It is pretty much impossible to sleep in here…
Every morning at 6am on the dot, I am pulled from my sleep by the scrape-scrape-scrape-scrape of the night guard sweeping the front yard of petit suisse…his broom is a bundle of reeds tied together, and he is sweeping mango leaves, dead termites and dirt off of the stones and into a pile to be burned later in the day. This sound has become the staple annoyance of my day (heard all over Kpalimé at all hours, in fact) to the point that I roll over and laugh now when I hear it interrupting my haze of dream-sleep. Some days I silently curse him in my drowsy stupor, then start laughing to myself again and put on my headphones to try to drown it out for one more hour of sleep. Doesn’t usually work. By that time, Kpalimé is awake and my desire for another few minutes of beauty sleep is of no concern.
Roosters have been crowing for hours, aimlessly wandering the quiet morning streets pecking at the dirt, hoping for a kernel. Babies and small children are hungry and crying in every corner of the quartier, or strapped on their mothers backs with a colorful pagne, dozing off again as these patient women set up their stands on the side of the road for another day of miniscule potential profit. If it is a weekend, boisterous soccer teams parade by chanting, singing and drumming in Ewe. Carpenters hammer and saw, installing a new door here and a shutter there, improvement is a constant, yet ironically stagnant process here. Nothing is still in the morning, as this is the coolest time of day, and the most comfortable time to be moving around, before the sun is at its height.
After my cold shower, which is actually quite refreshing, where I wash my hair with a bar of soap (I ran out of shampoo quickly, not realizing I wouldn’t be able to buy more…) I open my room to air it out during the day when there aren’t as many mosquitoes. Then I struggle with the stubborn lock on my door and step out into the balmy humidity of the hallway. I wander down to have my breakfast. Waiting on the nearest table is always a glass, a cup and saucer and a fork with a napkin folded in it – some days it is a fan, sometimes a butterfly, sometimes a rose. Kossi and Felize, the apprentices, find it amusing to change it daily. I have the same thing for breakfast every day – scrambled eggs with onions and a sliced roll, which is (sometimes) fresh from one of the vendors just outside the gate. I drink Nescafe without milk, as it is always warm and halfway curdled, with 2 sugar cubes. While I haven’t gotten sick of this routine yet, every once in a while I can’t finish the coffee because it’s just not good, haha, and I miss the dark roast of a
Soon I look at my cellphone for the time, bid goodbye to Mensah, Felize and Kossi (Akpene is usually au service – at work) and head out the gate for the short walk to the FECECAV office. The distance between the gate of Petit Suisse and the gate of FECECAV is about 20 feet, but it takes me a good 5-7 minutes to get there because of all the stops and greetings I make along the way. It is a cheerful and energizing commute, with all of these morning people. Much better than the F train or the
First I pass the boutique that belongs to Daniel’s wife. She sells an assortment of essential items, from bagged water and Togocell cards to onion, tomatoes and canned goods, to the occasional boubou and nail polish, depending on what she’s picked up in Lomé this month. I never know who will be manning the shop, as it changes throughout the day. In the morning it is usually grand-mére, as Grace and Jesu are at school and Maman is au marché. She is, as always, munching on her dentille (the sticks that Africans use to clean their teeth, which are sold in lieu of toothbrushes.) She waves and smiles, muttering in a mixture of Ewe, French and Kabyé. Kabyé is the language spoken in the North, which is where Daniel is from and is grand-mére’s native language. She and I generally communicate through this mélange of languages, taking cues from each other’s body language and the handful words that we commonly understand in all three languages. Note that Grace and Jesu, both under age 10, speak all three…
As I pass, the mechanics across the street, lazing about on tires and/or fixing a busted moto, hiss at me and I wave and pretend not to be annoyed. I keep walking. Soon I pass Koffise (pronounced KofitCHO,) my friend who sells l’essence et l’huile (gas and motor oil) just outside FECECAV’s gate. Koffise is stunningly handsome, tall and very thin, with bottomless brown eyes and dimpled creases that emanate from his smile in rows of concentric circles. He has uneven tribal scars cut into his high cheekbones and often wears black eyeliner under his eyes, drawing even more attention to their mischievous glimmer. Thus far I have seen him every day in the same red courdouroys, slightly stained with dark oil but surprisingly clean, and red plastic sandals. He alternates between a filthy white sleeveless shirt and a striped one, showing off his muscled biceps – despite their small circumference, they exude strength and look as though they have been chiseled to perfection. He wears his cellulaire around his neck in a black pouch. Every week, Koffise fills plastic buckets with gas and motor oil at the Texaco station in town, transfers it to old liquor bottles and re-sells it to moto drivers. He also does ad-hoc mechanical work for some of his customers and FECECAV employees, due to his convenient location. Every time I enter or leave FECECAV Koffise is there smiling and chatting through the perfectly spaced gaps in his teeth, either pouring l’essence into a moto’s tank with a funnel or sprawling his lanky appendages over his moto or the grappling roots of the huge tree that shade his stand.
As I reach the concrete ramp that leads through FECECAV’s huge metal gate, I meet the collectrices and random FECECAV staff milling about outside. Motos roll and sputter in and out of the gate and we all greet each other with the customary and now habitual West African finger-snap handshake and a series of Bonjour!s, Tu as bien dormi?s, and Comment?s This is their equivalent of the morning dawdling around the coffee machine or the water cooler, yet everywhere always seems happy to see each other and not dreading the workday ahead. It is, as Innocent showed me, a combination of truly liking their microfinance job and a relieved complacency at having a job at all.
As I enter the gate, I greet the guards with snaps and smiles, and wave at the collectrices sitting and eating la pâte for breakfast (complete with raw onions and fish sauce, which I can barely digest at lunch or dinner) under the tin-roofed garage (where le vehicule, as Daniel calls it, that the Swiss NGO donated to FECECAV, is parked.) If
FECECAV’s driveway and front yard is always a flurry of activity. Shaking hands and snapping with the customary and ostentatious greetings of African businessmen “Ah, Directeur!” “Gérant, Comment?” and “Bonjour Chef!” Certain characters always refer to each other as Mr. Director, Monsieur Manager, Sir the Chief, etc. I have found this very interesting, as there are only certain circles of either political, intellectual or business men (yes, men) that address each other this way. Sometimes they appear as tragicomic caricatures of themselves, sweating in the African sunshine in sandals and linen suits, imitating some grandiose professional tradition that can seems markedly out of place.
After this routine, I head in to see Athanase. Now that I think on it, I cannot remember the first day I decided to sit in his office, only that it came naturally I have shared his desk, fan, plugstrip and comfortable company ever since. Athanase, I have mentioned him before, is the diligent comptable (accountant) here at FECECAV, and probably the person I spend the most time with (besides Akpene and Mensah) in Kpalimé. The first night I bought a few beers for the FECECAV crew, Mako (a gregarious collectrice who is based in Lomé, but we get along well and speak on the phone often) told me that he was timide and that I would have to chat him up. Athanase smiled calmly, and deliberately opposed her. This reaction was a microcosm is his good-natured personality. He is quiet, unassuming and respectful, and, after spending a bit of time with him, opens up to reveal a witty and companionable character.
I sit on the left side of his desk, always resting my feet on the half-open bottom drawer. His door faces the front yard, and we can conveniently spy on everyone who enters or leaves the compound. I have transferred almost half of the music I brought with me onto his computer, because he only likes the pop and hip hop, and I’ve taken some of his favorite African and French R&B. He is solely responsible for all of the accounting for the Kpalimé office and for centralizing the data from all 11 branches. This includes everything from salaries, invoices, financial reporting, and g-d knows what else…it appears to me that everything besides la caisse and has to do with money goes through Athanase. Meticulous and conscientious, he comes to work early, leaves late and is to Comptable as Rogier is to Agent de Crédit. Unfortunately, he dosen’t seem to get the credit he deserves, and for some reason, Daniel chose Athanase to be one of those responbile for Kiva work as well…perhaps it is a tribute to his competence that he manages to get all of this done and is still selected as the one to write business descriptions for the Kiva site, but he does seem to work a lot harder than his gérant. I suppose this is also indicative of the nature of any workplace, haha.
He and I share a lot of comfortable silence, which is something I value in life, as sitting quietly is not one of my strong points…he works in his spreadsheets and in Quickbooks, I on my laptop creating working documents for use with Kiva and writing new business descriptions. Since I “finished” training people in those first few weeks, I have now focused on a) doing a lot of the work myself while I am here b) creating a helpful User Manual in French to leave here – Kiva did provide a manual for use of the site, but it is not entirely relevant and often superfluous in meeting the actual needs here at FECECAV. Since I have done the training and now know the organization very well, I am making one of my own. I am calling it Kiva à la Kira (everyone has thought this is incredibly amusing, by the way.)
When doing Kiva work (which I try to limit with him, as he is already so busy and understands it better than anyone) Athanase and I transfer documents back and forth on my USB key and the identical one that I brought here as a gift, which he always seems to have in his breast pocket. I had to mark mine with a whiteout K after a few days of mixing them up. He patiently helps me to edit my written French and I run documents and copies back and forth to other staff when he is swamped. We listen to the music all day long.
To be continued…
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