Adventures in Datcha

Hello all!  Hope everything is going well for everyone back home.  We're sure it is colder there than it is here!  We are in the land of no winter.  Our blog today is about going to another Canossian hospital here in Togo and our experiences there.  We hope you enjoy it!
Although our mission site through VOICA is Agoe, we were offered the opportunity to spend some time helping at another mission.  The Cannosian Sisters operate a hospital (Hopital Sante Joseph) in Datcha, a small village two and a half hours north of Agoe, where Tim, Leah, and Gabriele were able to spend about 10 days helping in different ways.  One of the sisters came to pick us up on a Saturday morning and we made the drive up the bumpy, partially paved road that is the main stretch from the south to the north of Togo.  The drive was long, and sometimes slow going, but it gave us a chance to see other places along the way.  Our journey took us through a lot of villages were we saw people selling their goods on the side of the road, children walking to school in matching uniforms, and dogs, chickens, and goats dodging children and cars as they scurried across the road.  It was interesting to see the different materials used in building as our journey progressed.  The further north we drove, the more the construction of the houses and buildings changed.  Most houses toward the south are made from wood or cement and corrugated tin.  The houses just north of us had similar construction but instead were topped with grass roofs.  A little further north and the house looked more like huts with walls made from mud and had the same grass roofs.  And then, when were were in the Datcha area, the huts were made from only grass that was woven together and they were all arranged in a circle.  We were able to see some of this intricate grass weaving up close, and it's really incredible that it is used to build an entire hut.
When we arrived at the mission the sisters were waiting with open arms and an already prepared lunch of fufu and pasta.  After our lunch, Sister Anna Maria, an Italian sister stationed in Datcha, took us on a tour of the hospital, which is not a single building but composed of many small buildings spread out over a large campus.  Besides the front most building, which contains the pharmacy, laboratory and the cashier, every department is housed in it's own building. They have separate building for radiology, surgery, hospitalization, general consultation, administration, maternity, and many others, including a morgue and a place for family members to wash laundry and cook for patients.  It is not a large hospital, but it is much larger that our dispensary.  The residential part of the compound in Datcha is also set up differently than ours in Agoe.  The hospital is enclosed in the same compound as the convent, whereas in Agoe, our dispensary, while smaller, has its own compound.  Another difference is that in Agoe, the volunteer house is in the same walled area as the convent, while in Datcha the volunteers have their own compound next to the sisters' with a house and a bit of land, which gives the volunteers a quiet, private place to stay.
Datcha is full of greenery and wildlife, and it's a great place to wander around with a camera.  One day while we were exploring right behind our compound, we came across some nomads and their large herd of cows.  These nomads, always with some type of livestock (cows, goats, or sheep), are a common sight in Togo, especially in the north.  We took many photos of the cows and the goats that were hidden among them, the birds that followed the herd, and the nomads as they kept the cows moving in the direction they needed to go.  There were three children among the nomads working just as hard as the adults.  The smallest of the children was having a difficult time keeping up, so one of the older ones picked him up and put him on his shoulders.  We walked around to another side of the compound and found a small, circular cluster of grass huts with women cooking over fires and dogs and children running around.  Some of the children saw us with the camera and came running toward us to pose but were afraid to get too close at first.  When Tim tried to show them the photo he had taken they started to inch closer, but were still a little hesitant.  Then, one boy was brave enough to walk up and look at the camera, and the rest felt it was safe to approach.  They all started laughing when they saw themselves in the photo and then ran off to continue their playing, so we continued our exploring.  Our walk took us to the front of the compound which lies on a dirt road, along which you will find a small hotel/bar, a shack that poses as a convenience store, and an outdoor market area that is crowded with people trying to sell their goods every Wednesday.
Even though this market is only a 5 minute walk from the compound and we were able to buy all the food we needed, the sisters came by our compound every day or two to bring us fresh fruit and make sure we had enough bread.  Sister Anna Maria even brought us a chicken and 3 packages of hot dogs.  Walking through this market was different than the markets near Agoe.  Everyone quoted us fair prices on things (we have learned how much things should cost), some of which were even lower than what we pay in Agoe.  The only issue we had was similar to others we've had before.  Two ladies were selling the same beans.  We asked one lady how much the beans cost, and she told us one price.  Then, when the other lady came over to bag the beans for us she tried to charge us a higher price.  After explaining that we were quoted a lower price and talking back and forth for a while, she finally gave in to the first price.  When we paid her for the beans she didn't give us the correct change.  Gabriele argued with her for a minute, and when she wouldn't give us the rest of our change he reached down, grabbed another handful of beans, put them in our bag, and walked away.  Everyone around started laughing, including us, but that's just the way things are here.  While some things in Datcha, like the market, are a little different than Agoe, we felt right at home and settled in quite nicely.
One of the main differences is that they have a full functioning hospital.  Tim found the pharmacy was pretty well organized but their inventory system was basically large index cards with drug names, dates, and quantities.  So he installed a program on their computers, one in the pharmacy and one in the storage facility where they keep most of their stock, and taught the staff how to use it.  Sister Anna Maria had a small problem with the disk drive on the computer in the pharmacy and Tim showed her how to fix it.  That day she had the same problem on another computer and was able to fix it herself.  When she saw that Tim knew his way around a computer, she asked him to take a look at a some of their other computers and fix a few problems.  Our last day in Datcha, he was able to come to the O.R. and observe the last three surgeries.
Gabriele worked alongside their surgeon, Florentin, and completed a number of different surgeries that repaired hernias, fistulas, and hydrocells.  With the opportunity to work in the O.R. again, instead of working in the lab, Leah assisted Gabriele and Florentin with the surgeries.  For some of the surgeries she was able to scrub in and retract and even help as an instrumentalist.  Knowing the names of the instruments in English doesn't help you much when you're working with two surgeons, one who speaks Italian and one who speaks French!  At least there was enough time to watch one surgery and learn the names of the important instruments before scrubbing in to assist with the next surgery.  It was different than working in the O.R. at home, but it was a great learning experience.
As a thank you for all of our help, Florentin took us out to a bar/restaurant in Atakpame, a larger town about 15 minutes north of Datcha.  Because the bar was having a promotion for a local beer, there was a DJ playing a lot of African music, and an unofficial dance-off started.  It was very entertaining!  One guy, probably in his twenties, was dancing so enthusiastically by himself.  He danced nonstop for about an hour.  Two teenage boys were having a dance-off between themselves.  One would show off some slick moves, and the other would try to copy him and add in something a little more complicated.  For some songs they would would do the same moves simultaneously like a two man dance team.  Probably the most entertaining were the small children that would dance like their energy would never run out.  One little boy, who couldn't have been more than 4, was dancing like crazy when his parents dragged him back to the table.  But as soon as his parents sat back down he jumped back up and started dancing again.  It was a very entertaining night.
Our last night in Datcha the sisters made us a nice going away dinner, served with beer and soft drinks, and told us how much our presence was appreciated and that we must come back soon and bring the others.  After we were all finished eating and were sitting around the table talking, two of the sisters left the table and reappeared a few minutes later singing and carrying in gifts for us.  What a surprise; it felt like a birthday party!  We unwrapped our gifts to find that we all received beautiful cloth, each with a different pattern, to have made into clothes.  The sisters were so generous in showing their appreciation.  The night ended with a chorus of "Thank you", "Merci", and "Akpeloo" from both us and the sisters.
We are really glad we had the opportunity to visit Datcha.  Not only were we able to see a different area of the country and meet new people, but we were also able to give of ourselves to help others in need.  A satisfying experience indeed!
Keep praying for us, and thank you for all of your support!

Grocery Shopping, Gardening, and Chickens

I remember how a 5 minute drive to the grocery store seemed like such a hassle when I needed something right away.  We take for granted how easily accessible things are at home.  Oh, how I've longed for that little 5 minute trip and the car in which to make it!  It is a one hour walk, or a 10 minute ride on a zimijan (moto-taxi) down our traffic-heavy dirt road to Assiyeye, the outdoor market which is the closest place to buy vegetables. Going grocery shopping takes a lot of time out of your day, not to mention a lot of energy.  It's very difficult to walk home with multiple heavy bags of produce, so we usually take a zimijan. One of the important things we've learned is that because we are white people will always quote us a higher price for everything.  We MUST negotiate on the prices of anything we want to purchase.  In order to do that, we need to know how much things should actually cost, which in the beginning, we really did not.  Thanks to a former volunteer and some friends who live here, as well as having learned the hard way by overpaying a time or two, we now have a better idea of the actual costs of many things.  A zimijan ride from our compound to Assiyeye should cost 250CFA, but when we flag down a zimijan the drivers always quote us 400-500CFA.  And at the market, vendors will quote us as much as 3 times the regular price for produce.  Using the local language always helps our cause, so we've started saying "no" in Ewe when we're quoted a price that is too high.  Then, we ask in French for a price we know is normal.  Sometimes they refuse and you have to be willing to walk away no matter how much you want what they are selling.  The walking away usually ends in them calling you back and accepting your offer, but when it doesn't, you hope someone else is selling the same thing and is more willing to negotiate a reasonable price.  Because we have been buying our produce at Assiyeye for four months now, we have formed some relationships with some of the vendors there, and they never try to overcharge us any more.  It's nice to feel like we've figured out at least a small part of the system. Aside from Assiyeye, there are some small shops along our road that sell things like toilet paper, oatmeal, cell phone credit, and other various things,  but the closest thing to an actual grocery store is on the south side of Lome, and it's about a 40 minutes car ride.  This is how our "grocery shopping" experience was the first 3 months we were here.  The volunteer car was at the mechanic when we arrived, so we had to walk or take zimijans if we needed or wanted to go anywhere.  At the beginning of December the car came back from the mechanic and it has made getting places so much easier.  
Our first experiences figuring out where to buy things and how much they should cost were frustrating.  Our experiences at Assiyeye trying to buy fruits and vegetables made us start saving seeds to start our own garden.  Not only would it reduce the number of times we would have to go to the market, but we would spend less money on food.  We prepared some ground in an old run-down chicken coop area near our house and planted okra and beans.  Soon after the plants started growing, the sisters had all the chicken coops repaired and added a rooster, a chicken, and two guinea hens.  The birds started tearing up our garden immediately.  So we decided not to plant anything else and tried to build a makeshift fence out of anything we could find (bricks, old roofing tiles, sticks, rotting boards, old chicken wire).  It wasn't enough to keep them out, and the fowl continued to wreak havoc on our small garden.  The gardeners saw that our makeshift fence was not working and built us a new one by interweaving palm fronds and attached a door made from chicken wire with a wooden frame.  Not only did they build us this fence, but they also prepared some land right behind our house so we can continue our gardening in a better place.
Our parents sent us hundreds of seeds, and we are so excited to use them.  The land behind our house is ready for planting, and we have already started with carrots.  Tim and Gabriele acquired some plastic tubing from our friend Michele and created an irrigation system so we don't have to water our plants using a bucket and a cup anymore.  Watering by hand was not so bad when our garden was small, but now that we are expanding, an irrigation system will be very helpful.   Also, our friend Christine told us where we can buy a watering can for the areas like the chicken coop that don't have irrigation.  After we get a good harvest off of the okra and beans in the coop we probably won't plant again in that area.  Dealing with the birds is such a hassle.
Our herb seeds are planted and soon we'll have rosemary, cilantro, dill, fennel, and oregano.  We rooted some cuttings that we took from the basil plants in the sisters' garden and planted them in front of our house.  It's always good to have fresh basil on hand, especially when we have tomatoes!   For Leah's birthday we had home-made gnocchi, thanks to the Italians,  with a pesto sauce made with the basil from the garden.  In our courtyard area we planted the tops of a lot of pineapples.  We know that we won't enjoy the fruits of our labor since pineapples take two years to produce, but at least future volunteers will enjoy fresh pineapple right outside their door.  Plus the plants make the courtyard look really pretty.
There are a few passion fruit vines that grow around the compound and many of the seeds have ended up in our compost pit.  Tim saved some of the little vines that started growing in the pit, and Ream planted them between two trees behind the house.  Soon we will have passion fruit closer to the house, but we will still wander the compound, baskets in hand, checking every tree for ripe fruit.  Grapefruit has been abundant since we arrived, which is great since we eat them almost every day, but the trees are starting to look a little bare. Three weeks ago, the sounds of fruit bats announced the start of mango season.  We have many mango trees around the compound.  Due to the harvesting by us, the gardeners, and the bats, the mango trees are also starting to look a little bare.  Too bad mango season isn't as long as grapefruit season.  The bats have also found the guava tree in our courtyard.  The guavas are still small and green, but the bats are eating them anyway, and pretty soon we won't have any guavas when the season comes.  At least we were able to take some night shots with the camera and get some photos of the bats.  They are actually pretty cute.
Our experiences with shopping and price negotiation in the first few months may have been a little difficult, but it has gotten easier with time.  Having access to all these fruit trees has been  a real treat since some of the fruit we can't buy at the market.  The garden is a daily project and we are really looking forward to all that we will gain from our hard work.

Joyeux Noel!

Merry Christmas everyone!
We hope you all had a great Christmas.  Because it is hot like summer here all the time, Christmas sort of snuck up on us this year.  We didn't let the eternal summer stop us from celebrating though!  Tim found a five-foot-tall fake Christmas tree, a bag of ornaments, and a string of lights in our storage shed which must have been put there by previous volunteers.  After a little assembly and arranging, the tree was looking good, but the ornaments were showing their age (and dust!) and needed a facelift.  We re-covered the ornaments in bits of colored and patterned fabrics and then created some more ornaments of our own with things we found around the house.   Our tree was our only decoration for Christmas, but we were very happy with the way it looked. Even with the weather feeling nothing like we are used to for Christmas, the palm trees, the red earth, and most of the area around us not really being decorated for Christmas, a decorated Christmas tree just has a special way of making you feel a lot more like it is Christmas all on its own.
For all of us, Christmas has always been a holiday that is very family-focused.  None of us have ever spent an entire Christmas season apart from our families before, so we wanted to try to celebrate in a similar way as we do at home.  In that spirit, we invited two families and one of our friends from the hospital who was on his own for Christmas to join us for a Christmas Eve dinner that was very similar to our Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn cakes, mixed veggies, and Leah's "sweet potato" casserole). We ate in the dining room with music playing and our Christmas tree lit,  creating a wonderful holiday atmosphere.  Ream and Leah made cookies as gifts for everyone.  Before each person left, they received a bag of cookies tied with a gold ribbon and a handmade card.
Christmas day, we had been invited to eat lunch with the sisters. Their dining room was decorated with large bows made of ribbon, brightly patterned table cloths, our Christmas card placed at the top of their tree, and every plate on the table had cookies and candy.  They served roasted goat, mixed veggies, and fufu (a local food made from large roots called ignams - pronounced in-yam - and served with many different sauces), and, as always, fresh fruit.  Like all the celebratory meals before, they also provided sodas, beer, and wine.  After lunch they served ice cream and cake, both of which are a bit of a rare treat here.  When everyone was finished eating, we helped wash the dishes and clean the dining room, and the sisters sent us home with candy, cookies, and a present for each of us (we must have been good this year; it wasn't coal!).
The rest  of the afternoon was very relaxed as we all spent time lounging, reading, writing blog posts, and Skype-ing with family.  That evening we went to Michele and Salyne's house for dinner.  Salyne prepared a couple of Togolese dishes and even taught us how to make them.  One was fufu, which we already knew how to make, but the sauce was peanut-based and we had never tried it before.  Since we all really liked it, we will try to make that one ourselves. The other dish was made from rice flour and mixed with curry and a few other spices and had a texture similar to polenta.  It was really very good, and has been one of our favorite Togolese dishes so far.  The tomato sauce that went along with the rice-polenta-dish was made with sauteed onions and peppers and a little bit of chicken, and it was also quite delectable.  After we had all toasted, eaten, drank, and were thoroughly full and happy,  Michele and Ream went to make  bananas flambe for dessert.  The bananas were very ripe and soft, so it turned out to be a little soupy, but the flavor was  excellent.  Next time, we will try to use greener bananas and maybe a little bit less butter.  After dinner and dessert were through, we sat, played cards, chatted, and generally just enjoyed each others' company for a little while before heading home for a very welcome night of sleep.
In many ways, Christmas here was nothing like what we are used to seeing and doing for Christmas at home.  However, in the most important ways, it was exactly the same.  We were fortunate to have the opportunity to celebrate this most important of holidays with people that we care about.  It was bittersweet, seeing as we were all away from family and friends, but being able to celebrate here with newfound friends was a joyous blessing in and of itself!

La Laboratoire...and Leah's other experiences working in Togo

Nothing about working in the lab at the dispensary is anything like the work I was doing at UGA.  The only knowledge I had that was useful in the beginning was my basic bench top skills.  This started out a a big challenge, but I am having a lot of fun learning new things.  Although the guys in the lab all speak at least a bit of English, the language barrier is still there when it comes to technical terminology.  When I first arrived, I was very surprised by the level of technology in this third world village.  The dispensary was started and funded by Italians so most of the lab equipment is Italian.  Just another thing to add to the language barrier.  On the bright side, I'm learning A LOT of French and Italian!
All of our work in the lab is body fluid analysis.  It is mostly blood work, but we do tests on urine and other things as well.  In regards to blood, we do basic counts and levels, but also we do blood typing, tests for HIV/AIDS, typhoid, malaria, and Hep A, B, and C.   I learned how to do blood draws on patients.  Most of the adults are pretty easy.  I have only drawn blood on one child, and he was 10 years old.  Watching the children scream, cry, and flail when we are trying to draw blood breaks my heart and is not confidence inspiring.  I still don't feel comfortable drawing blood on children yet.
We also do bacterial and yeast cultures in the lab.  I haven't done much with that since most of my responsibility is in the blood area.  We do fecal tests looking for worms and other parasites under the microscope.  Pregnancy tests are a daily occurrence.  One of the difficult parts for me is doing a pregnancy test and HIV test at the same time for some of these women.  Some of the girls are young and already have one or more children.  I've had pregnancy and HIV tests come back positive together.  It always puts a damper on the rest of my day.  Positive HIV tests are always a heavy emotional hit for me.  Even though I see it every day, I know it will always be difficult for me to the positive test results, especially for the babies and children.
I am reminded every day how different things are in the medical field here.  Almost NOTHING is sterile and it makes me cringe sometimes.  The only sterility is found in the surgical area.  Needles, syringes, and others things that come in processed packaging are fine but when the medical personnel don't use them properly it becomes a mute point.  Taking a needle out of a patient, placing it on the hospital bed (which is a thick plastic mat, no sheet, and not usually cleaned between patients) and then picking the needle up and using it again is not exactly clean.  Blood typing is also a little sketchy. We have reagents in the lab to do blood group testing, and although I've never seen it done in a first world setting, I can imagine it's a bit different.  The sketchiest part though is when they are about to do a transfusion.  They take a little of the patients blood and mix it in a small plastic tray with a little bit of blood from the transfusion bag.  If it doesn't agglutinate they start the transfusion.  Yikes!
One of the biggest challenges for all three of us working in this type of hospital setting is their lack of urgency.  We have been told many times that this isn't America and we need to learn that these people don't feel the urgency of some situations like we do.  These people don't really understand urgency because everything in life here is so slow.  It is difficult for us to see a patient who needs urgent care and they sit and wait or we just don't have the ability to care for them.  Patients who are beyond our medical capabilities must be told to go to Tokoin, the big hospital in Lome.  But most of them don't have transportation and can't afford the medical care, let alone the moto-taxi fee to get there.  So most of them just go home when we've done all we can do.  The reason these things are so difficult for us is because we always have that sense of urgency in certain situations...it's hard not to.  But we keep hearing from the dispensary staff, you can't come into a world you don't understand and try to change things so they fit your ideas of the way things "should be."  Even after months of being here we are still adjusting to that.
Sometimes I glad that I work in the lab and don't have as much direct contact with patients.  But sometimes when I'm running blood work on a patient in a critical situation, especially children, it's hard to not go look around to put a face to the name.  I have also been helping with the malnutrition program that we offer every Friday morning.  This is a free program, and we work with malnourished children over 6 months of age.  Every Friday we take the child's temperature, weight, and length/height.  We have a calculation system to determine their percentile and depending on their severity we give them a follow up appointment for further evaluation.  We distribute enriched flour and sometimes milk and supplements depending on the status of the child.  The most severely malnourished children must come every Friday, but when they start getting healthier we can have them come every two or three weeks.  Some children don't return, and you assume the worst.  Most of the time the other mothers can give us information about that child.  Sometimes it's only that the mother didn't have the money for transportation to the dispensary that day, but occasionally it's that the child passed away.  That is always heartbreaking.  When a child reaches 100% of weight to height ratio we release them from the program.  This has happened many times, and it is so satisfying to think you played a roll in helping these children become healthy.  We have become very fond of one of the little girls from the program, Marie, and her mother, Christine.  Marie is at 100% and has been released from the program, but Christine still comes by our house to visit and we are so grateful for her friendship.
Back to the lab for a couple of interesting stories.
Blood group testing...
About a month ago I was doing blood group testing and I noticed a strange pattern.  I had 5 patients, and they were all A+.  To run 5 tests and not get an O is a little odd, but also having no B's or AB's made me wonder if our anti-B reagent was working properly.   So I mentioned something to our chief of the lab and he was also concerned.  We tested one of our lab techs who is AB+ and the anti-B reagent worked fine.  Just a crazy coincidence that all 5 of my samples were A+.  But in any case, I received a huge pat on the back from the chief for my observation of a potentially hazardous situation.
Lab equipment hiccup...
Monday our machine that runs blood samples (it calculates basic levels of blood components) started giving VERY inaccurate readings.  This is the only machine we have to do these readings.  It's very important since we use it every day, and doctors need results to make a diagnosis and treat their patients.  Our chief called the technician who usually does maintenance, and he was not available until next week.  Not good enough, so other technicians were called, the director of the dispensary was notified, and more frantic phone calls were made.  In the meantime, doctors were coming in asking for test results we couldn't give them and patients were waiting for doctors to treat them.  While we were waiting for someone to come to our aid, we did everything we could to try to get it working again.  We kept flushing all the internal tubing but the readings were still bad.  Our chief finally decided to open it up and look at the inside for himself.  After 30 minutes of looking at all the components (he doesn't know what most of them are) he found a large red ant stuck in one of the tubes.  That's it...just an ant. This is so funny for us because the joke around here is that you can NEVER escape the ants.  They effect a lot of the way you do things around here.  In the kitchen you must store food in a certain way, and cook in a certain way.  You set a pan down and 3 seconds later there are ants in it.  We don't have a dryer, only a clothes line, and the ants love to crawl on drying clothes.  There are so many different species of ants here, and they are EVERYWHERE!  They range from the almost invisible and harmless to the inch-long, aggressive, attacking, and biting.  The fact that our little ant friend was the big red aggressive one made it that much more thrilling when we found the cause of the machinery hiccup.  All that stress over an ant.  When we first arrived, I said that these ants were big enough to kill someone.  Well, I didn't realize in what way that would actually happen until the incident in the lab today.  In the end, we were able to remove the ant and get the machine running smoothly again.  

Hello again! We're still alive!

Hi all,
Time is flying!  Halloween and Thanksgiving passed so quickly and Christmas is rapidly approaching.  We are in a perpetual state of summer here, so it's hard to believe it's December.  We haven't posted anything in a long while, so we'll try to tell you about the important things.  Let's start with Halloween...
Adam told us his mom really loves to decorate for Halloween and that he was sad that he wouldn't be able to see his housewith all the decorations this year .  So, Ream and Leah made signs and banners and put them up to surprise him.  He was so happy and surprised when he came down in the morning and the kitchen and dining room looked like Halloween!  We also wanted to carve Jack-o-lanterns, but there aren't any pumpkins here in Togo.  However,  we did find something that looks like small round watermelons growing near the garden and thought that they might work.  Turns out, they worked just fine for carving but they taste so terrible!  They may have been oddly green, but we had Jack-o-lanterns for Halloween.  Leah even made popcorn that we tossed with cinnamon and sugar to help make it feel more like Halloween.  In the end, it may not have been just like at home, but it was really enjoyable for all of us to celebrate together.  Halloween isn't celebrated here, so people looked at us a little bit strangely when they saw our green watermelon-o-lanterns.  We attempted to explain the whole concept of Halloween and how and why it is celebrated the way it is at home, but we don't think anyone really understood much past the fact that it's a tradition for us.  It must be one of those things you have to experience to understand! And now, gli Italiani...
Two Italian surgeons, Antonio and Gabriele, arrived the first week of November.  Also, for two weeks in November, a couple from Italy, Paulo and Eva, came to teach Italian at the school.  At first, we weren't sure what it would be like to have four more people living with us, but it has turned out to be so wonderful, like having a big family!  As for our surgeon friends, Antonio is in his 70's and Gabriele is 36, and both are general surgeons.  Antonio has been coming here for one month at a time twice yearly for the last 3 years to perform surgeries for the people here.    Most of the surgeries done here are for hernias, but occasionally they will remove tumors and perform other soft tissue procedures.  All the surgeries for this year are finished and Antonio has just returned to Italy, but Gabriele has decided to stay here until the end of January to perform minor procedures that can be done with only local anesthesia.  We are very excited he is staying!  When Eva and Paulo were here,  Ream and Leah were happy to have another girl in the house, and the guys had Paulo to help them do manly things like causing mischief (ed. note: no actual "mischief" or any other trouble has been shown to have been caused.  Any mention of said mischief is solely conjecture and hearsay.  Comments or inquiries can be directed to the proper authorities.  Thank you for your time and understanding).  Thanks to Paulo's amazing cooking skills, we now know how to make gnocchi from scratch.  It has been so nice having other people living with us and sharing this experience, even if it is only temporary.  Now, on toThanksgiving...
Because it's not a holiday here and we all had to work, we decided to postpone Thanksgiving  until the following Sunday, and then because we hadn't had a chance to go shopping for the foods we needed, we postponed it again until December 1st.  When we had finally made all of the necessary preparations, we invited all of our Togolese friends and began to do the actual cooking.  We had turkey, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, gravy, dressing  (AKA stuffing), mixed vegetables, and "sweet potato" souffle.  Since there are no actual sweet potatoes here, we thought we would have to go without (alas, also there are no cranberries, so we didn't have the traditional cranberry relish).  However, on one of our trips to the big open market, we found a large squash that, while we had no idea what it would actually taste like, we thought we'd buy one of and just give it a try.  As it turns out, it tastes a lot like acorn or butternut squash and it made a beautiful substitute for sweet potatoes!  It was hard for all of us to be away from our families on what, for each of us, is usually a very family-centered day, but it was really fulfilling and joyous to be able to spend it with friends we have made here.  Also, we all had a chance to talk to our families on the telephone, so that made it a little easier as well.  Onwards with this narrative, toDecember...
December has been already and will continue to be a month of celebrations for our little family.  Besides the big one (Christmas), Leah's second annual 29th birthday was the 14th, Gabriele's 36th birthday was the 15th, and Ream's 24th birthday is the 31st. Of course there is also New Year's, but we'll be celebrating for Ream already.   There is not much in the way of entertainment here, at least not the types we have become accustomed to at home, but we seem to find great ways to celebrate special occassions nonetheless.  Sometimes "entertainment" can also equatae to distraction from the true reason for celebration.  The most important part of celebrating any of these holidays is to spend quality time with people that we love.  As such, we have celebrated each holiday quite well!
We are taking pictures all the time and hope to be able to post some.  Our Christmas present  to everyone, such as it is, will hopefuly be multiple blog posts (with pictures?!?) over the next few weeks.  For now, enjoy some photos that Gabriele (and also Tim) has taken over the last month.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nz6voi8iyu9aqzg/FQKCZ2bK9U

Look forward to posts about:
Leah's work at the dispensary
Our gardening project
Beer in Togo
Cooking and eating local food
The roof/lounge/thingamajigger of our house
Funny quotes from Africa
People we have met
And of course, photos (we hope)

As always, we love and miss you all, and your support and encouragement has been and still is so important to all of us.  Thank you for making it possible for us to be here!  God bless you all.

-Tim and Leah

This post is actually being made by Tim's parents, Joe and Diane.  We talked to Tim and Leah today, and they asked us to let everyone know that they have had no internet access for the last few weeks since they have to connect through a prepaid cell phone, and it is difficult to get to the phone store in Lome to purchase additional minutes.  They are both doing well and working hard.  They will try to make a post soon.

Food, Weddings, Work: Life in Togo So Far

We finally have a little free time to write a significant blog post.  Leah doesn’t like to use the computer from 1998 (really, it doesn’t even have a USB port), but it’s our only way to connect to the internet, and we are grateful for that.  There is so much to tell you all about our little village and the adventures we’ve been having. 

 The volunteer house is starting to feel a little more like home every day.  The four of us cook and clean together and get along well.  School hasn’t started yet so Adam,  who is here to teach English, comes and helps with odd jobs around the dispensary.  We work every day excluding Sunday, and Saturday is only a half day of work.  The dispensary is right around the corner and only a 3 minute walk from our house, and it’s very interesting.  There is a walk-in clinic, laboratory, pharmacy, two multi-person hospitalization rooms (mostly used for patients who require IV treatments), and a surgical suite which only operates (pun intended) when surgeons come from Italy to give their time.  Patients who require follow up and observation  must go home for the night and come back the following day, since there are no facilities to keep patients overnight.  The dispensary is not a 24 hour hospital.  Also, surgeries are only done twice a year, October and April.  There is a hospital in Lomé called Tokoin but most of the people here cannot afford it.  We occasionally have to refer patients there if we cannot treat them here. 

We live in an area where all the roads are dirt.  You don’t hit pavement until you get closer to Lomé.  Our compound is on the main road so there is a decent amount of traffic, and with that comes dust.  But it’s rained twice since we’ve been here so that helps keep the dust down.  The local language is called Ewe (pronounced Eh-vay).  It’s word for white person is “Yovo”, and we hear it all the time.  Having any skin color other than black makes you Yovo; even the Filipina sister here is considered Yovo.  The children chant at us as we walk by, “Yovo, Yovo, Bonjour!”  Some of the children are a little skittish but others run up and hold your hand and walk with you. 

Quite often, people automatically assume we are wealthy simply because we are white.  Each of the four of us gets a monthly allowance from the money that you all generously donated before we left.  Our total allowance for the year comes out to less than $1400 each.  It is still a very strange thought that we can live for an entire year on that small an amount of money, but we have successfully been doing so thus far.  Our housing and utilities are provided by the sisters, but we pay for all of our other expenses out of that money.  We buy what groceries we can in bulk (i.e. 50 kg bag of rice), and everything else, we try to eat and shop like the locals do.  We don’t eat meat very often, and we eat a lot of fruits, starches, and vegetables.  We include as much food that grows here in the compound as we can.  Everything about how we live now is radically different than at home, and it’s good for us.  You definitely learn to appreciate things more when you have a very finite amount of resources and you have to work for everything.  In spite of all that I just related, we are actually still better off than many of the people here.  A normal monthly salary here is a little bit less than what we have.  It is definitely a major perspective shift to be here.

There is a lady on the corner who sells coconuts every day.  They pick the coconuts when they are very green, so they don’t have much meat to them but they are full of milk and SO GOOD!  The sisters have a ton of fruit trees on the premises:  coconut, mango, papaya, grapefruit, orange, passion fruit, banana, mandarin, avocado, and some fresh garden veggies in the sisters’ garden.  We eat lunch with the sisters every Sunday and Sr. Agnes, Mother Superior, eats dinner with us every Wednesday.  There is a farmers market every 5 days so we try to buy our food from the local people instead of going to the supermarche (supermarket).  Some things you just can’t get at the farmers market.  Dairy products are very rare.  Anyone familiar with camping milk?  That’s the closest think to milk we can find here.  But it has been so fun eating the local food and coming up with new ways to cook it. 

We went to the US Embassy and registered with them this week.  That should set some parents at ease J.   Oh, and we were invited to a wedding!  Weddings in Togo consist of three ceremonies:  engagement ceremony, civil ceremony, and church ceremony.  Last Saturday we were invited to a traditional engagement ceremony.  It is usually a private event for the family but in attendance at this one were extended family, friends, and coworkers.  Everyone at the dispensary was invited, and since we have never seen the traditional events surrounding a wedding, we were invited too.  Tomorrow is the civil ceremony, which is like a wedding at the court house.  Next Saturday is the church ceremony.  We’ve been told that church ceremonies are very extravagant for those who can afford it.  There is a lot of food and music after every ceremony.  We had so much fun at the engagement ceremony (we were treated like family) that we can’t wait for the other two.    

Well it’s about dinner time and we need to cook something.  Hope everyone is well. 

Love and miss you all,

The Yovos