Et le Travail?

This entry is all about the work I did in Togo. I did two types of work: teaching English and studying traditional medicine.

Teaching English

Soon after arriving, John, Charlotte, and I set up a biweekly English class for village middle schoolers. Because it was during the summer, it was completely optional for the students. English is taught in the middle school, so our class served as a supplement for those wanting to review what they already knew or for those wanting to get a head start for next year.

During the first few weeks, the classes worked well. Attendance was high, with the number of students being between 15 and 20. With each following week, however, attendance dropped. Eventually, there were only 5 students, and in the final couple of weeks, we didn't have class at all.

Why the decline? I would blame it on several things. First and foremost, this was the year of Waa, an initiation ceremony that happens only once every 5 years. Most students had siblings being initiated and so would have been too busy with their families to make it to class.

Some blame certainly rests on us, the teachers, as well. English is the language of opportunity, so the initial idea of English classes taught by Americans must have been absolutely enchanting for village middle schoolers - hence why there were 25 students at the first class. Upon arriving, however, students got a glimpse of reality: even though we're Americans who speak fluent English, we weren't capable of transforming them into fluent English speakers by the end of the summer. It was our job, as the teachers, to maintain an inspiring and encouraging environment despite this discouraging reality check, and I’m not sure that we succeeded in doing that. Some ideas about how to better encourage the students: we could have set up a reward system - for instance, a piece of candy for whoever correctly answers a question. We could have planned out all of the classes in advance rather than go just one class at a time with no final destination in mind. If we had had a final destination (for instance, mastery of salutations and basic getting-to-know-you conversations), we could have set up well-defined check points to make the students better feel like they were making progress.

Another problem was the lack of necessary materials. Nobody except us, the teachers, had French-English dictionaries. We didn't have simple texts for English language learners. Charlotte noticed while the students were copying down vocabulary words that many had completely full notebooks and were squishing our information into whatever margins they could find. Thus, I would suggest that the Duke in Togo students next year, should they decide to teach English too, bring cheap notebooks, writing utensils, some extra French-English dictionaries, and some old children's books from home to serve as English learning texts.

Sometimes what we lacked was the classroom itself. It was a school official who kept the key, and if the school official could not be located, we had no access to the classroom. When we did have the classroom, we lacked decent lighting. The chalkboard was old and dirty, making it hard to read. Therefore, needs include access to the key, lights (via solar panels), and white boards to replace the old chalk boards.

Studying Traditional Medicine

John and I spent time learning about the traditional medicines of Farendé. We did this by talking to a variety of guérisseurs (the French word for healers). All guérisseurs used plant-based treatments. For any given sickness, the treatment would involve collecting one or many plants and then preparing them in some way - either to be eaten, drunk, or absorbed in a sauna-like steam bath. All guérisseurs relied to some extent on the supernatural realm; for some, that was the Christian god, and for others, the spirits of ancestors. Some guérisseurs treated a variety of sicknesses, while some specialized only on one or two.

One of our objectives was to collect information. The challenges we faced in collecting information involved obtaining the names of plants. In many cases, we were only able to obtain the name in Kabiye. We had a book on the woody plants of West Africa, so we found the French and scientific names for most tree species, but we had no comparable book for herbs. However, the necessity of common names and scientific names is questionable, depending on for what purpose we use the information we collect. If the information stays only in the hands of the community, then Kabiye names are sufficient.



Our second objective was to create a better relationship between the guérisseurs and the village clinic. To do this, we organized a meeting toward the end of the trip between the guérisseurs, the chiefs, and the clinic workers to discuss how the two systems of medicine could better collaborate. This was... an interesting task. First of all, it was difficult to get a date and time set in stone. We started by going to the village chief. When we went to chief of the canton, he changed the time. We went back to the village chief, who then changed it again. It was back and forth like this for a while, with the clock ticking. Finally, a time was set, so we went around and informed our guérisseurs of the where and when. When the hectic day came (hectic because it was also the day of our goodbye ceremony), the guérisseurs who showed up were not the guérisseurs to whom we had talked. We still had a good discussion and it was still an effective first step in creating collaboration, but it would have been better with a higher attendance and with the guérisseurs whom we had interviewed. We should have set the date and time earlier, and we should have mentioned that there would be sorghum beer - then everybody would have shown!

Seeing how difficult it was to mobilize people for a rendez-vous, I would like to advise the students of next year to focus on the individual. John and I had several interviews with individual guérisseurs. If I had known that a certain guérisseur would not be at the final meeting, I would have milked that interview for all it was worth by devoting some time to exchanging ideas about collaboration between him and the clinic, rather than just discussing what sicknesses he treats and how. In other words, when you have a chance to discuss something one-on-one, don't pass it up just because a similar discussion is scheduled to occur later. Scheduling is a dubious thing in Togo, so use the instant with the individual whenever it's in front of you.

Chopping up Chickens

Photo post!


The first time we hiked up to the village of Kuwdé, the village elders held a welcoming ceremony, which involved the drinking of sorghum beer and the sacrifice of a chicken.


This guy is sacrificing a chicken for the upcoming initiation of his nephew, Olivier.


A monkey trap in someone's field! It's really nothing but a super-sized mousetrap. The cultivator told me to stick my hand on it. "No, thanks," I replied.


This lady is cool. She's from the mountain village of Kuwdé. She didn't speak a word of French, so she communicated her happy sentiments to us by dancing. It was awesome interacting with people with whom I didn't share a common language; facial expressions, gestures, and actions become the sole means of communication. It's like being at a loud concert or in a night club.


Of all the plants I saw in Togo, this one is my favorite because of the adorable white and pink polka dots on the leaves. I don't know the name of the plant, but I know it's in the family of Araceae (thanks, Plant Systematics). Our guide, Jesper, said that it wards off snakes.


Chameleon! Walking back from the market, I saw this chameleon strolling across the road. Wanting to take it back to my homestead to snap some photos, I commenced to pick it up. It clearly didn't appreciate this: it hissed and threatened to bite me. I decided that a chameleon bite was not a cool enough way to lose a finger, so I backed off, disappointed that I would return to the USA with zero chameleon photos. To my pleasant surprise, however, a kid who had witnessed the ordeal brought the chameleon to my homestead on this stick. Voilà, la photo.


Super-duper thumbs up. This picture shows my Togolese manicure and pedicure. I went to the market in Lomé and inquired about where I could obtain a manicure and pedicure. The people I asked went out of their way to find their friend who does nails. Eventually they found her, and she was an amazing sight; a market nail salon is a lady carrying a heavy case of nail polish on her head. The lady approached me, removed the heavy case from her head, and began cleaning the 5 pounds of gunk from the crevices of my fingers and toes. She did this using scissors; it was totally uncomfortable and highly reminiscent of the way dentists clean your teeth with those sharp picks. Next, she removed the chipped nail polish that was already on my fingers. She clipped my nails with scissors, filed vigorously, applied this lovely purple color, and added a protective coat of clear nail polish. The bill? Sixty cents. When I left her two dollars instead of sixty cents, her face lit up with joy. How much would the same manicure and pedicure have cost in the USA?

Je Dis, Hein...

This is a post about language. In the village of Farendé, most speak a hybrid of Kabiye and French, which one could call Frabiye. Our highly educated guide, Jesper, even spoke Frabiyanglais.

When villagers aren't talking in hybrid, and they're speaking French, you start noticing the peculiarities of their French. It's certainly not the Parisian French that we teach here in the USA. Rather, it's a mellowed-out African French full of quirks and amusing phrases. Here are some of them.

Bonsoir

In French French, bonjour (good day) is the standard hello. It can be used during any time of the day, even if it's not technically jour (day). In Togo, this is not the case. After noon, Togolese shift to bonsoir, or good evening. When you say bonjour to a Togolese after noon, they correct you by replying bonsoir, since it's evening at 1:00 P.M. Little kids pick up on this bonsoir frenzy so that they say it even when it's definitely not the soir. I heard a child say bonsoir as early as 7:00 in the morning.

My explanation for this insistent shift to bonsoir involves the nature of the villagers' mother language, Kabiye. In Kabiye, the greetings are 100% dependent on the time of day. Early in the morning, say 5:00 - 8:00 A.M., the greeting is nya na léo, which means "you and coming out [of your house]." Around noon, one says nya na ilum: "you and the sun." Finally, in the evening, one says nya n'dana (I forgot what that translates to). This being the case, it makes sense why French greetings are used in such a way so that each time of day has its own version of hello.

Ça va, non? / Comment?

The phrasing of "how's it going" is different in Togolese French. In French French, one asks comment ça va. In Togolese French, it's either "ça va, non?" or "comment?" Ça va, non? makes it seem like the asker is assuming that ça va (it goes) and just wants to make sure by asking. Comment just means "how," which is an amusingly brief way to ask how someone is doing. I became an avid user of comment. Time to adapt this in the USA: "How" can start meaning "how are you."

Et le voyage? Et la famille? Et le travail?

In Togo, ça va is followed by other inquiries. After asking how it's going, one asks about anything else there is to ask about. If somebody just got back from a trip, one inquires about the trip by asking et le voyage (and the voyage). The person's family (Et la famille?) and work (Et le travail?) are often asked about as well.

This is another quirk that can be explained by the nature of the mother language, Kabiye. In Kabiye, one asks "are you in good health?" with alafio-way, to which the response is alafia, "in good health." A Kabiye then asks about family, work, the voyage, etc. - are these things alafia also?

Voilà!

This is a phrase I heard a lot. We all sort of know what voilà means. It translates to "here it is" or "there it is" and is usually said when it, whatever it is, just recently came into view. For instance, say I'm searching for money in my pocket to pay for my ice cream cone. When I finally find the money, remove it from my pocket, and present it to the cashier, I say voilà.

In Togo, voilà is used in an abstract sense as well. When one is having trouble understanding what somebody is saying but then finally understands, that somebody says "voilà!" With my not-so-super-duper French, I tended to have trouble understanding, which is why I heard voilà so much.
Host mom: Blahoeponvwpau!
Me: Pardon?
Host mom: [speaking more slowly] *something coherent*
Me: Ohhhhhh!
Host mom: Voilà!

Bon

Bon means "good," like in good evening, bonsoir, and good travels, bon voyage. In Togo, bon is inserted into phrases as a sort of way to fill in pauses. "Qu'est-ce qu'on va faire?" "On va faire... Bon... On va faire ce qu'on peut." Translation: "What are we going to do?" We're going to do... Bon... We're going to do what we can."

Ou bien?

Ou means "or," and ou bien means something like "or even." It's tacked on at the end of a phrase of proposal. For example, "Would you like to interview some local healers today? We could go to their homesteads and see if they're around. Ou bien..."

Ou bien is sort of a question, inviting the listener to respond with any alternatives he or she might have in mind.

Il faut...

When you're telling somebody to do something in French, you have two options. You can use the imperative form of the verb and say "do this," or you can demand indirectly by saying, "Doing this is necessary." Thus, you can say regardez! (look!) or il faut regarder (it's necessary that you look).

I don't think I heard the imperative form (do this! look!) even one time while I was in Togo. Instead, I heard il faut this and il faut that. Y a les moustiques; il faut fermer la fenêtre! "There are mosquitoes; closing the window is necessary!" I love this indirect way of demanding. It's a little less like you're pointing your finger at someone and saying "Do this! Do that! I shouldn't have to ask you to do these things!"

J'arrive / Je viens

J'arrive translates to "I'm arriving," and je viens translates to "I'm coming." When you're impatiently waiting for somebody, so you call him up and say, "Dude, where are you," these are both phrases that you don't want to hear. If he says, "J'arrive," he could arrive in 5 minutes or in 5 hours. The meaning is seldom "I'm arriving now;" it's more like "I will arrive... eventually."

Je dis, hein...

This is my favorite of all the peculiarities of Togolese French, and it's another one that I heard all the time. It translates to "I'm saying..." Togolese use this phrase right before repeating something you didn't understand the first time.
"I'm going to the store." "Pardon?" "Je dis, hein... I'm going to the store."

With my less-than-stellar French, I said pardon many, many times, so I heard je dis, hein often. Hein translates to "huh" as in, "Cool, huh?" and is pronounced like a really, really nasally "uh." The reason why je dis, hein is my favorite Togolese French phrase is because it's absolutely hilarious, largely due to the nasally hein. I don't think I ever got through hearing this phrase with a straight face. This is probably a sign that I need to grow up. One day... maybe.


A view from the village of Kuwdé.

Blapetasie, Togo

I'm flying out of Togo in 7 hours and am devastated. It's absolutely awesome here, and I'm not ready to leave. There are a bajillion reasons why I've loved it, but the reason on my mind now is as follows:

When you're lonely in Togo, it's quickly rectified. You have to work hard to not make friends here. Everybody (or nearly) is insanely social and insanely friendly. It helps to be an American- many Togolese see Americans as glimmers of hope - potential ways to get out of Togo and into America, the land of opportunity. However, even if I weren't American and even if I weren't white, I would still be able to make Togolese friends in a heartbeat. It's a culture of friendship. At Duke, on the other hand, if you're lonely and looking for somebody to chat with, you'll probably find yourself in a hard place. Especially around exam week.

One more thing! Togolese people are straight-up cool: there's no concept of awkwardness here. Because everybody says hi to everybody, there is no such thing as an awkward moment. At home in the USA, and especially during university semesters, awkward moments happen as much as once a day. 'I met that girl once; should I say hi to her or not? And if I do say hi to her, do I stop and have a petite conversation also?' In Togo, the answer is usually always yes-yes.

Alors, au revoir, Togo! Visiting you was one of the best decisions of my life. See you again someday.

Togo to Ghana

Even though Togo and Ghana are next-door neighbors, they are extremely different.

Reasons why Ghana is cooler:
-Cars have windshields that are in one piece. In Togo, you're riding in luxury if the windshield isn't broken.
-Not all roads are covered with potholes.
-Hotels in Ghana come with functioning showers, soap, towels, and sufficient toilet paper. Even the cheap hotels.
-English!!

Reasons why Togo is cooler:
-Togo has motorcycle taxis, which are insanely fun to ride.
-The French of Togolese is easier to understand than the English of Ghanaians.
-French > English
-Food, souvenirs, hotel rooms, etc. are cheaper in Togo.
-People in Togo have more of a tendency to make marriage proposals and the like (at least from my experiences).
-Sorghum beer is found only in Togo.
-The cuisine of Togo is more delightful.

Togo wins.

However, Ghana is still an excellent place. I joined up with Lizzeth and Erin in Lomé, Togo, where we crossed the border to start our vacation in Ghana. We spent a day on a bus heading to Cape Coast and spent all of yesterday hitting up the tourist attractions there.

First was Kakum forest, where we did a canopy walk. This may have been the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. Am unfortunately having trouble posting a picture, but just imagine skinny, precarious rope bridges really high off the ground and attached to tree trunks.

Next we went to the Elmina and Cape Coast castles, which were used during the slave trade to store the Africans to be shipped across the Atlantic. As many as 200 slaves would be crammed into a chamber that's maybe the size of two bedrooms. People couldn't go to the bathroom except on the floors of these chambers, which meant they were sleeping in their own muck. The chambers were usually really dark and had very little ventilation. After 3 months or so trapped in one of these chambers, the slaves passed through a "door of no return," after which they boarded a small canoe which would take them to the slave ship.

All for now.

Togolicious. Photo Post!

Here's my pet bunny rabbit!


The kids of my household and me sitting outside under the mango tree.

Pictures of Waa. The first one is of initiate headgear: antelope horns wrapped in feathers. In the second, you can see an initiate dancing and flipping his gong (2 hoe blades fused together).

The sort of crack-bus we use to get to Kara each Wednesday. The back door is attached to the car by rope. Wish this picture were more detailed so that you could see the full extent of the crackiness.

John and I went to chat with some local healers. The healers are the 2 people on the right in the first picture. In the second picture, you can see the woman healer grinding up on the ancestral rock a plant in the mint family. A little bit of water is added to the pulp, and then the resulting juice is applied like eye drops to treat eye wounds and conjunctivitis.

The monkey that was for sale for 50 dollars in the Farendé market.

Went to visit a cow herder. Accidentally stepped in poo after this bull caused me to stumble.

Hope y'all enjoyed the pictures! Not sure if I'll be able to make it to Kara next Wednesday, since it's our last week and we'll be busy finishing up our work. Might be able to write again in Lomé or Ghana before returning to the States.

Before leaving the internet café, I must add the following: all has been great. I'm quite sad to be leaving so soon. I love Togo more and more each day.

We Gonna Dance Allllll Night

This last week has been the best week yet.

The male initiation ceremony of Waa, which occurs only once every five years, started on Saturday. John and I hiked up a mountain to the village of Kuwdé, where we met up with other Duke in Togo students and watched the ceremony. Initiates who perform the ceremony range from the ages of 25 to 29. It's the final mandatory initiation ceremony in a Kabiye male's life, so it's hugely important. I think this ceremony for these people is the same as Christmas is for me - a superbly awesome day to which one looks forward like a madman.

The ceremony is all about dancing. When dancing, the initiates wear antelope skulls on their heads because the antelope is considered the most masculine of all wild animals. The horns of the antelope skulls are covered meticulously with feathers in the days preceding the dance. Often there are flags, toys, baby dolls, and other random objects lodged somewhere in the headgear. The baby dolls were the strangest form of decoration. Dr. Piot explained that they are implemented with the goal of capturing the sort of supernatural power that a wealthy ansarrah (person of European descent) is believed to possess.

The dance moves are pretty simple. A beat is created by the initiates' gongs, which are made by fusing together 2 hoe blades (reinforcing for us the importance of cultivation in this culture; it must also be noted that cultivating is the principal role of the Kabiye male). Sound is created when an initiate flips up the fused hoe blades to bang against a piece of metal that he wears on his hand like a ring. Word on the streets is that it's tremendously difficult to get these instruments to make the sound.

Tons of solum (sorghum beer, which represents blood, which is believed to be filtered to create sperm) and dog meat (dogs are the most masculine of all domestic animals) are consumed in mass quantities throughout Waa. Even though my best friend at home is a dog, yours truly tried some dog meat. It tasted like beef, and it was superyum.

Seeing the ceremony was alone excellent. What made it even better, however, was how inclusive it was. The other students and I were all encouraged to fully participate. People squealed with joy when we danced along with them. A girl handed me her fan so that I could help the other ladies cool down the dancers. Also, it must be said that this inclusiveness doesn't just apply to Waa. Togo is, in general, an inclusive place, and this is one of the things about it that I will miss most.

Waa has taken over the last half-week and thus is the main thing discussed in this entry. A few other occurrences are worth mentioning as well, however.

For reasons that I do not want to explain here, I obtained a pet rabbit (ansarrah kesonga, or rabbit of the white person; the opposite, kesonga, is wild rabit). He's by far the cutest creature in my homestead (I can't say village because I constantly see puppies and baby goats that make my heart melt).

Also, there was a monkey for sale at the Farendé market yesterday. He only would have cost 50 US dollars!!! It was really, really tempting, but I didn't buy him. Somebody else will buy him and, unless the buyer is an ansarrah like me, will roast him on a skewer.

I was recently very upset with the women of my household. The gist of the story is that they impolitely pressured me into buying 1,000 francs worth of merchandise. This is a small sum of money for me (2 US dollars) but a huge sum for them, which is what made the fact that they forced such a gift so incredibly rude. I was seized by the udders and milked like an ansarrah cow. Now that a few days have passed, however, I have cooled down about it and moved on. I'm trying my absolute best to see from their eyes - they are two widows with a household full of kids to feed, with the only income sources being beer-selling (not highly profitable) and Duke in Togo students. That being the case, what I consider to be a transgression is certainly forgivable.

One last brief story. On the 4th of July, some other students and I went to the big city of Kara for a cookout at an American's house. Walking inside was exactly like walking into a house back in the States, and it was really disorienting. The food was refreshing and delicious, and it was fantastic to hear some nice American accents. The whole time, however, I felt like I was cheating. We are inside a secluded little paradise with fans, air conditioning, good food, and cold drinks, with life being the polar opposite for nearly everybody outside the walls of the household compound. I'm here in Togo not to hang out inside a comfortable snow globe, but to hang out in what is Togo for Togolese.

In any case, let's talk a bit about kids. There were lots of kids at the Americans' house, and there are lots of kids in almost any given Togolese homestead. To be frank, the thought, "American children are wuses," kept running through my head. One child at the cookout was afraid of the gentle pet dog; a Togolese child, however, would feel comfortable catching and even slaying a dog. Also, Togolese children are hardened by a powerful hierarchy, which American children do not experience to this extent because of the relatively egalitarian American mentality. Togolese children living in the hierarchy receive the smallest portions of food, the least desirable pieces of meat (if any meat at all), etc. When I give my family a gift that's something sugary, it's the older members of the household who eat the most; the children are lucky if they even get 1 cookie out of the packet.

Time is running short, so time for closure. You all have a good week, and check back next Wednesday!

Red Birds and Nutritional Crutches

Bonjouuur. Another good week spent in the village of Farendé.

Thursday of last week, I asked the younger co-wife the big question: what do girls here do when they're on their periods? I haven't seen pads or tampons in the village markets. She responded, "People use pads, but you have to travel to the nearest city to get them. Many aren't able to do this, so what they do is use bits of torn-up pagnes. These are then washed and re-used." Yum.

To move on to more normal things... On Sunday, I got up at 5 AM (rather than going back to sleep as usual) to attempt to exercise for the first time since arriving in Togo. After running for a few minutes, my legs got supremely itchy, which is what they tend to do when I haven't run in a while, so I stopped, my exercise then taking the form of liesurely walking. Then, however, a colony of 5 flies was able to circle around my head. In choosing between running-itching and walking-flytolerating, I chose the latter and went on what wound up being an hour-long promenade. I must have walked about 2 miles before turning around. Beside the flies, who really wanted to eat my brain for some reason, it was excellent. Temperature was perfect, scenery was beautiful, and there were these awesome birds out and about. They were a physics-defyingly bright shade of red.

Later on in the day, some of the cowives' children and grandchildren arrived from Lomé. People are migrating back up to the villages to view the upcoming ceremony of Waa, which happens only once every 5 years. Anyway, while I was reading in my room, a few young granddaughters wandered in. They were totally distracting and a little bit creepy. Their French was not good, so they were saying things to me in Kabiye. Seeing that I had no idea what they were talking about, they would say something to each other and then break out in giggles. On top of that, they were messing with objects in my room. I was about to escort them out, until one of them brought all attention to my hot pink neck pillow. She put it on her head so that it looked like a Starwars hairdo. Then she put it around her face so that it looked like virtual reality goggles. Then she made it walk like it was a creature with 2 legs but no other body parts. Then she used the rug in my room like a pagne to carry the neck pillow like a baby on her back. Impressed with the many ways she and the others found to amuse themselves with my pillow, I let them stay in my room; and it was a good time.


This picture is of a super-cool project going on in the village. This project has several objectives. First of all, there are a set of latrines which people will be allowed to use on market day. The waste from the latrines will go to vessels in the back, where algae will be cultivated. This algae can then be used as a supplement for malnourished children. This project will, in an adjacent vessel, raise fish. There's also a garden, whose crops will be used in a restaurant which is in the making. Plant waste goes into a compost bin or into making charcoal. In the picture and next to the garden is a bunch of baby trees, which are being raised to a certain height and will then be planted around the village with the aim of reforestation. John and I spent some time working on this part of the project, clipping leaves off of large baby teak trees so that the smaller saplings would have access to sunlight. The sap of these trees is bloody red, so our hands got pretty gross. A couple of leaves got stuck between the heel of my foot and my sandal, so at the end of the shift, it looked like somebody had stabbed me in the foot. This was pretty exciting.

I'd like to talk a little bit about malnutrition, so I will mention a conversation I had with the younger co-wife. Her son is sick with an intestinal parasite, for which he is taking a medication that will quickly eliminate it. This medication cannot be taken in conjunction with alcohol, which, she said, and much to my horror, is a problem. (The thought in my brain: "HOW IS IT A PROBLEM THAT A 4-YEAR-OLD CANNOT DRINK ALCOHOL?") Turns out that "la boisson" (sorghum beer) is, along with pâte (ground-up corn served in a piping hot clump with a sauce), an essential part of the diet for everybody, including young children. I told the co-wife that I had heard alchohol inhibits young people's development, and she responded, "Yes, but the young people here are 'habitués' (used to it)." We can certainly assume pregnant women partake in la boisson also.

Malnutrition is already a huge problem. Most young children have those potbellies associated with being malnourished. This includes the 4-year-old of my household, upon whom pants don't stay up well because of his belly. I saw a severe case of malnutrition at Farendé's medical center that will forever haunt my dreams. In these severe cases, the belly, hands, and feet are all bloated, and when you poke one of these parts of the body with your finger, the indent remains. The problem of malnutrition here comes from the fact that young children live almost entirely off of pâte, which is pretty devoid of nutrients, and sauce. Pâte is the principal food eaten because corn is the main crop cultivated here. Meat is rarely, rarely eaten. La boisson is used as a (necessary?) nutritional crutch in all age groups. A tricky situation. Malnutrition leading to problems like fetal alcohol syndrome and hindered development. How does one go about tackling this problem chain?

Moving on to something slightly less depressing: death! I saw my first Kabiye funeral this week. It was an old lady who passed away; when the deceased is old, villagers dance and sing joyously. It was so cool to see this style of funeral; it was like the deceased was still alive. The options are crying over inevitable death (what we do in America) and celebrating a fortunately long life (what Kabiye do), and I think the Kabiye made a wise choice.

Plenty of other things to write about, but this entry is getting pretty long. Thus, catch you all next week. Happy 4th of July!!!! Yeehaw, America.

Wahoo! Pitchas

This is one corner of my homestead. The building on the far left has a room for the homestead's chickens, but what is in the other rooms remains a mystery to me. Next is the latrine: two spaces for bathing and one space with a toilet. We use big pieces of tin as doors. The circular hut is the kitchen (it gets really, really hot in there). The yellow building on the far right contains 3 bedrooms (one of which is mine) and the salon where we eat.


Me on the left and Rose, the senior co-wife, on the right. Rose is making sorghum beer and I'm holding the ladel, pretending to be the one who's making it. Every woman makes beer on a certain day or two each week. Rose, for instance, makes beer each Tuesday. On any given day of the week, you can find at least 5-6 woman who make beer, and on market day, it's as many as 15. It's the only real way Kabiye women make money, which is difficult, because sorghum beer is the first thing people stop buying when they are running low on cash, and people here tend to be running low on cash...


A lady serving us sorghum beer in calabashes. Calabashes are my new favorite vessels from which to drink.


A shot of an initiation ceremony in a nearby village named Tchikawa. There are 2 girls and 4 guys being initiated, and the man in front is one of their uncles. Various uncles stood in front of them and gave talks about how they're adults now, how they can have responsibilities, get married, etc. Each uncle gradually spilled a calabash of beer on the ground during his talk as a sacrifice.

This is a shot of our very beautiful hike up the mountain yesterday. Palm trees on mountains will forever feel like a paradox.

Things About Togo that I'll Miss

I know lists are sort of like cheating, a way to cop out of writing a real entry, but I think this one will be pretty interesting. This is a list of things about Togo and Farendé that I will miss when I'm back in the States.

• Cute little old ladies who bow when they meet you
• The dramatic way in which people say Uh-Huh!
• Not having internet
• Oatmeal as my daily sugar source
• Saturday markets, and the bread and bananas they entail
• Hanging out at Jesper's "office" (which is really just the little shop that his young, attractive friend owns)
• Yam french fries
• Local rice with sésame sauce (which is similar to chili)
• Calabash beer
• Afternoon naps
• Flying pidgeons as an alternative form of air conditioning
• The constant presence of chicks and baby goats (PS: I held a chick yesterday.)
• Cold, refreshing bucket showers
• The 24-hour system (and thus the excuse to say things like 18 o'clock)
• Pagne shopping
• Pagne staring (staring at pagnes is like staring at lava lamps; the more you look at one, the more fascinating its pattern becomes)
• Marriage proposals
• The fact that girls are not obsessed with being skinny
• The fact that all guys are in good shape as a result of the cultivating they do
• The indistinction between indoors and outdoors (there are no sealed-off spaces; all space is connected at least by an open, screenless window)
• Sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed and my feet on the pillows (somehow this arrangement diminishes the heat)
• Never, ever having to rush
• The phrase "Le repas est prêt" ("The meal is ready"), which I delightedly hear 2 times a day
• Going to bed at 8 PM and getting up at 7 AM
• Finding frogs in the latrine
• Seeing chameleons strolling nonchalantly across the path in front of me

Voilà, some of the many things I will miss!

One thing I won't miss too much is the public transit system. To go to Kara, we first take a bus from Farendé to Ketao and then a taxi from Ketao to Kara. When I think about the Farendé-Ketao buses, the phrase "crack-bus" unfailingly comes to mind. The buses are designed to seat 6 or 7 people, but they don't depart until they contain about twice that number. Sometimes there's a goat or 2 squished in the trunk as well. If we compare the vehicle to a cow, we can say that the driver milks it to every last drop. If the windshield is broken, you think nothing of it. (In fact, it's a bit of luxury to find a bus or taxi with a windshield that's not broken.) About one bus we took, John (fellow student) hypothesized that it had the engine of a lawn mower. Slowwww slow slow. On top of that, the driver only used the engine when we were going uphill. The smell of exhaust was overwhelming, and all of the windows (not just the windshield) were broken and sewn up like footballs. Pretty different from public transit in the USA.

Since the last entry, I've talked with some more local medicine men. One was with the White Cross Church, and another was an animist. Both of them, and most healers in general, see their practice as almost completely dependent on the spiritual realm. Sicknesses can be caused by the physical world (such as if we eat a contaminated food) or by the spiritual world (somebody who is jealous of you uses sorcery to bewitch you with an ailment). Prayer (either to a Christian god or an ancestral spirit) is a vital component to discovering what should accompany the standard herbal ingredient (which is fixed and does not require any supernatural inquiry) in a medicinal cocktail. The healers have been very open to giving us information about what the standard ingredients are, and we've been studying to what extent the medicines of different healers match (this would indicate that the medicines are effective).

Also, John, Jesper, and I went on a hike to see some road-work that's being done and to see how villagers can be mobilized to work on community projects. Every 5 years, there's a male initiation ceremony called Waa which occurs on this particular mountain. We, the students of this year, are lucky to have come during the year of this ceremony, which we will see in July. The mountain roads are being fixed up so that cars can drive to the site of the ceremony.

A Photo! And Other Things

There's an exciting picture of some of my host family and me eating. Albertine, the younger co-wife, is the person in the front of the picture. Hopefully y'all know which person I am. If not, I'm the one in a green and yellow pagne.

Life continues to be good here in Farendé. I feel very at home with my host family, I take cold and refreshing bucket showers each day, my digestive tract is functioning properly, and many other positive things.

In the last week, I started following the World Cup through hearsay and radio, bought a cool pair of sandals for $1.20, taught 2 successful English classes, met with a traditional healer who heavily integrates Christian prayer into his practice, learned about Farendé's Center for Social Affairs, and sat in on several walk-in consultations at the local medical center. Another eventful week.

I'm inclined to say that I'm staying busy, but, in fact, that's not true. People here take a customary afternoon nap from noon to 3, and everything stops after 6:30 or 7:00, when the sun goes down. That being the case, there's a lot of free time and not a lot of internet to kill it with. To kill downtime, therefore, I do a ton of reading, listening to my mp3 player, and thinking.. Yes, it can get a bit boring.

One last note: yesterday, I ate a particularly delicious food called corico. Corico is the same thing as french fries, except made out of yams. They are salted up exactly like American french fries but aren't as gooey on the inside. I was a happy camper.

A la prochaine!

First Week in Homestead

Family: I have a great family. The 2 co-wives are as sweet as can be. They are doing everything in their power to make me comfortable and happy.

There are 4 kids in the homestead, 3 boys and 1 girl. All of them love teaching me Kabiye. I have tons of phrases scribbled in my notebook but am still struggling with mastering the greetings, which depend on the time of day.

The girl, who is probably 12 or 13, is always working, whether it's cooking, doing laundry, planting seeds, drawing water from the well, or cleaning dishes. When I was her age, all I did that required any effort at all was homework.

All of the kids in my homestead consider themselves to have two mothers. Both the biological mom and the other co-wife receive the title "Maman" from any given child. The older co-wife is higher in the hierarchy, so I am to keep this in mind when, for instance, I reimburse them for my food: the money is always to be handed to the older co-wife.

Food: All food has been tasting fine and quite often delicious. Last night, I ate freshly killed chicken with spaghetti.

However, I just recently had my first little delicious taste of traveler's diarrhea, I think thanks to an okra sauce. Since then, I've been eating lightly and taking anti-diarrheal medication. Much of my plate of delicious spaghetti was rerouted to another mouth.

As for drinks, I'm living on my huge stash of bottled water and on sorghum beer, for which I am developing quite a taste. Most women brew it in their homesteads 2 times a week to sell at market. It tastes a lot like fruit juice. It's one of the few things you can find here that are remotely sweet.

Sugar is hardly ever consumed, or at least not in the villages. The only sugar I have each day is 2 sugar cubes in the morning in oatmeal and whatever sugar is found in sorghum beer. Everything else is grain-, meat-, and vegetable-based. A drastic change from my diet at home, where my mom makes sure to always have cake or brownies sitting out.

Challenges: It. Is. Hot. I dream about sticking my head in a freezer. I take bucket showers 2-3 times a day because that's the one way to cool down, and at night, it's necessary to enlever tous (remove all articles of clothing) in order to sleep. The advantage of having my own room!

Flies. There are bajillions of flies, who happen to have the same taste as humans in food and beer. There's no way to escape them; even if you go inside, they enter through doors and windows, which must remain open because of the heat.

My flashlight died. Thus, I maneuver like a blind person at night in order to find my toothbrush and other objects. This isn't too difficult. The real inconvenience to not having a flashlight is not being able to go to the toilet at night. Thus, whatever indigestion I might have must be tolerated until the morning... and that does not make for a very pleasurable experience.

Luckily these have been the only challenges! Even though this place is the white man's death and even though I have suffered these various obstacles, the quality of life is quite good.

What I've Been Doing/What I Will Be Doing: I've spent the first week in Farendé learning about life, culture, and institutions here. We (John, the other student in Farendé; Jesper, our guide; and me) have visited the middle school, the microfinance NGO's office, the evangelical church, the market, some small boutiques, and the medical center. Except for the primary school, we have literally seen all of Farendé.

I will be spending time working with middle schoolers; the plan is to form an English-club, which will be divided into two levels. I'm starting this later today. Should be interesting.

Other than that, we'll also be learning about traditional medicines mostly via interviews. Each homestead has its own medicine tree, which is said to cure a certain ailment. Traditional medicines are a free alternative to western medical practices for the people of Farendé. The younger co-wife of my household uses a traditional medicine to treat hemorrhoids, and on Sunday, we are going to chat with the man who prescribed it to her.

Etc: The boys here all have scars. The scars might be on the face, the arms, the feet, or elsewhere, and they are given to male infants at around the age of 3 months. The purpose of these is to mark what family a boy belongs to. That way, if he is lost, people can direct him back to where he belongs.

The middle school has fields. Students spend part of the day tending the fields so that the crops can be sold to raise money for items like books and chalk. Students have finished their final exams but will continue working the school's fields for the next month.

An extreme hindrance to Farendé's development is the absence of electricity. I talked with one of the women of my homestead about why Farendé isn't yet electrified, even though some other nearby villages are. She said it's because there's a lack of politicians representing the village. This is due, she added, to the fear of jealousy. A jealous person might, via sorcery, place some sort of curse on someone who has succeeded in life by going into politics.

These are some of the observations I've made and some of the thoughts I've been having. Dépaysant is turning out to be a very appropriate title.

More will be posted à la prochaine.

Kara and Beyond

After the brief orientation in Lomé, we headed north on Wednesday. After a long journey (futher lengthened by setbacks including a flat tire, a defunct water pump, and the 10 hours required to get the defunct water pump fixed - on a bien appris qu'il faut la patience en Afrique), we made it to Kara. Since then, we have seen bits of Kara and of surrounding villages, including Farendé and Kuwdé.

Kara is a relatively well-developed city. There's electricity, running water, and an internet café. It's cleaner than Lomé and, overall, seems much more well kept-up. This city received resources because it and the surrounding areas are the homelands of the former ruler Eyadema's ethnic group, the Kabiye. This is the same ethnic group with whom three other students and I will be living.

Farendé. Farendé, a valley-city surrounded by mountains, is a one-hour drive from the big city of Kara. No electricity, running water, or paved roads in Farendé. One other student and I will be living in this village. My homestead consists of 2 cowives (the husband passed away a few years ago, unfortunately), several children, and possibly others; just today I met the two cowives, and they both are very nice. On top of that, they speak good French, which makes them easy to understand. Also on the homestead are plenty of animals, including pigeons, chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep, and goats. My room is lovely; yellow walls, a large bed, a desk, floor space, and a window with some beautiful red flowers just outside. I'm really happy about living here!

If you hike up the mountain just next to Farendé, you will find yourself in Kuwdé, where one student will be staying. Kuwdé is really, really small and is the least developed. Farming is done in terraces which are supported by rocks (Kabiye, the name of the ethnic group, means "pilers of rocks," in fact). The scenery is absolutely beautiful, and it's strange to see palm trees growing in the mountains. We all spent the night in Kuwdé last night after a dinner of rice, beans, pasta, and sorghum beer. Non-fermented sorghum beer tastes exactly like juice. We woke up at 6 AM to the otherworldly funeral song of a tree spirit, whose body, the tree, recently fell. Oatmeal for breakfast, some peanut-deshelling, and a brief bucket bath before the hike back down the mountain to Farendé.

Tout va très bien! People here have done so much to make us feel welcome. A la prochaine.

Hello Lomé

Hello all! Finally I write to you from Togo. I'm sitting in an internet café in Lomé, the capital, and 42 minutes remain until dinner at 19 o'clock.

Transit took 2 days. We had a 13 hour stopover in Casablanca, Morocco during the daytime, which gave the 3 other girls on the same flight and me a chance to see it. Although on the coast, Casablanca was very dry. Everything was printed in Arabic, and much was printed doubly in Arabic and French. 80 to 90 percent of the ladies were wearing at least hidjab. It doesn't seem strict, however; those who weren't covered exposed the same amount skin that I would. Lots and lots of unwanted attention from men, even though all of us were dressed conservatively by US standards. We walked through a labyrinth-like market, where sellers were very interactive and persuasive, and we visited the enormous Hassan II mosque, the 3rd largest mosque in the world. A breathtaking sight.

After Casablanca, we made our way to Lomé, which is right on Togo's coast. We went to an Ibo Pentecostal church service, which was 2 hours in duration, and thus the shortest around. Compared to the Baptist church services I've seen, the Ibo service was very much like a dance party. Ladies were dressed in bright, colorful outfits with regal-looking headwraps, and music was accompanied by drums and a bass guitar.

To describe Lomé briefly, I would use the word underdeveloped. Even though it's the capital and most populous city, the majority of the roads are unpaved. Puddles collect in the roads, so the cars sometimes swim rather than drive.


The view just behind our hotel.

There are chickens, roosters, and goats everywhere. Street vendors and lone sellers carrying trays of goods on their heads can be found on each road. "The market is brought to you," as Dr. Piot put it.


This is a view of the pagne area of the Lomé market. Pagnes are beautiful pieces of cloth of about 1 by 2 meters. They can be used as bedsheets, wrapped around to make skirts, sewn up into outfits, and tied up to make pouches.

The main mode of transportation here is the motorcycle taxi. They are very cheap and tons of fun to ride on, and it's neat how there are so many other motorcycle taxiers with whom to chat at stoplights.

Houses? The urban homestead I saw was a concrete or plaster compound with 3 to 4 bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a paved courtyard. A suburban one had 4 animal pens containing goats and chickens. Outside the pens was a large garden or small farm of okra, corn, and mango trees.

Finally, a bit about the foods I've eaten. Fufu is like mashed potatoes that you eat with your hands and dip into a meat sauce (I had it with guinea hen and peanut sauce). Very filling and delicious. Sorghum beer, which I drank from a calabash (a dried out half-melon shell), has a nice punch in its flavor and leaves a bready aftertaste. I also had bean fritters, which are some sort of legume mashed into balls, fried, and then dipped in a spicy sauce. Finally, I had a Togolese salad. Togolese salads are eaten with mayonnaise as dressing.


Guinea hen on the left, fufu on the right. The yellow piece of plastic on the drink keeps flies out of the cup... It is very necessary.

On Wednesday, 3 others and I head to the North, where we will be living and working in small villages. Next time I write, I will be able to talk about these. À la prochaine!

Prepping... Prepping... Prepping...

10 days until I roll out!

I've been doing what I can to prep in terms of acquiring necessary material objects, learning about the people I'll be staying with, and improving my French. Here's a description of my prep in bullet-list-style:

• Buying stuff. I filled my malaria and traveler's diarrhea prescriptions today. I will take 1 malaria pill each day starting 1 day before I leave and continuing until 7 days after I return. My plan is to never need those traveler's diarrhea pills, but.... the doctor's word is that this plan will go astray. Other than medicine, I got a money belt in which I can put my passport and.. well.. money. Next, I plan to buy a shortwave radio - so that I can stay up to date on world news in the midst of no internet access. Also, it will be super-cool to listen to francophone African stations and the music aired.
• Reading books. I just finished Village of Waiting by George Packer, which is about Packer's experience in southern Togo with the Peace Corps in the 80's. I was warned that this book is really cynical, and indeed, it is. It paints a rather bleak picture of a poor Togolese village, of the struggles an everyday Togolese person faces, and of corruption in African bureaucracy. Packer points out aspects of African life that would make a Westerner uncomfortable, but he does so in a way that forces the reader to understand rather than say something like, "Those savages need to get their act together." For this reason, it was very worth reading. Now I'm working on Waiting for the Vote of the Wild Animals by Ahmadou Kourouma, which is a fictionalized account of the life of Gnassingbé Eyadema, the Togolese dictator reigning from 1967 to 2005. The account takes the form of a transcript of a praise-singer, who sings praises to the fictionalized Eyadema. Lastly, there's Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa by Charles Piot. Dr. Piot is the professor who's taking us to Togo and who has been doing research in the North since the 80's. His book is a source of information on the Kabiye people with whom I'll be staying.
• Practicing French. Communication is pretty darned important, so considering that Togolese speak local languages and French, it's vital that I maintain my French. To do this, I've found some French-speaking people to talk to on Skype. How? I googled "chat français" and found Tchatche. From there, it's easy to find Skypers, so I've been able to speak French rather frequently - without even stepping outside of my anglophone home. Technology blows my mind. In any case, talking with people on Skype in French is really, really helpful. I'm improving my vocabulary, fluency, and, most importantly, my confidence.

Voilà! I think I will be quite ready by the time it's T-minus zero days - ready to have the most interesting summer of my life.

What is this Business?

My name is Anne, and I'm a college kid who's about to go on an 8-week service trip to Togo, West Africa. In exactly 3 weeks from today, I hop on the airplane!

In the midst of uberprepping for departure, I set up this blog so that people will be able to verify that I'm still alive. On top of that, it will serve as a possibly entertaining tale for you and as a personal record for me.

So, where am I going, exactly? Here's a map of Togo:

I'll spend the first few days of the trip in Lomé, the capital, where there's going to be an orientation for the volunteers. After that, I'll head north to a village not far from Kara. This is where I'll spend the majority of the 8 weeks. I'll be going to Kara each Wednesday, when there's a weekly market, and it's on these Wednesdays that I'll have internet access. Finally, I'll spend 3 days or so in Ghana at the end of the trip as a sort of vacation.

What will I be doing? Odds are I'll be doing research on (surprisingly effective) local medicines as well as working with a women's community group. I'm very excited about both of these possibilities. The trip is rather freeform, however, so I may wind up doing something completely different on top of or in place of these activities. We will wait and see.

More to come!