Still A Learning Process....

Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of PC service are the social/cultural differences we experience on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes these differences are overt (expectation that you greet everyone every time you see them), and sometimes they can be more subtle, even sometimes imperceptible (the unquestioned reverence for authority).

Today I realized that despite how far I may have come, boy do I still have much to learn...

We had planned a Men As Partners Program meeting with the teachers that I trained back in August on gender equity and what male leaders can do to promote it. The scheduled meeting was supposed to be a follow-up meeting to see how their work on promoting it in the community was going. We had invited one of the Regional Inspectors of Education to come to share some of his expertise and to give advice and support to the teachers.

Long story short, we had to cancel the meeting. I called the Chief Inspector and told him about the change before informing all the teachers. "OK, I'll let the other Inspectors know" he told me. I thought all was good and we had everything straightened out.

That is until I get the call today that one of the Inspectors had arrived to find no one at the school where we were supposed to have the meeting. I hopped on a motto and headed over to inform him about the change and apologize. When I arrived the school director was standing and chatting with the Inspector. The director was upset that he was not informed about the meeting in the first place.

I apologized to them both. I felt terrible at the lack of communication and that the Inspector had made the trip all the way to my village just to find out that the meeting was cancelled. He also informed me that he had to cut other work short to arrive on time.

Initially, I thought, "I can't believe the lack of communication in this country!" "It should not have been me who informed the director about the meeting at his school, that's my counterpart's responsibility! Why does he even care that we're having this meeting at his school?! He's on such a power trip!"

"I can't believe the Chief Inspector dropped the ball on this! Why does it have to be me who does everything!?"

Frustration at the lack of communication. Disappointment at yet another meeting cancelled. Ashamed that the Inspector had made the trip per my request. Confusion about why the school director was upset. Sick of all the politicking and formalities.

In general, ready to just give up this stupid follow-up altogether.

I forced myself to take a step back though.

The Chief Inspector may be one of the most busy professionals in the entire region. Period. To be in charge of the secondary school system for an entire region is no easy task, especially given the lack of resources and support he's working with. Expecting him to remember to inform the other Inspectors of the change is probably expectiting a little too much. Or a lot too much.

Expecting my counterpart, who teaches all day, does several odd jobs on the side to make ends meet, manages our Peer Educator and Girls' Science Clubs, is organizing a national camp this year, and has a family to take care of, to inform the school director that the meeting will be held at his school, especially when I hadn't even asked him to do so, is probably asking a bit too much. Or a lot too much.

It's not as if these moments aren't few and far between. Work here is hard, and these are the kinds of challenges we as Volunteers face. But, today I realized that there are still things which I don't quite understand, or don't quite agree with, and I need a bigger dose of perspective and humility to deal with them.

No matter what kinds of challenges we face, they still pale in comparison to the people with whom we live and work. And in the end, they LIVE here. I can rest at home tonight knowing that no matter how hard things may seem here, soon enough I will be back home with family and friends, where life is so much easier.

Also, I made the choice to come here. I am benefiting not only professionally, but personally as well. You cannot pay for a more exciting, enriching experience as the Peace Corps. I have at times caught myself thinking "I'm sacrificing alot just to be here and people here should be willing to sacrifice too!" The thing is, they are. Especially those teachers who had came to my Men As Partners training. They sacrificed, and are continuing to sacrifice their time and money (not to mention how they are perceived in the community when they are fighting to promote gender equity) in order to make their community a better place.

Peace Corps has definitely challenged me in many ways. It's challenged me to live and work in a different society with a different culture with different languages. It's challenged me to rethink the way we as humans (should) live and work together. And in the end, it's taught me that it helps to have a little perspective; a little humility; and to try to see things from someone else's perspective, no matter how hard that may be.

Changes

The rainy season ended a few months ago and we are now moving out of the dry, windy, dusty harmattan season. I think my body is reacting to this change as I am at home this morning with a cold. Soon the oppressive humidity will come back down here in the south. We won’t receive any rainy for about another 4 or 5 months. It will remain dusty as the ground will be dry, but fortunately the red clay that is kicked up and cakes everything around it- including vegetation, cars, buildings, and people, will no longer be as ubiquitous as the constant strong winds of harmattan are all but over.

Along with the climatic changes, other aspects of life in Togo are also changing. After my first few months at post I had the perception that life never changes here, that somehow Togo remained immune to the political, social, and economic changes that were happening all over North and West Africa at the time. It seemed that things hadn’t changed here in decades, and there was no indication that they were going to anytime soon. However, I can now see that Togo is going through its own set of (usually subtle) changes, some gradual while others quite rapid.

The wave of dissension against the government has spread here too. There were recently successful teacher strikes throughout the country. In the north, school was out for nearly a month as teachers fought for an increase in the pay given them that goes towards the provision of school materials for their children. There also have been student protests at the two Togolese universities, the University of Kara and University of Lome. Regular marches of student protesters in the streets of Kara hold up traffic, as I became aware of while coming down from a meeting in the northernmost region of Savannes. Our bus was held up for over an hour in Kara while waiting for the protesters to move off the road. In Lome, student protests have led to pepper spraying by the authorities. Moreover, there have been regular protests by opposition political parties in Lome, one such large protest actually made it onto CNN’s website, a big deal for this tiny, oft-forgotten West African nation.

The termination of the fuel subsidies in Nigeria caused an increase in transport costs in Togo since most of the independent fuel sellers (people with small stands of gas in glass bottles by the side of the road), and many of the larger gas stations too, receive their gas from Nigeria. With the subsequent backlash to the removal of the subsidies in Nigeria, the ousting of President Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire, strikes throughout Benin, and unrest in Burkina Faso, I am getting the feeling that something like an ‘Occupy Togo’ may be on the horizon. West Africa may be the next stop on the wave of revolutionary sentiment that brought about the Arab Spring.

Along with these larger changes nationally, I have also been able to notice huge changes in my village of Agbélouvé since I arrived here in November of 2010. There are now many more boutiques, street restaurants, and other businesses opening up. More and more families are moving to Agbélouvé to send their kids to our schools. The size of our market and the diversity of goods you can find there grow weekly. More and more fonctionnaires (I guess the equivalent would be ‘white collar’ workers in the States) can now be found living and working in Agbélouvé. There is much to be optimistic about here, as I am always finding new people to work with who are committed to girls’ education and promoting gender equity, and are just in general dynamic, motivated, awesome people. The sense of ‘staleness’, of lack of progress, of lack of any kind of perceptible change, that characterized my initial months here is all but gone.

I am excited to see what my second year has in store. I now have several weekly projects going along with a few long term projects as well. I do hour long health and Life Skills sensitizations at the CEG (read: middle-school) twice a week, have a weekly health stand at the market, Peer Educator Club once every 2 weeks, Girls in Science Club once every 2 weeks, Odyssey of the Mind Club once a week (program that includes team challenges to help students think creatively), business class once a week, computer class once a week, and another computer class once every 2 weeks. Long term projects include planning a regional Odyssey of the Mind competition, organizing a gala in Lome to raise funds for the Gender and Development Committee, assisting with the regional Take Our Daughters to Work activities, planning a village science camp, and possibly another Men As Partners (MAP) training with apprentices in Agbélouvé, along with follow-up activities of last year’s MAP training with teachers and working to ensure the sustainability of hand-washing stations that were installed at several schools in Agbelouve last year. Along with these activities, I am also positive other projects will come up to. Although I often still have a lot of free time on my hands, the days of just laying around, staring at the walls and wondering, “What exactly am I supposed to be doing here?!” are over. I have a lot going on and a lot to look forward to. The challenge now will be ensuring the sustainability of the projects and helping the transition for the Volunteer who will be replacing me (that is if they decide to replace me- which I really hope they do).

So I write a post about how we are getting ready for the long dry, hot season and what happens the very next day? We get a heavy rain. Since then however, we have not any type of precipitation at all…Togo never ceases to surprise me.

Speaking of surprises, I had several today….

Fulanis are the most fly, bad-ass, and mysterious people I have come across in my time here Togo. Fulani can normally only be found wandering with their cattle, which rolls dozens deep, for miles upon miles today. However, today seemed to be such an anomaly. I saw 2 Fulanis at the health center, one of whom was getting a shot. I saw others hanging out at the bar (granted not drinking- since they are Muslim, but nonetheless they were there). Then I saw the ones that I had seen at the dispensary bargaining prices to take a bush taxi.

And perhaps the one thing that caught me the most off guard was one actually asked me to help him with his phone. I found it incredible that were all the options on the phone were in his native language. Perhaps even more surprising was that he came up to me to ask for help with turning off the phone alarm.

Here was a young man whose French level barely went beyond “Bonjour, comment ca va?” and whose Ewe probably didn’t even go that far. He was a man, who like me, was living outside of his element. He didn’t speak the language, wasn’t a part of the culture, was very misunderstood by the locals, was not a part of the community. In many ways I identify with these cattle-herding roamers, who are like phantoms just passing through the village. Here for a week or two, and then gone.

Granted, I’m here for 2 years, but no matter how much we talk about being “integrated” into the community, you never quite feel like you have reached the ultimate goal of "going local". You will never completely shed your old self, as much you may feel like a part of the community, the fact is you are an outsider and you are always cognizant of it. Perhaps this is why he felt comfortable asking me to help him, or maybe he just thought I would know how to fix the phone. Regardless, despite the language barrier, I felt inexplicably at ease while ‘communicating’ with him. It seemed he felt the same, as his lack of apprehension approaching me indicated. This was coming from a young man whose people are, almost without fail, silent, mysterious, rough yet shy, seemingly emotionless nomads. There was definitely something going on in this abnormal ephemeral moment.

Or, it’s very possible that I’m just overanalyzing it; as often happens when I often have nothing but my own thoughts to occupy me…