As I stood behind my house today, among the cornstalks and bean leaves,

Watching, as I am wont to do, that incredible blazing orb sink ever lower in the Orange Hour sky, the thought came to me:

A year. It’s been a year now.

A year in Togo.

A year in Africa.

A year of sunsets.

A year of stars brighter than ever before.

A year of BBC. A year of “anasara yo-VO!”

A year of wondering

Just what in the hell we’re doing here.

A year in and

Still not sure!

A year of breathtaking beauty.

A year of breathtaking injustice and corruption.

A year

And now I’m realizing that cheeky adage is true: I will take so much more from Togo that Togo will ever get from me.

A year and I realize that all of those Peace Corps’ clichés are true, really: the toughest job I’ll ever love…and all that jazz.

It changes

From second to second,

Expression to expression.

Rainy season to dry season and rains they come again.

Heat rain dust repeat.

A year of calabashes.

A year of cockroaches.

A year of strangers suddenly close,

And those so close suddenly far far away.

Returned to from whence we all came.

Swallowed up in that life we all used to live.

Email addresses now.

A year of undeclared vacation days,

And cooking marvels together over little gas ranges.

A year of joyous reunions.

A year of triumphant breakthroughs and shattering backsliding.

A year of

Stevie.

A year of Olympio.

A year of broken promises

Of false hopes and falling grain prices.

Of closed borders and tightening military control.

A year of yearning

for home

for success

for development

for CHEESE!

A year spent seeking solutions outside, anywhere but here, knowing they are only within the silence and solitude of we.

A year in which we realize how much we can really stand,

How much we will change to accommodate a tiny sliver of land and make room for it in our hearts.

A year of forgiving Togo for her sins,

Chiding her for her mistakes.

Loving her for her people -

For their life, for their dance, for their eyes speaking a truth their mouths dare not;

for their hands telling stories their smiles betray;

for their smiles denying the heaviness of existence.

A year of asking to be forgiven

Sighing at the news we create,

Explaining how we are different,

Wondering if we really are.

A year of AIDS (where are we going wrong?!)

A year of Orange Hours freeing my mind to this wandering.

A year of (clap clap clap) “excusé?!” at cinq heure.

of “ça va aller”

of “d’eu courage” and “ahhh bon?”

A year of world maps because at least you can see what you’ve done.

Of CVDs, APEs, ISTs, PDMs, GEEs, PCVs, APCDs…

A year spent searching for margaritas and real pizza.

A year of Craig David.

A year of maisons.

A year of cafeterias (how did egg sandwich come to mean gourmet?)

A year of finishing entire thick novels in one day, looking around and picking up the next one with a shrug because, after all, what the hell else are you doing?

A year of beans and gari, of koliko, street salad, fufu bars and then…

A year of amoebas and giardia!

A year of FAN (and then - magic! - FAN choco!)

Of entire mountains of boiled peanuts in your pocket,

Of grilled corn, of oranges with the tops cut off.

A year of MANGOES.

A year

Punctuated by a war.

A year spent wondering

How we’d ever make it to a year

spent on our knees being humbled.

A year and I have no answers, only questions.

A year with the finest young minds of our generation

Minds that traveled long distances of body and spirit to do something, that something they so want to count.

Minds that will soon change this world.

A year of realization; that there is so much to do, so much to fix.

A year and now we know: we are up to the next one.