So many people to smile back to my cheeks are sore. Mind saturated with names of places, people, and foods that someday I will find impossible not to have known.
I arrived in Togo after a 5hr bumpy ride from Accra, waiting anxiously for my new colleagues to arrive. A motorcycle pulls up. "Tu es Emily? On y va?" And just like that I was off, my first time on a motorcycle, riding through the warm African night weaving smoothly through traffic with a hand cramped down on that guitar handle like you wouldn't believe.
I met my new host family, an incredibly warm, welcoming bunch, in the courtyard where they had made over the charcoal fire something resembling macaroni (to make me feel at home). The house is quite fancy by African standards. There is a walled-in courtyard in the front, a small sewing shop in the corner, concrete floors, 3 bedrooms, an unused kitchen/closet (looks like everyone cooks outside) and a WC. No running water, but there is a pump in the courtyard and plenty of buckets. As usual I have no idea how many people actually live there but so far it appears that there is Mama Jose, the respected middle aged matron, Mathi and her husband Adolfe, their 2 kids Mattia (6?) and Ezeikel (3), another sister maybe or cousin named Raissa who's very smiley, and of course the standard young female relative who does the cleaning and cooking and tries to carry everything for me.
Few interesting questions I received on my first night (in addition to the standard, what state are you from, etc):
1) Did you vote for Obama?
2) Do you believe in god?
3) What do you think, if a married couple is not happy should they stay together and pretend or get a divorce?
Television sure is good for prompting conversation. We ate pate (corn flour paste with spicy sauce) and watched brazilian soap operas. I slept well under the gracefully drapery of a peach mosquito net.
awww giiiirrrll i miss you, and i'm so excited for you! like i said, already saving up to visit :)
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