I wasn't exactly feeling 100% when I returned to Gbatope from my post visit. The bus ride from Kara, my regional capitol, to Tsevie wasn't particularly bad, I was just tired and feeling sick. My family was thrilled to see me and my little siblings began to shout and dance when they spotted me approaching in the distance. It was all very flattering. They wanted to carry my backpack so I let them although it took 5 of them to lift it.
My return was short lived as the next day I felt absolutely awful and after registering a fever of 102 I called the Peace Corps Health office and sent a car to take me down to Lome. There I spent 3 days living a life of luxury in the infirmary. There were air conditioning, hot showers, cereal, and milk that wasn't powdered. Katy, a GEE stagiere was also sick so it was nice to have her around and we watched There's Something About Mary which I love. I was feeling much better the second day but then my sickness kicked in again. I had plenty of time to read so I finished The Grapes of Wrath (powerful) and picked up some books from the Peace Corps lounge. On the Road and Getting Even, a small book of Woody Allen musings which is hilarious. I'm also eager to read The Rum Diary which Hunter S. Thompson wrote when he was my age.
My diagnosis came back the morning I left to return to Gbatope. I have Amebiasis. That's right there are tiny little Amoebas running around in my intestines. It sounds bad but it's nothing compared to when I got Giardia in Haiti. Paula gave me some pills to pop three times a day and since I started on it I haven't had anymore problems.It was great to come back to staging. I missed everyone. We're all pretty tight so they were happy to see me. The day I returned we were having a presentation where we showed our host families aspects of American life and they showed us aspects of Togolese life. It was great fun. GEE did American holidays and we did an American wedding. The wedding skit went well except I'm not sure they quite understood the whole garter thing. Which thinking about now is hilarious. After our presentation I got to rock my pagne complet during the Togolese fashion presentation which was awesome. I can't wait to walk into Harris Teeter wearing my complet and see everyones reaction.
Saturday night we had a dinner/dance party which worked out well. The food we prepared was delicious and I brought a couple pineapples for everyone and they were mighty tasty. You can eat the center here because it's soft.
One of the things we will be doing at post as Peace Corps Volunteers is leading PACA sessions with the community. PACA stands for Participatory Analysis for Community Action which is basically meeting with community members to identify needs and factors for completing projects. We did a practice PACA session in groups with some members of the Gbatope community and I think it went really well and it gave me an idea of how to go about leading a PACA session in Nampoch.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Post Visit Part Deux
It was marche day in Guering Kouka so we moto'ed there and bought necessary items for my house. Half the market is made up of Tchook stands. A word on Tchook. Tchook is an alcoholic drink made of fermented millet and some other stuff, what exactly I'm not sure but it's damn good and extremely popular in the north. I drank it 4 times my first day in Nampoch. It's interesting the way they drink here. It's an all day affair as drinking is just spaced out throughout the day. Tchook, wine, Pastis, sodabi (moonshine), beer (there is no cold beer in Nampoch :( sadness) I drank it all during my week at post visit. It's a bit of a hike to get water because most of the pumps are spoiled but they're repairing a pump near my house.
My french improved greatly during the week as I was forced to constantly use it. My Konkomba could use some work though as most of the people in my village don't speak French. They were all very nice and several were nice enough to offer me their daughters, the children sometimes kicking and screaming. As nice of an offer that is I had to decline. I met the chief (who is quite young), met the students at the school, the gendarmes, and the police, and ate lots of pate and fufu during that week. I also fell sick so I slept alot. Spending time out of the sun is necessary because the sun is absolutely oppressive in Nampoch, I got one hell of a tan. I also got dehydrated superquickly. Highlights of the week, hmmm lets see. I learned how to call pintards (in English Guinea fowl) a stupid bird, that run around foolishly intimidating chickens. I also got to kill one and then eat it and it was delicious. They wanted me to use my swiss army knife to cut it's throat but I insisted on using another knife. It struggled as I bled it but soon enough it was dead.
Another highlight would have to be the voodoo ceremony I went to in the sacred forest located next to my compound. (Cue "The End" by The Doors) You drop your shoes when you enter the forest. Kodjo and I joined a group of men sitting facing a giant tree. At the base of the tree there were three fetishes and two men dressed in robes crouched near them. They said a few words and rang a bell. Then they took a baby chick and slit it's throat. They threw it front of us and we watched it's death throes until finally went limp. Then Kodjo pointed out to me there was a lamb tied to a tree. Well I knew what that meant. After the chick quit squirming they went for the lamb. They brought it before the fetishes, said a couple words and then cut into it. First they removed some hair which they then put on one of the fetishes, then they cut it up in numerous places. They cut out the lambs throat and put that on a fetish as well. One of the men in the robes rubbed the blood of the lamb all over a fetish and then they tossed the lamb away and men began to make a fire. During all this shots of sodabi (moonshine) with sugar were offered. The men laughed when they saw my pained expression after downing a shot. I've drank some terrible tasting liquor but this takes the cake easily. I took a nap and Kodjo led me back to the forest where they had saved some of the lamb for me to eat. How thoughtful. Wraped in a leaf was lamb intestines and other parts of its inner workings. I had some of the intestines while Kodjo ate what looked like its bladder. Hey T.I.A. (This is Africa). I must say it was pretty cool witnessing the whole ceremony as well as trying new cuisines. Afterwards we went by Kodjo's place and drank more Tchook.
Kodjo has three wives and the youngest one is pregnant and he informed me that when I return in December and the baby is born I must name it, an American name. That's a lot of pressure. Most of the suggestions I've received so far aren't exactly American (Schwarzeneggar, Hasselhoff, Slobadon) so I've got some thinking to do. At night we ate fufu with sauce so spicy that I was in tears as the sound of Lil' Wayne on someones radio drifted through the night air. Weezy is everywhere.
My french improved greatly during the week as I was forced to constantly use it. My Konkomba could use some work though as most of the people in my village don't speak French. They were all very nice and several were nice enough to offer me their daughters, the children sometimes kicking and screaming. As nice of an offer that is I had to decline. I met the chief (who is quite young), met the students at the school, the gendarmes, and the police, and ate lots of pate and fufu during that week. I also fell sick so I slept alot. Spending time out of the sun is necessary because the sun is absolutely oppressive in Nampoch, I got one hell of a tan. I also got dehydrated superquickly. Highlights of the week, hmmm lets see. I learned how to call pintards (in English Guinea fowl) a stupid bird, that run around foolishly intimidating chickens. I also got to kill one and then eat it and it was delicious. They wanted me to use my swiss army knife to cut it's throat but I insisted on using another knife. It struggled as I bled it but soon enough it was dead.
Another highlight would have to be the voodoo ceremony I went to in the sacred forest located next to my compound. (Cue "The End" by The Doors) You drop your shoes when you enter the forest. Kodjo and I joined a group of men sitting facing a giant tree. At the base of the tree there were three fetishes and two men dressed in robes crouched near them. They said a few words and rang a bell. Then they took a baby chick and slit it's throat. They threw it front of us and we watched it's death throes until finally went limp. Then Kodjo pointed out to me there was a lamb tied to a tree. Well I knew what that meant. After the chick quit squirming they went for the lamb. They brought it before the fetishes, said a couple words and then cut into it. First they removed some hair which they then put on one of the fetishes, then they cut it up in numerous places. They cut out the lambs throat and put that on a fetish as well. One of the men in the robes rubbed the blood of the lamb all over a fetish and then they tossed the lamb away and men began to make a fire. During all this shots of sodabi (moonshine) with sugar were offered. The men laughed when they saw my pained expression after downing a shot. I've drank some terrible tasting liquor but this takes the cake easily. I took a nap and Kodjo led me back to the forest where they had saved some of the lamb for me to eat. How thoughtful. Wraped in a leaf was lamb intestines and other parts of its inner workings. I had some of the intestines while Kodjo ate what looked like its bladder. Hey T.I.A. (This is Africa). I must say it was pretty cool witnessing the whole ceremony as well as trying new cuisines. Afterwards we went by Kodjo's place and drank more Tchook.
Kodjo has three wives and the youngest one is pregnant and he informed me that when I return in December and the baby is born I must name it, an American name. That's a lot of pressure. Most of the suggestions I've received so far aren't exactly American (Schwarzeneggar, Hasselhoff, Slobadon) so I've got some thinking to do. At night we ate fufu with sauce so spicy that I was in tears as the sound of Lil' Wayne on someones radio drifted through the night air. Weezy is everywhere.
Post Visit Part 1
Well I'm sitting in my new house where I will be living for the next two years. It's post visit and I'm spending a week in Nampoch. Saturday we all departed from Tsevie. There are four of us from stage in the same regional cluster, western Kara: Jaqui (GEE) is living in Bassar, Adam (NRM) is in Bikotiba (right outside of Bassar), Karen (GEE) is posted in Guerin-Kouka, and I (NRM) am posted in Nampoch. Guerin-Kouka is only 11km away (a short bike ride) so Karen is my closest neighbor. I think we have a great group of people in our cluster and I'm really glad they're all nearby. The four of us with our homologues left Tsevie at 7:30 Saturday morning. Well I should probably tell you about my homologue. His name is Kodjo Bolpi and at first he was relatively shy but I'm looking forward to working with him. He has three identical short razor blade cuts on his cheek, all Bassar/Konkomba men do. More on him later.
The drive was beautiful as we traversed the rough roads through Togo's hilly countryside. We made it to Bassar surprisingly fast. There we dropped Jacqui off at her grand maison, with electricity and running water. After leaving Jacqui's the rain began to pour. Karen mentioned the road hadn't been so bad and her homologue responded that from here on it was unpaved. Just out of Bassar we took a right down a muddy dirt road that led us to Bikotiba. As the road threw the car up and down, the rain worked its way through the holes in the roof and before I knew it my shirt was soaked. We dropped Adam off at his tiny maison then headed back to Bassar to take the road to Guerin-Kouka. We rambled along bump after bump, the car tilting this way then that until the back right wheel caught and there was a tremendous screeching. I wasn't sure what had happened. I'd hoped it was a flat, something easy to fix but that was not the case. Part of whatever the thing is that supports the wheel to the axel had broke. We took refuge from the rain under the overhang of a small shack on the side of the road while the driver and his assitant tried to remove the tire. Eventually the driver took a moto into Bassar to get the mechanic. The mechanic was two young boys who worked at a fervorous pace, their clothes caked in mud. While they worked Karen, my homologue and I walked into Bassar and browsed the bustling market. I began counting the number of Michael Jordan related shirts I saw and there were at least 12. There's a huge, magnificent Baobab tree in the middle of Bassar and there is a seperate market that just sells yams. I'm amazed that the young mechanics were able to fix the car as fast as they were. Because we weren't supposed to travel at night (which considering the road we were headed down was probably a good thing) Karen and I stayed the night with Jacqui. It was nice spending time with Jacqui and we got a couple beers and drank some Pastis in her spacious home.
The drive through the mud to Guerin-Kouka the next day was an adventure but finally we arrived. Karen is replacing another volunteer so she basically inherits his house which has a sick set up. He was great showing us around all week. After leaving Chez Karen it was 11 km to Nampoch. I arrived to wide eyes and silent faces. It was awkward which is understandable. I have a tiny little house with two rooms, part of a compound. My house is the only concrete building in my compound, the rest are mostly mud built with straw huts. I'm out there alright. Definitely no cell phone reception but that's what I signed up for.
The drive was beautiful as we traversed the rough roads through Togo's hilly countryside. We made it to Bassar surprisingly fast. There we dropped Jacqui off at her grand maison, with electricity and running water. After leaving Jacqui's the rain began to pour. Karen mentioned the road hadn't been so bad and her homologue responded that from here on it was unpaved. Just out of Bassar we took a right down a muddy dirt road that led us to Bikotiba. As the road threw the car up and down, the rain worked its way through the holes in the roof and before I knew it my shirt was soaked. We dropped Adam off at his tiny maison then headed back to Bassar to take the road to Guerin-Kouka. We rambled along bump after bump, the car tilting this way then that until the back right wheel caught and there was a tremendous screeching. I wasn't sure what had happened. I'd hoped it was a flat, something easy to fix but that was not the case. Part of whatever the thing is that supports the wheel to the axel had broke. We took refuge from the rain under the overhang of a small shack on the side of the road while the driver and his assitant tried to remove the tire. Eventually the driver took a moto into Bassar to get the mechanic. The mechanic was two young boys who worked at a fervorous pace, their clothes caked in mud. While they worked Karen, my homologue and I walked into Bassar and browsed the bustling market. I began counting the number of Michael Jordan related shirts I saw and there were at least 12. There's a huge, magnificent Baobab tree in the middle of Bassar and there is a seperate market that just sells yams. I'm amazed that the young mechanics were able to fix the car as fast as they were. Because we weren't supposed to travel at night (which considering the road we were headed down was probably a good thing) Karen and I stayed the night with Jacqui. It was nice spending time with Jacqui and we got a couple beers and drank some Pastis in her spacious home.
The drive through the mud to Guerin-Kouka the next day was an adventure but finally we arrived. Karen is replacing another volunteer so she basically inherits his house which has a sick set up. He was great showing us around all week. After leaving Chez Karen it was 11 km to Nampoch. I arrived to wide eyes and silent faces. It was awkward which is understandable. I have a tiny little house with two rooms, part of a compound. My house is the only concrete building in my compound, the rest are mostly mud built with straw huts. I'm out there alright. Definitely no cell phone reception but that's what I signed up for.
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