september

I was informed at my mid-service conference that I had been selected to be one of the volunteer trainers for the new stage [stah-ge] arriving in mid-September. While I was excited about stage, I was a little less thrilled about all the time I would be spending out of village. After mid-service conference, I went down to Lomé for the Diversity Committee training (I sort of got volun-told to join the committee, but I’m glad in the end to have done it), then back up to village, then back down to Tsevié for the Training of Trainers for stage. Yikes. Keep in mind the nature of travel here.

So far, so good. Then I got back to village. This is right about when I experienced what I believe is commonly referred to as my “mid-service crisis.” I returned, ready to start on all the second-year projects I had planned with my counterpart, Solange. I was excited to work with her for a million reasons, not the least of which is that finding a female science teacher at the CEG level is almost unheard of. The day I came back, I went to meet with the director to tell him of our plans and ask for his official approval. He let me talk on and on and on, while Solange entered and sat quietly in the back of the room. I finally paused for breath, to ask whether he was still willing to let the girls out of Travail Manuel on Thursdays, and he just chuckled. “Well, I guess that depends.” I looked at Solange, confused. She just looked down at her hands, refusing to make eye contact. “Well, Solange has been transferred, so you will have to wait and talk to her replacement.” The awkward, empty smile that generally implies that I have no idea what is going on around me (a frequent look for me, to be sure) slowly slipped off my face as I grasped the implication of his words, tossed so carelessly in my direction. Solange, transferred. Well, of course she was. Tchifama is not exactly a desired post. In fact, it is usually given to new teachers who need to put in some time before getting sent somewhere better. And it was unlikely that the regional directors would leave a young, single woman out in the bush for too long. But still… I couldn’t even respond. Not only was all of my work based on her collaboration, she was also my closest friend in village. It’s hard to have adult friends when all women my age are married with at least three or four kids by now.

I’ll save you the details of my temper tantrum though there were definitely tears shed and pillows thrown and feet stamped, though mostly in the privacy of my own home, with only my dog as witness. When I recovered enough to go back to the director and talk about where to go from there, he suggested that I try working with another teacher, one who had helped us with Girls’ Club a few times last year. I agreed and said I would be by to talk to him the following week. When I arrived, I found that he, too, had just been transferred. In the same week, the sage-femme (mid-wife) that I worked with at baby-weighing was also transferred. I wish I could say that I was making this up. But, well, it happened. So now my best friend and everyone I ever worked with was gone.

I took the night off, told my family I was sick and wanted to be alone, poured myself a glass of sodabi (gross, I know, but desperate times…) and soul-searched. Besides the obvious sadness of losing friends and acquaintances (a precious commodity here), I was frustrated because in a small village like Tchifama, there are not an overabundance of willing, capable and available counterparts. The entire premise of Peace Corps is that we work directly with Togolese counterparts to transfer knowledge and skills in a way that allows them to continue our projects in a sustainable manner long after I have left Tchifama, long after Peace Corps has left Togo.

It took me the entire first year to build these working relationships, and now, any chance for continuing, sustainable work seemed unlikely. There was a lot of “what’s the point?”-ing going on. I wish, for the sake of the narrative, that there was some, clear, epiphany moment in which I saw it all clearly and came to all kinds of brilliant conclusions. Maybe one of the girls I have worked with would have arrived at my door with a testimonial of how my work here has changed her life. If I were a character in a novel, that is what would have happened. Instead, I went back to work the next day, still a little lost, really just going through the motions, and just kept working until gradually, I remembered every reason that I love this country and my village and my work and these incredible girls and even my loud, overwhelming, demanding, ridiculous circus of a host family. And I do; I love all of these things with a depth I didn’t know possible. This is not supposed to be easy. No one ever said it would be. So I am just going to do the best I can.