Zafi Grooves

Last Sunday Joey and I had our craziest village experience to date.

There were probably close to 1000 Africans in attendance, and then me & Joey. We were seated on special couches next to all of the village chiefs from the area who were all wearing (fake) gold crowns and carrying giant walking sticks. We were treated to hours of traditional dancing, plays and music.

It's almost impossible to put the experience into words. I'm still kinda speechless about the whole thing. At one point, I leaned over to Joey and eloquently said, "ummm, this is maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen. Where ARE we!?"

Other than that, I sat in wide-eyed silence just trying to take it all in. My brain is still humming from it all. More than the ceremonies and dancing was the chance to watch a little piece of the world that is oh so very foreign to us. And to wonder:

Why are African children all so well behaved?

This was one of my very-deep-thoughts while watching the crowds. There were kids everywhere, all huddled together, sans adults, watching everything in quiet happiness. I'm talking packs of 8-year-old boys, teen girls, and little toddlers, all simply - get this - enjoying the show in front of them.

This would NEVER happen back home. Babies would be screaming, kids complaining about being bored, teenagers rolling their eyes and snickering.

It was seriously amazing. I'm sure the answer is in part the fact that they have so little "entertainment" of the traditional sort. But it seemed like more than that. It seemed like a deeper respect for what was unfolding in front of them. And an ability to be present than most of us will ever have.

I wonder if this whole fake-gold-crown-thing of the past influences the whole $300K-car-thing of the present?

I don't mean to be judgmental, but I couldn't help but stare at the chiefs and wonder if their way of flashing status and wealth has negatively influenced modern African leaders' propensity to do the same?

There are rumors that the President of Togo has recently purchased some $300,000+ car for himself. As I sat there in a village with no running water and watched people moving couches for their chiefs with their "gold" crowns to sit on, I wondered why people weren't more peeved than they are about their current leadership. I'd be protesting in the streets if I had to carry 30 pounds of water on my head back and forth all friggin' day long while my "elected" president drives around in a car that could provide water and then some for the entire country!

Then again, I've already grown used to the military men everywhere with their giant guns slung across their backs. So maybe I wouldn't run protesting in the streets.

Why can't I dance like those 4 year-olds?

Enough said.

Night Like Buffalo

Images from Lome's fetish market popped up during my very first Google Image search of Togo. I saw hundreds of dusty animal skulls on my MacBook screen back in Washington D.C. and said, "Heeelz NO are we bidding that place!"

But here we are. And today we saw said dusty animal skulls in person.

A group of us piled into an armored embassy van and drove to the outskirts of town to the infamous market in the hopes of meeting the voodoo chief. We met his Supposed Son instead, although our Togolese driver said the guides and S.Son were speaking a native tongue of Benin. Hmm.

On our tour, we discovered the cure for asthma: 16 porcupine needles, 5-7 skulls of cat, dog, mouse, snake, and whatever else the chief requires, all ground up in a turtle shell, burnt to a black powder, mixed into local honey, then eaten.

We saw hyena skins, shark jaws, crocodile tails, horse manes, and snake spines scattered around on tables - all intended for traditional healing purposes.

The finale came in the form of an invitation, as special guests, into S.Son's lair: a shack with a tin roof, mud walls, and air hazy from the white dust of burnt skeletons.

Squished in the room inside the room inside the shack was a disappointingly normal looking guy with lots of disappointingly normal looking trinkets. But the stories that followed made up for it. We received our initiation into the Supposedly Six important fetish objects for every man and household:

1. Little Wooden Man with Hole in Mouth to ensure safe travels of the one you tell the Little Wooden Man to keep safe.

2. Ebony Seed to ensure safe thoughts and good dreams to the one who kisses it 3 times, dunks it in water, and makes a cross sign with it on his forehead.

3. 21 Herb Talisman Pouch with conch shells to ensure good luck in general to the one who wears it around his neck.

4. Seal of Love Mini Raft to ensure devotion and passion between the one who drops perfume onto it and the other who holds it between his palm.

5. Little Clay Man with Holes in Eyes to ensure protection to your home if you light a cigarette and let it burn all the way down from one empty eye hole. Beware future burglar: blindness will befall if you strike!

6. Buffalo Stick to ensure a "night like buffalo" to the man who shaves bits of it into a glass of whiskey and lets it sit for 2 days, then takes a woman to his bed.

For those who chose to take their powers with them, it would go like this: you'd place what you wanted in the turtle shell on the ground and the S. Son would take it, rock it, pick it up, put it down, and rock some more until he received word of how much it would cost you.

Joe and I weren't interested in purchasing our magic items, so we were dismissed as to not taint the powers of others' choices. We went outside to watch the monkey (alive, for now) instead.

All fun aside, I'm intrigued by the history of voodoo. What we saw today was the cheesy tourist version of it, but I know it has a strong hold on Togolese history, culture and life behind the scenes. It'd be fascinating to better understand it.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jen.a.watts/FetishMarket#