Yesterday was a disappointing day for Togo. Togo lost to Cameroon 3-0 in the qualifying match for the World Cup in South Africa. I watched part of the game at a small buvette near the grande stade in Tsevie where many young boys play aspiring to someday go to the World Cup. It reminded me of being in the heart of Paris in 2006 during the World Cup when France lost to Italy. What a blow to a national ego.
Many of my best times in Togo have been spent under the encompassing Mango tree that shades my host family’s compound. I talk with my host mom as she prepares my meals, and secretly pray for the mangos to ripen before I leave Tsevie. I sometimes get the privilege of fanning the coal stove as my mom tells me snippets about her life, about her sisters or the baby that she’s having at the end of the month. She is still working hard even 8 ½ months into the pregnancy; birth is a more natural part of life here and not a reason to pause. I am so excited for the baby to be born; my host mom tells me I will have a new brother soon.
I have become more aware of my mission here in Togo and more convinced of the necessity and feasibility of the work I will be doing. I will receive my assignment next week I am very excited to see where in Togo I will be placed. The situation for many girls in Togo is very difficult as there are many pressures keeping them from continuing their studies and the drop out rate is extraordinarily high. Yet there are many people in Togo who understand the necessity of improving education for girls in Togo and support the mission of the Girl’s Education and Empowerment Program for the Peace Corps. My job is to work for the basic human rights of Togolese girls and women. The best part of my job is that I can institute this mission the way I see fit and best interests me. For example, I can choose to focus part of my work on environmental education through creating a community garden to help girls generate income, promoting use of plants with high nutritional value and creating science clubs for girls.
I am a few weeks in to training and life seems a bit routine now. I’ll give a glimpse into a typical day though note that no day is typical. For someone like me who fears monotony this schedule is ideal.
4:00 am Jolted awake by the surprisingly loud sweeping of the compound and the street in front of the house by “domestiques” (girls that work at our house) Revel in the fact that I still have 2 more hours to sleep.
6:00 am Wake up and fill my bucket up for a cold bucket shower. Savor the feeling because this is the last time in the day I will be cold. Eat breakfast (bread with jam/cheese, omelets, beignets or oatmeal and instant coffee)
7:15 am Ride my mountain bike through the bumpy sandy roads to the Salle-Tech where my classes are held. Greeted by many strangers on the street with “Bonjour”.
8:00-10:00 Language Learning. Class size – 2. Practice speaking in practical situations such as what to when you need to throw up in the nine seat bush taxi because you’re sandwiched between 15 people a chicken and a goat.
10:00-12:00 Technical Training. Learning how to present life skills lessons such as “Can Boys And Girls Be Friends”. Plenty of clapping (called bonks) and icebreaker games.
12:00-2:30pm Midi Repos. Ride my bike home for lunch, which usually consists of a salad with spaghetti, french fries called calicos, Fufu, fried bananas or hotdogs or any combination. (note: I’m a pseudo-veg here in Togo and only eat hotdogs to avoid getting fur and eyeballs on my plate)
2:30-5:00 Field Trip. Have taken trips to local schools and schools an hour away in a smaller town to observe a PCV in action.
5:00-5:30 Tutoring. More French.
5:30-6:00 Hang out at the Tchouk house or buvette for a bit. Hurry home before dark at 6.
6:00-7:00 Hang out with host fam. This consists of the kids playing hand games and hugging and kissing me saying, “Tu est tres tres jolie!!!” Eat dinner.
8:00 French homework. Bucket shower in the dark admiring the stars. Get ready for bed and fall asleep at 8:30.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Yovo, Yovo, Bonsoir Ca Va Bien Merci
My blog title is the song I constantly have stuck in my head because there is a chorus that greets me with that song as I ride down the street.
I just moved into my host family’s home in a large town near Lome. My family has two little kids. They are so cute and I taught them to “high-five” so now every time they see me they say “Meghan! Highfive!.” My family’s compound is very fancy; with electricity, a tv, a gazebo called a “peyote” and a beautifully landscaped lawn. While electricity is available, everything besides sleeping and tv watching is done outdoors including cooking on a coal stove, taking bucket showers in an outside enclosure, using the latrine, brushing teeth, doing laundry in a bucket and eating meals. Families in Togo do not eat together, usually the women, men and children eat separately, and I eat alone! My host family has a couple of girls who work on the compound to help with the kids and the chores and to help make juice to sell. They won’t let me lift a finger.
Training has been going well, this week has been focused on itineraries and schedules as well as how to maintain our new mountain bikes we were given to ride during our time in Togo. I have French class everyday, but there’s only two of us in my class so I feel like my skills will improve rapidly. Already, I only speak French to my host family. They also speak Ewe, which is a native language widespread in Togo and Ghana. Their kids speak mostly Ewe because they haven’t learned much French in school yet.
I attended church with my new friend, who is around 26 and also lived in Belgium for awhile and loves to ski like me. She is tres chic and a great person to talk to because she somewhat understands Western culture and where I’m coming from. She took me to the Penecostal church where she sings in the choir, and the choir director asked me to come on stage to sing! Politely turned down that offer, since I don’t exactly know many Christian songs en francais. That lasted for one hour. She then took me to the other Penecostal church where my host family attends, and we prayed and danced and singed for 3 hours! It shows how much patience the Togolese have, as I don’t know many churchgoers in the US that would tolerate anything over an hour! We had to give an offering three times in a congo line to the front of the church and many people at the service were speaking in tounges. But last night, I woke up at one in the morning to praying, singing and chanting outside my bedroom door which really scared me at first but then just made it difficult to sleep. Apparently my host family decided to have a church service at the house at one AM, for reasons I couldn’t discern.
Among the highlights of the week was our Ultimate Frisbee game at the Stade here in town. I brought Valerie, who works for my host mom and many of the other PCVs brought members of their host family. It was an awesome game, even though Togolese don’t play Ultimate Frisbee, they caught on fast! We had good-sized teams and the game was awesome. I took one for the team when one of the 180-pound PCVs and me went for the Frisbee at one time and he fell on top of me. I now have a gnarley bruise.
I experienced Tchouk (sp?) for the first time yesterday. It’s a Togolese home brewed beer. It’s only 50 CFA or 10 cents for a beer. It tastes kind of like Kombucha and still has a bunch of yeast residue, but not too bad and a great way to meet people.
I just moved into my host family’s home in a large town near Lome. My family has two little kids. They are so cute and I taught them to “high-five” so now every time they see me they say “Meghan! Highfive!.” My family’s compound is very fancy; with electricity, a tv, a gazebo called a “peyote” and a beautifully landscaped lawn. While electricity is available, everything besides sleeping and tv watching is done outdoors including cooking on a coal stove, taking bucket showers in an outside enclosure, using the latrine, brushing teeth, doing laundry in a bucket and eating meals. Families in Togo do not eat together, usually the women, men and children eat separately, and I eat alone! My host family has a couple of girls who work on the compound to help with the kids and the chores and to help make juice to sell. They won’t let me lift a finger.
Training has been going well, this week has been focused on itineraries and schedules as well as how to maintain our new mountain bikes we were given to ride during our time in Togo. I have French class everyday, but there’s only two of us in my class so I feel like my skills will improve rapidly. Already, I only speak French to my host family. They also speak Ewe, which is a native language widespread in Togo and Ghana. Their kids speak mostly Ewe because they haven’t learned much French in school yet.
I attended church with my new friend, who is around 26 and also lived in Belgium for awhile and loves to ski like me. She is tres chic and a great person to talk to because she somewhat understands Western culture and where I’m coming from. She took me to the Penecostal church where she sings in the choir, and the choir director asked me to come on stage to sing! Politely turned down that offer, since I don’t exactly know many Christian songs en francais. That lasted for one hour. She then took me to the other Penecostal church where my host family attends, and we prayed and danced and singed for 3 hours! It shows how much patience the Togolese have, as I don’t know many churchgoers in the US that would tolerate anything over an hour! We had to give an offering three times in a congo line to the front of the church and many people at the service were speaking in tounges. But last night, I woke up at one in the morning to praying, singing and chanting outside my bedroom door which really scared me at first but then just made it difficult to sleep. Apparently my host family decided to have a church service at the house at one AM, for reasons I couldn’t discern.
Among the highlights of the week was our Ultimate Frisbee game at the Stade here in town. I brought Valerie, who works for my host mom and many of the other PCVs brought members of their host family. It was an awesome game, even though Togolese don’t play Ultimate Frisbee, they caught on fast! We had good-sized teams and the game was awesome. I took one for the team when one of the 180-pound PCVs and me went for the Frisbee at one time and he fell on top of me. I now have a gnarley bruise.
I experienced Tchouk (sp?) for the first time yesterday. It’s a Togolese home brewed beer. It’s only 50 CFA or 10 cents for a beer. It tastes kind of like Kombucha and still has a bunch of yeast residue, but not too bad and a great way to meet people.
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