Alisha Williams

I’m not entirely sure where to begin. So much has changed in the last few months it is hard to keep up with, and it would be an exercise in futility to try to trace back all that has happened since I left off; I will simply try to recreate what I see and feel everyday and hope that the blanks will fill themselves in.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. One of those days where the rain sets in long and steady and you can feel the Earth growing all around you. We had an entire week without rain preceding this and people were beginning to worry their crops, I imagine like most any farmers would, except that these are subsistence farmers and they have slightly more (or less) at stake. They are growing what they will be eating until the next season. Granted, this is not to generalize everyone, there are many farmers who take their chances with cotton crops and seem to profit handsomely- that is to say they have some disposable income when all is said and done.

However hard it is to sit and think over these things for me, an outsider playing along; this is their lives. It is not the first season nor by far the last. The rains will come. Nobody will starve or go hungry for too long because if there is one thing I have figured out it is that Togolese people are masters of making do with what is available.

As I walked this morning through the water soaked landscape of green corn stalks basking in the long awaited moisture and the tree spotted hills surrounding Ataloté I felt at peace. Ironically,being a Peace Corps volunteer and all, I have be searching for this inner quietude since I set foot in Lomé. This is not to say I have not been enjoying myself or loving every minute of this experience good, bad or miserable; I most emphatically have. It is simply to say that somewhere between the unbearable heat of Mango season and the travel schedule I have been on since May, I have hit some kind of stride in my life here in Togo.
Everything in Peace Corps is accelerated and you either sink, swim or skate by so that you can enjoy your adventure.

For the first time since May I will be spending an entire month, nay five weeks, at home. I feel as though I can finally breathe a sigh of relief, pet my dog and fall into some kind of routine- any kind of routine would be fine by me, and it looks as though that wish will be coming true. My dad said to me before I came here, when I was waxing on about how I wanted to rough it and hoped to be placed in an ‘authentic’ PC post (no running water, electricity, amenities etc.), “be careful what you wish for.”

I started teaching English to four different level classes, five days a week this Monday. So routine it is; while I am yet again jumping in head first, under-prepared and learning as I go. It has been a nice change to the vast empty doldrums that come from having complete control over your schedule and no system to work in.
This last week has been incredibly encouraging and productive. Perhaps where the feeling of hitting my stride has emerged from. Teaching English, doing multiple farm visits, planting trees…

March:

Getting to know Akantos

After being at post for a little, Akantos came out to visit me. Akantos is the head of an agricultural NGO in Kanté that focuses on gardening and elevage and takes in orphans to work and learn from him and his staff. A few of the University students from Kara accompanied him and they dropped in with no notice as I was doing laundry and went out to inspect who had just pulled up in a car- which is odd. It was great to chat with him and we visited my garden. They gave me tips for what I was growing and also to help my compost along faster. Akantos then invited me to go have lunch at a new restaurant that was in town and wanted me to come along right away, which I did. It turned out to be quite a big deal though and I was entirely under-dressed; the prefet (like a mayor) and pretty much any VIP in town was there. It was good to finally meet them and enjoy a nice meal for free!

Akantos’ wife Florence (very popular name around here), was really gracious and let me into their home to meet their children and wait for them to get ready. Akantos has a great yard with all kinds of plants growing in all seasons and is a good resource to go to to double check any technical questions I have. Their house is beautiful and grand with open rooms and nice furniture. The office looks just like one would back home – complete with laptop and printer and a very spoiled and under-disciplined little six year old girl. It was one of those gems that pop up every now and then here, when you have nothing planned and great opportunities just fall into your lap if you go with it.

Dangerous times

What I remember most about march was trauma. One night away in Kara to run errands and cool off for a night my closest volunteer neighbor, Mary in Kanté, called me to let me know about a wreck that had happened in Ataloté. I returned home the next day to grim tales of horror that didn’t end all month. Apparently, from what I have been able to piece together from many a fantastic and animated story, was that a standard van style bush taxi, fifteen seats in the states = twenty one seats in Togo if not another five or ten riding on top of the already piled high with goods roof, essentially exploded in front of my marché. Fifteen people died, burned alive in front of all of the villagers while they stood watching helpless. Three were children, two were pregnant women, three people and the driver escaped with minor injuries. It was absolutely horrendous and maman and the soap ladies told stories of trying to pull out screaming people and getting charred flesh instead, of burying the remains beside the charred skeleton of the taxi that now stands ominous at the base of the hill leading down to the marché.

This needs some explaining: apparently the apprentice to the chauffeur was driving which was the first mistake. This was an apprentice that had already had another accident before that led to people dying. This time to say it was a vehicle accident would be a stretch. Like I alluded to earlier taxis here are always full to the brim and extremely top heavy from all the cargo loaded onto the roof. However bad this is on the main paved route through Togo, it is greatly exacerbated the further you get away into the more rural areas. The taxi in question was a taxi that took villagers and cargo for the marché from outlying small villages that surround Ataloté, which is the center of the canton (kind of like a district- smaller than a county) and has the largest marché for miles away. From the stories I gathered that once he reached the top of the hill a mechanic stopped him and told him the engine was badly overheating and needed water. In most taxis, old Mazda vans from the eighties and nineties beat up beyond comprehension most times, the engine block in underneath the front row with the driver and the second row gets a lot of heat from the engine on hot days or if there are radiator issues etc. Also many drivers carry extra jerry cans of gasoline, petrol or other flammable materials and stash them directly behind the driver’s seat, beside the hot engine block. Dangerous recipe for disaster. I was told that one passenger told the apprentice his pant leg was on fire, the apprentice jumped out at the top of the hill and let the vehicle go free wheeling down the hill where it turned over into a culvert and exploded. People said there was a big bang and cloud of black smoke that rose above the marché and everyone ran from their stands to see what happened, others stayed behind to loot the empty stands. Maman said she had lived here most of her life, but she had never witnessed anything so horrible. The apprentice got hauled off to jail. I was so glad that I was not there.

Tsilim

Tsilim is a big fête for three of the surrouding clans of Kanté: There is the Tamberma whom live East towards Benin, the Lamba in an around Kanté and Loso to the South. It is really an exercise of multitasking and they get together not combining clans but also combining reasons for the festival; March is the lull between harvest and rainy season and so marks the celebration of the harvest and also serves as an initiation time for the Tamberma. Naturally it is also a plea for a good following season with plenty of rain.

Daniel came out to see what all the fuss was about and we spent the weekend in Kanté. It was held at the stadium in town and there were some covered bleachers and a tent with rented plastic chairs for the notables and important guests. Akantos arranged for us to get seats
The Tamberma people have a really engaging dance where they attach bells to their calves and do a fast foot movement shaking dance while wearing impressive cow horn helmets and clanging cow bells to the beat and chanting.

April:

April was hot. Nuff said. Treacherous, ruthless heat. Lots of people got sick. I harvested what wasn’t scorched in my garden. I learned how to love love sleeping outside in a hammock. Learned to navigate the big city of Lome…retreat to air conditioning. Near the end we had a week long training with counterparts about project design management which was mainly a repeat of stage stuff for us, with the added bonus of feeling pressure to finance projects. Stage is all capacity building, capacity building and then they are like “Ok, it’s been a couple months…where is your big bad financed project?” The highlight was getting the counterparts in on some hands on NRM learning. Went to see a beekeeping project, learned how to graft mango trees, build improved cook stoves etc. Good stuff.