Row, Row, Row your Boat...Life is but a Dream

I'm not on Mefloquine, thank god (I refused!). However, I have been having some fantastic dreams since I have been in Togo... usually with famous people. One of the first ones was that I was the BFF of Tom Selleck. Yes, that's right, I was like that 80's sidekick on Magnum P.I. But wait! It gets better. Another dream I was cruising in a speedboat with the Hoff in what looked like the Florida everglades. One of my favorites happened the night before Thanksgiving. I was freestyle walking/dancing my way across the streets of NYC. I was doing ariels and flips and kicks and busting moves you've never seen amidst colorfully lit skyscrapers. At one point, Tommy The Clown appeared and busted a move with me. U2 was also there, and for some reason, I stopped in In-N-Out. Basically, I was unstoppable; I was the real MFing dancing queen. You would think that nothing could top this, but just recently I traveled to Oakland made over as Black Rock City. It was part carnival-circus-neon playground-utopia. I thought I had found heaven, so I checked into a hotel. It's hard for me to convey my excitement and joy at the discovery of such a city. The citizens were in stereotypical Burning Man attire but better and more outrageous. And, the architecture resembled rides at an amusement park with conveyor belts everywhere. The only sad thing is that I will miss the next real Burning Man. So I need you to tell me all about it so I can dream about it.

Il Faut Manger

I should touch on Togolese food as it is a very hot topic. Allow me to start by saying that my host mother can really cook. The food in Togo is already quite good by West African standards, but my host mother tends to exceed standard Togolese cuisine. I am very lucky. =) The Togolese diet is a carbohydrate one; they eat A LOT of yams, rice, spaghetti, couscous, corn - all starchy foods. Most locals usually eat pound up corn/mais called Pate or pound up Yams called Foufou. Both are served with various types of sauces; typically, pate is eaten with a vegetable sauce and foufou/fufu with meat/fish sauce. My problem is that because I am a guest and treated as such, I am given meals that could feed 3-4 people. For example, for lunch I will get an entire plate full of rice plus sauce plus meat. The sauces are usually tomato-based or a peanut sauce and the meat is usually chicken or goat (occasionally sheep or rat - I tried rate, I don't care for it). After all this, I will get some fruit like 2 oranges or 3 bananas or even a pineapple, and if I am lucky there may be an entire loaf of bread on the side. At the end of most (actually all) my stomach hurts. The reason I don't stop eating the moment I am full is because to the Togolese people, it is somewhat insulting and it looks bad on the family when their guest (that's me) doesn't gain weight. Gaining weight is a sign of good health, so as a result, I am probably about 10 pounds heavier than when I left the US. It doesn't help that I don't get up early enough to go running, however, I am a heck-of-a-lot more active here than sitting behind a desk all day. I do ride my bike to and from school twice a day. Back to food for a moment... If you ever come to Togo, you had better like tomatoes and onions because they are in just about every single dish. Other common food here is peanuts (they make great peanut butter and peanut sauce) oranges, bananas, plantains, pineapples, mangoes, peppers (they like their food spicy!), cabbage, beans, soy, etc... I never used to eat bananas or plantains, but I have learned to like them here because 1) they are better (all the fruit is!) and 2) they keep me solid! I do prefer plantains to bananas though, especially, fried plantains! Tres doux! In addition to all the carbohydrates, they used a fair amount of oil (not as bad as some of the other West African countries), but a lot of food is either fried or oil based. I am very excited to learn to cook for myself; I have managed a few sessions with my host mother, but not nearly enough yet. Next, FanMilk deserves special mention here. All the volunteers go CRAZY over FanMilk. It is the closest thing to ice cream we have readily available, and it is usually sold by some guy riding around on a bike with a cooler attached. The FanMilk guy makes a killing off the Peace Corps Volunteers. There are all kinds of FanMilk which range in price from 50 CFA to 350 CFA, which equates to all well under $1 USD. Actually, all the food here is relatively cheap, which is a good thing for us.

This posting was originally written in October. Not much has changed except that the food here can also be rather salty, which I guess is good since we sweat so much, and instead of gaining 10 lbs, I have lost 10 lbs due to my Giardia.

I just found out today that I have had Giardia for the past month (since post visit). My anus hurts. Fortunately, the treatment is really easy: just 4 pills all at once and I am good to go.

Last night I offically swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was good. Time to take a deep breath. Two more years to go. I go to my village on Sunday, so I am shopping like mad right now to stock up on stuff for my new home.

International calls to/from a Togo cell phone are more expensive than a Ghana cell phone. And what do you know, I have Ghana reception in my village but no Togo reception.

I can't stop sweating.

I will write more tonight. My hour is almost up.