The Lome Vay-Kay

When you become sick in a foreign land, everything becomes suspect - the food you eat, the water you drink, the bed you sleep in and the people you talk to. You find yourself eating less, wondering how long you can go without food, just in case you eat something that may not agree with you. You peer through bottled water as if you could see the guilty party floating between the molecules, waiting to curl up in your stomach. You go to sleep early and wake late, hoping to avoid as much social interaction as possible. You sniff things and poke things and taste things and give the raised eyebrow to just about everything you come in contact with. You find yourself saying things like 'hey, it could be worse' and 'at least Im not...' then cursing yourself when it -A) becomes worse and B) you find that you, in fact, are.

So, here I sit in the med unit in Lome, nursing my tropical virus with candy bars and lukewarm cokes while saying things involving worse situations and glass half full analogies and I can't help but feel like a bit of a criminal. Sure, 104 degree temperatures and losing your guts from both ends 12 times a day sounds like a pain, but there's something about the internet and hot showers that makes it seem like I won out on this deal.... revenez vites mes amis....

If Magritte were here, he'd do it too...

"Tu aime bien le togo-jeen, hein?" My African brother, Antoine, was looking at me with a grin lying somewhere a few steps across the line to mischievous. I had only shot a passing glance at the collection of unmarked bottles sitting on the table by the front door, but soon found myself being pushed towards the mystery liquids. Each bottle had obviously been used for another purpose earlier in their lives, their peeling labels displaying 'scotch' or 'Chinese plum wine' now guarding something very obviously something else. These are the things we are warned about long before we step foot in a foreign country - our training classes have topics like 'cultural awareness', 'dysentery' and, from time to time, 'unmarked liquids you most definitely shouldn't drink even though we know you're going to anyway' - I happened to like that group exercise quite a bit. Flakes of peppers or roots or berries sometimes flowed out of the bottles as shots were being poured, the sediment from each bottle giving only the slightest hint as to what had been fermenting there in the tropical heat. I stood with my companions around the table, the table that sat under the dangling fluorescent light that hung outside the sheet that acts as the front door of the house, the house that sat 5 minutes from the training center where I have classes everyday, which is an hour and a half from Lome by taxi, which itself is half a world away from anyone reading this. I stood there, a world away from some and 5 minutes from others, beside Togolese neighbors and family, a glass of something that looked deceptively like paint thinner and smelled a bit like kerosene in my hand. Murmurs in the local patois of Ewe and French floated between us as we continued to pour glasses for everyone, the occasional smile thrown my way followed by the word 'togogin'. "Tu aime bien le togo-jeen, hein?" I wasn't very sure if I liked it or not - as surprising as it sounds, I'm not that used to ingesting equatorial bathtub wine, but it was as good a time as any to find out. As the last glass found its place, we all poured a bit on the ground for les ancestres and then threw back one of the many unforgettable life experiences that I've found here.

Come to find out, I sleep like a baby after four good life experiences.

Reppin the Penguin

So Im working in Small Enterprise Development, focusing on IT work. One of my main interests is open-source implementation in developing areas. Can you imagine my excitement when I looked across the terminal in the Philly airport and saw the two hippest Little-Linux-Laptops on the planet -- the OLPC (one laptop per child) and the Asus EEEPC -- chilling on the laps of two fellow volunteers? And all the n3rds rejoiced. amen.

The humid West African air hits you like a brick when stepping from within the confines of the stale recirculated air of a plane. It invades your nostrils and pores, adhering your clothes to you body and filling you with an instant largesse that only mojitos and naps seem to be able to combat. The smells are those of a warm summer night and something falling on the over-ripe side of 'pleasantly sweet'. I was taken back to Managua as I surveyed the green landscape and tropical trees waving my way into their country, the smells and urban planning of Lome seeming deceptively familiar. I find Togo beautiful in the way you look at an old barn or the rusted shell of your first car. The poverty is so apparent as to be comforting, the half completed or half-razed shells of buildings so frequent as to be reassuring. The sandy streets and shuffling citizens tell me 'look here, this is the way things have been. Come see how the world really lives.' Lome lies on the coast, the center of town situated no more than a few clicks from the Ghanese border. A few paved roads act as arteries for the sidestreets and communities, all tied together by the beach road running parallel to the shore. It is hot here, and humid, but no more so than a balmy summer day in South Carolina. In an effort to send us off with a thorough grounding in West African economics, the welcoming commitee that greeted us at the hostel (current PCVs) have shown us the many ways to purchase many types of local beers, all falling in at well under a dollar. I must say, its taken me quite a lot of studying, but Im beginning to get the idea.

The group I arrived with are mostly young, green, college grads, here out of a vague sense of social consciousness and white guilt - I cant say Im any different. There are a few professionals in the group, and we have all meshed well and are progressing on towards what Im sure will soon seem like an extended family. Our staging starts tomorrow, when we leave for Agou, to the north, where we will meet our host families and move into what will be our homes for the next 3 months. We are all re-packing after our few days here, ready to begin what we all started so many months back.

As I stared at the sky last night, the moon shining through a few murky clouds, something resounded inside of me, saying 'yes, this is where you should be. yes, your intuition is right. yes, your journey has only started.' So I sat and stared and let myself be enveloped in the magic of the sights, sounds, smells, coincidence, surprise and interrelatedness of it all. Then I stood, brushed myself off, grabbed my bags and walked through the gate. Welcome to Africa.

In a post-apocalyptic future, where true heroes stand tall and lead the battle against the cyborg armies, we will all wear this mustache.


Standing valiantly, defying the tyrannical metal rule and all good taste, this warrior from the future waited diligently by us as a new plane was found to replace our cancelled flight. I found it odd he wouldnt simply take off in his rocket-car, but I wasn't about to ask him about it - dude is bad.

Arrived in Philly 6 hours late, but was able to catch the end of orientation and meet my other volunteers. The night was filled with cheesesteaks, dive bars, and brotherly love. Let me tell you, folks here are serious about their cheesesteaks, their dive bars, and their paper, rock, scissors. I hear its how they'll fight wars in the future. Paper covers rock, chump.


Right, off to the future - Togo tomorrow.

April 4 - Cairo 10:28AM

Slept for an award-winning 14 hours last night. Upon returning to the hotel after an afternoon excursion to the Egyptian museum and over the nile, I settled in to read, shirtless, window open to the street below, and fan on high. After Kavalier and Clay failed the saboteur's nefarious anti-semitic scheme, Clay discovered his budding homosexuality and Thomas Kavalier became stuck in a Portuguese Convent on account of the measles, I reclined and closed my eyes around 4 pm for a well deserved nap before dinner. I awoke this morning at 6:30, refreshed and, surprisingly enough after sleeping through dinner - not incredibly hungry.
I have spent the morning wandering the slender cobblestone streets of the muslim old quarter, observing the sights and smells of a local market not designed for the tourists dollar. My greatest surprise was not the huge flanks of beef hanging for inspection, or the clans of stray cats who wait outside the poultry shops, hoping to dine on an unlucky hen's discarded head, for these scenes can be found in any large market. No, my surprised smile came from the warmth and friendliness of those I met on the street. From the returned smiles and kind greetings of those I passed, to the gentleman who showed me around the market, implicitly stating that he owned no shop and wanted to baksheesh, but simply wanted to practice his english and show me where to go for the best experiences. I was touched as normally I am ignored as a clueless foreigner, or (as it more often is the case) hassled as a clueless foreigner, and hardly wecomed as a world citizen. it seems I only need to dig a little beneath the surface, to venture to the local's part of a city, to experience the middle-eastern hospitality I hear oft-lauded, but until this point has been elusive.
My foray into the museum yesterday was a necessary occurrence, but on that, for me, was completely superfluous. The sheer number of artifacts is overwhelming, with most being displayed with no special protection, susceptible to countless aspiring street artists and kinaesthetically excited tourists. I was feeling less that perfect yesterday, bringing a Dahabian bug with me in tow from Sinai, but the $30 US entry fee to see the mummies after a $10 entrance fee to the museum, was enough for me to say 'bugger it all, Im going to read' which I did on the steps of the main atrium of the ground floor of the museum. This, as it turns out, was the most satisfying part of my historical interlude.
As a side-note, I have discovered that the cost of street food here can be drastically reduced by employing a raised eyebrow and an incredulous tone -

MT: Mumtaz - shukran. Bikam?
Vendor: Ten pounds, sir.
MT (incredulously): Ten pounds?
Vendor: Eight pounds, sir.
MT (very incredulously, with look of shock): EIGHT pounds?
Vendor: Your sandwich, sir - eight pounds.
MT (utter disbelief): EIGHT POUNDS?
Vendor (defeated): Six pounds, sir.

Once the same price is repeated three or four times, I feel I have received a sufficient discount that comes from the substantial mark up that everything I consume instantly receives.

Well, off to see the pyramids.

Stairs and more stairs

May 26th - Masada - 10:10AM

Strenuous 5am hike up the Snake Path that ascends the mountain fortress of Masada. Thinking ourselves young and invincible we started up at a brisk pace, only to be winded within 5 minutes. As we sat, after many curses and drinks of water we spied a troupe of 50-something Germans threatening to overtake us. Not to be outdone by the ageing krauts, this evolved into a 40 minute tortoise and hare style battle where, to the joy of our young egos, we did finish first. Masada was more impressive in its ambition than its current physical state, but a trek to Herrod's Palace on the cliff face made the trip memorable, if only for the pity we shared with the countless ancient laborers who had to ascend and descend the edifice daily. On returning, after a breakfast of neon orange drink and boiled eggs, I inquired at the desk how to get to the dead sea from here.

MT: How far is it to walk to the Dead Sea from here?
Receptionist: You must go 15km up or down the road to get in.
MT: No, I mean right here at Masada.
R: Oh, no, it is forbidden to swim here. It is very dangerous, you can drown here. You may even drown before you reach the sea.

Steven and I have been a bit concerned about the apparent mid-land drownings. We will go south now, to Eilat, with a vigilant eye on the Sea's shore, in case it should try to overtake us.