Up To Now

My host family stay is half over. I have lived with them for about 5 weeks and I have 5 more weeks to go. So this post should bring everyone up-to-date with my life here in Tsévié. First, I do have electricity, not running water so every morning I take a bucket shower. This is where I get the water from: Click Here. The well is refilled by a rainwater collecting system that my family installed. When it rains the water runs off the roof into gutters that funnel the water down into the well. Here is a picture of it: Click Here. So bucket showers are actually surprisingly great. If you find the water is too cold you can always heat it up, but I find that it’s nice to have a cool shower here.
My day goes like this. I wake up at 6am and take a shower. Then my family, actually my host sister is the only one living at the house with me now, boils water with citronelle (not sure how that is spelled but it is called “fever grass” in the states) and I mix in coffee, cocoa and milk. For breakfast she either makes me a couple eggs or I will get cheese and freshly baked French bread that they picked up that morning. All of it is really very delicious. Then I head to school around 710am. It takes me about 10 minutes to walk to the Tech House and pretty much every time a small child sees me they call out “Yovo!” (pronounced yoo-vo meaning light-skinned in Evé, the local language in the south of Togo) at least 10+ times a day. Also at least a couple times they break into song,
Yovo, Yovo bonsoir
ça va bien?
Merci!!
They have also been known to call me “Le Giante” on occasion.
730am is when classes start and it could be either language class or technical (business class) or maybe we might head to Gbatopé to have a one of the health workers present something to us. Then we have a 30 minute break at 930am. At 10am we could have any combination of any of those classes mentioned before for another two hours. 12pm we break for lunch and everyone heads back to their respective houses to eat. We have two hours to eat, but it isn’t as leisurely as you would think. Usually during that time I wash clothes (by hand) or clean out my room or study. At 230pm classes start again and run till around 5ish. Afterwards there might be tutoring for an hour. It gets dark around 615pm and it isn’t safe to really walk around at night so we all try to make it home before dark.
However, this next week will be a bit different. It is “Post Visit” week! Saturday morning around 6am I will head to my post, Adjengré, where I will be living and working for two years. It is located in the exact center of Togo and on the main highway. I am looking forward to it. In my house in Adjengré I won’t have running water, but I will have electricity. I will be replacing a former SED volunteer, Sam, who has lived there for two years. He is actually going to staying in town a few extra months when I’ll be at post to finish up his work there, but he will be living in a different house. I will let you all know how it goes.