Ringing in 25 in the Bush

What an eventful week! I just returned from living a week in the bush (or at least as close to the bush that I am willing to live in!) As part of my training I spent a week in the village that I will be calling home while in Togo. Unfortunately, I cannot list the name of the village for security purposes but I can say that I am the closest volunteer to the capital city Lomé (only 10 miles away) and am fairly close to the Ghanaian border. My village is medium sized, with about 20,000 people and is known for their agriculture production, specifically rice.

On the morning of July 10^th, my 25^th birthday, I set out for post with my luggage, a packed lunch of plantains and chicken from my host mom, and a glistening bottle of champagne that was a celebratory gift from the other Peace Corps Trainees. We took a lone bright red dirt path riddled with pot holes to the edge of what looked like a forest. After looking a little more closely, I noticed that we were actually driving through rice paddies and all I could see for miles was deep, lush vegetation. I was in pure bliss taking in the new topography.

Once arriving at my home I couldn’t help but laugh because my house is painted pink and green, definitely a fitting home for an AKA! I have 4 rooms, but as expected no running water or electricity. However, my house is equipped with a bucket flush toilet (equivalent to gold here in Togo), a mango tree, two orange trees, and pineapples growing in the back. My house is bordered by maize stalks and I am conveniently located next to a Baptist church that starts choir practice at 4:30 am on Saturday morning.

Most of the week I just tried to figure out how to live as efficiently and effectively as possible. Simple tasks like getting water, cooking, and grocery shopping are ridiculously complicated and required me to pay much homage to those living in developing countries because life is anything but easy here. The rest of the week was all business. Meetings with village chiefs, being introduced to church congregations, visiting orphanages, sitting in on workshops for local NGOs…. (Playing volleyball at the US embassy with the Marines)…. All business. It was a great introduction to village life. One of the most rewarding experiences was collaborating with a government lead agriculture consulting organization that works with associations (groupments) of farmers to help them tackle anything from supply chain management issues to enhancing quality of harvests. Early that morning I biked deep into the rice paddies, being sure to look out for poisonous snakes, irrigation ditches, and little children along the path. Finally I arrived at a small alcove with a few benches where a group of 14 men and women met to discuss some of their difficulties and solutions. In my first meeting with the group I was able to identify a financing and supply chain management need and have been asked to come back and do some consulting work for the group. Yea my first client!!!

One of the most exhilarating and frustrating thing about being in village is transportation. Due to the seclusion and location of my village it takes a ridiculous amount of time to get places. Even though I am only 10 miles from the capital it can take upwards of 2 hours to get from village to a location in Lomé because I have to take a moto to a taxi to another taxi. So far I have had the pleasure of riding in a bush taxi meant for 14 people but stuffed with 24 as well as almost being bucked off the back of a moto in the rain. Gotta love it!