The Tatas

So on the more positive side -- it's not all garbage piles -- here is one of Togo's few major tourist attractions (and a UNESCO World Heritage site), an area filled with these traditional houses known as Tatas. They're located in northern Togo in an area known as the Tambermas (named for the mountains surrounding the region). The house is made of mud and contains the sleeping areas, areas for holding the family's animals , areas for animist worship and food storage areas. Even tho it was extremely hot when I visited, the inside of the house was remarkably cool, much more so than my allegedly nicer modern house (tho it does not have the indoor plumbing and electricity I do, obviously).

The structure in front of the house is a sort of shrine where I believe animals are sacrificed as part of the tribe's animist traditions.

Each family has a tata compound, and when sons leave their parents' house to get married, traditionally they throw a spear to determine where they should build the new tata for their new family.

The Garbage Pile

So one of Sokode's landmarks is this lovely garbage pile, stituated right behind my local market and along this road (most roads in Togo are unpaved, except for the national highway, a few spurs off of it and the major streets in Lome). There's no garbage pickup in Togo (kinda like DC before the Tony Williams era) so people just throw their stuff out pretty much wherever, although once the garbage starts to pile up in certain areas it basically becomes the public dump. And also the public toilet....

The Market

This is my local market, which occurs twice weekly. The main market is downtown and runs every day, so I'm very lucky since most villages have at most a once-weekly market that doesn't have a lot of options in terms of fresh fruits and vegetables -- mostly onions and tomatoes.

Except for Lome, there aren't really any grocery stores in Togo. So you buy fruits and vegetables and grains at markets like this and then staples like oil and tomato paste at little stores called boutiques, which are sort of like 7-11s but without jacked-up convenience store prices. You can also get those staples at a lot of markets, and only there if you live in a small village that doesn't have any boutiques.

Because I'm in a big city, I have a lot of options in terms of produce, so I can get carrots, green peppers, avocados, lettuce, beets, potatoes (expensive here unlike in the US), mangoes (I'm risking Dan Quayle-dom here with the "e"), pineapples and cabbage. To Americans that probably doesn't sound like a lot of choices but when other volunteers in my region come to Sokode to use the bank (none of those in villages either), they get very excited about all of the options and note how spoiled I am to have these choices every day.

As you can probably guess, going to the market involves bargaining, which I'm not very good at. I know most of the prices so I usually don't get ripped off too much, and often let it go if they're charging me just a bit more than they should. I've given up on being a hard core-bargainer because the times I choose to get into a big discussion always end up being the times I am being given the right price but for some reason mistakenly think I'm being ripped off. Which then just makes me seem even weirder to Togolese than I already do....

Aicha

So one of my favorite people in Togo is Aicha, one of the PC language trainers. This photo was taken at the US embassy at my swearing-in ceremony. She was my French trainer towards the end of training since she was the teacher of my local language, Cotokoli, so we did a little bit of both since I wanted some more French instruction after not really having used it for about 15 (!!! -- has it been that long since college??) years.

Aicha has one of the funniest laughs -- it's hard to describe in writing but unmistakable when you hear it. Sort of a really deep hearty guffaw. And she's super-sweet and fun to talk to. We talked a lot about politics and US culture (tho not in any PC-prohibited way -- gotta be careful with those sensitive political issues!).

One of the best stories about Aicha I heard is from my new site-mate Rebecca, who just came to Sokode to work with the small business/IT program. One of the activities they have us all do during training is called Free University, which involves each trainee presenting some skill and teaching it to everyone else, with the goal I'm assuming of getting us to feel comfortable speaking French in front of a group. So one of the trainees in Rebecca's stage is good at gymnastics and decided to teach how to do a handstand, choosing Aicha as her demonstrator. The trainee gave Aicha a pair of bike shorts to put on under her skirt but Aicha didn't seem to get what they were for and put them over her skirt (and skirts tend to be long here so it was ankle length -- I'm not even sure how she accomplished that) and proceeded to demonstrate the handstand thus attired. I'm sure it was hilarious and I'm sorry I missed it.

P.S. As you can see from the photo, being in Africa involves a lot of sweating, thus the lovely "glow" on my face, which is even more attractive when you add greasy sunscreen into the mix.

Sensibilisations

So another term you learn almost immediately upon joining the PC, at least in francophone countries, is sensibilisation. It roughly translates as sensitivization, sort of like a consciousness-raising session/lecture on some problem or social issue, like HIV/AIDS or the importance of education. The whole village turns out to listen, as pictured here. The man speaking in the center is Francais, who works with ADIFF. He's speaking to one of the schools where ADIFF chose girls to receive the embassy scholarship I mentioned. Basically we travel to the schools, give out school supplies, etc. and then ADIFF does these sensibilisations before and after handing out the materials.

The building in the background is a school, a fairly typical Togolese school building (perhaps on the nicer side, as this one looks quite new and in better condition than many). Usually there are two buildings like this, separated by an open area. So on the other side of the school, not pictured, would be another identical building. Then the kids go out to the common area during breaks to play and eat, as women show up with something like porridge and the kids pay the equivalent of about 25 cents for a late breakfast.

My 'Stage'

So since the PC is run by the government, there's tons of annoying lingo to learn, and one of the first terms you learn is "stage," a French term loosely used to refer to your training group, with each trainee knows as a "stagiaire." So this is my original stage of 14 fellow trainees plus 4 women who joined us midway through the year after having been evacuated from Guinea, when the PC temporarily suspended its program there.

Since I mostly see people who live near me, the person I probably talk to the most here is Tami, 2 down from me in the white t-shirt, hat and glasses. Also of note is Bonnie, who has an IWP connection for those of you who work for my former employer. She's standing on the far left, in the bright blue t-shirt and visor, behind me. She is apparently friends with Erica of the environment group and came from Baltimore.

This photo was taken at a PC-sponsored training back in March, and features the whole stage plus the Togolese work partners we brought with us. The partner I brought, Sakran, is in the back, directly behind the woman in white directly behind me. I love Sakran -- he's affiliated with my NGO tho now works in a village around 50 km from Sokode. A lot of volunteers, especially female volunteers, are not big fans of Togolese men since they can be rather sexist, but Sakran is one of the warmest, kindest people I've ever met and had no problem relating to me as an equal. He works on environmental and agricultural projects with kids.

This is where I work...

So I hope my former IWP colleague Steve Gibb is reading this because I just paid homage to one of our old inside jokes with the title of this post. This is a picture of ADIFF, the NGO I was assigned to work with. This is a typical Togolese "office" building, and many NGOs are in setups like this, mainly along the national highway (there's just one), just as ADIFF is. The name roughly translates as the association for the advancement of women and girls and it focuses on promoting girls' education and related topics. School attendance is not compulsory in Togo and it's not free, and given that people don't have a lot of money here, it's often difficult for families to afford to send their kids to school. And since girls are often pressed to stay at home and do housework or sell produce and other products in markets, they frequently don't get sent to school if money is tight. So ADIFF basically conducts activities to try to address that problem. Their main program involves implementing a US embassy-funded girls' scholarship in the region of Togo where Sokode is located, called the central region (cleverly named thus as it is the middle region of Togo's 5 regions). The scholarship is also available in 2 other regions, the northernmost region, which is called savannes, and the region to the south of the central region, the plateau region. In the central region, there are over 400 girls receiving the scholarship at schools in Sokode and in surrounding towns and villages.

Elodie

So here's Elodie, the toddler in my compound (and my bathroom). After the first three months I was in Sokode she stopped crying at the sight of me (never having seen a white person before I think) and we became fast friends. I took this when she came to visit me at my house and for some reason she ran straight for the bathroom and decided to "clean" the toilet. But apparently she had no idea what it was for since she promptly peed on the floor right after I took this.

Home Sweet Home Part 2

So here's the inside of my house, a lovely view of my living room. This is where I spend most of my time when I'm at home, sitting on the couch (not pictured, but behind the coffee table) reading some of the many books in the makeshift bookcase (I think that weird piece of furniture is supposed to be a bar but I'm not sure -- it came with the house, as did all of the furniture). The photos on the wall are the owner of the compound, who lives in France (the mother of the three sisters who lived there) and I think her French husband. It's sort of funny having these photos of people I've never met looking down on me but I don't even notice them anymore. It's usually just visitors who ask, who are these random people in the super-dated 1970s portrait shots hanging in a sort of shrine on your wall?

Home Sweet Home

This is my porch -- in the background you can see the yard, I guess you'd call it, that makes up the rest of the compound. My house is within a walled enclosure that contains another house where my compound-mates live. It used to be three sisters and one of the sister's baby daughter, Elodie, but two of the sisters recently moved so now it's me, Elodie, mom, nanny and the dad who seems to hang around more now that the sisters have left but doesn't really live there.

You probably weren't expecting a PC house to look like this and neither was I, but apparently most volunteers living in big cities get nice spreads like this instead of the stereotypical hut. My house is supposed to be one of the nicest PC houses in Togo. I'll post some pictures of the inside next.