post visit week

Bonjour mes amis,

After a pretty grueling 7 hour journey from Sokodé back to Agou, we finally made it home from post-visit week last night. I had a GREAT post-visit week and although I do have a “meeeeeeeee” moment to vent about in a bit, I am super excited about Sotouboua and my work there. So let’s go back to last-to-last Saturday…

Waking up nice & early (5AM) to get ready and load into our vans for our trips to various parts of the country, we finally left the prefecture of Agou around 7:30. It was strange to be travelling to lands unknown as Lomé and Agou were pretty much all most of us knew about Togo. As we ventured on the road from Kpalimé to Atakpamé (btw, if you want to get an idea of the places I am talking about, I HIGHLY recommend checking out any basic map of Togo) it was incredible to see how green the land was. Although the road was pretty shitty with tons of potholes, the view from the van was gorgeous. Just north of Kpalimé the sun came out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and we had these awesome unobstructed views of Mt. Agou in the distance. Although it’s a strange mountain, rising from the ground without a “mountain” range in sight, it struck me as quite majestic. We made it to Atakpamé without much trouble and after a brief restroom break we finally joined the Route National heading north to la Region Centrale. Just quickly, the Route National is the main “highway” connecting Lomé in the south to Cinkasse in the north. It’s paved the entire way and pretty much free of potholes. Oh and it’s a 2 lane road, but lanes don’t really mean anything here in Togo. After a few more hours we finally made it to the Sotouboua prefecture where my van (with me, Marcus, Heather & our homologues) detoured from the rest of our caravan of cars to drop Marcus & I off (Heather is headed to Tchamba, so she had another 2 hour drive north east).

We dropped Marcus off first with all his stuff before heading to Joelle’s house where I was greeted by Joelle and two other volunteers from the Centrale region, Korie & Jillian. Korie is in my cluster and is the closest volunteer to me besides Marcus. She’s about 7 km away in Dereboua en brusse (in the bush) and is an NRM (new resource management…basically agriculture/environmental education) volunteer. Jillian is a GEE (girls education & empowerment) volunteer near Sokodé and was just visiting. Apart from Marcus, I have two other volunteers in my cluster (a volunteer cluster is a group of volunteers who are posted close to each other with one of the volunteers being the contact volunteer who rounds everyone up in the case of an emergency), Tony & Sam. Sam is an SBD volunteer in Adjengere (and a transfer from Kenya after volunteers were evacuated last January) and Tony is an NRM volunteer in Babade. Both of them are north of me on the Route. Unfortunately, both were away for Camp Espoir so I didn’t get to meet them until the post visit party in Sokodé.

My post visit week was pretty uneventful but informative. Joelle showed me around Sotouboua which is a lot different than I imagined it would be (but more on that later). She took me over to Vie Saine Togo (VST), the HIV/AIDS organization I was assigned to work with for the next two years. The building consists of a 4 four room building about 3km away from my house. The building has an office where one of my homologues, Bello, does his work as Executive Director. Nothing else goes on at the building except during meetings which are once a month on the 2nd Saturday or every month. VST as an organization was founded a few years ago by one of my other homologues, Fortuné, a lab technician at the hospital and also by one of the hospital doctors who is no longer there. Joelle had spent the past two years working with VST, getting them organized and helping them come up with a strategic plan. My main work objective with them is to help them achieve their objectives in the strategic plan as well as hopefully help them expand their services. Right now they do some psycho-social counseling with the Red Cross and have a limited medical drug program, offering discounted prices on medicine to treat opportunistic infections (the ARV situation is very complicated here in Togo and I’m hoping to learn more about the situation after my field trip to Kara in two weeks). Joelle was also trying to start a moringa garden in front of the Vie Saine building as part of a nutritional program. The trees were planted but she was hoping I could show them how to cultivate the leaves and turn them into a powder which can be used as a nutritional supplement in most foods. Finally with VST, there used to be a kids club for the children infected or affected by AIDS but due to funding issues, the program was cut; hopefully I can get it re-started with the help of the kids who went to Camp Espoir (the PC funded summer camp for children infected/affected by AIDS).

Apart from VST work, Joelle and Bello showed me around to the different ONGs in Sotouboua that deal with health and development work. I met with PLAN (one of the business organizations that Marcus was assigned to as well as they also do some health work ALL over Togo), RADAR, ESD and a ton of other small ONGs (sorry ONG is the French acronym for NGOs…more on NGOs later) in town. I have some opportunities to work with the schools here but as all the children are on summer break, I didn’t get to meet the directors of any of the schools. Joelle used to do some English clubs and some Anti-SIDA clubs (I know, that sounds horrible but that’s just what they call them) so I’m hoping to do some similar work once school starts again.

One last thing that was really cool: Joelle took Marcus and I to the hospital to go and see the lab that Fortuné works in. It’s pretty shitty compared to what you might find even in a high school biology lab in the US but it was nice for Togo. When we got there, Fortuné showed us all the work he did and even let us use his microscope to see some slides. He showed us malaria falciparum and even a schistosomiasis egg. Since Marcus and I both enjoy biology he told us that we were more than welcome to stop by anytime and help out in the lab if we wanted which is AWESOME! So yea, Bello (who came to the homologue conference in Kpalimé) and Fortuné are incredible counterparts and I really look forward to working with them. They seem super motivated and I know we will accomplish GREAT things together.

Chez Moi

As I said in one of my previous posts, I have a gorgeous house! All the volunteers who I talked to kept repeating “oh, you’re replacing Joelle? She has a beautiful house.” And they weren’t kidding. When you pull up in front of my compound, it looks like the African version of a “castle”. There is a huge yellowish wall surrounding my compound. In front of the wall, several short palm trees stand. In order to enter the compound, one has to cross a “moat” (a deep concrete gutter) and then open two metal gates (“my drawbridge” lol). My compound consists of an L-shaped house divided into 3 sections. My neighbour is Marc and he lives in the part of the L that is furthest away from the metal doors and is the short part of the “L”. He works for the prefecture and we both share utilities (I pay the electric bill and he pays the water bill). I live on the long part of the “L” and that part is essentially two houses. I live in the bigger one and my landlord who actually works a few hours away lives in the smaller one. He’s essentially never there but whenever he does come it’s only for a day or two to collect rent. So back to my house: My section of the house consists of 5 rooms and a long covered patio. Oh and a shared garden with grass and some moringa trees as well as a spigot where I get most of my water from for cooking. When you enter my patio it’s approximately 20 ft long by 5 ft; on one side is some patio furniture and the other side is a place to store my bike next to a lit-picot (a folding mesh & metal bed) for when I want to sleep outside during hot season. There are two doors to enter my house, one opening up into my main room and the other opening up into my kitchen. My main room serves as both my living room and my dining room (most of the furniture, including the refrigerator, is provided by my landlord which is very unusual). From my main room a door leads to a small salon that serves as my bathroom with a sink and two small rooms connected to it in the back which are for my shower (with a detachable shower head) and for my toilet (flushing, even accepting toilet paper…so there are three types of toilets in Togo: pit latrines, bucket flush toilets and flushing toilets. I had a pit latrine during training and now I’m upgraded to a flushing toilet. Flushing toilets which flush toilet paper are pretty rare). On both sides of the bathroom salon are two bedrooms. My bedroom is on the left side and the other room serves as a guest bedroom and I hope to build a desk and turn it into my study room as well.

As I mentioned before, my house is pretty much fully furnished by my landlord. Joelle made some additions like a few bookshelves and a bed for the guest bedroom and she’s leaving everything for me. I’m pretty lucky too because apart from the furniture, she’s also leaving me with her gas stove and two gas tanks along with whatever non-perishable food she doesn’t finish (such as her spices); this basically means that I have very little shopping to do in Lomé. I don’t think a volunteer could ask for a nicer house (okay so hot water would be nice but that would be kind of pushing it as already the house is bigger and nicer than many places back in the States).

Oh and icing on the cake: I live across the street from a buvette! Nothing too fancy but it’s a close place to grab a beer and people-watch during “repos” (the French/Togolese version of siesta). Apparently the guy who runs the place also works for the Togolese Ministry of Health so he might end up being an invaluable resource when it comes to my health work in the prefecture.

Sotouboua

Sotouboua is a prefectural capital meaning that Sotouboua is the largest city in the prefecture, kinda like a county, and everyone has to come in to bank, to do major grocery shopping and to see the prefet (like the mayor). After seeing Kpalimé and Lomé I figured that a prefectural capital would at least have lots of paved roads and maybe a hotel and some restaurants; or at least some 2-story buildings. Boy was I wrong!

Although Sotouboua is “big” it’s more like one of those one-street-towns where the one street in this case happens to be the Route Nationale. The Route is the one paved road in town and all the auxiliary roads are dirt roads, including the road to my house. There is a gas station, the post office, my UTB bank and several convenience type stores on the main road. There is also a petit marché where I do most of my day to day grocery shopping (vegetables and spices). The grand marché is back towards my house and takes place every Friday. I unfortunately left Sotouboua for Sokodé on Friday so I didn’t get to check out my grand marché but I’ll have plenty of time over the next 2 years. It’s nice to have all my every day needs in one place. Joelle said that unless I need “special” vegetables (green peppers, pineapples, etc.) or “special” yovo type items (like yogurt, milk in a box or hot dogs), I don’t really need to leave Sotouboua. The other great thing about Sotouboua being the prefectural capital is the fact that there are loads of ONGs here to work with along with the prefectural hospital of course (as I mentioned above).

Post Visit Party & Sokodé

To end up my week, Joelle, Korie and I headed up to Sokodé to meet up with the other Centrale volunteers and celebrate the end of post visit week at our regional transit house. Each region (except for Lomé/Maritime) has a transit house in the regional capital for the volunteers to stay at if they need to spend the night in the city for work/banking/shopping purposes. Unfortunately PC Admin feels that the houses are seen more as “party” houses so they are considering closing all the transit houses except for the ones they deem necessary for PC purposes. Since Centrale has only 15ish volunteers who use our maison, I’m pretty sure our house will be one of the houses that are closed which sucks because our house is awesome. We keep it nice and clean and it’s a great place to just “get away” when you want to escape from village life. There are beds, a TV and a full kitchen so many volunteers come by the house to catch up on reading or chill and watch movies. Oh well, might as well enjoy the house while we still have it (for another 6 months that is). So yea, came up to the house on Friday to chill and check out Sokodé and we had our party on Saturday.

Sokodé, unlike Sotouboua, has a real “city” feel. Apparently it’s the 2nd biggest city in Togo and it’s really nice. A little more city-feel than Kpalimé, but more Togolese-feel than Lomé. I won’t go into too much detail about Sokodé, since in terms of amenities it’s not toooo different from Sotouboua, just bigger. The one difference is that although Sokodé has a grand marché day (every Thursday), the marché is still open all week long making it really easy to pick up flour and cucumbers and peanut butter (which unfortunately is not found in Sotouboua for some reason) and a huge selection of pagne.

Okay, so there are 14 volunteers in Centrale (at least the ones who use Sokodé as their regional capital…there are 5 volunteers in the Pagala cluster but they go to Atakpamé for their regional capital as it’s closer and cheaper to go there than to come up to Sokodé). Oh and there’s Amy in Bassar (who Taressa is replacing) who is technically in the Kara region but come to Sokodé too as it’s closer for her than her regional capital. Marcus, Korie, Sam, Tony and I (and Joelle) make up the Sotouboua cluster; Rachel (GEE), Rebecca (ICT) and Jillian (GEE) make up the Sokodé cluster and then Heather (CHAP my stage), Tami (GEE), Chris (NRM), Golda (NRM), Silas (SBD), and Angela (SBD) make up the Tchamba cluster. I really like the vibe of the volunteers in my region. The other regions joke that we are the “retirement home” region which I both agree and disagree. We are all super chill and easy to get along with but way more fun than a retirement home though. Joelle, Tami, Rachel, Chris and Silas are COS-ing (finishing their service and heading back to the US) soon so they are leaving our region but will be replaced with new volunteers from the next stage (Joelle and Silas are being replaced by me and Heather obviously) and I heard we might be getting one “new” post in the next stâge. Hope they are as cool as we are :)

As for the actual post visit party, it was cool and chill like the volunteers. On Saturday the current volunteers cooked us dinner and it was AMAZING! Having pretty much eaten only Togolese food (which although it’s really good, it gets a bit monotonous after a while), it was a nice change of pace to eat chili dogs (we found real hot dogs here in Sokodé and then the volunteers made a Togolese version of chili thanks to spice packets from home). The volunteers also made real French fries, guacamole and beer-battered wagash. Can’t remember if I already mentioned it or not but wagash is the Togolese version of cheese made by members of the Fulani tribe (a nomadic West African tribe). It actually tastes pretty much like Indian paneer and it’s delicious when fried. It’s not found everywhere in Togo so it was a special treat to eat. The beer-battered wagash was AMAZING! And to top it off, we added guacamole onto it with some sriracha (sp?) sauce and it was an explosion of taste in my mouth. SOO GOOD! We devoured the entire meal. Oh yea, forgot to mention that some of the Kara volunteers decided to crash our party so in addition to Amy and Larissa (Kara volunteer), we also had Krissy, Taressa, Will and Mark from my stage join us for our party so that was cool to see them and hear about their post visit weeks.

But all good things must come to an end I guess and after waking up in the morning, my stâge-mates who were posted in the Kara region came down and picked us up and we all travelled back to Agou in a cramped 15-placer bush taxi for a very LONG and very UNCOMFORTABLE ride back south. I wasn’t feeling too hot so I took two Benadryl’s and was pretty much knocked out for the rest of the car ride back which was good, although my butt hurt like no other (*note to self*: must remember to ask mom to send me a butt cushion for travelling in the next care package).

Meeeeeeeeeeeee

As I mentioned earlier, I am about to have a “meeeee” moment as Jess would say. Let me preface this with the fact that I am super excited about my post and even though it’s my fault I am in this situation, I can’t help the way I feel, no matter how illogical or irrational it may be. If you don’t want to hear me whine & complain, I suggest you skip this part.

Expectations suck. You don’t want to have them, but you do anyways. Then sooner or later you realize the inevitable, that what you expected is NOT what you got. I tried to come to Togo with no expectations other than 2 years of service. But with me I also brought an image. The typical Peace Corps experience: mud hut, tin roof, no running water or electricity, and middle of nowhere Africa, cut off from the entire world except the tight-knit community you live in. Yes, it was an image somewhat fueled by romanticism (blame Dr. Farmer or The Poisonwood Bible or even every Peace Corps ad you ever see). An image also somewhat fueled by this desire to prove to myself that I could live less materialistically (blame my Dad). But mainly it was an image fueled by the fact that I would like to think of myself as a badass. I wanted to be a badass. Who spent the last two years in the middle of the hot African jungle where he didn’t have air conditioning, had to do laundry by hand and the nearest post office with his mail was 60km away? Oh that’s right: me, the badass!

But what do I get: running water from a spigot 3 feet outside my front door, a detachable showerhead, reliable electricity, a big town with all the essentials, a gas stove, a site mate to keep me company and of course, the coup de grace – a flushing toilet. Not a stinky pit latrine or even a flush-it-yourself bucket-flush toilet but a full on, push-a-button-and-watch-it-flush American style toilet. Hello Posh Corps! Ready for duty. I can’t believe that I am actually complaining about having all the amenities I mentioned above but part of me didn’t want any of those things, even if I did bring my laptop, digital camera and iPod with me from the US. Like I said, this is how I feel and it’s funny because I don’t think I knew what I wanted in a post assignment until I saw my actual post and realized it’s not what I truly wanted.

So just some advice for all you potential Peace Corps volunteers out there: as much as you think about what you are willing to live without for the next two years, also think about what you are willing to live with…

There isn’t really anything I can do about this situation since our post assignments are final, at least for the first year. I’ve tried talking to other volunteers about my situation and although they do sort of understand where I’m coming from, they keep telling me that all that “peace corps experience” stuff isn’t the hard stuff. Volunteers get used to going to bed when the sun goes down, they get used to spending 2 hours over a charcoal stove just to cook breakfast. The quote-unquote “hard stuff” is the work. The apathy. The language gap. The total lack of punctuality (mind you, I’m not saying that in a negative sense…us Americans might do well to learn that a little tardiness is good for the soul). But even though the “peace corps experience” isn’t the hard stuff, it still goes back to my expectations and the image I had in my head. Not what I expected and not what I wanted. Especially when there were people in my training group who only wanted electricity or really wanted running water. I feel like I jipped them out of something they could have had.

I’ve tried to contemplate why do I feel this way? Who on earth in their right mind would actually WANT to live that way? Not to say the “village” life is undesirable in any way, but why would an American or even a westerner who is so used to “modern” and convenient technology WANT to live like this. And honestly, I don’t really know. I guess I could say it’s because I saw Peace Corps with a certain image and they even “promised” me that image when I signed up. They mentioned it in the interview: what are you willing to live without for the next two years? Health volunteers are mainly placed in small, remote villages. Do you think you can do it? Of course I can. This is the schema I have in my head. It’s what I’m prepared for and in a way, it’s what I secretly want. And then they have to go and break this image by placing me in a “city”. It’s funny because Peace Corps talks about putting the volunteers in the same living conditions of people in the community and here I find myself in not just one of the nicest houses in Sotouboua but probably one of the nicest houses in my region. I’m sure if PC really wanted to find a house with a pit latrine and an outdoor shower in Sotouboua they wouldn’t have a very hard time. It’s also funny because out of the 15 available posts in Togo for health volunteers, only 4 of them could really qualify as being “en brusse” villages. So much for CHAP volunteers being in “small, remote villages”…

So finally my “meeee” moment, my internal monologue, concludes on a certain fact: that my so-called image of the “peace corps experience” isn’t just an image. It’s life. Real life. For billions of people. The so-called “peace corps experience” might be “roughing it” for me but it’s the everyday-to day life for my fellow Togolese. They aren’t in those conditions for an “experience”. They didn’t choose to live that way. The live the only way they know how. The only way their economic status will allow them. And so they live… and I guess I’ll just have to stop pitying myself and appreciate what I have when so many others don’t…

ciao for now,
-Nikhil

training update...

Nyana Danaj (pronounced “Nyá-nah Dáh-nah”),

Alafia we? Tumiye yo? Amerika mba yo? Payam se Nikhil ne menge Corps de la Paix soolim tumiye ladu.

I hope that all of your answers to the first few questions were “Yaa alafia” because that would mean that your health, your work and the people of America are all well as I hope they are. In case you were wondering, no that is not French I am speaking above (with the exception of the “Corps de la Paix” bit) but Kabyé (or Kabiyé), pronounced “Kah-bee-yay”, one of the two main languages spoken here in Togo. The other main language is Ewe, pronounced “Eh-vay”, but since that is mainly spoken in the southern part of the country it won’t do me much good at my post. Oh and before Togolese people and some of my fellow PC volunteers get mad at me, yes, Ewe and Kabyé are the two predominant local languages of Togo; however, Togo is home to many more local languages such as Ife, in the southeast; Kotokoli and Tchamba in the middle; and Bassar, Konkomba, Lhosso, Nawdum and Mina in the north. And even that doesn’t encompass all the languages spoken in Togo.

Btw, a basic translation of what I wrote above translates out to: Good evening. Are you well? How’s your work? How are the people of America? My name is Nikhil and I am a Peace Corps volunteer worker.

So yea, as we get ready to head to our post tomorrow for our mid-stâge post visit week, our language “formateurs” (French for trainers) decided to give us brief local language lessons so that we can “salue” (or greet) the people in our post communities. Since Sotouboua is mainly Kabyé ethnically, I’ve spent the past week reviewing very basic Kabyé with Marcus (my site mate) and Reid. Although I am enjoying learning a local language as it was one of the things I was most looking forward to doing in the Peace Corps, it’s been a little frustrating to jump into Kabyé classes when I still don’t feel my French is strong enough to visit post and a little more frustrating that the formateurs are teaching me Kabyé in French! I mean what can I do but go with it right? Luckily I only had to suffer about 2 hours of local language before returning back to French classes.

Okay enough whining, let’s get back to updating you all, my oh so faithful readers, about my life the past two weeks since I last posted.

4th of July

Last time I posted on here I was in Kpalimé buying supplies for our 4th of July fête in Agou-Nyogbo. Luckily we were able to find all the supplies we needed for a good dinner including hot dogs and potatoes. The celebration ended up being a lot of fun and even though it wasn’t exactly like the 4th of July parties we are used to in the US, it was definitely the closest approximation to what we will have here in Togo. For our feast we made what came to basically be our versions of french fries, chili dogs, mango salsa (this was one of my contributions to the party and it turned out AMAZING), guacamole, fried soy (bought from the petit marché) and beignets with chocolate icing (the beignets from my host mom was my other contribution…btw beignets, pineapple jam and chocolate icing “mélange-d” (mixed) tastes pretty much like a toaster strudel, yum!). After devouring our meal both groups from Koumawou and Nyogbo just sat around and chilled; we were supposed to try and organize a SED vs. CHAP Ultimate Frisbee and Capture the Flag competitions but most of us were so satiated into food comas that we didn’t have the energy to run around. After the Koumawou kids left, the CHAPers somehow got into very serious conversations about life and other stuff when it started to pour heavily outside our tech house. In order to cheer all of us up from our somewhat subdued states, I dragged everyone out into the rain to dance. It was one of those spur of the moment, “why not?” things that ended up being a lot of fun. We danced for a few songs, got completely drenched and then we all had fun getting home to our host-families. Overall, a successful 4th of July party.

Cultural Exchange

As many people are unaware, the US Peace Corps has 3 goals, two of which are completely unrelated to the first goal of “development” (although this first goal is hotly contested among the PC community, I shall reserve my judgment for a later time). The second goal involves teaching the Togolese people about American culture in hopes of creating a better understanding of America on the part of the Togolese; the third involves teaching Americans about Togolese culture in hopes of creating a better understanding of Togo on the part of the Americans. Since this blog sort of serves the purpose of detailing Togolese culture to my friends and family back home I am excited that you, my readers, are getting to partake in the Peace Corps experience via this third goal. Last Friday, all of us stagieres along with our host families participated in a large cultural exchange as we demonstrated a little bit of American culture for them and they returned the favor through a big fête (in case you haven’t realized it, give Togolese a reason to party and they will party). The first part of the cultural exchange involved presenting a skit: the Togolese host mom’s came up with a skit to portray a particular aspect of Togolese life and we came up with one to portray an aspect of American life. Now I have to say that we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into as our skit ended up pretty lame compared to the Togolese skit. Our host mom’s decided to portray a marriage proposal & ceremony and they had this intricate storyline of deceit and power hierarchy complete with a fight and lots of singing and dancing totaling approximately 20 minutes. It was all in French and it was really funny and interesting to watch, if for no other reason than to watch some of our host mothers act and come out of their shells. We definitely saw a different side to them than what we see in our houses. Even my host brother ended up taking part in their skit. The American skit ended up being about “typical” things you might see in a coffee shop. Not really sure how we ended up with this idea but we were able to come up with some pretty funny scenarios that were extremely humorous to us, even if the scene didn’t translate extremely well for the Togolese. We had scenes involving ordering coffee at Starbucks, a group of friends discussing sports & why football isn’t big in the US, a business meeting (which I took part in), and even a hilarious break up scene between a couple. In my scene Allison and I were trying to portray how in the US there are many women in business who are in higher positions of power than many men. So Allison was my boss and I was her assistant and she was basically bossing me around and ordering me to do a bunch of things for her or else I would be fired. The big really funny scene that I want to mention quickly was the break up as it turned out WAY better than I could have imagined. Whitney and Rayan played an “inter-racial” couple being all lovey-dovey in the coffee shop. After a few seconds, Trisha walked by their table and Rayan checks her out. When Whitney saw this, she decided to slap him in the face, throw her coffee at him and storm off. What Rayan didn’t realize was that Whitney has some water in the coffee cup so when she “threw the coffee” at him, he wasn’t expecting anything to actually hit him. Also they had originally staged a fake “slap” in the face but when Whitney went for the slap, something happened and she ended up really slapping him pretty hard in the face. The two mishaps together had our Togolese families falling out of their chairs laughing, even if they didn’t quite understand what was going on. Our Togolese mom’s definitely showed us up but apparently the Togolese skit is ALWAYS better than the American skit so we weren’t too disappointed.

The second part of the cultural exchange involved a fashion show: American and Togolese fashion. First they had us talk about American fashion and what we might wear in various occasions in the US. Rayan & Rose emceed our show and talked about the 8 different categories of clothing we came up with: school attire, date attire, beach attire, casual attire, work attire, tourist attire, outdoorsy attire and workout attire. It ended up being pretty funny with the way many of us decided to dress up. Kristina & I got selected to show off casual attire, as in what we might wear as we “lounge” around our homes. Down the runway I wore my Georgia Tech t-shirt and some track pants and Kristina wore a shirt and some PJ bottoms. I tried to get some good pictures of the show but many came out blurry so when I post pics, you can see what I was able get from the skits & the fashion show. After we portrayed American fashion, our host mom’s fitted us in pagne complets to demonstrate Togolese fashion. It was really funny to see some of the clothes they had us wear. My host mom fitted me in a lime green mawua (bubu & pants) that had some pretty intricate embroidery. I tried to post a picture of it on facebook so check it out. It’s funny because the mawua looks pretty much like an Indian kurta pajama but with lots of colour so I felt somewhat at home in them. All the girls had many different styles that you can see when I post pics. The guys however were evenly divided between the pagne complet mawua, pagne complet suit and the village chief garb complete with heavily draped fabric, beaded necklaces and a traditional hat. After all of us rocked our Togolese clothes down the runway at the Nyogbo techhouse, we even had our formateurs walk down the runway in other versions of Togolese clothes, particularly those clothes more commonly found up north. To end the fête, no Togolese party is complete without dancing so we all boogied into the night. All in all it was a great day as we all partook in an interesting cross-cultural sharing experience.

Training

So I know that is seems like all us Peace Corps volunteers do is party (and from my pictures it might seem that’s all I do too) but I promise that I/we DO do some actual work. Training is pretty intense and social time is our way to distress from the 24/7 sensory overload of information. As I mentioned in the previous post, training involves lots of exposure to not just theory but practical applications of projects we can implement within our communities. The CHAP program in Togo is categorized by meeting the needs of Togolese people within 4 specific domains: HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning and nutrition. In addition to these four domains, many of the health volunteers work on hygiene/sanitation projects such as latrine construction and organization development such as NGO capacity building. Based on the 4 main domains, our training has been divided up to focus on one domain each week.

Our first week consisted of learning about nutrition and the state of nutrition in Togo. We learned that Togolese are taught a very different “food pyramid” than the one we use in the US based on the availability of certain items in Togo. The three main food groups in Togo are construction foods, energy foods and growth foods. As part of our week on nutrition we learned how to make enriched bouille (basically fortified porridge) and we participated in a local C.P.C (Controle et Promotion de la Croissance), or baby-weighing activity. Baby weighing, which was a lot of fun and something I hope to take part in at my post, is a standard part of infant growth monitoring, a UNICEF tool to monitor the health of a baby based on its weight. After weighing the babies and checking to see if they fall within a safe range based on weight and age, we performed nutritional consultations with the mother to make sure the baby is not only getting enough to eat but also enough of the right types of foods. Something I mentioned in my previous post was how CHAP volunteers get to work on gardening projects and that is due to our involvement in nutrition work as growing the right foods in certain parts of the country is essential to improving the nutritional state of that area. Additionally, leaves from the Moringa tree are highly nutritious and can be added as a nutritional supplement to any meal.

Our second week covered the topic of HIV/AIDS and its effect on the Togolese population. Contrary to what I had mentioned a few months ago about Togo having a very low HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, I came to find out that the low rate is due to under-reportage and lack of testing. Basically, the statistics are based on the number of people who have been tested and due to heavy stigmatization and discrimination, many people who might be infected refuse to get tested bringing the prevalence rate lower than it most likely is. Even with forecasting and extrapolation, it is extremely difficult to determine the exact number of infected people in Togo as polling and census data are inefficient and very incomplete. One of our technical sessions was a presentation by an amazing Togolese man by the name of Augustín who is HIV+ and one of the few people in the entire country who has VERY publically displayed his sero-positive results. He is also one of the few infected Togolese who is receiving ARV treatment. Although he tried to talk about the Global Fund and the ARV mess that is going on in Togo, the whole situation is very confusing and I hope that we will gain clarification on many issues at a later point. The second part of the presentation was by Jon (one of the only 3 male CHAP volunteers already in country and about to COS shortly), a volunteer in Kanté who has been working on creating a satellite at his post of AED (Association Espoir pour Demain), a HIV/AIDS association of “pris en charge” in Kara. Jon’s presentation was very enlightening as I will be doing similar work with VST, my HIV/AIDS association in Sotouboua.

This brings me to this past two weeks where our topics of discussion have been about malaria and hygiene/sanitation (the two are highly correlated). We haven’t done anything extremely exciting with these topics apart from doing home visits to understand barriers to mosquito net compliance and listening to a speaker from a health and sanitation department on different types of latrines and how to go about working on various water projects in our communities. When we get back from post in two weeks, we’ll begin our discussion on family planning and then apparently I’ll be going for a week to Kara for my field trip to study organizational development and NGO capacity building. Although training is getting to be a bit tedious and draining, I am grateful for the review of information and it’s nice to see what kinds of projects we can implement in our site.

Language

Okay, so I already talked a little bit about language but I did want to highlight two more things quickly: our mid-service language test and cocktail français. First of all, in preparation for our post-visit, the formateurs tested all us stagieres to see how much our French level had improved from the beginning of training and to see whether we were making adequate progress towards reaching the mandatory level to go to post. Although I felt more comfortable with my French than when I first arrived in country, I didn’t feel as nearly prepared as I would have liked to before post-visit. The oral test was slightly nerve-wracking but I made it through and somehow ended up with a “low” intermediate mid. Considering I came in “high” novice-mid/ “low” novice-high, this was quite an improvement, although I am dubious as to what standards the formateurs were using when they decided to place me at my level. Regardless, I only need an intermediate-mid level of French to be approved for post so that takes off a lot of pressure. I know that with adequate exposure to new vocabulary and new grammatical rules, I’ll feel a lot more comfortable before actually moving to post in a few weeks.

One of my favorite language activities so far has been cocktail français. I wanted to highlight this activity because I feel that this activity contributed greatly to my increased ease of speaking French. Unlike the classroom setting where we focus on vocabulary and grammar, cocktail français was an opportunity for us to speak freely and converse about general topics of interest to us such as literature, art, travel, politics, etc; the catch is that we are only allowed to speak in French. Additionally, we ended up having class at Afrikiko, one of the main local bars, so that we could order beers (American invitation, not Togolese) and chill with snacks prepared by the formateurs (aka. Yummy popcorn!). This is up for debate, but I am a huge advocate (based on evidence from my study abroad experience in South America) for the use of alcohol in foreign language situations. I am not saying one needs to drink copious amounts of liquor and be hammered, but even a single beer has the ability to lower one’s inhibitions enough to speak freely without the consequences of analyzing every word that is about to come out of one’s mouth. I noticed that my French came out more smoothly as I didn’t have to think about each sentence before I uttered it. Although I stumbled here and there, it was nice to be in an unintimidating atmosphere where I could control the direction of a conversation and speak about things I knew how to talk about, not just “how to buy things at a grocery store” or “how to ask for directions” as we would often do in class. Anyways, it was a great activity and it was the first time where I was able to see the progress I was making with my French based on my ability to hold a conversation about a random topic for at least a few minutes. I really hope we get to do this activity again…

Homologue Conference

So I guess this all brings me to today, our homologue conference. For the first time, we met face to face with all of our homologues, or counterparts, with whom we will be working side-by-side at our posts. My homologue is Bello, one of the founding members of Vie Saine Togo (VST), the HIV/AIDS association that I will be working with in Sotouboua. He seems really nice so far and he also seems really motivated to work hard so I hope we will be able to accomplish a lot. So the homologue conference was held near Kpalimé and all 30 of us volunteers and all 30 of our homologues met up to reinforce the expectations and responsibilities of the volunteers and homologues in each of our communities. The homologues had already had a full day of sessions yesterday so when we arrived today, our main goal was to introduce ourselves to our homologues, introduce our program (CHAP & SED) and make sure that both groups are on the same page when it comes to what each of us is bringing to the table. Although the conference was a bit repetitive information-wise as we had already been drilled on what many of our homologues, particularly the new homologues in new posts, would want from us: money, it was good to hear what else they expected from us and to see how excited some of the newer homologues were to work with Peace Corps. After the conference, all the volunteers were given rides to the Kpalimé marché to buy last minute items for our post visit week. Since I didn’t need to buy pretty much anything as Joelle told me she pretty much had anything I could need for the post visit week, I ended up going out for “pizza” with Krissy, Marcus, Reid, Heather & Whitney before running over to the internet café to check my e-mail.

As I mentioned earlier, we head to post tomorrow to check out our new assignments, meet the people of our new communities, and basically get an idea of what life as a volunteer is going to be like. Although I am excited to finally see what Sotouboua is like and to meet Joelle, I am sad to be leaving many of my close friends from stâge. It’s weird because even though we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, we’ve created incredibly close bonds among our two groups so it’s strange to see some of those bonds tested. Although it sucks I guess it just prepares us for the next two years of our lives.

As the Kabyé say…
“Eso fezi” or “May God wake us up tomorrow”

ciao,
-Nikhil

happy 4th of july

Bonjour tout le monde!

Happy 4th of July to everyone! I hope y’all are having an enjoyable Independence Day back in the US. It’s weird to think that a national holiday back in the States is just another day here in Togo. I hope y’all are enjoying the warm weather, the BBQs, the parades and the fireworks tonight. Us here in Togo unfortunately don’t get any of those things (well sorta). However, what we do get is the day off from training! Woohoo! And this is exciting because after stage (Peace Corps Pre-Service training) apparently we only get Togolese holidays off as opposed to getting American holidays off. So yea, since we got the day off, a bunch of my stage-mates and I decided to venture over to Kpalimé, the nearest “big” city near our training site, to use the internet and buy some yovo supplies for our 4th of July Extravaganza tonight. Apparently I was unofficially appointed social director of the CHAP (health) volunteers so I was given the task of coordinating today’s festivities which includes a field day of kickball, capture the flag and ultimate Frisbee followed by an “American” dinner of hot dogs, fries, beans, guacamole, chips & salsa. We also wanted to invite the SEDers (business volunteers) over to Nyogbo for the 4th, so that further complicated all our logistics. Anyways, we’ll see how everything turns out…

So yea, back to the main reason why you read this blog: me! Yes, I am alive and doing just fine. I’ve had some good days and some bad days and I’ll try and get you updated on what’s been going on the past three weeks since I last posted. I apologize for the lull but we have basically no internet access here in Agou-Nyogbo and internet access is not much better in Agou-Koumawou, the SED training site. I’m hoping things will be better when I get to post (which I’ll tell you more about in a bit since I FINALLY know where I’ll be posted for the next 2 years…). Kpalimé is the nearest city with “decent” (decent for Togo that is; very shitty by US standards) internet access so I had to wait till I had an extended amount of time to spend before I could post. Okay so I apologize for a) how disorganized this post is going to be but the past three weeks have been a blur and a LOT has happened and b) how long this post is since like I said, a lot has happened, and there is SOO much that I want to talk about. I will do my best to be as brief but descriptive as possible because I really want you to have a good idea of what I’m going through. I guess let’s start at the beginning…

Agou Nyogbo
Agou-Nyogbo, the CHAP training village, is situated on the northeastern side of Mt. Agou, not only the tallest mountain in Togo at an elevation of 986m but also one of the highest points in central West Africa. Part of the Agou prefecture in the Plateau region of Togo, Agou-Nyogbo is to be my home for remaining 7 weeks of training. Ever since we arrived three weeks ago, I can’t shake how much Nyogbo reminds me of Bhogavi, my dad’s village in India. Nyogbo is a farming village with a single paved road running through the middle along with several arterial dirt roads. Although there are few businesses or boutiques in our village there is a large private hospital which brings a good amount of people into the village. Nyogbo is very pretty. There is a lot of greenery and it definitely lives up to its reputation as one of the prettiest places in Togo...

It’s rainy season as I mentioned in a previous post and with that means sporadic downpours every day. We don’t exactly get the weather channel here to warn us so that makes getting caught in the rain a super fun experience. Although the rain does bring temporary relief from the Togolese heat, the downside is that rainy season coincides with malaria season since mosquitoes breed and thrive in the small pools of water that are left behind after each storm that passes through. So although I am appreciative of the “cool” air, I am not appreciative of the plethora of mosquitoes that have feasted on my blood and left me itchy all over my body. My whole body is covered in mosquito bites. Its pretty lovely.

One quick last note before I switch topics but the sky here in Nyogbo is incredible. Last night the sky was the clearest I’ve ever seen it. There was not a cloud in sight so the stars were out in all their brilliant glory. It was literally like looking up at the ceiling of a planetarium; but this was no planetarium, this was the real thing. The stars were so bright that as Taylor & I were leaving Afrikiko (the local buvette that all us CHAPers hang out at to chill…I’ll tell you more about the Yovo Support Group later) decided that we just had to take a moment to enjoy the sky. We had a full 360° unobstructed view and I even saw a shooting star! It was pretty unreal. I’ve only seen the sky this clear twice in my life, once in Bhogavi and once in Parati, Brasil (remember that night on the beach Jess?) and even those moments don’t compare to the clarity and range of last night…

Ma famille-hôte
My host family is amazing. I have a host father, a host mother and two host siblings, a younger brother and older sister (but my host sister is married and lives in Gabon so I haven’t met her). I’m one of the luckier volunteers in my village as my host family has electricity (although its pretty inconsistent as electricity usually is throughout Togo), a tap for water and a refrigerator! I know that a fridge doesn’t seem like a pretty big deal but they are very expensive and it means that I get cold water, a luxury in the hot weather. But yea, my host family rocks. My father is a farmer and my mom used to be a nurse but now she’s a housewife. However she makes the most amazing beignets every morning to sell and she always saves two for me for my breakfast. Yum! My younger brother Kofi is 21 and goes to school in Kpalimé but since it’s summer vacation he’s back in Nyogbo and hangs out with me which is great.

My host family house is awesome. Its over on the west side of Nyogbo right next to the private hospital. I have my own room as a part of the house and its huge, complete w/ double bed! And i know a lot of you are wondering about my bathroom facilities: i have an outdoor latrine that has a wooden box to “sit” on so yay to no squatting and i take bucket baths every morning in a four-walled room w no roof next to my outdoor latrine. The bathroom complex is about 10 yards from the main house. My host mom heats water for me every morning so luckily i get hot water baths every morning.

Training
There is SOO much to talk about training I might just have to dedicate a whole post later on to training (the actual language, cultural and technical training that is). But just a brief synopsis so you can get an idea of how I spend my days. It’s kinda like being in school again as we have “class” Monday through Saturday (with Saturday being a half-day). Class starts at 7:30 and goes till noon where we break for lunch and the Togolese version of a siesta (it’s SOO hot from 12-2pm). Then class begins again at 2:30 and goes till 5:30. Saturdays we only go from 7:30 to noon and sundays are our days off. We usually do 2 hour blocks of either language class, technical class or cultural class. Language classes are where we are put in small groups based on our French fluency to improve our French. There were originally 4 language classes and I was placed in the 3rd group since although I know some French, it’s pretty much non-existent. But then this past week they decided to move me up to the 2nd group since apparently my French was coming along thanks to my 1.5 semesters of French at Tech and my 10 years of Spanish (all the rules are pretty much the same so I was able to transfer a lot of my Spanish knowledge to my French learning). SO yea, French is definitely going to be my biggest challenge compared to the rest of what I’m dealing with. Technical classes are cool. We are doing a lot of hands on learning to get experience with the types of projects available to us at our sites. We spent the first week talking about Peace Corps philosophies and approaches to teaching a community. Our second week was spent talking about nutrition as malnutrition is a HUGE problem all over Togo, particularly infant malnutrition. Our third week we’ve talked a bit about HIV/AIDS and next week we’ll tackle malaria. We’re covering a lot of really interesting topics but we are only three weeks into training so I’ll talk more about our technical training towards the end of stage. One more quick note, all the CHAP volunteers get to learn about gardening! We’ve spent two technical sessions in the farm learning how to garden for nutritional enrichment purposes. We even learnt about this REALLY AWESOME plant called Moringa. It’s pretty much one of the most interesting plants as not only is it very durable all over the world but it’s also HIGHLY nutritious containing insane levels of vitamin A, calcium and other essential minerals & vitamins. But more on moringa at some other point. Cultural classes are going well and they are a lot of fun because we get to do them with the SEDers. It’s interesting to learn about Togolese culture and traditions and customs. We’ve learned how to greet elders and differences between Togolese & American definitions of relationships, professional and social. We’ll do a couple more fun cultural things soon so I’ll talk more about them later on as well.

So yea, this brings me to yesterday, something I do want to talk about as it was an extremely nerve-wracking day since we spent the whole day doing interviews with the CHAP APCD (associate Peace Corps director) Tchao and getting individual feedback on language/cultural/technical training. What this basically means is that I sat with Tchao and discussed where in country I wanted to go and what kinds of projects I wanted to work on. And it’s kinda funny because in the interview he originally told me he wanted me in Bassar because the HIV/AIDS organization there needed organizational development assistance with capacity building and strategic planning but when we all found out our posts yesterday evening I ended up with one of my first choices in post: Soutoubua! I am super excited about my post because not only will I get to work with an already established HIV/AIDS organization but I also have opportunities to work on gardening projects (w/ Moringa) with some NRM volunteers, peer education, health clubs in schools and also a potential CPC/nutrition project in a nearby village (I’ll go more into my site once I actually get there and see what is actually available for me to work on). I am a little sad because I was kinda hoping to be in the Kara region, but the one post that I really liked was way more perfect for my friend Taylor and Bassar, which is also in the Kara region, was a perfect post assignment for Taressa. So it all worked out. Btw, for those of you who don’t know where Soutoubua is, check it out on the Togo map. It’s in la Region Centrale and it’s a pretty big city since it’s a prefectural capital and on the Route Nationale. This means that I’ll have good cell phone reception, electricity and even good access to the internet (more on that later). I also heard that I have one of the nicer houses for PCVs and I even have a flushing toilet! Looks like I’m gonna be living Posh Corps starting September J

Stage
I have an amazing stage (well sans one volunteer but I don’t really want to get into that here; if you have questions, I’ll talk more about this person in a private setting). By that, I mean that I really like all the people who are going through training at the same time as me in both the CHAP group and the SED group. I’ve already made some incredible friendships and it’s sad to think that in a few months all of us are going to be split up across the country (although I’m incredibly lucky since one of my closest friends, Marcus, from the SED group is being posted to Soutoubua with me as an IT volunteer to help develop better internet access points in the city). It is interesting to look at the group dynamics of both groups. I love our CHAP group. We have 4 guys (we used to have 5 guys but one left two weeks ago and it really took an emotional toll on all of us) and 11 girls. We all get along great and I feel like we are a much more tight knit group than the SEDers (hey, y’all are welcome to debate this issue). We are all from different parts of the country (unfortunately no other volunteers from Georgia though) such as New York, Texas, Michigan, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Washington and Pennsylvania but it’s so amazing to be surrounded by so many people who care so deeply and so passionately about health issues. We also have different backgrounds and interests. We have 2 doctors (1 medical doctor and 1 PhD doctor) and 2 others with master’s degrees. Some of us are very interested in nutrition work while myself and a few others are more interested in community health work. There are three other psychology majors and four other pre-medders which means I’m in good company. I was really worried but I found two other girls who are huge Paul Farmer fans and I’m slowly spreading the good word so that I can convert the rest of them into Paul Farmer advocates.

It’s funny to think how freaked out I was at the probability of me being the only guy in this year’s CHAP group. Last year the CHAP group was all females so I am really glad to have Mark & Mitch with me this year. They are super awesome and even though we are posted to very different parts of the country, I hope we remain good friends. Funny enough though, one of the volunteers who I have clicked with the most (in the CHAP group) is a girl from the West coast, Krissy. Her and I have a lot in common and keep each other entertained in class. I’m kinda sad she’s not posted super close to me but at least it gives me a reason to travel to visit her after swear-in. The rest of the girls are really cool too (you know I love all the CHAPers). Mom, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve had a few more marriage proposals while here in Togo. But only ‘cause the girls want to have an Indian wedding. So at least I’m marriable…

As for the other group I’ve made some good friends and some who I just don’t know that well. They have a lot more people who are kinda quiet. But that’s okay ‘cause we have 2 whole years to get to know each other better. I gotta give shout outs to some of my boys in the other group though who kept me sane in Philly and those first few days in Lome: Marcus, Mikey & Frankie. Frankie’s from Alabama so it’s nice to have another guy from the South to hang out with. Oh and random but Frankie was born in England so he also has dual-citizenship like me! Weird! Mikey is basically my Asian brother from another mother. He and I clicked in Philly and he and I have some pretty interesting philosophical conversations. Oh and he’s Catholic which is funny only because ever since Georgia Tech, I realized that most of my best friends are Catholic. Im really sad that Mikey and Frankie are getting posted to Maritime which is kinda far from my post. I wish they were closer. Oh well. And then there’s Marcus. It’s weird how well we get along and I’m super pumped about being in Soutoubua with him. Although it’ll be good I’m kinda scared at the kind of trouble we might get into being in the same city lol. Oh well, there is a lot more to talk about my stage-mates but more of this later…

Highs & Lows
“You will have your highest highs & your lowest lows…”

The Peace Corps is an emotional rollercoaster. Never in my life have I ever been so bi-polar, particularly within the span of a single day. I might start the day feeling great, then a few hours later during lunch something might bum me out or get me really frustrated, and then by dinner I’m feeling great again. Someone once said the aforementioned quote regarding the Peace Corps and they were right. When we are feeling good, it’s the best kind of good; when we are feeling sad, it’s pretty much the pits. The good triggers can be as simple as hearing something really funny someone said or just laughing at how ridiculous your life currently is. The bad triggers can range from not being able to make a phone call to not being able to understand anything your host family says to you. Back in the US, I remember reading a blog from a girl who served in Benin and in her blog she started to list at the end of each week a few highs of the week and a few lows of the week, just as a way to remind yourself that even though life can suck, it can also be good. I am going to try my hardest to do something similar as a great way to remind myself just how the smallest things can really make a difference in one’s day.

Week 3: (point of clarification: this was something I wrote this past weekend regarding the previous week)

Week 3: Lows
- Although I’ve been blessed with “good” health (good is a very relative health as good for Togo is not necessarily good for the US) so far in training, several of us have gotten really sick and it sucks to have good friends get really sick. But yea, the other night I had a slight fever and chills and I basically felt terrible and that combined with the hot weather led to a pretty bad night. ß it was only for one night and I’m much better now…
- I had the hardest time understanding my host father last Sunday. I thought I knew what he was asking me but it got pretty bad that he just had to ask me in English. It’s frustrating because I still can’t hear the subtle differences in the French language and learning French is going to be my biggest challenge in Togo. It sucks to not be understood and to not be able to communicate. It would be so much easier to learn French if EVERYONE spoke French but unless they are speaking to me, most of the villagers in Nyogbo speak Ewe, the local language so I’m not as immersed into French as I thought I would be.
- I haven’t checked my e-mail in 2 weeks which is a LONG time for me. Also I wasn’t able to talk to my mom before she left for India last week. I feel so disconnected with the world as I don’t even know what’s going on outside our bubble in Togo.
- We get to know our post sites next week which is a high but also a low because it means that everyone is going to be split up all across the country and some of my close friends might be a 5-10 hour bush taxi ride away. I’m trying to live in the moment and cherish my time with everyone while we are all still together but it still sucks to think that we can’t just ride 5 km to the next village to see a good friend from stage.

Week 3: Highs
- I got to weigh babies at a CPC, something that I have always wanted to do. It was so incredible to interact with the mothers & babies and assist in teaching them about healthier nutrition habits as malnutrition is a big problem in Togo.
- FanMilk is always a highlight of my week. FanMilk is basically the Togolese version of an ice cream push-pop. There are lots of flavours and FanChoco is my favorite so far. It tastes just like eating frozen chocolate milk.
- A chicken walked into my latrine with me and watched me go to the bathroom. I know this is random but it cracked me up at how ridiculous of a situation this is because this would never happen to me in the US.
- After hanging out at Afrikiko for Emily’s “birthday party”, Marcus & I had a sleepover at my host family’s house. It’s like we are all in middle school again asking our parents, “Can XYZ spend the night?” It was fun to just hang out and to return the favour after I spent the night at his place in the other training site.
- Next week we will FINALLY know where we are going to be posted for the next two years. Although it is kind of a low as I mentioned above, it’s also a high to know what kind of work we have to look forward to.
- We had a movie night and watched “Zoolander” after which a couple of us had a walk-off that led to some interesting moments.
- I’ve gotten a bunch of my stage addicted to “How I Met Your Mother” and it’s amazing ‘cause now I can quote obscure lines from the show and people ACTUALLY know what I’m talking about. Suit up!

Mt. Agou
I have climbed the tallest mountain in Togo and lived to talk about it! No seriously, like I mentioned earlier, Nyogbo sits on the northeastern side of the mountain and the first Sunday after arriving in our village, 9 of us decided to climb the mountain and summit the peak, all 986m of it. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but it took us 2.5 hours to climb to the top and including a break at the top our total roundtrip took about 6 hours. We left around 9am and didn’t return until 3 in the afternoon. We lucked out with beautiful weather and thanks to my amazing host brother Kofi and Mitch’s awesome host sister, we had two skilled guides to get us to the summit. On the way up we passed through two mountainside villages that have some amazing views of the valley below. Point of reference, the villages we passed were really small and pretty poor. The villages were basically mud/cement buildings with tin roofs but looking down from the top of one of the villages reminded me of the chapter in Mountains Beyond Mountains where Dr. Farmer brings Tracy Kidder to Cagne and I imagined that Cagne must look something like this. So yea, it was a tough climb but totally worth the hike. All the way up and down we had some incredible vantage points overlooking la Region Plateaux, definitely the greenest and most lush part of Togo. When we got to the top, the panoramic view of Togo was breathtaking. We even had the opportunity to spot Ghana in the distance (Mt. Agou is situated on the western side of Togo, about 40-50 km from the Ghanaian border). Although we got pretty sweaty and dirty and the hike was tough, our entire group bonded and it was great to just spend some time together outside of class and be one with Togo…(I took tons of pictures so when I get good internet access, I’ll upload)


So if you made it this far, congratulations! Thanks for reading about my experience in Togo so far. As I mentioned in my previous post from Lome, if there is anything specifically that you want me to talk about or discuss regarding Togo or the Peace Corps, let me know. Gotta fulfill the Peace Corps’ 3rd goal right? Before I leave y’all to go and eat lunch I wanted to make a quick request! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me mail. I don’t have any needs for packages just yet (that will happen once I get to post) as I have or can get easily most of what I need right now, but letters from you would make my day (e-mails are great but like I said, internet access is shaky, particularly during my training period right now). I REALLY want to know what you are up to and I really want to know what’s going on in the world. Also I really want everyone’s mailing addresses and since I have all these stamps but no addresses I can’t mail anyone letters from Togo. I promise to send you a letter back if you write me J

I’ll end this post with some of my favorite quotes from stage…
“Man, I wish I was a chicken!” – Krissy
“J’ai accouché?” – Brittany
“I should have gone to South America” – me
“Did he say Mexicans?” “He said med-students!” – Taylor to Taressa
“I feel naked without it” “Looks like you’re gonna be naked for a long time…” – Brittany to Ray
“Are your needs being met?” – Maggie
“We’re about to have a lot of sex” – Alex
“Does anybody love me?” – Brittany
“The work there will be sex” – Tchao
“Does anybody need a hoe?” – Trisha
“Is it okay if I pull my pants down?” – Mitch
“Yay for happy hour with the village chief” - unknown

Okay, enjoy the fireworks! I miss you ALL terribly but know that I am safe and doing well for now. Till next time…

A bientôt,
- Nikhil

*important* quick note but for anyone who has tried to call or text me, I apologize for not receiving it. Nyogbo doesn’t have the best cell phone reception for some weird reason. You literally have to be standing in very specific spots in the village to get reception. Whenever I call Atlanta, I have to go to my friend Taylor’s house and stand in her front yard in this 1m x 1m square to get enough signal on my phone to make the phone call. If I don’t have signal, I won’t get any texts or phone calls. I promise this situation will improve when I get to post so for now, unless I call or text you, forget that I have a cell phone. Speaking of which, if you want me to call or text you, I need your phone numbers! So write me/e-mail me your numbers…