Weeks 30-32

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

-----
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.

-----
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...

-----
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.

-----
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.

-----
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.

-----
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.