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!