April Showers

I celebrated the wedding of a colleague last weekend. It was my first Togolese wedding and I found it to be a love filled ceremony. It was held at the Evangelical Presbyterian church at the same time as the weekly Sunday church service. The church doors were adorned with arches of red tropical flowers, a reminder that a rainforest once prospered here. The bride and groom were dressed in fancy complets, or two-piece outfits made with pagne (African printed fabric). After hours of singing, praying and dancing, the couple said their vows and kissed and everyone cheered and threw confetti at them.

Then the gift giving began. There’s a shop in town that wraps presents so all of the couple’s closest friends in the congregation brought colorful metallic shiny wrapped presents with bows. To receive the gifts, the couple stands at the front of the church and the gift givers are called to the front by the day of the week they were born. I was born on a Sunday, so I went with the Sunday group. I brought dishtowels wrapped in purple paper and danced to the front like my present was glow sticks and I was at a rave. The congregation wouldn’t accept anything less. When I arrived at the front, I handed over the present and hugged the bride and groom, which was a bit awkward because they both tilted their heads the same direction as I and in front of the whole congregation, nonetheless (apparently I never learned the proper way to hug in Togo).

After the service was the reception and the bridal party and friends posed for professional pictures. A band of teenagers on guitars and drums played while the congregation was separated by age and sex for refreshments. I went with the women to eat rice with pieces of meat and drink tchouk, the traditional beer. The service was lovely, and I am very happy for the new couple.

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Togo’s independence. I attended a defile (parade) to celebrate the occasion. The National Road that runs from the head to toe of Togo was blocked off so that civil society of Sotouboua could be showcased. I was amazed by the breadth of clubs and associations that were represented and marched down the street in matching pagne. In addition to the students of every school there were unions of flip flop vendors, motorcycle drivers doing wheelies, karate club breaking boards, cheerleaders with Togolese flags, women’s soccer teams, just to name a few. Viva La Independence!

I have started working at a center for apprentices who are economically disadvantaged, orphans or victims of child trafficking. Americans, through the Embassy’s Self Help Fund, which gives motivated Togolese money to do projects, funded the center. The kids live at the center and they learn a trade for a discounted fee. I started working with the female couturieres (seamstresses) to teach life skills and women’s issues. I enjoy working with the girls because they are very respectful and eager to learn but it is challenging because many did not finish primary school. Everything I say has to be translated into local language and I’m afraid my intermediate French being translated by intermediate French speakers into Kabiye (extremely different from a romance language) might be hindering my message. Nevertheless, my “Self Confidence” lesson seemed to sink in when I asked the girls to make self-affirmations and everyone said things like, “I am an intelligent girl” or “I am a pretty girl.” I am also in the process of helping the kids and their patrons (teachers of the trade) to start a garden because the center is near a river and with an endless supply of water there is no excuse not to have a garden. The kids are responsible for providing and cooking their own food, so with some extra vegetables to boost their diet, both their health and economic situation will improve.

April is the beginning of rainy season so Sotouboua has become green and lush and people are spending days and nights at the “champ” (the farming fields). I have yet to go to the champ but one of these days I will grab a hoe and get to work. But for now, I have my herb garden to tend to and protect from my hole-digging puppy, Tchouk!

How to Ride a Bush Taxi in Togo

I was riding home in a “bush taxi” yesterday from a Peace Corps meeting in a town about 100k from me, squished in the shotgun seat with another person with rather large hips. Consequently, I was jammed against the clutch so that every time the driver wanted to shift gears he had to press the clutch into my leg. It was quite painful, and today I have a large purple bruise on my thigh. To make matters worse, the driver was reaching over another full-grown man who was sitting IN THE DRIVERS SEAT WITH HIM in order to shift gears. It got me thinking about how many things in Togo have become commonplace now that I’ve been in this country for almost seven months, things that would be incomprehensible to me back in the states.

1. Transportation
The above story is not an exaggeration, but the norm for travel in this country. “Bush taxis” are small cars or 15 passenger busses that must be older than I am. They are not “full” until there are multiple people sitting on each other’s laps, chickens squawking about and a roof stacked so high with baggage it rivals the Beverley Hillbillies. Travel takes about twice as long as it should as a result of stopping about every 10k to load and unload passengers, or sometimes just for the driver to chat with his friends. One time my bush taxi stopped in a town for an hour because the previous day the driver had hit a child on the road there and he was negotiating paying for the child’s broken bones.

2. Time
It is completely acceptable to arrive up to an hour late for a scheduled appointment, or in some cases, not to arrive at all.

3. Requests
If you see anyone who possesses anything you want, you may ask for it. This includes dogs, women, shoes (even if the person wearing the shoes is smaller and a different sex than you) and hair. I’ve had people ask for me to cut off my hair and give it to them. Most appropriate responses are to either hand over the object/person or simply say “prochainement” (next time). This works both ways, I have a PC friend who buys vintage Chicago sports jerseys off of Togolese people’s backs.

4. Night Time Parties
Many parties and events are scheduled for the entire night and there are no “Disturbing the Peace” violations in Togo.

5. Farm Animals
Free-range advocates would love this place – pigs, goats, chickens,
duck and sheep roam freely. This is hazardous to bike riders because the animals are always on the path and often in front of tires. Somehow people know who's animals are whose and stealing animals can be deadly (I’m not kidding).

6. Animism
People say Togo is 50% Muslim, 50% Christian and 100% Animist. While most of my friends here are more enthusiastic about sharing their Christianity with me than Animist beliefs, it still is not unusual to hear about it now and then. A young man across the street from me died, and when I asked his neighbors about the cause of death, they said he was a sorcerer and his sorcerer friends put a spell on him to kill him.

In other news, March was quite an eventful month starting off with the presidential elections on March 4. In light of violence surrounding past elections in Togo, we were told to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Leading up to the elections, campaigning in my town brought many events and anticipation. One of these events was a visit from President Faure, who was campaigning for re-election, which prompted teachers to cancel class, everyone to sport their favorite Faure paraphernalia and organize groups to sing, dance and play instruments to greet him. It appeared as though roughly half the town, or 10,000 people, attended the event. In the end, the elections were overall extremely peaceful.

Towards the end of March was “Semaine Culturel” (cultural week), when there are no classes for a week - only games, picnics, music and dances. I expected this to be focused on more traditional culture and was surprised to see the influence of modern hip-hop culture on the event – the high school-ers were booty dancing to modern African rap and hip-hop blaring from large speakers. After Semaine Culturel, the students had a week of vacation for Paque (Easter). There weren’t many apparent celebrations for Paque; however, many people of all ages get baptized during the holiday. Now, work is picking up again but I’m taking off for my first vacation during Peace Corps to Ghana (The Land of Plenty)! À Bientôt!

On Gift Giving

Having just ended the holiday season, the last horrah being my birthday, it seems to be an appropriate time to comment on the gift exchange culture here in Togo. It has occupied much of my thought, caused me anxiety, excitement and resentment.

I was admittedly a bit melodramatic about my birthday this year, professing to be experiencing a quarter-life crisis. I woke up on the dreaded day with a small dark cloud over my head and aching bones, but then the delicious food started showing up on my doorstep so my mood changed very quickly. I was given Galettes (savory bean cakes) and a bucket of Tchouck to share from my closest Togolese friend. Another girl in my neighborhood made me a plate of Fufu (pounded yams) with peanut sauce and chicken.

The evening of my birthday, I had a small get together with local Peace Corps volunteers and Togolese/Nigerian friends and acquaintances at my favorite restaurant in town. I made it clear to the Togolese people that wanted to come that I had no money to have a proper party. In most social situations in Togo, the person who invites others to the bar or restaurant has to pay for all of the guests’ drinks all night. Paradoxically, two of the guests paid for several rounds of drinks in addition to giving me other gifts. The fete was lovely; a guitar player came and sang for us and someone called a professional photographer who was snapping pictures of the fete like a paparazzi.

The night of my birthday I was overwhelmed by the generosity people showed me, and was giddy when opening each casserole dish or black plastic bag with a gift in it. But the next morning, I began to grapple with the question, “What are the implications of these gifts?” and “What is the appropriate response to receiving a gift in Togo?” In America, I’d whip out the ol’ Thank You Notes and call it a day. But here, I am in uncharted territory. I have been reading a book called “Remotely Global, Village Modernity in West Africa” by Charles Piot, an anthropologist who lived among the Kabiye people in Togo for three years and studied the culture. My town is chiefly Kabiye ethnicity, and Piot describes life among Kabiye precisely. I recommend the book to anyone who’s interested in learning more about Togolese culture and my reality.

Piot also received a great deal of gifts when coming to Togo and wasn’t sure how to respond. The Kabiye people he cooked for didn’t like American food. When he refused a gift once, the giver stopped speaking to him. Piot states, “Gift-giving became for all of us a kind of surrogate language: the gifts were attempts to communicate, to bridge the gap between us, to express relationship.”

Piot concludes that Kabiye give gifts as a way to form social relationships and ties or “ikpanture” in Kabiye language. He also says, “They were attempts to contain and control us. Gifts obligate and indebt, and in doing so they render the receiver subservient.” Time will tell if the givers on my birthday were simply trying to reinforce a friendship or if they are expecting something in return. In all likelihood, each individual had his or her own motives.

My own attempts to reciprocate kindness in Togo have been slightly clumsy, and I am not sure how to judge the reaction of the receivers. For example, when I made macaroni and cheese for a family once, each member only had several bites and asked why I hadn’t put salt and piment (hot peppers) in it. I tried to explain that mac and cheese is a favorite dish among American kids, but the Togolese kids turned up their noses and continued eating the food their mom had prepared. The food didn’t go to waste; they served the leftovers to the children for breakfast with a pile of piment on top. Hopefully, they appreciated the gesture but I’m not sure the American proverb, “It’s the thought that counts” translates.

Harmattan Holidays

Harmattan is the dry season here in Togo, and it is also considered the cold season. This means that when you walk down the street you feel like your lungs are being coated with a layer of orange dust and your eyes swell with tears due to the high concentration of dirt in the air. It’s pleasantly chilly at night and in the mornings, temperatures dropping to around 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit. Togolese people ask me, “How do you like Togo? How do you like the cold?” It takes a lot of will not to say, honey, you don’t know cold.

My first day at post (the town where I will be living for two years, the name of which I can not mention) was also Tabasky, a holiday celebrated by Muslim Kotokoli people here in Togo. I was drawn to the music and costumes as I was wandering the town trying to comprehend the fact that this town is my new home. I was standing on the outskirts of the tent which encompassed a huge crowd of people of all ages and genders dressed in traditional outfits but accented by bright colored sunglasses, hats and shoes that one might find when visiting a vintage shop with 1970’s garb. The mélange of traditional dress with outrageous Western style is a microcosm of how modernity has touched these traditional societies. It’s also oh so very hip. As soon as the men who were dj-ing the fete saw me standing there, they invited me to sit under the tent, gratuie, of course. I accepted, swept in by the excitement of the loud drums, sequined headscarves and candy. I had barely sat down, when I was told, “Il faut danser”, or “It is necessary for you to dance” and I found myself in the middle of the circle trying to awkwardly imitate the one other person who was the center of attention with me in front of at least 300 people. Then someone put a scarf around my neck and started pressing play money on my forehead, which stuck since I was so hot, and throwing hard candy at me. At the same time someone else was handing me pastries. Each dance move was a step out of my comfort zone and after the song was finally over I jetted out of there before I could be talked into another dance.

I’ve learned not to feel too awkward or embarrassed in these extremely uncomfortable situations, as the people I’ve encountered do not hold me to the same standards as I hold myself. Togolese people actually tell me my French is good and that they didn’t think Americans could speak French. For example, I was invited to observe a club meeting for “fille leaders” or girl leaders at the CEG (junior high). “Observe” being the keyword, I hadn’t prepared anything to present or teach. After a half an hour past when the club was scheduled to commence, there were no adults there but me. The girls of the club informed me that they were told an American would be running the club. The “American” was presumptively me, so I had 30 minutes improvise a presentation in French. Usually when I give any presentation in French, I prepare ahead of time with a dictionary and maybe practice pronunciation in front of a native speaker. But this was on the fly, so I just talked about America, something I know pretty well, and led a debate on gender equity in Togo. I thought it was a total bust, but the girls truly appreciated it. The girls walked me home, offered me non-fermented tchouk, offered to take me to climb the one tiny mountain in town and seemed completely unconcerned with the quality of my presentation. Alas, my panic attack was not as severe when the exact same situation occurred again the next week at the high school for the club of girl leaders there.

The students in Togo have a 2-week holiday vacation for Christmas and New Year’s Day. Therefore, my work for the last two weeks has been heavier on the cultural integration side than on technical work, since most of my work will be done in schools or with apprentices. I’ve spent time trying to form relationships with Togolese women and girls. I have a new friend who is a couturiere and has her own atelier to make clothes. We’ve been sharing meals and hanging out all week. She cooks the most delicious Togolese food, like fufu (pounded yams) with sauce arichide et tomate (peanut tomato sauce with hot peppers and fresh –as opposed to dried and crunchy- fish) that you eat with your right hand. Call it integration - or hunger - but I’ve truly enjoyed vrai Togolese food for the first time while eating at her house. It’s still a bit of a stressful situation because as soon as she senses that I’m slowing down eating the meal she says “Il faut terminer la fufu” or “It is nessecary that you eat all of the fufu.” I told her that I want to be skinny, like her (she is beautiful and thin and could be a model in America), and don’t want to eat too much. She told me that it’s an insult to call a Togolese person skinny. I feel like I’m in this alternate universe where you have to eat yourself sick to make friends and being chunky is the beauty ideal.

Bonne Arrivée

A wonderful man has left this earth. I know this because of the extravagance of the party his death warranted. A tent was constructed to cover the street in front of my host family’s house for half a block and the entire street was shut off. Hundreds of chairs were set up to cover ground. The set up occurred during the day. The funeral, in fact, did not commence until after dark. I arose to the sound of loud gospel music, Cowbell, children wailing, adults crying and preaching on a highly advanced PA system at around 12:30 a.m. The festivities occurred until 5:00 am, or dawn. This was repeated for two nights in a row, and I had the “privilege” of listening to the entire production loud and clear from my bed. The Togolese people that I’ve talked to about funerals say that when a child dies, the funeral is very somber but when an old person dies it is a celebration of the person’s life and can be quite jovial. I tried to keep my annoyance of the « bruit » to myself as host Maman told me she knew the gentleman who passed very well.

A beautiful child has entered this earth. My host Maman went to the capitol to have her third child, a perfect little boy. She had some complications with the pregnancy, and had to have a cesarean section. I was worried about her because I know c-sections are risky anywhere and my host dad told me she could have died. I was interested to see the hospital she stayed at for about a week with her baby and her mother. It was a small clinic responsible only for delivering babies and there were nurses and doctors constantly circulating checking on the patients. It seemed to be first-rate care here in Togo and I don’t think all Togolese women have the resources to receive this kind of care. Maman finally came home with the baby and we’ve had a constant parade of visitors to « saluer » the family and greet the baby. Grandmaman also has come to stay at the house and despite her age has taken on many tasks to care for the baby, including washing him, which makes him squeal at the top of his tiny lungs. Maman’s identical twin sister also came to stay with us for a while, and she went to get her hair done exactly like Maman making it very difficult to tell them apart!

I know I will miss my host family when I move to my post. I am currently on a one-week post visit in the ville I will be living in for my service, and I miss them already! I can’t disclose the exact location online but those of you itching to know can just asking me. I’m in the Centrale region in a larger town. I have a ridiculously luxurious house, but it hasn’t been lived in for a while by people but only by plenty of arachnid friends. My plan to transform my little piece of Togolese soil into a petite palace is definitely HGTV worthy. I live by myself in the compound so basically anything goes so I will be building a garden, buying a chicken for fresh eggs getting a kittenand eventually be inheriting a guard dog. Everything is built to order here in Togo, so I’ll be designing and commissioning my own furniture and curtains as well as painting all the walls. I will have a comfortable guest room so now those of you reading this blog can come experience Togolese life first-hand!

My goal this week is to meet the people I will be collaborating with as the authorities and neighbors. I will initially be working with an NGO, which provides opportunities for students to attend camps to utilize their creativity including drama, music and radio broadcasting. I will be working with the radio, as the NGO has a public radio station on which I can do « sensibilisations » on issues surrounding girl’s empowerment. Besides the initial definite project, I will be working with the other 5+ NGOs in the town that work with youth development and specifically girl’s empowerment as well as collaborating with the Health volunteer in my town and the Natural Resource Management volunteer only 7k away. Before coming to Togo, I was concerned about not having enough work to do but now I am sure I have a plethora of opportunities and will be working against the clock. I feel very lucky for my post because I’m in the middle of the action here in Togo and I can get coffee and bread!

Under the Mango Tree

Yesterday was a disappointing day for Togo. Togo lost to Cameroon 3-0 in the qualifying match for the World Cup in South Africa. I watched part of the game at a small buvette near the grande stade in Tsevie where many young boys play aspiring to someday go to the World Cup. It reminded me of being in the heart of Paris in 2006 during the World Cup when France lost to Italy. What a blow to a national ego.

Many of my best times in Togo have been spent under the encompassing Mango tree that shades my host family’s compound. I talk with my host mom as she prepares my meals, and secretly pray for the mangos to ripen before I leave Tsevie. I sometimes get the privilege of fanning the coal stove as my mom tells me snippets about her life, about her sisters or the baby that she’s having at the end of the month. She is still working hard even 8 ½ months into the pregnancy; birth is a more natural part of life here and not a reason to pause. I am so excited for the baby to be born; my host mom tells me I will have a new brother soon.

I have become more aware of my mission here in Togo and more convinced of the necessity and feasibility of the work I will be doing. I will receive my assignment next week I am very excited to see where in Togo I will be placed. The situation for many girls in Togo is very difficult as there are many pressures keeping them from continuing their studies and the drop out rate is extraordinarily high. Yet there are many people in Togo who understand the necessity of improving education for girls in Togo and support the mission of the Girl’s Education and Empowerment Program for the Peace Corps. My job is to work for the basic human rights of Togolese girls and women. The best part of my job is that I can institute this mission the way I see fit and best interests me. For example, I can choose to focus part of my work on environmental education through creating a community garden to help girls generate income, promoting use of plants with high nutritional value and creating science clubs for girls.

I am a few weeks in to training and life seems a bit routine now. I’ll give a glimpse into a typical day though note that no day is typical. For someone like me who fears monotony this schedule is ideal.

4:00 am Jolted awake by the surprisingly loud sweeping of the compound and the street in front of the house by “domestiques” (girls that work at our house) Revel in the fact that I still have 2 more hours to sleep.
6:00 am Wake up and fill my bucket up for a cold bucket shower. Savor the feeling because this is the last time in the day I will be cold. Eat breakfast (bread with jam/cheese, omelets, beignets or oatmeal and instant coffee)
7:15 am Ride my mountain bike through the bumpy sandy roads to the Salle-Tech where my classes are held. Greeted by many strangers on the street with “Bonjour”.
8:00-10:00 Language Learning. Class size – 2. Practice speaking in practical situations such as what to when you need to throw up in the nine seat bush taxi because you’re sandwiched between 15 people a chicken and a goat.
10:00-12:00 Technical Training. Learning how to present life skills lessons such as “Can Boys And Girls Be Friends”. Plenty of clapping (called bonks) and icebreaker games.
12:00-2:30pm Midi Repos. Ride my bike home for lunch, which usually consists of a salad with spaghetti, french fries called calicos, Fufu, fried bananas or hotdogs or any combination. (note: I’m a pseudo-veg here in Togo and only eat hotdogs to avoid getting fur and eyeballs on my plate)
2:30-5:00 Field Trip. Have taken trips to local schools and schools an hour away in a smaller town to observe a PCV in action.
5:00-5:30 Tutoring. More French.
5:30-6:00 Hang out at the Tchouk house or buvette for a bit. Hurry home before dark at 6.
6:00-7:00 Hang out with host fam. This consists of the kids playing hand games and hugging and kissing me saying, “Tu est tres tres jolie!!!” Eat dinner.
8:00 French homework. Bucket shower in the dark admiring the stars. Get ready for bed and fall asleep at 8:30.

Yovo, Yovo, Bonsoir Ca Va Bien Merci

My blog title is the song I constantly have stuck in my head because there is a chorus that greets me with that song as I ride down the street.

I just moved into my host family’s home in a large town near Lome. My family has two little kids. They are so cute and I taught them to “high-five” so now every time they see me they say “Meghan! Highfive!.” My family’s compound is very fancy; with electricity, a tv, a gazebo called a “peyote” and a beautifully landscaped lawn. While electricity is available, everything besides sleeping and tv watching is done outdoors including cooking on a coal stove, taking bucket showers in an outside enclosure, using the latrine, brushing teeth, doing laundry in a bucket and eating meals. Families in Togo do not eat together, usually the women, men and children eat separately, and I eat alone! My host family has a couple of girls who work on the compound to help with the kids and the chores and to help make juice to sell. They won’t let me lift a finger.
Training has been going well, this week has been focused on itineraries and schedules as well as how to maintain our new mountain bikes we were given to ride during our time in Togo. I have French class everyday, but there’s only two of us in my class so I feel like my skills will improve rapidly. Already, I only speak French to my host family. They also speak Ewe, which is a native language widespread in Togo and Ghana. Their kids speak mostly Ewe because they haven’t learned much French in school yet.

I attended church with my new friend, who is around 26 and also lived in Belgium for awhile and loves to ski like me. She is tres chic and a great person to talk to because she somewhat understands Western culture and where I’m coming from. She took me to the Penecostal church where she sings in the choir, and the choir director asked me to come on stage to sing! Politely turned down that offer, since I don’t exactly know many Christian songs en francais. That lasted for one hour. She then took me to the other Penecostal church where my host family attends, and we prayed and danced and singed for 3 hours! It shows how much patience the Togolese have, as I don’t know many churchgoers in the US that would tolerate anything over an hour! We had to give an offering three times in a congo line to the front of the church and many people at the service were speaking in tounges. But last night, I woke up at one in the morning to praying, singing and chanting outside my bedroom door which really scared me at first but then just made it difficult to sleep. Apparently my host family decided to have a church service at the house at one AM, for reasons I couldn’t discern.

Among the highlights of the week was our Ultimate Frisbee game at the Stade here in town. I brought Valerie, who works for my host mom and many of the other PCVs brought members of their host family. It was an awesome game, even though Togolese don’t play Ultimate Frisbee, they caught on fast! We had good-sized teams and the game was awesome. I took one for the team when one of the 180-pound PCVs and me went for the Frisbee at one time and he fell on top of me. I now have a gnarley bruise.

I experienced Tchouk (sp?) for the first time yesterday. It’s a Togolese home brewed beer. It’s only 50 CFA or 10 cents for a beer. It tastes kind of like Kombucha and still has a bunch of yeast residue, but not too bad and a great way to meet people.