From 1985 to 1987 I served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, teaching people to build wood-conserving cookstoves and rain catchment cisterns.

They say the Peace Corps is "the toughest job you'll ever love, " and that was certainly my experience-it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and one of the highlights of my life.

Here is my story of what it was like to be a "yovo"-a foreigner, a stranger, and a white person-in a small village in northern Togo in the mid-1980s.