No, hon, you can keep the shoes on...

Being from the south, I know a little something about wearing sandals. I have worn beat-up, run-down petite thongs of cow's hide in almost every situation imaginable, save maybe funerals and marathons. I have graduated college,

ridden horse-back through the deserts of Giza,

hiked mountains on the dead sea, sold out medium-sized coffee joints in very small towns,

had run-ins with a few metal poles,

became a Peace Corps volunteer,

been to weddings and actually just solved the Rhiemann-Zeta hypothesis, all while porting some slick John Kerry namesakes. Now, granted, at this point, I have some pretty interesting-looking feet (just check out that big toenail), but like my buddy Rayan says, “this guy's feet tell stories.” You could surmise I wear sandals so much because I've lived on the beach for half my life now, but I'm leaning more towards airport security -

Security guard: Sir, I'll need you to remove your shoes, plea-
MT: *slides backwards out of sandals and pirouettes with Michael Jackson crotch-grab*
Security guard: Wow. That was actually pretty cool. Damn, how much do you fly, son?

So, anyway, as I was saying, flip-flops and I get on well enough. Here in Togo, the chaussure of choice for the paysans are Nigerian made plastic shower sandals, called 'tapettes'. Now, to be fair, I was even a little cautious of them when I first arrived. I had my leather deals and didn't feel like changing. But, as things tend to do, they broke and all I had to fall back on was a blue and white spotted pair of taps that my host brother Tikwi had given me during stage. Begrudgingly, I put them on, but quickly found out why everyone here wears them. First, they're only slightly more expensive than going barefoot, and secondly, they are actually pretty damn comfortable. And Togolese can do ANYTHING in tapettes – play football, ride motorcycles, carry pounds and pounds of yams on their heads – I began to feel a bit more integrated the day I started biking through Lome traffic in a wife-beater and tapettes.

So, where am I going with all of this, eh? Well, I've recently found out that there seems to be one thing Togolese don't do wearing tapettes. Togolese do not rob people while wearing sandals. They don some off brand sneakers (adimas, punas) to hop 10ft. compound walls and slither through kitchen windows. We found the tracks, we have the proof (well, that and all our shit is gone). Now I've been robbed before, quite a number of times, but I think we met the ballsiest (read: hungriest) thief in Togo. Me and 9 others were sleeping at a transit house in Lome after a night of festivities and awoke to find a few articles missing. Turns out that after our sneakered perp crept into the house, he deftly pilfered our precious gadgets from besides our sleeping heads. Seriously, props to you, ballsy thief. There were 10 of us in the house, 7 of us large yovo men. Why, oh why, couldn't he just have made a little bit of noise? Because he wasn't wearing tapettes, thats why. Or he was a ninja. Either way, I made out alright, though – he only made off with my phone - I didn't even have my wallet with me.

It had actually been stolen earlier in the day.

10 bucks says that guy wasn't wearing sandals, either.

The Dangers of Tawuk

I often find myself sitting around, staring out the window or looking down at maps, wondering what somewhere new looks and smells like. As my eyes draw their imaginary line from point A to wherever my itch can get scratched, they invariably run through a few of Rome's enduring legacies. Seeing that I need to get to the other side of them, I do as any well-bred farm animal knows how to do and I cross the frigging road. This, like each and every day for all of you, never has really mattered too much for me, even in some of the odder places I've seen. I'm American, so lots of things that are common place in most of the world are supposed to scare me and offend my egalitarian sensibilities, so just in case there are any of my compatriots reading this, I'll take the time to explain. I'm wont to avoid cliched descriptions filled with twenty-something catch-phrases and buzz-words (it was like, CRAZY last night, you have no idea) so I'll try my best to avoid using overly abused adjectives when trying to describe something as mundane as local traffic. Take Paris, for example – running around the l'Arc de Triomph is a large round-about with 6 lanes of cars and motos zigging where others had zagged a moment before. They work it out, no stop signs, no painted lines. In Athens, taxi drivers go fast, something along the lines of Le Mans fast, down streets hardly wide enough for a horse cart. It works itself out, too – either all those roads are one way, or Greek taxi drivers are privy to unstoppable bouts of preventative premonition. Growing up back home in Laurens, we had folks like Moffett Caine, who, regardless of circumstances, drove 25 mph. When you saw a row of traffic 20 cars deep in my home town you knew there was either a funeral or Moffett was going down to Hickory Point for his daily coffee – either was an acceptable excuse for being late to work. Crossing the street in Cairo is either a feat of unsurmountable faith in God, or one of the world's most competitive bouts of active natural selection. It helps if you stand beside someone and cross with them - they'll get hit first. The Germans have their spiffy Autobahn where you can go as fast as you want, but, lets get real here Germany, just because all your citizens are androids with superhuman reflexes who can drive at those ridiculous speeds in their creepy 'German-engineered' automobiles doesn't make me jealous. It didn't help you in WWII, so eat me (in your FACE, krauts).

Here, however, is different. Chickens do not cross the road here. No, chicken, just stay – stay! Stay back! Its not worth it, chicken! Think of your unhatched chicks! What would they do without a mamma to run after! You don't have to prove anything to me! Don't be a hero! - Take away the semblance of laws, and you get a system that works with utmost efficiency, but only for those who can take advantage of the efficiency. Say that it rains for two days straight and a large portion of the paved roads in Lome are flooded. If you are one of the lucky few to have a car, you will be zipping along, minding your own bees wax, until you come to an impassable part of your road. But, wait, whats this? The opposite lane of traffic looks drivable! Well let me just hop this concrete median and drive the exact same speed I was going, in the wrong direction! No, hun, its all good – look, Im just going to honk a whole lot and let everyone else swerve to avoid me. Car breaks down in the middle of the road and there is no where you can take it? Don't worry, everyone will swerve to avoid it as well, until it gets completely dismantled overnight as it sits. Are there ever accidents, you ask? Well, yeah, I'm sure there are, but, c'mon, you wanna make an omelet, you gotta crack a few eggs, right! Am I right? Better yet, you wanna make it to the yam festival on time you gotta crack a few side-view mirrors, eh? You feel me? No, Matt, we don't follow.

Sometimes, when a car swerves to avoid a stalled taxi or hops a curb to get somewhere a bit faster, things get hit. Trash cans, signs, chickens, motos, people. It happens. Sometimes, just sometimes, when white Toyota SUVs barrel around large trucks on the right side of the lane going 40 kph, their side view mirrors connect with unsuspecting pedestrians on their way to a quiet night of hot tea and rooftop reading at their favorite Lebanese restaurant. Were you aware that when the side-view mirror of a white Toyota SUV connects with a human body at 40 kph, it shatters like the dreams of a child sitcom star? The words 'pipe bomb' come to mind.

You might be surprised, but theres a certain level of pride that comes with inflicting that much damage to someone's vehicle. I suppose in the future if I really need a rush I'll go club a few windshields, maybe steal some lug nuts or something, but for now I'll just stick to being the passive hit-and-run victim – it makes for a better story.