fumbling towards understanding (18 Jul 2003)

my heart simply won't stop racing. it's been pounding in my ears for the past week, starting in with a great rush and a roar of hope on sunday.

in essence, our "seminar for the evolution of young girls" was a stab at an extended "take our daughters to work," designed to show girls from surrounding villages that there really is a point to staying in school. so often young boys and girls alike quit their studies because they see that they will most likely wind up in the fields, tilling and hoeing next to their fathers, or stuck cooking and cleaning all day with 6 babies underfoot...

togo's economy is so depressed and underdeveloped (in an official state of economic "crisis" for about 10 years now) that there are precious few jobs for anyone. so, it's incredible to sit down and think about what makes other economies tick - what employs people in the states that doesn't exist here.

well, first of all, clothes are made at the tailor, there are no ready-to-wear stores (except in lomé), so that knocks out about 50% of mall jobs, right? then there's the fact that no one except tourists can afford to eat out, so there are really no restaurants (except in lomé), meaning no cooks, no waiters or waitresses...

private businesses are non-existent since the state controls everything and the state is horribly corrupt and doesn't even pay its teachers so there are not the office jobs people have in the states.

anyway, without going into a tirade (oops too late) there are next to no jobs here, and the ones that exist are mostly won by swindling and corruption. so kids don't see much point in education, and girls especially are prone to drop out since many people discourage them, considering them less intelligent than boys and strictly made for housework.

our idea (that of the PCVs in my region and myself) was to spend a week demonstrating how girls can benefit from continued education not just financially but with respect to their health and happiness and that of their families. basically we're hoping to relay the message to the children of today that they are the leaders of tomorrow, so study hard and be prepared to lead the country out of this mess someday...

that was the notion behind this seminar, and i went into it arm in arm with 5 other volunteers starry-eyed and ready to prove to these girls how much they are worth. for the entirety of this week, we led a group of 21 togolese girls blindly through 6 days jam packed with sessions on how to plan for the future, avoid AIDS and early pregnancy, and generally negotiate the maze that is life for the females of this country.

i'd never done anything like this before, so it was quite an adventure of logistics (how to get the girls fed and ready for a 7 am session on "how to make a good decision"), diplomacy (how to resolve the feud between 2 girls from rival tribes and villages?), and acrobatics (how the HELL to sleep on a concrete floor with bugs running over your face for 5 nights and still wake up chipper?). essentially, i was back in camp, counselor chantal back on the case, ready to make togo safe for aspiring young women everywhere!

ha.

it was an insane, emotional, exhausting week and it contained some of the most satisfying moments of my peace corps career thus far. here i am, 10 months in, and i wish i could do 52 of these weeks a year for the remaining year and a half of my service! the girls, chosen among their classmates for their performance in school and ability express themselves in french (many kids make it through high school barely speaking the national language), were slow to open up and definitely slightly wary of my antics and strange ideas like journaling and poem-writing, but throughout the week's seemingly never-ending sessions we watched personalities emerge and lights begin to go on.

we rounded up female role models from around the country and asked them to share their life stories. basically any togolese women in any position of relative authority - and there aren't many! - is bound to have an incredible tale of early woe and ultimate triumph, complete with periods of time spent starving, working as a servant, etc...as each woman finished her story, the room would fall silent with quiet awe - both on the part of the volunteers, whose lives suddenly seemed so ridiculous compared to these paragons of success, and on the part of the girls as they realized that they, too, could become role models someday. it was phenomenal to look around the room and really know that some of these girls will one day stand before a group and tell her story.

later that night, one of the panel participants approached me and said that several young girls had told her that, before this seminar, they were ready to quit school, and now they see the importance in continuing. i nearly collapsed in relief and gratitude.

another night we PCVs, noticing some friction and clique-ing in the group, came up with the very american idea of campfire bonding. we split the girls up into small groups, set them around a roaring fire, and told them to talk about the difficulties in their lives as we ran about distributing sugared powdered milk and stale market cookies (the closest we could come to s'mores!). most of us expected it to be a complete flop - people don't seem to talk about their emotions in that same self-indulgent way, and the girls were timid to begin with. but the magic that night amazed even my program director, who dropped by to check up on us late that evening.

at one point, i was hurrying to make some more milk when i stopped and nearly dropped my spoon; the scene was breathtaking - beautiful togolese girls glowing in the firelight, earnestly discussing the problems they share. as i sat in with each group and listened to conversation flow, all of my worst fears were confirmed. almost every girl had a story to tell of a friend who had gotten pregnant and abandoned her studies, a teacher who had sexually harassed them, a sibling who had been trafficked to nigeria, a person in village who had died of AIDS...the most heartbreaking tales spilled from their mouths as we the volunteers crept around and wondered how we had made it through life so blissful, so supported, so unaware...

no matter how long i live here, it seems i will never cease to be amazed by the savage beauty of life in at least the small corner of togo i’ve come to know, the tough sensuality that day to day existence necessitates...and no matter how well i think i know what's going on here, i have no idea, not a clue as to what lies beneath the wide white smiles that greet me everywhere i go, the stories that these young girls already carry with them.

seems to me that by the time i'm ready to leave here, my learning and understanding will have only just begun...