Weeks 51-56

Week 51
05/18-05/24
 
We visited our host mother in the training village of Agou Akoumawou on Thursday and Friday to celebrate her birthday.  We made a pad thai and two birthday cakes for dinner on Thursday night.  Then we made chinese salad and pate rouge for lunch on Friday.  Good stuff (except the pate rouge yuck).  Fidelle, our host mom will be hosting another Peace Corps trainee when the new SED (Small Enterprise Development) trainees arrive in a few weeks.  I'm really glad we've stayed in touch with her.  She's a fantastic lady and a good friend.
 
Saturday, we had a combined birthday bash for me and two other volunteers.  We had cake, pie, and all kinds of goodies.  Yum!  Can you tell that satisfaction with PCV service is measured in food?
 
 
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Week 52
05/25-05/31
 
We started our French tutoring again.  I really like our tutor.  He's very good at explaining concepts and has a fantastic sense of pacing when it comes to introducing new material.  He's also good about not over-covering material we already know.
 
We went to Lomé on Tuesday to try to help a business finish registering for their business license.  Only very successful businesses register for business licenses in Togo, and they usually only do so when forced.  The registration fees are extremely expensive, and government taxes are insanely high.  It's a problem in all developing countries...  No one pays taxes because they are too high, but because no one pays, the government has to charge more to those who do pay.  Anyway, we found out that in addition to registration fees, current taxes, and possible back taxes, this business needs to pay several hundred thousand FCFA to get a form notarized.  In total, the cost is about equal to the organization's annual income.  How is anyone supposed to pay that?  Again, though, it's a self-perpetuating problem, so what can you do?  Sigh...  Unfortunately, lacking a business prevents a business from legitimately exporting and bringing foreign money into the local economy.
 
Friday we said goodbye to an American volunteer who has been in Kpalimé for a few months working with Kiva, a US-based online business that provides loans to microfinance organizations around the globe.  She threw a small party with her associates from the microfinance organization she worked with here in town.
 
 
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Week 53
06/01-06/07
 
We were supposed to restart the Excel class on Monday, but no one showed up.  Not a single person...
 
We biked up to Kuma Dunyo on Tuesday, and ate some amazing fufu with peanut sauce.  The group surprised me with some flowers and sang Happy Birthday to me.  We got a lot done and had a great time.
 
Wednesday, I turned the big 3-0.  I celebrated by playing about five hours of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Xmen Legends 2.  A day of gaming in West Africa is not a bad way to transition into my third decade of existence.  Life has certainly never been dull since I met Nadia.  We continued the celebration on Thursday with a missionary friend who made some fantastic pizza.
 
We headed down to Lomé for the weekend to run some errands.  We went dancing at a latin club with a live band  Saturday night, which was pretty cool.  The new SED (Small Enterprise Development) and CHAP (Community Health and AIDS Prevention) Peace Corps trainees arrived Saturday night, too, and we got to meet a few of them.  They seem like a good, motivated group.
 
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Week 54
06/08-06/14
 
Only four people showed up this week to the Excel class, so we had a short review and practiced using the mouse.  It's hard to move forward with this class when so many students are having trouble with the basics.
 
Somehow I think my system of counting weeks in Togo is off because June 10 marked our 1st year anniversary in country!
 
I went with two other PCV's to a presentation for AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) at the US Embassy.  It was pretty cool because the Togolese ministers of Commerce and Agriculture and a few other bigwigs were there out of about 40 people in total.  AGOA is a piece of legislation that allows the US to waive import taxes on goods produced in certain African nations.  Togo was just recently added to the eligible list.  Unfortunately, though, it looks to only be of use when exporting large quantities of manufactured products, and Togo really doesn't have much in the way of factories.  I guess that's sort of the point.  This law allows investors to fund development of the (currently nonexistent) manufacturing industry, which will lead to overall economic growth.  It makes sense, but it really doesn't affect my work as a grassroots development worker.  It requires work and funding at a much larger scale.
 
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Week 55
06/15-06/21
 
I finally got the Excel class back up and running.  We started talking about formulas on Monday.  This is the entire reason I started teaching the class.  Everyone in the class works at a microfinance institution, so they work with numbers all day long.  I see them doing long lists of calculations by hand or with a 10 key calculator all the time, and I want to show them how to do the same work in less time with fewer mistakes.  They seemed to really enjoy the lesson.  I guess the subject matter was more applicable than changing font size and cell format.
 
We had a nice dinner with the missionaries at the blind center in Kpalimé on Friday.  We had stromboli and played a rousing game of Apples to Apples.  I loves me some board games!  Then Saturday we went down to Lomé for a Spanish Club dinner at the Brazilian ambassador's house.  I always feel uncomfortable at these things since I don't really speak spanish and I feel guilty speaking English with the other Americans.  Nadia's spanish is beautiful enough for the both of us, so I tried to stand next to her for the entire evening.  It was a great time, though.  I met more folks from various embassies and I got to talk with one of the head honchos from Air France.
 
We did, unfortunately have a bit of a run in with the taxi syndicate on the way out of Kpalimé that may affect future travel, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  I freaking hate the syndicate.  It's run like almost like a mafia with a protection racket.  Ah well, when Togo can afford to feed its citizens in a few years maybe it can worry more about business regulations.
 
 
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Week 56
06/22-05/28
 
Nadia spent a couple of days with another volunteer up in Amou Ablo this week, so I flew solo with my Excel class.  We went over statistical formulas and how it relates to their day to day work.  They seemed to get the gist of it, so I was happy.
 
Rainy season is coming in full force.  We tried our weekly bike ride up the mountain to Kuma Dunyo on Tuesday, but we were washed out and gave up about halfway along.  It was good exercise at least.  I went again by taxi on Friday to show a few friends around Kuma Konda.  We paid a guide for a nice organized hike and he didn't disappoint (even if he did charge way too much).  Then the PC trainees came and visited ICEC, the microfinance institution Nadia and I are working with.  We told them a little bit about what they do and how we as PCV's can help with training and transfer of accounting/computer skills.
 

Weeks 44-50

Week 44
04/06-04/12

Culture shock has worn off. Not much to report. Nadia's grandmother was in pretty bad shape when we first arrived, but she's improved a bit. Now she can have coherent conversations and recognizes Nadia. I spent some time this week helping to fix the fence at my in-laws' house and doing other various home repairs. I'm also starting to read The Eye of the World, the first book in the Wheel of Time series. It's pretty good so far.

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Week 45
04/13-04/19

I decided to go visit my family in Louisiana this week. Nadia stayed with her folks in south Texas so she could help take care of her grandmother. I took a bus up to San Antonio and flew to Shreveport from there. The San Antonio airport cracks me up. It's decorated in a very Texan style, reprite with rocking chairs and staff with cowboy hats and large belt buckles. Parts of it almost feel more like a Cracker Barrel than an airport.

I got to visit my brother at his new job at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Actually, I randomly ran into him at the Dallas airport during a layover on my way to Shreveport. He saw me sitting at my gate and just plopped down next to me. Caught me by surprise. I also got to visit my sister who is a student at NSU in Natchitoches, LA.

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Week 46
04/20-04/26

My mom and I drove down to Houston and then over to Kerrville, TX to visit my grandmother. That was a nice change of scenery. Also, this trip back to the US allowed me to attend my cousin's wedding in Baton Rouge. Her husband works for the State Department in Turkey, so the family will have a few more folks living abroad. We're just spreading out all over the place.

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Week 48
04/27-05/03

I headed back down to south Texas again to regroup with Nadia. We did some last minute shopping to bring some American stuff like canned tuna back to Togo. I'm really excited about a washboard we found. We looked all over town, and finally found one at a small five-and-dime-type hardware store. No one uses washboards to wash clothes in Togo. Everyone just uses their hands or uses big rocks. I'm not sure why washboards never caught on there. Anyhoo, we're set to head back to Togo this weekend. I'm a little nervous about going back, but I'm glad to be getting back to the projects we left behind.

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Week 49
05/04-05/10

Sadly, Nadia's grandmother passed away a few hours after we left Edinburg on our way back to Togo. We were boarding our plane from JFK airport to West Africa when I was called back to the terminal for an emergency phone call about the news. In the ten minutes before the plane left the runway, we talked about going back to attend the funeral. One flight attendant was particularly nice and lent Nadia her cell phone to call her mom. We decided to go ahead and go back to Togo. Nadia had already said her goodbyes and knew that she wouldn't see her grandmother again. I wish things had been timed a little differently, but it's all in God's hands.

The flight was decent enough. We had an absolutely miserable time getting from the airport back to Kpalime. We sat at one car station for four or five hours and got into a fight with one taxi driver who ended up getting violent and hitting other passengers. When we finally got to the house in Kpalime, though, all our fears and worries just melted away. It was good to get back home. This really is home...

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Week 50
05/11-05/17

My homologue left for a vacation a few days after we got back to Kpalime, so we won't be starting up any new projects for a few weeks. I'm not really sure what we'd work on, anyway. I'm going to focus most of my efforts on Cafe Kuma and the microfinance institution ICEC. I'm actually kind of taking a step back on my computerization project at the microfinance institution. I was building an Access database system with some really nice front end forms for rapid data entry and access to fancy reports. Unfortunately, it's too complicated for the staff to maintain on their own. I'm torn. I'm doing training to try to bring the staff up to speed on a lot of computer technology, but they really won't be able to maintain anything more complicated than a series of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets really can't handle all the financial transaction information that the organization tracks, though. I keep having to back off and simplify this information system solution. It's tricky trying to implement a sustainable system that meets their technical needs.

The staff at ICEC are fantastic, though. They are very motivated about the work their doing with Nadia and about my computerization project. They are also setting up some new business and computer classes for us to teach, so that should keep us busy for a few months.

Weeks 42-43: Homecoming

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Week 42
03/23-03/29

Over the weekend, we heard that Nadia's grandmother is in the hospital and is not doing well at all. Her leg was hurting too much for her to walk. The family took her to the hospital, and apparently she has a blood clot in her leg, and it's causing serious blood circulation issues. The doctors talked about amputating the leg or doing some kind of surgery, but she's 92 and has pre-existing heart problems, so she really can't handle any sort of surgery. She's at home with Nadia's uncle now, and relatives in Mexico have come up to see her and pay their respects. Now the family is just trying to make her as comfortable as they can for as long as they can. Nadia lost two uncles in October and one aunt in November while we were in Togo, and we decided that it was time to go back to see Nadia's grandmother while we still can. We talked with the Country Director and with the Assistant Peace Corps Director for business volunteers, and they gave us their approvals to go back to the US for a month.

If Nadia's grandmother does pass away in the next couple of weeks (which is very likely), we will be traveling down to Monterey, Mexico for her funeral. We'll just play it by ear and see how things go. My cousin is getting married at the end of April, just before we leave. If possible, we're going to try to attend, especially since my cousin will be moving to Turkey next month with her fiancée. The family's just spreading out in all sorts of directions. :)

Anyhoo, my homologue doesn't seem too perturbed about our trip back. In fact, he was a huge help with getting some FCFA switched to US Dollars. The banks were charging ridiculous fees for the money exchange, and they wouldn't exchange the entire sum I wanted. Also, most of the banks close for half a day on Friday, and the others couldn't do the money exchange because their computer systems were down… a classic Togo situation. As with most problems with organized affairs in Togo, I looked to the thriving informal business sector (read: black market). My homologue helped me locate a guy that gave me a great rate on the exchange. I had to be super careful with counting the money and making sure I wasn't getting counterfeit bills, but it was actually a very painless and pleasant transaction.

Nadia's homologues are a little more worried about the trip. The guys at the microfinance organization asked over and over again if we're coming back. They ladies at the microfinance institution were really sad that we're taking a month-long break from the Excel class. Nadia's homologue at Café Kuma is particularly nervous. When he heard that Nadia's grandmother was sick, he had the group pray that she'd get better so we wouldn't go back to the US and be tempted not to return to Togo. When we told him that we were leaving for a month, he immediately asked if he could seal up the rest of the coffee they have in storage (there is no electricity in their village, so they use an electric bag sealer at our house). Then the group took all the leftover bags and labels along with the sealer with them. All of that stuff has stayed at the volunteer's house since the previous volunteer moved in two years ago. They are really worried that we're not coming back. Obviously they don't realize how cheap we are. If we paid for our return tickets to Togo, we're darned-well going to use them.

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Week 43
03/30-04/05

We made the trip back to the US safe and sound. The trip to the airport was uneventful, although there was a guy on a bus who showed off his traditional medicine by putting live scorpions all over his arms. Crazy folks... Anyway, the flight left for the US on time. We missed a connecting flight on the way to Texas and had to spend the night in Atlanta, but we got a free hotel room for the night. We got to San Antonio on Wednesday and drove from there to Edinburg. Since then, we've just been spending time with the family.

I really didn't expect much of a culture shock after only being in Togo for ten months. I have to admit, though, that my first walk through a Wal-Mart was a little freaky. I was cheap before leaving for Togo, but I think my time abroad has taken my frugality to a whole new level. I actually got into a fight with Nadia on the trip back because I wouldn't let her buy a sweater at the airport. Sure, it was freaking cold in the airport and we only had summer wear clothes, but I didn't pack that spare pagne (thin strip of cloth you can use for a towel) for nothing! I expected it to be upper 80's to low 90's in Texas, but it is actually pretty chilly. Anyway, I find myself freaking out about the money we brought and making sure that it will last us the full month. I'm trying really hard not to let it get the better of me, but it's tough. It's not like we're destitute or anything. Heck, we've managed to save more from our living allowance in Togo than many salary-paid Americans are able to save in the same amount of time. Granted, we're not bombarded with ads for big screen TV's, Starbucks, fancy body washes, or Playstation 3's. Our usual luxuries in Togo are the occasional soft drink or stick of butter. I'm trying to convince myself to fork over the dough for Valve's new Orange Box with Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal, but 21,000 FCFA ($50) is a hard sell...

Weeks 35-41

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Week 35
02/03-02/09

Nadia and I started our Excel training this Monday at ICEC, a microfinance institution we work with.  There are about 15 people in the class, including the director, the credit agent, the collection agent, the accountant, the cashiers, the tontine liaison, and a handful of tontine collection agents.  Between the organization's computers, my laptop, and the director's laptop, we had seven computers, so we didn't have more than two people per workstation.  Several ladies had never used a computer before and we had a lot of trouble getting the whole hand-eye mouse coordination thing down.  I wish I'd been able to start these ladies with a basic intro to computers class first, but I actually didn't know they were even coming to the training.  We thought we were only training the office staff.  Anyway, we tried to pair up less experienced students with more experienced students, and we dedicated a good chunk of the first lesson to basic computer usage (open & close programs, save & open files, etc.).  Anyway, the students seemed to enjoy the first class.  Nadia presented most of the material and did a great job.

Our French tutor is still not returning our calls.  I hope he's all right.

I spent Tuesday night working with the teacher of an adult English class.  Someone gave him some language training cd-roms that he wanted to check out.  He doesn't have a computer, and even though he could take them to a cyber café, I offered to look at the software with him on my laptop.  It turned out to be useless, but instead we spent an hour or so looking through the lesson plans he'd written up for the class.  He knows his stuff.  Maybe if our current French tutor doesn't continue classes, we can use this guy.

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Week 36
02/10-02/16

Happy Valentine's Day!

The director of the microfinance institution ICEC asked me to sit in on a demo for a microfinance software package.  The product was a bit rudimentary in design, but it appeared to be fairly functional.  A few key features were missing, though the company assured us that they could be customized and added in... for a price.  It supposedly uses a proprietary database system, so I'm a little worried about maintenance and future conversions.  They tried to convince ICEC that they need to purchase a new set of computers to use the software, which is a standard sales pitch, though I think I talked ICEC out of it.  All in all, the price tag was a little too high.  ICEC really can't afford to purchase the software, and I honestly believe that they would be better off with a set of well designed spreadsheets in lieu of a dedicated software suite.

I convinced ICEC to hold off on their decision about whether or not to purchase the software until the end of May.  I told them that I would throw together a prototype data entry system using Access and Excel.  If they like my system, they'll get it for free and I would train them how to maintain and extend it themselves.  If it doesn't meet their needs, they can look into buying a dedicated software solution.  They seemed open to this, though I don't know if I gave myself enough time.  I've still sort of been collecting system requirements.  I think this will be a good opportunity to get my rear into gear and get this computerization project off the ground.  I threw together a basic set of weekly milestones, including time for customer review and revision.  I'm not convinced I can meet the milestones with all the training events coming in the next few weeks, but I'm going to give it my all.

I've been a bit frustrated with my work with CIFAID, my homologue's cyber café, as of late.  I was going to ask my homologue flat out if he still needs my help.  I was going to talk about the three needs we originally identified for the business when I arrived in September:  1.) poor internet connection, 2.) virus problem, 3.) start web site creation service.  I obviously couldn't personally improve the internet connection, though new high speed connection options are slowly becoming available in Togo.  Regarding the virus problem, my homologue had recently uninstalled all the antivirus software I'd installed and replaced it with unregistered versions of Panda Antivirus, which are unable to download updates and are therefore useless.  Also, the staff seemed apathetic when I presented a system for automatically downloading updates on one machine and sharing the updates with all other machines.  Regarding the web site creation service, the two students in the web design class couldn't seem to make time for class sessions.

I was going to say that they don't appear to really want or need my help, so I should spend less time at CIFAID and focus on other projects.  As soon as I got to the cyber café, though, he asked me to help with a problem with Panda Antivirus clashing with Windows Internet Connection Sharing.  I showed him how to disable Panda AV's firewall, which has issues respecting ICS, and I took the opportunity to ask why he removed the antivirus stuff I'd installed.  Apparently AVG did not detect a particular virus on a client's USB key.  My homologue scanned the key with Panda, and it removed the virus.  Unfortunately, Panda misses quite a few viruses itself.  I can sort of understand why he swapped out the software, but I wish he'd talked to me about it first.

Anyway, I gathered a varied collection of virus files and saved them in a zip file.  Then I tried scanning the file with AVG, Norton Antivirus, Panda Antivirus, Avast, McAfee and a few other antivirus solutions.  No single software package caught every virus.  I did some research and it sounds like installing multiple AV packages is a bad idea.  So I'm not really sure what to suggest.  We could lock down all the permissions on the computers to disallow installation of spyware and certain viruses, but I think that would drive away clients.  This experience is giving me a new level of respect for the system administration profession.

We ended the week with a Valentine's Day party at our house.  About ten or twelve volunteers from the region came over and we cooked up some amazing Mexican food.  We also watched a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica Season 3 (this was the true motive behind the party).  I loves me some BSG.  :)

Oh, I almost forgot...  It turns out our French tutor is alive and healthy; he just decided to stop coming to class and to stop accepting our phone calls.  We arranged a meeting through a mutual acquaintance in the community to try to figure out the problem.  Obviously there was some sort of break down in communication.  Without going into any details, he was rude and insulting in the meeting and we mutually agreed not to work together anymore.  It was very unfortunate, though, because Nadia was really excited about starting the English club with the tutor this month.  That will no longer be happening.

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Week 37
02/17-02/23

I agreed to take over teaching Nadia's Excel class on Mondays.  Nadia will still be there to help give assistance, but I'll be doing all the class preparation and presentation.  It's kind of nice because I was starting to get a little down because of lack of progress with other projects.

I sat in on another demo for a microfinance software suite.  This software package was amazing.  The user interface is beautiful, the security rights are complete and configurable, the export options are flexible, and the reports are clear and concise.  Overall, it was a fantastically full-featured package.  Sadly, I'm confident that the package comes with a price tag that's far above ICEC's budget allowances.  At least the demo gave me some good ideas for the mini-system I'm prototyping for them.

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Week 38
02/24-03/01

Progress is a little slow on the ICEC software development project.  The database is already created, but the UI is taking a while.  I could just build the forms VB-style, but I'm trying to familiarize myself with a lot of Access's macro capabilities, since I think that will be easier for the staff to maintain.  I keep backing out cool features that I think will be too difficult for them to maintain.  It's tough, though, because I don't want to dumb down the design so much that the system is clunky and hard to use.  More and more, I think the database should only be used to track transactions at the cashier counter.  I think reports and other data manipulation should be done in Excel with exported data.  We'll see.  I wish we could start with the Access training, but we're only halfway through the Excel class, and I think we're going to have a basic computer keyboarding course in the summer...  Du courage pour moi...

On Thursday I did a bit of computer forensics that made me quite proud of myself.  I was helping my homologue reinstall a machine with a corrupted file system, but we forgot to backup some important documents before reformatting the hard drive.  I was going to try to search the raw data with a hex editor to find file system entries for Word documents.  I did something similar a few years ago when I jacked up my Xbox hard drive.  In the end, though, I found some handy dandy data recovery tools that did all the work for me.  A program called EasyRecovery (www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional) was especially helpful.  Hooray for progress.

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Week 39
03/02-03/08

I gave my first test in the Excel class on Monday.  I created a sample worksheet, and then gave a list of 17 steps for the students to follow.  The class did alright overall.  A few students did very well, a few students did atrocious, and few got about halfway through the test before time ran out.  I think I several folks accidentally cleared some cells and wasted a lot of time trying to undo their mistakes.  I suppose we'll spend the next class going over the test.  I'm really enjoying this class, and the students seem to be enjoying it as well.

I'm the contact volunteer for our cluster, so on Tuesday I headed up to the PC training center in Pagala for the Contact Volunteer Conference.  It was only a day long (plus a day to get there and a day to get back) and I was expecting it to be a complete waste of time, but it turned out to be a blast.  We learned a lot about how Peace Corps responds to emergency situations.  We planned out emergency evacuation paths.  We discussed political and security situations for other countries in the region.  We studied situations involving PCV disappearances in other countries, and we even heard some interesting stories about security risks in Togo from past years.  The safety and security staff did a great job presenting the material in an interesting and applicable manner.

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Week 40
03/09-03/15

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Notse.  The business volunteer there has a beautiful porch and a huge courtyard.  Parts of Notse were very nicely developed.  Other parts were really dirty and smelly.  Overall, I wasn't a huge fan.  The health volunteer in Notse has a nice house, but like 25 people living in the compound.  Waaaaay too crowded for me.  And bats, lots of bats.  I can relate to that, though, since the population of giant lizards living above our ceiling grows more and more each day.  I don't really mind lizards, but they make lots of noise running around on the wooden ceiling all night.  Anyway, we bought four pentods (guinea fowl) on Saturday, and cooked them up on Sunday.  I killed one of the birds myself (hooray for me) and we barbequed them on a makeshift grill.  They were quite tasty.

Then we went up to Glei, just north of Notse, to visit the business volunteer there.  I really liked Glei.  Everyone was very chill and relaxed.  I didn't get "yovo"-ed too much, and people were really nice.  The volunteer also had the cleanest well water I've ever seen!  We topped off the visit with a few episodes from season 1 of The Office.  Great stuff.

On Tuesday we headed back to Pagala for our In Service Training (IST).  Following this trip's trend of uncharacteristically easy transportation, some volunteers in Notse rented a taxi bus and picked us up on the side of the Route National in Glei.   No muss, no fuss, plenty of room and no haggling over price.

The Natural Resource Management (NRM) volunteers were having their Project Design Management (PDM) training at the same time as our IST, so we had quite a few volunteers and homologues at the training center.  Apparently the NRM volunteers caught wind of our little dance competition from our PDM, and they challenged us to a dance off.  Nadia jumped at the challenge, and before we knew what happened, she'd already established the time, location, and rules for the competition.  It was a three-round event:  choreographed group dance, couples interpretative dance, and Soul Train dance-off.  The business volunteers dominated the choreographed event, the NRM folks destroyed us in the interpretative dance, but Nadia and another business volunteer pulled out all the stops to win the Soul Train dance-off.  Let me tell you, my wife can shake it like no one else.

The IST itself was not quite as dull as I expected it to be.  We covered a lot of the same material that we'd covered during pre-service training and during the PDM, but most of the material was geared toward the homologues anyway.  Maurice wasn't able to come, so instead Nadia and I brought the director of Café Kuma and the collection agent from ICEC.  We used the training as a platform to discuss current and future projects with their organizations.  We talked about the computerization effort at ICEC and the tax registration issues that Café Kuma is facing.  The discussions led to some very useful input from other Togolese business people.  All in all, it was a productive training event.

Our IST ended on Friday, which is the day the All Volunteer Conference (All-Vol) started.  This is when all the Peace Corps volunteers in Togo gather to elect newsletter editors, committee representatives, transit house managers, etc.  There's also a talent show and an auction whose proceeds go towards a girls' scholarship fund.  Nadia and I (along with half the folks from our training group) already had our fill of PCV camaraderie in Pagala, so we decided to skip out on the festivities.  We spent Friday night with a volunteer in Atakpamé, and then headed down to Lomé on Saturday for a dinner party with the US ambassador.  The party was meant only for Spanish speakers, since the ambassador's wife speaks Spanish, but I was able to tag along with Nadia.  I spent most of the night nodding and mumbling, "si, no, mucho gusto, gracias, lo siento", but the food was great and the company was even better.  We headed back to Kpalimé on Sunday, glad for our travels, but ready to be home.

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Week 41
03/16-03/22

We're having a small gathering for Good Friday.  Easter is a big deal here in southern Togo.  Schools are closed all this week, and many businesses are closed on Friday and Monday.  Anyway, we wanted to have a small party, but since most volunteers want to be in village for the Easter Sunday festivities, we decided to do the Good Friday thing.  We're going to cook up some southern cooking tomorrow- fried okra, glazed carrots, cornbread, mashed potatoes, corn fritters, sweet tea...  I'm excited.

My homologue asked if we could resume our web design classes.  I had essentially given up on doing real "work" with his cyber café.  I'm happy to go in for a couple of hours to help fix computers and use the internet (when it works) for free.  I've been meaning to go around to other computer centers in town to find a venue for a larger web design class.  It's hard to find a computer center whose owner/manager doesn't live in Lomé, though.  Also, I'm a little hesitant about over committing myself with another weekly class while I'm working on ICEC's new information system.  Anyway, I'm going to try out the Microsoft Unlimited Potential training materials for the mini-training class with my homologue.  If it goes over well, maybe I'll try it with a larger audience.

Weeks 33-34

Week 33
01/20-01/26

We had a good time in Agou Avedze last week. It was nice to visit a small village after being in Lomé for a few days. We had a good time and got another volunteer hooked on Battlestar Galactica (I have the first two seasons on my laptop). Nadia and the Peace Corps Admin Officer didn't quite finish the preparations for their presentation on how to create and manage a project budget, so Nadia headed back down to Lomé on Monday. Then she went up to the Peace Corps Training Center in Pagala, in the western area of Togo about halfway up-country. She came back on Wednesday and said the presentation went well.

While she was gone, I met with an ecotourism organisation in Kpalimé. They received some donated laptops a few years ago, and now they need some general maintenance. It looked like the fan had gone out on one. I couldn't get the case open to see if it was fixable. The other one seemed to just be loading up too much junk at startup. The director of the organization said he's interested in taking the laptops out to villages without power to give brief introductory classes to students. I'm not sure the batteries are up for the trip, but I respect that they're sharing their resources.

We didn't do a whole lot else this week. Our French tutor didn't show up for class on Wednesday or Saturday and hasn't answered our phone calls or text messages. I hope he's ok. We cancelled a few times on him last month, but he didn't mention that he was unhappy with the class situation last week when we saw him. He's supposed to start an English club with Nadia next month, too, so I'm really surprised that he dropped out of contact.

I tried out the free thin client software I mentioned last week. 2X ThinClientServer offers more configuration options than I think I need, but ThinServer's live CD was simple enought to not really need any upkeep. Unfortunately, I just realized that the old Pentium machine at the microfinance institution that I was going to use a smart terminal has no network card. Sometimes I feel like the guy that said, "If I had some cheese, I could have ham and cheese...If I had some ham." Ah well, we'll work with what we've got. I hate to ask the director of the microfinance institution to order a new card that costs 9000 FCFA (around $20). Maybe someone in Kpalimé is willing to sell a used PCI or ISA network card.

I get frustrated because I literally used to throw old hardware like that in the garbage. Here in Togo, it would be incredibly useful. Qu'est-ce qu'on va faire?

On a brighter note, I think I've got a pretty complete set of requirements for ICEC's computerization project, and Nadia helped me solidify the necessary business process changes. I'm confident that they are capable of sustaining this new paperless system, and I'm confident that the new system will help the employees do their jobs more effectively and more efficiently.

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Week 34
01/27-02/02

Nadia and I spent Monday through Thursday in Pagala with our homologues (in-country counterparts) for a seminar on funded community projects. I found a few sessions useful. Nadia's presentation on budget management was very good, and we had some interesting discussions on raising funds within the community. Several sessions turned into open forums for complaints, though, and I have very little patience for such things.

I don't think my homologue really felt like he got much out of the training, which is unfortunate since the seminar is more for the homologues than the volunteers. Thus far, I've primarily focused on my role as a business/technical consultant, so neither I nor my homologue and have really thought about community-wide projects. This seminar really required me to start thinking more about the needs of the community at large. It's tough since I live in a city. I guess I'll need to identify a subset of the population.

Next Monday, Nadia will start her training on Excel at ICEC (her homologue's microfinance institution), so I'm helping her get the training materials together. I'm going to spend next week trying to branch out more into the community. I'll talk to a few businesses about my availability to help with IT-related issues. I may even try doing some simple community-need analysis exercises like community maps or seasonal calendars or something. I think I'm spending too much time at CIFAID (my homologue's cyber café).

Weeks 30-32

First of all, thanks Lily, Sarah, Rocco, Anne, and Cameron for the packages!  Hope you all are doing well!

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Week 30
12/30-01/05

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
We spent New Year's Eve in Agou Akoumawou with the family that hosted us during our pre-service training.  We had a BLAST!  Nadia and I cooked up a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  We ate fufu, sauce, and cake for lunch.  Then Nadia and I made hot dogs and koliko for dinner.  We all stayed up talking and hanging out until about 10:00pm.  Then most people went out dancing or went to bed.  Nadia, our host mom, and I watched a New Year's Eve event on TV until midnight.  Unfortunately, the people on TV literally prayed for an hour straight from 11:00 to midnight.  This is a great practice and a great way to bring in the New Year, but it is impossible to stay awake while watching someone pray on television for an hour.  We nodded off again and again, and when we hit 12:00, we cheered and immediately headed to bed.

The next day, we ate ablo and sauce and headed back to Kpalimé.  It was really nice hanging out with our host family.  I didn't properly get to say goodbye to my host brother when we left in August, and things had been a little tense with everyone near the end of our training.  This was a nice relaxed atmosphere, and we got to hear about the new volunteers that just finished their training.  It really was a good New Years Day.  I'm glad to get back into the swing of things later this week, though.

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Week 31
01/06-01/12

 Nothing interesting happened.  :)  Actually, I just realized I'm missing an entry for this week, but I'm sitting at the cyber café and the internet is working for the first time in a week, so we'll just pretend I wrote something interesting and insightful...

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Week 32
01/13-01/19

We're in Lomé again for a few days.  Nadia is helping with PACA PDM training at the end of the month, so she's meeting with our Assistant Peace Corps Director and our Volunteer Liason to put together the curriculum.  I decided to tag along to talk to local computer hardware vendors about prices for workstations and switches.

As I've mentioned before, I'm helping a microfinance institution in Kpalimé automate some of their tasks to increase efficiency.  They already have a two computers running Windows XP, one computer running Windows 2000, and one running Windows 98.  Right now, they create reports by hand in Excel and Quickbooks, and use a handful of random spreadsheets to track data, though most stuff is still paper-based.  I'm working on coming up with a series of shared spreadsheets and maybe a simple Access database to computerize all their records, while still allowing them to function when the power goes out.  I know this would help the accountant and several other employees a lot.  Anyway, they're hoping to buy a switch and maybe one or two workstations.  I told the director I'd check out pricing for hardware while I'm in the capital. 

I found six different shops just by walking down the main road in Lomé.  I got a pretty good representation of pricing.  Things here cost anywhere from 10-50% more here than in the US due to shipping fees and import fees.  One business suggested that we consider an Officestation, which is a thin client computer terminal ( http://www.compucon.com.au/officestation/officestation.htm).  Essentially it is a network terminal that remoted desktop from a host PC.  This could be a decent investment, since the maintenance is much lighter that for an actual workstation.  I think at least one of the organization's existing PC's is powerful enough to host at least one or two clients.

That got me thinking about thin clients, though, and I discovered a few open source software solutions (http://thinstation.sourceforge.net and http://www.2x.com) that could let me turn the organization's old Pentium 1 machine into a smart terminal that could run Office 2003 under Windows XP.  If we can get our hands on at least one other old machine here in Kpalimé (and I know they're out there), we could have two terminals hosted off of one or two of the newer boxes.  There are obvious problems with this solution.  It could seriously slow down the host PC, and if that machine breaks down, the terminals will be down as well.  Also, the solution may not be sustainable if most of the configuration files and documentation for thin client software are written in English, not in French.  I'm definitely going to explore this option, though.

On a slightly darker note, we had our first scary experience with the Gendarmes (sort of a cross between the military and the police).  Nadia, I, and two other volunteers were walking back to the Peace Corps bureau in Lomé on Sunday at around 9:00pm.  It was dark, and When were about one block from the bureau, I saw someone wave a flashlight in front of us.  I walked right past the man with the flashlight, and I didn't catch what he said.  Then he started yelling and we that it was four Gendarmes, one of whom was pointing a gun at us.  They asked for our ID's.  PCV's are advised not to carry our passports with us, since they could be easily lost or stolen.  Two of us had our laissez-passé, which allows for free travel throughout the country.  I only had my Peace Corps ID, and another volunteer didn't have any ID.  The Gendarmes told those with laissez-passé's that they needed to have their passports (not true, according to the embassy security staff), but they'd let it slide.  They said that the volunteer without ID would not be able to leave without paying them a bribe.  They kept saying we must give them "café".  After I insisting several times that we had no coffee, they started saying "piece".  We said we had no money and eventually they let us go.  During the entire event, one officer spoke calmly, one yelled while pointing his rifle, and one paced around us menacingly while whipping around a thick piece of rope.  I was pretty freaked out when it was over.

What really bothered me was that this could have been anyone.  I don't really believe that a Gendarme would shoot an American, but this could have been a group of muggers with knives and machetés.  It was dark, and I didn't see the four armed men standing in the street.  And we were only one block from the Peace Corps bureau, where there are three or four guards (who I'm not even sure are armed).  I plan to talk to the Safety and Security officer about the incident.  The men didn't really do anything illegal, but I want to make sure this isn't a reoccuring event.  I really don't like Lomé.

Anyway, we're finally leaving the capital on Wednesday, and we're going to stop at another volunteer's village in Agou Avedjé for a night on our way back to Kpalimé.  That should be a nice break from this dirty, sandy, overly busy city.

Weeks 26-29: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... en retard! :)


Week 26
12/02-12/08

This week was good. We're starting to get back into a regular routine. We didn't go up to Kuma Dunyo to meet with Cafe Kuma, but I did meet with ICEC and CIFAID, the microfinance organization and cyber cafe I'm working with. Nadia's homologue at ICEC identified two employees who I will train to carry out their computerization project. I was pleasantly surprised that one of his choices is a young woman who works with women's savings groups. I think she'll benefit a lot from the knowledge. Now I just need to finish documenting the organization's current business processes, and we can start talking about what tasks we can automate.

We finally had another web design class at CIFAID on Friday. I was planning to cover methods of formatting text in HTML, but my homologue requested that we finish cover the configuration options in BlogSpot. We'd already covered the most important features and I sort of felt like we were backtracking, but we managed to cover a few useful nuggets that I'd previously skipped over. I later asked my homologue if he'd prefer to use our sessions to talk about other forms of website templates like yahoo's geocities instead of HTML. He said he'd like to continue with HTML, but that it's a bit difficult to understand. I promised that I'd work to develop better pre-tested examples and a more structured approach for our lessons.

I don't think my current outline method of teaching is working so well. I try to answer every question with an example, which requires me to generate examples on the fly. That's usually fine, but I often boof up or accidentally introduce tags and attributes we haven't covered yet, which leads to more questions and confusion. The next time we meet, I'm going to try to have a prepared script that I will test with Nadia ahead of time.

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Week 27
12/09-12/15

Lydia, our site mate here in Kpalime, said goodbye to her friends and neighbors here in Togo and boarded a plane early Tuesday morning. We waited with her at the airport in Lome from midnight to 4:00am, when the check-in desk opened. We're really sad to see her go. She has been a huge help in our acclimation to work and life in Kpalime. I know she's moving on to new and even more exciting things, though.

We spent the rest of the week getting Lydia's house ready for us to move into. We had a few leaks in the roof repaired, changed the locks, fixed the broken front gate, and painted the house. It looks really nice, and we're excited to move in tomorrow. The temporary house is all packed up. In the morning, I'm going to disassemble the bed, find a taxi-bus, and move everything across town.

I still get butterflies in my stomach when I get ready to haggle over prices for services like transporting furniture. I've got 5000 FCFA (about $12) in my pocket, and that's my limit. I'm not sure it's going to cut it, but here's hoping. I'm still amazing at Nadia's proficiency with "discuter-ing". She's freaking amazing...friendly, but spirited and adamant. Sob stories and sworn minimum prices are usually enough for me to cave, but not my lady. No, no, no. I thoroughly enjoyed watching her work her magic on the folks doing repairs on the house this week. If there's one thing I hope to learn from my Peace Corps service, it's how to effectively negotiate prices, and I'm learning from the master.

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. I got a hold of some assorted Christmas music this week, so now I'm jammin' to a little Holly Jolly Christmas while I type. I love the holidays. I have most of my Christmas cards ready to send out to the family back home, but I waited too long. Now they're probably not going to get there until mid to late January. Oh well, it's the effort that counts, right? Maybe I'll just send an e-card to tide them over.

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Week 28
12/16-12/22

We finished moving into the house over the weekend. I negotiated a darned good price for the transportation for the furniture. I though it would take two trips in the taxi to move all the furniture and stuff, but the driver wanted to do it in one trip to save gas. The result was a feat of engineering reminiscent of a college science project. Furniture rose 5 feet above the top of the car and 6 feet behind the back. The driver wove an intricate design of cross ropes between chairs and tables as they extended outside of the car on all sides. I really wish I'd taken a picture. Anyway, all the baggage survived the treacherous journey across town and was safely deposited at the new house.

Nadia and I spent the rest of the week overseeing the repairs to the roof and the painting of the house. Before, all the walls were whitewashed. Now half the house is a nice light blue and half is kind of a lavender. It's really pretty.

This place is huge. It's got to be around 2000 sq feet, at least twice as big as our last apartment in Texas. We spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what to do with all that space. We have a master bedroom, a guest bedroom, a spare guest bedroom/storage room, a bathroom, a bike storage room, and a large open living area that we split into a dining area, a living room area, and an office. It feels a little weird living in such a large house. It feels a little weird living in such a big house, but it's nice having room for other volunteers to stay over when they come into town to pick up their mail or to buy food in the market.

Now everything is repaired, painted, and arranged. It looks and feels like a little piece of home. We discovered a few quirks about the house, though. First, there are several buttons that ring a buzzer in the house next door. Apparently an older couple lived here a long time ago, and would use the buzzer to summon house servants when they were hungry or needed help moving from room to room. I haven't figured out how to disable the buzzer, and we've accidentally set off the buzzer a few times. I also figured out that most of the light switches and electrical outlets were installed with their own fuses. Half the fuses are burnt out, though, so I spent half a day swapping fuses out to enable the most convenient switches and outlets. It's really a clever system and a nice alternative to a central fuse box.

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Week 29
12/23-12/29

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

We spent last Friday up in Kuma Dunyo with Kodzo, one of Nadia's homologues. We ate some really good fufu and peanut sauce, and we talked about Togolese and American Christmas traditions with Kodzo's family. It was a very special time, and we spent the night, intending to leave the next morning.

Getting out of Kuma Dunyo is always a bit of an ordeal. Normally, we go on the main market day for Kuma Adame, a neighboring village. Usually at least one car goes down to Kpalime on market day, but there are only three taxi's in town. On this particular Saturday morning, though, we were completely unable to locate a car. Two of the taxis were rented for a funeral in a neighboring village. The third taxi was broken down, and no mechanics would be coming into town for a few days. Instead, Nadia and I just walked around 20k back down the mountain. It wasn't too bad, since we didn't bring too much stuff and it was downhill, but we're really going to have to figure out a solution to this transportation issue. I'm going to try to fix my bike, which is having serious braking issues. Then maybe we can take taxi up the mountain with the bikes, and then just bike back down.

We spent Christmas in Vogan, a city in southeast Togo. We headed down on Sunday, stopping for a few hours in Lome to meet up with some other volunteers. When we finally arrived at the Vogan volunteer's house, we were greeted by Christmas lights and all sorts of crafted Christmas decorations. Our host had cut and hung paper snowflakes and paper snowmen with all the guests' names. She even had a little Christmas tree with little gold decorations with our names. It was beautiful.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Vogan with 10 PCV's and a 3 non-PCV Americans who were visiting another volunteer. We cooked up three chickens for dinner Christmas Eve, along with mashed potatoes, garlic sauce, cucumber salad, and apple pie. That evening we watched as some of the neighbors set up bonfires and took turns jumping over the flames. I don't know if that had any cultural significance or if they were just drunk. :)

We listened to a neighboring church that celebrated by singing until 3 or 4 in the morning. Then we got up on Christmas morning to exchange our secret Santa gifts. I got an apple pie and some Skittles. Score! Nadia was given a very pretty wrap-around skirt. We were able to talk to our families back in Texas, and it was an all-around great day.

We got back to Kpalime the evening of the 26th, and I continued my web design class that Friday. This time I prepared a detailed set of examples ahead of time and saved them on a USB key for reference. Then I did a practice run with Nadia to make sure I was explaining things clearly. She gave some helpful feedback, and the training session went over great with the guys at CIFAID. I was very encouraged because they really seemed to understand and were genuinely excited to try out what they learned. Anytime a question strayed off-topic, I just redirected it and said we would cover it in a future session.

Thank you Mom, Tim, Molly, Grandmere, Barbara, David, Donny, Grey, Lynn, Gary, and everybody at GSA for the packages!!! They were VERY generous and we really appreciate you guys thinking about us this holiday season.