Update

Bonjour mes amies!

I have been absent from blogosphere for awhile.  There were a sequence of events which prohibited me from blogging.

Sequence of Events (also known as excuses)

•  Bought an Internet key in Lome for 30mil (which is about $60 U.S. dollars) which allows me to get online from almost  anywhere in Togo (when it works)

•  Internet key was stolen from me at the Peace Corps Headquarter one week later.  Such a disappointment on so many levels.

•  Bought another internet key for another 30mill (another $60 U.S. dollars) 

Sidebar:  None of this as easy as it sounds.  (Because of course, "Nothing is Easy in Togo!") It's not like I just jump into the car and go buy another one,  I have to walk about six blocks in the sand and blazing, hot sun to the main road to catch a Taxi to go Togocel headquarters.  I have to negotiate with at least one and sometimes 3 or 4 taxi drivers until I get a decent price for the taxi.  When he drops me off at Togocel I am accosted by at least 5 men all trying to sell me a knock-off internet key.  I don't even have one foot out the taxi door and they surround me and are yelling at me and waving literature in my face.  I get inside Togocel wait and wait and wait in a long line.  I get my key and I do all of this in reverse.  I did all of this twice now!

•  Couldn't get the second inteternet key to work....and was on my way to Atapkeme for a conference.  Took the internet key to the AtapkameTogocel office. Arrived at 2. 

Sidebar:Unbeknown to me the office is closed until 3 for (repose) afternoon rest.  I peered in the glass door and saw a woman employee napping on the floor.  No luck.  I sat on a rock for an hour in the blazing sun waiting for them to open the office.  They were able to install it and it appeared to be working, but they did scold me for knocking on the door during repose!

• My computer crashed the same day  (there was no bridge to throw myself off of)

• Ordered a computer online with the help of Eric (my son) and Emily (my daughter) and Ryan a Peace Corps Volunteer,  The computer was shipped to my friend Kittie and she brought it to Paris where I was to meet her and Pat for a seven day vacation. (I'll blog about Paris later) Ok, ok, ok...you wonder now why I'm complaining.

• Enjoyed seven blissful days in Paris with friends...hot showers, great food, ice, cool weather, good wine, great conversation and lots and lots of laughter!

•  Upon return to Lome, PCV Lyle installed windows office on my computer.  Works like a charm!

•  Still needed to install the internet key, so a couple days after I returned from Paris I went to Taglibo to get internet key installed. 

Sidebar:The man who worked in the Togocel office #1 did not have electricity, and #2 could not get an internet connection,  He was a very friendly chap though.  Told me all about his family, and how he'd like to learn english.  When I asked him what I was supposed to do, he suggested I visit my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Solomon who lives in Taglibo.  "Maybe he can help you," the Togocel employee said.

• I walked six blocks in the blazin, hot sun and sand (this is beginning to sound like a pattern) to Solomons house.  He was home, and he graciously installed my internet key.

• The computer and the internet key is working great now, but I still have not been able to get caught up because the computer only stays charged for about two hours.

Sidebar I'm happy, I'm happy....but still not quite there yet.   Daily I am buying minutes for the Internet Key and daily I am bikeriding down to the main road to charge my computer battery....And daily, hourly I am watching the clock...tick tock, tick tock the time away. 

• Have been working with several people in Tchekpo to get electricity installed at my house (CTGTE) or Committee to Get Terry Electricity (and shut her up!) 

Sidebar:  Aha!!! my dad was right!!!  The squeaky wheel does get the oil!!

•  The wiring went up yesterday, should have electricity by next week.

Sidebar:  One full day of three Togolese men in my house (and a few of their children) wiring it.  They appeared to know what they were doing???  However aesthetics was not on their agenda.

• At that time I will have the ability to charge my computer, to get online (unlimited access - no more clock watching) and to have light and most important.....a fan!

No more excuses!

Progress!  It's exciting!

Pies For Eyes

7:30 AM

On Saturday, March 19th we had an Eye Clinic Day in Tchekpo, Togo.  Our little staff of five volunteers saw over 200 people.  We fitted over 130 men, women and children with eyeglasses.  We identified over twenty cases of glaucoma and or cataracts.   People; young and old, lined the halls from 7:30 in the morning  until 5:30 that afternoon.  We examined every single person who came that day.

Pies for Eyes…This project was so named because the kids at Shawnee Mission High School in Prairie Village Kansas, under the direction of SHARE Director (and my good friend) Pat Kaufman  sold pies to pay for the shipment of the over 200 pairs of eyeglasses the  high school collected for the people of Tchekpo.  SHARE is a program that teaches High School kids the importance of volunteering, and matches projects to kids who are interested in volunteering.   The Peace Corps being the ultimate example of volunteerism, Pat thought this would be a good project for her group.

We began the Pies for Eyes project in October.  Over six months ago the wheels were set in motion.   It began with me letting Aloughba (my Tchekpo community partner) use my reading glasses to look up a translation in the dictionary.  She had been frustrated that she couldn’t read the words and then astonished that she could see them so well when she put my glasses on.  I relayed this story to Pat Kaufman and told her that I thought there was a great need for eyeglasses here in Tchekpo.  One sentence, that’s really all it took…..pat wrote back with a plan to collect and ship glasses to us. 

Lt to rt - Rachel, Jon, Mathew, David

All through this project I have encountered people who wanted to help.  I would receive emails from people I didn’t even know who strongly identified with the project because they had dramatically experienced the difference glasses had made in their lives.  There was absolutely no effort on my part to keep this project in motion.  No begging people to help, no recruiting reluctant people.   The project flowed effortlessly.  I myself had many doubts that this could really even work.  There were too many unanswered questions, too many obstacles.  Whenever I would have doubts there would be someone at my side who had no doubts…..so we would proceed slowly, until eventually all the i’s were dotted and all the t’s were crossed.  Over 200 pairs of glasses had been collected, shipped and had arrived in Tchekpo.  We found a doctor and nurse who would donate their time to measuring and labeling all the glasses.  They also agreed to work and administer the eye clinic day.  We had people collecting lists at churches and schools identifying people who needed glasses.  Aurelia, the Peace Corps Nurse Practitioner in Lome was a big supporter of the project and as busy as her life is, she volunteered her time and energy in working to find technicians to help.   It was the most organized effort I had experienced in Togo, much less Tchekpo. 



Claude - Our Doctor from the Tesvie Hospital



I didn’t anticipate that the Pies for Eyes project would be a huge deal.  I thought maybe if we could help a few people see a little better it would be a good thing.  When Aloughba tried my glasses on that day, I immediately identified with her frustration.  I know how painful it is for me to try to read without my glasses.  I quickly jumped from there to an awareness that there must be so many people here whose life would be a little easier if they could see better.  Pies for Eyes was a little side project that just had an energy of it’s own.  It took me along, instead of me taking it along.  This project didn’t save lives, or eliminate poverty, and suffering.  It was just a little, tiny gift that would make peoples lives easier, happier.  You can almost follow the trajectory path.  Imagine a feather hovering over Aloughbas’s head when she tried on my glasses and could see…..then an idea fluttered to me, and then Pat Kaufman, and then the kids at Shawnee Mission and all the other people who helped collect glasses.  The feather starts to rotate and the energy around it becomes stronger and faster, then back to Tchekpo to the nurse and doctor who immediately said yes they would help.   Back and forth from David who helped organize the day with Mathew the Tchekpo clinic director.  And Rachel...I met Rachel in a Bush Taxi one day on my way to Lome.  On the way we struck up a conversation; cemented a friendship and I had her down for Eye Clinic Day.   "For where two or three are gathered together in my name……."

I am not a student of the bible.  I hold onto a very few passages that strike me as being key to a universal truth.  I also tend to give them my own interpretation.  One such passage is:  Mathew 18:20  "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"  (King James version)  I will occasionally ponder this passage.  I innately believe this philosophy as being true and logical, interpreting it as meaning there is a force of energy that can manifest and allow anything to happen when people come together to do something good just for the sake of goodness.  Anything is possible at these times.   Miracles.  But more importantly it is possible to feel the spirit of God at these moments.   To understand the meaning of life, to experience the aha moment, at a level without thoughts.  Just feelings.

Claude, David, Rachel, Dove - The staff

And so it was in Tchekpo, Togo on the day we had our Eye Clinic.  This was a day that I felt an energy swell up in myself and my colleagues through a collective and pure force of goodwill.  It was more satisfying than any drug, or any amount of money.  It was addictive.  I would want to duplicate the feeling.  My collegues, I know felt the same way.  They each texted or called me, several times after our day had ended,  just to tell me how happy they were, and that they wanted to do this again.  No other explanation was given.  I could feel their joy.

We had done everything we could think of to be ready for our eye clinic day.  Hundreds of people in Tchekpo were ready.   I wasn’t ready though.  The night before, I felt disaster looming.    I wondered if anyone would show up.   I wondered how we would really be able to determine who needed which glasses.  I wondered if and how the doctor had gone through over 200 glasses…measured them and labeled them.   I wondered if he would show up.  I wondered and worried, and worried and wondered.  I just had this feeling that fitting eyeglasses was too much of a science for us to be able to really do this effectively, and I knew by now that both the workers and the potential recipients expectations were very high.   I didn’t sleep very well the night before, and when I woke up I felt a kind of foreboding.  That feeling completely went away when I entered the Tchekpo clinic.

Even the Chief and his Wife got new glasses!

The Doctor was scheduled to arrive at 9:00am.  We had told people who wanted glasses to start coming at 8:00am.   When I arrived at 7:30am there were over a hundred people waiting, quietly, patiently, expectantly.  Adjowa, they said to me…Adooooooowahhhh is how they say it.  They always say my name with a little sense of humor to it.  Kids and adults alike.  Adoooooowahhhhhh.  Their eyes met my eyes as I walked down the hall.   I stopped occasionally to shake the hand of someone I knew.  I went into the examination room and greeted Mathew, the Clinic director.  Mathew is a very serious young man who cares deeply about his clinic and about the health and welfare of the people of Tchekpo.  Adoooooowahhhhh he said shaking my hand and smiling.  Adjowa, this is a great day!  The Chief and his wife came early, and greeted many of the people waiting.  They were excited and set an example by having an exam and getting glasses for themselves.  The Chief was visibly happy about this event.  I have seen over time how much he really cares about the people of Tchekpo.

All day long..person after person would come into the room where we gave the eye exams.  Dove wrote down the name of each person we examined.  Rachel, the nurse would ask a series of questions to determine which eye exam to give them…and Claude the Doctor would proceed to give an eye exam.  After we found the best match of glasses Dove would then record the strength of the glasses we had given out, next to their name.  We started the day with a little twelve year old girl; Leah.  Leah lives around the corner from me.  She is the daughter of a Gendarme (policeman).  He and his wife have three children and they are such a sweet family.  Her father told me on numerous occasions that his daughter was having a lot of trouble with her eyes, and that she couldn’t study.  They had taken her to a doctor in Lome, had a prescription for some glasses, but could not afford to buy them.  We gave our own eye exam to her.  We were able to match her prescription with some glasses we had collected.  She was our first patient.  She could see.  Her parents were so happy and relieved.  After that; one by one people filed in.  It was so fun to see the look on their faces as they tried on glasses and could see better.  I had thought that the reader glasses would be the easiest to fit and that they would just end up being the most beneficial, but we found that the thick, coke bottle-like glasses were often extremely helpful to really old people who hadn’t been able to see much of anything for maybe decades.  They were the most fun to watch.  We’d do the eye exam and try on a couple really thick glasses and you could just see them being able to see things they hadn’t seen in a very long time.  People left very happy, very excited.

A good days work - the entire staff

I went home near the end of the day and prepared some food for the workers, and brought it back to the clinic.  I sliced bread with peanut butter and honey.  In addition someone had sent me tortilla chips and salsa in a care package.  I had been waiting for the perfect occasion.  This seemed to fit the bill.   We were all ravenously hungry, and ate everything in a few minutes.  They loved the tortilla chips and salsa.  It was quite a treat for them.   We were all in a very good, festive mood.  Exhausted but exhilarated.  We gathered out in front of the clinic for one last picture…..and then to our respective homes to contemplate the days events.


David and Rachel - They worked SO hard


Some moments in life are so beautiful and so pure that the presence of God or the presence of a power greater than ourselves becomes indisputable.  Most, if not all of us have been lucky enough to experience moments like this.  These moments of revelation cannot be planned and seldom do words do them justice.  Rather than a destructive force of a tornado or hurricane this energy comes from  collective action and thoughts of good will.  This day helped us and the people of Tchekpo to see and experience the world a little more clearly.  A collision of unselfish and loving actions that gathers momentum.  It is powerful.  A truly perfect storm, one might say.

My thanks to all the people who helped and were part of this energy.  Especially to Liz DeBacker, Pat Kaufman and the students of Shawnee Mission High School in Prairie Village.

La Femme Groupement Marche Association

Tesvie Market

This and That About Village Markets

Every Monday (chaque lundi) is market day in Tchekpo.  Each village has a specific market day and each market sells a little bit of everything, but each village has a specialty.  Tesvie’s market is on Friday’s.  It’s one of the biggest in the prefecture (county.)  Tesvie has everything.  The market is huge, and people come from far away to buy and to sell.  Tesvie’s specialty is it’s bread.  They have sucra (sweet) bread and salle (salt) bread.  I love their bread.  My preference is Salle bread.  I buy at least two loaves a week.  I usually don’t buy my bread at the market.  I almost always buy it from a vendor on the main road as I’m leaving Tesvie.  The woman I buy my bread from is a big, robust, friendly woman.  She knows me now.  It’s a pleasureable moment when I see her.  She smiles and her eyes light up when she sees me coming.  Just for me, she pulls the loaves from under the table.  Under the table is where the freshest bread is kept.  Occasionally she will give me a cadou (a

 gift) of a free loaf of bread.  She’ll throw an extra loaf in the sack, look at me and smile, and say, "a cadou…for you, mama.”  There are at least twenty or thirty bread sellers along the main road.  They sell to people going to and from Lome.  Practically everyone who travels anywhere in Togo drives on this road.  Probably a hundred bush taxis a day drive by.  The bush taxis are conditioned to slow down at this fork in the road, and five to ten bread vendors charge the taxis….pushing their loaves of bread in every open window.  Most passengers have their money ready to buy.   Friday is the biggest day for the Tesvie bread vendors because of all the people who travel into town to go to the market.

Ahepe is twenty minutes east of Tchekpo.  Ahepe’s market is on Tuesday.  It’s a smaller village and it’s market specialty is fruit and vegetables.  Taglibow, another thirty minutes to the east is a large village, and has a large market.  It has the best Salle bread.  It tastes like sour dough bread from San Francisco.  Taglibow also specializes in batik fabric.  Handmade, tye-dyed.  Beautiful.  Another thing I like to buy in Taglibow is their avocado sandwiches.  It’s street food, but it’s so good.  Basically it’s guacomale on their Salle bread.  There are a half dozen other villages within an hour of Tchekpo…all with different market days and times.  There’s one village (Zafi) that has only a night market on Thursdays. 

Tchekpo Market (selling Piemont)

Tchekpo is best known for it’s palm oil.  It’s made from the cassava plant.  Farmers in Tchekpo grow a lot of cassava.  Every morsel of it is used for something.  It’s a huge potato looking vegetable, about five times bigger than a potato.  Primarily it is used in the making of Sodebe.  The local liquor.  I was told that the Sodebe sold in Tchekpo is the finest liquor in all of Togo, Benin and Ghana.  Well that’s what the people in Tchekpo say.  They export their Sodebe all over Western Africa.  The making of palm oil is a time intensive, completely non-automated, very messy process.  It’s also a bit dangerous when they cook it.  Combustible. The family compound down the road from me had an explosion since I’ve been here. The compound exploded while they were processing the Sodebe.  It flattened the entire compound, leaving the family homeless.  Luckily and miraculously no one was hurt.  Tchekpo also specializes in growing and selling piemont….a very hot and spicy pepper.  You can’t find potatoes or vegetables in Tchekpo though.  I have to go to either Tesvie or Taglibow for those.

The Weekly Gathering

La Femme Marche Groupement Association
There are over seventy-five women in the Womens Group Market Association.  They all sell their products every Monday at the weekly market.   They all have their own little patch of land where they grow their products.  They walk the however many miles to the farm every day and tend to it, then on Mondays they load everything up, bring it to the market, and set up their booths.  Monday’s you see streams of women and children walking to the market carrying a variety of huge items on their heads. I love market day.  It has the feel of a county fair.  The vendors set up early and many sell late into the night by candle light.  It’s especially interesting to walk through at night by the candle light.  People are happy, and busy.  When I go to the market everyone greets me, and they ask me to buy something from them.  They are perfectly fine if I don't.

Every Tuesday morning the women from the women’s market association meet to clean and sweep the market, using palm branches.  Much to their delight, I join them at 6:30 A.M.   I sweep the market with them.  When we get there it’s a mess.  Trash and food and garbage everywhere.   The market is located just off the main road.  The ground is dirt and sand.  It’s bumpy and rocky and rutted.  There are numerous thatched roofs (paillots) that give the vendors some protection from the sun and the heat on market day.  For the Monday morning sweep everyone is working, no one is telling anyone what to do.  No one is complaining about anyone not carrying their load.  Everyone just works.  I sweep the market every week so that the women can get to know me and trust me.  They’re not quite sure why I’m there, but they very much like it that I participate.  The first few times I went to sweep the market they refused to give me a palm branch broom.  Now I have my very own broom.  There is a technique…an art to sweeping dirt and sand with a palm branch.  I still don’t have it down.  It has not escaped my notice that someone always follows me and sweeps where I have swept.  They work in unison until the job is done.   I have to say that Tchekpo has the cleanest market of any I’ve been to. After sweeping the market they gather around the table where the President of the Women’s Association is sitting.  They hand her their little accounting books, and she records how much everyone has sold, and how much money they have made.  Then they have a short meeting to discuss any issues.   They are on there way home or to their farms by 8 A.M.

Tontines
In Togo there are local savings and loan associations called Tontines.  Tontines are banks set up for associations to save money collectively, and to loan money to it’s members when needed.  This Women’s Group Market Association belongs to a tontine.  I go to the tontine meeting every Thursday at 8:30 A.M.  The group is 99% Voodooese, so there are voodoo rituals mixed in with everything they do.  The meeting is held at one of the primary Voodoo Sanctuaries in Tchekpo.  This particular sanctuary is also where people go when they are sick or they go here to perform any rituals or offerings to the gods.  The weekly Tontine meeting  is a smorgasboard of activities.  Many women go through a healing ritual before and during the weekly meeting.  There is a semblance of an altar inside the sanctuary structure.  There is a fountain and plants.  The women who are receiving a healing or a blessing  stop in front of the door to the sanctuary, bow for more than a few seconds, and cross themselves.  A greeting to the gods.  They sit on a stone bench just outside of the sanctuary.  No one from the meeting is paying any attention to the women who file by one by one for their blessing.  They disrobe from the waist up.  The voodoo priest talks to the woman for a few minutes.  I think to find out why she is here.  What does she need? After he’s talked to her for a few minutes he goes in the sanctuary and quietly says a few prayers.  He comes back out holding a primitive small bowl, stands over the woman, chants a few prayers and dabs her with white dots and white squiggly lines on her shoulders and back and neck.  They must have this ritual fairly often because I see men, women and children walking around the village all the time with these white dots and squiggly lines.  I find it very fascinating that voodoo rituals are performed simultaneously during their business meeting. Voodoo is intertwined with everything they do.



The President of the Tontine

The meeting always begins the same way.  The President of the tontine (not the same woman who is president of the association) stands up

 and chants a prayer.   Half singing, half talking.  I like the sound of voodoo chanting.  She’s very dignified.  People come over to her throughout the meeting. They bow to greet her and say a few words.  She emminates intelligence, dignity and respectability.   She has a very quiet and noble demeanor.  Everyone sits on benches, or little stools they have brought with them.  In the middle of the meeting area there is a table which six people sit around.  Two men and the rest women.  This is where the money is collected and officially recorded, and where dues are paid.  It’s all done in Ewe (the local language.)  Every bit of it, so there’s still a lot I don’t understand at depth.  It appears to be extremely well organized, and the money very well accounted for.  One by one, each woman is called to the table.  She hands her book and her money to the money counter.  Two women count the money, and the counters hand some money back to the woman.   Everything is double done.  Double entry accounting, I guess one coul

The Accountants

d say. The money is counted twice, by two different people, both when it is received and when it is given back.  The amount is entered by one man and double checked by the other man.  The women who count the money have several different small clear plastic bags of money they are working with.  They also have a bucket of money under the table.  Part of what I can’t figure out is that I don’t know how they determine how much the woman gives to the association, and how much she keeps, and I’m still not sure how they decide what to do with the money that goes into the association, but they all seem quite satisfied with the way it works.   Eventually I will learn the entire process. 

The Beauty Shop

Selling Cocoa Nuts

Tontine Social Hours

The meeting is every bit a social couple hours as it is a business meeting.  There is a bucket of water in the middle for anyone who is thirsty.  There is always a woman selling cocoa nuts. Almost everyone has one or two.  The cocoa nuts appear to be part of the ritual.  I think possibly the cocoa nuts have the capability of putting everyone in a festive mood…..a burst of energy.  There is a woman just outside the perimeter of the meeting, and she works on half a dozen womens hair during the meeting.  Braiding, coloring.  Their hair-do’s are an art in itself.  I find myself not only studying the intricate hair styles, but being in awe of how they so quickly and artistically do it.  A few women bring snacks to sell.  Clacko is my favorite.  It tastes like hush puppies and is served with spicy hot sauce.  And then there is a woman who gives pedicures.  I kid you not.  She sits on a tiny little stool at the women’s feet, moving the stool from person to person as she completes each one.  She has a very professional, mobile nail polish rack.  The rack works very efficiently for the woman.  It’s kind of like a stacked/layered lazy susan.  She has at least a hundred different colors.  On the top layer there is a bowl with cotton and something like nail polish remover.  She’s very quick, and can easily do a dozen womens toes in an hour.  It costs one cent to have your nails done, which is less than an American dollar.  I have mine done.  She doesn’t just do one color, she usually adds a couple colors and a little design.  It’s really quite artistic, and quite innovative.  The women love it.  She also cleans the toenails well, and cuts the cuticles.  Isn’t that something??  All of this variety and activity at their business meeting.   Talk about multi-tasking!  I think this business model has merit!

Pedicures of course (my feet)

There is one woman who comes to every meeting.  I’ve never seen her at the market.  I think she must be a voodoo priestess.  She dresses in a deep raspberry colored cotton dress that is wrapped around, shoulders bare.  On each arm she has the same color twine bracelets wrapped around her upper arms.  She has closely cropped hair.  She’s very beautiful.  Her dress and her arm bracelets would be a hit on any chic Hollywood starlet.  She seems much more serious than the rest of the women.  At one meeting I was taking notes, and she sent someone over to tell me that I could not.  After weeks of gaining their trust, I was allowed to take photos of the meeting.  She again sent someone over and I was told that she was not to be photographed.  Aloughba told me it had something to do with a voodoo superstition that photographs violate the soul.  I’d like to learn more about this woman.

I’ve had some poignant moments sweeping the market and attending the tontine meetings.  For lack of a better word, it feels like a spiritual moment sometimes, or raw truth.  There is a collective contentment that can’t be suppressed, and possibly may even be enhanced by the poverty and hunger they experience.   It impacts and impresses me the way they work and play together. I sit and I watch, and participate when I can.  There is a rhythm and beauty in how they work together towards one goal.  It’s very Walden-ish….their world.

ROCK CHALK TCHEKPO!!!

I went to my first African soccer match last week.  Well, actually it was my first soccer match ever.  Except for the notoriety of David and  Victoria Beckham….I don’t have a clue about soccer. 

The Tchekpo Lycee (high school) was playing Taglibow Lycee.  I’d been hearing teachers and students talking about this match for weeks.  I’d been wanting to see a game.  Tchekpo and Taglibow are about thirty miles apart, and they appear to have a friendly yet fierce competition with each other both scholastically and in sports.  I likened it to a game between K.U. and Kansas State.  This game was the championship for the entire Yoto prefecture (county.)

I arrived at the school about 1pm on Friday.  When I showed interest in going to the game, I was invited to go and invited to ride down on the student buses.  The student buses being a caravan of bush taxis, bursting to the seams with hyper, sweating, excited teenagers.  When I arrived at the school kids were gathered around in various groups, waiting for the taxis to arrive.  The team was sitting in a circle under some trees, seemingly having  some sort of team meeting.   I’m used to seeing the kids in their uniforms, which is khaki colored skirts and trousers and white shirts.  I see them around the village, but they don’t dress up, and kind of blend in with everyone else.  For this game though, they dressed to the nines!  The girls and the boys showed their teenage individuality, and there was definitely a good attempt at western hip-hop influence with low riding jeans and big shirts, hats sunglasses.  The kids were playful, excited and enthusiastic. 

The Hip Hop Cheering Section

It became known in Tchekpo a few weeks ago that I could “wolf” whistle.   This whistle is non-existent in Togo, so the first time I did it in my English class, they were amazed at my talent.  They wooped and hollered, and many have come up to me and ask me to teach them how to do it.  They really had never heard anyone whistle this way.  My sister Jody taught me to wolf whistle.  I remember it well.  For weeks, one summer when we were teenagers, we would sit on the porch steps, and she worked, and worked and worked with me.  She had infinite patience with me (one of the only times.)  I remember the first time it worked.  The first time I whistled.  It was a real accomplishment.  I think I went around the rest of the summer whistling at everything that was whistle appropriate, and I’m sure many things that were whistle inappropriate.   I was often a valued member of the audience for my kids, and nieces and nephews, plays and sport activities because of my whistle, and while my kids sometimes begged me beforehand not to, I did it anyway.  I couldn’t help myself.  It was my way of letting them know I was there, and I was proud.  After a performance or an event, I would go up to them and ask them if they heard me whistle.  They would roll their eyes and say godddddd yes!  So now the Tchekpo highschool kids want me to whistle all the time.  A little bit of Americana hoopla!  When I arrived at the school Mr. Tomekin one of the teachers took me over to where the team was meeting.  He told me on the way over that he was going to give a little pep talk, and then he wanted me to whistle.  He did, and I did!  God, it’s so easy to impress people here.  They yelled and hollered and loved it.  At the game I was commissioned to stand with the little unofficial pep club and to whistle on cue whenever Tchekpo made a good play.

It was just plain fun to ride with the kids to Taglibow.  It would be difficult to distinguish any differences between them and American teenagers getting ready for “the big game” with their biggest competition.  There were fight songs, and laughter, and joking around, and flirting between the boys and the girls.
We arrived at the soccer field in Taglibow.   They have a little grandstand, that looks like it was built a  hundred years ago.  The field has ‘some’ grass.  It’s hard to find any grass in Togo.  Tchekpo doesn’t have a soccer field, so they have to play all their games away.  Last night I dreamt that Yoko Ono read my blog and donated a soccer field to the Tchekpo Lycee.  Where did that come from???  So Yoko…if you are listening,  Johns song, Imagine, is a constant inspiration to me.  Picture this…the John Lennon Soccer Field in Tchekpo West Africa, dedicated to all the “dreamers” out there!  Yoko?  Yoko?




The Tchekpo Team and Principal

Back to the game….The game was great.  Very professional.  There must have been at least 1000 very enthusiastic spectators.  After the stands were filled, people stood shoulder to shoulder around the entire filed.  Tchekpo held it’s own up to half time.  That’s really good considering Tchekpo is half the size of Taglibow.  Taglibow players looked a little more polished, a little more sophisticated in their green uniforms, and they ALL had matching socks.  Tchekpo had nice uniforms, but the team didn’t have matching socks.



There were vendors set up selling

The Pep Club after a great play

food and drink, and everyone was in a very festive, happy mood.  There was very friendly rivalry between the teachers for Taglibow and the teachers for Tchekpo.  They sat next to each other in the stands, and joked and elbowed each other.   There was even halftime entertainment, and entertainment everytime a good play was made by either team.  There were several kids dressed up in crazy outfits, which I’m sure signified something, but I didn’t know what.  Everytime there was a break in the game, these kids would parade in front of the stands, and around the perimeter of the field, and they would incite the crowd to laughter and frenzy.  There were also the horns.  The horns that you hear during the World Cup.  Both schools had them, and they would blow them long and loud after a good play.

There were several injuries during the game, at which time medics would run onto the field with a makeshift gurney, and carry the player off to resounding applause.   During halftime the teams went to their designated corners.  Taglibow was ahead, but not by much.  The Tchekpo team was sitting in a circle on the ground looking tired and dejected, most with their heads hung low, and arms curled around their knees.  Two coaches were yelling at them simultaneously, supposedly trying to inspire them, to give them hope that they could rally, that they could DO THIS.  “DU COURAGE!!!”  (YOU CAN DO THIS!)

The award ceremony

In the end, Taglibow won.  Dammmmm I wanted Tchekpo to win.  Immediately after the game the two teams lined up and shook each others hands with the Togolese handshake…which entails a snap of the pointer finger after the handshake.  They then had an award ceremony.  Taglibow was presented with a nice trophy.  Tchekpo spectators and team were very good sports.  They applauded a game well played.

After the game we all walked up to the main road and waited for our bush taxis.  We waited, and waited and waited.  An hour and half after the game our bush taxis finally rolled up to get us.  By this time there were a few men who had a little bit too much to drink.  They climbed on top of one of the bush taxis and proceeded to ride home in the open air.  I wondered if they would make it.  We squeezed into the bush taxis and rode home.  The taxi was much more quiet than the trip down.  The driver had the local Taglibow radio station on (there’s no radio station in Tchekpo.)  The announcer talked about the game, and the kids were excited about that, and became energetic again.  We left for the game at 1pm and we got back to Tchekpo around 9pm.  A long day for everyone. 

It was a fun day.  I couldn’t really detect any differences between this game and a championship game for any sport in America.  It made me think of Nelson Mandela and how he knew that South Africa winning the World Cup could inspire the nation and the world.  And it did.  And this game…though Tchekpo lost, brought the kids and adults of Taglibow and Tchekpo together.  It inspired the kids, It inspired the two villages, and it inspired me.  Rock Chalk Tchekpo!









The Night the Lights Went on in Tchekpo!

Thursday February 3, 2011 was a night that will be remembered by all the residents of Tchekpo.  It was the night the lights went on in Tchekpo.  It was the night they got “electric current.”  That’s what they call electricity.  Electric current.  The first time I met the Chief, last July, he told me that Tchekpo would be getting electric current in December.  We’re only two months past schedule.  That in itself is pretty impressive for Togo.

For the past six months I’ve watched progress slowly and steadily invade my little village of Tchekpo.  I saw the huge trucks roll into town. I watched the workers slowly and systematically chop down ancient trees and clear brush from each side of the main road.  I watched the poles go up, one by one.  I watched them string the wire from pole to pole, rolling the wire off their giant spools.  The workers never looked like they were in much of a hurry.  Little by little they got the job done.  I never heard anyone in Tchekpo talking about the coming of electric current in Tchekpo.  I was the only one who talked about it, and I brought it up often.  “When do you think we’ll get it?”  Are you excited about Tchekpo getting electricity?”  Everyone I asked appeared to be pretty unimpressed about the prospect.  I decided their reaction, or non-reaction to this phenomena was because they just had no idea how it would impact or change their lives.  For me…..All I wanted was two things.  A fan, and an easy way to charge my electronics.  I don’t even care about light.  I’ve gotten used to living without light after 6pm….but a fan….oh a fan, would definitely change and enhance my life for my remaining months in Tchekpo. 

It’s the hot season in Togo right now.  From January through May.  I had always heard that the hot season went through March, so I’ve looked forward to the end of March.  I’ve had a big smiley face on my calendar on the last day of March to mark the occasion.  I’ve thought…HA…if I make it through to the end of March, I can go the distance for sure.  The other day I was talking to a Togolese woman about making it through March.  She laughed, and said  “the hot season lasts through May!!”  That little bit of information stopped me dead in my tracks.…I fell to my knees and screamed in a voice that sounded more demonic than like my own voice…NO! NO! NO!…tell me it isn’t true!  It can’t be true…..and then I wept uncontrollably.  Ok..well, not really, but that’s what was going through my mind.  Instead I slapped the woman who told me.  Ok…not really, but I wanted to.  Now my only hope for survival was the coming of electric current….and a fan.

How do I cope with the heat?  I take at least four bucket showers a day, and at night when I go to bed, I lay a big thick towel on my bed, and a little towel over my pillow then I just step outside my back door and poor a bucket of water over myself…over my nightgown and all.  Then I crawl into bed soaking wet.  It works!  However half way through the night I wake up, completely dry, except for the sweat.  I get up, out of bed, half asleep, fumble around for my flashlight, walk down the hall, knocking into the walls, step outside my back door, and once again poor a bucket of nice cool water over myself.  This is an every day/every night occurance.  Approximately four bucket showers a day, and two at night. Electricity and a fan, would be a really nice addition, don’t you think?  As stifling as the heat and humidity is….It is surprisingly bearable once you come to terms with it.  Once you develop your coping mechanisms.  Nothing…and I mean nothing feels better than those bucket showers, and then I’m good to go for at least a couple more hours. My friends in Tchekpo are used to the heat, in fact when there is a rare cool day….let’s say the temperature is 95 instead of 105, they pull out their jackets and long sleeved shirts, and tell me they are cold.  Yeah…it is beyond my comprehension that when I am finally a little bit comfortable, they are uncomfortably cold.

David's Birthday Party

The night the lights went on…
I had a birthday party for David, my French teacher the night the lights went on.  David helps me teach my English class to adults, and I help him teach English at the high school.  He has become a very valuable partner.  He helps me with all my projects.  I told him the other day, to his delight, that he was a Mover and a Shaker.  He asked me to repeat, and then he wrote it down, and laughed.  Now every time I see him, he laughs and says, “I am a Mover and a Shaker.”  No one can say Mover and Shaker like David says it.  He sounds like an evangelical preacher when he says it.  He roars it….”I am a Mover and a Shaker.”  

David turned 35.  The birthday party was fun.  I had invited about ten people to my house, most from our English class.  I served my version of Togolese h’ors douvres.  Popcorn and sliced bread with peanut butter and honey.  I also made a pitcher of lemonaide.  David and Mr. Hugnon were the last to arrive and the last to leave.  Mr. Hugnon is the prinicipal of the grade school we are helping.  When David came in the door, we all sang Happy Birthday to him.  We sang in English, French and Ewe, just like we had done for my son Eric on his birthday.  Only we sang to Eric over the phone.   David was so obviously enjoying the attention and festivities.  The party was fun, and after we ate and drank, we sat around in circle and talked.  At the end of the party, upon request from the guests, we sang songs, including the hokey pokey, which I taught them in our Adult English Class.  I taught them the hokey pokey as a fun way for them to learn the English translation of the human body parts.  They LOVE the hokey pokey, and it has now become a ritual at the end of every class. When the party was over, it was dark.  David and Mr. Hugnon were the last to leave.  They returned to my house just a few minutes after they had left.  I heard them shouting outside my door…”Adoowah, Adoowah (Adoowah is my Ewe name,) the lights are on, we can see them!”  They asked me if I wanted to walk down to the rue (main street) with them to join in the celebration.   It was so fun.  I was glad they came back to get me.  It was sweet sharing the experience with David and Mr. Hugnon.  People were laughing and skipping and very excited about the lights. Music was blaring from the local bar.  I could tell Mr. Hugnon and David were excited as well. It was impossible not to get caught up in the celebration. At one point we stopped by the side of the road.  Mr. Hugnon dusted off a large fallen tree trunk.  It was a magical moment, as the three of us sat on the tree stump and watched people dance in the streets.  We could see the look of wonderment and joy on their faces. 

The night sky, from my porch

Ahhhh progress!! As often happens with progress you gain something, and you lose something.  The lives of my friends in Tchekpo will be forever changed.  The first thing I noticed on my way home that night was that the glow of the electric lights from the main road had already dimmed the beautiful night sky that I’ve come to enjoy so much. Every night before I go to bed I sit on my porch at dusk, and watch darkness descend on my little village. The stars, and the streaks of color;  purple, yellow, orange are like no other sky I’ve seen, anywhere. I sometimes think the night sky is the only “pretty” thing about Togo.  Often the sky is so clear, and the stars and the moon are so bright that you don’t need a flashlight to see.  Now we have progress, we have electricity, and the sky has dimmed….quite a bit.  Now there is a haze, a glow from town.  The stars are very noticeably not as bright.  Soon the houses will have electric current, and instead of sitting around the fires in their courtyards discussing their day, they will find new things to do.  Before electric current children and teenagers studied before dark, or by flashlight or lantern after dark.  In Tchekpo, the day for all intensive purposes ends at dusk.  At dusk the family gathers around the fire, where they cook and eat dinner and talk about the days activities.  Except for the voodoo drums, all is quiet in Tchekpo after 7pm.  What will it be like now?  What wonders and opportunities, and benefits will electricity bring to Tchekpo.  What will end?

The night the lights went on in Tchekpo is the night my friends lives were forever altered...and for me...I got a few days closer to getting a fan.

Bonne fette de Noel - Togolese Christmas

The Chief

I attended The Chiefs Annual Togolese/Voodoo Christmas Celebration at the Chiefs Compound.  I didn’t know I was going to a party that day.  Upon arrival I could see that I was in for a new experience.  A Voodoo experience.  By the time the day and the celebration was over, I was confused and I think a little disturbed.   I felt a need to understand, rationalize and/or defend their holiday ritual (s).

During the holidays the Togolese and Tchekpo community do a lot of the same things we do at home.  People who passed me on the roads and dropped by my house every day wished me a Bonne fette de Noel (Merry Christmas) and Nouveau Annee (Happy New Year.)   I received gifts of pineapples, papaya’s, and bundles of plantains.  Neighbors, new friends and people I’ve been working with here in Tchekpo sincerely thanked me for being here.  They smiled, took my hand and blessed me.  I felt their warmth and sincerity.  I also felt their merriment of the season.

The desire to express good will during the holidays is something I happily shared with my Togolese friends.  One of the things I wanted to discover for myself on this journey is, what basic traits do all humans share?  Whether they live in the suburbs of mid-america, or a small village in Africa, what do we have in common?   What is innate?  What are we born with, and what is learned?   The answer to these questions are deep, layered and multi-faceted, and would be better answered by Margaret  Meade, but I try….just the same.

The Fette

The Chief praising the gods

The Chief had his annual holiday celebration (fette) the Saturday before Christmas.  Aloughba and I walked together to the Chiefs compound.  I had recently returned from Spain, so I thought we were just going to visit….to greet the Chief.  I’ve learned to enjoy the surprises Aloughba gives me.   I never, ever know what is in store when she takes me someplace.  On this day, as we approached the Chiefs Compound I could hear music (drums) and  laughter, and I could hear roosters crowing and lambs screaming.   When we entered I was completely taken by surprise that I had arrived at the Chiefs annual holiday celebration.  I had to laugh to myself, that here I was at the Chiefs biggest celebration of the year, and I had had no idea that’s where we were going.   At least a hundred people were milling about.  The atmosphere was festive.  The Togolese dress up for these occasions, in their best complaits and head gear.  I was in my khakis and t-shirt, but no one seemed to mind.  Men and women were laughing and talking.  Children were running around chasing each other.  At first glance it seemed very similar to an American Party.  While I was sitting watching everyone....I identified couples, families, groups and compared them to my American family and friends.  For example there was a husband and wife laughing and talking to their two little children.  I thought....that could be Andrea and Mirinda and their kids.  There were two married couples sitting talking with each other...that could be Kittie and Jody talking to Pam and Richard???  I'm not sure why I play this game.  I think because their language and dress is so different, the traditions are definitely different.  Everything is different....but what about us is alike?

I made the rounds to the elders, bowed, held my elbow and shook their hands.  There is always a snap of each others pointer finger at the end of the hand shake.  It took me a while to master, but now I have the Togolese handshake down.  I greeted most of them in their local language, Ewe (e-vah).   The sodebe (local liquor) was flowing, "making spirits high."    Soon after we arrived the Chief greeted me.  I do like the Chief for many reasons.  I think he’s intelligent, and he has a very good sense of humor.  He wanted to know where my camera was.  I told him I didn't bring it.  He asked why.   I told him I didn’t know I was coming to a party, and I offered to walk home to get it.  He wanted me to, so I did.  Round trip walk about 45 minutes.   But I was glad to have the diversion of this task.  I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t feeling particularly comfortable with the crowd or the celebration.  I returned to the festivities with my camera.  Without any preconceived notions of what might occur.
 
Not like our celebrations at home, I can tell you that.  Well actually parts of it were similar.  It was family and friends and their children having a party, being happy to see and visit with each other, but that may be the only similarity.  This was an authentic Voodooese Fette, with all their trimmings…..they were ready to celebrate and at the same time, pay homage to their god(s)!

First up…..the slaughtering and sacrifice of two lambs.   I was shocked when I saw them hang the  two lambs by their feet and then slit their necks.  I tried hard not to look as the blood spilled out on the floor.  It all felt very surreal.   The whole day felt like an assault on my senses. It was a festival of animal sacrifice and slaughter.  The rituals certainly better defined my Voodooese friends to me.  First the lambs, then…ohhhhh…..at least one hundred chickens.  Apparently almost everyone had brought their own chicken(s) to sacrifice.  Before they began the chicken slaughter, they ceremoniously all knelt and bowed down with their families and with their chickens and said a prayer....I think partly asking the gods to choose their chickens. Then the chicken slaughter began.  Everything that was done was a symbol for something….how the blood spattered on the floor, how much the chickens bounced around, which direction they bounced after their throats were slit.  Apparently which way the chicken bounced and how much it bounced determined which ones were acceptable to the Gods.  One by one their necks were slit.  One by one they bounced around and fluttered.  One by one they were thrown into one of three piles.  Each pile having a significance and delivering a message from the gods. The people and the children watched and cheered.  The Chief had the task of deciphering which chickens the gods had sanctioned to be eaten on that day.   The two lambs and the chosen chickens were skinned, de-feathered, cut up, cooked and eaten.  I wanted to understand everything.  I thought it might help me tolerate it all better, if I understood the religious or voodoo significance of it all.  It seemed to me that "tolerance" was going to be something I needed to cultivate.  Because I did not understand everything that was going on, it just seemed very primal, and cruel.  The rituals I witnessed made me feel differently about these people I have grown to respect and love.  It disturbed me.  I realized that I would need to process all of this.  Try to understand this part of their human  nature.   

A little history lesson on Voodoo

In Tchekpo,  in America and all over the world, there are many “Christians” and many various religious denominations of “Christians.”   As Christians, Africans celebrate the birth of Christ (Bonne fette de Noel).  They have accepted Christ as their Savior and as their one true, and only God.  The missionairies did a good job converting the “natives” of Africa.  Christianity gave the people of Africa good news and hope in a world that was otherwise extremely harsh to them in all ways…weather, hunger, poverty, war.  The good news was that as harsh as this life on earth is, if they are good “Christians” if they follow the teachings of Jesus Christ they will enjoy eternal happiness.  Hope of the heaven that was described to them, was more than enough to convince them to denounce their voodoo ways.  On the surface anyway.   It is a conflict of belief systems.  Believing that Jesus is the one true God, and yet as Animists (Voodooese) they believe in many Gods.   They cannot dismiss the lore that has been handed down for the past 6,000 years.  The word "voodoo" comes from the Fon language.  It means "sacred," "spirit" or "deity." [source: National Public Radio: Radio Expeditions].  .

Animism or voodoo is by definition a cult; a cult that constitutes a system of religious beliefs and rites which are used principally to reinforce the social system as well as the dependence of the family (isn’t this what all religion does?)—and at the same time, voodoo recognizes spirits, guardians, deities, or forces of nature. Voodoo originated in Africa.  Voodoo is ubiquitous in Tchekpo, with approximately 95% of It’s people actively practicing voodoo.  It is a way of life.  It filters into their lives at every juncture.  Voodoo beliefs and rituals are intertwined in their work, with their families and their justice system, their health, and their deaths.   Voodoo is a HUGE subject that influences everything the people in my village do, in spite of the fact that so many of them are also converted Christians.   They practice both Christianity and Voodoo, even though they are very conflicting beliefs.  I do not know how they reconcile the conflict.  Sometimes I think they've just decided to hedge their bets, and commit to both.  Living a good and decent life is a part of both religions.

Voodoo, In religious theory, is the conception of a spiritual reality behind the material one: for example, they believe the soul is a shadowy duplicate of the body capable of independent activity, both in life and death. Since Voodoo is primarily an oral tradition, the names of gods, as well as the specifics of different rituals, can change in different regions or from generation to generation. However, African Voodoo has several consistent qualities no matter where people practice it. Along with the belief in multiple gods and spiritual possession, these beliefs include:

•Veneration of ancestors
•Rituals or objects used to convey magical protection
•Animal sacrifices used to show respect for a god, to gain its favor or to give thanks
•The use of fetishes, or objects meant to contain the essence or power of particular spirits
•Ceremonial dances, which often involve elaborate costumes and masks
•Ceremonial music and instruments, especially including drums
•Divination using the interpretation of physical activities, like tossing seed hulls or pulling a stone of a certain color from a tree
•The association of colors, foods, plants and other items with specific loa(God) and the use of these items to pay tribute to the loa (God).

Many of these traits, particularly ancestor worship, polytheism, and the importance of music and dance, are important elements of Voodoo.  Many observances appear to be part celebration, part religious service incorporating rhythmic music, dancing and songs. Many rituals take advantage of the natural landscape, such as rivers, mountains or trees. Through decoration and consecration, ordinary objects, like pots, bottles or parts of slaughtered animals, become sacred objects for use in rituals.  I've come to recognize all of these things, as I walk through the village.  Sometimes I'll be walking with Aloughba and point to something I think is an artful arrangement of plants and/or pottery, and she tells me that it is voodoo.  A sacred prayer created for the gods, maybe to stop children from dying, or to bring rains for the crops. 

I’m sure I’m just understanding the tip of the ice berg as far as voodoo is concerned.  I didn’t want to delve into it for a long time.  Didn’t think I really needed to.  Thought I could just experience it on the surface, an arms length away.  But really if I’m to understand the people of Tchekpo I must understand their roots, and their religion and their beliefs. 

At the Chiefs Annual Christmas Celebration I saw the ritual of lambs and hundreds of chickens slaughtered and offered to the Gods.  It is tempting to dismiss these rituals as hocus pocus.  Then I think…what if we were dropped into the U.S. for the very first time and went to a Catholic Church for the very first time and we saw this man all dressed up in colorful, flowing robes, with young men assisting him in his rituals.  We see people with beads in their hands...chanting together, and bowing and kneeling in front of statues??   And then we are told that this man (high priest) can change wine into blood and bread into the body of Christ???  How odd would it be to hear something like that for the very first time?   Voodoo rituals are beyond my understanding, my comprehension, but maybe they aren’t so different from our rituals after all?  They are, of course different.  Very different, but it seems that they all do the same thing.  We ask for help and the rituals provide hope.