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. 

My new career as a Wedding Crasher

The most formal outfit I have is a flowery pink sundress to wear on my first weekend in Togo, when Adolphe casually invites me to a wedding of one of his colleagues. The invitation looks like a Japanese valentine (red heart cutouts, the slim profile of a couple kissing with foreign characters below). Pertinent details are written inside, including Chief Host of the Event: the Lord Jesus Christ. We skip the 4 hr mass and hop on his moto straight to the reception. We arrive at a banquet hall draped in lime green and white, with rows of chairs tightly aligned like pews. I'm trying to imagine how the "party" part of the wedding will take place with no place to eat or dance. A charismatic man calls out joyful welcomes through an oversized sound system. MC Daddy Roberts booming baritone calls each guest of honor in turn to strut down the aisle. At the flick of a wrist the band sitting casually in the first row comes bursting to life to accompany each promenade (quite an impressive display of musicianship). Like a southern baptist radio disc-jockey the MC fills 2 hours with lengthy introductions of honored guests, providing a moment for each to praise Jesus and can I hear an Amen. When there are only two spots left at the head table he begins telling the story of the kola nut, and the tradition of giving a traveler a kola nut so that when he returns the kola can tell the story of his journey. He's staring straight at me. And thus am I (the blushing Yovo) escorted to the table of honor! To sit among chiefs, family members and wealthy acquaintances of the newlyweds (so much for keeping a low profile). The wedding party enters, dancing and twirling and spreading the joy of aerosol confetti. The 4 tiered cake (reading "Happy Married Life") is cut on the count of Jesus. J-E-S-U-Slice! An odd plain-tasting vegetable is passed around the table of honor with spicy peanutbutter paste. Then the MC really goes to work, solliciting donations to "plant a seed" for the new couple with holy fury. They come slowly at first, a few bills here and there, an awkward silence of all those obstaining lingers, but after enough rangling the cash begins to float up the rows. Finally it is time for the couple's first dance. (I should mention here that the bride is in a Western-style white gown and the groom too is wearing an all white suit, with the addition of a tiger-print cowboy hat and golden cane that I'm sure I've seen marketed as a "pimp" Halloween costume in the States). Their dance is an upbeat polyrhythmic shuffle, shaking their hips side by side, while loved ones throw money in the air, quickly gathering and showering it over the couple to create a perpetual rain which combined with the hat and cane would be perfectly fitted to an early 90s rap music video. A videographer captures it all, scanning the audience and perhaps giving my stark white figure abnormal attention. Guest are served in their seats a styrofoam container of fried rice with chicken along with tall bottles of beer. And then they begin to disperse, and Adolphe insists that we take home a bottle of sparkling grape juice which he believes to be wine (definitely grape juice). The moto stalls twice before we ride home, champagne substitute in hand.

L'Innondation des Introductions

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.

The pre-departure pep talk

Plane tickets, check. Vaccinations, check. Sunscreen, check. Way to assuage the fears of family and friends who worry I might drop off the edge of the Atlantic into the African abyss never to be seen again...check! This is for you! (and for me too, of course. A chance to let you in on my world en mass, in hopes I might catch a glimpse of yours once in a while.). However, if months pass between posts do not fret, it probably means I'm having a good time. You can bet if I'm struck down with some tropical bug I'll be bored and blogging away. Less is more. (I know, you're not encouraged, but trust me on this one).

Thank you so much to everyone who is helping me along my journey eastward from Bellingham to NYC, and thanks to all the rest who are taking an interest in my travels. I can guarantee that as exuberant as my travel babble may become, I will be missing you all the while.

About Togo

Togo is the radiant sliver of red in the picture at right. Better known neighbors include Ghana (to the West), Benin (to the East), Burkina Faso (to the North), and the Atlantic Ocean. It sounds very similar to, but is in fact quite far from, the tropical pacific island nation of Tonga (be careful when sending me any mail! The USPS still hasn't got this straight). It is hot and humid, especially on the coast where I will be living in the capital city of Lome. The official language is French, but this is typically a second language spoken in addition to a local language, for my particular region the primary langue maternelle being Ewe (pronounced Eh-vay). If you want some cold hard stats, the CIA fact book will not dissapoint.

Togo is perhaps best known for being lesser-known, off-the-beaten-path, so slim it could almost slip through the cracks of say regional internet infrastructure or the pages of your geography textbook. Other highlights include heart-warming hospitality, feasts of fu-fu, vibrant fabrics, tireless drumming and dancing, and mystical voodoo ceremonies. Simply put: their smiles far outshine their GDP. (More than I can say for France.)

I am set to arrive in Lome October 18th where I will live with a local family.

About My Project

I will be working with a local nongovernmental organization called Young Volunteers for the Environment (Jeunes Volontaires pour l'Environnement) as well as the University of Lome's new program in Women, Water and the Environment to look at the use of solar water pasteurization as a means of improving health, reducing use of environmentally harmful fuels (wood and charcoal), and in the process empowering women as advocates for the sustainable use of natural resources.

On the title: "Yovo" I'm told is the Togolese term for a foreigner (as in, really obvious foreigner, as in white) and, I am told, will become my new name whether I like it or not. (Including an accompanying song which will carry me through the streets Yovo yovo, bon soir, ca va bien merci...) I have heard it said that "there are no foreign lands, only the traveler who is foreign." So these are a few words from a foreigner. Simple as that.