Samedi, le 18 fevrier 2012
The fact that I am writing to you in English
Already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.
My subject:
How to explain to you that I don’t belong in English
Though I belong nowhere else.
Every once in a while we come across an author, a story that means something real to us. Peace Corps is great for many reasons but one of my favorites is the amount of time I have spent reading stories – items that transport me to my home base. The above lines are borrowed from Junot Diaz’s collection of vignettes “Drown” – a beautiful recollection of Dominican immigrant family social scars assembled in New York and Jersey. I sat here in my bare Togolese home, reading these pages, and thinking solely of my mother’s kitchen and the tempting smell of sofrito. Tengo un deseo por el español que no se me quita.
It’s freaky February (to take a vocab note from Rebekah Chang). It’s hot. After tutoring this morning, I left my house during the hottest part of the day. The sun was hot enough to burn through any inkling of motivation I could have created on a Saturday. Right now, clouds are beckoning but for naught. We won’t have a real rainfall until the end of March. I’m” thrifty” so I’ve chosen not to get a fan or fridge for now. But today, as I felt the skin on my neck melting into my couch, I imagined the glory of an iced tea or even just a gentle artificial breeze from a fan. Everything quiets down (minus the call of prayer) during these interminably warm hours. Movement decreases to an absolute minimum, as people try to exert as little energy as they can. What we must do, we’ll do before 11 at which time we’ll seek the comfort of shade beneath a tree or lie down on our mats. The quiet is punctuated by a relentless child hollering for some attention; the machine to grind corn, soybeans, etc.; and, as mentioned, the call of prayer at 13h00 and 15h00.
“Where people are mistrustful because they’ve been kicked around, they become apathetic” – Jane Jacobs. As Peace Corps Volunteers we work with many “agents of development” as counterparts. In Badou, I work (or have spoken with) a number of well-educated Togolese men and women. Most recently, I’ve been working closely with the two agents of “Affaires Sociales” – social workers. They have a difficult job. They are charged with insuring that social rights are carried out in their communities, e.g. that all children under the age of 15 are put into school. This requires both institutional and financial support from the state, neither of which exists in abundance or even in a sufficient amount. They are underpaid and overworked. Predictably, their sentiments have become sort of corrupted and downcast. I’m always left with this need for Ben and Jerry’s 7-layer coconut ice cream whenever I talk with them about a project. “Chez nous…” or rather “That may work where you’re from, but in “our house” here in Africa, things just don’t work that way.” It’s an ingrained mistrust in the belief that things can change. But I’m getting better at poking, prodding, and getting them to cheerlead. Besides, I witnessed how excited Edmond (one of the social workers) was about permagardening. It takes a renewed faith, not in the system, but in yourself as the most powerful agent in directing the course of your life.
None of this was neither here nor there, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m keeping happy here in Badou J
