Another month nearly gone, and just June left in Togo. The land is changing by rain and human hands. Every morning, I can hear the steady sound of hoes hitting and turning the soil. The baobabs are full of leaves again. Nearly all the palms in the chief’s yard have been knocked over to make palm wine. Grasses begin to crowd over the paths. The air smells of weeds that have been pulled up and set in the sun to dry. Early corn is nearly a foot high. The cassava mounds checker the fields. And I’m left knowing I won’t walk under ten foot high millet stalks bent heavy with grain. I won’t be here to see an abundance of corn laid out to dry in the sun like kernels of gold. I will miss the coming of age ceremonies by just two weeks. I will not be here to see the rains finish again. The goodbyes are beginning.
I am sad to leave my village. But I do feel like it is the right time to go. I just wish the time would slow down a little bit so I could take it all in before I go.
There’s not much more that I can say than that, for now. So here is some photos from the month of May.
The neem leaf insecticide was completed despite the rain. My student on the far left is remarkably responsible and made sure it happened. These boys were goofing and laughing the whole time but of course struck a very serious pose for the photo.Applying the diluted insecticide to the gardenTransplanting Gboma (a leafy green like spinach) to its new bed in the Koukoude Community GardenMore transplantingMaking neem leaf insecticide for the Koukoude community gardenSquash flowers 🙂
View of the Koukoude Community Garden. We’ve only used about half the space so far. I took the video from the far corner where we have sweet potato mounds.We may have a solution for our ant problem. These are the outer casings of neere tree seed pods. We opened up the ant hill and filled it with the plant material, then poured water over it all. It needs to be repeated multiple times but so far it’s working well. Ants stole our seeds and seedlings – they are very aggressive here!I love cloudsI love clouds (part 2)I love clouds (part 3) at sunsetTree seed planting day with my sixth gradersEverybody loves to take home a goodie bag 🙂The school garden is looking okay — much better than last year when we ran out of water!I love clouds (part 4) at sunset while it rainsHarvested a whole bunch of basil that I then dried. My hands never smelt better!Helping Maman take palm kernels off of their very spike-y bunch/stem. It’s officially mango season! I think mango-orange is one of my new favorite colors.Zorro patiently waiting for his girlfriends to come over. He sat straight up like this for an hour at least just eagerly waiting.Food vendors laying siege on the bus door in Atakpame.
I traveled down to Lome for a final physical and dental check up before I finish service. So I traveled the nearly the whole length of the country once again. I’ll write to you about what those journeys are like soon. But every stop looks a bit like the photo above. The food is good. The delivery is chaotic.
On my way back from my final dental & physical in Lome, I stopped by Jane’s village and got to see her grant project!
Jane helped women in her community form a collective for food processing. Yams (right bottom corner of photo) are typically boiled and then pounded in a mortar and pestle to make fufu, a staple dish. They found a way to dry the yams and turn them into a flour that can be prepared into fufu. The flour lasts longer and is less susceptible to rot than the whole yams. And the women can sell the flour for income. Her grant funded the building she’s in, the mill next to her, the solar dryer (rolled up so looks like a black tarp), and all the accouchements (such as labeled sealed bags) It’s amazing stuff!
My final sixth grade English club meeting A skill I wish I had learned before Peace Corps? How to actually take a decent selfie! I think we got most of us squeezed in there.My final seventh grade English club meeting
My seventh graders wanted to sing a song to “send to America”. I swear I taught them the whole song but the second half is a lot harder to pronounce so they seem to have collectively decided to skip that bit haha
My selfie attempt turned into another song that they must have learned with the English teacher — I had never heard it beforeZorro’s dental records photoshoot — absolutely hilarious looking. But apparently it was decent enough so he can be registered to be screened to enter the U.S.
Sending everyone at home and around the world my best wishes!
Janet goes places, sees things 
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