Because I am a Girl

I'd like to preface this post by saying that at no time in my service have I ever felt that my personal safety was at risk and that there most certainly are men in my community that treat me with respect.

Plan Togo puts out an annual report titled "Because I am a Girl" discussing the obstacles that girls face regarding their personal development and reading it got me to thinking how living it Togo has mad me feel as a woman. The life of the female Peace Corps Volunteer is not an easy one.  We are sexually harassed verbally on a daily basis, asked for our hand in marriage on a regular basis, physically harassed fairly often and generally disrespected all the time.  The funny thing is, once you start talking to the local women about it, they feel the same way.  However, living in this culture, people don't see much of an alternative.

Just this afternoon a teacher from the primary school in front of my house came by to visit my landlord. He reeked of alcohol and stopped by my door first to ask me about my sex life and whether or not I was being fulfilled in Togo.  I told him that I have come here to work and not to fall in love, so its not an issue I want to discuss.  Not catching onto my signals he continues to ask me why I don't have a Togolese man to spend time with, someone who could come over and eat my dinner (i.e. I cook, because I am a woman), watch tv, spend the night...  I told him that I am perfectly happy alone with my cats and my garden and I don't need a man to make me feel complete.  Still not put off by what I have to say he offers his services.  This dude has a fucking wife and kid!!!!!!  I say no again and tell him that I am the chief in my house and I do not want to share that with anyone.  To this he responds "I understand, you are afraid that if we are together in the night and we are crying out that people will hear."  At this point I tell him the conversation is over and that I do not wish to talk to him any longer and walk back into my house, careful to lock the door should he think he needed to come talk to me again.  Ugh!!!!!!

I have a very hard time having friends in my village because of this mentality.  All the women my age have gender assigned duties that do not allow for free time to hang out with me and the single men tend to creep me out, sometimes the married ones too. I would give anything to have someone to hang out with where we don't discuss whether or not we will get married and I will take them back to America, or just offering to have sex with me, wanting to know how I survive without having sex?!?!?  Its none of your fucking business!!!!  There is a common belief here that if you don't engage in intercourse on a regular basis you will fall ill.  Riddle me this: how do celibate nuns live as old as they do without being constantly ill?

Don't get me wrong I love the students, the women and my work, but certain men here turn me into such a man hater. At least once a day I tell someone "I'm sorry, but I don't do things just because a man has told me to do them."  A typical invitation to hang out goes something like this:

Man: You should invite me over to eat sometime.
Kim: I don't cook.
Man: You should cook me a nice American meal.
Kim: I don't have any more gas.
Man: What day can I come over?
Kim: I'm just going to eat street food.
Man: I'd love to come to your house to see how you live.
Kim: Can we talk about work?
Man: Where do you live again. Can I get your number?
Kim: So about this project I'm proposing.
Man: Will you be around tonight?
Kim: Sorry, I got to bed at 8 and I don't accept guests after dark, in fact I need to leave right now.

And then I stop talking to them about anything including what ever work I was hoping to do in their community.  If it wasn't for the students and the women I probably would have left a long time ago. The students get it, even the boys, but they still need some reinforcement. Thus in the vein of being proactive I am planning a training for villagers called Men As Partners that helps them to rethink how gender roles adversely affect the development of the community as well as increase the risk of STDs and HIV for their wives and partners.  Next month I will be participation in a Women's Wellness and Empowerment conference where we tell women they are awesome and to treat themselves that way.  I'm really excited about leading sessions on the importance of talking to you daughters about sex and Womens' rights.

In other news I just had the opportunity to travel a bit for work in Togo. I went all the way to the Nothern most region where I saw some really interesting caves that groups hid in during ethnic conflicts, the drive through rock in Kara, the waterfalls of Badu, and the Danyi plateau.  Togo is so much more scenic that I had realized.  If they could just fix the roads they might be able to become a viable tourist destination.  There are things to see here and they are beautiful!  Come visit me!

We're on a Odyessy of the Mind!

In December I spent two fabulous weeks in California seeing all my friends and family that I could pack into that time.  I ate so much good food and was lucky to hang out with my niece who is the most adorable child on the planet. It was a much needed break from my isolated life here, but now I'm back and pushing ahead at full steam.  One thing I'm really excited about now that I'm back here is our first Maritime Region Odyssey of the Mind competition.  For those of you who have never heard of OotM, its a national competition in America that encourages creative thinking, spontaneous problem solving, and team work.  OotMs philosophy is that creativity can be learned through practice just as much as any other skill and that's what I'm trying to teach my students.

Students try to find a way to drop an egg without it breaking.

Some of the volunteers in my region have formed teams that will compete this April performing spontaneous hands on tasks as well as a long term problem requiring the the team create an apparatus that can help someone who is handicapped and then perform a humorous sketch demonstrating how it works.  My team, which meets for two hours every Monday, has been practicing hands on challenges, some verbal challenges, and team work problems.  You really start to see how much creativity and critical thinking is lacking in the students lives.  There is a lot of forcing of solutions and mocking of all new ideas, so I think what we are doing is going to have a huge impact on the problem solving abilities of the students we work with.

Students trying to turn over the fabric without stepping off.

The biggest challenge I'm facing with my team is to incite original ideas.  So far the things they have suggested as an aid to the handicapped are crutches, canes, a motorized wheel chair.  I can't answer the problem for them, so I just have to keep encouraging them to try harder to think outside of the box.  Can we think of some humorous task or something more non traditional than limited mobility which would affect someone with a disability? Their homework is to come up with something super creative, but so far we're stuck on crutches.  However, I'm not worried.  Once the students start feeling confident in expressing new and potentially controversial ideas, I am confident they will come up with something creative.

In other news, I've got cats coming out of my ears.  When I returned from Morocco I realized one cat was pregnant.  When I came back from America to five new kittens, I also found that my other cat was pregnant.  I am now the temporary owner of 2 cats and 7 kittens.  While cute, its a bit much and so I'm hoping to find them all homes where they will be loved and not eaten.  I'm really not sure how easy that task shall be...

My Life Today

I woke up this morning to the sound of women sweeping their dirt courtyards around 5 AM. Life in Togo doesn’t need an alarm clock, because like clock work the work of the day starts just before sun up. I drank my coffee, ate some breakfast, then went to visit a villager that is the closest thing I have to a friend. She is suffering frequently in her health, but today I found out that she is upset because one of her adopted daughters has run away. This girl is a blood relative, and both of her parents died of AIDS. I have also been told that at the age of 12 she has already been raped twice. I’ve never asked the details of how or when that happened, but I can understand that this girl is living with grief that most people will never understand. Her “mother” can be a bit harsh in giving advice for life, but only because she wants the best for her. I also see how that is likely not the approach that will work to help this girl find joy in her life and want to move forward. My friend was so sad that I found myself crying with her.

After lots of “if god permits” and other gossip, I set off for Tabligbo where I ate lunch and shopped the market with two new volunteers. I love to spend time with the new volunteers because it really shows you how much you have learned but also helps you to remember your optimism and motivation to work from when you arrived. It is hard not to become cynical at times. I worry about whether or not I will have an impact or whether I will ever achieve anything in my time here. However, I just need to remember the Huffington Post article about what PC teaches about failure to feel like I’m doing exactly what I should.

Speaking of being cynical, I was asked for food by the children that live behind me this evening. Almost every day that I am in village they children come to my door, scan my living room, and then proceed to ask “Afi, give me ...insert what ever they see...) The children look fairly healthy, no distended belly or misshaped head. However it pulls at my heart strings wondering if they do or do not have anything to eat. My cynicism wont allow me to give them anything because when I do they just keep coming back like I’m the food bank (or stuff bank, because they are typically more interested in my things than food). We have these uneducated ideas in more developed countries that children are all starving and what a pity that they do not have pants or shoes. One thing I have learned in Togo is that these kids have shoes. They just choose not to wear them. I think they know that “white” people think of them as needy, so they play the role to a T. Togolese make excellent actors. Which is not to say that there is not real poverty and real need in my community. I would just say that it is more cleverly disguised than a lack of pants. There is very real gender inequality. There are pressing and urgent sanitation issues, and people suffer. However, they don’t suffer the way we think we they do in our imagination because they don’t have washing machines.

Right now, as I am about to get ready for bed, there is an all night funeral just getting underway. I can expect to hear music for the next two days while this family spends most of their annual income to properly honor the death of a loved one. This is just a day in my life in Togo.

All for a root canal...

I felt out of place from the minute I stepped of the plane.  I was wearing one of my most comfy pagne dresses in a demure florescent green with not even remotely matching, equally bright, batik "melange" purse in a sea of very Euro looking people in black pants, black boots, black sweaters, black bags.  I felt like I had been dumped in Paris. It was my first glimpse of how hard I have tried to fit in in Togo, and how much that makes me stand out everywhere else in the world except West Africa.  I would like to think of this as training week for the inevitable culture shock I'm going to feel in two weeks when I land in California. Possibly wearing the same outfit. Cultural exchange is fun.  I look ridiculous every day and I love it. However, coming to Morocco is a good reminder to not go to crazy with the local clothes, because in a year these clothes will probably be useless.  

I spent my first two days wandering the media and the ocean front of Rabat by myself.  Daily surf checks that amounted to nothing worth renting a board for.  I was much relieved when a volunteer from Liberia arrived a few days later, just as interested as I was in turning this medical evacuation into a vacation.  Thank you Peace Corps!

Thanksgiving we spent at the house of American expats working in Rabat.  I almost cried when I saw their kitchen as it was the most western thing I've seen in months.  We stuffed ourselves on all the traditional fixings and it almost felt like I was in America.

The next day we went to our dentist appointments and then boarded the next train to Casa Blanca to visit my friend Thierry and then headed to Marrakech the next morning. In Marrakech we wandered the old medina, saw some interesting old architecture and stuffed ourselves some more on couscous and Tanjine.  Moroccan food is delicious.

The real adventure was when we returned to Rabat and decided that we should go full local and get washed up in the hammam.  This is a traditional communal bathhouse where women go to scrub themselves raw a couple times a week stemming from a time when hot water, or maybe even running water was not commonly found in the home.

Upon entering the hammam we were led to an area to undress and we were asked if we wanted to get scrubbed.  After an enthusiastic yes, two older women, who spoke zero french, stripped down to their black undies and escorted us into the steam rooms.  This was a fairly confusing process, not knowing where to sit or what we were supposed to do with the bowls handed to us.  As I looked I around, I saw that we surrounded by a handful of middle aged women using a hand mitt called a kiis to scrub their skin like they were stripping the finish off a piece of furniture.  Everyone but me was wearing black undies and I felt like I had missed some important instruction on hammam etiquette.

Our scrub ladies instructed us to go sit in the far corner and the brought over buckets of water and stools and that started a scrub down that made me feel like a toddler getting washed down at tub time.  Through a lot of charades and tapping we were told to lay down, sit up, roll over, arms up, arms down. This is no gentle scrub, the hand scrubber feels like they are using a piece of sand paper and about as much pressure would be necessary for my furniture analogy.  After a full scrub down from head to toe, my lady asks me "two?" by a show of fingers.  I have no idea what she means so I say yes, and the whole process starts over again.  She finishes by taking off my underwear, washing them, and handing them back to me.  I think this might have been her cue that we were done, but I really had no idea what was going on.  So as I sat there enjoying the steam, she refilled the buckets and came back to give me another scrub down.  I guess she took my staying as a sign that I did not yet feel clean?  After round three I decided that I felt sufficiently scrubbed and that I better follow my intuition and get out there if I don't want round four.

I don't know if I have ever been so clean in my life, and certainly not since arriving in Togo.  Natalie and I both agreed that we wished such things existed in our villages and that we would probably go every week if we could.  It certainly made for an interesting end to the trip.  Tonight I fly back to Togo, and I've been here just long enough that I'm ready.  Morocco is wonderful, but its not home, and I'm really happy I feel that way about Togo. 

more pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150979996645032.771587.842270031&type=1&l=fcddb883e0

Hellooo Ladies...

I love that people wear t-shirts that clearly have no idea what they say.  And complete miss the social reference for that matter.  Like how many people in Togo watch South Park?

Another Day, Another Poop Story

When you sign up to live in a developing country, one with quite low standards for sanitation and waste management it is pretty much guaranteed that you are going to have diarrhea.  And lots of it.  I have spent the last three months suffering from Giardia, Amoebas, and I'm almost certain that my last bout of nastiness was Dysentery.  I'm just going to admit for everyone's humor that I have in fact pooped my pants living in Togo, and so have most of my friends.  I am happy to say that my last stool sample tested negative for nasty bugs in my GI track, but  the reality is that water borne sanitation related diseases are a problem that we are all seeing in our communities as peace corps volunteers and I thought this article was pretty intersting.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-seiler-peace-corps-20110515,0,4003465.story

I have tons of latrines in my village, I can't say that we necessarily have enough to meet the needs of the population.  What we don't have for certain in the entire region is an efficient way to empty latrines.  Word on the street is that only one vehicle in all of the Maritime region is capable of emptying a latrine.  So what do you do if you can't afford to contract this truck?  Well you either resort to not using your latrine anymore and pooping in the bush like you always did, or apparently you hire someone to scoop out the contents of your latrine with a bucket.  Tell me who wants to do that?  Not many I'm sure.  So latrines sound like a great idea and sanitation is hugely important but what about the kind of services that support the maintenance of such a thing.  I've mentioned before that I've got one of the village poop piles outside of my where I live, so I see first hand that our latrines are not being used all the time.

So here is my thought: composting your waste!  Its not new, its not original, and it doesn't require you to build much either! 

http://pickupamerica.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/start-a-revolution-start-composting-your-poo/

And you know what, while were at it, it doesn't even need to be restricted to areas of the world lacking sanitation.  You can say screw it to the obsence waste of water that occurs in urban fecal processing by making your own poop composter too!  I know its unlikely, but I thought I would put it out there that people in America are doing it...

http://www.humblepilechicago.blogspot.com/

I just went on vacation and tons of stuff going on in my life.  I promise to tell you about that soon, but for now I wish you happy pooping and I hope that you should never have to suffer the ills of contaminated water and resultant fecal sample preparations...

Everyday is an Adventure!

March 8, 2011

Friday and Saturday:  I’ve got girls coming to basketball practice!  They are pretty bad right now, but they are starting to improve their dribbling and shooting.  Their biggest problem is traveling and double dribbling. The boys have been very helpful in coaching them and explaining things far better than I can in French or Ewe.  I try, but I just do not have the vocabulary. 

Sunday:  I biked 12 km to Tabligbo to meet the counterpart of another volunteer.  The counterpart raises animals including goats and I want him to start making goat milk. I don’t know if it is worth his time or if anyone other than me would buy it, but I like the idea of having real milk and being able to make my own butter, cheese and maybe yogurt.  Powdered milk just isn’t the same.

 About 10 km into the trip I got a flat tire. I had stopped for some water when I heard a hiss and immediately assumed that I heard a snake.  I saw one while biking to another village last week, so I was being a bit reactive.  The last thing I want to do is get bit by mamba!  I quickly grabbed my bike and moved it to the other side of the path.  Some children gathered around me and I tried to explain to them via charades what I thought had happened.  It wasn’t until I had gotten back on my bike that I realized what the hiss had really been.

One of the children, none of whom spoke French tried to explain to me that there was a mechanic nearby.  I had no idea what they were saying, but they took my bike and started to push it in the direction I came from.  We passed a man who asked what was happening and told me that there was in fact a bike mechanic a bit up the path.  The timing of this flat was incredibly lucky because there is no other village for the first 9km out of my own. 

The hole was where the intake is attached to the inner tube.  I had no idea if it could even be fixed and I sat by the mechanic really stressed out while he went to work.  I ride my bike everyday to get to school, basketball practice, or to travel to neighboring villages.  Not to mention the fact that I was pretty far from my village and don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been repaired.  Carry it on a motorcycle?  I hear it has been done.  In fact people here seem to be able to carry almost anything on a motorcycle including dining tables, goats, my surfboard, you name it.  I was incredibly relieved when we put the tire back on and it held air.  He had taken the old intake off and glued on a new one that won’t work with my pump, but will work with the pumps they have here so its really no big deal. 

The rest of the trip went without a hitch.  Daniel is very interested in the goat milk idea, he’s already got the goats.  We just have to figure out how to milk them, and then how to pasteurize and store it.  I’m looking forward to more sources of protein.  I can’t imagine that eating as many eggs as 10 eggs a week can be good for me.
Monday:  Back to Tabligbo.  I heard through some volunteers that my cellphone carrier has a usb key modem that is pay as you go.  Another 12km each way on the bike to go to the Togocel boutique.  I make sure to ask if the key will work on my Mac and the sales people assure me it will.  “Very easy to set up, very easy!  This will work great in Kouve!”  So I buy it.  The whole way home I am soooooo excited to have internet access, to be able to email whenever I want to, to possibly skype if the connection was fast enough. 

You can imagine my disappointment when I got home, turn on the computer, stuck in the key and realized that the software would only work on a PC.  The user manual claims it should work, but doesn’t have any directions or trouble shooting info.  I called their customer service line and asked how this thing is supposed to work with my Mac.  They told me that I would have to bring the key and my computer back to the store and they can help me configure it there.  My hopes are still up at this point.

I wasn’t up for a third trip on my bike, so I motoed back to the store.  The sales guy and I tried to figure it out, but couldn’t so he said that the “chief” would be able to.  I waited an hour and a half for this guy to show up and then even he couldn’t help me, because it plain and simply wont work on my computer. It took us another 30 minutes to confirm what I at this point had already assumed.  The chief called the store in Lome, they told him to do a whole bunch of stuff that wont work on a Mac.  I kept telling him to ask them specifically if it will work on a Mac, which he doesn’t.  Then he wants to know what my operating system is, which I tell him is Mac OSX 10.6 which he relays to the person over the phone and finally the lightbulb goes on.  “Well you have to have Windows.” 

I can’t entirely blame them.  These people had probably never even seen a Mac before, they probably thought all computers ran Windows.  However, it does get frustrating that it feels like no one ever listens to what you are asking or gives you a straight.  No matter what you ask, it seems like the answer is yes.  Sometimes this results in your taxi getting lost, because he doesn’t actually know where you have asked him to take you or they try to take you somewhere else because they have decided in advance that it is where you want to go.  And it happens in my English class where if I ask if they have understood, they almost always say “Yes, Sir!”  I will blame all that on ineffective communication. 

Tuesday:  This morning was the final exam for my English class.  These tests are downright ridiculous.  They are written by the regional inspectors and are full of mistakes and words that the students have possibly never studies. The students were asked to write an essay, which is really just a paragraph, on the prompt “Talk about a journey you made to a village. This will help you:  by foot or by car?  with your friends, brothers, or parents? what is the name of *his village?  what did you do/eat? Did you like the journey?”  *typo

The students did not understand the incomplete sentences and no matter how many times I explain it, they seem unable to understand what an “essay” really is.  For example one response was:
-by car
-parents
-village name is Lome
-I sees the food
-Yes I like because he is verry good. 

I get really frustrated because I want my students to be successful, but I have no control over how they are tested.  Frankly the directions are confusing, especially for someone in their second year of learning this language, and it is unfair to use things on the test which are not taught to them.  However, this is the system and what I really need to teach them is better reading comprehension and test taking skills so that they can do their best to guess when they have no idea what something means. 

This afternoon I finished a book, baked some Foccaccia, tended to my tree nursery and fetched water from the pump. And I’m also suffering through this nasty medication called Fasigyne because I’ve got Giardia.  Now I’m hanging out with my crazy kitten who is zooming around the house and eating bugs.  I think I’m in love.

Its amazing how much one can complain about and really be very content to be where they are.  Aside from the trash, my village is really pretty, and when they are not yelling “yovo” the people are super nice. I’ve got all these ladies that speak no French who just talk about me in Ewe like I understand and I just stand there looking bewildered saying yes whenever it seems appropriate and then we giggle and go our separate ways.  Me with a 25 gallon “bidon” of water strapped to my bike, they carrying basins of the same volume of water on their heads.