Want to go to Togo?

I’m back….

Back to warm muggy air, to temperamental electricity, to sweaty nights under bug nets, to haggling for every last penny, to disarmingly affable and outgoing people, to tantalizingly delicious food, and ultimately, back to adventure.  Yes, after a two-year hiatus and one master’s degree later, I am back in Africa!

I’ll quickly catch you all up on my life the last two years.  After my unexpectedly hasty and jarring departure from Djibouti I returned to the states, Seattle specifically, where I hunkered down behind a pile of textbooks, only to emerge two years later with an official Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language.  Academia life was great and incredibly stimulating, and the ability to reconnecting with many of my old friends truly nourishing for the soul.  However anyone who knows me well also knows that I have a hard time sitting still and soon enough adventure came a ’knocking, this time to carry me off to the land of Togo.

So what am I doing and through whom?  I’m spending the next 10 months in yet-again a tiny francophone African nation, but this time over on the western coast of Africa.  For anyone who doesn’t know where Togo is (which to my experience has been a lot of people), it is located right next to Ghana, on the southern end of the part of African bulging out into the Atlantic.  I am here as an English Language Fellow, which is a state department-sponsored fellowship program (affectionately referred to as the “ELF”) to promote diplomacy, English language, and educational development abroad.  I’m working on several teacher training projects, primarily with the national teacher training office in Togo.  I’ll be working with that team to put on many different forms of in-service training workshops for Togolese English teachers all over Togo.  I’ll also be traveling around the country with the Embassy putting on similar workshops in different towns and villages, doing some programing with teacher associations, and finally conducting some evaluations of embassy education programs.  In short, I’ll be busy.

Returning to Africa has been an extraordinary feeling.  Although I always knew I wanted to come back, I was never really sure it would become a reality until I stepped off the plane.  It feels both jarring, and strangely like returning home.  Actually, in another sense it feels like I’ve returned to another side of my life that I’ve left dormant for far too long.  Now that I am about a week in however, I have truly come to terms with that fact that I am back in African for a while… and I couldn’t be more excited to be hereJ.

Togo is quite different than Djibouti.  It has none of the Middle Eastern influence that characterized Djibouti, and although there is a bit of a Muslim population here, the dominant religion is Christianity, with even a small bit of Voodoo (all of which are influenced by traditional beliefs).  Also, while it is pretty hot here, it has yet to get even remotely as stifling as Djibouti.  It’s much greener, wetter, and humid though.  In terms of development, it has been interesting to note that while some things were more developed in Djibouti (like internet, public transportation, less crime), there are some things that Togo has going on that are much further along that Djibouti (actual traffic lights that people abide by, better buildings, and so far [knock on wood] more reliable electricity).  Also there are different ethnic groups represented: a very large Lebanese community, as well as Chinese and other West Africans.  The European and American presence is considerably smaller.

Also the people are much more outwardly social.  I have been taking some walks around the neighborhood I live in, and a quick pop into the local pub resulted in about 10 new friends, lively discussion about soccer, the US, Alaska (of course), local language lessons (as in being given them right there on the sport), and several offers to become “best friends”.

Fun experiences:

-On the plane here I sat next to this rather ambitious guy from Benin who apparently lives and travels throughout Europe, Africa and Israel doing “things for the government”.  When we got off the plane, he handed me $50 worth in Israeli shekels and told me to visit him in Israel.  Odd thing to do to a stranger…

-People balance EVERYTHING on their head here!  I’ve seen large baskets full of food and merchandise, to a 20 ft long straw basket holding a huge pile of wood (on top of an old lady’s head no less!).

-I got invited to go running by a Togolese friend on Saturday.  This involved waking up at 6 am to go meet at the university campus, where almost a thousand people were running in different groups.  It gets better: in each group they were singing and chanting while they ran, and usually had someone playing drums and shaking bells while they ran too.  I guess they do this every Saturday “just for fun”

Well already this e-mail is too long.  I haven’t really started work yet so I’ll give more updates on that in later dispatches.  However I was eager to send off one e-mail to you all simply to say that a new and adventurous chapter has begun for me in life… and you are all invited to share the ride if you want.  So until the next e-mail, I bid you all a warm “bonsoiré, et à la prochaine!” from my humble home in the warm jungles of Togo.

Kind regards,

Phil Dierking

“Beyond this place there be dragons...”

“When death finds you, may it find you alive”

PS, I have photos uploaded on facebook of Togo!  Check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100316163033800.2407172.25902960&type=1&l=67894ad275