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.

Could I commute to Accra from here?

Its been a few days now, and I feel that I've gotten settled in a bit. I live in a quartier called Avenoue, which is on the outskirts of Lome. Lome itself is separated by a long...(erm, maybe 'lagoonish-thing' describes it) 'lagoonish-thing' that divides it into basically downtown and the suburbs. Something near 900,000 people call this place home and like it or not, it is where the vast majority of business is done in Togo. Compared to Accra in Ghana (the "Golden City" as Ive heard it called), or even Coutenou in Benin, Lome is (so I hear) not as beautiful or developed, but is still not without its own charms. It smells like salt water and motor oil and even has a cool night every now and again. If Accra is NYC, then Lome is kinda like the Trenton of West Africa.





Here Is my house. I live in a compound with another family, who stay in the larger house across from mine. I have, by all accounts, a huge house for a volunteer and it has been a task trying to furnish it.

Lookit that porch - PC must have known I was southern -- When I buy some rocking chairs, it is ON.

There are lots of other rooms, but they're boring and empty. Can anyone fit a few mattresses into a flat rate box?




This is Sami. Hes 4, from visiting from Burkina. I have never heard a kid who talked so much. I have never met a kid I wanted to hear talk so much, at that - his French is immaculate.


The main avenue of Avenoue (ha).

Well, there ya go. I promise to return with something that will incite a little more emotion, but until then, welcome to my home.

Capital Calculus

Being that I have been posted and already spent a week in the grand city of Lomé, I have taken it upon myself to find the hangouts, the best stores, the marché mamas with the best deals, the coldest beers and the best restaurants throughout the city. Our entire stage has been here since Wednesday morning and I have diligently given the low down on the happening locales. For 5 days now I have been batting .1000, giving excellent directions, haggling taxi prices and pegging the best hookah and schwarma in the Maritime region. For our last night here, I felt that I should take a few folks out to one of the busier parts of town, to sit outside, sip some drinks and enjoy a few fire roasted brochettes (skewered meat – don't ask what kind of meat, I don't know, nor do I want to know). It was a perfect night, clear sky, bright stars, crisp and breezy, the glowing avenues full of potential. We embarked after a moderate dinner at the flophouse, renting a taxi to the center of town to a little etablissment know around here as Capital Brochettes. The restaurant sits across from a hopping night club and the flickering neon and staccato rhythms of bad Nigerian hip-hop were floating their way across the divided highway to the plastic lawn furniture holding the dozens of locals all enjoying a similar evening. We rolled up like hollywood, grabbing a table at the back corner of the sandy pavilion and ordered a round of drinks and a few brochettes for the group to munch on. It didn't take long before we were trading quips and stories and having quite a grand time.



I feel confident here that you have the clairvoyance to divine that something was soon to happen to shake things up a bit. I have had 3 of the greatest days of my life back-to-back-to-back, but I shant be writing about those here. Believe me when I say that no one likes to hear about your successes, so grab a snack, turn up the Metallica and come on back for a petite rant on customer service Africaine.
The first portent to send things amiss was the manifestation of a platter of an odd creamy salad, with two small pieces of baguette. Granted, I had ordered 'salade' when I could've ordered 'legumes' but considering I ordered 4 brochettes avec salade et baguette, along with some plantains frites, I figured it was pretty self-explanatory.

30 brochettes later, I am now confident in saying that it was not, in fact, self explanatory.



I was, at one time a comp sci major down in sunny Charleston. I'm pretty good with computers, but when sitting beside cute girls in calculus class, I am incredibly bad at calculus. As it turns out, you need to pass the calculus classes to then take more calculus classes so you can get a piece of paper that permits you to be an even bigger nerd, so, knowing when to bow out gracefully, I became a business major. That being said, I am no math whiz. So when we were given 30 brochettes, I figured, hey, I must have ordered something like 4 plates of brochettes as opposed to 4 brochettes. We laugh, shake heads begrudgingly and loosen our belts. It has since occurred to me that even at 4 plates of brochettes, 30 is only divisible by 4 if fractions are involved, and, after double checking, I'm positive we had no fractional skewers.

Also of interest was the platter of soggy, fat, sweet bananas that seemed to have fallen in a vat of grease and been taken out almost immediately. I may not have been born a francophone, but I know what a 'plantain frite' is, and soggy they are not.

Still, as I alluded to, my week has been phenomenal, I have just gotten paid and I am feeling generous. Bring it on, universe, pile on the soggy fruit, you can't ruin my evening.

Even if the bill is for over 15,000 CFA. 15 thousand CFA.

I could buy quite a few plantain trees for quite a bit less than that.

...Touché, universe, touché.

Aching Uterii

I would rather like to avoid most cliches of the blogging culture. I know that no one really cares what I had for breakfast or what happened between David and Sally or my top-ten-lists-of-anything-whatsoever-at-ALL. Seriously, if this ever regresses to the point that I am writing about anything at all remotely related to fashion, politics, or entertainment, I want you to invite me out to lunch and then run me down with your car.

To make sure I don't spend anytime near any of your vehicle's grills anytime soon, I've made it a point to find interesting things to write about. Today, its kids. The Togolese are an absolutely gorgeous bunch of folks and the kids are something altogether spectacular. I don't know if I find most babies ugly, or if its just white American kids who are so hideous, but, in the inimitable words of a good friend, "my uterus aches every time I see a Togolese child."





I won't even go into the women here. My grandparents could be reading this, yeah?

Angry Woodlands Creatures

He spoke first, without looking up.

"You know, I remember the last time I was treated like an eight year old. I didn't appreciate it then, either."

"Yeah, and when was that?" She asked.

He took a quick pull from his cigarette and blew the smoke to the side. He turned and met her gaze with a cocksure grin.

"When I was eight."


...and there is about everything I need to write about our pre-service training (we call that 'stage', pronounced 'stahj'). As of last Thursday, I and the other 30 or so folks I flew out with 3 months ago are now official volunteers. Yippee. Festivities were held at our country director's house, (dressing to the 9's, speaking local language for the ceremony on Togolese national TV, eating brochettes and drinking beer) which was followed by festivities at large in Lome (less ceremony, more beer and stripper pole dancing). So, in a few photos, we had --

The look of success

Ethnic deversity and incredible tailoring

Dancing, dancing, dancing

Funny Faces

Sexy Faces


Asian Faces


More Dancing

And in a stunning surprise appearance, we even had a celebrity or two crash the party --





I think Qaddafi was celebrating the re-establishment of political ties, but hey, I'll take what we get.


Also of interest, the following morning I learned what it feels like to have a pissed-off badger trying to claw its way out of your head through your eyeballs.

And yeah, absolutely, I'd do it all again.


Off to my new home now--

The True African Legacy

From time to time I've fancied myself quite the entrepreneur – so much so that I've been lucky enough to be carted half-way round the globe to pass on my experiences doing things with buzz-worthy names like 'capacity-building' and 'synergistic facilitation'. However, now that my feet are on the ground, its beginning to dawn on me that the bit about me knowing something about business is worth about as much as that tract of swampland I bought out in Nevada – the true entrepreneurs are here, sneaking yams across borders, carting boxes of fresh baked bread to the street corners every morning, using cell phone connections to run back-door internet cafes. Africa's strength lies in its people, in their resilience, in their ability to create jobs where none exist.

The road between Lome (the capital) and Kpalime (the closest city to our staging) is called, pragmatically, the route national. This road connects the capital to the uppermost corner of Togo, at the Burkinabe border, acting as a life-line through the impassable parts of the interior. There are other roads, for sure, and where there aren't roads, there soon will be, but most of these are a bit like a moto-cross rally, and, at worst, something resembling the surface of the moon. 14 of us were coming back up the route national yesterday, having all just finished 8 days visiting our future posts, establishing business contacts, reconnoitering the surroundings, establishing our households, and, in my case, tracking down a stable supply of schwarma. We spent the night at a fellow PCV's, trading stories, grilling au americain, and drinking about 5 too many beers, and were all in various stages of lethargy for the ride back. We jostled along, avoiding livestock and taxis, swerving for potholes and mud deposits from the deluge that started 12 hours earlier and had yet to let up, but never slowing down. Once you step foot in a bush taxi, you go as fast as possible, as much of the time as possible. Sure, taxis flip, but hey, relax - you're gonna die sooner or later anyway. The speed is a necessity, as things here travel more by momentum than locomotion. If you can get something going here (read: if), only a handful of things will ever stop it before its final destination – (most of these fall into the 'aw, shit' category) things like Satan rampaging across the hinterland, sudden chauffeur defenestration, or, as we all found out, unofficial checkpoints consisting of shirtless locals and very big logs. You see, where you or I would see a dull stretch of highway, Africans see a meal ticket. In case you were wondering, there are lots of logs in Africa. Lots. I call it job security.

Cost to move a log in Togo – 50 CFA and up, depending on disposition and skin color -

Sometimes the only difference between capitalism and extortion is what side of the wallet you are on.