Hello everyone!  There has been a lot of progress with the center since I returned in August.  We ran into a big roadblock right at the very beginning; the landlady of the building we were planning on buying doubled the price on us.  The recession and rising food prices have both hit Togo hard, and she was complaining that everything was more expensive now (which is true).  We had to abandon the original site and a fairly stressful search for a new building commenced.  The hardest thing about this process is that I couldn’t be involved.  If the broker or any of the sellers had gotten wind that a “Yovo” was behind the project, they would have doubled or tripled their asking prices, so I had to stay completely out of sight. 

            The good news is, we found a building!  For the same price, we found a site very close to the high school that is about 3 times bigger than the original building.  It has a good yard for large trainings and information sessions, four rooms and a latrine.  Repairs will include replacing the windows, doors and parts of the roof, and building a new wall to separate us from the neighbors.  Overall, I think this space will work even better than the original site.  We have purchased the building and repairs are slated to begin in about two weeks.  My father is working at home to try and put up some pictures of the center on my main blog, beckaintogo.blogspot.com.  I’ll continue to post more as the repairs start. 

            Again, we couldn’t have done this without you.  Thank you for all your donations and I’ll keep you updated!