stevo92983

Well you all must be wondering what happened to me since I haven't written in quite a while. I've been keeping quite busy, and I'll update you on all that. Also this website has been down and it seems I've lost my last blog entry about my friend's visit. But to let you know the big news: I had to leave the Peace Corps and return home to the US. The circumstances around my departure are very personal so forgive me for not expounding upon them here. Just rest assured that I and my family are in good health and that if I truly had the choice I would have stayed in Togo for another year and finished my entire service. But, C'est la vie! I certainly learned that you can't take anything for granted, and ... read more

As promised I found some time to write some more about what I'm doing besides taking adventurous vacations in Ghana. My main challenge right now is getting ready to move and transition my work from Elavagnon to the much larger regional hub of Atakpame. Themove will take place at the end of July, but I am already working with Cate & Wayne, the current Atakpame SED (Small Enterprise Development) volunteers to prepare myself. They have been introducing me to their contacts, taking me to meetings, and giving me lots of insider information that 2 years of experience here as well as a lot of wisdom have afforded them. I've conducted another strategic planning seminar with the two organizations I'll principally be working with (CREJE and AKARALE, both working with people living with HIV/AIDS and receiving grants ... read more

I have to give a great big Thank You to my best friend Norris for his visit to West Africa to see me last week! It was an amazing experience for both of us: his first trip to Africa, and my chance to see my new home through his eyes and also see how far I've come at adapting to this difficult environment. We started his 12 day trip by traveling through Ghana, because its always cheaper to fly into Accra, Ghana is more developed and organized than Togo, and Ghanaians speak English so it was easier for Norris to communicate. Accra is a very modern African city, and after 10 months in Togo it looked like America to me (of course for Norris, just off the plane, it looked a lot morelike Africa, but he ... read more

I had a great mini-vacation to Ouagadougou (Waga), Burkina Faso, followed by an in-service training for business volunteers and an all-volunteer conference, and now I'm ready to get back to work in my village. Waga is a beautiful city, very "developed" with big buildings, wide clean boulevards, good restaurants, and beautiful cinemas. I took a bush taxi trip up the country, so I got to see Kara and Dapaong for the first time, albeit briefly. Kara is especially nice, kind of like Togo's mini version of Waga, and I was impressed with their lush gardens. Then after crossing the Burkina border in Cinkasse, we took a bus (think American-style after about 20 years of hard use, seats falling apart, holes in the floor where you can see the road, but still nicer than bush taxis because ... read more

Salut mes amis ! I know it’s been a while but believe me I’ve been impatiently waiting to reach out to you all as well, especially because of the encouraging feedback I’m getting from all over the world. So what’s new? As usual I’ll start with my projects because my life does really center around my work, partly because I enjoy it so much. The gardening club is surely and slooooowly evolving to the point that I can leave village for more than a few days and trust them to keep watering. I know they are busier than high school students in the States, and with the same short attention spans, because they have to do a ton of housework and study all night on top of the gardening, but I keep emphasizing the MONEY they ... read more

Happy New Year everyone! I'm looking forward to a healthy and prosperous 2007 and quite possibly my first full year in Africa! So what's new here you ask? Not much, except that I realized I've been writing so much about my work that I've neglected all the other facets of living in Togo -- the food, the music, the clothing, the friendships, and the way of life. So I'll try to fill in some of these aspects since I took a much-needed break from the "work" except for a week-long seminar on running community-initiated projects, my omnipresent gardening club whom I taught about marketing and feasibility studies, and my upcoming formation on strategic planning for small non-profits which I am in the process of strategically planning. But all that's for the coming year, after the holidays. ... read more

Hi all, Sorry for the long delay, I've experienced some technical difficulties and after writing a long entry just before Thanksgiving and lost the whole thing before I could publish. So let me fill you in... Basically this month has been one of the busiest of my life, between work in my village, traveling for meetings, and of course a nice but oh-so-short Thanksgiving vacation. World AIDS Day was a resounding success and all the preparation and hard workpaid off! We had well over 200 participants in the parade, and the crowd multiplied to oer 1000 for the soccer games and speeches, sketches, demos, etc., all AIDS-related. Some of the personal highlights for me: -- Watching the girls' match between 2 primary school teams, and referreed by a woman. Africa is a man's world, unfortunately, but ... read more

AIDS Ride was a total success! We biked about 30 km per day through probably the most hilly and mountainous region of the country, and our two teams conducted HIV/AIDS sensibilizations at upwards of 6 villages, high schools, and middle schools per day. I found my niche doing the condom demonstrations on a wooden penis, but we all got to try out all of the aspects of the program: ABCD skits for prevention; talks on transmission of the virus and reasons not to stigmatize or avoid people living with it; discussion of the differences between HIV and AIDS; Q and A; and of course plenty of games involving more wooden penises. It was the first time in Peace Corps that I felt like I was making a direct impression on people, and almost everyone who attended ... read more

I now know what people mean when they say that Peace Corps is a 24/7 job. And I'm not just talking about the fact that we constantly adapt to a faoreign language and culture; even the work itself never seems to stop! So I'll run down the projects that have been keeping me busy and making the time fly by (some of which I've mentioned before): --I am finally starting up the gardening club at the local high school! The proviseur (or headmaster) has been extremely helpful: he chose the best and brightest 20 students, half female; he found some land near the water pump; and he is connecting me with a teacher to help run the club. Starting on Nov. 15 we will do a 3-day orientation to get the garden started, and I've enlisted ... read more

In the last 3 weeks; I’ve made many new friends in my village and it’s starting to feel like home. Even the children on the road are yelling BONSOIR STEVEN, which is a lot better than Yovo! I have a new friend that is in his final year of high school and I found lots of odd jobs for him to do so that I can justify helping him to pay his school fees. Cleaning the latrine and fixing the path to my house is not glamorous but he does a great job and really appreciates the opportunity to arn some money. I’ve also made several new contacts in Elavagnon, most notably with a Center for the Blind sponsored by the local French Catholic run hospital, and several youth clubs. The center gives blind villagers a ... read more