Off to post visit!!!!

Tomorrow is the big day that we have been anxiously awaiting when we finally get to visit our posts and see what our new homes will be like!!! This week has been crazy with preparations. The Peace Corps rents vehicles to take us to post, so we can bring as much stuff with us as we would like. Since we will only be back in Gbatope for around 2 weeks before we head back to post and because next time we will be bringing furniture with us for our new homes, everyone is bringing a ton of stuff with them to leave at our posts. Yesterday afternoon was full of packing and we also got out motorcycle helmets, which we are required to wear on motos. Peace Corps Togo is one of the only countries where volunteers can ride motos because so many posts are only accesible by small dirt roads that you need to take a mototaxi to get to. Today we also met our counterparts who will travel up to post with us. Each volunteer gets assigned a counterpart who is from our community and who we will work with at post. They help us out, introduce us to people, and we collaborate with them on projects. My counterpart is Gaminou and he seems really nice. In addition to being a farmer, he works with the Red Cross and runs an HIV/AIDS club for students. I am excited to be able to work with him on both of those projects. Parts of the counterpart workshop were pretty amusing as trainers explained to our counterparts why we, the fragile Americans, cannot be fed certain foods, cannot be given normal water, should not be pressured to drink too much alcohol, but can bathe in untreated water. They were also informed not to laugh at us for constantly sipping out of our water bottles all day, because we need to for our health. A friend and I were joking that it is like we are these adult size babies who have to learn how to eat, drink, and bathe all over again.

Anyways, tomorrow will be a long day. We leave our homes at 545, then meet up and put the copious amounts of stuff plus all our bikes in/on the vehicles, and then I will be traveling with the others gonig to Savannes on a 10-12 hour drive. It will be exhausting but I am so excited to see more of the country!!! I will be at post for a week and then the volunteers in my region will have a party for us and then we have to take public transportation back for the first time on our own. However, the volunteers in Savannes will take care of us and help us out, so I am not too concerned.

On the home front, the card game go fish has become incredibly popular with my host family and I think my host dad is some sort of go fish genius. I beat him for the first time yesterday and it felt like quite the accomplishment. I hope that everything is going well back home. I love you and miss you all!!!

Emily