thoughts from togo “Premierement mon papa m’a laisse un grand champ . . . First my father left me land, so I needed a wife to help me, then children to work the land, then another wife to help the first wife and more children as some died and the fields are big,” explained Komi, a school director in Tseni, Togo. School is five thatched open-air huts, some with benches, for 215 children ages five to twenty. Tseni is a large cotton and corn farming village in Togo, wedged between Ghana Galen Guthrie ’97 and volunteer Julianna Phillips practice carrying babies, and Nigeria. I’ve lived here now a year as a Peace Corps a skill most Togo girls learn at age five. health and AIDS volunteer. I sleep—or try to—to beating drums and the pounding of yams and corn. I wake to more Since 1992, Togo has been under international embargo drums, roosters, rooting pigs and the daily procession past to put pressure on the thirty-seven-year reigning president my one village latrine to do business in the bush. When I’m Eyadema to hold democratic elections, have a free press not entertaining villagers by hoeing cotton at one-twenty-fifth and allow opposition parties a safe voice. West Africa has their amazing speed, wandering through villages with my wealth: phosphates, timber, diamonds, oil, fruit, coffee and cotwooden penis pushing condoms, tasting grilled locust rumps ton. The president flies to France for dental work, but and bush rat the children toast like weenies . . . I think, and clinic workers have to buy their own needles and suture thread think some more. before a wound can be treated. Even though studying human ecology at COA seems like I try to teach youth about sexual responsibility, but a a delicious, million-mile dreamworld away, I carry its greatest condom here costs four cents, about the price of a plate gift: the ability to see with an open mind the connections of food. So the choice is often this: “Do I eat for the day, between humans and their surroundings. Africa didn’t choose or buy a condom?” to suffer from drought, civil wars, epidemics, poverty and overEvery action has a subsequent reaction. We are joined across population, nor did these crises occur in a vacuum. Every former oceans, finding similarities and solutions. Let the colonial nation, every developed country with vested interest, world in and when doubtful come feel the joy of dancing bobo to the pounding tam-tam drums of Togo. every subsidized cotton farmer in the United States, every child in Paris, every well-meaning and confused Peace Corps ~ Galen Guthrie ’97 volunteer and finally all African youths play a part. Those of September 8, 2004 us lucky to be educated in interconnectedness have to help others understand without prejudice and blinders.
MAY 28, 2004 AIDS. It’s not as widespread here as it is on the mainland, but it is getting there. I believe the AIDS rate is reported as something like 1.4 percent, but that doesn’t mean much since there are only a few testing centers. The closest facility to my site is an eight-hour taxi ride. No one can afford to make the trip. Last November, Population Services International, an amazing NGO, tested fifty pregnant women at a nearby hospital. Four tested positive for HIV. That’s eight percent in a group that is primarily married and low risk. Even if you tested positive, there are no drugs currently available in country. Madagascar is where mainland Africa was ten to fifteen years ago. I’m afraid that it will explode in the next few years. I often carry condoms in my bag and hand them out when I am bargaining in the market. They work well as gifts. When they come to give birth, the mothers are generally accompanied by a flock of female relatives who haul and heat water, coach and clean the room after the birth. The women are responsible for bringing all their own clothes, towels, bedding and food. They also bring buckCOA | 27