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.