Today is our last official day as Peace Corps trainees in Agou-Nyogbo. My bags are packed and loaded into the luggage truck and starting at 7AM tomorrow morning, I will officially be saying “A bientôt Nyogbo. Bonjour Lomé, encore”. Weird. To think that a few weeks ago I was praying for this day to come and now that it’s finally here, I want it to last just a little bit longer. I am torn between wanting to be done with training and between sadness at saying goodbye to a place that is so familiar to me it was almost beginning to feel like home. I am torn between looking forward to missing my friends (as Heather would say) and actually already missing my many new friends whom over the past few weeks have transformed from strangers, to friends, to what amounts to my “family” here in Togo. But most of all, I am torn between the freedom that being an official volunteer will bring to me and the safety of being a trainee where life was dictated by schedules and I never had to wonder where my next meal is coming from. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited about bringing a little more control into my life; but the issue is that I am going from a stage in my life where I had little control over what I did to a stage in my life where I have too much control and no idea what to do with it, all within the span of a few days. Although I have no way of pressing pause on the remote control of my life, all I can do is take a deep breath, pause for a moment and remember the fact that countless volunteers before me survived so there is no reason that I won’t either. Or at least, here’s hoping to that…
Hmm, so I was originally planning on updating you on what I’ve been up to the past week and half but I’m not really in the mood to write a really long post so I’ll try and keep this short (short post! Can I even write a short post?)…After coming back from Kara, our days have pretty much been spent reviewing all the health themes from the past three months. We’ve been doing a few more French classes and this past Saturday we took our final language test. Although I was nervous, I knew that I had practiced as much as I could. Luckily my interviewer was my favorite formateur, Ismael, who is really easy to talk too. He made me talk about Atlanta and somehow I ended up talking about the Westin hotel and seeing the new baby panda at the zoo. I must have done okay because they told me that I scored an intermediate high yesterday and I must say I’m pretty pleased. I don’t think I’m REALLY at that level but it’s pretty subjective and at least it’s a passing grade to head to post. I know that I have a LOT more French to learn because I don’t feel anywhere fluent, but it is good to see that my French has improved a considerable amount in 11 short weeks (if you remember, I came in around novice-mid at the beginning of stâge and tested a few weeks ago at intermediate-mid “weak”). Other than doing our final presentations on the 4 domains which went pretty well, the week was pretty uneventful. We did get to learn though about making “foyer amelioré” or an improved cook stove which meant playing in the mud and this past Friday we had “Free University” which is where all the trainees are supposed to teach the rest of us something in French (to practice speaking French). We had everything from teaching how to juggle and clogging lessons to how to play Sudoku and how to kill a chicken! I ended up doing a presentation on “how to speak like a volunteer” that everyone seemed to enjoy a lot (explanation: here in Togo there is an unusual accent most volunteers pick up that I’ve only really heard from volunteers; it’s a strange accent with alternating increasing/decreasing cadences…it’s a bit hard to describe in words so just ask me to demonstrate next time). The best free university lesson however came from Whitney as she taught us CHAP-ers some Togolese dance moves she made up. As you know, in the US there are some “white man” dance moves that are based on routine actions like “starting the lawnmower” and “reeling in a fish”; Whitney created her own moves based on routine Togolese actions, with my favorites being “pounding fufu”, “drawing water from a well”, “washing clothes” and “swinging the coupe-coupe”. All in all, a very funny class. Oh and I’ve also been biking a lot. There is this BEAUTIFUL 15km dirt road between Nyogbo and Kpalimé that’s tough but so worth it just for the view. I’ve done it a few times and it allows for some pretty spectacular views of Mt. Agou. Check out pictures when I post them.
I’ve spent the past few days writing and practicing my speech for swear-in. For the ceremony, all the trainees are supposed to give a speech in their local language. In addition to a speech in my local language, the formateurs asked me to give the formal “graduation” speech in French. I’m not sure why they asked me, but it’s apparently a huge honour to give the speech. My French was NOT at all at a level where I could fluently write a complete speech in French so I ended up doing a mélange-d speech and Cyrille helped me translate the rest of my speech to French as well as fixing all my grammatical mistakes. It’s been a bit nerve-wracking working on the speech as apparently not only am I giving the speech to all the people who attend the ceremony in Lomé but they are also supposed to broadcast all the speeches throughout Togo. Eek! So I’ve been practicing my speech like crazy so I don’t look or sound like a jackass when I get up to speak on Thursday.
Before I forget, I do have to mention about the infamous night of the moustache. So I made a deal with myself at the beginning of training that I wasn’t going to cut my hair or shave my face for the entirety of training. Part of it was laziness and part of it was curiosity as I’d never grown my hair and facial hair out like this before. Well I actually did it (and I’ve decided never to do it again…my facial hair comes out weird) and since this past weekend was our last weekend before Lomé and I wanted to “clean up” before swear-in, with the help of Kristina I got probably one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had, so much that even I thought it was perfect (and Andrew, you know that I’ve never been completely happy after everyone of my haircuts back in Atlanta). I also shaved but decided, thanks to Taylor’s request, to leave a moustache for one night only. That Sunday also happened to be the night we decided to do our Nyogbo Buvette Crawl so as a treat for my fellow CHAP-ers, I left my moustache on specifically for them. The night turned out to be a blast as we all hung out one last time as a CHAP stâge, visited all 3 buvettes in Nyogbo and took loads of incriminating photos of me and my sketch-stache lol! Look out for pictures online at some point soon…
As for our last day here, I pretty much spent it just walking around Agou-Nyogbo and taking in the beauty of this village. I really will miss everything here from my host family and their beautiful house to our tech house, Afrikiko and of course the incredibly gracious people of Nyogbo. Taylor and I went on a picture tour of Nyogbo and we took tons of pictures to remember our amazing training village. Okay, my host mom is calling me to dinner so I’ll leave you with that. Hmm, so much for a short post lol… When I next post, I will be an official volunteer! Till then…
ciao,
-Nikhil
P.S. okay before I forget, I just wanted to do one quick thing: I would like to give a huge shout out to four amazing people who sent me letters during the course of training. You are amazing and I will treasure your letters dearly. Thanks to Katie Roan, Jamie Rabb, Megan Kelly & Christina Morton!
Hmm, so I was originally planning on updating you on what I’ve been up to the past week and half but I’m not really in the mood to write a really long post so I’ll try and keep this short (short post! Can I even write a short post?)…After coming back from Kara, our days have pretty much been spent reviewing all the health themes from the past three months. We’ve been doing a few more French classes and this past Saturday we took our final language test. Although I was nervous, I knew that I had practiced as much as I could. Luckily my interviewer was my favorite formateur, Ismael, who is really easy to talk too. He made me talk about Atlanta and somehow I ended up talking about the Westin hotel and seeing the new baby panda at the zoo. I must have done okay because they told me that I scored an intermediate high yesterday and I must say I’m pretty pleased. I don’t think I’m REALLY at that level but it’s pretty subjective and at least it’s a passing grade to head to post. I know that I have a LOT more French to learn because I don’t feel anywhere fluent, but it is good to see that my French has improved a considerable amount in 11 short weeks (if you remember, I came in around novice-mid at the beginning of stâge and tested a few weeks ago at intermediate-mid “weak”). Other than doing our final presentations on the 4 domains which went pretty well, the week was pretty uneventful. We did get to learn though about making “foyer amelioré” or an improved cook stove which meant playing in the mud and this past Friday we had “Free University” which is where all the trainees are supposed to teach the rest of us something in French (to practice speaking French). We had everything from teaching how to juggle and clogging lessons to how to play Sudoku and how to kill a chicken! I ended up doing a presentation on “how to speak like a volunteer” that everyone seemed to enjoy a lot (explanation: here in Togo there is an unusual accent most volunteers pick up that I’ve only really heard from volunteers; it’s a strange accent with alternating increasing/decreasing cadences…it’s a bit hard to describe in words so just ask me to demonstrate next time). The best free university lesson however came from Whitney as she taught us CHAP-ers some Togolese dance moves she made up. As you know, in the US there are some “white man” dance moves that are based on routine actions like “starting the lawnmower” and “reeling in a fish”; Whitney created her own moves based on routine Togolese actions, with my favorites being “pounding fufu”, “drawing water from a well”, “washing clothes” and “swinging the coupe-coupe”. All in all, a very funny class. Oh and I’ve also been biking a lot. There is this BEAUTIFUL 15km dirt road between Nyogbo and Kpalimé that’s tough but so worth it just for the view. I’ve done it a few times and it allows for some pretty spectacular views of Mt. Agou. Check out pictures when I post them.
I’ve spent the past few days writing and practicing my speech for swear-in. For the ceremony, all the trainees are supposed to give a speech in their local language. In addition to a speech in my local language, the formateurs asked me to give the formal “graduation” speech in French. I’m not sure why they asked me, but it’s apparently a huge honour to give the speech. My French was NOT at all at a level where I could fluently write a complete speech in French so I ended up doing a mélange-d speech and Cyrille helped me translate the rest of my speech to French as well as fixing all my grammatical mistakes. It’s been a bit nerve-wracking working on the speech as apparently not only am I giving the speech to all the people who attend the ceremony in Lomé but they are also supposed to broadcast all the speeches throughout Togo. Eek! So I’ve been practicing my speech like crazy so I don’t look or sound like a jackass when I get up to speak on Thursday.
Before I forget, I do have to mention about the infamous night of the moustache. So I made a deal with myself at the beginning of training that I wasn’t going to cut my hair or shave my face for the entirety of training. Part of it was laziness and part of it was curiosity as I’d never grown my hair and facial hair out like this before. Well I actually did it (and I’ve decided never to do it again…my facial hair comes out weird) and since this past weekend was our last weekend before Lomé and I wanted to “clean up” before swear-in, with the help of Kristina I got probably one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had, so much that even I thought it was perfect (and Andrew, you know that I’ve never been completely happy after everyone of my haircuts back in Atlanta). I also shaved but decided, thanks to Taylor’s request, to leave a moustache for one night only. That Sunday also happened to be the night we decided to do our Nyogbo Buvette Crawl so as a treat for my fellow CHAP-ers, I left my moustache on specifically for them. The night turned out to be a blast as we all hung out one last time as a CHAP stâge, visited all 3 buvettes in Nyogbo and took loads of incriminating photos of me and my sketch-stache lol! Look out for pictures online at some point soon…
As for our last day here, I pretty much spent it just walking around Agou-Nyogbo and taking in the beauty of this village. I really will miss everything here from my host family and their beautiful house to our tech house, Afrikiko and of course the incredibly gracious people of Nyogbo. Taylor and I went on a picture tour of Nyogbo and we took tons of pictures to remember our amazing training village. Okay, my host mom is calling me to dinner so I’ll leave you with that. Hmm, so much for a short post lol… When I next post, I will be an official volunteer! Till then…
ciao,
-Nikhil
P.S. okay before I forget, I just wanted to do one quick thing: I would like to give a huge shout out to four amazing people who sent me letters during the course of training. You are amazing and I will treasure your letters dearly. Thanks to Katie Roan, Jamie Rabb, Megan Kelly & Christina Morton!
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