Tikoyi

11/21/2007

Writing makes me feel so good and so does picking the scabs off my wrist (a symptom of laundry). I don’t do it enough here – writing and laundry. It’s true – I go through ¾ of a bar of BF soap when I do laundry. Not sure how that last sentence relates to anything. Being clean makes me happy. I might be a little neurotic, but like Bubbles said, “It’s better to be neurotic about being clean than some of the alternatives.”

So I have a new name – a recent souvenir from a trip to my new post. Tikoyi, (rhymes with Sequoia). Bubbles calls me Pocahontas instead and Assibi gave me a Pocahontas bandana. My name means “for everyone” or “for us all.” Kinda slutty. But, I love it. I think it fits me well. Draw whatever conclusions you like from that. I got really sick on my visit to post. Fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea… The fever, headache and diarrhea came back, but it was the diarrhea and intestinal cramps that decided to stick around for a while. I think some weight loss resulted too. I don’t recommend intestinal cramps; they’re no fun. I have no idea how I got sick – it could have been dehydration, exhaustion, stress, bad water, street food… who knows. All I do know is that I prefer being healthy in Togo thank you very much.

Pre-service training is almost over. Yikes! I don’t feel prepared enough to start off on my own yet, but I am also ready to be on my own again. I really don’t like depending on others for my own basic needs (i.e. shelter, food, water, etc…). The end of training does mark something exciting for me in terms of communication. I will be getting a phone. Before coming to Togo, I was not keen on the idea of getting a cell phone. But like any good development worker will tell you, telecommunications is part of having a solid infrastructure. It’s basically set up here so that you almost have to get one, if only for convenience sake. There are people who don’t have phones and seem to manage, but I don’t know who those people are – probably because I can’t call them. I’m sure they exist somewhere. Anyhoo, cell phones are just handy to have for emergencies if nothing else. And even for people like me who will live in villages with little or no cell phone reception, reception is not that far away and there are plenty of times I will be out of village. The alternative for me is to get a Ghana SIM card, which supposedly does have reception in my village. Blah, blah, blah… I should be working for the cell phone companies, not Peace Corps.