Lately, I’ve noticed how much I’ve grown attached to Badou.
Last week Taylor visited me. It’s cool to share your post with a good
friend – makes it feel more like home. We went to the falls; had dinner with a
really special family, who made us fufu with a mushroom and goat stew
(freakin amazing – I wish more Togolese would collect mushrooms); and watched
some TV avec au-village sundaes (involving Fan Choco, bananas, peanuts, and Parle-G crackers) and popcorn. I love that girl’s company.
Fufu, the meal of choice for a Togolese and by association PCVs. First, one boils ignames, nothing like American yams, (in addition to yuca, platanos, or taro). After boiling the ignames, women place them in a large wooden mortar to be pounded into a paste-like consistency. Two people with large wooden pestles consecutively pound into the yams for about 10 minutes - you have to work up the appetite needed to injest about a pound worth of straight starch. The pestles are continuously dipped into untreated water, and I like to believe that since I’ve been here for a year the use of this water no longer has an immediate (operative word) effect on me. There’s nothing that fills the belly like a bowl of fufu.
Fufu, the meal of choice for a Togolese and by association PCVs. First, one boils ignames, nothing like American yams, (in addition to yuca, platanos, or taro). After boiling the ignames, women place them in a large wooden mortar to be pounded into a paste-like consistency. Two people with large wooden pestles consecutively pound into the yams for about 10 minutes - you have to work up the appetite needed to injest about a pound worth of straight starch. The pestles are continuously dipped into untreated water, and I like to believe that since I’ve been here for a year the use of this water no longer has an immediate (operative word) effect on me. There’s nothing that fills the belly like a bowl of fufu.
Chimen and Penobe – some of my favorites. They change between
surprisingly, too-mature-for-their-age, independent young women to silly
annoying school girls. They both prepare most of the meals for the family; help
sell food stuffs in the market; and rent a room for themselves in Badou during
the school week. And they don’t realize how independent and capable they
are. Penobe, 18, has been ‘proposed’ to
by a teacher in her school. The man is married with children. The freedoms that
teachers take in this country with students are one of the most exhausting
things we have to see. If you want more details, email me. All I can do is to
remind her of how young she is; how many other options she has; and how capable
and uncommitted she is right now.
For me, it’s kind of
like having the younger sisters I wanted when I was growing up. They live about
15 minutes outside of Badou, on a small farm. They climb these hills with
simple flip flops, carrying all sorts of things on their heads – from fire wood
to fruit to large silver basins of water; while I fall on my ass with a good
pair of Teva sandals, reminds me of how coddled we are chez nous. Chimen
prepared a meal of pate and sauce arachide for me. I’m swept away by her
generosity and a little embarrassed at my dull reciprocity. I don’t like to
cook so I give her American snacks I get in packages; yet I feel the missing
element of care that is so endearing when I am invited to eat with them. I
watched a storm roll in while I was at their farm, big clouds and creeping fog
over the green mountains – breathtaking. If you get the chance, pay me a visit.
