Festivals, Waterfalls, and both kinds of camping (Vacance, Pt. 1)

=Moringa festival=

So a lot of stuff has happened since the last update. First of all, moringa fest 2009. A volunteer down in a village called Notsé organized a huge festival dedicated to the promotion of this tree called moringa (moringa olifera). It's like a miracle tree. The leaves have a ridiculous amount of vitamins and stuff in it, including protien. You can do all kinds of stuff with the oil extracted from the seeds, and you can even crush them up and filter water through the crushed seeds to make it drinkable. Anyway, at the festival there were little stands spread out on a field and a stage with an MC and music and stuff. We gave out tons of information about the different uses of the tree and it was a great time. So many volunteers came from all over the counrty, and it was nice to see everyone in one spot.

=waterfalls=

And right from Notsé, Heather, Moctar and I went to swim in th waterfalls in Kpalimé. We stayed in a (relatively) nice hotel with air conditioning. I had some time in the afternoon after getting there so I decided to go visit my host family in Agou. It was nice to see Francais again; he's the same happy little kid he was when I last saw him 8 months ago. My host mom and dad were happy to see me too and gave me 5 mangos to take home. But, yeah, the waterfalls were great. Moctar got a couple of guys to hike us through the woods for about 30 minutes to where the waterfalls were and wait for us while we swam. It wasn't really swimming, as much as it was wading waist deep in water. But it felt nice to be able to stand under waterfalls and have freezing cold water come crashing over you. After hiking the 30 minutes back through the woods, we were all nice and sweaty again. That afternoon, Moctar and I caught a taxi down to Lomé becaue I had to print some things for Camp Informatique, and I slept at his house that night.

=campfire=

I was only home for a couple of days before David invited me to a going-away party at his house out by Bassar. He will finish his service on July 30^th and then he's going on a trip around the world before he goes home. The party was awesome. We had a huge bonfire in the middle of a field and we cooked hotdogs and drank beer- it was glorious. Heather found marshmellows in Lomé, so we also made s'mores. We slept out on mats in hoodies or under a light blanket. But then at about 3 in the morning it started raining. Everyone woke up and hiked back to David's house in the dark so they wouldn't have to sleep in the rain, but somebody had to stay with the stuff we were leaving in the field (like benches and mats that were too wet and dirty to carry home just then), so Alisha and I (the two kids from Jersey) took one for the team and slept the rest of the night in the tent in the field. It was great, by the time morning came, it had stopped raining. Some of the other volunteers came back and helped us carry the rest of the stuff back to David's house just as the sun was starting to burn off the morning dew.

=BAC party=

I was home for almost a whole day before I had something else to do. The 4 girls who I studied English with for the BAC, got their scores back, and they all passed. They called me out on my promise. I told them I would have a fête for them if they all passed. So I stepped up to the plate and had a fête for them. I bought a chicken and a bunch of ingredients au marché and some Cokes from the boutique. One night 3 of the girls came over; I killed the chicken, we danced to music as we cooked and ate dinner together. We ended the fête with a viewing of My Girl, and everyone loved it. Salim from next door stopped by just as we were starting and he watched with us. His favorite part was the motor home... it's a car and a house?! He laughed every scene it was in. And the girls were really into it, they were guessing what was going to happen and explaining to each other what they thought the characters were thinking and stuff. It was a good night.

=camp informatique=

And then there was camp informatique. This is a camp that Rebecca in Sokodé organized. This year was the second year. It was a week long- 3 days for boys and 3 days for girls with a day in between to send the boys off in the morning and welcoming the girls in the evening. Rebecca sent letters to public and private schools to in the Centrale Region for them to send their top boy student and top girl student in their “junior” year. These kids were all really sharp, especially the girls. I showed them how to play sudoku, and they understood immediately and continued to solve the rest of the puzzle by themselves. It took both groups a day to warm up, but after playing games and singing and stuff, they started to relax. My role during the week was to just keep the kids entertained while we had down time and to organize 1-hour of sport every afternoon. We played all kinds of little games in circles and we played a match each of ulitimate frizbee and football (soccer).

None of the students had much (if any) experience using a computer. We started off by identifing all of the parts and what role they play in the performance of the computer. Then we went over how to mouse. The difference between a click and a double-click and when to do which (it's neither obvious when to do what nor easy to explain). And after mouse, they played on a type-teaching program for a few hours so they could learn where to place their fingers and how to get all kinds of letters with accents over them and stuff. And after that they learned Microsoft Word (bold, italics, underline, font types/sizes/colors, etc...). and then we did some research on the internet. We talked about how search engines work and what's a good search query (“World Cup 2010”) verses a not so good one (“Soccer”). Then we gave the kids free rein of the internet for a couple of hours and they went nuts. They aboslutely loved it and their eyes sparkled with excitement as they all stared into their monitors.

The kids learned so much so fast, but they still have a looong road ahead of them in the world of computers. It really made me realize how much we take for granted how far we've come in technology. These kids were the smartest in their class, and were just learning to double-click and at home we have little 8-year-olds uploading scandolous photos to myspace. In my opinion, this camp was totally worth the time for these kids. They didn't learn a ton of stuff, but with what they know now, they will definitely be able to learn a lot more, a lot faster the next time they have access to a computer on their own. And in the case of the girls, I think (at least, I hope) that this camp improved their self-confidence and ironed out some of the timidity beaten into them since birth. In fact, they may have been getting a little too confident. After rebecca caught one of them wearing a skirt that was... we'll say “shorter than acceptable”...and trying to get my attention she told her to go change and just reminded me to be careful. Of course I was obvlious to what was going on and was more worried about my current gastro-intestinal problems.

Helping Rebecca run this camp was a big step in getting some kind of computer-training program up and running here in Tchamba. Watching her and her counterparts teach these kids and getting a full understanding of what the average high-school kid knows and doesnt know will be invaluable in helping me get something off of the ground.

=sodabe=

And yesterday was pretty cool. At the tchouck market in Tchamba, Honorine's mom sells sodabe (pronounced “soda-bee”) which is a lovely little distilled beverage with a face-melting amount of alcohol in it. Probably some of the nastiest stuff I've ever drank. I mean, this stuff make you feel like you'd rather be drinking paint thinner. Anyway, the other day I asked Honorine if she could one day take me to the place her mom buys it from. So, that day was yesterday. She took me to this family's compound en brusse (I mean, way en brousse) to where they make the stuff. They start off making the stuff by chopping down a palm tree and extracting the palm wine from it. Then they boil it in a 50-gallon oil drum. And there's a tube coming out of it that they had looped through a couple of successively smaller barrels filled with water to cool the alcohol back into a liquid. And at the end of the pipe, the sodabe drips into a plastic jug. Then they sell it by the litre to people like Honorine's mom who then sell it at a bar or tchouck stand. Honorine and I bought 4 liters for her mom for 4,000 CFA (about 8 bucks?) and a brought a little jug of sweet palm wine home.

Now here I am in Lomé. I'm down here working on an extremely important publication called The Griot, with Emily, Tony, and David. Emily and I are taking over for Tony and David and were doing this issue together to pass the torch. This document they have us working on is indespensible- i'm not sure Peace Corps Togo could function with out it. It's basically a joke news-letter like The Onion, but with jokes about bush taxis and the stupid stuff volunteers have said or done.

Next time: formation on promoting science and math for girls, Camp Unité, and Nicole's visit!! Don't touch that dial.