Hey there all, as a follow up on the Ethnic issues entry, a Togolese friend would have me add that, in addition to the reasons mentioned, peoples outside their ethnic homeland maintain contact with that homeland in order to insure that in case of their death they have a proper ceremony/ burial. Their death might not be recognized in an ethnically foreign community.
...
I have found a couple new things good for the heart :
The first is helping a woman to load a basin onto her head. Everything from water to bread to chickens seems to be transported in the typical round 2.5-3 ft wide 8 inches deep metallic basin.
Situations where I have found myself helping a woman to load a basin include:
- at a water source, in order to take water back to the household
- after buying bread from a woman who runs a bread business out of the basin on her head.
- after buying cloth from a woman selling cloths out of a basin.
- after buying a coconut from a woman selling coconuts out of a basin.
The second activity is pestling yams into Foufou, a prized food staple similar to pasty, thick, and sticky mashed potatoes. Necessary materials including a pestle 4 or so feet long and a mortar 1.5 feet or so wide, the pestling of the foufou is another job accomplished by women. Often pestling is a group event bringing 2 or 3 folks to the same mortar creating a rhythm created by each pestle hitting the yam filled mortar in turn .
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
the Shell connection
Hoping to promote world peace and mutual understanding among gas station attendants I am proud to announce the informal correspondence or penpalship that has begun between the closest Shell gas station to my post here in Togo and my former place of work, a Shell gas station in Portland, Oregon.
Ethnic issues :
***Josh Here- Chris passed a message through the pipeline to make some changes again. Hopefully I change what I am supposed to! He is well though***
A couple interesting topics came up today that might help to better
understand the workings of the 'typical' African state where so many
different peoples are encircled by arbitrary boundries :
--- This morning while working with a man, who we'll call Basir, from my region who is teaching me the local language, our conversation turned to the origins of his people who have immigrated to areas throughout Togo, aswell as to Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria. According to Basir, the people moved south from Burkina Faso around the time of World War II. A hunter founded the village of *****, now *****, meaning more or less 'where the meat is good.' ***** is now the largest city in *******. ---
The conversation then turned to how one gets a 'certificate of origin,' which from what I have gathered is the first in a long series of documents and obstacles needed to obtain a Togolese national identity card. ---
When independence came around, Basir's family returned to the home region of the ****** in central Togo. Outside the ethnic borders they had been seen as foreigners, with their own language and cultural traditions, even though they were still in Togo. They moved back for at least two reasons. First, inorder to get a 'certificate of origin' one must speak to the local chief where one is residing. As perceived foreigners, the local chief may or may not agree to issue a 'certificate of origin'. The second reason for returning home was, as my friend put it, that 'en cas de qu'est-ce qu'il y a,' literally translated 'in case of a what's wrong or a what's up,' otherwised stated in case of ethnic tensions, one must stay well attached to one's ethnic homeland. ---
Elections were given as an example of an event that might spark ethnic tensions. Immigrants from a ***** region or ***** region might be blamed for having stolen an election. If they have lost all contact with their home village or ethnic region they will be stuck in a foreign land without the ability to return to a safe haven. This, it seems, has happened to many Burkinabè peoples in Ivory Coast who have been identified as foreigners in Ivory Coast even though they might have been born there. Like many immigrants in the United States many Burkinabè immigrated to Ivory Coast in search of jobs. ---
As a result of the marginalization that can affect ethnic foreigners, my friend routinely maintains contact with his ethnic region and makes regular trips to that region with his children so that they may avoid finding themselves without a safe haven. All of this happens on one 'national' territory, be it Togo or the Ivory Coast, and with so many ethnicities spanning West Africa, the true foreign element seems to be the imposed 'modern' state structure itself. I have of course surely glossed over and missed some very important points but I hope that this gives a sense of the different ethnic issues that can arrise. +++
the employee here at the cyber café said that most of what I wrote sounded right but he said that unlike in Ivory Coast, one can find local chiefs of one's own ethnicity through much of Togo. So even though you might be from the north you might still be able to find a chief in the south for your 'Certificate of Origin.' But when you then add a national boundry, as is the case of the Burkinabè in Ivory Coast, things become more complex.
--- This morning while working with a man, who we'll call Basir, from my region who is teaching me the local language, our conversation turned to the origins of his people who have immigrated to areas throughout Togo, aswell as to Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria. According to Basir, the people moved south from Burkina Faso around the time of World War II. A hunter founded the village of *****, now *****, meaning more or less 'where the meat is good.' ***** is now the largest city in *******. ---
The conversation then turned to how one gets a 'certificate of origin,' which from what I have gathered is the first in a long series of documents and obstacles needed to obtain a Togolese national identity card. ---
When independence came around, Basir's family returned to the home region of the ****** in central Togo. Outside the ethnic borders they had been seen as foreigners, with their own language and cultural traditions, even though they were still in Togo. They moved back for at least two reasons. First, inorder to get a 'certificate of origin' one must speak to the local chief where one is residing. As perceived foreigners, the local chief may or may not agree to issue a 'certificate of origin'. The second reason for returning home was, as my friend put it, that 'en cas de qu'est-ce qu'il y a,' literally translated 'in case of a what's wrong or a what's up,' otherwised stated in case of ethnic tensions, one must stay well attached to one's ethnic homeland. ---
Elections were given as an example of an event that might spark ethnic tensions. Immigrants from a ***** region or ***** region might be blamed for having stolen an election. If they have lost all contact with their home village or ethnic region they will be stuck in a foreign land without the ability to return to a safe haven. This, it seems, has happened to many Burkinabè peoples in Ivory Coast who have been identified as foreigners in Ivory Coast even though they might have been born there. Like many immigrants in the United States many Burkinabè immigrated to Ivory Coast in search of jobs. ---
As a result of the marginalization that can affect ethnic foreigners, my friend routinely maintains contact with his ethnic region and makes regular trips to that region with his children so that they may avoid finding themselves without a safe haven. All of this happens on one 'national' territory, be it Togo or the Ivory Coast, and with so many ethnicities spanning West Africa, the true foreign element seems to be the imposed 'modern' state structure itself. I have of course surely glossed over and missed some very important points but I hope that this gives a sense of the different ethnic issues that can arrise. +++
the employee here at the cyber café said that most of what I wrote sounded right but he said that unlike in Ivory Coast, one can find local chiefs of one's own ethnicity through much of Togo. So even though you might be from the north you might still be able to find a chief in the south for your 'Certificate of Origin.' But when you then add a national boundry, as is the case of the Burkinabè in Ivory Coast, things become more complex.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
what will things be like anyway:
Updated Sept.
Here is a general description of what my situation will be like in the village that has taken me as an inhabitant:
The closest Peace Corps volunteer to me will be about 13 miles away. I will be working with local folks to increase their capacity to improve their own quality of life (if I do my job well). They will of course teach me more than I teach them though I will try to keep it even. There is no phone in my village*. There is little cell phone coverage. My toilet is a very clean and comfortable Indian style toilet. The village has no electricity or running water**. A couple months out of the year we will have to walk 2 km for water otherwise there is rain water and well water nearby. There are about 3000 residents in the village. There is tofu in my village. There are no paved roads within 20 km of my village***. Red dirt roads have a certain allure. There is one clear FM station (Radio France Intl)****. There is a market that attracts folks from all over once a week in my village. More about the wonderful people themselves later...
*There is a new "cell phonebooth" in village **there is a generator ***there are no paved roads within 13 miles of my village except one paved road just across the border in a neighboring country which is closer than 13 km. ****There are 4 clear radio stations 1 local 2 regional and the other being Radio France Internationale. PS: My first meal in village was made incredibly delicious by the Indian curry paste that my friends in Portland gave me. The curry paste was the base of a sauce along with condensed milk and oil. This was poured over fried tofu and couscous...very tiku... Tdaniwad
The closest Peace Corps volunteer to me will be about 13 miles away. I will be working with local folks to increase their capacity to improve their own quality of life (if I do my job well). They will of course teach me more than I teach them though I will try to keep it even. There is no phone in my village*. There is little cell phone coverage. My toilet is a very clean and comfortable Indian style toilet. The village has no electricity or running water**. A couple months out of the year we will have to walk 2 km for water otherwise there is rain water and well water nearby. There are about 3000 residents in the village. There is tofu in my village. There are no paved roads within 20 km of my village***. Red dirt roads have a certain allure. There is one clear FM station (Radio France Intl)****. There is a market that attracts folks from all over once a week in my village. More about the wonderful people themselves later...
*There is a new "cell phonebooth" in village **there is a generator ***there are no paved roads within 13 miles of my village except one paved road just across the border in a neighboring country which is closer than 13 km. ****There are 4 clear radio stations 1 local 2 regional and the other being Radio France Internationale. PS: My first meal in village was made incredibly delicious by the Indian curry paste that my friends in Portland gave me. The curry paste was the base of a sauce along with condensed milk and oil. This was poured over fried tofu and couscous...very tiku... Tdaniwad
artemisinin
WHO calls for an immediate halt to provision of single-drug artemisinin malaria pills
This tempers a bit my excitement about cultivating the plant locally...
Child Abuse
an article and an excerpt from my email conversation with a friend:
WEST AFRICA: Children in danger: Battered and bruised
Me: "My neighbor is an elementary school teacher who I have come to respect very much for his mentality and goodheartedness, he is highly supportive of his students and boasts an 85 percent pass rate with other teachers at 50 or less. He was showing me his elementary notebooks that date back before independence and explaining that students' quality of handwriting had gone way down with the outlawing of corporal punishment in schools. He continued that africans need the cane, otherwise nothing gets done, homework and studying purely dont happen without it. My reaction was that there is a motivational problem, that both students dont get or dont see any benefits from going to school or doing homework, and this would be another reason why most just go to Coranic school in my village."
WEST AFRICA: Children in danger: Battered and bruised
Me: "My neighbor is an elementary school teacher who I have come to respect very much for his mentality and goodheartedness, he is highly supportive of his students and boasts an 85 percent pass rate with other teachers at 50 or less. He was showing me his elementary notebooks that date back before independence and explaining that students' quality of handwriting had gone way down with the outlawing of corporal punishment in schools. He continued that africans need the cane, otherwise nothing gets done, homework and studying purely dont happen without it. My reaction was that there is a motivational problem, that both students dont get or dont see any benefits from going to school or doing homework, and this would be another reason why most just go to Coranic school in my village."
the Hope!
Yesterday our Natural Resource/ agricultural tour of Togo, part of our training that is coming to an end, took us to a German NGO in Bassar, Togo. During this visit a number of key natural resource issues were touched on :
Nature’s capacity to act as a pharmacy :
Plants and trees can fulfill much of one’s medecine needs, one of the most promising medicinal plants is the Moringa tree, with its nutritous leaves that provide essential vitamins, protein, and other nutrients. The different uses of the Moringa are seemingly endless. Leaves and seeds can be made into powder and easily be sold, transported, and added to a family’s food. The tree is widely used in Senegal and Mali but has yet to become widely known in Togo. The success stories are numerous and sometimes seem miraculous, maybe this is why they call it « l’arbre de la vie » here or ‘the tree of life’. Moringa is a native tree of INDIA. I hope that my first months of service will allow me to spread the word and the seeds by radio and bike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera
The second extremely promising medicinal plant was the Artemisia anti-malarial plant. The possible benefits to the developing world are mind-boggling if it proves as effective as claimed :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/194160.stm
And so many more medicinal plants, from trees whose leaves can be used as natural fertilizer to seeds whose oil counter acts cataracts. Much of this was known by traditional healers but has been lost in the social upheaval, just like the 3rd century BC iron ore purifying ovens near Bassar, classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site, that the locals have little knowledge of.
Among other issues touched on was wood fuel consumption. One large bag of charcoal (5 ft high) necessitates the cutting down of 1 mature mango tree. When one realizes that much of the fuel used for cooking here is charcoal and that one tree can introduce as much as 740 litres of water per day into the air, having acted as a water bassin during rains, one can further understand the gravity of the deforestation situation. This is without mentioning all the other benefits of trees, from shade to fruit, nut, medecine, and natural pesticide production.
Myself and I think many of the other PC trainees came away from the session enthousiastic about getting started at village. I cannot speak for all of us but whether it be organizing aids awareness trainings, teaching folks how to build more fuel efficient stoves, or how to can tomatoes, we have the feeling that there are some concrete ways in which we will be able to aid our villages.
Nature’s capacity to act as a pharmacy :
Plants and trees can fulfill much of one’s medecine needs, one of the most promising medicinal plants is the Moringa tree, with its nutritous leaves that provide essential vitamins, protein, and other nutrients. The different uses of the Moringa are seemingly endless. Leaves and seeds can be made into powder and easily be sold, transported, and added to a family’s food. The tree is widely used in Senegal and Mali but has yet to become widely known in Togo. The success stories are numerous and sometimes seem miraculous, maybe this is why they call it « l’arbre de la vie » here or ‘the tree of life’. Moringa is a native tree of INDIA. I hope that my first months of service will allow me to spread the word and the seeds by radio and bike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera
The second extremely promising medicinal plant was the Artemisia anti-malarial plant. The possible benefits to the developing world are mind-boggling if it proves as effective as claimed :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/194160.stm
And so many more medicinal plants, from trees whose leaves can be used as natural fertilizer to seeds whose oil counter acts cataracts. Much of this was known by traditional healers but has been lost in the social upheaval, just like the 3rd century BC iron ore purifying ovens near Bassar, classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site, that the locals have little knowledge of.
Among other issues touched on was wood fuel consumption. One large bag of charcoal (5 ft high) necessitates the cutting down of 1 mature mango tree. When one realizes that much of the fuel used for cooking here is charcoal and that one tree can introduce as much as 740 litres of water per day into the air, having acted as a water bassin during rains, one can further understand the gravity of the deforestation situation. This is without mentioning all the other benefits of trees, from shade to fruit, nut, medecine, and natural pesticide production.
Myself and I think many of the other PC trainees came away from the session enthousiastic about getting started at village. I cannot speak for all of us but whether it be organizing aids awareness trainings, teaching folks how to build more fuel efficient stoves, or how to can tomatoes, we have the feeling that there are some concrete ways in which we will be able to aid our villages.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Monsieur le botaniste
Until I have a riper reflection, I thought I would share a bit about
one of the many courageous Togolese who are finding creative ways to
improve the life of their compatriots.
Here are some points I noted from a talk with a Togolese botanist and self-declared peasant but first let me give a small historical description:.
Monsieur le botaniste, as I will call him, established a home on a plot of land at the top of a hill that had become barren, due to the population's need for wood fuel, and feared by the surrounding population for its bad spirits. The first thing he did was to establish a fire break to halt the bush fires that regularly scorch the landscape and render reforestation and soil regeneration extremely difficult. At the time his wife had to travel 1.5 hrs for wood with which to cook. Ten years of work later, the hill around his home is a regular forest, and his wife no longer travels for wood, needing only to harvest branches and dead wood from the reforested area. This leads me to the first of the points that I found particularly interesting while talking to him:
-In order to cross the threshold of subsistence (this threshold being where one can get ahead year after year instead of just producing enough to survive, this is where most of the togolese farmers, who constitute between 70 and 90% of the Togolese workforce, find themselves) Monsieur le botaniste and his family have discovered different ways of saving time. EX: the wife of Monsieur le botaniste no longer has to look for wood, she can dedicate her time to canning tomatoes for the family and income generation, or extracting oil from Neem tree seeds to create natural pesticides.
-Monsieur le botaniste has a principle : one should perfect the activity which allows one to live, in his case the working of the land. This principle, helped by his degree in botany, has led him to better understand the environment in order to better serve that environment which when treated well can serve Monsieur le botaniste so well. He has employed integrated agricultural techniques, agroforestry, innovative animal husbandry and composting, and a healthy dose of allowing nature to regenerate itself. The benefits are too numerous to list off but this creates a cycling of nutrients throughout the farm that leads to richer soil, and more varied diets for the family.
-Monsieur le botaniste believes that transparency and equality should reign in the household. This way everyone is motivated to be involved, everyone benefits from the amelioration of the family's wellbeing, and there isn't the dishonesty such as a wife hiding money from a tyrannical husband that occurs in many families. This equality may have been what led Monsieur to be the first African to reject my thanking him for the tasty dinner, stating that I should thank his wife for having prepared it, others have show little thanks for the work of their wives.
-Monsieur sees humans as having 4 fundamental needs and says the rest is more or less luxury: Nutrition, Health/ Medecine, Clothing, and Education At harvest time Monsieur and the family set aside a certain portion of the harvest for each of these needs and this is their form of accounting and planning.
-At the base of all this one gets the sense in talking to Monsieur le botaniste that he has a different mentality than many around here. Less eloquently stated it is the idea that things can be better and that one can learn how to make them better, a kind of future oriented mentality that reminds me of the United States.
Well, that is all for now, thanks for your good vibrations, If I haven't returned them it is probably the less than speedy metaphysical mail service here in Togo that is at fault...
other things:
First, I had said earlier that Peace Corps never stops impressing on me the ability for governments to create mutual understanding between peoples. I would modify that just a bit to say that governments can create canals between peoples that allow them to understand each other, and this because, as Ms. Difranco states, "God's work isn't done by God, It's done by people." I guess the same goes for government work.
Secondly, The power went out while writing this and a funny thing happened: The Muslim call to prayer over loud-speakers went right on despite the lightening and thunder, while Togo's connection to the high-speed, super-connected world was down. Religion is always there for the Togolese, the benefits are all around them and the mosque is never down like the internet or their hope of actually getting something in return for the university education. All this pushes Togolese towards religion and discourages going the route of the renaissance man, to school and towards the promises of development etc.
I mentioned that Islam seemed to fill an organizational void in my village when it arrived centuries ago. Islam seems to have just done the same in Somalia where newsweek said that "Islam has done in 15 days what the international community hasn't been able to accomplish in 15 years." Islam seems pretty good at this, just yesterday while in the quite muslim Sokodé, our Peace Corps driver said "look at the volunteers they are being proper and taking off their shoes before entering the house just like Muslims."
Also interesting was the fact that while the lights were out many of the folks around spoke French instead of local language, it seems that the type of person who frequents the internet cafe is a pan-Togolese citizen, someone that uses more French because they have gone to school and are connected to a larger base of people with whom communication requires a more widely spoken language than their native local language. An African scholar on the radio referred to the imposed languages, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, as languages of greater access to the outside world. On the other hand, speaking only local language, however brilliant or eloquent one may be, creates a huge barrier that the same African scholar referred to as the African intellectual holocaust.
Here are some points I noted from a talk with a Togolese botanist and self-declared peasant but first let me give a small historical description:.
Monsieur le botaniste, as I will call him, established a home on a plot of land at the top of a hill that had become barren, due to the population's need for wood fuel, and feared by the surrounding population for its bad spirits. The first thing he did was to establish a fire break to halt the bush fires that regularly scorch the landscape and render reforestation and soil regeneration extremely difficult. At the time his wife had to travel 1.5 hrs for wood with which to cook. Ten years of work later, the hill around his home is a regular forest, and his wife no longer travels for wood, needing only to harvest branches and dead wood from the reforested area. This leads me to the first of the points that I found particularly interesting while talking to him:
-In order to cross the threshold of subsistence (this threshold being where one can get ahead year after year instead of just producing enough to survive, this is where most of the togolese farmers, who constitute between 70 and 90% of the Togolese workforce, find themselves) Monsieur le botaniste and his family have discovered different ways of saving time. EX: the wife of Monsieur le botaniste no longer has to look for wood, she can dedicate her time to canning tomatoes for the family and income generation, or extracting oil from Neem tree seeds to create natural pesticides.
-Monsieur le botaniste has a principle : one should perfect the activity which allows one to live, in his case the working of the land. This principle, helped by his degree in botany, has led him to better understand the environment in order to better serve that environment which when treated well can serve Monsieur le botaniste so well. He has employed integrated agricultural techniques, agroforestry, innovative animal husbandry and composting, and a healthy dose of allowing nature to regenerate itself. The benefits are too numerous to list off but this creates a cycling of nutrients throughout the farm that leads to richer soil, and more varied diets for the family.
-Monsieur le botaniste believes that transparency and equality should reign in the household. This way everyone is motivated to be involved, everyone benefits from the amelioration of the family's wellbeing, and there isn't the dishonesty such as a wife hiding money from a tyrannical husband that occurs in many families. This equality may have been what led Monsieur to be the first African to reject my thanking him for the tasty dinner, stating that I should thank his wife for having prepared it, others have show little thanks for the work of their wives.
-Monsieur sees humans as having 4 fundamental needs and says the rest is more or less luxury: Nutrition, Health/ Medecine, Clothing, and Education At harvest time Monsieur and the family set aside a certain portion of the harvest for each of these needs and this is their form of accounting and planning.
-At the base of all this one gets the sense in talking to Monsieur le botaniste that he has a different mentality than many around here. Less eloquently stated it is the idea that things can be better and that one can learn how to make them better, a kind of future oriented mentality that reminds me of the United States.
Well, that is all for now, thanks for your good vibrations, If I haven't returned them it is probably the less than speedy metaphysical mail service here in Togo that is at fault...
other things:
First, I had said earlier that Peace Corps never stops impressing on me the ability for governments to create mutual understanding between peoples. I would modify that just a bit to say that governments can create canals between peoples that allow them to understand each other, and this because, as Ms. Difranco states, "God's work isn't done by God, It's done by people." I guess the same goes for government work.
Secondly, The power went out while writing this and a funny thing happened: The Muslim call to prayer over loud-speakers went right on despite the lightening and thunder, while Togo's connection to the high-speed, super-connected world was down. Religion is always there for the Togolese, the benefits are all around them and the mosque is never down like the internet or their hope of actually getting something in return for the university education. All this pushes Togolese towards religion and discourages going the route of the renaissance man, to school and towards the promises of development etc.
I mentioned that Islam seemed to fill an organizational void in my village when it arrived centuries ago. Islam seems to have just done the same in Somalia where newsweek said that "Islam has done in 15 days what the international community hasn't been able to accomplish in 15 years." Islam seems pretty good at this, just yesterday while in the quite muslim Sokodé, our Peace Corps driver said "look at the volunteers they are being proper and taking off their shoes before entering the house just like Muslims."
Also interesting was the fact that while the lights were out many of the folks around spoke French instead of local language, it seems that the type of person who frequents the internet cafe is a pan-Togolese citizen, someone that uses more French because they have gone to school and are connected to a larger base of people with whom communication requires a more widely spoken language than their native local language. An African scholar on the radio referred to the imposed languages, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, as languages of greater access to the outside world. On the other hand, speaking only local language, however brilliant or eloquent one may be, creates a huge barrier that the same African scholar referred to as the African intellectual holocaust.
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