Wesan-lo!

10 octobre 2011:

That much Ewé I do understand – Welcome! Whenever you are arrive somewhere, even if it’s your own home, people greet you with these words letting you know they are grateful you arrived well. You respond, Yooo, thanking them for their acknowledgement.  So wesan-lo October! Thank-you for the rain showers and clean notebooks.The school year has started and students as young as 4 and as ripened as 21sport the khaki uniform of public school. I walked past the lycée on the first day of classes and saw what appeared to be the whole student body working on grounds’ maintenance. Kat and the Social Worker we were with explained how maintaining the school is very much a part of public education in Togo. This was unexpected for me. My comrades in high school had to be reminded not to leave cigarette ash on the toilet seats in our bathrooms, let alone mow the school’s lawn.  The kids sit for classes in the mornings and then every so often are required to do manual labor in the afternoons.

My stage is preparing for a week at In-Service Training (IST) at the end of October.  November 6 will mark the end of the first three months at post – yet another stripe of PCVism. I’m looking forward to spending a week with my fellow stagaires. They quell my mounting anxiety, which can be only partially ascribed to malaria drugs. We’re to present the work we’ve done with PACA and a report on our site that enumerates the demographic, physical, and social details of our current residence au Togo. True to form, I’m just getting started on these.I might take a trip down to the beach afterwards to check out Lucian’s swanky pad and wave at the ocean.

During this past month I hope I’ve become a real person to those I live with – something more than a <<voluntourist>>. Sharing a meal validates you in a way that no SWOT session ever can. My neighbors invited me to dinner a couple weeks ago. I was happy to receive the invitation – going home to a solitary meal can be harsh sometimes. And while I hadn’t gained much appreciation for Togolese cuisine during training, I sincerely enjoyed the pate and ademe sauce that was prepared. It’s proven true that eating with your hands makes a meal of pate taste better. I ate inside their small room with dad and a brother from Lome – mom, as is irksomely customary, sat outside. The meal was spent with everyone urging me to eat my body weight in pate – thanks, but it’s not everyone that enjoys the paralyzing bloated belly that accompanies a large Togolese meal. By material standards, they are a poor family. The three live in a space about half the size of my living room.  The parents are still students – although only mom is attending high school now. Dad continues to study in hopes of passing the BAC exam at the end of May. High school students need to pass this national exam in order to progress into university.  They have both failed to do so three times, but yet the motivation remains. They have a three-year old son named Eve who pays me a daily visit. Sometimes we’ll sit on my stoop and share a few bananas.

Ahh, my constant supply of bananas! Someone is always handing me a bunch, a cadeaufor a new amie. I have become friends with a young girl named Chimen (not the same as my neighbor).  Her family lives in a village about a 15 minute moto ride outside of Badou. She spotted me in the marché one day and asked if she could pay me a visit. On one of my biweekly trips to Atakpame, she dropped a note by my house telling me she had some cassava to give me. Upon my return, she paid me another visit with a bag full of cassava and bananas.

You realize I live by myself and that there is no way I can eat half of this before it goes bad? I told her. She laughed and said that I needed to eat more.

 A person needs to eat upon every hour, being hungry is not good, she replied.

 So we prepared one of the 5 large cassava (manioque) she brought me. We fried it in small pieces and ate them like fries, with ketchup and mustard, à la Togolaise-American. I ended up giving the rest to my neighbors.

I was invited to have brunch at her house last Sunday. I took a moto out of Badou and after about 10 minutes we ran into a girl who pulled my driver over.

Chimen sent me to pick you up, she told me.

Alright, I said. Where is it exactly that we’re going?

Oh, we just need to walk a little further.

Knowing all too well that <<a little further>> means something very different to Togolese, I asked her to be a little more specific. She told me the house was about a kilometer up the mountain. Well then, I’m glad I’m wearing my Tevas.The climb was beautiful – you could see far out onto the surrounding mountain sides, many of whose forests remain untamed. I felt like a hobbit, walking along the mountain.

When we finally reached the compound, I was drenched in sweat thinking regretfully about the half liter of water I’d brought with me.  Chimen was still preparing the meal so I sat with her uncle for a little while. Like many farmers, the man spoke not a word of French so our conversation was composed mainly of smiles, nods, and pointing… then silence. The compound consisted of three mud structures – two for bedrooms and one as a kitchen. The family cultivates their own food. Alongside the compound grow a number of fruit trees – banana, orange, guava and mango. They produce cacao and coffee to sell.

Most Togolese cook with charcoal over clay stoves.Chimen prepared pate with sauce arachide (peanut sauce). She also wanted to make noodles, as a safe backup if the pate disagreed with her guest’s tastes.  I told her that the full plate of pate in front of me was more than enough. And it really was – I kept eating despite the growing discomfort around my waistline.  Afterwards, we visited her neighbors, who offered me fufu. I told them I had just finished a big meal of pate chez Chimen. Well, yes that was pate and now you eat fufu with us!Insert nervous laugh...In the end, they accepted my refusal to fufu but there was no escape from sharing a calabash of local brew with the fam. Chuque – fermented palm juice or something. Anywho, considering I was somewhat dehydrated to begin with I ended up offering most of my calabash to the dirt floor. I came back home with a full belly, thoughts of a good friendship, and very tired from a day that started off with an ambitious run, in anticipation of a big meal and no knowledge of a mini-hike.