i want to update my blog, but i want to put a ton on energy into it and i dont have the time to right now. AND the internet in tchamba stopped working indefinitely, so i dont know when the next time i will be able to use the internet will be. but im keeping a list of things i want to include and when i get around to it? i will edit this post and replace it with all of the wonderful things i have to say about Togo. until then.

oh also, i want to see how many cities in Togo i can update my blog from. so far i have Kpalimé, Lomé, Tchamba, and right now im in Sokodé. thats 4 cities in 3 regions, hopefully i will be able to hit all 5 regions.

always, sometimes, never

so to help give you a sense of what a slice of life is like in this place, i've compiled a list of things that i see every day, once a week, and things i've yet to see in Togo.

everyday:

• somebody peeing (male of female)
• a naked kid
• a child bathing from a bucket, usually with assistance from at least one other person. family member? who knows.
• somebody breastfeeding
• an entire family on a moto (i've seen as many as 5 people)
• a child - who in the united states would not be trusted with a pair of scissors - with a machete
• somebody carrying something that would otherwise be transported in the back of a pickup truck on their head. including but not limited to: a mattress, a chainsaw, a bench, a large bag (100 pounds) of charcoal

weekly

• somebody pooping (usually only men)
• many goats strapped to the roofrack of a bush taxi
• three or more people on a bike
• rocks in my food
• somebody come within inches of an accident, usually involving a car, moto, bike, or all three
• an todler with an infant strapped to her (always her) back
• a child walking down the middle of the street crying as hard as s/he can with no adults in sight

things i've never seen

• someone wearing a seatbelt
• a working speedometer
• someone with a bike helmet... actually anything safety related
• a dog on a leash
• a trashcan (everything is literally just thrown on the ground)

i can tell that my time here is going to be an eternity within a heartbeat - bigger on the inside than it is on the outside (see Danielwski 2002). Every day here i am going to think things like "it's only noon?! ive been up for hours and hours" or "that happened this morning? i thought that was last week". but at the same time i know i will sometimes thing "oh geeze, it's march already" or "wow. i COS next week. where did the last two years go?". time on a small scale is giong to drag along, but time on a larger scale is going to fly by. i am giong to try to appreciate every second spent here, no matter how lonely, painful, or boring it may be because i know one day i will miss it. it reminds me of the inscription on the clock in the court at King's "days can be long, but life can be short..."

every new begining comes from some other begining's end

...and I am officially done with Peace Corps training. Here I am in Lomé, tomorrow i will be swearing-in and i will be an official PCV. Training was great, but at the same time i am kind of sad to be leaving. my host family was so welcoming and i am really going to miss my host brother François. But i will be nice to live on my own and cook my own food and go wherever i want without having to explain what i'm doing in broken french.

so according to the language evaluations i am no better at french than when i got off the plane. but i know this is not true because i can express myself way better than when i first met my host family. This can only mean that the way in which they measure our progress is flawed in some way.

so much has happened since the last time i was around a computer. first of all, a new restaurant opened up in our training village. a few of us went to the grand opening. they had people dancing and lip-synching and stuff like that. then out of no where they asked all of the peace corps people to come up on stage. they thanked us and said that they appreciated the work that we are doing for Togo and stuff. Before we knew it, we were naming the new restaurant. "Obamania". for real. The guy is not even president yet and they're already naming restraunts after him... in OTHER countries. There is one little caveat to this story though. we didnt just pick this name out of thin air. they gave us two choices and we got to vote on which one we liked better. our choices were the one we picked, or just "Obama"... I think we made the right decision.

Also, since post visit training has been really relaxed. we've done stuff like "soy transformation" which is making tofu from soy beans. we did everything- soaked them, took them to the miller to be milled, boiled the stuff, skimmed stuff off of the top, strained it.... it's a much more complicated process than i thought. we also learned how to make soap and lotion. the purpose of learning this stuff is so we can teach our villagers and they can use this as an income generating activity. so if a girl doesnt have the money to pay for school, during breaks and stuff she can make lotion and sell it at the market.

we also went on a field trip up to the Kara region of Togo. it was a three day trip and we stopped at various places along the way to see some of the projects that previous volunteers have started. we also visited a few NGOs and got to ask them about their work and stuff. It was a great trip, but honestly the best part was kickin out the jams on my ipod and cruising down the route nationale. on top of that, we got to sleep on some real mattresses that were more than a few inches thick and we could actually take hot showers!

i think about everyone all the time, so many things happen here that reminds me of someone at home. i seriously think about you guys many times a day... here are some "for instance"s off the top of my head.

Rich and Sean- you guys have never seen a game of Hoop-n-Stick played until you've seen a togolese kid play. They are amazing at it. although they don't play the colonial version of a wooden hoop, they play the post industrial version which includes a moto tire. i've seen kids sprint up a bumpy hill and make a 90 degree turn to cross a little bridge less than a foot wide over a ditch on the side of the road and through a shop door.... what!?

Nolan- dude, british english makes so much more sense if you look at it from the perspective of french. things like the word torch (the french word for flashlight is torche) and the word queue, and all of those extra "u"s stuck all over the place like colour or flavour. there are many more examples but i just cant think of them right now.

Nicole- you'll never guess what grows all over the place down here. mimosa. i blew everyone's mind (a bit of an over statement) when i touched the leaves and made it close up. the next time i find one around, i'm going to put it in a pot and keep it in my house and raise it in the memory of the one you bought me...rest in peace.

my next post will be from Tchamba. thank you all for commenting on this thing, i love knowing that youre reading this. also, thank you to EVERYONE who has sent me mail. i'm many weeks behind, so the stuff you sent many weeks ago, i should be getting soon. thank you all for your support. i'm out.