Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Hello friends…MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
I spent Christmas in Kara the second biggest city in Togo staying at Susie’s with most of the other friends from my stage- training group. It was so great to see everyone again …12 days seems like a long time to be away from the people that I was used to seeing every minute of every day…I am heading back down to my village tomorrow will a small layover in Sokode my regional capital first. The first few days at site were a little rough but I think it will all be ok. Lots of alone time which means I’m finally able to catch up on that reading that ive been meaning to do for the past 22 years. But I’m slowly getting a routine down. I can get my own water now from the well outside my house which not only kills some time each day but is also a great upper body work out. And I’m learning how to cook which is fun…I do have limited resources but there is a great cookbook they gave us so I’m trying to be adventurous. And Ive been riding my bike 13km to my neighbour Casey’s village to go to her market on Saturday so Ill be getting in shape too.
Right now the school is not in session for Christmas break so its really hard to have meetings or get any work started but I’m going to be helping another volunteer with a girls bike tournee that he is organizing. He picked 10 girls from villages all over who are going to get trained for 2 days and then he Connor and I are going to ride bikes with the girls around to 10 villages including mine and do little sensibilzations and stuff about girls education for a week in early Jan. I’m super excited about it.
Again I MISS AND LOVE YOU ALL
e-mail write or call anytime- i don’t get international texts as it turns out so don’t worry about that
but love you
Hello friends…MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
I spent Christmas in Kara the second biggest city in Togo staying at Susie’s with most of the other friends from my stage- training group. It was so great to see everyone again …12 days seems like a long time to be away from the people that I was used to seeing every minute of every day…I am heading back down to my village tomorrow will a small layover in Sokode my regional capital first. The first few days at site were a little rough but I think it will all be ok. Lots of alone time which means I’m finally able to catch up on that reading that ive been meaning to do for the past 22 years. But I’m slowly getting a routine down. I can get my own water now from the well outside my house which not only kills some time each day but is also a great upper body work out. And I’m learning how to cook which is fun…I do have limited resources but there is a great cookbook they gave us so I’m trying to be adventurous. And Ive been riding my bike 13km to my neighbour Casey’s village to go to her market on Saturday so Ill be getting in shape too.
Right now the school is not in session for Christmas break so its really hard to have meetings or get any work started but I’m going to be helping another volunteer with a girls bike tournee that he is organizing. He picked 10 girls from villages all over who are going to get trained for 2 days and then he Connor and I are going to ride bikes with the girls around to 10 villages including mine and do little sensibilzations and stuff about girls education for a week in early Jan. I’m super excited about it.
Again I MISS AND LOVE YOU ALL
e-mail write or call anytime- i don’t get international texts as it turns out so don’t worry about that
but love you

Friday, December 08, 2006

HELLO FRIENDS
So I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. We swore in last night and have a few days here in Lome and then Im off to Koussountou for the next 2 years. Exciting stuff.
All 30 of us made it to PCVs and I could not bemore proud of my fellow stagaires.
And some big news...yesterday I got a cell phone so now I can text and recieve calls from all of you
the number is 0112289778076 and im not sure how well international texts will work but its always worth a shot
i miss you all tons and i know that im going to be having a lot of free time in the next few months so i can write lots of letters and stuff so keep an eye on your mailboxes
i should appologize now because i had no money or anything for christmas gifts or even cards but next year i will have lots of togolese gifts for everyone
things here are really great
i am learning french slowly but surely - im technically at intermediate high whiwh means they trust that i can communicate on my own and i am starting to learn koussountou the lanuage so i can be trilingual
ok thats a bit much but at least i can say good morning and stuff
i had to give a quick speech last night in koussountou at the swear in ceremony and it was on national television
pretty scary stuff
but i think my site is going to be good
its right on the border with benin and there is a big problem with child trafficing to nigeria so i hope to be doing some work against that
ill know more about the work im doing after a few weeks there
and ill be near the intenet for christmas if not once before then so i can let you all know more about the wonderful world of tami in togo
until then keep in touch
i miss and love
tp

Friday, November 10, 2006

So I figure since I actually have access to the internet I should update again.
Nothing new is happening but I miss you all. I hope that everyone got my email with my address, and I am hopefully going to get a cell phone super soon.
Keep checking this site and see how its going.
LOVE
Tami

Thursday, November 09, 2006

I'M ALIVE
Hey guys! Sorry that it has taken me forever to update this thing but its been kind of a challenge to use the internet around me.
But I found out my post and just spent a week there. I'm going to be living in Koussountou a 1000 person village in the middle of the country near Benin (you might be able to find Tchamba on the map - I'm about 30 km away from there). I have no electricty and get my water from a well. So far my house isn't done yet but I'll be living in a compound with my homologue (the Togolese guy that I'll be working with). Slowly but surely I'm learning French, and I think I'll get the hang of it mostly before I go to post for good in December. There is no internet in my village so I prob wont be updating or checking my email more than once a month. There isn't a post office either but that doesn't mean that I wont continue to send mail. If you haven't gotten something yet its probably because I don't have your address.
I hope that you all know that I think about you all the time and I love you all and miss you tons but things are mostly going well. If nothing else I'll come back in two years being a total bad ass chick who is able to handle way more than you ever thought I could.
PLEASE WRITE ME SOON!
I gotta go but I love you all.
P.S. Way to go in the election guys! You are making all of us proud!

LOVE LOVE LOVE
Tami P

Monday, September 25, 2006

IM HERE
I should start out by saying that this keyboard really confuses me so please ignore any mistakes that will come
i dont have a lot of time but i wanted to say that i am having an amazing time so far. there are 30 of us together going through training. right now we are in the capital Lome but on wed we go to our host families outside of the city.
people here are amazing and i am really excited about getting to know them better
the city is pretty cool. we havent been out much so no pictures yet but they will come soon. i have been writing some letters so be checking your mail boxes in 2-3 weeks for letter from me
times almost up so i got to go but ill write more soon

love
tami

Thursday, August 31, 2006

The time is coming. I am getting ready to leave and I am getting both excited and nervous. I will be heading to Philidelphia on September 19th for my staging where they will give me all my fun shots and hopefully give me some information about what I will be doing while I'm gone. Right now all I know is that I will be doing a Girls Education and Empowerment program. Although I will have about 3 months of language and cultural training before I actually do any service.
The weekend before I go I am planning to stop by Olney and Harrisonburg so hopefully I will get a chance to see everyone before I go!
Well please feel free to e-mail me at parkertk@gmail.com anytime, or call me before I go and if you feel so inspired to send me some packages just e-mail me for my address.

Sunday, August 20, 2006