I did not ride a rollercoaster in Togo, nor would I if one was available. (Because I probably would not trust its stability). But, this month reminded me of riding a rollercoaster at sunset- a fun, non-stop, everything-at-once ride, where once in a while, you get a lag that is just long enough to take in the world: earth and sky. April was wonderful; just like riding a rollercoaster at sunset. I was so busy, and so much happened, but everything was good (except for this weird abscess on my foot).
THE HIKE
There’s a small pathway from Travis’s village to Niamtougou, a large town with a super duper market. You walk from his house, to the mountain a couple miles away by the waterfalls, then ascend and descend two mountains, cross a stream and reaching the road. It’s a difficult hike, but with gorgeous views, and I had wanted to hike it since Travis first mentioned it about a year ago. So, one day, early in the morning, three of us (Travis, me, and Travis’ friend) started the hike, crossing the barren fields, and hiking the two mountains. The first mountain is very steep and rocky. It’s like you’re climbing up a cliff and if you misplace your foot, you’ll just tumble the whole way down to the valley. As we were climbing, a group of women came up behind us. They were all barefoot and carrying huge basins filled with stuff on their heads. And they passed us! I can’t imagine doing that – climbing the mountains with just my own weight was strenuous enough (like Old Rag-if you’ve ever hiked in the Appalachians) – but then to do that while carrying a heavy load on your head! And barefoot! And maintaining balance on the cliff! – and for the women who had babies- carrying the baby on your back! Wow. We made it to the market at about 9am, and spent the whole day just exploring the market, eating market food, and drinking lots of cokes (it was sooo hot and sunny). A couple of Travis’s friends and a couple volunteers met up with us, and as heat of the direct sun started to subside, we left the market to go back to Travis’.
The way back was gorgeous again, but much more difficult. After taking in the view at the top, we began the descent down the steep rocky mountain. It took a lot of time and concentration; I would not want to do that at night or in the rain. We finally reached flat ground and started making our way through the barren fields dotted with village huts. Soon, though, we heard this huge noise coming for the mountains behind us- it reminded me of the rain in Kanté- how you can hear it pounding the tin roofs a mile away before reaching your own roof. We couldn’t see rain, though, so we didn’t know what it was, but decided to start speed-walking. The sky was getting darker, and the wind was picking up, like it wanted to rain, but still no rain was in sight. Soon we realized what the noise was, as a huge gust of wind seemed to push us from behind and then swirl all around us. I had to close my eyes and cover my mouth and nose with my shirt as I felt dust and dirt and random things hitting my back. When the wind subsided enough so that I could open my eyes to slits, I saw this strange black cloud of dust moving across the landscape with the wind. It was weird because it was darker than and separate from the sky. Some fires had started too and they looked incredibly dramatic against the backdrop of black dust. I tried to take pictures, but the combination of my inability to see (because my eyes were just barely open), my fear of breaking my camera, and the incredible amount of dust and wind, I think only one picture turned out. The fires seemed untamed, and you could see the wind pulling the flames into the sky and further into the dark landscape. We decided to speed walk/ run as best we could with eyes half closed; the sky was getting darker, and the wind didn’t seem to be letting up. We were about a half mile from Travis’s when a raindrop started to fall here and there. The small rain with insanely strong winds and dust, moving everything, regardless of whether it’s a tree, leaves, dust, fire, or me – seemed so powerful – It felt like I could just jump and the winds would let me fly. Luckily, I didn’t decide to jump or try to fly, but just laughed as we ran/walked along the small rocky path towards Travis’s house. Somehow, the downpour held off for a bit, letting us get to shelter. And not one minute after we arrived at Travis’s did the rain come, pounding on his tin roof. The three of us cooked a little food (we were starving) and then ate and watched the rain. You couldn’t even talk because of the tin roof noise. It was the strangest storm ever.
EASTER
Easter here was very busy. Friday, I went with my friend Pauline (Pauline the runner; I know about 5 different Pauline’s here) to participate in the way of the cross. This is when you follow the path Jesus took before being crucified, stopping at certain points to remember certain events of the “walk”. It was noontime when it began, and the sun was directly overhead, and it is the middle of hot season. I was covered in sweat the whole time. And the man who played the role of Jesus was carrying a real wooden cross twice his size and the men who played the soldiers were actually whipping “Jesus” with tree branches. “This isn’t how we did it in Catholic school in the states,” I thought “this is much more intense.” We walked around town until about 3:30, when we arrived at the Catholic Church and they up righted the wooden cross, and “Jesus’” arms were tied the arms of the cross, and he hung, in the hot sun, for a good 20 minutes. Then we all went into Church for a short service.
The next day, Saturday, everyone was talking about midnight mass. So, I decided to get dressed up and go. But, two hours in, my friend sent someone to get me, telling me to come with her. So, I left to see what was up, and realized she just wanted someone to go get a cold drink with her. So we went to get a cold drink. The next morning, I had to run an errand, and passed by church to see my friend eating at the breakfast porridge stand outside. “Mafisa! Bonjour! Come over here and eat with me!” she said “Are you going to church?” “I don’t know,” I said, “Are you going to church?” “Yes, I just stepped out for a minute to get something to eat,” she said. “Ok, well I will wait with you while you eat and then we will go to church together.” We then went to church, which was completely packed. She told one of her kids to get off the benches and I took that spot while the kid sat on the floor with the billion other kids. Everyone in the church was singing and dancing. The crazy lady who hangs out by the station was there; she danced so much her shirt came off! (Literally). At one point, they had collection – when everyone gives a small coin or whatever they can to help the church. But, this collection wasn’t like the collections I was familiar with in the US. Everyone had to dance up to the front of the church, drop their coin in the basket, and then dance back. The mass continued and then my friend asked me what day I was born. “Friday,” I said. “Ok,” she said, “you go up when they call Friday”. Everyone started singing and dancing to this song involving the days of the week. First was Monday, and everyone who was born on Monday started dancing towards the front of the church, where another collection basket waited. The days of the week continued until they called Friday. “Go!” my friend said, “This is Friday! This is your day!” So I grabbed my coin, joined my fellow ‘Friday-born’s, and danced my way up to the front of the church. At the end of mass, it was announced: Friday won! We raised the most money! The Friday-born who was sitting nearby came up to me “We won! We are the best!” Yes, I had no idea I was going to be involved in such a competitive situation when I entered church that morning, but I enjoyed it. Church was fun, and even though it had been awhile since I’d been in a Catholic mass (and needless to say, this mass was so different than the masses I knew), I could still see the comfortable structure, and it reminded me of home. After mass, I went to my friend’s house where she gave me a huge plate of food, which looked like it should be eaten over the course of 3 days. I stuffed all the food in my mouth, even though my stomach was pleading with my brain to stop, because it’s impolite to not finish a meal. Then I half wobbled (because of my giant full stomach) and half ran (because I thought I was going to poop my pants) back home. That’s when I discovered my neighbor Clarisse just had a baby!
CLARISSE’S BABY
Clarisse, my neighbor, had a baby!!! I was so excited because it seems like she’s been pregnant forever! I saw her at the Easter vigil (Saturday night) and she was fine; big stomach, smiling face. And then the next time I saw her she was in so much pain after walking just a few hours after giving birth. The baby is lovely. It’s a girl, but they haven’t officially named her yet. They usually wait awhile before naming babies here.
FIREBALL IN MY HOUSE
One day, some of my favorite English club kids came over. I was cooking something for everyone when the tube that connects my gas tank (which is inside) to my stove apparatus fell off. This happens a lot, but I usually just stick it back on and continue my cooking. But this time, there was fire shooting out. I couldn’t quite tell where the fire was coming from; it seemed everywhere. I yelled for Michel, one of my English club kids, while I grabbed a bucket of dirty water, throwing it on the gas tank, which was surrounded in fire. The flames receded, but a split second later came back! Michel and the boys came in, and somehow, they pulled the tube (immediate source of the fire) away, allowing me to run up to the gas tank and twist the handle into the “Closed” position. The fire stopped and we all stared – speechless at my gas tank. After a minute, everyone started helping to clean up. Some kids started cleaning the kitchen (which was now covered in really gross water) and some started analyzing the gas tank - tube – stove connection. After everything was clean, and the tube was extra-securely fastened, I finished cooking, and we all ate a well-deserved meal.
THE TUMOR
One day after a morning of helping with baby weighing/vaccinating, I was on my way out of the hospital, saying hi to people and about to get on my bike to leave, when one of the nurses (who I hadn’t seen in a long time) called me from the open window of a hospital room. “Mafisa! How are you!? Come here!” When I walked over, I noticed there were a couple other guys who I hadn’t seen in a while, as well as a boy who was lying on the table. After speaking the standard greetings to everyone, and responding to more jokes about how I should marry a Togolese man and live in Togo forever, I asked why the boy was lying on the table- was he sick. “The boy has a cyst on his head,” the nurse said, “we are going to remove it”. “Oh my” I thought “I didn’t think they did surgeries in this hospital.” “You should sit down and watch!” they said, “take your notebook and write notes and then when you go back to the US you can show the people there what you saw.” I looked at the kid- he looked scared. “Courage,” I said the standard thing to say when someone’s going through a tough time or doing something painful. I grabbed a chair and sat down to watch. As they prepared by shaving part of his head, I looked around the room, trying to compare this room with hospital rooms in the US. I was sweating from the heat and the occasional dusty breeze from the two open windows didn’t help the stifling-ness of the room. Flies were buzzing, zooming around as if this was just another hot room with interesting (for a fly) smells. Stains covered parts of the floor. I remembered back in December 2010 when a bus accident brought in so many people, that this same small room was full of blood and stitches and women crying out for Jesus. Maybe the stains were from that December? Or maybe another accident. Anyway, my thoughts were interrupted when they started injecting the local anesthetic. “Does this hurt” “Yes” “Does this hurt” “Yes” “Does this hurt” “No” “Ok. It is good. We can begin”. The nurse with the gloves cuts the boys skin with a razor, as the nurse without the gloves hands over gauze to catch the blood. The boy moves- trying to bring his hand to his head, as I cringe, and the nurse without the gloves holds down the boys arms. “It hurts” the anesthetic isn’t working. They try to inject a little more, but it doesn’t seem to help that much, so they continue cutting, while the nurse constantly holds the boys’ arms down. Eventually, the anesthetic seems to kick in and the boy calms. They finish cutting the skin and open the area, looking at the “cyst”. But, it’s not what they expected; they cannot cut it out. “This boy must go to Lomé and get a biopsy. Then they will know if this is a malignant tumor or not.” “Will he go to get this done?” I ask “Isn’t it expensive?” “It is expensive,” the nurse concludes, while stitching the boy up. I look at the boy. He is never going to go to Lomé and get a biopsy. That is so ridiculously expensive for a Togolese; it’s just out of the question. And then if it happens to be malignant? – I highly doubt there is any treatment available in Togo, except maybe for the president and his buddies – but for a small unknown village boy? Why don’t they just laugh in this boy’s face? Yes, there are treatments – there’s a solution to this medical problem - but not for you, small boy! And the sad thing is, he probably paid so much to have this small “surgery” done – the gloves, the anesthetic, the syringe; everything must be paid for by the patient. Life – and death- are viewed so differently here than in the US. And I think this is the reason why. There is no money to pay for medical procedures. So people die. There’s nothing you can do about it. In the US people go to all extremes to stay alive, which is good – science and medicine continue to improve the lives of so many people with cures or medications that alleviate symptoms of conditions, infections, etc.. People live longer – and know what to do when they’re sick and how to send death away when it’s knocking on their door. But sometimes it’s sort of a relief to accept death like it’s done here in Togo. Accept death and celebrate a life.
SCARS
One hot and sunny Friday, I went to the market, and ran into my old neighbor and her kids. I missed having her family as my neighbors, so we sat down at the tchouk stand next to her market table where she sells random things like hot peppers and dried beans, and we drank and caught up with one another. Somehow we started talking about scaring. A lot of Togolese you see with have scarring – on their face, arms, hands, ankles, back... all over. There are different types; some symbolize the ethnicity of the person: whether they are Lamba, Moba, Kabye, or one of the other >40 ethnicities of Togo. But apparently one type of scarring, as my friend mentioned while she grabbed her 2 year old before he could cause trouble at the tchouk stand, is independent of ethnicity. Three lines of scarring, she said while pointing them out on her kid, at the eyes, shoulders, elbows, wrists, lower back (and probably some other places I can’t remember), are given to infants to protect them. According to the story she told me, there is a bird that comes in the night to search for infants and kids. If the bird finds a baby, he can grab the baby and fly away with it to a sorcerer. The evil sorcerer will cause bad things to happen (he’ll die or have a bad unhealthy life). But, if a child has the scars, the bird cannot take him/her. A few days later, a few hours after Clarisse gave birth to her baby girl (and had already pierced her ears); I asked when the new baby would get the scars. “No,” Clarisse’s brother said, “She will not be scarred. In the past, they scared babies, but it was for a superstition. See my face? I am not scarred. We will not scar the baby.”
PROMOHANDICAP
Things are picking up with PromoHandicap. The SPA aspect of the project (the hygiene stuff: water pump, latrines, shower area) has already begun because funds, provided by USAID, are already in-country. The other aspect of the project (school and dormitory buildings) is still waiting on donations. Please donate! And check out promohandicap.blogspot.com (a link to the Peace Corps donating site can be found there). It is so much work being involved in every single aspect of the project, but at the same time, it’s thrilling.
One day last week, our small team composed of Mensa, the blind man, Alphonse, the mason and teacher, Tcheou, the hard-working dedicated president, Alisha and I all gathered under some trees on the site of the future school to build the latrine. This latrine is different than normal latrines that are built here. This latrine is super cheap (less than $20.00), and is designed to be moved so that once the hole is full, a tree can be planted. Because latrines are usually viewed as a status symbol here (if you can afford a big pretty expensive latrine, you’re someone worth knowing), it was a little difficult selling this idea to the group, and it was even more difficult sitting down with the group to read the manual and figure out exactly how we would build it. After a series of meetings where we spent hours discussing the minute details of how to build the latrine, we gathered all the supplies and began construction. It was so exciting to see everyone involved and participating, Even Mensa, who’s blind, was able to help, and one of the students who are deaf showed up to help. Lots of women and men who were passing by stopped to help or bring us some food. The day was much longer than we expected, but at the end of the day, everyone was so happy to have actually started some type of building.
The pump has not yet been drilled; it should have been completed in April, but problems with the pump team prevented it from happening. Two of the pump technicians really dislike each other and had middle school-ish drama and fights that someone ended up affected our plan. Luckily, the boss of the group (an American missionary) just arrived, worked with the team to iron out problems, and planned a day for when the team will come up in May.
Another aspect of the project involves going around to allllllll the small villages and parts of Kanté. This is incredibly tiring and exhausting (since we don’t use motos to save money, we end up walking alllll day) Usually we leave the house at like 6 or 7, have a meeting or run an errand, and then start our village hopping. Arriving at the village, the chief greets us and we sit under a big shady tree waiting for other village members to show up. Then, we begin “N Kura ya! O we sartia?” “Alafia” “We’re building a school for kids who are deaf and blind for the whole community. Can you collect some gravel or sand or food to help us with the building process?” The village discusses what they can do to help are start organizing when/where/how much. Then, we thank them and leave, continuing to the next. It reminds me a bit of the Polio vaccination campaigns- how you are so busy you sometimes don’t have time to stop. But, it’s exciting; every village has been supportive of this project; it’s so cool to literally see how the different parts of the community come together to make this one thing happen. Food for workers from Tapouta, a truckful of gravel from Maye, sand from Worongo, and then 15 or so other villages, in addition to the schools.
MEDICAL THING OF THE MONTH: ABSCESS
For Kristine's birthday, a group of volunteers decided to go to the pool. And at the pool I stepped on something, and immediately pulled the weird white plastic thing out of my foot and forgot about it. But, the next day, a bump appeared on the bottom of my foot, and within a couple hours it had grown and started throbbing, and swelled the rest of my foot. The next day I called the med unit and they told me to go get antibiotics. In Togo, you dont need a prescription for anything, whether its ibuprofen or valium. So, I got antibiotics, started taking them, and sure enough, after a couple days of soaking my foot (so much that the infected foot looked like a plump clean cousin to my other foot, which was a typical dirt covered, grossly calloused peace corps foot), my abscess was all better.
