A Whole Year

I just celebrated my year anniversary in Togo and wow does that seem weird. Time here has flown by, yet I feel like I was last in the states lifetimes ago. Its been an insane year, insane in a good way, mostly. Here some random thoughts and anecdotes from my first year. Plus some words of wisdom I have collected from others along the way which I feel pertain to my ability to stay positive

1. We've lost some good people from my training group. We started with 31 people when we arrived in country. Now we are down to 20. I don't think this is a reflection on Peace Corps or Togo. A variety of factors lead to people goin home. Health issues, long-distance relationships, family emergencies, and some probably just didn't have their heart in this from the beginning. There have been a lot of days when I wanted to go home. I've been taunted, bullied and ripped off. I was sick for my first four months. I've lost 40 pounds (but put 13 back on), I had heat rash for a months straight on my entire body, I sweat constantly during the dry season, I've sunburned, had my pocket picked in a market place (but I caught the guy right afterwards), suffered acne breakouts, a motorcycle crash, hallucinations from my malaria medication, and I suspect something called snail fever. When I see all that written out, it looks pretty bad, but here's the weird thing. I laugh at it and I cherish it, because it's all part of the adventure. If life were easy, we would never learn anything from it. Besides, the great times far outnumber the bad; unfortunately, too many people rarely remember that.

"It's the very struggle of life that makes us who we are. And it is our enemies that test us, provide us with the resistance necessary for growth." -The Dalai Lama

"It is when the ice and snow are on them that we see the strength of the cypress and the pine." -Chuang-tse

2. I once had a five minute conversation with my village boutique owner trying to convince him that I am indeed, a white person, and not a "black american," as he thought. When I told him that black Americans look just like Togolese people, he didn't believe me, and when I told him they live all over, amongst white people, he nearly fainted. Easily the funniest conversation I've had here so far. Togo: where being mistaken for black happens. I have also discussed with this man how kids in America also get dirty sometimes and that we do in fact work with our hands (he was convinced machines do everything).

"If I had been as capable of trust as I am of fear I might of learned something new or some truth so very old we have all forgotten it." -Edward Abbey

"He...changed human beings by regarding them not as what they thought they were but as though they were what they wished to be, and that the good in them was all of them." -Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi

3. You get a lot of reading done with no electricity to distract you, so here is a brief list of good stuff. We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. Completely depressing and violent, but rendered me speechless, an important book. Also check out The Village of Waiting by George Packer, about his Peace Corps service in Togo back in the 80's. Both men write for The New Yorker and are very talented journalists. For Non-Africa related reading: The Omnivore's Dilemma, Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Hobbitt and (two which only get better each time I read them) Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey and A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

"The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts." -Blaise Pascal

"Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others." -Jostein Gaarder

4. My village is almost inaccessible by car right now because the roads have gotten so bad due to the rainy season. Here are the statistics from my most recent trip to Pagala:

Distance traveled: 54 kilometers (33 miles)
Duration of journey: 5 hours
Number of times stuck in mud which required getting out and pushing: 3
Number of times car wouldn’t start: 4
Number of times stuck tractor trailer blocked the route: 1
Number of car windows broken: 1
Number of times car fish-tailed back and forth through the mud: 23
Number of kilometers walked because car was too heavy to make it through certain sections: 2

Five hours to go 33 miles. I arrived in Pagala sun-burned, dirty and pissed-off, but there were two birthday packages waiting for me from the U.S. The rest of the day I ate Skippy peanut butter while reading Esquire magazine, making the trip totally worth it.

"The one great glory of traveling is that hardship is always redeemed by commotion recollected in tranquility." -Pico Iyer

"The only aspect of our travel that is guaranteed to hold an audience is disaster." -Martha Gellhorn

5. Work update: I recently planted a bunch of tomatoes in anticipation of the end of rainy season. Overall, I give my garden a grade of a C for this year. It was a bit of a learning experience but I had some success. I got some people interested in planting new vegetables and next year hope to go even bigger, planting more and showing more modernized farming techniques with a demonstration field. I just distributed all my moringa trees to people in my village. Hopefully, by the time I leave, most of the village will have the trees in their compounds. Their leaves are great for infants fighting malnourishment and their seeds can be used to purify water. It's a bit of a miracle tree. My sunflower campaign was semi-successful. I wasn't able to harvest the seeds very well. Their was way too much rain. I'm going to try again though this fall when the rain lets up. And some people are interested in planting them next year.

"To him who dwells not in himself, the forms of things reveal themselves as they are. He moves like water, reflects like a mirror, responds like an echo. His lightness makes him seem to disappear. Still as a clear lake, he his harmonious in his relations with those around him, and remains so through profit and loss. He does not precede others, but follows them instead." Chuang-tse

5. Many people I have met here, American and Togolese, have been nothing short of amazing. I am lucky to have met all of them. While everyone's service is different, sometimes drastically, we volunteers all share many of the same moments, highs and lows, language and cultural barriers and many times we can't get through it without eachother. Often, we only need someone to laugh with, or complain to, and for that they have quickly become like family, and I will be perpetually thankful. I also get through tough times in village with the generosity of my Togolese neighbors. Whether it be when they give me hearty servings of watchee or koliko, or when they take me on a trip across the village because they know I like to see dead snakes, their hospitality is truly under-rated.

"I have three treasures,which I guard and keep. The first is compassion. The second is economy. The third is humility. From compassion comes courage. From economy comes the means to be generous. From humility comes responsible leadership." -Lao-Tse

And finally thank you to the readers who follow my adventures. I have had comments written from friends, family and complete strangers all across the country. So Thank You Portland, Missoula, Tacoma, Seattle, Sacramento, Fort Collins, St James Hospital in Chicago Illinois, and to all the rest. It's comforting to know you are all thinking of me. At night when I lay on my bench and look up at the Milky Way streaking across the sky and disappearing behind my house, I think of all of you too.

"If it's a clear night, we can see millions, even billions of years back into the history of the universe. So in a way, we are going home.....we are trying to find the way back to ourselves." Jostein Gaarder

"Then along comes the journalist who has a license to explain things he doesn't understand." Bill Moyers