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A sunrise in Togo

Duke Diary Dispatch: Dead Chickens, Roasted Termites and More!

In Togo, you get outside your culinary comfort zone

I am currently writing from my wooden table on the gravel porch outside my homestead bedroom. (Actually, I’m transcribing my journal entry using my tiny iPhone keyboard, as I did not pack my laptop.) I’m staying in Farendé, the village in the plain, where three other DukeEngage students are also staying. My program director, cultural anthropology professor Charlie Piot, and two other students are staying in Kuwdé, the mountain village, which is just over an hour’s hike from here. It’s here where we were welcomed the first night; after drinking local sorghum beer (which tastes like warm, cloudy kombucha, in a good way), we entered the village by walking over the blood from the chicken’s cut neck. 

It’s raining, so my room is cool in temperature for the first time in a while. The sound of raindrops falling on my tin roof is cozy and familiar, and thanks to the cross breeze flowing through my window and door, the stagnant heat from yesterday has finally dissipated. 

Boiled yams and roasted termites.

When it rains here, people sleep. (The majority of people here are subsistence farmers, and they can’t cultivate in rain — so it provides a rare and well-deserved period of forced rest. The exception is if one is already at school.) I am up, but everyone else in my host family is probably lying on their mattresses. They are very kind and accommodating. Justine, my host mom, is iconic, hilarious, and a great cook. She and her 5 daughters love to laugh. They will also help me with any issue, from exterminating roaches to flattening a bed. My straw mattress was very uneven, much higher on one half than the other, so my host sister Adeline and I lifted it on its side and started to loudly beat down the lumps with our fists; she and Justine were laughing thunderously. It was quite a funny and bizarre situation; anyway, my mattress ended up being a lot flatter, and I’ve been sleeping much better since. 

From my first impressions, everyone else here seems very friendly, as expressed by their smiling greetings of Alaffia! (Roughly, “how’s your health?” in Kabiyé, the tribe and language of northern Togo.) To me, it doesn’t seem to be a front of politeness or nicety—the Kabiyé are plainspoken, expect forthrightness, and don’t take offense easily, which I appreciate, though it’s one that one of my fellow DukeEngage students is struggling with. Born and raised in Tennessee, she has trouble overcoming her “Southern Baptist guilt” and the indirect manner of expressing concerns that she was taught. She was struggling to eat the food here (the flavors and her stomach just don’t agree), but she also couldn't bring herself to directly tell her host mother what she did and didn’t like. It’s only recently, two weeks in, that my friend has finally gotten better at communicating, with more familiar foods as a result. 

Directness or cuisine aren’t issues for me, but everyone is struggling with something different: food, heat, homesickness, the different standard of living (latrine and bucket showers are clear examples), or in my case, cockroaches and a respiratory infection I’ve had since LDOC back in Durham. Though the first is no longer an issue — Justine bought insecticide and slayed dozens upon dozens of roaches the third night I was there; I haven’t had a problem since. (Knock on wood). The latter is irksome but my lungs are fine, according to a chest x-ray I got in the regional city, and it should heal eventually. (According to that same x-ray, however, I may have mild scoliosis.) Neither the infection nor scoliosis are preventing me from having a great time, however, and I’m looking forward to describing new firsts in my next letter.  

Warmly,

Montana