Survey Trip- Update 3, (Tuesday, January 10th)

We visited a Public school (near Becky's house) in the morning. As on Monday, Amenyo and Roger were our translators. Amenyo teaches at the Kpegolonou Christian elementary school and Roger is the principal of La Lumier.

The teachers at the public school were on STRIKE! The kids were running around unattended. The principle was the only responsible adult there! This would be unheard of in the states. For some reason, I wasn’t thinking how strange it was at the time, though. In this case I’m only noticing the difference in culture in retrospect.

Just a note to anyone visiting to Togo schools- show your camera and you will get swarmed! The kids love having their pictures taken, which makes for really blurry pictures because they are constantly trying to get closer to the camera!

We hit the Kpegolonou Christian school (near Beky's house) around lunchtime. I hung out with the kindergartners. About the only phrase I could say in French was "Qe'est-ce que c'est?" asking what they were eating. They had no idea what I was saying. The teacher told me, "porridge." Just another proof to me that I NEED to learn Ewe. This was not the last time I wished I knew their heart language.

They had some sort of crisp tortilla shaped food that I really wanted to try. I restrained myself. No sense risking being sick the next week while we're here. But, when we MOVE here. . . . Hmmm.


Went to Chez Fanny for lunch(I had curry chicken). Fanny (yes, the real Fanny) gave me some star fruit that I was admiring. I haven’t seen star-fruit since living in Grenada! We then picked up Ben Ward for our drive to Lome. He is a missionary to Ghana who is currently living in Togo to learn Ewe. It was a squishy back bench, but the trip seemed to go quickly because we talked about language school, Ghana visa requirements, and Ben’s ministry plans the whole time. We went straight to the customs place and dropped off our passports. We needed to get our visas extended another week. They told us to come back the next day to pick them up. We took a short rest at the hotel and then went to an appliance store (Ramco) and a supermarket (Super Ramco). I was able to price a lot of food stuffs. Does it interest you to know that diapers are $1 each? It does me.

Somehow I lost my voice in the evening. It may have been from all the dust in Lome. The roads are a lot more congested and everything just felt a little dirtier. Give me a village any day! We tried to go to Chinese for dinner, but they were closed, so we had went to a pizza place instead. It felt really late because it was so dark, but it was only 7pm.

A Late 'Happy birthday' to my sister Hannah. Sorry, it totally slipped my mind while we were in Togo!

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