Ranting in my village

November 30, 2010

I live in Africa.  I live in Togo.  It still hasn't sunk in, it is so bizarre how normal my life seems to me that every now and then I stop and remember: "this is my life now, this is different from america in almost every way."  Its amazing how quickly a person can adjust to new things.  When I first arrived in Togo, I found it a little challenging to take a cold overhead shower in our hotel room.  The last time I was in Lome, I was so excited to take any kind of shower that was overhead it could have had ice in it.  That being said, transport of water has put an entirely new cost on my water use.  Running water is so inexpensive and convenient, that we use it without thinking of how much we are wasting.  My water efficiency here is something I've always wanted to achieve, but now its a necessity, not a choice.  I take a shower in a basin, and use that water to flush my toilet.  I feel so green.

Some of my favorite things, since arriving in village, are the sunrise and sunset from my house, walks out to the fields, the sounds of birds and drums, and being surrounded by flowers.  There is limited light pollution, so the stars on a dark night are pretty fantastic.

One of my least favorite things is black plastic bags.  Everything is sold in some sort of sachet, salt, sugar, beans, veggies, you name it.  You can buy sacks and be sent home with them in a sack.  I would be willing to say that they could be one of the worst things to happened to the african environment.  There is absolutely no education as to the ills that these bags cause in the ground.  There is no trash service or recycling here, what ever you consume you must either burn or find a way to reuse, or more often than not throw is on the ground and walk away.   After you throw it on the ground, the plastic will then leak all sorts of nasty stuff, like phthalates and bisphenol A, into the ground and probably contaminate the fields that food is grown in and ground water. 

Speaking of contamination!  The kids that go to the elementary schools refuse to use the latrines nearby, so everytime I walk out of my concession during the school day there are a number of children in the field outside my house squatting with their pants down pooping.  The last volunteer tried to educate the students about disease transmission and fecal related diseases, but i hear that latrines are dark and scary places for kids, so I guess I sort of understand why one wouldn't want to go in there. Still it is soooo wrong.  The road next to my house and one that passes by the other elementary school in village smell like port-o-potties.   I guess you can build a child a latrine, but you can't necessarily make them use it…

To bring both of these issues together, with a third one, there are tons of animals that roam free here all the time.  I have no idea who owns the goats, sheep, chickens, or pigs that can be found on my property at any time.  I don't entirely mind.  The goats eat my food scraps so they are fine by me.  The problem is that these animals are often seen rooting through the piles of trash and black plastic bags that the kids have been pooping on.  So we have pretty global food contamination.  Michael Pollan likes to say that you are what you eat eats.  Well, if I'm eating meat from my village, then I am eating trash, plastic bags, and little kids' shit.  Who knew that moving to Togo would make me consider vegetarianism.  

All that being said, I am a girls education volunteer…  I have been going to school most days to watch an english teacher in preparation for having my own classes come January.  I will be teaching two 6th grade classes totaling 120 students.  I have counted a total of about 35 girls.  I watched my counterpart teaching english to 11th graders and there were about 7 in a class of 50.  Furthermore, there are no female teachers in my school.  I don't even know if there are any in my whole village.  I met a girl named Delphine on the way to school today who is in her final year of high school and wants to go to university to study medicine, if she can find the means to do so.  I told her if she wants to go, she can find a way to find the means.  Where there is a will there is a way.  There are so many challenges to getting as far as she has, that I don't see why she should let money get in the way of studying medicine. This is the contrast.  There are girls who are succeeding, its just such a small number.  How do I make sure that all 30 of my students stay in school, how do I encourage more girls to continue their education?  I guess we shall just have to wait and see what happens.