a trashcan of tchouk

A trashcan of tchouk, which costs about 4.500 CFA (or about $9), is approximately 1.5 feet high with an approximate diameter of 1 foot meaning the trashcan contains approximate 11.78 cubic feet of alcohol. That’s a lot of alcohol.

This past Saturday, my cluster (the 5 volunteers who use Sotouboua as a central location) and the Pagala cluster (a neighboring cluster of 6 volunteers about 50km south) attempted to finish off a trashcan at our first annual Sotouboua/Pagala mixer. It’s fitting that I use the term mixer since my cluster is 4 guys and 1 girl and their cluster is 5 girls and 1 guy so it’s very much like a mixer between a fraternity and sorority (wow, I miss Greek life…).

Anyways, the mixer was fun. The Pagala cluster came up to Sotouboua this past Friday and we hung out, ate bean burgers and pasta salad and drank lots of tchouk. It was great to hang out with them because although we have friends in each others cluster, they use Atakpame as their regional capital and we used to use Sokode as our regional capital so we rarely see each other. This might change though since Atakpame still has a transit house and is not that far from Sotouboua so our cluster can easily get there to do work/bank/shop/hang with volunteers. Regardless, it was a great party and hopefully this tradition will continue for years to come.

Oh and as for the tchouk, although a trashcan seems like not much of a challenge at first glance, as we started drinking calabash after calabash, we realized what a herculean task we had in front of us (particularly since several of us were mixing beers into the equation). The next morning, we found out that we barely finished ¼ of the bin! (it was sort of reminiscent of the never ending bowl in the middle of the island Dumbledore had to drink in Harry Potter book 6…). Since we didn’t want to return an almost full trashcan, Marcus, Sam and I attempted to finish off the rest of the trashcan on Saturday. We made it to about the end before realizing that our throats were too burned from the acid levels in the tchouk to finish. We returned the bin with about a little less than a 1/5th remaining. Not bad for two days work…

seropositif

How would you feel if you were to find out that you tested positive for HIV?

Don’t worry, I did NOT test positive; I am merely positing about what it must feel like to be sitting in a clinic and hear the words “You have HIV”. What would go through your head? Fear? Guilt? Freedom? If I was back in America I’m sure that my first reaction would be something along the lines of receiving a death sentence. But only initially. Then I’d realize that yes, I’m infected, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to die the next day, or even the next month or next year. In fact, living in the US, it is relatively easy to receive ARV treatment and other life-saving drugs so as long as I keep myself as healthy as possible by eating properly, I can live a relatively “long” life. Also, stigma against the disease has been reduced significantly since the early 1990s so I could live a relatively “normal” life as well such as keeping my job, friends and even a dating life.

No try imagining hearing those words again, but instead of being in America (or some other western “developed” country) you are now in Togo. Unlike America which has access to some of the best medicine in the world, being in Togo is a very different scenario. Already, most Togolese are blindly unaware of proper hygiene and nutritional habits which already leads to slightly poorer health (although that might be negated in the US by our obscene obesity levels…); poor health means HIV can transition to AIDS much quicker and take it’s toll on their bodies. Now, policy has changed very recently and ARV drugs are at the moment being offered at a low price; however the process of acquiring the drugs is a long and complicated process requiring a considerable about of money to be paid upfront for various tests and doctor’s visits. So although it is possible to now live with the disease here in Togo, various external factors do play a significant role in exaggerating the effect of AIDS in Togo.

Yesterday Vie Saine and PSI hosted another free testing day (“dépistage”) at the local hospital and I sat in with Fortuné during the pre- and post- psychosocial counseling sessions. For the first time (ever) I was actually in the room when a young woman found out for the first time that she tested positive for the antibodies. I just sat there staring and my mind started to wonder what must be running through her mind at this moment. I didn’t know anything about this woman. She looked about 35 but it’s hard to determine someone’s age (apart from “young”, “old” and “very old”) here in Togo. Was she married? Is her husband infected? Does she have kids? Are they infected? How long has she been infected for? Does she have enough money to afford the tests to receive a carnet, making her eligible for ARVs? Does she have enough money to get drugs for her kids if they are infected? What if her husband leaves her? Does she have a job? Can she remain healthy enough to keep her job? If she loses her job how will she provide for her children? Etcetera…

So if you are positive back in the States (or even if you are negative but might test positive one day) just remember how lucky you are to be in a place where your fate, no matter how grim it may seem, is a lot more optimistic.

more ponderings to come,
-Nikhil

seasons of change, pdm/ist, and goodbye sokode maison...

The past two weeks have been interesting so I apologize for the random jumping from topic to topic…

Seasons of change

I think that I talked about the weather in Togo a while ago but as the Harmattan season transitions into hot season, I would like to re-visit the topic. The weather in Togo varies as one travels from the south to the north. Since I only got to experience the height of rainy season in the southern part of Togo, I will focus my observations on the weather at my post. Typically, the Centrale region experiences two distinct seasons: wet season and dry season. Wet season, lasting from May until about November, is precisely as the name suggests: wet. Within wet season, you have “heavy” wet season which starts at the beginning of wet season and that transitions to “light” wet season which started a little after my arrival at post. Dry season starts around November and as you guessed it, lasts till around May and it’s characterized by very little rain. This is not to say that it doesn’t rain at all, which it can do for weeks at a time (there was zero rain from about mid December to the end of January!), but that rain is much much more infrequent. Dry season also can be divided into two separate sub-seasons: Harmattan and Hot season. Harmattan occurs basically from December to January/February and consists of a large quantities of sand and dust from the Sahara that make their way to Togo via clouds and wind and basically fill up the sky (and cover my patio along with everything else in my house) with dust. Due to the dust in the air, Harmattan can get downright chilly (okay so chilly here in anything less than 85 but I think it can get as low as 65 – 70 F) particularly in the morning. Hot season which runs from February to May is exactly as the name says: hot! Usually a rainstorm comes in at the end of January and washes all the dust from the air which allows the sun to wreck havoc in full force with nothing to stop it. Unlike the heat from rainy season, which tends to be more humid, hot season is the sun in all its heat and glory. Now the reason why I am talking about weather is because as Harmattan transitions to hot season, I would like to point out how strange Harmattan has been this past year…

Maybe it’s due to climate change? Maybe it’s due to “Le Garçon / La Fille”, the African version of El Niño / La Niña, the weather phenomenon we experience in the US? Maybe my presence causes subtle meteorological changes in Togo? Whatever it is, the weather has been definitely been strange since arriving in country. The most dramatic difference has been a lack of a proper Harmattan season like I said. Now of course I was not in Togo last Harmattan to compare what I am experiencing; however, based on the stories from several volunteers who did experience Harmattan last year, Harmattan (at least in Centrale this year) was for a lack of better word, “indecisive”. It would switch back and forth between vrai Harmattan weather (dust everywhere and cold mornings) to hot season weather (clear skies and an entire day of sweaty heat). And the only reason I know what real Harmattan weather is like is because when I travelled up to Kande after Christmas, I got the chance to drive on a road with a visibility of about ½ a kilometer due to the heavy amount of dust in the air. On the way back the dust cleared and I had no idea there were such beautiful mountains and valleys on either side of that road. Hmm, well if we have an indecisive Harmattan, maybe we’ll also have an indecisive Hot season and it’ll rain more which is good because hot season is getting HOTTT!!! Temperatures, according to my EagleCreek travel clock and thermostat, are hovering in the high eighties (remember, this is in a place with zero air conditioning) and I’ve heard rumors it gets as hot as 110 F! Eek…Rain, rain, please don’t go away, please don’t come again another day…please come now!

PDM/IST

From February 2nd through the 7th, I spent the week at the Peace Corps training center in Pagala for PDM/IST. Project Design Management (or PDM) and IST (In-Service Training) are two workshops volunteers are required to attend as part of year-round volunteer training. Typically PDM is supposed to take place three months after arriving at post and IST is supposed to take place a few months after; however, due to budget cuts (Peace Corps’ excuse for everything these days) the two workshops were combined into one long week of sessions.

PDM’s purpose is to train volunteers and their counterparts on how to do a funded project. I came into PDM with the idea that we would learn how to use the various sources of funding available to us to fund projects whether it be from PLAN, the Ambassador Self-Help Fund or even a Peace Corps Partnership (I would like to do a PCP project at some point in my service so when I do one, I’ll go into more detail then since I learned nothing about it during PDM). Unfortunately, perhaps because of the lack of external funding options due to the weakening economy, or because I badly misjudged the purpose of the workshop, we basically spent two days talking about the process of how to complete a project, starting with how to create an action plan to writing a budget and keeping an accounting book. I was a little disappointed since I already know how to do these things having done projects back in the US; however it wasn’t a complete waste of time as my homologue got a lot out of the sessions (the concept of good business skills seems to have evaded the Togolese education system and most Togolese have very little understanding of planning projects) and found the workshop very informative.

IST’s purpose is to further train volunteers in topics of interest related to their work at site. With a new push towards family planning for the incoming training group of health volunteers, we spent a good majority of IST talking about family planning and how we can incorporate the topic into our work. Family planning is a very sensitive topic here in Togo as people do not openly discuss sex and many people lack basic knowledge about their reproductive systems. Although family planning does exist at the prefectural level through clinics at most hospitals and through pharmacies that supply contraceptives such as condoms and birth control, most family planning is done informally with the help of midwives and nurses during one-on-one consultations. Unfortunately, we didn’t really cover anything new that we hadn’t already covered during stâge. The only real useful sessions we had was when we talked about other volunteer’s experiences regarding family planning projects, and other projects related to the CHAP program. Since it was very early in our service, most volunteers hadn’t done any large scale family planning activities apart from the informal discussions with neighbors and working with sage-femmes at the dispensaire or hospital, but it was good to know what to expect as I have yet to do anything on the subject (although I’m supposed to do a mini causerie on the matter in a few weeks at the hospital before baby weighings/vaccinations). Our last volunteer-only session was an informative session however as not only did we learn about the new worldwide volunteer reporting form but also we talked about improvements for the upcoming stage in June. We were supposed to select volunteer trainers but I guess Tchao is going to wait a bit; I really hope he selects me because I really want to be a trainer!

Apart from the sessions, PDM/IST was a good week overall. It was a chance to hang out with volunteers (particularly from the south) who I haven’t seen in forever and catch up. Plus all the meals are prepared by PC cooks so we had great FREE food. And of course it’s not a PC event without some sort of mini-party so to end the week I helped organize a mini fête to thank our homologues for attending the conference with us. We drank; we danced and had a great time.

Goodbye Sokodé Maison

Once again, due to budget cuts and a shift in D.C. policy towards getting rid of transit houses, Peace Corps-Togo has decided to finally close the Sokodé transit house. As of Feb 15th, both the Sokodé and Kara transit houses will be officially gone forcing us volunteers in the Centrale and Kara region to find other places to stay when we come to the regional capitals to do work. Luckily, I don’t have any real need to travel to Sokodé as everything I need for work and living can be found in Sotouboua (my bank, my post office, my grocery shopping, etc.); the one exception being when I want specific hard to find vegetables like potatoes and green peppers year round. I am one of the select few volunteers though in such a lucky position. My friend Golda on the other hand has to travel to Sokodé for pretty much everything from using the internet to banking to buying supplies for work; in addition, she lives about 70km away en brousse so it’s impossible for her to travel to and from Sokodé in one day. So that sucks…

*I had originally written a short little rant against recent Peace Corps – Togo administration policy; however, this is most definitely NOT the place to vent so I’ll return my frustrations to my internal dialogue…*

Anyways, deal with our situation we did. If there was one good thing to come out of the maison closing it was that it brought everyone in our region into Sokodé for the first time ever since I arrived in country (all 11 of us!). With everyone around, this made for one spectacular blowout fête. After doing some clean-up work for Peace Corps (PC takes away our maison and we still clean it for them? Talk about an unhealthy relationship…) we made one final meal (tex-mex) and partied. Hanging out with the other volunteers made me remember that it’s the volunteers in your country that make your experience in country. We are each other’s support system: we turn to each other for advice and we turn to each other to rant and rave. Because I get along with the volunteers in my region, I am having a much more fulfilling service than if I was in a country where I did not like the other volunteers. They (along with the people of Sotouboua of course) are making my service what it is. After a great night with lots of scandalous photos and much ridiculosity (dancing on tables, line dancing and even a walk off…hmm, maybe a transit house IS the “safest” place for volunteers to be ridiculous in country), we packed up our stuff, said one last goodbye to the maison and then Marcus, Korie and I headed back to Sotouboua.

Hmm, hope this post wasn’t too monstrous to digest. In case you didn’t notice, I’m making a concerted effort to write shorter posts focusing on one or two topics but every now and then, I have to write a lot when I have a lot to say. So bear with me…

pilaba,
-Nikhil

P.S. Once again, many thanks Kim for the package(s)! For some reason, even if someone sends me two packages together, I tend to get them a week apart. So when I returned from PDM/IST I received the two other packages of magazines (The Economist, Newsweek & Entertainment) that you sent me and I have spent the past few days hungrily devouring them. It’s so great to know the details of what else is going on in the world from business and politics and even pop culture :)

P.P.S. Happy (belated) anniversary Mom & Dad! Congratulations on 26 years of marriage…Happy belated birthday Christina M.

the adventures of swarley, and other stuff that happened today...

So I don’t know how he does it but I swear if he escapes one more time I’m going to have to change his name to Houdini. Last week, after Marc helped me find a nice sturdy chain that Swarlz can’t bite through and a child’s belt that we fashioned into a dog collar, the stupid (or maybe really intelligent) dog somehow found a way to chew through his collar (it was made of leather so I guess that’s made it somewhat easy to tear through) and escape. However today was really a magic trick; since he tore through the dog collar, I have been forced to create a collar using the chain. I know it’s not very comfortable but so far metal seems to be the only substance that he can’t break through, or so I thought! This morning before leaving for Kaniamboua for the preliminary girl’s club meeting I fixed the chain around his neck (making sure he had enough room to breathe don’t worry!) and left. When I returned around noon, he had somehow managed to wrangle his way through the chain and now the chain was taut around his midsection. I’m really not sure how he did it but to make sure it didn’t happen again, I checked the chain and tied it around his neck once again. After returning from Sam’s peer educator training in Adjengre, I came home to find Swarley loose in the front yard with the chain all tangled up around the tree! I’m pretty sure he has not developed opposable thumbs in the past week so this leaves me with the only conclusion: my dog has magical powers, one of those powers apparently being the ability to apparate! I guess this means building a doggy fence is a futile idea…

Apart from my dog’s silly escapades, the girl’s club meeting went well this morning. I was really nervous about having to change the whole program around at the last second, without any warning to my homologues but there really wasn’t any other choice unless I wanted to change my name to “Yovo, the money-donating fool of Sotouboua”. After performing a brief opening ceremony with the girls, the village chief, the director of the school and some other “important” people in the Kaniamboua community, I pulled my counterparts aside to tell them what I had decided regarding my decision to withdraw some donations (per diem for the repos time, start-up money for the loan I had previously agreed to, etc.) for the club. Although I am sure they weren’t too happy to be told this at the last minute, there really wasn’t anyway around the situation. Aside from that, everything else went somewhat smoothly. We had a much greater turnout then expected and we ended up having to turn some girls away since we only had space to work with 20 girls. After going over some rules and expectations of the club and playing “train wreck” (an ice breaker), I got into the lesson part of the club, discussing the bridge model from the life skills book and how the model applied to the structure of the club (the bridge model is used to show how the various lessons in the life skills book such as decision-making skills and future planning skills can serve as the building blocks for a bridge towards positive behaviour change). Working with the girls was a very different experience than what I’m used to since the girls were really shy and it took a lot of energy to coax information out of them but thanks to the help of my counterparts who served as a translator from my “American” French to “Togolese” French, I was able to get through the lesson.

After a quick lunch, I headed up to Adjengre to watch Sam conduct the last part of his peer educator training and funny enough I arrived just in time to observe the part of the formation that was relevant to me. To finish off the training, Sam had invited Beatrice and Djeri, members of Espoir Vie Togo (E.V.T., an association of pris en charge located in Sokodé) to come and talk about HIV/AIDS associations. Beatrice is not only a psycho-social counselor for E.V.T. but she is also an openly infected member of EVT. Djeri, who lost his father to AIDS, was a member of the EVT OEV club (children infected with or affected by HIV). After talking to them briefly at the end of the training, they invited me up to Sokodé next weekend to check out the OEV club and the members meeting to see what I could bring back to help VST in Sotouboua. I’m excited to hopefully get some ideas on how to start an OEV club at Vie Saine with the potential help of the members of the health club at Intelligentsia.

Till next time,
-Nikhil

P.S. Props to Kim Rieck for sending me several copies of The Economist magazine. You are freaking amazing!

just say no

In case you haven’t noticed, I have a hard time saying no. Usually this is not a big problem and it’s just the way I am. Guilt goes a long way with me lol. I let things affect me and although I am learning to get better at saying the two-letter word “no” (or three letter word in French “non”), I am still a long way from recovery. Unfortunately these past few weeks, my “disease” has made a subtle return…Take my latest work assignment: the C.E.G. Kaniamboua Girl’s Club Pilot Project. It was one of the first projects that came to me when I arrived at post last August and it has been one of the only projects to have lasted till now. When all my other work opportunities did not seem promising, such as work at the hospital and work with Vie Saine, the girls club project was the only project that kept me excited and made me feel like I do have actual work to do here in Sotouboua. By setting high expectations and pressure on the project, I think in the process I became too attached to it. In my mind, if this project failed, I would have no other work to keep me here in Togo. Even though my work situation has considerably improved over the past 2 months, my lingering attachment to the girl’s club has made me make some terribly stupid decisions based on emotional logic. Although it has taken me about 6 weeks to realize why I have acted the way that I have (in addition to talking about the project with some other volunteers: shout outs to Golda and Rebecca), I feel that it is time for me to set some boundaries with my counterparts and to rectify some of those decisions I made regarding the funding of the project. It started off small (“I don’t mind paying for the supplies such as photocopies for the sessions”) and slowly got bigger (“the girls need to eat something during the break so I will give them a small per diem to buy some water and some snacks for the repos”) to the ridiculously huge and stupid (“it’s ridiculous that there is no Peace Corps purse to help fund small projects like this so I don’t mind donating 60 mille (about $100) for the start-up loans for the girls income generating activities”). Every step of the way, I tried to rationalize my decision-making process but if there is one thing the heart is not and that is rational. Thankfully, after some deep contemplation I’ve realized that I need a new approach to this project and the first step to recovery is admitting that I have an emotional attachment problem. So here goes. Hi, my name is Nikhil and I have a problem saying “no” to people…

What does this mean for the project? Well even though my preliminary meeting of the girl’s club is in less than 24 hours and my counterpart is unavailable, I am going to have to make some major last minute changes to the program. I know this is incredibly unfair but it’s either change the plan, or dish out close to 100 mille (about $200) over the month of February. Hmm, I’m thinking I’ll just change the plan and deal with the consequences. Worse comes to worse, I drop the girl’s club project and focus on my other projects that are looking hopeful…

P.S. This has been a crazy busy week, probably one of the busiest weeks I’ve had here in Togo. Apart from running around to finish some last minute chores for the girls club, I helped out with the polio campaign at the dispensaire, gave my first official causerie on breastfeeding at the hospital vaccination day, had tutoring lessons with Kpango, did some major house cleaning, went to Sokodé to hang out with Golda and pick up some supplies and attended my first meeting to observe the drama and health club at Intelligentsia (a local private middle/high school).