The Wedding

About thirty or forty volunteers descended upon Agou Nyogbo, my training village, this past weekend for a volunteer wedding. Two second year volunteers were doing the whole traditional Togolese wedding. It was a pretty awesome time and a huge party! We all drank too much sodobe, which is distilled palm wine, resembles grain alcohol, and tastes like silver polish. (Although after being given a shot of gin the same night, after a side by side comparison, I've concluded that gin is still worse). We all paraded from the groom's house to the bride's house and all had a big ceremony/dance party in the process.

Of course, getting to the wedding meant traveling in a bush taxi. I was at least traveling with other american volunteers making it more bearable, but some problems still arise. Because I am tall drivers like to put me in the front seat of a five seater. But there aren't just five people put in these automobiles, sometimes seven or eight or even nine people get to squeeze in, and for hours on end! My favorite position would have to be sitting on the emergency brake straddling the clutch. Every time the driver shifts he briefly gropes my inner thigh. First Third and Fifth gear aren't as bad, but when he puts in second or fourth, the stick trembles dangerously close to my....um..."special" area. (I pray to god he never has to put it in reverse). Basically, a bush taxi ride becomes one giant invasion of personal space. Add that to the fact that I constantly lose feeling in my legs which makes me immediately fall over upon exiting the vehicle. Plus I often have to dodge poop and pee from the crying infants nestled against my shoulder while the goat behind "baaah's" in my ear every five seconds, and am constantly fearful of breakdowns, potholes, jagged metal corners digging into my butt and lingering near my temple, and the possibility of a fatal head-on collision because my idiot driver keeps passing trucks on blind curves. Good times.

Here are a few pictures from the wedding and one other, the computer is running slow today so this is it for now.
My village, Kamina, in the distance
Yep. My face is lookin a bit thinner nowadays.

The parade of people

My friends dancing in the parade. I was shakin my thang as well, of course.

The bride, there in the middle

Here are a few pictures from the wedding and a few more from village.

The Groom

Some other updates and random thoughts:

~I went to the hospital to test my stool last week. I was fairly positive I had parasites but the results were negative, so I guess my body just hates me. It might be because I am eating more with neighbors and the Togolese cook with A LOT of oil. But it's so good. Black Eyed Peas with red oil and onions and gari (which is crush manioc and resembles grape nuts, added to the beans for crunch and flavor) Hmmm, plus Watchee is good, which is the rice and bean combo, with oil and onion, and crushed red pepper. Or rice with peanut sauce (with oil and onion of course) is another good meal.

~I ate something strange a fee weeks ago. In french, it was called 'la goutie' which doesn't exist in any french/english dictionary I have found, but from the description my friends in village gave me, it sounds like some sort of prairie dog/ground hog. Anyway it was really good and the meat quite tender.

~I am going to begin a world map project for the students. Kids don't have maps of the world to look at so I am going to paint a huge world map mural on the side of the school to teach them about geography. It should be a cool project and I hope the kids get into it and help out a lot.

~I have been selected as an editor for our publication called "Farm to Market." It is the Peace Corps Volunteer created Newsletter that circulates around the country and other countries in West Africa. Volunteers submit stories to it and it comes out once a quarter. So three other editors and I get to go to Lome once a quarter for a few days to put together the publication so that should be a lot of fun, and our whole trip is reimbursed, so we can live it up in Lome.

~Living in Africa makes you totally redefine "healthy" and "sanitary." Am I healthy? Well sure by Togo standards. Is that meat on a stick sanitary? I'm buying it from a man cooking over a fire in an old oil drum. I'm sure I won't regret eating this later. It is pretty funny to evaluate how your standards change after being here for awhile. There are only so many precautions one can take. Besides, street food tastes goooood. And I need my protein.

~Thank You to all who have sent letters, packages and anything else. It means a lot. I hope I receive them all but unfortunately it is inevitable that a few will be "lost" to the Togolese postal service