World Map Etc.

World Map

The next time I’m in Lome I hope to post photos of the World Map Mural project at the collège. The map is halfway done, despite the kids’ having first badly measured the grid (meaning we had to erase the entire thing), and then not paying attention to where they were drawing (hence North America being placed on top of Africa). The project is not exactly as fool-proof as I originally thought it was going to be ; these are not American kids with overwhelming motivation and during the Easter vacation it’s mainly been just me with one or two kids laboring over it….

Justine

Justine has an ovarian fibroma (tumor), as far as I can understand from the French. Which explains why she hasn’t had kids yet. She needs an operation. I’m freaking out. The midwife wants her to go to Afangnan (a good hospital in the Maritime region) but I don’t know when she will go; I’m sure she has to go at least once just to schedule the operation. Who knows how much it will cost (I know that a room alone at the hospital costs $16/day… That’s half of Simon’s monthly salary!) … I told her not to worry about it and we would figure it out but it’s important that she gets it scheduled and then we can find out how much it is and then we can figure it out…..

Easter Play

I’ve been practicing with fifteen little girls for Easter vigil; they are the same ones who did the Christmas play. This time it has been harder because of conflicts with school schedule and also obligations to work in the fields. But, we finally had our first full (to the end!) dress rehearsal on Sunday and I THINK it will all turn out ok, although I don’t think we’ll be able to rehearse again before Easter because I’m on my way up to Atakpame for a Camp Espoir organizational meeting. We’ll see — I made the soldiers spears and a crown of thorns for Jesus and the kids made paper money for Judas’ thirty pieces of silver…. If we can pull it off it will be even better than the Christmas play. But it’s a pretty big IF since the kids keep forgetting that no more than twelve apostles should be on stage at one time, haha…

Fete de Tonu (Tozan)

Back in February was the annual three-day festival on the banks of Lake Togo. I was interesting to reflect on the (inner and outer) differences between this year and last year and everything that has happened in-between.

As with last year much of my experience at the fete revolved around church activites. Unlike last year, there weren’t really any skits of drum playing or traditional dances on the beach – even Togolese kept on saying “Last year was better” or “They shouldn’t have changed the organizing committee.” They didn’t even have the boat races across the lake like they are supposed to. The church-goers did, however, have the lake blessed after a long Mass by the lake, while a tired and hot and hungry PCV hid her ironic glances behind her sunglasses.

“Right! Now that we’re done sprinkling the body of water with holy water, it’s time for lunch, right?” I announced.

“No, no, not yet – we have to march to the road to bless the new crucifix,” Justine replied. She must have seen me flinch. “You stay here and rest. I’ll be back soon.”

I considered. By the lake on the beach was windy and cool, a festive atmosphere. On the other hand, letting Justine out of my sight seemed to be a far worse decision – who knew when she would reappear, and none of her family living on the lake speaks French. Finally we compromised; I left the crowd to buy a snack and, suitably refreshed, made my way down the road to the crucifix which had been completed during the year amid much church drama and village politics. It was far away, but even so by the time I arrived the blessing ceremony continued for another 30 minutes. The crowd shifted on its feet, torn between filial allegiance to their priest and the fact there was no shade and the children were whining to be fed. Sweat ran down my back, my legs, my face. I wondered if I moved if there would be a puddle where I was standing. Before meals and under the African noonday sun is normally about when my tolerance for intercultural exchange and/or religious observance ends.

The afternoon was spent eating rice with Justine’s extended family and generally just people watching. The next day, Sunday, there was no mass in village because there was a mass scheduled at the lake in the afternoon. It should be noted that this year there was a “campaign of evangelization” with preaching and lessons before /after varying masses.

I had work to do, so I promised I would come albeit tardily. But, predictably, when I arrived past 4pm (Mass was supposed to start at 3pm) , nothing had started yet (the priests were late). I muttered a quick prayer of thanks that I’d had the foresight to bring work with me. I pulled it out and roped Justine’s brothers into helping me correct written French in a document I needed to bring to Lomé later that week. I wondered if I could get away with continuing the corrections during mass. I wasn’t ready to go quite that far… but at about 7pm I did finally, for the first time in two years of sitting through countless Masses and religious celebrations in a language that I don’t understand, for hours at a time, snap. I pulled out my novel (wrapped in brown paper to hide the cover – everyone is used to my browsing my English-language Bible when I’m bored, anyway) and blatantly, unashamedly, settled down in my front row seat to read it. Heck, I should have brought War and Peace – I probably would have finished it before mass was over.

The mass turned out to a healing mass. I assumed this meant, like the States, people marching up to the front of the church to get their throats or whatnot blessed. Oh how mistaken I was.

The ceremony turned out to be a combination of Eucharist adoration and a frenzy of speaking in tongues, falling on the ground, and general hysteria. Combined with the fact that it was now past 9pm, dark, I was hungry and tired and increasingly freaked out. Up and down the aisle the priest went with the Host, sometimes snapping his fingers and gesturing at a parishioner who he felt was not gazing with adequate intensity. Sometimes he would put his hand on someone’s head who he felt was in need of healing. Those most affected were picked up by certain volunteers and carried to the back of the tent to recover in peace, sometimes kicking out so violently that it needed two men to transport them there, but their wails and cries and mutterings could still be heard as the evil spirits were expelled. The chaos rose around me like suffocating smoke, and I almost bolted out of the tent. People fell to their knees and swayed with their eyes closed, voices rising up and down in hypnotic scales. There was a six-year-old who had finally succumbed to exhaustion (African kids can sleep anywhere and through anything!) and was using my lap as a pillow, thankfully anchoring me to the bench to keep me from panicking. I kept sane by watching Michel, my favorite “brother”, who was one of the chosen “carriers of people”, and making lists of questions to ask him later (why were the volunteers, for instance, not affected? Answer : They pray beforehand). The hysteria continued for over an hour. I’m unable to describe it adequately , partly because I’ve tried to block it out. That was my first experience with a healing mass (they actually have it once a month in Togoville and people are always inviting me to go) and hopefully it will be my last. There are very few experiences that I deliberately avoid here in Togo, but that was one. I’m a Western Catholic – we tend to frown on chaos. Things are ordered and placed into hour-length time slots and there is rarely a hint of hysteria – prayer is something private to be silently transmitted between you and your God and heaven forbid you disturb your neighbor (or in this case, scare the hell out of her).

It’s all combined – Catholicism with voodoo, love of dramatics with church ceremonies, evangelical Pentecostal-like calling for the spirit while blessing the Body of Christ. All of it intertwined, borrowed and copied from each other, till the lines between the way we worship here in Togo are blurred and fuzzy, separated only by doctrine rather the method of prayer. Hierarchies are well accepted in Togo , and the Church is understood precisely because it follows a hierarchy – the kids coming to catechism lessons every evening (says the school director bitterly, as he sees that less than a quarter of his students are passing their grades), church festivals consisting of prayer sessons from 9pm to 4am, leaving mothers and daughters especially reeling and exhausted the next day as they do their chores, but never, never refusing to go to something at the church, because “c’est necessaire”….