Greetings from Kouve!

I can’t believe I’ve only been here for two weeks… it feels like I’ve never not been here!

I’m writing from the Cyber Café in the village of Kouve, where the Education volunteers are making their home during pre-service training. Kouve is a pretty sizable town (compared to neighboring Zafi, anyway) – my host family tells me several thousand people live here. There are boutiques, bars, and a big market every Thursday.

My home here is  in the district of Kouve called Boli, which is pretty quiet, as far as this town gows. There’s a cement wall with big red doors surrounding my compound. Inside the walls, the ground is covered in Africa’s famous red dirt, and a dozen trees bearing bananas and limes are scattered throughout. There’s a large well from which I draw my big bucket of water every day, and a shower stall where I take my twice-daily bucket baths. We have one large-ish house where my family relaxes and cooks, and another, smaller building where I live.

My building has two rooms. On the left, my host aunt Abla sleeps with her three children (including adorable 2-month-old baby Joseph). My room is next door. It’s a little smaller than the bedroom I had growing up, and has cement floors and bright blue walls. Bedsheets line the ceiling to help keep out bugs and lizards. (These second-hand bedsheets are themed with cats and Harry Potter – how did they know me so well before I even arrived?) I sleep in my Peace Corps issued twin bed, and make sure to tuck in my mosquito net every night. I have a small desk, a little table to store my coffee mug and other food accouterments, and a corner dedicated to my many useful buckets.

Each morning, the sun comes up around 5, and I’m gently woken up by the sounds of sweeping. The red dirt gets everywhere, so a daily pass through the compound with a palm-leaf broom is a necessity. I get out of bed, sweep my own floor, and take a quick shower before eating breakfast al fresco with my sister (cousin? aunt? It all blends together for me here) Odette. Sometimes, we have bread with peanut butter or eggs, but occasionally, she makes beignets (and these Togolese doughnuts are the best I’ve ever eaten).

After breakfast, I hop on my bicycle (Dad – it’s a red Trek 4100!) and pedal to school. Some days, we have French lessons all day. These days, I go to my classmate Danielle’s house, where I spend the day with her, our one other classmate, Zach, and our instructor, Utsa. We do some work in a textbook, but mostly, Utsa just tries to get us talking as much as possible (and, of course, it’s all French all day). I’m nowhere near proficient, but I can feel my French getting better every day.

Other days, we have big group learning sessions. All of the volunteers in Kouve pile into the white Peace Corps van and drive the bumpy road to Zafi, where we join the food security and health volunteers. We spend the day with the Togolese Peace Corps staff in sessions with names like “Roles of the Volunteer in Development” and “Dealing with Unwanted Attention.”

Wherever I am for the day, my family sends me along with a packed lunch. Peace Corps advised our families to ease us in to Togolese food, so I’m still eating a lot of spaghetti and hard-boiled eggs, but I occasionally have pounded corn (called pate) with a sauce made of tomatoes and fish.

After school, I rush home to beat the sunset, which happens promptly at 6:30 every day. I have dinner with Odette, and we are sometimes joined by my host father, Aristide (who is my age), and his brother, Justlan. I could not have asked for a more wonderful host family. Everyone that I interact with (mostly these three people) speaks great French, and are so incredibly patient with my terrible rendition of the language. They are warm, funny, and respectful, and just such a blast to be around. Each night, we spend hours sitting outside and chatting, and it’s often the best part of my day.

All in all, life is good here in Kouve. With so many unkowns ahead (I don't find out where my permanent site is for another few weeks), it's nice to have a routine, and to be surrounded by such great people.

Two Days in Togo

I have to admit, I’m typing this after polishing off my first Togolese beer, which is closer to 40 oz. than it is to 16. This evening, a PCV stationed in Lome came to our hotel to welcome us and was generous enough to bring a 12-pack with him. But let me back up.

Wednesday morning, all 49 of us checked out of our hotel, and boarded a couple of coach buses bound for New York – a really fun opportunity to get a last look at New Jersey, the motherland. (The turnpike is a great last view of the USA, right?). After a few hours on the road, we arrived at JFK only to discover we had to wait until 4 hours before our flight to check in. Cripes.

We lolled around inside this sea of suitcases until it was time to check in. Finally, after a full six hours in JFK, we boarded our plane to Brussels.

If you’ve ever wondered about the moment when the full effect of what I was doing hit me, this was it. Taking off in New York was when it really set in.

Of course, we still had to deal with more than a full day of travel before it actually was real. Brussels Airlines was comfortable, but six and a half hours on a plane was not. Neither was the nine hour layover in Belgium. My brother Daniel promised me the best chocolate of my life in that airport, but all I could find was a Toblerone (not that I’ll knock that). Some of us did find opportunity to nap – though our layover lasted the morning in Belgian time, it was still the middle of the night for our internal clocks.

We had one plane ride left – a 10-hour doozy to Lome, with a quick pit stop in Cote d’Ivoire to pick up a handful of passengers. Brussels Airlines came through, with free scotch and ice cream and the seventh season of Friends, but it was still a relief to hear the (trilingual) announcement cuing our final descent.

Pumped full of jetlag and some serious all-nighter adrenaline, we were hustled into the Presidential Suite at the Togolese airport, where we sorted out customs and visas, and were given a much needed liter of water.

Finally, we were able to grab our bags from the tarmac and load ourselves onto busses. This 1:00 AM swatch of pavement was my first, dark, exhilarating view of Togo. Palm trees, and a cockroach I accidentally crushed under my 50-pound suitcase.

For our three-day orientation, Peace Corps has put us up in a little place called Amy’s hotel. The food is great, and we eat it in the open-air veranda that is the first floor. Our rooms are no Holiday Inn, but they’re first class compared to what I expect we have to come. Zoe, Jess, and I are in a triple with running water and a complementary stand-fan (though I do wish the bathroom door in our room would stay closed on its own).

There’s a second-floor covered patio with tables and chairs, and a really gorgeous view of the trees and dirt roads of Lome. Relaxing up there in the evening breeze is nice after a humid day in the 80’s.

We spend the days of our orientation at the Peace Corps compound in the city. I’ve met tons of medical, administrative, and program staff, both Togolese and American. The day is chock full of attending safety sessions, getting additional shots, and choosing a Malaria prophylactic that’s right for me. Tomorrow, I’ll take my French placement exam that will determine the level at which I’ll start my language training.

And the nights are beautiful. The occasional car drives by, noise echoes in from an outdoor movie playing next door, and children wave up at us as we look out over the city. We’ve got cold beer and new friends  - sounds good to me.

On The Precipice & A Peek Inside My Suitcase

Hi, friends!

I'm typing this from my hotel room in Philadelphia, getting ready for a second exhausting day of orientation, called staging. My 48 fellow trainees and I have another full day of icebreakers and breakout sessions today before our final night in the States. We're all cramming in as much last-minute American food as we can, and my roommate and I have been soaking in an embarrassing amount of reality TV to keep us laughing in the coming weeks.

I've been so occupied with packing anxiety and some very emotional goodbyes over the last few weeks, that I've hardly had time to be excited or nervous about this adventure. Even now, when it's so close at hand, the imminent newness of my life is almost impossible to imagine. I'm sure stepping on the plane on Wednesday will bring that all up, but because it feels so unreal, it's hard to write about.

Packing anxiety, though, there's something real! Each of us was given a hard limit of two checked pieces of luggage, neither more than 50 pounds. How do you pack your life into two tiny bags? I found myself making some weird choices - leave the blue jeans, but cram in that six pound bag of trail mix.

Here's the highlight reel of some things I thought were essential to schlep across the Atlantic:

Combination Coffee Mug/French Press, because I couldn't bring myself to kick caffeine.


















My buddy Blue Kitty who was the easiest of my friends to pack.

A headlamp. "So you don't fall in." (Thanks, Aunt Amy!)

And, surprise, last-minute addition: a collection of letters from all you wonderful people to open over the next few years. What a blast this was to get! I am so, so excited to have these - they will, hands down, be my most valued possessions in Togo (though don't quote me on that when the mosquitoes attack). Thank you all!! (And an especially giant thank you to my extremely sweet boyfriend, Kyle, for orchestrating this whole surprise. Thank you, thank you!!)






The rest of the limit is filled with clothes, soaps, and other weird miscellany. I'm sure in the coming months, my life will expand far out of these suitcases - it always does. But in the meantime, it feels comforting to know I can carry my whole existence with two hands.


Keep in touch!