Aaron In Africa: My Time in Togo

Done!

2007-05-12T13:05:00.000Z

It's done! After 3 weeks of intense work the computer center is installed and being used. Here are a couple pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like. There will be more coming later as well as a general description of how the entire thing went.

Again, thank you so much to everyone that gave. This is what you paid for!

(NOTE: In this picture you can see our main display (32" LCD TV) and computer for the teacher. The cabinet holds one of our switches and decoder for the satellite dish. We are still finishing the center and everything is not 100% in place.)

Until next time!

Update: Picasa didn't seem to want to upload the pictures properly. They should work now. Sorry!

Flat Tires

2007-01-22T10:43:00.000Z

A couple weeks ago I was traveling with a fellow volunteer on some back country roads in a bush taxi (read about bush taxis.) During the course of driving we blew out our front right tire (not an uncommon thing on dirt roads with pot holes you could get lost in.) After it blew our driver got out and changed it with the spare he had in the trunk. I am always amazed watching taxi drivers change tires here. They can honestly get the old one off and the new one on in less than 5 minutes. The speed comes from all the practice they have.

After a long day traveling we finally decided to head home (about 45 miles or 3 hours of driving.) Everything was going fine until the same front right side tire blew again. The hard thing was that we were so far in the middle of nowhere that we had no option for finding a new one. The driver drove the popped tire a good 5 or 6 miles until the thing was nothing but rim, shredded metal, and peaces of torn rubber. We finally reached a small village and stopped the now exhausted car.

My friend and I got out of the car along with the driver to survey the damage; it was bad. With our only spare tire already flat and no hope of finding a new one (the people in this village could probably not replace a bike tire let alone a car tire) we were fairly hopeless. The driver said he was going to look for a mechanic and took off down the dirt road.

After 10 minutes he came back with another guy caring a metal spike and a bike pump held together by electrical tape. By this time a couple other people had wandered out to the road to say hi and see if there was anything they could do. Our driver said a few words in local language and started hammering to separate the rim from the rubber tire. I wasn’t sure if he was planning on trying to patch the inner tube or what.

After a few minutes of hammering and good progress being made separating the tire from the rim a woman walked up with a bowl of a white pasty substance. I looked at my fellow volunteer and said, “Is that some sort of adhesive?” She looked at me and said, “I think it smells like pate.” (NOTE: Pate is one of the main staples of the Togolese diet and I think of West Africa as a whole. It is ground cassava and ground corn boiled into a hard grits like ball. It is usually eaten with a sauce.)

The driver took the now separated rim and tire and began spreading pate in the space between. He then took the bike pump and started pumping. I couldn’t believe it. Was he actually hoping to pressurize the entire tire with nothing but ground corn and cassava as a sealant? Everyone there took turns pumping. When a section of the pate seal would blow out and release air the driver would expertly apply more of the sticky substance. The entire time they were pumping I kept shaking my head and saying to myself, “This will never work! How could this work?”

Finally the tire started expanding. It got to the point where the pate was beginning to get squeezed out of the now closing crevice. Finally the last excess pate was squeezed out leaving only enough to seal the tire shut.

I could not believe it. The driver stood the tire up, bounced it one time to check its solidity and walked over to where it needed to go on the car. He put the tire in place, screwed everything in, and with a gasp of disbelief from me, lowered the car on the pressurized, pate sealed tire. I could hardly believe my eyes. Here was an entire car being help up by nothing but water, corn, and cassava! How was this possible?

With reluctance my friend and I slowly lowered ourselves into the car, fearing any added weight would blow the seal. The driver started the car, and with one final wave to our new friends, we headed out with nothing between us and the road except old rubber and someone’s dinner.

The driver stepped on the gas getting up to 65 mph. As we flew down the road every bump, every pothole sent images of the front tire violently blowing and all of us flying through the air. We drove a good 15 miles to where we were within site of the lights from the bigger town we were headed. All of a sudden the sound of rushing air and flapping rubber started coming from our once hard tire. Our driver slowed to a stop and let his exhausted head fall onto the steering wheel.

I looked down at my cellphone and realized that we were now close enough to town to get reception. We called a friend who brought another tire and we all went home.

Ps. I apologize for not posting in such a long time. I have been very busy getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas break. I also just got engaged to an amazing women who is also a Peace Corps Volunteer. We will be getting married when we get back to the US in September. I can hardly wait. :)

Thank you all for your support. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or just want to say hi.

Until next time…

Random Clips

2006-12-28T13:24:00.000Z

Here is a short video of a few random clips I found laying around. I put in titles to help give you an idea of what you are looking at.

The song that is playing is MzBel - 16 years. A great song that was popular around here a couple months ago.

ps. Here are a couple posts that I pulled out of the collection that I have gotten the most comments on.

Travel in Togo
The Attack
A Castration
Killing a Turkey
My response

An Exchange

2006-12-04T18:10:00.000Z

The other day a fellow volunteer told me an interesting story that I felt sums up much of our job as Peace Corps Volunteers.

A couple weeks ago she was sitting at the market drinking the local beverage, chouck (I’ve written about it in past entries… I think there is even a picture of me drinking it somewhere in the archives.) A little girl (probably 5 or 6 years old) and her mother were there as well, sitting a few feet away. My friend saw the girl point to her and ask a question to the mother. We are all very used to being talked about and she thought nothing of it.

Again the little girl asked something of the mother and pointed at my friend. This time the mother got up, and slightly sheepishly walked over to where my friend was sitting and asked, “I’m so sorry to bother you, but, my daughter has never touched white skin before. Would you mind if she touched you?” My friend being the good sport she is thought for a second and said, “Sure.”

The mother motioned to the girl who timidly approached my friend, slowly put out her hand and touched the white arm. Her eyes went large and she quickly pulled away. She stood there, staring at my friends arm, and finally reached out to touch it again.

This time she gave it a few strokes then looked up and said to her mother, “It’s the same as black skin!”

There are times in Peace Corps when I become consumed with my work. When that work isn’t going quite so well I get depressed and begin wondering why I am even here. Then there are the little day to day exchanges like the one my friend had that bring me back to reality and remind me of my real job.

Note... Don't forget to read the entry about the project I am working on!

Tour of the Market

2006-11-29T12:31:00.000Z

Here is another video. This one is of my father, mother, and me wandering around the twice weekly market in my town. You can get a really nice feel for what it's like.

Enjoy!

My Living Room and Kitchen: Cribs Style

2006-11-06T09:33:00.000Z

Short tour of my living room and kitchen.

Me and Mom at the Market

2006-11-05T11:20:00.000Z

Here's another short video of me and my mom buying something at the market.

Pumping

2006-11-03T09:04:00.000Z

Here's a short video of fellow volunteer Ellen demonstrating one of the pumps in her village.

My School

2006-10-30T07:52:00.000Z

Here is a short video shot by my father of the school where I work. This gives you a great idea of what simple classrooms look like.

ps. Don't forget to donate to the project! Only a few more weeks left. :)

Drive

2006-10-29T12:07:00.000Z

This is a nice little tour of my town from the back of a taxi. This was shot by my dad yesterday.

Ordering Food

2006-10-28T07:50:00.000Z

Here is the first little taste of video blogs from this side of the world. In the coming days and weeks I will be putting up more interesting and better edited videos. Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions.

Back!

2006-10-27T08:11:00.000Z

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I have been getting online every day hoping that I would check the status of the project and it would magically have been fully funded. Each day I said to myself, "If you leave the project posting up for one more day maybe tomorrow it will get funded."

As of now people have given close to $2,000. I first want to say thank you so much to everyone who has given. I can't wait until I can show you what that money you have given can do!

Second, I have decided that in the interest of time (I have less than one year left here) I am going to cut the funding short, take whatever is there, and do what we can with it. I am going to leave the project up until the 15th of November. If you want to give please do so before that time.

In other news...

The telecoms provider in Togo recently launched a wireless internet service across the country that I have signed up for. That means that I have fairly reliable, fast internet at my house! I know... I can hardly consider myself a Peace Corps Volunteer anymore. If you use Skype and would like to try calling me, my Skype name is 'awchilds.' This new connection will also allow me to do fun things like video blogs, live web cams (who wants to see a live shot of the street outside my house?) and so many other things!

Thanks for your patience with the lack of updates. I'm totally back and ready to rumble!

Project

2006-07-26T16:44:00.000Z

As a Peace Corps volunteer one of the options for work is to find a need in our communities, create a project responding to that need, find funding, and finally implement it. Since being here I have seen a huge need for computer skills in the people that I live and work with.

In response to this I began work with a local school to create a project to build a community computer center. The project throughout the past couple of months has changed and morphed to something that we are all very excited to get off the ground.

Sadly we need to find a little over $10,000 to put it into place. There is a program called Peace Corps Partnerships where volunteers write proposals and then solicit funds for them. With no other source for that much money I decided to do that.

In a nutshell my idea is to create a community computer center that lowers the cost of learning about computers and then using them to as close to nothing as possible. To do this I have teamed up with a local private school that has agreed to take on all costs associated with the maintenance and upkeep of the center. In return for this investment they will have preferential access to the center 40% of the time. The rest of the time it will be open to the community for classes and open computer time.

Throughout my time here I have seen a number of computer centers that have been built on one of two general models: totally public and funded through a big NGO or totally private and financed completely by classes or internet use. The problem with the first model is that it requires constant funding from the NGO. In other cases where they turn management over to the local community or government, funds are mismanaged and the centers fail. The second model, while normally functional, charges upwards of $200-$400 for each class, pretty much what the average person here makes in an entire year.

With this project we have created an entirely different model based on a combination of both public and private. The school has it in their best interest to pay the bills and make sure the center works. If they chose not to they will lose the notoriety and the new students brought to them by the center. At the same time they also have it in there best interest to keep it open to the community.

Take for example our plan to partner with local public schools. We open the center each day to a different public school. Towards the end of lunch the students will begin walking to our school, take a one hour intro to computers class, and then go back to their regular studies. With 25 computers and two students to each computer each paying 200 francs CFA (about 40 US cents) for the entire eight week class the center will make a profit of 10,000 francs (about $20.) Run one class a day, five days a week and that is a sizable profit. All this money generated will be put into a computer center account, separate from that of the school’s general fund. This separation is currently being laid out in a detailed constitution that will be used to gain official NGO status from the government of Togo.

I am working with a man who wants to do a tourist guide for our city. He has done an amazing job laying the entire guide out by hand, writing all the information, and finding local business partners. The problem is that he does not have the computer skills needed and the physical access to a computer to make his project a reality. The computer center will directly respond to this need of lack of skills and access to computers. I like the idea of us being a place where people can first come and learn how to use computers then outsource their actual computer needs to us. This will allow people like the tourist guide creator and the public schools to have access to a computer just like it was sitting in their living rooms or in their own schools. We are allowing them to put the burden of acquisition, management, and upkeep of a computer on us.

We are taking this idea even further through a set of advanced classes that we are planning on offering. So far we have plans to offer video editing, music creation, web design, graphic design, and intro to programming classes. Each of these classes will offer more advanced students a chance to learn a new, marketable skill. For example, we plan on buying a number of video cameras for use by our video editing class. With the help of other Peace Corps Volunteers we will teach them how to properly shoot and edit video. After the class we will encourage them to go out into the community, advertise their services to people having weddings, funerals, and parties who want the event recorded. They will then use the centers cameras to shoot the event, the centers computers to edit and burn disks, and eventually make a profit. The same concept will be used for web design and logo creation. The center, along with being a place to learn, will also become a hub for a bunch of micro businesses. We are giving these students the knowledge and the physical resources they need to let their creativity and motivation work for them.

Last week I was training the computer teacher for a small computer center that another volunteer built in a neighboring town. After a couple hours of work we took a break. I left the room and came back to find a group of people gathered around the computer all using a multimedia encyclopedia. They started by wanting to see what it said about Togo and their own small town (not much). They listened to the Togolese national anthem, saw pictures of the capitol city, and read about its history. After exploring a bit they started to branch out to bordering countries. After looking at pictures of Ghana and Burkina Faso they got more adventuress and looked at all of Africa. Eventually they had found remote regions of Europe, listened to the first broadcast from the moon, and saw pictures of New York at night. It was an incredible experience to see these people go from their limited knowledge and experience and eventually find things that are so far from their every day lives. I realized that the main reason I want to build this computer center is not just to teach people how to use computers. I want to give the people of my community the opportunity to see what else is out there. I want them seeing what people in Europe and the US live like. I then want them to say, “Wait a second. Why do they get to live like that and we don’t?” These kids will grow up and demand more. I want to show these people that there is more out there and that they too can have it. They just need to know.

Sorry this has gone on so long. My initial intention was just to write a brief outline of the project and post it with a link to my project. The problem is that I feel so strongly about this and know it so well that I could talk for hours.

The overall cost for the project is $10,512. At the end of the proposal is a detailed budget showing exactly where the money will be going. Here is a brief chart showing amount of money given to what it will buy to give you a better idea of what your money would be going to:

$35: Desk with 2 stools for computer
$80: Video camera
$160: Basic Pentium 2 computer, monitor, keyboard mouse
$300: Pentium 3 computer for advanced classes, monitor, keyboard, and mouse
$500: Display system for classroom
$1000: My love forever J

The project is run under the oversight of Peace Corps Partnerships. What is nice is that every penny given goes directly to the project and is totally tax deductible.

Download the full proposal(Thank you Ben for the space!)

More info on Peace Corps Partnerships
To donate (This is the page describing my project. Click "Donate", scroll down to "Togo", find "Computer Center", and enter the amount you want to contribute.)

If you have any other questions either post them, email me, or give me a call. I am always ready and willing to talk.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Still Here!

2006-07-18T17:36:00.000Z

Before I begin telling this next story I want to say that I am totally fine. While what I am about to write was scary, I am very lucky in that it was not much worse. Now that it is two weeks later I sit here in good mental and physical health, with only a few scars to show for my experience. With that being said…

I was in Lomé, the capitol of Togo, two weeks ago to do some work. The first night I was there I went to a bar a few blocks from both the Peace Corps office and my hotel with a couple friends. It was a normal evening with us drinking a couple beers and complaining about our parasites. Around 12:30am the last four of us still at the bar decided to walk back to the hotel we were all staying in. We walked the first couple blocks down the dark sandy road. As we were walking past the Peace Corps office a young guy came up behind us and tried to start talking to us. Living here you get very used to people trying to talk to you, and we all continued walking. After a few more steps I felt something poke me in the back.

I turned around to see the kid motioning to the small bag I held with his left hand and a full size machete in his right. I looked up from this attack at the lights glowing on the high security walls of my US Government employer and thought, "Guards! Walls! Safety!" I started screaming in both French and English, "HELP ME! HELP ME!" And ran to the metal door next to the main guard booth. I had visions of guards with large sticks streaming out the door, coming to my aid. I reached the stoop next to the door, continued to yell and turned to face my assailant. I watched in horror as he brought the machete down twice on my left arm.

At this point I don’t remember much of what happened next. I know I stood there for some amount of time trying to call someone to my aid. I know he hit me a few more times with the machete.

The attacker eventually gave up, turned around, and hopped on the back of a motorcycle manned by an accomplice.

I then walked back and found my friends who had run the other direction and been sheltered two blocks down by a shop owner who had heard my screams and opened his door. With the protection of the shop keeper and his brother we walked back to our hotel.

I came out of the entire experience with two gashes on my left arm, one on my upper shoulder blade, one on my lower back, and two on my left thigh. I’m not totally sure if the blade was dull, the attacker wasn’t 100% into it, or if it was just my iron like physique that kept the wounds from being worse.

I got really lucky. I know that. But in the end I figure that this sort of event is the price that I have to pay to live the amazingly interesting life that I do. These sort of things happen. I’m just thankful I’m still alive.

Cat

2006-07-02T11:17:00.000Z

Scratch another one off the list: cat. I know it has been said a million times, but, it kind of tastes like chicken; only better.

A couple weeks ago I was drinking the local equivalent of beer (Tchouck… see a picture of me drinking it posted a few months ago) and talking with a couple Togolese friends about meat. We ended up on the subject of dog and cat. I eat dog a couple times a week. It’s a darker meat that tastes a lot like roast beef. (One of these days I want to get some, make a nice brown sauce, and put it all onto a piece of toasted bred. Sooooo good! ) After some discussion we figured out that for the equivalent of about $10 we could get a dog and a cat and have a party.

I am always ready and willing to try new things. I firmly believe in the “you must try everything once’ mantra (except baby birds on a stick in the south of China… I’ll leave that one for my adventurous little brother). After some discussion we decided to have a party where we would have a dog and cat killed and roasted, a bottle of fermented palm wine (a drink with an amazing flavor and very strong, moon shine, type kick) and Tchouck. I offered to put down the local equivalent of around $20 to pay for everything including the gas (crazy expensive these days!) for my friend to go to surrounding villages on his motorcycle and buy all our intended victims.

I got a call this morning around 9:00am from my friend saying, “We have the dog and cat! Do you want to come watch us prepare it?” Thankfully I had a Peace Corps friend in town and declined. I am down with eating dog and cat. I just really don’t want to see someone slit their throats and throw their dead carcasses over a fire. I said I would be there around 1pm.

I met my friend around the appointed time and we started walking to the house of the person who had taken care of the preparation. On the walk we were talking about animals eating the meat of other animals. At one point the two Togolese guys I was with said, “Cats will eat cat. No problem. But good dogs won’t eat other dogs. Bad dogs yes. But good dogs no.” I could not believe that dogs could somehow know that a piece of meat sitting in front of them was dog and not eat it. I wouldn’t believe it.

We got to my friends house, went inside and sat down on the great red velvet covered lounge chairs he has (I would love to know what sleazy 70s lounge these chairs came from!) He bent over behind the table in front of us and pulled out a black, very full plastic bag and a covered stainless steel bowl. He picked up the bowl, walked over to where we were, and with the smile of a proud parent, opened the lid. I leant over, looked inside and saw the head of a small animal, its mouth wide open, teeth daring anyone to touch it, tongue sticking out in a horrid death pose, staring back at me. This was the cat.

I looked over the assorted pieces of what I had, until this point, only experienced as an entire being. I finally reached into the pot of meat and tomato/onion sauce and grabbed what looked to be a leg.

I waited for everyone else to get a piece, looked down, and took a bite. It was amazing! I hate to say it, but, cat has to be one of my favorite meats. It has a taste of chicken yet with a richer, more savory flavor. The leg was probably the most tender, juicy pieces of meat that I have eaten in a long long time. I sit here now, hours later, craving the taste of the juice spurting into my mouth.

After we ate our piece we each had a shot of the distilled palm wine, ate a piece of dog (total let down after the wonderful, delicate flavor of the cat) and looked down at the bone, now devoid of meat, sitting in each of our hands. The owner of the house took the bones, pulled aside the curtain covering the door, and walked over to the two dogs tied to a tree and threw them the cat bones. They ate them with the relish that only a starving Togolese dog could. When he walked back to where we were all standing, I looked at the bag of dog meat in his hand, then at the two dogs, smiled, and said, “Give them a little dog meat.” He smiled, reached into the bag, pulled out a morsel of freshly cooked dog meat and threw it to the two chained animals. It was amazing. The first dog left his cat bone, walked over to the meat, smelt it, and walked away. I had NEVER seen a dog turn down meat. He knew it was dog! The second one though, walked over, smelt it, and greedily swallowed it in one go. I looked at my friend as I saw this and he said, “He’s not a good dog. But the other, he’s good.” The bad dog ate the meat and the other didn’t. It was true!

We finally ended up a few houses down sitting on wooden benches under a mango tree, small table in front of us, and bowls of tchouck resting in their plastic holders at our feet. My friend set the bag of dog meat on the table, put some very spicy powder (I am actually learning to love spicy food) down next to it, and took the first piece. As we ate other people came over, took a couple pieces, and went back to drinking.

A couple hours later all the dog was done, a couple bowls of tchouck was in each of our bellies, and we were ready to go home.

As I biked home I thought of a wonderful sandwich that would probably taste close to the shredded pork sandwiches my grandmother makes and I crave on a daily basis…

BBQ Shredded Cat

Ps. Despite my last two entries being either about castrating a cat or eating a cat I do in fact love them. My cat and I are both doing very well after our (his) traumatic experience. Thanks for all of your emails and messages concerned about his and my well being!

Castration

2006-06-21T10:55:00.000Z

As I sit here writing this I can feel the blood dripping down the side of my right hand and splashing the keyboard. I had my cat castrated this morning.

I decided that it was finally time to have my cat’s manhood taken. People have been telling me that if you don’t castrate a male cat he will eventually start spraying urine all over the walls of your house. With the weird smells that already permeate my life here I decided that that was something I defiantly did not need.

I had heard stories of past volunteers having their animals castrated and afterwards almost bleeding to death on the living room floors. Or how for cats the vet got a cardboard box, poked a hole in one side, stuck the soon to be gone body parts out the hole, and cut. I had been putting off the castration for the past couple months, knowing it wouldn’t be fun.

Last night I finally got up the courage and called the vet. He said he would be at my house at 7am and that the entire thing would cost the equivalent of 3$. I got off the phone 35 seconds later and thought, "Wow. That was really easy. This really won’t be a problem!" HA!

I made sure to be up extra early and eating my bowl of cornflakes (you would be surprised at how good cornflakes and freshly made condensed milk and water tastes) and drinking my overly strong cup of black coffee well before the time of cutting. At around 6:45am the bell rung and I opened the door to find a smiling middle age Togolese man standing at my door.

The first thing he said was, "I have been working with Americans for a long time and know they always like to be on time." Good thing number two.

He came in and we talked a few minutes about the volunteer I replaced and his dog, my garden, and finally caught sight of our victim casually walking out the cat size hole I cut in my screen door.

The vet looked around and said, "Do you have a second?" I was confused. Are we fighting a duel? Do I need a second to defend my honor? I looked confused and he continued, "To hold the cat." I confidently responded that this was my cat, he loved and trusted me, I could hold him by myself.

The vet shrugged, said ok, and pulled a little packet with a fresh razor blade from his pocket. I took the cat, laid him on the concrete floor of my patio, took his front two legs (that up until now have done nothing more violent towards me then bat at my moving toes) in my left hand and held his neck gently but firmly in my right hand. He was a little unsure, but, in the end he is a very trusting cat (he’d never had his freakin balls chopped off before!)

The vet took his back legs in one hand and carefully lowered the razor blade to the small soon to be empty package. With the first slice of the razor blade I saw my cat’s eyes bulge, heard the yelp that one would assume came with a male having his defining parts removed, and he began to fight.

At one point during the cutting I felt all five claws of one of his back paws dig into the top of my left hand. As I reacted to that attack I felt his head shimmy out of my right hand and teeth enter into my palm. I didn’t blink an eye, didn’t bat an eyelash. We were here to do some cutting. I don’t know how I got control again. The entire scene is a blur of blood and yelping at this point. He got out of our grip a second time and I felt multiple paws and teeth all at the same time digging into my exposed flesh.

I looked down at the opposite end (I had been focusing on the teeth wielding part) and saw the vet gingerly pull what looked like two small grapes attached to flesh colored cords from my cats nether regions.

It was over.

I tried to let go of the screaming animal but found he had latched onto my hand with teeth and nails. He finally understood that he was done and let go.

I was badly shaken (all the caffeine sure as heck didn’t help any). I went inside to find a sterile bandage to help stop the bleeding from my many injuries. When I came back I saw the vet pick up the lost cat parts, walk over to one of my flower beds, and bury them.

The vet tried to apologize for my wounds. In broken, very shaky French (I could hardly speak English at that point let alone anything else) I said, "It's ok. My cat is bleeding and suffering over there. I guess I can too… And I still have my balls."

More Food

2006-06-17T12:47:00.000Z

One of my goals whenever I live in a different country is to be able to do things like a local, buying or asking for something with only a few, short words. I always try to use hand gestures, head tilts and one or two quietly said words to get what I want. There is something about the lack of verbal communication that communicates what I want in a way only someone that KNOWS how to order something would order it.

One of my favorite restaurants is on a dusty road on the way up a hill next to the school where I work. In a past blog entry I wrote about how when you eat on the street there is usually a very big bowl of some carb based food (rice, pasta, ground up corn mush balls etc) and a sauce. This restaurant is different in that instead of one pot of sauce there is a table with around 20 large cooking pots full of sauces of all type of color and texture. There are green sauces that have a stringy snot like consistency (gumbo…. HATE!), red sauces with chunks of assorted fats or curled up rolls of skin (actually learning to like both skin and fat), and various colored liquids with chunks of meat (of various quality). The sauce I always go for is the first one on the far right of the table: Antelope (here known as Biche).

When you walk in the door you enter a concrete room about 10 by 20 feet. On one side are two low tables about 8 feet long. Each table has two long benches on either side that sit only a few inches bellow the eating surface. This means that everyone sits, semi-hunched over their metal bowl of carb and sauce, massaging and then gently tossing the food from hand to mouth. On each end of a table sits a large plastic, multi-colored bucket filled with water, a plastic basin and cup. When you sit down at a table you fill the cup with water, position the basin in front of you, and using your left hand pour the water over your right hand while rubbing all the fingers in order against your palm.

I walk in, turn to the round motherly lady manning the pots, and order with a total of seven softly spoken words:

"Riz cent francs. Biche trois cent." (I then sit down and say to one of the young waitress girls) "Castel."

I sit down at my favorite spot (far right of the table directly across from the entrance with my back against the wall) and wait for my food and beer.

By the time I am done washing my hands the first glass of beer has been poured and placed on my left and my shinny stainless steal food filled bowl put in front of me.

When I first started going to the restaurant I always ate my rice and antelope with a spoon that the ladies automatically put in all bowls for foreigners. The other day I sat down to my usual meal and without thinking, put the spoon on the table, and started mixing the rice and sauce with my hands. After eating my first bite of food I realized that I wasn’t eating the way I have been eating for so long. I instinctively picked up my spoon and took another bite. It didn’t taste right. There was something about the metal mixing with the spicy flavor of the sauce, the warm sticky alive feeling of the rice being marred by the dead spoon that I put it, now dirty, back on the table.

I’m waiting for the day when the waitress notices the clean spoons and eventually treats me like everyone else.

Coconuts

2006-05-21T10:59:00.000Z

When I lived in India I hated the taste of coconut milk. My brother loved it. I remember the milk having a sour, unmilky flavor that I just couldn’t enjoy. I don’t know if it is my body’s continual search for more liquids (no matter how much I drink I always feel dehydrated!), the taste of something different, or just the newly discovered subtle sweetness that has changed my mind?

To pick a coconut is not an easy task. The trees are usually 20 – 30 feet tall with the coconuts holding on in grape type bunches all the way at the top. It is part circus trick, part Olympic feat what their pickers accomplish. The job is usually given to a boy aged 13 – 17. Like a pirate climbing into the rigging chasing a stowaway, they put a machete between their teeth, look up at the eventual prize, and half shimmy, half walk up to the fruit. For the five minutes while he is suspended high above, there is a continual rain of heavy green giant orbs falling all around.

You can see a coconut seller lady from the other side of a market. She has a large basin stacked almost double with basketball sized coconuts and machete at the ready. These are not the dead brown "coconuts" that’s you get in American supermarkets. Here they are always newly picked in all their giant beautiful green freshness. You call her over with a glance, quick up side down beckoning motion of the right hand, or (depending on where you are) a simple, "Ko!" (Come in Kabyé) or, "Vien!" (Come in French.) Then with your help (ALWAYS help get a basin on and off someone’s head) she expertly takes the basin off her head and sets it on the ground between you.

Then comes one of my favorite parts. She chooses a coconut depending on how much you want to spend: 10 cents for a smaller one 20 for big. In preparing her wares for market she takes each coconut and expertly hacks off the top third of the hard outer green layer showing the light brown inner milk container. She then takes the coconut in one hand, machete in the other, and somehow without chopping her fingers off (I usually count to see if my ladies still have all ten digits. They always do.), removes in small quick blows the remaining two thirds of green outside. The chopped out light brown core, after the chopping, is usually about a third as big as the original fruit (coconuts are fruit… right? Or are they nuts?). Finally she holds the coconut in the left hand and, with the right hand brings the machete expertly down on the top. After three or four swift chops a nice little quarter sized circle opens up showing the wonderful wonderful juice inside.

She then hands the container to you, you take it, throw your head back (there is an iconic picture reproduced all over Togo that shows a bare breasted, Togolese women, drinking from a coconut on the beach. Her head is thrown back in complete abandon, juice flows over her bare torso, the sun sets in the distance. It is this ideal that I strive to recreate with every purchased coconut.) and drink the milk in a single go.

When you are done, without saying anything, you hand the now empty nut (is it a nut?) back to the lady who takes it again in her left hand, and brings the machete down hard on its side, cracking it open and splitting it into two halves. Then either with the end of the machete or a small shard of the green outside, she separates the meat from the shell, places it back in the halved coconut, and hands it back to you to eat.

More on Yovo

2006-05-01T11:03:00.000Z

The other day I was asked to talk to a high school class who was studying the US. I decided that it would be more interesting for the students (and less work for me… always good… :) to go in and ask for questions. After about 20 minutes of questions one kid raised his hand and asked, “Are Americans an individualistic or group oriented society?” I responded by asking which category his culture fell into. He answered immediately saying the Togolese were group oriented.

In an earlier post I mentioned the word Yovo. Roughly translated (and this depends on who you talk to) it means stranger, outsider. Over the years it has morphed to mean white person, European or even non-African (which from a Togolese perspective are all outsiders, strangers etc). It is not necessarily (again, depending on who you talk to) derogatory. Instead it is a label given to a group of people.

This word manifests itself every time I leave my house. As soon as I walk out my front gate (thank God I have high outer walls!) children hidden all around start screaming, “Yovo!” Or, “Anasara!” It isn’t so much calling me or trying to say good morning. It is more like when a young kid in the US yells out, “Train!” Then as I bike through my neighborhood there is a wave of this yelling that follows me to my destination.

Most volunteers HATE this. As an American I can understand their point of view. As Americans we were always taught the value of the individual. All through school we were taught that we are individually interesting people and that grouping someone is bad. We cringe every time we hear someone refer to another person as black or white. Now imagine walking down the street and having mobs of kids chasing after you seemingly grouping you, judging you for the color of your skin.

Some volunteers get angry. Others come up with clever ways to change what the kids say (one taught all the kids to call him Champ.)

In the end I just deal with it.

The Fulani

2006-04-19T16:12:00.000Z

There is an ethnic group in this part of the world called the Fulani. (What I am about to describe is based purely on asking questions and not on hard fact. If there are things that I get wrong, please forgive me.) They are a nomadic group of people that are all over this part of Africa. Fulani men are paid by rich people to herd cattle from one place to another. In Togo they normally walk from Burkina Faso (North of Togo) to Lomé (the capitol in the South) with herds of 15 – 20 skinny skinny cows.

For some reason Fulani all dress alike. The men wear baggy, loose fitting, solid color MC Hammer type pants with a very loose tunic type shirt (oftentimes the shirts will be second hand western women’s clothing like a blouse.) They ALWAYS have a walking stick in one hand, water bottle on a string draped over one arm, bag (most often women’s purse) draped over the other arm and a hat (usually straw but on occasion white lacey kind of hat little girls in the south wear to church). For some reason they also all wear solid colored plastic (gummy kind of) shoes.

I’m not sure I have ever seen a Fullani woman. I think I have. They usually have children in their arms, colorful beads in their hair, and a far away look to their eye. Their clothing is usually a deep red color.

Having lived here for a number of months and traveled a bit I have gotten used to seeing things that are foreign to me. I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing the Fulani.

Two weeks ago I was in a car driving from a city in the south of the country to my home further north. We stopped next to a thriving market in the full swing of market day. The market looked like most other markets except for how many Fulani there were. Groups of two or three Fulani guys (probably 17 – 25 years old) were casually wandering around, not buying anything, just being seen. Imagine middle schoolers in the US going to the mall on a Saturday afternoon. Before going they put on their best shoes, do their hair just right, and hope to be seen. These guys had done the exact same thing… just Fulani style. Some of the guys wandering around had on makeup; some of it turning their face a clown like white. Others had painted white circles on their cheeks, white streaks under their eyes, and white on their lips. There were groups who had giant Afros (and the accompanying hair pick). Others had very nice purses and the white hats of the southern nine year old at her first communion.

Yesterday, I was leaving the market with arms full of black bags of veggies. As I loaded up my bike bags I looked up to see two Fullani guys staring at me and whispering to each other.

They were talking about me.

Between two guys who walk around carrying women’s purses and lace hats I was the foreign one. I was the alien. They belong to an ethnic group I understand about as well as the accordion, who know and think exactly the same about me. I didn’t need the makeup, purse, or walking stick. Instead I had my jeans, messenger bag and Trek bike.

And I was weird.

Who loves stop lights?

2006-04-05T11:21:00.000Z

A couple weeks ago small traffic lights suddenly appeared at the 4 main intersections of my town. For the first week that they were up none worked. Riding through the intersections where my life has been nearly taken from me, I was excited about the idea of having something to control the flow of motorcycle, car, huge truck and people traffic.

About a week after the signals magically appeared in town I was biking to use the internet. I turned on the main intersection only to be stopped on the next street by a policeman who said the road was closed. Not totally sure why (but not questioning… you learn to let things slide after being here for a while) I turned around and tried to turn down another road of the intersection only to be met by yet another policeman. I finally decided that something was going on and pulled my bike over to see what would happen. After a few minutes of waiting I started hearing drums. In another minute or two I saw a group of Tem (one of the local tribal/ethnic groups) dancers (guys dance with two sticks in a line, spinning and hitting the other guys sticks rhythmically) followed by a group of horsemen dressed (the rider and horse) in traditional garb. The riders were pulling on the reigns, making the horses rear up every few steps.

The dancers and horses were then followed by a small fleet of Mercedes that stopped in the middle of the intersection in front of me. A group of besuited (anyone wearing a suit in this country is both very rich/important and (in my opinion) very crazy (SO HOT)) men got out of the cars walked up to one of the newly traffic lighted parts of the intersection and cut a white ribbon that had been hung across the road.

There were a few more minutes of dancing as the suited men all shook hands and finally got back into their air-conditioned cars to be driven away to whatever office they worked in. Crowds milled around the intersection for a few more minutes until the traffic lights were finally turned on and traffic started flowing.

Weeks later I still see people just sitting, watching the controlled flow of traffic and the lights magically changing colors.

2006-03-14T15:17:00.000Z

I have been crazy busy recently and have falled behind in my writing. To make up for that I have taken the easy way out and posted a new series of pictures.

Enjoy!

This is a photo of me with my local counter part in our current computer lab. The coats we are both wearing are used by all Togolese private school teachers to keep chalk dust off their clothes. The school had one made for me my first couple weeks there. On the pocket it says 'Ismael - Informatician' (Translation: Ismael - Computer God)

I decided I needed to put another picture of my cat online for my sister. I swore i would never take pictures of my pets like this. But what to do.

Why I am in Africa. Need i say more?

Where I had French class every morning for three months. This is also the location of the dreaded turkey murder. :)

Two of my host sisters in the family kitchen.

Me dancing. I am never sure if people are laughing because I dance well and that's weird or I dance badly and that's funny. In the end Im just happy that people are laughing (i guess...)

One of the best bars in my city. Anyone that comes and visits WILL get taken here.

That does it for this little update. Look for an interesting update about a project I am working on coming online in the next couple weeks.

Until then...

PS on the shirts

2006-02-27T13:04:00.000Z

In the past week I have seen two new shirts that I had to post.

When i wrote my post on the shirts I had a comment or two on each one. These two new finds are so good they pretty much speak for themselves.

1. Young guy on a motorcycle with a light green shirt that said "Poop Queen." ... No comment.

2. "What if the Hokey Pokey was really what it's all about?" Wow! That's all I can say. Wow!

Until next time.

Pictures

2006-02-21T10:12:00.000Z

(LEFT)
Me sitting drinking a local brew called Choock (sp?) thats made from fermented millet and has about the same alcohol content as beer. Actually REALLY good. Kind of has a sweet flavor to it. It takes about three days to make. Those bowls are called calabashes and are made from a dried melon type thing.

(ABOVE)
What I see every time i open my gate to leave my house.

(LEFT)
My entire Peace Corps training group. One person in this group hadnt showered in a week. Welcome to the Peace Corps! (DANG HIPPIES!)

(LEFT)
My amazingly cute host sister during training.

(DOWN)
My host father holding a bush rat before it is cleaned and prepared for me to eat. One of my favorite new types of meat (my other favorite is Antelope. SO GOOD!)

The Dead Yovo Market

2006-02-07T18:23:00.000Z

Have you ever wondered what happens to your old shirts? What ever happened to that free t-shirt you were given when you ran that marathon back in ’92? Or how about the shirt that you were given when you helped elect McGovern to the State Senate in ’88? Or how about that stint you pulled working at Best Buy. Are you saying you didn’t continue to wear that classy blue polo?

My guess is that like many Americans, you threw those cloth pieces of treasure into a box until you or your significant other got fed up at how much space it was taking up and took it to Goodwill or some other charitable organization. Did you ever wonder what happened to what was in that box? Did you ever ponder the idea that someone else in the US or wide world would somehow end up with your clothing?

I know where your shirt is…

(I plan on writing a full entry on this next subject. But I need to include a brief summery here to tell the rest of my story.) Here in Togo all foreigners are called Yovo. Loosely translated (and depending on who you talk to) it means outsider, foreigner. (Again, I will talk more at a later time on this wonderful wonderful (SARCASM) word and its many uses.)

No one here can afford to purchase clothes in a store or buy clothe to have them made. To fill this gap in affordable clothing people get there hands on large quantities of second hand, donated clothing. My guess is that they are either purchased by the truck load in the US from Goodwill and shipped here or are “given out” by local NGOs for distribution. Either way piles upon piles of used clothes end up on plastic tarps all over the country. It is known that this abundance of clothing comes from the outside world. The Togolese can not understand why some Yovo (there’s our new word for the day!) would ever give this stuff away. The thinking goes that to have given away something so great the giver must have died. Thus the markets that sell this stuff are called Dead Yovo Markets. Who still living could ever part with these wonderful expensive treasures?

It is a fun game among Peace Corps volunteers to compete for weirdest shirt seen. Now remember, the people buying this stuff don’t read English. They buy it because it doesn’t have holes (usually) and will protect them from the sun.

Here is a nice selection of shirts that I have seen in my short 5 months here.

•Young boy with a shirt that said, “This is what 40 looks like. Jealous?” I doubt he was 40, but I have to say I was a little jealous at how youthful he appeared.
•“Elect Thompson to City Council.” Wait a sec… there are no city councils here!
•Small Girl, less than 10 wearing pink shirt that read, “Sexy Bitch.” I thought she was cute. Not sure she was a “sexy bitch.” But who am I to judge?
•Countless McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and UPS polos. What? It’s a polo shirt with a small logo on it. That works for a business meeting!
•“I’m PMSing” Now my knowledge of biology isn’t great. But, I didn’t think a 45 year old male carpenters could PMS. But who am I to question.
•“Buy Malidu from Me!” I almost asked for a shot. Then I remembered that due to the lack of electricity it probably wasn’t cold. Who wants warm Malibu from a 10 year old at 8:30 in the morning?
•“I’m not easy. I’m just popular.” You know what. I’m happy that that 11 year old boy has friends. Good for him!
•Black shirt with three pictured panels and the heading, “How to Grow a Mullet.” I looked a little more closely and you know what? If the kid wearing the shirt ever wanted a mullet, he was set!
•Countless Graduating Class of ’91, Class of ’89 Reunion, ’93 Soccer Champ shirts and the like. Who knows? Maybe the kid wearing it really did go to Middlebury Middle School in the late 80s?

I’m thinking about casually sneaking my CS@GW shirt with “It’s ok! I’m a computer scientist” written in big yellow letters on the back into one of the piles. If I create no computer scientists through the classes I teach I know that there will at least be one in name wandering around this country.

Street Food

2006-01-23T12:09:00.000Z

To fully discover a country one needs to eat its street foods.

I remember wandering the streets of Guangzhou with my brother looking for something to eat. We ended up at an open store front with tray upon tray of deep fried food on a stick (I once wanted to open a restaurant called “Everything on a Stick.”) At the far left hand side of the middle row was a tray filled with skewers of deep fried baby birds. My brother being who he is (love the kid) went straight for them. As he bit into the first baby bird I remember him saying, “It’s not so much that I can feel the bones breaking or the innards exploding in my mouth. I don’t mind that. The thing I don’t like about this… it tastes AWFUL!” The point of the story being that for Eric and I to understand the culture we needed to taste the food that people grabbed on their way to work, on a date, or window shopping.

While there are no deep fried baby bird sticks here, there is still a very interesting world of street food to be had.

One of the staples of my diet is a wonderful thing called Bui (not sure of the spelling) that I always eat with a Benyay (again… not sure of spelling.) Bui is ground corn (the most common), millet, or tapioca (my favorite and most uncommon) cooked with boiling water. That’s it. When cooked it becomes very liquidy and easily drunk from a bowl. Every morning when I go to school I sit out front before my first class and get 25 CFA (5 cents) worth of Bui (a small bowls worth) and a Benyay (deep fried dough ball) for another 25CFA. One can always tell women that serve Bui because of the large plastic tubs covered with a simple insulator of plastic and cloth sitting on a crude wooden table in front of them. There is something about the warm lumpy stuff that really satisfies an early morning hunger.

Another one of my main food sources is Wachi: rice cooked with beans (everything here is very simple.) You can spot a Wachi women (I like the ring of that…) by a large metal tub that contains a giant lump (the rice and beans) wrapped in plastic and cloth. It is ordered by price (100CFA is what I normally get), scooped out by hand (her RIGHT hand of course! That’s the clean one!) and placed into a plastic bowl. Sitting next to the metal vat are usually an assortment of different size stainless steel, lidded pots. In each pot (sometimes there is only one) is a different sauce (but always palm oil based and very very red.) There is usually the fish chunk sauce (I stay away from that one) and sometimes the overcooked goat chunk sauce (usually stay away from that one… sometimes I get brave or inebriated and end up tearing at a few pieces… not the best idea.) Occasionally you get lucky and mixed in with the fish sauce are pieces of a local “cheese” called Wagash, deep fried to the point of breaking your teeth (SOOO GOOD!) I put cheese in quotes because I’m not 100% sure that it really IS cheese. It is cheese in the sense that milk (or some dairy product) was somehow made hard (my cheese making knowledge is not that extensive). One can purchase Wagash at the market in large red (they die the outside with millet to help preserve it) wheels stacked on a metal tray carefully balanced on a women’s head.

While I love the taste (most of the time) of the street food, my favorite part is the interactions that take place while eating. There is something bonding about sharing the food of another’s culture.

In the future I will write about other street foods and specific eating experiences.

Until then…

The Market

2006-01-16T15:54:00.000Z

I am lucky by Peace Corps standards. I can get lettuce every day of the week.

Where others are happy to have a market every 6 or 7 days, I live in the second largest city in the country. That means I can find fun things like onions, lettuce, green peppers, and wonderful wonderful soy cheese (how I crave protein!) at the Grande Marché (main market) EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK! When I go to visit friends I usually bring along a large bag of food to put a little meat on their skinny skinny frames (Peace Corps diet works WONDERS!) Some of my friends have to bike 4km to find a loaf of bread, other friends are lucky if they can get tomatoes in their village.

I usually stop at the market on my way home from teaching. The market is a large concrete structure (uncommon except in the largest cities) with wooden framed and metal roofed stalls overflowing on all sides. I usually park my bike at the Post Office across the street. In getting to the post office I cross a lane of oncoming motorcycle, ox cart, car, and people traffic. I swear that crossing will be the death of me! But it will be worth it for all the wonderful food it has given me.

I lock my bike with the blue Chinese made (everything comes from China around here. God bless Globalization's cheap prices) bike lock and cross back over the street. All Peace Corps volunteers have "their lady" at the market. All that means is the one veggie seller who was lucky enough to be nice to you on your first week at post that you have continued to go back to. My lady has a great smile and very fresh veggies. To get to her stand I need to duck into a small covered walkway boarded by stands on both sides leaving about 2 feet of space to walk. The first stand on the right as you enter the small walkway sells rice. They probably have 7 or 8 different types of rice in huge bowls sitting open, waiting for some nice person to take some home. On the left is a stand with the same large bowls only filled with beautifully orange palm oil. You usually buy it in small slender see through bags that are kept in yet another bowl. They kind of remind me of buying fish when I was little and the fish store guy putting them in bulging, water filled plastic bags, only here it is palm oil and smaller.

The next stand sells fetish items. The three main religions of Togo are Christianity, Islam, and Animism (aka Voodoo) A fetish stand sells things for voodoo ceremonies: gnarly bone handled knives, different size rusty and non-rusty nails (gotta be able to chose!), an assortment of dried skins and furs from something that used to be alive, and powders of all color and consistency. Animism is an old religion still practiced by many people in West Africa. I have friends that live in small villages (small villages way out in the wild are the biggest practicers of the traditional religion) who tell stories of Witch Doctors doing demon dances, chicken sacrificing (what a nice welcome!), and other interesting (sometimes kind of scary) stories. I don't see much of it as I live in a largely Muslim city. The extent of my exposure to the practices are the occasional talisman (string with various things from the fetish table attached to it) hanging in a tree next to a house to ward of spirits.

After the fetish stand I enter the concrete structure that houses most of the food sellers. All the ladies that work in this corner section know me and try to get my business. But I walk, saying hi to everyone, and head straight for my lady. She always has a great pile of lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, green beans, and the occasional (what a great day when they are there!) eggplant. Everything is ordered by price. For example I say I want 100 CFA (that's 100 West African Francs, equal to about 20 cents) of lettuce, 100 of cucumber, and 200 of eggplant (that comes out to 4 small heads of leaf lettuce, 1 cucumber, and 1 or 2 medium eggplants). She puts it all into one of the ubiquitous black plastic bags, adds a cadeu (Present in French) of a pile of green beans. I then look for someone with nice tomatoes. Everyone specialises in a couple of veggies, selling only them. Tomato sellers always stack their tomatoes in pyramid piles of either 50 or 100 CFA (10 or 20 cents). For that you get about 4-6 small tomatoes. I finally leave followed by calls to buy potatoes, more tomatoes, and all other sorts of wares. I cross back over the street and get a loaf of bread for another 100CFA that's a soft crusted baguette (one of the only good things the French did in Africa (I like to pick on the French) was teach people how to make bread.) I finally unlock my bike and head home.

Travel in Togo

2006-01-16T15:43:00.000Z

In the US we take getting around for granted. Most people have cars. Others, like me who at 23 is still licenseless, use public transportation to get where they need to go. Paved roads connect almost every house, shopping mall, and school.

In Togo there is one paved road that runs from the capitol in the south to the most northern border with Burkina Faso. There is nothing else. If you turn off this main road you turn onto pot-holed, dirt roads that can become impassible during the rainy season.

To make travel in this country even more difficult imagine a population that can not afford to send their children to school for $8 a year. Then ask yourself if that population owns cars.

There is no public transportation. There are no local airports, no local or national bus routes, no subway systems. The way people get around here is a wonderful thing called a bush taxi. In my opinion it is wonderful wonderful capitalism at work at its best. In a market economy if there is a need of a service, that need is filled by an individual who hopes to profit.

A bush taxi in its simplest form is a car that drives along the national route picking people up along the way and then dropping them off along the route closer to their final destination. That sounds fine.

In reality bush taxis are cars that have been out of service in the US or Europe since the late 80s that are shipped to Africa and sold for a couple hundred dollars. These are held together and driven until they literally FALL apart on the side of the road. I was once in a bush taxi that had to stop 4 times to pick up different pieces of the car that had fallen (muffler, hub-cap, some pipe from under the car, and a strip of metal about 6 inches long… Guess none were that important.)

It makes sense for a driver to want to fill his car as full as he can with people. I have been in a basic 4 door sedan that is meant for 5 (driver plus 4) filled with upwards of 11 to 12 people. That works out to 4 up front (two in the driver's seat and two in the passenger seat… sometimes three in the passenger seat) and anywhere from 5-7 people (and we arnt talking small children… We are talking full grown adults) jammed into the back. There are also larger passenger type vans that normally hold 15 people. They have the front section (cab) and then 4 rows of benches. I have seen these cars filled with as many as 30 people. There are no seat belts, no air-conditioning, and only rarely a window that will open. You have no idea how after being crammed into the back seat with 5 other people for 4 hours you CRAVE the luxury of Economy Class flight.

For example, if I want to travel to see my friend who lives 40k away I walk to the main road. I stand and wait for a bush taxi to pass in the direction I want to go (there are only two ways to go in a place with only one road.) He stops, I jam into whatever space I can find and we are off. It takes a car about 25 – 30 minutes to travel 40k (about 25 miles) in the US. Now imagine that you were driving a bush taxi where you have to stop every few miles to "show your papers" (wink wink) to the police at a checkpoint, not drive over 30 miles an hour for fear of hitting one of the pot holes (craters), and stopping every few minutes to pick up or drop someone off. That normally 30 minute car ride turns into a hellish two hours. Try to imagine not being able to get out of a crouching position for hours at a time. For the longer trips (it takes about 6 hours to get to the capitol from my city) there are no bathrooms. Every once in a while the car will pull over next to a field and everyone (women included) get out and do their business.

While it is never fun to be stuck in a car with 29 other people, 4 chickens, and a goat it is amazingly interesting. No one complains. It is just the way life goes.

Greetings

2006-01-13T14:10:00.000Z

If I am walking down the street in the US and happen to see someone I know, I either try to avoid making eye contact so as not have to say anything or give a quick head nod and a, "Hey." If I am feeling friendly I might throw in a "What's up?" But after having done my small duty, continue on my way.

A typical exchange on the street here would go like this:
(This local language is called Kabye. I am also writing everything out phonetically as there are letters used that we don't have in English)

Person 1: Un-la-waa lay (Good morning)
Person 2: Yaa. Alafia. (Yes, it is good.)
Person 1: Alafia way? (How are you?)
Person 2: Alafia. (Fine.)
Person 1: Toe-mee-ai yo? (How's your work?)
Person 2: Alafia. (Fine.)
Person 1: Halow yo? (How's your wife?)
(Note: If the person has two or more wives, not uncommon, you would say, "Pay-way Alafia?")
Person 2: Alafia. (Fine.)
Person 1: Pia yo? (And your children?)
Person 2: Alafia. (Fine.)
Person 1: Plab-tassi. (See you later.)
Person 2: Plab-tassi. (See you later.)

Along with this exchange both people slightly squat down, putting their hands on their knees in a sign of respect. I have seen women carrying huge bowls filled with vegetables on their head squat down without even thinking about it. In the local language of my city, Kotokoli, towards the end of that exchange both people make a sort of grunting sound back and forth. Just a little "mm" or "ungh." They go back and forth grunting for sometimes upwards of 10 seconds.

(After all other greetings)
Person 1: Ungh
Person 2: Unn
Person 1: Ungh
Person 2: Unn
Person 1: Ungh
Person 2: Unn
Person 1: Ungh
Person 2: Unn

Its almost musical, kind of like a song being passed back and forth.

I have asked many people why they do that. The only response I get is, "That's just part of it." It's such an interesting way to greet someone, seemingly not saying anything. But that's just how it's done.

Sometimes in Kabye after all the questions the person being asked will shake his hands back and forth and go, "Ya ya ya ya ya." That basically just means, "Everythings great."

There is something about the idea of asking about someone's life that I really like. While it does get a little old to be asked about my work 10 times a day, it is still nice to know that that human contact is there. This is a culture that values the relationship between people.

ps. Sorry I havnt posted in a long long time. I spent a wonderful Christmas at home with my family and am just now getting back.

Note From Class

2005-12-08T16:30:00.000Z

As I mentioned in my last entry I have started teaching a computer class at a local school. All my kids are very excited to learn about computers. Overall it's a lot of fun.

During the second class period (the first is devoted to learning the names of all the parts of a compuuter, 'This is a mouse.') I have my students write one phrase. During the class I use the example phrase 'Hi. How are you?' In writing that sentence I teach kids how to use caps, lower-case, periods, spaces, and question marks. When the kids write their own sentences they usually copy exactly what we did and write the 'Hi. How are you?' My older kids usually finish this assignment quickly and want to do something more.

I have 8 working computers in my classroom (a few are out of order at the moment thanks to dust and humidity... that's what you get for living south of the Sahara!). I usually have to put 2 to 3 kids on each computer and have them rotate through after writing their sentence.

Last week I had a group of 4 or 5 girls that ended up all writing their sentence, one after the other, and finally creating a letter to me. Every time they would finish one sentence they would giggle, call me over, look up as I read the sentence, then go back to write another. When they were finished writing the letter I read it and decided I had to post it.

Here is the letter that they wrote to me. (NOTE: All Peace Corps Volunteers in my country take a local name. It's usually given the first day at post. Mine happened to be given to me by the cashier at the government water dept as I was getting my water turned on. I am known here as Ismael.)

Hello Ismael how are you. How old are you. Have you many wafe? Have you many childrens? Your wafe is my sister. Where do you came from? Where do you live? What do like?
GOOD BYE

Maybe someday I will respond to them. But for the moment I need to figure out which of their sisters is my supposed wife!

Until next time.

I'm Back!

2005-11-18T02:03:00.000Z

I would like to apologize to all the Aaron watchers out there for the lack of updates. My life has gotten VERY busy yet remains fulfilling and happy. My cat is as playful as ever and seems to double in size every other week. Despite the herbs not doing well (only 3 basil plants came up and a few dill), the rest of my garden is thriving. I have 6 very nice tomato plants that have just started growing their first tomatoes, 3 very well developed bean plants, a few sprouting cabbages and hopefully enough feed corn to eventually feed my hungry hungry chickens. I am RIPPING through books and magazines (PLEASE SEND READING MATERIAL! I average about 200 pages of reading a day!) Life is good.

One reason for my long hiatus was ‘AIDS Ride’. Every year Peace Corps Togo organizes a group of 10 – 15 volunteers to ride bikes through each of Togo’s 5 regions over a one week period, stopping in small villages to do AIDS awareness classes for whoever will listen. During the one week ride my group talked to around 3500 people in something like 12 villages. Please try to imagine me standing in front of a group of 400 high school age kids, wooden penis in one hand, bull-horn in the other, showing kids (in French) how to properly use condoms. It was a very interesting week to say the least. I think our total distance biked was around 150km. I wasn’t able to bike all of that as I got heat exhaustion one of the days. That day we had biked something like 47km (25 of that being through African forests infested with plants brandishing 3 inch spikes. The sound of flesh being ripped from my arm will forever be with me, along with some nice new scars.) I was so relieved to be out of the forest that I thought it was a good idea to kick it up a few notches and bike as fast as I could the last 10 or so km. In the middle of my condom demo I remember getting very light headed. I turned to my partner, handed her everything, and went to go find a place to relax (not the easiest thing in the outdoor area of a school in the middle of nowhere that has close to 700 kids who thinks that the circus just came to town.) Later that night I got a crazy high fever and had to ride in our chase car for two days. Lesson learned… This is what happens when you havn’t physically exerted yourself since ’93. All in all it was an amazing week of biking, sleeping on grass mats, heeding the call of nature in random fields (your stomach can do some pretty mean things to you if you don’t take care of it. Phew!) and lots of great AIDS education.

The other reason that I have been MIA for so long is that I have finally taken the plunge into my work. I have started two jobs at the same time. In the mornings I teach very basic computer classes (How to hold a mouse. How to click two times. How to put a letter in upper-case. Some of these kids have never even SEEN a computer.) For some reason I agreed to teach 15 classes a week. It is EXHAUSTING! I have a small computer center of around 10 computers. Most of the class consists of me sitting in the front of the room pointing at things on a larger monitor and the class responding. I think I have around 400 students. I can not even begin to express how rewarding this job is (even though it has driven me to consider drinking at 9:30am on multiple occasions.) After my class I go home for the 2.5 hour lunch break (BEST THING EVER!). Around 2:30 I head to my office at RESODERC, a local NGO. At the moment I am playing a tech advisor role, helping them get their management better organised (Database stuff. Soon informational website stuff.) Eventually I will also begin to do more development advising for the 65 members of our organisation. My NGO is an umbrella organisation for all other NGOs in the region. I will eventually set up office hours where people will be able to seek me out and ask advise on trainings, general management issues, and other general development stuff. It should be very interesting.

So that is what I have been up to. I get home around 5:30 every evening so tired I can hardly make dinner for myself. After a few hours of reading I am asleep around 8pm only to be back up and begin working at 5am. Gotta love keepin busy!

Until next time.

My Response

2005-10-18T15:17:00.000Z

I would like to start this entry by saying thank you to everyone in the School 54 Room 29, 5th grade class from Indianapolis, Indiana. Your letters were wonderful! Thank you also for all of your birthday wishes. Maybe sometime soon we can celebrate together.

You all asked so many great questions. I have gone through all of your letters and picked a few questions that I will answer. I'm sorry I can't answer each one individually.

Traci asks, 'What clothes do people there wear?'
Everything about Africa, including the clothes, is bright and filled with wonderful colors. Most clothing is made from a long piece of cloth called a 'pagne.' Pagnes are usually filled with very brightly colored designs; vibrant greens, oranges, blues and many others like you cant't find in America. Women usually wear dresses made from the clothe and often times wrap their hair in another piece. Men have button down short sleeve shirts and pants made. When i got here I thought all the men were wearing pajamas! Imagine walking down the street surrounded by people wrapped in all the colors of the rainbow. It's very beautiful.

Denisha writes, 'I bet you are between the ages of 20 and 50.'
You are exactly right! I actually just turned 23.

Annie says, 'One thing I still don't know is what a circular piot the class was sitting in.'
I'm sorry I didn't explain that more fully. A piot (I am not sure I am spelling that correctly) is something that you find in most people's front yards here. Imagine a round hut with no walls and a roof made of long dried grass. They are wonderful in letting in a nice breeze when it is very hot outside.

Justin Evans asks, 'Was it easy to kill an animal ?'
In response to many of your questions and comments, no, it was not easy to kill the Turkey. I did not do it for the pleasure of killing. I did it to help better understand the people I live around. Every day I go out and try to expierence the life that the Togolese live. I try to never pass up an oportunity, no matter how difficult it might be, to understand this culture a little bit better. While I am glad I did what I did, I hope to never have to do it again.

Neechelle James asks two questions, 'Do you stay there all day and night.' And, 'What is a PCT.'
First, yes, I live in Togo where I stay all day and all night. My job requires me to be here for a little over 2 years. I have a very nice house with a wonderful cat named Oliver. I work during the day and then go home to garden, read and sleep at night. Second, PCT stands for 'Peace Corps Trainee.' While I was in training for my job I was a PCT. Now that I have completed the training and started working I am a PCV, Peace Corps Volunteer.

Malik write, 'Are there a lot of animals there ?'
Sadly Malik, most animals have been killed from over hunting and loss of places to live. The only animals I see are lizards (TONS of them in my yard!), bugs (more ants than you could EVER count. If I leave a tiny piece of food on my kitchen counter I will have a swarm of ants all over my kitchen within 15 mintues.), few birds, the three egg laying chickens I have, and my cat. There is a nature reserve about an hour away from me where there are monkeys, a few elephants, and a couple other types of animals. I am hoping with the next month or so to camp across the park with some friends. I will make sure to let you know how that goes. But overall, no, there are not a lot of animals here.

And finally, Brandy asks, 'Why do you like to go around the world so much?'
Oh Brandy, what a wonderful question! There is so much to see in this world. I can not sit in one place for long knowing that I am missing so many beautiful sites and not meeting so many interesting people. Every night I sit on my roof watching the giant red and orange African sun set behind the many palm trees in my yard. If you could look up and see the colors shooting across the sky, playing in and out of the full white clouds with the giant ocean of blue behind it, you would understand why I do what I do. My breath is taken away every night and I say to myself, 'This is amazing.'

Thank you all so much for your letters. They made me smile in the middle of a very difficult day. Please feel free to write any time.

Aaron

The Village

2005-10-18T01:42:00.000Z

I just got back from spending the weekend with a fellow volunteer who lives in a village about 40k from me. Our time together was amazing.

When I joined the Peace Corps I really wanted to live in a small village: no electricity, no running water, the works. This is how my friend lives. It is awesome!

We made dinner by lantern light. I sat and jotted in my notebook by the light from a candle stuck in an old bottle of Baileys with mounds of wax stuck to the sides. I stood on her front porch watching the sun set to my right and the harvest moon rise through the trees to my left. It was beautiful!

Her village is perfect! During the day we wandered on dirt paths through tall grasses and fields, passing beneath trees ten feet around, with giant knobs that have to be hundreds of years old. We wandered along paths, our feet getting dirtier with each step, until we came into clearings where women, wearing only brightly colored pagnes around their waists, their large pendulous breasts swinging freely, would be grinding corn to make dinner. Their families would be sitting in circles around them talking. There was somthing wonderful about the family and group dynamic that I sometimes find missing in my culture.

The second day we went into a large town about 18k away. The first thing we did there was have egg sandwiches. It is amazing how wonderful protein is, and how much I crave it after a diet of carbs and tons of veggies. We sat in a small plywood shack around a low counter piled high with empty Nescafe cans, and watched the omelet guy take eggs from a two foot tall stack of flats, crack them, and perfectly fry these wonderful protein filled snacks.

Later we went to a bar and drank cold beer. Simply put, a cold drink is an amazing treat. I cannot even begin to express the pure joy of pressing a frosty glass of freshly poured beer to my lips, then feeling it run into my mouth and onto my tongue, and on down my parched throat. Heaven! What I usually drink, day after day, is warm water tasting of bleach (2 drops for every liter of water kills everything in the water). My friend and I let out the same expression of ecstasy after our first taste. Something that in the past could have given me nothing more than a slight rise or invoked only a small response, now brings to a head all the joy and happiness inside me.

2005-10-14T16:19:00.000Z

Thought i would throw in another quick update with a few more pictures. The computer I am working on is going buggy and I cant arrange the pictures how i want them. I will describe them and you will need to match the description up with the picture (shouldn't be too hard...)

One picture is of me and my host family during training. For all of you that have never met me... I'm the one with red hair.

The second picture is the path that lead to my house during training. I remember walking up it the first time and thinking, 'I really am in Africa.'

As I promised for so long and have recieved countless emails requesting, here is a picture of my cat, Oliver. He's grown a little bit since then, but still is tiny and a bundle of energy.

Another picture is the front and left side of my house. My entire house is AMAZING! So much space, wonderful outside area, and i have chickens.

Finally, the picture of me holding the baby is a perfect example of localy made clothing. I bought the clothe, gave it to a tailor, and finally got that outfit (that later became known as the 'tiger suit'). The little girl I am holding is my host little sister. She was AMAZING! I think i mentioned that her fourth word was 'Aaron.' Ya, that'll make you cry. I promise. (and if that doesn't: having her pee on your leg for a second time, this time during a party while you are proudly showing off your new 'tiger suit', will.)

Until next time...

Few updates

2005-10-14T00:17:00.000Z

Wanted to do a quick update as I have two longer entries that I am working on. Hopefully they will be posted in the not too distant future.

Few new things in my life...

I recently purchased three chickens to lay eggs. I asked my guard (who now has also taken on the role of game keeper) to find me three young hens who will be able to supply me with eggs. The next day he brought back three not too happy looking (you wouldnt be happy either if you were just carried upside down by your feet on a sooter!) when he came to work at 7pm. They are safely installed in one of the small rooms that are built towards the back of my yard. It's a funny thought knowing that I actually own chickens. Who'd a thunk it?

With this idea of Aaron the amazing farmer in your head...

I also dug my first garden. I can not begin to express just how satisfying it was to be working under the hot African sun, the sweat dripping from my bare back into the dirt I was turning over. Half of my garden are herbes (basil, thyme, marjoram, dill, oregano) and the other half is veggies (tomatoes, cabbage, green beans). Im very excited to watch their growth.

Oliver, my cat, is doing very well. Its so nice to come home and have something there that is excited to see me.

I have also jumped head first into work. I'm working every day at a shcool helping to develope a computer course that I will be helping teach. Everyone at the school is very excited and wonderful to work with. I am also putting in a lot of time at a local NGO doing computer work, small project advising and basic organizational development. Along with that I have a number of other small projects mostly consisting of playing an advisor role to a couple small business owners, a guy making a tour guide of my town, and another person who wants help training market women. This is really a full time job.

This morning I was up bright and early at 4:45am and tonight will probably go to bed by 8 or 8:30pm after feeding my chickens, doing a little gardening and reading. Did i just graduate college or retire?

Until later...

Pictures

2005-10-11T17:02:00.000Z

I finally got a chance to put pictures online. I cant begin to express just how much work it has been getting them on here. Phew!

A problem I have run into over the years in expressing stories of my travels is a lack of identification. If you have never seen or expeirenced something like what is being described, you have no basis to form an image in your mind. I hope these photos will give you a better idea of what my life here looks like. And a little help in picturing what i am going through.

The picture to the left is me and my host father during training 'making' fufu. In short fufu is either slices of cooked manioc or yam that is then 'piled' (pronounced 'pee-layed') into a ball of what looks to be dough. It always comes with a bowl of sauce with a possible few chunks of meat floating in it. You then use your hands to scoop out a handful of the fufu, dip it in the sauce, and put it in your mouth. Many PCVs hate the stuff. I love it!

The picture to the left is the house that i lived in during training. This is a very typical house in Togo (Albeit a little bit bigger and with grass... NO ONE has grass. Just dirt.) The door to my little room is on the far right. I can not count the number of hours that i spent sitting in the yard, trying as hard as i could to hide myself under the small palm tree from the evil evil sun.

Notice the beautiful blue sky, the amazingly green grass, and the perfectly african trees in the background. I love this place!

This is a picture of the fateful 'day of the washed undies.' Notice the three girls having a grand old time playing in places no one should dare tread. Also, try to see theamount of already washed underwear hanging on te lines. Modesty? Who needs modesty?

This picture also shows how clothes are washed. Notice the number of basins and buckets. While i have only washed around 3 or 4 articles of clothing myself I am no expert. What i have thus far gathered is the clothes are first put in a tub with soap and water where they are worked through the hands scrubbing the clothe against itself. It is then rinsed in much the same fashion. The entire process is repeated with article of clothing finally being hung to dry. Too much work for someone who could hardly walk across the hall, put my clothes in a machine and press start.

Alright, this has taken me close 1.5 hours to post the three pictures. Next time i will post more pictures (including one of my cat Oliver. Be excited!)

I must be off as i have work to do. One of my potential jobs is working with a school that has 10 VERY old computers. They have a basic computer program that they are hoping, with my help, to improve.

Off to save the world! :)

Turkey

2005-09-23T18:40:00.000Z

Yet another journal entry from training.

Yesterday I killed a turkey. I decided that if i wanted to eat meat I needed to know what it felt like to kill. There was something about the 'out of site, out of mind idea' with meat that just didn’t seem right.

I was in French class at a fellow PCT's house. We had classes in an outdoor circular piot (not sure the exact spelling. A piot is a round structure, sometimes with a thatched roof, other times tin, that can be found in most Togolese yards.) During the middle of class i watched as my friends host mother walked past our class carrying a fairly large turkey by its feat, its multicolored head swinging back and forth. My friend said, "Oh no! She's going to kill it!" Not wanting to pass up an opportunity for a new experience, I jumped off the wooden benches we were sitting on, and to the surprise of my teacher, ran out of class. I ran over to the clearing in the shade under a mango tree where the condemned turkey sat trapped in the firm hands of this experienced Togolese killer and asked if i could do the dead. My friends host mother, draped in her beautifully patterned panya clothes, looked up at me, smiled and said, "Why not." The two girls in my class stood up in the piot, hugged each other, and watched with faces of terror while I was handed a small black handled knife. I was a bit taken aback. When i first thought of killing a turkey I had the image in my head of a chopping block, a well sharpened hatchet and a final swift stroke of death. I paused for a minute second-guessing what i was about to do. But something gave way and I allowed her to show me how to step on its feet and wings, hold its throat, and with a final back and forth motion, how to cut its neck. I took the very much alive animal in my hands, put my left foot onto its two large wings, my right foot onto its sharply clawed feet and took its head in my hand. I looked up one last time at the smiling gentle hearted grandmother in front of me. With a final nod from her my gaze fell to my victim. I put the knife to its throat and cut.

It was not the swift chop of death that I had hoped. Instead the well used knife took a couple back and forth strokes to break through the skin.

I finally knew that I had succeeded when the dark red of blood began to pour from its neck, staining the while bowl below and my formally clean hands. I finally gave charge over the freshly killed animal to the people who were going to do the hard job of plucking, cleaning, and cooking. My job was done.

I walked back to my two friends with a dazed look on my face and a weird feeling in my belly. One of the girls walked over and handed a tissue to me. At first i didn't realize why she had done that. I then looked down at my blood-spattered right hand and understood. I cleaned the warm blood from my hands and sat down in our outdoor classroom to continue the lesson.

ps. Tomorrow is my birthday!

Clean Underwear Part 2

2005-09-15T10:36:00.001Z

The following is another private journal entry that i decided to post. I thought it was a fitting continuation to the underwear saga. It's really amazing the things that one needs to think about and worry about here. How life is different!

*************************

Earlier today i figured that with the extra time i had from the day off (happy 4th of July !) I would wash my underwear. In training they told us it was rude to give our underwear to your host family to wash.

I took that advice and went as long as I could without clean undies (and for anyone that knows me… that’s a long time!) I tried washing them in the shower, that didn’t work. They always came out stinky and weird dirty feeling.

I finally said forget it and asked if I could have the proper buckets and water to wash some clothes. One of the girls was sent to get me water. I handed her a shirt and asked her to show me how to wash clothes. She washed the shirt and I was ready to give it a try in “private” with my underwear. She went nowhere, watching as I fumbled around with my clothes. At one point another on of the little girls came over and started helping. By the end there were 4 of us all playing with my dirty under shorts. I finally gave up all together and stood back to watch all of them scrutinize every inch of cloth to insure the utmost cleanliness.
Now, as I sit here, 12 pairs of my holey boxers are hanging in the yard in plain view of everyone that passes. The sad part is that I found another 6 pairs in one of my bags and still have another 4 or 5 pairs I didn’t want to wash just out of pure shame of having enough underwear for 5 Togolese. Goodbye modesty!

Posts and Post

2005-09-03T15:17:00.000Z

First, I just added two new posts. They are both entries into my paper journal that i thought would be fun to share. Scroll down to read them.

Second, I am half way through my 4th day at post. While my life here is amazing, it sometimes gets very tiring. Whats odd is that much of my time is down, not doing very much (you can judge that by the amount of reading i am doing... look right.)

With the help of my new guard (who is AWESOME!) I found someone who is going to clean my house, do my laundry, and wash my dishes three times a week (yes... sometimes i feel guilty at how spoiled i am... then i walk out my front door to 40 children screaming YOVO and chasing my bike.) He also helped me find a carpenter who is making me a couch, love seat, chair, desk, island for my kitchen, counter extension for my kitchen, two straight back chairs, and a desk all for around $140. I cant wait to get it all.

I must be off to buy a few things at the market. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks i will be able to post pictures. Until then, enjoy the journal entries. I miss you all!!!

Clean (?) Underwear

2005-09-03T15:14:00.000Z

I just finished showering. One would think that taking a bucket shower (which we were actually TAUGHT to do. The Peace Corps takes REALLY good care of us) would be interesting enough. This shower was made ever MORE interesting because I washed two pairs of underwear along with my body.

In Togo it is rude to give your underwear to someone else to wash. One can understand that piece of etiquette if one remembers that all clothes are washed by hand (NOT a fun thing to do! I hardly did laundry when the machine was across the hall from my room. Imagine me having to wash everything that hand!) One of the girls in my training group has a very funny story where she was trying to wash her underwear in the yard (everything is done outside) when her host brother came over to her, grabbed one of the buckets and proceeded to help. This meant him picking up each piece of her underwear, scrubbing it, and then scrutinizing it to make sure it was clean (at least he was thorough!)

One of the tricks they taught us while teaching us how to bathe ourselves was to wash our underwear at the end of our shower. It was actually very rewarding to walk back into my little room and hang up the two pairs of underwear that I had just washed with my bare hands. I think the experience was more rewarding than it was sanitary. But does that really matter?

Church In Togo

2005-09-03T15:10:00.000Z

I went to church with my host father. I really need to congratulate the missionaries to Togo. There are more Christian churches, and Christian religious expression here then I have ever seen. The fervor that these people show for worship is rivaled only by the Hassidim of Mysersharime (spelling?).

After fighting our way to a seat (the pews were crowded to the point of breaking) the service began. Before I describe the happening of worship I want to describe what the church looked like. (this is when Dad’s writing ability, Eric’s amazing photographic eye, or Katie’s amazing hand with a brush would come in handy). The building itself reminded me more of a large shed than anything else. It probably had 15 to 20 rows of pews with enough room to sit 6 comfortably (10 to 12 by Togolese standards). In the right side front three pews was the choir. Everything about the choir was normal. They had black robes with white linings around the collar. They all looked to be about the age of any choir you might find in small town US. The one striking difference was the mortar boards they all wore. Having just graduated myself, I at first thought that this group had just graduated and were now being honored by the church. It took me a good ten minutes to realize that this was actually the choir. I’m not sure who the first person was to give these hats (which in my opinion are odd even at a graduation) to this group of singing old Togolese ladies. It sure as heck got my attention!

In the pews on the other side of the graduating choir sat the band. There was also an organ and organist in the front. But why use an organ when you have a band? The band consisted of the same band (I think) that greeted us on our arrival in town. There was a trombone, some sort of trumpet like thing, a snare drum, bass drum, and a couple other instruments that made sounds that were eventually drowned out. The first hymn was started by the organ. After the normal intro so everyone can get the melody the band (drums and all) struck up their driving cacophonic sound. Add to this the graduating choir of grandmothers, and you have quite a sight and sound!

The service lasted three hours. This time included: a skit in Eve (local language) that I did not understand but got everyone else laughing and cheering, about 15 to 20 (I’m not kidding) songs some of which included African drums and people (including me) dancing in the isles and in the pews, a few sermons, an auction for different vegetables and food stuffs, and more dancing.

It is really amazing to be in a place that actually practices religion. It is such a contrast to the anti-religion preached by so many in the US and Europe. I sat in the church thinking about the devotion these people showed. I saw just how happy everyone was dispite the fact that probably only 1/5th of them had electricity and none of them running water. I keep asking myself how much of America I wish for them.

My New Home!!!

2005-08-31T13:07:00.000Z

After 3 months of training i have finally arrived at my post. Things changed around a little bit and instead of going to Kara I am now in Sokode. This is my first day here. But i am already VERY happy! I have a HUGE house. Everything that i said before i left (no electricity, mud hut etc) has been replaced by a two bedroom house with my own guard and a maid. There are palm trees in my front yard, big flowering bushes along the walk way around my house, and servant's quarters for three. It is amazing! Whats interesting is that my rent is only $80 a month.

My house is right next to an elementary school. When I got here we pulled up to the house and were INSTANTLY accosted by 20-30 little children all screaming and laughing. As soon as i would take any of my luggage out of the van one of the kids would grab it from me and run into the house. When i went to kick the kids out of my house I saw about 10 pairs of little flip flops sitting in front of my door. I told everyone to leave. I knew they were all out when all the shoes were gone. It was both very helpful and very stressful at the same time.

My first few weeks here I am going to be laying fairly low and getting a feel for the town. I need to find a good carpenter who will make all my furniture for me. Im planning on buildling a nice size bar in my living room complete with wine racks, speed wells, and hanging wine glasses. :) I was just in Lomé, the capitol of Togo for swearing in. While there everyone took the moving in money they gave us and bought things that we would need that could only be found in the big import, western style stores. Each of us bought stuff that fit who we are and will make our lives here a little easier. One of my friends spent almost $100 on cleaning products, another bought dog food for her puppy; I bought 2 cases of French wine.

I must be getting back to my palace so I can hire the staff for the upkeep of my house. Maybe after that ill drink a bottle of wine and sit on my roof watching the sun set. Ahhh, my difficult life in the Peace Corps. :)

I'm FINALLY back

2005-08-26T13:40:00.000Z

Sorry about the long break in posts. Along with me being very busy the past two weeks the internet was down in my town. One can never totally be sure of what causes those outages, but for some reason the internet cafe has not been working.

Today at 5pm I will officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer. You can now change the PCT part of my address (Peace Corps Trainee) for PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer). I'm moving up in the world! On Monday i will be heading to my post. I'm both scared and excited.

Sadly I must be off to take care of some things while here in the capitol (you can't get 90% of things anywhere else in the country. They actually have cheese here! Cheese... so good... so good!) I am off to purchase over priced imported goods. Hopefully I will be able to get online again soon and post a longer more detailed update.

I'm back and ready to rumble!

ps. My cell phone works again! Try to contain your excitment.

2005-08-07T18:55:00.000Z

As i have said many times before, it is so nice to hear from all of you! Please keep emailing me and posting comments on my blog. Sometimes i feel very far away from everything.

Camelia, so glad you found my blog. :)

Few notes...

First, my cell phone is not working at the moment. For some reason the reception in my town (and my town only! Darn developing countries!) decided to give out. So far all of you clogging the lines between the US and Togo, please stand down. Hopefully things will be fixed shortly. Do not panic. Aaron will be back shortly. :)

Second, in case you havn't known the address, www.aaroninafrica.com is fully up and running.

On to the good stuff...

As i think i metioned a number of times before i am currently living with a host family. They are amazing! I think my host father and mother are in their early thirties. They have two little girls ages 6 years and 8 months old. I love them all dearly. I really think that when i leave here I will miss them like i miss my own family.

When i first arrived I would eat all of my meals at the table in the house either alone or with my host father. The rest of the family would eat after me at a small table in the outdoor kitchen. After about a month of being here I asked my host mother if i could eat with the entire family. For some reason (it was the same way in India) people think that it is respectful and actually wanted, as the honored guest, to eat alone. This concept is SO foreign to an American!

The first time we ate as an entire family it was raining. My host father and I, after drinking a local alcohol called Sodabe (aka MOONSHINE! PHEW! I had some earlier today at half-time of a soccer game i was watching. That stuff BURNS going down!) we prepared Fufu (i think i've talked about fufu before) under the thatched roof of the kitchen as it rained. We then went inside as a family and ate together. The 8 month old girl says two words. She says "Bonjour" (sometimes) and "papa." While we were sitting at dinner she looked at my and said, "Aaron." I can honestly tell you that my eyes started to water.

(Another short story when the little girl almost made my eyes water...

A couple week ago I was playing outside with the kids . I was sitting in my chair as they ran around and did what little kids everywhere do. At one point the littlest girl came to me and motioned that she wanted me to pick her up. Having heard another Peace Corps person tell me, "Don't worry. You WILL get peed on." I tried to stay clear of holding the potential water ballon at my feet. The older girl noticed the little girl wanted to get into my lap and ever so kindly ran over and helped her up. I sat there with this ticking time bomb on my leg expecting every second to feel the warmth slowly creep down my leg. Nothing. I was just feeling comfortable when the little girl runs back over and says, "Elle a fait kaka." (She pooped). Sure enough I lift her up and look down at my newly crap streaked shorts. That's what happens when you are living life in the fast lane... aka... Africa.)

I now have moved out to eating with the family at the small table outside next to the kitchen. I am in. I'm a part of the family now.

I love it here.

Scratch another meat off the list!

2005-07-27T01:43:00.000Z

Well, I've finally done it. After talking about it for years. After searching on multiple continents; I have finally eaten dog.

My old roomate Aaron (all my best friends have been named Aaron. That’s cus Aaron’s are always cool people) used to say he wanted to be the Noah of meat eaters. Meaning he wanted to eat two of every animal. Well Aaron, I have knocked another one off the list.
Since Saturday I have been in Kara. It’s weird to wander around this city knowing that it will be my home for the next two years. Two days ago I signed the lease for my house. It’s a nice little place. When you walk in there is a fairly large common room with three doors leading into two bedrooms and a bathroom. I can’t wait to move in! This will be my first house. What a weird feeling. I’m really growing up! Sadly the house only has an outdoor kitchen that I share with the 3 other dwellings in my compound. I plan on building a fairly large bar (5 - 7 seater) that will also serve as my kitchen. That will be an ongoing project for the first couple months of my service. I also want to have stairs built so I can get on my roof. The view will be AMAZING from up there. Sadly there is a wall that blocks it from the ground. But once I get onto the roof I will be able to see for miles and miles across beautiful African wilderness. I can’t wait!
Today I was introduced to the Prefet (head guy in the region) and mayor. It is very important to be on good terms with all local government. The Peace Corps recognizes this and makes a point of stressing the importance of introducing yourself as soon as you get to post. My host country counterpart made the introductions. What a cool experience being welcomed by these very important people!

My brother and I have been talking about eating dog for YEARS! During our entire trip through China we kept trying to find a place where we could eat dog, cat, snake and rat. Sadly we found none of the above. Luckily I got posted to a region of Togo that LOVES dog. After my last audience I mentioned to my guide that I wanted to eat dog and drink chook. He called one of his friends who would help me. After much searching (everyone loves dog SO much that after 5pm it is pretty much all gone) we found a chook stand and a man selling dog. Before I go on I must explain chook.

Chook is a locally made (and when I say local I am talking about in someones house) alcohol. It is made with millet. I’m not totally sure of its production past that point. But it is drunk all across Togo, with most of it originating in my region. One drinks it out of bowl type vessel called a "kalabash." Kalabashes come from a vegetable kind of like a pumpkin that grows on trees (imagine seeing green pumpkins hanging from a tree) that is cut in half and dried to make a bowl. One drinks chook at a chook stand. They are usually 3 or 4 benches around a 10 or so gallon bucket attended by a lady who along with serving it has probably made it in her house. One sits down with friends and orders a kalabash of chook. The lady then uses a slightly smaller kalabash and scoops out your allotted amount and hands you your chook. When I first drank it with my host father a couple weeks ago I was surprised at how much I liked it. It has a sweet taste, slightly bubbly, and overall not that bad. I’m not sure how much alcohol is in it. My guess is it is on the same strength level as beer. Not totally sure though, there are no labels on the side telling percentage. :)

Today we found a chook stand and started drinking. The Togolese friend I was drinking with left for a few minutes and came back with a man brandishing a cardboard box. He puts the cardboard box down in front of me. My friend sits down next to me and says in French, "Here’s the dog!" I look into the box to see 5 skewers with what looks to be meat on them. I have no clue how old the meat is, how long ago it was cooked, or what has happened to it since then. Regardless of all of these things I grab and start eating. I honestly can say that dog pretty much tastes like any other dark meat. It was fairly tender, well spiced.

I can’t believe that I will be living and working here for two years. So amazing! All of you reading this, come visit me and you too can eat dog! I can’t think of anything more appealing than that to make you come. :)

My tooth hurts!

2005-07-21T18:11:00.000Z

My tooth hurts! The root canal that i got 2 months ago didn't take. Three days ago i bit into my breakfast and felt like someone had rammed a hot poker into my cheek. No good. Luckily the peace corps medical people are AWESOME! They really take care of anything and everything that is wrong with us; sparing no expense along the way (within US governement funding restrictions of course! :) This morning i was driven from my training site to the capitol city. I realised as we entered Lome how in awe i was. I caught myself looking at a gas station and thinking, "Wow! They have a gas station. They don't buy there gas from old Gin bottles from a 12 year old on the side of the street like they do in Adetta."

I need to add a little note here: I hate dentists more then i hate anything else is this world. I don't just dislike one dentist. I don't just not like going to the dentist and having to deal with drills and bright lights and tubes sucking the spit out of my mouth. No. I dislike dentists. All of them. I don't care if you father is a dentist, i hate him too. I hate them.

I had to get that off my chest before i could continue with my story.

I went to the best dentist in all of Togo. I think that in putting on all of his gold chains this morning he didn't realise that you are supposed to wear a shirt under the white lab coat. I had never pictured what a pimp/dentist would look like. Now i know. He basically said that if the medicine he gave me doesn't take care of the infection in one of my roots i'm going to have to get a bridge. NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT!

Other then that my life is wonderful. I love living here. I love the Peace Corps. I might have said this before... but... I don't know why more people don't do this. I am being taken care of 110% (almost to the point of being babied). And i get to live in an amazing place and do real work that will actually do something for someone. Every night when i watch the sun go down i ask myself, "Why do more people not do this." This is truly an amazing place!

2005-07-20T18:46:00.000Z

As i have said so many times before, i have such a hard time sitting down and finding only one thing to write about. I could literally sit and write (although i'd MUCH prefer to talk in person... and have a drink) for hours and hardly give justice to everything that I am doing here.

My dad says, "Chose one story and write about it." How can i chose a single story to write about when last weekend i went swimming in a waterfall, monday I was at the market drinking Chook (i'll explain sometime) with some local friends, or how i'm on a team of 4 who is giving business advice to 2 teens who have their own restaurant. I could literally sit here and write for an hour on the amazing African sun sets (anyone who has ever been in this country will know what i am talking about! There is something different about the way the sun sets here. I'm not sure if it the lush green background, if it is the amount of color that is in the sky, or something totally different that i can't quite put my finger on. I literally sit outside every night in total amazement, not even being able to read my book, at the beauty that is the sun while setting.) Then on top of that there is the amazingness that is my daily life. I catch myself thinking of things as normal (like the lizard i had to chase out of my room last night). There is just too much!!!

This upcoming week I will be at my post in Kara (look it up on google). I am so excited to see the house that i will be living in for the next 2 years (the rent on a 2 bedroom house that a current PCV (peace corps volunteer) lives in with living room and kitchen (no electricity or water) is 12,000 CFA (about $24 dollars) a month. Yes! You think about that when you are drinking your $12 martini, Ben! You are half way there to a new house.)

I just realised that it is almost 7pm! I must get home to eat dinner.

Sorry i havn't sent email. I havn't been able to get into my in box for a couple weeks now. :) Internet is SO bad here.
miss you all!

Finally!

2005-07-15T11:45:00.000Z

Wow. I can not express the lesson in patience that is getting online here. Wow. I have been in this very hot little internet cafe for the past half. I have not been able to get into my email, have only now opened up the page to post on my blog, and am drenched in sweat. But thus is life here.
First, i would like to say hi to everyone at my old job. Good to know that you guys are all reading my blog! I can't tell you how much i miss all of you (cough cough).
There are times during my travels when I expierence a place or a thing that i can not even begin to describe. I remember that my first day in Israel and my trip to The DMZ were both days that i caught myself saying, "Wow. This is amazing." There was something different about those places. Instead of seeing something from history that was long since gone, or seeing somthing that was put there to make money off of you, you are instead living something real.
Last sunday i had another one of those days...
Since we got to Adeta (the little town where i live) i kept hearing about a "cascade" (waterfall) a little outside of town. Last sunday 8 of us Peace Corps people and a group of 10 - 15 local children guides walked there. To get to the water falls you first turn off the main road (any paved road is a main road... there aint very many of them around here). After turning off the main road we walked for about 15 minutes through a picture perfect African landscape of thick brush with the occasional tree. There is something about the trees here. I'm not 100% sure what it is. They just seem so... i don't know... african. They are all very tall, 20 - 30 feet maybe. The lower section of the trees are bare of leaves and branches. Then towards the tops the trees spread out into a wonderful canopy of leaves spread out perfectly to catch the sun. Love them!
We eventually entered the jungle. I was in the true African jungle. The entire time we were there i kept asking myself, "how the heck am i going to describe this in my blog (i'm a talker. Not a writer... anyone who knows me will understand that.)" Imagine what you think an african jungle should look like: stream running besides you, plants thick all around, tall trees with vines, a heavy moist air, green everywhere. Your perfect image is exactly what it was like. I need to go back because i missed so much. I felt like as soon as i would focus on one thing and soak in one sensory expierence 10 more would be distracting me (and i get distracted in DC when a bird flies by!). It was truly amazing. We finally walked into a clearing with the first waterfall. I can't even tell you how amazing it was to stand on the rocks around the water and watch it fall the 30 or so feet to the ground. It was amazing, beautiful, wonderful, breathtaking, EVERYTHING all wrapped into one. Our tour guide friends all stripped down to their underwear and jumped in the cold water. Scared about getting Shchisto (look it up online. They scared the CRAP out of us the other day at a health presentation. It's one of the many many fun tropical diseases that i could get. There are TONS of them!) we didn't get in.
After the first water fall we climbed to a second that was higher up on the moutain. This one was even more amazing rising probably 50 - 70 feet in the air. I can't tell you how amazing it was to stand there and watch the water make its long fall down. It fell so far that by the time it was close to the ground it had turned from a solid droplet to a fine mist.
I was somewhere real. This wasn't for tourists, this wasn't something that existed in the past and is now a shell of its former self, no. I was somewhere that was alive. That is the reason i travel.
Amazing!

My First Post from Togo (OLD)

2005-07-07T12:39:00.000Z

This was something that i wrote on another computer, put on a floppy, and meant to use as my first post. I have only now remembered to bring the desk with me. There might be things that I have already talked about. But in the end i wrote it, so i'll post it. Enjoy...

(old post)

I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to update my website. The internet situation here has probably been the biggest shock (seconded by the dirt roads in Lome. I never thought I would see major capital that had sand as the main street building material.) The internet cafes here are usually about 15 computers made from parts from the mid 90s all sharing ONE 56k dial-up modem. To put that into perspective, in my old house I could get download speeds of around 400k. The internet cafes here are getting 1.4% of that. And then imagine that being shared between 15 people. It took me 30 minutes just to read my first email. I hope that explains partly why it has taken me this long to update my page.
I am in training at the moment. The Peace Corps does an AMAZING job at making sure we have all of the tools we need to do our jobs. My first three days in country were spent in health sessions. We covered everything from malaria to water filtration to diahreaha (the nurse giving the presentation said diahreaha 42 times in 20 minutes. I kept count.) After my first three days in Lome (the capitol) we took a bush taxi (the main mode of transportation between any two places in Togo. Usually consists of a car or van being held together (sometimes literally) by a piece of string and then crammed with 3 more people past the point where you couldn’t fit anyone else in) to a town where we will spend the next three months in language, cultural and technical (job related) training. After those three months we will all go on to our separate postings around the country.
I am currently living with a Togolese family. The Peace Corps decided that it was better to have each of us live with a family, speaking only french and Eve (the local language we will be learning), instead of all living together (22 Americans living together don’t speak much French!) While it isn’t the easiest of living, I love it. The family that I am living with is probably considered upper middle class by Togolese standards. They have electricty, a tv, and a scooter. I can’t tell you how much you come to apreciate being able to walk into your room and turn on a light at night (or even more, walk into my outhouse/bathroom and turn on a lamp. That’s the big one!) Even though they are upper-middle class my host mother cooks in an outdoor kitchen on the ground.
Living here reminds me a lot of camping. Every morning I wake up, pull my mosquito net away, stand next to my screen door and smell the morning dew smell mixed with cooking fire. Whenever I want to go to the bathroom I have to go outside (with a flashlight if it is late at night) and go to my own little outhouse. My laterine is two small rooms connected to each other. Each room is about three feet by three feet. In one room is a concrete "toilet" where I do my buisness. It’s amazing how it really doesn’t smell bad at all. Showering is actually quite an expierence as well. Whenever I want to shower I ask my host mother for hot water. She fills my bucket (they told us to bring our own buckets) with warm water which is then carried by one of the children (there are TONS of little children running around! Even though my host family only has 2 little girls, there are always at least 7 children in and around our house) one of the girls then carries my water to my shower stall. When the warm water is ready I remove all of my clothes in my room and rap myself in a Panye (a two meter piece of beautifuly colored cloth) and walk to my shower. I then dump the water on myself one cup at a time, get good and lathered with soap, wash my hair, and rinse off. It’s amazing how I don’t even go through an entire bucket of water and get a very nice shower. I wonder how many buckets of water I use when I take one of my long 30 minute showers at home?
I could literally go on for pages and pages about all the little details of life here. I will end now as my host mother will be getting dinner ready for me soon. Hopefully I will be able to write more later.

Wow

2005-07-06T19:59:00.001Z

Just a quick update...

First, thank you so much for posting comments! I can't tell you how wonderful it is to know that there are still people out there. Sometimes I feel very far away from everything. It is always wonderful to get a little hello.

Second, I have to comment on my situation right now. I get online from an "internet cafe" through an ONG (NGO in English... the French mix up all their acronyms) that is actually right up the street from me. I am sharing a 26k connection with 6 people. You have NO idea what slow internet is until you've tried this!

I think i mentioned it in my last post, but, during my travels there are times when i look up and say, "Where the heck am i?" Right now I am sitting next to my new friend Christopher (who is an artist in town), talking (in french) to two really cute French girls sitting two computers down, and listening to slow dance songs from my middle school dances that the guys who run this place decided to put on. Every time our music fades from song to song I can here the African dance music coming from the bar accross the street. I can't help but smile at how many cultural, old memory, and random things can mix to form a single sensory expierence. Truly amazing.

Other big news!

I FINALLY got a cell phone. After me being stupid and throwing out 5 phones when i moved out of my place, trying to unlock my old phone and use it (Ben, it didn't work! For some reason my phone refuses to pick up a signal now) i FINALLY got a phone. Please feel free to call me at any time! My number is 011 228 919 4830. The 011 is used to call out of the US, the 228 is the country code, and the rest is my number. Please feel free to call any time (i am 5 hours ahead the US... I think). You could also try sending me text messages.

Again, it was wonderful hearing from everyone! Please keep up the contact. I miss you all very much.

Me again

2005-07-02T19:13:00.000Z

Wow. Every time i sit down to write an update I have a hard time figuring out where to begin. My life here is SO amazing with SO many stories to tell that I get overwhelmed.

I will start this update by answering a few questions. Please use the comment feature of my blog to leave questions and comments on what i write! It's nice to know that there are people out there reading this. :)

Kate asked about books that I might like. First, so nice hearing from you Kate! I miss you guys so much! Second, I am reading like a banchee (not sure if that saying works here... you get the point.) I have read around 1500 pages thus far in 4 and a half books. I thought the 3 books i brought with me would last at least the first month. They lasted 10 days. As soon as i cut tv and internet out of my life i found hours and hours of wonderful reading time. I'm now reading a book written by a Harvard Prof about causes and sollutions to poverty. AMAZING book! I never thought i would call an econ book page turning. This one is. Please send me whatever book you think i might like. Send me your favorite book, send me a book you've always wanted to read, send me a book you've never wanted to read, send me anything. I will read it. After i read it i will send you a letter telling you everything that i thought about it. Just send books. I'm tearing through them!

Dad asked a couple questions... Let me see what i can do.

IN TERMS OF FOOD: Dr. Atkins would HATE my diet. The Togolese (and i think a large portion of Africa) eat carbs, and lots of them. Food in africa is a large portion of carb filled, stomach filling, starchey stuff and a sauce. At any given meal I will have a plate full of: rice, fufu, pate, cooscoos (sp?), or pasta. Next to my plate I will have a bowl with a lid. Opening this lid is always a source of excitement. The sauce inside this bowl is always green or red (red being tomato and green being somthing green.) Mixed with this sauce is my only source of protein in the form of small chunks of the meat of the day. I find myself craving anything with protein. Yesterday during a class on micro-finance someone was passing around a jar of peanuts. After a few minutes I realised i had finished about half of the wonderful wonderful protein filled jar.

How does one explain fufu? Imagine a ball of uncooked pizza dough that you eat with a light sauce. Fufu is made from manioc or ignam (Yam). They take one of those two roots, cut it into smalish pieces, boil it, then (in French) "pile" it. To "pile" something is basically using a giant mortar and pestal to grind it down and make it into a dough of sorts. In all the markets you see groups of four women standing around the two foot tall "pestal" pounding it with 3 foot baseball bat type things. It finally turns into the dough like stuff. It really isn't all that bad. In some ways it tastes like dough. In another way it really has no flavor. It is a stomach filler. At that job it does wonderfully. It is eaten with the right hand (NOT THE LEFT! My first time eating it i reached with my left and got scolded by my family.)

This update is already going on much longer than i had intended! There is just so much to say and so little time to say it.

A few other updates:
I found out that I will be posted to Kara. It is a city in the Northern portion of the country where The President of Togo (who is also a GW Alum) was born. I am SO excited to get there and start working!

All that stuff I said before I left about me not having electricty, living in a tiny village and having a mud hut. Ya, that was crap. It turns out that I am the first IT Peace Corps Volunteer to Togo. Kind of funny that no one mentioned that to me until i got here. At first i tried to fight it. I really wanted my village. After thinking about it and talking with the wonderful staff here I realised that I was brought here by the Peace Corps because of the skills that I have. As much as i want to run from it, my skills are with computers and IT. It is there that i can do the most. So it is there that i will work.

I'm going to end here. Today was a very long day with a wonderful hike up a moutain, a couple hours spent at my host fathers mechanic buisness watching the rain fall, and an amazing meal of chicken (PROTEIN). I must be off to take my bucket shower and sleep.

Please, keep asking questions and sending books. I miss you all so much!

One reason why I am here

2005-06-25T14:54:00.000Z

I have recently realised that one of the reasons I travel is to expiernce things that I otherwise would not get the chance to be a part of. There are occasions where this is taken to the extreme and i expierence something that not only would i never have been able to expierence, but I get to be a part of something that I never even knew EXISTED.

Two days ago i was sitting in my room writing in my journal. As i wrote i noticed a few large dragon fly type bugs flying around my room. I killed them and thought nothing of it as bugs are VERY comon here (it is Africa!) As i wrote i noticed more and more of these dragon fly like bugs on the window and door. At one point the bugs, atracted by my light, were coming in through any crack in the window and door they could find. I felt like my room was under invasion from a flying army of bugs!

My host mother came to my door and told me the water i has asked for to take a shower was ready. I got undressed, wrapped myself in my Pagne (long clothe i use as a robe to walk to my shower) and stepped outside. I looked to the left and saw my entire family fighting a cloud of the flying bugs that were all atacking the light that lights up our yard. I had never seen that many bugs in one place! My host father took a very large bowl, put a few inches of water in it, placed a lamp in the middle of the water (a lamp island), and turned off all the other lights in and around the house. This worked as a bug trap of sorts where the bugs would fly towards the light, get wet, and end up drowning in the water. There were SO many of these flying things that they had to scoop them out with their hands and keep replacing the water. There were thousands! It turns out that all the rain we had that day caused termite eggs to hatch and unleash this army of flying bugs.

That is why i travel. I want to know that when it rains cats and dogs in West Africa termites hatch in the thousands. Amazing! I have now lived through my first invasion of flying termites.

Another story that I will be able to tell my grandchildren someday.

I'm here!

2005-06-23T11:42:00.000Z

I am FINALLY able to post an update from Togo! Internet here is amazingly slow. Imagine an internet cafe with 20 computers sharing a SINGLE dial-up connection on computers from the mid 90s.

Where to begin? Togo is AMAZING! I love it here. I'm currently in Peace Corps training. That includes fairly intensive French language study, health sessions and technical (job related) training. It was really nice to get here and realize that my french was actually MUCH better than i thought it was. It still has a way to go though.

Right now we are living in a "large village" of about 7000 people. In order to get a better idea of what that means it is important to note that even in Lome (the capital) there was only 1 paved road. I can not tell you how big of a shock it was to be driving down dirt and sand roads in the CENTER of the city.

I live with a wonderful Togolese family that has 2 daughters (ages 4 and 8 months). I am very lucky in that my family is fairly well off and has electricity, a tv, and a moped. I have my own little room with a table, bed, and singe neon light. I also have my own outhouse/shower stall. It is a concrete little building about 30 feet away from the house where I can use the bathroom and take my bucket showers. Showering with a bucket and a cup is actually much easier than i had thought it would be. It's amazing that i can take a full shower and not even use an entire bucket of water. I wonder how many buckets one of my 30 minute showers in the US would be? Interesting thought.

The Peace Corps is taking amazing care of us. All of our needs are being met. It's was a weird feeling the first couple days to have no access to my own money, no control over when i eat, and nothing really to worry about. I get a stipend of the equivalant of $1.75 a day. We feel like kings getting around 15 dollars every week. It is more than enough money to live here.

The people of Togo are amazingly nice. I have finally found a country that actually LIKES the US. It's amazing! I have met a very large portion of my host fathers family. He took me to church on Sunday. Before the service we walked around and said hello to around 40 of his family members.

This is really a wonderful place! I know it is very difficult to travel here. But i urge anyone with a slight interest in travel to visit me. You really would not regret it!

Please send me letters, pictures, magazines, books, and anything you think i might want. I have a TON of time to read! I would also love pictures. After getting here I realised that i had brought only a few pictures. It's so nice to be able to put pictures of the people i love on my walls.

If you do send anything to me, try to put it in padded envelopes instead of boxes. Boxes take much longer to get through customs then envelopes do.

I miss you all very much and look forward to hearing from you.

Off soon

2005-06-10T22:33:00.000Z

I write this update from the Holliday Inn Bar in Philadephia with a glass of Merlot and a little apprehension.

Today I completed my second day of "staging" (aka orientation). It has been a mix of helpful and cheese ball. I have to say that I am NOT the biggest fan of hokey "draw pictures of things that will scare you to get better get to know these other people" type activities. Besides the cheese this event has been very helpful. I have gotten to know the roughly 20 other people that will be going to Togo with me. We all will have different jobs and will be living in different villages eventually. But for the next 3 months we will all be together in training. Thus far I am very impressed. Everyone is very mature, interesting and all around nice. It is funny how hippie everyone is. One of our trainers asked how many vegaterians there were in the room and hands shot up left and right. It's ok, I love dirty hippies. In some ways I am one.

I am happy at how much more French I speak then most of the people. Going into this I thought I would be on the lower end of the French profeciency ladder. It actually turns out that I am very near the top. Most of my group has barely more than basic highschool French. I am so excited to actually get in country and start using French again!

I just learned that I had been placed in an Information Technology job. The packet the Peace Corps sent with my invitation to serve said that I would be working as a Small Business volunteer. The trainers just handed out a sheet with a list of everyone's jobs. I was listed on the Information Technology section, the only one in my program. I'm fine with that as long as i get to live in a village. I really want to have the village experience with it's lack of running water and electricity. I also don't want to be living in a big (however big cities in Africa can be) city. When I actually get to Togo I will be talking to the in country people and make sure they put me in a village.

I am trying to get the domain name www.aaroninafrica.com for this blog. Hopefully it will come through soon. I'll let you all know.

I must be off. So much to get ready before my departure tomorrow. I can't believe this is finally happening!

First Post

2005-06-08T12:09:00.000Z

I am moving to Togo with the Peace Corps. I will probably not have the most regular or reliable internet connection while there. But hopefully I'll be able to update this at least once a month. We will see.