Updates and end of service

Hey everyone, hope all is going well back in the US. Considering I haven't updated this thing since May, it is in much need of an update. So here goes...


In early June, I finished the Plan of Action for the village. It took a few more weeks of typing and trying to get the workers to actually finish it but it is finally done and printed. It was a big load off my mind to be finished with that since it had been such an overwhelming process.


Also in early June, the new training group of health volunteers arrived to Togo. The person who replaced me was in that group. I came down to Lome for a party that a bunch of older volunteers threw for them. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to see some fresh faces.


On June 24Th the funding for the health clinic project finally arrived in my bank account. It was down to the wire but it finally came in. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED!!!! Between that day and July 25Th, all of purchases were made and most of the work was finished. I didn't really understand what it would be like handling a project like that but it turned into me being a contractor. Not exactly what I signed up for when I joined the Peace Corps. I literally had to run around every day to several stores and even go multiple times into Kara to get all of the construction supplies. One cost I did not consider was transport of supplies which ended up being really expensive. It was difficult trying to handle all aspects of the project including the carpenters, the masons, the painters, the plumbers, the water company, the development committee... I did not get much sleep that month. But I am very proud of the work everyone in my village did. I am sure they have never worked so hard in their lives considering I was forcing them to do three months worth of work in two weeks. It was more about efficiency than anything. Togolese are not very good about time management and getting things done quickly. But they did it!


Another thing that was really stressful was having to get all the paperwork done and making sure that all the money being spent was being accounted for. People in my village didn't really understand that concept and the fact that I wasn't going to bed until 11 to 12 at night every night because I was staying up working on paperwork. They had no concept of money management for a large budget project. I could have made sure that someone else in the village understood what I was doing to learn but because I was on such a tight time frame, I just didn't have the energy.


One July 19Th my replacement arrived to post for the week. Her name is Brittany and she is from Texas. She is great. She was really excited to start work and was really happy that I had a lot of work already ready for her to do from day one. I introduced her to everyone in village who I worked with or who I am friends with so she will know people in town. Everyone was excited to meet her but also said to learn that I was leaving soon. On that Friday, all of the new trainees and old volunteers from my region got together and had a party. We had a pig roast. It was really good. And it was nice to meet the new people.


The night after the party, I took the bus down to Lome and that night I flew to Morocco to meet my dad for vacation. I lost my cell phone the night before I left which was annoying. But Morocco was AMAZING!!!! We both arrived at the Casablanca Airport around the same time and went to get our rental car. My dad was nervous about the heat so he wanted to have a car with A/C. But in the end it was so nice to have because we got to see a lot more and I didn't mind have a car all to ourselves. I am used having to share an overloaded car everywhere I go so a car with just to two of use and with A/C was just heaven. So the first daywe drove down to El Jadida. It is a beach town for Moroccans and there were tons of people there. It was a bit strange seeing so many Moroccans walking around in bathing suits and shorts. When I picture a Muslim country I don't think swim wear. But the beach was really nice. There was even a fair with rides and a bandstand with musicians performing. It honestly looked like Coney Island. We were both really tired from the trip so we went to bed early the first night.


The next morning we drove down to Agidir which is like a French resort town. My dad booked us to stay at the Club Med because he felt that I needed to be pampered, which I really did need. Well anyways, it was amazing. Our room literally had rose petals everywhere. Even in the toilet. It was beautiful! When you stay at a Club Med, everything is included, food, drinks, tips everything. There was a huge buffet at every meal full of food I haven't been able to eat for two years. I especially liked the bacon at breakfast and the cheese buffet. It was so yummy. The resort was right on the beach and there was a pool. The whole beach had a wide boardwalk going down the beach so locals and tourist could walk on the beach. While I was there I also got a massage to top it off. It was a little awkward to stay there though because it seemed like all of the other guests had received information before they arrived telling them about all the events going on and the attire they needed to bring. Every night was a different theme and you were supposed to dress according to the color scheme. So one night was black and white night but Pop and I had absolutely nothing of those colors. I mean white is not the color you think to bring when going to Africa. We both stuck out a bit not dressing the way we supposed to. It was nice to here proper french to be spoken instead of 'pied noir'. It was also strange having staff be so helpful and polite. Serving a guest is not one of the high points of Togo. They don't understand than the client is always correct and making a stay as pleasant as possible. Togolese are always right even when they are dead wrong. But Club Med people, perky as hell and always ready to help.


We also went to McDonald's one night that was located on the boardwalk. We both got McFlurrys which were amazing. There were so many locals just hanging out there which was interesting to see. There was also a fair with rides but they weren't running. It was strange to see garbage cans and people cleaning up the streets after being in Togo. There is no such thing concept in Togo. People just throw garbage on the ground and is never cleaned up so there are just piles of garbage everywhere and then people go to bathroom on those piles of garbage. Really gross. So Morocco was a breath of fresh air, literally.


We stayed in Agidir for two nights. We continued on to Marrakesh. That was a long drive. We drove through the mountains which was really pretty. But it was interesting to see that everywhere we went the road was paved and there was electricity everywhere and there were lots of western supplies available in every small town. You have to go all the way to the capital to get anything in Togo. I did keep saying to my dad that I couldn't really understand why Peace Corps was still in Morocco when it is so developed. But then again, we didn't go into the really small towns where I am sure there are still problems. Pop said it was nothing like it was when he was a volunteer there in 1973 to 1976.


So we got to Marrakesh in the afternoon and we checked into the Club Med there. We stayed there because when my dad was a volunteer in Marrakesh, he and his fellow volunteers had always said they wanted to stay there and swim in the pool. He finally got the opportunity 32 years later. It was not as nice as the prior resort but it was still nice. Some how it ended up being the same price to have two rooms instead one so we each had our own rooms. My room was on the top floor of the hotel and looked out over the Ja maal fina, the market place. It was interesting to see how it changes throughout the day as more people arrive and vendors set up. We did a lot of exploring of the medina. It was much cleaner than it had been when I was there in 2001. But more pleasant. Pop went back to his house where he used to live which he was really excited about. He didn't see anyone he used to know but he did go to the bakery where he used to get his bread every day. We did a lot of shopping while we were there. I got some gifts for people and I got a lot of pretty jewelry for myself. I convinced Pop he needed to get some jeans while they were there because they had such a large selection of jeans in his size and the style that he likes that it would be a waste to not get some. So we got him some very nice looking jeans as well as some nice shoes and a pair of purple converse shoes. And all of it was quite cheap. I got henna done on my hand which was really pretty but we got really ripped off when we paid.


One night we went to this restaurant where they films an Alfred Hitchcock film back in the 60s. It was a really fancy restaurant with pretty tiling and cushions. It was a four course meals that was delicious. A band came out later in the evening followed by two belly dancers. Considering I have studied belly dancing, the two women that performed were terrible. The first woman had a tray of candles on her head and was doing a very slight hip movement, nothing a like a hip shake. Then the second woman came out. She was a little bit better. She came around to all of the tables and pulled someone up to dance with her. Considering the restaurant is geared towards tourists, no one could really tell the difference that she wasn't good. So when she got to our table I got up to dance with her. Well she was just not ready for me and I was just dancing up a storm. She pulled me up onto to the raised platform in the middle of the room and danced for everyone to see. She wasn't even trying to dance along with the drummers like I was trying to, she was just moving around. I was really exciting to be dancing again. When the song finished I got down and the waiters and the band complemented me. It was nice. It was a really fun night.


The next day we drove to Fez. We drove through the mountains where there are ski resorts. It as really pretty. We had reserved a room at a riad in Fez, which is an old palace that had been transformed into a bed and breakfast. It was gorgeous. Beautiful tiling and arch ways. It was really nice. I had been sick with a head cold the whole trip so it was nice to relax there. Fez was a lot of fun. We walked a lot through the medina and did more shopping. Again, it was much cleaner than when I was there the last time. One thing was really happy to get was Arabic music to bring home. We stayed there for three days and then drove out to Casa and flew back to Togo.


Pop visited me in Togo for two and a half weeks. While we were in Morocco, 9 bridges in southern Togo feel down due to the excess rain. One was on the main road going north so all transport went to hell. Goods and fuels is very difficult to get north and passenger cars jumped up in price due to the lack of gas up north. We stayed in Lome for a day then went to visit my host family at my training village. It was really good to see my host mom since I hadn't seen her in over a year. She was really excited to meet my dad. He wasn't too keen on the latrine with thousands of bugs that we had to use but I couldn't really do anything about that. While we were there we hiked up to the waterfalls near the village and went to the monastery that is on top of the mountain behind the village. It was really fun. My dad really enjoyed his stay there. While we were there, we did get to watch the opening ceremony's for the Olympics. We were both really happy that we did have to miss them. The day after, we got on the Peace Corps car going north. The road where my host village is located on is the secondary road t get north but was not in a very good state before the bridges went out. So the rain and the poor conditions caused a lot of accidents on the road, making the trip very long. It increased about 4 hours to any trip. We made it up to my village my around 7pm and all of my host family and my counterpart were at my house to welcome him. They even did the ceremony they do when a new person comes to lives in a household and they throw water on their feet in the doorway and say a prayer or something. We sent four days at my post. I took him to the big weekly market on Sunday. We went to visit the Tatas which is a World Heritage Site for the way the tribe constructs their house. We were really close to the border so we jumped over the border and had lunch at this really good restaurant in Benin. The next day we took a ride out to my neighbor Alex's village for lunch. Pop tried Tchouck for the first time. He said he liked it. We hung out a lot with my counterpart, Faustin. My parents had sent over a bag of reading glasses for me to give out because Faustin had asked for a pair. They don't exist in Togo. So he brought a bunch over and he gave them out to people I knew needed them. Everyone was so excited to finally be able to read with ease.

We made the trip back down to Lome again getting stopped on the muddy road because a truck had gotten stuck in the mud. Technically they were not supposed to be driven on that road but they still kept doing it, causing at least one accident a day. Drivers also didn't bother so slow down with all of the pot holes and everything. Logic!

I took Pop to Ghana for five days as well. I wanted him to see the difference between Togo and Ghana, which I see as being very vast. He felt the same way. Ghana is far more developed than Togo. They have electricity just about everywhere we went. There are law for driving that people actually follow. People care about pollution and there is a public works system in place. None of these are common in Togo.

We stay in Elmina which is near Cape Coast. We stayed at this beach resort right on the beach where Will Smith stayed when he visited Ghana during the filming of "Ali". This area has several slave castles. This is where Africans were taken and kept in dungeons until they were placed on boats to the Americas and Europe. We went to two castles. They were both very moving. It was incredible how small the dungeons were and the fact that above both of them, there was a church. We were told that over a million slaves passed through each of the castles during their time of usage.

The next day we went to the Kakum National Park where their is a canopy walk over the rain forest. I was pretty sick that day so I wasn't too excited about it but it was cool. Some of the bridges were pretty high above the ground.

We headed back to Accra the next day just for a stop over and then continued on to Lome the day after. Pop fly out on the 21st at 2am and I headed back to post on the bus.

I was at post for the weekend before my replacement arrived as a real volunteer. She swore-in as a volunteer the night of the 21st. We spent the whole week together. She met more people from village I thought were important for her to know. It was nice to get to know her before I went home. By getting to know her better, I am more certain that she is going to do great in Koka.

The last Saturday before I left, we had the symbolic inauguration for the health clinic. We couldn't have the official inauguration because we have to wait for the Ministry of Health to send a nurse to work there. They just had a test for nurses and they will be sending someone for sure by November or December. But the rest of the staff are all trained to start work. Tons of people from the village came. They even invited the folklore dances and drummers to perform. The new chief and the old chief spoke, as did I. This was the chiefs first official appearance as chief so he made this big speech about all the changes he wants to make in the village. For example he is going to enforce that all children must go to school and if he hears that a husband is hitting his wife, he is going to send the husband to jail. All of the women cheered about that one. We cut a ribbon to make it official then gave a tour of the building. The building looks great with the new paint job and with all of the new furniture inside. I am very proud of it.

I left my village three days later to come down to Lome. I had a lot of sad goodbyes with people I had come to think of has family. I cried a lot when I finally left. My counterparts wife cried literally for a whole day. Many people gave me going away gifts that I didn't even though would ever give me a gift so I was very surprised.

I have been down in the capital now for three days and I fly out tonight at 4am. I official became a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer at 10am. I am all DONE!!! It is so hard to believe that two years have already gone by. When I was a new volunteer, I was so looking forward to having my replacement come a live at my house. That is already in the past and I am going home. It has been a wonderful and challenging adventure but I am so glad I actually did it. I am moving back to Saranac Lake, New York for now and living with my dad while I take pre-req classes for nursing school. I will be applying for schools this fall and hopefully by next fall I will be starting school. I am applying to programs where I can get my bachelor's and master's all together. Three years max. I am concentrating in nurse/midwifery. Very excited about it.

So feel free to call me at my dad's when I get back home later this weekend.

I will post new photos of all my travels once I get home and actually have a good internet connection to use.

Love everyone and hope to see you all again soon!!!

Alia