Alisha Williams

So I’ve decided to do this weird little re-cap of the months that I’ve been at post: A) to inform you of what I have been up to over here in this land of sorghum and mosquitoes. B) to remind myself of all that I’ve been up to over here in this land of sweat and bucket showers (and to give myself a reason to go through my journal and gain some perspective). Hopefully it isn’t too dry.

January:

Shortly after we arrived at post we were supposed to visit a nearby second year volunteer to ‘shadow’ them in their respective work. So myself and another new volunteer in the region went to follow my neighbor Carla in Kanté who is with the GEE program (girls empowerment and education). Carla was holding a benefit concert to raise funds for her cultural center project. Navarro, a local musician and counterpart of the project was performing along with Carla, the kids she taught music to, and some university student dancers from Kara. We sat in on one of their practices at the center, which is just a big abandoned building but had doors to lock and great fixer-uper potential.

There was a morning concert and one scheduled for the evening as well, so by the time we made it to the end of the late night we were pretty exhausted from all the festivities. It was really interesting, with some real talent performing, and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves. There was lots of traditional dancing and some more contemporary West African music (played by Navarro, Carla and an amazing djembé (sp?) drummer from Kara), recorder solos, a theatrical raconteur, and even some modern dance. The shadowing program was helpful; Emily stayed longer than I did because she had other instructions and also because they are in the same sector, but it was interesting to see the differences between volunteers, posts and program.

Daniel and I took our first trip to the city Kara for my birthday in January. It was fun and on the way back we met up with one of the volunteers in my cluster, Travis. We all decided to share a taxi back to Kanté because the faster you fill up the available seats in the car the faster you leave. Unfortunately about four kilometers outside of Kanté the axle on the car blew and started spraying sparks. So, the three of us got out and started walking because we were close and didn’t want to wait on the driver to fix the car. The walk was the closest thing I had done to a hike since arriving in Togo. However, I fell down and scraped up my leg because I was trying to walk and apply sunscreen to my face at the same time and didn’t see the jagged drop off of the pavement to the shoulder. Lesson learned: stop what you are doing when you have your glasses off and apply sunscreen before leaving the house. Check.

January 30st was Daniels birthday and so I made the trek out to Nampoch, about 40km to the southwest of me, over a river and through the woods… I went all out and baked him a chocolate cake complete with multicolored sprinkles and packed it up for the ride. Halfway there we had a flat and had to walk a couple kilometers back to the nearest village to get it patched, Nandoonja. Once we got there some men hanging about the empty marché stands sent for help and I sat and waited while Yanga patched the inner tube four times before it was ready again. I smelled a distinctly sour smell hanging on the air and noticed half the carcass of a cow sitting out in the open air about four feet away from me with a discernible cloud of flies hovering above it. The guys turned out to be good sports and we joked around and I tried out a little Lamba, which they thought was hilarious. They suggested I take one of them as a second husband, seeing as how my other ‘husband’ was so far away; I could have a husband for every village along the route! Huh – why didn’t I think of that?

The trip to Nampoch was nice and it was good to get to know Daniel’s house and village for the first time. He has a two room house without much air flow but he has a very nice compound and sitting area that is all concrete. The morning after my arrival we attended a fetish ceremony that Daniel had set up for health and good luck. Of course it devolved quickly into a fertility ceremony for me, seeing as how I haven’t given any kids yet, but it was a unique experience. Christian and Muslim religions are widespread and practiced here in Togo but the animist belief system runs deep. We arrived at the charlatan’s house (like a priest, fortune teller and therapist rolled into one) and had our first calabash of tchakpa (like filtered and stronger tchouk that is sweeter) at something like 7:30AM as we waited for his first appointment to clear out. Kodjo, Daniel’s village counterpart, told us that he was in the process of finishing up a marriage counseling session.

We entered the small earthen hut and took our seats on small raised stone seats on the floor and in front of us lay the shrine to the fetish. There was the skull of a bull in the center of it covered with dried blood and so I believe that was the fetish to which we were appealing. There were also strings of cat and other small ruminants’ skulls hanging from the ceiling- offerings. We brought our own offerings: a rooster, some kola nuts (small red nuts that have stimulant properties) and a bottle of cheap Togolese gin. The charlatan asked us what our request was and after speaking a flurry of local language, dropping kola nuts like dice to see how they landed and multiple shots of gin it was time to kill the rooster. He slit his throat and let it run onto the shrine, then he dropped it in front of us. If the chicken flails wildly than your request to the fetish has been received. If it lies there and slowly bleeds out it is bad news, but generally someone will prod it to flail if that is the case. We were lucky, it flailed plenty, nearly spattering blood all over us and then was taken off to be prepared. Daniel had warned me about the shots of gin first thing in the morning, he also warned me that I might have to take a bite of chicken, but I was not ready to eat the chicken’s cooked liver. But I took a small bite under the pressure and watchful eyes of the charlatan and the fetish – hey, you only live once right?

I visited Guerin-Kouka while there, the larger town nearby where Daniel gets his mail, and together with two other nearby volunteers we cooked Daniel a nice little b-day dinner of gnocchi (shipped from the states) and salad! It was nice to meet more volunteers, and Daniel’s cluster is a great group of people who do lots of great work. The volunteer who lives in Guerin-Kouka had kittens and I decided to take the last remaining one home to try to chase out the spiders and mice. We raided the old Geurin-Kouka volunteer transit house, a house to sleep during long trips, a place to do work etc., of books while we were there. There used to be transit houses all over the country but they are nearly all shut down now because of volunteer abuses and budget issues. There are two remaining ones in Daopong and Atakpamé but are now called work stations and kept under much better management to avoid them becoming frat houses. The ceiling was falling in and the building was in various stages of disrepair and it is a shame because West Kara volunteers are fairly isolated and travel for them is arduous and expensive. It is not fair that now they have to impose on the volunteer’s house, but I suppose that is just the way it goes sometimes. Conditions of hardship if necessary.

Yanga arrived to take me back at the end of the week and brought along another friend on a moto to accompany us back home; they had been visiting friends in Kouka. I wrapped up the kitty in a box duct taped closed with necessary breathing holes. As we pulled out of town it was a calm and lazy afternoon and I felt a sense of camaraderie, our twosome of motos on a road trip. Easy Rider came to mind. Just before the river though, not more than a quarter of a way in, the kitty started to freak out and bit open the hole to stick out her claws and swipe at me. She got me once pretty good. She was determined to get out and after crossing the river I had to wrap the entire box in a pagne cloth and hope she would be alright. Turned out to be not such an easy ride, but highly memorable.

February:

After the end of the January festivities I started on my garden- this was a great project to keep me busy during the first couple of months at post, helping me to integrate into the community and the group of gardeners because I had to go and water twice a day and walk through village to get there. This kept me busy for most of February.
Near the end of the month we were summoned to the training center in Pagala, in the Centrale region near the middle of the country. It is like a beautiful forested NRM paradise there! We did lots and lots of learning about more techniques to promote in village like container gardens, contour planting and even got to vaccinate some chickens by giving them shots against Newcastle disease! It was great to see everyone again, and fun to learn more neat o techniques and hang out with our technical trainer Blaise and our program director Paul who are always enthusiastic and easy going. We took a really great nature and tree identification walk through an empty river bed, then crossed the remaining river to check out a garden on the other side – Paul gave one volunteer a piggy back ride across the water and good times were had all round. It was odd however, having a schedule again and it was a little tiring all those day long sessions of classroom learning style. Good thing in NRM we get to do fun little hands on demonstrations and get out to stretch our legs once in awhile- even though the ‘classroom’ is in an open air room with a roof …

The end of February marks the beginning of the hot season, or Mango season to the locals. The winds of Harmattan ended one nondescript day and then the heat settled in.