This week I walked an average of 7,000 steps a day, according to the health application on my phone. I may not have gone very far from my home, but I’m certainly moving around a lot every day!
On this journey as a Peace Corps volunteer, I have traveled across Togo multiple times. It takes at least nine hours to travel from my host village to the capital, Lomé. I’ve also traveled to three other countries in Africa during my time in Togo. Last June, I traveled to Accra, Ghana which is about 345 miles from my host village. In November, I traveled to Morocco, which is 1,800 miles away! And in December I traveled to Benin, which is Togo’s neighbor to the East. Cotonou, a large city in Benin, is loacted about 230 miles away from my host village.
My own two feet are my most common form of transportation! My village is quite dispersed, with houses far away from each other, so I often walk thirty minutes just to cross one neighborhood. On Friday I went to a weekly market in a neighboring town. For that trip, I was a passenger on a motorcycle. There are not many paved roads in Togo’s rural areas, so motorcycles are the most common form of transportation because they can go places that other forms of transport cannot.
