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Michaela’s Reflections and Health Insurance Progress

 

The last few weeks was crunch time on the project, and I managed to conduct over 22 interviews over a short period of time. We targeted three groups- families who were still in the system and saving money; families who had been in the system and saving but did not rejoin in 2014, and families that were not insured but could benefit from the system.  Transparency was key- it was important to show families that had been in the system for years t he exact dollar amount they had saved. Many families had no idea they had benefitted so much for the system, which provided incentive for them to stay in. Additionally, we targeted families that had been in the system, saved money, but did not return. We interviewed these select families as well, trying to discern why exactly they did not continue with a system that was only benefitting them. We found that there were various reasons for them not rejoining- for example some didn’t know you could join the system at any month of the year, or other’s simply hadn’t had the means to pay at the time.  Finally we interviewed families that were not insured, but could benefit greatly.

 

Then, we held a village meeting about the insurance system. I gave a speech explaining the key points we wanted to stress about the system. I think the meeting went extremely well, some members in the room testified their valuable experience with the system. I think this is important, for others to hear their peers, rather than me, testify the advantages of the system from personal experience. When we left Togo, 5 new families had joined the system, which was  great especially considering most won’t have the extra money($3) to join until after the harvests in the fall. I spoke to my host father (who works at the CDS) on the phone a few days after I came back to America and he told me we are now up to ten new families in the system! I was thrilled and can’t wait to hear about the system’s continuous progress.

 

My time in Togo would not have been the same without the incredible I was lucky enough to be surrounded with. My host family provided me with endless hospitality, and generosity. From cooking my meals to getting me clean water or late night card games and conversations, my host family cared for me and I miss their bright smiles every day. Secondly, I had the fortune of being part of such a supportive, close group. Sean, Uzo, Mary Elizabeth, Abi and Linda- thank you for providing me with a summer of laughs, support and friendship.  I would like to thank Fidele for brightening up every room with her endless energy, and also providing cultural Kaibye insight to many conversations.  My incredible experience would not have been possible without Charlie’s guidance, patience, and hard work- thank you so much. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for being so supportive and allowing me to explore such an amazing part of the world- love you guys.

 

I miss Togo so much and would love an opportunity to return and continue my work at the CDS. I take a part of Togo with me everywhere I go- I can’t listen to rainfall without hearing the sound against a tin roof, and I taste Le Chateau in every cheeseburger I eat.  Again, I have endless gratitude for everyone that supported my Duke Engage Experience.

 

Until next time Togo,

 

Mika

Michaela Domaratzky

BS Biology; BA French; mbd13@duke.edu

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Thanks Togo- Sean

Every morning since I’ve returned from my trip, I wake up in my bed in a daze, confused as to why I’m not in the pitch-black darkness of my room, safely under my mosquito net. Then, it hits me. I’m not in Togo anymore. It’s interesting how a mere two months immersed in a foreign culture can change your entire mindset. It’s hard to think that after my entire experience, I’m now rolling around in bed at home as I’ve always had. I feel like I’ve left my entire life in Togo and I need to go back so I could regain it.

After settling down really well within the first few weeks, the last few weeks really felt like home. My partner’s, Michaela, and my project was coming along pretty well, I had made close relationships with the people of my village and I got pretty good at the local dance performed at the dance ceremonies that happened three or more times a week. Michaela and I also attended a lot of social gatherings that were by invitation only. Our professor told us that these were very special and were meant only for the closest of friends. These people are so welcoming that it’s hard not to feel part of their community. It’s easy to understand how our professor has stayed here for thirty or more years and I’m a little envious that he gets to spend so much time with such amazing people.

It had not occurred to me that our departure was approaching until we had our big village meeting about our health insurance system. It was the final piece of our project. After that, it felt like the feeling you get after you finish finals week, as my partner pointed out. It’s like a weight has been lifted but it’s as if there’s now a big void that needs to be filled. When that feeling hit, I knew that it was almost time to go.

It was sad to leave the village. I said good-bye to my homestay family and all my friends in the village. What was most comforting was that everyone told us that we should return next year to dance in the ceremony used as an entry into adulthood and I told them that I would return. I think saying that kept my head up.

On our way to Lomé, we went on to visit two satellite villages. After leaving our village, I thought that I would’ve been anxious to go home since we finished up our project and we left all the close friends we made in the villages. However, I found that it was actually pretty interesting. I think it wasn’t half as bad as I had imagined because Paketam, a person who worked with our professor and with whom our team had grown very close, came along with us. During our stays at the satellite villages, we got to interview people who had left the villages where we had stayed, and got a brief history of their movement. Our stays in these villages allowed us to make some comparisons to our own villages in the North. However, I wished we could have stayed a little longer to get better acquainted with the people of these villages.

Once we arrived in Lomé, we had a little time to just relax. It was good to settle down with my team again. I think over the entire trip we grew really close but oddly enough it felt as though our relationships didn’t really change that much since our first time in Lomé together. However, it was a little obvious that we were going to have a good team from the beginning. I am glad to have met such amazing people who I probably wouldn’t have ever met at Duke if it weren’t for this trip. It will be great to see them in school so we could reminisce on the parts of our trip that only we could truly enjoy.

After arriving home, I was bombarded with a bunch of questions. After explaining to my friends and family the conditions I lived in, a lot of them asked if I would do it again, and they were a little shocked to here my response. “In a heartbeat,” I’d always say. The way I’m drawn to Togo now is almost indescribable. I was completely sucked into the culture, the people and the mellow mood of it all. I’ve never had such an amazing experience.

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Litterature Club Wrap-Up — Abi

After the first three classes I finally fell into a routine. I wasn’t nervous going to each class anymore, and I became more confident running it and using my French. Prepping for each class got easier too, as I learned how much time activities I plan would really take and got used to deciphering difficult handwriting when editing student work. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t getting as many notebooks to look over as I expected. I knew there would be students who wouldn’t do the homework. But honestly that didn’t bother me as much as knowing there were kids who did the work but just didn’t turn it in. I couldn’t help them with their writing or know if more than a few students were applying what they learned in class if they didn’t hand their work in.

For the most part, I was very pleased with the notebooks I saw. The younger students in the class really struggled with grammar and didn’t always understand the prompt, but considering how new they were to French I was impressed by the effort they put into it. What really surprised me were the novels the students were writing. Before the fourth class, I collected the novel notebooks for the first time and I was blown away.

I half expected to see them writing huge to fill up pages quickly, writing one word over and over, or even skipping pages entirely to get their page count done, but I saw none of that. I saw well-formatted dialogue, chapter titles, and evidence of plot structure. One, called “Une vie despote” (A Despotic Life) read like a hundred year old fable. The author, Théo, had an incredibly assured and yet unobtrusive voice in his writing. I had a sense he was confident he knew where his story was going, which is an impressive feat for someone writing so quickly.

The fourth class was also when I started to see a lag in the pace of the novelist’s writing. Only Diko and Théo had reached the required page amount by then, and some students hadn’t written anything since the last class. I tried not to be disappointed. Even if some of them only finished with 10 or 20 pages, I reminded myself, it would still be an incredible feat. Plus, I knew from experience that getting past the initial few chapters is always tough (known in NaNoWriMo as the second week slump).

In class we discussed how to describe characters, and read handouts form the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter et l’école des sorciers) and Mr. Ibrahim and the Flower of the Koran (Mr Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran). They really enjoyed the readings, and I let a few of the students borrow the copies of the books that I had.

We continued our discussion about characters during the next class. Several students still lagged behind on their page count, but they had at least written a little more since the previous class. I reminded them that they shouldn’t worry about the novel being perfect; they just need to get it written. If they needed to jump around in time, change perspective, or add unlikely plot twists, they could. For homework I gave the students who weren’t doing the novel (and those who were, if they wanted extra practice) an assignment I was really excited about. I handed out photos of people from all over the world and told them to chose a person in the photo and describe them, to make up a history about them, to use their imaginations to make them a character. They all seemed really interested in it, and fought over the pictures they wanted to use.

Once again I didn’t get as many notebooks as I’d hoped before the next class. But when I went into class I saw that most people had completed the assignment and were eager to share—they just hadn’t had time to turn in their notebook somewhere I could pick it up. They happily shared what hey had written, and we had a good laugh when we realized that one guy had written a fantastic description and backstory about Dorathea Langea’s Migrant Mother thinking that the woman in the photo was a man. I told them that thist was the beauty of using their imagination in writing. What they write doesn’t have to be true!

By the next class, a few of the novelists had caught up in their page counts and it looked like I would have at least three out of ten finish their 100 pages. We discussed perspective in writing, and we read Zeina Abirached’s short graphic novel Catharsis. I tried to explain in French what I love about writing: Through imagining new perpectives, we can learn about the lives of others we will never know and feel something of what they feel. I think I just ended up bastardizing JK Rowling’s quote that inspired my sentiment with my flawed French:
“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.”

Our last class, when I asked the students to add the pages they’d written since we last met on the board, I was shocked and nearly moved to tears. Two had already finished (when they didn’t even need to until when we met on Saturday for our party) and two more were in the nineties. They’d written so much since when we last met, I could hardly believe it. We played a review game, and I was happy with how much they had remembered from earlier in the summer and how enthusiastic they were about participating in the game. We had so much fun; I didn’t want the class to end. I couldn’t believe it was already our last one!

To celebrate the students’ work for the summer, we threw a little party (and called it the literary salon) where students could share their work in front of the their friends and community. We made a ceremony out the finishing of the novels, and each student that had been working on a book came up and added their pages (finished or not) and got a round of applause from the group. In the end, five out of ten finished. Even out of those who fell short, most were over 50 pages. I really did start crying then. It was more than I could have ever hoped for.

The kids seemed to have a great time at the party, and everyone enjoyed the poems and novel excerpts that a few of the students shared. After they had all read, Jesper told the group a village fable and we had juice and cookies. Soon it turned into a dance party, DJed by Elie, and we hung out together into the night.

I was a bit of an emotional wreck. I couldn’t have been happier, but I was unspeakably sad knowing that the class was over and that I’d be leaving in two days. I didn’t want to go.

At the beginning of the summer, I myself wasn’t convinced that a group of writers in rural Togo should be a priority for a volunteer group. But after my experience with this group of kids, seeing how passionate, talented, and hardworking they are, it would break my heart if somehow it didn’t continue next year. I’m so proud of them.

Check out our website, meet the writers, and read their work!
http://ecrivainsdefarende.wix.com/cljf-2014

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Mary Elizabeth’s Final Reflections

I honestly can’t believe my summer with DukeEngage is over already. Now, as I’m writing this during my free time as a counselor at the same camp I’ve been at for 11 summers, my experience in Togo seems like it was in another world, or at least in another life. Nevertheless, and sorry this is so cliché, the memories are still very vividly engrained in my mind, as I know they will be for years to come. And to be honest, I spend a lot of time here, while “roughing it” American style at a summer camp, thinking about the village. The stark differences between life in Farendè and in an American summer camp cause me constantly to imagine village children as campers here and what they would think about the other children, their worries and complaints, and the activities offered. In addition, so many simple things that happen regularly here, like having the girls complain about the camp showers and bathrooms (which, although not necessarily pretty, have running, hot, high-pressured water that you could actually drink safely if you wanted and numerous working toilets always stocked with soft toilet paper) strike me in a completely different way than before. I can definitely already tell that this experience has made me think differently about our American lifestyles and our day to day worries.

Our last few weeks in the village flew by. Once we all got started on our projects, we were busy, but in a relaxed, Togolese way. One thing I greatly appreciated which I didn’t realize until I reentered our busy, stressed culture was that I never felt rushed in Togo and was always very calm. If you happened to be 30 minutes late, “ce n’était pas grave.” We all went by our own time almost, and even though things didn’t always start on time, it all ended up being okay in the end. We also didn’t worry about things we couldn’t control, so things that would be catastrophic in the US, like losing a tire of your van, were taken in stride. Within two days of being home, as I was rushed to get ready to go into town for lunch or as my parents stressed about a traffic light that just wouldn’t change, I realized I was really going to miss this calm, laidback Togolese lifestyle.

Despite being busy with our projects, we still had time to enjoy our remaining weeks, spending time with the villagers and with each other (#teamtogo). Linda and I spent a lot of time with our host family, getting our hair braided by our host-aunt, taking family, afternoon naps on the mat underneath our tree, and getting to know our host brothers around our age that had arrived back home during the last week or so from Benin, Lomé, and Kara. We also got to spend time with Donny and Emmanuel, two boys from Farendè and learning about their lives was especially interesting since they were around our age. In addition to these more casual activities, the last few weeks were filled with more scheduled events. For instance, the whole group got to participate in dancing ceremonies in the market, the girls made and sold beer on the last Saturday’s market, we saw the president at the big annual wrestling match in Pya and appeared on TV, we went to many going away/thank you parties, we went on a weekend trip to visit Tamberma, a game reserve, and Eyadema’s plane crash, and many other things.

Finally it was time to leave the village, and our tearful goodbyes were just the beginning of our realization that our time was almost over. We stopped in two satellite villages along the way, learning about and experiencing more Kabiye culture, and then spent a few days in Lomé, getting some shopping done in the market (and learning how to barter successfully—well, sometimes successfully) and celebrating my 21st birthday at the beach. As our trip came full circle, I think we all realized how much we’d changed and grown, individually and as a group, since the beginning of the trip when we’d stayed in Lomé. Our group had become really close, and it was sad to think that soon we wouldn’t have each other to share every happening of the day with, including our sometimes peculiar bodily functions, and that we’d all go back to our normal lives. After being home and struggling to find a way to describe my experiences in Togo adequately to friends and family who can’t relate, I can definitely attest to the fact that I will very much appreciate seeing our team when we’re back at Duke since they will all be able to relate to and understand. I can’t wait until we can all get together and relive our memories of Togo and particularly the villages, laugh at our unusual stories, and of course greet each other over-enthusiastically in Kabiye around campus.
#teamtogo

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Looking back – Linda

While in Togo, it was clear to all of us that we were changing. As I said in our last blog post, as a team we went through the culture shock, the weather, and every other small situation that arose. But because we were adapting to the Togo lifestyle, there were some changes that went unnoticed until we arrived home at the end of our trip. For example, after one week of arriving to the US, I still  get a funny feeling when I realize I have not one but two working toilets in my house to use at any point in the day. If I’ve lost track of time, but there is light, even if its coming from a lightbulb, my body wants to associate that with daytime and I’m always astonished when I find out its later than I think. These are only a few silly examples of changes that took part in our daily life that only now we can look back and say “wow, we really did fill in the blank”. In Togo when we all shared stories as a group, even if they were a bit odd, we all assimilated them as normal. Now in the US, when I tell some of my Togo stories I get incredulous looks with the questions “why do they do that?” or “how did you manage that?”. And to be honest, it’s a bit frustrating when you are trying to explain the dancing at the market or a certain beer hut to them because you know the “Africa” they are imagining is much different than what you experienced.

We all had an experience that opened our eyes to new things, and as we come back and try to share it with others, we can only give them a glimpse, because as hard as I try to get them to focus on the big picture, the conversation always turns back to a few things,

What animals did you see?

Do you know if you have Ebola?

But why did you stay if you kept getting sick?

I know all of us can say that our time in Togo cannot be defined by one single moment or an experience with one single person. Every moment of every day comes together to define our experience. So even though I did have mysterious sicknesses and we did have cars break down on us, we also learned so much from our host families with every conversation that we had and every laugh that we shared. I wouldn’t trade my time in Togo for anything in the world and I truly do hope that I get to go back. The relationships I made will never be forgotten, and they will stay a part of my life for a long time to come.

Finally, I just want to send out a quick thank you to Charlie and Fidele. They did everything and more to make our trip as incredible as possible and we could never repay them for everything. Thanks again!

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Linda’s Second Project Post – Microfinance des Jeunes de Farende

As my project comes to a conclusion, I cannot begin to say how excited and proud I am of the ten new members of MJF for this year.

In my last post I left off right before the interview stage. In one day Charlie, Fidele, Cirile, and I interviewed all 25 applicants and selected five girls and five boys. This was perhaps one of the most interesting days of working with my project. In school we were taught the basics of interview etiquette; speak loudly and with a purpose, make eye contact, have a question prepared, and show your passion. For our young applicants, it was clear they had not received the same preparation. Many of them were whispering and seemed uncertain that they knew anything about their own projects. At first, this was difficult for me to work with in gauging the interviews but by the end it was clear that there were many different aspects of an applicant that we were looking for. We had to look past certain things and then consider others such as family and parent influence. It was difficult to make the decisions precisely because there were so many things we had to consider, but at the end of the day we selected five girls and five boys.

A few days later we called them together for a group meeting in which we explained the adjustments we had made to each of their budgets and explained what it meant to be a member of MJF now. They are now all members of a team of entrepreneurs who each have a responsibility not only to themselves but to their team members. We set the date and time for their weekly discussions and also decided everyone’s individual pay cycles. That afternoon we had a nice celebratory contract-signing event. A representative for the chief of the village came as well as family members and together we celebrated their new opportunities with solom and kakarasi. Each new member of MJF received their funds and we took some great group pictures.

Now that I am back in the states, I am working on putting together the microfinance website for this year, in which you would be able to learn more about each applicant and their progress. Although my time in Togo has come to an end for now, my work with the microfinance program has not. I look forward to keeping up with both the new and old groups throughout the year and helping them with any difficulties they run into. I have high hopes for this group, and I know this program will continue to grow throughout the years. These two groups are only the beginning of the MJF program, it is upon their success that the program will grow and expand to other places such as Kuwde.

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Cyber Café Computer Lessons Wrap Up – Mary Elizabeth

The cyber café lessons went really well! Although we never were able to get the Internet working well enough to do anything on it, we were able to find enough to do during lesson times. As I mentioned in my last post about the project, we divided up the classes into five groups: two for the younger students, one middle school aged, one high school aged, and one for the adults. After the first week of classes, we doubled the class times, so that each class was able to meet two times each week.

Throughout the classes, we learned the basics of computers, including the parts and their functions. I taught how to properly use the different parts (holding the mouse correctly, right click vs. left click, the proper typing techniques, etc.); the location and function of the start button; opening and closing programs; basic functions on Microsoft Word and Paint; things that we can do on computer (research, videos, communication, games, etc.); basic navigation skills around the computer; and various other small skills helpful to computers. The children participated very well during the classes, sometimes receiving a small treat for a particularly good answer, and by the end they were able to answer many questions and show off many computer skills we’d learned. We ended off the summer with a competition to complete a list of tasks that we’d learned how to do over the summer (for example, opening Microsoft Word, copying and pasting something in a specific font, color, and size, typing up answers to questions about computers, drawing a sun in Paint, saving documents and then opening them, etc.), and the children made me proud! They were able to do almost everything on the list with almost no help from me, although they were tempted to ask questions they knew the answers to.

In addition to the classes for the children, I also offered a class for adults, as the professors requested. Unfortunately, most of the time we were there, the professors were in Lomé, helping grade the Bac, and the attendance was low for the adult class, at around 3-5 students each class, a good number to share the three available computers. A few students came regularly, some of them young adults and some of them older, and they were able not only to learn the basics, but also learn some more complicated functions and shortcuts on Microsoft Word, and two students even mastered some of Excel’s mathematical and graphing functions.

In general, the attendance of the children’s classes was very high, with around 15 students each of the classes every week, although this varied one week that was particularly rainy, since many were working in the fields to profit from the rain. I was very pleased with and encouraged by the attendance and interest in the computer literacy classes. These village children love the computers and were eager to learn! I really hope that now, with the knowledge of the basics and with the ability to use the computers for free, that the cyber café will continue to be used throughout the year, and that very soon the internet will be reliable enough for them to use their skills to navigate and connect to others, including former Duke students and family members who have moved away from the village.

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Dance Classes – Linda and Mary Elizabeth

We (Linda and Mary Elizabeth) also decided to teach a dance class in a similar style to the popular Zumba classes in the USA. The idea came to us since, almost every night in the beginning of the trip, we would have dance parties with our host family and some neighbors out in the courtyard. They really seemed to love to dance, and we loved learning their dances and teaching them some of ours. We choreographed seven routines and planned our first class on a Thursday at 3:00 pm. That day, after some technical difficulties getting everything set up correctly (using Eli’s generator and its various parts and connecting it properly to the speakers), we had our first Zumba class. It was a big success! Around 50 people, children and adults, showed up, and everyone had a wonderful time. They even made us go through all the dances two times! We had a lot of fun, and that night we were so excited we ended up choreographing more dances, although we were only able to mark them being so tired from dancing full out so long.

Every Thursday after that, we offered a Zumba class, now with ten dances to go through, but every Thursday after that, it also rained. This made things a lot more difficult because when it rains in the village, everything seems to pause. The attendance was much lower at the other classes due to the rain, but also because of problems with the equipment which made the music a lot less loud, therefore making the class a little less inviting. Nevertheless, we still had a great time, and during one class we even all sung the parts of the songs (such as the lyrics) that didn’t go through on the worn out cord. This was a very great activity to add to our other projects, and we think that everybody really enjoyed it!

Dance Class in Farendé

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Bye Bye Togo – Uzo’s Final Reflections

I’m writing this post as I fly above the plains of Cumulonimbus clouds of West Africa. A few moments ago I watched Lome disappear into fog as we departed. Togo, and more specifically Farende – you will be missed. I thought because I had been in a village setting before and am West African I wouldn’t learn as much culturally or benefit as much as my team members but the fact that I had experiences to compare my summer to made my trip even more enriching. One example that i’ll site is the 5 year ceremony that boys participate in to become recognized as men in the community. We visited in the fourth year and the Asoka as they are now called were preparing for the huge fifth year induction called Wa: Where young men come from all over Togo to the villages in the North to dance Wa. In their preparation for Wa in the fourth year there are a series of preliminary dances that initiates do in the market and a huge race on the mountain Farang where all the other villages came from. I was fortunate enough to participate in both and was welcomed with open arms even as an outsider to not only view Kabiye culture but live it. As I was leaving everyone told Sean and I that we had to return next year for Wa because we had started the process. To have people so willingly take you in as one of their own in only two months is phenomenal , I can understand why Charlie has been coming back for three decades.
We had several going away parties as we were leaving and even got the opportunity to eat dog, really delicious to be honest. Apologies if the post is jumping from thought to thought but it’s redolent of my mind’s state as I reflect on my time here. The people I’m going to miss most are my host mom Reine whose cooking and gleeful smile filled up stomach with food and heart with joy, Reine’s daughter Solange who is honestly my little sister now. I’m going to miss Donny and Kobe Kob for their energy and youth, they definitely showed me that kids everywhere have so much in common but on the flip side educated me on the dismal reality that so many youth in Togo have no foreseeable future path and are hungry to leave. The Karma family: Eli, Simon, Michael, Siloe and Cati. These five especially Eli taught me more than anyone else. They showed me how productive a family unit can be and the importance of your children seeing how hard you work, they showed me that resilience is a quality that allows you to never fail and the ability to start from scratch and keep moving when everything you work for has been stripped away is tantamount to being impactful to those around you. Perhaps the greatest lesson that Eli taught me was that the answers to developing and bettering communities can ALL be found WITHIN those communities if you just take the time to cultivate the necessary skills and find those motivated individuals that are present in every locality. We can add our skills where needed but the nuances and answers to the biggest problems cannot be solved from outside but must be promoted from within the community.
My time in Togo felt so much far removed from a Duke civic engagement opportunity that is offered in fifty plus locations around the world but rather like an completely authentic unique experience and all of that I have to attribute to our fearless and sage like program coordinator Chief of Durham or Sateau as he’s known in Togo: Charlie Piot. My acknowledgements towards program staff would not be close to complete without me mentioning and praising Tanti Fidel or Mama F- General in Lome, General in Accra, General in Durham!!! Fidel was a constant source of emotional and physical support, whenever anyone on the team ever felt down or was experiencing problems with their projects she was immediately there to assist him or her, in fact I was feeling despondent about the outcome of my project towards the beginning of the project and it was Fidel, who spoke to Charlie for me to kick-start everything again .
Finally my beloved TeamTogo. My five incredibly diverse, enthusiastic, intelligent team members. As we near the end of our travel together I can see each and every one of you : Abi and ME sleeping soundly. Sean, Mika and Linda sitting together chatting. It’s going to be so strange not seeing each of you every single day but when we meet on campus, greet each other and respond with a hearty ALAFIAT it’ll bring back the flood of fantastic moments spent with each of you.

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Sanitation System – Project Wrap-Up

Since I last posted there have been some incredible happenings! I received the funding needed to finish the renovations to the project courtesy of Trinity’s Dean Baker who visited the site earlier this month. I was absolutely ecstatic upon getting this news and started work on purchasing materials and contacting carpenters, masons and galvanizing the community to assist us with necessary labor. I only had two weeks left to have the system operational and I tell you – it was an absolutely manic rush.
On site at Centre Medicale Sociale at 6:30 and working till sundown, we were always increasingly more productive in the time before noon, after noon there was an absolute lull. Charlie explained to us that the culture around work even in corporate settings is get everything done in the morning and to tone down the pace after. However experiencing this when the project was so time sensitive was frustrating at first but after proved to be beneficial because Eli and I could reflect on what we’d done thus far and trouble shoot or improve upon our ideas instead of rushing forward through all and not allowing time to iterate on our changes to the system. We found a couple better solutions to system failures this way.
The biggest and most time consuming piece of the system revival was getting the bio digester. We weren’t particularly sure about how to go about this but Eli as always had a brilliant idea and as I had none we decided to lead with his. We poured five liters of petrol into a corrugated iron drum and placed solid chunks of tar into it while stoking a wood fire underneath it. After five more liters of petrol we had a incendiary concoction of tar to paint the bio digester and it’s five covers. Side note, I was scared stiff and kept on shouting desmeaux as Eli plunged very flammable petrol into this furnace of tar, he didn’t even flinch and it worked. That’s Eli for you. Upon finishing the tarring of the digester we estimated finishing a week before I would have to leave the village. Little did we know that constructing the digester covers would take several days and by the grace of God and Eli and his families constant commitment and energy we managed to have the system finished one day before I had to leave!!! Eli and I commissioned the latrines with our ‘primary materials’ the following day. It was a whirlwind two weeks and I’m so pleased to have been given the opportunity to work alongside Eli, his family and other committed community members. The entire system will still need considerable research and troubleshooting to produce all the desired products but now it is at least operational and can begin collecting the human waste required to drive the products. I have faith Eli will adhere to instructions I left behind and I look forward to collaborating with him so we can see the realization of the systems potential for the betterment of Farende. I am also hoping to return to make anticipated fixes to the quality of the algae that grows, to construct the fish pond, to install the piping for the digestate (organic fertilizer ) and perhaps find a biogas usage. All this remains to be seen and I will continue to keep up with the system. For Now at least I’m deeply satisfied at having been able to complete what I set out to do but more so learning so much more about how to work within a community like this one and leverage the strengths of others above your own. There were so many moments I wasn’t sure we would finish but we did – singing ‘I see a new Farende’ a top of the digester while hammering the final nail is a memory that will never leave me.