The Big City, The Little Town, and a Funeral

When I had last written, my stage had just returned from our fieldtrip to the north of Togo. The next few weeks have been without contest the busiest we’ve had since I’ve been in Togo, therefore, my apologies for not being more religious with the updates. Now I’m sitting along in my little two room house (three if you count the hut outside), alone, no longer a stagiere, but a full fledged volunteer, with nothing but time on my hands. The irony is that now that I finally have the time to make some thorough entries into this blog, I am much further away from any source of electric power. At best I will be able to charge my computer once a week a the internet café in my market town, giving me significantly less computer time than I would like to write this blog. At any rate, I will do my best in the next hour or so of battery time to update this blog as much as possible to the present date.
After having returned from our fieldtrip, we had only a week of stage left and the threat of the test loomed large over everything we did. We have often compared our Peace Corps training to a Survivor-esque reality TV show. Peace Corps takes a bunch of strangers, puts them all in a small African village, and gives them series of tasks to complete (teach a middle school class, lead a community meeting on reforestation initiatives, build a solar dryer, raise a successful vegetable garden) in a language they don’t understand (French and a bit of Eve). The only things missing are the cameras and the confession booth. Going along with this analogy our language assessment would be our final, deciding task. Of course our million dollar prize is two years of monetarily uncompensated service in an even more remote African village, but it still certainly felt like a culminating event. If you don’t pass the language exam, you are kept in Lomé for an extra week and given intensive, one on one language tutoring. All things considered this is not such an awful alternative. But you have to keep in mind that your remaining in Lomé is cutting into the language teacher’s vacation time, so they are already a little upset with you, all your friend have already left the city, so you don’t really have anything to do when your not in class, and furthermore, they are all off, already volunteers, having adventures and getting acclimated to their new village while your stuck, still a trainee, in Lomé.
Fortunately, everyone from the NRM stage passed the language exam. After the exam we all packed up our bags and left for Lomé. This was an interested experience, as we stayed in the same hotel, Mamy’s, were we had all gotten to know each other three months ago. This time, we were all actually friends, and we weren’t completely dependant upon volunteers who had already been in country for over a year to walk us through every situation. It felt to me like it had been years since we left Mamy’s back in September.
Mamy’s is an interesting hotel (or I suppose more properly speaking a guest house as I feel that name places an establishment somewhere between a hotel and a hostile, which is exactly where Mamy’s lies). The place is Peace Corps official lodging quarters in Lomé. The guest house is run by none other than Mamy, who is an old east Asian woman, who spends most of the day napping, or sitting in her chair watching the world go by. Though I had little contact with Mamy during our first stay here, as I knew no French and so effectively couldn’t communicate, this time I learned that Mamy is a very nice lady, who seems to have a pretty good sense of humor (although French with an Asian accent is almost harder to understand than French with a French accent (French with an African accent, for whatever reason, is way easier to understand)). The building is set up sort of like a three story house, with a dinning room on the first floor, a living room on the second, and an open rooftop on the third. Many rooms feel pretty makeshift; mine was simply a corner of the living room that had been sections off by walls made of plywood. Each room at Mamy’s has a girls name printed on it, instead of a number. Though I’ve not heard any authoritative reports on this, the going story is that Mamy’s used to be a brothel, Mamy herself the mistress of the house, and so each room used to belong to the girl for whom the room is named. That’s the word among volunteers anyway.
Our time in Lomé was probably the most rushed and stressful time since I’ve been here. All of us were pretty much running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to say our goodbyes to everyone (those going up north have a 8-12 hour drive to come visit those in the south, and the two generally have no real excuse to make that trip), preparing to be publically sworn in as volunteers, grabbing everything we might need at post from the zoo of the Lomé market (mattress, bedsheets, gas stoves, etc), and trying to sneak in a good meal or two before we headed out the bush (Lomé is one of maybe two places in the whole country where you can find good, well prepared, international cusine). All this, we did with the two Peace Corps vehicles assigned to service over 30 of us.
The actual swear in went fairly smoothly. We gathered at the ambassadors house, all dressed in pangya (colorfully patterned fabrice from West Africa, think that generic bright clothing you occasionally see African heads of state wearing), before television cameras, Togolese government officials, and our homestay families (who the Peace Corps generously reimbursed for their travel expenses to come see us). As part of the ceremony, we all marched up individually and delivered a brief speech in the local language of the community in which we will be working. I hope it at least sounded good, as our speeches were mostly just phonetic mimicking, I’m really only about 60% sure of what I even said. After much pomp and circumstance (indeed swear in felt more like a graduation than anything), we were sworn in officially as volunteers (I am now officially working in the service of the US government). Then followed a brief cocktail party, after which we promptly returned to the mayhem of scrambling around Lomé in search of good food, and supplies for post.
We arrived in Lomé Wednesday afternoon, by Saturday morning we were departing for post. For the second time that week, we scrambled together all of our belonging (this time, after of two and a half day shopping spree in Lomé, we had significantly more belongings), and loaded them into the vans that were to take us to our villages. This like everything else we did in Lomé, was rushed and helter skelter. As a result, we realized only once we were unloading my bags in my village, that all the luggage of one of the other volunteers in my van had been placed on the wrong bus. I’ve since talked to him, and he apparently managed to track the things down, although he declined to comment on where or how he found them. It is my guess that they were loaded up on someone else’s van heading to the far north, (he along with everyone else in my van was located in the southern most two regions of Togo, plateau and maritime).
So, within hours, I was removed from the hectic bustle of Lomé to the quiet rural village where I am now residing. Truthfully it was quite a relief, and though I didn’t manage to find everything I had intended in the Lomé market, I was happy enough just to get out of there. Those who read my blog from Uganda will remember descriptions of “Old Taxi Park”, the Lomé market is the closest thing I’ve found in Togo to Uganda’s taxi park. However, I maintain that, though stressful, Lomé’s market is still significantly more orderly and less stress inducing that Uganda’s taxi park. At least here there is, generally, room to move and there is not the ever present threat of being squished between two taxi’s sitting dangerously close together.
As a side note, I believe I had commented early on about how much less developed Togo’s capital city, Lomé, seemed than that of Uganda’s Kampala. I now think that this judgement was premature, as I had only been exposed to a quiet and relatively small neighborhood in Lomé, the kind of which were also present in Kampala. Lomé is every bit as developed and modernized as Kampala. It has high rise buildings, paved roads, and truthfully the traffic is infinitely better in Lomé, the hour and a half delays on a five mile ride that were endemic to Kampala seem unlikely to happen, ever, in Lomé.
Anyway, in village I was greeted kindly by everyone, even the little girl who was apparently under the impression that I would bring her a bike upon my return, and was slightly disappointed to see that among my many household amenities acquired in Lomé, her bike was not among them. Don’t ask me where she got this impression, I haven’t the slightest idea. Life in village has been slow, but also pretty exciting. I’ve managed to keep busy by preparing a kitchen garden for myself (a considerable task considering the soil in which I’ve had to work is rock hard clay covered, literally with an inch of unmixed cement).
I’ve also been frequenting market days of nearby towns in search of some of the things I was unable to locate in Lomé (silverware, pots and pans, benches tables etc). To clarify, major towns in a region generally have a section of town marked off as market grounds. Generally once or twice a week, everyone comes into town from the neighboring villages to buy and sell everything from houseware and food, to livestock and fetch items. The markets are open air, and prices are always negociable. This is a blessing and a curse, if you are good at haggling you can generally get items relatively cheaply, but if you are a Yovo, who everyone assumes is both rich and naïve, vendors will always try to rip you off. I find that when I have a mind to, I can get what I want at low prices (sometimes even lower than what the Togolese would consider a good price), but also that I’m easily tired by these markets, and towards the end of the day I’ll end up paying too much simply because I’m too tired to negotiate. It is definitely not your one stop shop, grab and go, Walmart experience. Everything you’d like, from a tomato, to a shovel requires at least a five minute conversation (often with a vendor who’s high pressure approach would put any used car salesmen in the states to shame), in which you employ all your stubbornness, charm, and grit to get what you want at the price you want to pay. Although it is an exhausting experience, I try to look at the market as a challenge, a good chance to practice my French, and an opportunity to make friends (once you establish good relations with a “marché mama”, they will give you good prices more easily, and occasionally offer small gifts in appreciation for loyal patronage). Generally speaking, I like market days.
This past Thursday I was given my first sampling of Togolese cultural processions. My next door neighbor (and landlord’s) brother had died. Although the brother lived in Lomé, he was to be brought back to his hometown for burial. I expressed my condolences, and went upon my way. When I went over to greet my neighbor Friday morning, he was sitting under the makeshift shade covering that had been constructed in his courtyard with other family members, drinking sodabe, a moonshined alcohol made from distilled palm wine, which is itself a fermented beverage made from the sap of felled palmtrees. Palm wine smells like vomit, but tastes like pixie sticks, sodabe smells like firewater, and tastes like firewater (depending on what it was cooked on, occasionally there is the slight hint of mesquite BBQ flavoring). Mind you I came to greet him at approximately 8 o’clock in the morning. By that night, the village had doubled in population, there were large shade coverings set up everywhere, and this little village, removed from even running water, had bright lights, thumping bass speakers, and catered food. The party went all night (which is rough when you are their next door neighbor trying to get a little sleep) and well into the next day. I gather this is the African equivalent of a wake, but with louder music and generally more celebration. Interestingly, although they managed to rent out a large sound system, they didn’t have much music, so by around hour 18 of the same CD playing on repeat I could actually repeat all the words to the songs in a language I didn’t know (the Togolese, apparently, have an indefatigable love of music).
Since I had never even met the deceased, and because I didn’t want to take away from the solemnity of the proceedings by drawing all of the newly arrived guests attention to the fact that there was a Yovo living in this village, at one point I stepped out once in the morning to go grab some breakfast from some ladies who sell food by the road, and was instantly demanded money from… I can handle that in the market, or a big town where I’m just another Yovo, but in my own village it was too much, this person wasn’t a beggar, but simply a guest at the funeral who thought because I was white that I would give him money. Furthermore, he didn’t ask, but rather phrased it as “Il faut donner moi mil franc” roughly translated as you must give me 1000CFA. I simply ignored the guy as he yelled after me, as any attempt to express my anger in French would have likely fallen flat. By Sunday, however, as the festivities were still going strong, although many people had already parted, and the village once again resembled its original population, it became apparent that I was more than welcome at these ceremonies. By this time the thumping bass speakers had been replaced by tribal drums and traditional dances. The locals erupted with laughter as I was brought to the center of the ceremony to try to mimic the local dances. I was met with comments ranging from “where did you learn to dance like an African” to “you have tried…” meaning thanks for coming out, but for your own dignity’s sake, don’t try that again. Therefore, I have no idea how well I can actually do the tribal dances here.
As far as funerals go, the Togolese seem to have a pretty good idea as to how to go about it. Funerals are a very important part of the culture, when someone dies, if you are even loosely connected with them, you are obligated to go to at least part of the funeral. Inasmuch as the funerals are much more for the living than for the dead, the Togolese definitely take the right approach. There is very little official mourning of the dead, instead, the whole ceremony seems to be one big party, lasting several days, with all of your family and friends around you. At all times someone is walking around with a shot glass and a bottle of sodabe, for those who want it, and generally it seems as though the deceased is celebrated rather than mourned at these events. Even this morning, four days after the funeral process began I sat in on a dance ceremony. Sodabe was passed around and the women were dancing to what seemed like a strange rendition of music chairs. They would dance until the music stopped, at which point everyone would look for the butt of another woman to smack, and they would all erupt in laughter.
This is not to say that everyone is jovial at such events. Naturally people are sad for the loss of their loved ones. Even this morning I saw some sitting in the back, wiping tears from their eyes. But the ceremonialized emphasis seems to focus on celebrating with the living, and appreciating all being together, rather than lamenting the loss of the loved one.
That said, these funerals are often looked upon from the outside as backwards, dated, and wasteful traditions. Perhaps there is some truth to this, small villagers who live in clay houses, subsisting their own agricultural output probably can’t afford to rend an electric generator and cater a meal for everyone they know each time someone dies. However, all the same, the ideas behind the celebration it seems to me are valuable and worthy of note.
That’s all for now as my battery is dwindling. My experience at a voodoo ceremony to bring rain next rainy season will have to wait until next time. Until then!

A Trip to the North

I know that I had promised to write a little about my stay in village a couple weeks ago, but I’ve just returned from a field trip up north with the other trainees. Though I’ll not be living in the north for the next two years, this trip was just as interesting, and a little fresher in my mind. Besides, as I will be living in village for the next two years, there will be plenty of time to write all about it.

Before this trip, I had been about as far north in this country as the market town near my village. We passed this town about a half hour north of our training village, and ventured on into the plateau region of Togo. Togo is divided into five regions, starting in the south it goes maritime and plateau, which are noted for their tropical climate, have two rainy seasons and two dry seasons, and speaking from experience, are generally muggy all the time. Next is central region, which I suppose rests atop the plateau mentioned in the next southern most region. It is in this region that the country’s major climatic shift between northern and southern Togo occurs. This region is much drier than the two below it, and I believe midway through the region the seasons changed. From central all the way to the northernmost point of the country is only one rainy season and one dry season, making water conservation a much bigger project for Volunteers living in the north. Here the countryside becomes much more hilly, and as someone in our van noted, almost looks like Montana.

Throughout the entire north of Togo, beginning right about now, there is also the season of Harmitan winds (feel free to check the spelling on that, we generally just call them the “Hammertime” winds). These are winds from I know not where (although I would guess from the Sahel in the north, once again feel free to fact check me on this), that carry with them an absurd amount of dust, sort of like the dust bowl of the American mid-west, except they come around every year. This dust leads not only to very dusty boogers, it also severely limits vision, as the whole countryside just sort of looks like its been covered in a haze.

The next northern most region is Kara. Kara, though hilly at some points, is generally more African savannah landscape. It is here that you will find rolling landscapes and pride rocks that look like they are straight out of the lion king (although if I had to guess I’d say that movie takes place in east Africa, as that landscape is much more common to Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. That and the fact that hakuna matata is a Swahili phrase). Finally the northern most region is Savanes, which as the name implies is also Savannah. The landscape in Savanes is actually semi-arid, as it neighbors Burkina Faso, and is just about into the African climatic region known as the Sahel (literally means shore), which basically is the transitional area from the Sahara desert in north Africa, to the more lush areas in the rest of Africa (or the shoreline of the Sahara). Although the whole country of Togo is smaller than West Virginia, it is generally a two day ride by bush taxi from Savanes to the nations capital of Lomé, located at the southern most tip of maritime. The word for “far away” in the local language of savanes region apparently is “lafock”, and so the volunteers banished to this northern most region for their term of service like to brag that they are way lafock from Lomé.

Beginning Wednesday of this week, we set out to explore this country with our trainers, and see some cool development projects in action. We road in two vehicles, one an air conditioned land cruiser owned by the Peace Corps, the other was a bush taxi that we had rented for the week. I felt fortunate on the first day to get to ride in the land cruiser, there was more room and good a/c. We also knew the driver of this vehicle, as he has been one of the Peace Corps drivers assigned to drive the trainees around throughout all of training. However, he has a particular affinity to American power ballads, and early 90s boy bands (not an uncommon interest in Africa). What we didn’t know was that he only brought two tapes with him. At first, we all got a kick out of the throw back to the middle school dances of our youth, with songs by K-C and Jo-jo, and Boyz-2-Men, but by the tenth playing or so of “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston, I think we were ready of the bush-taxi.

Our first stop along the way was at a volunteer’s sight who had been working with her community in Plateau region to make composting latrines in the market place of her village. These are very cool ideas, but require a good deal of education in order for them to work effectively. Essentially the idea is that feces, like all other organic matter, decompose naturally, and like the manure of other animals, actually makes great fertilizer. The problem is that when moisture, such as urine gets in there, the humidity creates a great environment for bacteria to grown. Since it is human excrement, the bacteria which grows there is particularly harmful to humans. So long as no moisture gets into the toilet, the stuff will just sit there for about three months. After which, the holding chamber can be opened to reveal not poop, but a hyper fertile powdery substance, similar to composted humus, that is every bit if not more fertile. If the community is properly educated as to how to use such a toilet, and the process actually works, this is a great alternative to the current practice of either going off in a field somewhere, or digging a twenty foot hole, and sealing it off when it has been filled.

After this delightful session, we stopped briefly for lunch. Afterwards, we continued on through Central region, and into Kara, and finally to the capital city of the region, also known as Kara. Kara is the biggest metropolis of the north, and is probably the city most similar to Lomé in its amenities, there are all kinds of supermarkets (as opposed to the normal open air haggling markets of most cities), restaurants that actually serve western food, and what have been dubbed dead yovo stores (or secondhand goods stores that have all sorts of hand me downs from more developed countries. The hotel we stayed at was pretty nice. There was running water, and air conditioned rooms, frankly you can’t ask for much more than that. However, we were all fairly bitter that the hotel we were originally meant to stay at, which offered all these fabulous amenities, as well as a pool, was hosting a political rally. Peace Corps has a strict policy that volunteers are forbidden to attend political rallies (as we are entirely an a-political organization), and so no pool for us.

The next day we headed off to see a small group that had used land pooled together to form a fish nursey, as well as an intensive gardening field, in addition to a tree nursery/reforestation project. Here we learned how to graft trees, which is an incredible process. The whole operation takes maybe fifteen minutes, and from that you’ve forever joined two trees into one, which if you joined two different enough varieties of the tree, then has the advantages offered by both trees. Very cool process.

We then went to another project organized by a man who apparently had a masters in argoforestry, yet had chosen to live in his village community to help educate people on improved reforestation project, and farming methods. In order to do so he had taken one of his corn fields, and planted it with makuna (a nitrogen fixing cover crop with big nutritious leaves that are great for incorporating into the soil). Instead of letting the land go fallow for several years to replenish its fertility, he would plant makuna for only one year, incorporate the leaves into the soil, and expected to have the same results as if the land had been fallow for ten years. He had also essentially began a forest where, according to him not a tree had stood fifteen years earlier. All very cool.

That night we found a restaurant that served yovo food, and all ate pizza and cheeseburgers. Although the cheese for both of these was laughing cow, it was surprisingly good, and definitely reminded us all of some good home cooking, and unlike many places in the states, you didn’t even have to specially request the big slice of onion atop the burger (I know I wasn’t the only person singing “cheeseburger in paradise” to myself throughout the meal).

The next day we visited a small business which had set up a Shea butter production plant, which they then had a contract to sell to skin product producers in the US. The production was fascinating, it is done entirely by hand, by all female employees. The employees make about 1500 CFA for an eight hour day, which is about 3 bucks a day. While this may not seem like much, when asked, all the women replied that the extra income had improved their role as a decision maker in the household, and was a huge help to supplement the production of their families farm land. Apparently the products, which include soap and lotion, are sold at Whole Foods in the states under the name Allafia (I think). Anyway, if anyone is looking for Shea butter skin care products, I would definitely recommend this brand. I can personally attest that the product is made entirely by hand, in a small village in West Africa, and is greatly improving the lives of the villagers.

Next we went to a cashew production plant, which offered a similar story, and was equally interesting, but the products are sold in Ghana and not the states, so I can’t really hype them for people at home. I will say that the cashew they gave us were delicious. That night we, slept in another hotel in Central region, which was also very nice and air conditioned.

The next day, we went to a site, where one of my friends from training will soon be going to work with these people to improve their honey production business. Here I was stung by a bee (right on the forehead too) for doing absolutely nothing but standing there listening to the guy talk about the hives. But I suppose this is fair as I did buy some honey for my homestay family which was technically stolen from their hive.

From here we returned back to our training village, safe and sound and completely exhausted. This morning, I’m ashamed to say, I slept in till seven thirty, which made my homestay family worried sick that I had taken ill on my trip.

Leading Up to Post Visit

Unlike the week before, I did not begin last week with a lengthy church service, but instead with a sacrifice. Actually I suppose it was more of a slaughter than a sacrifice, but it was interesting nonetheless. Monday night, I was sitting around the lantern with the family, trying to cram some last minute French for my midterm evaluation the following day, when suddenly, my friend Katie showed up with several of her host sisters. It’s become something of a joke with all the trainees that Katie is never permitted to go anywhere, or do anything after 5 o’clock without the accompaniment of at least three of her younger sisters. The argument is that they want to make sure she’s safe. But when I come to pick her up around seven (we all walk each other everywhere at night) its hard to imagine that three little girls aged 9, 7, and 5 are really going to ward off evil doers.
But I digress. Katie and her entourage of little sisters showed up at my house Monday night with a baby goat, apparently in the care of Katie’s family but belonging to mine. The kid had been having seizures (or something like that) recently, where it would just lock up, fall to the ground and kind of twitch (I was reminded of that YouTube video about the fainting goats, if anyone hasn’t seen it definitely look it up). My family decided that it was best to put the little fellow out of his misery (to say nothing of the enticing prospect of eating goat for the next week, which is way better than sardines or dried fish our usual source of protein at night). So Katie and I watched as my brother dug a small hole to drain the blood, and slit the throat with a machete. Then much to our surprise, he hung the carcass on a stick, and proceeded to douse it in gasoline. He then brought out a packet of matches and before we knew it, what had been a sick little goat minutes ago was now a hanging ball of flames before our eyes. Next my little brother then brought out some palm fronds and began building a little campfire beneath the goat.
Though at the time I was merely confused at why they would soak in gasoline and engulf in flames a perfectly edible goat, I soon learned that this was simply the easiest method they know of to remove the fur of the animal. So fortunately, I did get to eat some goat for the next couple days, though I did my best not to think about how it was prepared. I can’t imagine soaking an animal in gas makes it healthier for us to eat. Then I remembered this was the only red meat I’ve had since I’ve been here, pealed the skin off and dug in.
Later that night, after Katie had gone home, and I, thinking the excitement for the evening had come to an end, was preparing for bed, the chickens, which were resting in the palm field, began squawking like crazy. My mother and all the kids rushed off with a lantern to see what the matter was. Naturally, I followed eager to see what else this evening had in store. My mother began stomping the ground, while the kids grabbed large stick. I was soon pushed back by my sister, who explained that they thought a snake had gotten to the chickens. Though I was eager for adventure, I wasn’t to keen on getting bitten by a poisonous snake while in a small village, so I obliged.
My mother came back a few minutes later, wanting to show me something. I went back to where they had been looking for the snake, and she shown her flashlight on the ground. It was not a snake that had been attacking the chickens but a colony of African fire ants. The ground was literally black with ants, and my mother warned me not to step any closer lest they attack me. Fire ant bites suck, not only because they hurt like hell (way worse than red ant bites I’ve had in the states), but also because they don’t bite you until they get to the warmest spots on your body, from which they are not only the hardest to find and remove, but also, as I’m sure you’ll agree, the most sensitive. My younger brother, by this time had arrived with hot ash, which he poured over the ants to push them back. Of course this would not be an effective way to kill all the ants, as there were simply too many, but he then spread a line of ashes around the ants in order to trap them in. Ants, apparently, will never cross a line of ash (even if its not hot). Then all we could do was wait, ants work together by finding food, and then leaving a trail of pheromones for other ants to follow, this is why you can find lines of ants, with all the ants moving in the exact same direction over the exact same path. If you cover that trail with ash, the line is broken and the ants soon disperse. So we sat and waiting.
I sat back down near my homestay father, who throughout this whole ordeal had been relaxing in his chair chuckling to himself. As I sat down, he laughed and explained to me that the ants were very dangerous, and that if they got you in your sleep, they could kill you. With that helpful bit of advice, I double checked to make sure that the ash had entirely encompassed the ants, and went to bed.
The following day, I took my French exam early in the morning. The exam was merely a conversation which was recorded and then judged. I had thought the talk went well, but I have since received my score and did significantly worse than I had expected, which is discouraging, but fits in well with all of my previous attempts at language learning. Furthermore, I really don’t think that the conversation accurately reflected my ability to communicate in French, as I seem to generally be understood by those with whom I talk in the community.
After the test, we had an even more trying and practical evaluation of our language skills. We were split into two groups, 6 or 7 in each group, and made to teach a class at the local CEG (essentially a middle school). The topic we chose was the importance of trees. The importance of environmental conservation is a much easier message to convey in the developing world than it is in the states. Often making people believe that there is even a need for environmental conservation in the states feels a little like making them believe in a boogie man, and not without good reason. Sure the rainforest being chopped down will eventually make everyone worse off, the lose of biodiversity, the lack of oxygen being supplied by trees, but to the average American, the rainforest is a far off place, completely unconnected with their day to day life, and for as long as they’ve lived, trees have been cut down, and their life seem not substantially worse off for it. It is easy to see why its hard to rally support for such an abstract cause. Yet here, in the developing world its much easier to teach such lessons in a concrete way. Why are trees important? They give us shade (from the god awfully hot African sun), they give us food (in both leaf and fruit form), they give us lumber with which to make things (if there are no trees in an American toll brothers housing development, you can be sure that there are still couches in every house, if there are no trees in an African village, you can be sure that there are no benches, tables, or other furnishings either), they give us firewood (the primary means by which to cook here), they give us fodder for our animals. Here issues of the environment are much more concretely connected to basic issues of survival. Thus talking about the importance of trees, even in French, was a fairly simple task, and with a little help from our trainers, and those who had come to Togo with a background in French, the lesson went fairly well.
Now, I would love to tell about our weeklong visit to our villages, where I am currently residing. But unfortunately, as I am in a small village, with no power, my battery life is dwindling. Therefore, I’ll have to wait until next week, when I return to an at least moderately electrified setting. Until then.

Another Exciting Week of Training

It’s been another fairly exciting week here in our training village. For starters my homestay brother just informed me that I would have the honor of naming the new guard dog the family will purchase this Saturday. They are getting a new dog because, unfortunately, their former dog, Arukool (spelled phonetically because I have no idea how it’s actually spelled), was hit and killed by a passing car. I was more upset by this news than any of my family, all of whom simply remarked that he had failed to look both ways before crossing.
The Togolese have a much different view of dogs than Americans do. Although they are the only household animals to whom they give names, they are far from pets. Instead they are thought of more as a necessary nuisance. They are needed to alert the family of intruders in the night, but otherwise, just kind of annoying. As such they treat them pretty poorly, all dogs in Togo have that beaten dog syndrome where they wimper away when you stick out your hand, and even my baby brother will slap the dog when given the chance, although the one dog is big enough to easily topple the little guy (and has when he thought no one was looking).
The fact that no one gives these dogs any love has made it easy for me to trump there effectiveness as guard dogs. Although these dogs are not regarded as pets, I am completely unable to avoid petting any dog within reach. This small gesture of affection has made the dogs very fond of me. So while they will bark there heads off at anyone arriving after 6 pm, I can come in well past 9 (late by Togolese village standards) without them making a sound. They know that if they keep quiet they’ve got a well deserved belly rub coming.
Anyway, my other homestay brother (approximately age 10) is into 80s karate/kung fu movies, and as the dog is suppose to be a ward off intruders and evil doers, I suggested that the new dog be named Jean-Claude Van Dam. He thought this was funny but told me that he thought Bruce Lee could take Van Dam any day. I thought this name might work, until my other brother came in with the suggestion of Chuck Norris who, realistically, could probably take all of them. The thought of a little dog running around in a small village in Africa named Chuck Norris is almost too much for me to handle, so I think we’ve got a winner, but I don’t have to name the dog for a little while, so if anyone’s got any other ideas, I’m open to suggestions.
Turning back a few days, I began this week on a pious note. Sunday morning I went to church with my family. My family invited me over a week ago, telling me that it was a special feastival day celebrating all the staple crops. Thinking, of course, that a feast day implied fun, music, dancing, food, and libations, I gladly accepted, excited to immerse myself in my first Togolese celebration. As it turns out festival, in this case, actually means an 8 hour long mass service.
The first two hours were actually pretty nice. My family belongs to the “Assembly of God” church. I have no idea what that is in the states or if this sect even exists in the states, but services here are pretty entertaining. There is ample music, pushed on by an African drum beat, and plenty of dancing. At least once per service a huge Congo line forms and everyone marches around the church singing and dancing in their Sunday best in the midday heat.
Furthermore, the pastor gives the presentation in Ewe, the local language, but seeing that I was the only white person in the congregation, he welcomed me, guessed that I knew no Ewe (actually I was not paying much attention when he welcomed me and had no idea he had switched over to French, or that he was addressing me personally, until I felt the whole congregations eyes upon me, and quickly smiled and waved hoping their attention would soon shift back to the pastor), and he made sure that I had a personal translator sitting by me translating everything into French.
Having a personal translator was a great opportunity to practice my French comprehension skills. The subject matter was fairly simply, and there are no surprises in the bible. Even if you don’t catch every word, you can pretty much guess what Jesus was trying to say. Furthermore, if I really didn’t get something I could also just ask the translator to explain it. However, after about hour 3, I had even lost interest in this.
It was around the time that the 2nd or 3rd guest speaker was talking (in Ewe and of course my translator had run off somewhere no where to be found), and the small child who had decided to be my friend and sit next to me had fallen asleep on my arm that I decided I had to make some moves. It was already 2:30, and I had been at church since 8 that morning. Furthermore, Sunday is my only day off. It’s my only day to do laundry, write letters practice some French, go for a bike ride, and just generally have some time to myself.
Luckily my ten year old brother had decided he had had enough as well as was ducking out to go back home. I walked back with him, and as soon as I got home, I soaked my blanket in cold water, wrapped myself inside, and napped for the remainder of the afternoon.
When I awoke, the rest of the family had returned from church, and my homestay father had come in from Lomé for his Sunday afternoon visit. However, instead of heading back to Lomé after a few hours visit as he normally does, he ended up staying straight through till Wednesday. He was apparently slightly ill, and came home to rest for a few days before returning to work in Lomé. Up until this point, I had always been slightly apprehensive around my homestay father, he had never been around often enough for me to get to know him very well, and it always seemed as though the rest of the family walked on brass tacks when he was around. As though the household authority had arrived and so everyone was afraid to misstep.
However, after getting to know him for a few days, my view of him has changed much. First of all, when he’s actually living there, the rest of the family seems much more at ease in his presence. He does not seem to rule over them with an iron fist, as I first assumed, he’s even pretty good with the baby. Furthermore, he’s a pretty nice guy. At night he’d turn the radio on to BBC Africa so I could listen to some English radio, although the rest of the family can’t understand a word of it (and actually I’d prefer to listen to the French news to get some practice, but the thought is nice).
One night he watched and laughed as I struggled to eat a bowl of steaming hot pate (west African food staple food made from corn flour) with my bar hands, I told him that the problem was my American hands, but that I would soon have African hands like his (African hands are completely immune to heat, I’ve literally seen my homestay sister stick her hand into a stove of hot coals, pick out the most red hot one in there and walk off with it in her palm). He was extremely amused, and from that point on I knew we were friends.
To some it may seem cruel of him to laugh as I struggled not to burn my hands in the pate. I’ve always thought that Africans’ laughs (both Togolese and Ugandan) are so kind-hearted and benevolent that it would be hard to mistake them for malice (especially since they are almost always followed with a handshake and a congratulation regarding whatever it was that you were trying), but apparently some trainees in the past have also misinterpreted the local’s laughter as malevolent. Therefore, one of our trainers explained us that the Togolese laugh at you when you are in difficult situations not to belittle you, but rather to put you at ease in a situation where you might not be otherwise. Laughter to them is a way of breaking the ice in an otherwise tense situation. I thought this explanation put it very well, and helps to explain why the Togolese laugh all the time. The culture out here seems to encourage laughter and lightheartedness. Any culture that puts such emphasis on jovialness in life I find admirable.
One the school front, it’s been a pretty interesting week as well. Monday for our tech class we went to a local home in the community and made them an “improved cook stove”. This is essentially a clay stove, made in almost the exact same fashion as the traditional wood burning stove, but with a few modifications that make the transfer of heat from the wood to the pot much more efficient. This means quicker cook time (which translates into more time to pursue other activities, in fact the wood burns so slow that people can leave slow cooking meals on the fire all night while they sleep), and less wood burned (which cuts down the families yearly expenses, and helps counter the massive deforestation problem in Togo). Tuesday we constructed a solar dryer, which allows you to dry fruits and vegetables, without exposing the food to harmful pests, or leaching away the nutrients (as happens when simply drying in direct sunlight), we also applied natural pesticides to our garden, to anyone interested, tea made from garlic, tobacco leaves, papaya leaves, or corn stalks all make great natural pesticides. Finally yesterday, we spent the whole afternoon learning how to make various things from soy (which is a valuable source of protein in a country were few people have sufficient access to animal protein). Yesterday afternoon was a rainy day, and probably the first day since we’ve been here that the temperature has dropped down to the low 80s (maybe even the 70s), so it was a great opportunity to get bundled up, and drink some warm soy milk (the first dairy like product we’ve had since arriving in country) around the coal stove. Finally tomorrow we close out the week with our first day of local language class. So from tomorrow on I’ll not only be learning to converse in French, but also Ewe, the language of the south, spoken in my post village. I’ve never tried to learn two languages at once, and frankly I sort of wish I could get this whole French thing down before I started with another one. Anyway, wish me luck!

Post Assignments

These past few days have been very exciting. On Tuesday, we learned where in the country we will be posted for the next two years. The general consensus among the current volunteer with whom we “stagieres” have spoken is that you should not expect to be given your first pick of post assignment, too often there are too many people vying for the same favored posts, plus the administration is more likely to base their decision on where they feel your skill set best matches the needs of the community, rather than on your personal preference. For this reason I was overjoyed to learn that I would be given my first pick of posts.
The village in which I will work is a small community (only 600 people in the whole town), located 7 km from any paved roads. It is in the northern most part of the Togo’s southern most region, maritime. Though it is off the beaten path, which was definitely a desire of mine, it is still only about 60 miles from the nation’s capital city, Lomé. This is nice because it gives me the option of being either as isolated or connected as I choose. The post is also one of the few which offer the luxury of having ones own compound, removed from other families. The description even goes so far as to point out that there is a fence surrounding my building providing “extra privacy”.
As much as I do enjoy the cultural exchange inherent in the home-stay family system, and am currently perfectly content living with my home-stay family here in training, as a living arrangement for the next two years, I am thankful for the privacy.
In the village, my main counterpart (or homologue in PC speak) will be a woman farmer, something of a rarity in Togo, since most activities are family based and since it is traditionally the men who work in the “champ” (or field). The village has requested that the volunteer stationed there helped introduce methods of interdependent agricultural and animal husbandry practices, help with the introduction of new fodder crops, and work towards the integration beneficial trees (such as nitrogen fixing trees) and crops into the agricultural process in order to promote the long term sustainability of the soil. All of which I am incredibly excited about.
One thing which I particularly like is the fact that the village has requested that a volunteer come and provided a list of projects for which they would like help. One of my biggest hesitations about the Peace Corps was that, like so many other international aid projects, its force would be misapplied, ineffective, and ultimately might represent nothing more than a grand monument to the developed north’s fundamental misunderstanding of the south, and the hegemonic attempts of the those of the north to simply impose their values and culture upon less developed nations (come to think about it, this is a rather large apprehension concerning an organization to which I plan to devote two years of my life). This apprehension seems especially relevant considering my position as student fresh out of college, with absolutely no background in agriculture or agronomy (save my summer on the farm in Nebraska), who was chosen to come and promote better agroforestry and food security practices to a population of which 90% are farmers, and who have been practicing agriculture for 100s if not 1000s of years. To think that I’m really qualified to do this is arrogance bordering upon hubris. Yet again and again, our trainers and other volunteers have stressed the fact that in village, you won’t be teaching people how to farm, they will know astronomically more on the subject than you, nor will you be telling them how to farm like an American, or trying to amend what you think they are doing wrong. Instead you are simply there to offer fresh, new ideas, and provide help to people who already know what they are doing. We are told from day one that our biggest asset is not our superior knowledge (which no one would feign believe for even a minute) but rather it is the fact that we are a new face and an outsider, and for that reason will be able to effectively introduce ideas to our communities that someone from within the community may not be able to voice (as one of our trainers put it, the two ways to harbor respect and gain an audience in a village is to be an elder or to be an outsider, and we’ve got the latter going for us).
Furthermore, it is not at all as if we, the Peace Corps, as representatives of the US, are coming into villages and telling them the way we think they should operate, or introducing the new ideas that we think are of value. Instead, the village submits a request to the Peace Corps Togo office, and the villagers themselves agree upon what they think they need and what the Peace Corps can do to benefit them. In terms of cultural and developmental self-determination, this is a much better approach than much of the development community offers. Of course I suppose you could argue that the Peace Corps still has the ultimate say as to which project proposals to honor, and in this way retains the ability to enforce cultural hegemony, but to me this is a slippery slope, the whole premise of development is that aid must be given by developed countries to less developed countries, and at some point the developed countries must decide in which way and to whom aid should be given. To reject any agency on the part of the developed country or its organizations is to refute the possibility of development projects, which on the whole are probably a good thing.
But let’s not get into that. Basically, I’m very pleased with the way the Peace Corps is operating in Togo, I think it has set up a system that makes it easy for the people the PC was set up to assist to determine how they should be assisted.
Another reason today was such a good day is because I was afforded an opportunity to come back and see just how far I’ve come in learning French. Unto this point learning the language has been a source of apprehension for me, as my high school and collegiate record will show that language learning has traditionally served to do nothing for me but bring down my GPA. Furthermore, Peace Corps (quite reasonably) demands that all trainees be at the “intermediate high” level of French speaking before they are sent to post. This means that if, after your language evaluation you did not pass but were close to this level, you are kept back for an extra week of super intense language training. However, if you were not close you were simply sent home. Neither option sounds very appealing to me.
Anyway, today we had an activity called “Cocktail Français”. Essentially it was an informal get together between the language trainers and the trainees. Instead of spending the afternoon memorizing vocabulary, we simply got to talk one on one with several trainers. Walking into the session I was apprehensive as I seriously doubted if I even had 2 ½ hours worth of conversational vocab to work with. Yet two hours in, I sat back for a moment and realized that I was successfully discussing the potential flaws inherent in Nietzsche’s Übermach with one of the trainers, entirely in French. Considering that less than a month ago I could hardly greet my family (it took me until day two to figure out how to formally explain that my French was extremely poor, and by that time I’m pretty sure they had figured it out for themselves). At any rate, though I’m still not anywhere near the level I need to be at in order to pass the exam, I no longer have any doubt that by the end of training I will be; which is an extremely comforting thought.
Suffice it to say that things are beginning to get pretty exciting around here. In just two short weeks I’ll be in my future village for a week doing an in-training visit. This is mostly to get a feel for the place that will be my new home for the next two years, and start to lay the ground work for what potential project’s I may do. Next week, local language training begins (as if learning French wasn’t hard enough), and later this week all of the guys in NRM will be shaving for the first time since we’ve come to village, leaving only our now fully formed mustaches, to prove once and for all which one of us is the manliest volunteer of the bunch. Wish me luck on all counts. Until next time!

First Week

After eleven days of going non-stop in Togo, I’ve finally found the time to write my first blog entry. I’ve retired early from an evening with my home-stay family, and am currently tucked beneath a mosquito net, sitting on my bed trying to move as little as possible in order avoid generating any unnecessary heat. Outside, my family is sitting around the dwindling stove, and preparing for bed. My homestay brother is whistling the tune I inadvertently taught him the other day while humming the song that was stuck in my head. Much to my amusement, the song has circulated around my brother’s friends, and now there exists in this small African town a folk rendition of Delta Spirit’s incredibly catchy “Trashcan”. Assuming nothing has changed since I left, the family baby, who as near as I can tell is my homestay nephew, born of my older sister (but African family trees are always pretty hard to discern), is running around pantless clapping while my brother whistles.
But let me rewind to the beginning of this trip. We arrived in Lomé early in the evening after two fairly rigorous days of travel. Although Peace Corps policy mandates that we travel to our destination using a domestic carrier, we were fortunate enough to be going to a place not serviced by any domestic carrier directly and therefore had to take Delta airlines affiliate carrier, Air France. Even when it comes to airline food, the French seem to take their meals pretty seriously and so even though the trip was exhausting, the service was incredible.
When I first stepped off of the plane in Lomé, I was overwhelmed by how instantly familiar everything felt. More than anything, I think it was the smells that gave this impression. Even at the airport, the vague mingling odors of burning charcoal fires, human bodies, and tropic humidity instantly conjured memories of my last time on this continent (although I did think it was curious just how poignantly the charcoal fire smelled, since were we in the middle of the airport tarmac).
I think from this point on, I’ve been amazed more than anything else by how incredibly similar Togo seems to be to Uganda, climatically, organizationally, and culturally. You’d think that two countries on different sides of the largest continent on earth (not to mention a continent on which in any given country there is likely to be over 50 different ethnic groups and accompanying languages) would be noticeably different. Yet the architecture seems the same, the traffic patterns are the same, purchasing cell phone minutes is the same, the rules of social engagement so far seem much the same, the fact that in the cities beer is sold in comically large bottles, and in the country most spirits are moonshined is the same, even the food is basically the same (this is not to say that the Togolese appreciate the same generally bland tastes as Ugandans, but rather that the organization of meals is very similar. More on this later). Of course, this is based on my total of eleven days of experience with this culture, and most of this has been classroom time in which I have been told, rather than seen what Togolese culture is all about. I’m sure, as a student of anthropology, I’ll look back in a few months and laugh at my sweeping comparisons between these cultures. But for the moment, culture adjustment lectures feel a bit like watching a play to which I already know the ending, I can almost mouth what people are going to tell me about social hierarchy, attitudes towards feeding guests, why riding in bush taxi’s (which are the equivalent of matatus in Uganda) is almost never a pleasurable experience etc.
At the airport we were greeted by the in countries PC director, we gathered our bags, and jumped in the Peace Corps private (air conditioned) van. At the guest house, we were greeted with a meal prepared by PC’s private chefs, and a swarm of current volunteers who had left their posts in the bush to come welcome the new trainees (and enjoy a free meal from professional chefs), and who warned us to enjoy the good food while it lasted, since we would be eating nothing but home cooked village food for the next three months of training (and probably nothing more than our own poor renditions of home cooked village food for the two years following that). The volunteers had as many questions for us (especially questions about what they had missed in the states) as we had for them, but it was definitely reassuring to a bunch of jetlagged, doe-eyed, trainees to see how at home they all seemed in this country.
The next couple days were filled with basic orientation information. Here I began to learn about some of the amenities provided by Peace Corps that I had not anticipated. I think I expected the organization of Peace Corps to resemble more SIT’s study abroad program approach in terms of what they give their participants. Whereas with SIT in Uganda the attitude was “find your way to class using local taxi’s, good luck navigating the taxi park”, Peace Corps provides an air conditioned van. SIT sent you out to the bush with the warning that you should be wary of unboiled water, PC gives you a filter and enough bleach to last your full term. Whereas, SIT warned us that we may need to share a room with a homestay sibling, Peace Corps provides volunteers with their own lodging. Of course, this difference ultimately makes sense. SIT’s goal was to expose its students to what life was like in the host country, which meant subscribing to as many local norms as possible. While this is also certainly one of the major goals of Peace Corps, it is ancillary to the primary goal of accomplishing projects which will benefit volunteers’ communities. This means that PC must often find the most effective way to do something, even if that means working outside the boundaries of local norms. Plus, SIT lasted only three and a half months, just enough time to still be at least marginally excited by the idea of living like a local. Conversely, while serving for two years with the Peace Corps, it is at time comforting to know that if you are stationed in the northernmost part of Togo and need to be in the southern coastal capital of Lomé ASAP, a Peace Corps vehicle can have you there in one day, rather than the full two it would take using local transportation (this is of course assuming that all else goes smoothing, no road closures, accidents, or down bridges, all of which occur fairly frequently in Togo).
Although I have stressed how similar Togo feels to Uganda, one major difference I’ve noticed already is the feel of the capital city. Kampala was by no means a modern western style metropolis, and expats from the region will tell you that it hardly registers as a city compared to the “cosmopolitan” Nairobi in neighboring Kenya. However, Kampala certainly felt like something larger than a small town. There were tall buildings, loud noises, some paved roads, constantly jammed with matatus with conductors harassing people through the side window to come take a ride, and diversity such that you would walk by a slum on one block, with buildings whose floor was dirt and whose walls were plastic tarps and by the next see buildings so well designed you would hardly believe you were in Uganda. From what little I’ve seen of Lomé, it by no means had the downtown feeling of Kampala. Most of the roads are dirt, the streets don’t seem too densely crowded, nor are there so many cars you can hardly cross the street, and in looking from the rooftop of our three story guest house you would be hard pressed to find a building much taller. For those reading who have been to/currently reside in Uganda, Lomé to me feels like the equivalent of a town such as Mbarara, only Lome is spread out over a greater distance. Furthermore, according to the volunteers already active in Togo, the region in which we were staying was the nice part of town, where foreign dignitaries generally stay. Strangely enough, though even in the nice parts of Lomé the city is not built up like Uganda, our guest house provided free wifi internet, a service you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere in Uganda.
After a few short days of preliminary info sessions in Lomé, we departed for our training sites. As a prospective volunteer you have 3 months of training before you are actually sworn into service. Our group, which had unto this point been composed of almost 40 people, was split into our two project groups, Natural Resource Management (NRM) of which I am a part, and Girls Education and Empowerment (GEE) (The PC has so many abbreviations it still makes my head spin). GEE was sent to the large town of Tsevie, about 40 minutes north of Lomé. Here they enjoy all the amenities of big African towns, including electricity, running water, paved roads, access to internet café, ample street food, and television. Since NRM volunteers are more likely to serve in rural areas, removed from such urban amenities, training is seen as a time to acclimate us to such a lifestyle. We, therefore, were sent to the neighboring village, devoid of any of the above listed amenities save the one paved road on which cement trucks from a nearby factory fly by at all hours of the day…. But we’re not bitter or anything.
Actually, I’ve instantly taken a liking to our village. Once again drawing comparisons between Uganda and Togo, I was instantly reminded of my time back in the villages surrounding Mbale, in Uganda. The feeling is very similar, the community is small, everyone is incredibly friendly, and at any given moment you are likely to find yourself being followed by a hoard of village children (while in Uganda they would follow yelling Muzungu, here they yell Yovo, and have their own suite of rhymes and chants to accompany it). I spent my first night in my village, lying atop my foam mattress (the same kind they had in Uganda) feeling almost as if I had just come home. Perhaps this comes across as an almost clichéd sentiment connoting notions of getting back to ones roots as an agrarian farmer, or living amongst simpler people, which is not at all what I mean to convey, but rather that I felt already used to, and well prepared for whatever was to come in the following weeks. At any rate, although it was admittedly a weird feeling, it was also a comforting one for my first night in a strange place.
More than anything, my first interactions with my homestay family on that first night were awkward. They spoke little English, I spoke no French (at least none that seemed applicable, Rosetta Stone approach to language, though effective, seems to teach you some very unimportant words such as “run” and “fish” before they come around to slightly more important phrases such as “Hello, how are you?”), and so our communication was limited to vague body language, and big smiles when they fed me.
Although I am still light-years away from being conversant in French (actually hopefully only about 3 months away), my interactions with my family have since become much improved. I’ve learned all the necessary phrases in French, and have become proficiently fluent in body language.
My family, typical of an African family, is very large, one week into living here, I’ve not yet at the point where I’m figuring out just how everyone’s related (a point which is confused by the fact that all family members of a particular generation are siblings, and all those older are parents), I’m still just trying to figure out who is family, and who is just visiting. At any rate, I know that the head of the household (6 days of the week anyway, save the one day my homestay father comes back from Lome where he works) is my homestay mother. She is a very nice lady but speaks little French (although admittedly more than I do). Still our relationship is based almost entirely on gestured communication. My twenty-five year old brother, is fluent in French and close to me in age, and so has become the family member to which I’m closest, as well as my liason to the non-French speaking members of the family. Other than that there is my homestay sister who lives there, her husband, who is sometimes around (and who, like my brother, speaks French well enough to try to teach me), two young boys and a young girl, all of whom save the youngest who is just a baby, speak French at a level comparable to mine. They are all incredibly friendly, and laugh patiently as I struggle with my 5 or 6 French phrases to explain everything I’d like to convey to them on a regular basis.
Anyway, that’s been my life so far here in Togo. So far so good, and I’m really looking forward to the work I will be doing here, which hopefully I can get into a little more in depth in my next entry. Until then au revoir!