The joy of work

So I wrote this post last month and when I was frustrated with work here. I’m cool now and guess what, Chelsea won the Champions League last night! Drogba saved them at the end of the second half then again with the very last penelty kick!

At the end of March I participated in a polio vaccination campaign. It was three days of community health workers going around house to house to vaccinate kids under five and also give them vitamin A and albendezol. Then there were three days of evaluation. During those three days people were sent up from Lome to all the different regions to collect data on how many kids were actually vaccinated and how the overall campaign went. I followed them around from village to village to act as a third party to see how they worked and if their results were truly accurate of the campaign.

A few weeks later in mid April I was down in Lome at WHO’s bureau with other volunteers to talk about the campaign and how we felt it went and what could be improved. Of course there were the usual comments like how the community health workers never accurately track the number of people vaccinated (meaning they lie just to show they did a good job). I’ve learned to never trust any health statistics from now seeing firsthand how they are collected.

Something very shocking was revealed to us volunteers at this meeting. It was when we were going over the final budget for the campaign to see where all the money went. In total it was around $700,000 to hold this national campaign. WHO paid around half and UNICEF paid around half. The budget showed that the Togolese government only paid just under 3% which comes out to around $20,000. And it was for ‘brieffing des ECD/ECR’. Don’t really know what that means but it’s probably just made up. We aren’t at the shocking part yet, it’s still coming.

Well, when we saw how little a contribution the state was actually giving we asked why and explained how even when we do our small Peace Corps funded projects we still need at least 25% community contribution. That’s when the WHO representatives told us that in actuality the government hadn’t paid anything, not a single cent! WHO had to make up that 3% contribution just to satisfy funders who actually look at the final report. Not only is it terrible that the host country wont contribute at all to taking care of citizens basic health needs, but they even signed an agreement along with many other West African countries in Benin a few years back pledging to put 15% of the government’s total annual budget to public health(meaning Togo’s ministry of health). Yet today the ministry of health only gets 7%, and I’m pretty sure no one has any idea how much of that actually makes it down to any of the health programs.

One could argue that the government gave human resources through the health workers used, yet each person in this campaign got paid by either WHO or UNICEF. They weren’t doing it for the well-being of the community, but instead to get paid. A friend of mine who supervised the campaign in Sotouboua got a per-diem from WHO and was suppose to get reimbursed by the state for transport. He’s still waiting for the transport reimbursement.

And it’s not like WHO can sanction Togo and not do the polio campaign. First because they don’t have any power like that and second because we are still next to Niger where polio is endemic, so if kids weren’t getting vaccinated cases would definitely start popping up in Togo again. The problem is if you talk to anyone in the ministry of health they will probably say they did contribute and that the campaign was successful, just look at the statistics and look at the final report showing their 3% contribution.

Just another form of the general mentality I see here, where change supposedly only comes from handouts from the outside world. I’m tired of people always complaining to me about how “Ici au Togo, on souffre. Donc il faut me donner quelque chose.” Dude, one is suffering because you’re just waiting around for someone else to come around and improve your country for you.

I understand that when you work for a ministry here you are entitled to a nice life with a nice car and maybe enough money to build a few houses, but can you at least share some of that money with the programs it was intended to go towards? You couldn’t even contribute $1 for a national campaign.

Stomping Out Malaria in Africa

April 25th is World Malaria Day. A day to get everyone on board with stomping out malaria around the world. It’s scary to think that malaria is currently the biggest killer over here in Africa, and that it’s also one of the top reasons many kids never make it to their 5th birthdays.

Here in Togo I’ve seen the effects of malaria, like with the kids in my very own compound ending up sick and luckily being taken to the hospital for treatment before it was too late. I also know a few volunteers who have ended up getting it. It is not a pretty sight seeing someone having to take a three day regiment of Coartem to recover.

I’ve spent quite some time doing work on malaria prevention in Sotouboua. Like there was last December when I went around different neighborhoods collecting data on mosquito net distribution and use. We checked ten households in each neighborhood, with households differing from just a single person to a husband with his seven wives and thirty kids. I was happy to find that the majority of people did actually use a mosquito net, yet many didn’t have any/enough or just didn’t use them! A response I often got when asking if they had a net was ‘yes we have our net set up right now’. So I’d say ‘alright, let’s see it’. That’s when they would suddenly remember it actually wasn’t set up at that moment because they were washing it (the major excuse). I did this with a few hospital workers so we had the chance to educate and motivate everyone in the neighborhoods to use their nets, and if they didn’t have them to go to the hospital and buy one! The info we collected went to a national survey to find out the reality of mosquito net use in Togo.

Another thing I’ve been up to is talking to pregnant women and recent mothers at the hospital’s weekly baby weighing and vaccination sessions on malaria prevention. Each Tuesday the hospital holds a session where mothers come with their babies to weigh them so we can see if they are developing correctly and aren’t malnourished. We also vaccinate the babies and pregnant women too. My main role here is recording in the registry which babies and pregnant women were vaccinated and with which vaccination. I also take turns with the workers in doing health presentations to all the mothers. The topics range from the awesomeness of moringa to transmission of HIV from mother to child. Guess what we’ve been talking about this month… malaria prevention! Hopefully since these ladies care enough about their children’s health to get them weighed and vaccinated, they’ll also listen to what we say about using nets, getting rid of stagnant water, and using neem lotion. If you don’t know about neem lotion as a malaria preventative then look it up!

So this is a little bit of what I’ve been up to with malaria, but what can you do. How will you stomp out malaria in 2012? I know most people reading this don’t having to worry about malaria directly affecting them, but you can still help the millions of others that are affected by it. There are so many organizations out there fighting malaria, so seriously do a google search and see how you can get involved. One good place to start is stompoutmalaria.org.

Meeting people over Tchouck

I met a really interesting guy this past Sunday while hanging out at a tchouk stand. It was Losso tchouk, not as good as Kabiye tchouk, but I could deal with it. Well, this guy was a shoemaker working here in Sotouboua. He originally came from Ghana and had come over to Togo three months ago. He had been to Togo once before and worked in the town of Atakpame but had to go back to Ghana when his brother died.

This one Ghanaian shoemaker told me about how he really liked to travel and how he had made it all around Ghana, Burkina, Nigeria and up to Libya. It was in Libya where he found himself working in a plastics factory for Gaddafi’s cousin just outside of Tripoli. He said this was around 2002 and apparently there were plenty of westerners there. He said he saw a lot of Americans too. He also had a side job there of making alcohol. Even though it’s a muslim country people weren’t too strict to their faith and he could make a decent income providing boozes for everyone. This is a job mainly for Ghanaians and Nigerians, that’s what he said.

After some time there he headed out west to Morocco and climbed Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa. Then he got his hands on a fake Moroccan passport and headed for Spain by boat. Unfortunately Spain’s border patrol caught him before he could make it to land. He was then put in a Spanish refugee camp. He tried staying by claiming asylum. His family back home was part of the Dagbon family in northern Ghana that had some issues back in the early 2000s. The problem there, according to him, is that there ends up being so many brothers with the same fathers but different mothers. This causes trouble when it’s time for a new chief to come into power and sometimes leads to violence and people dying. All because guys have a bunch of kids with a bunch of different ladies. Just wrap it up people!

He was in Spain in 2006 and much of the political unrest had cooled down back home so the Spaniards weren’t buying his asylum and sent him back to Ghana. That’s when he decided to settle down, start a family and become a shoemaker. So now he’s here in Togo, trying to make money through shoes to send back to his wife and kids in Ghana.

Camp ScientiFILLE 2012

Hey everyone, I’m currently organizing Camp ScientiFILLE, a summer camp for Togolese teachers and students dedicated to encouraging Togolese girls to succeed in the sciences. The project is funded through donations and community contribution, so please check it out. If you’re planning on giving money to a cause this year we’d really appreciate your support. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about ScientiFILLE, so please feel free to ask.

Here’s the link to our project: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=693-391

Thanks!

A blog post on trash

A little less than a year ago I was in a meeting with all the town authorities, neighborhood chiefs, and directors and coordinators of the local major associations. I was up on a stage sitting at a table along with my friend Attisso, the mayor, the mayor au-joint, and the prefet(he’s like the guy who runs the county I live in). There were around sixty or so people and we were giving a presentation on our idea to put together a trash collection system in our town of Sotouboua. I remember the head chief of Sotouboua(a little old man who doesn’t speak any French) saying that this was something necessary and we needed to start today. I also remember the head of the hospital’s health and sanitation department saying how terrible the idea was and that it was never going to work. Even the prefet, the guy sitting up at the table with us, said this didn’t seem like a good idea. Why were some people so skeptical of this? I think it had to do with the serious lack of trust everyone has in each other. Maybe they saw this as some front just for a few people to make money, as is the case with many ‘community’ projects here in Togo. Yet some people, like the chiefs really wanted to see this happen.

Yesterday we just had another meeting with all the major people in our town. Over a hundred people were there and we were doing a presentation on the first six months of our project. After the presentation we had everyone saying how great the project was. Even the head of the hospital’s hygiene and sanitation department stood up to say he really appreciated all the work that was done and that he would want to help in any way he could. We even had people from the national news there to cover it! I had people like the director of PLAN come up to thank me afterwards.

This has probably been the best thing I’ve done in Togo(talking about work), and the thing I’ve put the most time into since being here. So this is a door-to-door trash collection program that, as of the end of December, covers 723 households. It started out as nothing but an idea between me, my old sitemate, and our friend Attisso. Now it is something that I believe will continue even after I’m gone.

This project has just had so many different parts to it. It started out with us going house to house talking to everyone getting them into the idea of paying a monthly fee and having someone collect their trash. It took a lot of convincing and we still have many people who aren’t into it. They rather just burn their trash or dump it out on the road.

We also did announcements throughout town and on the radio looking for people who wanted to work as collectors. The collectors were chosen through actual interviews that selected people based on their experience and comprehension, not on who they knew or who they were related to (as is often the case here).

Some pretty sweet push carts were put together to actually collect the trash in, and the mayor’s office selected areas on the outskirts of town to use as intermediary landfills. Registration cards were made and handed out to all the residence who joined in the program.

We decided to only cover the center major neighborhoods, because covering the whole town would be too much to start out with. Each household in the program would pay a monthly fee of 200 FCFA. They would get their trash collected twice a week.

Once all this was put in place the actual work began on August 1^st 2011. I was so scared all of it was going to fall apart at any second, but we made it through the first day ok. Then we even made it through the second day. It actually continued, even though I was still bracing myself for when it would just stop.

We have had many issues come up, but it seems we can always find a solution to them. Plus we have had local help, such as a contribution from a local construction firm that has helped fund the construction of new and improved trash collection carts, and now the ministry of development is looking into how it can help fund the program so it can expand.

I’d have to say this whole thing has been set up kinda like a business, expect that the people on top, (me and Attisso) make no financial gain. Yet we have a bunch of clients now (the households), who pay to get their trash collected). This money goes to paying the trash collectors, repairs, and new material. It is awesome knowing I’ve created employment in a place where every day I hear there is no work.

Also, we have put such a good structure in place that when I leave and when Attisso moves (which will be in around September) this thing will keep on keeping on. I even had my boss tell me this has the potential to continue 25 or 30 years after I leave. That is something great to hear when everything else you see around you is falling apart.

Well, this meeting we had the other day was to present how our project has grown. We showed how many households we began with and where we are now with it. We talked about difficulties faced and how we want to expand in the future. We also showed how much money was collected each month, money received from local donations, and all the expenses for each month. I think everyone really like the transparence and could actually see this was a program put in place for the community and not for someone to make money.

Plus we presented some pretty cool ideas that will totally help clean up Sotouboua and help finance the project. The first one is sponsored trash cans. Any business or association can pay to have a trash can installed in a public place in town. This can also include in front of their establishment. What they get from this is their logo put on the trash can and the good feeling of helping out Sotouboua. We already had some people saying they want to do this. Another thing is creating a special group for people who contribute a certain sum to the project. Those in the group get a shout out any time we do anything on the radio or in the community with publicizing the program. They get to show off to others how much they care about their community by being part of the group and help keep the program going with their contribution.

I’ve done a lot since I’ve been here in Togo. I don’t know if I can say this has been the most rewarding(since I’ve done some many different awesome things, but in the top 3 for sure!), but I feel like this might be the cap stone project for my service. The funny thing is I still have a few more months with a bunch of other stuff to do!

Super Awesome Christmas Special

Most of today was spent riding up country with a box of 1440 condoms, plus some posters. This box was carried from the Peace Corps bureau to a gare (it means station in French. I probably could of just said station and made this easier, but too bad, I’m making you learn some French… gare) that has taxis going up to Tsevie. After an hour ride up to Tsevie I found myself on the side of the road with a guy discussing how much I should pay for a bush taxi from Tsevie to Sotouboua. This guy was supposed to be helping me get a car to go up north. The box full of condoms and my backpack full of clothes were resting on the side of the road. I was resting on a makeshift bench, which was resting on top of a grave. In this cemetery on the side of the road I was trying to tell this guy I wanted to get a car up north for 2 mille 5 hundred.
“The tariff is 4 mille 5 hundred,” he said to me, which was an obvious lie because the price to Sotouboua from Lomé is suppose to be 4 mille 4 hundred, and this was a slightly shorter distance. “You can afford that can’t you,” giving a not so subtle hint to the color of my skin.
“Do you not see how I’m traveling?” Pointing out myself, a not so clean guy traveling with just a box and a bag, sitting in a cemetery, bargaining for what is about 4 dollars difference.
“Alright, I can give it to you for 3 mille.”
“Thanks”, happy I didn’t end up having to pay the foreigner’s price! Plus, seeing as I make around 3 mille 5 hundred a day I still technically had 5 hundred to eat with!
Two days before this I was in a town called Kpalime celebrating Christmas. I had saved up so I was treating myself to some amazing food. For the two nights there we (me and some other PCVs) went out to a restaurant owned by Belgian people (this means that the food was delicious). Some things that touched my palate during the course of these courses were French (Flemish?) fries with mayonnaise, chicken curry, pizza, and Belgian wheat ale. Christmas was topped off by a swim in a pool at the hotel we were staying at.
The hotel was pretty nice too. We all stayed in one big hotel room the first night. The second night we found ourselves split into two rooms because of an electrical fire that had started with the AC switch in the first room. That’s right, we splurged for AC.
The night before Kpalime I was in Adeta. This was the 23rd and Adeta is a village just a little east of Kpalime. I was staying at another volunteer’s place and him, me, and two other volunteers. This is Ewe land. And Ewe is a language I don’t understand, so I feel lost about 65% of the time I’m there. They had edible food and we spent a lot of the day listening to music, sharing crazy Togo experiences, and somehow ended up watching a show called Archer.
The day before that I was in my sweet Kabyie-speaking town of Sotouboua. And that’s where I am now with my box of condoms and posters. They’ll be used later this month when I do a health workshop with guys in my community, and I’ll be talking a bunch on family planning (aka wrap it up).
I was down in Lome to pick this box up from PSI and check that a check had arrived from Washington to fund my project. Well, everything with the project is going smoothly and Christmas was a nice adventure. New Years I’ll be staying at my site. Most of the town heads out to the town center for a day of dancing, so that’s where I’ll be!

Ok then.

Working with an AIDS association is hard. At least now there’s medication readily available for these people living with HIV. Well, I wouldn’t say readily available, but it is there at the hospital most of the time. I don’t understand why these people are stuck taking a cocktail of medicine that they have to make sure to take a bunch of times a day when there are much better regiments out there. Actually, I do understand why, it’s because I’m in a country most people have never heard of and I don’t think most people really care about poor people.

I helped out with running this national camp over the summer for kids affected by HIV. Some kids had family who had HIV and some of them had the virus. It was a fun camp and a few of the kids there came from my town of Sotouboua. One boy who we nominated for the camp couldn’t make it because he got sick last minute so his little brother ended up going instead. The brother had a great time along with all the others there. After the camp I travelled a little bit before heading back to Sotouboua. It was just a little trip to see parts of the country I never saw before. Anyways, when I got back I found out that the boy we originally wanted to go to the camp had died. This was a boy I saw all the time and who came out every month to the association’s kids club. The following kids club we all went to the parent’s house to give our condolences. He was only 11. Life here gets really sad sometimes.

There is this girl that moved here from Lome back in August around the same time I got here. She moved back to her parents because she has HIV and couldn’t take care of herself down in Lome anymore. So she joined the association here and when I first saw her I saw a young, beautiful twenty-something with lots of energy and super happy. She was at the hospital the other day and it was just awful. I’ve seen her at the hospital many times before, along with others when they pick up their meds or have consultations with the HIV specialists. I remember seeing her there one time and she was really worried because she only had one dose of her ARVs left and the doctor wasn’t there to give her more. So I helped out by tracking down the right guy in town to get her the meds. These people are really awesome and I try and help when I can. Well back to the last time I saw her, she was sitting on a bench waiting at the hospital. I go up all smiles, happy to see her, and expecting to get the same reaction reciprocated. But this time she just looks super scared and so I instantly get scared. I say hi and ask what’s up. She just sits and looks at me and says she is really sick. Her mom’s next to her and says they’re waiting for the doctor. I see that her hands are just trembling. Like, uncontrollably. I still don’t know what to do/say so I ask what she has. She says she doesn’t know and continues to tremble. I say I’ll go out and find the doctor and head off. How is it when I first saw this 23 year old she was so happy and full of life and now she is like this little curled up ball of fear. I go around asking for the doctor and people eventually get the message to him. I go back to her and she starts to stand up to go see the doctor. She can’t even slip her own sandals on her feet because even her feet are shaking too much. Her mom does it for her. This is when I get weak and selfish, say good bye and get the hell out of there. I spent the rest of the day in my house with lurking thoughts of how unfair life is. Why am I going back in a year to a place that has everything, and I have friends who will stay here, get sick and die.

When I was in Senegal I was relaxing in a hotel room watching music videos, trying to catch up on my pop culture. A Lil Wayne video came on. Not sure how new or old it is. Anyways, it was about this girl who starts life all innocent, ends up having a semi-hard life and gets HIV. It is supposed to be sad, but all I thought was why is that chick worrying, she’s in America (I was also thinking why did Lil Wayne have a guitar next to him in the video, does he play? It was acoustic too. Why did he have an acoustic guitar when there wasn’t one in the song?). Probably not the right thing to be thinking. I know there is still a big problem with stigmatism and you have to change a lot of habits over there, but it’s hard to compare with what people go through here. There are just so many resources and information for people in the US.

amigos!

I wrote this at the end of september but just got around to putting it up.

Below I made a helpful guide for anyone interested in doing a marathon over in this part of the world.

Steps to running a marathon is Sub-Saharan Africa

Step 1: Don’t do it.

Just kidding, maybe this is a little too harsh. I’m really glad I did it and it is an awesome feeling of accomplishment! Yet, I have never been so tired in my life or hot or maybe even dehydrated. I’m sure later on I’ll be looking back and be like ‘hell yeah, I was so badass.’ I was feeling really happy the rest of the day after the race. It was probably the endorphins. The next couple days I was just sore. But seriously, if anyone wants to run in Ghana the Accra International Marathon will be happening again next year, and if I can do it so can you!

Two days before the race I took the GMAT which is a standardized test for people wanting to go do certain graduate school. I did really well on it! Both the race and test were over in Ghana. I ate so well over there! They have fast food!

Now I’m back over here in Togo. Life is back to normal. There is a fete happening for yams. The harvest just happened so the whole town is singing, dancing, and eating all weekend long. There are so many yams right now that the price is so cheap. You can make so much foufou for next to nothing!

There is less than one year left for me in this place. It is so weird to be counting down my time here since I just spent the past year counting up. Many fun times, hard times, and all sorts of other times with even more times to come. Does that make sense… don’t try to think about it too hard. I have many close volunteer friends who will be leaving and it is kinda sad. They did their two years so now it’s time to peace out of Peace Corps. More newbies are in Togo going through training down south. They’ll be coming up in late November so I’ll have some new volunteer friends. Speaking of friends, I really like some people here in Sotouboua. It has taken some time to find real friends, but I have people who I really like hanging out with. It takes a while to differentiate who is there to be friends because of who you are and who wants to be friends just because of the color of your skin.

I have Attisso who is a major part of this trash collection project. His is one of the most motivated guys I have ever met, an uber hard worker. He works at the hospital and really cares about the well-being of the community. We have spent so much time doing baby weighing, home visits in town, and everything with trash collection. Plus after a hard day’s work he’s always down for a beer.

Another guy is Chris. He is a local singer and we share a sense of adventure. He just got back from logging over in northern Ghana. Next month he’ll be heading over to Nigeria for six months for some other type of work. I asked him why he travels all over to work, when he can just as easily stay in Sotouboua, and he responded with because he needs to see what’s out there. I can totally understand that.

Daniel the bee farmer. If you want the best honey in Togo, you go to this guy. He also happens to be one of the nicest guys in Togo. He has a place to stay here in Sotouboua, but is really from a small village just outside of here. We have spent so much time just hanging out, talking about honey and everything else you can do with bees. It is awesome seeing a guy who is so into what he does. And he’s the guy who taught me the small bit of Kabiye I know and is always willing to explain bizarre cultural stuff to me.

Atcha is my official homolog. He has been with me from the start. We have done so much together and I know I can count on him for anything. He is always really busy, but will make sure to take some time to stop by every couple weeks just to see how I am. He has a wife over in another town, Sokode, and has just recently become a dad, so this has brought him to a whole other level of responsibility. He really gets me and understands that it isn’t always easy living in a totally different culture.

This isn’t a list of everyone, just a few who are at the top.

Pig skin is crunchy

I am really full right now. Just got done eating a bunch of pâte; a staple in the Togolese diet. I ate it with a sauce made from baobab leaves, which I’m told is a traditional Kabyie sauce. Pâte is supposed to be a traditional meal here, but I don’t feel comfortable calling it that because it is made from corn. And everyone knows corn came from the Americas. Yet I can’t imagine a Togo without corn and especially without its pâte. People would probably starve, seriously!
Are there other countries outside of the Americas with traditional meals made of corn too? It is crazy to think this grain has spread so far and wide that you have entire foreign(in corn’s perspective) cultures claiming it plays a key role in their societies. The good ol’ US of A is still the number one producer of corn, but second place goes to China. This is one global grain! Is there anywhere people don’t eat corn?
Ok, I’m not going to devote this whole post to corn. I just started a book called Shogun, not too far into it yet, so far all that has happened was people were lost at sea, people die of scurvy, people find land, more people die and there are samurais (plus some more details here and there). It’s been so good so far.
I’ve also been running a lot. There is a marathon next month in Ghana and I’ll be one of around 25 Togo PCVs running in it. Actually, not everyone is doing the full. There’s also the half marathon, but for some crazy reason I signed up for the full. Well, my training has been going on since April and I’m feeling pretty confident that I won’t past out from exhaustion on race day. I do a lot of running around Sotouboua. There are a few good routes that lead to the villages surrounding the town. They are easy, as in not too uneven, and the people out on there don’t really bother me that much. It use to be frustrating when I was running in town and people would being yelling ‘anasara’(le blanc) at me or the kids would be asking me for money. Why are people so much more chill in the small villages than they are in town?
At the beginning of the month I found myself streaking agar plates, something I haven’t done since I was a lab rat. I was at a science camp for girls and we were teaching the kids about microbiology. One volunteer got agar mix and plates sent over, and I had a few beakers and flasks sent over(thanks for all who helped with that!). Making agar plates was pretty fun and really interesting, considering we were using a charcoal stove to heat everything up and 2 giant basins as a makeshift autoclave. We had all the kids touch a plate and then wash their hands and touch another plate. I then spent some time streaking random things, like a basketball, toilet seat, door knobs, and river water. The next day the kids were really excited and only a little grossed out to see how dirty the world really is!
Ok, I think I’ve brought up enough random subjects for one post so I’ll stop it now. I’ll leave with talking bit more about the meal I just ate, it had pig in it. The meat part wasn’t too rough, but the skin was just crunchy.

Just saying what I’m up to tomorrow

Here is my plan for tomorrow. Wake up around 5am and hopefully be dressed and ready to head out the door around 5:45. At 6am a group of guys I trained as ‘community health agents’ are going to be doing a presentation at a local mosque, so I got to be there to show my support. I did this training back in May and for the past two months it has been me running a bunch of activities in the community with them. But they are finally becoming independent and are going to lead an activity tomorrow. I don’t really know what it is or what they will talk about. But I’ll be there to show my support.

After that I’ll be at the mayor’s office at 7:30am to start up with the trash collection project. This whole week has involved us going around the neighborhoods and registering all the households. So I’ll be there to see that the work gets done. Then after that, sometime before 12, I have to stop by this one guy’s place to translate some English into French. He runs an organization that is sponsored by Togo’s US embassy and they sent him some documents in English.
I’ll then do a lot of running around town making sure things are in order of this trash project. This Saturday we are doing a city wide trash clean up day. It actually hasn’t been as hard to organize as I had imagined.

Hopefully the rest of the day I’ll be free to do whatever I want. I am almost finished with this book, “Hundred Years of Solitude”. It is awesome. Maybe I’ll study some french too(no promises). I also have a bunch of these morringa plants growing in my yard and I need to find a permanent home for them. I’ll try finding to some farmers tomorrow to see if they have any extra space where I can put these things.

I killed a mouse last night. I am at an all out war with these pests! I got the one last night with a classic mouse trap. I just put a small smoked fish head down and laid the trap in the kitchen. This morning I woke up to see the trap turned upside down and a small tail sticking out underneath it. I set the trap again for tonight and hopefully another one will bit the dust. I’ll also be getting a kitten soon, and maybe one day he’ll turn into one lean mean mouse killing machine. I had a cat when I first got to post, but unfortunately he passed away (due to another volunteer’s dog).

I have free unlimited internet for a week thanks to another volunteer letting me borrow his satellite internet modem. So maybe I’ll be posting more stuff later in the week.