- The “send me mail” page has been updated with my “package wish list”.
- I’m not sure when the next post will be. This time next week I will be en route to a PC training and will be there for a week. Then the week after that, on Good Friday, I’ll be in transit back to village. (Unless I stop in Lomé first to upload photos, don’t know schedule yet.) So in summary, I may get the chance to check my email in the next couple days/week, even if I don’t post anything. I’ve decided to spend Easter in village, not in Agou, but my host family in Agou will be disappointed, so maybe I can go visit them the week after Easter. Easter is making me nervous. I’m trying to figure out how to gracefully pass on some of the activities. It’s going to be like New Year’s – only “more so”.
- Last week I couldn’t find apples to make apple fritters, so I substituted pineapple. I thought it was quite good!
- I hope my cat is okay that I’m going to be gone for a week. I have a feeling he might hyperventilate. Speaking of Coco – last week his foot swelled up to twice its normal size. To make a long story short (but no less gross!), a few days later I removed a LIVING, moving, white “grub” (think the size and shape of a maggot, thumbnail size maybe) that had been living in his paw. My disgust and nausea at this unexpected turn of events didn’t prevent me from taking a photo to prove it… The odd thing is, any Togolese that I tell this to doesn’t seem to be surprised. “Oh yes, that happens sometimes,” they say. “Don’t feed him any more beans.” Um, okay…
- Rainy season is supposed to start soon. I hope. It will arrive (hopefully) sometime in March or April. Already during the day there are storm clouds, but no rain. Right now between 9am and 4pm no one really wants to move (and by no one I mean me). Although I know the heat is much worse up north and in neighboring countries, and I’m lucky that I have nice big windows so I don’t have to sleep outside. It’s just I’d forgotten what non-Harmattan weather was like.
- Lately, I’ve been glad I brought the “10 in 1″ board game set (from Target) even though I didn’t use it much during training. But now in village, I’ve been teaching Justine how to play everything from chess to tic tac toe to backgammon. Part of it is we’ve been staying up later at night to enjoy the fresh air, and there’s only so much conversation we can make before running out of topics. The other night a passerby came over and joined us for Chinese checkers (he caught on quite quickly and delighted in blocking me at every turn).
- I like picking one new Ewe phrase a week and practicing it ceaselessly. Right now my favorites are “Nuka kom ne le?” (What are you laughing at?) and “Ma fa vi” (I’m going to cry). I say the second anytime I don’t like the situation (they’re out of eggs at the market, my drum players didn’t show up for our lesson, etc) and people LOVE it. I say the first anytime someone hears me speaking Ewe and giggles. Then they laugh even harder at the fact that I’m calling them out. My new one is “Va dogbe nam” or Come and greet me. I plan to use it in Vogan whenever someone calls out “Hey come over here.” No, you can come greet me properly. Last night Justine taught me “Nukanti me bu na mo” which is Why aren’t you polite? I plan to use it extensively, mainly with men.
- I mentioned the rabbit project by the school director. Then yesterday, my homologue said he’d always dreamed of raising pigs, and maybe I could find him funding; and then this morning another teacher called me over and asked what I thought about raising chickens. Am I walking around village with “farmer” stamped on my forehead??? I’m starting to get pretty irritated. I think I need to figure out a way to say “I’m here for the kids not the animals.” It’s starting to really frustrate me.
- Last Saturday I was in a bit of a funk and felt really sad at all the people and events I am missing. But, the next time I update it will (probably) be past March 22 – the six month mark of being in Togo. So I’m almost a quarter done, right? Is that good or bad? I hope you guys aren’t forgetting me. Anyway, I think this training (Project Design and Management, as well as the All Volunteer Conference right before) will be good because it’s there that I’m really going to hammer out my projects and make an action plan and come to village feeling motivated. Yay
- I had a marvelous idea. Instead of flipping through People or In Touch, trying to find pictures of clothes that are suitable to a Togolese work environment, I should try to get my hands on the catalogues that fabric stores have! You know, the books you flip through to select your patterns, and then you buy the pattern for the clothes item you’re going to sew. Last season’s catalogues would have been perfect, with the conservative lengths and classic figures. I wonder if Jo Ann’s Fabrics or whatnot have old catalogues they want to give away?
A Woman’s Role (In Togo); or, Why Am I Always Late?
I used to think that sexism here “wasn’t as bad as they said it was going to be”. (Granted, there’re stark differences between regions, rural vs urban, according to wealth levels, etc.) To be sure, men and women interact differently, but that was just part of the culture, right? Then I noticed how often I was late to church or choir practice or meetings.
I’m late so often because I’m keeping Justine company or else directly helping her. In the USA, if church is at 6pm and you’ve been away at the workplace all day, you can order a pizza or put something from the freezer into the microwave to thaw. But here, with no luxuries of refrigeration, microwaves, or ovens, church starting at 6pm doesn’t mean you arrive at 6pm. You arrive when you’ve finished fetching water, starting the charcoal fire, cooking pâte as well as the sauce, finished the dishes, and dealt with any unforeseen interruptions. Then (if the meeting hasn’t already finished), you can go over to the 6pm rendezvous. I don’t think all of this is related to gender inequity – a very small part is the lack of infrastructure, electricity, running water, etc. If these things existed then daily life would certainly be a little more efficient. But the fact remains that, going to get water on Saturday morning (I can carry exactly a quarter of what Justine carries), I saw no men standing around the crowded well. (That’s been another problem lately, they keep shutting off the pumps in village.) It was the women who were losing money because they would late for work due to the line to get water. Girls are more often late for school because of their load of household chores. Men can kick women out of the front passenger seat of a taxi (considered to be a better seat). I’ve seen husbands arrive home and sit around complaining that they’re hungry and why is the wife late, but they’ll wait till she gets home so she can cook for them. In meetings most women tend to be silent, and won’t fight to make their voice heard if a man wants to speak over them. Men get served food and drink first at gatherings. And women are expected to ignore, demurely accept, or secretly be glad at male harassment. (Yesterday I told some of my male students: “Listen, you want to hit on American girls? Here’s what NOT to do – everything you do now, basically.”) It makes me sad when Justine has told me that she’s planning to go to choir practice, or a meeting, but then at the end of the evening shrugs her shoulders and says simply, “It’s too late to go now, it’s finished already.” Sometimes she lets me cook pâte for her so she can leave and go to her meetings.
A week earlier I had attended a meeting with an NGO from Lomé and the directrice was talking to the school teachers about their needs and requests. She made a reference to selfish children growing up and telling their wives to do everything for me. “Go get me water, go cook for me,” she scoffed. In the pause that followed, one teacher piped up (he was quite brave actually, I’m sure most of the others were thinking the same thing): “But that’s women’s work anyway.” In the silence that followed (they eyed the directress uneasily – they wanted her funding and didn’t want to offend her), everyone heard a drawn out hiss of disgust . So did I – and then I realized I was the one who had hissed.
“Why don’t you help your sisters?” I demanded yesterday at the collège. “Why do you let them be late to school?” The boys looked at their feet and didn’t reply.
Motos
Some of you have expressed curiosity (or, in the case of you doubting Thomases, concern for Togolese pedestrians) at what exactly I mean when I talk about motos. Select PCVs in Togo have moto privileges between specific towns due to lack of adequate taxi services. Most villages have a “taxi station” where a group of zemi-jans (taxi moto drivers) sit around all day waiting for business. Here’s how it goes: Signal a moto driver by raising a finger in the air and hissing through your teeth. (Note – this gesture applied to anyone whose attention you wish to attract : school kids, a taxi car, someone on the street you want to talk to, etc.) I love the hiss. The moto driver comes zooming over. Mount behind him, usually from the left, or whatever side the exhaust pipe isn’t on (nasty burns possible if you touch it). Tell the driver your destination, and you’re off. Generally those with a poor sense of balance hold on behind them to the luggage rack. (Technically it’s best to hold onto the driver’s waist or shoulders, but women don’t tend to do this.) Optional : Chat up the driver for the duration of the ride. (I tend to do this frequently.)
When I first got to Togo I thought, “There’s no way I’m using my moto privileges. They look scary.” But now… I have a confession… I LOVE riding motos! I love the scenery and the breeze and the speed and the “bad-ass” factor. In fact, I may get a moto license in the USA and go on a motocycle tour of America. (I’m not kidding.) The only thing from stopping me from taking a moto into Vogan every Friday is the cost – motos cost 700CFA, but a car on Fridays is 350CFA, so I try not to give into this luxury too often!
Some Details on Church…
Mass on Sundays is 2 hours long, in Ewe. When it’s not Lent, this is made bearable by the fact that at the end of Mass we get to shake our booties and dance around. Since it’s Lent (and hence no dancing), each Sunday I’m left feeling slightly cheated.
Most women cover their heads. (This is village-specific; I never covered my head in Agou.) Children who aren’t nursing sit separate from adults, in the front of the church on backless benches. There are three waves of church goers – those who arrive early/on time; those who arrive right as it’s starting, and those come about fifteen minutes into the service (usually women and girls).
There are two collections. One is the normal time before Communion, and everyone gets up and goes to the front to drop their coins in the baskets. (None of this wimpy sitting around while the basket comes pew by pew…) The second time is much more interesting. After Communion, the baskets are brought out again, but this next collection takes a while because it’s by birthday. First Sunday’s children go up, then Monday’s children (that’s me!) give money, then Tuesday, and so forth till all the days of the week have been called out. The music is very festive at this point and we sing and clap our hands and some people (not me) dance while going up to the altar to drop off their coins.
Before church (if I’m on time) sometimes I stand outside with the choir who is reviewing the songs for that morning. The choir mistress is also named Anna, and she is blind. The priest comes about once a month, and if he comes the choir will process in with him, but if he’s not here today then the choir will begin already in church. One person (usually Justine) reads out the lyrics from a hymnal , a phrase or two ahead of the melody, and the choir will repeat after her. After church I tend to return home and have second breakfasts, but sometimes Justine will invite me to a meeting of an association of some sort.
The main reason I’m looking forward to Easter – possibly the only reason – is that I want to see the party that erupts when church goers get to dance for the first time since Ash Wednesday. The evening before Easter (ie, Saturday) apparently Mass will start at 5:30pm . There will be baptisms, confirmations, and at least one wedding. Then “prayer till dawn”. (Me when I heard this: “Ah. Now when you say prayer till dawn, are we speaking figuratively or literally?… I see.”) Then procession round the village at dawn. Then morning mass again from 7am to noon. I’ve been trying to find out exactly when the good parts will occur – “Justine, hypothetically, if I were to leave during the prayer-till-dawn part, and take a nap and return, what time would people start dancing?” All I can remember is how delirious and exhausted I was during the New Year’s mass, and how this will be even more strenuous. Oh well – lots of Nescafé the day before? I’ll let you know how it goes – oh, the lengths I go to for cultural integation. (As well as the word “farmer”, I also believe the word “desperate” is tattooed on my forehead.)
Posted by togolesejourney 
