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.
