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.