No One is Poor

I’ve recently had the pleasure of working with a new arrival here in Togo from Nepal. Shantiram is here through a “South-South” (ie developing country to developing country) knowledge exchange program to share his expertise in making improved wood-burning stoves for rural people. These stoves use about half the firewood of a regular stove (saving time/money) and expose users to dramatically les pollution in terms of particulate matter. Shantiram has spent the last 10 years working in rural Nepal to perfect and disseminate the rustic technology. When he arrived in my village I came out to the field to assist with and document the construction of the new stoves, as well as translate when necessary (he speaks thickly accented English while his local apprentice Akebe speaks in French).  So we’re ankle deep in a muddy mixture, toes churning dirt, dried rice pods, and water into what will soon be bricks, when Akebe laments that “Tsiko is such a poor village.” Shantiram’s feet become still and he smiles. “No one is poor” he says, “that is all in your mind.”

Life's a Beach: And in Togo that isn't what it seems.

I was on a mission to find a nice beach. (The one alongside the capital, Lomé, is a depository for the cities raw sewage).  Eventually my search took me to Agbodrafo, a strange seemingly empty little coastal town. On the shoreline I saw asphalt flaking away as the old beach-side road was gradually being consumed by the sea (they are now on the 4^th parallel road, each moving more inland than the last, due to sea level rise and poor construction).  Walked along and saw school children loading up basins filled with sand to carry on their heads back to wherever they came from. Women along the beach sifted through large piles separating the shells, black stones, and lighter colored stones.  A little farther along a large group of people was gathered and as I got closer it looked like a village market steeped in sand and sedated by the sea breeze. The only movement I saw was a long thick rope with more than a dozen people strapped in by the wrists shuffling backward to the syncopated beat of their cowbell playing cheerleader. They were hauling in a large net of fish. After 10 minutes they took a break. A man said it would be more than 3 hours before it’d be all the way in to shore. During each break the rope was moved a few yards to the left, mirroring the long shore current that continually pressed the net further down the coast. As the net passed over their heads, the women with their pots of beans and rice and merchandise shifted one by one down the coast too.

Continuing on down the beach I came across an immense wall, maybe a mile long, unbroken and guarded. I learned from a passer by that it was the compound of the “barons” of the phosphate mines. (Phosphate, used in cement, is the only natural resource in Togo with enough value to be extracted and exported).  Past the carefully concealed mansions of the barons I witnessed the enormous phosphate processing plant encased in flaking tin spewing some sort of yellow muck straight into the crashing waves. Yellow crests peaked and fell until they finally dissolved back to blue.

Quite a day at the beach.

The Great North

We’d heard rumors of the good life up north, away from our dense thicket of coastal humidity, upward towards the land of crisp dry air, nomadic herdsmen (read: milk products and abundant meat!), nights cold enough to warrant a blanket, and a very close friend I hadn’t seen in over 2 years. After 22 hours of buses (which promised air conditioning and croissants and failed on both counts) we made it to Togo’s northern neighbor, Burkina Faso! More specifically the capital city which goes by a wonderful name: Ouagadougou.

Unfortunately during our stay Burkina was experiencing some civil unrest. A policemen had shot and killed a university student over a personal issue (flirting with his girlfriend, as I understand it) and the event had started a cascade of student protests which closed schools and set fire to police stations in over 15 cities. There are of course many more layers to the story but my understanding of the situation is limited so I won’t delve in any further. Suffice it to say most of our 5 days there were spent waiting out the protests in the Peace Corps transit house simply talking over coffee and ordering delivery (a concept which has yet to make it to Togo). The one day we did manage to venture out though made up for the rest.

In an act of unexpected generosity, and to get us out of the city center, the director of PC Burkina provided us a driver for a day’s entertainment. First we came to a granite sculpture garden, carvings popping out of the naturally scattered stones where you least expect it. Then we continued on to a place which sounded like “les os” (in French “the bones”) which the driver said white people love. We arrived at a lot of nothingness and were led to a cage containing a deer-like creature with a twisted horn. Coming from the hum-drum village life, we were completely enthralled. For nearly 30 minutes we watched it’s every move until the man leading us starting chuckling and said something like “don’t you want to see the lions?” Lions! Turns out we were at a zoo (confusingly pronounced “zoh”), the president’s private collection in fact, where fierce animals slept behind flimsy cages of patchwork fencing through which the guide made sure to prod them to life with a long bamboo pole. He leapt in to the hippo cage to tickle their noses with a tree branch. Ostriches paraded around the grounds as freely as peacocks. A bossy elephant actually smacked Mike across the face with his trunk. More like visiting an abandoned circus side show than a zoo, and the surrealism didn’t end there. We then found ourselves on some dusty road to a goat cheese farm (cheese!) and sat by a swimming pool (the luxury!) as we heard the news that the riots had intensified, all volunteers were ordered to stay put. No problem.

Back across the Togo border we were invited by a friend in the region to attend a funeral in his village. How could we refuse? Funerals here are an over the top party where a family spends their life’s savings on music, food and drinks for the whole village. Death isn’t ever really mentioned.  This funeral would be best compared to a rave. Around 11pm we walked 30 minutes across dried up corn fields in region with no electricity toward the booming sound of a double speaker system echoing against the starry desert sky. Once there we were given calabash upon calabash of tchakpa (gourds filled with millet beer). Dust rose up in plumes like a fog machine on the dried dirt dance floor where people vibrated intensely to the jittery double beats. There were in fact two different songs playing over one another at any given time. Around 3am, someone served us all bowls of delicious bean beignets, then more tchakpa. The party continued until dawn, revelers simply stepping around the heads of those who’d fallen asleep on the closest patch of spare earth. We walked home and slept under the mango tree in our friend’s courtyard. I woke a few hours later to a kind woman, whom I didn’t know and with whom I did not share a language, placing a steaming bowl of corn paste and spicy sauce beside me.

After breakfast a man in a dark hat came over to tell us there were special guests we might like to meet at his house. There we met three camel-riding nomads who’d passed the night in the village, on their way southward to “better know the world” as there wasn’t much work during the dry season in Northern Burkina. One old man had a brilliant purple purse hanging on his saddle. They let us ride their enormous camels a few paces before heading off across the horizon. And then we too left, on wheels however.

I've Moved!

I’ve now been more than a month in my new home of Tsiko, a village in the western plateau region of Togo. There are rolling hills of palms and baobabs and fresh air and I pick up more of the local language every day. So what am I doing now out here in the bush? You might ask. I will attempt here to give you the short answer:

The Assime Forest, about 900 hectares of hills and valleys surrounded by 11 villages, has been gradually degraded over the last 50 years by local populations harvesting wood for cooking, construction, and other needs. Last year a group of villagers who had become worried about the ensuing reduced rain fall and poor soil quality asked JVE (the NGO I’ve been working with here) to investigate. JVE found some Norwegian funders to back the project and spent a fruitful year studying the forest’s current state and developing a rehabilitation plan. The plan has been scrutinized, debated and validated, village leaders are on board, but one problem brings it all to a grinding halt. They tell me there’s no money to start getting those trees in the ground…waiting to find a generous international donor.

So I begin to pitch other more financially sustainable possibilities, ways to generate revenue like a bit of ecotourism. At the same time, the reforestation plan describes that the forest has been over exploited to the point where the younger generation doesn’t even recognize it as a forest anymore (making teaching them to protect it a bit tricky…) so I’ve begun a story collection project, talking with chiefs, elders, and other villagers about the myths, histories, and cultural aspects of the forest and then putting them into a book. The book will then be used in schools to reinforce the cultural value of the forest and its preservation and sold to tourists (and maybe even online) to help finance tree planting. Hopefully get some local artisans to illustrate. It’s a type of work that I really enjoy; lots of interesting interviews. Working with some women’s groups on a garden project too (showing them how to compost and use natural pesticides, trying to convince them not to burn their field), which is fun, and some community forestry, little by little. Between ecotourism planning, story hunting and gardens I’ve got plenty going on. 

It’s true, I have drifted quite a long way from the original solar water pasteurization project (the fall of which is a whole nother story). In doing so I’ve learned much. About orienting my research toward community needs (a no brainer of course, but difficult to discern needs over the internet before I arrived). About letting go of expectations of others, finding how to be self reliant while also being utterly dependent upon my Togolese colleagues to get anything done. About how clear things seem on paper and how easily the ink bleeds in a tropical rain. About how critical having that paper is regardless. About maintaining a focus while always being open to opportunities. About how at first encounters people will always tell you yes. About knowing when and how to come up with creative ways to say no.

This morning I spent visiting the elders of two villages who shared with me some stories of their forest and knowledge of animals now vanished, of ceremonies and healing herbs they fear are being lost to the next generation. Then a friend took me out to visit his family’s rice patty, blue hills in the distance, birds circling above. We ate with our hands from a big bowl under the shade of dried palms. Spent the rainy afternoon writing. Bought an electric fan (a true treasure). Will likely spend the evening entertaining the 4 children who regularly come by and beg me to play the “jin-tar”. Just a day in the life.

La Fete e(s)t le Fufu

December is always a crazy month – holidays, travel, end of the year-hype and Togo has proved to be no different. The pre-holiday buzz reverberated in the capital city of Lomé with 2 enormous fairs selling everything from cheap candy and clothes to unattainably expensive solar energy modules. My personal favorite gadget was the Fufu-Mix (fufu is a staple food made of ignames pounded in a large mortar and pestle typically by 2 young women); a hoard of people, faces pressed against the glass of the demonstration, watched in awe as an over-sized blender whipped ignames into fufu in mere minutes. But would it taste the same? Would people buy it? How would they know fufu was for sale if they couldn’t hear the rhythmic pounding and see the wooden rods like pistons pumping through the air? It was like watching the 1950s unfold…

Rang in the New Year out in Lonvo (see aforementioned small village) to the sound of occasional waves of drumming and cheers throughout the night. I’m not sure anyone actually had a watch to know when midnight struck ---but “la fete continue!” We celebrated with three days of wandering between huts giving well wishes, taking sips of sodabi (the local moonshine) and eating enormous portions of fufu or rice with spicy tomatoey sauce. After receiving several gifts of ignames and a portion of freshly killed goat (with some of the fur still on), Mike and I decided to invite over some guests and step up to pound some fufu ourselves, accidentally ending up with an enormous amount which fed not only the chief and a few friends, but also the neighbors and the women who loaned us their mortar, and then when there was still some left, a whole nother family. Who knew 3 ignames would go so far?

The next day the young girls of the village wrapped in matching swaths of fabric performed a series of seriously athletic dances under the shade of dried palms at the center of the chief’s compound; their mothers smiling proudly watching from the sides. Periodically an audience member would throw candy at the dancers, who would quickly snatch it up and hide it in their skirts, dancing all the while. But if they caught the eye of the lady calling the shots she would give a look and they’d have to give it right back. A young boy sitting beside me dove hard for a piece of candy, risking a clobbering by kids twice his size, and successfully snuck back to his seat, only to unravel it and find a rock where the candy should be… But with a feast of rice afterward everyone went home satisfied.

Best wishes for the New Year! From one village to another.

The University of Lome

Imagine a university campus in America, busy students milling around, chatting and looking at test scores posted on the walls. Only the students are much better dressed, like businessmen and women out to lunch in black slacks and neatly pressed button-up shirts, silk blouses and fitted skirts, but with notebooks clenched at their sides. Now make the buildings bare concrete, dusted with red earth. Imagine that all the signs are hand made. As you walk through imagine that leaves of shredded plastic catch the wind and roll across the footpaths, and chickens hop between the benches. Imagine that motorbikes are weaving around wherever they please, deftly maneuvering between lounging students. Professors in colorful traditional garb zip by on Vespa scooters. Imagine dirt paths between buildings densely shaded by vein-trunked tropical trees and flanked by fields of corn and cassava. Now imagine you are me, looking for something resembling a campus map to find my class, ha. 

Everyone you meet will mention to you that the university is transitioning from the French system (License, Maitrise, Doctorat) to the more familiar English system (Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate) and in general things seem to be, lets say… perpetually up in the air. Class offerings, degree requirements, timelines and locations are all subject to change and as such one would be hard pressed to find any of this information in print. Information is primarily passed along in the first person, from professors to students, from student delegates to their classmates, or between peers. Friends are basic logistical necessity, letting you know when class moves rooms or times change, and luckily they are plentiful. 

The students I’ve met here have been wonderful, welcoming, generous, inquisitive and good-humored. Each class begins with about a half hour of handshakes and greetings all around the room and sometimes ends with a friend sharing a home-cooked meal he brought in his thermos. I mostly keep my ears wide, listening to conversations between students about the environment, economics and future of Africa, lamenting endless hypocrisies and endless cycles of dependence, hazarding guesses at what could/should come next. The material taught in the courses is not exactly earth-shattering, but the professors’ manners of explanation are worth the attention alone. I give you one extravagant but absolutely true example.

Photosynthesis was explained with the following:
(It should be noted that students are very adept but lack random pieces of knowledge that we take for granted as something for a 6th grade science fair, such as the process of photosynthesis which had simply never been explained to a student now in a masters program.)

Prof: What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
Student: um, I had some cereal.
Prof: Exactly, you had grains that contained what?
Student: ...
Prof: Ok. Now I’m sure you have seen someone who is very weak in the hospital. Why is that? It’s often because he doesn’t have enough glucose. The doctors give him nutrition, glucose, and what happens? He feels better!
Now cup your hands together and breathe out like this.
(students mimick gesture and cup hands)
It’s hot no?
(nods of concurrence)
Well that’s combustion; one substance turning into another creates heat. Just like plants do when they turn sunlight into energy during photosynthesis!

The Village of Lonvo

Two hours from Lome I find myself a world away, "en brousse" (in the bush) as they say and at the village Mike calls home, Lonvo. As I begin to describe the scene I risk plagiarizing National Geographic. Square mud brick abodes with thick straw roofs. Fences of sticks and reeds and palm leaves. Women with breasts down to their belly buttons squatting beside an open fire. Men out in the fields with rusty old machetes. Chickens shuffling along freely and goats fumbling about. Clothes out to dry on roofs and trees and the occasional clothes line. No electricity, no running water (unless you count old women balancing jugs on their heads and traveling at an unthinkable pace).  Everything looks homemade (except the occasional concrete structures; the primary school, the well and Mike's house) and as always for Americans the level of self-sufficiency is impressive. But remote as this village may be there are hints of the wider web. Rachel, at age 2, listlessly piles dirt in a pair of D&G panties. A Honda motorbike bumps along the muddy road and the whole world stops to watch the wheels turn. A child balances a Spiderman backpack filled with an Obama themed notebook on the crown of his head. Goats munch on the remnants of black plastic bags. And then there is of course the French language which is spoken by some, understood by many, and can be heard inserting itself into the local language Ewe for words like "portable" (cell phone). Everyone speaks in Ewe, which leaves me smiling and mostly mute.

We strolled around in the evening making introductions and going to meet the chief, who was to my surprise not a wrinkled old wiseman but a fit and handsome man exuding that sort of gentle strength of a respected leader. Early the next morning a knock came at the gate to Mike's house. We tried to ignore it. The knock came again. And again. Untill finally he went to answer and found practically half the village, lead by the chief, waiting outside to welcome me. They came streaming into the compound, benches in hand, and set up rows for added seating in the straw hut beside Mike's house. I was speachless. Both by linguistic limitations and by my misty morning brain. They had all just come to say welcome and good morning. And then just as quickly they left.

The weekend in Lonvo was both awkward (the attempted conversations with random visitors, the long silences) and comfortable (the welcoming spirit, the calm of the countryside, the refreshing independence of cooking my own food again). It was wonderful. I cant wait to go back, especially when I've got a few more phrases under my belt.