C'est ma vie...

It's been a little while since an update... It's 1) hard to find a decent internet connection and 2) so hard to put into words everyday life here.  Thinking back to the blogs I read, I had a different perspective on Togolese life and yeah... I guess my worry is that my explanations won't encompass the truth- I have some really awesome people in my life here and have had some awesome (and not so awesome) experiences and I don't want their value to be diminished because I can't find the words to show my gratitude.

Anyways, I will try. As the third goal of Peace Corps is the share my host country's culture with the American people :)

WWEC 2011 – The Women’s Wellness and Empowerment Conference

I know I’ve mentioned this on my blog before but again, I hope to really encompass how inspirational and life-changing this conference was (for everyone involved, Americans and Togolese) WWEC was a 5 day conference for the women of one of the five regions of Togo. The 27 women participants were all nominated by a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) We rented out a fancy hotel in one of Togo’s “cities” and created an environment for these women that I’ve never experienced in my whole life.  Men were not allowed at the conference, not even volunteers. This created an ambiance and a level of trust. 

Rewind back to day one. The women all arrive. Myself and Lisa, another volunteer, are standing at the entrance of the hotel. All 16 women PCVs who are there are wearing the same matching pagne. Lisa and I greet each woman and take their bags to show to escort them into the hotel. We wait for them to receive their conference materials and their travel reimbursement and then I carried their bags on my hotel [how they carry things on their head] to escort them to their rooms. I had to show them how to use the showers because some of them have never seen running water like that before.

The conference was well underway. The women each got to do a one-on-one personal interview with one of our PCV “intake specialists” so we can understand our participants better. They were asked things such as number of children all the way to when they first learned about sex (and first had sex). We were surprised how open they were with us; none of us had ever had conversations like this here. But reflecting on it, I don’t think anyone’s ever taken an interest in these women like that before.

That night the conference began. Madame Rose (the woman in charge of my Girls’ Education and Empowerment program) started off the candlelight ceremony with an inspiring speech. We went directly into the ceremony where Rose lit her candle and then one-by-one passed on the “light” so the women weren’t in the “darkness” anymore.  Fast forward to today, when I visited the women they tell me they’re sharing the light so they’re not in the dark anymore.

All throughout the conference we led sessions pertaining to the 4 domains of Peace Corps Togo (health, natural resource management, girls’ education and empowerment and small business development) Sessions included moringa, container gardens, self-confidence, women as leaders and mentors, social entrepreneurship, etc. I can’t tell you what was the most awesome because every session was great and each woman had great things to say about each one.  This past week I spent hours travelling and then interviewing 14/27 women who participated 5 months ago.  The information they retained and the life changes they have made are incredible. They also have started women’s groups and really are “sharing the light” All of them, 100% of the 14 women said their lives have changed and that their self-confidence has risen.

I can talk about this conference forever and I probably will talk about it forever…. So let me try to wrap it up: Each night we ate dinner together. The women ranged in age from 26-45.  Most of them expressed that this was not only the first time that they got to eat a meal with another women but even another person.  Not only that, some of them said it was the first time they ever got to eat a table.  In Togo, women are expected to prepare all the families’ meals and take care of all the domestic responsibilities with the children.  It is changing little by little but most of them eat quickly by themselves so they can finish their work and try to rest. Also, men and women don’t often eat together.  Despite all the awesome things the women gained from this conference, if it was only to share a meal with their sisters that’s already a big enough accomplishment for me.

As I mentioned, I am in the process of visiting all the women. It is a big task but very rewarding. The next conference for 2012 is going to be three times as big; we’re doing it in three different regions throughout the month of March. I am the Monitoring, Evaluation and Programming chair at the national level. I won’t bore you with those details but this means I am lucky to get to attend all three conferences. The teams at each regional level are great; I’ve never worked in such a productive team before to efficiently and smoothly get a whole lot of work done… must be because it’s all women ;)  (I’m kidding… but maybe not)

I will probably be writing more about this and sharing some really intense quotes from the women because this conference costs a lot of money and we will be raising it online through a PCPP (Peace Corps Partnership Program). It is tax deductible! I’ll probably post it on Facebook. I’d love to e-mail you all directly if the internet allows…. OK, I’ll really stop talking about WWEC now after one more quote from a woman:  “Before the conference, I didn’t know that black women could be beautiful. We are taught that only white women are beautiful and that is why we bleach our skin and do dangerous things to be beautiful. But now today I know that black can be beautiful and that I myself am beautiful.”

[Photo with matching pagne]

Camp UNITE – Camp Unification of the Nation: Initiative, Travail (Work) and Education

I spent a week during the month of July in Pagala (a Peace Corps center) for a formation of girls’ students on topics such as self-confidence, HIV/AIDS, child trafficking, the reproductive system, adolescence/puberty, leadership… The list goes on. I nominated some students from my village and one girl got to be there with me.  Projects like this are rewarding because it takes the best of the best and brings them all together.  Oftentimes PCVs cannot find work or cannot find motivated work partners.  Camp UNITE brings together the motivated and hard-working people we want to work with and it was a reminder of why I am here.  I’ll save details for another time because I want to continue with other stuff but I’ll just say that I can’t wait to do Camp UNITE again next summer.

Pathways

Pathways is the name of the newly revamped scholarship program that RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) manage from the states.  The money comes from donations and it goes to pay girls’ school fees and for their school supplies.

The process is rigorous but totally worth it because once they became a scholar it lasts for the rest of their academic life (unless they fail a class). So if the girl becomes a scholar in elementary school, she’s guaranteed education through Pathways all through university.

This year they had 260 something girls apply for 44 spots.  Only 17 of those spots were for middle school girls.  This is for the whole country of Togo.  Of the 17, four of them were given to girls at my school.  4 out of 17 for the whole country of Togo!  My village tries to give me lots of credit for it, but I owe it to the school principal who encourages girls to continue their students every day.  He even named a day in October “Pathways day” and we invited all the girls and their parents to come to school to celebrate.  Here’s a picture of the 138 girls at my school (and the boys who wanted to show up too). Our girl to boy ratio is even one of the highest in our area (138 out of 460)

Newsletter

I started a village newsletter.  I’ll post a copy on here one day. What I want to say about this is that it seems to be succeeding better than I thought it would.   The reason I started it is because it is really hard to organize people together to have meetings.  I also wanted to show the community that there are people here with lots of knowledge. So I solicited village people (lol) to write articles about whatever they wanted.  I’ve gotten articles from “why girls’ education is important” to “how we can respect our tradition without spending money we don’t have” to “child trafficking”.  A 20-year old boy came from about 20 kilometers away heard about my newsletter and he came to give me a long article he wrote about being trafficked to Nigeria.  He wants to make sure that other children don’t fall into the same trap as him.  I’ll leave the details out because I’ve already cried enough about his experience… yet he still has the courage to share it with others.  My only worry with this newsletter is that it is in French and not everyone can read French… especially women.   (My village’s language is called Akposso and people speak either that or Ewe in everyday life; French is only used at school…. Or when they’re speaking to me and I don’t understand their language)

Vacation Enterprise

Last blog article I shared my schedule for vacation enterprise.  The sexual harassment session was my favorite part of the training we did for them. During the training I taught them how to keep books/balance their books with all their expenditures and gaining.  This was a totally new concept and each week when they came to check-in with me and give me their profits, it was not correctly done (or not done at all).  I got really frustrated…. Until I started realizing how they’re really doing well! 

                Vacation Enterprise is a project where I gave a small loan to girls to start a small business project during summer vacation in order to make money to pay for their school fees for the next year.

One girl sold manioc and quadrupled the money I gave her!  This girl was already special to me because she had a baby 2 years ago but still continued her studies.  This year she got her middle school diploma and is now going to high school in a village about 40 kilometers away!

Another girl sold bouillie (a thin type of oatmeal) and peanuts. She more than tripled the money I gave her even though she was out of village for 2 weeks during the summer.  She got to participate in Camp Scientifille (see below for explanation) and also is now a Pathways scholar!  So the money she made isn’t used for her school fees but for whatever she wants.  Her name is SOSSA Sokponmi Akoua and I could talk about her forever so I’ll stop before I really bore you.

Camp Espoir

This was the weeklong camp over the summer for children who are infected/affected by HIV/AIDS.   The main objective of this camp was just to have fun but we also had small sessions to teach them life skills.  The reason I’m glad I did this camp is because I’m now connected to an NGO type group of children in my regional capital who meet every Saturday.  The man in charge, Sylvain, is a counterpart that I already loved working with so that relationship has been strengthened.  When I go to the regional capital to go to the bank or to buy food I always try to stop by there and hang out with the kids.

Camp ScientiFille (Science and Girl mixed into one word)

There is an initiative in our Girls’ Education program to increase the number of girls in science.  If the girls get to high school, it is rare they will continue their studies in science (High school students are either on a “language” track or “science” track).  To put it bluntly- people say that girls aren’t smart enough to be in the science field.  A lot of them don’t even know there’s such an option yet they all dream of growing up to be doctors (like American kids do when they’re younger) but a lot of them realistically want to be midwives.

Thanks to Camp ScientiFille, 11 volunteers each got to bring a counterpart and 3 girls from their school to spend a week doing experiments and learning how to encourage girls to study science.  We discussed all the barriers and all the possible solutions.  We even got to watch Magic School Bus in French.  If you guys know me, you know I hate science.  When I think of science I think of getting a 35% of a test in the 5^th grade and then getting a D in physics freshman year of high school.  So I was really hesitant to do this camp but there’s a teacher at my school that seemed really interested.  The problem with him is that I didn’t like him at first either…. But in the end it all paid off.  Instead of students just memorizing words out of a book (about volcanoes, balancing weight, etc) they got to see it!  We really take for granted our education.  Here they just memorize words and don’t even know what they mean.  But anyway, now we have a Girls’ Science Club at my middle school where I work every day.  The teacher I worked with really impressed everyone and we’ve actually won some money to buy materials for our club.  (We got a microscope too!)

Alright, I don’t want to seriously bore you too much.

Next time I want to talk about:

- going to school everyday

- My relationship with my host dad

- GSA

- Mid-service

- PST

- Future vacation

- The year 2012