My sister came to visit and she came packing heat

You look different after almost 2 years!

Marisa, my sister, spent two heat filled weeks in Togo eating nothing but corn meal, yam dough, and drinking dirty water. A specially hired crew of elephants and witch doctors greeted Marisa as she descended upon Accra from her Delta direct flight from JFK. Because I did not want her to be poisoned by Accra’s urban transformation (what I like to call, “shadow initiative to Counter West Africa’s dismal rep in western countries [SItCWADRIWC]), I ushered her into a taxi straight for the promised land, Lomé, Togo.

As the taxi headed out of the recently developed Accra airport area, Marisa observed just how different Accra was to what she had pictured in her mind…Ah yes, the Accra SItCWADRIWC was working wonders. Not to worry, in less than five hours Marisa would enter Lomé where the SItCWADRIWC was brought a halt in the early 1970’s. During the drive my sister and I caught up enjoying fresh bagels brought direct from the 24hour convenient store, Bionic Bagels on Nostrand ave in Sheepshead Bay (thanks mom), and reading the latest Rolling Stone (thanks dad) and previous day’s New York Times (thanks Delta).

First stop: Border Crossing from Aflao to Lomé or Why Rolling Suitcases are best Left for the West

The border crossing from Aflao (Ghana) to Lomé (Togo) is one of the worst place I have ever been in West Africa. It does not matter if you are travelling from Togo to Ghana or (less likely) Ghana to Togo, this place is a festival of head aches. Depending on what time, what day of the week, and which border guards are working, you can cross in as little as twenty minutes or as much as two days. The Ghana side is time consuming because they check your bags and make you fill out special customs cards that no matter how many times you fill them out, no matter how many capital letters you use, and no matter how many times you remember to always write your name as it appears on your passport, you always leave some intricate, obligatory piece of minutia blank or misspelled, and annoy the processing officer’s delicate sensibilities. This step can take an hour. So my sister’s first steps in Africa happened to be in Aflao, and for that I am sorry. Where do all these border forms go (sung to tune of where have all the cowboys gone)?

***Travel advisory*** Rolling suitcases: If you’ve got them, don’t bring them to Togo. Rolling those things through rocky, pebbly, muddy, sandy, liquid-y paths is just disgusting. It is easy enough to find someone that will help you carry your non-rolling bag for a small fee, and you can rest easy knowing there is only a 65 percent chance they will make off with your bag.

Now that you have your Ghana stamp, you proceed through intricate undulating paths filled with huge women carry even larger loads on their heads, while you hit their hips with the rolling suitcases. The sweat is really pouring down the forehead now. Just be glad you don’t speak local language. Back to the suitcase: If you own a large rolling suitcase, you probably own the large rolling suitcase’s daughter, the little rolling suitcase. ***Travel advisory 2*** No need to bring both father and daughter on your trip to West Africa.

You have now exited Ghana and entered the no man’s land. This is where all the magic happens. Bye Bye Ghana. Hello Togo! Not just yet though. Now comes the fun part. This is where there is no Togolese office building to process your passport. There is a desk. On this desk are about 50 passports and one man with a stamp. Guess what? A bus from Nigeria is going to Ghana and they have to process passports for every passenger on the bus. ***Travel advisory 3*** Spitting a little local language from the north of Togo will bump you right to the summit of the passport peak. Without the local language (or monetary cadeaus) expect a waiting time of between four hours and six days. During your wait you will be greeted by many people that will present different objects or services for your viewing and purchasing pleasure. These people don’t care how long you have been travelling, or that you might not speak French, or that you may already own a belt, or that you are tired, frustrated and have been baking in the sun for hours, or that you have been asked to buy all of these same products by ten people already. Perhaps you forgot to pick up a flashlight at Paragon before you left, or a pair of socks, or that Chinese plastic hand fan, or maybe you didn’t want the flashlight from the first ten people that wanted you to buy it, but NOW, yes NOW you are ready. You were bluffing all along, now it is time to dig into your deep American dollar filled pockets and buy the flashlight. As time passes and your skin starts to turn into leather from the unrelenting sun, an understanding dawns on you but you are delirious. Not only do you understand West Africa, but you want to write ethnographies about the functionality of the border crossing. You get it. Whereas the sellers of random goods once seemed random and chaotic, you now sense an order. More and more time passes and reality is upside down, and you understand that it is necessarily this difficult to cross a border. Not only is it necessary but it is right and correct and ethical and moral and mandated and who would want it any other way? You buy the pack of tissues to wipe the tears of understanding away from your dirt and sweat streaked face. You are probably high from the fumes of the trucks, but you now understand. Deep.

Then in a daze, you are across. Like a goat charged with eating garbage and pebbles all day long, you wander through wondering where you are and how exactly you got there. You have two stamps and a new euphoric lease on life, which is just what you will need for the next portion of your trip.

Aside: I have yet to meet a person (besides a family member of a Peace Corps Volunteer) that has come to Togo just to come to Togo. I know no one that has flown into Togo for the purposes of a visit and then flown out of Lomé without having at least tried to visit Ghana, Benin, or Burkina. In Lomé, most of the tourists you meet are Peace Corps volunteers coming from Benin, wishing to visit Ghana, or coming from Ghana wishing to visit Benin, and having to pass through Togo. Usually the Ghana/Benin visa process is longer than expected and they end up spending extra days in Lomé. When you meet these travelers they are usually unhappy, tired, bitter, and lonely. Their first question: What can you do in Togo? The answer usually elicits a very lengthy and profound silence. Let this next portion of the blog entice readers that are unsure of their commitment to visit my little host country, Togo.

Lomé

So after my sister’s 16 hour nonstop trip, I brought her straight to a hostel in Lomé with electricity and air conditioning. Unfortunately the running water was limping so we had to take bucket showers. Marisa really hated bucket showers and bucket flush toilets…more on that later. We spent the afternoon relaxing and hanging out in the Peace Corps lounge and eating delicious Italian food at the very best restaurant in Togo, Filopats. Following this delicious Italian/French fusion dining experience, we had beverages at the neighboring establishment, The Regent, which happens to be the best bar in all of Togo. In Togo, Lomé is the Promised Land. Though there are often water shortages, power cuts, and roads made of sand, Lomé has the best restaurants and most activities (eating at restaurants) of any place in Togo. Also just being near the beach is a nice break from northern Togo. I always expect visitors to really like Lomé. My sister was surprised at how nice the restaurant was, but commented on the lack of city lights, no street lights, no sidewalks, garbage, 1970’s décor, and roads made of sand.

NoTo just like Soho, but Cleaner.

The rest of the trip was spent in various bush taxis and villages in northern Togo (NoTo). I tried to give my sister a balanced view of Togo. When you visit Togo, or many other countries in West Africa you can have a very easy, pleasant time. You can stay in adequate or better than adequate hotels, use rented cars and a driver, eat only hotel prepared meals, etc. The dilemma is this: you don’t want your visitor to get sick, but you want them to leave having an understanding or at lease minimal appreciation of what living conditions are like for the average Togolese person in Kanté and the other places we visited on our trip. I think Marisa had a fair and balanced experience. We had fun, ate well, and also did some work along the way.

We spent most of her time around Kanté and my prefecture. We stayed in my house and visited a lot of my friends in Kanté and Nadoba. Akanto, my counterpart, talked a lot about the difficulties he has overcome and still faces living in Kanté. Everyday we were doing something different and exciting. The time spent in Kanté was filled with candle lit evenings, and waterless showers. We had no water for two days of the trip and then once the water came back on it was light-black in color. The wells around the village were practically empty as well. Moving on to work related issues.

We went into the high school English class and gave them piles of Newsweek magazines that had been building up from my weekly Peace Corps mail days. The class asked about the American elections and Marisa was surprised at how informed the students were about America! I always try to tell people just how informed Togolese people are if they have access to radios, but I was surprised too when they name dropped Eliot Spitzer and then Marisa and I tried to fumble through explaining that situation.

Marisa came to work at AED Kara and met with Abass, the head of the psychosocial program, and they discussed how consultations and counseling worked in Togo. Then Marisa got to come and experience a monthly support group meeting for people living with HIV/AIDS in Kanté. This is the group of people I have been working with since I arrived in Kanté (in one form or another) and we discussed how to make enriched porridge out of ingredients that can be found locally and relatively inexpensively. We discussed how to best open the clinic and find a space to house the association.

I organized two fetes or parties for Marisa. The first was held in Nadoba and an organization for the preservation of Tamberma culture put together some dances and sketches to highlight different Tamberma ceremonies. The following day we had a more relaxed and informal fete in Kanté where local beer was flowing out of old plastic buckets (See below) and three groups of semi-organized dancers danced. As the fete continued, the dances deteriorated into old men basically stomping around. Though people had asked me before my sister arrived if she would want to sacrifice an animal, I decided that stone would be left better unturned.

Marisa met many volunteers in Kara and Atakpame and we were able to have a dinner with some of the children that participate in the monthly Club Espoir. Marisa sang and danced with them as if they were old friends meeting up at a bar in New York City.

Before Marisa left, we spent one day and one night in Accra exploring the University of Ghana campus where I studied abroad in 2004. Marisa seemed happy that we saved Accra for the end of her two week excursion to Togo. It was a nice relaxing (…sort of… we couldn’t find a hotel room for about 1.5 hours) way to finish off the trip. The morning we said goodbye I traveled back to Togo with a friend and by the time I had crossed back into Togo my sister was more than half way home.

Here is the proof that I had a visitor:

Here is Marisa cooking dinner

Marisa exiting her Tamberma chalet

Future brother in-law???

Tchouk....Local brew

My sister entering her grain storage unit

And that is how you host a visitor...

On a side note, Moammar Qaddafi was also a visitor in Kara and Lome this past weekend. Weird!! I wonder if his pictures look similar????

Radio

Come, and Bring your Spear

Kanté is Lamba for: “come and bring your spear.” During Germany’s campaign to colonize the north of Togo, the Lamba speaking people from the Kanté area and the Tamberma Valley were summoned to bring their weapons and fight the colonizers. The Tamberma people, another ethnic group in my prefecture, are master mud fortress builders and are notoriously more private and closed to foreigners than other Togolese ethnic groups. Regardless of the validity of these stories of resistance, suffice it to say I was just a smidgeon intimidated upon arriving in Kanté last year to open an AIDS treatment clinic.

During my first few months at post I tried to jump start the project as quickly as I could. I worked with the Assistant Medical and a support group for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). A these meetings the group learned about the services provided by AED Kara and that AED was interested in opening an AED satellite in Kanté. The majority of the members in the group had never heard of AED and had no idea what types of services were available to them at a treatment center like AED. Though the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is extremely high in Kanté, relatively few people attend monthly support group meetings.

AED Kara staff encouraged me to start community AED meetings where infected and non-infected people interested in opening the association could exchange ideas and form an executive board. From the beginning of my service I had been working exclusively with infected people since they are the main beneficiaries of any treatment center and would be in charge of managing the association. I went to the PLWHA support group meetings with the idea of starting separate meetings for the association where anyone interested could attend. The reaction from the group was negative. The infected people did not want to attend open community meetings because they feared community members would discover and divulge their status. Some of the members wanted me to go ahead with the meetings but listed various reasons why they would be unable to attend. Without the help of non-infected people in the community, the association could never succeed.

“If you broadcast it they will come”

I have always wanted to make an allusion to Field of Dreams, and I just did. Without assurances that the infected members of the group would participate, I went ahead trying to garner support from the main powerhouses in Kanté: the Mayor, the Prefet, and the Chief.[1] Having never done a sensibilization, I thought it would be an appropriate step in an effort to inform the community about AED. AED Kara agreed to come to the sensibilization, present their services and bring members to give testimonials about their struggles with HIV/AIDS. These testimonies are invaluable. Infected people willing to share their status with other Togolese people are extremely brave, and make use of one of the most important tools in the fight against stigma and discrimination. In a community that discriminates against people living with HIV/AIDS finding interested people to help open the center is a major hurdle. As more and more people tested positive each day, the medical team grew frustrated with the lack of commitment from the community to fight this epidemic. The numbers of people attending monthly support group meetings were dropping and the main reason was fear of being “found out” by other community members. At the proposed sensibilization people would learn about the realities of HIV/AIDS in the prefecture and the services that are being offered by AED in other neighboring prefectures.

Good Morning, Kanté!

Radio Kéran is located in a typical Togolese compound. Instead of a mango tree in the center of the compound, there is a 150 foot tall (completely off the cuff guess) radio antenna. Metal cables extend down to the cement ground holding the antenna in place. To enter the compound, you have to navigate through the cables and piles of corn. Every night at 6pm everyone rich enough to own a radio in the Kéran Prefecture tunes in to listen to Radio Kéran. I always wanted to have a radio show in Kanté but was dissuaded by the hefty price tag of 15 mille per hour of airtime.

Before the sensibilization, I decided I had to at least advertise the event even if I was going to pay out of pocket. I invited an AED Kara staff member to come and broadcast a brief radio show about AED. The director and owner of the radio station had recently injured his leg so was immobile on his front terrace. That meant that during price negotiations he had to listen to everything I had to say and could not walk away. After a round of Castels (on me), and a riveting discussion about how Native Americans got to be called Indians, we got down to business. Negotiating a price for the radio time was easy after I bought him the drink. He told me I could do as much radio work as I wanted gratis as long as the purpose was meant to benefit the prefecture (but a few subtle shout outs could be squeezed in too). Radio stations around Togo broadcast “communiqués”, airtime to advertise upcoming community events, three times a day until the day of the event. The director of the radio station agreed not only to radio shows for free but communiqués for every event associated with AED Kanté. These communiqués are read in both French and local language. For one week before the sensibilization, communiqués about the sensibilization were broadcast in French and Lamba. Shaking hands, I told the director I would write a proposal to help defray the cost of future radio shows.

The first show with the AED Kara employee was 30 minutes long and touched on every major issue I have been working on for the past year. I only spoke for about ten minutes, but it felt great to vent into a microphone. I had no idea if anyone was: 1. listening, or 2. understanding my French. This is why it was important to bring the AED employee because I left knowing everything I wanted to be said had either been said by me or by the AED staff member.

When I left the radio station it was 7:30pm. Everyone in my compound was outside waiting to greet me with huge smiles and applause. They had heard the show. The next morning while walking around, people I had never seen before approached me about the radio show asking how they could help start AED. Everyone who had listened to the show had at least been exposed to AED and my main project in the community. Also after a weeks worth of communiqués, the community was informed about the date, location, and purpose of the sensibilization.

In terms of turnout, the sensibilization was a success. The crowd was dense with students. The testimonials were the highlight. The audience could not believe that a woman who looked completely healthy could possibly be HIV positive. To this day, people come up to me and ask me if the people who gave testimonies were actually HIV positive or were just actors and actresses from Lomé. Unfortunately the presentation of AED services fell on deaf ears because of the length of the sensibilization. The event started late due to rain, challenging people’s capacity to retain information after two hours of presentations.

The real success has come from the regular radio shows that I have done in collaboration with community members since the sensibilization. The longest show lasted for one hour and fifteen minutes with the Assistant Medical. During these shows we discuss rights and laws for people living with HIV/AIDS, nutrition for people living with HIV/AIDS, where to go to get free testing, and who to talk to if you are concerned about HIV/AIDS. Because everyone listens to the radio it is not shameful for everyone in the compound to sit and absorb the information being broadcast. The radio is a wonderful medium for infected people to get information when they may be too afraid to travel to the hospital. Most infected people in Kanté have no idea that if they are harassed, by law, they are able to go to the judge and have the harasser jailed. For many people in the prefecture, they have no idea that they can receive an HIV test for free.

Since starting regular radio programs hospital visits have increased as have the numbers of people receiving voluntary testing. The amount of people attending the support group has spiked. The numbers of people wishing to have their CD4 count analyzed has also increased dramatically. The first general AED meeting held after the sensibilization had just three participants. A week later, after having done two radio programs, the number of participants jumped to 48. Among the 48 there are many familiar faces from the support group. The support group has also had the highest turnout since I first arrived in Kanté. The amount of progress for AED Kanté has warped ahead. In September of this year I was pushing for a summer 2008 opening, and now we are on track to open in January or February 2008 as planned. There is a functioning executive board and the majority of the work is beginning to pass from the shoulders of the Assistant Medical and me, to the community members who now know what AED is, wish to bring it to Kanté. I also credit the radio shows for the very high turnout at the mass sensibilization. TVT even made an unannounced appearance without having any invitation and without any reimbursement. They ran a 5 minute segment about AED Kanté on the national news. Thanks Radio Kéran!

On a recent trip to the Tamberma Valley, an old Tamberma man came up to me and shook my hand. He told me he recognized my voice from the radio and wanted to tell me how much he and his family appreciated the programs. Reaching the tata dwellers…This is success.

By using the radio to reach underserved populations, I hope talking about HIV/AIDS becomes so common for people that they no longer fear others that are infected, no longer discriminate against infected people, and no longer feel ashamed if they themselves are HIV positive. I would love to employ the strong tradition of resistance in the area and focus it on the fight against HIV/AIDS (a.k.a. the only spears I want to see from people in Kanté, are spears being used to fight HIV/AIDS).

---

[1] First stop, Mayor of the city for authorization to have the sensibilization in Kanté. His secretary met me with open arms and an open wallet (for me to fill). He also asked for every location of known infected people and homosexuals. What was he going to do with this information? I have no idea.

Now some pictures:

I spent New Years in Kante this year and have some pictures to prove it. But first some photos of general interest.

This is a small Tamberma boy, In the background is the Tamberma village of Bassamba, about 10km from Kante.

Family next to their Tata in Warengo, a village near Nadoba

This would be the outside of my concrete kingdom.

New years celebration 2008... We started the morning out (7am) with a shot of sodabe (rubbing alcohol) and then proceeded to eat that giant white mountain found in the bottom right of the photo. When we finished that giant mountain of delicious, they sent over two more. What kind of sauce did we have with the fufu?

Bon Appetit - Donkey sauce

Who is that handsome devil?

That is Ruth...She participates in Club Espoir each month at AED.

Happy New Year!

Trifecta

How to Perfect the Trifecta:

Step 1: Extend your arm out in front of your body, palm facing up. Your arm is in the position described for only a moment because you are gesticulating.

Step 2: You have to be telling a story. The story is not stimulating, but the gesticulations help.

Step 3: Sit under a ceiling fan.

Now here comes the magic: A lizard the size of your index finger has to rest on the ceiling above the ceiling fan. Next, the lizard has to fall from the ceiling, through the spinning ceiling fan, and into your momentarily outstretched hand.

This is what I like to call the trifecta. Some crazy lizard moons must have been aligned the night this lizard fell into my palm. I have been waiting for the perfect story to resuscitate my blog, and it finally came like an omen in the form of a baby lizard.

It was like being struck by lightning the same day I won the lottery. Eat that up, Alanis.

Ghana

Last week I returned to Ghana for the first time since studying abroad in Accra in 2004. In the past 3.5 years Accra seems to have completely transformed. I could not believe how much progress Accra has made in such a short amount of time. I almost did not recognize the city with the new underpasses, overpasses, streetlights, new buildings, clean streets, fixed gutters, lane additions on major streets, and a mall…

Togo has a long way to go.

Raise your hand if you have been in a small car with a loose bull!

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a bush taxi with a bull tied up in the back. I was sitting shotgun when the bull broke free of the ties and started bucking and swinging his horns like one might think a bull confined in a two door car would do. His bull hooves were flailing all over the place, so I rolled down the window and put more than half my body outside of the car. The driver pulled over with a smile plastered on his face the whole time. He tied the bull down, and every 10 minutes I would persuade him to pull over and re-tie the bull so that both passengers and car survived the ordeal.

Blogingtons Redux

Happy Anniversary

So my first blog entry was posted one year ago today.

I just thought I would try and lighten the mood from my previous message.

There is a large amount of info to publish in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. I promise more uplifting stories!

I leave you with a link, no, a gentle persuasion to come to Togo and experience the wonderment.

http://www.salon.com/books/literary_guide/2006/06/15/togo/index.html

Tama

March 2007

My phone rang and the caller ID flashed Tama’s name. Abruptly after the first ring the phone went silent. These types of calls are not uncommon. The caller lets the phone ring long enough to register the call but not long enough for the recipient to pick up. My Twi language professor in Ghana used to call this HIPC calling (the devastating satirical power of that joke needs not be translated literally), more commonly the practice is called beeping or flashing. The idea is that the person getting beeped (beepee) will have more phone credit than the beeper, and will thus return the phone call. Tama rarely beeped me so I knew it must be important.

I called back immediately and Tama excitedly asked if we could have a short meeting about our AIDS association. Having just returned from a Project Design and Management (PDM) training, my optimism about development was somehow restored. Tama caught me in a motivated pocket vis a vis my hopes of creating a functioning AIDS association in Kante.

Association Espoir pour Demain (AED) is a community based organization where decision making power is delegated to people living with HIV/AIDS. AED requires a 5 person decision making body called a “bureau” which is elected by all the members of the association. 3 of the 5 members have to be HIV positive including the president of the organization. Since Kanté is trying to open an AED satellite, elections were held in February and Tama was chosen unanimously to be president.

Moving back in time.....

November 2006

My week long post visit (one week during training during which trainees live in the community they will serve in post- training) in November happened to coincide with one of the AIDS association meetings I would be helping with during my service. Ishmael (predecessor) brought me to the meeting and introduced me to the hospital staff and members of the association. While we waited for the meeting to begin, we sat and talked with Tama, a 31 year old teacher, and the head of Kanté’s peer educators, a group of middle school students that help educate the community. Ishmael had told me he had worked with Tama and his peer educators throughout his service. Tama was very excited to meet Ishmael’s replacement (me) and told me his desire to restart the peer educators group. Last year’s peer educators had all moved on to their third year of middle school and were no longer able to volunteer as peer educators. We exchanged phone numbers and I left excited about the prospect of working with him in the future. Finding motivated, educated people to work with in Togo is difficult.

January 2007

Ishmael brought Tama to AED/Kara last year when his health was failing. During his time in Kara, Tama made a remarkable recovery and had been fighting strong ever since. When I met him in November it was impossible to tell he was sick. During Tama’s time at AED he developed a relationship with the psycho-social director, Abass. During my first month at post I consulted Abass about the AIDS association in Kante. He told me to meet with AED Bafilo (the first AED satellite), invite one of their coordinators to a Kanté association meeting, and elect the bureau. Abass encouraged Tama to run for president and I agreed with this decision. Charlie and I brought Awali, a coordinator from AED Bafilo to Kanté to help explain the bureau and election process.

February 2007

Awali was impressed with Tama and agreed with Abass that Tama would make a great AED president. Tama gave a speech before a vote was taken expressing his desire that the president not be an authoritarian ruler but a person that listens to the demands of everyone in the association. I had never really heard Tama speak publicly, but I was impressed by his short speech, and was hopeful for the future of the association when he was elected unanimously.

March 2007

A few minutes after his phone call, Tama arrived at my door. He seemed genuinely excited to start his work as the president of the association. We sat on my couch and discussed then planned the association for hours. He had developed a system for the members to each contribute a small amount of money each month in hopes that a small account could be set up for the association. He wanted to set up a system of sharing costs so that when one person is sick and unable to afford health care, the association could help defray the costs of treatment. When we finished up the meeting he told me he had not wanted to be president because he was busy as a teacher and had little time to himself. He had been thinking about leaving Kanté and moving back to his home in Niamtougou but had decided to stay to help create the AIDS association in Kanté. He left me telling me he was going to Kara the next morning to have a CD4 count analysis and would be back the following evening.

The next afternoon I received a phone call from Tama. One ring, two rings, three rings. He had to see me urgently. Within a few minutes of the phone call, Tama stood outside my door, beads of sweat pouring down his face. I quickly invited him inside where he refused water and all he could say was, “ca ne va pas”, I am not well. Reaching into his bag, he showed me the results to his CD4 analysis.

Treatment in Togo

For five years Tama had a stable CD4 count of 150 per micro liter of blood. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a CD4 count lower than 250-200 per micro liter of blood is defined as full blown AIDS. For many people in Togo with CD4 counts far lower than 200, there are no funds to help pay for life saving medications. The majority of Togolese people cannot afford to pay 9 dollars or more each month for ARV treatment. In Togo, ARV treatment is reserved for the wealthy and the lucky.

Over the past 5 years the price of ARV drugs has dropped significantly. In May of 2007 the price of ARVs dropped from 8,535 cfa per month ($20) to 4,350 cfa ($10) per month, though access to life saving drugs is still out of reach for most people in Togo. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, has cut any new funding until the next round of proposal due to mismanagement of project funds. This has made getting a new government/Global Fund subsidized carnet (1,000 cfa [$2.50] per month for ARVs) impossible until further notice. The carnets are used to ensure treatment for people with CD4 counts lower than 200. Today even people with CD4 counts considerably lower than 200 are still unable to receive a carnet and are often not placed on a waiting list. ARV treatment is a lifelong commitment. If a Togolese person can afford 4,350 cfa one month, in order to properly adhere to the regimen, they would have to be able to finance ARV treatment for the rest of their lives. With the suspension of new funds from the Global Fund, and few other sources for funding treatment programs in Togo, the situation for PLWHAs in Togo today is dire.

Tama was lucky to get his treatment funded by the Global Fund before it was decided that they would no longer fund new treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS. Tama fought the disease and his CD4 count was “stable” at 150 per micro liter of blood. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), A CD4 count lower than 250-200 is defined as full blown AIDS.

61

The analysis was not difficult to read. There was a graph with the average healthy person’s cd4 count at the top (1,200-1,500 per micro liter) and then at the very bottom was Tama’s dot. 61. Since September 2006 his CD4 count began to drop from 150. Slowly his body built a resistance to the medication.

“I am done fighting, I have lost all hope”, he whispered. The man that had walked through my door the day before, a teacher, an educated person giving back to Togo, had been transformed into a defeated man.

We discussed better nutrition practices or another trip to the hospital. My efforts felt even emptier than they were when Tama refused. I called the medical assistant, the hardest working person I have met in Togo, who also helps run the association. He told me that Tama needed an infusion of drugs and vitamins directly into the blood that costs 2,000 cfa ($5.00). I convinced Tama to try the infusion and take a trip to AED Kara in the morning. He agreed.

The next morning I walked into the AED Kara office and saw Tama with no shirt on lying on two plastic chairs. He looked far worse than he had the day before. His muscles were tightening he was having trouble speaking. He was taken on the back of a moto to the hospital in Kara where he received 11 more infusions. He was in the hospital for almost a week. Throughout the week I would visit him a couple of times a day and by the end of his stay in the hospital his health had make another remarkable come back.

We discussed Togolese history, colonization, the German occupation of Togo, and how he had always wanted to take a trip to the Tamberma country but never had even though he always lived relatively close.

Tama returned to Kanté, took a hiatus from his job, and rested. We discussed future plans for the association but he was still too tired to attend meetings. I received another phone call from him a couple of weeks after his visit to the hospital and stated he would be going back to his village to be with his family and he did not know when he would return. He did return to Kanté to help another person from our association. I was visiting him nearly every day. One day while wandering around Kanté looking for someone’s house I found myself in front of Tama’s house. I told him I was lost and just decided to stop by to say “hi”. Even in a weakened state, he got up and walked with me about a half a kilometer to the person’s house and then waited with me for over an hour until the person showed up.

May 2007

The head of the peer educators, a young, energized 16 year old boy was at my house not long after I had returned from a meeting in Kara. With tears in his eyes he told me that Tama had passed away the night before. Tama had packed a small bag, returned to his village, and within two hours of arrival collapsed in a small piece of land a few feet in front of his home, and passed away.

The student and I stood silently for a few minutes. I had no words of encouragement, no words of condolence. The student told me that all of Tama’s students wanted to attend the funeral, but only some could afford the trip. The $2.00 fee did not stop students from attending the funeral the next morning in Niamtougou. During the taxi ride, I sat awkwardly with 20 or more middle school students. During the 30 kilometer ride, we passed countless students from Kante walking, jogging, and biking towards Niamtougou, to go to Tama’s funeral.

Attending Tama’s funeral was the most difficult thing I have done since arriving in Togo if not my entire life. I share this story only to give more people a chance to know Tama. Not one person mentioned he died of AIDS during his very well attended funeral. No one admitted that it had been AIDS that took his life in Kanté, where he spent the last part of his life educating children.

This is the story of someone that will more than likely never even have the honor of being counted as a statistic.

Photos

Some photos for your viewing pleasure:

Host family in Govie (Training village)

Atetou - Village 7 km west of Kante

Atetou cont.

Hospital beds in Nadoba

Tata in Tamberma Valley

Crazies


Mountains just south of Kante


Area near Govie

Ok more to come with an update.

Meat Whip

Air Kante


A twisted piece of animal hide swings from Air Kante’s rearview mirror. Imagine an enlarged wishbone made of stiff, furry animal skin. The top forms a handle out of which two slinky strands of goat hide emerge like the “accent” on the bangs of your prom date in 1993. Cute. The odd ornament is not unique to this bush taxi and I am not inspired to actually ask any questions about the object. Please see artist rendition to the left.

The street of Togo is home to bush taxis, motos, and most importantly trucks. Besides your everyday traffic on your everyday two lane national street, there are animals, people biking, walking with serious tonnage on their heads, and potholes. The traffic is not so intense in Togo that people are compelled to look when crossing. If you are not in one of the towns that hugs the street (Kanté, Sotouboua, Niamtougou), there is a high probability that you can cross without looking and not get hit. Of course crossing any street without looking is a gamble and most people are aware enough to look before crossing. Left, right, left.

Flying south in Air Kante, the greatest bush taxi in all of Togo, an older man on a bike decides to float across the street of Togo. Lucky for him, the chauffeur for Air Kante is highly skilled in dodging the numerous obstacles that present themselves on a journey through Togo. Much like colleagues from Air France, safety is Air Kante’s number one priority. Bike man had a brush with death and probably did not even realize how close he was to the end. The driver is not happy. End of story? I think not my dear human rights loving friends.

Instead of just driving forth and high-five-ing to the fact that we did not kill another human being, the driver immediately swerves right to the side of the road and pulls down the meaty rope from the rearview mirror and hands it to his co-pilot in the passenger seat. Driving 20 kilometers an hour, the co-pilot hangs out of the window and whips the old man on the bike. It is a meat whip hanging from the rearview.

Stunned, I struggle to look back to see if the old man is still pedaling along. Slowly but surely the old man pedals. For the next hour of the car ride conversation does not stray from the man on the bike. The last word on the subject: “That man is lucky to be alive”.

Visitors Overwhelmingly Dismiss Kante and Togo

Travel Guides Used to be Hatazzzzz

Peace Corps Togo maintains four transit houses, one in each of the four regional capitals: Atakpamé, Sokodé, Kara, and Dapaong. Each house maintains a library (varying degrees of worth, measured by the number of Nora Roberts books). The Kara maison has a number of older West African travel guidebooks with short sections outlining the generally underwhelming tourist attractions in Togo. In the 80’s Lomé was a place some French people came to enjoy the beach (I am guessing here). In the early 90’s that all changed (look it up). Lomé lost its beach charm. Now Lomé has become one of the larger border towns, port cities, and truck stops in the world. Rarely is a capital city also a border town. While Lomé is praised in the older guidebooks, the rest of Togo has lacked something, oh how do you say…to be desired?

After hearing the writer tasked with updating the Togo section of the Rough Guide would visit Kanté, I leisurely leafed through an old Rough Guide to research what had already been discovered and written about Kanté. Kanté is slowly becoming my new home and there is a certain amount of pride associated with the idea of home. People from Brooklyn know what I mean. So, when I read the Rough Guide passage about Kanté, a little piece of me died.

The following passage about Kanté can be found in The Rough Guide – West Africa edited by Jim Hudgens and Richard Trillo.

Kandé and the Tamberma country
“KANDÉ (also spelled Kanté) would surely have faded into obscurity had it not been on the nation’s main route nationale. There’s not much of anything in this tiny town of Lamba people, where the surrounding countryside is hardly conducive to cultivating more than the bare staples of millet and yams. There’s a small gare routiere in the middle of town, with vehicles mostly to Kara and one or two women selling food in the vicinity…Kandé would be easily overlooked if it weren’t the starting point for excursions into the Tamberma country”

Ouch. Don’t get me wrong; Kanté is not honeymoon, it is more Sahelian dust. Armed with descriptive adjectives and a list (meager) of places to visit, I met with the “Rough Guide Lady” (let’s call her Kate).

Kate in Kanté
Oh Kate, I knew you would like Kanté. Look at your name, only one lonely consonant and accent removed from spelling home. We met at Auberge la Cloche, the “Rooftop bar”. This is my favorite place in all of Kanté, and was also the first place Ishmael took me during my weeklong post visit. The rooftop faces west where you can watch the sun set over the African savannah. Very Africa. Apparently visitors to Kanté, writers and non-writers alike, rarely venture off the main road. Big mistake folks; There is greatness within! The Auberge is run by a friendly family that will run a table, chairs, and two realtively cold beers to the small roof as soon as they smell the tourists coming (tourists have a scent that permeates through harmattan dust and dry season heat). The roof also has views of midtown, the water tower, and after the sun disappears, one can see small brush fires in the distance.

Kate’s visit turned out to be a lot of fun. Besides schmoozing with a travel writer, I had the opportunity to visit hidden Kanté gems. We had lunch at my favorite cafeteria on the main road. This turned out to be a bit embarrassing as Kate told me during lunch she used to write about Food for various publications. Kate is absolutely the only food writer to ever dine at “le Cafeteria”. She seemed to stomach the fare without the faintest complaint.

We discussed all sorts of things that naturally evolve during a discussion between two people sharing the same language: Borat, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.
Kate walked away with an appreciation for Kanté, and even went so far as to say she thinks Kanté is a fine place to spend a day. Lucky me, I have about 700 more to come…

Hey, Remember When I Had Some Stuff?

The Things He Carried:

$47 US
2GB USB Flashdrive
60GB Video Ipod (Black)
70,000 CFA
All Work Related Notebooks
Canon SD600 Digital Camera with Charger and Computer Wires
Cell Phone Charger
Clothing
Letter Received from Lizzie and Reply Letter to be Sent
NorthFace Bag
Passport
Peace Corps ID Card
Revo Sunglasses
Togolese Bank Account Card
Togolese Laisser Passer
Toothbrush/Shampoo/Razor/Beard Trimmer/other Toiletries
Travel Belt
Wachovia Visa Debit Card


Lists are Sometimes Fun!

Above could be understood as a list of items any potential Peace Corps volunteer should bring from the U.S. Or it could be a list of some young professional who just had to clear out his cubicle and has one bag to pack everything. Perhaps it could even be a “time to cross international borders because of an emergency, and this is an inventory of the contents of my only luggage” list.

Instead, this is a list of things that should never be kept in one bag unless you are in a bunker waiting for radiation to dissipate. It is a list of things once owned but are now floating around Kara, Ouagadougou, or some port in Central America. The list is mine, and it constitutes everything that was robbed from me on Wednesday (and almost everything i brought with me from the U.S.).

Wednesday

The day began innocently enough. I was headed to Kara with some friends to discuss plans for Club Espoir (monthly club for AIDS orphans at AED Kara). We met in Kanté and the car was “ready” to go. To be fair to the driver, I did not see any smoke coming into the car when we started down the street. 200 meters into the trip we overheated, and lazily rolled into a gas station parking. The driver opened the hood, sucked liquid out of one part of the engine and spat it into another. 15 minutes later we are on the road again.

For the first 2 kilometers of the trip to Kara the road is flat. The there is fairly gigantic obstacle after kilometer 2, Mt. Defali (let us call it Mt. Deathali). A few weeks ago an oil truck went off the unpaved road where there are no guardrails, and plunged to the bottom of the mountain killing the driver. Amazingly (or not, I don’t know the new technology in gasoline truck safety) the truck did not blow up, and people came from many kilometers away to siphon off some free petrol.

Unfortunately this is one of many stories of disasters on this mountain. Interestingly enough, this is not even the most dangerous mountain pass in the country.

Anyway, the car made it about a third of the way up the mountain before the driver could not ignore the cloud of smoke suffocating everyone. He tinkered with the engine for another few minutes, and then he did something spectacular.

Rolling down an incline in neutral while pumping the clutch can start manual transmission engines. Usually the front of the car is pointing towards the bottom of the hill while executing this technique. This driver decided he could start this car while rolling down the mountain in reverse. Miraculously (I never believed in miracles), after failing to start the car and continuing to roll and roll and roll, the driver finally and painfully completed the maneuver. He jerked the car into first gear and tried to get up that mountain. Nope. Of course it just overheated within 15 seconds, leaving us stranded on the side of this mountain. I had an opportunity to take some wonderful pictures that I hope some random Togolese thief is enjoying.

A car came not long after the break down and it was actually an uneventful remainder of the trip. The only thing worth noting was the baby sitting behind me that had smelled as if she had defecated in her pants three days prior.

Liberation?

After a night of shooting pool in Chateau, we decided to continue the night at a place called Bar La Jet Set. The man working there was extremely nice and wished us all a happy new year. We sat down, and about 5 minutes later, I wanted to get my Ipod out of my bag (which was between my legs under my chair). The rest of the story kind of writes itself. When I asked the guy working at the bar if he had seen my bag he told me he had just seen a guy running out of his bar with my bag. I guess he forgot to tell us while it was happening. The robber was drinking in the bar when we got there. 1:30am on a Wednesday night. He was the only drinker. I am pretty sure he is a local, a townie if you will. Of course no one knew him!!! OF COURSE!

The rest of the night included trips around the neighborhood and the police station, where I was asked to give my report to the police officer, who documented the report in a giant notebook. The report filed before mine was titled “Vol de Football”. Frustrated, I went to bed. The following days included more trips to the bar and the police station. I think everyone in Kara knows about the bag, and I have offered all kinds of rewards to find the stupid thing.

It is now Sunday and of course there are no developments. The bag is gone with all my music, pictures, work, money, and style. No one was hurt, and that is about the only good thing that has come of this event. Perhaps this can be viewed as one of those liberating events in ones life where they cut themselves off from the material luxuries that are so insignificant in the long run. Music would be nice though. I hope my Ipod makes a nice $300 paperweight.

I had planned this entry to be about my day touring Kanté with the writer for the Rough Guide, and it was going to be one of those, “it is nice to be here” entries. Next time!

Never knew I hated cockroaches until today

Cockroaches have never really been my favorite, actually I used to be indifferent to them. How often do you really see cockroaches. Even if your apartment is filthy (which all of them in D.C. were), you never really see them. And they are SMALL.

Not in Kante. Since I arrived, I do not use the latrine at night because there are usually around 15 lurking in and around the latrine. So I did what any american would do. I bombed the place. I bought the most expensive western roach bait Lome had to offer. Then I bought the most expensive roach spray imported to Togo. The spray even has a special cloaking device that makes it smell like febreeze. Now when you deplete the ozone, and murder your innocent brain cells, you can smell good doin' it.

Well after spraying and baiting, the problem was solved.

Until this morning.

I am not kidding when I tell you I killed over 100 cockroaches. I have pictures to prove it. I will post them.

For now I must go. Surprising the internet works here in kante.

pictures to follow. A little vomit just came up.

Ode to Voltic Spoons and Couscous in Water Sauce.

After ditching the scarlet T (trainee) for the exclusive V (vende…volunteer), the new stage hit the sandy roads of Lomé with the consumerist zeal rarely found since Tickle-me Elmo debuted. Before we could shop, we had to take an oath of allegiance to the United States Constitution. The swear-in ceremony felt similar to a graduation, or perhaps Bar Mitzvah, or any other right of passage. I even gave a speech in Lamba. The next day local radio stations broadcast segments from the ceremony, including my speech. WRGW anyone? Apologies to all Lamba speaking communities for butchering your language.

So after the swear- in ceremony we had four days in Lomé to buy everything we needed for our new homes. Plates, bowls, buckets, soap, forks, spoons, knives. This is a list of essential items to be purchased before moving into your new home. Also, this is a list of items that I left/never made it onto my car/never made it out of the store where I purchased everything. Long story short, I had to eat couscous in water sauce with a voltic water bottle cut into a shovel/spoon contraption. Eating with my hands was eliminated because there was no soap to wash with. I am a health volunteer.

Ishmael, the volunteer in Kante before me, introduced me to one of his friends Akanto from Kante. Akanto came down to Lome to say goodbye to Ishmael. After the swear in ceremony Akanto and his brother Roland invited me to eat fufu at their home in Lome. Having a friend in Kante will definitely make my transition easier!

Happy New Year

I am in Kara, the regional capital, and will return to Kanté on Sunday. Work opportunities should start picking up now that the holiday season is ending. On December 23rd I participated in my first Club Espoir, a monthly club for AIDS orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS. The club is held at Association Espoir Pour Demain Kara (AED), an organization I will be working with throughout my service. The children spent the morning making cards, decorating the AED building, and building the Togolese equivalent to gingerbread houses. Pictures to follow.

Did they have to put an overcoat on Saddam?

That wool fabric looks like it walked right out of Brooks Brothers.

While eating at la douceur, quite possibly the nicest restaurant in Kara, TV5 was broadcasting some fine French footage of sharks eating small animals (several varieties of seagull, and more urgently, a deer/ram type creature). Conversation ceased in the restaurant, attention moved from food to shark fury in seconds. The point is the restaurant was so nice it had TV5…I digress. The footage ended and the evening news began. French newscasters have really nice ties. Top story: Saddam hung. Really? Iraqi justice works in remarkably fast ways. My French is not yet refined enough to fully appreciate TV5 evening news, but luckily for me, camera phone video of an execution by gallows translates effortlessly from French, to Arabic, to Kabyé, to English.

This brings me back to Saddam’s coat. Maybe if he had sported a US issued prisoner uniform fully equipped with shackles and crazy beard attachment, this whole thing would have been more digestible. Instead, we get a frail looking old man wearing your grandfather’s hand pressed overcoat. And so the tyrant is dead. My only hope is that there will be less death now that he is gone. Maybe we can start focusing some needed attention on the ignored abuses committed across the African continent.

Harmattan makes northern volunteers cooler (literally)

The harmattan winds arrived about a month ago and there is a layer of dust and sand on everything. I wake up with a sore throat most mornings. I do not know if this is because of the dust or because of the drastic temperature fluctuations between the day and the night. The powers in the weather world are predicting the hottest year on record. I guess Al Gore was right all along. I cannot wait for the dust to settle.

I speak Lamba, what do you bring to the table?

The land in Togo is undulating. It must actually undulate because I fell. Twice. I have the most ridiculous bandage, and I dont even have a cool story to go along with my scar.

"I was walking down the street and I fell"
"how did you fall the second time?"
"I was walking down the street and fell".

So life moves here in Togo, at its own pace. Stage (what we call training, and we use a neat little french accent: soft a) is going by faster than I thought. Big news is we are planning a World AIDS day extravaganza in Govie. We met with the community development committee and we all agreed to make it a big event (will fill you in later). Very diplomatic, very Peace Corps.

I read now, so there is that.

We leave tomorrow for Post Visit, a week long visit to the place I will call my home for the next 2 years.

I will be posted in Kante, a northern town in the Kara region (i will be in between Kara and Mango if you reference my little map below). They speak Lamba in Kante, and I had my first class this week, so I think I am hot. I am very excited to get to post. I will tell you all about my post next time I update.

for now you can all send me lovely letters at:

My Name
Corps de la Paix
BP 3194
Lome, Togo
West Africa

or call my cell phone from US 011 228 995 21 21

For now I have to say I am doing well and am just impressed that I could update this thing in beautiful Kpalime. Hopefully I will be able to write something a little bit more concrete later, probably of little relevance.

There you go Remix, I am back on track.

Blogingtons

My big return. Aqui yo soy. Rock you like a hurricane. That song was written before that whole global warming thing took off. In case I forgot to tell you, I will be heading back to West Africa in September. This time, I am going to make Togo remember how sweet I can be. Remember those nights Togo? I never meant to leave you, I even commented about how beautiful your 56 km coast can be. Well all is forgiven, as I have accepted an invitation to serve in the Peace Corps. Excited? Yes..Togo better get ready for some volunteering.

Fond memories of Togo include, but are not limited to: Moto-ing around the University of Benin, looking at hippo feet in the marche des feticheurs, buying dried up bats and monkeys in the marche des feticheurs, going to the top of Hotel 2 Fevrier, hearing about the end of the world from an "end time" believer (no clue) from France, who then proceeded to sing "On Bended Knee" by Boyz II Men.

Starting December 7 I will be working as a Community Health and AIDS Prevention (CHAP) volunteer. Before that I will be going through 3 months of training where I will hopefully start remembering how to speak French. I do not know where in Togo I will be placed, but I should know about a third of the way through training. Never heard of Togo before? It is all around you, you just have to open your heart. Two of the most simple yet useful words in the English language come together forming the coolest francophone country to hit Africa since Decolonization. But where is Togo you ask?! It is on the Bight of Benin (agua) squished into a little country-cito by my boy Ghana, Benin, and Burkina...Do they have fufu there? You bet your little bippy they do. The real question however is do they have some Omo Tuo, and if so, what do they call it there? MMMMM Omo Tuo.

My job is winding down and it is starting to hit me that my last day is quickly approaching. My medical clearance took so long, that I have relatively little time to get ready for the Peace Corps. I work until August 31st, and then it is off to New York to see family and pack, then down to Philly, where I hope I will get to see some of my friends for a last round of partying before departing for el Togo. On another note, Togo is not named after the band Toto. That is a good song though Marisa.