The Road Less Traveled

In the morning, I had breakfast at the Hotel Ibis with the Triki, Kemal, and Enrico, and gave them my business cards so they
could stay in touch. Then I checked out and said goodbye to the staff. They struggled to say goodbye to me in English, a gesture I appreciated.

School Visit

Elon came to pick me up and take me to Lycee Lome Cite, a school that one of the Togo seminar participants had invited me to visit. It was literally around the corner. I could see the hotel from the school. I thought it was awful that a car had been arranged to take me on such a short trip. I could have walked there and walked back to the hotel and slept some more before checking out. On the other hand, it was helpful to have Elon ask around and find Mr. Kogon, the man whose class I’d be visiting. It turned =out there was a primary school and a lycee on the same site. Elon asked around and finally we walked across the sandy playground to a room where we found Mr. Kogon. We sat in the school secretary’s office until we could meet with the principal of the whole school, who was an English teacher and had studied in the States. His English was great. I saw the 15 year old computer in his office that no longer worked so everything there is done by hand.

After the introduction, I walked down the corridor with Mr. Kogon. We said a brief hello to the Terminale (last year) students, then to the Premiere students, then came to the Seconde class I’d be observing. Even though in French “Premiere” means 1st and “Seconde” means second, the Seconde students were in their first year at the lycee; the numbering system goes
backwards. That took some getting used to, especially when I was reviewing the textbooks for the three levels.

Anyway, despite the fact that there were 76 white and khaki-uniformed students in the room and the primary school kids were noisily playing soccer outside (and they were easy to hear because there were no windows or even screens), Mr. Kogon did a good job of making the class fun and communicative. I spoke to them about 5 minutes, then went to say goodbye to the principal. On the way back to the car I saw the teacher’s room—a wooden table in a concrete room with some old bookcases. I still want to hug the walls of my teachers’ room at UCR Extension when I think of it.

Last Fou-Fou

Elon then took me to the program office. When Jean was ready, we got in a car with Elon and rode through the city to a restaurant to have my last fou-fou and meat and fish with the 6 people from DIFOP. It was clearly one of the nicer restaurants in the city—there was a lot of concrete and painted tables. The soap was liquid in a bottle, not cue stick chalk. We had forks
and knives to eat with. And we had coasters to cover our water glasses with to keep the bugs out. The bottlecaps were left on our beer bottles for the same reason. At one point I forgot and poured the bottlecap right into the glass. That meant I had to pour the beer out. :(Anyway, we had a very nice lunch together and it was a little sad to say goodbye to them.

Adventures in Shopping: Exploring the Grand Marche

We drove back to the program office, where I had about 4 hours to kill before driving back to Mary’s to shower up and rest before going to the airport. I checked my email at the American Cultural Center, then decided it was time to do some touring on my own.

The American Cultural Center is in the middle of the Grand Marche (the Grand Market). Each morning that week driving into the center we took a narrow dirt road that was crowded with stands and people selling goods. I decided to walk on the road at the other entrance; it looked wider and smoother. I got some nice jewelry on that side, then kept walking through narrower paths, trying not to get in the way of taxis, motorbikes, cloth and food sellers, and people carrying ungodly amounts of goods on their heads. I found my way to Rue du Commerce, and got hounded by men selling stuff. I needed souvenirs so that was okay, but when the drum sellers followed me with one of their friends for several blocks while he took me to his friend to sell me an overpriced music tape, I was irritated and heartbroken for them at the same time.

After buying the tape, I told the guy who’d led me there I had to go. But I told him to leave me too soon—I wasn’t where I thought I was. I wandered along a road I thought was the road back, but when I saw a streetlight I knew I was in the wrong place. I used my map to get me back, then ended up at a bus station at the beach. It was close to 4:00. I was afraid I was gonna have to take a taxi or mototaxi back if I didn’t find my way soon. But I gave the map one last try and soon I found myself at the doorstep of the American Cultural Center.

When I went upstairs I told Jean about my little adventure. My worried Togolese papa said, “I thought you were downstairs checking your email!” I said, “I was, then I went into the market.” All is well that ends well, though.

I said goodbye to everyone. Jean said goodbye as the French do, with a kiss on both cheeks. Mary took me to her nice big house, where I took a shower and watched her daughter play until Alex (another driver) came and took me to the airport. If Jean was my Togolese papa on this trip, Mary was my American mama. God bless her.

One of the teachers from the Lome seminar was outside the airport saying goodbye to her sister, who was off to Germany. It was a nice surprise to see her again, and a nice way to say goodbye to Togo. The expediter took me all the way to the waiting area at the gate. I sat on a nice leather couch until it was time to get on the plane. I made it through the long security line and survived the spraying of insecticide after the airplane doors closed. I survived the long bus rides and security lines in Paris to get to my connecting flight, and the 11 ½ hour flight from Paris to L.A. I got my car started again, got it washed, and survived
the 45-mile drive to my mother’s that took 2 hours. We were both excited to see each other again. And for the first time in a long time, California and my hometown looked like paradise to me.

The road to Kara

Another program driver, Alex, picked me up at the Hotel Ibis around 8:00 in the morning. He was a little late because of the rain. We then drove through the city to pick up Mary at her walled compound on a small dirt road. Then we began our 420-km journey to Kara.

On the way to Kara I saw many villages with huts, though it seemed many of the huts were used for cooking and storing motorcycles. Other homes were made out of mud brick. The richest homes had concrete walls and tin roofs.

On the sides of the road I saw many women and children walking with bags, tin bowls, or bundles of wood on their heads. They wrapped cloth into a small, flat circle to act as a buffer or balance between the object and their head. Sometimes children were
carrying bowls of water to their house. Mary said in many villages there is no running water and no electricity.

I saw two other things on the side of the road. Many women and children left squares of crushed corn or cassava on the side of the road to dry out. Sometimes it was on a tarp or canvas, sometimes it was directly on the street. I also saw cars or trucks broken down on the side of the road. Sometimes the vehicle placed a series of leaves in front of and behind the vehicle
to tell other drivers there had been a breakdown. It reminded me of the branches left in Ukraine and Moldova to warn pedestrians about uncovered potholes.

I thought I had read in my guidebook that I would see grassland, something like the movie “Out of Africa”. And apparently if one goes near the Burkina border one can see just that. Instead what I saw were lush, tropical valleys and hills, and the occasional river.

We arrived in Kara about 2:00 and checked into the Hotel Concorde. Mary and I had a quick drink, a Gatorade-like diet soda called Sport Aktif, at the hotel bar/restaurant. Mary had wanted to eat something before her 3:00 meeting, but the cook had run off to the market.

Lunch and the market in Kara

Alex took Mary to her meeting, and Jacques took Jean (the local assistant to Mary) and I to a restaurant for lunch. Thinking of Mary’s advice that eggs are always safe (and safer than fish or lettuce) I had an egg-tomato “omelet sandwich”. It was excellent—because this is a Francophone country, you can get good bread and omelets anywhere. The price was reasonable too (less than $1). I also tried Castel Beer, which was good.

After lunch, Jean asked what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to walk around and see the city, or see the markets. So we walked a bit around the Grande Marche (Large Market) of Kara. The arrangement of the vendors and the road conditions reminded me a lot of one of the piazzas in Chisinau, Moldova. There were of course some differences. Some stands had a pot of hot oil with plaintains or cassava cooking in them. My favorite one so far has been the stand with chicken wings in a spicy red sauce—it looked like Buffalo wings back home.

I saw many fruits and vegetables for sale. The cucumbers looked okay, but the tomatoes and peppers seemed very small and appeared to be going bad. The bananas were a little overripe but looked good displayed in circles on trays. I saw dried cassava and took a picture—it looks like chalk. I also saw the biggest yams I’ve ever seen, and took a picture of that too.

I bought a few things in the market. I bought a palm fan like the one I saw at the Hotel Ibis restaurant. I saw what I call “babushka bags”, the plaid nylon bags old women sell in Ukraine and Moldova and which are also popular in China and India. But I saw more than plaid; I saw solid colors and pictures of birds and places like New York or Italy. I had to have some of the new styles. With Jean’s help I got them at a bargain.

First day of work

We went back to the hotel so I could take a brief rest and check out the two channels on TV. Then we drove to SIL, the language institute run by a bible translation service. This is where the meetings would be held. I was surprised to see such a large complex with Western money built on a dirt road near goats and chickens.

Upon arrival, I met some of the teacher trainers from the Ministry of Foreign Languages, called DIFOP. At 6:00, Jean welcomed everyone, and then had me take the floor. I am used to the unexpected, but the only thing I could think to do was turn it into an icebreaker activity, and then ask teachers to tell me about teaching in Togo. The most surprising tidbit was that the average class size is not 50 but 80 students; some schools have as many as 120 packed in. I could only hope what I was teaching would be applicable in such large groups.

Hangin’ with the PCVs

Mary called the Peace Corps volunteers she knew of in the area, and arranged to meet them near the hotel at a restaurant called Le Chateau. Eddie from L.A. and Mike and his wife (whose name escapes me now) from North Carolina were with Mary in the air conditioned room of the restaurant playing pool, drinking beer and sodas, and eating pizza. They told me some hairraising stories about bad taxi rides, sleeping outside because it was too hot inside, and more. It was quite enlightening.

Early start

I woke up at 6:30 in the morning. Not because of jet lag, but because on the beach I heard music again. Drums and bells. It sounded like the final lap of a race. When I opened ... [Continue reading this entry]