I'm home. Seriously. My service ended with Peace Corps a few days ago. Friday evening in Lome I boarded a plane to Brussels then Atlanta. I got in about 2:30pm on Saturday, November 19. That date is also my mother's birthday. My sisters picked me up from the airport then we went home to surprise mom.

Pictures to follow I suppose.

I just wanted to say hi. I'm sorry it's been a while. Here's what's going on:

I got some new photography toys that I'm pretty excited about. Thanks to Martin's family for bringing them over. I suspect most of you will not think they're as fun as I do, but if you wanna know, I got a new flash, and a wireless triggering system so that I can fire the flashes off-camera. I also spent the first few hours after I got to village making accessories. I made a softbox, and a snoot. Well, the snoot was mostly made, I didn't do much to it. I'm pretty pleased with the soft box though. They are pretty villagois, as you'll see.

The softboxThe snoot

I may or may not have a red, white and blue paper chain counting down the days until I go home. If I did, it would probably be a decent subject to test out my new lighting equipment. Those experiments might return something like the following photo.

Here's me getting my certificate of service from a minister in the Togolese government (well a representative of a minister at least).

Well, that's about all I got for you. I do have a couple of requests now. First is that I think the time has come that if anyone sends another package it should probably be sent to me and Martin. Packages can come in as few as ten days or as many as well. . .many. If a package comes for me after I leave I want to make sure it doesn't go to waste, meaning I want to make sure that Martin (my peace corps volunteer buddy here in town) is able to pick it up. He's got almost another year here. So yeah, make sure you put both our names on the package so either of us can pick them up. His name is Martin Sterlicchi. Don't think I'm saying "Send me more packages!" though. As it stands, I'd say I'm one of the better supported (care-package wise) volunteers in country and it'd be just fine if I didn't get any more, probably. After all, I'm going to be home soon. I'll be able to buy all the peanut butter/bacon I want. All I'm saying is that if you send another package put Martin's name on it too, so if it comes late he can have my peanut butter.

Second request is that I want to take some pictures, but I've been looking at the same things for the last two years and it all looks pretty normal and not exactly picture-worthy. So write a comment, send an email, give me a call to let me know what you want to see. I am going to take some portraits of my friends here, but beyond that, I don't have any picture plans. All the returned peace corps volunteers I've talked to have always said "Take more pictures. You'll always want more than you have." So send some ideas my way.

Ok, that's all I got.

First let me relate to you a short conversation that just happened:Martin: What are you up to?Trent: I'm posting to my blog. June, my aunt--Martin: is awesome.Trent: Yes, yes she is. But what I was going to say is that she wants me to update my blog. So I'm doing it.You see, at the time Martin interrupted me, his mouth was full of chips that June sent me. His belly was also full of a potato soup I made last night using some bacon and spam that June also sent me. So, June, thanks so much for the wonderful care package. We truly had a wonderful meal, which is a rare occurrence. And if you ever need someone to bail you out of jail or change your tire in the wee hours of the morning or whatever in Tampa, where Martin is from, I'm sure he'll be there for you. You've made a life-long friend. Also, we have a bit of a post card project here. There's a library we work with that we're gonna put up a world map and collect post cards from all over. Then we'll pin up the cards on the map where they are from. The card from Mt. McKinley you sent me will go up there.

We recently finished up Take Our Daughters to Work Centrale 2011. It was a week-long camp where we brought middle school girls from surrounding villages to the big city, Sotouboua. There we had lessons and seminars talking about why it's important to stay in school, and strategies to keep your life on track. We also introduced them to women who had stayed in school and gotten jobs outside of the house. Girls here have a pretty tough path to college/employment. Few of them make it. Boys have to struggle though the poor education system to score well enough on the exams to be able to pass and go to college while also working in the fields. Girls have the same crappy lot, except they have pretty heavy domestic duties like getting water, cleaning, cooking, looking after younger siblings too. They also face a culture that often doesn't understand the value of, or the need to educate girls. They face sexual harassment from teachers, principles, classmates. There's the whole threat of pregnancy. And to top it all off, families will choose to send the boys to school if there's not enough money for all the kids. So yeah, girls here are troopers and we try to support them all we can. Check out the pictures:

take our daughters to work 2011

My stage (a French word we've adopted meaning training group - all the kids that left the States to go to Togo in September 2009) just got back from our Close of Service conference. It was a lot of fun. Peace Corps was really good to us. They put us up in a beachside hotel (I think a room there cost about twenty bucks a night . . . there are some good things about Togo) for a few days and we talked about finishing up our service with Peace Corps and how to move on. We had sessions on everything from resume writing to how not to annoy our friends when we get home by starting all of our sentences with "Back in Togo . . ." or "When I was in Togo . . ." or "Oh, you're eating? You know, in Togo we used to eat too! Let me tell you about it!". Apparently it's a big problem. Judging by how much time we devoted to it, I suspect over enthusiastic returned volunteers might be a public relations liability for Peace Corps.

You know, I knew that the end of my service was coming up. I mean, I did leave home an awful long time ago. But this conference really kinda drove it home. It was fun seeing the whole stage back together, or what's left of us. I think we came to Togo with something just south of 30 people and I think it was about nine who didn't make it to the end. Some of them quit, some of them left for medical reasons and some for reasons that are a little juicier, but all of my details on them are from the peace corps volunteer grapevine. That grapevine has proved time and time again that it is extremely efficient in disseminating information as long as it's judged on speed. Judged on accuracy it's pretty rotten.

We had a really good time, the twenty of us who are left. The sand was hot and the ocean was cool. The food was good. The beds were soft. The air conditioning was cold and the showers were hot. And we were happy. The camaraderie we share is something that I don't think is unique, but I do think it is pretty rare. We all came to Togo two years ago looking for something. A few found it, but most of us didn't or decided that we were looking for the wrong thing in the first place. But we all had good times and bad times that we didn't face alone, despite the fact that we are all away from our families and none of us knew anyone here before we came. Friendships in peace corps are kinda supercharged. Most of us get along really well, we all mostly have a similar vision, I mean, we all signed up for peace corps. And we can mostly only lean on each other when we're having a rough time or need to get something off our chests. So yeah, I'm a lot closer than two years of friendship with some of my fellow volunteers. I guess I've seen some of them for the last time ever. We're not all leaving together. I'll see some of them in the next few months, and I'm sure we'll meet up in the States every once in a while. And several of these people are obviously gonna be some of my closest friends for the rest of my life.

Sorry about the rambling.

But yeah, anyway, I've got about three months left which will be dominated by trying to get my pump repair operation running without me. My guys have repaired two pumps where I wasn't involved at all, or at least very little. They took the pumps apart, found the problems, got replacement parts and then put it all back together. Most importantly they funded it all themselves and by collecting money from the communities that the pumps served. That's huge. I'm afraid it might have been a fluke though. There's one pump in my village that I decided I'd pay for because a part broke that is a bit pricier than the typical repair, but it's still not much. But I want the village to think that they've done it without my help so I told them it would cost about 20,000CFA to fix (a more typical price). That's around 40-45 dollars. Which divided by the 150 people that would use the pump. . .isn't that much, even considering the poverty here. They've had months to raise that money though there's no progress. I really just want them to take some responsibility for their future, some ownership in their neighborhoods. But I guess that's asking too much.

Ha, stinks leaving a blog post on such a rotten note . . . so here are some fun pictures that I don't think you've seen yet. I could be wrong, maybe I've posted all of them. This internet connection is quite fast enough to click through the albums to check.

Sorry there hasn't been much to write. . .

19 june 2011

and

2011-06-28 mototour

The explanation of pictures in the last post was about the sets of pictures I had put up over the last couple of weeks. You'll find them in the last two posts.

Well, I’ll go ahead and admit that there has been some time for me lately to do the blog update that I promised a while back . . . but I’m just now getting to it. I’m sorry about all that. Things here are just always the same and I never really have much to say about them. But I will explain the pictures that I’ve put up. First off, let me say that food here is really something you eat to keep you alive rather than something pleasurable. But every once in a while we’ll find, go out of our way (way out of our way), or get sent something that lets us make a delicious meal. So the sandwich might look pretty standard to y’all, but to Katy and I it was heavenly. Thanks to Aunt June for the bacon. The gin was from Lome (300km away from us), though it turns out you can buy it up country some places. And the chips were made from potatoes rather than bought in a bag. Similarly, the French onion dip was made with yogurt, mayo, onions, garlic, pepper, and salt rather than bought in a jar. The whole meal took lots of preparation and planning, but it was really really delicious and worth it. I found that termite hill in my friend’s house. It had been about 48 hours since we had left the house and well, the termites worked diligently during all of them I would bet. It’s really kinda a shame too, because I when I saw their hard work I herded some chickens in to my friend’s yard then I swept the hill, termites in all out his front door. Then the hard working termites got picked off one by one over the course of the next ten minutes by a dozen or so very happy chickens. Mount Agou is the highest point in Togo. My friend Joe, a new volunteer named Brandon, and I decided to climb it. It isn’t very high (3200 feet or something) so we weren’t expecting much and therefore didn’t bring a whole lot of water. The hike was less direct than we were expecting and about three quarters of the way up the mountain we were about out of water. We had a few options: turn back, take our chances with Togolese water sources (deal with the diarrhea when it came a few days later), or find some sort of clean water. We thought we had some iodine tablets, but turns out we didn’t. I know . . . I know, this isn’t how the boy scouts trained me. So we were mostly up a mountain in Togo about 6 degrees north of the equator, it was hot, we were thirsty, we’re very thirsty, we weren’t really willing to turn back, we didn’t want our GI tracts to play host to a community of nasty African amoebas and whatnot, and there was no clean water in sight. Then the trail kinda wraps around a bend and we’re in a little village. We ask a kid if there’s any Pure Water (half liter bags of mostly safe water). He says no. Then we ask if there’s a bar were we could grab something wet. No again. We’re bummed. None of us want to turn back, but we all realize that we’d be fools to keep going. We came up to a tree with a few nice rocks underneath where we could sit and talk it all out. There are some villagers around. There’s a nice view and an even better breeze. Then we see it. We see a blue cooler that women here often sell Pure Water and juices from. We ask whose it is and then we ask the lady what’s in it. I think I might have been opening it up before she could respond. In it I saw the most wonderful things: lots and lots of juices some of which were liquid, some were frozen and some were slushy. There was lemonade (which isn’t exactly safe to drink. . .but it’s really good, most of us do drink it even if we aren’t in somewhat desperate situations) and a drink made from hibiscus flowers (which is boiled when it’s made so it’s mostly safe and really good). So as we looked down the portion of the mountain we had already conquered, we rested under the tree that protected us from the sun that was really our enemy at that point, we sat on those rocks which were made comfortable by our weariness, and we drank the juice that some wonderful Togolese woman had prepared for us. We all agreed that we had never been more satisfied by anything, including everything we’d ever experienced in our whole entire lives. I really can’t tell you how absolutely content we were to be right at that place, right when we were, doing just what we were doing. It was really pretty amazing. Yeah, that’s the story behind the lady in the orange skirt. The other pictures from that trip are pretty self-explanatory. The rain storm, being solidly in the dry season, was super unexpected. We got caught in the same village where we took the break on the way up. This time we took refuge in a church where some guys were practicing their trumpets and trombone. I joined in after a while. It’s on video, I’ll see if I can get it up online. If it sounds terrible, blame it on the bad microphone on the camera, the noise of the rain on the steel roof, the Togolese idea that louder is always better even if you (or your amp) really have no business playing that loud, or the shoddy instruments. Just whatever you blame it on, don’t blame it on the fact that I haven’t played trumpet in four years. . . yeah don’t even think about blaming it on that. The picture with all this kids in khaki is at the pump behind the middle school. If you look closely, you can see the pump in the middle of all of us. It works now and we’re all real happy about it. I think the rest of the pictures can all be explained with the captions I gave them. If I’m wrong, let me know and I’ll clear them up.

Ok, I don't have a ton of time right now. There are stories behind these photos and hopefully I'll be able to tell it soonish. But for now I'll just post the photos and let you make up the stories for yourself. Very special thanks to Aunt June for the bacon.Hope things are good where ever you are.

march 6

So I’ve had some bad nights in Tittigbe and the second night of November 2010 was one of them. Though it was not the worst, it was noteworthy. Here’s why:

Diarrhea is more normal here than it is back home. The causes are varied and numerous and just about impossible to eliminate or even identify, so you learn to cope. I was coping just fine that night. It wasn’t a particularly bad go round but I knew that going to bed at my normal time wouldn’t be very successful because my digestive system was still trying to purge itself of something. So I lit a candle and started reading Travel as a Political Act by Rick Steves. It’s very much like his mediocre shows, so I figured I’d put some music on. As I walked into my bedroom to grab my ipod I smelled something that is unequivocally dead animal. I had smelled it a few times during the day, but now the air was still and the smell was undoubtedly coming from inside my bedroom. After one of the more unpleasant uses of my sense of smell I can recall, I found a lizard several days dead. As I’m in the midst of cleaning it up, I feel my latrine calling me, but I put it off so that I could finish the task at hand. I figured that the only thing worse than scraping a lizard’s worth of guts off of your floor would be scraping half a lizard’s worth of guts, spending quality time in a latrine, then scraping up the second half. I finish up by pouring some bleach on a black spot that I hope will stop smelling before the end of my service with peace corps, then I dash off to the latrine.

Coming back to my house I notice that there’s a lot more light flickering through my windows than could be explained by the one candle I didn’t put out in my haste as I left. Oh boy. So I open my door and see a bit of a fire in the middle of my desk more than a foot from the candle (which was not turned over). I put it out with a bit of difficulty (a flaming puddle of melted neoprene was the issue) and surveyed the damage as I wondered how this could have happened. I saw the charred carcass of a large moth. I guess at the end of his suicide spiral towards the light he decided that he wasn’t actually ready for the step that unfortunately, he had irrevocably already taken. So after a failed retreat, his flaming body landed right beneath the case for my ipod speaker (the neoprene) which lit with apparent ease. My beloved sunglasses were nearby, as were a pack of juicy fruit chewing gum and a pack of my favorite razor blades. The blades are ruined and there was one salvageable piece of gum, but the glasses are ok, other than a very misshapen, charred and oddly comfortable earpiece. There’s also the hardened goo that used to be the speaker case adhered to the middle of my desk.

At least I could use the smoke clearing from my room as a visual cue as to how the decaying lizard stench was dissipating too. Thanks moth.

Here’s a survey of the damage:

Also, as some of you know, my mother gave Elali a doll. Elali is a girl that did my host family’s domestic work. She was Cinderella minus the fairy god-mother. But she got fired, now she lives with her family and I think she goes to school. I saw her a few days ago. She seems to be doing well, but it’s hard to say. Anyway, my mom asked me about the doll and if Elali took it with her. She hasn’t been around for a while and I saw this when I came home a few days ago:

[pic 2]

[I'm having major connectivity issues. Maybe the rest of the pictures will come later.]

And this weekend Meghan did a hand washing seminar type thing in Sotouboua. I helped out. I also got bored and made paper airplanes and snuck out to give them to kids to play with. And I caught a girl winking at me.

[pic 3]

[pic 4]

[pic 5]

A Note to the Reader: I guess this blog post was more of a form of entertainment for me rather than information anyone would really be interested in. Read it if you want, but this information will not be on the final exam.--------

2:55 am GMT (Togo time)

So I had a good trip home, and if you're reading this now that means that I got back to Togo safely. I'm writing this on my laptop on the plane. I hope to post it tonight (or I guess it'd be tomorrow night depending on what timezone I am in right now). Thanks to everyone that made my trip as great as it was. It was nice seeing people, but I have to admit that there were several people I didn't get to see or talk to, specifically Kendrick, Amanda and Luke. Sorry guys. Really.Now I just need another two-decade friend to get married so I can have another trip home.

The flight so far is going well. It's not full so I have the seat beside me open, that's nice. Oddly enough we have a tail wind and we are expected to arrive in Ghana early. Coming home three weeks ago we had a tailwind too and I ended up making it to Atlanta forty-five minutes early. I thought I was going to have to pay that back today and arrive 45 minutes late because of that same wind pushing against us. But I guess not, I suppose the universe wants me to have shorter flights. I do have an alternate theory though: maybe Delta pretends that all transatlantic flights are longer than they actually are but then pulls this let's-tell-them-there's-a-tailwind routine so that we feel a little better. I mean, an eleven hour flight isn't so bad when it's compaired to a twelve hour flight.

Now this just needs to keep up and maybe I could get a couple of fast bush taxis too (once I get off this plane I still have 9 hours of bush taxiing to look forward to). I might let you know how that goes. . .but you probably wont want to know.

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3:43 am GMT

I guess I'll keep a running blog on this flight, at least until my battery dies. Dinner was just served. It was pretty good. It wasn't great, but good. It was probably just as good as the meal I had three weeks ago when I flew home, which I remember as great, but this time my standards aren't based on a year's worth of fufu (pounded starchy yams). But it was good. The last part of the meal was a brownie, a small one. I happened to look at the nutrition information: it has 150 calories and only weighs 35 grams. Impressive. That beats a Cliff bar doesn't it?

After dinner we were given the option of coffee, tea, or water. The man behind me wanted his coffee to be on the same level as the brownie, so he had it with three creams and two sugars. This cups are pretty small. No more than four ounces or so. Yuk.

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5:00 am GMT

Shout out to Christopher: I just watched that National Geographic documentary about the photographer trying to retake his 1975 cover shot of the lava. It was pretty cool. On a related note, I submitted some photos to a National Geographic contest. You can see them here: http://journals.worldnomads.com/tsumner/photos/26032/Togo/My-Photo-scholarship-2010-entry

I moved on to a Top Gear episode. I'm typically not much of a fan of Top Gear, but this time it was a race to the magnetic north pole. Two of the show's hosts were driving a quite impressive pickup truck, the other was driving a dog sled. The truck won, but the sled is a much better story. There was a time that the terrain was pretty flat and the lady who was actually controling the dogs (rather than the dead weight of the Top Gear host) pulled out her skis and a kite. She let the kite pull her out in front of the dogs who were in turn more motivated to run. That's pretty awesome.

Now I got some issues, because the selection of movies and TV shows hasn't changed much since the last time I took a transatlantic Delta flight a few weeks ago. I picked though them and watched what I wanted to then. . .now I got the same choices. I have some new stuff on my computer. . .but I'm down to 66% of my battery and I have something like six and a half hours to go.

At least Delta has me believing that I have a 106 mph tail wind. I mean, I can't be too upset about anything now right? Every hour we're going 106 miles farther than what we're trying to do. Good stuff.

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8:57am GMT

Well, the tail wind has chilled out a bit. It's at 36 mph now. And I'm thinking we might have hit a headwind a while back because our estimated arrival time now is about 45 minutes later than what it was before I took a nap. Taking a nap on a plane is much easier when you got two seats to work with. . .but it's still kinda rough. When I woke up the sun was just coming up. Right now we are over Cape Verde.

I started watching CSI Miami. . .it was really terrible. Are they all like that? The story was ridiculous (maybe there was redemption after the first 15 minutes. . .I doubt it though), and the acting was atrocious. I'm not really one to dog on actors too much. Friends of mine will complain about so and so's performance in such and such movie. . .but I don't often notice. Well, I noticed this time.

I'm really glad that the new Kings of Leon album came out today . . . err yesterday.Three and a half hours to go.

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Well, got some more sleep. Then the attendants came through with more food. One hour to go. I'm somewhat excited about getting off this plane. . .but that's only as long as I don't think about the fact that another 14 months of Africa is waiting on me on the otherside of the plane's door.

I guess I should sign off.

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I'm here in Togo now. I haven't made it up country just yet because Delta didn't put one of my bags on the plane. They say it will be in Togo soon. We'll see.

Many of you have asked me about ways you can help the people of Togo. I actually have a really easy, quick answer for you. I've been trying to repair several hand pumps in schools around Tittigbe, my village. The problem is that there's never any money to do anything about them. Parts get worn out and no one has the funds to pay to replace them.

I paid for one pump to be fixed. It was an easy fix that didn't involve any parts, just some transport and labor. Here's a photo of a girl who was able to get to school on time one morning because she was able to use the pump rather than walk to the closest well which is 1.5km round trip. I felt pretty good about it all.

Anyway, if you want in on this, feel free to donate here (I'm sharing the project with a friend of mine, Justin. That's why you'll see his name when you click that link. He's in charge of digging the well; I'm doing the pumps). Each pump will take about 200 dollars to fix. If you, your school, or church or civic group want to sponsor a pump, I'll make sure the students send you something to show their appreciation. If you want to donate a few dollars, that'd be nice too. All donations are tax deductible and 100% of the money goes directly to the project. But feel no pressure.

I came back home to go to my buddy christopher's wedding. I've had some time to go through and upload photos and stuff. Feel free to check them out:

to show(heads up: I've sent many of these photos home before, and my sister may have uploaded them already. If you've seen some of them before, skip on down towards the bottom to see the new ones.)

Well, serious about the 3D part, not really the giant part. “Big Snail in 3D!!!” doesn’t have the same ring to it though. Ok, so here’s what you gotta do: cross your eyes so that the images split (or rather uncross them or something. Look through your screen like you’re trying to focus on something that is a meter or so behind your screen). Now you should be looking at four snails: your left eye should see two and your right eye should see two. Now try and make the center images converge. . .if that makes any sense. You wanna make the left image from your left eye line up on top of the right image from your right eye. It might help to focus (think about, not focus in the optical sense) on the Fanta cap that I put in there for scale. In the end you should see three images, two on the outside will be 2D and the one in the middle should be in 3D. The outside images are the right image from your left eye and the right image from your left . . .so they aren’t really needed. Actually you might have a little better time trying to get the center images to converge if those unneeded ones are unseen. To do that you are going to need to bring your hands together like you’re a good little Methodist boy saying your nightly prayers: palms together, fingers pointing up. Put your index fingers onto your nose so your pinkies are closest to your screen. Now close your right eye and move your left hand so that your left eye can only see the left image. Then close your left eye and move your right hand (without moving your left) so that your right eye can only see the right image. Now you should be able to make those two images converge to one 3D view by kinda looking through it. If that doesn’t work, I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you other than it might help if you make the whole thing a little smaller on your screen (the two fanta caps shouldn’t be farther apart than your eyes) and that I’m sure there’s someone online that’s explained it better than I have. Google stereoscopic photography or something like that. Well, enjoy it: And I know that it probably would have been cooler if it was coming at the camera with its antennae going in crazy angles, but this snail wasn’t really working for me, and there wasn’t a very good horizontal surface to put it on. I actually looked for another snail that I could get along with a little better. Then it dawned on me that I was in my garden in Africa in the middle of the night looking for a photogenic snail. So I called it a night.

Ok. . .it’s actually just one snail (but two pictures), and it isn’t really that big. . . and it’s not in 3D. ha, but it is pretty big. As I looked at the photo a day or two after I took it I realized that I should have taken a stereoscopic view. . . but I didn’t. If I see it or one like it again I’ll hook y’all up. Here’s another interesting photo. I found this guy wearing a shirt from East Coweta High School. I told him that that school was near the place I grew up and that my marching band used to compete with the that school’s marching band. And then I desperately wished I didn’t bring that up because describing what a marching band is in a language that you know only a little is as hard as you’d think. Also, here’s a couple more shots of my kitchen. The focus is a bit off on the landscape one which I feel is the more compelling picture. . .next time it’s kinda rainy and there’s smoke coming through the roof I’ll take it again with better focusing. For the record, I didn’t do anything too dishonest with the coloring of these two shots. I just upped the saturation a decent bit. The they were taken four minutes apart on a rainy day just after sunset.

I've been having some major computer issues the past few weeks, but in an odd turn of fortune my computer has healed itself a bit. I don't understand it even a little bit. . .but I'm not gonna question it. Well, nothing too much has happened lately. The fourth of July was good. Justin put together a big party for all of us at his place. It was a hit and very nice of him. I'm working on getting some water pumps in my village repaired. I'm also gonna put in some new latrines and hand washing stations around Tittigbe and Sotouboua. We just finished up a "Take Our Daughters to Work" week. We took village kids to the big city (Sotouboua) and showed them that if they want it and if they stay in school they can grow up and become something other than continually pregnant housewives. We showed them women who have professions in the city, like a bank teller, pharmacist, school principle, and librarian. It was a good week. I can't take very much credit for it though. Meg did most of it. I spent a good portion of the week watching the Tour de France. I did take some pictures though. I've emailed them to my sister and a few others. They might get up online sometime. Emily has a pretty busy schedule these days so I'm not sure. I bet if you asked really really nicely you could get my mother to forward you what I sent her. Her email is janesumnerfirmcom (there's an at sign after jane and a period before com). Well, I hope things are good in America.

Well folks, So the world cup is big in Africa. I guess it’s big just about everywhere other than my native land. I appreciate the sport when it’s on. I watched a good number of MLS games on HDNet when I was around my dad’s big plasma TV screen, but I certainly don’t claim to be a soccer fan. But I am one hell of a patriot. I just came back from watching the USA vs. Ghana match. I watched it at a Togolese bar with Nikhil, Meg and a Togolese kid. We were surrounded by Togolese people. All of Togo was cheering for Ghana. Well. . .I guess all of Africa was: Ghana is the last African team in the cup. There is a lot of pan-African pride (stick it to the whities). Anyway, it stayed pleasant enough for the most part and it started getting uncomfortable during the second OT. There was much heckling and jeering at the American losers. It wasn’t really directed at us, more at the people who were dressed up in ridiculous red white and blue stuff on the screen, but everyone knew we were there. There were occasional jesters towards us followed by laughter. We kinda made a mistake by not paying before the game was over. Instead of getting up and leaving, we had to sit and watch the celebration of our nation’s loss. We eventually paid up and started east down the road to Nikhil’s house with the recently risen full moon highlighting the shame on our pale yovo faces for all the celebrating Togolese to see. I miss baseball.

As most or all of you know, I was a big fan of the internet before it and I broke up for practical/geographic reasons. It’s been hard on both of us. Actually, it hasn’t even been a clean break up. We still see each other on occasion. Maybe once every few weeks. But that’s a far cry from the once every several minutes that it used to be. There were many things that I loved . . . love about the internet: the social aspect of email and instant messaging, the entertainment aspect of youtube/reddit/flash games, but maybe most importantly was the information aspect most prominently demonstrated by Wikipedia. I just want to thank my good friend Garrett Tomlinson for sending me all of Wikipedia on a hard drive. It’s beautiful. The last few nights have been caffeine-fueled Wikipedia benders that didn’t cost me a thing. Thanks gtoml.

I've been staying in Nikhil's house for the last two weekends. He hasn't

been around and I had to do our weekly radio show (Tune in Togo) in

Sotouboua with my dear friend Meghan. It's been fun. Anyway, Nikhil has a

mouse problem. I never really paid him, the mouse, much attention. I mean,

it wasn't my house he was running around and all. But we did see him pretty

often; he was rather bold (maybe not furtive as the title says, but I had to

throw that in there for obvious reasons). Last week I was watching a movie

late one night and I had a bag of yummy yummy pretzels that my mother very

kindly sent me. The lights were off except for my computer screen. I saw

something move around in the glow on the table and it turns out that the

little mouse thought my pretzels were pretty yummy too. At this point our

peaceful cohabitation came to an abrupt end.After a bit of looking around, I formed my plan. . .or actually my trap: one

massive harry potter book, one stainless steel plate (that I washed

thoroughly afterwards, no worries), one pen cap, one bit of string, and some

crumbs of yummy yummy pretzels.mouse trap 001.JPGAt that point all that was left was to wait and let the little guy's

boldness do him in. It wasn't a long wait. Victory is wonderful, no matter how small.Or short-lived. . . Before I got up to dispose of the little guy, I saw his

buddy come to see if he could help. This new mouse couldn't, thanks to J. K.

Rowling's tendency to write longer and longer books with each year passed at

Hogwarts. But it looks like Nikhil's mouse problem is actually a mice

problem, and I was forced to admit that the new guy is very potentially the

proper perpetrator of the pretzel pillage.I'll get you next time, my miniscule mammalian munchie-munching mate.

As many of you know, my sister recently came to visit. It was a good visit and I might make a little write up of it sometime soon. Or maybe I'll make her. I did half of it already with my last post. As a quick preview of the em's trip wrap-up post which may or may not ever be posted I'll say this: the rest of the trip was good. We had a good time. Throughout the trip I tried to explain to her the proper way to greet yovos (yovo is the local word for white person) in Togo. It's pretty easy actually: you don't greet them at all. No one really knows why, but yovos don't greet yovos in Togo. I suspect it might be something with the elitism that is present just under the surface of everyone that lives in a third world country by choice for more than a couple of weeks. Everyone assumes that everyone else is a short-timer so you, the two-year peace corps volunteer or the six-month construction consultant or whatever, have no reason to talk to the four-day tourist or the one-week youth group on a mission. I mean, surely they wouldn't have anything to say that wouldn't make you want to laugh at their lack of understanding and habituation, so it's best not to talk to them at all. Give them their space and you do your own thing. Yeah, I know, it's pretty rotten. I also have an alternate theory. I think it might have something to do with a desire not to be racist. I don't say hi to every black person I see in Togo, so why should I say hi to every white person? Maybe it's an awful policy. I don't defend it, but I have to admit that I am a perpetuator of the (in)action. My explanation at the beginning of the trip to Emily held equally feeble amounts of water. Let's fast forward to the end of her stay in Africa. At this point she had ridden many bush taxis and trou-trous (posh Ghanaian bush taxis), she had learned a very little bit of my local language of Kabiye, she had eaten fufu* with her fingers and drank tchouk† from a calabash‡, she taught 400 Togolese kids how to use a condom, she slept under a mosquito net in my oppressively hot and stuffy bedroom, she caught some unidentified African rash on her neck, she weathered several drunken marriage proposals (and a couple of sober ones) from green-card-seeking hopeless-romantic Togolese men, and she did countless other things that were decidedly not touristy. She had earned some serious African bush cred. For one of Emily's last days in Africa we went to Kakum National Park in Ghana, just north of Cape Coast. It was fun. There were lots of tourists. There was a walkway suspended in and above the canopy of the rain forest. Check out the pictures. I suspect Emily put them up. Afterwards, we started making our way back to our cheap hotel in Cape Coast. Patiently waiting in the parking lot were several big, clean, air-conditioned buses that the different groups of short-timers were using to get around "Africa". Emily and I were walking to the road so that we could flag down a trou-trou that would take us back to a Cape Coast taxi station from where we would walk to the hotel. I turned to her and said "You feel elite, don't you?" Emily [slowly]: "Yeah." We kept walking and she pushed her little point-and-shoot tourist's camera a little deeper into her pocket. We didn't turn and wave goodbye to the yovos.§ *A dish made from a starch that's pounded until it's the consistency of sticky play dough. It's a staple of the West African diet. The Togolese variety is made from yams. †A local alcoholic drink. It's made from sorghum or millet. It's kinda tangy and kinda sweet, almost like a hard apple cider. I think it's great, but Emily disagrees. ‡A big spherical gourd-type thing that grows on a tree. Cut it in half and dry it in the sun and you have a really wonderful vessel for tchouk consumption. §Though we did thank one of them for taking this egregiously touristy photo of us!

I (Emily) made it back home, although that term is a little undefined for me right now. I arrived back in the States on June 4th and since then I have been in 4 different cities, including packing up my condo and moving to Mobile, AL. There have been a lot of changes these past few weeks! Africa was wonderful. I had such a good trip! It was great to see Trent and not to have to pay by the minute to talk. The landscape was beautiful and the people were so welcoming. I especially loved the kids who would get so excited just from you smiling at them. It’s taken me awhile but I finally got my pictures uploaded. Here’s the link… http://picasaweb.google.com/easumner/Africa2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCMavofvnxoag6QE#

Ok, I got the address worked out. It’s actually the same: Trent Sumner 320 BP 60 Sotouboua, Togo West Africa

So, despite the fact that a girl whom I suspect represents a quarter or more of my readership is here, I figured I’d give the rest of you a bit of an update. Emily’s trip is going well. It started out in Accra, Ghana. I went there to meet her at the airport. Then we had a few days that we blocked out to get her a Togolese visa. The visa actually took a few hours . . . but days in accra are nice for someone used to days in Togo, so I didn’t mind the overestimation. One of the reasons that they were so nice was because of a friend I made on the bush taxi to Accra. There was a Togolese man who is a university student in Accra named Anani. He and I talked a bit on the ride and all then he helped me find my hotel after we got to Accra, then he helped me find a hotel that had rooms available. Then he asked me if he could come the next morning to help us find the Togolese embassy and all that. So it was good. He helped us a lot that day and then the day after we bought him dinner. After a few days in Accra, we went to Lome where we spent the night. The next day we went up to Tsevie, where I had training for the first three months of my time in Togo. My host family was really glad to meet Emily. She has actually kept up a little pen pal type deal with one of my host brothers so it was good they could talk in person. Deila, the mom of the compound, fixed us my favorite meal from stage: spaghetti with a fried egg, onions, tomatoes and peppers served with oranges and fried plantains. The next day we got up early and caught a bush taxi to Sotouboua. Em’s first bush taxi wasn’t so bad. It didn’t stop for the first hour and a half or so of the trip. It was amazing. But eventually it did start stopping to pile people in, so she did get a fairly real bush taxi experience. Meg met us for lunch and beers in Sotouboua then she showed Emily back to her house to use her pretty amazing shower. I had to talk to some people to make sure the work portion of Emily’s trip to Tittigbe was gonna go smoothly, so I missed out on a shower. What a shame. When the business was done the chief of Tittigbe sent his car (an early 90’s stick shift Peugeot two-door) and driver (his unemployed nephew) to pick us up and take us to Tittigbe. I had planned a bit of a welcome ceremony for Emily, but there was a little mix up with times. We were late for the ceremony. Or really. . .the ceremony was early for us. But whatever. We didn’t do much that night; we had excellent fufu, but then I think we ended up going to bed before 8. I gave Emily the cot on which I typically sleep and I just put some cushions on the floor for me. I laid there for a bit but it was way too hot to sleep. So I got up and figured I’d read or listen to music or something. Emily heard me moving around so she assumed it was the wee hours of the morning and that I was being a good African and getting up before the sun. She walked in to my room and said “Good Morning”. Haha, then I had to explain to her that it wasn’t even 10:30pm. Sorry Em, welcome to Togo. We ended up putting some chairs outside and having a nice little talk til it cooled off some. Take two of trying to sleep was a bit after midnight and it worked better. Tuesday we just kinda went around and made sure everything was ready for Wednesday. Wendsday morning came around and we went to the dispensair (village clinic where the village clinician (also known as the dispensair) works). We waited around for people to show up and slowly they did (there was Amelie, our Quebecois translator; Ismeal, one of my bosses with peace corps; Justin and Meg, two peace corps colleagues; Nayo, justin’s homologue (official counterpart); Daniel, a togolese man who spoke about moringa (the wonder plant); Bagnah, my homologue; and a bunch of moms with their newborns. When everyone was in we started talking about the importance of good nutrition, what good nutrition actually means and then we ended with Daniel talking about moringa. It worked out well. There were about 50 people there, 29 of which were women with very very little kids. A couple of them were two days old or less. Thursday morning we went to the middle school and did a talk on sexual health/ family planning. It went well too. Amelie came back to translate. Nayo came back to talk about parental responsibility (it wasn’t exactly what I thought he was gonna talk about, and it really didn’t mean much to the middle schoolers to whom we were speaking. . .but whatever). Emily started talking about STDs including HIV. Then a bit about getting pregnant. Then she took the ABC (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms) approach to prevention. From there Nayo took over: he demonstrated the correct use of a condom on a wooden penis that Meg was kind enough to loan to us. Then we got a volunteer up to do the same thing. There were lots of laughs. So yeah, em had a good work week. Thursday afternoon we went to Adjengre, justin’s town. There is a hotel in Adjengre that none of us really understand. It’s a nice (by African bush standards) place, but no one ever stays in it. We have no idea how it stays in business. But anyway, it was in business for us so Emily appreciated its air conditioner. I just kinda froze my tail off all night. Friday we went to Sotouboua and checked out the market a bit. Emily isn’t very good at eating sachets of frozen hibiscus juice (it’s actually kinda an infusion. . .but yeah). Then we went to Nikhil’s house where he made us some calzones. They were yummy. I made the dough and I actually was able to spin and through it up like guys in real pizza places. It was fun. And I didn’t lose any dough. Haha. And that’s about up-to-date. It’s Saturday morning (as I’m writing. . .not when I’ll be able to send this). We are gonna fix a decent breakfast then we are gonna go to our weekly radio show. Emily will be a guest host this week. It should be fun. She’s excited about having a really interesting “interesting fact about [herself]” that she’s inevitably going to have to tell over and over again as she does beginning-of-residency icebreakers. After the show we’re gonna catch a bush taxi to Lome and prolly gonna spend a few nights in le Galion, my favorite hotel in Lome. Then we’re gonna head to Ghana and maybe try and see some touristy things. Then em will get on a plane for America and I’ll get on a bush taxi for Togo. That’s tough. But yeah, the trip has gone well. Em’s in good health for the most part. She’s actually doing better gastro-intestinally than I am right now. . . We were having a little bit of a cash problem, but Peace Corps actually paid me early for the coming quarter so I ran up to Sokode while em slept in Friday morning and picked up some money. The stuff Emily bought from my mother and all is excellent. The gifts for my host family were really really appreciated. The calculators for the host brothers were a big hit. The doll for Elali was stolen by Godwin, my least favorite Togolese toddler. The set of set of building blocks for my least favorite Togolese toddler was converted into a chariot for the doll. The rosary for my host mom was very much appreciated. She actually thought that the gift bag was the actual gift for a bit. She didn’t quite know what to make of it, but I showed her that there was actually something in it. The prints of my pictures were appreciated by everyone who saw them, except maybe me. . .it looks like I need to tone down my use of the ‘warmify’ button on picasa and stop setting my white balance to give me warmer pictures. Boo, thanks for the lens. I’ll see if I can get some good shots with it as we do those touristy things I mentioned. Well, hope things are good.

I'm in Sotouboua this week helping Nikhil with a Men As Partners conference. Men As Partners is a program to get men to realize that a lot of the problems that women have is because men pass them off to women. But I don't have much to do with the conference but I'm here for logistical support, to run errands when there are errands to be run. This morning Nikhil was leading the conference and there were no errands that I could do so I just started hanging out with a couple of kids that were studying for the BAC, a big end-of-the-year test that students really really need to pass. It's coming up in the next few weeks. When I walked up they were studying chemistry/science. I ended up helping them from about 9am to noon. It was almost kinda painful how poorly they had been taught. Throughout school here emphasis isn't ever put on learning, but rather passing. And not necessarily passing well, just passing. This guys were working on biology. There was a 6 gram photosynthetic plant that produced 580 oxygen bubbles over the course of ten minutes. The bubbles were 0.5mm3 and it was at standard temp and pressure. The first question they had was what is the intensity of the chlorophyll, or something. I had never heard of that measure but they had an equation for it: IA is the intensity, V is oxygen released, m is mass of the plant and t is the time. They needed the answer in units of . Pretty easy right? We spent more than 45 minutes on all that. The next part of the question was: given the unbalanced chemical equation CO2+H20 → C6H10O5 + O2 + Energy find the mass of sugar produced by the plant over the course of three hours. There were also some preliminary questions like what are the molecular weights of some of the chemicals. The first thing I did was I told them that the equation was unbalanced in more ways than one, with the energy on the wrong side. Then I told them that the problem was easy and we just needed to go step by step. They did fairly well with finding the molecular weights, although they reached for a calculator when we were working on carbon dioxide and we got to 32+12. We also struggled through balancing the equation. Then we got to kinda the meat of the problem and that's where it hit the fan. It became quickly apparent that they didn't even have the basic understanding of what was going on. They didn't really know what molecular weight meant and what we could do with it. They had no concept of moles. They didn't know how to convert volume to mass with density. They were really really far from being able to solve the problem. And it was pretty frustrating. We had no base of knowledge to start with. It was like trying to teach a third grader the stuff. None of it is real hard, it's just there are several steps that involve techniques that should have been second nature by now. If a teacher (or a national standardized test) expects a child to be able to do a problem like that, the teacher should have taught them to solve basic algebraic equations to begin with and maybe what a mole is too. We decided that tomorrow we would do English.

Ok, so it turns out that the PO box that I rented a while back might not be my own for very long. It is a pretty convoluted situation that I don’t really want to get into here. Also, I don’t have any money with Peace Corps to receive packages through that other address. (you have to pay to receive packages from La Poste (Togo’s USPS)). And it will be a few weeks before I can sort that all out in Lome. So for any of you who were thinking about sending me a package or anything over the next few weeks, first of all, thank you very much. And secondly, hold the thought for a while for me to figure everything out. If you just recently sent me a package, thanks and I should be able to get things for a little bit so there’re no worries about that. As many of you know my sister is coming to visit me here in a little over a week and she’ll bring me lots of stuff so I should be able to get through a few weeks of a Togolese diet without American food supplementation from care packages. I’ll let everyone know when things get worked out.

So remember last year on the third of march how people were all excited about how 3/3/9 could mean 3*3=9? Well today (when I’m writing, not when I’m posting) is 5/5/10 and 5+5=10. Ha, yeah, I’m not so impressed by that either. I just got my computer back from the cell tower in Tittigbe. There is a big generator that the keeper of the tower whores out to the village to charge cell phones and the occasional American with a computer. Walking back to my house I saw a pretty cool sight. I’ll describe it in a bit, but first a little background. It rained all day today. It was nice because it is cool now. I’m wearing a little jacket (it’s totally unnecessary but I can where it right now without sweating so I put it on, for the novelty of the situation). But apparently the rain was pretty complete and it robbed the entire sky of its moisture and it cleaned all the dust too. So tonight is one of the clearest nights I can remember in Togo. The moon wasn’t up yet when I was walking back but there were tons of stars, pretty cool. Being a child of the suburbs, seeing all those stars like that makes an impression each time. Today, Wednesday, is also market day. People come from all over to buy and sell stuff. They’ll come in the late morning and leave in the evening. So anyway, today I was walking away from the cell tower and there was a group of six ladies walking back to their homes from the marche. They were all carrying stuff on their heads. I could see them faintly because of the lights at the cell tower. And for some reason or luck or something they had arranged themselves so that the people with the shortest effective height (person plus load height) were on the outsides and the tallest ones were in the middle. It was real symmetric and smooth. And behind them was a mango tree silhouetted by thousands of stars. I thought about how cool of a photo it would have made, but I didn’t have my camera. But also, it would have been a pretty impossible shot to get since there was almost no light. I would have had to ask them to stop and stand still for many seconds. Well, maybe I’ll just have to remember it. It reminded me a lot of the scene at the beginning of Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring when the elves are leaving middle earth.

ok folks, this post actually isn’t about Togo at all. I recently wrote a letter to a friend of mine. The letter wasn’t exactly happy. It was real serious and kinda depressing. I didn’t want to leave her like that so I figured I’d end the letter with a funny story. When I was done I realized that other people might wanna read the story too. Who doesn’t need funny story? For the record, every bit of this is completely true. On the first day of the second semester of my third year of college, I walked into my Earth and Atmospheric Sciences lecture and I knew I was gonna do well in it. Traditionally it is a pretty boring class and it’s pretty easy to fail if you are so bored that you don’t go to class, or do homework, or say take exams. I personally had some experience with that. But the class was in a good location in the architecture building, which is towards the center of campus, and it met immediately after a class on composite materials that I was pretty interested in. So I knew my attendance was gonna be at least alright. The professor began the first lecture by talking a bit about his teaching and ideas on class and all that. I agreed with most of it, and the professor himself seemed pretty cool so I figured I could like him and might go to the class fairly often. Then I kinda scanned the class for friends but immediately lost that train of thought when I spied something that was gonna keep me coming to each and every lecture. Her name, I was soon to find out, was Julia. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen outside of glossy magazines. She had curly brown hair, a great body, even better skin and her demeanor and fashion style was this kinda nerd-chic that really worked for her (and me). I decided to introduce myself. Seeing how class had started and I had stupidly sat on the left side of the classroom when clearly the right side (her side) was the better choice, I figured I would put off the introduction til class was over. But I knew myself well enough to know that when class was over I was gonna find another reason to put off the introduction because I wasn’t really bold or assertive enough for something like that. I would find reasons like ‘well, obviously she needs to get to her next class quickly.’ Or ‘well, I can’t talk to her now because she’s busy talking to that bold or assertive guy.’ I turned back to the professor for a moment who was introducing the TA for the course by saying “Julia? Where are you? Stand up.” Everyone started looking around the classroom and I took the opportunity to turn and look back at the goddess that was gonna get me through the semester. Then, to my delight and astonishment, the goddess stood up and waved to me. . .and the rest of the class. I was wildly in love at this point. The fact that she’s a TA meant that she’s a graduate student and maybe brilliant, and that’s hot. Then I realized something even better: I’d get to see her any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday morning I wanted. It was looking to be a good (well attended) semester. It turns out that I did do well in the class because of the interesting professor and my stellar attendance. I got to know the professor and occasionally spoke to Julia. About her I learned that her first published paper was gonna be in Science, the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal other than maybe Nature. And the paper was on a mysterious phenomenon, phosphate sequestering in marine environments, that she figured out after other people had wondered about it for decades. Diatoms (microscopic organisms) convert phosphate to polyphosphate which then is kinda out of the phosphate cycle, if anyone is interested. About me she learned that I chose to go to Georgia Tech partially because campus was just a quick MARTA ride away from Turner Field where the Braves play. As the semester wore on I started really looking forward to rainy days. Fewer people would come to class so it would be a more intimate environment for Julia and me (I mean sitting across the lecture hall from your true love and 80 other kids is more intimate than sitting across the lecture hall from your true love and 100 other kids right?). Also on rainy days Julia would wear an unreasonably cute rain coat with white galoshes that had little read hearts on them (I had a pair of boxers with a similar print, but I kept that to myself). I think I may have written a haiku about those boots. . .but I can’t be certain. One day I went to the professor’s office to ask him if he had any research assistant positions open for the coming summer. I knew that last summer he spent weeks on a boat with Julia and his other assistants as Julia scooped diatoms out of bays in Newfoundland or something. He said that he didn’t have many cool things lined up for this summer and that I probably didn’t want to be around this summer because he was gonna spend it mainly writing grant proposals. Not to mention that he didn’t have any money to pay me. I thanked him for his honesty. Before I turned and walked out I thought about telling him that I’d work for free as long as my job was helping Julia into (and out of) her wetsuit. But I decided to keep that to myself too. At the end of the semester the professor told us that if we had a 90 test average or above we could exempt the final. My test average was well above that, but I still went to the last meeting of the class, a review session for the final, to see Julia. Over the next few days I contemplated taking the final just for the hell of it. Well, no, actually there would be a reason. On test days, Julia would sit at the front of the lecture hall and pick up tests (consequently the front row was the best place to take exams). After much debate and soul searching, I decided that I would not take the final, even though that would mean that I wouldn’t see Julia. I didn’t want her to see me taking the exam. I mean, she would have to conclude that I didn’t have the 90 average needed to exempt. I deluded myself about a lot of things but one of them wasn’t into thinking that Julia knew me well enough to remember that the lowest grade I got on any of the three midterms that she graded was a 95. On the morning of the final, I cursed God when I woke up to the muffled sounds and sweet soft smells of a city in the midst of a easy drizzle. The last Friday of finals week was the last time that I knew she would be on campus. That morning I got up and took my composites final then grabbed MARTA to Turner Field. There I bought two nice seats to that night’s contest against the Philies. Then I hightailed it back to campus, the Earth Sciences building to be specific. I ran up the four flights of stairs and went straight to Julia’s office. Then I immediately turned around and walked off before anyone could notice. I got my nerve back after a thirty or forty-five or ninety minute self pep-talk on the balcony to the atrium (it’s a real nice building). Then I went back and knocked on the door. Her melodious delicate voice ushered me in. We exchanged pleasantries briefly then I got down to business: “Julia, I have two tickets to tonight’s Braves game and I’d love to take you. There are gonna be fireworks after the game and I chose the best seats in the house to watch them.” She said that I was sweet, but she couldn’t because her paper in Science was being published that day and she was gonna celebrate that evening with her friends, family, colleagues and other people who weren’t me. I congratulated her again on her paper and I hung around just long enough to give her the opportunity to ask for a rain check. . .she didn’t. I thanked her for her diligent work as our TA and told her to have a great summer. Walking back to my apartment I decided that I’d be happy. I mean, no one likes rejection or anything, but I was proud for having asked. Also, I was holding two good tickets to the Braves game, it was the first night of summer vacation, I had earned some decent grades that semester, the weather was great, and I was gonna play ultimate in Piedmont Park the next morning. Everything was great. Well, no, almost everything was great. Just as I had worked all that out in my head, just as I had figured out that things were almost perfect, a squirrel scurried across the path. Squirrels on Tech’s campus have a pretty good life. There are no predators yet there is abundant food from hurried students eating between classes. Most of them are fat and happy. This guy surely was. Actually, I would bet that he was happier than the average Tech squirrel – he had an entire pop tart clenched between his little teeth. He didn’t have a piece of a pop tart, or a half of a pop tart, or almost an entire pop tart. He had an entire pop tart. Damned squirrel.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to apologize to my best friend, Christopher Hansard, for the horrible thought that he gave up on my blog months ago (like the rest of you, and I, did). It turns out that he has been checking my blog continuously since the moment I left. Even in the face of substantial information against it, he never stopped believing that one day one year I would update my blog. Well, it turns out that he was right. And that’s pretty excellent. Thanks buddy, and I’m sorry I ever doubted. Trent

In previous videos and letters I’ve sent home I’ve noted how I’m surrounded by mango trees and on a day to day basis I get no fruit in my diet unless someone sends me some dried fruit from the states. But I have been told since I came to Tittigbe that mango season was coming, and I’ve been awaiting its arrival as patiently as anyone could. And it’s finally here. Mangos are great. Especially if you don’t eat much fruit, or really anything sweeter than a pounded yam (not sweet). Togo mangos are really really big too. I bet some of them have volumes approaching a liter or so. They are juicy, and fleshy (not stringy like a lot of mangos back home are), and just plain delicious. I actually decided to write a little limerick about them: The fruit in my diet is awful. I might as well eat a blueberry waffle. Then on one day, To my great dismay I bit into a wonderful mango. Sometimes I get a little overzealous about things and my enthusiasm outstrips my ability. . .If anyone wants to do better, feel free to leave it as a comment!

I’ve spent the last half day or so in Adjengre with Meghan, another peace corps volunteer who lives nearby. Adjengre’s a little city about half way up the country on the National Road. A friend of mine named Justin lives here, though currently he is living it up in Ghana. Justin bought a phone that can hook up to the internet and allow me to post these updates so Meg and I decided to crash at his place and use his technology. But this post isn’t about that; it’s about food. Let me tell you a bit about what I’ve eaten for the past two meals. For dinner last night we had mac and cheese. It was amazing—if it weren’t for the roosters crowing and the power flickering I would have thought I was back in the States. In addition to that we had a southwest chicken salad served on bread with laughing cow cheese. . . also very yummy. And then for breakfast this morning we had hot chocolate and pancakes, which were just beyond belief as far as how wonderful they made us feel. Haha. Food in Togo typically leaves a lot to be wanted, so when you have access to good food it really brightens your day/week. But none of that would have been possible were it not for the work of three ladies who are very dear to me. Ha. My mother, my aunt June and my best friend’s mom, Tammy Hansard, have sent me some really wonderful care packages. Some of the items sent include velveeta shells and cheese, Tyson premium chunk vacuum packed chicken, Mrs. Dash southwest chipotle seasoning, swiss mix dark chocolate sensation hot chocolate mix, and Hungry Jack Easy Pack butter milk pancake mix. Also someone in Meg’s family or friends sent her some Aunt Jemima syrup which really completed the pancakes. . . I just want to publicly give much thanks to Tammy, June and especially my mother for what they’ve sent. I doubt y’all will ever realize how much happiness one little bag of just-add-water pancake mix can produce. Christopher Hansard has also sent me a couple of packages though the items he sent were so yummy that I consumed them immediately and there were none left over to make it into this weekend’s menu. Thanks, buddy. Also, my dad has sent me a couple of non-consumables like magazines, newspapers, and kitchen ware. Thanks, Dad. I guess I should give a few people some honorable mentions: my lovely sister Emily supposedly sent me a care package with all sorts of happiness in it. It has been months and it hasn’t arrived. Thanks Emily, it is the thought that counts a little bit. Also Garrett Tomlinson has contributed his technical skills to several packages. He has sent information and items that have kept my computer mostly running these last few months as it’s been away from its health care system: the internet. Also, I’m told that he spent hours working on a hard drive that had enough stuff on it to keep a technologyphile in rural Africa content for months. Unfortunately that harddrive is in Emily’s package. . .that’s a real shame. If the rest of you guys want to get in on the fun, feel free. But know that care packages are expensive to send (USPS priority flat rate envelopes and boxes seem to be the way to go, but they are still 13 and 40-55 dollars respectively) and, though greatly appreciated, not completely necessary. I appreciate letters with news and updates from home just as much (sorta ;-) ), and a letter only cost 98 cents. My address is: Trent Sumner 320 BP 60 Sotouboua, Togo West Africa I check my mail once every week or so. It is about 18 kilometers away so it’s not the most convenient place. Well, wait, no, it is the most convenient place to Tittigbe (my village) but it still isn’t very convenient. I’m typically pretty good about writing back. Granted I’ve been busy these last couple of weeks so I have a bit of a backlog of letters to write. But have no fear, responses will come. Anyway, thanks to my all-star support team back home that makes my life in Africa just a little bit less bad. Trent

Many of y’all will know that I was a somewhat avid cyclist when I left to come here. I haven’t really been on my government issued bike here much since my village is too small to need to bike within it, and too remote to want to bike to neighboring places. Last week my father sent me a couple of text messages about the Tour du Togo, an annual cycling race in the country. I hadn’t heard about it so I had not made any plans to go see it and I was kinda upset about it since I thought I had missed it. Here’s an email I wrote to my dad about it later: Ok, so by a bit of luck I happened to be buying bread near the route national in Adjengre, Justin’s town, and I heard this car coming that was just laying on the horn. Togolese drivers honk a good bit so I didn’t really think much of it but he was just continually honking and that was a bit odd so I looked up and I saw two racing bikes on the top of the car. I scrambled up to the road and then saw maybe a 30-40 person peloton flying down the road. Unfortunately, I happened to be on a long straight downhill portion of the route so they were doing at least 30mph. And then it was done. It was pretty funny. The team cars were beat up bush taxis, their kits were old, dirty and mismatched. I couldn’t tell much about the bikes since they were going so fast. The road wasn’t closed and there were a few moto taxi drivers around. I think the lead bike was actually drafting a moto, it could have been an official’s (bribed) though. That was the morning after I complained to you that I didn’t know about the tour and that I’d like to have seen it. It worked out well. Though, had I planned it I would have had a big Togo flag and a cowbell, but . . . maybe next year. Ha, maybe I’ll try and make the Togo national team next year. After they passed I went back to finish my bread transaction and then I started walking along the route looking back occasionally to see if there was a bush taxi I could flag down to take me to Sotouboua. I looked back and saw one and started to flag it until I realized that it was following a cyclist who had been dropped. I put down my stuff and raised my motocycle helmet above my head and started beating on it to make some noise. My initial thought was to yell “Go! You can do it!” but then I noticed the faded Beninois colors of his jersey, so I yelled “Allez-y! Vous le pouvez!” He passed and I saw just raw pain and determination on his face. I knew the feeling and I really missed cycling at that moment. I watched him from the back for a bit and saw that his hips were rocking meaning that his seat was too high and he was also pushing his knees out on the top of the pedal stroke which is a pretty obvious fault that would quickly be fixed on a western team. As he was fading down the road I realized that “vous le pouvez!” translates into “You can it!”. I forgot the important verb. I think the right thing to have said is “vous puvez le faire”, but who knows. I guess he’ll keep splaying his knees, and I’ll keep butchering his language. Ha, it was pretty cool. On a related note, Garrett, if you aren’t riding the bike that I left you, shame on you. You should get on it. Trent

Let me start out by apologizing about my neglecting of my own blog and thanking my lovely older sister, Emily, for typing up the occasional update. Also, I can’t quite poke around the internet to tell, but I think she’s done a good job putting my pictures and videos up too. So, thanks, Em. I am gonna defend myself a touch though: up until recently it has been very hard and expensive for me to get on the internet. Now it’s just kinda hard and expensive. Actually, it’s much more convenient, and I can use my computer instead of virus-ridden internet café computers with silly French keyboards. Now we (my closest peace corps neighbors) have this kinda mobile, cellular, bush internet system that is ok fast sometimes and ok cheap sometimes. But when it’s convenient to use it’s pretty slow and expensive. If you stay up late you are rewarded though. The take-home message of all this though is that I can check my email and update my blog every couple of weeks now. If I decide to stay the night at a friend of mine’s house I can maybe surf the internet a little bit. So that’s pretty cool. This does put me in a bit of an odd position though. I mean, now I’m left trying to come up with a blog entry that will get everyone up-to-date from my last blog entry which I think was 8 months ago or something. I suppose that would be possible but it might take up more time than I should allot to it. This is what I’ll do: I hereby open the floor for questions, specific questions (not questions like ‘what have you been doing these past months?’). I’ll answer the questions via blog posts but you should probably ask the questions via email. As you should know, my email is trent.sumner@gmail.com. I will give a little bit of a mini update though: around 5:30 morning I was woken up by a little piglet who got separated from his mother because of the fence around my friend’s house (someone closed a gate at an unfortunate time for the little guy). He whined and whined and finally I got up and opened the gate for him. He was terrified of me and the momma pig was distrustful of me, but I think had they been able to get over their prejudices, they would have both admitted that they appreciated what I did for them. -trent

The pictures (3 new albums) have been uploaded to Trent's Picasa Albums.http://picasaweb.google.com/trent.sumner

Not too much new to write about as far as news from Trent. The only really new thing is that it started raining today. I called and could barely hear him by the end of our conversation. Trent was happy that his tin roof was not leaking. He was also happy for a change from the hot, dry days.Trent's teaching job has not come to fruition yet. He should be starting any day now. He has done some tutoring and completed a few projects for villages in the surrounding area. He also learned to make bread. He said that all the local people were always asking for bread when he went to the capital city, Lome. So, Trent built a earth oven which he used to bake bread.

He also sent pictures of peanut butter cookies made from homemade peanut butter which I think was cooked in the same oven. I was very impressed.

Trent has been sending us lots of awesome pictures and videos...Here is one of him opening a package from our aunt.

Here is one displaying his musical talents.

The pictures are uploading so I'll have a new post tomorrow with links to the new albums.

This is a picture taken the day Trent was sworn in to the Peace Corps. His host mom made him a suit for the occasion. She is standing on the left.

Here's a link to more pictures Trent sent home:http://picasaweb.google.com/trent.sumner/TrentSTrainingThroughEndOfWeek2#

Here's a link to the accompanying video:

I love Picasa's web albums!Here are the pictures Trent has sent home thus far.http://picasaweb.google.com/trent.sumner/TogoPictures2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCPr7kKbTw-aV5wE&feat=directlink

Hi Friends, I’m writing this on behalf of Trent. His internet connection is, well, non-existent. To give you a quick update, Trent is currently in his 17th week of service in the Peace Corps in Togo. He completed 11 weeks of French language training in Tsévié which is a city with a population of 46,900 about 20 miles north of Lome, the capital of Togo. While in Tsévié, Trent lived with a host family and took classes with many other Peace Corps volunteers. He moved to Tittigbe in the beginning of December. He is living on his own and is the only volunteer in the village. It is very remote without running water or electricity. He has a few friends in towns 10 and 18 km away. He has a bike and takes a bush taxi if he has to travel further away. He describes the taxi as a 15 passenger van with 25 people packed in. Tittigbe is close to the border of Benin. It’s about a 6 hour taxi ride from Lome. I have no idea how far that is in miles and unfortunately google is no help. It’s a little strange to know that my brother is so far removed from civilization that not even google knows where he is. I’ll work on getting a map together. We have heard from Trent. He has been able to mail us so packages with pictures and videos. I’ve posted them on youtube for you all to enjoy. I will be posting the pictures soon. The first video is one Trent sent home for mom’s birthday. It’s in 2 parts (Happy Birthday 1 and 2). Here’s a link to my youtube page. http://www.youtube.com/user/225eas You can choose from a list of links on the right hand side. He has recently sent another video that I will try to post. It’s of him answering questions from the letters he has received. He has sent home some pictures and I will load those and post a link soon. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for Trent. ~Emily PS – I made a map. Trent has a GPS and sent my dad the coordinates.

Hey guys,

Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog. I have used this for travel in the past; and now that I'm about to move it Africa with the United States Peace Corps I am reviving it. I don't leave until the 15th of September so I'm not really thinking that there will be too many updates until then. And after that I'm going to be in a little West African country that doesn't exactly have wi-fi at the neighborhood starbucks. . . So I don't know how many total updates this blog is gonna end up having as far as my Peace Corps service goes. But we will see, maybe I'll be near some internet access and I'll keep up with this like no other peace corps volunteer ever. But, using an RSS reader might be a good idea if you don't want to constantly check for updates that might or might not come very often.

I have been invited to serve in Togo, West Africa. The program to which I have been invited is Girls Education and Empowerment (GEE). Yes, that is a good bit different than what I was expecting and hoping for. I have put alot of time into civil engineering these past four years and I was thinking that peace corps would be real interested in that. Instead the were more interested in some work I have done in Kosovo the past three summers. There I was working with high school students promoting leadership and teamwork and things like that. GEE volunteers do similar things it sounds like but with a specific emphasis on girls. In addition I will be trying to increase girls' attendance in schools and involvement in communities. This GEE idea is growing on me. I did want to do some sort of engineering work, but more than that I wanted to go somewhere I was needed, and if peace corps says that I'm needed as a GEE volunteer in Togo, then that is great.

I suspect that many of you want to know about the conditions in which I will live and why I'm doing this and all that. I will post again soon with that when I have a little more time.

Trent

Hmm, so things are going well. We went to the pool yesterday and it was cold. I did end up finding a decent looking tee shirt to wear to church. I was probably in the 4th quartile of the people there as far as how nice I was dressed. . .I should have just stuck with the coffee stain.

This morning I had coffee with a kid who was in my group at camp last year. I saw him in church sunday; it was neat. I also had lunch with a different kid from my camp group last year. I had some trouble telling him something and we just happened to be right next to his former english teacher's classroom. We spoke to him and he cleared up the confusion. I am having coffee with the two of them tomorrow. Coffee is big over here. I am glad that I picked up a taste for it recently.

Rachel, Artan and I went hiking on [ossie, just for the record, katie is being hmm difficult. she really wants some ice cream. she is counting to ten and hoping that I will be done with the post when she is at ten. I think I'm gonna end it quickly; she has agreed to buy.] Sunday it was nice. I GPSed it and have the profile. the first 2.7miles on the profile is the hike up to the lake and back on wednesday of camp our sunday hike started around at about the 3.5 mile mark then there were some reception issues. I put the two tracks together to give some perspective. but anyway that is our hike, I am glad that I am in better shape then I have been in the past - check out the elevation. the views were pretty awesome. I didn't have a camera; pictures wouldn't have done much justice to it anyway.

katie is being grouchy. best get this girl some ice cream right? nothing like positively reinforcing bad behavior. . .

tung tung

So we are back in Peja. We had a good camp. Everything went pretty smoothly. We got down the mountain in one piece and no one got sick (unfortunately that wasn't the case going up the mountain, but that is over and done with).

We got home and the woman that washes our clothes and cooks for us washed our clothes and cooked for us. That was very welcomed. Unfortunately, I brought three shirts that are somewhat nice, nice enough to wear to church back home (here wearing nice clothes is purely optional) at least. One of the shirts never came back from the wash, I suspect it will turn up soon. Another of the shirts got messed up in the wash. And the third shirt is out of commission too; I just spilled coffee on it. This means I need to head back to my place and pick up a nice tee shirt before I head to church and this post is gonna be rather short.

tung

[editor's note: I wrote this in my bed while waiting on the guys to go to sleep at camp, I was interrupted many times and I haven't read over it since then. so frankly, I have no idea what it says and I know it certainly doesn't say it very well. sorry.]

So it is Thursday night, the last night, at camp. Obviously, I’m going to have to post this when we get back to Peja; no wireless hotspot at Guri I Kuq, but there has got to be a Starbucks somewhere right? Camp has gone well. No one has gotten sick or anything, no big dramas, good kids, acceptable food, and great weather. Yesterday we hiked up the mountain to play the ‘big game’. I bought a GPS receiver a few months ago (which turned out to be a poor use of money; sorry Matt). But I figured that since I spent so much money on it I might as well use it. Here is the profile of the hike. It isn’t very long but pretty intense, as you can see. I am in much better shape than I have been in the past and I got up the mountain fairly quick with a pack that wasn’t light (not to say that it was particularly heavy) on my back. It took me 40 minutes of moving time; 52 minutes total. Just for the record, I averaged about 130 watts of power output going up the mountain, and I was slowed down by Rachael’s bad ankle until I decided that if she wanted to hobble up the mountain she could do that with the ample help around her. I used the forty minute time to calculate that rather than the 52 because the breaks I took were for other people, not for me. Since I stated that without making you do the math to figure it out it isn’t cheating. While we are on the subject of GPS, I will give you some coordinates. The cabin in which I sleep is at N42.68361° E20.08207°. That is also approximately the beginning of the hike. The restaurant which we have our meetings and activities is a hundred or so meters north of that. The top of the mountain is N42.66857° E20.08912°. I’ll get the coordinates of the place we are staying in Peja when we get back there. And just to let you know if you are looking at it on google earth or something, the place names are typically the Serbian names rather than the Albanian so the city you should look for on the map is Pec (with an accent or two somewhere). The students though out camp have shown a seriousness unlike anything I’ve seen in the past two years. My team has been pretty impressive. The four students on the team are all very bright and very willing and eager to learn about leadership. They have also spoken up a lot more than I’m used to. Each night we have them journal; we gave them questions about the day’s lesson or activities. Afterwards we gave them the opportunity to share from those journals. In previous years the whole activity of journaling has been a disaster. To them it is a very foreign concept and they had been very resistant. Introspection/self-study is more foreign than journaling. So the first time I told the kids to journal I was expecting a mutiny, but it didn’t happen. The students just opened up their journals and started writing, no talking, no arguing, no walking the plank. It was astounding. So after ten minutes or so we were supposed to ask them to share from their journals. I was thinking ‘man, I’m probably pushing my luck.’ But I asked them anyway and they raised their hands and took turns sharing really insightful . . . hmm maybe not insightful . . . really good comments. There are many different things about the Albanian culture and language that I’m convinced I will never ever understand. One of them is that when you speak Albanian you have to use what would most likely be called an ‘outside voice’ if this were Mrs. Burnett’s kindergarten class, even if it is 12:30am in a nice little cabin in the middle of some pretty awesome mountains. It is funny because I can’t understand anything they are saying except occasionally I’ll pick out names – for the past ten minutes they have been talking about girls. It is funny how the pretty girls’ names come up more often. . .I suppose some ‘culture’ things are universal. The cabins are good for keeping rain off and wind away from you. But the inner walls are not good for anything other than blocking light. Actually, I think they might be designed to be completely acoustically transparent. I really need to develop the ability to go to sleep with noise. It would be very useful. I have not gotten very much sleep at all this week and it has really affected me. I’m looking forward to being back in Peja where the only noise I have to deal with is Ken snoring. I’m sorry that this post is not so coherent. I’m just writing a weeks worth of things as they come to me. We elected a leadership team for next year’s leadership club. Everyone on the staff was very happy with the results (for the most part). It was kinda bad though because there are 20 kids at the camp (plus 5 junior trainers (this year’s leadership team) and 4 trainers (last year’s leadership team) but those nine were not eligible for election). There were 15 people on the ballot, and 6 got elected. So after the results were announced we had 15 kids who were either this year’s, last year’s or next year’s leadership team and 14 kids that are just plain campers. Uh yeah it is late. I’ll post this when I get back.

we had our pre-camp meeting today; a bunch of kids showed up and it looks promising. most teams (excluding mine) are only going to have one american (or north-american more specifically, err no, more generally but more accurately). that is going to put a lot more pressure on us and the albanian trainers to be on our toes and on task all the time.

I suppose I should talk about the travel over here and what not. there was some trouble getting to the airport. we planned a ton of extra time to get to the airport and ended up using every bit of it. the connector was a mess because of paving, the surface streets were messed up because of the peachtree road race, and MARTA was messed up because of. . .well, it is not smarta. (not smarta as far as the system design and execution goes. I still stand by my decision to take it rather than stay stuck in traffic). I got to the british airways desk and a man behind it asked "what airline?"

trent: "uh, [looking around at thousands of british airways logos] british"

man: "it is closed"

trent: "sounds about right; that's about how this day has gone."

they re-opened the flight or something and printed me a boarding pass and took my bags. 18 or so hours later my bags and I showed up in Pristina. so in the end it worked out. the flight to gatwick was ok. I didn't get to sleep much. the flight to pristina was awful, as flights to or from pristina typically are. the albanians as a culture have decided to introduce their children to the joys of tightly packed airplanes early in their lives. British airways has a policy of no more than two babies per row (it was a 737, three seats - aisle - three seats), who knew? I suspect they created that policy after their first flight to pristina in preparation for their first flight from pristina. we were actually late to take off because lots of people had to move around in accordance with that policy. I am also somewhat of a baby (note the sometimes vowel) magnet. so I had three babies within two seats (any direction) of me. the one directly behind me decided to throw up. not spit up, but throw up. the rest of that flight was hmm not pleasant smelling or pleasant anything else.

but I was sitting somewhat near the front and got to get off the plane quickly. . .or maybe less slowly than it could have been. but when I did finally get off that horrible plane it was great. the airport in pristina doesn't have fancy gates or jetways so we had a stair car on the tarmac. it had just stopped raining in pristina so the air was clear and cool and most importantly, clean. and I felt much better quickly. nothing like hoping on the stair car.

going through passport control was kinda slow but it gave my bags time to get to the carousel. kaylee and joanna were waiting for me then nina and ken followed later and we drove to peja.

I'm staying in the same house with the same family that I've stayed with for the past few years. The mother of the family does our laundry so it is very nice.

I'm sharing a room with Ken and he snores, but I don't really have the heart to tell him. he might just have to read my blog to find out.

because of the strange schedule my body is on I ended up getting up around 5am this morning. I read several chapters of Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything. Garrett Tomlinson loaned it to me before I left and I commented to him that it was big. he was like 'it has nearly everything in it'. I said yes, but I meant it is big as in physically big and therefore hard to pack. I packed it anyway and judging from the first several chapters of the book, the decision to pack it was probably worth it. but judging by the fact that a copy of it is sitting on a book shelf in the qiriazi center, I think that the space could have been better used for toothpaste or soap or something.

there is a greta mart (somewhere between a super market and a convenience store. Bill Bryson would possibly have something interesting to say about why the english language doesn't have a word to describe the type of store I'm taking about. but it is probably just an american english thing since we don't really have the stores I'm describing stateside) near my house that was able to hook me up with some toothpaste and soap. so I'm ok.

We have eaten at the two international sort of restaurants in peja and they were good. I'm officially off the bitter lemon band wagon. I'm gonna do my best not to get as bad as I did last year. I mean, seriously three quarters of a liter a day of something with 'bitter' in the title can't be good for you.

I've seen most of the people that I have been close with in previous years and things are good there.

tomorrow we go up to the camp site to scope it out and have some calm time. we are planning on hiking up to the lake at the top of the mountain but if it is too wet we may not. hopefully we do.

I suppose this is enough for tonight. put some comments up or ask questions or something. it is good to know that people read these posts. it is incentive to write more so if you reward me I'll reward you (assuming you enjoy reading about life in peja).

good night

so I got in last night. we have been working/running around Peja preparing for camp. I tried to post an update last night but my blog was in Macedonian. . .so i couldn't really figure it out before the jet lag hit me. or maybe I couldn't figure it out because of the jet lag. . . anyway, things are good here. it is raining, and has been raining for a while. I have actually never seen peja wet. The past two years it has been hot and dry and dusty. no dust now, it is nice(r). we are headed to diner. I'll try and put up a proper post soon.

for those of you that are really dieing for updates, there is a twitter account set up by some of the people on the trip. you can subscribe (follow) the account and evertime someone updates it you will get the update on your phone. Ken Morris and Nina Coyle are the people that are gonna be adding the updates but I figure some of you might want to get those texts anyway. their updates will be short and letting you know what we are doing and what you can pray for and stuff.

kaylee is yelling at me so I must go.

tung

so in preparation of this trip it was requested that I fill out a bit of a bio. I figured I would let you guys in on it. be sure to check out the post below this one too.

Trent Sumner

WORK/ SCHOOL: Georgia Tech, Civil Engineering

CHURCH: Duluth First United Methodist

HOBBIES: being outside, cycling, watching baseball

FROM: Suwanee, GA

Why did you want to be a part of this Leadership Development Program?

-Partially because I didn't want to work all summer. . .but mostly because I believe that I've been blessed growing up in America with Christian parents in good schools and it would be irresponsible of me not to take opportunities to give something back.

How many times have you been to Kosova?

-This will be my third trip to Kosova.

What are 5 words that describe yourself?

- curious, happy, reticent, whimsical, loyal (I'm watching a game that my braves are inevitably going to lose)

What leadership experience do you have?

-SGA in high school and in college, and working with the Veritas Forum have given me some leadership experience but being drum major of my high school marching band really got me thinking about leadership and what it means.

Where have you learned the most about how to be a good leader?

-My high school band director, Eric Willoughby, is best leader I know. He had the respect of everyone in school - band members, other students, faculty, everyone. He also took a lot of time passing on his thoughts and philosophies to us.

What words do you think of when you think of a good leader?

-Compassionate, bold, confident, competent, fun.

What is the funniest cultural mistake you have made? (in Kosova, if you have been here before or just a funny culture story)

-I actually don't make cultural mistakes. . .I'm a real-life Marcus Brody.

Hi! If you are visiting this blog for the first time because of a sponsorship letter you recently received, thanks for checking this out. Kosova is the recently independent country in the Balkans in which I've spent several weeks of my past two summers. Check out the other posts on the blog (start at the beginning to get an idea what we did last year; we are doing the same thing this year). And be sure to check out the pictures in the links on the right of the screen. I'm going to try and update this every few days while I'm over there so check back to see how things are going. I'm not making any promises though because internet access is spotty.

No pressure or anything, but if you do decide to give know that sooner rather than later is better. The trip is coming up soon and I got a late start on fund raising. But I will need money throughout the trip so don't think you can't give after I leave (the first week in July). It will get to me somehow.

Anyway, I'm really stoked (adjective - to be "stoked" is to be completely and intensely enthusiastic, exhilarated, or excited about something. those who are stoked all of the time know this; being stoked is the epitome of all being. when one is stoked, there is no limit to what one can do. --from urbandictionary) about the trip. I'm glad that I'm going to be able to continue developing relationships with many of the students over there.

Feel free to call or email me if you want to know more about the mission; information management is important, you know?

Thanks for helping to make this trip happen for me!

this post was supposed to have come last week as I was missing my neighbor, Kaylee, since she was up at camp and I was holding down the fort here in Peja. But it didn't I was too busy going up the mountain fighting fires, swimming at pools, and drinking bitter lemon. But better late than never.

For those reading this blog that may not know Kaylee, I will give you the low down on her. She is my neighbor. We grew up across the street from each other. We tell people that we took bathes together (though that is not really the case). Jan, Kaylee's mother (also my neighbor), taught me piano. And they were also the people that first invited me to Kosova.

Kaylee is a truly wonderful person. She is most likely going to read this post sometime or another, but the things I am about to say about her are not motivated by that fact. Instead my motivation is to let those of you who are not acquainted with Kaylee know a little bit about what you are missing. If any of the Albanians we have been working with were asked 'Who is your favorite American?' they probably wouldn't give an answer because they are nice (most of the time) like that. But if we were to find someway to get them to actually give us an answer, four out of five of them would say it was Kaylee. She is full of joy and love for other people and that isn't something that ever turns off. I can be full of joy and love too, but only for finite amounts of time; eventually I have to get away from people and recharge. Many Albanians call Kaylee crazy (oddly enough the Albanian word for crazy is 'trent'), but I am convinced that it is because Kaylee is not like anyone they have ever met. Her spontaneity is mostly to blame I believe. Things with her are usually a whole lot of fun, and always more fun than they would be without her.

Maybe I am feeling overly sentimental because I am just a few days away from leaving Kosova, my home for the past month, and going back home. But I just wanted to let Kaylee and anyone else reading this that I am really glad that I have been able to spend most of the last month hanging out with her, and that I feel very blessed and honored to be her neighbor.