tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41576404703486700092024-02-02T04:32:15.377-06:00Next Stop - Togo!Chronicles of Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa. These are my tales, trials, and triumphs. Enjoy!Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-30606174127597862732008-07-03T03:42:00.001-06:002008-07-03T03:42:41.786-06:00Weeks 51-56Week 51 <br>05/18-05/24 <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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? <br> <br> <br>----- <br>Week 52 <br>05/25-05/31 <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br> <br>----- <br>Week 53 <br>06/01-06/07 <br> <br>We were supposed to restart the Excel class on Monday, but no one showed up. Not a single person... <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br>----- <br>Week 54 <br>06/08-06/14 <br> <br>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. <br> <br>Somehow I think my system of counting weeks in Togo is off because June 10 marked our 1st year anniversary in country! <br> <br>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. <br> <br>----- <br>Week 55 <br>06/15-06/21 <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br> <br>----- <br>Week 56 <br>06/22-05/28 <br> <br>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. <br> <br>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. <br> <br> Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-22239054313633535562008-05-19T09:10:00.002-06:002008-05-19T09:44:57.589-06:00Weeks 44-50<p>Week 44<br />04/06-04/12</p><p>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.</p><p><br />-----<br />Week 45<br />04/13-04/19</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p><br />-----<br />Week 46<br />04/20-04/26</p><p>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.</p><p><br />-----<br />Week 48<br />04/27-05/03</p><p>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.</p><p><br />-----<br />Week 49<br />05/04-05/10</p><p>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.</p><p>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...</p><p><br />-----<br />Week 50<br />05/11-05/17</p><p>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.</p><p>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.<br /></p>Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-84236954067035777772008-04-09T08:00:00.002-06:002008-04-09T08:12:52.394-06:00Weeks 42-43: Homecoming<p>-----<br />Week 42<br />03/23-03/29</p><p>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.</p><p>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. :)</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p>-----<br />Week 43<br />03/30-04/05</p><p>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.</p><p>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...</p>Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-38935856980272066832008-03-28T07:59:00.001-06:002008-03-28T07:59:09.497-06:00Weeks 35-41<p>-----<br>Week 35<br>02/03-02/09</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Our French tutor is still not returning our calls. I hope he's all right.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 36<br>02/10-02/16</p> <p>Happy Valentine's Day!</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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. :)</p> <p>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.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 37<br>02/17-02/23</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 38<br>02/24-03/01</p> <p>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...</p> <p>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 (<a href="http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional">www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional</a>) was especially helpful. Hooray for progress.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 39<br>03/02-03/08</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 40<br>03/09-03/15</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 41<br>03/16-03/22</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-91755470181529282522008-02-01T05:09:00.002-06:002008-02-23T03:10:57.232-06:00Weeks 33-34<p>Week 33<br />01/20-01/26</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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?</p><p>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.</p><p><br />-----<br />Week 34<br />01/27-02/02</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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).</p>Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-49123040986919223782008-01-24T04:18:00.001-06:002008-01-24T04:18:56.185-06:00Weeks 30-32<div>First of all, thanks Lily, Sarah, Rocco, Anne, and Cameron for the packages! Hope you all are doing well!</div> <div><br>-----<br>Week 30<br>12/30-01/05</div> <p>HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!<br>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 31<br>01/06-01/12</p> <p> 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... </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 32<br>01/13-01/19</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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 ( <a href="http://www.compucon.com.au/officestation/officestation.htm">http://www.compucon.com.au/officestation/officestation.htm</a>). 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. </p> <p>That got me thinking about thin clients, though, and I discovered a few open source software solutions (<a href="http://thinstation.sourceforge.net/">http://thinstation.sourceforge.net</a> and <a href="http://www.2x.com/"> http://www.2x.com</a>) 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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-84756357685232005122008-01-04T05:30:00.001-06:002008-01-04T05:48:03.341-06:00Weeks 26-29: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... en retard! :)<br /><br /><br />Week 26<br />12/02-12/08<br /><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p><br />-----<br />Week 27<br />12/09-12/15</p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p><br />-----<br />Week 28<br />12/16-12/22</p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p> </p><p>-----<br />Week 29<br />12/23-12/29</p><p>MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!</p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. :) </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p>Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-7130236679884098892007-12-03T05:48:00.001-06:002007-12-03T05:48:03.090-06:00Weeks 14-25<div>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.</div> <div> </div> <div>Everything is great here in Togo. Thanks everyone for your prayers and support!</div> <div> </div> <div>- Tristan</div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div>Week 14<br>9/09-9/15</div> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 15<br>9/16-9/22</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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.</p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 16<br>9/23-9/29</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 17<br>9/30-10/06</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 18<br>10/07-10/13</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 19<br>10/14-10/20</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 20<br>10/21-27</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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! </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 21<br>10/28-11/03</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 22<br>11/04-11/10</p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 23<br>11/11-11/17</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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.</p> <p>-----<br>Week 24<br>11/18-11/25<br>Mon Maurice too busy for class<br>Tue Atakpame with Adeze<br>Wed Sokode<br>Thur Thanksgiving<br>Fri return to Kpalime<br>- goats, pigs, chickens, and dogs in the taxis<br>Sat Christmas tree decorating with Joan </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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! </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>-----<br>Week 25<br>11/18-11/25</p> <p>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. </p> <p>BTW, thank you Mom, Grandmere, Rhonda, Chuck, and Mrs Capuchino for the packages! We reeeeeeeeally appreciate them!</p> <p>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. </p> Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-44270164598126710732007-09-15T05:38:00.001-06:002007-09-15T05:38:15.420-06:00Weeks 12-14 (weeks 1-3 at post)<p>Week 12 (Week 1 at post!):</p> <p>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. <br>I spent the rest of the morning getting things arranged.</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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!!!! </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>Week 13 (Week 2 at post!):</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>Week 14 (Week 3 at post):</p> <p>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! </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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).</p> <p>***IF ANYONE HAS A GOOD RECENT LINUX DISTRIBUTION THEY CAN MAIL ME ON CD, THAT WOULD BE A HUGE HELP.*** :)</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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.</p> <p>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!</p> Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-85202786620606376542007-08-24T08:35:00.001-06:002007-08-24T08:35:17.832-06:00Weeks 9-11<div> <p>Week 9:</p> <p>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". </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>Week 10:</p> <p>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 </p> <p>management, and Nadia will probably continue working with them after Lydia finishes her service.</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p><br>Week 11:</p> <p>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. </p> <p>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... </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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! </p></div> Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-29780484438473995792007-08-05T04:55:00.001-06:002007-08-05T04:55:14.246-06:00Summary of first 8 weeks in Togo (Finally uploaded)Week 1:<p>Well, we have been in Togo for five days now. The flight over was<br>fairly uneventful. My bags and Nadia's bags were well within the 50lb<br>limit. A few other trainees were a slightly over, but we shared some<br>bag space to even it out. Our flight was delayed in Washington D.C.,<br>and we would have missed our connecting flight in Paris if Air France<br>hadn't held the plane for us. They were very cool about that and they<br>fed us pretty well. Generally, I'm not a fan of Air France, but they<br>got an A-OK from me this round.<p>Our arrival was painless. We were taken from our plane directly to<br>the VIP lounge at the airport. I believe it's generally reserved for<br>ambassadors, diplomats, and other very important people, so I felt<br>pretty darned special. Next, we were taken in Peace Corps vans to the<br>unofficial Peace Corps hotel in Lome. The Peace Corps Country<br>Director hosted a welcome reception that night with the rest of the PC<br>staff and several current volunteers. Afterwards, we walked down the<br>street to a local bar where a lot of PCV's hang out.<p>Lome is an interesting city. Most streets look the same, at least in<br>the neighborhoods near our hotel and the Peace Corps offices. There<br>were a few paved roads, but most were dirt/dust. Since we're in the<br>rainy season, I expected continuous torrential downpours, but it only<br>rained briefly on a couple of days for an hour or two, and the rain<br>was fairly light. Aside from the goats in the streets, the biggest<br>difference I noticed in Lome was the fact that there was essentially<br>no trash. From what I gathered, there is really no trash pickup<br>service in most of Togo because people produce such little non-organic<br>garbage. Most garbage is either composted or recycled. Most people<br>don't deal with large amounts of paper or plastic packaging because<br>there are not a lot of pre-packaged products. All non-organic,<br>non-recyclable garbage is burned, with the exception of batteries and<br>aerosol cans. Hence, there was essentially no trash in the streets of<br>Lome.<p>We spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in training sessions dealing with<br>Peace Corps administrative policies, basic health and survival<br>techniques, and an introduction to Togolese culture. We met lots of<br>volunteers and got a lot of different perspectives on Peace Corps<br>service. I was particularly glad we got to spend a few hours chatting<br>with male half of one of the currently serving married couples. We<br>are the only married couple in our "stage" (training), so our trainers<br>really don't discuss any of the challenges unique to serving with a<br>spouse. After dealing with the stress of the new environment, the<br>jetlag, the prophylaxis, the five additional vaccinations, the foreign<br>food, and the heat, my body finally gave in to diarrhea on Monday. It<br>was pretty miserable for two days, but thankfully I regained control<br>of my bowels by Wednesday when we drove out to the village near<br>Kpalime for our staging/training.<p>---<p>Our arrival in our staging village was nothing short of magical. The<br>entire village, which I believe is several hundred people, met our<br>vans with cheers of "You are welcome! You are welcome! You are<br>welcome!" A group of men played strange trumpets carved from animal<br>horns, and a group of about thirty young women in identical dressed<br>and body paint performed dances and led us to the town square.<br>Several elders said a prayer for us and sacrificed prepared water and<br>vodka to ward away bad spirits. Then we were met by the village<br>chief, his wife, and several other village elders who read speeches in<br>Ewe and English. Nearly all the women in our group were overcome with<br>tears over the overwhelming sights and sounds of the cheering voices<br>and dancing bodies. It sounds cliché, but I felt like I was in a<br>movie as a procession of hundreds of people surrounded us on our walk<br>down the main highway, with children running past our feet yelling<br>"Yovo, Yovo!"<p>After the main ceremony, we met our host families at the "Tech House",<br>where all our classes are held. We all ate together, and then we took<br>all our luggage in a Peace Corps vehicle to our host family's house.<br>Our family has a very nice house. We have a large bedroom with a<br>table and a lockable closet. We also have a direct entrance into our<br>bathroom with a flush-toilet and working shower. No mosquito-filled<br>latrines for us! Our house even has a satellite dish. We've watched<br>the British CNN a few times, but mostly our mom watches some channel<br>from Cote d'Ivoire.<p><br>Week 2:<p>Our mom is a fantastic chef, and we've been eating pretty darned well.<br> Mostly it's rice or spaghetti with different sauces, but I think<br>that's what Peace Corps told the host families to feed us for the few<br>weeks. We'll start eating pate, fufu, and sauce d'arachide soon<br>enough. Our family runs a little bar/shop next door, so we bought a<br>coke and a few cookies this week. It's convenient, and now I'm not<br>worried about running out of toilet paper or soap, since they are<br>always in stock.<p>We took an oral language test in Lome, and now we've been put in<br>various leveled French classes. My class is directly in the middle,<br>as far as aptitude. That's sort of encouraging, but we're supposed to<br>have "intermediate-high" aptitude before we leave for post. I've got<br>a lot of work to do.<p>The technical classes are good. We'll spend a few weeks on<br>microfinance institutions, a few weeks on youth and junior<br>achievement, and finally a few weeks on individual entrepreneurs. A<br>lot of people have business, economics, marketing, or accounting<br>backgrounds, so they've seen bits and pieces of the stuff we're<br>talking about, but the other ICT trainees and I are a little lost.<br>It's good, though, since I think I'll need to know a lot of this, and<br>nothing has been terribly difficult to understand.<p>We got our bikes this week. We'll be having periodic classes to learn<br>bike repair. I'm really excited about that, though I doubt I'll need<br>my bike at post. I'll have a better idea about that next week when we<br>get a list of the post descriptions.<p><br>Week 3:<p>Everyone is waiting for Thursday, when we get the list of post<br>descriptions. Peace Corps headquarters told us that married couples<br>don't get to choose our posts, but that we'll go through the interview<br>process, anyway. Everyone else gets to list their top 3 post choices,<br>and the APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) will interview them to<br>find the best match. There will only be four ICT posts, so we should<br>get at least a hint about where we'll be.<p>My French is not improving as quickly as I'd like, but I guess it's<br>only week 3, so I shouldn't be too hard on myself. It's sort of tough<br>to practice conversations with the local residents since some people<br>switch back and forth between Ewe and French mid-sentence, but<br>everyone in our family is pretty good about sticking to French. I'll<br>be glad to learn our post so I know what local language to learn in<br>addition to French.<p>Technical class is going well. We visited a microfinance organization<br>in Kpalime last week that has worked with five generations of Peace<br>Corps volunteers. It was pretty interesting. The four ICT stagiares<br>took a tour of two different cyber cafes in Kpalime, as well. It's<br>interesting to see all the challenges these businesses face and all<br>the opportunities they provide for the community. I also learned that<br>most cyber cafes in the area put about 25 computers on one single<br>dial-up line. So... don't expect to see any pictures posted anytime<br>soon.<p><br>Week 4:<p>Well, it's the end of week four. Yesterday Nadia and I found out that<br>we'll be posted right here in Kpalime! We were sort of pushing for a<br>post in Sokode, but I think Kpalime is going to be a fantastic post.<br>We'll have a lot of big-city amenities in town, plus we'll only be<br>about two hours from Lome and Atakpame. Also, we'll be close to the<br>staging villages, so we'll be able to hang out with new volunteers<br>during their "stage". Our APCD said there should be plenty of work to<br>support both Nadia and me. We know that one of us will be working<br>with a microfinance institution and a youth organization, but we'll<br>find out more when we visit our post in week 7.<p><br>Week 5:<p>We're at the end of week five now. On Monday, we put on a big fashion<br>show for all the host families. All the stagiares dressed in American<br>clothing, then we changed into some traditional Togolese clothing. We<br>had different categories for the American clothes like formal, office,<br>casual, tourist, etc. Nadia and I volunteered for the office-wear<br>category. I strutted my stuff in high style with slacks and a tie,<br>and Nadia sported a nice blouse and slacks. For the Togolese outfits,<br>I wore this really formal body wrap thing that belongs to our host<br>dad. Most of the guys wore some variation of the same outfit.<br>Apparently this is what the village chief wears to formal events.<br>Nadia wore an outfit that our neighbor made for her. It's actually a<br>really nice dress, and she looks fantastic in it.<p>We had one or two language and technique classes later in the week,<br>but on Thursday, we ventured out of Agou Akoumawou for a three-day<br>long field trip. First, we headed south to visit a volunteer who<br>works with a local radio station. He arranges various community<br>enrichment programs like periodic shows on health, education, and<br>cultural enrichment. He also coaches a youth basketball team and<br>helps a women's group produce and sell soymilk. Interesting stuff.<br>We visited the volunteer's house, and he described some of the<br>triumphs and troubles he'd seen during his service.<p>Next we continued south to Lome and took a tour of Cafe Informatique,<br>the largest private internet service provider in Togo. We talked with<br>the director about the state of technology in Togo, and discussed some<br>of the challenges technology businesses face in Togo. After Cafe<br>Informatique, we headed to the Peace Corps office and talked with a<br>Togolese representative of the World Bank. She described some of the<br>projects that the World Bank helps sponsor in Togo, but since Togo is<br>currently in arrears with its debt, it sounds like the World Bank<br>isn't working on a lot of in-country projects at the moment. I'm glad<br>I don't work in international lending, because it sounds like an<br>ethically gray industry. After our visit to the Peace Corps office,<br>We took a tour through the Lome marche. It is a crazy place, and I<br>plan to avoid it when possible. We ended with day with a visit to a<br>Super Marche, which similar to an American grocery store. The prices<br>were ridiculously high, but they had a lot of really nice imported<br>products like ketchup, non-stick frying pans, breakfast cereals, and<br>yovo hygiene products. I bought some ketchup and oatmeal and a few<br>other small items.<p>The next morning, we visited another volunteer who works with an egg<br>farm north of Lome. Eggs are a hot commodity in Togo, and this farm<br>sells its full stock every day. The farm is run by a Togolese<br>community group that has done a lot of good work in the area. The<br>group brought electricity to the village and is now working to improve<br>the local supply of drinking water. Afterwards, we visited a village<br>group that produces and sells dyed cloth and uses the proceeds to pay<br>education and housing fees for local orphans. It was really neat to<br>see community-founded, community-led organizations at work.<p>Next, we headed further north to Atakpame, which will serve as my<br>regional capital while I'm in Kpalime. Atakpame is absolutely<br>beautiful. It has large rolling hills that remind me of parts of the<br>Appalachian Mountains. We had pizza for dinner with several<br>volunteers that end their service next week. Then we stayed for the<br>night at a Red Cross hospital/hotel with a gorgeous view overlooking<br>the city.<p>We started our final day of the field trip with a tour of the two AIDS<br>organizations with whom two volunteers in Atakpame work. We also made<br>a quick stop at the "maison", where Peace Corps volunteers can stay<br>during their visits to the regional capital. This is nice because<br>many volunteers live in very remote areas, and occasionally need a day<br>or two to visit a markets, regional banks, internet cafes, etc.<p>Finally, after a long car ride and quick stop in Kpalime, we arrived<br>safe and sound back at the training village. The trip was a nice<br>change of pace, and I learned a lot from visiting the other<br>volunteers' work sites. I'm really excited about our post visit in a<br>week, but right now I'm just tired.<p><br>Week 6:<p>We did a business shadowing session Monday. All the ICT volunteers<br>visited CIFAID, an internet cafe in Kpalime. At the end of our<br>session, the director mentioned that he'd see us at the homologue<br>(counterpart) conference. Aha! So now I know who I'll be working<br>with in Kpalime. Apparently our technical training director asked him<br>not to spill the beans while we were doing the business shadowing, but<br>I was going to find out anyway at the homologue conference, where all<br>the volunteers meet their homologues.<p>I didn't have much time to think about homologues, though, because we<br>had a language test on Tuesday morning. My French proficiency has now<br>Intermediate-Low. We need to have Intermediate-High proficiency to be<br>sent to post. If I don't meet the required level by the end of<br>training, I'll still get to swear in, but I'll have to come back to<br>Agou Akoumawou for intense tutoring. I'm a little nervous, to be<br>honest. I know I've only been in Togo for six weeks and we've only<br>had language classes during four of those six weeks, but I don't feel<br>like I've made much progress. I'm not worried about staying for the<br>extra tutoring; I'm just worried about being able to communicate with<br>my colleagues at post. We'll just see, I guess. Nadia and I think<br>that we're talking too much English when we're together, so maybe<br>we're not giving our brains a chance to think in French. We'll just<br>have to study hard and practice as much as we can. At least we're in<br>a big city where I can get by without speaking a lot of Ewe (the local<br>language).<p>We really didn't do much on Wednesday or Thursday. We reviewed some<br>health issues, discussed the plan for next week's post visit, and<br>opened our bank accounts. Now we're just waiting around for post<br>visit to start.<p><br>Week 7 (part 1):<p>It's Sunday in week seven. We are staying with Lydia, the current PCV<br>in Kpalime. I'm starting to get a better feel for Kpalime. Yesterday<br>I met the staff at my homologue's business. Then we visited the house<br>where Nadia and I will stay for the first three months. It's a nice<br>house. It's in a compound with two other houses, sort of like a<br>duplex/triplex in the US. It has a living room area, two small<br>bedrooms, and a bathroom. It has running water and electricity,<br>neither of which I expected to have here in Togo, so WOOHOO! Today is<br>Sunday, so we're just going to hang out at the house and cook a few<br>meals.<p>week 7 (part 2):<p>We spent Monday hanging out with my homologue. He had a short staff<br>meeting to welcome me and made a nice little Bienvenue certificate<br>that I'm going to put up in the house. On Tuesday, my homologue and<br>Nadia's homologue introduced us to the mayor, the prefét, the head of<br>the police, and the head of the gendarmes (sort of like the police).<br>We spent Wednesday with Nadia's homologue. He introduced us to the<br>staff at his microfinance organization and we visited his home.<br>Apparently both our homologues just recently had their first children<br>within the last few months. Both of the babies are super-cute.<p>On Thursday, we headed to the Peace Corps "maison du passage" in<br>Atakpame, our regional capital. The volunteers in the region prepared<br>a really nice meal on Friday to welcome the stagiares. Then we headed<br>back to Agou Akoumawou on Saturday.<p><br>Week 8:<p>Everyone is soooo ready to get to post, so it's a little hard to be<br>excited about training this week. I'm glad to get back to language<br>classes, though, since I feel myself backsliding a little in my<br>French. I really don't know how I'm going to get to required<br>proficiency by the end of stage, but at least I'm able to get around<br>and buy things.<p>We are now focusing on how to work with youth in our technical<br>training. We spent part of Tuesday talking with a group of high<br>school students about how youth are involved with income-generating<br>activities. Interesting stuff.<p>Saturday, our host brother took us to the Enyam Festival in a<br>neighboring village. It took a long time for the main ceremony to get<br>started, and after all the chiefs and prefét and other VIPs arrived, a<br>group of people danced in a circle for an hour or two. We left for a<br>little while and were ready to leave when we returned to see everyone<br>still dancing around in the same place, when all of a sudden a group<br>of men jumped out with big palm leaves. They surrounded a man who I<br>think was dressed as a leopard. I don't entirely understand what was<br>going on, but I think the leopard guy was trying to escape the palm<br>leaf guys as part of the ceremony. They raced up and down the streets<br>while everyone else watched and cheered from the sides of the road.<br>Our host brother helped Nadia and me get right up to the action. It<br>was a blast chasing the crowd up and down the streets. Finally, the<br>crowd ended up in the main village square, where we danced and sang<br>while men played these big traditional drums. We had a fantastic<br>time.Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-49902315743982116342007-07-04T02:49:00.000-06:002007-07-04T03:02:25.639-06:00Well, it's week four here in Togo. Internet access has been a little<br />unreliable, so I haven't been able to post in a while. I actually had<br />several posts typed up on my flash drive, but then I left the darned<br />thing at home. :)<br /><br />Nadia and I came here to Kpalime today to use the internet and buy some<br />hot dogs for today's 4th of July celebration with the other volunteers.<br /> At this moment, several fellow stagiares are killing some chickens for<br />le grand fete.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Hopefully it won't be too long till my next blog entry. Thanks for your patience!Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-20332426268404433002007-06-07T22:41:00.000-06:002007-06-07T22:52:55.304-06:00Peace Corps StagingWell, 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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-18150540886756964062007-06-07T22:30:00.000-06:002007-06-07T22:40:43.973-06:00Pics from England and Scotland<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUiuWzaEuQ2OLFnQRyIx7xHehJag4njKlLt5gyvoEA2oMw6mP3LcU3ZeQl3h4yeeUHYfnbbZNRRRAnWqeSpa1kElFXfmW8tB27nsjqTuBuDSV14SO32fwAbifIRyUgm3lHyj4-dVDvjL8/s1600-h/Picture+439.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073548144065228290" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUiuWzaEuQ2OLFnQRyIx7xHehJag4njKlLt5gyvoEA2oMw6mP3LcU3ZeQl3h4yeeUHYfnbbZNRRRAnWqeSpa1kElFXfmW8tB27nsjqTuBuDSV14SO32fwAbifIRyUgm3lHyj4-dVDvjL8/s320/Picture+439.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0c-zzNQQieRLGE_x_Pcu1aCITph2PmF9Y6AMZJs7qCDO673up28clAEdv4zIUr-NPOTjEZoRIvH4mNKiqvWvEMiZdmcUSP8cnAuT4XTo3r0F6EJzknfmTvKC3PYRw8B8g-l0NAl7rpxI/s1600-h/Picture+444.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073548148360195602" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0c-zzNQQieRLGE_x_Pcu1aCITph2PmF9Y6AMZJs7qCDO673up28clAEdv4zIUr-NPOTjEZoRIvH4mNKiqvWvEMiZdmcUSP8cnAuT4XTo3r0F6EJzknfmTvKC3PYRw8B8g-l0NAl7rpxI/s320/Picture+444.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLodMHU14mO9-otpx5TKuEzp5YafEB-2Hi2XqkUM_6dHICOS-8h6Pl6USIPu9P49nyyNX-a3K73I1Z4xDwX1yuo8OlWmEwYegHHcAA-s0d7As0BLwqLkaHUwMa1AjqkbuIbK5IcX31s5o/s1600-h/Picture+522.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073548152655162914" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLodMHU14mO9-otpx5TKuEzp5YafEB-2Hi2XqkUM_6dHICOS-8h6Pl6USIPu9P49nyyNX-a3K73I1Z4xDwX1yuo8OlWmEwYegHHcAA-s0d7As0BLwqLkaHUwMa1AjqkbuIbK5IcX31s5o/s320/Picture+522.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />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.<br /><br />- TristanTristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-75792280213810344702007-06-07T20:38:00.000-06:002007-06-07T22:26:57.226-06:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVW3eBtT7u953-XV4jUaD5DxS3EpihcRdl_-duxDHUaW_hlxkv8OMhH3Gcyk1dN5v3eB2sW_zIGpDIEGfe8HhismlIjjxgxN02lGPjHEomXY3C5Rtar7bvcbPFrPzl6rDYl_mLF5et_iU/s1600-h/Picture+047.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073520810893356434" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVW3eBtT7u953-XV4jUaD5DxS3EpihcRdl_-duxDHUaW_hlxkv8OMhH3Gcyk1dN5v3eB2sW_zIGpDIEGfe8HhismlIjjxgxN02lGPjHEomXY3C5Rtar7bvcbPFrPzl6rDYl_mLF5et_iU/s320/Picture+047.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-2fpO1IhQWM4DkxFiZYjEUsnEIRv8s35UfUnmtsuRbRgBYFo2zClLkDZKDM5X4HpgFb-wX1wQUA6DuUDbqwF69KoWOAZvXTw9TeNhVo832wUwLN4Zx9O3zaUt19rt51ev4UZiN3wG3U/s1600-h/Picture+053.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073520815188323746" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-2fpO1IhQWM4DkxFiZYjEUsnEIRv8s35UfUnmtsuRbRgBYFo2zClLkDZKDM5X4HpgFb-wX1wQUA6DuUDbqwF69KoWOAZvXTw9TeNhVo832wUwLN4Zx9O3zaUt19rt51ev4UZiN3wG3U/s320/Picture+053.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkq8jDD8WCstnjOSfpVnK90g3iFbo1MQv5tr3lPyEhdIhD4m7OMYUZWfOBvbZpdvOE0I5NjPkB5Xdy3d2SOjUIutZnmkZD-POUDCN9W5d7x4vazZHWt-n1vkczJeOInKIcWQBqZXid9kk/s1600-h/Picture+070.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073520819483291058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkq8jDD8WCstnjOSfpVnK90g3iFbo1MQv5tr3lPyEhdIhD4m7OMYUZWfOBvbZpdvOE0I5NjPkB5Xdy3d2SOjUIutZnmkZD-POUDCN9W5d7x4vazZHWt-n1vkczJeOInKIcWQBqZXid9kk/s320/Picture+070.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3F59ZTpAeqKfq9cdwZ5-n6sBvVEu0FABRGQY5BOI0pxZ5fUoQebHfgD9tXPIXQ8FJ9TBuwpbLfDUhualwHNdApaSwJ1WZWFKDu-lFut_CTC2NDS4GZ-opYnPq2JfvIoybhlJa2wem4nk/s1600-h/Picture+078.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073520823778258370" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3F59ZTpAeqKfq9cdwZ5-n6sBvVEu0FABRGQY5BOI0pxZ5fUoQebHfgD9tXPIXQ8FJ9TBuwpbLfDUhualwHNdApaSwJ1WZWFKDu-lFut_CTC2NDS4GZ-opYnPq2JfvIoybhlJa2wem4nk/s320/Picture+078.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7oDEvbUTkruEThiYTcOhgFe4z0tzEOmW-QTUELNvk1HZx9u_wqUeFynaU1jDKsrdXUrFh5GO1dtYF2mNlgdb9WljKXb79S9eRNMZLpzIhMqosMkIAyDQwRicXtIM8dmaYjGeZ0d2_wEI/s1600-h/Picture+115.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5073520832368192978" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7oDEvbUTkruEThiYTcOhgFe4z0tzEOmW-QTUELNvk1HZx9u_wqUeFynaU1jDKsrdXUrFh5GO1dtYF2mNlgdb9WljKXb79S9eRNMZLpzIhMqosMkIAyDQwRicXtIM8dmaYjGeZ0d2_wEI/s320/Picture+115.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div>Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-31702942418908235902007-05-26T01:52:00.000-06:002007-05-26T01:58:38.731-06:00Here in Jolly ol' EnglandBefore 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.Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4157640470348670009.post-19370652557849566292007-05-03T06:35:00.000-06:002007-05-03T06:45:48.308-06:00My 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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.Tristan McInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07470828134107124996noreply@blogger.com0