PHOTOS : 3 new albums are up!
–World Map Project
–Easter 2009
–Daily Life 2009

Next Friday is 1st May so it is a holiday so I will not be in Vogan, so a new blog post won’t happen till AFTER that.

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”….

Blog post

Blog post

The rains are back, little by little, and the whole village has been waiting them with bated breath (reminds me of the opening scene in the film Lagaan) so that they can plant corn… We had one big rain last week , and, as I type this in Vogan before going to the internet café (if they don’t cut the electricity), it is pouring again. I’m kicking myself for not closing my windows and putting out buckets before leaving village. I’m out of water and so watching all this rain fall is torture knowing I could have collected a lot. And I’m hoping all my things won’t be soaked by the time I get back to village this evening…

Yesterday I started the World Map Project at the collège. Drawing a large squared, even rectangle on the side of a classroom wall was a little trickier than one would have thought, but after 1 ½ hours we finally succeeded, and it is about three quarters of the way painted in with ocean blue as the background. I plan to finish the rest by myself tomorrow, if I can mix up the same shade again! (Shades of AmeriCorps projects…) Next week we will not be able to work on it because the kids have exams, but the following week, we will then draw a huge grid (over 1500 squares) onto the ocean blue, and start transferring the map of the world onto the rectangle. Once it is all drawn in, the fun paint (painting in the countries) will start. My ‘counterpart’ for this project is the History-Geography teacher, who is very excited about the map. Or maybe he’s just excited that I’m paying for the paints and stuff myself… The map, if we do it correctly, will look awesome. I should had taken pictures yesterday; I’ll try to document the project better. It will be really neat especially because many kids have never seen an entire map of the world, or have had to copy a chalk-drawn one from the blackboard. The school director would like us to finish it before the Easter vacation (two weeks after the exams) but I don’t know if we will succeed or not, since I haven’t yet seen how quickly the kids will be able to drawn the map. That’s going to be the tedious part!

On Monday I will start work at a new, third primary school. It is by the lake and this quartier is a lot poorer than the rest of the village; this is the area that suffered from the floods and always has a lot more health problems (ie, many cholera deaths in 2005 etc); because it is also more remote and removed from the village, it doesn’t get the same kind of attention from outside help that the other schools receive. However, it’s been difficult to work it into my schedule because all the primary schools have the same hours free so I can’t be in three different places at once! Since on Monday the kids at the collège have their exams, I won’t be going there in the afternoon, so this is a nice opportunity to spend the afternoon with this third school at Tonu (lake in Ewe). The school is very excited that I’m coming, I have to decide what session to do with them (the kids always enjoy the First Aid one as an introduction, but I’m tempted to start with Hygiene and Safe Drinking Water, as my village doctor is concerned about possible new cases of cholera he has been suspecting this past week).

The bad part about the rains is now everyone goes to the fields in their spare time, so many times I’ll show up a school ready to work and the kids will have been sent to go work in a professor’s field so I won’t be able to work with them that day. This is annoying when it’s hot and I’ve walked thirty minutes to get to the school. It’s tiring having to constantly make the rounds to all the schools asking “OK… are you going to be here tomorrow? Should I come by? Do you promise to be here?” Sigh.

On Wednesday I’m going up to Pagala to assist with the new volunteers’ In-Service Training. Back on Saturday. So no internet next week.

I’ve been wanting to do an Easter play (remembering the success of the Christmas play) but have been slacking on actually organizing it. Also, the Christmas play was easier because the kids were on vacation; now, up till the week before Easter (although I guess we could throw something together then, rapidement), they are in school and when they are not in school they will be helping their parents in the fields. But we’ll see. Maybe we can just do a few practices at the last minute; after all, the Christmas play wasn’t all that rehearsed (three, four times?).

Apparently I was an item on the agenda on the last tailors’ meeting. I was not present, but Justine told me that they were in the middle of discussing their activities and planning their skits and dances for the First of May fete, and one tailor raised his hand and said “Don’t forget about Anna – last year she knew the performance better than the apprentices themselves, and danced with us at rehearsals, but she didn’t dance at the actual show. This year we should make sure she knows she’s supposed to dance at the show too. ” Ummm….

Fika continues to do well. He has yet to ever sleep on my knees or curl up on my lap, but he is always right next to me under my feet. The only time he is affectionate is at night and in the morning before I get out of bed; he sleeps on top of my head and buries his chin in my hair; if I move, he gets up and burrows his nose into my hair again and purrs his heart out. Once I’m out of bed, though, he will not cuddle again until the late evening. He is slowly getting used to Justine – he is a lot less adventurous (or bossy) than Koko, and hasn’t even expressed interest in going into Justine’s house.

Yesterday she scolded me for giving fish to Fika (meat is for humans; if you give protein to cats they learn to steal…) and I said, “But – sometimes you would give the fishheads to Koko!” She drew herself up indignantly. “That is different. Koko was my friend,” she replied with dignity.

Justine and Fika have yet to decide their relationship – she plays with him and gives him food, and this past week he has been shamelessly flirting with her in order to win her over, but before that I think she was mildly offended that he was not instantly obsessed with her like Koko was (Fika won’t come out of my compound if I’m not there). Lately we both have been reminiscing about Koko – Justine will start off: “If Koko were here he would be sitting on my lap while I am making pate….” Or “Remember how Koko would scold us if we didn’t put out his food right away?” But, I think Fika is slowly winning her over; I had to leave him alone last week, and next week I will be up in Pagala for four days so I am sure they will continue to bond without me there…

Photos posted

New photos are up, at the regular link; the album is called “February 2009″ and has pictures of Fika and the festival at the lake…

Goats and Catholics

The goat has been sick for a while – monts and months, with bony hips that stick out showing the hollowness of his sides, and a tumor-like growth as big as his head that hangs from the underside of his belly.

« You know, » Kokoutsé said to Bogavi in Ewe, then translating for my benefit, looking at the goat speculatively, « maybe a charlatan got to him. » The two teenaged boys leaned back and prepared to go on with their game of checkers. I demanded an explanation.

« Well, sometimes the feticheurs want to do something bad to a person. But they don’t know if it will work. So they’ll send the bad thing to affect an animals first, to see if the spell works. »

« So it’s not intended against anyone in our household ? No one is trying to cast a spell on us or anything, right ? » I asked.

Kokoutsé made the deep noise in the back of his throat that means No. We sat in silence.

« Unless…. » he started again. « Unless… sometimes, if they want to send evil onto a person, but that person is a believing, practicing Christian, the evil can’t touch them. So it wil go to an animal instead. »

There you have it – African Catholicism, so deeply intertwined with voodoo and black magic that, unlike the West, Togolese Catholics don’t reject the uncanny and the unnatural. Rather, they believe their God is stronger than other gods or the forces of the voodoo and that the Holy Spirit surrounds them with armour. Forces of good and evil coexist to such an extent that sometimes you cannot tell where one ends and the other finishes, and you are forced to merely trust that as long as you have done your duty and gone to church with a calm and believing heart, then God will figure out the difference for you and prevent devils from touching you….

back in africa

Requiem

And then lying in the darkness, surrounded by the mosquito net through
which was seeping the African night, the open window letting in the
loudness fo the quiet hour, I remembered what I had forgotten – how in
the utter stillness you can feel the cold reality of your solitude
penetrating to your bones. That this is the challenge, the burden,
the load to bear.

Adieu Akoko (Introducing Fika)

Two days before I left, Koko wandered off. This did not worry me too
much, because he occasionally did this, always returning after one or
two days. But upon my return to Togo and to village, Justine told me
Koko had never come back. Around the same time, the chief’s cat, the
school director’s cat, and the midwife’s cat all went missing too.
This being Togo, the chances of Koko coming back are pretty slim, and
I can only hope that the hungry hunters who caught him killed him
quickly and mercifully. I miss his rascally meow and his complete
certainty in his own importance, sitting on Justine’s knee while we
cook dinner or begging underneath the table for scraps or waking me up
at 5am to come back into the house. He had such beautiful green eyes
and long whiskers and full tail.

In the States, you don’t normally rush out and get a new pet right
away on the death of the previous pet, but this is Togo, where
companionship from animals means an extraordinary amount to lonely
Volunteers. So now I have a lovely little grey tabby kitten, still
with blue eyes, now scampering around my house. I’m probably going to
call him Fika (‘where”) because the first 24 hours I thought I lost
him because he hid himself so well. He has yet to learn that his job
is to cuddle, and spends his time pouncing on anything that moves. He
is the most playful cat I’ve ever seen, turning somersaults, stalking
big toes, leaping through the air to catch a wiggled finger. I can’t
even shine my flashlight on him because he gets so distracted hunting
the shadows. (I almost want to call him Shadow — Vovoli in Ewe).
Now if we can only get him to sleep on my lap or underneath my chine
like Koko did… In a whole week, I’ve only ever seen him sleeping
once! I thought kittens were supposed to play, play, play and then
konk out?

Homeleavings and Homecomings

The flight back to Togo was relatively good. At the last minute they
bumped me from the flight to JFK and sent me to Atlanta. In Atlanta I
sweet-talked the Delta agent into changing my seat to an aisle seat
with two empty ones next to me, so the long flight to Paris was pretty
comfortable. (And this time I was dressed for the weather, unlike
when I left Togo…) On the flight from Paris to Lome I made friends
with a nice French boy and I was relieved to find out I hadn’t
forgotten any of my French. We spent most of the flight chatting,
except for two hours when I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
Once in Lome aeroport, the hot humidity slapped my face when I got off
the plane. My bags took forever and I thought they had been lost
again (especially since they had been checked originally to go to
JFK). As soon as we landed in Lome I felt very comfortable in my
surroundings and back at ease. Paris was merely a place where I
happened to speak the language but Lome is where I know the elaborate
social dance steps of protocol and ritual and flirtation that I know
so well; the guards take the time to ask about your trip and everyone
is ready with a joke and everyone is yelling out greetings in Ewe….

Becka was waiting for me at the hostel (thank God for awesome friends)
and the next morning we went out to Vogan where I took one last
shower, one last time before going back to being continually sweaty
and glowy … I found a taxi to rent back to village. Justine was
waiting for me, followed in quick succession by Simon, and Viale, and
Michel, and Emmanuel, and Kokoutse. And Adjo and Akou who screamed
and flung themselves at me and wouldn’t let me go. And whose eyes lit
up when I gave them their jump ropes. Merci merci. Akpe akpe.

So I was in the States for a month. How long a time and how short a
time it seems! I wonder if people think my being there was a dream.
Sometimes I wonder that too. But I have my photos and the videos and
all the lovely presents I brought back and the tools for work (I
already started teaching the kids how to play baseball and all the
French flashcards are being put to good use in English club!). The
first week was difficult because of jet lag and getting used to
Togolese food again (had to use the latrine at night for the first
time!) and missing my sisters.

While in the States, I went to a specialist about a gum infection that
started in September. By this time it had spread to my sinuses and
was pretty serious leading to bone loss. I ended up having to have
surgery on it and hopefully it won’t happen again. Thank goodness for
small blessings that I was in the States and was able to get this
taken care of before it got any worse. Ironically the medication made
me more sick than I’ve been in Togo.

I was also touched by the pleasure of many (mainly old) women in the
village who were excited to see me and came up to hug me hello.

I’m still processing the return and couldn’t put down everything. In
the next coming weeks I’m sure I’ll have some interesting
observations.

 

A Christmas Story: Part I

 

“Justine,” I announced a week before Christmas, “I have a great idea!”

            Justine put down her sewing and looked at me expectantly, albeit with an obviously wary suspension of judgment. She’d heard me say these words before, always pronounced with a dramatic flourish of arms and a deeply felt conviction in the sheer genius of the my plans.

            “Can’t the little kids put on a Christmas play when they have their recital at the church on Christmas Eve?”

            Justine’s face lit up, while in her eyes monetarily flickered relief that the brilliant idea did not, as it had on past occasions, involve a proposition to dig a pool in my yard (she convinced me to abandon this idea after pointing out that the sun would heat it to uncomfortable and even unbearable temperatures) or to train her goats to pull a cart (it’s hard to explain this idea when only one of us has watched Heidi.)

            “Oui!” she said, drawing the word out in a low whistling tone, which is her manner of acknowledging something she really likes.  She enthusiastically applauded as I hastily acted out what every American child probably knows by heart:  the Nativity play.  “They are practicing this afternoon in the church courtyard.  Go tell Theo what you want to do and you two can see if it can be done.”

            I found the courtyard full of noise and movement, the drums that I enjoy so much urging the dancers’ bodies on and on, movements that sometimes seems to use muscles that I didn’t even know were so minutely controllable. The youth of the church were gathered here to practice – the 6 year olds on up through the 19 year olds, along with the obligatory gaggle of infant siblings given over to their sister’s car this afternoon, and neighborhood little ones who had simply shown up just to watch.  When there is no TV, anything is a break from the mundane. The kids were practicing their “ballet”, the French word they use to describe their traditional dances performed at church fetes. They were all wearing whatever they had dressed themselves in this morning, but I knew that the night of the performance, the boys would dance shirtless with pagnes wrapped around their waists, and the girls would dance in a single pagne with a cord holding it over their breasts and another one wrapped like a sash around their waists.

            Those who noticed my appearance greeted me politely and with some pleasure, but no great stir occurred.  After a year here, they take it for granted that I too have every right to meander over and watch the fun.

            A snag occurs in my brilliant idea. (Both the brilliant ideas and the snags seems to happen to me a lot in Togo.)  When it is time to put my thoughts into practice, I find myself looking at teenagers’ faces, my students from last year at the collège.

            “No, no,” and I grab at Akou, my twelve year old favorite little  sister, to stand in front of me. “I want kids like Akou.  I wanted Akou to be the Virgin Mary.”

            But it is a hard battle, and  a losing one at that. Dismissively waving their hands at Akou, les grands shout down my insistence. Soeur Anna, you can’t be serious.  Les petits ne peuvent pas maitriser comme ca. There’s no way they can learn what you want them to do.  Let us do your scène. The little kids just won’t be able to handle it.  Anna, just trust us…

            So we practiced with the les grands.  It did not go as smotthly as I would have assumed.  They were inclined to wander off into a corner to practice other plays they were going to perform, and to add many minutes of ad-libbed lines to even the simplest of dialogues.  (How do you stretch “Is there any room at the inn?” into a five minute monologue?)  They also struggled with French comprehension – mostly likely because they weren’t really paying attention – and Justine , who showed up later, was obliged to repeat my directions in Ewe and even demonstrate for them.

            “I thought you wanted the petits,” Justine said over dinner.

            “I did! I do!  But les grands refused.  They said the little ones couldn’t do it.”

            But Justine was not accepting of the teenagers’ desire to hog the spotlight.  She mad it clear that I had allowed myself to be browbeaten.  “Anna, it’s up to you to decide.  You can at least try once and see if they could do it.”

            Thus it was, two days later, when les grands didn’t show up for rehearsal, that Justine and I stage a coup d’etat against the culturally ingrained idea that hierarchy should be religiously followed, that anyone older always has authority over you, and that little ones should be seen (or sent to do errands) and not heard. We gave Akou and Adjo this message: “Go select any of your friends you want, ask them who wants to be in a play, and bring them to Anna’s house at two o’clock on Saturday.” It was rather like the Angel Gabriel sending the shepherds proclaiming in the streets of Bethlehem.

            I didn’t actually have that much hope for Saturday.  I can barely get adults to show up on time, let alone a group of eight- to twelve- year olds who also have to finish their chores and lack the authority to tell their mom that they have to leave now or they’ll be late.  But at two thirty, looking out from my compound, I saw Akou and a friend running towards my house.  “We’re coming! We’re coming!” they yelled.  I have never, ever, seen anyone running because they are late for an appointment.  They pulled up before me, panting.  “Did the others show up yet?  No? Okay, we’ll be right back – we’ll go round them up at the church.”

            And five minutes later, I had a group of kids sitting on my porch, poking each other and giggling and flushed with the excitement that they were going to get to be in a play.

 

            I think that is what I liked about the whole experience – the sheer joy and pride that the kids had that they were selected, even wanted, for this play.  Later, on Christmas Eve during the traditional dances, I would spy Adjo throwing a tantrum and the next day ask Justine about it.  Les grands had, at the last minute, said that only the teenagers would be dancing for the audience, including many who had never shown up to rehearsal but now wanted to take the place of the little ones who had religiously come and been allowed to practice in their stead.  “But Justine, that’s not fair!”  “I know,” she said, her eyes flashing with indignation.  “Mais c’est comme ca qu’ils font.  Ils sont mechants. They are not nice.  They did that last year too.  If I had been there I would not have allowed them to do that.”  And so I would be glad that at the very least, the little kids had had their own starring moment and gotten to do a play (which les grands ended up doing no play at all).  After Christmas, getting out of a taxi returning from Vogan, I was met by a group of my Nativity kids who enthusiastically greeted me and all carried my stuff to the house for me.  “Of course they would,” said Justine when she heard about it.  “Les petits sont comme ca. They know you were the only one who wanted to work with them.  You’re their mama now.”

 

 

To be continued….

In the States

In America!!! Blog posts (including Christmas) coming soon…. I’m on vacation for a month!

Christmas photos!

Christmas photos are uploaded!! It is the album titled “Christmas in Village 2008″.

More pics…

And another album is up! It’s titled Swear In 08 (the new gee / nrm stage)