Sweet Home Togo

Kpalimé is the exactly the same. Except that the roads have been completely destroyed from flooding and rain. Even the main streets are a maze of potholes, ranging in size from a plate to a small house. It is interesting how this, my third time back, illuminates even more clearly the utter lack of progress and stagnancy of development…at FECECAV I can always see tiny steps forwards and small but significant inklings of growth, but on a larger scale, Togo stays in one place.

Le voyage was long…after a minor visa fiasco in New York (where I was barred from the airplane because I didn’t have a pre-purchased Ghanaian transit visa – which you used to be able to buy upon arrival in Accra – and had to spend an extra day in Manhattan kow-towing to the sluggish staff at the Ghanaian embassy…) I arrived in Accra on the morning of the 6th. I met a great girl on the place from a company called InfraCo, which does energy infrastructure projects in Africa – how fortuitous!

We traveled by bus to Ho, near the Togo border, where we piled into a classic African van, with a fractured windshield held together by a “Thank You Jesus” sticker, a back door propped open with piece of bamboo and a shell so rusted out that I was completed amazed (as usual) that with each pothole we didn’t all fall straight through. I am used to it now, but I still don’t understand the physics of these vehicles…how they run and stay in one piece. The mechanics here are literal magicians…

I have been in Kpalime for 3 days now, have met 2 yovo volunteers at FECECAV (one from SIDI, another development organization that send $$ to FECECAV at 6% interest and one from Kiva, a new fellow who immediately told me how much she hates Kpalime…) There are in fact many yovos here in Kpalime right now, harkening back to the days when Togo was a tourism hotspot. I am told that this is the “season of the Yovos” – aka summer vacation time. Hilarious.
I have eaten lots of fufu already (delicious! J) and talked extensively with Daniel (the CEO of FECECAV) and Aminou (my Kpalimé electrician and head of the solar team we will train during the pilot project.) I bought a motorcycle battery to hook up my solar panel demo, and it is currently chez le mecanicien charging up. Batteries here are bought without acid, and you must them take it to the mechanic to fill it up – where the mechanic removes some acid from another battery, mixes it with filthy water, tests it to see if it’s good, and, barehanded, spilling it all over his little brother’s feet and the oily ground of his workstation, adds it to the battery with a turkey baster. (I just tried in vain for 15 minutes to upload pictures of this, amongst a few others, but the internet connection is just not having it)

Everyone is impatient for the pilot project, and keep asking where is Mister Jon, when will we “installer les pannaux solaires”? I admire their trust in me and their endurance – not only because so many leave empty promises all over this continent, but also that nowhere but in Africa can I find this type of patience and resilience. I have made an impression on them and, since I am back again, this time with a panel, with documents to sign and posters to hang in their office, they are content to continue waiting for SunPower Afrique. I do not take it for granted and I will not let them down! Aminou as well, is so anxious to get started, and nervous that several solar panel installers have cropped up throughout the country (Chinese…) and that he will miss his chance. But he too trusts me and waits for his training – I continue to remember why we have decided work with him: his passion and understanding of solar in the context of his life and his country is exemplary and inspiring.

I am planning the next three weeks – pressured to get everything accomplished that I want to in such a short time, also allowing a week or so to travel north with Inno to meet his family and see more of the country. I am somewhat embarrassed to say that throughout my time in Togo, so unlike my adventurous self, I have never been North of Atakpame!

I will spend a week or so in Lome, to have my meetings with the Ministers of Decentralization, Small Business and Energy & Mining. I will also visit the Port of Lomé for a tour, and reconnect with M. Lare, my partner/consultant who currently has himself in quite a state, due to a misunderstanding between himself and Novinyo, another of my partners (a FECECAV manager). Something about “insulting his character” by not giving him a loan that falls far outside FECECAV’s average size for loan disbursal. I must go smooth this over in order to move forward…c’est l’Afrique quoi. Wish me luck.

I promised to keep my blog short this time, and while I’m sure you all long for my long-winded descriptions of the nuances of Togolese culture and the smell of burning plastic, I will spare you – this once :)

Will write again soon, of my plans and programs, and about the evolution of SunPower Afrique on the ground! As Daniel said to me, it becoming plus et plus réale(more and more real.)

Amitiés,
K