Something Like Home

Finally, internet fast enough in Sokode to do a blog posting! No pictures, though....That will have to be another time.....

Am finally back home after a long, busy summer! Except for 3 weeks in July, I’ve been out of village a lot these past few months. I was starting to feel like a nomad, going from 3 hectic weeks of Camp UNITE during June to a week of computer camp for high school students in Sokode in July to a fourth of July party in Tchamba (Drew’s village) and then back to the south for the last 3 weeks of Camp UNITE in early August. It’s good to be back home and have a chance to breathe again.

So Camp UNITE is officially over for 2009. Thanks so much to all of you who helped donate to the cause. Camp was a huge success this year—180 kids from all over Togo got a week of summer-camp, thanks at least partially to some of you reading this now. I’m going to post pictures during my next trip to Lome (probably not until late September), but if you’re interested in learning more about the camp or seeing pictures from years past, check out the UNITE foundation website: www.unitefoundation.org

Being an organizer for Camp UNITE was an exhilarating, exhausting experience. As much as my camp admin experience from the US came in handy, there were some, lets say, uniquely Togolese challenges that took me entirely off guard. The most memorable was during Apprentice Girls camp, during the very first week of camp back in June, when the town of Pagala (a little village about 4 hours southwest of Wassarabo, where camp is held every year) erupted into a small-scale war zone after a local woman was found raped and murdered in a nearby corn field. The woman’s family blamed the attack on the Fulani, the nomadic cowherders of West Africa, a fascinating ethnic group that live so far on the fringes of Togolese society that it’s hard to find any real facts about their lives. They wear lots of bright beads and do their hair in fancy, stringy braids, and have an almost Arab ethnic look to them that makes them stand out sharply from other ethnic groups in Togo. They are horribly discriminated against by most Togolese, who claim that all Fulani are thieves and bandits.

It’s unclear what evidence there was that the Fulani killed the woman in Pagala, but almost immediately after the woman’s funeral, her family group launched a retaliation campaign against the Fulani, killing all the cows they could find. Unfortunately, they killed the wrong cows, and ended up dragging another ethnic group—the Leso, the rightful owners of the killed cows—into the conflict. The chief tried to mediate, and ended up being blockaded in his house by an angry, violent mob. The situation spiraled to the point where Togolese police were called in, barging through the town with tear gas, sirens, and batons.

It was a tense week for us at Camp UNITE. What was happening in Pagala didn’t directly involve us, but it was hard to ignore to the war cries, screaming, and sirens that we were hearing all day. We were in constant communication with the Peace Corps office in Lome as we tried to figure out exactly what was going on and what the risk level really was. At one point, the only road connecting Pagala to the rest of Togo was blocked off and I kept picturing what it would be like to have to evacuate to Ghana with 35 apprentice girls.

Luckily, whatever was happening in Pagala calmed down by the end of the week. I’m not sure exactly what deal was struck, but by the next week, life was back to normal. That first week was probably the most dramatic of all the problems the organizing team faced, but, like camp in the US, every week had it’s unique challenges. We had terrible flooding during boy student camp, and had to clear out almost half of camp until the nearby river drained. Girls students camp saw the arrival of the US ambassador, a Togolese Secretary of State, and a number of other big-wigs who demanded formal protocols and fancy receptions (a tall order for a US style summer camp). Everything ended up going smoothly, but it was an exhausting week.

And now I’m back to Wassarabo, settling back into my quiet village life. I’m doing my best to finish up the budget reporting for UNITE, but the going is slow, especially without electricity. Rainy season is officially upon us and everyday is full of rain, or so it seems. My roof is flooding and my latrine is leaking, but it’s nice not to have to worry about the well drying up, for once.

Even with the rain, everyone in Wassarabo heads out each day to the fields, leaving our little village with a ghost-town like feel. There’s not a whole lot for me to do in Wassarabo until farming season ends and school gets back in session at the end of September, and it’s nice, after such a busy summer, to have some quiet time. I’ve been doing a lot of work with Moringa, dubbed “the Miracle Tree” by some NGO for it’s amazing resiliency and unbelievable nutrient content, and have found the people of Wassarabo to be fairly receptive to planting and growing the tree (Moringa is actually really interesting -- check out this website if you want to learn more about it http://www.treesforlife.org/our-work/our-initiatives/moringa). I’ve also been doing some nutritional work at the clinic, trying my hand at agroforestry, and have generally just been enjoying hanging out at home.

Ramadan started this past week, so life in my Muslim village is now even quieter than before. Unlike some of the Sahalian countries, Togo is not actually a predominantly Muslim country and most of Togo does not observe Ramadan. In fact, I’m one of the few Peace Corps volunteers who lives in an exclusively Muslim village. For the most part, the various religions of Togo (Christians, animists, Muslims) seem to tolerate and respect each other well, even though most religions and ethnic groups seem to residentially self-segregate, particularly in rural villages. In my village, Wassarabo, almost everyone (all 800 of them!) is a Kotokoli (ethnic group) Muslim (religion).

The exception to this rule in Wassarabo are the government employees—the teachers and the one village nurse and their families—and, of course, me. None of the teachers in Wassarabo chose to live there, but were rather sent to work by the Togolese government.

The fonctionnaires, as the government bureaucrats are known, and their families are somewhat set apart from the rest of the Wassarabo population, partially because of language and religion, and partially because they tend to be more educated and slightly wealthier than the villagers. The relationship between the mostly Christian fonctionnaires and the people of Wassarabo is for the most part fairly harmonious. The fonctionnaires and their families are respectful of the villagers and the villagers, for their part, don’t seem to mind that the village nurse (a Catholic woman who lives by herself in Wassarabo during the week and commutes back to her family in Sokode for the weekends) or any of the teacher’s wives don’t cover her head.

I think it’s partially because of the precedent set by the fonctionnaires that allow me to get away with not covering my head on a daily basis or fasting for Ramadan. I’ll cover my head when I go to any event that’s formal or religious, and I occasionally will go to prayer at the Mosque on Friday afternoons, but I’ve found that Wassarabo is a remarkably tolerant place when it comes to religion, particularly the religion of outsiders. I know a lot of Peace Corps volunteers that live in wealthier, more urban Christian communities who find the churches in their communities to be stifling in their proselytizing. In Wassarabo—my tiny, conservative Muslim village--I’ve never once felt pressured to become Muslim, or pray on a daily basis, yet I’m always welcome at any religious gathering.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not sure that I entirely understand the Islam that’s practiced in Wassarabo. I’m well aware that the way Islam is practiced in Wassarabo is closely linked to the culture of the Kotokoli (the ethnic group in Wassarabo), but I know nothing about the history of Islam in West Africa. I don’t know why the Kotokoli ethnicity is entirely Muslim, while the Kabye—who share ethnolinguistic roots with the Kotokoli—are all Christian. I don’t know why the Tchamba—a small, tightly knitted ethnic group—are all Muslim, but seem to share very little else with the Kotokoli, who are live geographically close to them. I have a feeling that despite how many questions I ask, it would take more than 2 years to decipher these mysteries. West Africa is a hodgepodge of ethnic groups, religions, and languages, and Togo is no exception.

Thanks to everyone for your support! It’s still wonderful to get emails and letters from all of you and to hear how life is treating everyone back home. Keep the news coming!