The difficulties of living in Africa

It has been about of a month now at my post and I have been overwhelmingly frustrated throughout most of it. The reason for my frustration is an ongoing illness that seems to baffle both the Peace Corps Medical Staff and myself. I have been chronically fatigued day in and day out with spontaneous sometimes week long bouts of diarrhea. Stomach issues are something that is to expected especially living in Africa but, whatever is causing this sense of fatigue and weakness should have been expelled by my immune system weeks ago. On days where my condition worsens I have been confined to my bed drinking Oral rehydration syrup with liter upon liter of water to stay hydrated. It is during this time when I feel utterly useless. Not being able to go out and integrate myself into the culture is severely hindering my Peace Corps experience up to this point. Because there are not many sustainable NGOs in my community, it is up to me to make connections and network with other local health agents or citizens living in close proximity to me. Having this myriad of symptoms plaguing my body has made this task impossible. Being sick also leads to other problems such as: spending more money on prepackaged foods at local boutiques, having other people cook for me, being too weak and tired to clean, increase in the electric bill because the fans are constantly running, etc. With time I can only hope that I will grow accustomed to my environment here in Africa and I must keep in mind that there is a reason why the Peace Corps lists "flexibility" as the most important attribute a volunteer should have.

Okay my whining and complaining is done for now. In other news, the holy month of Ramadan has finally ended and the Muslims (who represent 80% of my community) are not obliged to fast any longer. I have been very interested in the role that religion plays in the peoples lives here in Togo. Prior to me coming to my post I did not feel like the Islam of Africa was anything remotely close to that of Middle Eastern countries. But, I have been impressed with devotion that my friends have to their religion (studying Arabic in their free time, abstaining from alcohol, keeping a strict prayer schedule, etc) and my knowledge of Islam has definitely come in handy when trying to have a general conversation with people of the community.

My next month is definitely an important time for me here in Togo. AIDS ride which is a Peace Corps sponsored event where about 15 of us volunteers in the northern most region will cycle 40km each day from village to village doing HIV/AIDS lectures and theatre style skits. It will be a good time to gather information and discuss possible collaborations with other volunteers. It will also serve as a good time to improve my French and get to see the eastern side of the country which I have yet to see.

My new home

So it has been about 3 weeks since I have been on my own. I have a very interesting post to say the least. Especially now since it is Ramadan, 3/4 of the community is fasting throughout the day which makes me look even more like an outsider when I sit down at an empty restaurant during the day. Of all things; lack of food has been my biggest obstacle. It has been difficult especially in regards to finding cheap sources of protein. During training my host family would prepare soy based tofu that was an excellent and delicious source of protein. At my post, however, I simply cannot find it anywhere. The reason is because there is an abundance of beef and chicken in the north that satisfies the needs of the community. The problem for me is that in order to buy a chicken I need to use a half of a days pay, which I am simply not going to do. Beef on the other hand is adequate sometimes, but you never know which part of the cow you are getting. Kind of like a mild episode of fear factor without Joe Rogan telling you what you are eating. So one of my future projects will be to increase the amount of soy in the community for it is not only inexpensive; but also a complete protein that can be utilized to promote growth and development with children. Speaking of work right now I am helping the local hospital with their weekly baby weighing sessions. The goal is to identify babies who are underweight and provide the mothers with nutrition counseling. Because of language restrictions this can be a frustrating process but the Togolese who work at the hospital are very nice and help me out a lot. Once the dry season comes which should be soon I will be working with my counterpart in the community on a village saving and loans project in a small village outside of town. Ill have more information and details later on when we are going to implement it. Other projects that I will be working on eventually will include health and english clubs at the local primary school, HIV sensibilisations with at risk groups, and a garbage collection project and or sanitation improvements to the community. Basically I have a lot of brainstorming to do and hopefully I can implement a sustainable project for the community in the near future.

Last Blog Before Post

So the day is finally here. Tomorrow we will all be departing Lome for our various posts. Our time here in Lome has been relaxing. Training has been a stressful time for most, especially if you have been sick as much as I have. Being sick is something that you just need to deal with while living in Africa. It is nearly impossible to avoid it because there are severe sanitation problems throughout the country. Anyway I'm just going to put some notes down of random thoughts that are running through my head before I depart for post:

Togolese people do not follow the rules of "waiting lines", This is the one thing hat drives me nuts and it happens more in Lome than any other place. People will see you in line and then jump in front of you and the cashier does not call them out on it. -my number one pet peeve here

Living in Africa will definitely change your personal definition of poverty.

I'm going to miss our language teachers. Having them speak in a slow and deliberate manner has made me confident in speaking french, however, out in the real world not everyone can speak french like that.

I'm going to miss my host family and the surrounding families. My new compound has a much different feel. Since there are half as many children at my new site and no farm animals, life will be a lot less chaotic there.

I'm not looking forward to the dry season (feb-may) where temperatures reach well into the 100s each day and the power gets cut frequently. Also the surrounding landscape turns from green to an ugly brown. -will probably look a lot like kansas

For my first two months it will be crucial for me to study and practice my French with the community. I'm planning on getting a radio soon to help my French come along. Right now I have enough to survive out in the community but not work effectively with others.

Well that's it for right now. Training was a great experience but now comes the hard part: Living and working on my own for 2 years. Being in the most remote post(distance wise) in country definitely has its obstacles. Living in a larger more transit town will not provide me with the same level of emotional security as a small village would. I am not living in a place where I will be recognized by everyone. But this is the site I wanted and I am motivated to integrate myself in the community as best as possible.

A quote from my counterpart at my site when he was late addressing a crowd:

"In America you have that quote time is money.....but here in Africa time really isn't money"

Swear-in

I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! Swear-in was last night at the Country Director's house and the ceremony went very well. I will be in Lome until Monday before making my way all the way up country to my post. Right now my emotions are somewhat mixed about moving to post. I am excited to leave but at the same time I have to deal with the fact that I am not going to be seeing many Americans at all at my post. The Peace Corps in general do not send many volunteers to the way north of the country for reasons I don’t know but it is where I will be living. I wanted to live in the North because of the challenges that people face up there. It is a much more arid climate that does not produce fertile soil for good crop production. This is probably the main reason why the northern most region of the country has the highest rated of malnutrition. But these are issues that I will be looking into much more thoroughly after I have been at post for a bit. Being in Lome for the past couple of days has really made me realize just how different a small village is compared to a big city (especially Lome). In small villages you will get
noticed right away and you’re the main attraction, but in Lome you are just another face in the crowd. I am trying to spend as much time as I can walking around and interacting with the people of Lome as much as possible because I will realistically only be here a handful of times during my service.

Information about my post:

though my post is really far away from all the action in Lome, I still have access to pretty much anything I need. The only thing that I will have to travel for is internet, so you can plan on me updating this about every 2 weeks.

Site visit

Week seven has arrived and it is one of the most anticipated weeks of training. Week seven is known as site visit where all the trainees get to live at their site for the duration of the week to get a feel for life after training. My site visit experience did not go as well as I would have hoped. I got some sort of food poisoning on Monday night and was pretty much confined to the bathroom and the bed for much of the week. I have been feeling better the past couple of days but my appetite has been curbed exponentially and I still feel pretty fatigued and run down. But even with being sick for most of the week I got a good feel for the village and the culture around me. My living situation is very nice comparatively speaking. I live in a compound with three other families away from the action of the main street. The volunteer that I am replacing really enjoyed the site and felt perfectly safe during her two years of service. I also have a really motivated counterpart in the community that is really excited to work on nutrition causeries and interventions with me. Speaking with him this week has also motivated me to put more time into my French and to really take the last moth of training seriously. It was also a nice surprise when I found out that my house was equipped with a bucket flush toilet rather than a latrine. Latrines really are not as bad as you might think, but being on one for most of the day when you are sick is a little much (especially at night with the cockroaches). So I am sorry to anyone who was hoping for "pooping in a hole" stories because I won’t have that experience, at least not at my compound.

From here I have one month of training left before Swear in. Swear in can be a hectic time for a lot of volunteers because everyone is down in Lomé and has to purchase most of their furniture and whatnot for their house. I’m kind of spoiled because my house is pretty much fully furnished and anything I need to for it I can get in my village which makes the whole transition from training to post a lot smoother.

wow

ok finally i can update this thing...basically I have a lot to talk about but my time as always is limited and this french keyboard is extremely fruestrating. training has been going really well, I absolutely love my host famlily and the community in general. my french has been progressing quite nicely to my surprise. learning french in africa is definitly a challenge considering the fact that I hear the local language spoken more than I do the french. I have to tell my host sisters everyday to stop speaking ewe so i can understand at least part of what they are saying. I am actually more excited to get to post so i can JUST speak French. Here at training it is tough because we speak english during alot of our technical sessions so it acts as a crutch that i honestly would rather not have right now.

on another note i found out where i will be living for 2 years after training. but technically i dont think im allowed to post in on blogs for security reasons. But to give you a sense i am very very far from lomé. The distance issue is a factor and its the reason a lot of the other trainees didnt want this post, but for me it has everything i want. such as: bigger town, availability of food; high muslim population; lots of opportunities for work in nutrition and sanitation, and electrecity.

I have alot more to say but for right now i have to leave;, the peace corps really keeps you busy during training so untill next time.......