8/4/08 through 8/8/08

8/4/08 through 8/8/08

The traditional healers conference was a total bust.

Before leaving Notse to meet Midojicope’s traditional healer’s brother in Agbatit, I biked around in search of powdered milk and a baby bottle for the couple that I want to send to a couples formation in Atakpame (so that they can leave their two year old daughter with her grandmother for the week).

The traditional healer’s brother, henceforth referred to as Kodjotse (‘cuz that’s his name) was very punctual, but what with the 9 bridges that have collapsed all over Togo, travel is even more difficult than it was before and cars heading to Atakpame from Notse are no longer easy to find (because everyone coming from Lome has to bypass Notse and go through Kpalime instead, directly to Atakpame). A side note on the bridges: Togo’s economy can do nothing but plummet with these disasters. The whole country relies on Lome and the port as the basis for the economy, markets are already suffering, boutiques aren’t fully stocked, and the villagers have no one to buy up and transport their crops and charbon for Lome’s grand marche. With the rain refusing to let up, the government is having a hard time fixing the bridges. No one knows when life will go back to “normal,” but don’t worry we just got a memo from our Country Director saying “Peace Corps Togo is not – repeat NOT – evacuating.”

Our ride to Atakpame and then to Langabou and Pagala was uneventful except for the fact that I was squished up in the front seat with three other people. It was a fast, if uncomfortable, ride. The only interesting thing about it was that Kodjotse told me that the traditional religion (I’m not really sure how to denominate it) doesn’t have a central god, but that it has several powerful and universal spirits like the spirit of the earth, the spirit of thunder and the spirit of snakes. If you sacrifice to one of them (I forget which) they will help you find it and if you sacrifice to the spirit of thunder it will strike a thief (or anyone?) down for you with a bolt of lightning.

I was the first volunteer to arrive in Pagala and so I showered and sat down to read about Morocco in a Lonely Planet guidebook until Tig showed up.

Like I said before, the conference, workshop, formation (whatever you want to call it) was a bust, a total waste of time. The only thing I got out of it was a new contact in village (perhaps an “in” into the traditional healers’ circle and the fetish circle) and quality time with Tig. I also planned our (Jorge and me) trip to Morocco (I am so glad I brought the book or I might have died of boredom during the sessions!).

In theory, the workshop should have been interesting. In reality, however, it was badly organized and based on a superficial (funding forced) connection between traditional healing and HIV/AIDS. Traditional healers should be warned not to claim to have a cure for AIDS and taught when to send AIDS patients to the hospital, but the connection was a little artificial.

Other than that, there was some antagonism between the traditional healers and the agents of modern medicine which made things a little more exciting at times, but the biggest problem was that we had no idea what they were talking about when they’d rattle off that - - - - (substitute the name for a plant in any of ten local languages) treats infertility. The bulk of the time was spent reviewing HIV/AIDS basics, Moringa basics, and identifying the scientific names and local names of trees. We went on a field trip in search of trees. I learned that if a bat eats the fruit of a certain plant and then vomits it back up, you can mix the fiber of its vomit with yesterday’s leftover pâte and give it to a woman who is having trouble having a baby and she will get pregnant. A branch of the same plant can be hung over your door to prevent would-be evil do-ers from entering. Other than that it was boring as all get out – either information we already knew, or information that was meaningless to us. At least the Togolese counterparts made contacts and networked between themselves, so at least they benefited from the workshop.

The food was good. I ate chicken at lunch and dinner – more meat than I have eaten in the whole last month and being with Tig for three days was fabulous. I also got to know some of the volunteers from the stage after mine a little better and that was fun.

My other big news is that yesterday, Thursday, the results of the BAC were announced. I was nervous about it because I really wanted Effoh to recieve his BAC (high school diploma), had no idea how I would respond to him if he had failed, and knew that if he had, it would be horribly depressing in village for the next few weeks. He beeped me after getting the results and he passed. I was so relieved (but not as relieved as he). Today, back in Notse, I learned that not only did he pass (you can pass with the “admisible,” meaning that you have to take an oral exam the following day, with “passable” meaning that you don’t have to take the oral exam, with “assez bien” meaning better than average, and with “bien” meaning practically impossible to achieve. Only four students, including Effoh, received the “assez bien” qualification and only one the “bien” qualification. Understandably, Effoh is on cloud nine. He is the first person from Avassikpe to get their BAC. He is practically going to be a village hero. We decided that we are going to celebrate on Sunday. I am going to make the sauce for a ton of fufu and he is going to get the manioc from their fields. (He also told me that they celebrate every August 10^th, which happens to be this Sunday as well, because two years ago they got in a serious accident while driving to a soccer match, but everyone came out more or less unharmed and they went on to win all their matches afterwards and the tournament “cup”).