The One That Preludes the Other Ones

Greetings from Togo! Wow, I’m truly sorry it’s been so long – so long, in fact, that I actually forgot my blog username and password haha. So… How are you?! Wherever you are in life, I hope you are well and finding joy in the new year. It’s crazy to think about all of you immersed in the full swing of American life, busy with work and school and family and friends. While I don’t know the details of what’s going on in your world, I can only imagine you are as strong and awesome as ever 🙂

It’s hard to believe that five months have passed since my stage (training group) and I landed in Togo. Since our arrival, we have completed 9 weeks of training (during which we lived with host families in a village in the Maritime Region down south) and survived nearly 3 months at our posts (our individual homes for 2 years of PC service, scattered throughout the country). Right after Thanksgiving (which, thanks to a determined team of PCVs, included all the traditional staples and even, in true pilgrim fashion, the slaughter of a live turkey) I made the move to my post, a mellow little village in the middle of nowhere – more specifically, in the Savanes Region, less than 10 kilometers from the Burkina Faso border. That may not mean much to you, but basically those of us living in Savanes are super far away from everything, like a 12-hour drive from the capital. Due to our relative isolation, we have a really close-knit Volunteer family up here, which is awesome. I feel very lucky to have the friends I do up here.

To summarize my living situation, I have a nice tin-roofed house with two rooms that share walls with my neighbors, duplex-style. Other than the crumbling mud-brick walls that seem to crumble more every time I look at them, I really like my house. I also have a latrine/shower combo, small courtyard with a paillote (straw-roofed gazebo thing for shade), guest hut (which is empty… you are always welcome!), and animal hut (soon to be filled with chickens!). No host family, which has its pros and cons. But I’m happy, healthy, and taking it easy.

To summarize my work situation, I’m at the point in my service where my only actual job responsibilities are to settle in and “integrate” into my community – as much as a single white female can. For me this consists of hanging out, trying to get to know my neighbors, and working on my still-feeble French and Moba (the local language spoken way more than French). Some may call this doing nothing. I call it becoming bien integré. Or, in the brilliant phrasing of my favorite wordsmith Brynna Nichols, “professional friend-making.”

Oh, so about why this is the first time I’ve updated the blog. In case you couldn’t tell, moving to Togo caused me to develop cyberphobia, seeing as I can only drag myself to the internet once a month, if that. And for some reason I am finding blogging really intimidating, so even though I’ve been handwriting the occasional entry in my journal, I haven’t posted anything… until now. So I hope you enjoy the entries below for what they are, which is nothing more than a humble and unrepresentative peek into life here.

Thinking of you often! Keep on keeping on. And treat yourselves to a pint of Ben & Jerry’s on my behalf – you definitely deserve it 🙂

All my love,
Heidi

(a.k.a. Pak-yendu, which means “Thanks, God! ” in Moba)

The One with All the Time in the World

Written on: le 15 Fevrier 2011

So there’s something you need to understand about village life.

We may not have a lot of water, vegetables, or things to do, but we have A LOT of time. And not just any old kind of time but that special brand known as “free time” – wide open free time which begins the moment the rising sun peels open your eyes at a quarter of 6 and ends when the complete absence of nightlife forces you into bed with a book at 8 in the evening. Being an anomaly of a woman here (husband-less and baby-less), I don’t have the luxury of passing time according to the gendered division of labor that defines Togolese households. Without a family to feed (or any real responsibilities whatsoever), how I pass the day is completely up to me.

You would think that it would be really awesome and liberating to have all this free time on your hands, which it is… until you find yourself talking to lizards and attempting to learn the geography of the entire world map (I’ve almost got Western Europe down!).

Here are just a few of the other highly productive ways I like to fill my daylight hours:

Wandering

Much of my time spent working on “community integration” (PC-speak for hanging out) includes wandering aimlessly around my village to “saluer” (greet) my neighbors, repeating a conversation that goes like this:

Neighbor: “Where are you going?”
Me: “Nowhere.”
Neighbor: “What are you doing?”
Me: “Nothing.”

Yep.

Drinking

Wandering pretty much inevitably begins or ends with a stop (or two… or three…) to fill up on a calabash of tchakpa, our friendly neighborhood beverage. It’s as locally-brewed as you can get: ladies make it in big cauldrons in their front yards and then bring it out to sell. Tchakpa isn’t just a drink – it’s a way of life. I would describe it as the social heartbeat of the village, and thus vital to my work as a professional friend-maker (shout-out to Brynna).

“Gardening”

It’s the dry season up here, which means that agriculture of the rain-fed variety isn’t possible. So what does a farmer do if not farm? Garden, of course! And I’m not talking backyard flowerbeds. For this kind of garden, one must walk an hour out into the uninhabited countryside, dig a 12-foot hole to hit groundwater, and pound the rock-hard dust that constitutes our desert “soil” with a hoe for days, transforming empty savannah into big fields of tomatoes or onions. My gardening buddies are nothing if not badass, and I have to put in a lot of muscle to keep up with them. This is why I put “gardening” in quotation marks, because I am not the one who actually gardens – to my frustration I have, more than once, been ordered (emphatically) to sit and watch. Thankfully at this point in the season the work dans le jardin pretty much just consists of watering, with which I can actually help, albeit with a much smaller bucket than everyone else.

Reading

Anything, anytime. Send me good material!

Experimental Cooking

How many different ways can you use tomato paste? Or sweet potatoes? Or black-eyed peas? Or powdered milk? How long can you ration the precious vegetables and eggs purchased in town? How moist a cake can you bake in a Dutch oven? This is Top Chef, Togo edition. Every meal is an adventure!

Never-ending Cleaning

Cleaning takes a relatively long time here, which is a good thing when using up time is your goal. I do my dishes in a basin in my front yard and my laundry in our little mostly-dried-up river. Unfortunately I get the feeling that none of my stuff is ever actually clean, but oh well.

Sitting in Silence, Staring into Space

Pretty self-explanatory.

Monitoring the Gecko Colony

When the Peace Corps told me I would have my own house, they were lying. They neglected to mention my ever-growing population of reptilian roommates. Fortunately the geckos that live in my palm-stalk ceiling are quite pleasant, peaceful creatures and make for good company. Here’s an average encounter:

Me: “How’s your day going, buddy?”
Gecko: “Click, click. Click, click.”
Me: “Yeah, me too. Did you manage to track down that elusive cricket?”
Gecko: “Click, click. Click, click.”
Me: “Oh that’s good. And what is your opinion on the situation in Cote d’Ivoire?”
Gecko: “Click, click. Click, click.”
Me: “Fascinating. I was thinking the same thing.”

Besides the clicks, the other thing about housing a gecko colony is the eggs, which are about the size of a dime and stick to the wall. The first time I found four of them above my bed I kind of freaked out and smooshed them all, but then I was immediately overcome by remorse. I have since become a fervent pro-lifer, vowing to protect rather than abort any and all gecko fetuses that turn up on my wall, even at the risk of overpopulation. I’m currently waiting for two eggs to hatch.

And last but definitely not least…
Puppy-ing!

Even with all my new human and reptilian friends, I was getting a little lonely during my first three months in my village. Enter Rundles Jr., the most recent addition to my little family. I am in love. He is cuddly and smiley and brimming with comic mishaps. My village friends are also smitten and are very protective of him, which was a little unexpected seeing as dogs here are neglected and then eaten (“le chien est le plus bon viande”). A couple of my village buddies named him “Dogma” – irony unintended. It’s pronounced “doe-guh-muh” in Moba and means “Le monde est bon, il n’y a pas le travail, c’est temps pour fêter, tout le monde danse” – party time! As for training, we are still working on the basics, like coming when called and not having accidents inside. Hopefully we can soon move on to more exciting tricks, like playing dead and doing the hokey-pokey, because let’s face it, that’s really what it’s all about.

The One Where We’re Happy and We Know It

Written on: le 6 Fevrier 2011

Mamanaa is beautiful.

Not immediately, not loudly. But the more time I spend with her the more I notice her skin, stretched out taut over her bones like a ripe eggplant; her eyes, glossy black pools that cut past your bullshit; her voice, too, moderate but not miserly, offering exactly what is needed when it’s needed, content to rest otherwise. She embodies balance, temperance, self-contentment. Don’t be mistaken – she is hard as nails. In contrast to her husband (my homologue, i.e. cultural guide/work partner), who is very much your typical expressive “nice guy,” one would not call her cheery or warm. The first time we watered the garden together just the two of us, she asked me, “Are you tired?” I glanced over at her. “No, I am happy.” She then burst out laughing, shaking her head and howling, over and over again, “Pak-yendu is happy!” as though it were the most absurd joke she’d ever heard. I released my usual slough of sympathetic laughter, but I couldn’t help but feel a little mocked and hurt.

I’ve since grown to not only appreciate but enjoy Mamanaa’s unapologetic scoffs and smirks, which I first took to be cold and judgmental but now understand as a sort of siren recognizing the hilarity of our humanity. She is acutely tuned in to a level of humor and authenticity most of us tend to ignore. She sees us laid bare in all our ridiculousness, and she’s not afraid to let us know.

After that first encounter, Mamanaa latched onto one question that no one else poses to me: “Are you happy?” To which I reply, “Yes, I am happy, are you happy?” To which she replies, “Yes.” And then she laughs, sometimes even scoffs in that stringent way of hers. But I can see in the way her sharp eyes soften, hear in the way her austere tone of voice elevates to accommodate just the slightest hint of eagerness, that she draws something of worth from this dialogue. That perhaps through questioning me she reaffirms her own happiness. That our mutual “yes”es are somehow a self-fulfilling prophecy freeing joy into our days.

And so, for whatever reason, the two of us have developed a nice rapport. She gets me drunk; I give her peanuts. Such is the simple reciprocity that underpins my village friendships. We do not – we cannot – share life stories or interests or favorite things, or trade advice or ambitions. All we have to offer one another are the most basic kindnesses, and that is enough.

The One with Baby Jesus

Written on: le 23 Janvier 2011

It is Sunday morning and most of my neighbors are going to mass. I am blessed (haha, I couldn’t help myself) to live adjacent to the Catholic mission in my village, and right now if I peek out my window I can see a stream of pagne-clad women carting their children to and from the church gates. I can hear the loud hymns and lively chatter – at least I could, before I plugged my ears with headphones and escaped to the dark, cool cave that is my iPod.

You see, while most of my neighbors go to mass, I prefer to hide. I tried the church thing one Sunday early on, really, I did: I got dressed up and sat up straight on a bench and did my best not to let on that, given that the service was in not one but two languages I could not understand, I had no idea what was going on and was thereby bored out of my mind. But no matter, I stuck it out. I clapped with the rhythm of the hymns, kneeled in prayer, even remained still as a stone while the father, a gray-haired Polish missionary, vigorously sprinkled Holy Water on (well, more like at) me.

I managed not to roll my eyes as I regarded the art adorning the church walls. On the right, an innocuous string of murals depicts a black Jesus doing Jesus-y things like curing the sick and feeding the hungry; on the left, more of the same. But in the center, elevated above the position of the murals, hangs an outrageously large portrait of a white Jesus, doing nothing but looking quite Jesus-y. It was not lost on me, the audacity of Huge White Jesus, in front of whom stands a white preacher, both of whom are flanked by cheerful black followers.

This did not seem to bother my neighbors so I tried not to let it bother me (the Black Jesus murals were a nice gesture, weren’t they?), instead turning my attention to the fidgety children squirming in the pews. I couldn’t help but let a silent smile grace my lips, comforted and amused by the universality of a child’s restlessness at church. I smiled at the acquaintances I recognized, enjoyed the music, and thanked the père for an “excellent” service (my French vocabulary, and thus my capacity for compliments, is still quite limited).

So yes, I tried in earnest to do the church thing, but I had to resign myself to the fact that, for all its prominence in my community, it’s not for me. And so now Sunday mornings are a time to hide.

I am sprawled out on a mat on my floor, sipping on my crude rendition of a chai latté and sifting through the pages I have tossed out around me: poems, favorite books, quotes scrawled on scraps of paper, letters from friends a million miles away. The words enthrall and enchant me. They take me home to the good that’s always there, help me remember what I already know: that this whole experience is magic, even – perhaps especially – when it’s frustrating or exhausting or boring. “It is a sublime thing to suffer and be stronger,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow tells me, and I feel light spill into a dark corner of my stomach. Then Baby Suggs in Beloved: “Here… in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard…”

Sinking into the floor, I sparkle a little more with each reminder, the words gently scrubbing away the crust of malaise that has settled over my spirit this past week. I flip to a random page of Anne Lamott:

“Think of those times when you’ve read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone’s soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think, to help others have this sense of – please forgive me – wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in our small, bordered worlds.”

And that’s when it hits me – I am at church. This is my worship, these are my preachers. My neighbors convene in fellowship, sing, kneel, pray; I retreat into music, read, write, create. We are all seeking the same thing: a brush with grace, a reunion with love, a reassurance of magic and meaning.

I get up and pull out my headphones for a minute to wash my face. I can hear the clamor of churchgoers milling home; it sounds beautiful.

The One with the Rabid Children

Written on: le 2 Janvier 2011

They say every story has a moral. I’m not so sure about this one, but here goes.

New Years morning in Togo is like Halloween night in America: the kids all go door-to-door collecting candy. Only this is not your average innocent trick-or-treating; these kids are NUTS. They run around yelling “Bonne Année!!!!! ” at the top of their lungs, then they show up at your doorstep to demand “bon-bons.” Then they scream and fight and scramble and try to sneak seconds. At one point I gave up and shut my door on a swarming mob of like fifty kids. Five years working as a camp counselor… and I never met my match until now 🙂

The End.

The One In Praise of Bucket Baths

Written on: le 28 Septembre 2010

I have just taken the second-best shower of my life.

Yesterday was the best shower, but I won’t bother you with that story. Abbreviated version: I was so hot that I was angry (like, angry-at-Jan-Brewer-for-signing-SB-1070-into-law angry), and by some grace I decided to go take a shower. Best decision of my Peace Corps life so far, hands down. Showering, I have determined, is my new favorite hobby – my peace and power, if you will – which brings us to today.

“Eye-dee” (French doesn’t pronounce H’s), my teenage host sister Georgina calls to me, followed by something in French I don’t understand. I ask her to repeat slowly, which she does, but alas my French comprehension is still too pathetic to siphon out even the slightest clue as to what she wants. Exasperated by my blank expression, she says in broken English, “My uncle meet you – mon oncle.” I apologize and hastily follow her to meet her “uncle,” who ends up introducing himself as her “professeur” but treats her like an object of affection. When he begins remarking on how she is “not a petite girl – no, she is a big girl” with a flirtatious snicker, I become uncomfortable. Not wanting to be rude, I socialize with him warmly nonetheless – after all, this is a different culture I’ve just been plopped into like Nemo into that dentist office fishtank, and maybe I’m missing something. But as my attention span and reserves of French vocabulary wane, I begin searching for a way out of the encounter. “Well,” I say chipperly when a pause arises, “I need to do my homework now” (haha, I’m like a kid in school again, I know). We exchange amicable goodbyes and off I go.

But do I really want to do my homework now, in my sweaty oven of a room, at 7 p.m.? Hell no. So I decide it’s the perfect occasion for indulging in my new favorite hobby.

For those of you who have never lived in a rural village with no electricity, running water, or plumbing of any kind, let me explain what taking a shower at 7 p.m. involves. First off, it’s pitch dark. It falls dark at about a quarter of 6 and my neighborhood becomes a whole different world. The only sign of human life is a sparse smattering of kerosene lamps and cell phone “torches” that glow like fireflies in the deep black night. So I grab my flashlight (I am too hot to tolerate my kerosene lamp at this point), my bucket, and toiletries and walk out into the dark. I am wearing just a pagne (a block of wax-print fabric) and tapettes (flip-flops). I take my bucket over to my family’s rainwater harvester, which serves as their source of water for drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning, you name it, it comes from the rain. Pretty damn cool, I think 🙂 Anyway, I dip a smaller bucket into the deep basin to draw water into my bathing bucket, and I’m set.

I waddle over to the shower/latrine, which is essentially a roofless stall constructed from the stems of palm fronds, dirt floor and all. This little stall is my slice of heaven, my zen garden, my #%@$ing happy place.

And so it begins. Bucket in hands. Water on head. Eyes on sky. Stars. Stars that point the way to magic, to primal ecstasy. Stars that tell you that life is sweet, that the smooth wet bliss on your skin is the sky’s way of saying “I love you,” that in your breath you are always home.

I linger in the shower for I don’t know how long, savoring every last drop in that bucket. Getting to know myself a little better, feeling for the first time phenomenally like a real-blood child of the rain and sky. Crickets chirp, heavy drums sound from a nearby church. Yes, I do pause to dart to the latrine, but not even that can interrupt the fact that I am happy, I am whole, I am home.

You might be reading this with a roll of the eyes, thinking that all those malaria pills have gone to my head. That I have fallen overboard into the dangerous tide of narcissistic myth-making, recreating the disgusting Peace-Corps-girl-awakens-her-soul-in-an-African-village cliché, romanticizing the mundane to a point of tired banality. To that I say: so what if I am. There is a lot of bad in this world, much of it close to home. The very “need” for the presence of Peace Corps in Togo traces its violent roots to a history of slavery and marginalization. My happiness here is not innocent.

There is plenty in this world to decry, but there is plenty more to celebrate. And if right now, in this moment, I can soak in the romance of a starlit shower, then yes, yes, yes I will.