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The Purpose Driven Life

January
Jan.  
(15) Back from the holidays
(21) New Logo
(22) African Sale
(29) Canadians in Kpalimé

...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.

   
1. Yellow Planet
A. Wide "Vivre Mieux"
2. Blue Planet
A. Wide "Vivre Mieux"
   
3. Black and white planet
B. Skinny "Vivre Mieux"
4. Grey Planet
B. Skinny "Vivre Mieux"
   

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...