The Fulani

There is an ethnic group in this part of the world called the Fulani. (What I am about to describe is based purely on asking questions and not on hard fact. If there are things that I get wrong, please forgive me.) They are a nomadic group of people that are all over this part of Africa. Fulani men are paid by rich people to herd cattle from one place to another. In Togo they normally walk from Burkina Faso (North of Togo) to Lomé (the capitol in the South) with herds of 15 – 20 skinny skinny cows.

For some reason Fulani all dress alike. The men wear baggy, loose fitting, solid color MC Hammer type pants with a very loose tunic type shirt (oftentimes the shirts will be second hand western women’s clothing like a blouse.) They ALWAYS have a walking stick in one hand, water bottle on a string draped over one arm, bag (most often women’s purse) draped over the other arm and a hat (usually straw but on occasion white lacey kind of hat little girls in the south wear to church). For some reason they also all wear solid colored plastic (gummy kind of) shoes.

I’m not sure I have ever seen a Fullani woman. I think I have. They usually have children in their arms, colorful beads in their hair, and a far away look to their eye. Their clothing is usually a deep red color.

Having lived here for a number of months and traveled a bit I have gotten used to seeing things that are foreign to me. I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing the Fulani.

Two weeks ago I was in a car driving from a city in the south of the country to my home further north. We stopped next to a thriving market in the full swing of market day. The market looked like most other markets except for how many Fulani there were. Groups of two or three Fulani guys (probably 17 – 25 years old) were casually wandering around, not buying anything, just being seen. Imagine middle schoolers in the US going to the mall on a Saturday afternoon. Before going they put on their best shoes, do their hair just right, and hope to be seen. These guys had done the exact same thing… just Fulani style. Some of the guys wandering around had on makeup; some of it turning their face a clown like white. Others had painted white circles on their cheeks, white streaks under their eyes, and white on their lips. There were groups who had giant Afros (and the accompanying hair pick). Others had very nice purses and the white hats of the southern nine year old at her first communion.

Yesterday, I was leaving the market with arms full of black bags of veggies. As I loaded up my bike bags I looked up to see two Fullani guys staring at me and whispering to each other.

They were talking about me.

Between two guys who walk around carrying women’s purses and lace hats I was the foreign one. I was the alien. They belong to an ethnic group I understand about as well as the accordion, who know and think exactly the same about me. I didn’t need the makeup, purse, or walking stick. Instead I had my jeans, messenger bag and Trek bike.

And I was weird.

Who loves stop lights?

A couple weeks ago small traffic lights suddenly appeared at the 4 main intersections of my town. For the first week that they were up none worked. Riding through the intersections where my life has been nearly taken from me, I was excited about the idea of having something to control the flow of motorcycle, car, huge truck and people traffic.

About a week after the signals magically appeared in town I was biking to use the internet. I turned on the main intersection only to be stopped on the next street by a policeman who said the road was closed. Not totally sure why (but not questioning… you learn to let things slide after being here for a while) I turned around and tried to turn down another road of the intersection only to be met by yet another policeman. I finally decided that something was going on and pulled my bike over to see what would happen. After a few minutes of waiting I started hearing drums. In another minute or two I saw a group of Tem (one of the local tribal/ethnic groups) dancers (guys dance with two sticks in a line, spinning and hitting the other guys sticks rhythmically) followed by a group of horsemen dressed (the rider and horse) in traditional garb. The riders were pulling on the reigns, making the horses rear up every few steps.

The dancers and horses were then followed by a small fleet of Mercedes that stopped in the middle of the intersection in front of me. A group of besuited (anyone wearing a suit in this country is both very rich/important and (in my opinion) very crazy (SO HOT)) men got out of the cars walked up to one of the newly traffic lighted parts of the intersection and cut a white ribbon that had been hung across the road.

There were a few more minutes of dancing as the suited men all shook hands and finally got back into their air-conditioned cars to be driven away to whatever office they worked in. Crowds milled around the intersection for a few more minutes until the traffic lights were finally turned on and traffic started flowing.

Weeks later I still see people just sitting, watching the controlled flow of traffic and the lights magically changing colors.

I have been crazy busy recently and have falled behind in my writing. To make up for that I have taken the easy way out and posted a new series of pictures.

Enjoy!


This is a photo of me with my local counter part in our current computer lab. The coats we are both wearing are used by all Togolese private school teachers to keep chalk dust off their clothes. The school had one made for me my first couple weeks there. On the pocket it says 'Ismael - Informatician' (Translation: Ismael - Computer God)

I decided I needed to put another picture of my cat online for my sister. I swore i would never take pictures of my pets like this. But what to do.

Why I am in Africa. Need i say more?

Where I had French class every morning for three months. This is also the location of the dreaded turkey murder. :)

Two of my host sisters in the family kitchen.

Me dancing. I am never sure if people are laughing because I dance well and that's weird or I dance badly and that's funny. In the end Im just happy that people are laughing (i guess...)

One of the best bars in my city. Anyone that comes and visits WILL get taken here.

That does it for this little update. Look for an interesting update about a project I am working on coming online in the next couple weeks.

Until then...

PS on the shirts

In the past week I have seen two new shirts that I had to post.

When i wrote my post on the shirts I had a comment or two on each one. These two new finds are so good they pretty much speak for themselves.

1. Young guy on a motorcycle with a light green shirt that said "Poop Queen." ... No comment.

2. "What if the Hokey Pokey was really what it's all about?" Wow! That's all I can say. Wow!

Until next time.

Pictures

(LEFT)
Me sitting drinking a local brew called Choock (sp?) thats made from fermented millet and has about the same alcohol content as beer. Actually REALLY good. Kind of has a sweet flavor to it. It takes about three days to make. Those bowls are called calabashes and are made from a dried melon type thing.

(ABOVE)
What I see every time i open my gate to leave my house.

(LEFT)
My entire Peace Corps training group. One person in this group hadnt showered in a week. Welcome to the Peace Corps! (DANG HIPPIES!)



(LEFT)
My amazingly cute host sister during training.

(DOWN)
My host father holding a bush rat before it is cleaned and prepared for me to eat. One of my favorite new types of meat (my other favorite is Antelope. SO GOOD!)

The Dead Yovo Market

Have you ever wondered what happens to your old shirts? What ever happened to that free t-shirt you were given when you ran that marathon back in ’92? Or how about the shirt that you were given when you helped elect McGovern to the State Senate in ’88? Or how about that stint you pulled working at Best Buy. Are you saying you didn’t continue to wear that classy blue polo?

My guess is that like many Americans, you threw those cloth pieces of treasure into a box until you or your significant other got fed up at how much space it was taking up and took it to Goodwill or some other charitable organization. Did you ever wonder what happened to what was in that box? Did you ever ponder the idea that someone else in the US or wide world would somehow end up with your clothing?

I know where your shirt is…

(I plan on writing a full entry on this next subject. But I need to include a brief summery here to tell the rest of my story.) Here in Togo all foreigners are called Yovo. Loosely translated (and depending on who you talk to) it means outsider, foreigner. (Again, I will talk more at a later time on this wonderful wonderful (SARCASM) word and its many uses.)

No one here can afford to purchase clothes in a store or buy clothe to have them made. To fill this gap in affordable clothing people get there hands on large quantities of second hand, donated clothing. My guess is that they are either purchased by the truck load in the US from Goodwill and shipped here or are “given out” by local NGOs for distribution. Either way piles upon piles of used clothes end up on plastic tarps all over the country. It is known that this abundance of clothing comes from the outside world. The Togolese can not understand why some Yovo (there’s our new word for the day!) would ever give this stuff away. The thinking goes that to have given away something so great the giver must have died. Thus the markets that sell this stuff are called Dead Yovo Markets. Who still living could ever part with these wonderful expensive treasures?

It is a fun game among Peace Corps volunteers to compete for weirdest shirt seen. Now remember, the people buying this stuff don’t read English. They buy it because it doesn’t have holes (usually) and will protect them from the sun.

Here is a nice selection of shirts that I have seen in my short 5 months here.

•Young boy with a shirt that said, “This is what 40 looks like. Jealous?” I doubt he was 40, but I have to say I was a little jealous at how youthful he appeared.
•“Elect Thompson to City Council.” Wait a sec… there are no city councils here!
•Small Girl, less than 10 wearing pink shirt that read, “Sexy Bitch.” I thought she was cute. Not sure she was a “sexy bitch.” But who am I to judge?
•Countless McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and UPS polos. What? It’s a polo shirt with a small logo on it. That works for a business meeting!
•“I’m PMSing” Now my knowledge of biology isn’t great. But, I didn’t think a 45 year old male carpenters could PMS. But who am I to question.
•“Buy Malidu from Me!” I almost asked for a shot. Then I remembered that due to the lack of electricity it probably wasn’t cold. Who wants warm Malibu from a 10 year old at 8:30 in the morning?
•“I’m not easy. I’m just popular.” You know what. I’m happy that that 11 year old boy has friends. Good for him!
•Black shirt with three pictured panels and the heading, “How to Grow a Mullet.” I looked a little more closely and you know what? If the kid wearing the shirt ever wanted a mullet, he was set!
•Countless Graduating Class of ’91, Class of ’89 Reunion, ’93 Soccer Champ shirts and the like. Who knows? Maybe the kid wearing it really did go to Middlebury Middle School in the late 80s?

I’m thinking about casually sneaking my CS@GW shirt with “It’s ok! I’m a computer scientist” written in big yellow letters on the back into one of the piles. If I create no computer scientists through the classes I teach I know that there will at least be one in name wandering around this country.

Street Food

To fully discover a country one needs to eat its street foods.

I remember wandering the streets of Guangzhou with my brother looking for something to eat. We ended up at an open store front with tray upon tray of deep fried food on a stick (I once wanted to open a restaurant called “Everything on a Stick.”) At the far left hand side of the middle row was a tray filled with skewers of deep fried baby birds. My brother being who he is (love the kid) went straight for them. As he bit into the first baby bird I remember him saying, “It’s not so much that I can feel the bones breaking or the innards exploding in my mouth. I don’t mind that. The thing I don’t like about this… it tastes AWFUL!” The point of the story being that for Eric and I to understand the culture we needed to taste the food that people grabbed on their way to work, on a date, or window shopping.

While there are no deep fried baby bird sticks here, there is still a very interesting world of street food to be had.

One of the staples of my diet is a wonderful thing called Bui (not sure of the spelling) that I always eat with a Benyay (again… not sure of spelling.) Bui is ground corn (the most common), millet, or tapioca (my favorite and most uncommon) cooked with boiling water. That’s it. When cooked it becomes very liquidy and easily drunk from a bowl. Every morning when I go to school I sit out front before my first class and get 25 CFA (5 cents) worth of Bui (a small bowls worth) and a Benyay (deep fried dough ball) for another 25CFA. One can always tell women that serve Bui because of the large plastic tubs covered with a simple insulator of plastic and cloth sitting on a crude wooden table in front of them. There is something about the warm lumpy stuff that really satisfies an early morning hunger.

Another one of my main food sources is Wachi: rice cooked with beans (everything here is very simple.) You can spot a Wachi women (I like the ring of that…) by a large metal tub that contains a giant lump (the rice and beans) wrapped in plastic and cloth. It is ordered by price (100CFA is what I normally get), scooped out by hand (her RIGHT hand of course! That’s the clean one!) and placed into a plastic bowl. Sitting next to the metal vat are usually an assortment of different size stainless steel, lidded pots. In each pot (sometimes there is only one) is a different sauce (but always palm oil based and very very red.) There is usually the fish chunk sauce (I stay away from that one) and sometimes the overcooked goat chunk sauce (usually stay away from that one… sometimes I get brave or inebriated and end up tearing at a few pieces… not the best idea.) Occasionally you get lucky and mixed in with the fish sauce are pieces of a local “cheese” called Wagash, deep fried to the point of breaking your teeth (SOOO GOOD!) I put cheese in quotes because I’m not 100% sure that it really IS cheese. It is cheese in the sense that milk (or some dairy product) was somehow made hard (my cheese making knowledge is not that extensive). One can purchase Wagash at the market in large red (they die the outside with millet to help preserve it) wheels stacked on a metal tray carefully balanced on a women’s head.


While I love the taste (most of the time) of the street food, my favorite part is the interactions that take place while eating. There is something bonding about sharing the food of another’s culture.

In the future I will write about other street foods and specific eating experiences.

Until then…