Once again, it’s been forever since I’ve written here! Sorry for lack of updates. It’s hard to rehash the same news sometimes after telling people in my village, telling other PCVs, writing it in my journal, writing it in at least 5 letters, and emailing it. But here’s the latest:

I’ve been having a really good past few weeks or so. Just overall feeling optimistic, productive and content! March 8 was International Women’s Day which I’d been planning events for since January. Overall it went pretty well. Some people I’ve been collaborating with kinda let me down, but others pulled through. We ended up celebrating the day in a couple of ways, neither of which needed funding (a consistent barrier I’ve run into in motivating people to work with me).

On the 8th, I displayed my latest edition of our village’s Community Board with relevant information on Women’s rights, Numbers of local women’s social workers to contact if in need of help or advice, and pictures/biographies of example women role models from our community. I also went around to the elementary, middle and high schools and spoke briefly to different classes about International Women’s Day and women’s contributions to different fields during the course of history, such as government, sciences, mathematics, and literature.

On the 9th, we celebrated by organizing a soccer match between two girls’ elementary school teams in my village, EPP Centrale and EPP Marché. All the kids, girls and boys, from each school came to see the match, as well as some of the older students in middle and high school, random community members, parents and others who happened to be passing by. The two school directors and I gave short speeches to support the girls in their efforts in school and to encourage them to act as peer educators in the community, sharing what they’ve learned with others.

After the speeches, we did a few Akposso dances, took photos of the teams, and played the match. The girls seemed to have so much fun getting a chance to play, and all the others there to watch loved cheering their school’s team on. I wanted the girls of my mentoring center to present sketches during halftime, but their usual Mentor/session leader wasn’t there and despite my reassurance, they felt it was disrespectful to do it without her presence. EPP Centrale Girls ended up winning 4-3 during penalty kicks. They apparently heard the crowd’s cheering from half the village away! We gave out prizes of new soccer balls for each team, little bags of peanut m&ms (thanks to a recent package from my mom!), and copies of the new edition of Leve Toi Jeune Fille, the national youth magazine that I work on. It was awesome and I’m really glad it came together (though much of it was organized 3 hours beforehand). It was one of the few times that I’ve been able to pull people together into a semi-big event without money involved. So it felt nice, and the girls had such a fun time and were proud, which is what they deserve and all that I wanted for the day. So, I was happy!

The next day, Brett came down to hang out in my village for a couple of days, which is always really fun. He and I are going strong and I feel really awesome about our relationship, more than ever before. I’m in love :)

Sunday to Tuesday morning I went down to the capital 4 hours from my village to do some work. I was able to send out the latest articles for the LTJF magazine to the layout editor, and I also got to pick up the funding that came in for our regional Peace Corps partnership project!! Thanks to everyone again who donated! I’m excited it’s finally in; we have a little over a week until the conference starts! Lots to do, but I think it’ll go well.

Wednesday I went to a training in my village that I was invited to by the President of our Mother’s Club. I had no idea what it was about, but really wanted to go and support them. I’ve been planning on working with them to start something of a Big Sister/Little Sister program in my village where we work together to talk to young women about healthy pregnancies and sexual health. Our schedules always seem to conflict somewhat, but I finally had an opportunity to go and meet everyone. I showed up to find that the training was being led by Mme. Akou, a midwife in a nearby village, former participant of my MAP Project training in December, and woman role model for the upcoming issue of the LTJF magazine I work on! She is super awesome and it was cool to see and work with her again.

The training turns out to be run by the local chapter of Red Cross in Togo for our region who has organized two day formations with all of the mother’s clubs of villages in our region throughout the month of March to talk about Women’s Rights and Empowerment. It made me feel good to know that local organizations are doing projects like this, and hopeful that such ideas will continue in the future, with or without me/other volunteers around. Yay for sustainability!

So I spent the whole day with them Wednesday, sitting under the shade tree in a circle of benches with 40 women, interjecting here and there in broken Akposso on-the-spot speeches about women’s leadership, being proud of their activism in the community, and letting them know I was there help with questions and advice. They loved my efforts in Akposso (my village’s local language), which always wins me points and gives me an “in” to working with people. Again, it felt nice to be a part of something simple, but organized and effective that was important, relevant and impactful to women in my community.

Thursday I woke up and took a moto about an hour and a half off of my main road to Kpategan, the village of another Peace Corps Volunteer named Jes. She invited me to help her do a community talk about the effects of violence against kids (a very common practice here). A good cross-sector of her community showed up, summoned by her village’s President of the CVD (Village Development Committee) and sat in a giant circle under a shade tree to listen to what we had to say. Again, it felt so refreshing to be a part of something like this. It wasn’t a big funded project idea that takes forever to plan and never gets done. It was just simple and impactful and felt awesome to participate in.

That kind of thing just doesn’t happen in my village, at least not often. I’m a little jealous of it, in fact. But I guess that’s the difference between a village like Jes’ who’s hosting their first ever PC volunteer or foreigner for that matter and a village like mine that has had PCVs for the past 10 consecutive years, although you may expect it to be the opposite. I think it has to do with the fact of my village’s size compared to hers as well and the fact that mine is our prefecture’s capital. People can sometimes have a know-it-all-already attitude.

It felt nice to be a part of though, and I hope to get to go to her village and other’s like it nearby more often during the rest of my service. I’m happy though with the projects that I do have in the works. I think our Take Our Daughters to Work week will be a little hectic, but inspiring and helpful, and I’m excited to start participating more with my village’s Mother’s Club. I recently found out I get the chance to help out with the 1st annual Women’s Wellness and Empowerment Conference being organized for our region as well. I’m also working on an “Awesome Women of Togo” project that hopefully will be…well, awesome. And of course there is our last issue of Leve Toi Jeune Fille magazine, which I love working on.

So overall, feeling pretty good. I had several moments today (sitting under shade trees, speaking to a whole community in broken French and local language, riding a moto through winding dirt roads in the mountains, playing with Max, taking a rainwater bucket bath) where I stopped and realized how much I love my life here. I love these days.