July 27 Sunday
While everybody else was at church, I sat on my terrace going over my fieldwork materials. An old lady from the village stopped by to say hello, with the customary three children in tow. She was very old, maybe in her 80s or 90s, but she seemed cheerful and in good health.
As we were talking, I asked her if she worshiped vodu. To my great surprise, she said she was the last vodu adept (vodusi) in the village. She was obviously proud of her role and willing to talk about it. So we spent about an hour just talking about vodu.
Her vodu is Hebiesso, which is the vodu of thunder and lightning. She told me that her necklace and bracelets were all associated with Hebiesso. She also said that people come to her on a regular basis to ask her to pray to Hebiesso if they have problems. In fact, somebody had come just the yesterday. If somebody comes to her, and she prays, they give her some money.
In the standard model, a person will go to bokono for help. If the bokono says that the problem has something to do with vodu, they will direct them to the vodusi to pray for them.
She also said that there are no more vodusi in the village. They have all died off. That makes me think that the worship is vodu is decreasing, but I don’t know for sure. She said that there were still a lot of vodusi in Atsavie, which is a nearby village.
I asked her how she became a vodusi. She said that when she was much younger, and she had already had her first child, she became very sick. She was so sick that she could not eat. She could only drink water. After consulting the bokono, they found out that the vodu had chosen her as an adept. When she underwent the ceremony to become an adept, her illness went away.
When she is no longer here, how will they continue to worship the vodu? She said that at that point, the vodu would choose another adept.
I learned from her that addition to Hebiesso, there are other vodus in the village, including eda (snake), warchief, mami (a vodu of the water), kukpo, and a vodu named Mawu. So that makes at least six vodus. Mawu is also the Ewe name for the Christian God. I asked her if there were any relation between the vodu Mawu and the Christian God Mawu, and she said there was no relation, they just had the same name, just like two people can have the same name.
There is a room in the village for worshiping Hebiesso, which contains jars and bottles and other things for ceremonies. I was a little unclear as to whether the other vodus share the same room, or if they each have their own room. I was also a bit unclear about whether she could also pray to the other vodus or not. She told me that she would take me to visit the room at any time. Since she is the vodusi, nobody would stop us.
I would love to get video of her talking about vodu. She is keen to talk about it. But unfortunately, I leave the village on Tuesday, so I am not sure there will be any time. I will do everything possible to make time on Monday afternoon.
July 27 Sunday
We went to visit the chief this afternoon. The purpose was to let him know that I was leaving the village, and that everything went well.
When we got there, he was involved in hearing another case. Normally, he does not hear cases on Sunday, but it was an emergency family feud. We had already reserved the time, so he interrupted that case to receive us. When we arrived, tsami (the linguist) was sitting there alongside of the chief, playing a role in the case.
I brought along my whole language team, including three women and three men, so the chief could get a feel for the kind of work I was doing. After I greeted him, I explained that just like I had come to see him at the beginning of my work (in early July), I was now coming to let him know that the work is finished, and I was leaving. Everybody nodded and voiced approval at the appropriateness of my decision. Afterwards, I requested a private meeting in his room, so I could give him my envelope. For that meeting, there was no Tsami. I gave 10,000 CFA (around 20 dollars), which is a small amount, but the gesture is more symbolic than of any financial value. The chief seemed pleased.
He then asked tsami to bring out a bottle of sodabi (very hard liquor, made from palm wine). After pouring a small shot glass, the chief sipped it, and then threw the rest on the ground in a libation, talking to the ancestors as he did it. When he finished, he passed the shot glass to one of my team members, who did the same thing. Eventually, the shot glass went around the room and came into my possession. I also drank the sodabi and performed a libation of my own. The sodabi shot straight into my brain, making me a little drunk.
I got the chief’s phone number and took a picture with him, and we all departed. Overall, he is a very pleasant easy-going person. He asked about how the research went. He did not ask to see my research permit, which he had the right to do. He seemed supportive of my work, and interested in the results for the community.
Afterwards, the team headed over to my place. I ordered us some drinks, including beer and soft drinks, and we all sat around on the terrace drinking and talking. Everybody was in good spirits after the meeting with the chief went so well. Somebody sang a song, and that led to a whole chain of songs. We spent a good two hours just drinking and singing on the porch. Finally, the team left as it was getting dark.
It was as a wonderful way to end my first month back in the village.
July 27 Sunday
They say that if I am offered food, I should not eat it. It has become one of the themes of my stay here. Here is one of the conversations I have had about this issue:
‘Betty’s father, if you go into the village, and somebody offers you palm wine, don’t drink it.’
‘Why? I love palm wine.’
‘Because you do not know what the person is thinking. You do not know what is in their heart. The teeth smile, but the stomach is different.’
‘Last week, B. bought us palm wine, and I drank it.’
‘Yes, but I prayed first (showing her hand over where the drink was), that is why you could drink it.’
‘What if I know the person very well?’
‘No, do not eat it. You do not know what is in their heart. They might not want you here.’
‘What about family members?’
‘No, even then, do not eat it. Don’t you remember the chicken?’
The other day a person we know very well brought us a chicken to eat. The chicken was running around happily, eating corn off of the ground. But the very next day, it died. The whole house got freaked out. Whatever killed the chicken might have harmed us. That seemed real enough to me.
Auntie said that when the chicken was given to us, she prayed and said we would wait three days before eating it. The chicken did not even survive the second day. We found it on the porch upside down, white belly showing, features ruffled, having died at some point when we were not paying attention. We have all taken this as a sign from God that we were not supposed to eat that chicken.
‘Yes, I remember the chicken, it was good that we did not eat it.’
‘Aha! So now you understand. God sent us that chicken so that you would understand.’
‘What killed the chicken?’
‘Only God knows.’
‘Maybe it died of natural causes. Animals die of natural causes.’
‘Have you ever seen a chicken die like that?’
‘No, I haven’t. Are you saying that evil spirits were involved?’
‘Ha! You would not understand.’
‘What about buying food? Can I eat food that I have bought. What if I buy corn bread on the street? Can I eat it?’
‘Yes, that is no problem. You pay for the food and eat it.’
‘I don’t really understand.’
‘You can never understand. You are a white person. You are not from here. Just don’t eat food that people give you. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, I understand that.’
July 25 Friday
I leave next Tuesday, so I am planning to see the chief of the village Sunday afternoon to tell him I am leaving. I am told I have to bring a gift. Here is the conversation:
“Auntie, I want to go tell the chief that I am leaving. I am thinking about next Sunday afternoon, after church.”
“If you go to the chief, you should give him an envelope.”
“Do other people give envelopes when they go to see the chief.”
“Yes, all the time. You came to the village, and you did not have any problems. When you come back, you want their support.”
“I thought you were supposed to buy hard liquor for the chief, like gin.”
“Yes, that is what people do. But you can just give money, and he can buy his own liquor. That is better.”
“Ok, how much money should I give.”
“Give what is in your heart.”
“How much does a bottle of gin cost?”
“I don’t know, I don’t drink.”
“Can you suggest an amount for me to give? I really have no idea. The problem is that I only brought a certain amount of money, and I have to pay my consultants and the driver on the return trip.”
“So look into your pocket, and see what is there.”
“How about 200 CFA (less than a dollar)”
“No, that is not enough,” she laughed.
“How about 100,000 CFA (around 200 dollars).”
“No, you do not have to give that. That is too much.”
“Ok, then how much? Somewhere between 200 CFA and 100,000 CFA?”
“You just have to give what is in your heart.”
“Let me ask the others, and see what they think.”
“You could give 10,000 CFA.”
“Then should I also give 10,000 CFA to the linguist (Tsami).”
“Was he at the initial meeting with the chief?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Did he come visit you at home?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Then you should give him an envelope too.”
“How much? The same amount as the chief.”
She gave me a quizzical look. The conversation was obviously as perplexing to her as it was to me.
July 24 Thursday
Yesterday was a nightmare.
The workers arrived at 7am in the morning ready to put tiles in the second bathroom in the house. There were three to five men filing in and out of the house all day long working on that bathroom. They had tools and tiles and big bags of cement.
I was notified by the landlord that they would be arriving, but it was in a voicemail message at 10:00pm the night before. So I had not read it, and I did not know they were coming. Even if I had been up at that time, and read the message, there was nothing I could have done. The events were set in motion, and there was no way to stop them.
After they arrived, they turned on their music, so that it resonated throughout the entire house. It was affecting the recordings of lexical items. So I sent one of my consultants to have them turn it off, which they did. But then a little later, the music was turned on again. So I sent another consultant to talk to them, and they turned it down a bit. It still registered on the recordings, but it was better than nothing, so I lived with it.
From inside the house came sounds of construction work all day long, including banging and pounding and talking. But this work was a bit muted by the walls of the house, so it did not bother me that much.
Since they were working in the house, right next to my bedroom, we had to find the key to the bedroom, so I could lock it. All of my equipment and money were in the room, and the chance of somebody popping in to take something was very real. After searching around for a while, we managed to find the key, and lock the door, but I was opening and closing it all day long.
My office is set up on the porch, just outside of the house. In filing in and out of the house to do their work, the workers were talking to each other, and talking on their phones. That meant I had to pause every time they struck up a conversation and wait until they finished before recording. They also had lots of loud outdoor activities which they did just outside of the house, involving banging and mixing of various kinds. This also required us to stop recording. Of course, I kept telling them that we were recording, so they should try to be quiet. But such attempts on my part to quiet the storm were fairly useless.
After a whole day of this kind of activity, they left just before dark at around 5:30pm. But then two people returned at around 7:00pm to do some more work. They walked right past me into the construction area. I hopped up from my chair to follow them in to lock my door again. Then, I kind of lost my temper and told them that it was late and they should go home. They said that they had already finished, and so I should not get angry. I was pushing up against the limits of my patience at that point. They left after a few minutes, and that is the last I saw of them that night.
After enquiries with various people, I learned that the construction was just a one-day activity. They will not be back again. So further trouble has been averted.
July 20 Sunday
What has happened to my biking? As it turns out, I am doing much less biking than I had planned, but I still take the bike out on Saturday and Sunday and get in a ride.
Kpele, including Agbanon, runs along the southern part of a range of hills. There is a plateau, on top of which is Danyi, and at the foot of which is Kpele. So the whole area is hilly. If I had a better bike, it would be no problem, but the gears on my bike do not work very well, and the lowest gear does not really feel that low. So I usually leave the bike in the lowest gear and ride around. On the hills, it gets difficult. This means that I am not eager to get out in the morning, since I know I will be struggling with hills.
The best time of day to ride is early in the morning, no later than 5:30am. It is cool then, and there are not that many people on the side of the road. If I start later, at 6:00am, there are many people and they are all greeting me in some way or the other. Here are some samples:
“Yovo, ca va?” (White person, how are you?)
“Yovo, bonjour.” (White person, good day.)
“Yovo, woezO!” (White person, welcome!)
“Yovo, gane yi e-le” (White person, where are you going?)
“Yovo, e-le sport wO?” (White person, are you exercising?)
You get the hint, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most everybody I pass feels the need to try to communicate with me in some way or the other. It is a huge contrast to Botswana, where people generally try to ignore you as you pass by. So the later I start, the more I need to deal with people on the road shouting at me as I pass by. This means that if I wake up a bit late, I don’t feel like taking a ride.
Still, I am glad I purchased the bike. I love to ride. It really gives me a huge rush, and makes me feel relaxed and clear headed. My ultimate goal is to purchase a new bike in Togo with gears that work well. Then I will make an attempt to take longer rides.
July 20 Sunday
Today we went to church again, this time Assemblé de Dieu (Assembly of God). Apparently, AD is also gbOgbOme tsOtsi (spiritual church, charismatic church) as opposed to the catholic church.
There were less than 80 people present. Two thirds of those (or more) were female. At least one third of the people present were small children less than 10 years old. Only about three quarters of the plastic chairs were filled. My feeling is that there is a lot of competition amongst churches now. There are the well-known churches, but also lots of little start-ups, and they are all competing for warm bodies. There were many more young women than young men, which I heard some of the church members complaining about after the service. They were saying those young men are engaged in night time activities, which did not sound like a good thing from their point of view.
At the front of the church, there was a musical group, including an electric piano, a Western drum lit, and four singers with mics. There were no Ewe traditional drums at all (unlike the EPP church in the US). Three of the singers were kind of back-up singers, and one was the lead vocal. They all had beautiful powerful voices. There was no electric guitar or trumpet, unlike the church I went to in Lome.
I was told the service would start at 8:00. So I rushed to get ready, waking up early and gobbling down my breakfast. Everybody else in the house seemed more relaxed. Finally, we arrived at 8:20, and they were still doing some kind of Bible study, asking questions of the people present about specific passages in the Bible. The church service did not really start up until after 8:30.
There was a lot of singing, from the beginning to the end, all led by the group of four female singers. The audience all knew the songs, so everybody sang along. On a number of occasions, groups of people went to the front of the church and danced a line dance in a circle. Nobody fell to the ground screaming, so it was relatively tame. The whole service, from beginning to end was video taped by a young man, who took the camera around the church to record it from all angles.
After some singing, they did the collection, which I found kind of odd, since other churches have the collection after the sermon. It was a bit like paying for lunch at a restaurant, before actually eating. At least that is the way it struck me. Then there was more singing where everybody stood up and danced.
At the front of the church, next to the band, was the pastor and the translator (both men) and a woman whose job was to lead prayers. The pastor spoke a sentence in French, and then the translator translated into Ewe. I heard a lot of Gen/Mina being used by both the translator and the prayer leader. I later learned that the pastor and his wife are Kabiye, which explains why they were speaking Gen/mina, instead of Kpelegbe. In fact, I did not hear any Kpelegbe the whole service. The sermon was interleaved with passages read from the Bible by members of the audience. Of course, those passages were purely in standard Ewe. The sermon was about living life according to the word of God.
After the sermon there was more singing and praying, and finally a second collection. This time the collection was by day of the week, which is common in Togo. All people born Monday give their money first, then people born Tuesday, etc. As with all collections in Togo, music is playing and you take your money to the bowl at the front of the church, doing a little dance as you walk. They don’t pass the tray around the chairs, like they do in the US. At the end of that collection, they announced the amount collected for each day.
Finally, there were some announcements about future events, and some final prayers, and the church ended. We arrived at 8:20 and left about 10:40. Afterwards, people were telling us that the whole service had been shortened quite a bit. In the past, they used to go until noon, but now the end earlier.
July 20 Sunday
Paradoxically, travel is not really about learning about the world. It is not about seeing the Mona Lisa, or some other famous landmark. It is not even about learning about other cultures. Travel is all about learning about yourself. The more widely you travel, the more deeply you go into your own self, learning about what it is to be human.
Here is a very small anecdote to support my claims.
For years I have been addicted to caffeine. For decades I was completely addicted to coffee. I could not start the day without a cup, and then I needed more cups just to function throughout the day. My whole life depended on coffee. I even attributed my academic successes to drinking coffee. This is a typical American scenario. But then, in my 50s, I suddenly developed a major intolerance to coffee. If I drank even one cup, I could not sleep at all the entire night. This happened relatively quickly, in the span of a few weeks. When I realized what the problem was, I stopped drinking it. I entered a hazy period for a few months until my body acclimated, and even when it did, I never felt as energized and alert as when I had a cup of coffee. I really missed it.
Then I discovered that a combination of diet Coke and green tea would also basically wake me up in the morning, and keep me going throughout the day, without keeping me awake all night. Basically, I was just lowering my caffeine consumption a few notches, finding a happy medium. I subsisted on this backup plan for about a decade, become seriously addicted to diet Coke. I would even start the morning with a large bottle of frosty cold diet Coke, just to get me going. I loved the taste, and still do, even though I do not touch it now.
But at the same time, over the last decade, I have become increasingly bothered by having to urinate at night. In the last few years, I have had to get up once an hour or more for the entire night to urinate. And the force of the urination has been powerful. Every time I get up, 50 seconds of straight urination, not dribbling out, but pushing powerfully out. If I get up eight times a night, and urinated 50 seconds each time, that is 400 seconds of urination, which is almost seven minutes. I have been worried that my body would get dehyrated at night.
The main consequence of this problem is that I have not really had a good solid night sleep for about a decade. My usual pattern was to not sleep at all one night, and the sleep a little better the next night, back and forth, like a see-saw. I can only imagine how bad this has been for my physical and mental health. It has probably really messed up my brain and internal organs.
I did go the doctor about these problems. I had my whole system checked out. I got an ultra sound and saw a specialist. I had a painful procedure done involving the insertion of a camera into my urethra so that the doctor could look around inside my bladder. As a side note, that procedure was probably the physically painful incident of my entire life. It turns out that my prostate is OK. It is not enlarged at all. And in classical American fashion, my doctor said nothing about either diet Coke or green tea as the source of my problems. They were just narrowly focused on major medical conditions requiring high levels of technology. Anything to make a buck off of the insurance. So I walked away from all that time and money with no solution to my problems at all, except to know that they were not caused by an enlarged prostate.
When I arrived in Togo, during this trip, I had no access to diet Coke or to greet tea for a few days. I arrived late at the airport, and the next day slept late. Green tea is not widely available in Togo, so I did not buy any for about a week (I finally found it a Champion, a French supermarket chain in Togo). I did buy an occasional bottle of regular Coke on the street to drink. Overall, my caffeine consumption plummeted for a couple of days.
My night time urination drastically decreased at the same time. Instead of waking up eight times a night, I woke up twice a night. Instead of 50 second streams, I had 30 second streams. The total output had gone down from almost seven minutes to one minute, just like that. Had I never come to Togo, I never would have made the connection. It seems pretty obvious now, in hindsight, but my frame of mind, and my addiction, did not let me make any such connection between my consumption of green tea and diet Coke and my problems at night.
Once I realized this, I immediately stopped drinking all diet Coke (or any other kind of carbonated beverage) and green tea (or any other kind of tea or coffee). For the first time in my life, I am completely caffeine free. There is not one single drop in my system. I am free from the parasite. Only through travel, did I make the connection. Only by stepping out of my comfort zone did I even realize what my comfort zone was, and what kinds of sacrifices I was making to stay in it. I had traded my sanity for a frosty diet Coke, which is tempting even now.
After two months here in Togo, my body has now acclimated. I do wake up a bit drowsy, and it takes some time to get going, but I am OK. It is not the collapse of civilization. What wakes me up? Exercise is great. A nice bike ride really relaxes me and clears my mind, even better than caffeine. In the afternoon, when I feel drowsy, I just take 30 minute nap, called sieste in Togo. It works wonders. Has my mental activity slowed down? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. But I am more than compensated by sleeping well for the first time in a decade. That itself counter-balances, and helps my mental state.
What was causing my nighttime problems? I believe it was a potent combination of two forces. Both diet Coke and green tea are diuretics, promoting urination. In addition, diet Coke is carbonated, which I believe irritated my bladder at night. The combination of an increase in urine production and an irritated bladder made it necessary for me to get up eight times a night to relieve myself. Eliminating both has solved the problem.
The ultimate test will be to see if all these conclusions survive when I return to the US. The change in behavior could be related to some other difference that I am unaware of. The correlation with diet Coke and green tea could be spurious. I really doubt that, but I await the final verdict.
July 19 Saturday
“Ok, this word xlO, what does it mean?”
“Suppose there is a driver who gets into an accident. He is driving on the road (pointing to the tarred road outside the house), and the oncoming car is about to hit his car. Then the driver disappears from the vehicle just in time. So he is unharmed.”
“What do you mean by that?’
“He disappears so he does not get hurt. Or suppose that person goes to war and in battle he just disappears before getting shot at.”
“Where does he go?”
“Anywhere else. He can even go back home, if he wants.”
“Can anybody do this? Can I just wish myself to disappear?”
“No, you need to go to the person selling charms. He will sell you the right charm to disappear.”
“How much does it cost?”
“I don’t know. But sometimes you don’t even pay up front. You only pay when the charm works.”
“Can the person disappear and go to America?”
“Yes, they do that. A child once went to America, leaving his mother behind. When he arrived at the airport, he was surprised to find his mother waiting for him at the airport.”
“Do people still disappear like that, even today?”
“Yes, especially drivers.”
“Is this use of charms consistent with the word of God?”
“No, it is not. It is bad spirits. If you believe in God, then you protect yourself by calling Jesus. When the accident is about to happen, just shout ‘Jesus’. That is your protection.”
“So how am I going to define the word in the Kpelegbe dictionary? Should I define it as ‘disappear’?”
“It has to be ‘disappear in a spiritual manner’. The person is relying on a charm sold to them.”
July 17 Thursday
I have five consultants, two men and three women. They are really trying hard to provide me the information I need. But one problem is Y., who is consistently late to the sessions. By late, I mean about 30 minutes each time. If somebody is 5 or 10 minutes late, it is no big deal. But 30 minutes each day is a bit hard to handle. It throws off the whole plan for the session.
On Monday I had a long talk with Y., who I really like. She is a great singer, and has a good command over the language. She is funny too. I told her that I wanted her to be on time to the sessions, so I could get my work done. Everybody was cordial and friendly, and she seemed to understand. She agreed that it is important to be on time. On Tuesday, she arrived at work 20 minutes early, and said she did not want to be late. We all laughed and joked around about how I had admonished her and now she was on time. But then on Wednesday, she arrived 30 minutes late again. I sent the other consultant over to Y.’s house to check on her (the house is not that far away from where I stay), and she came back and told me that Y. is taking a shower.
When Y. arrived late on Wednesday, I told her we had already started, so she could not join in. But if she wanted to come back Thursday, I would be happy to work with her. For Togo, this was a pretty hard move for me to make. But the other consultants were supporting me, saying ‘She is always late, now she will be on time tomorrow.’
But excluding her from the Wednesday session has its drawbacks for me. One of my goals was to get all the lexical items recorded with the same four people. This is useful for me for doing transcription, and maybe later for doing a tonal study. Now, I have a whole session where Y. has not recorded lexical items.
Y. is neither young nor old. She is in her 50s and all her children are grown up (in their 20s). Apparently, at her house too, her children are urging her to be on time for the sessions. And I see that she has a nice smart phone that has the time right on the screen for her to see.
I am not entirely sure what the issue is. I think it comes down to the structure of village life. There are very few set times. People wake up when they want, eat when they want, take a shower when they want, go to the market when they want. Everything is fluid. Then I come with a temporary job, with starting times and ending times, and it does not really fit into the whole system.
But the others do not have a problem, so I am a little perplexed.
July 16 Wednesday
My money is running out, so I need to make a run to Kpalime on Friday. I have been told there is an Eco bank there. My plan is to use the ATM at the Eco bank to withdraw money, just like I have done twice already in Lome. But if I don’t find one, or if it does not work, I need to see what other international banks are available. If I cannot get money in Kpalime, then I will go to Lome on the same day, and return Saturday. One way or the other, the coffers need to be refilled.
I brought 200,000 CFA (about 350 dollars) with me, but it ran out after two weeks. I had to pay 30,000 for the car ride to the village (53 dollars). It was expensive, because I rented the whole car to take all my things up. To my irritation, even though I rented the whole car, the driver took on additional passengers along the way. I just remained silent, and enjoyed the experience. Then, we had to pay for cooking gas and charcoal and a bunch of little things to get the house up and running. I had to buy plastic sheets for the floor in my room, since the floor is unfinished cement (very dirty). The electricity for the month was 5,000 CFA (about 9 dollars). The running water is free for the whole village. We also have to buy the food we are eating, including the various breakfast options available in the village (fermented corn dumplings, bean cakes with hot pepper, porridge, etc.). I am embarrassed to admit that I am still buying bottled water, which is costly. In Botswana, I rarely purchased water. Similarly for the Peace Corps. But I am trying hard to avoid diarrhea here. Of course, in Togo there is always the ‘cadeau’ for relatives and friends to smooth things over, which adds to the expenses. It is a learning experience, since I really had no idea how much money I would need.
I had no idea of how much money to pay the consultants either. My general strategy for paying consultants is to find out how much money local teachers are getting paid, and then to calculate a rate based on that salary. That strategy has worked well in the past in various locations. Everybody is happy, and their salary fits into local expectations. So when I arrived in Togo, I started asking people how much money teachers made. I still do not have a crystal clear picture of salaries for Togo, but I am learning more and more.
July 13 Sunday
Mad rush of activity this morning. Whatsapp has opened up a hidden door for me, and many wonderous things are coming through that door.
I have a contact in M., a small village in Botswana were Sasi is spoken. He is not a Sasi speaker, but he is married to the daughter of one of my best consultants. He has a smart phone and Whatsapp. I just sent him five fully transcribed Sasi videos with subtitles, the Sasi dictionary and the Sasi spelling primer. Basically, the output of my last 10 years. I told him to distribute the materials to everybody in the community with a smart phone and Whatsapp. I don’t think there will be that many people, but who knows. This is a brave new world. My goal is to reach as much of the population of the village as possible. In the ideal world, these materials would help them to establish a small school for children to learn Sasi. I know there is interest in that.
I could never do this before, because I have never had a smart phone before, and I have never used Whatsapp before. I have been agonizing for years about how to best distribute materials. I did my best to distribute physical copies to everybody, but it did not seem like enough. All of this was triggered by my need to use Whatsapp in Togo to get Gozem (ride sharing here in Togo) in order to go to the University of Lome to teach. I am a technology turtle. I only stick my head out when it is absolutely necessary. But one thing leads to the other in mysterious ways.
Then I have contact from K., another small village (settlement) in Botswana, who speaks Seswarwa (not Sasi). I sent him all my materials on Kua, Cua and Sasi (including the videos) and told him to distribute to Sesarwa speakers who might find them useful.
Of course, all this also holds for Ewe, as soon as I start producing materials in Kpelegbe. My impression is that there are many people with smart phones in the village here (more than in the small villages in Botswana). They will be able to start using the dictionary right away, so that has gotten me excited about work on the dictionary.
To do all of this, I had to figure out how to send materials on my computer through Whatsapp. As far as I know, there is no way to directly send an e-mail to Whatsapp, which seems like a striking lack of imagination on Mark Zuckerberg’s part.
So that is what I did this morning. After trying several solutions, I finally figured out that if I had Whatsapp on my Mac, linked to my smart phone, everything would be much easier, and it was. So I downloaded Whatsapp for Mac, and linked with it using the QR code provided. This took me a while to figure out, both because I am not very good at doing this kind of thing and also because of the slow download speeds in the village. But in the end, everything works together seamlessly and relatively fast.
For example, to send a Youtube video, I follow this process:
a. Go to Youtube video to send (on the Mac).
b. Under video click ‘Share’.
c. Click Whatsapp.
d. Choose the person to send it to you amongst the Whatsapp contacts (still on the Mac).
e. Send
Once I have sent, I can correspond with the person about it, also on the Mac. Once I linked my laptop to my smart phone, all of this became really easy.
I started work at around 7:00am this morning. I spent about two hours figuring things out, bouncing around here and there. Then I spent two hours frantically sending language materials to people in Botswana on Whatsapp. What a rush of activity! What a breakthrough (for me)! How lucky I am to have come to Togo to realize these things.
This is now my third Whatsapp breakthrough during this single trip to Togo.
The first was using Whatsapp in a remote recording workflow (which I posted to my blog). The second was to form a Whatsapp working group for a paper on Ewe I am working on (I owe the idea to Selikem who set up the group). Lastly, the breakthrough for today is using Whatsapp to send language materials to remote communities via smartphone. This are all pretty big breakthroughs, but together they are a game changer.
July 12
Three weeks left in Togo. I leave the country August 1. That means two more weeks of fieldwork. I am ramping up my efforts. Next week, I will work full days, instead of half days. From 8-12 in the morning and from 2-5 in the afternoon. The basic idea is to produce a solid dictionary draft by the time I leave, incorporating my work from the early 90s. When I get back, I will upload it to FLEx, and that will be the core of all future efforts.
It has taken me a long time just to get used to Togo again. I have not really worked here since the 90s, so more than 30 years ago, and the country has changed in important ways. Just the basic fact of working in a hot humid tropical country has taken me a long time to deal with. Then finding a place to work, fixing it up, getting a cell phone, applying for a research permit, taking care of all my basic human needs, finding consultants, training the consultants, making contact with the chief, making other contacts, greeting relatives, dealing with illness. The environment needs to be gradually carved out and shaped before getting up to full speed.
My last year in Botswana (2023-2024) was the result of almost thirty years of work there. Everything worked like clockwork. I had everything set up. I could take off into the field at the drop of a dime and do a full month in the village, working five full days a week, and the morning on Saturday. That is why I was able to finish two grammatical sketches and a dictionary during that year, as well as training six students in how to do fieldwork on the Khoisan languages and finishing up a five-year NSF grant. As far as fieldwork goes, it was probably the most productive year of my entire life. My personal ‘annus mirabilis’ for fieldwork.
But for Togo, I have had to start at much slower pace, putting all the pieces together one by one before starting to do fieldwork, and then starting the process slowly. My goal is less concrete fieldwork results, and more getting the process going. I am recognizing as a goal the mere fact of starting a long multi-year process, and getting all the pieces in place for that process. It pays to have realistic expectations, then you will be satisfied with your accomplishments.
One thing that I am noticing (or may be noticing) is the gradual erosion of Kpelegbe in the face of Gengbe (the urban language of Lome and the coast). It is very subtle, easy to overlook, and I could be mistaken. But I have the feeling that Gengbe is more prevalent here in the village than it was in the past (30 years ago). Children speak it more, and adults are mixing to a greater extent. It just seems to be around more. It is hard for me to quantify, so these are really just intuitions, feelings about what is happening. If the children at some point start speaking Gengbe to their children, or some hybrid mixture, then the chain of transmission will be broken and Kpelegbe will die off. If I am right, it is the beginning of the end for Kpelegbe, which people do not recognize as an endangered language. Clarifying the current status of Kpelegbe is now a part of my research project.
As Kpelegbe is a dialect of Ewe, and Ewe does not seem to be going anywhere, one could ask whether it really matters. Can we really compare the endangered status of Kpelegbe to the endangered status of a Khoisan language? What would that mean? In the age of severe problems worldwide, does anybody really care if a dialect dies off? That question is for a different blog post.
July 10
I have a bad head cold. While the others in my little group are taking hot bucket showers, I am taking cold showers in my shiny new bathroom. But the mornings are cold and damp, so I am pretty sure those cold showers are the source of my head cold.
My nose is congested. I am spitting up mucus. I cough at night. The Togolese are so eager to give me advice, it is comical. I feel like I am in a sitcom about a white man doing fieldwork in West Africa, and not really a white man doing fieldwork in West Africa.
My consultant sees me sniffing, and says: “You have a head cold.”
“Yes, I don’t feel well.”
“Then you should go to the hospital.” pointing down the road to the hospital.
I shrug my shoulders.
“They will give you medication, and you will feel great.”
I shrug my shoulders again.
“Why don’t you go? Are you afraid of needles?” The Togolese love to joke around.
“No, I am not afraid of needles.”
“Needles frighten you.”
Everybody in the group chuckles at the thought of me being afraid of needles. Actually, I am a bit afraid of needles. But I wonder what kind of shot they give to a person with a head cold. I feel further justified in not going to the hospital.
I try to deflect. “I only take traditional medicine.”
The lady rushes off the porch, into the nearby bush, and yells back.
“You have this leaf near your house. It is great for head colds. It will open your nose right up.”
She returns with the leaf, rubbing it in her palm and handing it to me. I sniff the little cluster of leaves. It has sharp smell. My nose feels like it opens up, and I can finally breathe a bit.
Once people know that I am sick with a cough, the advice and remedies start to pour in. One of my consultants tells me that I am not spraying insecticide correctly. When I spray it, all windows need to be open, and I need to spray into each corner, pressing once. Then after spraying, I leave the room for half a hour. If I do not spray it in exactly this way, I can get sick with a cough. I tell him that I do not spray insecticide in exactly this way, and he says ‘aha’, his suspicious are confirmed.
Yet another person brings me some suspicious looking pills. She tells me, if you take these, your cough will go away, and you will fall asleep right away. I ask her where she got the pills, and she tells me that the pill seller on the side of the road sells them.
My sister-in-law makes tea including a mixture of honey, garlic and ginger. It is powerful and smells bad. But when I sip it, my cough suddenly dies down, and I am at ease for a while. Encouraged by the success, she makes a second concoction much stronger, including lots of garlic. I taste it. It is perhaps the worse tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth, but I drink a spoonful to be polite.
When everybody leaves the house, I toss the remainder of the concoction off the terrace, into the weeds. She returns to the house:
“Did you drink the medicine?”
“I drank it, it helped me.”
“Ohoo, you threw it away.”
“How would you know that? I drank it. Really.”
The whole group of people: “Ohoo, you threw it away.”
They are all so confident in their accusation. I think some child lurking near the house reported on my actions.
After a few days of hard coughing, the Togolese are fed up with me. The refrain of needing to go to the hospital continues, with me mysteriously refusing.
“Why won’t you just go to the hospital and get medicine?”
Someone brings in a packet of four pills of amoxicillin. They tell me that the cold has gone on long enough, and I need to drink the amoxicillin with honey. It will heal all the sores in my throat. I will feel great right away. There is a showdown, me against the other members of my group. I shut my mouth and place my hands over it. I will not take the amoxicillin under any circumstances. Everybody is shouting at me to open my mouth and drink it, but I refuse. The sheer irrationality of my actions perplexes everybody. They waver between laughter and incomprehension.
In a last ditch effort, I tell them my doctor in the US has explicitly said I cannot take amoxicillin. It will make me sick. It is an outright lie, and everybody shouts ohoo, immediately disbelieving me. Even the children are laughing at me now. I have become a laughing stock, with a bad head cold.
Finally, everybody leaves me alone, and I sit quietly at my table. But the coughing starts up again, ripping through my body, despite my effort to suppress it. The cough comes from deep in my lungs, and I imagine unhealed sores all over inside my throat and lungs. Only amoxicillin can heal them. People are staring at me with pity in their eyes.
July 7
Walking in the woods, in the shade of the palm trees, along the edge of the village with an old friend of mine.
“What happened to Kofi, my helper?”
Kofi was one of my language consultants in 1990s. He was a great person to talk to. Very funny, very smart. He never seemed to lose his temper. He was a teacher at a primary school for a long time.
“His face is ruined.”
“What does that mean?”
“He went crazy.”
“What?”
“He went crazy. He doesn’t make sense when he talks. He can no longer work.”
“Did he have a wife and kids?”
“Yes, he has two kids, but his wife left him.”
“Are they taking care of him?”
“Oh-hoo.” (expression of ignorance)
“Where is he now?”
“Over there, near Notse. I forget the name of the town.”
“If he is sick, why doesn’t he come back to the village?”
“Oh-hoo.”
“I am so sad about this. He was my friend.”
“Yes, of all those people, he was the most friendly. He always gave me mille franc when he came to visit.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for him?”
“No, I don’t. He did it to himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was chasing another man’s wife. Chasing another man’s wife is very dangerous.”
“But a lot of men chase women.”
“Yes, chasing women is fine, but not another man’s wife.”
“Whose wife?”
“Somebody over there, in Benin.”
“So what happened?”
“The man took revenge. People from Benin are strong, they do not forgive.”
“How did he take revenge?”
“He used witchcraft.”
“Can’t he get better? Maybe he can go to the hospital and get some medication.”
Shaking his head sadly:
“There is no way for him to get better.”
July 6
My nephew has a large palm farm (degble) and is a palm tapper. His main product is sodabe which is a hard liquor distilled from palm wine. He sells the sodabe in the village and as far as Lome.
I told him that I love palm wine (deha), so he brought over a fresh bottle yesterday morning for me to taste. We sat around for a couple of hours just enjoying the palm wine and talking. He also offered to bring me to the farm to see how the palm wine is tapped and how the sodabe is distilled. I will probably go over there some afternoon next week after my lexicon work.
Another traditional beverage is tchoukoutou, which is a kind of beer brewed from sorghum. It is popular in the north, but you can also find it on market day in the villages of the south. It has a brownish color and a sour taste. Just like palm wine, people usually drink it in a calabash. But it does not really appeal to me nearly as much as palm wine.
Palm wine has a wonderfully sweet taste. Maybe the closest thing to it in the US is a bottle of orange Fanta, but it has a much richer natural taste. There are no additives or chemicals or processed sugar. Although palm wine is not carbonated, it has a slight fiz, from the fermentation. If you drink it right after it is tapped, the alcohol level is very low, which is the kind I like to drink.
My nephew took the first sip, then I had two cups. After finishing the cup, you are supposed to hold a little in your mouth. You pour what is left in the cup on the ground, and then spit the palm wine remaining in your mouth onto the ground. The rest of the group says Do afe loo (arrive home!). It is kind of a male activity.
Palm wine has a traditional ceremonial value in Togo. When one gets married, one has to give palm wine to the woman’s father, as well as other alcoholic beverages such as sodabi and gin. It plays a role in other ceremonies as well, such as funerals.
After I drank two cups, I got a little drowsy, and I had to take a morning nap. Even for the fresh palm wine, the alcohol level is definitely not zero. It turns out that fresh palm wine is also a natural laxative. Soon after I drank my palm wine, I felt a huge urge to use the toilette. It cleaned out my entire system, like a powerful laxative.
July 3
My first day of work with the men’s team. I broke up the consultants into two teams, a women’s team and a men’s team. Actually, there is no reason to break apart men and women like this, it just turned out that way this time. In Botswana, the norm was to have husband-wife teams.
The team concept allows people to consult with each other on responses, and helps the consultants think about tricky issues. Having two separate teams allows me to compare the results of one team with the results of the other, increasing my confidence in the data.
The men are more educated, in terms of the formal school system, than the women. One of the women had three years of school, the other eight years. The men on the other hand, both have high school educations. Concretely this means that the men know more French than the women, which is definitely useful for me.
But the women have their own skills. For example, the two women know a lot of traditional songs, which are going to be very interesting to record. The women have also spent more time in the village, and less time in Lome, which generally appeals to me. Each individual has their own strengths, and each team has its own strengths. The challenge is to find those strengths, and to take advantage of them.
Both teams are eager to give me more words. Every word, brings up a host of new words: homonyms, tonal minimal pairs, and morphologically related words. The consultants barely need any prompting at all. As we go along, the words pour in, and I just try to keep up with recording and transcription.
The men brought in a little nut/fruit (called eve L.LH) that boys use to play a game with. So far, we have been unable to get the French, English or scientific names for it. So I only have the Ewe word. But they both know the game, and I told them we would make a video of them playing. One of the men owns palm trees (edegble), and he produces sodabe (hard traditional liquor) to sell. He promised to take me there to taste the fresh palm wine (with very little alcohol). That will be a great opportunity for photos and more words.
We finished the session with a long talk about traditional religion, witchcraft and evil spirits (gbOgbO baDa). For example, we talked about the question of whether you can blame the witch for doing witchcraft. My thesis, which people did not really agree with, is that one cannot blame the witch, because the witch is also under the influence of evil spirits. I did not really do any recording, since we became absorbed in the debate, all of which was in Kpelegbe. The topic picked up everybody’s general energy level for the last half hour of the morning.
July 2
The morning is lovely and cool. There is a kind fog all over everything, so I cannot see the hills in the distance. I sit on my porch, with the breeze hitting my back, waiting for my consultants to show up.
The clock strikes 8:00am, and nobody is here. 8:10 and nobody is here. I send a small child to go check on my consultants. Ten minutes later, a consultant rushes to my house saying that her child is ill with malaria. He threw up when he tried to eat this morning, so they have to send him to the hospital in the next village over. But once he is sent there, she will come.
I know that this child has been sick with malaria for about three days already. I see him every day. They tried to wait it out, figuring eventually the malaria would go away. But in this case, it got much worse. So now, they are justifiably panicking.
Of course, I understand, the health of the child is way more important than the work. So I just take it in stride. But I ask, where is her work partner. The teams have two people, in this case two women. She says that the partner will stop by her house and they will come over together. I just take that in stride too. Finally, around 8:40 they arrive ready to work. Given the circumstances, I am amazed that we are able to work at all today.
I start with recording words in Kpelegbe. Surprisingly, I have never recorded these words. When I first started fieldwork, I did not realize the importance of recording. We go from word to word, getting recordings and working on translations. I get a new French word that I did not know before, varan ‘monitor lizard’ in English.
A novelty: I have never worked in the field with the use of the internet. Since 1990, I have been going to the field, and I have never had the internet. Today, I did. I used Chatgpt to help me with translations into French. I probably need to check all of these with a good French dictionary later on. Let me see what else I can do with the internet, now that I have it.
Then, I bring up the topic of songs. I sing them a song in Ewe, which I butcher in various ways, so they sing it for me. It turns out, they love to sing. Then a whole flood of new songs comes out, one after the other. These are not church songs. They are traditional Kpelegbe songs. I tell them Friday to dress up a bit, and I will get videos of the songs.
It is wonderful to be working on Kpelegbe again. The consultants are trying their best. They bring me kola nuts and other things to show me, so we can record the Ewe words. I forgot to bring the ‘dead cat’ for the mic, and one of the consultants suggested I throw a small towel over it. Actually, that works. It dampens out the air bursts pretty well.
So we are overcoming all the obstacles one by one.
We stop the session early, so the consultant can go check on her child. Afterwards, she returns to tell us that her child is back from the hospital. He did indeed have malaria, and he got a shot. She is visible relieved. I thank God for helping her.
That was my first day back on the job.
July 1
Tomorrow, I start some consultant work. I have lined up two teams, two women and two men, neither too young nor too old. We have settled on times and days and remuneration. Everything is ready to go. How did I find the teams? In these first few days, lots of people are coming by to greet me. They all know me and my wife. So they stop by the house to chat with me a bit. From those people, I just picked the ones that I thought had a good grasp of Kpelegbe, and who did not seem to be mixing with Gengbe too much. I said, “I am doing a project on Kpelegbe, would you like to help me?”. At this stage, all conversation with everybody is in Kpelegbe. I claim that I do not know any French, which blocks any attempt to communicate with me in French.
I have a very rough dictionary of Kpelegbe which I started in 1990 (less than a thousand words), but I have no recordings of the words or sentences. Except for some oral texts, I have no recordings of Kpelegbe at all. Very bad. My whole fieldwork routine, involving the recording of words and sentences evolved over time. During my first major projects on Kpelegbe and =Hoan, I recorded oral texts, but I did not really record elicitation sessions. That was a huge mistake! By recording individual words and sentences, one has a ready-made database that one can check back on at any time. For a syntactician it is super convenient. I do not really have this resource right now for either Kpelegbe or for =Hoan, but for later languages (like Sasi and Kua), I have thousands of recordings. I constantly refer back to these files. At this point in my career, I record everything.
My goal for this month goal is to (a) record the words in the existing dictionary, (b) transfer the dictionary from handwritten notes to Word, (c) check the meanings of the words, (d) check the transcriptions of the words, (e) add English translations, (f) add a few example sentences, (g) add additional words when they come up. If I can get a solid e-version of the dictionary with at least 1,000 words by the end of the month, I will be super happy. I also want to record some oral texts with some elderly people who I have met in the village. Can I record at least five oral texts by the end of the month?
The workers are still filing in and out of the house installing the toilette and shower. The work is supposed to end today, which means tomorrow I can start taking showers in the new bathroom and using the toilette. In the meantime, when the need arises, I have arranged to use the toilette of a relative in town. It is only about a five-minute walk, so not too bad. The only drawback is that on the way the neighbors are all greeting me and trying to engage me in conversation. Normally, I would really like that. But when mother nature calls, you have got to heed her.
June 29
In the village, with an internet connection, which I just got today. Actually, I have both an internet connection on my computer (Wifi called A Cesar), and I have a smart phone for Whatsapp (with Togo Cel). The miracle of the internet in the village!
We arrived yesterday from Lome, after a three-hour trip. It takes about an hour and half to reach Kpalime from Lome, and then another hour from Kpalime to the village. So with stops and such, it is a three hour trip. It is a bit like going to Diphuduhudu in Botswana, which is just over three hours. Surprisingly, the road from Lome to Kpalime is beautiful. No holes. No sand. Just a very nice paved road (angemO).
My house in the village was not really ready for me. The house is becoming a headache. The workers were filing in and out of the bathroom all day yesterday, working on the toilette and shower. With the workers came throngs of children wanting to watch the workers, but who had no really business being in the house. To make matters worse, nobody had lived in the house for a while (years?), so there was a thick layer of dust over everything, and construction materials lying about, even in one of the bedrooms. Starting with the kitchen, I paid a couple of kids to clean it up with water and sweeping. But the rest of the house is still pretty dirty. There is even a lot of dust in the bedroom.
Any qualms I had about sand and dust in the Kalahari desert are completely dwarved by the dusty nightmare of the house. I am not exaggerating. The whole of the Kalahari desert is less of a problem that the dust in this house. But I only have a month here, so I am trying to stay in good spirits regardless.
I had some great talks today with people. I am locating my research teams, two ladies and two men. I want to work with several teams, to get a feel for the kinds of consultants I can find. I talked with some old people about getting oral texts. It occurs to me that thirty years of work on language documentation in Botswana has really given me such confident direction. I know what I have to do at each step-in order to produce what I want to produce.
I have not been to the village in about 15 years, and there have been some fairly huge changes. For one thing, there is running water everywhere. In the past, all the water came from the stream (tOme). That was not so long ago. Also, many of the houses are electrified, with lights. In the past, the 1990s, people still used kerosene lamps (kaDigbe). I remember that very well. Another change: many people have smart phones, so you can call them by Whatsapp, and leave messages. I am communicating with a lot people in Togo by Whatsapp now. Also, there are more shops in the village now. More is available just on the street (including wifi).
But still the village is much calmer than Lome. No thick throngs of zemidjan. It is a completely different environment, much more suitable to my tastes.
On the schedule for tomorrow: (a) visit the chief, (b) visit a relative in distant part of village, (c) let workers finish the toilette and shower, (d) go biking as far as I can on Kpalime road.
Hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday I will be working with teams! Wish me luck. And the main project there is to verify the dictionary that I have already written, and to start to add to it. I think it should be fairly easy to get 2,000-3,000 words in Kpelegbe (but not during this trip). I also want to make some video recordings of oral texts. If I were able to make 5-10 of these in the next month, I would be very happy.
June 25
There is a well in our compound (vudo) from which we get all of our water. It round and built with cement, and has the date 16-02-99 scrawled on the side. But I think it is older than that, since I saw it there in the 90s.
The well has a small bucket attached to a blue rope, which is attached to a board laying across the top. To get water, you just drop the bucket down, and then after a moment, pull it up. It takes me exactly 13 pulls to get the bucket up from the water. So the water starts at around 13 meters. I don’t know how deep it is.
It is lucky for us to have a well in the compound. Most compounds in Lome do not have such a well. Either you pay to get running water installed, or you go and buy water from somebody who has running water (25 CFA for a large bucket full) or you get it from a friend. Since we have boarders in the compound, people are going back and forth all day long drawing water for showers and cooking.
When the water comes up, it is cool and fresh, and looks clear and uncontaminated, but who knows what is in it. Who knows what kinds of things get into the ground water. So I am still drinking bottled water, because I am afraid of getting diarrhea. But I use the well water for everything else (e.g., showers).
I like to draw the water myself, since it is a kind of exercise, good for the arms. It takes me 13 pulls to get the water up, and I need to draw water 5 times to fill the shower bucket. So that is 75 pulls. It is a nice little exercise set. If I take several showers, and also use water to flush the toilette, I get some good strength training in, like lifting light weights.
But my hosts are horrified to see me drawing water. In part, it is because I am their guest (amedzro), and they do not want me to do any work at all. They want me to be as comfortable as possible. In part it is because I am Yovo (‘what man’), and they all firmly believe that I am not able to do such things because of my inherent physical weakness as Yovo. If they see me at the well, they drop everything they are doing and rush over to make sure I don’t draw water on my own. Even a sick person, with malaria or other serious health problems, would rather draw water for me instead of seeing me draw it on my own. Protests do no good. There is no compromise or bargaining. I simply am not allowed to draw water. So I need to be a bit sneaky about it, waiting until everybody is occupied with some other task, or sitting outside under the tree (agbodzi). Then I rush over and draw a few buckets.
The temperature in Lome is not really that elevated, between 80 and 85 Fahrenheit. But since the humidity saturates the air (around 90 percent), it is nice to take at least two showers a day. I go biking in the morning, and then rinse off (kpala ngti). At night before going to sleep, I take my shower. If I go anywhere during the day, when I get back I rinse off right away, since I will be hot and sweaty. All of this is in the service of keeping cool, making sure my body temperature does not go too high.
In comparison, in Botswana I never really felt a pressing need to take showers. The air there is really dry and is much more comfortable, even at temperatures over 80 Fahrenheit. It is not even really necessary to take a daily shower. But in Togo, not taking a daily shower seems unthinkable.
June 22
In my quest to understand the differences between Botswana and Togo, I put together this earlier blog post:
https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2020/02/ten-cultural-differences-between-togo.html
In this post, I extend the picture with some general statistics comparing Togo and Botswana. I got these the lazy way through Chatgpt, without verifying sources.
A few of the things that stand out differentiating Botswana from Togo: (a) lower population density, (b) higher per capita income, (c) less humidity, (d) no malaria. I am deeply embarrassed to think that these factors might have played a role in drawing me to Botswana throughout the years.
Population
Botswana is roughly 10 times as big as Togo, but with a quarter of the population. This means the population density in Togo is over 40 times that of Botswana.
Population of Togo: 9.62 million (January 2025)
Population of Botswana: 2.54 million (January 2025)
Area of Togo: 56,785 km2
Area of Botswana: 581,730 km2
Population density of Togo: 169 people/km2
Population density of Botswana: 4 people/km2
Population of Lome: 1.5 million (city), 2.19 million in broader metropolitain area. (2022)
Population of Gaborone: 246,000 (city), 535,000 in metropolitain area (2022)
Note: The population of Lome is at least four times the population of Gaborone.
Income
Powered by diamonds and a stable political system, Botswana is a relatively wealthy country. Botswana, especially Gaborone, has a sizable middle-class. Whereas the middle-class in Togo is far less developed. But it is important to not be misled by the statistics: there is a sizable population of very poor people in Botswana, especially in remote rural areas and in many urban areas.
Income per capita of Togo: 1,030 dollars (2023)
Income per capita of Botswana: 7,620 dollars (2023)
Togo ranking by per capita income in Africa: 41st
Botswana ranking by per capita income in Africa: 4th
Togo’s corruption ranking in Africa: 27th least corrupt
Botswana’s corruption ranking in Africa: 3rd least corrupt
Infant mortality in Togo: 43/1000 (2023)
Infant mortality in Botswana: 27/1000 (2023)
Climate
Togo is a tropical country (except for the north), with high humidity and rainfall and higher average temperatures. Botswana is mostly located in the Kalahari desert (except for the north). As a result, the malaria rate is much higher in Togo than Botswana.
Average Humidity of Lome: 83-85%
Average Humidity of Gaborone: 55-60%
Average rainfall in Lome: 35 inches per year
Average rainfall in Gaborone: 20 inches per year
Togo incidence of malaria: 1.89 million cases, 3,600 deaths (2020)
Botswana incidence of malaria: 1,100 cases, 0 deaths (2020)
Gaborone coldest month: July, 39-45 Fahrenheit at night.
Lome coldest month: August, 72-73 Fahrenheit at night.
June 19
What a rush! What a wonderful feeling! I just took my first bike ride in Lome.
The bike ride has two parts. First, to get to the paved road (ange mO), I need to ride on a sandy road filled with potholes for about 10-15 minutes. I got stuck in the sand a few times, and hit a few big potholes, but came through in pretty good shape.
I went behind Cite Mokpokpo (one of the few middle class residential areas in Lome), and it took me directly to the main road (Kpalime mO dzi). Alongside of the main road, which is basically a four-lane highway, there is a small service road. People do use the service road, but it is far less congested than the highway, and the traffic is much slower. So, in what I consider to be a minor miracle, I have a reasonable place to ride my bike in the morning.
As I said, the gears are a bit rickety, so I just tried to stay in one gear. This meant that riding uphill was great aerobics, and riding downhill was just coasting. Fortunately, there are not many hills, and they all have a very gradual slope.
I was surprised to see a few middle-class walkers in the morning, something which I saw every day in Gaborone. I saw a couple (man and woman about 40 years old), and one more man. They stick out clearly from the rest of the crowd in that they are dressed in nice sports clothing, and look like they are engaged in physical exercise, instead of hustling to do something or the other.
I only biked about 40 minutes, which was enough for a first ride. I came home, and took a cold shower (kpala ngti). I am finally caving in to the two shower a day idea, which I resisted for a while.
My next task is to find a mechanic, in case problems come up.
June 18
My main form of exercise in life is bike riding. In NYC, I am completely setup. I have a street bike and a stationary bike for snowy days. I have the pump, water bottle, helmet, spare tubes, and tire irons. I have my favorite bike shop a few blocks away, where everybody knows my name. Everything I need for day-to-day biking.
When I travel, and biking is not possible, I have a little series of stretches and aerobics in the morning, which substitutes for biking. But aerobics are not really my thing, I enjoy biking much more. I get much more of rush from biking than from aerobics. It makes me relaxed and clears my mind. So I decided to buy a bike in Togo. This is the first time I have done so.
I woke up this morning with the plan to go to the Lome port to buy the bike. For some reason, I cannot locate any real bike stores in Lome. Maybe they exist, but I don’t know of them. There was an excellent bike store in Gaborone, called Ultimate Cycle Base (Sebele Mall, Gaborone). In Botswana, I bought my bike there and had it serviced there all the time. They were really excellent, very professional and not too expensive. They made owning a bike in Gaborone a real pleasure. But as far as I know, there is no equivalent in all of Togo.
In fact, as far as I can see there is not much biking going on in Togo. Some people take their bikes to work in the morning, but you rarely see them on the street. There is no pleasure or sports biking at all.
Around 8:30am, I took a zemidjan from Adidogome to Ecobank, not so far away (300CFA), and found a long line under the burning sun waiting to use the ATM. They person at the ATM was involved in some lengthy and complex ATM interaction, so the line did not budge for a while. One notable detail: there were two armed guards in soldier uniforms holding machine guns. So that is different from Botswana too, where there are no armed guards in front of ATMs. Generally, in Botswana, there is a person assigned to watch over the functioning of an ATM, usually a woman (but not always). But no soldiers and no machine guns. I have to find out whether such security is only for Ecobank or for all ATMs.
After waiting for about 20 minutes, and breaking a sweat, I finally got to the head of the line and took out 200,000 CFA for the bike expenses. Then I called a Gozem from Ecobank, which took about 20 minutes to come. I probably wasted about an hour all together at Ecobank.
The port is far, you need to go to the eastern part of Lome, down near the ocean. And when you get in, the port itself is huge. I was told to go to area ATI 1, which is an area for selling cars. When we arrived, the driver did not know the location, so I called IB who is my brother-in-law (my wife’s sister’s husband) to give us directions.
IB graciously agreed to help me buy the bike. He works as a car seller at the port, so he knows the ins and outs. He sent his assistant, OS, to guide me through the process. OS took me by car to the bike selling area, which was basically a sidewalk next to a busy street. To try out the bikes, I had to ride along side of the flood of honking zemidjans on the street. That in itself was nerve racking.
Where I went, there were no new bikes. All of them were second hand. I do not know if there is an area in the port where I can buy a new bike. I did not even ask. The first three bikes they brought me to try were way too small. I am 6’ 4’’ over 300 pounds, so most bikes are too small. Then the next bike had huge tires, perhaps five inches in diameter. I think it was some kind of cross-country off road bike. I was not interested in that, to the great surprise of the bike sellers. Finally, after trying four different bikes, they bought me one I liked more or less. Mostly importantly it is big enough for me use. I asked them to change the seat from a narrow seat to a wide seat, and they complied with no extra cost.
The bike is a 300 TFS Crossway Merida. If you buy it new (as I found online), it costs 860 Euro, which is almost 1000 dollars. That is about the same quality as the bike I have in the US. It has an aluminum frame so it is lightweight. The pedals work well, supporting my weight with no problem. The wheels do not wobble. The frame is not bent. On the other hand, the gears are a little rickety, taking a lot of pressure to change, and not changing all the way. My strategy for now is just to find a decent gear setting, and leave it there. Also, there is an annoying squeak coming from somewhere on the bike.
The bike seller said the price was 120,000 CFA because of the gear system, which he called ‘hydraulique’. I was skeptical, but I did not want to spend the day bargaining. So I got him down to 115,000. I also bought a pump (7,000 CFA) and two spare tubes (2,000 CFA each). They charged me total of 125,000 CFA. That is around 210 US dollars. So that is quite reasonable for a second-hand bike. If I were Togolese, perhaps I could have gotten them down another 10,000-20,000 CFA. But for a Yovo (white person), the seller really sees an opportunity of a cash boost, and will not go that low
Like butterflies, little children (under 10 years old?) descended upon us. Each was holding a little accessory for the bike, a water bottle, reflectors, a little bell. They each had their own little product to sell. I did not want any of the products, so I waved them away. But I felt guilty about it, since they all seemed so earnest.
After I paid, they needed to give me 5,000 CFA in change. But apparently, the bike sellers expected a tip (‘cadeau’), so we started to negotiate for that as well. As usually, there was lots of pleading and explanation on both sides. A typical Togolese commercial encounter. I said 5,000 CFA was too much for ‘cadeau’ and demanded to get my change. Finally, after three or four requests, and a direct appear to my helper OS, they gave it to me. In return, I gave them 1,000 CFA for ‘cadeau’. They did help me buy the bike after all. Some seemed happy, but others were disappointed that selling a bike to a Yovo (‘what person’) did not pay bigger cash dividends.
Finally, I called a Gozem (not Eco size, but Taxi size, because of the bike) and got a lift home. I arrived home about 1:00pm, and took a cold shower (kpala ngti), and then drank some little bags of cold water (tsi fafe), to cool off my body from the intensely hot Togolese sun.
Tomorrow morning, I will ride it for the first time. I am very excited.
June 15
Today, I went to a more traditional church, the Eglise Evangelique Presbyterienne Du Togo, located not far from where I am staying in Adidogome Wessome (Paroisse Aflao Avedzi). This church is sometimes called EPP Church by the anglophones.
The church hall is large, two stories high, with a very high roof of corrugated steel. By my estimation there were probably 1,000 people in that hall. The pulpit was a semicircular raised structure on the front wall, above where the church members were sitting. The pastor had a mic, so that everybody could hear. The service was only in Ewe, no English, no French. But the sound was a bit distorted, so I could not catch everything.
The serviced with songs from the EPP church hadzigbale (songbook), and there were songs by different choral groups throughout the service. This led into aseyetsotso (celebration) where everybody gets up and dances in a kind of line dance around the benches in the church. Then there was gbefaDeDe (which is basically news about the church), after that the pastor launched into the sermon. Even though the pastor cited passages from the Bible, there was not a separate reading of those passages.
After the sermon, there was gadzOdzO (collecting money), and an auction. For the collection, they do not pass around a plate. Rather everybody goes to the front, dancing a little jig, and drops in their money. For the auction, People brought in things to sell to raise money. This time there were things like: oranges, pineapple, palm oil, a chicken, fonio (a grain), and a sugary milk drink called dEgE (which I had never heard of before). Apparently, they have the auction every week to raise money.
Then, they gave a final benediction, and the service was over. The whole thing took only two hours from 9:00am to 11:00am.
The spirit of the service was different from the spiritual church that I described last week (remember gbOgbOmetsOtsi). It was more subdued, and organized around the sermon, prayer and traditional Ewe singing. It was not focused so much on receiving the holy spirit. There was no rock band at the center of it all. I did not see any electric guitars this week, and the drumming was all by Ewe traditional drummers (not a modern drum kit). There were no electronic screens projecting scripture. Nobody started screaming, nobody fell to the ground, there was no speaking in tongues. Of course, there are different kinds of spiritual church, so others might be a bit different.
The topic of spiritual churches is something I want to look into further. I believe that they are kind of hybrid between the Christian church and traditional African religions, which may account for their huge popularity in Africa.
EPP church fits my personality better than the spiritual church, which I find exhausting.
June 14
This last week (Tuesday-Saturday), I taught introduction to syntax to a group of nine English master’s students at the University of Lome. Two of the students were female, seven of them male. The participants also included Professor Essizewa, professor of English linguistics, and M., his assistant. Most of the time, there were 11 people present.
Prof. Essizewa was my student and collaborator at NYU. I wrote to him several years ago, and told him I would like to teach a short course at the university, but I had to delay several times. Finally, everything came together this summer. Without Professor Essizewa, it would not have been possible to organize this course.
I taught from 9am to 12noon, with a break from 10:30am to 11:00am. Then I met with one or two students each day for about half an hour after the course. During the meetings, I talked to them about their master’s projects, and also about studying in the United States. After that, Prof. and I went to the faculty cafeteria to eat. That meal cost exactly 3,500 CFA each day, which is less than seven dollars. This is where I learned of the fufu pounding machine. Then, on most days, I called Gozem to pick me up, arriving home by around 2:30pm.
One of the wonderful things about the course was the variety of languages present: We had Ewe (four speakers), Mina (related to Ewe, one speaker), Moba (three speakers, including M.), Kabiye (two speakers, including Prof.), and Fulfulde (one speaker). These languages came up in various ways during the course. In just a short period of time, I learned many things (including about Ewe).
My idea was to teach them introduction to syntax, using the minimalist framework, in particular the operation Merge, as a pedagogical tool. The basic schedule went as follows:
Day 1: What is syntax? UG, I-language.
Day 2: Merge and constituent structure tests.
Day 3: TP, CP, DP.
Day 4: practice tree drawing (the whole day).
Day 5: Internal Merge and then optional presentations.
There were three presentations: one on focus in Moba, one on VP-fronting in Ewe, and one on postpositions in Kabiye.
The students had a high level of English, but were a bit shy. So I learned all of their names and started calling on them by name. That helped. It also helped that they had some background in syntax, including some basic knowledge of generative grammar and some knowledge of Role and Reference Grammar.
I tried to focus on basic skills. For example, one basic skill is to have them look at a tree, and tell me what does not work in that tree (e.g., is the constituent structure correct, is the labeling correct, etc.). So everybody in the class had lots of opportunity to draw trees on the board, then we as a class would discuss them, and try to improve upon them. Instead of embarrassing the students, this exercise had the effect of empowering them. I told them that the only way to learn a topic well, is to make mistakes, and understand how to fix them.
On the last day, the students presented me with a beautiful piece of cloth that they had bought at the grand marche (asigame). It meant that they appreciated my effort, and that they wanted to show me their appreciation. I love that piece of cloth so much. I am going to have nice African style outfit made, and then I will wear it at NYU when I teach.
I want to run the school again next year. I already have ideas to make it better for the students: 1. I think it should be two weeks, instead of one. That way, we could go fairly deeply into a few topics, and consider them at leisurely pace. In a one-week course, it is very tempting to rush through material. 2. I will try to come up with stipends for next time. Even a small stipend would help the students with expenses associated with the school, such as food and transportation. 3. If I have two weeks, I can require a small project proposal in syntax by the end of the two weeks. Each student would write a three-page proposal on some topic in syntax. Then perhaps, some of them will pursue those projects for their master’s project.
June 14
On the zemijan, the wind rushing past us, I clasp the driver’s shoulders. He doesn’t object, even if it is unusual. The Togolese do not grab hold of anything while riding on the back of a zemijan. Their hands just dangle to side, or maybe hold a purse held in their lap.
I feel clearly that there is only a thin porous membrane between the reality where I live and the reality where I fall off the zemijan and hit my head on the pavement. As we drive, I can picture it. Just one bump, and I go down on the ground. So I am terrified.
Of course, we have helmets. If you are caught without a helmet, the charge is 5,000 CFA, for which you will not receive a receipt. So everybody, with rare exceptions, wears a helmet. But the helmet I have been given is too small for me. It barely fits on my head, and the strap does not reach around my chin. If I fell, it would just pop off, and I would be a dead man. But the driver says that even if the strap is not fastened, the soldiers are satisfied. So I jump on, and off we go.
June 14
Tragedy strikes. My cell phone fell into a bucket of water. No Gozem today. No Whatsapp. I am on my own with the zemidjan to get to school. I have no way to contact people. I am all of the sudden back in 1985, and in the Peace Corps. Roughing it.
I went to bathe last night around 6:30pm, by which time it is already getting dark out. The bathroom is nice, with a toilette and a shower stall, but there is no lighting there. Also, there is no running water. So I turned the light of my cell phone on, and perched it on the sink to take a bucket shower. Piece of advice: never perch your cell phone above the water bucket when you are taking a bucket shower.
I started digging around in my toiletry bag for my razor, and the bag bumped up against my cell phone, which then fell into the watery abyss. I snatched it our right away, and the light was still on, but it started to ficker, so I turned it off. My niece rushed the phone to the “depanneur”, who now has it. We will hear the verdict today at 3:00pm. Can it be repaired, or is it dead? If dead, then I need to buy a new phone.
Overall, I am proud of my response. When it happened, I said “shit!”, but felt no emotion at all. No anger, or frustration, or depression, or regret. It was as if my life was a train and it branched off on another set of tracks. I just felt, “OK, what now?”. Then I started to think of the next steps. I wish I could apply this model more generally.
June 11
Off to teach at the University of Lome. My mode of transportation is Gozem, which is a version of Uber used by the Togolese. It has the advantage of being able to locate your coordinates precisely, so the driver can find you. There are generally no street signs in Togo, and people do not know the names of streets. Within neighborhoods, there are thousands of nameless small streets and passageways, all of them are dirt roads filled with potholes. But if you call the taxi on Gozem, it generally arrives within 10-15 minutes, and you are off. Another benefit is that Gozem calculates the fare, in terms of distance travelled. So there is no haggling over price. Of course, the alternative is the ever present zemijan, which I described in an earlier post. But you risk head injuries with that, so the taxi is preferable whenever possible.
For all of my adult life, I have taken a stance against smart phones, never buying and never using them. I feared the presence of more technology in my pocket, drawing me in, like social media and the internet can draw one in. I have seen so many students obsessively attached to their smart phones, and I did not want that for myself. But Togo has finally broken me. Because of Gozem and Whatsapp, I need to have a smart phone in Togo. I guess it is the beginning of the end for my private individual mental life.
My taxi trip goes from Adidogme Wessome to the University of Lome, near the mosque found on campus. I have a very nice airconditioned classroom in a newly built building, with a whiteboard and markers. I am teaching a small set of master’s students in the English linguistics program. Evidently the notice was also sent to the French linguistics program, but none of their students showed up. My lectures are all in English, and the question are all in English too. Since the students are master’s students, their level of English is high, but they don’t get much of a chance to practice speaking English, since Togo is a francophone country. Also, the students seem a bit shy to me, but I am calling on them by name, so that brings them out of their shells.
I am teaching certain parts of my undergraduate linguistics course (we call it “Grammatical Analysis I”). I assembled the notes, and had them sent by e-mail to the students. I call it “A Minimalist Introduction to Syntactic Theory”, mostly because I make heavy use of Merge in introducing phrase structure and movement. But it is not meant to be a comprehensive introduction to minimalism, since I do not get into issues like Agree. The students mostly just read the notes from their phones or computers. I did not make any paper copies at all. There is no need to.
The students have learned syntax in their program, but it is Role and Reference grammar. I actually know nothing about that framework. It strikes me that it is not very widely used in the United States. Mentally, I associate it with Robert Van Valin and Buffalo University. Maybe it is more widely used in typology literature. I make a mental note to do some research on it later.
On the ride home from the university today, I got a Gozem and was charged 4,125 CFA (which is 7 dollars and 19 cents). Even though it is a ridiculously low price in the American system, it is just about double the usual price for my route. I told the driver that it was double the usual price, and he told me it was because it was raining, and there was a “marjoration”. I think he cheated me, but I cannot quite figure out how.
June 8
Yesterday, I went to church, Eglise de la Percee Divine, located just down the block from where I am staying (cartier Adidigome Wessome). The name translates to “Church of the Divine Breakthrough.” I cannot find very much information about them online, but apparently, they came to Togo just a few years ago.
They are what the Togolese Ewe call gbOgbOme tsOtsi (O = open “o”). Literally, this means “breathing church” (to indicate a "spiritual church"). It now covers the wide array of non-Catholic churches that all seem to be in the Pentecostal tradition. There is a lot of emphasis on the holy spirt, receiving the holy spirt (gbOgbO kOkOE), intense praying, people falling into trances, etc. There are many such little splinter churches.
This church in particular seemed to be organized around a kind of rock band, including two electric guitars, a modern drum kit, an electric piano and a trumpet. Singers used mics that were connected to two massive speakers off to the side. Most of the church involved that band playing music in some way or the other. Even when the sermon was being delivered, they played along as background music. The prayers seemed to be accompanied by even louder background music. Since the room was not that big, the sound resonated loudly everywhere. When I left the building, I felt like I was going deaf.
Off to the side, there were some traditional Ewe drums, but they were only used once when the traditional choir sang, otherwise, it was just the rock band that provided music. That is unfortunate, since I love the sound of traditional Ewe drums, which are played quite a bit in the EPP church that I go to in the US.
At other times, there were singers holding mics, leading the church in song. The songs got the whole congregation (around 200 people) dancing energetically. Finally, one large lady just in front of us raised her hands and started screaming and spinning. As she fell to the ground, she hit several rows of plastic chairs which were all quickly cleared away. Once on the ground she continued shaking and screaming. Eventually, after around 5 minutes, they whisked her off somewhere to the side. I did not see where they took her.
The room had fans everywhere, on the ceiling and on the sides, trying to diminish the Togolese humidity and heat. But for me, the fans added another source of noise, making it hard to hear the sermon. The sermon itself was delivered in English, French and Ewe. I think that they were speaking English because that day they had some American visitors. Once something is said in one language, it is immediately translated to another. Usually, the pastor will say something in Ewe, and it will be immediately translated to French. You might think this would be a great way to pick up Ewe and French, but the sound was distorted, and there was lots of other noise in the room (including the fan, and the band’s background music). So I hardly heard anything. Even when they spoke English, I barely understood it.
They had three large electronic screens hanging from the ceiling. When the sermon started, they projected a Bible verse onto the screens in French, which formed the basis of the sermon. Somebody would read what was projected, then the pastor would take over commenting on it. The verse was about feeding children before feeding dogs, and how dogs will still eat the crumbs that fall from the table. When the screens were not projecting verse, there was a picture of what seemed to be wheat fields, with clouds rolling over them.
The church started early the morning (around half past seven?) and ended after one in the afternoon. Apparently, it went on a bit long because of the visitors. I arrived at 9:00am and left at around 12:00noon, since I had a previous lunch appointment with a colleague. The length of the service may have also had something to do with the fact that today is Lundi de Pentecote, which is a national day off (jour ferrier) in Togo. Apparently nobody is going to work day.
That was my Sunday morning at church.
June 7
I took my first ride on a zemijan today. It is a motorcycle you pay to go places. I needed to buy some shampoo, so I took the zemijan from my residence in Adidogome, to the Champion in Adidogome. When I was in the Peace Corps, we did not have zemijan, nor did we have Champion. As for the latter, there was an SGGG in the heart of Lome that we as volunteers used to go to from time to time. It was basically a small modern supermarket, it is now been replaced by Champion and a few other chains (Ramco).
I seem to recall that public transportation in that epoch was arranged around taxis and small transportation vans. Am I misremembering? I don't recall ever taking a zemijan, so it is something relatively recent. I believe the term zemijan itself comes from Fongbe, and that the Togolese borrowed the concept and the term from Benin. It is basically a way for the many unemployed to make a little money, transporting people around on the back of a motorcycle. It is by far the main form of public transportation now, with Gozem (a form of Uber) coming in second.
I hopped on the back, and put my feet on the little foot stands. I am 6'4'', over 300lbs, so I am a bit big for a comfortable ride. I kept thinking I would pop off the back and hit the street. As a result, I clasped onto the driver's shoulders, which Togolese never do: they ride without holding anything, just putting their hands to the side. The helmets that they have do not fit me, so I used my own biking helmet. It worked just as well.
The driver was chatty so he was asking me how I learned Ewe. Since the wind was blowing, and we were in traffic, I could barely hear him. As we were driving he said, "Should I run fast" in Ewe, since he wanted to accelerate. I told him "Don't run fast, please".
As with all purchases, the usual bargaining starts from Yovo prices. Yovo is "white person" in Ewe. The driver wanted 1000 CFA (two dollars), which I knew was not the price. So it took a few back and forths, and pleading on both sides, before I got him to a reasonable approximation of the right price 500 CFA. It does not bother me, I just count it as practice in Ewe.
That was my first ride.
June 7
When I was in Botswana, I lived in Block 6, which is a middle class neighborhood of Gaborone. It is no different from many other such neighborhoods. In fact, I would say that more than half of Gaborone looks like Block 6. Every house in Block 6 has the following items: AC, TV, wifi, geyser (water heater), running water, security fence, security door. Inside the house, there will be a kitchen and a nice bathroom (with a porcelain toilette and shower stall). People do not take bucket showers in those houses. Many of them have garages or places to park the car, and a large number have beautiful rock and tree gardens.
These houses belong to professionals of various kinds, including government workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, business people. The neighborhoods often contain a mix of Batswana and other nationalities, especially Indians. Everybody seems to get along fine.
But then, there id a street that dividesBlock 6 from Mogoditshane (a town on the outskirts of Gaborone). On one side of the street there is a nice middle class neighborhood, and on the other there are the lower income households of Mogoditshane.
The point of this message is that in Lome, it is very rare to find neighborhoods like Block 6. Rather, most of Lome (with a few exceptions) is like Mogoditshane. To me, this suggests that the middle class in Lome is not very big, as compared with Gaborone. I am not talking about absolutes -- there are wealthy people in Lome and poor people in Gaborone. Rather, I am talking about statistics. A significant fraction of the people in Gaborone live a middle class life, whereas the vast majority of the people in Lome are struggling to get by day by day, week by week. I definitely could be off in this assessment, but that is the impression I have.
Bottom line: Botswana is a relatively wealthy country in Africa, and Togo is a relatively poor one. Living in one is a completely different experience from living in the other. In some ways, living in Botswana is a lot like living in the US. To get food, one goes to a supermarket and buys food. In fact, most of the Botswana shop in places like Choppies in Gaborone. But very few Togolese shop in supermarkets in Lome (even though they are becoming more and more common). Rather, they buy their food in open markets and from vendors and small shops dotting the city.
June 7
After the Togolese have welcomed me this last week with open arms and their characteristic sense of humor, to learn of this travel ban is a shame for me. I am ashamed of my government.
June 5
The biggest problem I encountered arriving in Togo was the loss of my luggage. I left the US on May 31 and arrived in Abidjan on Sunday June 1st. Then I left Abidjan June 1st to go to Lome. As I mentioned previously, my flight in Abidjan was delayed twice, so we left at around 11:00pm, and arrived after midnight. To my horror, my luggage did not arrive with me, and so I left the airport with the clothes on my back. Monday, I went back to the airport to check, but I forgot to bring the "declaration" of loss with me, and so they would not let me into the airport. I told the man: "Ca, ce n'est pas bon.", and he responded: "Donc, il faut aller fair ce qui est bon." On Tuesday, I went back with the declaration in hand, driving back and forth to the airport in an Uber, at least an hour each way. Still no luggage. Finally, I just called them up on Wednesday, and they said my luggage was back. So I collected it. I feel that what I have learned in Togo so far is the skill of retrieving lost luggage from the Lome airport.
June 5
In Togo with an internet connection! Everything is a lesson now. Everything is new again. First impressions of Lome, before I forget. Once you get on to the streets, it is swarming with people. The country is small, but the population per area is large (compared to Botswana, for example). So Lome is packed. What magnifies the impression is the terrible presence of the zemijan. Most people get around nowadays by hiring a motorcycle. You ride on the back, and it takes you wherever you want to go for a small fee. Unlike Botswana and Ghana, there do not seem to be any combis or trotro (small vans that transport people to different locations). The public transportation section is basically the zemijan. So the streets are a total mess. There are some cars and taxis driving around, but they are surrounded by a throng of zemijan. And this means there are lots and lots of accidents, as I know from personal experience now. Driving from the market to my relative's house, a motorcycle hit the back of our taxi, smashing the window and blowing it out. THUMP! There was glass all over the place. Luckily none of us got hurt, nor did the motorcycle driver. But it just shows how congested things have become.
June 1
Saving grace, silver lining, hidden gem: The airport at Abidjan has a shower! I just took a shower. This nearly makes up for everything, including the double delay and 10 hour layover. What a refreshing treat. The air conditioning is weak. The storm clouds are overhead. The tropics press against the windows, and I have had a nice shower.
I am supposed to leave at 10:00pm and arrive at 11:30pm. But they have changed times twice already. The people picking me up have had to be notified twice, and they are now skeptical themselves. They are asking questions.
The journey enters its final stage.
June 1
I am in the business class lounge in Abidjan. The flight went without problems, and I even got some sleep in. Believe it or not, even business class feels a little tight for me, since I am tall and heavy at the same time. When I tried to change money in the airport, they directed me to the pharmacy, which is where you change money in the airport. In my broken French, I tried to express to the pharmacist that the usual situation involves a special store/shop whose function it is to change money. She was completely unimpressed, and just said something about being able to change "en bas" if I had a police escort. Now, I am here until 10:00pm at night. So I just need to pass the day in the lounge.
June 1
Guess what! I am flying business class. Part of the reason is that it is a bit cheaper on Air Ethiopia, so I can afford it. I believe this is the first time I have purchased a business class ticket, instead of being given an upgrade for one reason or the other. What do you get for it? First, check-in is shorter. You have your own line, and nobody is in that line. So instead of waiting an hour, it is instantaneous. That is a perk, right? Then there is the lounge, which is fully stocked, dinner, snacks, wine, beer, comfortable chairs, wifi, just a level of comfort up. BTW, these people in the lounge they look like regular people to me. So we are all just here, having found some way or the other to creep onto business class. Then on the plane, the business class cabin has fewer people and is spacious, with its own restroom. The seats are wider and bigger, and lie flat at night for a nap. So the sharp edges of long distance travel are dulled just a bit with business class.
May 31
I am having problems with my computer, so I will keep this short. I am in the T7 Horizon Lounge at JFK, awaiting my Air Ethiopia flight at 10:00pm. Check-in was a breeze, but security took half an hour in a slow line. Now, I rest up a bit in the lounge. Air Ethiopia has created a network all over Africa. They fly to all the countries, and are cheaper than their American and European competitors. I know they fly to West Africa quite a bit, and they were also in Botswana. So they are kind of like the combi/trotro service for all of Africa. I fly into Abidjan after a 10 hour flight (compared the usual 16 hour flights to SA), then I have a long layover of about 10 hours in Abidjan. AIr Cote-d'Ivoire has already changed by flight time twice. The original layover was a reasonable 2 hours, not it is 10. From what I have heard, this kind of delay is common for them. But there is no other way I am getting to Lome, so I must abide.
May 30
My last full day on US soil, until tomorrow I am on the road again. "On the road", the great American novel, captured the spirit in-detail, but add to that a sense of scientific discovery, and it is really a heady trip. To go to a foreign land, and by doing so, to learn something about yourself that you could have never known otherwise.
My only goal: Set things up for an Ewe research project lasting the next three to five years. Keep my expectations low, and then I will be sure to meet them. Enjoy the moment, enjoy the process. Live on the road and let beautiful wondrous things happen to me.
