A trip north...

It is 4:45 AM and the sounds of Atakpamé are alive. The roosters are crowing as they do every morning about this time, and they have a distinctive sound. Wish I could send that along with this message, and project it into your room at 4:30 so you could get that same feeling that we get. The Muslims are also projecting over the loudspeaker, yes, at 4:30 AM, their “call to prayer/worship.” The musical part of it is kind of haunting and nice. The fact that they do this over a loudspeaker, at least five times a day, whenever they want, is a little unnerving. The Muslims are a minority % of the population, somewhere between 35-50% I’ve read doesn’t seem to matter. They are forcing everyone to hear their call, asleep, involved in their own worship or quiet time, working, or whatever. Sounds like, from C & W, that there is a protestant (they aren’t sure what kind of newer church it is) church down the street, that puts their worship over the loudspeaker on Sunday mornings too, and they really don’t like that as the “pastor” is a fire-and-brimstone preacher, and gets really mad at the people, and is not fun to listen to, but everyone within earshot gets to listen whether they want to or not. The sounds must not bother the people as I haven’t heard any complaints. The people don’t seem to be bothered by much at all. They all just seem to keep doing their activities of daily living. I don’t see much else in their faces than joy and happiness. The white teeth really show through, as we wave to them, and they all get this big smile and wave back. Gotta get the wave down though, as waving side-to-side means “hi,” and up and down means “come over here.” We’ve had some fun with that one.

We have had a wonderful three days away from Atakpamé. We have seen some gorgeous countryside, and LOTS of wonderful people. We have also met so many PCV’s along the way. It’s interesting, as we drive through a town or village, and, from out of the crowds of people milling around, somewhere, someone in the car will say, “there’s a white person," and it is almost always a PCV. There aren’t many of us!! We definitely stick out. And also, as we drive in our van, with Julianna in the front seat, that draws the attention of lots of men that yell out, or give signals to, our driver, saying how lucky he is to have “us” in the car with him. I think Julianna has gotten 15 marriage proposals. It takes them at least 4 to 5 seconds to make that kind of decision. It would be interesting to hear about each PCV that we’ve met, as they each have their own stories, obviously, but they all seem to love C & W. We’ve had meals with almost all of them, and seen some of their houses also. It seems clear that the ones working in the SBD (small business development), like C & W, have the best living conditions. That is due to the fact that they work with people that are trying to do “business” which is more in the cities than the small outside villages. The businesses range from selling bananas, to tailoring, well, you get it. The cities offer some chance of running water, and inside toilets, so the conditions are better. The natural resources management people are mostly out in small villages, and their situations are quite different. You won’t hear complaints from any of the volunteers we’ve met, about that though, as it actually seems to me that some of them actually like it the “worse” (from my perspective) it is. It doesn’t seem as if they are actually desiring it, but it is what they expected coming in, so it’s OK with them. They make-do with what they have. It is pretty clear that it is part of the make up of all the V’s we’ve met, that they want to live simply, and without lots of the “things” that get in our way of a simple life. Some of them have gotten rid of almost everything they had, given it away, or whatever, and come with everything they own (which isn’t much—even here). We have met mostly students (and they all seem to be working on some things for their further education), and many are writing theses, or going over to Ghana to take their graduate exams to get into grad school, in many different fields. Others have been stockbrokers, nurses, engineers (guess who?), etc, They really form a community also, and have their own “gossip” and it’s interesting to see how it “gets around.”

Our first day away we visited the factory of Codhani. This is where handicapped people make special cloths, and then into tablecloths, spreads, dresses/shirts, etc. We have many pictures from this wonderful experience, as we took pictures of each and every person, and then showed the pictures of each to them, and they got the same huge smiles on their faces as everyone else that we’ve done that with. Only two exceptions for me, as I showed them their pictures and they didn’t respond at all, just keeping on working. Not sure why they were different, from that respect, until another of the workers pointed out that they were blind! We saw (had one of the ones in charge take us on the tour) each step of the process, from the cloth, to design, to the marking on the cloth, to waxing the parts that would remain white, and not take on the color of the dye when dipped, and then the re-waxing, re-dyeing, rinsing, cutting, sewing, ironing, hanging, etc, with each having their own specific job along the production line. Quite a process, and so much fun to see and then BUY. It was very easy to buy things there, partly for helping them, and mostly because we think they product is very nice. I hope I feel the same way when I get home and look at the items there. No pictures here, as it’s too hard to just pick one.

The first picture is from a quick stop out in the country on the way to Tamberma Valley. There were a couple of kids, and nothing else much, it looked like, for miles. We started taking some pictures, and showing them, and then a few more kids came out of seemingly nowhere, then some adults. One of the women didn’t want us to take pictures without giving them some money, or a gift. I thought of the balloons I had along and put some in my pocket, and thought we’d give them each one. Thus, the picture, dubbed “new toys” by Wayne. Oh for getting excited so much about something so simple. Not to say that our grandkids don’t get excited over balloons, however, as I HAVE seen the same kind of excitement there.

The countryside, which we had kind of expected to be quite warm and dry, was instead, VERY lush and green and beautiful. This is the area of the country that has the Tatas, homes built of mud and sticks, with no tools used, that have quite a history, especially from when it sounds like they started, back in the slave trade days. They are in an area of the country, far away from the coast where the trading was done, and it amazes us to think that “whoever” came all that way to find/steal them to bring back to “sell” at the coast. It is probably a 10-15 hour drive (depending on the road conditions) trip. Anyway, they built these homes, with animals below, and small areas to live (bedrooms?) built in little bubbles on top. They are still doing this, and the homes need to be “repaired” twice each year. The PCV up there, who took us to see the “chief’s home” said that they understand they last somewhere between 30-60 years, depending on who you ask. When the “man of the house” dies, I understand that they take off a couple of the thatched points from the top of the house. There are many fetishes around, and in, the houses, to keep the bad things away. In the picture of the tata, you can get a pretty good picture of what one looks like, and how beautiful the countryside was, and we have lots of other pictures to prove it. It will soon stop raining up there, (we had plenty, but only in the car—and I mean rain IN the car, but never when we were out walking, etc.), and will turn brown and deserty. The rain in the car was one of those extra African experiences. It was leaking pretty badly in 3 places. One over Cate and one over me. We kept wiping up, but it didn’t really matter about getting wet—no big deal. It dries. The driver came the morning after and had put some tape over what he thought was causing the leak. As we drove, and it began to rain, we found out that he had probably repaired the wrong leaks. Then he asked some people where he could find some “scotch” (glad he meant tape), and drove into this village, over their wonderful dirt, rocky roads, and went in to a store, and came out with a sheet of old plastic wrapper. Then we drove to the gas station (did I mention $4-yes DOLLARS-a gallon?), and he started working on attaching the plastic. Many men came to help, and it was quite a process. I had a chocolate frozen Fan Milk while we waited. Ummmm good. They got it taped up pretty good in about ½ hour. The driver gave a couple of them a coin, and they were to share with the others, I guess. No one seemed bothered by it, and were glad to help us—I think they actually just liked being around yovo’s, and especially one being a pretty young female.

The picture of the chief’s wife is one of my favorites. I snuck inside one little area, following her, and took this and one other. It was actually quite clear that she didn’t want her picture taken, but we had paid the chief, and he said to take as many as we wanted (this is a “regular” occurrence, by the way), so I felt OK. He has 3 wives, and we only saw two of them. One said it was OK to take her picture, but had a headache, and wanted medicine from us first. Julianna got a couple of Ibuprofen and she took those. Not smiley people, except for the chief, but very interesting!