The Day the Camel Came to Town

8am in morning Togo time that is GMT for all you non-initiated, aka zero heur, the complete opposite of the International Date Line, I was enjoying some fine French pressed coffee that my parents brought with me when they visited. I heard little kids running past my window skipping and yelling “chameau!” A ten minute of search in my dictionary and repeating the word over and over in my head, I realized there was a camel in my village. Yes, a camel, my village, I had heard stories from older volunteers that these nomads will come down from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Now it was happening to me! So I grabbed my camera and followed the kids with Rufus, my new dog in tow (see attached photos).

So the skinny on this guy, the camel man came from Burkina Faso and spoke Mossi which some of my friends speak, he goes from house to house asking for corn or millet and selling “very strong” magical powders that give “the force.”

Blamo! Kondame, the brave, shows up (man on top of the camel) while all the rest of the village is scared of the camel, Kondame looks at me and says “if you take a photo I will take this camel for a ride (roughly translated from French to English by moi). It is only right to be afraid of camels. At almost eight feet tall, saucers like feet and a crazy flat tail, not even mentioning their hump they look like they come from the Red planet. Donce, Kondame hopped on, positioned his feet on the neck of the beast and with one word from are nomadic friend it raised. First the butt, tossing Kondame forward, then front, now it was on its knees and Kondame did not realize this because when it threw him forward again, it was almost to the ground. Then he is up, a round of applause and he was done.

Powders bought and consumed, camel feed, the man from the dessert returned and the rest of the day people regaled Kondame with praise.

Trying to catch up on many months

Most of you have probably kept up with Kate on gchat or Facebook. For those who don't....
She is still in Niger, lots of ups and downs but nothing that Kate can't deal with. As she says, when things don't work out, she just works harder on the next project.
Lots of stomach problems, some political uncertainty, a bus accident to name a few.
Her living conditions in her village have been very problematic, walls falling down and a latrine open to all who pass by!
As a a result she hasn't been living there much the past few months. Mostly she is at the hostel in Dosso. Hence all the opportunities to have computer access.
Today she took her GRE in Niamey, (a pencil and paper test for them) so she will have to wait on the results.
She has several things planned for the next weeks to keep her busy and then on the 12th of December she leaves for vacation. She is going to Paris where she will meet Ryan, then Kevin and Michael will meet her in Dublin on the 19th. We will all be at our house in Mayo on Christmas Eve for a some good times all together again. We will certainly make the best of our time together until January 2nd. Then it's back to Niger for Kate.

I've been there and back...

So Kate spent a hectic 3 weeks at home in Ardsley surrounded by family and friends. She had no difficulty readjusting to life in New York. She did think the soda bottles and vegetables were bigger than they used to be! Dad was surprised, he had figured out she was coming home but thought she wasn't getting here until Friday. His birthday present arrived right on his birthday and the delight that showed on his face was worth all the secrecy and planning. Kate manged to see almost everyone and crammed in all the experiences she misses in Niger. Early mornings and very late nights made it all possible. As she said, "I can sleep when I get back". She was a celebrity at our school as she told the kids about her life in Niger. They were especially fascinated by her pictures, the coins and the drum. She even made it on to one classroom's blog.
Needless to say she was a little sad when it was time to go back but off she went. Her big bag of goodies and her DVD player made it all the way. She spent the first couple of days in Niamey and is now in Dosso, tomorrow she may head to her village. No doubt, readjustment will have it's challenges . Alannah, her sister is going to visit her in 3 weeks so that will give Kate something to look forward to as she readjusts to life in Africa.

PIctures from Charles

They Put Spaghetti in Everthing - by Charles

I eat watchie pretty much ever morning for breakfast. A combination of rice, spaghetti, dried and ground yin yam, spicy pepper sauce and a dash of oil; it is the cornflakes of Togo. And for about forty cents one could easily satisfy the largest appetite.

I am in Dapong, my regional capital, enjoying some very tasty watchie with my closest neighbor and friend Christian who just happens to look a lot like Jesus. Because of his resemblance to our savior conversation between Christian and Togolese are often religiously themed. Not to break with the pattern a fellow watchie-eater began to

tell us that Jesus had had a wife and children. “Oh really!” my interest was peeked. Our brother in rice continued to elaborate that he had seen a film in Lome, a very secret film that you cannot buy and only certain people can see that definitively explained that Jesus had gotten wit Mary M. and had kids. At this point I started to realize

that our new friend was talking about the very popular novel/movie “The DaVinci Code.” Christian and I explained in detail that this wasn’t a secret film and that it is available for purchase. Erroneous, our new friend protested and continued to explain the film only to solidify our belief that he was talking about the afore mentioned film. At that point we had finished our mixture meal and were ready to go enjoy the air-conditioned goodness that one can only experience in Togo at the bank. So we said good-bye to our confused friend.

Later that same day, same adventure different time after getting my monopoly money, Togolese money is red for the one mille bills, blue for the two, green for the three and purple for the ten it really is like monopoly money, I was walking back to the transit house with Christian when we ran into a couple women from my village. We chatted for a couple minutes. I asked them why they had come into Dapong, what they where doing, and they in return asked me when I was coming back to village and how my dog was doing. We parted ways and continued down the street in opposite directions. It was then that Christian turned to me and told me that I had just had an entire conversation with those women in Moba, our local language in these parts. Initially I was like oh no I didn’t and then I remembered that those women don’t know or speak any French so I guess he was right.

To rap this up nicely, in one day I had an entire conversation in a language that I had only heard of three months ago. But even more amazing to me was the fact that I had understood and argued about “The DiVinci Code” in French while eating watchie. It is that odd mixture of things that really makes Togo interesting sometimes.

Beekeeping fun - by Charles

I want you to bike over here a couple kilometers right before dark. Wear jeans and shoes, oh and socks too. When you get here I am going make you change your shoes into the pig pen tenders boots that he wears without socks everyday for the past ten years because your shoes aren’t strong enough. Now put on this bee suit and elbow high rubber gloves. Now you really have no clue what is going on because everything is in French and at this time it is night. This what makes Africa fun and also really scary to you. They are building a fire, the two African guys you are with, everyone is suited up and ready to go. The smokers are a smoken and you all are off into the night. You have no clue where you are going and then you are there at the beehive. You can hear it before you actually get there and you also know that these are the Africa Killer Bees and Twenty-Twenty has warned you about. The type of bees that make you turnout like the boy in the last scene of the film “My Girl” so you check your back pocket for the Epi pin that the med unit gave you and get started. The two African guys are going at it and you are smoken those bees like your life depends on it. You might think man this suit is thick and then you realize you are covered in bees. Your legs are tired so you crouch down and all of a sudden three stings. Way to forget that bees are actually stinging you through all your clothing. Your comrades and you return with your harvest to base camp it is about ten at night and you get to taste the sweetness of your success. Heart racing a little bit you realize that this might be the best honey you have ever tasted.

And then you it dawns on you that the adventure isn’t over because you now have bike home in the dark.

Where in Niger is kate

Many of you have heard from Kate this month as she has been in Niamey at a training session for several weeks. She has had lots of access to Facebook and G chat. For those of you who are following the blog.... a quick update. Kate is doing well. She was returning to Dosso yesterday and to her village today. Hopefully her cat Pepper survived. Kate will no doubt need to readjust once more as she has been away from her village a lot recently, Thanksgiving, Christmas and most of this month in training. She is eager to get involved in some serious work. She is also looking forward to a trip home in April...yes, she is actually coming home for 3 weeks and we are soooo excited! In typical Kate 'fashion', she told me the other day that she was at the tailors getting 3 dresses made for her trip home.