12/28/07
I woke up early to type up my emails and make sure I got to internet before the power cut. I headed over at 9:30-ish and on the way met Efo who was coming out of class. He had to rush home to pick up a notebook and so he said he'd come say hey after class. I went to use internet – it was working off and on. My first priority was to send and receive emails from Jorge and I was able to do that, but I wasn't able to send the Priest's Christmas letter. I decided to go home and try to reduce the size of the photos and consequently the size of the documents I was trying to attach. After doing that I made lunch – spaghetti with crumbled tofu instead of ground beef. I made enough to offer some to Efo should he stop by and it was a good thing because he came while I was eating. I gave him a plate of spaghetti (they don't eat spaghetti alone here – it is usually paired with rice – or tofu crumbled like that so I am sure he thought the meal very strange).
I showed him the pictures of our skit that I had just downloaded onto my computer and then other pictures of Jorge, family, home, friends, stage, things I've done in Avassikpe etc. We looked at pictures until he had to go back to class at two. He is interested in learning how to manipulate a computer and so, if I get a chance, I will show him the basics. I am not sure he has ever used one before, but he is studying accounting and so he will need to learn.
I went back to internet, but it hadn't opened yet after the "repos" – lunch and siesta break between 12:00 and 2:00 and so I went to the market and post office. I went back to internet afterwards and it was open but the connection was more off than on and I couldn't send the documents even though I had reduced them from 15,000 whatevers (Ko?) to 1,000. I reluctantly decided to stay the night in Notse in hopes of having more luck later in the evening. I told the priest I would try to send it before New Years . . . I went home, showered, went to Heather's and borrowed some Dvds and Ewe documents and then tried internet again. Didn't work. I went home, ate left-over spaghetti, puttered around and went back to internet and wasted time and money without success. The good, though, was that I received Jorge's most recent emails – that he emailed me from his cell phone! (technology gets more and more amazing every day!) and that made me happy at least.
I was thirty minutes into the movie "Sense and Sensibility" when Efo stopped by. He was on his way to visit one of the girls/actresses in the skit and invited me to join. We walked to her house which is only a couple blocks away from Ashley's and there had some interesting conversations. The first was about voudou and sorcerers. I asked the girl, I forget her name (Adjo), what career she wants to pursue after high school and she said that she would like to be a nurse. I asked if she would then return to work in Avassikpe considering that the dispensaire does not yet have a nurse on staff. She said no because people in Avassikpe aren't good (and this isn't the first time someone tells me this – Mana said the same thing), that they get jealous of you and then hire sorcerers to harm you. Someone should do a thesis on the role of sorcery in the rural exodus in Togo. I bet people feel safer, more protected from sorcery in larger towns or cities because they are more anonymous. I learned that most sorcerers are women, that people can either be born into sorcery or learn it and that some use their powers for motives other than harming people (motives like making money), but the general feeling of those present seemed to be that sorcery of any kind isn't good.
They told me that when you pray to Jesus, it weakens the sorcerers and that every night before going to sleep, they pray to Jesus to protect them and particularly their souls from sorcerers. Sorcerers eat souls. That is what they do. Christians believe that Jesus will protect them from sorcerers, but they are still afraid. Efo mentioned the idea that if you're afraid you are more likely to fall victim to sorcery, but not so much because of the "if you believe in something, it has power over you" idea as the "if your faith in Jesus is strong enough and true enough you won't be afraid" reasoning. Still, neither Efo nor the other girl (Adjo – 19 years old) have reached the point of questioning the reality of sorcery altogether. It isn't only Avassikpe where sorcery makes its presence felt, but, according to them, it is safer to be a stranger in a village because sorcerers have less power over strangers. I also learned that there are sorcerers in Avassikpe, but also ambulatory sorcerers who go from village to village offering their services.
Eventually the conversation switched to someone in the village who attends the Assembly of God church, but who is going against its teachings by courting a woman when he already has a wife. I didn't understand completely – because I was missing background information – but apparently the man and Efo are friends and Adjo was chastising him for not exerting a more positive influence over the other man and reining him in. Some good village gossip.
Around 10:00, Efo and Adjo walked me home and then I watched the rest of Sense and Sensibility.
12/29/07
I was writing up on yesterday early this morning (around 6:30) when Ashley and her friend Sawyer arrived. I was so happy to see them because I thought I would have left before they arrived (I knew they were getting in today, but I wanted to leave before it got really hot outside). It was really nice to see them even just for a little while. We made and ate pancakes and then I biked back to Avassikpe. I was going to stop and say hi to Mana and inform the Priest of my failed attempts to send his letter, but I crossed paths with Mana en route – she was on her way to Notse and the Priest was in Tsevie – so I went straight home. I stopped first at the dispensaire to say hi to Lili. She had delivered a baby the day before – DaJulie's sister's baby and so there were many women there that I know. Iwent in to look at the baby and stayed for a while just listening to the cheerful chatter between women. They expressed the desire that I stay in Avassikpe for the rest of my life. Even if that isn't possible, I know they would be tickled to death if I could bring my children here.
I then came home and did loads of laundry. Loads not in the "stick a load in the washer" sense, but in the "a whole lot of" sense. When I was almost finished, I took a break to start my lunch preparations and as I was cutting up an ignam, I sliced my finger. I sliced it really well too – a deep cut on the very tip of the middle finger on my left hand. It took me a few minutes to stop the bleeding. Then, as I was dumping out my laundry water – can't do laundry with a bad cut on our finger – I stepped on a pricker that went into my heel. I dug it out with tweezers and then I bit my cheek as I chomped down on a piece of pineapple. Bad things come in threes, no more, no less, and so I figured I was home-free for the rest of the day. I cooked ignam chunks and made a sort of potato salad with ignam for lunch. While the ignam and hard boiled eggs were cooling, I played UNO with the children. Afterwards (we must have played fifteen games and I didn't win once!) I ate, showered and stretched out in my hammock to read the Ewe documents that I borrowed from Heather. Just to give you an idea of what I am up against, on word in Ewe "to," in particular, has 25 different meanings, not including the ways it is combined with other words to make new words. The books are interesting and useful, however.
In the evening, I talked with Adjo for a little bit and then sat with DaJulie, her mother and older brother for about an hour. Right before I took my leave, Efo arrived from Notse.
When I got home, I squeezed myself five oranges worth of pure Togo orange juice and sat down to write letters and text messages to Ashley, Tig and Regina to try to solidify New Years plans.
12/30/07
Two funny things – almost grown sheep (if not fully grown) who try to nurse and head butt their mother's udder so that her back end flies up in the air; and, the fallen leaves of the teak tress which make you feel as though your are experiencing fall in a wonderland where everything is super-sized. Oh, and a third funny thing – the way that drops of water bead up and roll away like mercury in my shower because it is so dusty "à cause de harmattan" (it is really dusty now and sometimes a little difficult to breathe).
I am writing on the morning of the 31st, the last day of 2007. I just finished making myself pancakes, and I am eating them with cinnamon sugar and a hint of cumin (because my spices have been in close proximity for so long). It is very foggy out – as if we were in a cloud – it is strange, fog isn't something I expected during dry season, but I guess there is just enough moisture and plenty of dust in the air.
Yesterday, after a whole lot of text messaging back and forth everyone (Tig, Ashley, Regina) decided to stay in their own villages for New Years. I guess that suits my interests best as well because my Children's Rights Club seems to be of the disposition that they just won't perform the skit if I am not present and I am too conscientious to allow that to happen. So New Years in village it is.
I spent from 8:30 until 12:00 in church. Efo informed me that today had been declared a day for making gifts, bringing offerings to the Pastor as a show of thanks. I asked whether it would be better to bring an ignam or a pineapple and he suggested the pineapple. We arrived late, but Sunday school was still in session and so the lesson was briefly recapped for me in French. It was a good lesson, especially for here in light of the difficulties I faced last week on Christmas Day. The lesson was that children are, in Jesus' eyes, of equal worth to adults and that they should be cherished and nurtured. Children have their place in heaven alongside adults and, in fact, sometimes adults would do well to imitate the innocent and forgiving ways of children. A very good message, I thought.
The church service was especially long because there was a lot on the program. First we sang and prayed (in raised voices with maracas shaking) for about an hour. When I asked one why they pray aloud, they said because God gave them voices so that they would use them. While I was clapping along, I was thinking about inviting my parents to the service and being there with Jorge. I was also thinking that parts of the church service here are more like a party than a subdued service at church at home, but that it is fitting because the joy of worshipping God here is really palpable whereas, in other places, it is muffled. After everyone sang and danced and prayed for an hour, the women's choir, the young people's choir and the children's choir sang. The children also recited memorized verses from the Bible and did coordinated dances as they sang. It was really nice. Then everyone brought their gifts up to the front of the church. People brought rice, ignams, packets of spaghetti, chickens, a duck, piment and offerings of money. The pastor made out like a bandit (no, I am not insinuating anything – it is just a figure of speech – he seems like a pretty straight-up guy). As he was thanking the congregation for the offerings, he said that because of the generosity of the people in Avassikpe, he has not had to cultivate a field since he arrived here and yet he always has food to eat, to the point that he's put on a little weight (I later learned that he arrived after I did and so has only been there a couple of months). He then said that he makes only 15,000 cFA a month, but that this month he is adding 5,000 cFA to the 10,000 that was collected during the offering to safeguard in the case that a child falls sick and the family doesn't have the funds to seek treatment. The pastor promised that no more children from the congregation will die. (I wonder if this promise will be possible to keep).
Throughout the service, someone was sitting next to me for the specific purpose of translating because the service was only done in Ewe and Kabiye. I was thankful because it is much more interesting when you understand what is being said. The sermon was about how Joshua's troops were defeated by a weaker enemy because some of his followers had sinned. The pastor said that as long as there are unrepented sinners in the church, the prayers of the whole congregation will fall on deaf ears. He said that the sinners must be forced to recognize their sins and ask forgiveness and that the church must help them. People shouldn't turn a blind eye to sinners or they become accomplices in sin. They must decry sinners and alert the Pastor. He then called certain people, "sinners," up to the front of the church where their sins were announced to all present. One young man had helped a friend cheat on his wife by offering his house as a meeting place. The wife was present, but the husband was not. These people were publicly humiliated (I felt humiliated for them) and then "disciplined." (meaning that for a certain time they must sit on the very last bench in the church called Zongo. I must admit I was worried that the discipline would include some sort of corporal punishment which would have turned me off from the church entirely). The wife whose husband cheated on her was disciplined as well because she didn't come to the Pastor with the complaint that her husband was coming home late and eating another woman's food. Another young man was "disciplined" for cheating on his wife, gambling, and drinking. A young woman was disciplined for hitting her husband during an argument (he, apparently had not hit her first). She was crying, silently sobbing really, at the front of the church – the first time I have seen a Togolese woman cry except for in the semi-theatrical context of the funeral. She was obviously crying from raw emotion.
I go back and forth on how I feel about the teachings of the Assembly of God church and the impact on the population. On the one hand, the Pastor decries cheating on your spouse (be you man or woman), drinking, smoking, gambling, spousal abuse – all bad things. He seems honest and upfront – and progressive thinking enough. He seems willing to talk about serious issues like HIV/AIDS and he seems to support the equality of sexes within a limited cultural context, meaning that the man is still the head of the household, but that he doesn't have the right to behave in an unchristian manner. At the moment, my pendulum of feeling about the church is on the side of "exerts a good influence on population." I am not completely sure how I feel about the demonizing of traditional religion. Although I do think belief in sorcery doesn't do people any good, the church doesn't challenge that belief, but rather asserts that sorcerers must be vanquished. I am not sure of the churches position on contraceptive methods, but pretty certain they are against abortion and premarital sex. One thing I like, though, is that they take the forgiveness part – repent of your sins and you will be forgiven – very seriously. The Pastor is a very affable, although, at times, formidable man, but he is really like a benevolent father figure more or less trying to gently guide his flock down the path that he believes most fruitful.
After church I came home, made fried rice for lunch, and then spent the early afternoon reading an ethnography on the Ewe – one of the documents I borrowed from Heather. It is interesting and much of it still seems to describe Ewe culture. It also includes a bit of Ewe history which is interesting.
In the late afternoon, I played UNO with the children. Efo explained to Barthé and Patrovi that they weren't allowed to play because the day before they played on my hammock right after I specifically asked them not to. The punishment seemed pretty effective. They sat there, very subdued and when a child touched my hammock, the other children quickly warned them of potential punishment. Their interest in my hammock reinforces my desire to hang swings from trees as a source of amusement.
I showered and in the evening Efo and I biked to Chalimpota (or Avassikpevi as I am used to calling it) to inform them that we will be performing a sketch for them. Efo's older sister is Victor's (the President of the COGES) wife and they live in Chalimpota. Apparently they complained to him that I have abandoned them because I don't visit Chalimpota regularly or al all really unless I have a specific reason. Victor wasn't there when we first arrived so we spoke with some other people and they said they would gongonne to inform the villagers. As we were leaving, Victor arrived on his moto (I think he had been visiting a second? third? fourth? wife in Glei). I don't know if it is because Emmanuelle told me that he drinks a lot or because I never see him helping out at the dispensaire even though he is the president of the Community Health Committee, but I don't respect him very much. Anyway, he agreed to help inform the population even though he warned that many people have left for a funeral just outside of Notse.
We biked back and then waled around to the houses of the girl actors to inform their father's of the existence of the club and ask them to "liberate" their daughters to come to Chalimpota with us for the sketch. Notice that we only went to the girls' fathers to inform and ask permission, not the boys. All of the fathers accepted without difficulty, but at one house I got asked what I am going to do for Avassikpe, more specifically, am I going to build public latrines, install a new pump, etc.? Although conversations like those can be frustrating, I did learn that perhaps one of the reasons people don't use the pump is that demand is so high and the resource so limited that fights break out. To avoid conflict, people prefer to look elsewhere for water. This is what I am told anyway. I will keep it in mind as a possible factor. I guess when it comes time for me to fill my cistern, I will realize how scarce water really is.
12/30/07 through 1/3/08
I hate when I let my letters go and then I have to write about several days at once. As I strain to remember what happened three days ago, I realize how bad my memory really is, but I have been really busy and that is my excuse =0).
On New Years Eve day, I honestly can't remember what I did until noon. I am trying to think. I played with a puppy – one of the cutest puppy's I have ever seen (especially in Togo). He is fat and mostly white with brown ears and a perfectly round brown spot on his forehead and more brown spots on his back. The perfect dog to be named Spot, straight out of the first grade reader: "See Spot run." I carried him around for a while and made people laugh by telling them that he was my baby (in the States that might not be funny because people really do treat pets like children, but here it is absurdly hilarious).
I also walked out to the field with Tseviato, Robert, Efo and some other children to bring back palm fronds for the shady area they were making in front of Tseviato's father's house for the fête. As we walked out to the field, Efo told me of a ceremony performed on a woman when she becomes pregnant for the first time. Apparently, one night she will sit naked and children will come to the house and eat beans and spread beans on her stomach to ensure the good health of the unborn baby. He said that if an ant bites her while she sits naked on the floor, it means that she cheated on her husband and the baby isn't his. When the ant bites her, she will be forced to admit to her adultery. He said he would never permit his wife to participate in that ceremony because he doesn't like the idea of people parading in and out of the house while his wife sits naked on the floor. I don't understand why she needs to be completely naked – children could still rub beans on her belly even if she was wearing a pagne as a skirt and it isn't anything unusual for women to be topless around here, so that would be a little less demeaning. I think it would probably be more beneficial for the pregnant woman to eat the beans than for her to have them rubbed on her belly. Anyway, another interesting piece of information. I would like to be invited to this ceremony sometime even if it would be awkward.
I wanted to help transport palm fronds, but I didn't know they had thorns and even though they only let me transport one (even the children were transporting bundles of at least ten), I still got four cuts on my hands from the thorns. It is funny to see children transporting bunches of palm fronds because, in reality, you can't see the children – just bouncing bundles of palm – like monsters from the bush. Then they took my one palm frond away and let me transport six ignams – a pretty wimpy load considering all the wood Tseviato was carrying on her head. When we got back to village they, unfortunately, gave me three huge ignams raising the count (of the ignams sitting on my floor) to about nine or ten. Great. I insisted that I don't need any more ignams but they insisted that I take them. It is one thing that they give me ignams when I do a days work in the field, but a completely different thing when I did nothing at all. I gave them two pineapples as thanks and they seemed really appreciative, so that is good because I was worried that two pineapples wouldn't be an appropriate thanks for three ignams. I guess pineapples, though, are a treat and ignams are something they eat frequently and have relatively a lot of.
That morning a woman who lives in front, Yolke's co-wife, gave me a bunch of a certain variety of banana that are tiny and taste like a cross between a banana and an apple and I gave her a pineapple in thanks as well (my pineapple stock got critically low this week with all the giving). (By the way, I haven't spoken of Yolke much recently because she hasn't been in village – she is in Tsevie because her mother is sick).
(Lili, by the way, and many of the women in village, are also sick with a upper respiratory infections and many of them have lost their voices from so much coughing.)
When I got back from the field, I played UNO with the children as I waited for my Club members to arrive (they were supposed to arrive at noon – I played UNO until 2:00 – still no actors). I ate some beans and gari (dried manioc shavings) for lunch and while I was eating Hevihevi arrived from Notse. She finished off the rest of my beans and said that they were good except that they weren't cooked long enough. I washed up as she went to see if the others were ready (or even beginning to get ready). We didn't leave Avassikpe until after 3:00 and then we had to walk the kilometer to Chalimpota. Needless to say, we were late; we had informed the villagers that we would arrive around 2:00. Victor, the president of COGES promptly informed us that we were late, but I doubt any villagers had assembled at 2:00 anyway. The start was delayed even longer because an old man (I am not sure if he was the chief or not) was disgruntled because he hadn't been informed (it is hard to inform people that aren't there . . . ). Efo dealt with it (he has really taken the reins as the group's coordinator/leader) and eventually we set up our stage curtain (we wrapped the sheets that make up my baby-weighing pavilion around a tree – I am glad my 6,000 cFA worth of sheets is finding multiple uses) and performed the skit. The students did a really good job again and this time people came and stayed until the very end. We had a larger audience as well, perhaps because Chalimpota is small and the word got around quickly that we had arrived. Because we don't live in the village, our presence caused a bit of commotion and that generated a crowd. After the skit we were offered shots of sodabe, but none of us drink (almost all the members attend the Assembly of God church where they are counseled not to drink), and so we made our excuses and went on our way. I was pleased with the way the skit turned out and not sorry at all that I opted to stay in village.
By the time we got back to Avassikpe it was dark and I played butcher by lantern-light. It was not fun. I thought my knives would be sharper and that it would make the job easier than it was when I did it at Ashley's, but it wasn't any easier. For some reason the chicken bones even seemed a little harder (maybe these chickens ate more calcium and therefore had stronger bones . . .). Anyway, I hacked away at the chicken for a long time, splattering little pieces of bone and blood and internal organs (that had not been completely removed) everywhere. I couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't frozen chicken, but fresh from a butcher because it was bloody and I don't remember ever having really bloody (so bloody that it spurts and splatters) frozen chicken. It doesn't really matter, but if it wasn't frozen I probably should have cut it up right when DaJulie gave it to me that morning. Lili's little sister came by in the middle of it with a huge bunch of plantains. She watched me struggle, smirked a little and left. I must admit that I wished she would offer to do it for me. I finally finished, put the chicken on to boil, cleaned up and then chopped up and ate a pineapple and took a shower.
Efo said he would stop by around 10:00 and we would go to church, but at 10:30 he still hadn't arrived (I had been dozing off and on, resting up for a night of watching people sing and dance). I figured he had fallen asleep and I could hear that the service had started already so I just went. It was a little awkward at first because I was ushered up to the front to stand among women I didn't really know. We sang for an hour and then the sermon started. The student who translated for me at the Sunday service started to do simultaneous French translations at the front of the church and the pastor told him to just come and translate directly for me and so he did.
The sermon was about giving thanks for all the things God has done for us. I can't remember exactly what the Pastor said, but he emphasized that some of us thought we wouldn't live to see 2008, but here we are ten minutes before the New Year. I thought that it was a little ironic because, of course, the people who didn't live weren't there to complain about it or call the Pastor out on a lie, but I guess the living should be thankful that they are still alive and in good health even if other people died over the course of the year. We spent the last five minutes of the New Year praying, giving thanks in raised voices, for all the things God has done for us in the past year. I thought it a very nice way of ending the year. We spent the first twenty minutes or so of the New Year praying for a variety of things: that God will continue to protect us and our families, that he will keeps us healthy, that he will make all our efforts fruitful, that anyone who has any grudge against us will forgive us, etc. Then different important members of the church wished the congregation a Happy New Year and asked forgiveness for any injustice they may have committed. The young people's choir sang and afterwards everyone went around and greeted everyone else. I like that, but I always find it a little awkward especially in this context where I didn't know what to say to people or how to respond. After the sermon a "secret Santa" style gift exchange was carried out. Weeks beforehand at one of the services, the members of the church were assigned "invisible friends" – and each one brought a small gift for the person. One by one they went up to the front of the church, told the pastor the name of their "friend" and that person danced up to the front of the church hugged the giver and went back to their seat. Even though not everyone was involved in the gift exchange (because not everyone had been present at the service where invisible friends were assigned), it still took a long. Time. It was amusing at first and then it got a little boring. When we finally finished with that, it was movie time – the sequel to the movie shown on Christmas Eve =0); another Jesus conquers the sorcerers film. This time it was a little more interesting, though, because not only did I understand what was going on better (because I was sitting closer, the television was bigger and I could hear the English here and there), but also because I understood the discrepancies between what was happening on the film and what the Pastor was telling the congregation (my faithful translator was still tirelessly translating). In this film, a sorcerer is hit by a car and dies and her blood is given to a young girl to drink so that she can assume the powers of the now deceased sorcerer. The film shows her initiation into the very Halloween-esque world of West African cinematic sorcery (fake scraggly wigs, long tattered robes, curved, dirty fingernails – probably a wart on the end of the nose . . . ) and then skips forward until she is an adult. She wants to marry a young man, but when she consults the other sorcerers they forbid it – she is married to another sorcerer in the world of the sorcerers and therefore can't get married in the real world. This, reasoned the Pastor, is why some women never get married – because, even though they might not admit it, they are sorcerers and have sorcerer husbands. Notice how the church here reinforces the cultural stigmatization of a male dominated polygamous society against unmarried women. If you're a woman and you're not married, you must be a sorcerer. In the film, the woman turns her back on sorcery and marries the man, but the couple isn't free from sorcery altogether. They want children, but can't conceive. The man suggests that they adopt a child; the woman wants to have their own. The Pastor told the congregation (mistakenly) that the man suggested that they steal someone else's baby through sorcery. The sorcerers, angry at the woman for having renounced sorcery, turn one of the sorcerers into a baby that some nuns find abandoned on garbage heap. Unfortunately, negligence causes the nuns to forget to pray over the baby and make sure that it is a real and good baby, and they take it to a home for children where the unsuspecting couple adopts it. This, explained the Pastor, is why you shouldn't adopt children; because you can never be completely sure that the child you are adopting isn't really a sorcerer in disguise. Consequently, women who have trouble bearing children should just pray to God. If he so wishes, he will eventually give a couple children, but adopting is not a wise option. [The next day I told Efo how much I disagree with this reasoning. I am not going to tell him that believing that a baby is actually a sorcerer is ridiculous, that argument won't be effective, but I tried a different route: I told him that sorcerers cause transit accidents (another thing I learned from the movie), but people still use cars and motorcycles, they just pray before getting in or on one that God will protect them from harm. If that is true, than the reasoning for adopting a child should be the same – as long as you pray to God to give you a real, good, and not sorcerer-in-disguise baby then you should be safe because God probably looks even more favorably on adoption than he does on modern transportation. Efo threw the argument right back at me and said yes, but the problem was that the nuns didn't pray that the baby was good before the picked him up out of the trash heap and there-in lies the problem. So, to all prospective adoptive parents: make sure to ask the people who found your child if they prayed over him or her first to be sure it isn't a sorcerer masquerading as a baby. (I am trying to be funny and don't mean to sound condescending. I think it is all very interesting and if you believe in sorcery and the like, which people here most definitely do, then it is all poses a very real threat to you)]. So the couple adopt the sorcerer-baby and he begins to dismantle their home and their marriage. At night he turns into a rat and eats their money (moral of the story? Don't leave money lying around? I am not sure why he eats their money – perhaps to cause them economic difficulty on top of marital stress). Finally, the couple consults a Pastor who has a vision and through his mighty spiritual powers recognizes that the baby is actually a sorcerer. When he informs the couple, the woman storms off, unwilling to accept that her baby is a sorcerer. The husband has his doubts and one night watches the baby turn into a rat. The couple comes running back to the Pastor as "savior" for help and he, in a theatrical show of power, turns the baby/sorcerer in to a burning ball of flames that burns into nothing. In the movie, a parallel story recounts how a wealthy man gave away his money too freely and mistakenly gave some to a sorcerer who used it to deprive the man of all his worldly wealth. So, I would advise those of you who give money to charities to stop right away, it is all to hard to tell which ones are run by sorcerers and which ones aren't. All very interesting.
After the movie (by this point I was definitely ready for bed), we prayed for about half an hour (in raised voices) about one thing after another. The pastor says "pray for - - - - " and everyone prays for a few minutes and then he rings a little bell signaling that that chunk of prayer is finished and he gives another prayer assignment. After that prayer marathon we had a singing marathon taking us up to around 4 in the morning when I was finally freed to go home. Really, I could leave at any time and people do leave, but it is awkward because I am so visible.
I went home and went to bed for two and a half hours.
On the first day of 2008, I woke up and first thing received a phone call from Jorge wishing me a wonderful and happy New Year. It was super sweet and a special treat to hear his voice; a great start to the New Year. I got dressed and planned to go see Lili and thank her for the plantains, but she wasn't at home and on my way to the dispensaire I got waylaid by the carpenter's apprentices. My first thought was, oh no, not again, but when I went to see the shelf it was acceptable and so they said they would deliver it shortly. On the route back to my house I stopped to greet people and wish people a happy New Year and I again got waylaid by Yawovi's uncle, the president of the CVD. I ended up eating fufu with him and drinking a strawberry fanta and it wasn't even 8:00 in the morning (way too early for fufu, if not for fanta). I then made my way home, stopping to greet people in the process. Adjo's father, the same man who asked me the other night what I am going to do for Avassikpe, in other words, what I am going to build, gave me a bottle of coke as a gift. He is nice enough, but he makes me uncomfortable because he is one of those people that you can't argue or reason with – he is always right and it is no use stating differently.
I spent the morning preparing a sauce with tomato paste, crushed onion and garlic, crushed hot red peppers, crushed black pepper and anise, salt, and chicken stock. I used my crushing rock, but this time I was a little more intelligent and crushed everything outside. Patrovi and Barthe (Bartheleme, but I call him Barthe for short) ran over and wanted to do it for me, but I stubbornly refused. They laughed at my attempts and helped hold the bench steady as I crushed piment (hot red pepper) into the cuts on my hands. Lovely. It hurt and my hands tingled for the next twenty-four hours, but I was satisfied with my efforts. While the sauce bubbled and brewed in spicy yummy-ness, I picked rocks and bugs out of the rice. I decided to cook one batch of rice in the morning and another in the late afternoon and try to make the sauce stretch for both. In the first batch I made ten cups of rice. When the rice was ready, I went over to the dispensaire to say hello to Lili – she was working, on the budget (still! And on New Year's Day!). I then went to her house to get a container to bring her rice, sauce and chicken in. On the way I was again waylaid by various people. Of course I invited everyone I met to my house to eat (as that is the custom) all the while knowing (and praying) that they wouldn't all come (because I would never have enough food). A man I don't know, but probably should, gave me a bottle of strawberry fanta. I went home, set tables and chairs up under my paillote to receive guests and took a shower. Everything worked out well because just as I was finishing showering and serving some rice and sauce to the children (unfortunately, I couldn't serve meat to the children because there are just too many of them), my first adult visitors arrived: Nana (Mana's friend - the one I don't like because she imposes herself on my space, asks for things and criticizes me for not coming to visit her) and another woman I don't really know. Because the children were all outside, they wanted to eat inside. I didn't really want people in my house, particularly because it was a mess from all the preparations, but they moved themselves intrusively inside. I ate with them because I had not eaten since the fufu at 7:30 that morning and it was around noon. As we were finishing, more women arrived (unfortunately, more women I don't completely like – well, it isn't that I don't like them but that I don't really trust them and I don't like that they ask me for things. The one woman, Clemente and Fidele's mother, has my coupcoup and hasn't given it back. I feel that it would be rather petty to ask for it back when I don't really need it presently, but still, I don't like that she just keeps it. The other woman's husband owns the little puppy I was calling my baby the day before and she just doesn't seem very friendly. Both women live on my route to the dispensaire and so I greet them on an almost daily basis). Anyway, they wanted to come right in, but I insisted on moving the party outside. I served them and they ate. All day long I had to fight against my feelings of being imposed upon. On Christmas and New Years, tradition allows people to come to your home and ask "what you have prepared?" "what is there to eat" or to say "I'm hungry, give me food." In our culture, that, of course, is very rude and so all day I had to keep reminding myself that it isn't meant to be impolite or offensive (rather, according to Jerome, if people come and eat your food it is a sign that they like you) and I tried to play the role of cheery hostess. I don't even know how many people I fed. The strange thing, though, is that mostly people that I don't know very well, people that I don't visit or really spend time with, came to eat at my house (I guess it is a good way to get to know more people) and then, of course, the children as well. The people I most interact with in village didn't come to my house; perhaps because they knew that I would bring them their own containers of food, which I did – to the three women who live in front (DaJulie, and Efo's older brothers' wives) and the woman who gave me the banana's (Yolke's co-wife). By 2:00 in the afternoon the first pot of rice was finished and I made the second pot – this time with only eight uncooked cups of rice. The children were hanging around my house for hand-outs from the adults (sometimes, the adults come more as a sign of favor as opposed to for the food – that, I think, is when you really know that the person came because they like you and not just because they want to get free handouts from the resident white-y) and so I escaped for a while to sit with DaJulie and Efo outside their cluster of houses. We chatted until I received more visitors – the President of the CVD (the man who had shared fufu and a fanta with me that morning) and Yolke's husband. I served them the bottle of coke that Adjo's father gave me. They complemented my food and asked if I had made it myself. They said that it was just as good as any that the village women prepare, so that is a pretty big complement.
At different times throughout the day I was worried that I had made too much food, but I ended up running out of sauce before the rice was finished. Luckily, before I ran out I was able to offer some to the people I had specifically invited over – I had asked Tsevi's wife to bring a container for me to fill and I had asked Efo and Yawovi to come and Hevihevi's older sister (I had invited the girls in my Children's Rights Club as well, but only Hevihevi came to eat at my house even though Adjo had said she would come . . .). I had just filled Tsevi's wife's container and served Efo and Yawovi and a friend of their almost the last of the food when Hevihevi's older sister arrived. I almost had a panic attack because I didn't have much more than plain rice. I had saved one tiny piece of meat and literally had to scrape sauce out of the pots with a spatula to have something to offer her. It turned out fine because she wasn't hungry – she ate the meat and gave the rest to the children who didn't seem particularly bothered by the fact that it was plain rice. I asked them if they wanted more plain rice and they said yes, so I gave them the pot with the rest of the rice in it. I think they found some sauce themselves to put on it and they ate it all; cleaned it right up which was fine by me because I didn't want to play this game again the next day. I quickly put everything inside the house to signal that the serving hours were officially over and we walked over to the "Balle" – music had been playing since early afternoon, but mostly only children were there dancing. I stayed for only about five minutes and then I went home and went to bed.
Another interesting detail about the day is that almost all the children in the village received a new outfit and so they were all walking around in their new clothes strutting their stuff and begging me to take pictures of them. Efo says that in more prosperous years, the children get a new outfit for both Christmas and New Years, but it seems that this year the parents concentrated their efforts on New Years.
On the second day of 2008, I cleaned the house and organized my things on my newly delivered shelves. I first lined them with plastic so that they will be easy to clean and then Efo and a younger boy moved them into the house for me and helped me stabilize them (not an easy task because neither the shelves nor the floor are straight and unfortunately they aren't complementarily crooked). I then started to clean and organize. The house was a disgusting mess what with the preparations and dishes from the day before and all the traipsing in and out of the house. After I had cleaned and organized for a while Efo came over. We listened to the radio and intermittently chatted while he charged his cell phone with my flashlight (I tease him because he always has his cell phone in his hand and therefore wears down the battery quickly) and I continued organizing and cleaning. Tsevi stopped by and mid-morning his brother (a neighbor of mine, who, I learned, has four wives one of which is DaJulie) came by to ask if he could use the space under my paillote to receive some out of town guests. I said "of course" and they proceeded to have their guests while I continued cleaning. Efo wound the flashlight for three hours and managed to charge his cell phone up to three out of the five bars. We ate some nearly stale popcorn left over from Christmas, chatted a bit and he left. I continued to clean. I was just finishing cleaning in the late afternoon when Yawovi came over to say "adios." His classes were scheduled to start on Thursday and so he was heading back to Notse. We called Efo and Hevihevi over to talk about a party we are planning for our Club in Notse for the 13th of January (apparently a holiday – Liberation Day perhaps?).
In the evening, as I fended off people asking what I had prepared (the fête continues =0), I went over to sit with DaJulie, Efo's mom, and his older brothers' wife. I ate rice and sauce with DaJulie and admired the children parading around in their new outfits. Efo eventually joined us and through his translation we chatted. I ate rice again with Efo and later in the evening I ate fufu (prepared by Kosoivi – Efo's eldest brother's wife) with Efo and DaJulie. I like this set-up. I prepare food on the day of the fête and the day after I mooch of other people. I didn't even turn my stove on all day so I could honestly tell the would-be diners that I hadn't prepared anything. We chatted until 8:00 when I begged off to bed.
This morning, the third day of the New Year, I decided to go to Notse to write my news from the past three days directly onto my computer, see if I could connect with Jorge and try, one last time (please, let it be the last time!) to send the priest's Christmas letter. I had to go to Agbatitoe anyway to speak with the director of the CEG (MiddleSchool) about my Peer Educator formation, so I thought I might as well continue on to Notse. The director was welcoming and it was a nice meeting; I think I will like working with him. I am going to start Peer Educator training next week at 3:00 on Wednesday with about 18 students from the three highest classes – perhaps the equivalent of eighth, ninth and tenth grades (but with students up to twenty years old). I asked for an equal number of girls and boys and that they make an effort to choose students from the outlying villages and not just Agbatitoe. The students will all attend the course voluntarily and I think I will ask them to do an end-of-term project and pick a target audience, prepare and execute some sort of causerie (an informational talk about one of the topics we cover). At the end I will present the students who fulfill the requirements of the course (regular attendance unless sick; the final project) a certificate of completion. After chatting a bit, we went around to each of the different classes we will be pulling students from and he introduced me which was nice. The students seem friendly – I hope this turns out to be a positive experience. I have heard that, oftentimes, volunteers who try to work in the schools end up frustrated. We will see.
I rode up to the Priest's house and said hello to Mana and left an old pagne with her to be made into a curtain for my new shelves (which, by the way, look really nice with all my bottles of beans and grains and my spices on them – it makes me happy) so that the children don't gawk at all I have and ask me for it (an some of the adults too for that matter – yesterday the woman who came over with Nana on New Years Day came over to ask me for a plantain. I gave it to her, but I find it unpleasant when adults ask me for things – it is more difficult to say no when you have to see the person every day. It is easier to say no to children). I told the Priest that I was going to Notse to try one more time.
I biked into Notse quickly, biked up to the post office to send a request to the MedUnit for more supplies and a request to the Information Center for resources on Peer Educator Formation, and up to the pineapple ladies to stock up on pineapples. When I arrived at Ashley's house a woman in her compound informed me that she had gone to Atakpame. That was disappointing, but I went to internet (still no success in sending the letter with pictures, I think I will give up and send it without pictures) and received emails from my parents and Jorge. Internet stopped working and so I came back to the house to write emails. Ashley and her friend who is here visiting from the States came back around noon and so I stopped writing to chat with them for a bit and eat lunch. Otherwise I have been sitting in front of the computer all day. I went to try the internet again at 3:00, but something has gone wrong with the system and it isn't recognizing people's usernames and passwords. Frustration. I am dying to talk to Jorge. I am already in withdrawal and soon I am going to go into shock if I can't chat with him or talk to him for a long period of time in the near future. Aggghhh!
