TIA THIS IS AFRICA

TIA THIS IS AFRICA

On Friday Katie and I watched Blood Diamond and it was striking how different it was to watch that movie here as opposed to in a cozy family room in the US. The streets in the movie look like the streets here. You see people on the brink of devastation all day, and you begin to understand how tragedies like the diamond crisis or even genocide can happen here. In the movie Danny Archer says, “You come here with your laptop computers, your malaria medicine and your little bottles of hand sanitizer and thank you can change the outcome, huh?” This really got me thinking, because frankly that describes me. But I guess maybe I think I can change the outcome, in small ways. I can become aware and better understand the culture and lifestyle here which is essential to creating a plan to effectively fight poverty. I can find joy and love in the people here and try and build bridges between people to remind us that we are all one humanity. Yes, this is Africa, but we are one people. In the movie they also say “My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise.” Sometimes I feel like that, but often I feel like my experience tells me they are good. People sometimes do awful things but usually it’s an act of desperation or they are lost in life, that doesn’t make them not good. I feel like we are often too quick to jump at calling someone “bad” because it makes it easier to understand why they have done something. I think maybe if we remembered that we are one people, one world, one love we might try to help those people instead of casting them off as evil and no longer a part of the society we want.

By far the most applicable statement in the movie to my everyday life was this:

TIA THIS IS AFRICA

Such a simple statement, yet I can’t even tell you the amount of times it goes through my head throughout a normal day here. When the only option for dinner is again, rice in a bag. This is Africa. When I take my cold shower every day. When you are 1 of 24 people shoved into a tro tro (about the size of a van). When people begin to fight over whose taxi you are going to get in. When you see people going to the bathroom all over the street. When children are taking bucket showers outside. When someone tries to sell you pants, toys, food, phone credit, or artwork through the window. When the power goes out. THIS IS AFRICA. When children run up to you shouting obruni. When adults excitedly tell you about how they want to go to America. When someone proudly shows you their one room shop, which would appear to be a shack if you didn’t know. When you see women carrying 50 loaves of bread perfectly balanced on their heads while balancing a child on their back. THIS IS AFRICA.

THIS IS AFRICA and I realized I am calling it home. We went to Togo for the weekend and as we were returning I had the overwhelming feeling of “I just want to be home, in my room, in my bed” And I didn’t mean Elon or Ephrata Pa, I meant room 133 International Students Hostel Legon, Accra, Ghana. So cool. So this weekend we went to Togo. Here’s the details:

Left at 4 am Saturday from the hostel to get an STC bus to Aflao, a border city. We got there around 10 and began the process of getting a visa and crossing the border. It was quite the system. Basically we all clumped around a desk outside of a building, filled out a form, paid money, and they gave us a stamp. I don’t think it hit me until we were actually in Togo that, oh yeah, these people don’t speak English. Haha, fun times. Using a series of charades and attempts at French we managed to get a cab to a restaurant. This was by far one of the sketchiest restaurants I have been at yet. I stuck with the plain rice, always good. On our walk back into town (Lome) we found a delicious ice-cream store and I got caramel ice-cream on a cone. Again through pointing and acting out we got a cab to a town about an hour north. From there we got a canoe across a lake to Togoville. The canoe ride was a big scary but at the same time very pretty and cool. I like that this is the only way to get there. We arrived in Togoville and the town “guide” greeted us. We said we wanted to find a hotel, but the 2 options were over priced and not very nice so we decided we would just do the tour and go back to Lome. Togoville is supposedly the home of voodoo which is pretty cool. The town has 8000 people and 6000 practice voodoo and the rest are catholic or a mix of both. The people are extremely proud that the Pope visited in 1985 because the Virgin Mary was spotted there. It was interesting to see a bit how Voodoo played a role in everyday life, although since our guide only had broken English and we had zero French it was a little tricky. We got back on the canoe and it was amazing. Sunset, on a fisherman canoe on a lake, looking at mountains, in Togo. Yeah, it was amazing.

We made it back to Lome and found a decent hotel (we had to ask them to turn the water on every time we wanted it and the bed was by far the most uncomfortable thing I have ever slept on in my life). We were about to look for a restaurant when we met this guy wearing a UNC t-shirt. He introduced himself and we told him that we go to school near there. He has studied in London, is from Accra, and was doing some sort of research in Togo. His name was perfect. Rich Gold. He told us he would call us, and he has, twice. We are totally going to hang out with Rich Gold. He got us a cab and paid for it and we ate at a pretty nice Chinese restaurant. I didn’t really sleep at the hotel, so I was exhausted in the morning when we were heading to Kplime. Since my knee was hurting and I was tired I just slept in our hotel there and Katie and Shane went to explore the mountain. I napped and when they got back we went to dinner at a really nice place that turned out to be cheap. I had really yummy French fries and fruit salad and they gave us free French bread. French bread is pretty much the best part of Togo. Ordering food is hilarious, the menu is in French, and the waiters don’t speak English. Luckily Spanish is similar enough to french that on a menu I can usually figure out close to what something is and just point. I have never felt so much like an ignorant American though. These people in little villages in the middle of Togo often knew a little bit of English. They speak their indigenous language, French, and then some English and they’ve probably never left their village. I however, have all the opportunities in the world and I can’t manage to learn more than English and Spanish. We had a nice night’s sleep at our hotel which had a double bed and a single bed! First time in forever we haven’t had 3 in the bed. We woke up early and went to the waterfalls. We had to pay 2000 cfa’s to get there which was kind of upsetting, but they were beautiful and then we started exploring. We found a path to take us into the falls and we got in and played and it was so fun!

To get home we had to take taxi-motos—basically motorcycles which are the common form of transportation in Togo. You just hop on the back and go. We road for probably 30 or 40 minute and it was beautiful. It’s a bit of a balancing act to have your backpack, your side bag, and a bag full of French bread while holding on to your driver. But it works. We got to the border, they checked our visas gave us another 60 days in Ghana and we were good to go! It was funny at first we forgot they could speak English and were trying to mime things. I can’t imagine how Egypt is going to be. Oh boy.

Caught multiple tro tros to make it back to Accra. It felt so good to shower and unpack. Katie and I made a giant fruit salad and had our bread. We also made hot chocolate, our new favorite treat. I can’t believe we leave for EGYPT on Friday!!!!!! So exciting!