Togo = Developed

Winning the War on Development since 2008

We're approaching the end here at Determined to Tan. It's been a long, hot, long, itchy, uncomfortable, dirty, hot, long couple of years and in just a few short days I wont have the right to bitch quite as much anymore. However, fearing a lack of comedic material that may ensue I've decided to spite my good fortune and bitch even more when I get back to the states. Do what you love, love what you do.

In any case, I did it! I got this place up and running! Togo is developed! Time to get the hell out! In truncated form, because I'm over my novella phase, here are 11 things I sure thought were swell - because prime numbers are just better. With pictures, so you'll actually have a reason to keep reading.

11. Coiffeur 'Wait and See', the worst haircut of my young life-

10. Finding a zoo in Lome-

9. Afternoons at my local bar. (This is my hundredth novel finished in country--)

8. Receiving my third, absolutely legal, concurrent American passport. Its gotta be some kind of record--

7. Accra - I think this one is self-explanatory

6. Steven's Visit

5. Falling into the Latrine

4. Arriving in Sierra Leone and boating to Freetown from the airport

3. Getting hit by a moto and getting a free vacation to South Africa

2. Rayan and I taking a 10 hour moto trek through the Togolese brush, up a mountain in Benin and crossing back over in one day.

1. Leaving! Saturday, May 22nd its official!

Down on the coast, we say that the second happiest day in a man's life is the day he buys a boat. The happiest day in his life is when he sells it. That's a bit of what its like - I'm glad I came, I had a blast and abused every privilege there was, but even gladder to be getting the hell out! Now, off to find a few cheesecakes and a hot shower.

This picture serves no purpose. But damn, thems a lot of chickens.

The Best Medicine

There are just some stories that can only be truly related in person. You need inflection, you need gesticulation, you need good solid cursing. A few stiff drinks don't hurt, either. If you are reading this, know that you are going to ask me to tell you this one again, in person. This could be the defining point in my life. Get comfortable.

I traveled last weekend, from Friday to Monday, visiting friends and Togolese family during a 4 day journey to say my goodbyes before I leave next week. My final stop-over was in Dzigbe, the highest village in Togo, right beneath the peak of Mount Agou, the same village I stayed in for 3 days in December of 2008. Christina and some friends had visited while I was in South Africa and she promised to bring me back for one last visit before I left. We passed a pleasant evening full of grain alcohol, mashed tubers and scuttering cockroaches to awake to a cool Monday morning. The morning passed in a normal fashion - light breakfast, hiking (what they call 'walking' here) to say hello to friends and family, and a scary end-of-days thunderstorm that detained us until about noon and then a large lunch.

Pretty routine, so far, yeah? But good, now we're caught up.

Now, take stock of what you are doing right now. Sitting at work, at home, maybe drinking a cup of coffee, maybe listening to some music, maybe a Kenny G Christmas record from 1989, maybe thinking about how nice it would be if him and Yo Yo Ma would just go ahead and make out already. Now imagine if, 10 minutes from now you were transported somewhere deep, dark, smelly, you were covered in shit, surrounded by huge, satan-worshiping, radioactive, mutant roaches - and you had to poop really quite badly. Hard to fathom?

After lunch, I felt nature creeping up on me, and decided to saunter down the path to the little shack covering the 3 ft wide pit we used as a toilet. Upon my approach, I imagine the tired, neglected latrine had something of an existential crisis. Faced with the prospect of staying a latrine for the rest of its days, a sad looking affair, all wood and rusty sheet metal erected over a large hole spanned by 10 or so pieces of wood, with no chance of an independent career change, it saw, in me, a way out. Or down, I suppose, depending on where you're standing. Giving up the ghost in the most monumental latrine-fashion imaginable, as I stepped in the entire floor gave way and sent me into a head long dive straight the fuck down.


I'm going to give you a second here. Take a breath. Unbeknownst to me, I now hear that this is a nightmare scenario for many people.


Standing up, I tried to take stock of the situation in the calmest way possible. Lucky for me, mountain people in Togo don't really use latrines - they're partial to rocks in the woods for their dirty work. I find drowning in a 7ft pool of liquid shit quite an undignified way to die. Unfortunately for me however, I was still AT THE BOTTOM OF A 10FT DEEP LATRINE WADING IN A FOOT OF PISS AND SHIT. Roaches and, oddly enough, crickets - huge 3in long black old testament looking fuckers- were running around everywhere and crawling all over me. Little built-to-scale-models of Mount Doom were sticking their peaks out through the liquid on the floor, I had no network coverage that deep in the ground, it smelled like a rotting goat, and I still had to poop really bad. Thinking about it logically, I knew the first thing that I needed to do.

I dropped trou and took a dump.

That taken care of, I stood up and noticed that there was still one giardia-yellowed board spanning the width of the pit, all that was left of the floor. Knowing that it would be my only way out, I gave a flat-footed jump an olympian would have been proud of and latched on, hoping that it wouldn't give way (the sick sucking noise that my shoes made when leaving the floor of shit gave a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole affair). Looking left and right, I used small grooves in the latrine walls as toeholds, each one harboring a dozen or more nightmare insects that crunched and squirted underfoot, and clambored my way to the top of that shit-streaked board.

I laid there for a moment, looking at the overcast sky, the wind rushing over the various liquids covering my body, cooling me as if I had just stepped out of a hot shower, and I began to laugh. Hysterical, maniacal, uncontrollable laughter that started deep in my gut and erupted out in rolling ululations that shook the slim board that was still underneath me.

Cause hey, what else is there to do?

Election-Fever Pt. 2

So, elections have finished here, and, in a shocking turn of events, Faure Essozinma Gnassingbe came from way behind late in the tallying to once again take his place as the noble and fearless leader of the proud and powerful nation of Togo. Seriously. We had no clue he was going to take it away again. (*cough* thats a bloody lie *cough*) But, please, can anything else possibly be expected from the benevolent 'fils du terroir', the one man who's love for the country runs deep, but who's EU-aid-lined pockets run even deeper. Lets be real, if you have an infinite amount of money to spend, you're going to win. All you have to do is hand out free stuff. Faure's face is EVERYWHERE in the country. Seriously, do you have any idea how many free t-shirts, hats, fans, pencils, posters, stickers, calendar-pens (those neat pens that have a calendar that rolls out of them. hey you know you'd use them if you were here!), scrunchies, swatches, flags, berets, and cash bribes were given out over the past 3 months? I've heard rumours of large trucks filled with sodabi just going up and down the country getting everyone drunk for free. Who wouldn't vote for this guy?

Higher, Longer, Stronger. Yeah, I bet he tells that to all the girls.

You know, I was going to post pictures of some other candidates and talk about the shit-ton of people who didn't vote for Faure, but do you have any idea how many pull-out-calendar-pens the opposition candidates gave me?

Answer: 0

Hey, UFC, losing is for losers! You Suck! I bet you don't even know how to use a calendar-pen! SUCK IT!

so, you know what? Fuck those guys. Screw them and their pretentious 'rallies' and 'marches' and 'demonstrations' and 'freedom frites' - all of their screaming and anger and un-cool, un-pen-giving fundraisers. My vote is with this guy--

A true gangster can write a letter and check the date. AT THE SAME TIME.

Actually, I would've voted for this guy, but he told me he was too busy to run for president. What with the funny-stick dance routine and all.

Goin all the way in 2015

So, to the meat of it, what was it like here during elections? Pretty damn boring. The general paranoia that was instilled after the last elections still exists, but nothing happened this time around. People got edgy around the time they started announcing election results, but apart from that, no one that I know really seemed to care. In the words of my land-lady, "Nothing will change no matter who wins. They're all thieves." Damn, where's the love Togo? Where's the love...

This image would be so much more poignant unfurling from the inside of a pen.

Election-Fever Pt. 1

I'm sure that all of you are up-to-date on your political leaders of insignificant West African countries and their impossible to pronounce names, but seeing as a few days ago Togo had their presidential elections, I'll take a moment to refresh your memories. Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Eyadema Gnassingbe, Togo's 3rd president (read: effectively the only one that's ever been), holding concurrent records for Africa's longest-running dictatorship, and snazziest porteur of blue suede since the King himself.

Everyone, Papa Gnas

Papa Gnas' 38 year "reign of terror" was marked by an almost casual brutality, slapstick incompetence and incredible 70s haute-couture-

The couch is 100% baby seal hide

I have it on good word that Eyadema had 50 wives and sired over 200 children cause, hey, what the hell else is there to do when bathing in Channel #5, laughing at the United Nations, and dumping bodies of political dissenters out of helicopters gets old? Eyadema took power in a coup d'etat back in '68 and could just never be bothered to leave. Upon his death in 2005, turmoil ensued in Togo, with his son (go figure) rising up in the vacuum of power. Baby Faure shouldn't have technically by which I mean legally been the guy that took over the presidency, but hey, first come first serve, bitches.

It is important to point out that the Gnassingbe's come from the North of the country. They are Kabye. The assassinated president in 68 was from the South of the country. He was Ewe. The entire army is Kabye. Most of the ministers are Kabye. Back in the day scholarships went not to the kids who won the scholarships, but to Kabye kids. However, the Ewe are the most numerous and, some say, more economically powerful just by their numbers. So, there in a nutshell is where problems arise here.

The mighty 'whatyoutalkinboutwillisasaurus' (Papa Gnas was one of the last 'political dinosaurs' to finally kick the bucket in Africa)

That was quick and entertaining, right? So now we come to elections a few days ago - pt. 2 coming up!

Intergration My Ass

The central principle of the Peace Corps doctrine, our modus operandi of sorts, is 'cultural integration' - the idea that to institute lasting, sustainable (they frigging love that word) development, we have to integrate ourselves into the local communities in which we live so as to be more than your run-of-the-mill development worker - we have to be one with the community - we have to become one of those who we serve. And believe me, granola women line up around the corner for this tripe. It doesn't matter whether I believe in it, or even whether it works, the first thing I'm doing when I get back to the states is buying an industrial sized box of extra-large condoms (yeah, thats right) and flying straight to Seattle to hang out at vegan coffee shops -

"why, is that a cruelty-free fair-trade organic quoinoa-cocoa and wheat germ mochachino you have there? Well here are some pictures of me with African children. Well, yes, Destini with an 'i', I think we would make beautiful offspring."

Easy as shooting baby seals in a cage.

However, the truth of the matter is that I could live here for 1000 years wearing nothing but pagne while sucking down sodabi every morning between brisk bouts of beating my wife for not wanting to bear my 12th child and going to see the local voodoo wizard to inflict my enemies with AIDS, but I'll still just be the Yovo. How can I be so sure? Lets say the truth comes from the mouths of babes -

The true face of terror

Children will always be terrified of me here. Like, petrified-from-fear-can't-even-scream sort of terrified. Parents can't get enough of this - they actually carry their terrified infants to me just to watch them freak out. This is always a great reminder of how knee-deep in the community I am here.

Salone for the Holidays

Peace Corps Sierra Leone entered the country in 1962 and left with the onset of war in 1994. It has been 15 years since the last volunteer was active in the country and so it goes without saying that when the first person in the airport after my arrival asked me without provocation "Are you Peace Corps?" I was close to shocked. When the second person I ran into - the lady checking luggage for contraband asked the same question the moment she saw me, I began to feel like I was in the middle of a pre-meditated gag. But, no, I was to run into this same question time and time again during my two weeks in Salone and it never lost its shock-value. My first day in Freetown I ran into a 60 year old woman who wanted to show me her certificates from all of the "Peace and Reconciliation" trainings she had been to that had been put together by PC volunteers. She still had the flimsy paper certificates framed and hanging after 20 years. Still not making this up.

The Cotton Tree, Downtown Freetown. The building to the left of the tree was the PC office and the embassy many years ago.

I had just left the border of nowhere and was heading directly to the middle when we ran across a police checkpoint (just a man at a shack with a rope pulled across the road). They were being quite exacting, searching bags and checking IDs of the 2 other motos stopped with us. The cop approached me and, I swear on my mother's life this is no exagerration, he asked me 'are you Peace Corps?', I of course said yes, and he slapped me on the back and then gave me a huge smile and let me go on without as much as glancing at my papers.

I arrived at Shenge (go on, try to find it on a map) after another tortuous hour on a suicidal moto-driver's back seat down what appeared to be a dried stream-bed (that's called a road here).

At least I went in dry season

I had the number of a Reverend in Shenge, given to me by the head of the Moto station in border-of-nowhere Moyamba. When Reverend Moses (and come on, really what else should he be named?) asked what I did, I meekly posited 'Peace Corps', fearing a kiss on the lips or something, but all they did was give me the old PC house that the previous 15 or so volunteers lived at when they were posted there (honest, had no clue) and then asked me to beg PC Admin to put another volunteer there. Everyone in this village spoke beautiful english because they were all taught by American PC vols. And now that they were grown adults, their children spoke great english. I'll tell you, I've just avoided asking the question 'do we do any good here' as PC, because A) I didnt think the answer would justify our existence and B) I was having too much fun to care. But now, after setting foot in a country that hasn't seen us in over a decade and seeing the actual effect that we've had, I feel quite good.

I flew to Sierra alone, didn't know a soul or anything about the lay of the land and had the most fortuitous, serendipidous, pleasant vacation I've ever taken - Peace Corps is coming back to SL in June and I was able to meet up with the acting Admin officer who is putting the program together. He took me out for lunch and then handed me a key - it was the key to the country director's 3bdrm apartment overlooking greater freetown - since the country director has yet to arrive, the AO thought it would be nice to let me stay there - big screens, leather couches, a sauna - add to that the miles and miles of deserted beaches and accomodating Saloneans who wanted nothing more than for me to understand that their country was peaceful and that they love visitors, and I can assure you that I was living it up over the holidays - I hope everyone out there had just as great a time.

*I had to take all the photos from the net because my camera went walk-around with someone else as I was flying back from Sierra Leone - me and cameras aren't having much luck lately --

I Spy Something Red

I woke up this morning with a start - the heavy breathing, instantly cognizant type of start where you aren't going back to sleep for a long time, if ever, and something ridiculous is going on in your head. I ate Indian food last night. I didn't drink. I swam in the pool all day and was exhausted (living in paradise is taxing). Nothing done to keep me awake. But, in any case, I woke up thinking about minibottles. As a quick reminder, in 2005 SC was the last state in the nation to legalize 'free-pour' (SC is the only state in the nation that needs a technical term for pouring alcohol from a bottle - wow) - eschewing the airplane mini-bottles for the accepted set-up found in all 49 other states and a few territories.

A Bartender's worst nightmare

Now, I'm sure any of you from outside the Palmetto State are thinking this is a no-brainer, right? Well, actually, no, because you see, by changing the law that forced restaurants to serve alcohol in mini-bottles, you were hitting someone in the wallet - namely the makers of the bottles themselves. So, in true political fashion, the manufacturers (who didn't even live in the state) hired a couple of lobbyists who fought like mad to keep mini-bottles in. Their argument? That if we changed to free-pour, someone was going to get a weaker drink. Seriously, that was it. And you know what? It almost worked.

You see, mini-bottles have a regulated 1.7 ounces of alcohol per bottle. No fibbing possible. So, as the lobbyists logic goes, if, on the free-pour system and bartender likes you, you'll get more, if not, then less. This was their tactic. Scare the locals into paralysis on the logic that sometime, somewhere, someone was going to get an unfair deal. They, of course, never mentioned the fact that drink costs would drop, the huge reduction in waste, or the benefit to the bars and restaurants that would result due to the tax structure. Nor did anyone bring to mind the impossiblity of making, say, a Long Island Ice Tea with mini bottles - $15 dollars for a drink in rural South Carolina? Yeah, that pleased a lot of folks. I'm glad to report that today we drink out of big bottles like big boys and girls.

Not Scary

So, why exactly was I thinking about mini-bottles before dawn? Because it came to me that mini bottles are like privatized healthcare. I see a strong resemblance between the mini-bottle lobbyists and private insurance lobbyists - shove enough fear down the everyman's throat - spit enough hellfire and brimstone to the most demoralized American demographic, and there might be a shot at keeping things the way they are. And whats the #1 sure-fire way to make any mother-loving, hard-working American recoil in disgust? THE RED SCARE.

Hey, that looks like fun...

Now listen, I'm not much of a polictically charged person. I like low taxes and grilling on weekends like any other guy. But I am positive that healthcare can be done better in the states. I don't have any proof - I'm not an expert and I don't have an over-estimated sense of righteousness that comes from watching 24 hour news stations. I can't regurgitate facts or percentages. I just, in the most American of stereotypes, feel it. I don't trust a company whose only way of making money is either A) Raising Premiums or B) Denying Claims. And I sure as hell don't trust people whose best argument is based on fearmongering and paranoia. Listen to Matt, here, everyone - NO ONE on Capitol Hill has their thumb on a direct line to God or Allah, or the All-Being, or the Borg. No one is getting assimilated. They all are just as clueless as us, maybe with just one large difference - their health-care is free.

Not Real

But either way, I'm not worried - I've got my long-term plan figured out. When I get so old that I become a burden, I'll just kill somebody. At least then I'll get nationalized round-the-clock care with free health benefits. I guess only criminals deserve the dirty commie-run free health care.