clubbin in Tchamba

written 25 April

Since I've been back from Ghana, things have been moving along quite nicely. I've been really busy. Heather and I started two clubs together: and English club for adults who already speak a little bit of English and want to get better, and a club for "4eme" (middle school) students. I've also been helping some HS students study for a big exam.

--Club d'Espérance--

The theme of the club at the middle school is "what do you want to learn about?" We meet every Wednesday in the afternoon. Our first meeting went, as Heather and I agreed, "not bad". I don't think the kids were completely comfortable. Heather and I are trying to run this club very informally and democratically. The students are used to the dictatorship of the Togolese school system, so when we asked them to get into groups and discuss what activities they wanted to do with the club, they didn't really know how to handle it. But we also handed out a little questionnaire to get to know the kids a little better. We asked them things like their age, what section of Tchamba they live in, who they live with, if they have a kid, or a boyfriend, or if they're having sex yet-- stuff like that. I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

The second meeting went even better than the first, and I would say we upgraded from "not bad" to "alright". The theme of the second meeting was "us" (Heather and I). So we brought in pictures of our families and friends. I had a poster of New Jersey (it was a Drew University poster that I found in one of my suitcases; no idea how or when it got there) and Heather had stuff from Texas. We took questions from the kids and they asked stuff like if it was cold in America. I went into a long description of what snow is like and how you have to shovel it from the sidewalks. The explanation was so drawn out because they don't even have sidewalks, let alone snow to cover them. It was exactly like when I'm telling a story to my family or friends at home but in the other direction: "So I stopped by the tchouck market to grab a beignet for lunch and--", "wait, what's tchouck and what's a beignet?"

Anyway, the third meeting was... well, it looked like it was going to both crash and burn, but pulled out of the tailspin at the last minute and made a safe landing at "pretty good". Heather and I talked to our friend Fatao who is a technician at the hospital. He's a great guy and he's successful and young. He'd be a great speaker about "how to win at life", meaning "this is how you get a job at the hospital that requires skill instead of selling soap in the market". Heather was taking a trip up to Dapaong to see some friends, so I was to handle this club meeting Han style...Solo. The day before the club I went to the hospital to help out with vaccinating the mothers and infants and Fatao told me he was going to be busy the following day, but Phillip could cover for him. Phillip is on his way to becoming another Fatao, but he's not quite there yet. He's just an intern at the hospital and he's not nearly as welcoming or friendly as Fatao. I don't know him very well, so I didn't know whether I could trust him to show up to the club. I decided that i'd find a safety net and go talk to my homologue, Affo, who works for an NGO called Plan (www.plan-international.org). He's of the same caliber as Fatao and would have a thing or two to tell the students about how to be successful. He agreed to come talk to the club. Come Wednesday morning, he told me he couldn't make it, he was busy. So an hour before the club was supposed to start, I biked over to my friend Nicole's house. She also works for Plan, but she just moved to Tchamba and I didn't know her nearly as well as I knew Fatao or Affo; we had just met not too long ago. I asked her if she was busy and if she would do me a favor. I asked her if the Phillip guy is a no-show, could I call her and have her come to the middle school. She agreed, and I thanked her dearly.

After giving Phillip more than an hour to come, by having a rock, paper, scissors tournament and then a few rounds of hang-man, I decided to call Nicole. I was really nervous, and when she got there I gave her a few pointers at the last second as to what to talk about. She talked a bit about where she grew up, and what her work is now. I asked the students if they had any questions for her, and they didn't, so I asked her a few to get started. I asked her questions about university and what she studied and stuff. Then the kids started opening up and asking questions. Nicole was awesome! She talked at length about what her life is like working for an NGO as opposed to someone who drives a moto. She talked about how she sold little jewels while she was going to university to help pay for it, and how she wanted to become a director (directrice) of an NGO one day, but not necessarily Plan. She was great, and said everything I dreamed a guest speaker would say. After I told the kids what their little assignment that they had to do before next week was (list the 5 things most important to you, and the 5 things you thing are the most important to the community of Tchamba), I gave them their English phrase for the week ("the future is what you make it") and explained what it means in French. And then the meeting for the day was over. I walked Nicole out to her moto and thanked her dearly. I wish I could speak French better, if only to thank her more sincerely. She told me I was good with the kids. I don't know if that was from the heart or just in response to my pathetic gratitude.

--English Club--

Today was our second meeting, and I also conducted this one Han style. I am not nervous in the least at English Club because I can always say, "Hey! All the people in this room who are from an English-speaking country, please raise your hand... that's what I thought." Luckily, it hasn't come to that yet, and I don't think it will because it's only adults and they won't give me any bullshit like the middle-school kids do. The biggest issue with this club is the timing. Before the first meeting the librarian agreed we could use the library and said 9am would be a good time, cause he wanted to be in the club too, and that's when he's there. So at the end of the first meeting we asked how everything was, and he suggested we move it to 10am instead. Oh, and also, could we move it to a different location with a chalkboard? Gah! So, this morning, I showed up to the new location at the new time, 10. At 10:15, one guy showed up, Mr. Missih, who is one of my favorite people in Tchamba-- his whole family is awesome, one of his daughters is in Club d'Espérance. He told me that the Minister of Security was in town and there was a meeting or something, so everyone was busy. He asked if we could all meet this afternoon, and said he would tell everyone at the meeting about the change. So I went about my day and showed up later in the afternoon. After waiting only a half an hour, Mr. Missih was again the only one to come. He and I waited for about another hour, shooting the shit, and then some more people showed up (none of whom were the library guy). When we were about four people deep, we decided to get started.

This week's topic was "Family". We talked about mothers and brothers, in-laws and steps. It was fun and I was only nervous once when I forgot how to spell niece for a few seconds. At the end of the club we changed the time back to the original 9am, but kept the new location. Mr. Missih assured me that he would get more people to come next week.

--Study Group--

So we are less than a month away from the BAC exam. Yeah, Nolan, it's the same Baccalaureate as in France, I looked into it. The exam is extremely difficult and it's what prevents a lot of students from graduating high school. You have to take the BAC your "junior" year and the BAC II your "senior" year. Two other volunteers put together a study guide specifically for the English section of the exam. I went and found two girls who I knew were in their "junior" year and would be taking the exam next month. I asked them if they were interested in having me help them with the English section. They said yes, and I told them to find some friends who were also interested. They each found another, bringing the grand total to four.

So the other day, three of them (one was sick or something) came over my house and we studied English using the document that that other volunteers drew up. After studying for about an hour, I had to cut the lesson a little bit short, cause I promised a guy I would eat dinner with him. The girls were a bit bummed, and I was extremely impressed with how dedicated they were. They told me that next week, if I bought some ingredients, they would cook me dinner, and we could study late into the night. I told them, hey, if you want to study that much, I'll be right there with you; I'll deprive myself of sleep if need be. This is the kind of stuff they're up against, here are a few examples from the study guide, and keep in mind that English is at least their third language, after French and at least one, but sometimes up to like four local languages:

"In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan, five ships, and more than two hundred ___1___ set sail from Spain to find a water ___2___ to the Spice Islands. Despite suffering starvation, ___3___, torture and death, they discovered the passageway known today as the Strait of Magellan.
Magellan left the Spanish ___4___ of Seville in 1519 with a group of five ___5___ to circumnavigate the world. Although the captain general of the trip was Portuguese, he sought support from the ___6___ King Charles because King Manuel of Portugal refused all help for Magellan. Due to his Portuguese nationality, Magellan had a lot of difficulty controlling the sailors of his group and frequently had to stop rebellions, or mutinies. He even responded by ___7___ many sailors to show his strength to the others who might oppose him."

"The United States is a very unique country because its population is ___1___ diverse. After declaring independence from England in 1776, immigrants have continued to ___2___ from Europe, Asia, and more recently Africa. Because it is a “melting pot” of culture, the ___3___ States have many different ethnicities. For ___4___, about 40 million of 300 ___5___ Americans are African Americans; mostly decedents of slaves.
Most ___6___ left impoverished and difficult situations to seek the “American Dream” of earning good money, supporting a ___7___, and owning a home. Despite such diversity, immigrants united using the English ___8___ in pursuit of their goals."


And that's basically my life in a nutshell (or blog post). How bout a big round of applause for those who have been keeping in contact by calling me regularly and sending letters, it helps a lot. And it's not just the content of the letters that keeps me going, it's knowing that you thought about me and took some time out of your busy day to drop me a line and let me know what's going on in your life. And for anyone who hasn't written or called, well...

I'm gonna wrap this post up with a few fun facts:
I saw a scorpion the other day in my front yard.

• My poop was green yesterday.
• I ran 8 km this morning.
• Emily got me smoking cigarettes, but I only let myself smoke half of one at a time, and only on days with prime dates.
• I'm currently reading both "Infinite Jest" and "The End of Poverty".
• I saw a scorpion the other day
  

aller revenir

I just got back from a mini-vacation to Ghana, aka the land of plenty. It was seriously awesome. Emily and I went for a few days to pick up her friends at the airport. At some points I could have sworn I was in the United States. We went to a mall and watched a movie (The International, it wasn't that great) and we went to a sports bar and i drank a margarita! And although I had to slow myself down, and put on a bit of an accent, it was nice to speak comfortably to complete strangers. But at some points, i kind of missed speaking french, and i dont know why, but i missed Togo a little bit too.

This little trip really put things in perspective for me. My sympathy for Togo as a country has vanished, but my sympathy for the people living here has never been stronger. I understand I only saw one part of one city in Ghana, therefore i cannot judge the entire country on what i saw. that being said, in terms of development, the basement may be just as deep as Togo's, but the ceiling is much much higher. I saw things that i would never imagine seeing even in the wealthiest sections of Lome. Which makes me wonder what Ghana is doing right, and what Togo is doing wrong. They're right next door, and yet the standard of living is so much higher. Anyway enough about that.

Check out these youtube videos from my friend David. He was walking through village one day and came across a blind kid banging on a bucket and singing his heart out. So David became friends with this 10 year old boy named Zoglo and now they play music together. Zoglo comes to David's house and they kick out the jams, or they go to the market and play for money and they make enough for Zoglo to buy food until the next week. As I've said, Zoglo is 10 years old, and blind. He doesnt speak any french, and he write all of the songs himself. Here are two of them.

pictures!

I'm in Lome and i get to use the awesome internet at the Peace Corps bureau so i've uploaded all of my pictures. i'm in Lome to buy a visa for Ghana, which I did this morning. and i'm going to kill a few days down here while Emily and Jillian sort out some stuff for Camp Unite. Then i have a big meeting in Pagala for 4 or 5 days. After that, Emily and I are off to Ghana for 3 days. Her friends are coming in from Scotland, and were picking them up at the airport and making a little vacation out of it. After that, i have to hurry up and get back to village to organize a club.

anyway, the stuff you really care about... http://picasaweb.google.com/drew.quinton

bookmark it. i'll let you know when the next time i upload pictures will be, but i know it wont be for a long time.

reverse chronology

It's thursday, 26 February at 11:26 and I'm writing this on my laptop in my house. First of all, I'd like to point out the change of my mailing address on the right. I bought a postbox at the post office in Tchamba, and suposedly my mail will get to that one much faster.

Anyway, the last week or two in general, and today specifically has been extremely productive. This morning I went to a middle school called Tchamba CEG Ville II on the outskirts of town to ask about doing a map project. This is a project wherein you have a map of the world on a sheet of paper divided up into a ton of little boxes, like graph paper. Then you draw a much bigger grid on the wall, and copy the map box by box up on the wall. At CEG Ville II, they didn't have a one big wall uninterupted by windows, except for on a new building currently under construction that hasn't been painted yet. So they asked me if I would come back in September.

Then Heather and I went to the library to ask if we started an English club for adults, could we hold it there. The guy working there gladly agreed and actually wants to be in the club. A lot of people have asked Heather and me if they can practice speaking English with us. They would like to get better at speaking English, but don't have anyone to talk to. So if we get everyone in the same place at the same time, we can have conversations in English, and they can practice.

From the library, I went to the highschool to ask if I could do a world map there. The director was really enthusiastic about it, and I asked if I could work with a teacher, like a geography or math teacher. The geography teacher was in the office when I asked, and he was excited too. And the highschool has a huge, smooth, blank wall that would be perfect. This map is gonna be huge.

After the highschool, I went to the hardware store to inquire about the price of paint. It turns out that it's not too much, I may even pay for all of it myself. But after you count buying brushes and stuff, it could get expensive, and I don't know yet how I can subsidize the cost. Maybe I could ask the school if they could help or even ask the students to each chip in a bit. Ironically, at the hardware store I met the guy who helped a previous volunteer paint a world map on an elementary school a few years ago. I asked him where he lived and he said “do you know where EPP Watuwa is?” It's an elementary school in town, yeah, I know where it is. “Just go around there and ask where the rasta mon lives, they'll tell you.” So I'm gonna try to be friends with that guy.

All of this stuff happened today, and it's not even noon yet. Life out here is completely unpredictable.

Also, earlier this week Heather and I went to CEG Ville I (the other middle school) and asked about starting a club. We asked the director to get together 40 of his most motivated kids, 20 girls and 20 boys. We don't really know what direction this club is going in, but she's a health volunteer, and I'm a Girls Education volunteer, so health, nutrition, etc and gender equity will definitely be on the agenda. And we figure if we get 40 motivated students in the same room and ask them “What do you want to learn about?” we'll get somewhere. Ask them what projects they're interested in, what problems they're having, and what they want more of that they're not getting enough of and we can supplement that.

And last week a guy from an NGO called ADIFF, whose goals are exactly the same as the Peace Corps GEE program, came from Sokodé to visit me in Tchamba. He took me around to the 4 different elementary schools that his NGO sponsors and introduced me to all the kiddies. Sometimes when people introduce me, I feel like they slightly misrepresent me, but I don't have the french to correct them in their subtleties. But Français introduced me to the kids exactly as I would have, had I the ability. And he made sure to tell them to call me “Akilou” instead of “anasara”or “blanc”. ADIFF sponsors certain kids who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford school dues, notebooks, or uniforms. And they hold extra study sessions two days a week for the kids that they sponsor. So I think tomorrow (which will be yesterday by the time I post this) I will go to one of the schools and greet the kids again and sit in on one of the study sessions.

And Milo is doing well. I can tell he's getting bigger because he can't hide in the little places he used to be able to. And he spends a lot of time in my mango tree out front. He hasn't killed any vertibrates yet (mice, lizards, birds) but he's been feasting on insects and spiders. I guess he'll just have to hunt the little stuff until he levels up and can kill bigger, faster things.

So things have been going well, but that's not to say I'm not missing America a ton. The other day I realized how invaluable drive-thrus are. Not that I even used them that often, but just the idea of getting absolutely anything you want, steaming hot or freezing cold, without having to cook it, or go find someone selling it, or waiting for it to be in season made me long to be in the United States. Then I tell myself stuff like, people have lived this way for all of human existance save for the last century or so; I don't need a drive-thru. Aw, but man, they're so nice to have...

The answer to life, the universe, and everything

I believe that the key to life is moderation in all things, even moderation itself. Without the harsh bite of a winter wind biting your ears and nose, you could never appreciate a soft breeze in May. Without ever having your heart broken, you can never truly fall in love. If you've never been hungry, you don't really know what a full belly is. Without pain there is no pleasure.

I believe that the key to life is finding a balance. A balance between being extremely rich and poverty stricken, between being over-stressed and over-relaxed, too connected and too isolated.

I believe that every aspect of life can be set at a perfect value called “enough”. It's located precisely between “too much” and “not enough”. But therein lies the trick. Without ever fiinding yourself surrounded by too much or not enough you don't know where to find that happy spot in the middle. And even if you do find that spot perchance, you wouldn't know how to appreciate it, not fully at least.

This is where finding moderation within moderation comes in. Without ever pushing the limits, you don't know where the middle is. If you only stay in the middle your whole life, you'll miss the point. It's necessary to first find the extremes, then happily settle in the middle. It's necessary to experience extreme loniness and to feel over-crowded. It's necessary to be dirt-broke and to have more money than you know what to do with before you can appreciate and be happy with having exactly “enough”.

I do concede that there are no constants when it comes to that perfect value somewhere in the middle. The perfect value undoubetedly varies from person to person, and I hold that that perfect place can even vary within one individual over time.

So I guess there's nothing left to do but get on with it. I'm off to find every extreme in every facet of life, and then to settle down happily in the middle. It's going to be an adventure. I'll let you know how it turns out.

i couldn't make this stuff up

4 February

So over the last couple of days people have been saying some great stuff to me. Here are some clips.

While eating lunch. Enter two girls wearing some nice dresses. One of the guys I'm eating with says to me (in English): “Ah, yes. The African girls. You are wanting to send one home?”

In a tchouck stand (think grass hut with people drinking beer-ish stuff [tchouck] out of half-cocoanuts [calabashes]) Monsieur Walla, as he told me to call him, and I are discussing life in general. After a long conversation and two calabashes of tchouck he concludes with: “Les belles femmes sont tres dangereus”

And last but far from least. This one goes out to Dave, Eric, and those Canadian kids we met in Prague.

Guy: “Tu viens de où?”
me: “America”
guy: “you are coming from America?”
me: “yes”
guy: “you are an American man?”
me: “yes”
guy: “you are coming from Washington?”
me: “no”
guy: “Chicago?”
me: “no”
guy: “Los Angeles?”
me: “no”
guy: “Canada?”

Yep... America's hat.

Et le travail?

Written 1 February

Last week was my best week at post to-date. I was busy every day and now I have three different project ideas.

The first project idea came about after talking to a guy who stopped by my house. He has worked with Peace Corps volunteers in the past and wanted to meet me and see if he could help with any projects I wanted to do. But through talking with him I realized that I have no idea what kinds of problems the girls of Tchamba actually face. I went to the highschool a few weeks back and asked for the enrollment breakdown: how many girls/guys are in each class. I found out that only 14% of the highschool students are girls and there are only 11 in their final year out of 91 total.

So my idea (well, I can hardly call it my idea because it's nothing new) is to start a girls' club. I figure I would invite some or all (haven't decided yet) of the girls enrolled in highschool to come hang out for a bit one day a week. We can play games, or they can bring homework, maybe I could teach a life skills lesson or two. I'll just ask them “hey, what do you you wanna do for the afternoon?” But through this club I can get to know them individually and start to ask questions that get at why there are only 11 girls about to graduate. After the problems are diagnosed, I can then start to take the necessary steps to alleviate said problems. Then, I took it a step further. Maybe in a year or two I can get the girls from my club to go back to whatever elementary school they attended and start their own girls' club as kind of a role model. This may not end up working out anything like this, but it's a spark, and it's exactly what I needed to get some stuff started.

Also, Emily, who lives in Wasarabo about 35 kilometers away, and I were talking about doing a project together. We both want to get some kids to paint a world map on the side of a building. The way it works is you take a map of the world printed on graph paper, and transfer each square individually onto a much bigger graph on a wall. And there are a ton of ways to spin it: I could illustrate the math behind it: longitude, latitude, the difference in scale between the paper, the wall, and the actual planet; or I could talk about the different geographical regions meteorologically or politically or whatever. Anyway, Emily and I figured we'd buy a bunch of paint together and I'd visit her village to help her get this project off the ground, and then she'd visit here and we'd do the same, learning from our mistakes the first time around.

And this last project idea is not my idea at all, but it's the one I'm the most excited about. Last week I met a guy at the internet cafe, and then earlier this week, he called me and invited me over his house. He said that he talked about this with a previous volunteer, but his service ended before they could get it off the ground. This guy, Kougbada, is a teacher at an elementary school. He wants to start a computer lab. He has a room, kind of like a shed in his compound but with an external door. He wants to try to get 10 computers to get students to learn how to use them. What he doesn't know is where to get funding or where to buy them and the technical stuff like that, which is what I can help him with. I figured if we get a computer lab up and running within a year, I can spend a second year teaching a computer literacy course. Stuff like how to type, how to use a word processor (bold, italics, indenting, fonts and sizes, etc...), how to do a google search or if I'm feeling really ambitious how to use stuff like excel. I know some other volunteers who have done computer literacy courses and they said you have to start at the beginning. The very beginning. Things like how to double click, what a folder is, what “delete” means.

Kougbada is a really intelligent guy. He invited me back to his house for lunch to which I went earlier this afternoon. He speaks really good English, and our conversation was about the American credit crisis and how much change I thought Obama is really going to bring. And stuff like how the grammar structure of English is Germanic but the vocabulary is very Latin-based. It was really nice to not only be able to speak English past “How are you? I am going to the market.” but to be intellectually stimulated and challenged. Hell, even if this computer lab thing falls through, at least I have a guy I can hang out with and talk about some stuff I normally can't talk about.

On a completely different note, I've been feeling great. I'm not sick or losing a ton of weight or anything like that. Although, my left big-toe nail has turned black for some reason... Meh... C'est comme ca.