Enjoy my rambling-
Hello friends. I’m sitting here with my laptop charging in the regional capital and I’m going through internet withdrawal but figured I should pre-type my blog post before I pay for internet minutes. I’m unnerved about who will read/access these mundane details of my Togolese life but I miss people back home a lot and here’s the best/easiest/cheapest way to communicate.
I’m changing my address due to some difficulties. If you sent me something to Lomé or Amlamé I will get it eventually, no worries. Today I got some cards from my mom and a letter from Moe and a card/letter from Mary K. Thanks peoples.
Jes Scheinpflug
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 3194
What else? If you get a call from a strange number, answer it- it’s me.
So yeah, I swore in on 18 Nov 2010 . Our whole training class of 29 swore in! 14 from my program (Girls Education & Empowerment) and 15 from NRM (Natural Resource Management). The other 2 programs that train June-August of every year right before GEE/NRM are SED & CHAP (Small Enterprise Development and Community Health and Prevention) I live in between a SED Volunteer and a CHAP Volunteer so I see some possible cross-collaboration work in the future. I’m actually going to start working at the infirmary next week helping the mid-wife weigh babies and do some health education… maybe. Plans change.
I’m living in my own house now. It’s tiny in comparison to the large houses I’ve seen of other PCVs but it’s comparable to the other houses in my village. It’s 2 rooms. One has my bed and one stores all my stuff and will be for cooking and everything. Kpategan is about 14k off the national route and is small- maybe 1500 people (somehow all related to my Papa). On that road 14k away is Glei where there’s the SED Volunteer, Jane, who has lived in Chicago Catholic Primary School Public Primary School
I LOVE my family. My Papa is so nice. He’s 60. He is a “retired” farmer even though he works a lot still. He has 10 kids, 3 are dead. The oldest is 42 and the youngest is 21. Mama, who I call Mama Sodabi because she drinks so much sodabi (African moonshine) has 6 kids. The youngest two, Abla (11) and Kodjo (8), live on the compound. Also Mama’s 21 year-old (Degnibo) and Papa’s 21 year-old (Koffi/Edi) and then a college teacher. And can’t forget little Erik- Papa’s grandson who is either 3 or 5… so cute but such a little shit. I’m going to post some photos to FB and if someone develops them and mails me them I’ll be indebted to you forever J My family really wants copies and they took photos of me on like a 1985 camera and got the film developed for me. I’ll take pics of the pics and try to post to Facebook also.
Travel is something to talk about. To get to village which should be like MAYBE 2 hours took 8 hours the first time in October and 24+ hours this time because of break downs, fights and drama. I’ll spare you the details for now. I should’ve known when the door fell off in Lome
My hair’s looking cute. JK. I’m growing a tiny little rat tail. I’m going to shave it again after our in-service training the first week of February. So excited to see everyone again for the first time in a few months.
I’m going through my journal trying to find things to share. I spend a lot of time alone/as the only English speaker and have thought about shit I thought I forgot about a long time ago. For Thanksgiving I went to Kat’s house (my neighbor in the opposite direction of Jane) and she made awesome food including guacamole. I stayed in village for Christmas and New Years to integrate with my community and family which was a good decision. I have the only community donated house in my training and not only do I not pay rent, but they feed me all day long for free. It’s nuts. My female homologue named Malé washed all my laundry for me for a while but now I found 2 girls in school who do it and I pay their school fees in return. Good deal for us both.
I go to church a bunch of times. Papa is the pastor of the Evangelical church and a ton of people go to the Catholic Church. I dance with all the mamas and blend in oh-so-well. Religion is an interesting thing. A lot of people know that the white man brought Christianity here. Malé has some ideas that the bible says you can’t show your knee or women can’t shave their head, etc… even though every single girl shaves her head.
I’ve had some shocks. Before I realized how much my Mama drank, we went to this woman’s house to see her 5-day old twins and they drank some sodabi. She thinks that it’s good for her health when it actually makes you crazy and causes blindness (and tastes like nail polish remover) But that evening, I had gone on a long bike ride, had just eaten a banana and some bread and drank some tchuck. And then Mama’s son shows up to say Papa needs the key to the house that Mama has and she’s gonna get beat. I’m sitting there just staring at these 5-day old little babies. Then their older brother (4 years-old or so) was laying there and mama kept trying to show me his penis because he cut it with a knife accidentally but he was crying and mama was drunk and it was a shit-show. I took a step back and realized I’m sitting in a clay house with a ton of women and children watching them drink their faces off in this little village and realized how awesome my life is.
I’m learning lots of local language. Enough said about that. I spend a couple hours a week in “French class” on my veranda with my homologue, Claude. It’s coming along.
Spent some time at the public elementary school (comparable to grades 1-6) at the end of their first trimester to hear the test results. They take a test each trimester, take the average, and find out of the student will pass to the next grade. Out of like 500 kids, maybe like 50 passed… I think 5 or 6 girls. Yep. There is some work to do.
One day I will post some videos of village because it’s so hard to explain. All-in-all, I’m super happy. I miss people at home a lot more than I thought I would. Hopefully Facebook would load and I can communicate directly. Write me letters though- it’s an awesome moral boost. Du Courage.
People say “du courage” for everything… if you hurt yourself, they hurt you, you slept a lot, you didn’t sleep, you did well, someone died… whatever. Du Courage.
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