I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer!

I can now officially call myself a volunteer! It's really exciting. The ceremony last night was really cool; I got goosebumps when we said our swearing-in oath. I also almost cried when I had to say goodbye to all the trainers and my host mom.

Now all the new volunteers are just celebrating and preparing to head off to post in a couple days. As an official volunteer, I now have access to the computers at the Peace Corps bureau in Lome, so I've been able to (finally) load some of my pictures from the past 2 months onto this blog, so make sure to scroll down and take a look!


All of the grads dressed up in African pagnes right before the ceremony began


The Country Director, Brownie Lee, giving a speech [the man on her left is the ambassador of the U.S. to Togo, who also later spoke]


me and Emily in our swear-in pagnes (my host mom had made my pagne as a surprise gift for me!) [the image quality is really bad because my camera can't take pictures at night]

End of Stage!

I can't believe it, but I'm back in Lome after 11 weeks of training. Our stage group left our training villages early this morning. I think overall, most people were very ready to end training and head off on their own, but I personally had a really tough time leaving the village. I absolutely loved my host family, and I became good friends with a number of peers in the village, so it was really hard to say goodbye. I definitely plan on going back and visiting, but I won't be able to do so for a while. I'll actually be able to see my host mom once more tomorrow when she comes down with the other host moms to the swearing-in ceremony, so that makes me happy. All of the trainees signed a bunch of paperwork today, and then tomorrow we'll actually take the oath to become official volunteers. They say it's the same ceremony as the one for new ambassadors and civil servants, which I think is pretty cool since it makes it sound so official. All of the new volunteers will also give a small speech in the local language of their village, so mine is going to be in Kabye. The speeches will supposedly be broadcasted over the radio too , which is pretty neat - although potentially embarassing as well :)

The rest of the weekend in Lome will be free for shopping and stocking up on items that will be difficult to find anywhere else in Togo but which we will need at our sites. For me that means a lot of food items, miscellaneous kitchenware, paint for my house's walls, a new cell phone (with the hopes that it'll receive reception in at least some places in my village), and maybe, if I have enough money to do so, some art for decoration (although art tends to be way more expensive in larger cities). A lot of people will also be taking advantage of the large variety of restaurants that can be found in Lome as well as the relatively faster internet. Lome is great for having a lot more available resources but I personally am anxious to get back to the smaller village life as I greatly prefer the calmer atmosphere of life out "in the bush", as we say here.


my host mom and dad


me and my host mom on our last evening together


me and two of my good friends (taken the day I left)



the (amazing) language trainers [photo taken the day we left]

Post Visit

Well, I successfully made it through post visit! Truth be told, it was a very challenging week for the following reasons:
1.I was all alone; the majority of trainees were staying with the volunteers that they will be replacing in September, but my volunteer had left the post early due to medical reasons, so I was on my own in the new village.
2. Because my volunteer left early, she sold all her furniture, so except for a bed, which I was very grateful for, my place was completely empty. It really wasn't so bad except for the fact that it made cooking very difficult since I essentially had to cook on the floor.
3. Due to Peace Corps budget cuts and to a country-wide gas shortage, volunteers are no longer provided with gas stoves. So for those of us who were by ourselves, that meant a week cooking on a small charcoal stove. I really wasn't worried about it until I actually tried cooking on it the first couple times; it was just a lot harder to do than I anticipated. Cooking in general was difficult because my village didn't have a lot in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables, so I had trouble coming up with meal ideas. Oh, and I made myself sick one time from something I made for myself.
4. There was a huge language barrier for me. I was very grateful to be able to speak French, but my village is primarily a farmer's village, which means that not a lot of people are very well educated, which means that not a lot of people speak French. Not being able to communicate with the women and children was especially frustrating for me.
5. Everyone thought I was the volunteer who had returned after having left a year ago. I saw a picture of her, and we really don't look that similar, but with the same hair color and body structure, it was understandable how we could be confused. In any case, it was just kind of frustrating because I didn't feel like I had my true identity, especially since my homologue, who thought it was hilarious that they confused us, only corrected people about half of the time.
6. About halfway through the week, the daughter of my homologue stole some money from me. I was really frustrated by the incident since she had been so friendly and helpful to me during the week, and I had trusted her completely. It was really upsetting to me, and I couldn't confront her directly about it because I didn't have solid evidence, but the incident just taught me to be more on guard.
7. I discovered that I really disagree with the way my homologue (who is a midwife)interacts with women at the dispensaire (the only health facility in the area) where we work. She is one of 3 staff members there, and so she is always incredibly busy, which makes it understandable why she could be irritable sometimes, but I found it really upsetting how demeaning she was towards women who came into the clinic. I think a lot of it is a cultural thing that I still don't completely understand, but it was still disturbing. Again, the language barrier frsturated me because I couldn't contribute to the work being done with the women since I couldn't speak the local language.
8. Life was really slow. I just didn't know what to do with myself half the time. I read a lot, but the days went by very slowly, and it was hard to keep myself busy.
9. The people who live in the same compound as me were so sweet and wonderful, and I loved their little boys. My one problem with them was that they never respected my privacy and would come into my house whenever they pleased - even when the door was shut. That made it hard to feel like I had my own space.
10. My village is off of a very bad road, so it is isolated in the sense that not a lot of people go in and out of it. To give you an idea of what this meant: on Saturday, when I left, I waited by the side of the road for 5 hours before a car even passed through the village to take me out of it.

I truly don't mean to list all of the above as complaints - just reasons why my visit was more challenging than relaxing. The truth is, it's not like any of the above can't be resolved; I ordered furniture from my village carpenters before I left so that it would all be ready for me when I go back; I've started learning Kabiye (the local language there) since coming back; I'm planning on bringing a gas stove back with me along with food items from Lome that I won't have access to once I get to my village; once I go back I'll have moto privilges, which means I'll be able to travel around on motos and won't have to wait for cars - which takes way longer; and thanks to my experience, now I know what rules I have to set from the beginning once I go back - especially with regards to my privacy. I also want to clarify that it's not like my week was horrible either; I did have a volunteer from a village just north of mine come visit me mid-week and she was incredibly sweet and helpful in showing me around the area a little bit and answering all of my questions. It was great to get to know her. I also came up with a ton of ideas for work I want to do in my village, so once I get back, I'll be getting straight to work with a lot of new project ideas that will keep me busy!

So to sum it all up, it was a hard but eye-opening week. I'm now just all the more motivated to get "integrated" when I go back!


Emily and I on our way to post visit (with a bottle of ketchup that her host mom randomly supplied her with before leaving and a fan for the charcoal stove)