When I heard about COS conference two years ago from the volunteers that were leaving around the time I arrived, my reaction was, "Hotel by the beach? Food? Pool? I'm totally staying for that!" I realize that's not really great motivation for two years' service, and had I been utterly miserable in Togo, the idea of Hotel Novella Star certainly wouldn't have kept me here. But, I made it. And so did all these people:
That's 14 less people than we started with (we lost 15 from the original group and gained one transfer from Kenya):
For more comparisons, here's the original group of health (CHAP) volunteers at our swearing-in:
And now:
I had a great time hanging out with everyone one last time. We ended the week by celebrating a fellow CHAP volunteer's wedding. Danielle and Jorge met in Bolivia about seven years ago and have been carrying on long-distance since then. He joined her here in Togo in January, they got officially married in Ghana, and we had a ceremony on the beach in Togo (the first of many ceremonies? I think they're planning more in the States and Bolivia). Anyway, I took most of the wedding photos and you can see them in all their un-Photoshopped glory on Facebook, here, here, and here. Yes, there are three albums, and about a hundred variations of the following photo (that I obviously didn't take).
And that's about all that's new. I have some West African travels planned for June and a ticket out of here for August 11th. So... see you soon.
