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.

Stories from Stage: Fashion Show

During my first three months in Togo, the trainees and our host families were invited to organize a 'fashion show' to serve as a cultural exchange activity and a chance to practice our French. My host mother, Zacharine, thought seriously about what I would wear in the fashion show. She did not want me to just wear the standard 3-piece complet (note picture at right) like all the other girls probably would be wearing. So she presented me with two choices, the standard complet and the pagne (2 meters of cloth) girls wear when parading during traditional festivals.

I chose the purple-velvet pagne embroided with high-heel shoes. After trying it on, Zacharine painted circles on my shoulders using a mixture of sweet smelling herbs and water. Then she handed me a necklace of traditional beads, a gift from one of her aunts.

The day before the show I practiced my turn down the catwalk in a spare room. I was to hold a calabash (the shell of a local dried-out fruit) filled with candy to toss to the crowd. During this dress rehearsal, Zacharine insisted that I should saunter down the 'runway' like the models do—swaying my hips. I had fun alone practicing in front of my small audience of host brothers and sisters. But on the day of the fashion show, the entire crowd went crazy as I tossed the candy from my calabash. My host mother was very pleased.

After the show, my host sister, Florence, and her friends decided to dress up themselves and put on their own show. Together they did a series of choreographed dances and sketches that lasted the entire evening.

Shea Butter

Within my first month at post I was introduced to Olonowo-n'djo Tchala. Tchala was born in my village—and has a whole slew of relations there—but married a Peace Corps volunteer several years ago and then moved to Seattle, Washington. There, he maintained his ties to Togo and started a fair trade company selling shea butter products. The shea butter is produced in the outskirts of Sokodé (my regional capital in Togo) and employs several women from the surrounding villages.

During his trip to visit the new production facility, Tchala invited me to spend the day with him and his party of travelers from the States. First, I met at his sister's house for breakfast: corn porridge with condensed milk and sugar and citronelle-flavored coffee. Over breakfast I met his friends that had traveled with him from the States and Abel, a very ambitious Beninese who works in Togo doing feasibility studies for local products and seeking foreign investment.
We then strolled about 1 km to the outskirts of Sokodé, where the Agbanga-Karite Group were busy working in their new—and immaculate—facility. The women rushed out to greet us in brightly colored dress and beautifully woven tissue. Some were Kotokoli, some Kabiye, some Fulani. But they were all very happy to have found such good employment and to work together. When we entered, we took off our shoes and watched a group of women singing and pre-washing the nuts with their feet and hands. During the tour, the most high tech item that could be found was a milling machine. Then I sat down and whipped some butter myself. My hands felt amazingly soft and smooth after.

We returned to the house of Tchala's sister for a lunch of black-eyed peas with gari and avocado. And to wash it all down—some tchouk! It was delicious! But then it was time to get ready for the party ...

Hiking 3 kilometers outside of the city then, the Fulani women hosted us in their village for one of their almost-weekly parties. Any excuse for a party in Togo! The afternoon began with brief sparing between the boys and younger men using sticks or wadded palm leaves. The girls, women, and men then took their turns on the dance floor while others managed the crowd whacking at their feet with brooms of palm leaves. They had carefully folded palm leaves wrapped around their ankles to create a swishing noise as they danced about. After sharing thanks between the parties for the occasion we sped out across the dance floor ourselves. It was a full day!

A shameless plug ... Please visit the Agbanga-Karite Group's website for more information about their work and also a brief history of my village, Kaboli. If your interested in fair-trade shea butter products (very good for your skin!), please visit the website for Alaffia Fair-Trade.

Stories from stage: The Battle

As our months of training began to wind down and we became anxious (or nervous) to go to our official posts, some of my fellow stage-mates and I got together for a movie night at training center. Some of us decided to sleep over, so we didn't have to rush home and worry our host families with staying out too late. Danielle couldn't sleep, however, and then randomly suggested that we should build forts ...

We split up into teams: Girls vs. Boys. Danielle and I against Peter, David and Jamie. Each member of the boys squad received 5 lives. Because we were only two, each member of the girls team received 7 lives. A life was lost each time that you were hit with a pillow. The odds were slightly in the boys favor: 14 lives for the girls vs. 15 lives for the boys. But we had a secret weapon. The back door of our fort led out to the terrace. So when the lights went out, we snuck out to grab the big chalk-board that listed our training schedule to use as a shield.
As the boys fired their first on-slaught, we blocked every single shot. After hoarding every single pillow that they had wasted on our shields in our fort, we then led our own offensive. Peter was the first to go and decided to referee the rest of the game. The score was tied.
Danielle and I had to start taking more risks. I lost, but then David was left with only 1 life left. With a lucky shot, Danielle quickly forced him out of the game. That left only Danielle and Jamie standing. The battle raged on. And in the wee hours of the morning, it became a tied game once again: 1 life vs. 1 life.

Jamie brought down a rain of fire, pillow after pillow bouncing off of Danielle's shield. But then the shield back-fired. In the split-second that Danielle relaxed her muscles ever so slightly, Jamie fired a blow smacking the shield into Danielle's face and splitting her lip. Peter declared a draw and we broke out the first aid kit. Danielle told her host family that she ran into a door. (We miss you Jamie!)