25-26 December - A Dusty Noel

Christmas in Togo was a bit anticlimactic…which makes sense, since without lots of money, presents, feasts and generally excessive consumerism, what else do I know about the holiday season? However, several things are different here than usual. It makes me laugh, takes me by surprise and enrages me every time I drive by a white Santa Clause statue in the doorway of an African bank…strings of half lit, blinking lights hang across the Boulevard de 13 Fevrier in Lomé and adorn the central offices of Togotelecom. I suddenly notice the plastic Christmas trees in my friends’ rooms and in certain boutiques that have definitely been there all along…

The only day of vacation is Christmas Day itself. Everyone goes to church early in the morning and stays there for almost 5 hours, but this is not that far from what happens every Sunday…after being permitted to sleep until almost 9AM we congregated in Atsou’s roasting salon and ate fufu and drank whiskey mixed with a (very) cheap version of Bailey’s Irish cream.

Only in Togo can you sweat your way through lunch and not feel the slightest embarrassment. Because you are always less sweaty than the women that pounded that fufu for you – who also come to eat of course, paying little mind to the beads that slide down their chest and temples. As we eat we get even sweatier from the alcohol and spicy sauce. Why people who live in hot climates have adapted to eat hot and spicy sauces continues to be beyond me…

Everyone tells me that the partying continues from Christmas until New Years – it is both a conversation starter (“Et tu as bien feté? Mais oui! Ca continue eh?!” Snap Snap Laugh Laugh) and a form of encouragement, as everyone knows well that no one here has the finances to drink alcohol that many days in a row. Especially now…

When I was here last, the economic crisis had not yet hit very hard here. While Togo is somewhat shielded from the worst, because their economy has been so devastated it doesn’t depend that heavily on global credit and financial markets, people now refer to it as “La Crise.” Many people have mentioned to me that this year they will not be buying this or that, that business has been slow, that they could not afford to buy medicine for their child. The dogs at the house are emaciated and pant exhaustedly in the afternoon sun. I try to feed Bienvenue any scraps that I can find and told Inno that I was going to buy her a bowl for water, which he thought was uproariously funny.

It is also incredibly dusty in Togo right now. I have never seen it like this. Apparently it has not rained in almost 2 months. The roads are forever shrouded in hovering clouds of dust, that explode out of potholes and around rocks as they are crunched and pounded by hoodless trucks and taxis. I shower 3 times a day to remove the thin film of red dirt that collects on my face, arms and ankles. When I lean on tables I can feel the grit and when I wipe my hand on my pant leg it turns the color of the road. Everyone wipes their motos before sitting down (lest they get their carefully pressed trousers dirty…) and some taxi-moto drivers cover their mouths with pieces of cloth, but only a few. And the Harmattan winds have not even arrived yet! People tell me that perhaps when it rains, the winds will follow, but it is indeed “their time.”

The weather and climate is so intensely different than 3 months ago it is almost hard to fathom. The extremity of this place...In rainy season my showers felt cold and my laundry never dried – today it dries in less than 15 minutes and I can’t get enough of the cold water pouring over my face. The sun is so intense that people start to wilt after 1PM and it is almost impossible to sit indoors. Even the air blowing on me at this very minute, from the fan I have placed directly behind me and pointed straight at my head, is hot.

At 2AM on the day after Christmas I went to Lomé to get my 2 bags. I came back with one, my backpack. Although I am a fairly low-maintenance person, I really haven’t needed that much besides the bar of soap and toothbrush that I bought at the marché for 4 days…this kind of simplicity is not something I’ve ever truly experienced before. It took a missing bag to make me realize that no, I really don’t need my big bag of toiletries and multitude of changes of clothes. That said…it’s amazing what a little shampoo and a loofah can do for the soul :)