#secondfirstimpressions

✍🏻 İKİNCİ İLK İZLENİMLER ~ SALLY THORNE

Returning to Togo after a three-week vacation in Vermont was not easy. In fact, it was rather difficult.

I didn’t feel ready to get in the car to drive to catch my flight out of Montreal. I didn’t feel ready to board my flight from Heathrow to Accra. And yet, the closer I got to being back in Togo, the more I was just ready to dive back into my Peace Corps life.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I crossed the border and arrived a few short minutes later at the Peace Corps bureau in Lome.

I smelled that Lome smell, of exhaust and garbage and sand, with maybe a hint of the ocean. I felt dusty and dirty and gritty and like I needed a shower after ten minutes under the glaring sun. I tasted spicy piment and fried tofu, my first in over a month, as if for the first time. I sweated. And sweated. Was Togo always this humid? (Yes.)

I was able to savor so many first impressions of Togo, for a second time. It was like I had to remember how everything looked, smelled, felt and tasted again.

I had to remember what it felt like to be squeezed into the tiny back seat of a bush taxi with three other volunteers. I had to remember what it felt like to walk to the marche in Atakpame, saluering the women I passed in Ife and Ewe. I had to remember just how much I sweat under a burning sun. I had to remember just how good a bucket shower can feel. I had to remember just how much water I had to drink to avoid dehydration.