The Face of Apathy

Sent to me by Rayan. I wasn't even aware he took these -- I call it 'A Study on Waiting' -- enjoy

Waiting on the taxi to leave the Parakou Gare



Crossing the Niger River

Waiting to leave Niamey

Niamey, again. Ponctualite, my ass.

By Popular Demand

You know, I always like books with pictures more than the others, so for all of you geographically challenged and visually stimulated folks out there heres the Sahelian-taxi-crawl-travel-companion----

It gets bigger if you click on it (thats what she said)

Yellow dots are where I stayed - it all added up to over 2000 miles (I calculated that from km. In my head. I have lots of hidden talents.)

On Mountains, Rodents, and Bowling

What began as a fantasy trip venturing to the mountains of Agou and then heading up north for Christmas celebrations, visiting family and friends with the wishes of snow-covered peaks and dreams of fat men and dancing fruit quickly met with the realities of the tropical West African climate and the logistical beast that is impromptu-dirt-road-cross-country travel. I left my dear Lome in mid-December, shirking responsibilities by flagging a taxi out of town. What ensued for the next 3 weeks was an alcohol fueled romp plumbing the depths of discomfort across 4 countries. I found myself, (in rough order) charming the yovophobic children of Koudassi while visiting a good friend for lunch, resting in the highest village in Togo, Dzigbe, sitting nearly at the top of Mount Agou, looking out over the valley where we lived for 3 months in stage,

Dzigbe

relaxing in Atakpame, listening to Scottish-bagpipe-techno (the first time I had heard that genre), the smell of honeysuckle floating through the air from the rolling hills surrounding the town. After a quick overnight in Pagala, I shot up to Niamtougou where home-made eggnog and beef kebabs floated us through the Christmas like the lilting piano runs of the Vince Guaraldi record we had flowing from the speakers of Rayan's computer. After 3 days of Xmas fete-ing we cleaned the house, returned the rented plastic chairs and got a taxi out of town. Rayan, Marcus and I left for Kara, where they awoke to the sight of me chasing rats the size of my forearm around the living room with a machete at 3am, counting the minutes until we could leave for the border.

The Three Brushketeers

From this point we truly began to delve deep into the depths of painful travel, with moto rides through dust storms (I got a bandana starting day 2), disintegrating Peugeots and the occasional donkey, going 12 hours of road time to the border of Niger, collapsing into bed at 11pm after running over 231 potholes (we were in the damn taxi for 7 hours, we had to do something) and eating a dinner of Thai-neon-orange-drink (with 25% real fruit!) and a hazelnut chocolate bar (you find the weirdest things in border towns). The next day found us gambling in a straw hut over the border in Niger at the Gaya bus station waiting for transport to Niamey.

Gambling is a sin in lots of religions. We're angering many gods at once here.

Yeah, your guess is as good as mine... they were chewy

I threw sheckels I had found in my bag from my trip to Israel at local Muslims. We drank curdled coconut milk (yeah, they weren't real pieces of coconut) and ate as much meat as we could stuff into our mouths at once. Nigerians are an exceedingly warm, honest, and amicable bunch and the rough ride to Niamey was mitigated a bit by actually being quoted the correct price for the bush-taxi ride. We watched the Nigerian countryside whip past as we made our way to the capital throughout the day. As an aside here, we were beginning to see a pattern at every border we crossed –
- Passport agent asks for passports, thinking we are French.
- Sees American passport, smiles broadly and says something about the 'Republic of Obama.'
- We smile and nod fervently.
- They cheer and stamp passports with no questions asked.
- Everyone gives three Huzzahs for democracy.

I still love tea

They even put the stamps in there all neat and side-by-side. I've been to some places where I swear they intentionally put on stamp diagonally across an entire page just to make sure you understand how apathetic they are to you, your travels, your opinion and ultimately their job. No one says “I want to be a border agent when I grow up,” right? So, thank you future president of the United States, you saved me many many CFA in bribes to get across borders scot-free (In your FACE, Sarcozy!)

The next 6 days are spent in bars, outside of bars, in restaurants, outside of restaurants, in and out of beds and hot (!!!) showers. New Years eve we danced while video of Gaza being bombed flashed across the screens of the bar. We watched fireworks from the 5th story roof of a building after seeing someone with us slice his head open on a broken beer bottle (he didn't die. The amount of blood lost would convince you otherwise). We cursed life in the morning. Thank god we decided to take a bus on the 2nd, not the 1st. Our last day in Niger was spent drinking lots of water and watching awful movies.

Grand Mosquee, Niamey

The next morning, after sleeping for only 3 hours and hiring a car at an exorbitant price to take us to the bus station at 4am, our bus to Ouagadougou (no matter how many times I say it, its still fun) was 4 hours late and 5 seats too small. Our chère bus line had three tenets of satisfaction plastered across every cracking wall of their building-

Ponctualité – scheduled to leave at 5:30. Left at 9.
Confort – My knees still hurt. The lucky passengers got a cooler to sit on in the aisle.
Sécurité – Bus was a soviet-era Russian diesel bucket. Windshield had been shattered and repaired more times than we could count. Held together with discolored glue.

10 hours later with the beginnings of arthritis and hemorrhoids we find the capital of Burkina. Hell, at this point I don't even remember what we did there. I must have slept the next three days. I know I ate a breakfast sandwich made of sour meat and arteries and danced with tons of hookers until 4am at some point. After all of this, we met some folks heading down to Lome and decided to cut the trip 5 days short to escort them back down to the coast. I've been showing them around the past few days and man, do I love this city. Sure, its a bit like a truck stop, but I can get 25% fruit juice from Thailand anytime of the day and my bowling game was getting a little rusty.

Yeah, thats my house. We established my level of bad-assery long ago – this should come as no surprise.

Its a good thing we're back, too --- do you know what its like up in the Sahel during Harmattan? My lips cracked like the surface of mars and my nose bled every day. I have no clue how people adjust to dry climates. I've finally come to terms with it -- I love hot, humid places (My next job will be in a rain forest somewhere, I'm sure). I don't know what it is, but I'd take a lukewarm beer and fish brochettes on the beach over steak and cold drinks in the desert anytime.

So, who's thinking that I had an awful time and couldn't wait to get home?? That I never want to travel again? Can I see some hands? How many are betting I'm about to give it all up and run back to the 9-5 life in the states? Anyone out there? If you raised your hand, please confirm the web address you typed to get here. Did you mis-type www.waitingtodie.com? Maybe it was www.isuckatlife.com you intended to visit? Perhaps you were looking for www.ilockmydoorsallthetimebecauseimterrifiedofblackpeople.com?

No?

Well then, you should know me better than that – this was one of the coolest trips I've ever taken. I'm having a riot over here and I feel sorry for all you chumps, wherever you may be! (Well, except maybe you, Steven. Hes sailing uncharted islands and running down kangaroos in the outback right now.)

I had an incredible time – thank you everyone for the packages (especially the Florida crowd -- $120 shipping? Seriously? You guys must really like me) and emails wondering where I had disappeared to – its neat to find out people actually read this :) Hope the pictures tell a little bit of the story – It would take a short novella to do my past month justice.

Here's to being home-brewed in the US of A and 100% moss-free – Cheers.

Lying For the Shorties

THIS POST IS EXTREMELY CRASS, PLEASE (GRANDMA) DO NOT READ THIS ONE. MAY I SUGGEST YOU GO HERE --> WWW.WEATHER.COM

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SERIOUSLY, PLEASE DONT DO THIS

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NO, REALLY, GO AWAY. IM NOT KIDDING. I MEAN, I KNOW YOULL STILL LOVE ME AND ALL, BUT REALLY.

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ACTUALLY, ANYTHING BAD HERE WAS MY FRIEND'S FAULT. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. BLAME HIM. HE DOESN'T GO TO CHURCH.

I get thousands of emails a day. Thousands of adoring readers showing their appreciation for the bright spot this blog has become in their lives, a few (unoriginal) vitrulent attacks spawned from a seething jealously at my effortless badassery, and, not altogether unexpected, demands for the film production rights to my life. These are not new and are normally brushed aside with the flood of marriage offers, but one caught my eye today --- here, in unabridged form, is the request for your perusal --

"Matthew! Baby! Your blogs got that certain something! Gold, baby. Gold! Here in Hollywood, California that's what we've been looking for for a long time, my boy. The kids here? No talent. It's always the same rippling six packs and desperate sexual propositions on the road to fame... It's worn out, kid. But you?! You got something special. Hell, for a movie deal, I'd sleep with you and, kid, I don't often say that. But for you? I'll make an exception. The studio will literally throw any figure at you for the chance to produce your life in movie form. Money's not an object. Drugs? Women? What's your poison, Matt? Badda-bing I can make it happen. The only thing I don't get is what you actually do, kid? I mean, trust me, I know a quality package when I see it *softly pats you on the ass*, but who's the man behind the legend?"

Now, as you can imagine, yours truly is accustomed to habitual displays of genuflection, but this request had that certain balance between obsequiousness and offers of gratuitous amounts of money that so many young, nubile tarts don't yet understand. Also, he emoted a gentle pat upon my ass within the email which threw me for a loop, but I just figured it was the Hollywood in him. Hell, from all I've heard about that place Im sure he was surrounded by midgets serving lines of coke off of mirrors balanced on their heads and he was so hopped up on Red Bull and Quaaludes he actually thought he was cupping one of my supple cheeks. Beats me.

Anyway, I sent a email back to Mr. Happy-Hands telling him about my day jobs as an adventure ice climber/contract astronaut with forays into moonlighting as a lunar cartographer and heres the cheek I get in response--

"Matthew...Matthew... that's great and all. Rock climbing on Mars or whatever. Believe me, I'm impressed. But we're selling to the everyman here. Here in Hollywood, California our job is to trick these peons into thinking that they have a fucking thing in common with superstars and model goddesses who wouldn't even look that trailer trash in the eye. We need something a little more down to Earth. Stuff those red-state fucks are gonna eat out of the palm of my fucking hand. Badda-bing. God, I love my life. You like brandy, kid? I'll send you over a bottle. Anyway, point is, we need something more in tune with the common man. Whatcha got for me, baby?"

I feel the need to translate for you, so here it is -- he wanted me to lie. TO LIE. A large part of my appeal is the fact that its all happening (er, baby)! Its all in real time!!! So what can one do? I told him the truth - Im too noble to lie. Its true.

"Can't lie? ...*laughs for several minutes*... Listen, kid. I get what you're saying. It's real honorable. We can definitely spin that into a nod from the Academy later on. But let's cut the shit for a minute. We're just guys talking here. Two average Joes. And what I'm telling you is this... the movie business is about giving people a dream -- the will to keep going. Honesty doesn't sell. You think good ever triumphs over evil? You think the guy gets the girl? That ain't life, baby. But people don't want the truth. John Q. Jackass would take one look at your life and go shoot himself. What we're doing here is bigger than just you and me. It's for the kids, man. The cancer patients. And for them? Yeah, here in Hollywood, we lie. For the kids. I tell 'em Santa Claus is real and named Tim Allen. So, don't do it for me, babe. Do for those cancer wards. The ones with clowns and balloons and Playstations. Yeah... Yeah... That's right."

And you know what? That touchy-feely-sonufabitch had a point. It is my moral obligation - NAY - my patriotic duty as a red-meat-eating-native-born-American to give hope to those who have none. Those little kids in the cancer wards. So I do this for you, wee cancer tots. I lie here so you may relate to my life. I lie to give you hope. I lie to give you happiness. I lie to expand my bank account. God, I love my life.

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I'm whats known here as an informaticien. This means next to nothing in West Africa, seeing as if you can use Word and surf the web you are a West-African-Certified-Informaticien. Its not so hard to be an expert here. I work with principally two organizations here -- The University of Lome and Cafe Informatique. Cafe Info is one of the largest privately owned businesses here and is the largest ISP and the second largest cell provider in country.

Im working on a 5 year "state of technology throughout Togo" action plan to present to the government. I actually have about as much of an idea about what Im doing here as I do about lunar cartography.

At the university Im working to install a cyber cafe using only linux -- this is tougher than it sounds--

See those two black computers? Those are the University web site and email server. High tech here, folks, high tech.

So, my faithful public, thats just about all I do. I look at computer screens all day and work through email in a country where most of my colleagues don't have electricity and pee in dirt holes. I also drink cheap wine and cheese whenever possible. Thats class.

If you know whats going on here, put down the bag of cheetos and go outside and get some sun, NOW.

* with David Newstead contributing. He's originally from Ninety-Six, SC and has never actually been to Hollywood. California. Baby. He will still sleep with you, though.

_________ on the __________

There are certain things that I, being some sort of quasi-employee of the federal government representing the US abroad, am not allowed to post here. Things like exact location (I didn't give GPS coordinates, but if you haven't figured out where I live it means you haven't sent me a package full of peanut butter and swedish fish, and in that case you can just go straight to hell), political preferences (I actually didn't even get to vote because of a lost ballot, but I'm sure we all know of the vast right-wing conspiracy to block votes of PC volunteers. And black people. And most definitely black volunteers. My god, can you imagine what'd happen if those commie bastards got into the white house?), and I most certainly can't write about what PC volunteers actually do with their free time, like when I travelled to _____________________________ with _________ and we ______________ when we _________________ with a _____________________ he borrowed from his _______ who one time actually ______________ but it was cool because _______________ without________________ which was incredible to see, because I didn't actually know someone could bend like that and we only paid her _____ CFA. We almost _______ 5 times, one time when the _________ almost went over the edge of the ___________, not to mention drinking way too much ________________ and _____________ while trying to _________________ and I told him it wouldn't work, but then again he is __________ and we all know how F-ed up THAT religion is, right?

So anyway, here are some only mildly incriminating pictures, you fill in the blanks until next fall, when the book will be published. Talk to me if you want international merchandising rights.

Fierte

I was huddled around the small television in our country director's house with about a dozen other volunteers, waiting for Obama to step out to address the crowd in Chicago, after a night of no sleep, too many beers and a lot of laughter - For years now, I have tried to stay apathetic towards politics, hiding firm behind my mantra that no one man can really change anything. Watching Obama's victory speech, I couldn't help myself from tearing up and hoped and prayed to all that I hold dear that I am wrong. When bush was 'elected' I was a senior in high school, what to me seems like a lifetime ago, and these past 8 years have only turned me sour on the political process that I hear my parents and (maybe especially) my grandparents feel so proudly about.

But seeing Obama give that speech, hearing his strong, tersely metered diction, I actually found hope. It may sound silly, but emotions that I never knew existed welled up inside of me. I was ebullient from the shimmering hope of the next 4 years yet infinitely sad at the same moment -- saddened for all the ways that people are going to try and break Barack Obama, tear him down, destroy not only him, but what he stands for in the eyes of so many people in the US and (again, maybe especially) all those others around the world. Will they succeed? My guess is probably. Will Barack Obama's true colors be many dim shades grayer than we all hope? I say no, but he is only a man. Will he ever rise any higher than that 10ft platform he delivered his victory speech upon to the millions of us who felt the falling of tears and scratching at the backs of our throats?

All I can say is that, for me, gone is the oily slickness I feel when I think of my country, gone are the shadows of nepotism and hypocrisy I've always assumed were prerequisites within the government. Us sitting on the floor, lids glued open against impossible fatigue, Obama standing there 10 shades darker than I'll ever tan, and a million times brighter than I'll ever shine, I watched the man who returned my faith in my home take the weight of the world upon his shoulders and for the first time in my life I felt myself able to say that I am truly proud to be an American.

Orphaned Organs

I don't know what it is inside of me, but just as I try to follow my intuition, that silent urging in situations, there come those times when I feel pushed to move – to go – to see something different. You can call it stir craziness, cabin fever, itchy feet – whatever you name it, it has been a driving force in my life, always leading me to places I've never expected to see. Yesterday the walls were closing in on me. The thought of being here in my house made me feel very tired and my heart race with anxiety at the same moment. Knowing the only thing to do was leave, I threw some odds and ends in a bag and got a taxi out of town. I remember an episode of The X-Files, one where a government-built subterranean antenna broadcasting ultra low frequency waves was causing peoples heads to pop like water balloons. It was actually due to a build-up of pressure behind the ear drums, and Scully and Mulder found that if they traveled west at a quick clip, the pressure would abate for a bit. Yesterday I felt my own bit of pressure here in Lome. Not as if the Togolese government can afford a head-popping secret antenna – there's only enough money in the official coffers here for a crippled infrastructure and the occasional presidential palace. No, I simply mean that as the wind rushed over my face and the landscape faded from sand and concrete to lush rolling hills, I felt the weight of my sedation peeling back and flying off like so many old layers of chipped paint.

I descended back upon Agou-Akoumawou to visit with the stage family and to eventually make my way to Cafe Kuma, a small coffee plantation nestled at the top of one of the mountains circling Kpalime. I needed to find Kujo, the proprietor, whose number went missing with my phone all those weeks ago. True, there were easier ways to find his number, many of which didn't involve leaving my couch, but it was nice to have an over-arching purpose for my impromptu vagabonding. I was at peace last night, relaxing with my surrogate parents and walking the familiar stretch of highway that forms the town. I met with the new stageres this morning and doled out some American sweets I've had stashed – they were all in high spirits, but looked as if their appendages had had a nasty run in with some sort of pox – the heralded akoumawou-tech-house-bugs strike again. Still – an upbeat crowd -

After coming back from the mountain today, Maman had a lunch prepared for me – pate with gbomadetsi (spicy spinach sauce), my favorite – this was interesting, however – now being here has facilitated in my losing any inhibitions I still had about food – granted, there wasn't much I wouldn't eat back in the states (man, you should have seen me at Bray's Island, my last restaurant) – but now be it bones, marrow, skin, fat, organs – bring it on. Hearts? Meaty. Lungs? Spongy. Intestines? If you blur your vision and imagine they are some type of expensive, exotic truffle, they taste just exactly like – you guessed it - intestines. Yum.

Yet today, I ran across a surprise in my gboma – a stray kidney bean. Odd, I thought – Why is there only one bean here? When I remembered there are no kidney beans in Togo, it made much more sense – ah, just a stray kidney. Fine, no problem, I could use the protein. Knowing they come in pairs just added to the excitement – I knew there was one still hiding out. Like finding two temporary tattoos in a box of cracker jacks.

Dear diary – jackpot.

Finding the 3rd kidney a few minutes later was only mildly disconcerting - I was hungry, you see. Truly bothersome, though, wasn't that there were more than one set of kidneys, nor that they were the only bit of meat in my otherwise vegetarian meal. It wasn't even the fact that a small, unsolicited act of poultricide had been commited just to spice up my lunch. No, the truly disturbing fact was the easily overlooked significance of the number of kidneys found in my meal. There were seven kidneys.

Seven.

You see, its not just that 4 chickens died to bring you this journal entry, its that even though 4 died, I only had 3.5 chicken's worth of kidneys. Think about that. I was tackling the idea that I had been served a prime number of kidneys. Where was the orphaned organ? I imagined all the stories I'd ever heard of traveling to Mexico and getting drugged at a club and waking up in an odd hotel room with stitches on my abdomen, only to die a slow death over the next 4 days from a build-up of toxins in my body that my harvested kidneys could no longer filter – except these were chickens, not humans, and they had never been to Mexico, nor ever experimented with psychotropic hallucinogens, and they sure as hell didn't know how to drink too much tequila and dance the meringue at 3am with overweight Mexican prostitutes on their spring break in Tijuana, trying to forget about the girl who dumped them after their senior prom. But I digress... Not to mention, where the hell do you get 7 kidneys from at one time? Is there an organ-lady-stall at the marche? Was I eating a fetisheur's last commission?

The hell if I know – you really think I was thinking that hard about it then and there? I popped those bad boys like popcorn shrimp.