Bonjour from Lomé!
Before I jump into a reflection on my first three months at post, I just wanted to start off by talking a bit about my amazing Thanksgiving dinner. In case you don’t know, Thanksgiving happens to be my holidays back in the States. What I mean by that is I’m usually the person responsible for putting the dinner together. It has become a sort of tradition between my family and two other families to celebrate thanksgiving together in Atlanta. Since me and my brother are the only ones in our group who care about the traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, and since I’m the more responsible one (sorry Nish but you know it’s true), it rests on me to gather all the supplies for our big family dinner. We’ve had some successful dinners (like the one last year I catered from Boston Market) and some unsuccessful ones (like the one three years ago where I accidentally bought non-vegetarian versions off everything from Kroger when half my family is vegetarian) but regardless, we have a lot of fun. This Thanksgiving was the first time ever that I was not there to celebrate with my family making it hard for me emotionally. Thanks to my amazing mom though, who sent me two care packages filled with some items I requested, I was able to have probably the most American Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had in a while. My mom sent me mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, cream of mushroom soup and stuffing (you can’t really make these things in Togo feasibly). I improvised the rest of the meal from scratch: a green bean casserole, macaroni & cheese, a “pumpkin” pie (it was actually made from green papaya but tasted just like pumpkin), a coffee crumb cake, sweet corn, southern iced tea and honey butter with bread. Since I didn’t feel comfortable cooking meat in Togo, I asked my neighbour to help me purchase, kill and cook a turkey in return for an invitation to join our meal. A few other volunteers from my stâge (plus Sam) came down to Sotouboua, along with three of my homologues (Kpango, Bello and Marcus’s homologue Goslow) and we had an AMAZING meal together. Even though it wasn’t the same since I couldn’t share it with my real family, I was glad that I was able to share my holiday with my Togolese “family”.
Okay, reflection time…
**************************************************
I survived my first three months at post! Woohoo! Everyone says that the first three months are the hardest and if you can get through them, you are in great shape. It’s funny because although people said the first three months were hard, they weren’t hard in the way that I thought they would be hard.
For starters, I love my house. There wasn’t a lot of adjusting going on there since I had electricity, running water and a fridge to store food. Okay, so I did have to get used to taking cold showers, which I never will, but in terms of everything else I am dealing with, it was no big deal. Second, I really like Sotouboua. The people are nice and I feel safe. True, I still don’t feel like I know a lot of people but when you live in a large town with a big population, I think it’s going to take a bit more than 3 months to feel any sort of community. I have an awesome cluster although I am still on the fence about whether or not having a site mate is good for me. Third, in general I like Togolese people and I like their culture. The “yovo song” and their constant pleas for me to help them financially certainly makes life a bit annoying but it’s nothing I can’t manage. Language issues have probably been the single biggest cultural factor that has pushed me to my limits. Dealing with a double language barrier (not knowing French and not knowing the local language) has left me sometimes regretting my decision to come to a French-speaking country but I know that even if I went to a Spanish-speaking country, I would still have to deal with a local language barrier that might prove just as exasperating. And in the long run, my French is coming, even if it is at a snail’s pace. All in all, I think that I have dealt with moving to a foreign country by myself very well, especially since I don’t have a pre-existing social support system.
Work on the other hand is another story. Out of all the factors that are supposed to make your life hard, work was the only part of my life that affected me in any way and made me want to ET several times. I had joined the Peace Corps to work. To gain public health experience, whatever that really means (although it’s hard to quantitatively measure whether I have gained enough “public health experience”, I have certainly observed and learned a lot more about health issues than I did before coming to Africa), so that when I apply to graduate schools in a few years, I can put my education in context. I did have other reasons, but like I said, I came to work. So when I found myself without any homologues, with an AIDS association on the verge of collapse, and a lack of viable work opportunities, I began to fear that I would not accomplish anything in two years and thus be unsuccessful at fulfilling my main motivation for joining the Peace Corps. Sure I had done a few events and participated in a few activities, and it was nice to have days where I could laze around and read books / watch movies / cook / etc.; however, there’s only so much free time one can have before starting to feel restless. And I felt restless a lot. Grad school requirements and a collapsing US economy had some effect on preventing me from ETing. Participating in AIDS Ride also had some effect on preventing me from ETing as I was able to put my health work in context. However my visit by Tchao, my APCD, probably had the biggest impact on my staying in country. It wasn’t as much as what he said but what he did. He was able to put me in contact with several people that Bello didn’t introduce me to that set off a chain reaction of positive outcomes. Tchao introduced me to M. Kaditche who in turn in turn introduced me to the hospital C.P.C. program and also the community health workers at the dispensaire. By finding even some work to occupy my time, not only was I finally able to get exposed to some of the public health issues I was hoping to better understand but, more importantly, I finally felt busy; something I hadn’t really felt since stâge. And busy was good. I like being busy. Busy also means that I’m getting the “experience” I need and that’s good too.
.
Aside from work issues, I have spent some time self-reflecting and better understanding myself. One thing I realized is that I need to stop comparing myself to other volunteers, particularly those in my stâge, as it has been negatively affecting the way I perceive my service. I have a very bad habit of looking at what other people have or do and judge my situation against theirs. And I need to remember that every volunteer’s experience is different because each community is different and everyone comes into their service with different skill sets. It has taken me a while to realize that I wasn’t doing less work than some of the other volunteers during my first three months; instead, I was merely at a different starting point. Some volunteers like Mitch and Kristina and Rayan came into Togo and had enough French to start working pretty much immediately; since I came in with not a lot of French, I needed to start with French and as my French picks up, my work should pick up too. Some volunteers did not have issues with homologues the way I did so they were able to jump into projects while I had to spend time making new contacts and finding new work. Additionally, since it’s much easier to feel part of a community when you are in a small village, some volunteers appeared to have integrated into their posts more rapidly than I did; however, being in a fairly large town, it’s unlikely I’ll ever feel the sense of community and family those volunteers feel, at least for a while. Finally, I have to remember that I have a lot of things going for me because unlike other volunteers, I have a site mate so I don’t have to deal with the loneliness that some volunteers feel, and unlike other volunteers, I have access to electricity and running water so I don’t have to deal with the hassle that some volunteers feel by not having access to those utilities. In the end, by comparing myself to other volunteers and feeling like a failure, I am not going to improve my own situation. All I can do is deal with the situation I am in and use the resources around me to move forward.
**************************************************
So that’s my reflection on my time in Togo so far. I am in Lomé right now for the new stâge swear-in and to do a little bit of grocery shopping for post. Tomorrow I head back to Sotouboua and it’s off-to-work-I-go getting Vie Saine back in shape and jumping into my new projects with the mother’s club and the national malaria campaign. I’m glad things have picked up and I look forward to seeing where my service takes me in the next few months…
Till next time,
- Nikhil
P.S. Thanks to Megan Kelly for the awesome postcard! Hope you get mine soon and look forward to planning your mid-service vacation in West Africa :) Also thanks to everyone who responded to my personal e-mails (Kasey Kask, Benji White, etc.) and messaged me on Facebook (Anu, Matt Ward, etc.). It’s good to know what’s going on in your lives even though I can’t be there…
P.P.S. Seriously Georgia Tech? Seriously! Why did you have to wait till I left not only Atlanta but the continent before FINALLY kicking U(sic)GA in the ass? Seriously?!? The worst part is that I can’t even gloat to anyone in country. Do you not realize how unsatisfying this makes the win? Funny enough, I sort of knew this would happen…
Before I jump into a reflection on my first three months at post, I just wanted to start off by talking a bit about my amazing Thanksgiving dinner. In case you don’t know, Thanksgiving happens to be my holidays back in the States. What I mean by that is I’m usually the person responsible for putting the dinner together. It has become a sort of tradition between my family and two other families to celebrate thanksgiving together in Atlanta. Since me and my brother are the only ones in our group who care about the traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, and since I’m the more responsible one (sorry Nish but you know it’s true), it rests on me to gather all the supplies for our big family dinner. We’ve had some successful dinners (like the one last year I catered from Boston Market) and some unsuccessful ones (like the one three years ago where I accidentally bought non-vegetarian versions off everything from Kroger when half my family is vegetarian) but regardless, we have a lot of fun. This Thanksgiving was the first time ever that I was not there to celebrate with my family making it hard for me emotionally. Thanks to my amazing mom though, who sent me two care packages filled with some items I requested, I was able to have probably the most American Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had in a while. My mom sent me mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, cream of mushroom soup and stuffing (you can’t really make these things in Togo feasibly). I improvised the rest of the meal from scratch: a green bean casserole, macaroni & cheese, a “pumpkin” pie (it was actually made from green papaya but tasted just like pumpkin), a coffee crumb cake, sweet corn, southern iced tea and honey butter with bread. Since I didn’t feel comfortable cooking meat in Togo, I asked my neighbour to help me purchase, kill and cook a turkey in return for an invitation to join our meal. A few other volunteers from my stâge (plus Sam) came down to Sotouboua, along with three of my homologues (Kpango, Bello and Marcus’s homologue Goslow) and we had an AMAZING meal together. Even though it wasn’t the same since I couldn’t share it with my real family, I was glad that I was able to share my holiday with my Togolese “family”.
Okay, reflection time…
**************************************************
I survived my first three months at post! Woohoo! Everyone says that the first three months are the hardest and if you can get through them, you are in great shape. It’s funny because although people said the first three months were hard, they weren’t hard in the way that I thought they would be hard.
For starters, I love my house. There wasn’t a lot of adjusting going on there since I had electricity, running water and a fridge to store food. Okay, so I did have to get used to taking cold showers, which I never will, but in terms of everything else I am dealing with, it was no big deal. Second, I really like Sotouboua. The people are nice and I feel safe. True, I still don’t feel like I know a lot of people but when you live in a large town with a big population, I think it’s going to take a bit more than 3 months to feel any sort of community. I have an awesome cluster although I am still on the fence about whether or not having a site mate is good for me. Third, in general I like Togolese people and I like their culture. The “yovo song” and their constant pleas for me to help them financially certainly makes life a bit annoying but it’s nothing I can’t manage. Language issues have probably been the single biggest cultural factor that has pushed me to my limits. Dealing with a double language barrier (not knowing French and not knowing the local language) has left me sometimes regretting my decision to come to a French-speaking country but I know that even if I went to a Spanish-speaking country, I would still have to deal with a local language barrier that might prove just as exasperating. And in the long run, my French is coming, even if it is at a snail’s pace. All in all, I think that I have dealt with moving to a foreign country by myself very well, especially since I don’t have a pre-existing social support system.
Work on the other hand is another story. Out of all the factors that are supposed to make your life hard, work was the only part of my life that affected me in any way and made me want to ET several times. I had joined the Peace Corps to work. To gain public health experience, whatever that really means (although it’s hard to quantitatively measure whether I have gained enough “public health experience”, I have certainly observed and learned a lot more about health issues than I did before coming to Africa), so that when I apply to graduate schools in a few years, I can put my education in context. I did have other reasons, but like I said, I came to work. So when I found myself without any homologues, with an AIDS association on the verge of collapse, and a lack of viable work opportunities, I began to fear that I would not accomplish anything in two years and thus be unsuccessful at fulfilling my main motivation for joining the Peace Corps. Sure I had done a few events and participated in a few activities, and it was nice to have days where I could laze around and read books / watch movies / cook / etc.; however, there’s only so much free time one can have before starting to feel restless. And I felt restless a lot. Grad school requirements and a collapsing US economy had some effect on preventing me from ETing. Participating in AIDS Ride also had some effect on preventing me from ETing as I was able to put my health work in context. However my visit by Tchao, my APCD, probably had the biggest impact on my staying in country. It wasn’t as much as what he said but what he did. He was able to put me in contact with several people that Bello didn’t introduce me to that set off a chain reaction of positive outcomes. Tchao introduced me to M. Kaditche who in turn in turn introduced me to the hospital C.P.C. program and also the community health workers at the dispensaire. By finding even some work to occupy my time, not only was I finally able to get exposed to some of the public health issues I was hoping to better understand but, more importantly, I finally felt busy; something I hadn’t really felt since stâge. And busy was good. I like being busy. Busy also means that I’m getting the “experience” I need and that’s good too.
.
Aside from work issues, I have spent some time self-reflecting and better understanding myself. One thing I realized is that I need to stop comparing myself to other volunteers, particularly those in my stâge, as it has been negatively affecting the way I perceive my service. I have a very bad habit of looking at what other people have or do and judge my situation against theirs. And I need to remember that every volunteer’s experience is different because each community is different and everyone comes into their service with different skill sets. It has taken me a while to realize that I wasn’t doing less work than some of the other volunteers during my first three months; instead, I was merely at a different starting point. Some volunteers like Mitch and Kristina and Rayan came into Togo and had enough French to start working pretty much immediately; since I came in with not a lot of French, I needed to start with French and as my French picks up, my work should pick up too. Some volunteers did not have issues with homologues the way I did so they were able to jump into projects while I had to spend time making new contacts and finding new work. Additionally, since it’s much easier to feel part of a community when you are in a small village, some volunteers appeared to have integrated into their posts more rapidly than I did; however, being in a fairly large town, it’s unlikely I’ll ever feel the sense of community and family those volunteers feel, at least for a while. Finally, I have to remember that I have a lot of things going for me because unlike other volunteers, I have a site mate so I don’t have to deal with the loneliness that some volunteers feel, and unlike other volunteers, I have access to electricity and running water so I don’t have to deal with the hassle that some volunteers feel by not having access to those utilities. In the end, by comparing myself to other volunteers and feeling like a failure, I am not going to improve my own situation. All I can do is deal with the situation I am in and use the resources around me to move forward.
**************************************************
So that’s my reflection on my time in Togo so far. I am in Lomé right now for the new stâge swear-in and to do a little bit of grocery shopping for post. Tomorrow I head back to Sotouboua and it’s off-to-work-I-go getting Vie Saine back in shape and jumping into my new projects with the mother’s club and the national malaria campaign. I’m glad things have picked up and I look forward to seeing where my service takes me in the next few months…
Till next time,
- Nikhil
P.S. Thanks to Megan Kelly for the awesome postcard! Hope you get mine soon and look forward to planning your mid-service vacation in West Africa :) Also thanks to everyone who responded to my personal e-mails (Kasey Kask, Benji White, etc.) and messaged me on Facebook (Anu, Matt Ward, etc.). It’s good to know what’s going on in your lives even though I can’t be there…
P.P.S. Seriously Georgia Tech? Seriously! Why did you have to wait till I left not only Atlanta but the continent before FINALLY kicking U(sic)GA in the ass? Seriously?!? The worst part is that I can’t even gloat to anyone in country. Do you not realize how unsatisfying this makes the win? Funny enough, I sort of knew this would happen…
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