Empty Staff Quarters

I do not work on Mondays; I do some lesson plans, I walk my dog, I read, I write, I go to my tennis lesson at 5.

I do not cook; Moise, a Togolese man in his 50's with three daughters, spends 2 full days a week at our house making enough food so that I never have to boil water if I don't want to. We pay him the generous salary, by Togolese standards, of 7,000 CFA ($14) per day.

I do not clean; Clara, a Ghanaian woman in her 50's with four children, spends 1 day a week here doing laundry, scrubbing our floors, vacuuming, etc. Aside from some dishes on the days when Clara or Moise aren't here and organizing of stuff, I am spared household duties for the price of 7,000 CFA as well.

Despite this ridiculous luxury by our standards, many locals think it's strange that we don't have full time staff. But I feel lazy and guilty by American standards for having said cook, cleaner and all around easy life as much as I do.

So imagine the conflicting emotions that arose last week when Clara broke down into tears about how much she is struggling right now. Her husband died years ago and her nearly grown children can't find jobs as there are so few in Togo. She only works one day a week right now because there aren't any US Embassy families who need her. We keep telling her that we'll recommend her to arriving families, but we can't make any promises.

She is living on $14 a week (sadly, still more than the average Togolese makes) and is struggling. As she cried, I became privy to a family drama that I still don't fully understand. It went like this:

"I wish I hadn't been born African. Africans have black hair, which means they have black minds," said Clara after telling me she needed to leave early to attend a court hearing about some land issues.

"There are bad people everywhere, Clara. It's not just here." I responded, taken aback by her comment.

She looked genuinely surprised. "Really Madame? There are?"

She went on to describe how her late husband's brother had been managing her money because that's how finances pass when a man dies. It doesn't go to his wife - it goes to another man. Her son wasn't yet old enough to be put on their accounts and properties as the owner, so it all went to her brother-in-law.

This man used his dead brother's money to buy a house for his family, instead of leaving it for Clara's kids' education. But this detail came after learning about her present problem. He had recently come to Togo to visit some land that Clara's husband had purchased with 2 other men. According to Clara, he put a "joojoo" spell on the land that would make it so that she would drop dead if she ever stepped foot there. He then asked her to meet him there and discuss its "true" ownership.

She refused to meet him there and was going with some of her friends to meet him at a court house to discuss the land deed. Her brother-in-law was claiming that Clara forged her husband's signature on ownership documents and somehow or another it was actually his money that purchased the land.

This is where I started getting lost in the family drama. Clara's Ghanaian English combined with all of the intricate voodoo references and incomprehensible legal structure (or lack thereof) made things very confusing very fast.

But all I know is that I had an older woman in my kitchen with tears rolling down her cheeks, desperately wanting to ask for more work to help her through this tough time. I know because I was avoiding the question.

We recently gave our cook a huge advance on his pay so that he could cover her tuition. He's paying us back over 6 months. Our gardener (yeah, we have one of those too - it's not normal, I know) was only just recently able to move out of his sister's shack because he's working 6 days a week (shared between 3 houses) on $6 a day, all the while paying for his little brother to go to school.

So where does the help begin and end, in a country where everywhere you look are people in desperate need? How can you be sure that your money will do any good at the end of the day when the family structures and cultural differences are so foreign?

And how can you reconcile suddenly being in a place where you're richer than most locals' wildest dreams, when you come from a place where you're most certainly not?

Most of us were raised on a certain moral code that taught us not to pay for things just because you can. We admire people who can live in mansions but chose not to. We respect those who can afford a full time chef but enjoy cooking for themselves anyway. Just because you can pay for a bell-hop doesn't mean you can't carry your own friggin' luggage.

More than anything though, most of us never have to make the above decisions. Life in the US is simply too expensive, and even when it's not, we all find ways of needing or wanting more and more things that make it so in the end.

But it's not like that here. People with money hire staff. Doing something yourself takes away a job from someone who needs it. People with staff quarters fill them. Leaving them empty deprives someone of a clean, dry room in a malaria and flood ridden land.

I don't need someone cleaning my house two times a week - it'd be absurd - but I can. Does that mean I should?

Joey and I have discussed possibly giving Clara an old sewing machine to help her start another revenue source, or trying to cover some of her younger kids' schooling. We'd hoped to wait a few more months to get to know her better. Mostly we just feel incredibly awkward about the whole thing.

And I can't even begin to process the implications of an African woman telling an American woman that her people are inherently bad and that she wishes she'd been born something else.

Piece Of Cake, Ms. Welsh

Many of you already know that my stint with Kiva was very brief. For those of you who hadn't heard, basically I came to Togo at a very bad time for Kiva. First they couldn't figure out anything for me to do, then they placed me with a microfinance institute whose relationship with Kiva was on the rocks. The organization wasn't being honest about where funds were going, so I was asked to sleuth.

This would have entailed visiting villages without anyone else from the organization, to try and figure out what was going on.

Sounds fun at first, but then I discover that a) the embassy isn't keen blonde girls driving themselves an hour to villages where most people don't even speak French, b) a driver + gas would cost around $500/month and Kiva wasn't covering this and, c) my efforts would likely end in terminating the relationship between Kiva and the local organization: good for Kiva and lenders, bad for Togo.

SO, I decided to take a teaching job instead.

I teach English to high school students part time. Since there are no books or supplies or even a curriculum, I get to do whatever I want in class. So long as I can get them to speak more English, which most of them avoid doing.

Early on I discovered a weakness for American culture. And by weakness I mean adoration. Fortunately for me, I am American. Example:

I started with "Hi (Student Name), How are you?" in the halls where most of them speak French, and forced them to embarassingly respond to me. Then I moved to, "How's it going?" (Most students still respond "I am fine, thank you" to this and don't understand when I keep telling them that the appropriate response is, "it's good!"). A handful of eager students are onto "What's up!?" but only run away from me in response. I will hopefully reach "Sup" with a head nod by the end of the year.

Anyway, in reading an article on Hurricane Earl with my class, I realized that we Americans are very dramatic when we talk about the weather. In this instance, everything was a battle. The storm was pelting down. It marched steadily north. Everyone braced for the onslaught. Etc. It opened the doors to a conversation about our many expressions using "wind": "I got the wind knocked out of me", "she left him a windfall", "he's 3 sheets to the wind."

When I attempted to explain what it means to "get a second wind" I received 12 blank stares back at me.

"You know, it's when you're REALLY tired after lunch but then you fight through the tiredness and suddenly you have more energy again!"

"Oh!" said the kids, "You mean when you take a nap and you wake up not tired anymore."

"No, no, no, there is no napping involved."

(Blank stares)

"You get more energy from... well I don't know where it comes from... it just comes after you were once really tired."

They had no idea what I was talking about. I eventually laughed and said that perhaps it's an American thing because we don't take naps. More blank stares ensued.

Another week was Food week, which started with an article about a new restaurant in Brooklyn that served insects. I thought they'd find this interesting and weird, but the only thing they were utterly confused about was the fact that the diners ate a 5-course meal and paid $85 to do so. They wouldn't let it drop that 5 courses was way too much food (I agree, but was equally confused by their confusion, given some of the meals I've eaten in this country). And $85 to eat bugs!? Eating worms is apparently not that interesting to them, but paying $85 to do so was the funniest thing they'd heard all day.

The week ended with a list of idioms using food: "She's the breadwinner", "He's a tough nut to crack", " They're two peas in a pod." Most of them were easy enough for the kids to understand. But one was impossible to explain: "A piece of cake." Why in the world does this mean "easy." Anyone? I have no idea. But it just does. That was my answer.

As things go, the one expression that made absolutely no sense to myself or them was the one they remember. Now I hear 10 times a day, "It-is-a-piece-of-cake, Ms. Welsh" (each syllable annunciated perfectly). Giggle giggle.

Now onto explaining that it sounds really weird when you actually say all the words.

Baby steps.

Where the Wild Things Are

Imagine the cover of "Where the Wild Things Are," with those huge jungly looking palm trees, replace the hairy monster with my blindingly white self on the beach, throw in the ocean and a few fishing boats, and there you have it. My official Happy Place here.

Ouida, Benin is a little over an hour past the border of Togo. Since Togo's coast line is only 40 miles long, and Lome is right on it, the dirt and chaos of a developing country's capital city has stripped away most of the natural beauty. But Benin's coastline, at least near the Togolese border, has remained untouched.

Once we reached the village of Ouida's center, we had to roll down our windows a few times and ask the locals where to find our hotel. As with most African cities, signs and markers are lacking. They pointed us to a road that ended at the beach, upon which we needed to turn right. On the beach. Sans road.

We passed huts made out of dried palm leaves. Cows and chickens and baby goats and children playing under palm trees passed us on the 5 mile trek down the beach.

We arrived at the little resort in the middle of nowhere just before the sky went completely black. Save all the stars that were perfectly clear once night fell.

I think Joey has experienced remote beaches like this with all of his surf trips. But I haven't. So it was officially the most beautiful beach I've ever been on. The cabins we stayed in reminded me of the housing for the dancers in Dirty Dancing. (Wow I am filled with bizarre visual references for all of you today). They were simple little wooden structures with a porch out front, overlooking the ocean. The only thing between the cabin and the beach with it's thousands of giant WTWTA palms was a tiny little sidewalk.

We ate some fresh seafood for dinner, played some cards with our friends who had joined us, and fell asleep to the sound of the ocean. We awoke early to native singing and chanting, and looked out the window to see a group of men and boys starting their day's work of pulling in huge fishing lines. It was easy to imagine the same thing happening 200 years earlier.

I told Joey that I was moving into one of those cabins and he could come visit me on the weekends ;)

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#

Kouvoun and Skype

Two posts in one day! I'll be quick, but just had to share one of my favorite moments in Togo thus far.

I was talking to Rick, my bro-in-law, on Skype and the connection is miraculously good today so I was able to give a tour of the house. While walking around outside with my laptop, showing Rick the garden, our guard saw me on the computer.

When he realized I was talking to someone back in the US on my computer, and that person could see and hear me, he FREAKED OUT and started spewing about miracles in French. He couldn't believe it, and came over to see for himself, and talk to Rick.

He was so amazed that I could talk to people half way around the world, and we could SEE each other. He asked me how much my computer cost and said he was going to start saving for one for his kids to see this miracle (I can still hear him laughing outside in amazement).

Unfortunately, even a reliable old Dell would cost him his entire year's salary. And then he'd be hard pressed to find internet worth anything. Even at the expensive Cyber Cafes around here, the connection is completely worthless. It takes 15 minutes to download a video on YouTube.

Oh the riches we all have and take for granted!

Anyway, it made me smile and I'm pretty sure Rick got a kick out of seeing our guard jumping around in amazement too!

Landlords and Fufu and MJ, Oh My!

The last almost-week was a blur of dinner parties and other festivities.

I hate to do the chronological rundown, but can't think of any way around it. So here we go:

Friday night Marine Movie Night: Our escapism into a faux movie theater (there are no cinemas in Togo) - complete with a large screen and projector installed into the ceiling of the Marine house. Iron Man 2 was more enjoyable than I thought it'd be. Especially with my Bailey's on ice and two bowls of buttery, salty popcorn (you will understand my appreciation for this American gastronomic moment by the end of this post).

Saturday Village Artisinal: I promised before to talk about the artists' market. Once you know what's available, you can visit an individual stall and get things made to order: shoes, bags, dresses, pots, carvings, etc. In our case, we requested a traditional African baby outfit, complete with hat, for little Lachlan. It will be ready on Saturday for the outrageous price of 7000 CFA ($14). I love that this is an outrageous price here.

Saturday Night Landlord Dinner: Joe had some representational event for all landlords, bankers, and shipping kings (the perfect recipe for some shady dealings, most def') the other week. We received a dinner invite from one of the landlords, who also happens to own a Pharmaceutical company in West Africa, along with some other business in Benin (and obviously a rental property or two to boot).

After arriving at a massive home, a butler opened the door for us and we were taken into a small room with couches and a single photo on the wall (the hosts' wedding photo). The butler closed the door behind him on his way out, and returned shortly with water. The Togolese man with us who works with Joey explained that it's tradition to offer guests water before coming to greet them.

We drank our water and proceeded to the pool/jacuzzi area for champagne and cookies. Finally the host and his wife came to meet us. After many moments of awkward silences due to language barriers and simply not knowing each other in the slightest, we moved onto the first of many ridiculously huge meals of the weekend.

The feast for 5 included plantains, yams, fish (whole), fish (stew), fish (skewered), chicken, beef, shrimp, beans, rice, couscous, sauces of every color, vegetables galore, salad, and too many wine bottles to count. I ate as much as I possibly could, and the hostess kept telling me I needed to eat more. "Eat, Drink! You didn't try this fish - here. Why you not eat and drink?" Then came dessert. She seemed genuinely heartbroken when I passed on the huge chunk of watermelon after just finishing a half of a giant pineapple.

We had to apologetically excuse ourselves after 3 hours because someone was already late for the finals of Miss Togo.

Sunday Morning: Off to another Togolese feast. Still full and slightly ill from the night before.

Frederik Egbe was one of Joey's French professors at the Foreign Service Institute in Virginia. He was back in Togo visiting family and invited a group of us to his home for traditional Togolese food.

We showed up at 11:30 and asked the driver to pick us back up at 3PM. Our comrades were aghast, but Joe just left it with, "Trust Me," and got out of the car.

Frederik greeted us with his gregarious energy and two bottles of liquor: Scotch and Malibu Rum. One for the gents and one for the ladies. He told us to get a glass and proceeded to pour each of us straight liquor. I tried to protest and say that I hadn't yet eaten anything that day, could I possibly wait until after the first course? No, no, no, that wouldn't do, he said. See, the Malibu is exactly the right thing to have on an empty stomach. It will open up your stomach and prepare you for the fufu.

Yes, yes, trust me, he says.

After our early afternoon shots, small talk lead to the news that none of us had yet tried Fufu. Laughing heartily, Frederik took us out back where men and women were pounding raw yams into a paste-like substance with huge wooden sticks. He insisted we all give it a try and pose for a photo op. The sticks were surprisingly heavy, and the yams suctioned to them in a pounded, gluey paste.

The Malibu hadn't yet worked its magic on this so-called opening up of the stomach. Pass the bottle fellas!

I knew it was going to be a looong afternoon once the first course of beans and goat liver came out. Followed by some unknown corn starch and fish stew (this was actually decent). And then the fufu.

It came out in giant goopey globs on a platter. We were all given one glob and awaited the sauce. Fufu is really just a cheap starch base that people eat to fill up. The sauce is what gives most of the flavor. (Although we all agreed it tasted kinda like mashed potatoes with an unfortunate Playdough-like texture).

The sauce that came around is still a mystery to me. I watched the ladle pour the following over my fufu: 2 wrapped tentacle thingies (that I later discovered were intestines), some chunk of something that had odd bony looking things (that I later discovered was a goat hoof), and two of the spiciest yellow peppers I've ever had in my life.

No matter how many times I told myself that it must be good if all these people eat it, I should just try it, I couldn't bring myself to bite down into a nice chunk organs from an unknown animal. At the time, I was internally gagging and thinking that I was a weak, terrible, unforgivably rude guest.

Self loathing didn't do the job though. I only managed to get down about 5 bites of my fufu. Like a 6 year old, I made a mess of what was left on my plate in a futile attempt to trick someone into thinking I ate more than I did.

As 3 o'clock in the afternoon approached, and all of our stomachs churned with too much new food, Scotch and Malibu, we had to once again apologize for being the first guests to leave.

We all had about 2 hours to prepare for our next dinner party at the Deputy Chief of Mission's home, in honor of a parting officer. I'm not kidding. But I will spare you the details.

Tuesday night was the final dinner party of the marathon. It was at the home of the Public Affairs Officer, and it was her 61st B-Day. She's spent most of her career in Africa, so the guest list was a mix of embassy and local people.

After another multiple course meal, a surprise performance began. The DJ put on Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" and out walked an MJ look-alike, in full costume, to dance for all of us. Next was a contemporary dancer who did lots of crazy thing with his arms. MJ came back to finish the show off with "Thriller."

That, and the Milli Vanili that followed, was the perfect end to our 5-day stretch of festivities.

Tonight we're locking ourselves inside our house and watching hours of The Wire.