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.