A chief principle to guide us

Date: 18 December 2007

Well, another week has passed and time is suddenly starting to feel like it's zooming by. I'm pretty much halfway through my stay here - can't really believe it.


This week's been pretty good - we've been going out to the villages, doing our thing. These visits are organised by the Department of Social Affairs. The program involves about 50 villages in the Maritime Region of Togo, and representatives of Social Affairs in collaboration with CTM prepare presentations in order to sensitise the populations about problems such as violence against children, sexual abuse, child trafficking, depriving children of an education by forcing them to work instead of going to school - serious problems that are very much real, especially in the villages. So our performers, after a serious presentation from the Social Affairs people, do a light-hearted skit - usually gets everyone laughing, and I think on some level it relaxes them so that after the skit, when they are asked about what issues arose, and whether they have any remarks, everyone is very open and willing to talk, sharing experiences, asking questions, and so on.


I've also been taught a few sentences to say in Ewe to introduce the performances and to introduce myself - every time I get a roar of laughter followed by applause. Man, speaking a language you don't know, and not knowing how badly you're butchering it, and then having people laugh or imitate you in a slightly mocking tone, will slightly crush your confidence in that language. I just have to not be self-conscious about it and laugh at myself. It's still fun though. I'm sure they initially expect me to start talking in French, so the look on their face when I start talking in their local language is quite funny.

Now that we're visiting more and more villages, I'm finding it really interesting how you get different responses from the people there. After the first couple of villages, I thought, wow, very encouraging, everyone's all for it, very receptive, all the village chiefs attend it and make sure that everyone knows about it. But this week has been a bit more of a challenge. We've been to a couple of villages where, when we get there, only the Social Affairs folk are there, and maybe a couple of the people who live there, and we end up waiting around for at least an hour for a reasonable group to gather so that we can begin. Yesterday, the chief didn't even bother coming, even though he'd been told about it several times. Everyone seemed really disheartened - one guy told me that a lot of the time the chiefs don't give these problems the weight that they deserve. They choose not to see the problems latent in their communities, and ignore it as if it doesn't exist, or if they acknowledge that they do exist, they deliberately ignore them.

Okay so, chiefs. Slight change of tone but I found this hilarious and couldn't stop laughing for a while. Last week, just before I was leaving to go out for dinner, Elom says, "HEY, WAIT FOR ME, I ate too much so I'll go greet the chief and then I'm coming with you."

Greet the chief...?
Rasha wonders whether something was lost in translation, and what she just missed, but chuckles quietly. Then Clara says to me, "Greet the chief - it means that she wants to go make kaka first so that she'll have space to eat with you."

I stared at her in shock for a while, thinking - um, did you, this matronly, 50+ year old woman who is actually quite strict and extremely religious, just talk to me about poo?

My stare must've begged clarification because she went on to say, "In Ewe, kaka also means chief, so when you say you are going to greet the chief, it means you need to go to the toilet."

At this point, I erupted in laughter. HOW GOOD IS THAT? Greeting the chief. I have to go greet the chief. Oh yeah, he just had to go and greet the chief. Hey, have you greeted the chief today? (Note: I started getting carried away just now, thinking of various ways of incorporating this incredible metaphor into anything poo-related, typed it all out then deleted it because I'm too disgusting).

Greeting the chief huh. Greeeeeting the chief. Can everyone please start using that from now on? Please? Amazing.

Speaking of chiefs (actual chiefs, not number 2) - yesterday we went to the home of the chief (to greet him - HAHAH) that refused to come to the presentation, and about halfway through the visit, the lady next to me turns to me and says quietly, "Oh.. Rasha.. the chief said he would like to marry you."

I laughed. Haha. That's cool, you know, token sentence to say to an unsuspecting Yovo.

She doesn't laugh. She just looks at me, looks back at the chief, and at everyone else in the room who has gone kind of quiet. My eyes shift from right to left.... I think... does he.. want.. uh, an answer?

I nervously laughed again. Hahahahah.

Why is nobody else laughing. The chief says something. She translates, "He said if you have a husband, it's okay, but if you don't have a husband, he will marry you."

What do you mean to say, when you say he will marry me? Do I have a say in the matter? (I'm sensationalising this a little as you can tell)

I smiled demurely. Luckily it was time to go so we all have to go around and shake hands with everyone, when it was my turn to shake the chief's hand, he held it firmly, grinned at me broadly, raised his eyebrows and then gave me an inquisitive thumbs-up, and said, "Ok???"

I jokingly said, "hahaha okay" and we went on our way.
Hopefully that wasn't binding and I haven't just betrothed myself to a 70+ year old toothless man, who I could call kaka if I wanted to.

All In A Day's Work

Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007

WOW. Today was an amazing day. I finally felt like I was here to do what I came for. Kind of hard to explain - but I'll try. Even though I tried to eliminate all kinds of expectations before coming here, I constantly had this picture in my mind of what I'd be doing, and today was the realisation of that picture. Note that when I say "picture" I mean an actual picture - a certain scene, certain colours, certain people, etc. It was one of those moments where your imagination, your dreams, and reality combine and you feel extremely balanced, and centred, and like everything has come full circle. It was incredible. And it's set in motion events that are probably going to last until the end of my internship. I shall explain.

Okay, so I think I mentioned before that part of what CTM does, is the teenagers/early-twentysomethings go around to various villages and perform skits and songs that aim to sensitise the local populations about children's rights. Today was our first trip out to a couple of the villages - the entire day I had this sense of well-being and wholesomeness. A couple of posts ago I was sort of down and out about the state of the world, but today was like the universe's reply to that - because I saw things, and met people, which reassured me that nothing is static. Progress is being made whether we realise it or not; there are good people in the world - lots of them! And they're doing great things. And even if we don't come into contact with a lot of them, there are forces beyond us, working behind the scenes, making things happen.

I travelled with the Director, and a few of the performers - a very long ride in a rickety old car in the scorching heat, but the entire experience was non-stop enjoyable. We all met up at 6.30am, but good old African time did it's thing and we hit the road at about 8.30am. Fine though (I almost said that I'm getting used to African time, but I'd be lying - getting better slowly though).

Me and a couple of the guys in the skits - Selom (yellow) and Dwak (white):

Squished in the backseat in the rickety old car (clearly I'm pondering some weighty questions about the world [I was actually thinking about how I'd kill for a Coke at this point])

You're probably going to have a really hard time finding me in this picture since I blend in so well.

Outside the home of the village chief

I was very apprehensive about accepting this drink since it smelled like nail polish remover. They assured me there was no alcohol, so I took a sip, nearly died, and thought it was better to leave it at that.

This guy next to me, Selom, is a life-saver. He's become my personal interpreter and it's been SUCH an enormous help. At this event they were talking about the importance of registering births and issuing birth certificates for children, and how that will affect their rights and opportunities in the future - as you can see I'm concentrating very very hard. Oh yes.

What I loved about today was that I saw in front of me people taking initiative to address issues in their communities, and they did it in a way that wasn't blaming anyone, or scolding anyone. It was light-hearted, informative (based on the translation I got), and seeing the looks on the faces of the audience was really cool - lots of nodding and sounds of agreement, lots of smiles, just a very positive atmosphere in general. We're going again tomorrow, and I can't wait. I'm determined now to learn more sentences in Ewe so that I can have some simple conversations with the locals. "My name is Rasha, I live in New Zealand" leaves more to be desired, plus I feel very lame ending it at that.

Will keep posting more pics and more of my rantings! Hope they're not heinously boring :D
By the way, does the system of most recent blog post to least recent post bother anyone else? I find it very unnatural, even though I know it's meant to be more logical. But still. Annoying.