For the past three days, I have been working on a national polio vaccination campaign for children under the age of 5. This annual campaign is conducted yearly by the Togo Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, the latter being one of my primary work partners here in Togo. Polio has been all but eradicated in most of the world with the exception of a few "endemic" regions, Sub-Saharan West Africa being one of the largest of these regions. My job with the campaign is critical in that I not only stand around and look important, I ALSO help administer the vaccine by marking each child's thumb with an indelible ink that doesn't come off (trust me, I've had a peace sign on my left forearm for the past 72 hours.) All jokes aside, the work we've done is rather important data collection that will measure the efficacy of the campaign and what areas can be improved. The World Health Organization, also known as the WHO, trained around 100 Togolese university students and a handful of Peace Corps volunteers to go out into all the small villages across the country to gather information about the vaccination campaign. The two students that I get to work with are really nice and fun to hang out with. After we got to know each other better it was really fun to just hang out and converse with a fellow educated individual.
During the campaign, I made a list of interesting occurrences and observations that I will share with all of you in a bulleted format for your (and my) convenience:
- I live in a fairly large "prefecture," I guess you can kind of think of it as a county in the states, but a large portion of our time is spent traveling through the country from village to village. I had already seen a lot of the land surrounding my city but beyond that I really knew little about what was beyond the city limits. Turns out that there is part of what used to be the "Fazao National Park" located directly northwest of the prefecture According to Peace Corps legend, the Fazao park used to be where all the tourists went on safari during Togo's heyday in the 1980s, but since the early 2000s it has been closed off, and completely deserted. I was actually looking through a PC scrapbook the other day and saw pictures of volunteers swimming at the Fazao Hotel's pool in the 90s. In contrast to the extreme poverty that I witness on a daily basis, it was surprising to see that such a modern amenity even existed. (PS, another cool fact, apparently the park's resort is now deserted an haunted…anybody up for an adventure?!)
- For many of the people in the village far from the national road and deep in the bush, my arrival in the village marked the first time any of them had ever seen a foreigner. I'm used to being the focus of attention for many people when I walk around town, but this was an entirely different experience. I'm not sure what people tell their children, but from the way that some of them reacted to me I can only imagine that parents tell their children that white people are ghosts or even Africans with no soul (the latter of which was confirmed by a Togolese friend of mine.) Part of the vaccination process requires that we mark each child's finger with ink so that they're not vaccinated more than once – this proved to be difficult when the mere sight of me caused some of the younger children to freak out. People's reactions to white people vary greatly however, most people just yell out yovo or anasara, which means "white person." But others actually greet me in local language.
- Speaking of local language, you should know that there are about 40 different local languages and dialects. French is the "official" language, but most people who never received formal education (which is a large majority of the population) only speak their local language. During the campaign, our primary job was to visit a random sampling of households in every village/city in the prefecture (county) and discuss various aspects of the vaccination campaign that was being conducted concurrently. Both the university students I was working with spoke a few of Togos' local languages, so whenever I could conduct the survey I would, but most of the time I was accompanied with one of them who could actually communicate. I did however, get a lot of practice with my local language skills. The spoken language in my region is called Kotokoli, which is also the name of the predominate ethnic group in my region. I had a few language lessons during training, but the majority of my Kotokoli was learned "on the job." During my first 3 months at post, part of my daily routine was walking all up and down my street greeting everyone I could in the local language. It's actually a very complex give and take that can last for up to 2-3 minutes, and it's incredible to see the full thing because at first glance it is just a series of meaningless grunts, but in reality each sound is different and can mean a different affirmation.
- Having the chance to see the entire prefecture for the first time was one of my favorite thing about the campaign. Sokodé is located at the base of a large mountain range and so for the first time in my life I am surrounded by something other than sprawling plains. Sometimes I just like to sit on my porch and stare at the mountains. Visiting other volunteers' villages during the campaign was also cool because I got to see how volunteers in really small villages live. Right now it's the dry season, which means that the air is super arid and dusty, but I actually prefer it because it gets cool at night.
- One of the most interesting things that happened was on the afternoon of the second day, my partner and I were out in a very remote village where there was no street food to be found. We basically ended up sitting at a random person's house after the survey and they made lunch for us. When I asked my partner if he knew who the family was, he said "No, but here in Africa we believe that if there is enough food for one, there is enough food for two." The sentiment of fraternity and community here in Togo is special many ways, and I am continually amazed by how people with so little are willing to give so much. In case you were curious as to what we ate for lunch, it was boiled rice formed into sticky balls called pâte that we ate with a palm oil sauce with a meat that I'm pretty sure was goat tongue. To be perfectly honest, it was my first experience eating tongue and it didn't taste half bad. At least…I hope it was tongue. :/ You can never really be to sure in this country what animal contributed to your meal.
These last few days I have been spending time in Lomé, the capital of Togo. It is the only major country capital in the world that is located adjacent to the border of another country, Ghana. I think this has to do with the way in which the west African countries were split up after their independence was granted from European colonials. Anyways, being in Lomé means lots of yummy food, ice cream, spending time on private beaches, and hanging out with other volunteers in the comfort of air conditioning. There is also wifi internet in the PC office, which makes downloading large files and uploading pictures much less stressful. Today I am going to be playing in a soccer match for International Volunteers Day at the University in Lomé. There are a few other European volunteer organizations as well as international development organizations that partner with various West African NGOs. Yesterday was the swearing in ceremony of the 2011-2013 Girls Education and Environmental Action volunteer groups. Two groups swear in every year, one in August (my group) and one in November. It was a surreal experience to be sitting in the audience watching a group experience something that I only experience a few months ago – yet it felt like just yesterday I was standing up in front of government dignitaries and host families giving a speech in a language that I just learned during the previous two weeks. This experience, while hard, is one of the most satisfying experiences of my life in ways that I did and did not expect. I would agree to do it again in a heartbeat.
Love love.
P.S. – I should probably explain the reason this post is titled "Green Oranges." Oranges in Togo are one of the biggest sources of produce and they are ridiculously cheap (5 for 25 cents USD). The most interesting thing about them though is that they are not orange as we would think, they are a deep green. I remember being a bit off put by that in the beginning of my service, but now I eat a few a day and they are easily one of the most delicious things in this country. During the campaign, I had oranges for lunch twice.
