Living situation

Aaaaand I’m back! I figure that before I try to bring you all into the more complex, subtle world of Togolese culture, beliefs, politics, which let’s face it I don’t understand yet, you should know my physical living situation-meme (told you I’d do that).

In Togo there are five regions: Maritime, Plateaux, Centrale, Kara, and Savanes (in order from south to northern most). As previously stated I live in the Savanes region, the area with the harshest weather, the least attention from European colonialists, and the poorest people thus ranking at the top in Togo for malnutrition, illiteracy and mortality rates. Seriously, though, in our CHAP Handbook they always give out percentages of people in Togo who die in childbirth, malaria, malnutrition, etc., and there’s always a special shout-out to Savanes: “… highest in the Savanes region,” “…found above all in Savanes,” when there’s any aspect of undevelopment mentioned.

Dampiong (pop. ~550) is 12km to the north east of the regional capital of Dapaong. The ethnic group here is primarily Moba with a smattering of Fulani, a primarily nomadic group found in northern Togo, Burkina Faso and further west. In my village there is a Catholic elementary school, a Catholic church: “Ste. Therese,” and a Catholic dispensaire. That is it for the public buildings. The closest marche is Dapaong – a mixed blessing, seeing as I can get anything I want there all year round as it’s a regional capital but if I want toilet paper I still have to go 12km and back on my bike. My heat rash doth protest. Actually in the site description for Dampiong it clearly states “must like riding bikes” and I’m pretty sure I put that down as my hobby on everything they asked me to fill out. Advantage: during the rainy season it seriously looks like the set of Jurassic Park.

Anyway, beside those buildings there are a couple of shacks set up under a large neem tree that could be dubbed the “center of town” where you can buy cigarettes and shots of liquor; one time I even saw the little rubber flip flops that everyone wears here called “tapettes” being sold at one. However, every time I ask someone if it would be possible to sell food as well, even what they grow in their fields to each other without having to go all the way to Dapaong, I get a sad shrug and a “mais les moyens n’est pas la” (“but the money/means isn’t there”). I’ve yet to follow the line of logic on that one but I have heard of Volunteers who set up markets as a big project of theirs, so we’ll see. Besides the cigarette/liquor shacks there are chakpa stands. Chakpa is worthy of its own post in the near future so let it simply be known that it is a fermented millet beer that on a good day tastes like cider and on an average or bad one tastes like varying degrees of kombucha. You can’t throw a rock in my village without hitting a chakpa stand – not that I’ve actually tried that. Yet.

My maison-meme
                I live in the typical Togolese two-roomed structure with a separated outdoor kitchen and a corrugated tin roof. I also have my own compound, which is a walled-in “front yard” area of sorts where you host people when they come to visit. You do NOT invite people inside your house unless you are willing to have them barge in on you from then on. The compound is kind of like the drawing room of old, only outside and you have to kick the occasional goat, chicken, or child out. Typically there are several houses that hold one large family that share a compound, which is not an unusual living situation for Volunteers. In this compound I have what can really only be described as a manger (it’s where I burn my trash, thus not a good place for mankind’s savior to be born), and I planted a little mango tree in a hole of dirt where the cemented floor cracked.

My house faces west, which means that I always have light coming through my windows and I wake up with the sunrise thanks to my east-facing bedroom window. Entering the compound and facing my house, on the far right there is the open-air, walled bathing area where I take my bucket baths (exactly what it sounds like). The room that the front door leads to is my “main area” where I keep my gas stove, work desk and little pantry (“garde-manger”). To the right of the main room is a doorway that leads into my bedroom. I sleep on a lit-picot, which is a woven fold-out cot because it’s frankly too hot for me to be sweating into a vrai mattress. Mosquito net draped above it, natch. Unfortunately ceilings do not come standard with Togolese houses so what I have is a naked corrugated tin roof above me where bats have decided to roost. When I return from my training this upcoming week a bat(tle) will be undertaken against the little (ba)s(t)ards. Bright side: made me look up the word for bat which is “chauve-souris” (bald mouse). I do have a separate room for a kitchen but there are no windows, making it impossible to see… it’s basically a storage room.

Unfortunately my latrine (hole in the ground) is just outside my compound meaning that first thing in the morning I have to leave the privacy of my compound, wrapped in a pagne (bolt of cloth), and wave to people as I’m trying to get business taken care of. I also have to knock loudly on my metal door before I enter because lizards like to hang out there and they like to jump ON the giant who violates their home. Maybe they’re more valiant than we give them credit for?

Frankly, I’m one of the few Volunteers here who doesn’t even have electricity – side note: it makes me wonder how much longer PCVs will be able to say “I lived with no electricity for two years.” If it’s picking up this much in Togo, at least for Volunteers, it may be a matter of a decade before this  Volunteer life-style will die out.

My living situation is by far, at least in my stage, the most rugged and difficult. I’m on par with the NRM Volunteers, who HAVE to work and live out in the boonies.

I've never gone half-way on anything, no.

Thank you for the comments! I'm always thinking of home, and you are what make America home.