New Home

30 avril 2007

Yesterday I moved into my new home staying with the family of the Microfund Togo President.

(1) Grandma, Me, Grandma's sister, Christelle the daughter of the house. 2) Mme Bella, the mom, and me. Jonnas, the cousin, me and Karl, the son.)

It's a very nice home and near to work. Her children are 18 and 20 years old and an 18 year old nephew also lives there. As well as one other guy who I can't place, and 2 maids. The daughter Kristelle is very nice, but I have a hard time hearing her ( I'm sure over time it will become easier.) It's also her room that I am staying in but hopefully she has a nice place to stay this month—I'm not sure where that is yet but I will ask (I think she told me when I asked but I didn't understand her). I've been eating rice and fish there for every meal except that in the morning I have bread with butter and tea.

Kristelle's brother is much more outgoing and speaks loudly. I am sure that I will get used to the French here soon, and I am also learning some words in Ewe. Last night I was showing them pictures on the computer and today at lunch we played Rumi (kind of) and I took pictures of the family in the house. The father lives close to the beach where he works as an ambassador (not sure how) at the Swedish embassy. Many things I have still to figure out.

The hardest thing so far has been that the electricity here is often out (they tell me this is of the last several months that it keeps cutting out) and there isn't running water at the house. At the office there is a generator for electricity but there is no internet, which was a surprise to me. I go to the cybercafé at the Catholic center once in a while, but I will see how things will go once I start collecting client stories.

It is very hot here (even for me), and without electricity I cannot have the fan on in the room (which is especially hot. I've gotten used to basically sweating through my clothes.

This morning Joseph gathered the staff from the different field offices (2 of the 5 were missing) as well as the two controllers to give me a quick intro to their operations. Microfund Togo is still growing and will hopefully be able to reach farther north soon. They would, however profit from having some kind of internet installed, especially to communicate with each other and with Kiva, and I will see what I can do to help facilitate this. It seems that for now Joseph is the only one with access from a café.

It seems that this latest blackout is rather permanent; we were supposed to have electricity again at 5 am. It came on a couple of times during the night, including 12:00 am and 5:00 am, but did not last long. I am going to have to find a way to get some more shirts because I won't make it through the week. Tomorrow's a holiday for May 1^st (Labor Day) and I've just been given a Microfund Togo shirt to wear for the festivities. Since I missed the Independence Day goings on Friday, I'm excited to see how tomorrow will be.