Keeping busy

Well I've had quite the busy past couple of weeks. I recently started a girls club for the teenage girls in the local middle school; the idea is to provide them with a place where they can learn everything which Americans usually cover in middle school health class (but which the Togolese don't cover until high school - if that - and by then, an unbelievable number of girls have already dropped out due to unexpected pregnancy), which will hopefully better inform them and lead them to make more careful, thoughtful decisions. I also want to involve them more in the community (by getting them to help me with sensibilizations, etc.) so that their time is devoted to productive, helpful activities, and so that they can earn recognition and respect from community members (which I hope will also encourage them to be more careful to make wise choices and thereby develop and maintain a healthy level of pride and self-esteem, which I notice seems to be lacking among many of them for the moment). The CEG (middle school) director has been incredibly helpful and supportive of this new project. He and I decided to a) split the upper/older two classes from the lower/younger two classes so as to prevent intimidation among the group and b) make the first two meetings for each group obligatory so that all the girls will have a chance to see what the club is like. After the first two mandatory meetings, I will only be requesting devoted volunteers to become members, as I don't really see what would be productive about forcing girls to be involved against their will, and I feel like the club can be most effective if it consists of girls who are particularly motivated. I've had two meetings so far - one with each group - and so far they've gone great! The older girls seem to be more pulled together and enthusiastic than the younger girls, although I got overall positive responses from both groups. The real test will be to see who shows up for the first non-mandatory meetings, but that won't be for a couple weeks yet. So we'll see...

I'm hoping to soon get involved with the middle school environmental club to start a large community Moringa tree garden (for those of you who aren't familiar with Moringa, it's a tree which serves a number of miraculous functions, including the provision of an incredibly large amount of nutrients through its leaves; it would be worth your time to look it up - it's an amazing tree!); I feel like introducing Moringa to my village and teaching them how to incorporate it into their diet while simultaneously developing a source of it for them would be a great sustainable project, so I'm excited to get that underway.

I've had a large amount of success with selling enriched porridge flour to the women in my village! It's an incredibly large amount of work to make; after buying soy and corn in stock from the market, and then ideally washing and drying it all, it takes as long as 6 hours to sort out the bad grains and worms, then 4 hours to roast (which is especially important for the soy as it breaks down the trypsin in the soy which otherwise inhibits protein absorption; for the corn, the roasting just ameliorates the taste), then a half hour to grind the grains (unless the mill breaks down, in which case it can take up to 2 hours, which was the case the last time), and then 5 hours to put the flour in (what usually amounts to about 100) individual bags. It's very time consuming, but satisfying once finished (I'm definitely planning on eventually recruiting girls from the club to help me with the task). I already sold a quarter of the bags in the one day after I finished! I'm donating the money to make the flour and saving all the revenue to eventually put towards another village project; for the moment I'm thinking about using the money to further reduce the costs of mosquito nets so as to make them more affordable for community members, although I'm currently having trouble finding an NGO that will sell me mosquito nets in stock and then let me sell them for a price that's less than the established market price...

I've been doing regular sensibilizations on baby-weighing days. Last month I taught about the importance of enriched bouille (porridge) and how to read baby-weighing charts so that the moms themselves can read and understand the charts that tell them whether or not their babies are malnourished. Seeing the effect of the sensibilizations can be simultaneously disappointing and encouraging; I get frustrated when I hand back charts after marking the baby's new weight and still see some moms put them away without taking a glance at them. But then again, this last Thursday I saw one woman, whose baby had been terribly malnourished the past couple months, eagerly take back the chart and look at it, developing a smile which I shared with her as well as I saw that she read and understood that her baby had gained an astonishing kilo and a half in the last month alone! Who knows if it was actually due to my influence that she was motivated to read the chart or now pay special attention to the health of her child, but even if it wasn't, it made my day to see her so happy by the progress. This upcoming month I'll be teaching about the importance of washing hands with soap instead of with water alone.

So I've definitely been keeping busy! As of last week, I also finally finished redoing my house. Well actually, I still have to paint one wall on my porch, but after that it's completely done. I'm so glad because all the work I've put into making my house homey has taken a ton of time and energy! I can't wait to post pictures because I love how beautiful it is now. I do unfortunately still have pest problems from time to time. The big cockroaches are annoying but manageable because they're killable, but what's worse are when lizards get trapped in the house because they're difficult to get out. The WORST are mice; this last week I felt like I was in mortal combat with this one mouse who was living in my house for days (before one morning at 3 AM I did finally get him out) and whose presence and elusiveness was literally driving me INSANE and giving me sleepless nights. Such is life in Togo though. I spent a good couple hours this past week stuffing paper and foam in all of the cracks in the windows and ceiling to hopefully inhibit the entrance of more house-invaders.

Dry season seems to have arrived! As has Harmattan, which is a season caused by Sahara winds that sweep down through Togo; it causes cool mornings and evenings but hot afternoons. I've been running through thick mist on my morning runs as a result. But the decrease in humidity during the day has made the heat much more bearable!

I'm in Atakpame for the weekend but am off to visit Emily's village for the first time on Sunday. It'll be fun to see how things are for her and to do some baking! - which is always a treat for me when I get to visit someone who has a dutch oven. I'm still a sucker for sweets! In only 3 days I went through 2 of 3 large bags of peanut M&Ms that my boyfriend Dave sent me in a care package... Shameful but satisfying nonetheless :)