the first few days

After our arrival in Togo, our first few days of training consisted of a retreat in the capitol close to the Peace Corps bureau. The purpose of the retreat was to acclimate our stage (franglais for “training group”) to Togo and they did an awesome job of transitioning us into Togolese life; however real life in Togo will REALLY start tomorrow when we head to Mt. Agou for our actual training. At our training sites we’ll be living with host families and we’ll have to get used to taking baths from a bucket of water, living in a communal compound and doing our own laundry by hand. Luckily that’s what our families are there for, to help us. Tomorrow will be a sad day however as it’ll be the first time our two training groups of CHAP (the program I’m in) and SED will be separated since we are training in different villages. Luckily our two villages are only 5km from each other so it’ll be easy to hang out with some of the people in the other group with whom I’ve become close friends (Marcus, Frankie & Michael, I miss you already lol).

Anyways, back to our training retreat. One of the other important reasons for our retreat was for health reasons: we needed to get a LOT of shots. The PC made us get a few vaccinations during the application process. In Philly we received our malaria medications (where I was put on doxycycline, the one-a-day pill…but more on that later) and the yellow fever vaccine. During the retreat they gave us shots for Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid & Rabies and apparently there are a few more shots to come. On Sunday morning during my health session I talked with my health director and apparently there was a mistake made and I was now going to be switched to mefloquine, the one-a-week pill that is supposed to give us wicked dreams. I’m kinda glad I got switched because taking pills every day would have gotten really annoying; besides, I get crazy dreams anyways so taking mefloquine (Larium) won’t make much of a difference. After my health session, a couple of us trainees decided to go for a walk around our area of Lomé. I didn’t realize how close we were to the shore but it was only a few blocks to the beach so we decided to visit. The beaches, at least in Lomé, are pretty dirty, not just the beach but also the water (I won’t go into details but I’m sure you can imagine why). It was very pretty though. The water looked amazingly blue and at that time in the day the only people on the beach were fisherman dragging in their boats and their catch of the day. Took a couple of pictures and then headed back to the hostel for lunch. The rest of the day consisted of going over safety & security measures for PCVs.

Sunday night, all the current Peace Corps volunteers who were able to make it to Lomé threw a welcome party ("fete" in French) for all the new volunteers at a pretty cool jazz club a few miles from the hostel. The party was pretty amazing as it was the first time many of our training group had the opportunity to meet some of the “older” volunteers. Those volunteers really are the shit. I can only hope that we are as cool and as well integrated as they are in a year from now. The jazz band that played was really awesome and after about an hour they started taking requests for American songs. There were even some PCVs who joined in the band and started playing along which was fun. Btw, I finally had an opportunity to try BB or Biere de Benin, a beer company that is supposed to be pretty popular in West Africa and there are even some bottles available in the US. My favorite version was Pils but I think so far Castel is my favorite beer found in Togo. Anyways the party was a lot of fun and I danced a bunch. I didn’t end up leaving until around 1am when the last of our training group decided to head back to the hostel to crash. I swear, if this is what life is going to be like as a PCV, I think I could get used to it J. However alcohol is definitely my veritaserum and it definitely led to some emotional vomit. At least they were to people I can trust…Btw, I did happen to run into a group of 4 Indians at the club which was really wierd. I couldn't tell if they were on vacation or if they lived in Togo. Oh well, I guess Indians really are EVERYWHERE in the world...

The past two days have been pretty chill. Our health sessions covered malaria the second day and diarrhea on the third day (Loose stools! The squirts! Chocolate Soup! Wow we all totally become 5th grade boys on that third day…). We also covered integration issues, and learned how to live with our host families regarding chores such as laundry, taking a bucket bath and pooping in a hole (thank god for toilet paper!...make sure you eat with your RIGHT hand and don’t touch any food with your LEFT!). We took language placement exams on Monday at the bureau and at the same time we also got issued our bikes!!! Although we don't have our bikes with us at the moment, they will be delivered to us at our training site in a few hours. I am super pumped about our bikes as they are Trek bikes and we have sexy helmets (as required by PC policy). I won’t go into much more detail about the training retreat but I do want to comment regarding Monday night as all the volunteers, the volunteer advisory committee, and some of the Peace Corps staff were invited to dinner at Brownie’s (our Country Director) house for dinner. The dinner was awesome (food was delicious...more to come about food, i'll prob dedicate a post to it later when I get to try more of the traditional Togolese food). We even had the US Ambassador David Donne (sp?) pay us a visit and join us for dinner. He spoke about Togo and towards the end of the night even visited my table where he sat with me and some of the other volunteers to discuss politics. I even got a picture with him (I’ll post it on Picasa at some point) J

We head to our village in the morning so I should probably finish posting pics and finish packing. Before I sign off for the next few weeks, I just wanted to thank all my faithful readers for keeping up with my bloggings. Part of the reason for this blog is to fulfill the 3rd goal of the Peace Corps which is to share Togolese culture with the American people; therefore, I invite you to post comments about anything you read here in the blog and I will do my best to answer any and all your questions. If you would like me to talk about any topic in particular, let me know and I will most definitely dedicate my next blog posting or at least part of it to tell you more about life in Togo.

BTW, here is a shout out to Brittany’s mom in Texas J Thanks for reading. Your daughter is safe and she loves you and misses you very much…

first impressions...

I’m sitting on the 1st floor of Hostel Mamy’s, a local hotel in Lomé where our training group is staying for the initial training retreat of our PST (pre-service training). It’s the beginning of rainy season and although we were blessed with great weather our first 24 hours, the rain is pouring down hard. It reminds me of monsoon season in India, where the rain comes out of nowhere. Dark clouds roll in and you’d better run for cover or else you’ll be soaked within the next 15 minutes. As we take a break between our intense day of training, some chose to relax with a good book. Others chose to play boggle. I am going to utilize this time to reflect on my first 24 hours in country. I can’t speak for the rest of my training group but here goes…

I don’t really know where to begin. The Peace Corps is something that I have wanted for such a long time that for me to finally be on the African continent was incredibly anti-climactic. I thought I would be a lot more overwhelmed or excited (don’t get me wrong, I am SUPER excited to be here), but I think that I have been building this experience up for so long that my brain still can’t comprehend that I am here. I kind of feel like I’m in vacation mode because we are being transitioned REALLY slowly into the country and I don’t feel stressed. But I can’t believe that I am actually in Africa. This is real I tell myself. I try to pinch myself but it still feels like a dream. I know I should have all these emotions coursing through my body but at the same time something is blocking them all from affecting me at the same time. And I’m scared because that means either one of two things are happening: a) like a funnel, all the built up emotions will eventually rush through me so I can feel it all at a slow rate allowing me to enjoy my experiences here or b) those emotions will build up like water filling up behind a dam and at the most inopportune time the dam will break and I will be so overwhelmed with emotions that I’ll break down. Either way at some point, I will need to feel something. I’m guessing I will finally feel the stress when I am in a situation where I want so badly to express myself completely and can’t due to my limited French speaking skills. But it could happen at another moment during training. Je ne sais pas. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

As our flight pulled into Lomé, in the back of my head I had prepped myself with the idea that this can’t be any different than going to India. Although Togo and India are worlds apart in terms of economic development and social norms, I figured that the general environment couldn’t be that much different. I think my mind was just trying to find some mental schema into which I could comprehend what was happening to me. What greeted my five senses was a strange combination of the familiar and the exotic. Now just to clarify, I was definitely not in Kansas anymore so when I say “familiar”, I don’t mean familiar in the American sense. As far as I can tell, there is nothing American about this place (as of yet…). As expected the first thing I felt as I stepped out of the plane was the humidity of Togo. This was expected as that’s usually the first thing I feel when I step out of the plane in Bombay. But there was something missing. Then it hits me, there is no smell. India has this distinct smell that is both pleasantly aromatic and nauseating at the same time. But Togo doesn’t really smell of anything that I can recognize. I smell fresh air. African air. After a fairly un-chaotic shuffle through airport security thanks to the help of the PC administration who met us as we got off the plane we finally loaded our bags into the Peace Corps trucks and headed to Mamy’s for dinner. As we drove through the streets of Lomé, again I had a hard time meshing my mental schema of the streets of Bombay with the roads on which our vehicle was driving through. Much was familiar from the lines of small stores with tin roofs, the street vendors selling fresh fruit and vegetables, and the painted commercials on the free space of all available walls. What was missing to me were the free roaming animals such as cows & buffalos, the beggers on every street corner and the autorickshaws. It was there in the car that I realized, as much as I wanted Togo to be like India, there was no way the two could ever compare, though not out of lack of trying. This is not India. T.I.A. This is Africa.

Quick story: apparently I make a great first impression. As I deplaned with my carry on luggage and took the shuttle bus over to the arrival terminal that was all of 500 meters away, I met up with the rest of my Peace Corps group only to realize that I had left my small REI passport binder on the plane, which had not only all my passports but all my travel documents and free cash as well. As I slightly freaked out to Kim, one of the ladies who met us at the airport, she calmed me down and spoke to several employees who hunted down my binder and returned all my important documents in one piece. That was a huge relief! Don’t worry mom, that travel binder will not be leaving my side for the next two and a half years.

Anyways, the car finally pulled in front of Mamy’s where we were all greeted by several current volunteers. Apparently there was a small party going on and we were the guests of honour. Sweet! The names are a blur as I met several current PCVs from all over the country along with many of the administrators with whom we would be working closely during training. There was Rebekah “Brownie” Lee, our country director; Blandine, our APCD; Stephen, our Safety & Security officer and many more. There was even a feast of Americanized treats: beef on a stick, fried tofu (which actually turned out to be friend Fulani cheese), mini pizzas and cassava fries with some tasty sauces. Our welcome party was fun and it was great to meet current volunteers who could totally relate to the emotions we were going through and also answered tons of our program work-related questions.

Around 10PM, as most of my stage (PC Franglais for our training group, pronounced "stahge") unpacked and took showers to wash away the sweat from the previous 18 hour journey from Philadelphia, Marcus and I decided to join some of the current volunteers for a beer at a bar around the corner. Jetlag hadn’t really affected me too badly so it seemed like a good idea (and it was a very good idea). The bar was a blur as I met TONS of volunteers including Fabiola (I girl I talked to over facebook in Togo) and Tristan & Nadia, whom I had presents for, courtesy of Cameron, a previous volunteer in Togo. All the volunteers were super chill and incredibly nice as they bought us beer and welcomed us to Togo. I took my first taxi ride with some current PCVs to a pretty posh bar in another part of Lomé. I forget what the bar was called (Mandinka?) but since the drink prices were pretty expensive, we headed to a dive bar around the corner and all of us chilled and chatted. I was excited to meet Peter and David, current volunteers up in Kará because Peter went to Maryland and David went to UVA so I have some ACC buddies to hang out with (if anyone can record the GT vs. UNC, GT vs. Maryland, & GT vs. UVA games and mail them to me, you would be a GODSEND! Praying GT comes out on top with our new coach). Anyways, the bar was cool. Chilling with the volunteers was cool. Around 11:30, Marcus and I headed back to crash and prepare for our first official day of the training retreat.

So those are some of my thoughts and impressions of Togo so far. I am barely 24 hours into the country and I am already looking forward to discovering more of this beautiful country.

the flight over...

After an exciting morning at the health clinic to receive our yellow fever vaccines and grabbing a “last lunch” in the US, we all headed over to the airport to catch our flight to Paris. As I mentioned in my previous post, PC Cameroon oriented with us at the same hotel in Philly (although we were separated in different conference rooms); we found out that they were actually on the same flight as us to Paris where they would catch an earlier connecting flight to Cameroon so that was cool. We got to the airport and proceeded to check in with Air France (our flight was code shared with Delta but we flew on Air France which was SUCH a relief as I hate the Delta flights to Paris since Air France is SOO much more comfortable). I finally checked in and miraculously I didn’t have to pay any overweight charges on my bags! Score! We had two hours to kill at the airport so we just chilled at our terminal checking our e-mail for the last time and making last minute phone calls to loved ones back home. Finally, at 6:45pm we boarded our plane. We were on our way to Africa! Goodbye USA…see you in 2.5 years!...

So a quick story about how I am a genius …Whitney, Marcus and I are sitting by each other on the flight over to Paris and we decided to play Uno. So I open up the deck and shuffle the cards and deal them. We are playing and nothing out of the ordinary jumps out at us until the end of the game where Marcus is down to one card and I am down to three cards with it being my turn and Marcus is next. I thrown down a wild card and taking a chance, I pick blue. Marcus unfortunately doesn’t have a blue card so he starts picking up cards from the group deck. He starts picking up cards and picking up cards until there are only two cards left in the deck. Suddenly we all realize that there are no blue cards in the deck and it also clicks that we haven’t played any blue cards the entire game. That’s when it hits me how retarded I am. When I packed for Togo and was packing the Uno game, I opened up the box, saw the two separate decks and thinking that the Uno box was similar to a set of two boxes of cards only packed one of the Uno decks not realizing that you needed both decks to make a complete deck since one deck was red & yellow and the other was blue & green. So basically we had been playing with only two colours. Go me! To make matters even better, I had left the other deck at home in Atlanta. I am amazing…

Paris was cool. A lot of people don’t like Charles de Galle airport but I really like it there. We had a 5 hour layover before our flight to Togo so a couple of us decided to clear customs and check out Paris. There was no way to head into the city due to lack of time but the least we could do is walk on actual French land. So we cleared customs, headed outside and took some funny pictures outside the airport. Then we went in search of food and drinks. We found a cool little café where they were serving drinks and hung out for a bit. Then Reid & I found a great sandwich shop and we ordered amazing baguette sandwiches that were SOO good. The rest of our layover in Paris was pretty uneventful but at 1:20 we finally boarded our plane and we were now on our way to Togo. The flight to Togo was also pretty uneventful but I did get some great shots from my window seat of several cool locations. As our plane flew over the northern coast of Africa, I got a pretty good shot of Morocco. Later as we flew over the Sahara desert I got some decent shots there too. My final cool picture happened really randomly because I had just woken up from a nap when at that exact moment we were flying over the Niger river, just south of Niamey (the capitol of Niger) so I managed to take a good picture from my seat. A few hours later, we landed in Lomé, Togo.

3, 2, 1...

Hey!

So I have this life philosophy about fear and adventure: sometimes the only thing to do is to take yourself to the brink of no return, then jump. This is where I am. I have no where else to go. So here I am on the edge, looking at a future of unknown and about to take the plunge.

My bags are packed. My ticket is booked (thank god for the Air France plane to Paris). Orientation was awesome. I am in love with my group. This is really here. I am really doing this. I am moving to Africa. WTF?!? I am scared as hell. I don't know what to expect and I don't know if I'm ready. But I am leaving all my doubts behind and just going to do it.

So jump with me.

3.

2.

1.

Jump...

-Nikhil

orientation...

Comment ca va?

The picture above is one of my AMAZING group heading to Togo! Half of us are in the health program (Community Health & AIDS Prevention) and the other half are in the business program (Small Enterprise Development). Although I joke that the health group is way cooler (16 people, 5 guys, 11 girls) I love all the people in our group. Everyone is really chill and super cool. Some people are incredible stories. We have people from all walks of life too; we have an "older" volunteer, two married couples, and great diversity in our group as well (4 Asians!). It's cool how we all have similar beliefs and values but I guess that's what happens when you join such an idealistic organization as the Peace Corps. I know that we are going to do good work over the next two years and I REALLY hope everyone sticks it through. Right now I don't forsee anyone dropping out but things could change a lot when we get to Togo.

Orientation was really great. Not only was it super informative and definitely helped answer a lot of the questions I had over me, but it was a great time to get to know all the other volunteers in our group. I still had a lot of doubts but most of them have been lessened thanks to the sessions. Most importantly it was nice to know that everyone else was going through the same things that I was going through. We had similar aspirations but also similar anxieties & apprehensions. Although it was wierd to be back in "class" and that's kinda how training is supposed to be, I know that I will learn everything that I need to know before I get to my official site in August.

Philly is cool. Had my first original Philly Cheesesteak OF COURSE! (super good btw). We are staying at a hotel right by Market Street so I really like the area. There are loads of great restaurants and bars and stuff. I am glad I finally made it over to Philly 'cause now I can say that I've been to Pennsylvannia which is the last of the 13 colonies that I had yet to visit. Btw thanks to Pavi & Sujatha Aunty for taking me out to an AMAZING last lunch in the US. It was SOO great to see them before I left and although I didn't get to see uncle or Arpan, it was nice to see a familiar face in Philly...

Anyways I need to finish packing and get SOME sleep tonight before we leave today. We are flying to Paris (thank GOD on Air France) and arrive on Saturday. Then on Saturday we fly to Togo which is where I will FINALLY be on African soil. Wow.

a bientot,

-Nikhil