March update
Slow cooking in Togo
Hello there!
It has been quite a while since my last update and quite a lot has happened. I’ll do my best to make sure everything important gets included.
Village life
We are in the midst of Ramadan/Carême, a time of fasting for Islamic community. In these 30 days from sunup to sundown, there is no eating or drinking of any kind, not even water. It is a challenge to do anywhere in the world, but especially in Togo, where we currently have over 12 hours of sunlight and temperatures regularly in the upper 90s, it amazes me how people are able to complete this fast with grace and often joy. It does make it a little more challenging for me to find food during the day since most people aren’t selling!
It is also Lent/Carême for the Catholic community. Everyone is encouraged to prepare themselves in the 40 days leading up to Easter through fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. My church has been gathering to meditate on the Stations of the Cross every Friday at noon (a particularly hot time of the day!) as well as doing some extra lessons with the kids who will get baptized on Easter. It is always interesting when the Catholic and Islamic periods of Carême align, especially in my village where there is some overlap.
We are right in the thick of the hottest time of the year too. The rains will gradually start to fall but before then, we have increased humidity and lots of sun. With my low tin roof, I can’t stay in my house for more than a few minutes during the day, and even at night, I wait until the last minute to shower and go to bed so I can enjoy the relatively cool evening air. I’m always sweating and the kids like to make fun of my sweat mustache that I’m constantly wiping away. I do my best to stay hydrated and cool; we don’t have much longer to go before the rainy season!
My host family just received a surprise visit from their second youngest daughter, Carine. She came up from Lomé with her husband and daughter. My host family had no idea she was coming and their genuine joy at her arrival was awesome to see. We’ve been spending time together chatting, playing checkers, and making friendship bracelets. Coming from a big family myself, it is always more fun when people are home.
Travels
I recently got back from a wonderful trip to Portugal and Spain. I had the chance to visit a few different places including Lisbon, Sintra, Lagos, and Tenerife. The rain and mid-60s temperatures felt divine and it is always nice to have a change of scenery. I went on lots of long walks, went to a few museums, and tried plenty of new foods. After over 6 full months of hardly ever leaving my village, it was a welcome change.
Some highlights included the peacocks in Lisbon (there were so many!), exploring the cliffs and caves of Lagos, hiking a mountain with my family in Tenerife, and enjoying the beautiful gardens and greenery in Sintra. It was a lot of traveling, but I had books to read and good company. We landed back in Lomé at 2:40 am and took the 6 am bus back to my village. I then slept for 14 hours.
Work
Work has been keeping me occupied. I finished a round of health talks in select villages where we prepared an oral rehydration solution and talked about how to prevent diarrhea. It went really well and people were receptive to the information. They were surprised to learn that rice becomes unsafe to eat just one hour after cooking! I’m considering a few different topics for the next round of talks and I hope to get started on those soon.
I have been going around to the villages with my birth attendant and new nurse to do some vaccinations too. The community health workers go door-to-door, checking the health records of young kids to see if they have any vaccinations left to do. My new nurse has been doing a great job of trying to get our clinic a little more organized so we can better meet the vaccination goals set by the district. He has been a great addition to the team!
I am also going to be training one of my co-workers, Maman Raicha, on how to do child growth monitoring. Because our clinic has so few workers, normally I am the only one who has time to weigh the babies and keep the records. But if I am the only one that knows how to do it and has time, it isn’t a sustainable practice and will stop once I leave. I’ll work with Maman Raicha to get her comfortable with the process so that our clinic can continue to identify malnourished children in our community.
Teaching at the middle school has been challenging but good. Classroom management is typically the most difficult aspect for volunteers in schools. My kids are no exception. For every 10 kids that aren’t paying attention, I know there is at least one who is. That makes it worth the frustration for me.
Latrine project update
Part of the reason why I didn’t write for so long was because a lot of things were up in the air. In early February, we were notified to pause all activities on our grant projects. This meant we couldn’t move forward with working on the latrines until further notice. From what I understand, this pause was to ensure that the language used on our grants was not in conflict with the recent federal drawbacks to certain foreign aid. It was very upsetting that these executive orders could have this effect; it was not easy to look into the very enthusiastic eyes of my community members and say we have to pause our work. I’m sure that the other volunteers in Togo and around the world who had to pause their projects experienced similar frustration. Despite the project not being funded in any way by the government (because it was raised entirely by you lovely people), we had to halt our work.
Thankfully, the pause was just recently lifted and we are able to proceed. Seeing as my project of latrine construction has nothing to do with topics that have been under fire like HIV/AIDS work, I was optimistic that the project could be realized. Expect an update in a few weeks with the final result.
The other effects of cutting US foreign aid will certainly be felt here. About 15% of the budget for Togo’s Ministry of Health comes from the US. I don’t exactly know how that will play out (if the cuts will take place in the next fiscal year, etc), but in a medical system that is already spread extremely thin financially, this will have a massive impact. Just something to think about.
Extracurricular activities
One of the best parts about serving in Togo compared to other Peace Corps countries is how close we are to other volunteers. We get to meet up frequently and I rarely have the sense of isolation that volunteers from other countries experience. In February, several of the volunteer ladies got together for a Galentine’s celebration in Sokode. We got to swim, eat good food, play games, and we even did a white elephant exchange with pagne. It was so good to see my friends, especially the ones living in the south.
An interesting aspect of Togolese culture is reciprocity. If someone comes to visit you, you should also go to visit them. Any time that a volunteer comes to visit my house, my host mom asks “and when are we going to see your house?” We were finally able to arrange a trip for my host family to visit another village. We rented a car and went on the two hour journey southeast to visit Ibrahim/Dylan in his village. His parents were also visiting from America so my host family got to know the people of his village and his family. It was a lot of fun.
Gratitude
Cold sodas. My favorite is Bigoo Apple.
Electrolyte powder from my mom has been saving me in this heat.
My fan. I would probably have to sleep outside if I didn’t have her.
My friend Gracias. She has been with me since day 1 and always brightens my day.
Dramamine. I had never experienced motion sickness before Togo, but these little pills put me right to sleep on the long bus rides to/from Lomé.
Doxycycline. It would really stink to get malaria and this pill protects me every day.
Rest. It is so awesome to sleep.
I got to see (some of) my family on vacation. I already miss them bad.
I got a taste of some American snacks that I haven’t had for a while courtesy of Ibrahim/Dylan’s parents. Thanks again!!
Fridos has been trying out lots of new words and she has recently started calling me “Fatou”, close enough to “Fatimatou”.
That is all for now. I promise I will write again soon. I hope you are doing well wherever you are.
Fatty
Great post, Erin! Keep them coming! :)
Jim (PCV Armenia)