Monday I go away for our IST (In Service Training) so I’ll be gone for a week… back to Pagala ! Then I’ll be back in village for two weeks, and then at the end of May I am going to be a counselor at the Peace Corps girls’ apprentice camps (again, at Pagala) so I’ll be gone for ten days… Looks like May is going to fly by…
Here’re some short updates – I wanted the quality of writing to be a little better, but lately it’s been hard to force myself to sit down and write, so this will have to do for now.
Fete de Premier Mai
Yesterday was May 1 – May Day ! Or, the workers’ day. My village has been planning this fete for over a month, and it’s also a national holiday. All the different workers’ unions bought different pagnes to celebrate. I bought the tailors’ pagne, and Justine made me a complet from it. (So the shirt’s style was not something I would have chosen for myself, but after looking at pictures I don’t think it’s too outrageous, I just have to be confident enough to carry it off. At first I was convinced that I looked like a bird/angel.) For the past two weeks I had also attended the tailors’ meetings where they practiced their skits and fashion show (Justine likes it when I tag along) so by this time I was practically an honorary seamstress myself. The apprentices also seemed to get a kick out of my participation. The last meeting I was at, since I’d been with them for a while I’d picked up on their dance routine and started dancing along and then they called all the apprentices together and yelled at them for not being better and that they should do the moves the way I was doing them.
I bought a chicken and the night before we killed it and cooked it. Poor Felix. May 1 itself was a little chaotic. Justine didn’t get done cooking the food for the tailors’ potluck till a little later in the morning, and then we had to go call on a dead person’s family. The fete was supposed to start at 8 but Justine and I turned up a little before 11 and we were fine. (The unions all met at the dispensaire and then paraded through the village up to the Catholic school grounds to have the games and picnic.) An NGO had chosen this day to do a ’sensibilization’ (campaign) against HIV/AIDS. In theory, a good idea, because everyone was in one place already etc. However, in reality, I personally was disappointed in the decisions the NGO made. I won’t go into details (this time – I want to save space for some more updates) but for example, unions’ activities (ie the tailors’ sketch or the hairdressers’ dances) would be stopped right in the middle and told, “No, come watch this skit on AIDS now”. Due to this happening multiple times, the tailors and apprentices couldn’t even do everything they had practiced so so hard for over the past couple of weeks. This did not help the NGO’s message, because while the message was certainly a worthwhile one, the manner in which they delivered it made many people in the village upset and resentful. It was awkward for me too, because as the “yovo” and “the Peace Corps Volunteer” etc., it seemed like I should be participating in the sensiblization and supporting them; but I had already committed mentally to spending the day with the tailors and other friends. Eventually I left the AIDS skits (which had no microphones, so you couldn’t hear anything, and were in Ewe) to go sit down with Justine and others under a tree. I was hot, tired, and hungry. A villager who had been instrumental in brining the NGO into the village ran past us and snapped, “Why are you all just sitting there when there is an important activity to watch?” I felt like there was really no right action for me to take. Either way I was going to offend someone. Sigh, and you thought life was supposed to be simpler over here… I just felt bad because I could tell Justine (and others) were disappointed in this year’s fete and I know how much time, money, energy, etc., they had invested in it and it wasn’t even their fault. Furthermore, it seemed like there should have been more coordination between the NGO (and their village representatives) and the fete planning committee; several people professed not to know that there was going to be the sensibilization.
I hope this doesn’t mean I’m a terrible Volunteer for siding with the villagers over an NGO and educating people about HIV/AIDS. I think that if it had been organized differently I would have supported the activities full-heartedly; since I saw how offended and resentful several villagers were, I took a different viewpoint. I think village fetes are a great opportunity to share one’s message (I plan to utilize fetes in the future) but I think there is a particular way to go about it (IE don’t take up three hours of people’s time if they hadn’t planned on you being there).
Of Roofs and Roosters
The carpenter was a small, affable man who seemed to have a permanent smile fixed on his face – much like the kind a cat might wear while its taking a nap. Periodically he would call out “Sista Akoele” in a sing-song voice, just to say it. He was supposed to show up at 6am, but didn’t appear till 8am.
“Now,” he said, dropping his tools on my porch, “I’ll just go find Sam [my homologue] and I’ll be right back.”
Then he disappeared for an hour. I stood in the gate of my compound and finally saw him approaching.
He was carrying a chicken and was followed by an old woman.
“Right,” –dropping the chicken in the shade, where it squawked and grumbled indignantly, “let’s get started on this roof.” (My roof leaked badly and I wanted to repair it before rainy season truly arrived.)
Sam showed up a little while later but couldn’t help much because he had to teach at the primary school. He told the carpenter that since he had shown up so late, it was his responsibility to find someone else to help him. Thus it arrived that a few minutes later there was a knock on my gate and another man strolled in (he looked vaguely familiar and I believe he may have been one of my market drivers). He squatted in the shade (much like the rooster, actually) and handed nails and tin sheets to the carpenter on the roof as needed.
A little while later, there was another knock and this time a teenager arrived, the carpenter’s younger brother, also to help. We all stood in what shade we could find, underneath my back wall, and watched the carpenter hammer away. I found a machete and started to hack at the weeds growing after the recent rains, but the younger brother took the machete from me and ended up doing it for me. (Togolese don’t tend to have much confidence in my ability to do simple chores.)
Another knock. This time it was the old woman who had been with the rooster and who had been sitting outside with it. She said something in Ewe and the younger brother told the carpenter, “She wants her money for the rooster.” So that meant another pause while the carpenter climbed down and took care of the transaction. Then he went back up on my roof. I gave water to the two men on the ground (the sun was already extremely hot). Going inside, I looked ruefully at all the dust and splinters now covering my desk and bed and other furniture.
Another knock. Opening my gate, I saw it was the very old man who lives next to Justine, who definitely speaks no French and due to his age barely speaks Ewe – just mumbles key words. He pointed to his eye and then my roof. Apparently, this was big entertainment for him. I let him in and he took a bench and happily sat down to observe the work. I suppose it’s not that different from watching TLC’s “Home Makeover” or something like that.
Finally, a little before noon (in the meanwhile I had been glancing at my watch despairingly, as it had been my day to go into Vogan and I normally left before nine am) the carpenter declared himself finished. The old man from next door looked disappointed that the show was finally over as he hauled himself to his feet. And, making sure they took the rooster with them, I waved goodbye to the four men as they left my compound.
What’s Ewe for “Bring Your Tam Tam”?
“The invitation was very specific,” I insisted. “It clearly stated, ‘You and a few members of your association are invited to an informational meeting at 2:30pm to discuss an improved tontine and how to save money.”
“Well,” said David, peering cautiously round the corner of the building at the ever-largening group, “apparently that’s Ewe for ‘Bring your tam-tam’.”
We had invited representatives of different women’s groups to a general information meeting to present the Village Savings and Loans concept. As we waited for the women to finish trickling in, we noticed a large group of people dressed in pagne and carrying benches and drums. They seemed to be approaching us. They began to set up in the space under the large tree near the youth center. I wondered if there was a village fete I didn’t know about. The drums would certainly interfere with our presentation. I wandered over to find out what was going on. All I got from one woman’s limited French-Ewe mixture was “We’re here to welcome you!” “Oh goody,” I replied, “you know I love tam-tams.”
I went back to our meeting space and reported to David, “They must have been really excited that I’m doing a project. They said they’re here to celebrate us.” David looked a little skeptical.
As the group became larger and larger (it was a folk group with probably over 60 members) we couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. One of the women leaders from the group came to me and dragged me to the group’s leaders. I was a little lost as to what they wanted, when to my relief a teacher from the primary school showed up and he was able to step into the situation. He started to berate the group and finally turned to me and said: “I don’t know how this happened but they thought that the invitation was for their group to perform. So they called everyone together and they’re here to sing and dance.”
“I see,” I said, and stopped. I didn’t know quite how to react. The group’s president handed the school teacher my invitation, and the teacher said to him: “You see, it says quite clearly here that she is having a meeting to discuss women’s savings groups. Why would you think that meant you were invited to perform?”
“Well,” I said, trying to compromise, “I appreciate all the effort you’ve gone to. Perhaps since you’re here you could play a little bit, but I really need to have a meeting soon.”
So we decided they could play and dance to draw people’s attention and then they would have a meeting. But then David and I started to reconsider. We already had about 15 women waiting for us to start the meeting, and it didn’t seem quite fair to make them keep on sitting around just so the group could play tam tams. Furthermore, the school teacher approached me and said gently, “You know, it’s customary to buy the group drinks or give them some money to compensate them for their time; they’ve gone to all this effort.”
They wanted me to pay them – even though they were the ones that had pretty much invited themselves to my meeting and were about to disrupt it! At first I refused (diplomatically), saying that since I hadn’t formally invited them, I hadn’t planned on bringing money with me. Finally the president said he understood and that next time I’d be prepared and that they would sing anyway. But then I saw how the women who were waiting for my meeting were getting a little impatient. “Listen,” I blurted out, “if you guys will wait to sing until after my meeting, I’ll give you a little compensation. Just don’t disrupt my meeting anymore.” (Maybe I didn’t actually say that last part.) “Also” – aha! – “send some of your women from this folk group to attend my information meeting.” So some women came and joined our numbers, and we went ahead with the meeting, with about fifty women in the audience.
Time will show whether our meeting was successful. As we predicted, many people stopped listening when we said there was no outside financial help (and during the questions and answers we were pressured to find funds to help the groups’ start-up capital). But it felt good to present the subject, after preparing for it for so long. (And the dancing afterwards was fun.) For the next couple of days women kept coming up to me and saying “We enjoyed listening to you speak,” and one lady from the church said she was trying to find other people to form a group with her to do the project. So now I think I just need to start following up and talking to people individually.
Posted by togolesejourney 
Posted by togolesejourney 
