Last post - goodbye Togo

Aurelia and Carolina at my goodbye/birthday party in the med unit November 30, 2012 (it would be nice if I could rotate this but I can't figure out how to do it!)

Me and Pat at the same event.  Rose, our med unit cook/housekeeper made a delicious meal of fish, rice, salad, banana cake and pineapple (so unbelievable wonderful here - I've never even really like it before and now I won't be able to enjoy it until I come back to West Africa).

I know why I couldn't keep this blog up well during my time here - the internet connection is just so slow.  I've become a lot more patient with delays and slow technology since coming to Togo but not that patient.  In any event, I'm leaving early Saturday morning and I've been saying goodbye to everyone I see here.  It's been a great experience for me - I'm sure I've gotten far more out of being here than I could possibly have hoped to give but I hope I've been helpful where I could be.  Our things were packed out yesterday by an efficient moving company (coming and going with all my stuff has been surprisingly easy in both directions).  We're cleaning the numerous papers and magazines to put out into the trash and giving lots of stuff to our cook/housekeeper who said he'd take anything we didn't want.  Not much goes to waste here in Togo although they do use a lot of plastic bags that they just discard.  It will take me a while to fully process my experience here so I won't try to do that right now.  I'm looking forward to being back in the US, back in a culture I more fully understand.  I've spent 2 years marveling at how different things are here and mostly finding that the US holds up well in comparison in my mind but I'm sure it's just my cultural bend - I get the US and I'll never get a lot about Togo.  It's been interesting kind of resting on the surface of things here - observing, pondering, wondering but often, not understanding.  My main guides to my experience here have been my immediate co-workers:  Aurelia most of all but also Diana the medical secretary and Rose the cook.  I've learned a lot from my replacement in the past few weeks, a Beninese physician who has lived in West Africa her whole life.  Pat and I had a fufu dinner with one the associate country directors, Alex, the other week and talked about the politics in Togo in greater depth than ever before and also learned a lot.  I came here very ignorant about many things, I realize.  I knew very very little about Africa and, while I have much to learn still, I do know so much more and will be forever grateful that I was given this opportunity.  I hope very much to come back someday as I will profoundly miss many things, people and places but at least I had the chance to live and work here for 2 years.
I've spent the last few months thinking about what I'll miss about Togo and what I won't:
Will miss:  Walking 3 minutes to get to work, the local dogs that Toby and I see on our morning walk/run, the croissants and pan au chocolat we can get just down the street for 60 and 65 cents that are as good as any I've ever had, the lunches I've had in my backyard with Pat when it's incredibly hot on our street but somehow pleasant sitting at our table with the umbrella, the amazing tropical fruits here: mangos, pineapples, little pink-inside papayas, the thin-crust pizzas from the Annex, the adorable children who go to school around here in lavender shirts and khaki pants/skirts, the bright colors that people wear, the lazy weekends with no housework or yardwork to do, the lizards, the strange bird next door that we've never seen but that makes a lot of interesting sounds, the chickens and goats, Kundalini yoga (a new discovery and a lifesaver for me here), teaching yoga to my coworkers, how people here rarely get angry or out-of-sorts, the nighttime wildlife noises at the Pagala training site (I can't imagine the creatures that make those sounds), the lovely weather of July - the nicest month in Lome (and the worst one in NY), swimming in the ambassador's pool - it'll never be that nice again.
Won't miss:  The heat from early morning to late afternoon (it's particularly bad right now), the sandy roads that are like walking on the beach, the motos and other bad drivers in Togo, the crummy roads (they're getting better but they have along way to go), the humid yet dry climate (although I haven't had to use a moisturizer for 2 years which is good but all the folliage in my yard is dying right now which is not good), the crapshoot that ordering chicken or any other kind of meat can be here (will it be edible or will it be like leather?), the unfestiveness of the Christmas season (it's just impossible for me here...), the sloooowwww internet at work - also impossible to live with, and the power outages, the water outages the internet outages - all par for the course here (it's how I've learned to be more patient...lol).
GOODBYE TOGO!

Mostly not in Togo

I previously posted this photo on facebook and sent it to everyone I could think of but I think it's worth posting again since these are extremely cute dogs.  Poor Toby on the left had his "fixing" today and does not feel too perky right now so this is in honor of him.  He's really a great dog and I feel terrible for him right now.  He's trying to wag his tail everytime I walk by him (he's lying on the floor) but you can tell it's an effort.  I wanted to download a photo of the nice beach here in Lome that has the seaport view (it's a big shipping hub so there are constantly boats going in and out) but it wouldn't download for some reason.  Otherwise, all these photos are of South Africa where I just spent 2 weeks.  First I was in Johannesburg for a conference.  The conference was good and it kept us busy so I didn't see much of Joburg but, frankly, I don't think I missed much.  It's not a very attractive city, for the most part (although the weather was fabulous), and we were told how dangerous it was (although it didn't really seem so bad).

This is me outside the Soweto Hotel which is a very nice looking hotel that we stopped at the one afternoon we had off when we took a bus tour.  We stopped in front of Nelson Mandela's childhood house (a nice looking but small brick house) and drove by Bishop Tutu's house also.  They live/d in a nicer part of Soweto.  There are also some pretty bad slums although the ones near Cape Town seemed even worse.

 So after Joburg, I went to Kruger National Park with another PCMO and 2 friends of hers from Ghana.  We saw lots of animals - I couldn't include them all since it takes so long to download pictures here- but particularly notable were the elephants.  We saw many and were able to see them up close and observe them for a while.  It's interesting how agile they are - I always thought of them as kind of awkward and lumbering but they really aren't.  We saw giraffes, rhinos, baboons, vervet monkeys, water buffalo, wildebeests, many kind of antelope-type creatures, hippos, alligators, a puff adder (a very deadly snake!), zebras and lots of birds.  We saw female lions eating a giraffe and keeping vultures at bay.

 This is in the Drakenburg mountain area just east of Kruger where we stopped on the way back to Joburg.  It's amazingly beautiful.

 The rhinos at Kruger - these are white rhinos of which there are many.  We didn't see any black rhinos which are smaller and rarer.

 The picture above is me on top of Table Mountain with a view of Cape Town behind.  Cape Town is very amazingly set between the water and the hills behind.  The city itself isn't really all that interesting although, as someone coming from Togo, it's the height of Western civilization with its malls, restaurants, etc.  But it has great weather and everywhere you look there's a fantastic view.  The beaches along the coast south of the city are beautiful, too, but it was a little too chilly to think of beachgoing.

 A rock hyrax also known as a dassie in South Africa.  It's about the size of a very small woodchuck but it's related to elephants. I've wanted to see one ever since I read "Born Free" as a child. It was on top of Table Mountain - a must-do activity for anyone who visits Cape Town.  You can take a cablecar up to the top (or walk if you're very ambitious) and there are amazing views like the one below.  Also many hiking trails though we didn't have time to do much hiking since we were there late in the day.  The view below is looking south from a hilltop towards the Cape of Good Hope.

So now I'm back in Togo for my final 7 months or so.  Toby just jumped up on the couch next to me so I guess he's feeling a little better.  Life goes on here - working during the week and doing the usual during the weekend.  The new ambassador arrived and I've heard he's really nice.  He did say okay to our using his pool so I'm extremely happy about that.  Life here is very slow even though a lot of progress is being made with roads lately.  I've heard it's because there are elections coming up and the politicians like to have something they can point to as an accomplishment.  It certainly has made driving a lot easier. They've also put in a bunch of traffic lights so it's not such a free-for-all.  I will try to post again sooner!

Happy belated new year!

So much for resolutions...I've been as bad as ever about posting.  But it's been kind of a busy time and I have some photos to prove it.  Got through Christmas and decided I don't want to spend another holiday season here.  It's too weird to be in a hot dry place that is so unfestive.  Also, many of the volunteers go away at that time of year as well as staff so it's like the whole program shuts down for a month.  I found it very grim.  It's funny because at my last job January was also really slow.  I didn't mind it so much then but at least I made projects for myself.  December and January are truly slow here -trainings seem so far away it's hard to do any planning. 

The picture above is of an area of Ghana right next to Kpalime, Togo - around 2 hours from Lome (except there's a border crossing that takes forever).  I went for a weekend in mid-January with a group of women who take a yoga class here with an instructor whose husband is connected to the American Embassy.  She arranged for us to stay at a very basic lodge in this slightly mountainous region of Ghana and do yoga and hiking.  How great is that?  Two things I really love to do and someone else made all the arrangements!  It was a wonderful break.  We also went swimming in a small, cool pool at the base of a waterfall after a pretty strenuous hike (the trails here are not all that developed).  It felt heavenly, though.

As you can see!

We also went to a nearby village where kente cloth is woven in strips like this.  Everyone weaves - men, women and children.  All the women were away at a funeral, though, so we saw a lot of untended looms with a few men and boys weaving in the village.

Hillary Clinton came to speak to the President of Togo (Togo is now on the Security Council at the UN and she had been in Liberia for the inauguration of the new president there).  She stopped in at the embassy for 8 minutes (someone actually timed it), giving a brief speech and shaking the hands of everyone there (probably 75 people), including me.  I have pictures to prove it but they're on my work computer.  She's clearly a fast worker.

A few weekends ago the CLO (community liaison officer), Becky, here on the right, arranged for an artisan (3rd from right) to come to the embassy to show a bunch of us how to batik.  Here we are with our creations.  It was tremendously fun and I hope to get the chance to do it again.

Here's my cute dog who is mostly very sweet and I love having him.  I think he thinks I'm pretty boring (I don't run around much) but he's adjusting to my schedule.  He sleeps when I read, go on the internet, etc.  He's been with me exactly 2 months today.

So I'm coming home in 5 weeks for 2 weeks.  Looking forward to that but since I made the decision to leave Togo after December it doesn't seem quite as pressing.  I feel like the end is kind of in sight and I know what to expect from the rest of the year.  We will have only one group of trainees this year coming in early July but it will be a much bigger group that each one last year (40 as opposed to 23).  It will make for a different kind of training experience for sure.  I just got back from 4 days visiting new volunteers at their sites and seeing them has given me ideas about changing the training we do.  That is probably the most interesting part of the job - doing the training myself and then seeing later what they do or do not retain.  It helps me to figure out what to stress more the next time around.  I enjoyed seeing the volunteers at their various posts - many are in fairly remote small villages (which is more what I think of when I think of Peace Corps volunteers) but some in are large houses in small cities.  There's quite a variation among the posts here.

The thing that has struck me about Togo lately is that it seems not to change much compared with what we are used to in the US.  The climate is the same pretty much all the time - the gradations are too subtle for me to appreciate.  The differences between the dry season and the rainy season, the hot season and the not so hot season are not that easy to get a feel for and so every day seems the same really.  I wonder what it is like to have always lived in a place where everyday is the same weatherwise and lightwise.  I never realized how sensitive I was to the changing seasons and light but being here has underscored the need I have on a gut level to have those changes.  But even beyond that, when traveling particularly outside of Lome, I get the sense that the people living in the other parts of Togo live pretty much as they have always lived, that there is no expectation that their lives would, could or even should be different.  The volunteers talk about their villages being motivated or not - it's hard to see where they'd get even an idea that things could be different when they look around and see the unchangingness.  There are certainly aspects of Togo that would improve with change - the scores of malnourished children that can be seen in many villages, the lack of sanitation, the hand to mouth poverty.  But I look at the groups of women that gather with their children on their backs, the groups of children playing together after school and the community interaction you can see easily in any village and sometimes, the simplicity of life here doesn't seem so bad.  And I wonder, as a American, what exactly we have that we want to impart to Togo.

One year in Togo

First the high point of the Christmas season:  I got a cute little Togolese puppy who is going to end up looking like all Togolese dogs with large pointly ears that usually stick up, a long tail and a kind of skinny overall build.  They're medium sized usually.  I got him on Christmas Eve Day from a guy on the street who was standing with 2 other guys all holding puppies in their hands.  There are a few areas in Lome where you can find dogs for sale on the street like that.  So, needless to say, you don't really know what you're getting and you kind of have to hope for the best.  My little dog, Toby, was very shy for about a half a day and now he spends a lot of time following me around or sitting on my feet and chewing my toenails.  He is pretty good about doing his business outside already.  I'm leaving the kitchen door open when I am (or my cook is) home so that he can go in and out when he wants to.  He sleeps on the floor of my bedroom at the foot of the bed beneath an overhanging blanket so it's like he has a little shelter.  Overall, I'm really happy with him - he's a good companion and cute and soft.

So I went back to the States at the end of October and was met at JFK by my friend Judith who was hungry for breakfast.  I had already eaten breakfast but had been hankering after a hamburger for months (although I did find a decent cheeseburger here in Lome).  We asked a guy on the street where we could find a diner and he gave us long directions which turned out to be 100% accurate (although we were skeptical).  Judith had breakfast and I had a hamburger deluxe just like when we were in nursing school together over 30 years ago.

My hamburger deluxe and Judith's breakfast.

I spent a few days in NY (got there just in time for the unseasonal snow on 10/29 which took out our power along with many other people's in NY and CT).  Saw Tim and Julia's new apartments in the snow and had a nice brunch in Brooklyn.  Then I went to Washington, DC to spend 3 weeks being trained in my duties at the Peace Corps headquarters.  The days were kind of long but I did learn some things I hadn't known.  I saw a lot of movies (the best was The Descendents) and ate out a lot.  I flew up to Boston to visit my mother the first weekend I was there and Pat came down to visit the long weekend of Veteran's Day.   We spent time exploring Washington including taking a tour of the Capitol which was what we were waiting for in this photo.

Since it was Veteran's Day we saw all the war momuments including the Korean War which I'd never seen before.  It was a lovely fall day - a little on the cold side which was fine with me.

At the end of the training in DC I flew to Chicago to see Ben and Evan and then back to NY to finish my dental work and cook up a Thanksgiving dinner.  I flew back to Togo the day after Thanksgiving to find that it had been very busy for my co-worker in my absence and the busyness continued for the next 3 weeks.  Now she and nearly the entire staff are on "annual leave" which is about a month long.  Many of the Volunteers are also away - mostly back in the US but some traveling locally or in Europe.  So it's pretty quiet - kind of like January used to be in a college health service.  I had a quiet and strange Christmas - after all those years in a cold place with seasons it's particularly odd to be in this hot place where nothing really changes for Christmas.  Christmas here is low key - a few lights here and there and a few Christmas displays in stores.  Mostly there were a lot of fireworks going off for the few weeks before and now continuing after Christmas.  Lots of young boys throwing them into the street - you have to watch out a bit for that.  I had fondue and pecan pie on Christmas Eve with my friend Susan and we watched "The Bourne Identity" which we both really enjoy.  It actually takes place during the Christmas season as there are decorations visible in many scenes and, of course, there's a lot of snow so that was nice to see.  On Christmas Day, I went to a luau although I got there a bit late and missed most of the food.  But it had a nice tropical feel to it which was only appropriate.  I had my own little tree which I brought from the US and decorated with icicles I made from cutting strips of a plastic bottle and bending over a candle which was fun and surprisingly easy.  They're kind of hard to see in the picture above but they're there. 

I'll be back in the US at the end of March - I've got my ticket all booked so I can look forward to it.  I wish everyone a happy New Year.  My resolution will be to post more often!

Just a quick note

I have no photos to post this time since I think I left them on my laptop - I did have some nice ones from Tanzania of giraffes, zebras and monkeys - will maybe post next time but by then they would be old news.  I went to Tanzania in late September for a continuing medical education conference that the Peace Corps has annually for the medical officers.  They tend to be in interesting places but the conference itself is very time consuming with little time off so you can really only enjoy the place if you are staying for longer which I couldn't do this year since I'm going to be away for a month in November.  But it would have been a great place to stay longer with access to the Serengetti, the Ngorongoro crater and Killimanjaro.  Some other time, I hope.  I did get to go on a minisafari close to the hotel (it was in Arusha) and see some pretty great giraffes, etc.

I'm very much anticipating coming home in 11 days - have a dentist appointment and will be visiting as many people as I can along with stocking up on things I can't get here (or at least can't get easily).  There are no department stores in Lome so if you need something like a picture frame, a piece of luggage for a laptop or a sports bra (all of which I'm going to get in the US) it's kind of hard to know where to start.  There's a store called Champion which is Lome's answer to Walmart (as we all say) but really it's a very poor substitute - it had a lot of some things (like all kinds of liquor and lots of household goods) but not much of other things you might want.  It's easy to buy a bra in Lome - women sell them from piles on the tops of their heads - but they are all the same kind with molded cups in every imaginable color.  And how do they get tried on?  I have no idea.  I guess you just hope it fits...

So I'll be in Washington for a training of new medical officers that takes place over 3 weeks and I'll be home for a bit before and after.  I'll also be spending a weekend in Boston and another one in Chicago so it will be a pretty busy trip but I can't wait!

It's gotten very hot here again particularly at midday which is keeping me in my house as much as possible since it's always very comfortable there.  It's tolerable outside in the morning before the sun gets too high.  I've actually started running a few days a week - something I would have never imagined I'd do and I can't say I really like it but it does feel kind of good - but I have to go very early before it gets hot but after the sun comes up.  There's maybe a half an hour that's good for that.  Mostly I'm swimming late in the day at the ambassador's pool which is really great as always.  It's still pretty nice in the evening - there's often a bit of a breeze so that sitting outside can be quite pleasant.  There's been a little rain this week which is good because it's been way too dry here.  My yard was frying till I finally figured out how to connect my hoses so they'd reach the front (I have to admit I didn't really try to figure it out till the grass was completely dead looking) but now it looks a lot better.  I found another gardener (my previous one got sick and stopped coming) who is doing an excellent job.  Looking forward to those cool autumn days in NY and DC...

We got a memo in the office yesterday which I found quite funny.  It was about emergency procedures in the office.  There was a part about what to do if there was a bomb threat which was that everyone should start looking around their area for anything suspicious and then tell the security officer or the general manager if we see anything.  It just underscored so many things that are different here - there is no bomb squad that you could call so you just have to make do with what you have.  I'm not even sure to what extent you could call the police and expect a response.  I'm sure that procedure isn't Peace Corps sanctioned so I'm waiting to see if it gets revised since generally you would expect to evacuate the premises.  But then what?  Who's going to determine if the office is safe?  Who would defuse a bomb if there was one?  I have no idea...

And another thing - the whole length of the dirt road that runs outside the PC office was dug up by the Chinese (they are all over this continent digging things up, I think) to a depth of about 15 feet.  A concrete gutter was laid in the bottom and then it was all covered up again in sand.  The road cuts the neighborhood in 2 and the contruction has made travel very difficult.  Additionally, large piles of sand have been left in the roads that intersect this road so that walking around the neighborhood is like walking on a beach.  Supposedly, the road will be paved in 2 YEARS!  So meanwhile, we're in a beach-like setting for that time.  In the US we would be complaining, we would be wanting information.  But in Togo there's no one to complain to nor can you get information most of the time.  You really do have to just go with the flow.  It's hard to learn to do that for me.  I spend pointless time being angry about things I can't control.  But it is a lesson...

Today is Friday - the half day that is the payoff for the long hours Monday through Thursday so I'm heading home now.  I hope I'll see some of you soon.

Back from Kpalime

So Pat is gone now and I'm back to my very quiet life (not that life with Pat was noisy but we were pretty busy, it seems).  He took lots of pictures this summer so all of these are his.  This is a large toad in our yard.  Our yard is looking pretty good but it's another dry season and everything is in danger of frying so I'm going to be out there watering pretty regularly.  We had a gardener but he hasn't been around lately - need to get another one.

Before he left, though, we took one last weekend trip out of Lome to Kpalime, a lovely town in the mountainous region of Togo that's about 2 hours north of Lome.  We actually didn't stay in Kpalime (although it is a nice town with good places to stay and to eat) but went a little east to Kuma to see an organic coffee grower who works with one of the Volunteers.  He took us on a tour of the plantation where we saw coffee growing - it's berries about the size of cranberries than turn red or yellow when they are ripe.  The trees are only about 15 feet tall at the tallest.  These ones are organically grown and raised in the shade (which makes the coffee better somehow).  When the berries are ripe, they are dried for about a week and then roasted.  At Kuma Coffee, they roast them over wood fires in big pans that are placed on small terracotta stoves in a little thatch roof structure.

We spent the night in Kuma at a very nice little inn called Auberge Nectar - nice big, clean room.  The food wasn't too good, though.  When you get chicken in Togo it's quite a gamble - it can be so tough as to be inedible (as mine was) but it always comes with a side of rice or spaghetti or frites and those are usually pretty good.  Right outside our window we saw bananas growing and  learned that that large pendulous flower will drop off when the bananas are ready to be picked.

This is a few of the mist-covered hills next to the auberge.

The next morning we took a walk with the brother of Aurelia, my coworker.  Actually, David is her cousin but, considering we just randomly ran into him, it was still pretty amazing.  It turns out that she grew up in the house right next to the auberge.  David told us a lot about the tropical plants we saw on our walk, including their traditional medical uses.  He chose 3 different plants at various points during our walk and used them to paint a butterfly on my arm in orange, red and yellow.  It didn't come off for 3 days despite repeated exposure to water.

This area is noted for its many butterflies.

Here he used the scraping sof the inside of a pod.

We walked around in what seemed like circles past various settlements though they might have all been the same town.  That's David in the middle.

A European (I think he was Swiss) man used to live in Kuma and he painted on many of the doors and wooden window shutters.

After our walk around Kuma we drove another 2 hours to the Danyi plateau which is another beautiful mountainous area.  Unfortunately, it was pouring rain.  We spent the night at a monastery that is noted for making fruit syrups and jams and also is known as a place to stay.  We found out you're supposed to call a month in advance, but they took pity on us and let us stay after we told them we were a married couple.  For about $10 we had a room (decent but simple - after all it is a monastery), dinner and breakfast.   We toured around the grounds where they grow coffee, various kinds of fruit and peppercorns.  We stayed for the church service on Sunday morning which was a Catholic mass in French and Ewe with a definite African feel to it.  A chorus of girls sang accompanied by drums and a cowbell and danced to the alter with the offering.

Right after Pat left, I went to the midservice conference for the Volunteers.  A year into their service, they all get together at a training site about 1/3 of the way up the country and have various workshops some of which I helped with.  So I was there from Tuesday till Friday (yesterday).  It's nice to be back in Lome and have a long weekend.  I start school again on Tuesday (health economics) and in 3 weeks I'm going to Tanzania for a week of continuing medical education - should be interesting as I'll get to see a little bit of east Africa and meet a bunch of other PCMOs (Peace Corps medical officers) - both Americans and HCNs (host country nationals).  I would be missing everyone (particularly Pat) right about now but I'll be in New York at the end of October before I spend 3 weeks at yet another training in Washington.  It seems like it's all just around the corner and I'm going to be busy with work till then as we're getting a new group of trainees in 2 weeks.

Back from Iceland

And boy was it great!  Everything that Togo isn't so it made for a perfect vacation from my point of view.  Gorgeous weather everyday except for a brief period of rain one afternoon when we were driving (with only one windshield wiper as a bird actually hit the windshield in the dark and broke the wiper somehow - I didn't think it was possible to hit a bird but it is).  I got to actually wear sweatshirts for the first time in 7 1/2 months.  Hardly any people.  Very tranquil and restful even with all the driving.  Good roads even when they weren't paved.   Delicious food once we got over the sticker shock.  It's expensive (which Togo is not) but you get what you pay for and sometimes in Togo you can't get it no matter what you're willing to pay.  I did get a really bad sunburn on my nose because it was light out 20 hours/day and I've avoided that the whole time in Togo.  So Iceland is a beautiful and remote place.  We drove around the Ring Road counterclockwise so that we ended up in the most touristy part at the end of the trip.

This is a glacier (part of the biggest glacier in Europe) and the tiny black dots are people walking on it.  We didn't do that ourselves but the sight of it was amazing.  We had been to Glacier National Park a few years ago which was very beautiful but the glaciers there are like icecubes compared to this baby.

The landscape in Iceland goes from looking like the moon (barren as can be) to being emerald green like this photo.  That's a tiny cottage dwarfed by the cliffs above.  The rock formations are endlessly amazing.  And there are so many waterfalls (big long ones from the cliffs above) that you get jaded after a while.

Here they all are.  We traveled around in a large minivan and did quite a bit of driving which is typical for a vacation for us.  Everyone handled it pretty well.  The kids played B for Botticelli for most of the letters of the alphabet and watched old Seinfeld episodes and slept.  This is a picture of a glacial lake that has icebergs in it.

This is me at a geothermal field.  The gases are sulphurous, hence, the face.  Iceland's energy is also entirely geothermal.

We took a walk/hike (depending on your viewpoint) above this little village in the Westfjords area.

Near Humavik in mid northern Iceland.

Walking around an crater made by a volcano near Myvatin.

A thermal pool near Myvatin.  We loved these thermal pools - warm in the cool air.

A puffin.  They are adorable when they take off to fly with their orange feet dragging behind.  They're more graceful in the water, I hear. 

A basalt mountain - the columns are like ones we saw in Northern Ireland.  Puffins nest in the grass above.

The Blue Lagoon early on Sunday morning before anyone was in the pool yet.

This is a picture from the more north western part of Iceland which is mostly fjords.  Just spectacular.

So visit Iceland by all means.  We intend to go back and spend more time sometime not too far in the future.

Now I'm back in Togo and it's kind of like I never left but it was great to have a break that really seemed like a break.