The earth crunches under the weight of the taxi. It hasn't rained in weeks but I haven't traveled in weeks so the road holds new dips and holes that unexpectedly jolt the car, and its passengers, as we travel the dirt road out of the valley toward the main highway. There is only one paved road in Togo and the situation is similar in many West African nations, but this is the one I call home. Only now I'm leaving, heading towards America, and with an eight hour ride in a broken down five seater Toyota taxi cramped with seven other people, I have plenty of time to reflect on the past two years and how I got to this point.  

In September of 2004 I arrived in Lome, the capital, with about thirty other wide-eyed, optimistic go-getters - my training group. We were as different as America itself, which is, I suppose, why we were chosen. Our trainers spent three months coaxing us to embrace the local customs. Multi-colored cloth, known as pagne, with swirling patterns of birds and hearts and fish are all the rage. By the end of the first week we all owned at least three. Local girls and boys shave their heads so until they hit puberty it is difficult to tell them apart. Many female volunteers become inspired by this and shave theirs too. Boiled corn flour and pounded yam goo were made to sound like French delicacies that we would come to crave despite their strange smell and bizarre texture and unbelievably, a year in to my service, I did.

First, let me welcome you to my village - Pimini. Pimini is the village where I was assigned to work as a Community Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention (CHAP) extension agent. I actually spent a majority of my time in Nadoba, 5km away because in my village there are no boutiques where one can buy food or supplies. There are no Non-governmental Organizations (NGO's) to collaborate with, no businesses at all for that matter. There is, however, a primary school, although their French is at a level where working with the students is difficult since most topics have to be translated from French into Tamberma - the local language. There is also a health hut, closed every day of the week except Monday when the American woman, a retired nurse, drives 30km in from Kanté. This same woman also built an Assembly of God church across the street, or dirt path rather, from the clinic. So Pimini has 3 buildings - a church, a primary school and a health hut. And lots of tatas. Tatas being the traditional house of the area. tata photo

I did not live in a tata. I lived in a cement house with a tin roof encompassed by a cement compound. I had three rooms, which combined might equal the living room I have back in America. The main door of the house opens into the middle room - the all-purpose room. To the right was my kitchen and to the left, my bedroom. Outside you can find a latrine and shower. In my village there is no electricity, no running water, no McDonald's or Taco Bell, no English. But for all they lack, the people of Togo have a surplus of cultural riches and an abundance of love.

As a sidenote, let me tell you a little story about love. If you have a weak stomach - skip the next three paragraphs.  I have never had kids. I babysat for nine years - 11 if you count Peace Corps and the kids in my compound. I'm sure that things are a little different when the kids are actually your own, that the steps you take to ensure their health and safety increase. I have been puked on and peed on. I have seen American mothers hold out their hands for babies to spit up food they didn't like the taste of. I have seen African mothers wipe away snot from a runny nose with their bare hands when Kleenex were not available.

Well, Kleenex are not available in the Tamberma Valley. And runny noses run amuck. The two wives in my compound literally peel the snot away from these little faces and then throw it over the compound wall or wipe it on the cement floor or posts on my porch or on their shoes or the soles of their feet.

But there is a new baby in my compound. And this baby has a cold that involves a stuffed up nose. Martine, the mother of said child, takes a small twig, sticks it up the nose to break the snot bubble and then, get this, sucks the snot out of the baby's nose...multiple times. Baby's nose to mother's mouth. Sucks - out - the - snot. With all of the gross sound effects and everything. Enough said. That's love.

So now imagine if you will that it is 102 degrees Fahrenheit and you are standing in my cement oven of a house. Since I have already shown you the outside let's just go in and pass to the right. My kitchen consists of a wooden table covered by a plastic tablecloth - upon which sits my gas stove with two burners. The gas tank hides underneath the teal tablecloth. I had two pantries thanks to a volunteer who recently finished her service and gave me hers for free. Before this donation my food used to sit in a box on a chair - where my water filter now sits. There is a kerosene lantern on the other chair. I have no electricity and the batteries they sell here aren't of a high enough quality to run my headlamp. That and it takes AAA's which they don't even sell here.

To the left is my bedroom which consists of a bookshelf where I keep my clothes and a twin sized bed, made when I first arrived with a mattress brought up from Lome and covered in my burgundy Martha Stewart sheets from Kmart - a last minute purchase in the States. I have posts on all four corners of my bed - one of which is supported by duct tape - these hold up my mosquito net. Lots of volunteers don't sleep with a mosquito net - they find them suffocating, they think it only makes the hot air more stifling. I don't really notice a difference between the very hot and uuber hot temperatures but I don't use it to protect me from mosquitos - mine protects me from everything else. All of those unidentified creepy crawlies resembling members of the cockroach family for instance. But it mainly protects me from mice. There's one mouse in particular that has taken to scratching his way up the bottom right pole, crawling across the mosquito net and scratching down the top right pole every night. I've taken to wearing headphones and listening to music before I fall asleep since mousetraps don't exist.

It's hot in Africa. It was hot the night I arrived. It was still hot today. And it's been hot every day in between. So I sleep with all of my windows and my door open - screens shut and locked. But this habit also ensures that there are anywhere from 2-4 children at my door just before the sun lights up the earth. "Tena, Tena!" They call for me. This is my wake-up call. These are my kids. Girly, Little Man (their village names were too difficult for me when I first moved in so I made up easier names for them), Nnuany and Tena (it means second daughter so a lot of us have that name). When I stumble out of bed with my matted hair and sleep in my eyes, remembering to duck so as not to hit my head on the low door frames they laugh and cheer and run to the compound door to announce to whoever is within shouting distance that Tena is up. The fun can begin.

As soon as I unlock the screen door they bust in, first examining the kitchen. When I first moved to village I didn't quite have the hang of cooking for one person - it's more difficult than you might think, especially without a refrigerator in which to keep leftovers. So I always gave the extras to the kids. And once I got the hang of cooking for just me I would look over into their wide, dark eyes and practically see them drooling. So every meal I eat in village - we eat together. Every single meal.

After the oatmeal or pancakes or French toast or eggs they take over the all-purpose room since my bedroom is off limits. They know where the markers and colored-pencils are. They know where to find paper. They also know where the jump-rope and UNO cards can be found. Thanks to my supporters back in America, I've received some really fun packages! The kids play with these toys to their heart's content, which is funny because no one else in village knows what these things are. When I built a tire swing people just gawked - having no idea what this meant to string a car part to a tree. As the village children catch on the afternoons become more crowded. I like them that way.

But now that village seems worlds away. The adjustment from the third world to the Western world wasn't nearly as difficult as I was expecting. I think the greatest shock came upon entering the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. The Asian man in the down coat and flip flops didn't throw me nearly as much as the women with knee length boots pulled up over their jeans or the baggy pirate pants worn with knee length boots. My own full length, baggy jeans with track shoes and a long sleeve did not seem to be fitting the fashion bill. And when the man in the airport bus complained about being overly crowded all I could think was, "this bus could hold double what we've got in here now."