I Finally Got Access to the Internet!

Bonjour tout le monde!! I am sorry it took so long for me to post an entry. I have spent the past 3 months living with a host family and training in a little village called Nyogbo, so I haven’t had access to internet. This week I officially swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and next week I will leave for the village Koudassi, my home for the next 2 years. Koudassi is very small, about 1,000 people, and there is no electricity or running water in the entire village. Also, most of the villagers speak the local language Ewe, so communication may be difficult. Speaking of Ewe, the name Whitney is an actually word in Ewe that means 3 shots of alcohol, so people really get a kick out of my name here. My French is coming along slowly but surely, I at least know enough right now to get by on my own.

Now for an update on what I have been up to for the past 3 months. Most of my time has been spent learning French and getting trained in the 4 domains of CHAP (Community Health and AIDS Prevention). The 4 domains are HIV/AIDS, malaria, nutrition, and family planning. On top of this, I also acquired some useful skills that might come in handy with my work: making soy milk and tofu, making bars of soap from oil and causic soda, building a mud-based cooking stove, killing a chicken, and transforming plants into vitamin powder.

Because Togo is so small, there is not a lot of wildlife here. However, there are a ton of really really big bugs. I have a spider living in my room that is the size of my hand, I can’t kill it (trust me I have tried) because it is too fast. There are also a number of giant ants and cockroaches in my room. This is how the cycle works: the cockroach flies around my room until it hits my impregnated mosquito net (impregnated means treated with chemicals), shortly after it dies from the chemicals. Then the giant ants come from somewhere and eat the cockroach in a matter of seconds. Usually while this is happening I just get under my mosquito net and wait for nature to take its course.

The best way to describe the food here is monotonous. Each meal I can count on eating some form of corn or yams. Now that I am living on my own I will be able to prepare my own food and hopefully add some American variety to the mix. For the past 3 weeks I have been tortured by an amoeba who decided to take up residence in my stomach. The best way to describe it is severe cramping and diarrhea, for 3 weeks. But I am getting that taken care of right now and should feel better soon.

A couple of the other volunteers and I hiked to the top of the tallest peak in Togo, Mt. Agou (1200 meters). The view was amazing; you could even see Ghana from up there. Togo is very green and tropical, which makes for a humid and hot environment, but beautiful scenery.

The Togolese transportation system works like this: fit as many people into one car as possible, drive wherever you want and at whatever speed you want. My most terrifying bush taxi experience to date involved riding in a car with 8 other people, 5 in the backseat and 4 in the front. I was in the front sitting on some mans lap while 2 men sat in the drivers seat, 1 was steering while the other was controlling the stick shift. To make matters worse it was pouring down rain. That’s Togo for you, always an adventure. Once I get settled into my village I get to start doing work. There is a lot of malnutrition in Koudassi, so I am going to work a lot with malnourished children and their mothers. I am also going to try and start up a club with the local high school to teach students about HIV/AIDS, STI’s, and safe sex. I am going to try and make it into a bigger city about once a month so I can access the internet and keep you all updated. I miss you all so much and think about you all the time. I can’t believe I have already been here for 3 months. I have a feeling the next 2 years are going to fly by. Thanks to all of you who have sent my mail and packages, it is great to here what is going on back on your side of the world.

Lots of LOVE from Togo- Whitney aka three shots of alcohol!