Finally I can happily say I am fully adjusted to life in Togo, I've passed the two week barrier and therefore have ridden myself of the shell of culture shock (it really is like a numbing protective layer). Now I can actually appreciate everything I'm doing and everyone I'm meeting without the hyper-sensitivity and uncertainty. Apart from some flu attack the last two days, I'm completely happy here and there's no place I'd rather be ;) but there are still a few things not quite in place as of yet.

I must admit placement hasn't been as full on as I'd hoped, and overall it's actually been mostly frustrating as I've not had as much chance to teach as I'd have liked. I've come to realise that to be a continuing issue with any teaching placements like this one; the kids already have a teacher and therefore I'm not absolutely essential, if only slightly useful sometimes. For the majority of my time at school I've been observing and given just a few lessons to teach solo. Although observing feels completely useless, I think I would have had a stress-induced heart attack if I'd have been teaching on my own the entire time; shouting out in a mixture of French and English to these over-crowded classrooms is really exhausting, especially without any concrete certainty that I'm being understood. Last Thursday I taught the whole day again and the teacher had asked me to prepare a lesson on the UK/England to raise awareness of anglophone countries. Trying to get each classes to correctly pronounce all of our capital cities proved pretty much impossible when we got to Edinburgh (just a whole lot of shouting), and trying to explain that the entire population of Togo (6 million) fits into London only caused total disbelief.

I started up a 'club d'anglais' last Wednesday afternoon to give some extra help to those who wanted it from the oldest class. 30 keen students showed up which was good, and they seemed to understand the grammar points covered. However at the end when I asked 'qu'est ce-que vous voudriez faire la prochaine fois?' the response was, 'on veux voir la danse de ton pays'. Good to know I'm being taken so seriously. Since then I haven't been able to teach at all due to this week being examination week. Instead I have had to inviliagte quite a few exams which honestly just ends up with half the class not doing their exams but rather staring at me staring at them. Unfortunately I've not really been able to form real relationships with the kids, and even with the teachers it's hard to keep up with their Ewe banter during breaks. Plus sometimes I forget the greeting etiquette here that it's absolutely necessary to greet absolutely everyone (30 teachers). Safe to say secondary teaching is not for me, and I'm very much looking forward to starting journalism in two weeks, where I'll be working with colleagues who hopefully won't be carrying a stick as prevision of misbehaviour, and there shouldn't be a staring togalese teenager in sight.

In the afternoons I'm going to be going to other projects; on Friday I was drawn to the idea of a crèche (in my mind that just entailed lovely togalese babies who would provide a lovely break from all the swagged up teenagers). Unfortunately I left the crèche covered in almost every bodily fluid, having been literally climbed on and grabbed at for 3 hours by screaming toddlers. The women there also hit the children and told me to do so too if they were misbehaving; a gap in culture which we'll never be able to relate to. So today I'm going to an orphanage where projectsabroad are also based, going to give the age group of 6-13 a try.

So my placement may not be as testing as I'd hoped, but every day life here is so full and exciting, and for my French it couldn't be more full on (in reality that is why I'm here). Lomé is very cool, I've got to know parts of it well now, although there are so many quartiers it's still pretty maze-like. Travelling by moto (motorbike taxi) is the best way to see it and I'm an expert price-negotiator now, had a full-on argument with a driver the other day who was determined to charge me yvovo (white-man) prices.
Central-Lomé is dominated by the grand marché, which really is grand if not just completely frantic. So many stalls crammed into these tiny streets. We ventured in last weekend and were just pulled and tugged at constantly; you can't ever walk in Lomé without picking up a trail of togalese. I found that annoying when I was there solo the other day but actually it just means you make friends wherever you go. Even though the centre can be fairly stressful, the public beach is literally just across the road from the markets. So far our Sundays have been spent at a private beach just a bit further down, gettin full-on attacked and thrown about by the togalese waves (so strong but so fun), and pretty much in paradise.

The weekend just gone we did a tour of the 'sites' here; probably one of my most bizarre days to date. Up at half 5 (not even an issue here, it's literally impossible to sleep past 7? and this is me) to drive to the voodoo centre, where at half 7 we were greeted by the king. He offered us some weird tarmac-tasting alcohol, and showed us around his offices whilst telling us the history of voodoo. Not really sure what happened there. Moved onto see the maison d'esclaves, a former slavehouse, where the tour consisted of crawling under the floorboards to see how the slaves were forced to live/die there. From there we went to Togoville, which you reach by crossing Lac Togo by boat, to see the colonial starting point of Togo. There we had a meeting with the prince who sat in front of us wearing what looked like a white curtain, with his legs crossed which was apparently forbidden for us to do in front of him. Again not really sure what happened here.

That'll do for now. Please, when you drink coffee think of me, I am suffering badly from caffeine-withdrawel symptoms.

In abit!