Weeks 14-25

Ok, I've been really slacking on the updates here.  :)  I've been writing the posts, just not uploading them.  Anyhoo, here are the posts for the last three months.

 

Everything is great here in Togo.  Thanks everyone for your prayers and support!

 

- Tristan

 

 

Week 14
9/09-9/15

Week three at post was a lot of fun.  On Tuesday, Nadia and I went up to Kuma Dunyo in the mountains to visit Cafe Kuma, the coffee producing cooperative Nadia and Lydia work with.  Lydia's brother was visiting from the US, so the Kuma Dunyo crowd treated us to a fancy manioc/igname mélange fufu.  Several Cafe Kuma guys came down to Kpalime on Friday, too, to bag and seal a fresh batch of coffee bags.  Now I've seen the whole coffee production process, from growing to harvesting to roasting to grinding to bagging.  Cool stuff.

We also learned that the wife of one of Nadia's homologues just died.  We knew she'd been feeling a little sick over the past two weeks, but this was really sudden.  She was only 30 and had just given birth to their first child six months ago.  It's really tragic, and I wonder how Nadia's homologue (in-country counterpart) is going to be affected in the long term.  People seem to be sad about death here, but it seems to happen fairly often.  For example, one of my homologue's employees died from a sudden illness a few weeks ago.  I don't know if people really death happens here more frequently than back home, but it seems to happen a lot more suddenly.

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Week 15
9/16-9/22

Work's going well this week.  Everyone at microfinance organization that Nadia's working with has been shaken up by the death of the director's wife.  We went to Amou Ablo, a large village an hour and a half north of Kpalime, on Saturday to attend the funeral.

Funerals in Togo are a huge community event.  During our training, there was usually at least one funeral every weekend, and nearly everyone in town attended at least some part of the involved activities, including the all-night wake, the funeral ceremony, and the day long feast in the center of town.  The funeral in Amou Ablo followed this same formula.  We rented a couple of taxis and rode with the microfinance organization staff.  The church was already full when we arrived, so we sat in a large group outside the church for the funeral service.  It was mostly in Ewe (the local language), so we didn't follow much that was being said, but the singing was beautiful.  Halfway through the service, someone handed out programs for the service that contained a man's name, picture, and family history.  We were concerned that we were attending the wrong service, but eventually we figured out that this was a joint funeral service.  After the service, we all walked across town to the graveside service, then went to a family member's home, where we shared a large meal of ablo and fufu.

It was a very sad day, but I'm glad that we were able to attend the beautiful send-off.  The family is very strong and seems to be taking it in stride.

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Week 16
9/23-9/29

We've been having ongoing issues getting the rest of the furniture we ordered a few months ago.  We already got our bed, a table for our stove, a sofa, and two chairs.  We'd been checking in on the carpenter to make sure he was progressing with the work, and we've been paying him in stages.  We made the mistake of paying him the rest of the money without actually seeing everything finished, though.  He told us everything was ready to pick up last week, but when we arrived, we saw that he hadn't even started the dining table and chairs we'd ordered.  I think he thought we'd forgotten or something.  After several more visits and a few heated negotiations, we finally got the rest of the order this week.  I don't really like or respect the carpenter anymore, but I do admire his fine work.  It came out beautiful.

Earlier in the week, a barber from down the street asked if I could meet him on Friday.  His apprentice had already asked me for money and a new set of hair clippers, but I figured I'd offer the boss a chance to talk about how to improve his business.  When I arrived on Friday, though, the barber was joined by several friends who explained they were collecting money to pay for orphans' school fees and supplies.  I explained that my role as a Peace Corps volunteer involved capacity building and knowledge-sharing and that I neither had money nor connections to organizations with money for the cause.  I asked if they had any ideas about income-generating activities for their cause, and they talked at length about opening a store that would "sell" food on credit and use interest to pay for local orphans' needs.  This sounded pretty fishy, but I figured it would be a good opportunity to practice doing a feasibility study.  I told the group I'd meet them next Friday to examine the details of their plan.

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Week 17
9/30-10/06

We recently started attending a church here in Kpalime that holds services in both Ewe and French.  We were invited to the church by the uncle of my homologue's wife.  He's a very nice man who works as an accountant for a missionary school for blind children.  He was kind enough to introduce us to several members of the church and also to several American missionaries at the blind school.  Through our new friend's help, we've been able to integrate with the church congregation and attend the services without drawing people's attention away from the worship.  This has been a great blessing, as we've been missing our church family back home.

After church this week, we headed out for our first trip down to the capitol without Peace Corps staff.  It was fun, and I think we're getting to know Lome better and better.  I spent a lot of time on the internet at the Peace Corps office and downloaded a virus scanner update and some handy tools for monitoring network traffic.

Work at CIFAID, my homologue's cyber café, is coming along nicely.  We've gotten the viruses cleaned off of most of the computers, and we've got most of the broken computers back up and running.  I'm amazed at the number of problems they're having with hard drives failing and RAM sticks going bad.

I am trying to get to know people at some other local cyber cafés and technical training centers.  Apparently, a couple of cyber cafés essentially went out of business a year or two ago when the state-owned telecommunications provider changed their internet access pricing scheme.  I talked with the owners of two such businesses this week.  One has now converted his building to a photocopy center.  The other is "open", but I have never seen a single customer or even seen a single computer turned on.  I think they might have a foreign investor who is able to pay the single employee who sits in the building alone all day.  That's just a guess, though.

On Wednesday, I had my first meeting with Data Technology, a local business that repairs cell phones and computer repair shop.  I'm not sure if there's anything I can really do to help them with their work, but I talked about what I do and they talked about what they do.  We're going to meet again in a few weeks to talk about their business goals.

I met with the barber and his friends that were trying to raise money for orphans again.  They keep asking me to take pictures of the kids to send to people in the US and so I can ask for money.  I walked through a long list of feasibility study questions about their idea for opening a small shop.  I asked them to write the questions down and come back in a few weeks when they've thought about the answers.  I get the feeling that these guys just want me to give money, but one or two guys seem interested in what I have to say.

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Week 18
10/07-10/13

Lightning struck the Togotelecom tower in Kpalime over the weekend, so phones, fax, and dialup are down for the city and all surrounding villages.  I visited the local Togotelecom office with Maurice, my homologue, to reactivate CIFAID's old ILLICO account.

ILLICO is a wireless phone and internet service that was introduced a few years ago.  I'm not sure about the technical details, but it uses something similar to cell phone towers to instead of fixed phone lines.  It was fast, affordable, and much more reliable than standard dial-up.  Apparently it was more popular than expected, though, and the pricing scheme from a flat rate to a much less affordable hourly rate to cover the cost of all the network traffic.  Now ILLICO is only rarely used.

Anyway, CIFAID got their account reactivated.  They had to raise the price they're charging customers, but I've been able to notice a sizeable improvement in web surfing response time.  I'm curious if Kpalime customers are willing and able to pay this increased price.

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Week 19
10/14-10/20

This week we had a big birthday bash for Nadia, my wife.  We had a fancy lunch at Chez Fanny, a local hotel & restaurant.  Then we made brownie banana splits with bananas, Reese's Pieces, chocolate cake, and Fan Milk, the local ice cream.  It was FANTASTIC!  We ate ourselves sick and then had a movie marathon over at Lydia's (the other Kpalime volunteer) house.  It was a blast.

We are officially on "stand-fast" security alert here because national legislative elections take place next week.  I've been told that heavy campaigning is only allowed during the two weeks leading up to an election.  That's a very interesting way to regulate campaign costs.  I think political parties use publications and word of mouth to advertise their platform positions ahead of time, but rallies and radio/television promotion are only allowed just before the elections.  Anyway, the result is that no Peace Corps volunteers are allowed to leave their village or city until PC admin gives us the go-ahead.

There was a little trouble in Togo a few years ago with the presidential elections, but no one is really expecting any problems with these legislative elections.  I have to admit that I'm a little nervous, but seeing as how we're only two hours from Lome, 15km from Ghana, and 17km from the training site for the new group of Peace Corps trainees, I think we'll be fine even in a worst-case scenario.

CIB, a national chain of cyber cafés opened their third branch in Kpalime this week.  I don't know how that will affect CIFAID.  They are advertising a very low promotional internet usage rate, and they are saying that they are using HELIM, a new high-speed internet technology similar to ILLICO.  I didn't think HELIM was available outside of Lome yet.  CIFAID is still charging clients an increased rate to use ILLICO because Togotelecom has made no comment about when their fixed line service will be repaired.  CIFAID is still keeping most workstations occupied with clients most of the time, though, so I'm not too worried.

On Friday, I had another meeting with the guys at the barber shop about the shop they were talking about opening.  Only one guy showed up to the meeting, and he brought seven or eight kids to show me who he is raising money for.  I tried to push the conversation back to income-generating activities that they can do themselves, but apparently these guys only want me to do is give them money to buy pens and paper or to ask friends back in the US to "sponsor" them.  I respect their cause, but they don't seem willing to look for local solutions.  I believe that future meetings would be a waste of everyone's time, so I won't be meeting with them again.

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Week 20
10/21-27

On Monday, Nadia and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary!  We went out for a nice dinner at the Hotel Royal restaurant on the outskirts of town.  We shared a chicken salad, then I got a steak and Nadia got a mushroom chicken dish.  We finished it off with a dessert of pears and ice cream.  Fan-fricking-tastic.  I have to admit, my time with Nadia just keeps getting better and better.  We have been together for five years, and married for two, and I love her more every single day.  I truly am blessed to have found such a kind, caring, beautiful, strong, intelligent, talented, creative, supportive (did I mention beautiful?) partner.

ICEC, a microfinance organization that Nadia is working with, has expressed interest in computerizing some of their current operations.  They already have four computers (albeit, one is a Pentium 1 running Windows 95), but they are using a mix of random Excel spreadsheets and QuickBooks projects.  Nadia and I are meeting individually with each of the employees to discuss what they do, what data they collect, what reports they generate, and how they think a computer might be able to help them increase their effectiveness.

I'm very interested in this project.  I think we'll end up just networking their existing computers and creating a set of shared Excel spreadsheets with some macros for creating reports, but we're gathering requirements.  I don't want to set up anything that ICEC's staff won't be able to maintain and modify, themselves, in the future, but I want to make sure that the system fits all their needs.  I'm also thinking about how to maintain a concurrent paper system during the frequent power outages.  Nadia and I are documenting everything, and I'll post some the docs when they're finished in case anyone is curious about the project.

On Saturday, our missionary friend Joan invited us to the Baptist hospital in Adeta to help unload a large supply container.  It was interesting meeting a lot of Americans who've lived in Togo for over ten years.  We spent that evening playing cards with a handful of missionaries at a small Fall Fest party in Kpalime.  They carved a pumpkin and everything.  Fun times!

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Week 21
10/28-11/03

When I first got to Kpalime, my homologue and several other individuals expressed interest in learning how to create web sites.  I told them I'd work up some simple web design lesson plans and get back to them after I'd practiced my French a bit more.  Well, this week, I decided I'd talk with Maurice, my homologue, about starting some simple informal lessons with the staff at CIFAID, his cyber café.  We decided to schedule lessons every Monday and Friday with Maurice and another CIFAID employee.

For our first session on Friday, we started with something simple and tangible by creating a blog on BlogSpot.  I'll spend another session showing how to post via email and modify a blog's layout.  Then maybe we'll create a simple website with a web page template using Yahoo Geocities or something similar.  After that, we'll take a step back and start working with basic HTML.  I'm not sure how far we'll go after that.  I'd like to refine these informal lessons into something I could present in a larger classroom setting.  Then we could maybe eventually work up to DHTML and scripting.  First things first, though.

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Week 22
11/04-11/10

Maurice and Didier, a CIFAID employee, really enjoyed the web design lesson last week.  On Saturday, they each created their own blogs and made their own posts.  It was really cool to see them pick up and run with this information on their own.  The cyber café was too busy for lessons on Monday, but we continued on Friday by playing with various blog settings and templates.  I think we need to go ahead move to offline HTML lessons, though, because it's taking way too much time waiting for web pages to load.

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Week 23
11/11-11/17

For our third web design lesson, I gave a brief introduction to HTML.  I showed them how you can create an HTML document in Notepad and open it in Internet Explorer.  Then we experimented with changing the document header and background color and typing text in various fonts.  I think they were a little overwhelmed by all the different tag elements and attributes, but I assured them that we'd cover all of it in detail very slowly.

On Tuesday, we had a site visit from Alex Anani, the Assistant Peace Corps Director (APCD) for the Small Enterprise Development (SED) program in Togo.  We showed Alex some documents we'd drawn up about the computerization of ICEC, the microfinance institution Nadia's helping.  We also talked about the work we're doing with Cafe Kuma and CIFAID, my homologue's cyber cafe.  We also met with our homologues briefly, so Alex could get a feel for how they think our work is coming along.  It was actually a very productive day.  Alex had a lot of good constructive criticism and some helpful suggestions for the direction of our projects.

Cafe Kuma is working on a new arabica/robusta coffee blend, and we're giving out samples and surveys to see which percentage mixes and which roasts are more popular.  We traveled to Lome on Wednesday to give some samples out at the American Embassy.  It was a nice short trip, and we got to hang out with a few Peace Corps volunteers that were just finishing their service and getting ready to head back to the US.

On Friday, We visited the new Natural Resource Management (NRM) trainees in Nyogbo to give out some Cafe Kuma samples.  The trainees seem like a nice bunch... friendly, casual, and excited to be in Togo.

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Week 24
11/18-11/25
Mon Maurice too busy for class
Tue Atakpame with Adeze
Wed Sokode
Thur Thanksgiving
Fri return to Kpalime
- goats, pigs, chickens, and dogs in the taxis
Sat Christmas tree decorating with Joan

This week is Thanksgiving!  On Tuesday, we stayed the night in Atakpame, the Plateau Region's capital city to visit another volunteer.  Nadia really liked what she'd done with her house.  She said it reminded her a lot of Mexico.  Atakpame has a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains, and it does remind me a bit of Monterrey, Mexico.

On Wednesday, we met up with two other volunteers from our training group, and continued north to Sokode.  Sokode is enormous!  I believe it's the second or third largest city after Lome.  Like Lome, it has a definite city feel to it.  The unpaved streets are all sand, and neighborhoods are split into tightly knit grid of concrete compounds.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the market area much more casual and relaxed than any other market I've been to in Togo.  Absent were the dozens of overenthusiastic flashlight and sunglasses vendors.  There were no shouting matches between adjacent vegetable vendors.  Everyone just calmly asked if we were interested in their wares as we passed by.  I get the feeling that there are very few tourists in Sokode, and I wonder if that plays a part in this laid back vibe.

A fellow ICT (Information and Communication Technology) volunteer hosted Thanksgiving at her house in Sokode.  Her house is quite nice and has a beautiful garden out back.  We sampled her homegrown vegetables, homemade jam, and homebrewed wine.  We had somewhere between 15 and 20 volunteers at the Thanksgiving dinner.  We had turkey, dressing, macaroni and cheese, salad, mashed potatoes, several gravies, sweet and sour beets, fruit salad, guacamole, lime cheesecake, apple crumb cake, and pie.  I was impressed that everything but the macaroni and cheese was prepared fresh from local ingredients.  There are some darned good chefs volunteering in Togo.  We ate until we couldn't eat any more, and we still only ate about half the food.  It was amazing!

We headed back to Kpalime on Friday, and on Saturday, we helped Joan, a missionary friend, decorate her Christmas tree.  We spent the day listening to Christmas music, hanging tinsel, and eating cherry pie.  Mmmmm... life is good.

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Week 25
11/18-11/25

We headed out of town, yet again, this week to go to Lome for the 45th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps' presence in Togo.  We attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for some extension buildings for the Peace Corps bureau, and Nadia and I helped man a booth for telling visitors about the Small Enterprise Development program.  We got to meet some people from Peace Corps Washington and a few local dignitary types.  We also attended a fancy party at the country director's house where Nadia's homologue got to speak about his involvement with Peace Corps on stage in front of television cameras.  He did a great job, and we were all very excited for him.  The entire celebration was a blast, but I'm really looking forward to getting back into our regular routine back in Kpalime.

BTW, thank you Mom, Grandmere, Rhonda, Chuck, and Mrs Capuchino for the packages!  We reeeeeeeeally appreciate them!

We had to cancel our web design training last Monday because CIFAID was a little too hectic.  We missed the training last Friday, too b/c Nadia and I were out of town for Thanksgiving.  We misses classes again next Monday because we're going to Lome for the celebration of the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps in Togo.  Then we cancelled this Friday's training b/c Maurice and Didier had other business to attend to.  I hope we aren't losing too much momentum here.

Weeks 12-14 (weeks 1-3 at post)

Week 12 (Week 1 at post!):

Well, I'm finally at post in Kpalime!  Monday morning, all the new volunteers loaded our stuff into taxi vans.  We quickly said our goodbyes and everyone was off.  I actually lucked out on transportation.  Nadia and I had left a sizeable amount of stuff, including a propane gas tank, a gas stove, a large backpack, some training books, and various other items with Lydia, the current Kpalime volunteer.  It was way too much stuff to carry by hand across town to our house, and I really didn't want to have to rent a taxi to move it.  I was supposed to load my stuff and most of Nadia's stuff into a van with three other people, which probably would have been plenty roomy, but there were too many large items like mattresses and propane tanks on the roof.  Instead, since Kpalime is so close to Lome, I got a Peace Corps Land Cruiser to myself!  I even got to pick up the extra stuff (except for our bikes) from Lydia's before heading over to our house.  I had a little trouble remembering the location, since it was on a back road a little ways outside of town, but after about five or six wrong turns (no surprise to anyone who knows me) we found it. 
I spent the rest of the morning getting things arranged.

When I started getting hungry around noon, I decided it was time to meet the neighbours.  It's about a twenty or thirty minute walk to town without stopping to talk to people, but salutations are very important in Togolese culture.  There's really no way to stop and talk to everyone on the way to town, since there is some sort of bread/vegetable/petrol/etc. vendor stand in front of nearly every home.  I decided I'd stop give a "bon soir" to everyone I pass and only stop to talk when people actively called me over to their stands.  This turned out to be timed about right.  I stopped and introduced myself to people at a barbershop, a small dry goods store, a bread stand, a bar, and vegetable stand, and maybe another stand or two.  I particularly liked a sweet lady that sells bread with her family and a kid that works at the barbershop.

I grabbed an egg sandwich from a cafe in downtown, and headed to the market for a little shopping.  I mostly bought food items, whose prices are generally fixed by season, but I knew I needed some cookware, which would require a bit of haggling.  I only came away with one pot, but I was proud of myself for talking the price down by about a third.  It's the rainy season, so of course it poured as I walked home triumphantly with my pot and my sack of tomatoes, onions, garlic, bread, and bananas, stopping along the way to greet my new friends.

I visited my homologue at his cyber cafe on Tuesday, just to say hi and to establish a time for our first official meeting.  I took another trip to the market to buy some string to hang the mosquito net and to buy a few other odds and ends.  It poured again on the walk back, but at least I had an umbrella.   I cooked up some tuna tomato curry from the recipe book Peace Corps supplied us with, and it wasn't half bad.  This settling in thing was not too bad, even though my wife was still in Lome.

The next couple of days were a little rough.  Without Nadia there and without any real work schedule, I had trouble convincing myself to get up in the morning.  Nadia's homologue had helped us order a little bit of furniture from a local carpenter during post visit, but he was out of town until the end of the week, so all my time at home was spent sitting on a mattress on the floor.  Our mattress, like most mattresses in Togo, is just thick foam, and my tail end wore a sizeable dip into the mattress within the first few days.  I tried to make a few minor repairs to the house, like fixing a gap in the front door and replacing the broken lock on the bathroom door, but I learned that Peace Corps would only reimburse those costs if the landlord is unable to make them.  I wasted two hours trying to fix an impossibly ancient and rusted door latch on Wednesday, then spent the rest of the day just sitting on the floor looking at the ceiling and trying to pick up radio stations on a short-wave radio.

We had bought another cell phone in Lome with a SIM card from a different cell carrier from our first phone, and every time I tried to dial Nadia's number, I was told that the number did not exist.  Apparently there's some stupid call routing issue with phone numbers that start with a zero (and, of course, all new numbers start with zero), so I couldn't call Nadia, and by this time I was really starting to feel lonely.  I wasn't entirely surprised that I was affected this much by our time apart.  The previous year, Nadia spent a two-month stint in Washington DC for work, and I remember that the first two weeks being absolutely miserable.  After all our time in such close proximity thus far in Togo, though, I figured I'd enjoy a little time to myself.  No such luck.  I can't imagine what it's like for people with a spouse serving in Iraq.  That's got to be torture.

I stopped by the bank to get the money to pay for our furniture, and the bank manager told me we only had one more available withdrawal until I could show him a copy of our marriage license (since we have a joint account).  Nadia and I brought a copy to Togo, but we realized a few weeks earlier that it had gotten lost in the move.  We had left a copy with the Peace Corps bureau in Washington DC, but I couldn't get anyone at the bureau in Lome to request a fax copy.  My family attempted to fax it to a cyber cafe in Kpalime, but we gave up after a few hours of trying.  My mom finally was able to email a scanned copy about a week later.  THANKS MOM AND UNCLE DONNY!!!!

The rain finally let up a bit on Thursday, so I got dinner with Lydia and a Togolese friend of hers.  I was also able to get my bike from Lydia's house, which made the subsequent trips to and from town significantly more convenient.   I was finally able to talk to Nadia over the weekend, and things started to look up.  I started getting the house ready for her arrival by scouring the bathroom and scrubbing the living room floors.  Lydia got a hold of some cilantro, and we had a Mexican night over at her place.  We didn't have lard to make tortillas, but we made some pita-type chips that went pretty well with the refried beans, salsa, and pico de gallo.  Before I knew it, I'd rounded off week 1 at post.

Week 13 (Week 2 at post!):

I got up around 8:00 on Monday and tidied up the house (as best as I could) for Nadia's arrival.  I organized our stacks of training manuals and backpacks of clothes and swept a bit.  Then I sat at the door for about two hours rushing to the compound gate whenever I heard a car pass by.  She finally arrived around 10 or 11, and I haven't stopped smiling since.  She apparently had a great (albeit expensive) week in Lome polishing her French.  We did a little shopping that afternoon, and by the end of the first day, our house already started looking more like a home.

Nadia's homologue helped us pick out the fabric for the cushions for our sofa and chairs, but we knew we wouldn't get any furniture for at least another week or two.  The floor didn't seem so bad now that I had someone to sit next to, though.  Meanwhile, I started my newly established Monday/Thursday visits to CIFAID, my homologue's cyber cafe.  I took a look at his network setup.  They have about twenty PC's sharing a single dialup connection.  They're using a Windows XP box with Internet Connection Sharing as the server, which is not terribly secure.  I talked to Maurice, my homologue about setting up a simple firewall and about getting some software to monitor internet traffic.  I have a feeling that a lot of the already over-taxed bandwidth is being used by malware and other junk on the individual workstations.

We spent a lot of our time sorting out daily chores, like where we could wash dishes and what to do with our garbage.  Things are going great this week, though.  I'm finding that Nadia is an amazing chef, and I'm at least a passable one.  I'm looking forward to expanding to more complicated recipes.

Week 14 (Week 3 at post):

We spent a lot of time this week dealing with furniture.  The carpenter told Nadia that everything was ready to pick up on Tuesday.  We gave him an extra day, but when we went on Wednesday, he hadn't even started on the table and chairs we ordered.  We finally got the stuff that was finished to the house on Thursday, so we have a place to sit and the stove is no longer sitting on the floor.  Hooray!

I configured a simple firewall for my homologue's cyber cafe and spent some time removing viruses from various computers.  I think I'll spend some time next week looking for some downloadable software for monitoring network traffic.  I'm starting to wonder what other things I can do to get the most out of the shared dialup connection at CIFAID.  I assume Windows' Internet Connection Sharing does at least a fair job queuing internet requests and preventing large requests from completely hogging all the bandwidth.  If I were a little more comfortable with Linux, I'd probably try to set up a Linux machine for the server.  I'm a code monkey by trade, so all this network admin stuff is a little outside my realm of expertise.  I'm learning, though, little by little.

I talked with the director of a small computer training center near our house.  He said he's interested in learning more about Linux and web design (specifically Dreamweaver).

***IF ANYONE HAS A GOOD RECENT LINUX DISTRIBUTION THEY CAN MAIL ME ON CD, THAT WOULD BE A HUGE HELP.*** :)

I also met with the owner of a small computer repair shop that doubles as a small cyber cafe.  We didn't talk about much, and I don't quite know what I can help him with, but we're going to meet next week to discuss his business.

I'm spending a lot of my time at home preparing a training program for web site creation, since there seems to be a market for simple web development services here in Kpalime.

Finally, thanks soooooo much, mom, Staci, and Erika for the packages you guys sent.  The cd's are a huge help, and we've been thoroughly enjoying the candies and tabasco.  Merci beaucoup!

Weeks 9-11

Week 9:

I really don't remember what happened in week nine.  Nadia and I decided to make a piñata for a going away party with our family next weekend.  Our prototype molded over because the paper mache doesn't really dry in this climate.  Hopefully our second attempt works a little better.  We're also going to give a short presentation in French on how to make a piñata next week for the other trainees.  The trainers call this activity "Free University", and I'm really looking forward to some of the other trainees' presentations, particularly the one on how to "drop it like it's hot".

Language classes are coming along, though I don't feel like I've learned anything new since post visit.  I hope I'm improving.  Technique classes are going well.  We're learning about how to help youth with income generating activities.  We talked about the Junior Achievement program this week, too.  It sounds like it could be fun to work with.  Nadia and I don't have any immediate plans to work with students, but we've talked about it and have some ideas about classes we could teach or interest groups we could form.

Week 10:

Stage is almost over!  We don't have a lot of classroom learning planned for this week.  On Tuesday, we took a field trip to Cafe Kuma, a coffee-growing cooperative outside of Kpalime.  It's a well-organized business, and they sell to vendors throughout Togo and, I believe, in the neighboring countries.  Lydia, the current SED volunteer in Kpalime, helps them with their marketing and

management, and Nadia will probably continue working with them after Lydia finishes her service.

On Tuesday afternoon, one of the formateurs showed us how to convert soybeans to soymilk and wagash soja, a soy version the local cheese.  We took the soybeans to a mill to grind it into a paste; then we boiled it and separated the soymilk from the left over goop.  Finally, we curdled the milk into a cheese.  I'm sure I misunderstood some steps in there, but that was the general gist.  We fried up the cheese and ate it with ketchup.  Mmmmm.

The "Free University" activity was fun.  Someone taught some yoga stretches.  Several people taught various dances.  I can now drop it like it's hot and do the "sexy walk".  I think the high point was kickboxing demonstration.  We decided to use a box for our piñata presentation, since paper mache doesn't seem to work with the paper available and the humid climate.  We cut slits in the box to make it a little weaker, and we use little pieces of colored paper to decorate it.  It actually looks a real piñata back home.  We're dumping in six bags of candy on Saturday night; then we'll let our host family bust it open on Sunday.

This week definitely feels like we're winding down.  Everyone, including the formateurs, is really opening up and having a great time.  Everyone is excited about swear in, though I think a few people are really sad about leaving behind their host families and their friends in stage.  I'll miss stage, but I'm really glad to start my actual work as a volunteer.

Week 11:

Well, I improved a little on my final French test.  I got a rating of Intermediate Mid, right below the required minimum of Intermediate High.  I'm a little bummed that people who were initially graded with lower proficiencies met the minimum requirements, but I'm trying not to be too hard on myself.  Nadia's French has improved a lot.  She understands just about everything, but she still has trouble speaking in fully conjugated sentences.  I can't really speak well, and I don't understand anything people say unless they speak verrrrry slowly.  Nadia is going to stay in Lome for a week to continue working on her French.  I'll be heading to Kpalime on Monday, since I did well enough on the test to go to post.  Honestly, I'm really nervous about that first week at post away from Nadia.  She usually translates for me, and now I'll be on my own.

The party on Sunday went over better than we hoped.  About twenty people showed up to the party, including our host family, some cousins, and a few of the neighbors.  Our host mom made fufu and this awesome crème sauce dessert.  Nadia cooked up pasta with tomato sauce, peas with onions and carrots, salad, and some no-bake cookies.  We started with the fufu, which was excellent, and then moved on to the American dishes.  I think most people liked it, though, they thought our sauce and cookies were a little too sweet.  I do love my sugar...

About thirty minutes after we finished dessert, I brought out the piñata and it from a tree in the yard.  We explained the rules, blindfolded the smallest kid, and commenced with the whacking.  Koffi, our neighbor, was the first to send a bit of candy flying.  There was about a two second delay; then all the kids dove headfirst into the pile of goodies.  After that, all rules were completely disregarded.  Children jumped into the way of blindfolded men swinging sticks wildly.  Teenagers wrestled each other for sticks of gum.  Eventually, Nadia just grabbed the piñata and shook out all the candy.  I knew it was a success when I saw my host mom roll out of frenzied crowd on her back clutching a fistful of butterscotch sweets.  I think this was my favorite moment in Togo so far.  No one could stop laughing for over an hour.

We said goodbye to our host family early Tuesday morning.  No one was over-emotional when we gave our final hugs and handshakes, since Kpalime is so close to Agou Akoumawou.  Our host family was never all that emotional, anyway, though.  Several other trainees had some pretty tearful farewells.  One trainee's little sister packed her bags and said she'd feed and bathe herself if she was allowed to come along.

Now we're in Lome.  We administratively swore-in yesterday, so I'm officially a full-fledged volunteer.  The fancy televised swear-in ceremony at the country director's house is in an hour and a half.  I'm going to be on Togolese TV!  We are all sitting around practicing our speeches in local languages.  Nkonyenye Tristan McInnis.  Metso Texas le Amerika.  Mawodo kple asitsalawo le Kpalime.  I have no idea how to spell Ewe words.  Nadia just walked out with her new Togolese outfit, and she looks absolutely breathtaking.  I'm going to go get dressed now.  W00t!

Summary of first 8 weeks in Togo (Finally uploaded)

Week 1:

Well, we have been in Togo for five days now. The flight over was
fairly uneventful. My bags and Nadia's bags were well within the 50lb
limit. A few other trainees were a slightly over, but we shared some
bag space to even it out. Our flight was delayed in Washington D.C.,
and we would have missed our connecting flight in Paris if Air France
hadn't held the plane for us. They were very cool about that and they
fed us pretty well. Generally, I'm not a fan of Air France, but they
got an A-OK from me this round.

Our arrival was painless. We were taken from our plane directly to
the VIP lounge at the airport. I believe it's generally reserved for
ambassadors, diplomats, and other very important people, so I felt
pretty darned special. Next, we were taken in Peace Corps vans to the
unofficial Peace Corps hotel in Lome. The Peace Corps Country
Director hosted a welcome reception that night with the rest of the PC
staff and several current volunteers. Afterwards, we walked down the
street to a local bar where a lot of PCV's hang out.

Lome is an interesting city. Most streets look the same, at least in
the neighborhoods near our hotel and the Peace Corps offices. There
were a few paved roads, but most were dirt/dust. Since we're in the
rainy season, I expected continuous torrential downpours, but it only
rained briefly on a couple of days for an hour or two, and the rain
was fairly light. Aside from the goats in the streets, the biggest
difference I noticed in Lome was the fact that there was essentially
no trash. From what I gathered, there is really no trash pickup
service in most of Togo because people produce such little non-organic
garbage. Most garbage is either composted or recycled. Most people
don't deal with large amounts of paper or plastic packaging because
there are not a lot of pre-packaged products. All non-organic,
non-recyclable garbage is burned, with the exception of batteries and
aerosol cans. Hence, there was essentially no trash in the streets of
Lome.

We spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in training sessions dealing with
Peace Corps administrative policies, basic health and survival
techniques, and an introduction to Togolese culture. We met lots of
volunteers and got a lot of different perspectives on Peace Corps
service. I was particularly glad we got to spend a few hours chatting
with male half of one of the currently serving married couples. We
are the only married couple in our "stage" (training), so our trainers
really don't discuss any of the challenges unique to serving with a
spouse. After dealing with the stress of the new environment, the
jetlag, the prophylaxis, the five additional vaccinations, the foreign
food, and the heat, my body finally gave in to diarrhea on Monday. It
was pretty miserable for two days, but thankfully I regained control
of my bowels by Wednesday when we drove out to the village near
Kpalime for our staging/training.

---

Our arrival in our staging village was nothing short of magical. The
entire village, which I believe is several hundred people, met our
vans with cheers of "You are welcome! You are welcome! You are
welcome!" A group of men played strange trumpets carved from animal
horns, and a group of about thirty young women in identical dressed
and body paint performed dances and led us to the town square.
Several elders said a prayer for us and sacrificed prepared water and
vodka to ward away bad spirits. Then we were met by the village
chief, his wife, and several other village elders who read speeches in
Ewe and English. Nearly all the women in our group were overcome with
tears over the overwhelming sights and sounds of the cheering voices
and dancing bodies. It sounds cliché, but I felt like I was in a
movie as a procession of hundreds of people surrounded us on our walk
down the main highway, with children running past our feet yelling
"Yovo, Yovo!"

After the main ceremony, we met our host families at the "Tech House",
where all our classes are held. We all ate together, and then we took
all our luggage in a Peace Corps vehicle to our host family's house.
Our family has a very nice house. We have a large bedroom with a
table and a lockable closet. We also have a direct entrance into our
bathroom with a flush-toilet and working shower. No mosquito-filled
latrines for us! Our house even has a satellite dish. We've watched
the British CNN a few times, but mostly our mom watches some channel
from Cote d'Ivoire.

Week 2:

Our mom is a fantastic chef, and we've been eating pretty darned well.
Mostly it's rice or spaghetti with different sauces, but I think
that's what Peace Corps told the host families to feed us for the few
weeks. We'll start eating pate, fufu, and sauce d'arachide soon
enough. Our family runs a little bar/shop next door, so we bought a
coke and a few cookies this week. It's convenient, and now I'm not
worried about running out of toilet paper or soap, since they are
always in stock.

We took an oral language test in Lome, and now we've been put in
various leveled French classes. My class is directly in the middle,
as far as aptitude. That's sort of encouraging, but we're supposed to
have "intermediate-high" aptitude before we leave for post. I've got
a lot of work to do.

The technical classes are good. We'll spend a few weeks on
microfinance institutions, a few weeks on youth and junior
achievement, and finally a few weeks on individual entrepreneurs. A
lot of people have business, economics, marketing, or accounting
backgrounds, so they've seen bits and pieces of the stuff we're
talking about, but the other ICT trainees and I are a little lost.
It's good, though, since I think I'll need to know a lot of this, and
nothing has been terribly difficult to understand.

We got our bikes this week. We'll be having periodic classes to learn
bike repair. I'm really excited about that, though I doubt I'll need
my bike at post. I'll have a better idea about that next week when we
get a list of the post descriptions.

Week 3:

Everyone is waiting for Thursday, when we get the list of post
descriptions. Peace Corps headquarters told us that married couples
don't get to choose our posts, but that we'll go through the interview
process, anyway. Everyone else gets to list their top 3 post choices,
and the APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) will interview them to
find the best match. There will only be four ICT posts, so we should
get at least a hint about where we'll be.

My French is not improving as quickly as I'd like, but I guess it's
only week 3, so I shouldn't be too hard on myself. It's sort of tough
to practice conversations with the local residents since some people
switch back and forth between Ewe and French mid-sentence, but
everyone in our family is pretty good about sticking to French. I'll
be glad to learn our post so I know what local language to learn in
addition to French.

Technical class is going well. We visited a microfinance organization
in Kpalime last week that has worked with five generations of Peace
Corps volunteers. It was pretty interesting. The four ICT stagiares
took a tour of two different cyber cafes in Kpalime, as well. It's
interesting to see all the challenges these businesses face and all
the opportunities they provide for the community. I also learned that
most cyber cafes in the area put about 25 computers on one single
dial-up line. So... don't expect to see any pictures posted anytime
soon.

Week 4:

Well, it's the end of week four. Yesterday Nadia and I found out that
we'll be posted right here in Kpalime! We were sort of pushing for a
post in Sokode, but I think Kpalime is going to be a fantastic post.
We'll have a lot of big-city amenities in town, plus we'll only be
about two hours from Lome and Atakpame. Also, we'll be close to the
staging villages, so we'll be able to hang out with new volunteers
during their "stage". Our APCD said there should be plenty of work to
support both Nadia and me. We know that one of us will be working
with a microfinance institution and a youth organization, but we'll
find out more when we visit our post in week 7.

Week 5:

We're at the end of week five now. On Monday, we put on a big fashion
show for all the host families. All the stagiares dressed in American
clothing, then we changed into some traditional Togolese clothing. We
had different categories for the American clothes like formal, office,
casual, tourist, etc. Nadia and I volunteered for the office-wear
category. I strutted my stuff in high style with slacks and a tie,
and Nadia sported a nice blouse and slacks. For the Togolese outfits,
I wore this really formal body wrap thing that belongs to our host
dad. Most of the guys wore some variation of the same outfit.
Apparently this is what the village chief wears to formal events.
Nadia wore an outfit that our neighbor made for her. It's actually a
really nice dress, and she looks fantastic in it.

We had one or two language and technique classes later in the week,
but on Thursday, we ventured out of Agou Akoumawou for a three-day
long field trip. First, we headed south to visit a volunteer who
works with a local radio station. He arranges various community
enrichment programs like periodic shows on health, education, and
cultural enrichment. He also coaches a youth basketball team and
helps a women's group produce and sell soymilk. Interesting stuff.
We visited the volunteer's house, and he described some of the
triumphs and troubles he'd seen during his service.

Next we continued south to Lome and took a tour of Cafe Informatique,
the largest private internet service provider in Togo. We talked with
the director about the state of technology in Togo, and discussed some
of the challenges technology businesses face in Togo. After Cafe
Informatique, we headed to the Peace Corps office and talked with a
Togolese representative of the World Bank. She described some of the
projects that the World Bank helps sponsor in Togo, but since Togo is
currently in arrears with its debt, it sounds like the World Bank
isn't working on a lot of in-country projects at the moment. I'm glad
I don't work in international lending, because it sounds like an
ethically gray industry. After our visit to the Peace Corps office,
We took a tour through the Lome marche. It is a crazy place, and I
plan to avoid it when possible. We ended with day with a visit to a
Super Marche, which similar to an American grocery store. The prices
were ridiculously high, but they had a lot of really nice imported
products like ketchup, non-stick frying pans, breakfast cereals, and
yovo hygiene products. I bought some ketchup and oatmeal and a few
other small items.

The next morning, we visited another volunteer who works with an egg
farm north of Lome. Eggs are a hot commodity in Togo, and this farm
sells its full stock every day. The farm is run by a Togolese
community group that has done a lot of good work in the area. The
group brought electricity to the village and is now working to improve
the local supply of drinking water. Afterwards, we visited a village
group that produces and sells dyed cloth and uses the proceeds to pay
education and housing fees for local orphans. It was really neat to
see community-founded, community-led organizations at work.

Next, we headed further north to Atakpame, which will serve as my
regional capital while I'm in Kpalime. Atakpame is absolutely
beautiful. It has large rolling hills that remind me of parts of the
Appalachian Mountains. We had pizza for dinner with several
volunteers that end their service next week. Then we stayed for the
night at a Red Cross hospital/hotel with a gorgeous view overlooking
the city.

We started our final day of the field trip with a tour of the two AIDS
organizations with whom two volunteers in Atakpame work. We also made
a quick stop at the "maison", where Peace Corps volunteers can stay
during their visits to the regional capital. This is nice because
many volunteers live in very remote areas, and occasionally need a day
or two to visit a markets, regional banks, internet cafes, etc.

Finally, after a long car ride and quick stop in Kpalime, we arrived
safe and sound back at the training village. The trip was a nice
change of pace, and I learned a lot from visiting the other
volunteers' work sites. I'm really excited about our post visit in a
week, but right now I'm just tired.

Week 6:

We did a business shadowing session Monday. All the ICT volunteers
visited CIFAID, an internet cafe in Kpalime. At the end of our
session, the director mentioned that he'd see us at the homologue
(counterpart) conference. Aha! So now I know who I'll be working
with in Kpalime. Apparently our technical training director asked him
not to spill the beans while we were doing the business shadowing, but
I was going to find out anyway at the homologue conference, where all
the volunteers meet their homologues.

I didn't have much time to think about homologues, though, because we
had a language test on Tuesday morning. My French proficiency has now
Intermediate-Low. We need to have Intermediate-High proficiency to be
sent to post. If I don't meet the required level by the end of
training, I'll still get to swear in, but I'll have to come back to
Agou Akoumawou for intense tutoring. I'm a little nervous, to be
honest. I know I've only been in Togo for six weeks and we've only
had language classes during four of those six weeks, but I don't feel
like I've made much progress. I'm not worried about staying for the
extra tutoring; I'm just worried about being able to communicate with
my colleagues at post. We'll just see, I guess. Nadia and I think
that we're talking too much English when we're together, so maybe
we're not giving our brains a chance to think in French. We'll just
have to study hard and practice as much as we can. At least we're in
a big city where I can get by without speaking a lot of Ewe (the local
language).

We really didn't do much on Wednesday or Thursday. We reviewed some
health issues, discussed the plan for next week's post visit, and
opened our bank accounts. Now we're just waiting around for post
visit to start.

Week 7 (part 1):

It's Sunday in week seven. We are staying with Lydia, the current PCV
in Kpalime. I'm starting to get a better feel for Kpalime. Yesterday
I met the staff at my homologue's business. Then we visited the house
where Nadia and I will stay for the first three months. It's a nice
house. It's in a compound with two other houses, sort of like a
duplex/triplex in the US. It has a living room area, two small
bedrooms, and a bathroom. It has running water and electricity,
neither of which I expected to have here in Togo, so WOOHOO! Today is
Sunday, so we're just going to hang out at the house and cook a few
meals.

week 7 (part 2):

We spent Monday hanging out with my homologue. He had a short staff
meeting to welcome me and made a nice little Bienvenue certificate
that I'm going to put up in the house. On Tuesday, my homologue and
Nadia's homologue introduced us to the mayor, the prefét, the head of
the police, and the head of the gendarmes (sort of like the police).
We spent Wednesday with Nadia's homologue. He introduced us to the
staff at his microfinance organization and we visited his home.
Apparently both our homologues just recently had their first children
within the last few months. Both of the babies are super-cute.

On Thursday, we headed to the Peace Corps "maison du passage" in
Atakpame, our regional capital. The volunteers in the region prepared
a really nice meal on Friday to welcome the stagiares. Then we headed
back to Agou Akoumawou on Saturday.

Week 8:

Everyone is soooo ready to get to post, so it's a little hard to be
excited about training this week. I'm glad to get back to language
classes, though, since I feel myself backsliding a little in my
French. I really don't know how I'm going to get to required
proficiency by the end of stage, but at least I'm able to get around
and buy things.

We are now focusing on how to work with youth in our technical
training. We spent part of Tuesday talking with a group of high
school students about how youth are involved with income-generating
activities. Interesting stuff.

Saturday, our host brother took us to the Enyam Festival in a
neighboring village. It took a long time for the main ceremony to get
started, and after all the chiefs and prefét and other VIPs arrived, a
group of people danced in a circle for an hour or two. We left for a
little while and were ready to leave when we returned to see everyone
still dancing around in the same place, when all of a sudden a group
of men jumped out with big palm leaves. They surrounded a man who I
think was dressed as a leopard. I don't entirely understand what was
going on, but I think the leopard guy was trying to escape the palm
leaf guys as part of the ceremony. They raced up and down the streets
while everyone else watched and cheered from the sides of the road.
Our host brother helped Nadia and me get right up to the action. It
was a blast chasing the crowd up and down the streets. Finally, the
crowd ended up in the main village square, where we danced and sang
while men played these big traditional drums. We had a fantastic
time.

Well, it's week four here in Togo. Internet access has been a little
unreliable, so I haven't been able to post in a while. I actually had
several posts typed up on my flash drive, but then I left the darned
thing at home. :)

Nadia and I came here to Kpalime today to use the internet and buy some
hot dogs for today's 4th of July celebration with the other volunteers.
At this moment, several fellow stagiares are killing some chickens for
le grand fete.

Entirely too much has happened here to summarize right now (our host mom is waiting for us here in the cyber cafe) . Essentially the village for our training is great. We're at the foot of the tallest mountain in Togo, and it is incredibly green. The entire village came and sang and danced to welcome us when we arrived. It was an amazing experience. Our host family is wonderful, and they have one of the nicest houses in town. We actually have electricity, a flushing toilet, and... a satellite dish! Yep, we've been watching lots fo Cote d'Ivoir television and occasionally CNN. I really wasn't expecting that.

We find out our posts on Friday. I'm so excited. I'm an ICT (information and communication technology) volunteer, so I know we'll either be in Sokode, Kpalime, Souduboua, or Tsevie.

Hopefully it won't be too long till my next blog entry. Thanks for your patience!

Peace Corps Staging

Well, Nadia and I just completed the second day of our staging event in Washington, D.C. We are now officially Peace Corps Trainees! w00t w00t! Tomorrow morning we'll get our remaining vaccines and we'll receive the first dose of our anti-malaria medication. Let the mad dreams commence!

Nadia is very excited to be back in D.C. She lived up here for two months for an internship last year and was really sad to leave. We walked around some of her old stomping grounds this evening. We were tempted to watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but we decided not to blow three hours of our last evening in the U.S.

Now we're rearranging our luggage to make it a little easier to carry. Then we'll catch a few zzz's before waking up early for our big day tomorrow. Hooray! I will probably not be able to post for a few weeks while we get set up in our pre-service training area in Togo, but I'll do so as soon as possible. Take care, everyone!

Pics from England and Scotland

Here are some pictures from our trip to England and Scotland! I had more, but it's late and I'm still trying to figure out how to post captions for these in blogger. Hope everyone is well.

- Tristan

Here in Jolly ol' England

Before we start our Peace Corps service, we decided to visit some friends in London. Our friend Graham graciously welcomed us into his flat and guided us on a whirlwind tour of the city yesterday. We saw London Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, Picadilly Street, Millenium Bridge, the Golden Hind, and lots of other great stuff. I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow.

My name is Tristan, and in exactly five weeks, my wife and I will fly to Togo, West Africa for 27 months of Peace Corps service. Sounds crazy? A few years ago, I would have thought so. I'm currently a software engineering consultant in Dallas, TX, and I am an admitted technolophile. Now I'm moving to a place where I probably won't have electricity in my home and definitely won't have running water.

This whole Peace Corps thing is still a little surreal at the moment. I'm sure it will start to sink in after we move all our furniture into storage this weekend and I start sleeping on the floor. Note to self- need to buy cheap mattress pad... I find myself coming up with different countdown lists every morning- only 14 days left at work, only 5 Saturdays left, only two weeks left after the last episode of 24, etc. I'm soaking in my last few weeks of Starbucks, cable television, and high-speed internet while I can, but honestly, I can't wait for this adventure to start. I'm so excited!

I will be working as an Information and Communication Technology Advisor for the Small Business Development program. I won't know what exactly that entails until I arrive at my post, but essentially I will be working with (you guessed it) small businesses and entrepreneuring individuals to teach basic computer skills and to find practical, sustainable uses for technology in the area.