Let's see, were to begin...
I ended up arriving in village a week late due to the aforementioned amoebas. First day in village and I am still weak from my recent bout with amoebas and dehydration and taking the meds which clean out your system. I end up going to the annual Fetish Festival for the Yoto prefecture with the Chief and the other Notables of the village. Nothing too crazy, though they did kill a chicken. Afterwards, we went to a banquet to celebrate the event that was attended by western-style politicians, the Prime Minister is from Yoto and was also there, and the tradition Village Chiefs and VIPS. I ended up at a table with men who only spoke Ewe to each other and stared off into the distance. When the food was ready to be served one of the men offered to fix me a plate and asked me what I ate. I vaguely told him I liked everything. HA. He returns with a plate that reeked of old fish. There was some type of green sauce with crab, liver, dried fish and some sort of meat. I found it unappetizing and tried to take sample some but felt queasy and ended up pushing the food around the plate. I then noticed what I thought looked like a tooth. Upon further exploration, I realized that it was many teeth, which together formed one-half of a jaw of a goat with the lip still attached. I froze, then tried to bury it under rice and carry on, but finally mustered a weak smile though my queasiness and told my tablemates that I was full and pushed the plate away. The man next to me takes the plate, it should be noted all at the table are eating rapturously and had begun hoarding cans of soda in their sacs, and began shoving the food in his month with as much gusto as he did with his first two servings. When I glanced at the plate a few moments later it was completely clean, as was the goat jaw bone that lay in the center.
I wonder if sucking the meat off the jawbone of an animal would make me a better volunteer.
French
I suck at speaking French. Suck at it. Luckily, for me most people in my village speak Ewe, and even if they can speak French, even excellent French, they prefer to speak Ewe. Excellent. A typical example is I will be walking down the street and cross paths with an Older Woman. It goes something like this:
Natasha: Bonjour Madam! Comment ça va?
Older Woman: Woezolo! Aphenemtodo? (not actual spelling)
Natasha looks confused. Once again tries her handy French.N: Desolee Madam, mais, je ne comprends pas l’Ewe
The Older Woman looks a little befuddled, but smiles wide and gesticulates wildly.OW: Eweewewewewe, ewe ewe. Ewe! Eweewew?
Natasha purses her lips narrows her eyes and nods understandingly though she has no what is happening.N: Non. Shakes her head and shrugs
The Older Woman stares at her and then shrugs back. The two women turn and then walk down the street together in friendly silence.I mean it’s okay, it’s bound to work itself out eventually. I should probably study more and have I have been sidetracked by all they crazy stuff that has been happening. And on the bright-side by they time I leave I will be able to speak French like a Togolese framer with a 6 grade education.
This is a side note, but I have decided that the French language in its very nature promotes sexism and classicism with its genders and formal tenses. I have decided that English is the language of equality.
Voodoo Stuff
Recently there was a string of voodoo killings my area and I had to skip out of town for a few days. People where being beheaded, drained of their blood, then had their necks removed and their heads sewed beck on to their shoulders. The whole thing was pretty vague and I didn’t get a lot of answers which made me briefly consider a career as a voodoo detective. But it blew over pretty quickly and now things are back to normal. Don’t worry I’m fine. Been sick quite as bit, though.
Elections
A few years ago, the all the international aide and development organizations left Togo. I will leave you to find out why on your own. Anyway, long story short Togo is in the midst of what will hopefully be its first uncontested and internationally approved election. It is a legislative election and no problems were expected as occurred with the previous presidential election and as far as I know the voting process which happened on Sunday was a smooth and successful. The result should be announced within the next few days. One of the many benefits of this is the possible return of the international community and the potential for Togo to receive much needed development assistance. An example of how this could benefit is by subsidizing AIDS drugs which are now too expensive for the average Togolese person, who are typically so sick by they time they get tested that they cannot work to avoid care. Anyway, this type of assistance would help everyone out in a big way.
Work
Everyone is asking me what type of work I will be doing. The answer is that I don’t know yet. They way Peace Corps Togo works is that you are assigned to a post to work under a certain field, mine being public health, the others being natural resource management, small enterprise and business and girl’s education and empowerment. We are set up with one or two people with in our communities with whom we can begin to talk about which types of potential projects exist and are feasible. We spend the first three months observing, becoming used to the lifestyle and getting to know people, and then we begin to identify jobs and projects that we will work on thought out our services. Personally, my time has been spent trying to make sure I have enough clean water and learning how to use my medical kit, and between being sick all the time and with everything that is happening in the country I have been a little overwhelmed. So, work hasn’t taken off yet, but it looks like I might be trying to start up an association for people living with HIV/AIDS and trying to set up some sort of Malaria prevention campaign.
Okay, that's all for today. More soon. Hopefully tomorrow.
