My Life Today

I woke up this morning to the sound of women sweeping their dirt courtyards around 5 AM. Life in Togo doesn’t need an alarm clock, because like clock work the work of the day starts just before sun up. I drank my coffee, ate some breakfast, then went to visit a villager that is the closest thing I have to a friend. She is suffering frequently in her health, but today I found out that she is upset because one of her adopted daughters has run away. This girl is a blood relative, and both of her parents died of AIDS. I have also been told that at the age of 12 she has already been raped twice. I’ve never asked the details of how or when that happened, but I can understand that this girl is living with grief that most people will never understand. Her “mother” can be a bit harsh in giving advice for life, but only because she wants the best for her. I also see how that is likely not the approach that will work to help this girl find joy in her life and want to move forward. My friend was so sad that I found myself crying with her.

After lots of “if god permits” and other gossip, I set off for Tabligbo where I ate lunch and shopped the market with two new volunteers. I love to spend time with the new volunteers because it really shows you how much you have learned but also helps you to remember your optimism and motivation to work from when you arrived. It is hard not to become cynical at times. I worry about whether or not I will have an impact or whether I will ever achieve anything in my time here. However, I just need to remember the Huffington Post article about what PC teaches about failure to feel like I’m doing exactly what I should.

Speaking of being cynical, I was asked for food by the children that live behind me this evening. Almost every day that I am in village they children come to my door, scan my living room, and then proceed to ask “Afi, give me ...insert what ever they see...) The children look fairly healthy, no distended belly or misshaped head. However it pulls at my heart strings wondering if they do or do not have anything to eat. My cynicism wont allow me to give them anything because when I do they just keep coming back like I’m the food bank (or stuff bank, because they are typically more interested in my things than food). We have these uneducated ideas in more developed countries that children are all starving and what a pity that they do not have pants or shoes. One thing I have learned in Togo is that these kids have shoes. They just choose not to wear them. I think they know that “white” people think of them as needy, so they play the role to a T. Togolese make excellent actors. Which is not to say that there is not real poverty and real need in my community. I would just say that it is more cleverly disguised than a lack of pants. There is very real gender inequality. There are pressing and urgent sanitation issues, and people suffer. However, they don’t suffer the way we think we they do in our imagination because they don’t have washing machines.

Right now, as I am about to get ready for bed, there is an all night funeral just getting underway. I can expect to hear music for the next two days while this family spends most of their annual income to properly honor the death of a loved one. This is just a day in my life in Togo.