I’ve decide that Africa, or at least West Africa, is the type of place that is best appreciated in the moment. Live in the past, and you either long for what once was or remorse over the misfortunes that have befallen. Live in the future, and you will almost undoubtedly be let down. But live in the moment… the noisy, colorful, chaotic, nonsensical moment…. and life is beautiful, entertaining, and ultimately captivating.
And thus life continues to go by as I practice the art of living purely and patiently in the moment (which for those of you who know me, know that’s not easy). Sometimes life is rough and bouncy like the tumbly ride of a bush taxi, and sometimes it whizzes by in an irresponsibly fast blur on the back of a motorcycle taxi, and sometimes its serene and lethargic as one sits for hours at a sandy maquis bar watching the world go by (one of Lonely Planet Togo’s favorite fallback descriptions of what you can do here). But ultimately it’s a special experience that I am thankful for, especially when I remember to enjoy the moment that is.
Things have been going well since my last update, and incredibly busy. Work has been stimulating, as I’ve literally traveled all over the country doing workshops, from the sticky swamps of the south to the dry deserts of the north. In the north I got to explore some ancient caves dwellings in the mountains where villagers would hide from invading tribes. I’ve been able to present and train on all sorts topics from incorporating critical thinking into the classroom, to gender equality, to monitoring and evaluating of education programs. I also just wrapped up a big training-of-trainers program where I directed a week-long seminar for the inspectors (you may remember them from a previous e-mail as the slightly difficult region teacher trainers/supervisors). After being frustrated by their techniques my training team and I decided to hold our own training for them on concepts such as best practices in supervision, observation, feedback, new classroom techniques, inclusive education, and all other sorts of concepts. I am personally very proud of it as it was the most intellectually challenging task I’ve taken on, because it can be quite difficult to train people who already think they know everything. You have to be very calculative in your workshops and provide the opportunities for them to discover the points you want them to discover on their own, otherwise they won’t buy into it. But the workshop finished a success and I couldn't be happier! I also got the US Ambassador and the Director of Secondary Education at the Ministry of Education to come speak so that was pretty cool too.
As for other adventures and stories, I’ll outline them below:
CIVIL UNREST
A bit of the ole’ African civil unrest has hit Togo. Opposition groups are protesting the upcoming (and continually postponed) legislative elections. At one point there were coordinated market burnings in 4 major Togolese cities, Lomé included. This continues to baffle me because whoever did them, the opposition or the President’s party, only stands to lose public opinion from it. No mobs or gun shots yet though J
TOGOLESE TEMPERAMANT
I am continually amazed by the Togolese and their approach to life. I have found that they, like many Africans I have known, go through their lives carrying a mystifying “fatalism” about them. I see it in the way that they nonchalantly cross the street amid crazy traffic (one time I waited about 15 minutes to cross a busy street before one guy just walked through without taking a second look, then gave me a “what’s the problem with you?” smirk). And I also see it in how they hold themselves together and push on in the face of hardship. They say that Togolese social activities are centered on going to weddings and funerals, and it really does ring true that there always seems to be a marriage or death in the lives of my Togolese friends. However whenever someone dies here, they don’t complain, and they don’t just give up in despair. They definitely morn, but they seem to carry a “stoic”-ness to the situation that’s remarkable. I’ve had teachers come to my trainings saying things like: “sorry I’m late, my cousin/niece/nephew/uncle died today and I had to go to the funeral”. And that was that. The matter was settled. I’d always apologize and give sympathies, but they’d just simply respond: “Well its life you know… this just happens”. And it’s true here… people do just die. A lot. It’s hard to live long lives in Africa, for many reasons, and most Africans have just accepted the fact that life is temporal and many friends and family will pass away. But their ability to just pack it up and continue on like nothing happened continues to amaze me. Not because they don’t feel anything, but because I know they really do…yet continue to just make do. It’s a fortitude I wish I had. Consequently, this does make some of my Togolese friends rather lame people to come express my problems to, because whenever I’d try and talk to them about difficult things I am going through, they seem to have a hard time knowing what to say… probably because in their culture people don’t really complain, they just carry on. And also my problems always just seem to pale in comparison to any struggles that happen in their lives.
ADVENTURES (Hiking, Canoeing, Ghana)
I went on a spontaneous weekend hiking trip to Ghana with my friend Dave from the Embassy. We scaled the tallest mountain in Ghana, Mt. Afadjato, as well as an even more strenuous hike up the mountains to the Wli waterfalls. Both were exhausting. Both were rigorous. Both were awesome and amazingly beautiful. The one funny point was on Mt. Afadjato, which had a class of about 50 high school Ghanaians on a field trip hiking it at the same time we were. Our most emasculating moment came when all the young high school girls, after seeing the two white guys huffing and puffing and sweating up the hill, kept offering to hold our hands and help us up to the top.
I’ve been doing a lot of other hiking in the mountains of Togo, specifically around a beautiful little town called Kpalimé. On one mountain we hiked through various small remote villages that you could only reach by the trails we were on (where again we outpaced by an old lady balancing logs and a bundle of machetes on her head). On another mountain we came across what seemed like 100,000 bats flying around everywhere, by day no less. Our guide told us that they were actually revered spirits in Voodoo religion, because in the past they protected women and children from invading Ashanti tribes from Ghana. They would hide in the caves and the bats, which were flying around, would prevent the Ashanti from entering. Thus the local villagers often make sacrifices to them.
I also went on a really awesome canoe trip down a random river outside of Lomé. Over a night of a couple beers, which is perhaps the best way to hatch an adventure, myself, Dave from the Embassy, and Anton (a South African friend of ours) decided it would be brilliant to find a random river, throw down a canoe, and paddle to the ocean. So we did. We found a canoe, drove out to a river, put in, took off, and 100 yards later hit a swamp. Disappointed but not defeated we returned, got someone to drive us until the next tiny village (our driver was waiting for us by the ocean and not answering his phone, conveniently), where we asked a bunch of stunned kids if there “happened to be any water by their village?” After pointing us on we ran through the mud-hut town, probably startling every villager who up until that point had not seen a white guy in months (I’m trying to imagine how odd it must have looked for some bored shop keeper to suddenly see 3 white dudes with a canoe just come charging past them), jumped into the nearby lake and took off (with a large group of curious children looking on from the shores). The paddling was tiresome as we were into the wind the whole way, until we realized that the entire lake and most of the river was only shin-deep. This realization came after a curious villager walked out to us from the shore, walked along side of us for a bit to chat, and then wandered off… prompting us to notice that he was walking much faster than we were paddling. We may or may not have then spent considerably parts of our journey just walking in the river pulling our canoe. But in the end we sailed past multiple remote villages and ultimately made it to the ocean!
ENTERTAINING ASPECTS OF TOGOLESE CULTURE
-My Favorite conversation in Togo: My Togolese neighbor, a little 3-year old girl, was chatting with me and asking a million and one random and bizarre questions, as adorable 3-year olds do, as I was sitting outside my home. Then suddenly a moment of realization spread crossed her face and she stopped suddenly, looked at me quizzically, and asked (in french): "Hey, how come you're White like that?" as if she just then realized that I was, in fact, not Black.
-Togolese phone culture is awkward… and kind of silly. People will often call me when they are in the middle of some busy market or crowded street, and after a few minutes of us exchanging “Whats!?” and “Huh?” and “Can you hear me!?”, they would just say, “Sorry, I really can’t hear you right now, I’m going to call you later” as if it never occurred to them that calling me from the middle of the market or roadside would be a bad idea! Then sometimes they call for no apparent reason. My favorite exchange was when my one friend Charles called and the conversation literally went like this: “Hey Phil” “Hey Charles, how are thing?” “Good man, good…. Hey, so listen I’m going to call you back in a little bit okay?” “Umm… ok?”
-Signage here is funny. Basically everything has super religious labels. Translating from French, some of my favorites have been “God Given Salon”, “Blessings of the Lord Our Savior Café” “Peace be Upon You Dry Cleaning”, or “He Will Return Supermarket”.
Anyways my novel is complete. I hope you are well wherever you are, and until the next time I wish you all “bonne santé”, “bonne courage”, and as the Togolese like to say, “On est ensemble!”
