...and then it goes back up and we pull through

…and then I read this song posted by a friend who is an RPCV from Suriname and I’m filled again with a joy and love for being here and a desire to see it through. Thank you Gwynn and thank you to all to people who help pull us through the low times

You’re my brother,
I’m your brother too,
Hold me in your hand.
Together, we’ll work until God comes again.

Nothing can happen to us
When we walk together.
Nothing can happen to us
When we live side by side.

Where love is, I promise you, it will hold you over.
Where love is, I promise you, it will get you through.
Where love is, I promise you, it will take you there.

You’re my brother,
I’m your brother too.
Hold me in your hand
Until God comes again.

Nothing will happen to us.
Nothing will happen to us.

My sister,
Where love is, I promise you, it will get you through.

And never, never, never
Must we hate each other.
And never, never, never
Must we hate each other.

We must, we must, we must
Love each other.
Alright.

Of the laws God gives us,
Love is the boss of them all.
Of the laws God gives us,
Love is greater than them all.

Love must be.

A low point on the rollercoaster

This is just one of those days when you feel unbelievably lonely. Lonelier than you ever thought you could feel. I’ve always been a social person, comfortable in my skin and often surrounded by loving and wonderful friends and family.

In Togo, it’s been difficult to maintain that status. I often feel uncomfortable in my skin, because of the attention it draws and misconceptions that people garner from it.

I try to surround myself with loving and wonderful friends and people I can call my family in Togo, but then you find your brother, the person you love and hope for the most in the whole country, has broken into your house, stolen a key, made copies and then broken into your house yet again and stolen 20% of your monthly living allowance.

I try to be social, but then the crowds try to push and pull me in every direction, giving no space for l’etranger to enjoy the social time on her means.

These are things that I have struggled with, gotten over, and struggled with again over the last two years. And I know I will get over them again. But it doesn’t make those low times any less miserable.

            In addition to the rollercoaster on which my personal happiness tends to ride, I’ve recently had the challenge of a complexly intertwined personal and professional lifestyle. In Peace Corps, your work partners, both host country nationals and volunteers, are also your best friends. Your neighbors become your family. And when difficult decisions need to be made when it comes to projects, living situations or leadership positions in a large project, you can’t help but do something that is going to upset someone from your small network of close friends.

Maybe it’s realizing that you don’t have the time to take on a village project that your closest counterpart really wants (or you think it is a terrible idea and you simply don’t want to take it on). If you don’t want to fund his project, he might take it as a personal attack (we say he should know better. We know we’re not here to be moneybags. But he has misconceptions about us and others of our nationality or skin color, which brings us back to the second paragraph).

Or maybe its selecting volunteers to take on leadership positions for a national large camp or event that you lead and hope to see continue next year. Whoever you don’t select will likely be upset, even if they have the emotional strength and intelligence to handle it, move on and continue the friendship. And no one wants to hurt his or her friends.

As I’m coming to the end of my service, I find that for some reason these things are affecting me more than in the past. I’m struggling with the loneliness, with the failures, with the betrayals. Maybe its because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I can imagine my life post-peace corps, that I’m finding it so difficult to live with the passing moments of darkness. I know it will pass. I know I will come out on the other end, fulfilled and content. But for the moment it’s a difficult passage.

Women's Wellness and Empowerment in Togo

            March 8 is International Women’s Day, a day that originally started to celebrate and encourage the movements made by suffragettes around the world who were fighting for women’s rights in the workplace and for the right to vote. Today it is still celebrated around the world for in nearly all countries we can still find inequalities between men and women. I find that the celebration of this day and the things it symbolizes is especially important in countries like Togo, where traditional gender roles place men as the authority over women and do not provide for equality in decision making in the household or the work force. While education and access to information may be changing this gender balance in Togo, there is still a lot of work to do. 

Girls collecting water from one of the few wells that haven't dried up in Solla

Volunteers from across Togo can testify to the inequality they see on a daily basis between men and women, between girls and boys. Women and girls are expected to sweep the house, to prepare all the meals, to fetch water for bathing, drinking and cooking, to collect wood for cooking, to sow seed and harvest from the fields, to sell the goods from the harvest in the market, to prepare food or drink for sale. These are time consuming activities, especially when you consider that they may need to travel over a kilometer to find the closest water source and may need to make 3 or 4 trips in order to collect enough water for the household’s daily needs. 

Men have their roles as well; they are expected to build the yam hills in the fields and the rows for corn, to build the houses where the families live, to serve as an authority to solve the family’s problems, to provide money to pay for the needs of the household. But these tasks do not take nearly the time as those of women and by midday, most men are busy drinking with their buddies and sleeping under the mangos trees while the women continue to work. In the evenings, they are free to play soccer and promenade in the markets while the girls and women prepare for all the households evening needs.  The balance of work is not equal. And neither is the balance of choice.

A man in Solla working the rice fields

In this culture, the men, especially in rural areas, often dictate decisions. They decide whether or not their daughters will be allowed to go to school, whether the mother will be able to take family planning measures. And women are taught that they must be subordinate to men. They are taught that their thoughts are not of value in decision-making. This has lead many women to be timid around men, to lack confidence in themselves and their ability to speak thoughtfully. It is an unfortunate thing, especially since it is the women who truly understand the problems of the family and the community and only through this understanding can we ever find the solutions. 

But this situation can change. It can change by influencing women, but showing them their power and influence and instilling in them the confidence to assert their beliefs, to mobilize their communities and sensitize them on the issues they face. When a person is confident in themselves and their convictions, others listen. It is when we are timid and unsure of ourselves that people tend to doubt our ideas and in turn doubt us.

This is why in 2011, Peace Corps Togo organized the first Women’s Wellness and Empowerment conference. The idea was to give women a forum where they could share ideas and experiences in a setting that would be more comfortable and educative than that which they encounter in villages where men often talk over the women and don’t give them the change to speak. This year, the fourth annual conference was held in my regional capital of Kara, in the north of Togo and I had the opportunity to be among those on the organizing team. 

My fellow National Coordinator Priya and I worked over the last several months with Mimi (the president of the NGO P2M- Pour Une Monde Meilleur who is our host organization and a dedicated partner for women’s rights and empowerment in Togo), and Erin, our Monitoring and Evaluation Chair, to plan the conference and international women’s day event.

The conference started with a training of trainers, which was well organized by Erin to teach the trainers about different learning styles, the importance of incorporating visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning tools in each session and how to work well with co-facilitators. After session development, we decorated the center to prepare for the welcoming of our participants.

Getting excited for the tour of Kara!

The participants arrived tired from the long voyage and largely timid and uncertain about what was to come. They were given a short time to rest after registration and then were allowed to go on a tour of Kara that we’d programmed for them. The 30 women plus 5 Togolese trainers went for an hour tour of the city to visit the market, Palais de Congres, the Université de Kara and other sites around town. Most of these women had never been to Kara and some had never left the vicinity of their villages. 

That evening after dinner was one of the most touching parts of the conference, the candlelight ceremony. It was organized and lead by our Togolese organizer and past participant Mimi, with help from three other past participants who had been invited back this year to serve as trainers. Mimi talked about how she was a model of what the conference can do, of how she came as a participant and has grown in her self-confidence and leadership as a direct result of the faith the conference has put in her. Her speech testified to the values of the conference. She talked of how at first we start in obscurity, uncertain of our rights and our power. But how someone can illuminate you and bring you into the light, for education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. At this point we lit the candle she held in her hands and she then used this flame to light the candles of the women to either side, who one by one spread their flame and brought the rest of the circle of women into the light.

The other past participants then spoke of the importance of sharing this light, of not letting it rest with you alone, so that the nation of women can be brought out of isolation and darkness and into the light of confidence that can change their lives. They also spoke of the times when their candle went out, when they encountered difficulties that left them discouraged and fatigued. In these moments, they said, it’s important to turn to your friends and neighbors who you have illuminated, for they now hold the fire that can relight your own. 

It was striking for me to watch Mimi and the woman that I’d sent to the conference last year lead this session with such confidence and ease. It’s beautiful to see how they have grown and continue to inspire.

The following day focused on women’s rights issues. There was a session on self-confidence animated by a strong past participant (who’s over 60!) who spoke of how when you have the confidence in yourself and your words, people listen. But when you stumble and doubt yourself, others will doubt you as well. After the women learned about gender roles in Togo, how men and women are segregated in the society and why it’s important to educate young girls equally with young boys. The afternoon held the most emotionally difficult sessions of the conference: women’s rights and sexual harassment.  Often women in Togo, including many of our participants, are ignorant of their rights and these sessions open their eyes to the rights given them under Togolese law, such as the right to inherit property and the right against domestic violence and sexual harassment. While these sessions can be emotionally taxing as the women share stories of the suffering women bear in their villages, they carry the positive twist of introducing these women to the resources that exist in their regions, such as the NGOs run by two of our Togolese counterparts.

PCVs Molly and Erin giving two of our participants face masks

After the exhausting first day of sessions, we gave the women a chance to relax by hosting a beauty night organized by our Volunteer trainer Alison. Here we treated the women to face masks, manicures and foot massages and took a couple hours to take care of these women who do so much to take care of their families and communities every day of their lives. 

The second day of sessions focused on women’s health issues such as family planning, sexual health, HIV and STI prevention, breast cancer and disease prevention through sanitation. The aim is to give the women the technical tools needed to inform others in their communities and make advances for women’s and family health.

PCV Ruth co-lead a session on family planning 

 

The final day brings it all full circle by teaching the women how to transmit the information they have learned to others in their communities. Here we organized a large gathering of community members who came together to listen to the women and give them a time to practice their presentation skills. The celebration coincided with International Women’s Day and served the dual purpose of celebrating women and giving them the confidence to teach others to create positive change in their communities. We invited four keynote speakers to our event: a powerful businesswoman named Madame Elino who started from humble beginnings but through the support of the social services in Kara has grown into a household name, the regional director of social action, the representative of the Prefet of Kara and the Country Director of Peace Corps Togo. They spoke of the power of women to change the world and of the importance of encouraging and celebrating women in our communities.

After our keynote speakers concluded, the participants took the stage and shared three skits that embodied the themes they learned over the week. The first skit focused on financial independence, falling in line with Togo’s national theme for the day “L’autonomisation économique de la femme: c’est le progrès pour tout et pour toutes” and the women shared the importance of creating small savings and loan groups in their villages. The second skit focused on gender segregation and girls education, respecting the United Nations theme for the day of “Women’s equality means progress for everyone”. The final skit focused on family planning and educating our rural women and the process and its benefits. After the presentation concluded, the 500+ attendees stayed for music and refreshments to celebrate this day in the name of the women of Togo and the world who are fighting for their rights.

Participants and trainers preparing for the International Women's Day Event

Needless to say, it was a stressful but ultimately rewarding day. Managing teams of audio workers, setting up tents and chairs, preparing the participants, coordinating the TV and radio crews and keeping 500+ attendees from breaking into a full out mob was not easy (in fact, I think we failed at the last part when the donated drinks came out. Be wearing when giving out anything for free in Togo), but it was a remarkable learning experience and I’ve been hearing positive remarks from all those involved ever since. Even people from my village who were unable to attend the event heard the radio broadcast and remarked on the success of the event.

After the heat of the event cooled and the crowd dispersed, we shared our final meal with the participants, took some time to share our thoughts and watched a slideshow put together by our hardworking media coordinator PCV Andy. The conference was coming to a close. In the morning the women would all depart for their villages to continue their transformation and enlighten others in their villages.

Three of the participants presenting one of their skits for the population

The morning witnessed a race to collect all the contact information for the friends and resources the women gained throughout the week, promises to keep in touch and keep the light shining bright. I have confidence in these women, for they are my inspiration and my hope for the future of Togo. Thank you to everyone who helped make this event a reality, to all who donated, organized or trained, thank you.

In a couple months we will be reconnecting with out participants on a local level, encouraging them to share their successes and difficulties in sensitizing their communities in an effort to create a local network of strong women who can rely on one another for support. It is this type of networking between women and the men who support and encourage them that will create the change we hope to see in the world.

To act or not to act? To fund or not to fund?

Thursday, Oct 31, 2013

There are some questions that I think cross the minds of all Volunteers at some point during their service, if not sporadically throughout it. Will what I’m doing will leave any lasting impact? Am I helping my “community” or exacerbating an existing mentality of dependence and expectations of handouts from outsiders? To fund, or not to fund? To act, or not to act?

I always get the encouragement from people back home to “keep doing all the good work”. And while I know the comments are well meant (and often well received during particularly depressing moments), they often leave me wondering, “am I doing good work? Will any of it last? Is there not a better course of action?”

For instance, my official counterpart and several community health agents are pushing me to find funding to build household latrines in my village. An essential component of any village public health plan, no doubt, but my impression is that latrines seem to be valued more as an expression of wealth and status than as a way to improve public health. There are many ways to deal with excrement that involve little to no external funding, and yet no one does them. No one builds traditional pit latrines, no one even digs holes when they do their business. Its just left in the open and maybe covered with a rock or a couple of teak leaves. Yet everyone wants a fancy concrete structure of any kind in their compound to show off to guests.

My counterparts say that everyone in the village wants to improve public health, they want to reduce diarrhea and protect water sources but they “lack the means” to do so and they need me, the outsider, to come in and give them the resources. He expressed his desire for a large, two to three stall concrete structure in each household, expecting me to dish out bucket loads of money from the land of never-ending wealth. They had no expectation of doing something that could be expanded without external funding, of doing something economically feasible for their community, because the foreigners are there to give handouts and we keep on giving.

I’ve refused to do anything that couldn’t feasibly be expanded upon to reach other households. So I showed some other methods of excrement disposal that are within the means of most households in my community and the most accepted by a focus group of villagers was the Arborloo, a traditional pit latrine with a concrete floor that can be moved to a new pit when the original is full. The original pit is then covered and a tree is planted over the decomposing excrement . The project plan is to provide the concrete floor and a tin roof for 20-30 households who dig the pit and participate in sanitation trainings before the end of January.

Yet I fear that even by purchasing a few sacks of cement and building solid floors for the simple arborloos we plan to build, that I’m taking away from my partners’ seeming limited perception of self-reliance. Could they not be motivated to do this project entirely off their own means? Would that not promote a greater sense of ownership and value?

On the other side, organizing this project with them and reducing the financial burden ever so slightly for the first households who will adopt these latrines may encourage them to build the latrines faster and to educate others on their construction. Knowing that they will only receive the improved floor (which we plan will cost $15-20) if they dig the pit before the end of January and participate in at least a certain number of sanitation trainings may push the recipients to take action quicker than they would if left by their own means. Using financial assistance as a means for encouragement towards further action instead of an end in itself. At least this is the course I hope the project will take.

Then there’s the egg-laying hen project another counterpart and I have been pursuing, which hosts a different range of worries for me. Bernard, my neighbor and one of my most motivated counterparts, has been raising turkeys, ducks and chickens for the last 5 years. He learned some simple methods to improve his animal husbandry from local Togolese extension agents and has adopted nearly all the advice. He built cages to protect the young chicks from hawks, snakes and shrews and he warms the cage with jars of charcoal to compensate for the warmth of the missing mother hen. He prepares feed from a mix of corn, soy, fish powder and the scraps leftover after a day of grinding things at his mill. He vaccinates according to the recommendations from the Togolese Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries. In essence, he is a model student who apply each bit of advice he learns. A Peace Corps Volunteer couldn’t ask for more from a counterpart (but unfortunately, partners like this are rare).

 So when Bernard asked me to help him improve his animal husbandry, I wanted to find a way to do so. At first, it was clear all he wanted was money and I was avoidant. He said he wanted to build a fence, and he wanted me to find the money to help him do it. I suggested that he could do this with his own means but didn’t expect him to do so (I anticipated he’d be like others and just wait for a handout from the foreigner). Yet less than a week later, I returned to Bernard’s house and saw a fence being built with bamboo from the stand by the river and old chicken wire he’d collected. That’s when I saw he was serious and could manage a larger project.

So I connected him with a poultry raiser in a neighboring village who raises improved breed hens for egg production. Together we have developed a project to bring 150 egg-laying hens to Solla. The hope is that this will provide the village with a quality source of protein and nutrition without needing to travel 35km to find eggs. But also, it was to encourage a motivated community member to take the next step to improve animal husbandry practices and increase commerce in his community.

So where are my worries here? First off, it’s a large project with a budget of nearly $2000 and there is only one man who is directly benefiting from this aid. He has a couple “apprentices” who will help him, but he is largely in charge and will reap most of the direct benefits from the project. Would it not have been better if we’d developed a project that had direct benefits for a larger number of people?

To remedy this, we are planning to organize trainings with various community groups to teach some of the basic principals of improved animal husbandry, such as building cages and preparing feed. But I worry that they will expect financial assistance to do this and since they are not receiving it that jealousies towards Bernard’s large project will arise.

I can already sense the jealousies coming, and the chickens haven’t even arrived yet.  Why did I choose to help this one man so much? Why does he get the benefits? Isn’t this supposed to be a “community” project, so shouldn’t the “community” share everything?

I have responses to all these questions when they arise, but it won’t make the challenges any easier. I chose to help this man because he had already taken so many steps to help himself that I could trust him to manage a large project and let it evolve once I am gone. He gets to reap the benefits because he does the work and will realize the project and help it expand so that it can include other producers as well. The “community” will be seeing the benefits, although they may not be as direct and may take time. The local shops will see proceeds from egg sales, revenue that will stay in Solla instead of going to outside communities. Students who will help Bernard sell the eggs in neighboring towns and markets will receive an income to help pay their school fees. The gardeners neighboring the chicken coop will benefit from rich, organic chicken manure to fertilize their gardens. Others will benefit from the advice Bernard gives on how to take basic steps to improve their poultry raising.

I have fears and doubts about the perception of this project and my role in it. If it will be perceived as the foreigner taking preferential treatment towards one friend and handing him all this money from El Dorado while neglecting all others. If they will say that because I am a volunteer for “the whole community”, then the project benefits must belong to “the whole community”. But it is precisely the stress from these doubts that motivates me to find ways that the project can impact others so that they can see its value for the population of Solla as a whole.

This is the internal conflict of every volunteer before, during and maybe even after a project. But it is this stress of self-reflection on projects that pushes us to create approaches that will have the greatest impact. If we do not recognize the potential drawbacks, such as discouraging self-reliance or igniting jealousies, we are bound to cause some level of harm in any project we pursue. If we recognize these drawbacks, but do not respond to the stress they cause, then nothing changes. But if the internal conflict that seems to arises when considering to fund or not to fund, to act or not to act, is respected and given the space and time to develop, I think we can find solutions to address most of our worries.

Then when people back home say “thanks for all the hard work”, we can simply say “Thanks” and not feel such doubt about the authenticity of the question or the response.

Peace Corps Goals

From April 7, 2013 (more than 6months late... I know...)

 

For the last week I’ve been involved in several meetings about organizing, monitoring and reporting the work of Peace Corps Volunteers in collaboration with host country partners. Peace Corps is apparently trying to move towards being a more official development organization with more organized volunteers and efficient reporting. While I see the value of such a change, of reporting the impact that volunteers have and transmitting our work to donors and future volunteers, I fear that such a systematic approach may neglect the most valuable impact of volunteers: the change we can bring simply by being ourselves and being present. The everyday interactions are what makes Peace Corps, not the number of people who attend some training on nutrition or benefit from building latrines.

The English teacher at my village’s high school told me about the Volunteer who helped run an English club in his hometown when he was in middle school. His greatest memories weren’t the lessons he planned but the attitude he brought. The Volunteer would speak of places in the world that the students had never seen, see their own culture through a perspective they had never had, play music on his guitar that they had never heard and lived life with such vibrant enthusiasm and willingness to explore and share his findings. The teacher told me how it was his interactions with the young volunteer that motivated him to continue school, to study American Literature at university and to embody what he called “American values” such as curiosity, open-mindedness and respect for others.

It is beautiful to me that this is the impression we leave in the hearts and minds of the Togolese. I only wish that all Americans actually embodied these values instead of the bickering hatred that I find every time I read American news. Perhaps this is why I’ve nearly abandoned following the news; I prefer to keep the Togolese image of America. Not that they always have a perfect image of us. The Togolese know very well about our history of slavery and racism, about our military presence around the world and about our hesitation to accept immigrants. But they also understand that not all Americans are responsible for nor accept these unfortunate truths.

But Peace Corps isn’t solely about cultural exchange. Afterall, providing technical assistance to host countries is our first goal. But in my experience, this too is most valuable when it comes from personal interactions verses formal trainings. A couple weeks ago I was roasting and cracking cashew nuts with some kids in my village and we started talking environment. One of the kids was asking me if in the US we have a dry season like here or a time when the wells and rivers dry up. I explained that in my hometown in California there is a time when we can expect more rains and a time when we can expect less, but our problem of dried up wells (or at least reduced production) is often caused by a different culprit, overdrawing water so that the aquifer cannot replenish the well quickly. I used the example to explain water cycles and how if the processes that remove water from a system exceed the processes that replenish it, problems will arise. For instance salt water can be drawn into the groundwater and the water from wells can become briny. I used an example from the coastal city of Cotonou, Benin where this is a developing problem. One of the kids recalled when he visited family there and the water out of their well was salty. He asked his family if they had added salt but they responded that the water from the pump near their house has been like that for years. The kid, and likely his family, didn’t think of the likely connection between Cotonou’s growing population, development and thus water use and the increasing salinity of their well water. This led to our conclusion that while we should encourage development in Togo and throughout the world, its important to reflect on the actions we take, recognize the potential consequences and proceed cautiously.

Of course, this is easier said than done. How do we balance economic development with environmental security? I’d like to say that I’m hopeful Togo can find a way to develop harmoniously, but that hope is nearly wiped away when I see the congested Lome streets, the Kara riverbanks overflowing with garbage and the huge consumption of single-use plastics even in the village setting. But all these changes are so recent in the history of Togo that maybe there is still hope.

Don't you EAT?!?!

Written October 30, 2012:

As I said in the last entry, sometimes I pretend I don’t understand questions that have to do with my husband or the person wants me to give them money and I’m just not in the mood to make jokes. But most of the time I handle these situations quite differently.

First off- the husband question. Many Volunteers choose to just say they are married and their husband is well. Sometimes this works to end the conversation and other times it leads to questions like “where is your husband? In the US? Oh well then you must take a Togolese husband!” I decided early on that this approach wasn’t for me (unless I’m in some other city where no one knows me and I don’t feel like talking). So I respond to the “How’s your husband?” question by saying the truth, that I’m not married. This is often followed by “Oh you must marry a man from Solla! Before you leave we’ll find you a husband.” Always I say that I’m not searching for one, that’s not why I’m here. But then I take it a step further.

During my training, one of my teachers (a fabulous Togolese woman!) gave me the following idea: whenever anyone asks to marry me, I tell them to buy me a plane. This has since manifested into the following story that I tell to anyone who says they want me to marry them, or their brother, or son or whomever

“Well, as is the custom here, my father insists a dowry if I am to marry someone. And the dowry he demands is a plane. You see, the United States is very far from here and my father wants to know that I can visit him and my family and I can only do that if I have a plane. So, first you buy me a plane and then we can talk marriage.”

This is lead to several amusing proposals such as “see that pile of sticks there? I’ll make a plane with that and I’ll carry you to the US!” or “We’ll talk to the clairvoyants and we’ll go to the US during the night and return before morning” or “we’ll make this lid into a plane and we’ll throw it and you’ll arrive in the US!” Occasionally, the person says that I’ll buy the plane and we’ll give it to my father, but as they already know, that’s not the way dowry works here! (Plus, I obviously cannot afford to buy a plane)

So how does dowry work here? I won’t pretend to have a crystal-clear image of the situation; I’ve only been here a month. All I really know is that the prospective groom gives something to the bride’s family or does some act to show he’s worthy and to help the families bond. I’ll ask around more about this and write another post at a later date.

If I’m in a bummer mood, a little lighthearted discussion about marriage and planes is almost always enough to cheer me up. And, I can pretty much always guarantee that if I leave the house the conversation will come up at some point. Yesterday when I told someone I wasn’t married, the women responded “Don’t you eat?”

I was completely confused. “Of course I eat. I make food at my house,” I told her.

“No, no, no. You must eat here (pointing to the mouth), but you also need to eat here! (pointing to her babymaker) Don’t you eat?!?!”

I was completely caught off guard and had no clever response. All I could do was laugh and walk away.

Then and Now

Written Oct 29, 2012:

It is becoming challenging for me to step out of my daily life and take the time to reflect on everything I’m going through. Quickly things are becoming routine and commonplace and I forget how different my life today is from my life 3 or 4 months ago.  Then I was roadtripping with a friend in the US, able able to communicate easily with anyone I met, to come and go as I pleased, able to travel hundreds of miles in a day if we so desired or find solitude on a mountain hike.

Now I’m lucky if I speak English once a week. Fortunately my French level is decent enough that I’m still able to communicate with people, assuming they speak French- which most men and young people do, but with the older generations, especially women, its rare. And since my local language skills are nowhere near conversational, there are people I encounter on a daily basis where the words we exchange are utterly incomprehensible to the other. I can only get as far as the greetings or say where I’m going or coming from, yet even that is usually enough to get some smiles (especially from some of the marche mamas who seemed to have decided that my new name is “Alafia loo”, the response to most of the greetings). Needless to say, as soon as the conversation goes past my few stock phrases, there’s little I can do but smile, shrug and say I don’t understand. Sometimes I do this even when I do understand, like when the question has to do with my husband or the person wants me to give them money and I’m just not in the mood to make jokes (more on this later).

Now, it takes me an hour to go only 20km and I have to dish out 2000CFA (about $4, which I’ve come to view as expensive) to catch a moto just to get to the nearest town with another Volunteer. Somedays the journey is absolutely necessary, afterall, that’s where my mail is sent. But most days it seems like way too much energy to leave village. And traveling hundreds of miles in a day? Forget about it. Even if I wanted to, travel here is not conducive to long distances or quick arrivals. But I’m okay with that. For now I’m content to rest where I am, at least most days.

As for the mountain hikes, well, I can do that here. But its unlikely I’ll find any solitude in the process. There are people everywhere all the time and when I go for a walk, all eyes are on me. I’ve been sick the last few days and all I wanted was to be able leave the house and walk to the hospital without needing to talk to every person who sees Ouyobekpere  (me). But that would be rude, and so despite the fact that I felt like I was about to Level 10 (Peace Corps lingo for crapping your pants), I still greeted almost everyone I met.

There is one mountain, Siriyobe, where I can find solitude, but it’s supposedly inhabited by gorillas and giant snakes so no one goes there. While I don't fully believe the stories, they only make me more curious about Siriyobe.

But despite the challenges and the occasional discomforts, for the moment I don’t want to be anywhere else. It’s a little confusing when I think that it’s nearing the end of October and no doubt the leaves of the Midwest are in full color (or perhaps already fallen up in the UP). I get nostalgic when I think of the snow that will soon come to the UP, the smell of Autumn and the coming winter, or the aroma of pumpkin pie. Or when I think of tricker-treaters showing up at my parents’ doors back in California or of the Thanksgiving feast my family will soon be sharing.

Most days I try not to think about such things. Because there is also my life to be had here. There are new holidays to learn and embrace, new seasons to follow, new languages to speak and new faces to love.

“There is something to be seen in everything, and all pleasureable; things need not be especially strange or beautiful. One can get high on the dregs of wine, and full with nuts and vegetables. On this principle, where should I not be happy?”

-Su Dongpu