The sky is a clear blue bowl that you look at through the haze of a smoky dive bar. The wind picked up. Finally. It kicks the heat around and beats it down to size through the compounds and under the shade. A lot of the trees are shedding. Teak leaves crumple and turn into brown sandpaper sheets. Neem leaves cascade into yellow showers that swirl in the gusts. Mango trees say "f*** you" to it all as they get ready to bloom-- their leaves staying a stubborn deep green. Bayobobs suddenly look like naked giants bearing pendulous green fruits. The landscape suddenly develops features close up but devolves into a brown blur in the distance as the grass and undergrowth dies. Vistas open up along the roads where there used to be green and brown tunnels. The dust takes on a life of its own; its this red-brown demon that works its way into the core of your life on the road. When you get home, its the grey gremlin that greets you at the door. Cotton fields vomit white and sorgham stalks bend low. Togolese wake up and wear long sleeves in the mornings. Its harmattan.
At least in the north. I just got back from Lome where I went to the swear-in festivities for the 2011 NRM/GEE stage and said goodbye to a lot of the Volunteers that they are replacing, like Karen. Before that, I went up to Dapaong to attend my stage's 1 year party. Only about half of us made it up there, but it was still a lot of fun. The northern most region of the country is beautiful. It was the first time I'd been up there.
It was a bittersweet week. Seeing people and meeting new Volunteers is always exciting, but its sad to see people leave, especially the ones who have formed an integral part of the first year of service. Chez Karen/Manoba is now chez Bryanna. Suddenly, if I have a question about something, there is no 'older' Volunteer to ask-- instead there are 'younger' Volunteers who might expect me to have all the answers. A paradigm switch in a week.
It was a fun week, but I am glad to be home. I like Lome-- I ate expensive (and delicious) seafood twice, Indian and pizza once each. I got a mint milkshake! And I enjoyed air conditioning at the Peace Bureau. But I hate the humidity and the dirt-- most of the streets are sand, so walking anywhere can be a hassle-- and dealing with expensive taxi drivers, etc. I was really glad to wake up on the bush taxi ride north and see the green of the south turning brown.
I just spent 2 days on motos touring the Bassar prefecture. We are starting a big pump replacement project that will, hopefully, replace 20 or so broken pumps in west Kara. More details to come on that.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
things
the other day i reached a new high, or low depending on your perspective, in my PC service. I didn't have any vash qui ri (a cheese-ish substance) or tabasco sauce-- the combination tastes sort of like how I image chedder cheese-- so i made myself a mayonnaise and chili sauce sandwich. It was edible.
i reached another point yesterday. i was in Dapaong, in northern togo, for a Volunteer get-together. I traveled from there to Kara. The next day from Kara to Bassar, then, yesterday, from Bassar to Lome. Through this i wore the same clothes, because traveling is really dusty this time of year. I could barely make myself touch my shirt long enough this morning to stuff it in the deepest recesses of my backpack.
togo.peacecorps.gov is our new website! actually its been around for awhile but i just found out about the address. you can read the publication that I help edit- Farm to Market, and find out all kinds of other fun stuff about life in Togo on it.
i reached another point yesterday. i was in Dapaong, in northern togo, for a Volunteer get-together. I traveled from there to Kara. The next day from Kara to Bassar, then, yesterday, from Bassar to Lome. Through this i wore the same clothes, because traveling is really dusty this time of year. I could barely make myself touch my shirt long enough this morning to stuff it in the deepest recesses of my backpack.
togo.peacecorps.gov is our new website! actually its been around for awhile but i just found out about the address. you can read the publication that I help edit- Farm to Market, and find out all kinds of other fun stuff about life in Togo on it.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Night in Village
Nighttime in Nampoch is one of my favorite times. Unless I am mad because my laptop battery is dead or that I have to hold a flashlight to read a book or do crosswords. The past couple of nights have been a full, or nearly full, moon. There is usually enough light to see by, to cast shadows, but not enough to see if the thing moving in the weeds is a rope around a goats neck or a snake. A goat with an especially long rope once about gave me a heart attack.
Moon shadows are interesting. They outline everything in stark black. They wash out color and reduce the world to shades of gray, which might be more accurate anyway. Moonbeams reflect off dusty tin roofs and give thatch a silver shimmer.
The moonlight washes out most of the stars, but when there is no moon, the universe is laid out like a map in front of your face. I see stars and other stuff that I never knew you could see, like the International Space Station. One night I watched that soar over my head in a perfectly straight line. The other night I saw an ugly shooting star that burned up in two thick contrails, sort of like what I would imagine comes out of a dragon's snout, only in reverse.
Sometimes I sit out under the magic reseau mango tree and listen. I hear the distant thuds of girls pounding yams or maybe pepper in big wooden pestle as they make supper. There is always at least one dog yapping somewhere, and the sound of distant poultry in distress. Perceived or real, it all sounds the same. Children bawl. Last night I heard one kid off in the brush who screamed with all the rage in the world. There is the staticy hum of radio broadcasts from neighboring houses, or from my own. Music and world news 6 miles in the countryside. It is life in an audio clip.
hi stephen
Last monday, I had a goodbye party for Karen in Nampoch. Abby, Jen, Brandon, and Dani came. All my friends from village where there too. It was a lot of fun. We did a fetish ceremony to protect us against snakebite, and to ask for good luck for Karen. Then we went back to my house to hang out. Karen brought her guitar, so we sang songs while she played it. "One tin soldier," "Wagon Wheel," "Blowin' in the Wind," "Circle Game," "Hallelujah," that one song that goes "the lion sleeps tonight" in french, etc. We were surrounded by Togolese. Eventually we sang our respective national anthems. Later on, we ate a big dinner. Then someone brought a boom box and a stack of cassettes and we had an impromptu dance party. There must have been 60 kids in my compound, plus a lot of other people. We danced until midnight. It was amazing. It was one of the best nights I've had here. I like parties that take on a life of their own.
Moon shadows are interesting. They outline everything in stark black. They wash out color and reduce the world to shades of gray, which might be more accurate anyway. Moonbeams reflect off dusty tin roofs and give thatch a silver shimmer.
The moonlight washes out most of the stars, but when there is no moon, the universe is laid out like a map in front of your face. I see stars and other stuff that I never knew you could see, like the International Space Station. One night I watched that soar over my head in a perfectly straight line. The other night I saw an ugly shooting star that burned up in two thick contrails, sort of like what I would imagine comes out of a dragon's snout, only in reverse.
Sometimes I sit out under the magic reseau mango tree and listen. I hear the distant thuds of girls pounding yams or maybe pepper in big wooden pestle as they make supper. There is always at least one dog yapping somewhere, and the sound of distant poultry in distress. Perceived or real, it all sounds the same. Children bawl. Last night I heard one kid off in the brush who screamed with all the rage in the world. There is the staticy hum of radio broadcasts from neighboring houses, or from my own. Music and world news 6 miles in the countryside. It is life in an audio clip.
hi stephen
Last monday, I had a goodbye party for Karen in Nampoch. Abby, Jen, Brandon, and Dani came. All my friends from village where there too. It was a lot of fun. We did a fetish ceremony to protect us against snakebite, and to ask for good luck for Karen. Then we went back to my house to hang out. Karen brought her guitar, so we sang songs while she played it. "One tin soldier," "Wagon Wheel," "Blowin' in the Wind," "Circle Game," "Hallelujah," that one song that goes "the lion sleeps tonight" in french, etc. We were surrounded by Togolese. Eventually we sang our respective national anthems. Later on, we ate a big dinner. Then someone brought a boom box and a stack of cassettes and we had an impromptu dance party. There must have been 60 kids in my compound, plus a lot of other people. We danced until midnight. It was amazing. It was one of the best nights I've had here. I like parties that take on a life of their own.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
happy tous saint day
its been awhile since i've updated my blog. i haven't felt like writing.
i am sitting on karen's porch. she is playing guitar and singing. Jen is reading a Joe Abercrombie novel. i am blogging.
i just got a togocell USB modem that makes this possible. it is really cool cause it connects over the cellular network. too bad i dont any togocell reseau in village. or electricity.
karen made some kind of soup today with butternut squash and carrots from my garden. it was delicious. i think it was like cream of butternut squash soup or something like that.
i also ate iguana, or some other comparable large lizard today. it tasted like a cross between pork and chicken. togolese love it.
i woke up one morning last week and staggered out of my my bedroom in my usual morning fog. i had to dance around the pieces of a bat that nigarmi left in the middle of my floor. he looked at me and went "meow."
the next morning i got outside before i saw anything weird. then it was little David beating a knife blade against a metal basin and cooing. until he saw me and started screaming.
Last week was post visit week. this is when new trainees leave training, or stage, and go spend a week at their new posts. This was kind of a bittersweet week. it's always really fun, if somewhat nerve wracking, to meet new people. but this means that karen has about 3 weeks before she leaves. Her replacement seems pretty cool. we had a post-visit party on friday night for the new people in west Kara. then, on saturday, we had a big party in Kara for all the new people in our region. it was a fun weekend.
Saturday was also really cool because the Guerin-Kouka girls football team went to play the Kara girls football team. Karen and i went to watch the match before the post-visit party. Kouka tied Kara 1-1! Kara scored in the first half, then Kouka scored the equalizer on what was easily the prettiest goal i've seen in girls football here. Kouka's goalie had several spectacular saves too.
It was really awesome because Kouka is out in the sticks of west Kara; they were easily the underdogs. The fact that they could come in and tie Kara is pretty cool and goes a long way to promoting girls football in the region.
it was cool enough that i forgave Kouka for beating Nampoch 1-0 on Wednesday in their warm-up match.
the weather here is changing. i noticed it when i got back up from Atakpame a couple weeks ago. the rains have stopped for the most part, to the detriment of my garden. there is a haze in the sky during the day now; everything looks dustier. it gets cold(er) at nights. the plants have that spicy smell they get when they are about done growing. everything is dustier now that the rains have stopped. harmattan is coming . . . and then hot season.
i am sitting on karen's porch. she is playing guitar and singing. Jen is reading a Joe Abercrombie novel. i am blogging.
i just got a togocell USB modem that makes this possible. it is really cool cause it connects over the cellular network. too bad i dont any togocell reseau in village. or electricity.
karen made some kind of soup today with butternut squash and carrots from my garden. it was delicious. i think it was like cream of butternut squash soup or something like that.
i also ate iguana, or some other comparable large lizard today. it tasted like a cross between pork and chicken. togolese love it.
i woke up one morning last week and staggered out of my my bedroom in my usual morning fog. i had to dance around the pieces of a bat that nigarmi left in the middle of my floor. he looked at me and went "meow."
the next morning i got outside before i saw anything weird. then it was little David beating a knife blade against a metal basin and cooing. until he saw me and started screaming.
Last week was post visit week. this is when new trainees leave training, or stage, and go spend a week at their new posts. This was kind of a bittersweet week. it's always really fun, if somewhat nerve wracking, to meet new people. but this means that karen has about 3 weeks before she leaves. Her replacement seems pretty cool. we had a post-visit party on friday night for the new people in west Kara. then, on saturday, we had a big party in Kara for all the new people in our region. it was a fun weekend.
Saturday was also really cool because the Guerin-Kouka girls football team went to play the Kara girls football team. Karen and i went to watch the match before the post-visit party. Kouka tied Kara 1-1! Kara scored in the first half, then Kouka scored the equalizer on what was easily the prettiest goal i've seen in girls football here. Kouka's goalie had several spectacular saves too.
It was really awesome because Kouka is out in the sticks of west Kara; they were easily the underdogs. The fact that they could come in and tie Kara is pretty cool and goes a long way to promoting girls football in the region.
it was cool enough that i forgave Kouka for beating Nampoch 1-0 on Wednesday in their warm-up match.
the weather here is changing. i noticed it when i got back up from Atakpame a couple weeks ago. the rains have stopped for the most part, to the detriment of my garden. there is a haze in the sky during the day now; everything looks dustier. it gets cold(er) at nights. the plants have that spicy smell they get when they are about done growing. everything is dustier now that the rains have stopped. harmattan is coming . . . and then hot season.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Peanuts!
I think I have eaten my body weight in peanuts over the past 2 days. People have been harvesting them for the past 6 weeks or so and I have recently gotten into eating them. There are two ways of preparing them-- steaming/boiling them in the shell or roasting them in the shell. there is no salting. People come over to my house with a pocket or shirt full of peanuts and we hang out and eat them.
Togolese have this really smooth crack, split, pop-into-the-mouth routine. i still have to use 2 hands and miss my face more often than not.
Its grilled corn season too. You take an ear of young corn and stick it in the fire until the kernals are nicely toasted, or charcoal, then eat it. so good. white and yellow corn are equally good.
I read about the concept of "slow time" in some magazine a couple days ago. I think that its a good way to characterize life here. People spend hours a day sitting under a neem or mango tree shelling peanuts and talking for example. You have time to notice and observe stuff too. I spend a lot of time on my porch doing crosswords and watching the world go back. This is especially good for thunderstorm watching. Think about spending 2 hours sitting on your porch with someone and doing nothing. its a really weird concept for americans. our self-worth is tied up in being "busy." granted, its really frustrating here when this different concept of time gets applied to things like, say, scheduled meetins, but thats just part of it.
i don't mind goats. but like 15 of them like to sleep on my porch at night. this makes going to the latrine at 2 am somewhat challenging sometimes. that and they knock my stuff over and it wakes me up. yet life goes on.
Togolese have this really smooth crack, split, pop-into-the-mouth routine. i still have to use 2 hands and miss my face more often than not.
Its grilled corn season too. You take an ear of young corn and stick it in the fire until the kernals are nicely toasted, or charcoal, then eat it. so good. white and yellow corn are equally good.
I read about the concept of "slow time" in some magazine a couple days ago. I think that its a good way to characterize life here. People spend hours a day sitting under a neem or mango tree shelling peanuts and talking for example. You have time to notice and observe stuff too. I spend a lot of time on my porch doing crosswords and watching the world go back. This is especially good for thunderstorm watching. Think about spending 2 hours sitting on your porch with someone and doing nothing. its a really weird concept for americans. our self-worth is tied up in being "busy." granted, its really frustrating here when this different concept of time gets applied to things like, say, scheduled meetins, but thats just part of it.
i don't mind goats. but like 15 of them like to sleep on my porch at night. this makes going to the latrine at 2 am somewhat challenging sometimes. that and they knock my stuff over and it wakes me up. yet life goes on.
Monday, September 19, 2011
A typical Peace Corps day
Friday, September 16th, 2010, I left for Philadelphia and pre-departure staging. Friday, September 16th, 2011 was a typical Peace Corps day.
A couple of months ago me and Jen, my neighbor, re-started the Committee Against Forced Marriage, an initiative that some people in the Nampoch canton had started several years ago. As our first official event, Jen and I decided to put on a girls football match, after which the Committee members would address the audience about the problem of forced marriage.
So, a couple of weeks ago, when I got back from MSC and Bassar, Jack, one of the Committee members and an immediate neighbor came to me and was like "the football field is over-grown, we should do it at the primary school where the ground is clearer." I was like "um, the middle school ground is like 1/3 the size of a football pitch, no." Unfortunately, my mental state then sucked, and I didn't do anything about it.
Long story short, last monday, I got on the ball and bought some herbicide and got the coach to go spray the terrain (football pitch in french). I wasn't very optimistic that this would kill the weeds in time, but I thought it would help.
On Wednesday, I went to see the chief to tell him about the match and to get him to tell some kids to go "mow" the terrain, i.e. cut the grass with machetes. An hour with a lawnmower would have made my life so much easier.
Friday rolled around. The terrain was still overgrown, albeit slightly brown. I got up early, tracked down the coach, and we went to see the chief again. He called the guy he'd told to cut the terrain, and the guy was like "everyone is off trading labor in the fields today." I was bummed. Then the coach and I spent the next hour wandering through Nampoch rounding up people to help cut the field. Most of them were friends of mine so it wasn't hard. I was relieved and went back to my house to coordinate food efforts. The Committee was suppose to supply the food, I was organizing the the game, and Jen was bringing her team from her village- Manga.
Back at the house, the Committee members brought a lot of new yams for fufu, and got stuff to make sauce, but they didn't have the money to buy chickens for the sauce. I delegated people to go buy chickens, then decided to go check on the field status. As I biked by the middle school, i saw people out on the parade ground putting up goal posts. I swore.
The coach was like "the weeds in the terrain are too tough to cut with machetes, so we'll lay out a smaller terrainhere, and it'll be great." The terrain they were laying out was about half the size of a normal sized terrain and included 4 mango trees. A flag pole was directly behind one goal.
I had an internal freak-out, then helped them set up the field. And got sunburned. Seriously, you haven't really mowed weeds until you've used a machete.
As the afternoon progressed, the terrain got set up and laid out. I biked back home and coordinated the acquisition of tchakpa. Jen texted me to say that the van that came to pick them up was going to be late on account of friday prayers. The ref did show up on time. Karen had arranged his services, but he forgot his watch and didn't look too thrilled about the small field.
I tracked the coach down again and pressed him to find jerseys for the Manga team because they didnt have their own. He told someone to go collect jerseys from the cartier players.
The match was suppose to start at 3 pm. Which is about when the Manga team arrived. After Jen and I got them squared away, we discovered that the Committee didn't really have a plan for addressing the population. I found myself coordinating that and planning the match (2 30minute halves, 8 players on a side) with the ref at the same time. The President of the Committee talked to the players awhile, and Jack did too. Then we finally got the match started an hour later. In retrospect, that was actually decent timing.
I had to walk around the terrain during the match to keep from fidgeting. I was a nervous wreck. I was afraid that a failed match would both look bad for the Forced Marriage Committee and also dampen my efforts to engender a girls' football culture in the area. I was really happy, and a bit surprised, to see people get as into the girls' match as they would have a guys' match. There were a lot of people screaming at the ref, at the teams, and at each other like any good football game. When Nampoch scored, the crowd went wild. I think I remember picking someone up. It might have been my host dad.
Nampoch won, 1-0. The first goal scored by the Nampoch girls' football team.
Afterwards, I was even more surprised when a sketch group composed of a bunch of my friends put on a professional sketch about forced marriage. It was a big hit. It was all in Konkumba so I didn't get the jokes, but by that point I didn't care.
We took the Manga team, the theater group, and the Committee back to my house for supper under storm clouds. The Manga people left right before the storm hit. Jen told me later that they floated home.
The match, overall, was a great success. People have been asking me when we're going to go play in Manga. Yesterday, in the Kouka marche, a couple of my (guy) friends from Nampoch started trash talking with a couple girls from the Kouka team about who would win the next game. Friday, however, was an emotional roller coaster. I went between "oh crap, everything is screwed" to "oh wow, I cant believe this is going to work" hourly. I was pleasantly surprised when cool stuff happened without me having to coordinate it. I learned a lot about my community (one of my best friends in village is an actor, who knew?). I had to remind myself throughout the day that everything was going to work out even as it looked like it was falling apart. So yeah, over all, a typical Peace Corps day.
A couple of months ago me and Jen, my neighbor, re-started the Committee Against Forced Marriage, an initiative that some people in the Nampoch canton had started several years ago. As our first official event, Jen and I decided to put on a girls football match, after which the Committee members would address the audience about the problem of forced marriage.
So, a couple of weeks ago, when I got back from MSC and Bassar, Jack, one of the Committee members and an immediate neighbor came to me and was like "the football field is over-grown, we should do it at the primary school where the ground is clearer." I was like "um, the middle school ground is like 1/3 the size of a football pitch, no." Unfortunately, my mental state then sucked, and I didn't do anything about it.
Long story short, last monday, I got on the ball and bought some herbicide and got the coach to go spray the terrain (football pitch in french). I wasn't very optimistic that this would kill the weeds in time, but I thought it would help.
On Wednesday, I went to see the chief to tell him about the match and to get him to tell some kids to go "mow" the terrain, i.e. cut the grass with machetes. An hour with a lawnmower would have made my life so much easier.
Friday rolled around. The terrain was still overgrown, albeit slightly brown. I got up early, tracked down the coach, and we went to see the chief again. He called the guy he'd told to cut the terrain, and the guy was like "everyone is off trading labor in the fields today." I was bummed. Then the coach and I spent the next hour wandering through Nampoch rounding up people to help cut the field. Most of them were friends of mine so it wasn't hard. I was relieved and went back to my house to coordinate food efforts. The Committee was suppose to supply the food, I was organizing the the game, and Jen was bringing her team from her village- Manga.
Back at the house, the Committee members brought a lot of new yams for fufu, and got stuff to make sauce, but they didn't have the money to buy chickens for the sauce. I delegated people to go buy chickens, then decided to go check on the field status. As I biked by the middle school, i saw people out on the parade ground putting up goal posts. I swore.
The coach was like "the weeds in the terrain are too tough to cut with machetes, so we'll lay out a smaller terrainhere, and it'll be great." The terrain they were laying out was about half the size of a normal sized terrain and included 4 mango trees. A flag pole was directly behind one goal.
I had an internal freak-out, then helped them set up the field. And got sunburned. Seriously, you haven't really mowed weeds until you've used a machete.
As the afternoon progressed, the terrain got set up and laid out. I biked back home and coordinated the acquisition of tchakpa. Jen texted me to say that the van that came to pick them up was going to be late on account of friday prayers. The ref did show up on time. Karen had arranged his services, but he forgot his watch and didn't look too thrilled about the small field.
I tracked the coach down again and pressed him to find jerseys for the Manga team because they didnt have their own. He told someone to go collect jerseys from the cartier players.
The match was suppose to start at 3 pm. Which is about when the Manga team arrived. After Jen and I got them squared away, we discovered that the Committee didn't really have a plan for addressing the population. I found myself coordinating that and planning the match (2 30minute halves, 8 players on a side) with the ref at the same time. The President of the Committee talked to the players awhile, and Jack did too. Then we finally got the match started an hour later. In retrospect, that was actually decent timing.
I had to walk around the terrain during the match to keep from fidgeting. I was a nervous wreck. I was afraid that a failed match would both look bad for the Forced Marriage Committee and also dampen my efforts to engender a girls' football culture in the area. I was really happy, and a bit surprised, to see people get as into the girls' match as they would have a guys' match. There were a lot of people screaming at the ref, at the teams, and at each other like any good football game. When Nampoch scored, the crowd went wild. I think I remember picking someone up. It might have been my host dad.
Nampoch won, 1-0. The first goal scored by the Nampoch girls' football team.
Afterwards, I was even more surprised when a sketch group composed of a bunch of my friends put on a professional sketch about forced marriage. It was a big hit. It was all in Konkumba so I didn't get the jokes, but by that point I didn't care.
We took the Manga team, the theater group, and the Committee back to my house for supper under storm clouds. The Manga people left right before the storm hit. Jen told me later that they floated home.
The match, overall, was a great success. People have been asking me when we're going to go play in Manga. Yesterday, in the Kouka marche, a couple of my (guy) friends from Nampoch started trash talking with a couple girls from the Kouka team about who would win the next game. Friday, however, was an emotional roller coaster. I went between "oh crap, everything is screwed" to "oh wow, I cant believe this is going to work" hourly. I was pleasantly surprised when cool stuff happened without me having to coordinate it. I learned a lot about my community (one of my best friends in village is an actor, who knew?). I had to remind myself throughout the day that everything was going to work out even as it looked like it was falling apart. So yeah, over all, a typical Peace Corps day.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
More snakes and chinese flashlights
I promise that after this I will stop talking about snakes. But I'm freaked out now. So last monday, when I was biking into Kouka, I saw a big one crossing the road ahead of me. When I got back home that night, Kodjo came over and we eventually started talking about snakes. I described this snake that Alisha and I saw when we were biking back from Kante last month. Kodjo was like "yeah, that was a spitting cobra" (awhile ago he told me that those are good eating). So after that, he told me that the chief's daughter got bit one night last week but that Kodjo's father-in-law, who is a local fetisher, was able to save her using traditional methods. It was about this point that I realized that he was making a distinction between snakes ("serpents" in french) and vipers (same). When I asked him about vipers, one of which bit the chief's daughter, he was like "oh il y a beacoup ici." Crap.
My parents called me right after that talk and I sat out under the magic reseau tree and shined my flashlight in the bushes the whole time I was talking to them.
Speaking of flashlights, that was probably the 5th flashlight I've had since I've gotten here. They are cheap. I can get one for about 600 CFA. They are LED and put out a lot of light, even with the cheap Chinese batteries here (C- batteries shouldn't be squishy. enough said). However, they have to be handled doucement. The little metal plate that the battery touches under the bulb is really flimsy. If it is bent at all, your flashlight turns itself off all the time. I spent a month beating my first flashlight against things to make it work until i figured out what the problem was. Now, if I am feeling ambitious, i pry out the little metal plate and bend to back into shape. If I'm not, I give it to N'tilabi after I send him to go buy me a new one. He likes tinkering with them.
I had a really weird moment in Kouka last Sunday. I stopped at this boutique to buy phone credit. While I was negotiating with the shop owner in French, a guy asked me "are you the guy who speaks Arabic" in Arabic. I found myself holding a conversation in Arabic while getting my phone credit recharged in French. I had a huge headache afterward and found myself mixing up languages for the rest of the day.
Kouka on marche day is kind of crazy. The main road through town is laterite, ie packed red dirt (the nearest paved road is about 25 miles away). Trucks roar through town along with overloaded bush taxis (vans) and a sprinkling of cinq-places. Zeds dart through this dust storm, dodging vehicles and each other. A few lonely bikers are usually included in the mix, as well as the odd pedestrian and random livestock. Last Sunday I was headed into town on the back of a zed. there were two trucks coming toward us, side by side, as a car passed them on the "shoulder". We got around them, and another zed, by going through ditch.
My parents called me right after that talk and I sat out under the magic reseau tree and shined my flashlight in the bushes the whole time I was talking to them.
Speaking of flashlights, that was probably the 5th flashlight I've had since I've gotten here. They are cheap. I can get one for about 600 CFA. They are LED and put out a lot of light, even with the cheap Chinese batteries here (C- batteries shouldn't be squishy. enough said). However, they have to be handled doucement. The little metal plate that the battery touches under the bulb is really flimsy. If it is bent at all, your flashlight turns itself off all the time. I spent a month beating my first flashlight against things to make it work until i figured out what the problem was. Now, if I am feeling ambitious, i pry out the little metal plate and bend to back into shape. If I'm not, I give it to N'tilabi after I send him to go buy me a new one. He likes tinkering with them.
I had a really weird moment in Kouka last Sunday. I stopped at this boutique to buy phone credit. While I was negotiating with the shop owner in French, a guy asked me "are you the guy who speaks Arabic" in Arabic. I found myself holding a conversation in Arabic while getting my phone credit recharged in French. I had a huge headache afterward and found myself mixing up languages for the rest of the day.
Kouka on marche day is kind of crazy. The main road through town is laterite, ie packed red dirt (the nearest paved road is about 25 miles away). Trucks roar through town along with overloaded bush taxis (vans) and a sprinkling of cinq-places. Zeds dart through this dust storm, dodging vehicles and each other. A few lonely bikers are usually included in the mix, as well as the odd pedestrian and random livestock. Last Sunday I was headed into town on the back of a zed. there were two trucks coming toward us, side by side, as a car passed them on the "shoulder". We got around them, and another zed, by going through ditch.
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