The day I almost became a Togolese

After initially hesitating to use public transport in Togo, I’m now a seasoned customer of the ever-present “moto taxi”, a small motorcycle. They are everywhere! Sometimes they attack like a swarm of bees. Especially when you try to cross the road. Most of the time the “chauffeur” will honk at you, in an attempt to convince you to put your life into his hands. I’m praying every time I mount one of those two-stroke devils (and so is Kathy). Yesterday for example, the driver was wearing a helmet (while 99% of the taxi men in Lomé believe they are invincible). However, there was no head protection for me. I didn’t know what to make of it. Was he such a bad driver that he had to wear a helmet? Where would that leave me, in the case of an accident? As it turned out, he was probably the most careful driver I’ve ever surrendered my life to.
This morning, by contrast, I almost became a real Togolese. Standing by the side of the road, I’m pretending that nobody sees me. Here comes one of those taxies from hell, honks at me in the hope of a good deal on a “Yovo”. I’m nodding. Actually, I only raised my eyebrows and with it made the good man stop. At this point the heckling begins. Colorless people are always charged more than the “ame-ibo”, the black man. Now listen, I don’t mind if people get rich. But please, not all at once and not all from me! Well, after I try to pronounce the place I want to go to, and almost sever my vocal cords in the process (well, you try to say “from Hedzranawé to Atikoumé, please”), we show off all our battle skills. By the way, you have to do it before you mount. Otherwise, you’ll pay whatever the driver tells you at the end. He starts by quoting a ridiculously high price, something in the range of $1.75. I shake my head in disbelief and pretend to walk away. He asks me how much I am willing to pay. Instead of giving an amount, I am telling him that yesterday I only paid 80 cents. Which is of course not enough for such a long trip, in his mind. Instead of remaining on my high ground I am agreeing to pay a dollar, since his sick mother and all his hungry children give my conscience a hard time. But a real Togolese would never have backed down. Well, I told you that I “almost” became a Togolese.
After we were both happy with the price the journey starts. Since it has rained during the night, the muddy road is slippery and pretty well covered with potholes full of water. But surprisingly, no one gets dirty. I’m always amazed at how all Africans manage to stay so clean, while I look like a pig when I only step out of the front door. It doesn’t take long and we are exchanging pleasantries and try to identify people we both knew. I find out that he is a member of a local church and that he is also part of an intercession ministry. Within minutes we are shouting theological concepts over the noise and traffic all around us. Where else could you talk to a total strange about deep issues, within minutes of one’s acquaintance?! Only in Africa.
Well, the story is not yet over. Suddenly my mobile phone rings. I’m receiving a text message. By the way, I bought a nice new phone some weeks ago. But, unfortunately I don’t have it anymore. I surrendered it to my lovely wife. My African colleagues thought it looked too feminine and my children were of the opinion that I didn’t need another digital camera. Well, I couldn’t say anything in my defense. So, I’m using Kathy’s old phone now. Anyway, here I’m sitting at the back of a smelly two-stroke, we are talking theology, when I receive a text. I dig the phone out of my pocket. Unlock it, read the text and write my answer on the 10 little buttons of my Nokia, all while flying past traffic and pedestrians at about 50 km/h.
When I told the story to my colleague he didn’t get it. I could read it in his eye: “What was so special about that? That’s just what you call a mobile office here in Togo.”

Well, the day ended with another ride on the widow-maker. To make my “mobile office” experience complete I held an inkjet printer (which I had just bought) under my arm while holding on with the other hand. Fortunately, I didn’t have to make any printouts.

Quote of the day

Sydney, after I allowed them to wear their nice dresses to play posh ladies:

“Oh thank you Mama!” “I like you more than…more than Satan!”

Good to know.




On another note, I have just tried to paste the link to Google maps showing our house in the direct middle of the page (under the big tree). Hope it works.

photos

Well, I couldn't figure out how to make captions for the photos. The first one (in the previous post) is the view from our front gate and the 2nd is the view from our back door. Above is the view of the front, car gate (we have a walk thru gate but no key for it yet). Following are a few inside shots.



2 shots of the girls' room. Much bigger than the guest house.

We've Moved!!!

A week ago, we moved into a house not far from the airport—not that that means a lot to most of you, but, if you go to Google Maps and find the satellite one of Lome, you’ll have an idea. Anyway, it’s nice to be in our own space and to spread out a bit. We feel pretty much at home now. The dogs enjoy the space, though unfortunately, they can’t get far enough away from the house in order to bark without disturbing us!!! They often begin before 5am, blasted things!

The area we are in is relatively quiet, except for our dogs, and there seem to be a number of children around. Because it’s so calm, Elena got to walk to the little “shop”-thingy down the road the other day and buy eggs, all alone. She was really proud of herself, as were we that she went on such an expedition all alone having to rely on her French. Just before reaching our gate, she passed a lady getting on a moto-taxi. The lady stopped, held up her camera/phone and took a photo of Elena. It seemed a bit strange since we are usually the ones taking photos of Africans. The ladies all seem to like Elena’s long hair. Fiona and Sydney have hair that “attracts” as well, though it’s shorter. None of them like having their hair fondled, but it’s difficult to know what to say. It is usually only a quick touch or so. Most of these ladies we’ve met haven’t had the opportunity to touch “yovo” (the name for people of no color) hair.

I’ve gone the last 2 Saturdays to do shopping for the week, in town. I’ve found that Lome is rather expensive. Until we moved, Meme—the lady who helps us—did all the shopping and it was always pretty minimal. Unfortunately, it was also pretty minimal when I went as well, as I was a bit overwhelmed by the choice, or lack thereof, and the cost. This week I think I did better. I don’t know if I will get used to it and find stuff to make what we like to eat (perhaps we’ll just have to learn to eat more of what is available—hint, hint Fiona and Sydney). The other day I made some meat (which we haven’t had a whole lot of here) and pan-fried potatoes. Fiona came into the kitchen and looked at everything and said, “Yeah! American food!!!!” I guess it hasn’t been terribly easy for them at times.

I must say, the girls have been really good sports about it all. They usually just get on with it and try to eat whatever is set before them. Meme has learned what they like to eat, of what she cooks, so they get by better than they did in the first week or so. The girls also play really well together, for which I cannot be thankful enough. They entertain each other and have fun each day playing their “games”. We found a pool nearby which looks to be a good diversion and where we may even be able to get swimming lessons.

Be Patient

Patience. It's actually not a very nice word, when ya come to think of it. However, lately, we are learning it's meaning all over again. We finally found a house to live in--only for a maximum of a year since it belongs to the Baptists and they will need it next summer--but we can't yet move into it. We wait and wait. They say, "We haven't done the inventory." (it's furnished) or "We have to draw up the contract." So we wait.

We have some things we had in England that we packed up to have sent over here. The shipping company kept asking when we wanted our things. Since we didn't know where we would store them here in Togo, we wanted to wait until we got here and found a place. They told us it would take about 2 weeks for the things to arrive. We asked them 3 weeks ago, to send them. They failed to tell us that we may have to wait ages for a ship to put the crate on. Our things are still sitting in some port in the UK. So we wait.

I guess it is character building. After all, we wouldn't learn anything if we were in our comfort zone and all was rosy, now would we? Therefore, we'll make the most of it all...and wait.

Here at the guesthouse, we have a small market close by where we can feed our mango habit and buy a few other things. If one stands long enough at some of the little booths, one could find most anything. I even saw playing cards the other day! And one lady who always has very banged-up bananas is always nice and gives a gift of one each for the girls (they do come in handy sometimes, these kids).

There are nice things here, we just think things should happen faster than they do and we get upset when nothing happens. So we wait...and enjoy what we have. (Like this week, we've had electricity every day!!!)

Our dogs

In case we didn't say before, we inherited 2 dogs here in Togo. They are really nice. The bigger one, the mother, is called Pip and the smaller is called April. She was born April 1, 2007. They are residing at the office where Roger works right now because we don't have a house yet. The girls are happy to have pets--finally!

A Few Things I Never Thought I'd Need to Know or Do

Lately, we've had a number of interesting experiences:

1.) I never thought I'd put antiperspirant on my legs to keep them from rubbing together while wearing skirts/dresses. I mean, who knew??!

2.) I never thought I'd be sweeping up dog poo with a straw broom off the paving tiles and flushing it all town the toilet.

3.) Along with that, I never thought I'd have to turn on the water to the toilet just long enough for the tank to fill but not long enough for it to overflow in order to flush!

4.) I never thought I'd be sitting in a stalled taxi, rolling downhill against traffic--of which there is quite a bit--just because we ran out of fuel.

5.) I never thought I'd have to wake up at 5:30am to leave for church by 6:30. (It starts at 7am and it takes 15 minutes to walk there).

6.) I never thought I'd regret having asked to put the fan on while at church because it blew so hard we almost couldn't keep our eyes open.