Feet on the Ground in Togo

I have shared stories from my first 11 months in Togo. I have welcomed you into my home. You have learned about Togolese cuisine, and you have read about culture in Togo. But, really, what AM I doing here? That is a question that I ask myself a little bit too often. As a Peace Corps volunteer, we are not led to expect structured days and work schedules. The Peace Corps administration does not hand its volunteers guides for structured days and work. Part of my work is to find and make my own structure—to find the niches where I can fit and fill the needs of the community and where I can find productive and sustainable work. With that being said, I did have a lot of down time during my first few months in village, and I still have down time to learn about Togolese culture and food, to continue learning French and Ewe, to build relationships with my community, and to question my sanity for living in such a foreign country for two years. With this downtime, however, I have created my...

My gastronomical experience in Togo is new, unexpected and different, and yet I’m infatuated with the opportunity to continue exploring. Togolese cuisine is all based on what is currently available in the market and what season of the year it is, making it the epitome of “Farm to Table.” Almost everyone in rural Togo is a farmer, so most of their diet comes from their own farm, or the money to support their diet is earned in the profits they make from selling their crops. Also, meat is expensive for families, so goat, beef, chicken, or sheep are really only enjoyed on special occasions. Protein in the Togolese diet comes from fish, peanuts, tofu, fried cheese or beans. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available in Togo, but most are only available during the rainy season, so from the December until May you are limited to enjoying only tomatoes, peppers and onions. In reality, the Togolese diet consists mostly of carbs—carbs mixed with carbs and then added on top of carbs. Togolese st...

Every Sunday morning I attend a Catholic church with my friends in village. On Fridays, I go to Mosque. Drinking Tchouk (the local beer) with friends from Peace Corps. Woke up one morning to this lovely surprise! Glad I didn't step on it. With some Peace Corps friends in Kpalime, a larger city in Togo near the border of Ghana. I explored a waterfall in Kpalime. You know we're Peace Corps volunteers when we wander around with beer and our motorcycle helmets. My Peace Corps friends and I bought matching pagne fabric and had overalls made. It was a true test of our French ability to explain overalls to the tailor. The boys who have my heart and live next door. Jacques is 7 months old and Eli is almost 2 years old. At the bar with my best friends in the village celebrating New Year's Day. I visited my friend and closest Peace Corps neighbor, Tarah, in her village. My friend and village neighbor, Christine (far left), came and prepared cousco...

The Togo sun and I don’t have the best relationship what with all the sunburns (sorry mom!), sweating, and horrible, truly horrible, farmer’s tan I have now. But it turns out, I’m not the only enemy of the Togo sun. The sun here is so strong and the heat is so draining, that even the Togolese avoid it at all costs. Everything is done under the shade—preferably a tree where there might be a breeze. Every Tuesday I weigh babies under the shade of a tree. Normally, I weigh babies every Friday at the local clinic on vaccination day, but every Tuesday I take part in a project with my nurse where we travel to different neighboring villages in our work zone that are more than 5 kilometers away from the clinic and vaccinate and weigh babies. This project is great because sometimes mothers don’t have the means or the stamina to travel long distances to the clinic, so we come to them and join together under the breeze of the largest tree. The hanging scale is hung from a branch, and I w...