Impressions

September, 25 2007
There always seems to be some irresistible force pulling me away from logging a decent journal. I rose this morning as a few select songbirds began their morning praises, as the cock intermittently crows, and as Elise, David, and a Togolese man begin their morning jog. Conditions seemed to be ripe, until gatíto made its presence known. In short, most days my lack of ingenuity drives me away from writing; today, it’s a cuddly, orange cat.
We’ve been in Lomé for roughly two days with only one remaining until training begins and life starts to really get real. Host family, intense training sessions, no French, and living apart from Katrina.
Reflecting on the last five or six days, I believe they have been successful. Pre-training in Philly was a great relief to us all. No more questions on the nitty-gritty specifics of what we’ll be doing and where we’ll be at. It has become evident that these tired questions will be reinvented, if you will, by what projects we’ll work on and their successes, although I venture to guess the sheer rapidity will not be as explosive as in South Dakota.
The group has begun to form clusters, although there does not seem to be an exclusive one, a refreshing observation.
My first impressions of Lomé, (and de facto Togo and Africa) have been slow to form. Perhaps I expected more cars, in retrospect, a foolish thought. Chickens roam the streets. Reggae commences before daybreak when the morning sweep begins. Walls blockade every quadrant. Intricate designs allow the children to peak out with giant smiles and bright eyes. Women really do carry baskets of dried fish or an array of other goods on their heads. Looks from passersby on the street intrigue me; some offer hope, life. Others distress, sorrow. Still others stare so cold and emotionless they can only be starring into our souls and nothing less.

This weeks stool forecast: …Wait, I think I’ll keep my poop report within the confines of my moleskin journal. Next forecast available upon request.

January 27, 2008
Togo: A (second) first impression

Not long ago, I picked up my journal and leafed through its opening pages. I smirked at the Trace of September 25, 2007. So young and innocent, I mused. Currently, well over 100 days have been spent here in Africa. Upon reflecting, I gauged that I deserved a second, first impression of Togo. Our writings thus far no doubt have conveyed a light air. I suppose for most, recollections of prancing from hippos, for example, are the imagery that has penetrated your heads of Togolese life. Such as it is though, another side exists that has been very much shielded from you all.
Perhaps you already know it exists. The grinding poverty that spurs crime. Inequality in urban cities that leads to violence. The enormous strain that the exploitation of natural resources has put on rural populations. This is a “developing” country, mind you. However, it is important to put things in perspective.
Togo is a young, claiming independence less than fifty years ago. They have had two presidents in that time, one for approximately forty years. Upwards of fifteen ethnicities dwell here. Each claims their own language, customs and beliefs. While French remains the official national language, it does not act as a unifier.
One moment when I really paused and thought, “Gee, we are a long ways from home,” occurred when a Togolese man asked me,
“So what’s your local language?”
I was baffled. I suppose English, I told him.
He then replied, “Yes, I know you speak English, but what’s your local language?”
I explained I don’t have a local language. Not only that, Americans don’t have a local language. He in turn was baffled. Since then, I’ve been pondering identity: in Togo, America, and elsewhere.
Look at a world map and borders neatly compartmentalize the globe. Yet borders can be deceiving. Togo is red. Ghana is yellow. Burkina Faso is green and so on. This seems to carry little weight here. In Africa, the nation-state is relatively a new creation. The idea is slowly taking hold.
National identity doesn’t define character here insomuch as ethnic groups and language do. In our village, the language Gulma is spoken. A sister language, Moba, is spoken just miles to the west. In village, these two languages are spoken 99% of the time. One resorts to French, if one knows it, only when speaking to someone of a different ethnicity. I’ve detected, although perhaps the word is too strong, a disdain for the French language here. It seems one learns French here for the sole purpose of social mobility, not from any endearment to the language.
Apart from the United States, Chile is the only country in which I can talk intelligibly. The difference in attitudes is immense. Meeting a Chilean, inevitably, the first question coming from their mouth was “Te gusta Chile?” eager to hear all the wonderful things I had to say about Chile. They would ask me if I had been to the Southern Chile, to Chiloé, to the Atacama Dessert, and on and on. Also, “Te gusta Chile?” is Spanish for “Do you like Chile?” Chileans were proud of their own regional dialect, but it was still Spanish, the language of their colonizers. Pablo Neruda, Chile’s most famous poet, once remarked that when the Spanish came to Latin America, they stole all their gold, but they also brought gold. He was referring the Spanish language. To share a language is to share a history.
Ironic, perhaps, but it is precisely because of the overwhelming “victory” by the Spanish that Latin America shares so many commonalities. Consider the term mestizo, meaning part Spanish, part Indian. Few can claim being 100% native to Chile and even fewer claim complete Spanish lineage. Somewhere down the line it seems unavoidable that the Conquistadors and the indigenous population would interbreed.
Here in Togo however, the visible signs of colonization are more subtle. The legion of colonizers didn’t destroy the “old” way of life as decisively as in Latin America. Inhabitants are still very much engaged in their own language and are more hesitant to fully immerse themselves in the French language. Perhaps the situation is analogous to Americans hesitancy to take on the Spanish language.
Some have argued that if we continue moving on a plane towards bilingualism, being able to attend a school in either English or Spanish, it would lead to a slow decay in the American solidarity. Could the Hispanic population dissolve our purity, by simply refusing to assimilate? Despite dismissing the argument, I am able to see for the first time what the unifying power a common language can have on a country, (or the lack thereof). Nevertheless, we bring this to the extreme in our motherland.
We Americans, no doubt in part due to unceasing worldwide praise of our impeccable Constitution, have developed a rather warped version of what rights should mean. It’s our right not to learn another language, right? (Yes, we live in a free country). But does learning another language not aid in the realization of how big the world really is? Dutch, Chinese, Russian, German, Icelandic, Japanese, Gulma, etc. All with thousands and thousands of people with their stories, in their languages. Can we not know by learning another language, if only a little, the beauty of all their tales of struggle, of triumph, of defeat?
In Gulma, there is one particular expression that we hear all day, every day. It’s “lafiaa.” If one were to translate this in English, I suppose it would mean something like, “everything is well,” stated enthusiastically after the interrogative, “how are you?” But the affirmation that your health is good, that another day has come without sickness takes on a whole another dimension than our common response to how things are going.
“I’m good,” I say, regardless of my disposition.
Capturing what this expression means to native speakers in our village is futile. Meanings really do have a way of being lost in translation, though this fact only increases my appetite for language. Maybe Carlos Fuentes, a Mexican poet, summed it up best regarding contact with others.

“My upbringing taught me that cultures are not isolated, and perish when deprived of contact with what is different and challenging. Reading, writing, teaching, learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other. No culture…retains its identity in isolation; identity is attained in contact, in contrast, in breakthrough.”

Here we are, four months in. Twenty-three months to go. Are some days here tough? Yes, some are atrocious. Problems and challenges have sprung up that I never could have imagined months ago. At the end of the day, there are times I feel drained, physically and mentally. But those moments when you communicate with another person, in a one-horse village in rural Togo, in their language, and see the light in the eyes upon hearing “lafiaa” makes the challenges seem insignificant. A whole culture awaits us that we are largely ignorant of. I can only imagine the plentitude of faux pas’ we have committed here. But if there is one thing we do have, it’s time to learn.
First impressions? To hell with them. Second impressions can go too. It’s time to develop some lasting ones.