Blitta

So much to say and do, so little time. I am not ready to come back to my blackberry. To marketing solutions and powerclerk applications. But this has been a fruitful trip, and I have learned a lot, about corruption and development, about partners and voleurs, about for better and for worse, and for all of it I am continually grateful.

I have written about my experience with my “recepissé” (authorization to operate my NGO in Togo, which I still don’t officially have in my hands by the way) but still haven’t wrapped my head enough around the situation to put it out here in writing. I’ll get there soon. And hopefully by that time I will have the silly little piece of paper tucked safely away in my backpack, having made 15 photocopies and distributed them to be stored in secure locations throughout West Africa.

Last weekend Inno and I took a 3 day trip to Blitta, a small town smack in the middle of Togo (but still considered “The North”, both ethnically and geographically…) where Inno grew up, and where his mother and sister and lots of petit frères and soeurs still live.

We arrived at the station in Kpalimé at 9am, since it can take many hours to get to the north, depending on the condition of the roads, and we wanted to get there before dark. We did not have such luck…

However, my time sitting at the station waiting gave me ample time to consider the cultural beehive (I can’t think of a better way to describe it) that was occurring around me – the Kpalimé station is a mesmerizing place. Everything moves. Everyone is hawking something, shoving handfuls of peanuts and toothpaste and matches into jam-packed vans of sweltering passengers waiting to depart. Barefooted chauffeurs’ apprentices and laborers clamber over mountains of woven plastic bags of charcoal and maize, pyramids of plasticware, and stacked yellow jugs of cooking oil, masterfully securing the towering rooftop cargo with thin cords and canvas. Stern-faced African women survey their goods, hands on hips, hissing angrily if their basket of flipflops is shoved too far beneath a greasy carafe of palm oil. When you think they are done, they add another layer, usually of tires or something heavy to weigh it down. Then the goats, sheep and chickens – they get attached last. It is a miracle of physics not only that these vans very infrequently tip over, but also that nothing ever falls off. Well, rarely.

We waited at the station for more than 4 hours, finally making our grand exit at about 1:30pm.

And a grand exit it was…in a Mitsubishi van were crammed 19 people, 2 toddlers and a chauffeur. Lucky for us, since we were early to arrive, Inno and I found seats next to a real window – as opposed to those that had been reconstructed with layers of clear packing tape. Under a weight of rooftop cargo whose height rivaled that of the van itself, the supportive rocks were removed from behind our tires - which to me seemed far too small and lacking the appropriate air pressure to support the load they bore – and we were pushed by a gang of teenage boys until the engine took and we jolted triumphantly out onto the road. 10 feet later the engine stalled. It was one of those moments when I unintentionally burst of laughing, just couldn’t stop, and, since I had already befriended everyone in the van and tried out my Ewe on them, they too started grinning and clicking and Togo-Togo-ing, even Inno, who tends to be completely and overly composed in public. 5 minutes later we were on our way again.

The road North out of Kpalimé, which we would normally take to pick up the Route Internationale (the best and biggest road in Togo – and the only road for tractor trailers– that goes from the port of Lomé all the way up into Burkina Faso) in Atakpame, is currently impassable. That road, which I so frequently traveled last year through Lavie to Adéta, basically is no more. The 20 minute drive to Adeta now takes upwards of 2 hours by moto. Even small cars can no longer make the trip and chauffeurs, to protect their vehicles, now refuse to take the Adéta road and take the longer route through the town of Notse instead.

The state of the roads in Togo right now is downright deplorable and really, I’d appreciate it if the customs fees I am going to pay to import my solar panels could be applied to, at a minimum, filling in some potholes. I wonder who I could talk to about that…

The Notse road was an experience. It is lined with forests of teak and fields of corn, unpaved and a deep red color. Few craters. Pretty, I thought. Wrong. Within 10 minutes a thin film of maroonish-orange dust had settled on every exposed surface in the van, and was swirling around my feet, in the air and in between my teeth. 10 minutes later it was no longer a film but thick layer of red dirt caked on clothes, fingernails, eyelashes, earings, watches, afros and beards. And we still had 5-6 more hours to go…

Luckily, we arrived in Notse an hour or so later and, since the chauffeur and several other passengers were Muslims, we stopped for them to pray, which gave me an opportunity to wipe off my feet, with a dirty blue windbreaker that people were passing around, before we hit the paved road.

8 hours, 1 can of Chinese-manufactured “brake and steering fluid,” a flat tire and 2 sets of Ramadan prayers later, we arrived in Blitta.

Blitta is a Faure Gnassingbe stronghold. It is the town where he got his start in politics and began being groomed for the presidency… The first thing I spotted driving into town was a big white graffiti that read: “Avec Faure c’est la paix” (With Faure, it is peace.) Interestingly, in this town of several hundred thousand, when the high-tension electricity lines broke down a few weeks ago, Faure bought them a shiny new groupe electrogene (generator) and fuel to power the entire town. The lights go on every morning at 8am, out from noon to 2pm, and then are shut off for the night at 10pm.

Blitta is primarily ethnically Kabye and Kotokoli, which are also the 2 main languages spoken, although nearly 30 languages/dialects are spoken within the town. While when I first came to Togo, Kabye, Kotokoli and their various dialects sounded similar to Ewe and I had a hard time telling them apart, but now they strike me as starkly different. Kabye is a rounder language, words spoken with many trills and rolls, and without that splendid agitation that characterizes Ewe. Wordflow and sentence structure are more connected and legato , making it seem shier and more subtle than its southern linguistic partner.

Kabyes and Kotokolis too have a word for white girl, as I soon learned, when hoardes of children (who see yovos even less frequently than those in Kpalimé, since there is no real reason for a tourist to come to Blitta…unless you want to see a cotton factory, which is the town’s main bragging point) began hissing “Anasarra! Anasarrrrra! Anasarra!”

While in Blitta I met Innocent’s family and drank lots of Tsoukatsouk (pronounced Chook-a-chook), which is the Northern equivalent of Sodabi – but it is more like a warm beer and thankfully tastes less like gasoline burning down your throat. Inno’s mother and sister make and sell Tsoukatsouk out of their house, and people come to drink and be merry throughout the day and night. The biggest customers? Gendarmie and police. Have to be good and sauced before heading to work if you want to be taken seriously as a law-enforcement authority in Togo. I was also completely amazed at how all the children, even babies (think 4 months old) chug down the milky beverage, beads of sweat immediately forming on their tiny foreheads. It is a bit troubling, because yes, there is often a “slight” problem with alcoholism, however subtle and taboo, in rural Africa…

Because the trip was so horrific on the way there, Inno and I opted for the night-route back…meaning we left Blitta at 2am and went directly to Lomé, arriving around 7:30am. Driving through the suburbs of Lomé at 6am was just like driving through at 9am, everyone was already awake, slowly and methodically going about their business. I often wonder if the reason no one sleeps late in Togo is really beacuse of the heat…is it just because everyone else does, because you know you can sleep for 3 more hours in the afternoon, or just because there is just nothing else to do but get on with your day. I often find myself feeling that deep sadness, watching the mothers and grandmothers and daughters and sisters carrying huge pots of water and bundles of wood on their heads at such an early hour, sleep still in the corners of their eyes. We must always remember that we are the lucky ones.

Another update on SunPower Afrique before I head back stateside – I am a bit behind on my blogging, but coming soon! K