...Back to December
Thursday
January 15 2004
Back from the holidays
Finally, I am back from my Christmas holidays. I travelled quite
a bit! First I took a ride
up to Kara, which is in the North
of Togo. There I spent Christmas
Eve and Christmas
day. Strangely enough we watched war
movies. After that I came back to Kpalimé for New Years,
worked a little and spent new years at the Hotel. Then, I booted
it on over to Ghana to stay with Amedzi’s son Fofo in Accra.
From Accra I visited Aburi
to see some botanical gardents and to bike through the mountains.
Next was the slave castles in Cape
Coast and Elmina, and
stayed in a funky hotel called the Hans
Cottage Botel, with crocodiles. Finally went to see Kakum
national rainforest park to walk on a suspension bridge over
the rainforest canopy, then came back to Accra, and then to Togo.
So here I am. If you want know more about my adventures, just click
on the links throughout this paragraph!
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Wednesday
January 21 2004
New logo.
OK, after many many ridiculous hours, about 200 revisions, and 10
different peoples’ input, Vivre-Mieux has anew logo. I lost track
loooong ago of how many hours I put into this thing...
I think the reason it took so long is due to a fundamental difference
in African and Canadian thinking. When I think "make a logo",
I think, "do something simple with the words, add a little
swooshy thingy graphic somewhere, a shadow, maybe emboss it, and
30 minutes later all done. So long as it looks cool".
African culture is full of proverbs,
and symbolism is very important. So, naturally when I showed my
first "cool" new logo which has a very simple meaning,
my supervisor hesitated.
He kind of tilted his head, then brought me back to the old logo
(which I wasn't a big fan of… not “cool” enough) and he spent 10
minutes explaining the 10 layers of meanings behind it that I would
never have thought of or noticed.
I REALLY REALLY want you to try and figure out what this means.
Tell me at togologo@berezny.com.
By the way, it says "pour la qualité de la vie"
across the top, which means "for quality of life"
The biggest problem was that he was really keen on keeping the
flower around the head (representing growth) but all I could think
of when I looked at it was "hippie".
So I tried to gently wean him off the idea of the flower... with
Kathleen prodding a little bit...
So eventually we landed on ONE OF the following logos. We all have
differing opinions as to what the best color combination is. So,
here are the contenders.
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1. Yellow Planet A.
Wide "Vivre Mieux" |
2. Blue Planet A. Wide
"Vivre Mieux" |
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3. Black and white planet B.
Skinny "Vivre Mieux" |
4. Grey Planet B. Skinny
"Vivre Mieux" |
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SO, I want you to try and interpret the meaning of these two logos.
Tell me what you think the symbolism behind the first and second
logos are. I want to see how the Canadian mind differs from the
African one. Send interpretations to togologo@berezny.com
and I'll publish the replies up on the web in a week or so. (Also
tell me if you think that the logo is any good).
ALSO I want you to tell me which combination of 1-4 and A-B is
the best. I want big response rate on this, YOU MIGHT HAVE A SAY
IN VIVRE-MIEUX ETERNAL LOGO! Isn't that exciting :P
So, once again, vote at togologo@berezny.com
In a few days I'll post what the logo is SUPPOSED to mean, we'll
see how good you do.
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Wednesday
January 21st 2004
The African auction is now an all
out SALE!!
Due to a format that I think confused most people, the African auction
has been permanently abolished.
But, in its place is something even better, THE
AFRICAN GRAND MARKET. Here, you can find everything from wood
sculptures to key chains to bookends to Djimbes to kitchenware;
you name it we’ve got it!
And
it is all at very reasonable low fixed prices.
What you see on the web page is the price you will pay. No shipping
or hidden fees of any sort, so buy buy away!
There’s something for everyone, you can find items from $1 to $200.
All
purchases made from now until March 5th will go towards Vivre-Mieux
and its technology
project. It is advised that you place your orders EARLY to get
the best quality wood and ensure the best possible quality workmanship.
*note: The prices are still somewhat in flux,
but if anything they will probably go down
as I continue to barter with my dealers. If you buy an item and
the price is afterwards lowered, the price on your purchase will
also be lowered retroactively. Furthermore, not all of the pictures
are up yet, but I expect to have all pictures up by the end of the
week. A full list of items can be found on the price list, which
can be downloaded from the auction site. Check back often for new
items. If you have any special requests, let me know and I'll see
what I can do.
So,
go take a look right
now, I guarantee you’ll like what you see in the
African Grand Market.
Ok,
I'm starting to sound like a SPAM email now, but I'm spammin' for
a good cause :P
Keep Smilin'
-Tim
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Thursday
January 29th 2004
Canadians in Kpalimé
This weekend ALL of the Canadian Crossroaders came down from their
respective cities/villages to hang out here in Kpalimé. There
are 6 of us in total. The goal of the get together was to figure
out how to get our respective NGOs to effectively collaborate on
their projects, and exactly what kind of collaboration would be
useful.
And of course, to have some fun too.
Chelsea and Fredlyn are working for ASDEB in Lomé. If you’ve
been reading my site, you already know what I think of Lomé.
Oddette and Robin are working for REAILD in Vogan. I haven’t visited
Vogan yet, but it is often lovingly referred to as “the armpit of
Togo”. Of these three places, Kpalimé is the only place with
any kind of real vegetation! So they just loved the fact that we
could get fresh fruit (pineapple, oranges, and avocados) for great
prices.
Our tour guide for our 4-hour hike through the mountains of the
Kpalimé region was quite adept at catching butterflies.
On Sunday afternoon, we decided to go for a hike through the mountains.
We taxied our way up there, found a tour guide, and off we went.
One of the first people that we came across was a small boy, selling
these little postcards that he drew himself. Normally I brush these
kinds of activities off, but his work wasn’t too bad and he seemed
to be trying, so I bought 2 cards for $0.25. When the tour guide
found this out he shook his head and said that these kids are always
bugging tourists, and that they don’t go to school because they
can make money selling these little cards to sympathetic tourists.
A child running his own little business selling hand made cards
to tourists. The tour guide says he does this instead of going to
school.
Sometimes you just can’t win in Africa.
The tour guide was very knowledgeable. He worked in the region
in conservation work, I believe as a consultant to various NGOs
on environmental concerns in the region. He brought us in tow with
a big butterfly net in his hand, catching butterflies every now
and then, and telling about the uses for the local tree, plants,
and fruit. We quickly became friends with our tour guide, as I think
that we tend to assimilate a little bit better than most tourists
do with the Togolese. We looked at it not so much as hiring a tour
guide to do work for us, but as a friend showing us what he loves
to do.
Hangin' out in the forest, eating some bread, cheese, and avocados
that we picked up in the market in Kpalimé. This is all of
the Canadian crossroaders except for Kathleen, who was unfortunatly
sick with a parasite.
So eventually he took us to these little mini waterfalls in the
mountains (maybe 8ft height) and the water collected just below
it to make a little natural pool. So, the tour guide walked over
and jumped dove right in. Well, we were hot and sweaty too so in
we jumped with him!
At the end of our tour we had a little incident because we had
arrived a full hour later then the rendezvous that we had set with
the pickup-up taxi driver. The tour guide assured us this would
be no problem. I’m thinking “OK, this is Africa, just accept it
Tim”, because it certainly wouldn’t be OK in Canada! The driver
was still there when we got to the rendezvous point fortunately,
and we gave him a little bit extra money for wasting his time, but
we could have gotten away without giving him anything.
That night we watched a movie, which was a good time because those
opportunities are few and far between here.
The next few days were used to plan our “collaboration techniques”
as well as teach Oddette how to use MS Access to create a database.
Her NGO, REAILD has two really crummy computers. Apparently they
are so ridiculously slow and turn off by themselves on a regular
basis. The monitor on one of them (the “new” one) fades and gets
progressively more blurry until it is entirely unusable after about
½ and hour.
If you can believe it, they run their NGO with these crummy little
barely functioning computers. The main operation of this NGO is
Micro-credit. What that means, essentially, is that REAILD is a
Bank… a bank that doesn’t even use a computer… because they can’t
afford a computer that is works. Furthermore, they are ranked as
the 5th best micro credit bureau in Togo. The other Canadians are
there just pulling their hair out because they can’t understand
how the Africans can stand working like this, and can see how much
incredibly easier things would be if they just had a good computer
or two to do their work with.
After training Oddette on how to use MS Access, she wanted to go
shopping. So we headed down into the market and I took her to one
of my favourite Artisan vendors. Now, Oddette has the nickname “la
casseur des prix”, which means “the price breaker”. In Vogan, at
times she even gets better prices than what the locals can get.
So, when it was time for her to buy something at the art boutique,
I just sat back and enjoyed the show. Ooooh, she was tough. She
ended up getting a pretty good price for one of the little ebony
African games, but it took all the trickery she could muster. Eventually
she just handed him the money she wanted to pay for it, which he
took, but put the game on the side. Then Oddette said “what’s that
over there” and when he looked she snatched it off the shelf, and
he gave up and conceded the price.
She’s a tough bird that Oddette.
Oddette (the "price breaker") giving Jean (an artisan
in Kpalimé) a run for his money using all the bartering skills
at her disposition. You'll recognize those batiks in the background
from my African market sale
site.
And the funny thing was that the next day he kept on asking me
about her, and was sad that she had left. I think he had fun bartering
with her. :P By the way, this is the guy who makes the Batiks that
I sell on my website.
So, that was the Canadian weekend in Kpalimé.
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On to December...
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