Ode to Voltic Spoons and Couscous in Water Sauce.

After ditching the scarlet T (trainee) for the exclusive V (vende…volunteer), the new stage hit the sandy roads of Lomé with the consumerist zeal rarely found since Tickle-me Elmo debuted. Before we could shop, we had to take an oath of allegiance to the United States Constitution. The swear-in ceremony felt similar to a graduation, or perhaps Bar Mitzvah, or any other right of passage. I even gave a speech in Lamba. The next day local radio stations broadcast segments from the ceremony, including my speech. WRGW anyone? Apologies to all Lamba speaking communities for butchering your language.

So after the swear- in ceremony we had four days in Lomé to buy everything we needed for our new homes. Plates, bowls, buckets, soap, forks, spoons, knives. This is a list of essential items to be purchased before moving into your new home. Also, this is a list of items that I left/never made it onto my car/never made it out of the store where I purchased everything. Long story short, I had to eat couscous in water sauce with a voltic water bottle cut into a shovel/spoon contraption. Eating with my hands was eliminated because there was no soap to wash with. I am a health volunteer.

Ishmael, the volunteer in Kante before me, introduced me to one of his friends Akanto from Kante. Akanto came down to Lome to say goodbye to Ishmael. After the swear in ceremony Akanto and his brother Roland invited me to eat fufu at their home in Lome. Having a friend in Kante will definitely make my transition easier!

Happy New Year

I am in Kara, the regional capital, and will return to Kanté on Sunday. Work opportunities should start picking up now that the holiday season is ending. On December 23rd I participated in my first Club Espoir, a monthly club for AIDS orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS. The club is held at Association Espoir Pour Demain Kara (AED), an organization I will be working with throughout my service. The children spent the morning making cards, decorating the AED building, and building the Togolese equivalent to gingerbread houses. Pictures to follow.

Did they have to put an overcoat on Saddam?

That wool fabric looks like it walked right out of Brooks Brothers.

While eating at la douceur, quite possibly the nicest restaurant in Kara, TV5 was broadcasting some fine French footage of sharks eating small animals (several varieties of seagull, and more urgently, a deer/ram type creature). Conversation ceased in the restaurant, attention moved from food to shark fury in seconds. The point is the restaurant was so nice it had TV5…I digress. The footage ended and the evening news began. French newscasters have really nice ties. Top story: Saddam hung. Really? Iraqi justice works in remarkably fast ways. My French is not yet refined enough to fully appreciate TV5 evening news, but luckily for me, camera phone video of an execution by gallows translates effortlessly from French, to Arabic, to Kabyé, to English.

This brings me back to Saddam’s coat. Maybe if he had sported a US issued prisoner uniform fully equipped with shackles and crazy beard attachment, this whole thing would have been more digestible. Instead, we get a frail looking old man wearing your grandfather’s hand pressed overcoat. And so the tyrant is dead. My only hope is that there will be less death now that he is gone. Maybe we can start focusing some needed attention on the ignored abuses committed across the African continent.

Harmattan makes northern volunteers cooler (literally)

The harmattan winds arrived about a month ago and there is a layer of dust and sand on everything. I wake up with a sore throat most mornings. I do not know if this is because of the dust or because of the drastic temperature fluctuations between the day and the night. The powers in the weather world are predicting the hottest year on record. I guess Al Gore was right all along. I cannot wait for the dust to settle.