 'crazy'). Many Togolese may have up to 3 names: their Christian name, their Muslim name, and/or their African name. I've assumed that Cat is Christian—though the Church does not baptize animals.

My neighbor is my landlord's second wife. I do not have running water. The electricity only runs from 8:00 am to noon and then 3:00 pm to 11:00 pm. The rectangular house includes three rooms: a long front room and two back rooms. The latrine is attached to the outside of the house but enclosed by a private courtyard. The courtyard, however, does not look very pretty during dry season. I'm still working on the garden.

Please follow the link to view a photo album illustrating my home in Africa.

Foumilayo: Receiver of joy

When placed in a village as a volunteer, Peace Corps trains an official counterpart to serve as you local guide and help acclamate you to community life in an unfamiliar environment. My counterpart's name is Foumilayo, which means “receiver of joy.” Though she has served as the “bringer” of joy to my life. She has not only guided me in my work, but she has become a good friend as well.

Few women are selected to serve as couterpart, as Peace Corps usually seeks out persons whom have attained a certain level of education. Although Foumilayo did not graduate from high school, she did earn her lower-level diploma, the BEPC, which one may consider equal to graduating after the 10th grade in the American school system.

Foumilayo is about my age, although it is difficult for me to get a straight answer from her. Many Togolese will offer 2 ages when asked: their age by birth or their school age. Like the majority of togolese students, Foumalayo had to repeat several years of schooling. However, if you continue to remain in the same grade, you can only do so up a certain age. Therefore, students often have their age reviewed or changed so that they may continue their schooling.

Foumilayo has one son, who is five years old and starting school this year. The father is unknown to me, but she has strong support from her family and a long-time boyfriend. Being a single-mother is difficult any where, but it can be particularly challenging in Togo as many woman are shamed by their family and community. Foumilayo's unique situation reflects the strength of her character, which is proved further by her efforts to improve her community. She came to be my official counterpart due to her position on the board of one of the local credit unions (a microfinance institution). She is also a volunteer with the local health committee promoted by the Red Cross.

Our work together includes my visits to her food stall every other morning in the Djama neighborhood. In my opinion, the women of her household make the best kom (fermented corn-meal patties) and sauce in all of Togo. While eating my second-breakfast, we discuss the needs of the community and life in general. Occasionally, she will refer the various visitors of her food stall to my services. Recently, she introduced to a man looking for the capital to build a hen house.
More formally, we are working with others in the community to create a professional training center. Her father, who we call Pélé since he was once a great footballer for the local team, serves as the president of our committee that is managing this project.

Yet, Foumilayo is more than a great colleague, she is a good friend. I've hosted her and her father for dinner at my house. I served egg-drop soup and chicken fried rice. While it soon became obvious that they didn't particularly like the food, Pélé appreciated the hammock that I had hanging in my courtyard.

Recently, Foumilayo and I attended a four-day conference organized by Peace Corps in the south of the country. The meals served were a mix of Togolese and American cuisine, and one morning Foumilayo fell in love with pancakes. She asked me to teach how to make these cakes as soon as we've found some honey to serve with them.

Holidays: Turkey Day

For Thanksgiving 2007, a group of fellow volunteers gathered my regional capital, Sokode, in order to celebrate with a traditional American feast. My duty was to secure and cook the turkey. Turkeys were brought to West Africa from the Americas and they have continued raising them alongside chickens, guinea fowl, and ducks. So finding one wouldn't be too much trouble.

I asked a friend in my village to help me acquire a turkey. He asked me how big I would like it to be. I said that I wanted the fattest one he could find. He certainly provided... It was an old bird, male, and weighed at least 10 pounds. He cost 15,000 francs CFA or 33 U.S. dollars.

I traveled 80 kilometers from my village to the regional capital with the turkey tucked away under the backseat of the 'bush' taxi. At the volunteers' shared transit-house in Sokode, the guard helped me to slit the bird's throat as my fellow volunteers looked on. The Togolese guard, with years more experience butchering fowl than myself, quickly de-feathered and disembowled the bird. To show my appreciation for his help, I offered him the turkey butt, which is highly prized here.

This was not the first bird that I had to slaughter and cook during my time in Togo. Therefore, I knew that his meat would be tougher than the fattened birds found in America, as flocks are usually left to roam across the village in order to find food. To tenderize the meat, I decided to soak the bird overnight in a brine flavored with some local herbs.

On Turkey Day—as the bird continued soaking—my first task was to collect 10 liters of peanut oil in order to deep fry the turkey. So I walked 2 kilometers to visit the largest market in the center of the city with 2 empty water bottles. After filling up, I headed back to house, emptied the bottles, and went out again to refill. At a smaller market closer to the house, I visited the same vendor twice in order to obtain all the oil that I needed. She seemed a little perplexed at seeing me the second time and then tried to charge me more per bottle—as though I was crazy and had forgotton her first price.

After elaborate preparations, the bird turned out wonderfully and was complemented by all the traditional American dishes at our feast: mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans, beets, salad ... All served with some local bissap juice—just to remind us where we were. Many of these dishes were an exceptional treat as many of the items are somewhat pricey based on our pay-rate and can only be found in the larger cities of Togo. Further, butchering a bird is a consuming task—so I indulge rarely.

Able to fill our bellies with more familiar foods, it was nice to spend the holdays with some of my co-patriots.

Hair Update 1: Historical Background

When I first thought about joining the Peace Corps as a high school student, I also began to fantasize about cutting off ALL my hair. Since I am always planning ahead, I knew it would be cooler and easier to manage (I was right). Plus, I just wanted to see what I would look like ...

Though you may have already caught glimpses of my new do in other pictures that I have posted to this blog, I wanted give a bit more background. This story really begins in January 2007 when—at the suggestion of my good friend Sadie—I decided to start experimenting by gettin' myself some “bangs”. So before you see it all come off, below is a collage of events leading up to my transformation à la Sinead O'Connor. Before shipping out, I had a chance to show off my trendy new bangs in Paris, New York and New Orleans. Included are some pictures of my last night in the U S of A with my friends in Washington D.C.