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Monday November 3, 2003
I am only here to be truly helpful.
I don’t know who I am here. I don’t know how to help. All of my words and ideas and techniques and tools seem weak and ineffective in the face of AIDS. It feels more powerful than anything I can bring. I see the courage in these people. I see the injustice of their situation. I see my helplessness in helping improve their life situations.

I guess when I rely on my own strength I have reason to be sad. I alone cannot change anything. None of my academic training prepared me for this. My life learning did. Yet its lessons seem so vague and distant and far away in my memory.

May I have strength. May I gain hope from the courage of Florence, Jean and Afi and their daughter Amene, Yawavi and her mother Akouvi, Madelaine, and the thousands of silent others who are living with this mysterious illness that claims their bodies and dares to take over their souls’ hope.

My skewed perspective…
My initial article on Jean and his wife Afi was a reaction from a feminist viewpoint. It was my anger at the injustices and the ignorances that seem to be inherent in the AIDS pandemic here in Africa; especially those affecting women. I am humbled, however, as I am reminded that each one of us has a story; and there is always a reason behind our behaviour. What good does it do anyone to blame cultural factors for the current situation here in Togo? That is merely seeking an external explanation with which to explain away the problems here. And once I have that explanation, I am no longer curious as to the individual experiences of the people affected by HIV/AIDS. If I already have the answer, what need do I have to inquire or ask more questions?

This is a means of self-preservation. It protects me from entering into an authentic relationship with these people – from hearing, sharing, and witnessing their pain. It allows me to maintain my distance and not be fully implicated in their lives. In this way, I can hold to my identity as a Canadian, an outside agent here to ‘help’; and I always have the safe thought in the back of my mind that I can leave, that I will leave in a matter of months.

These people can’t leave.
This is their life and there is no escaping it.

I see that I hold the very mentality for which I have criticized other development workers: I who come from a more developed country know more than you and I can help you because you are too ignorant of the ways of the world to help yourself.

I am humbled as I witness daily the strength and resilience of these people. I as an outsider cannot come in and ‘fix’ them. They have their own wisdom and their own ways of navigating in this very different world of heat and hardship, abundance and poverty, family and community, support and division, greetings and loud laughter, goats and chickens, music and dancing.

I have much to learn.
I must begin to ask more questions.

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Okay, so where am I today ? A bit paranoid…

I’ve been getting my bearings in my new life here in Kpalimé, but then some things have occurred that just throw me off. I don’t know what ‘normal’ is here – right down to what night sounds are normal. Hence, there are times when I don’t know if my boundaries are being crossed, or if I can trust that I am physically safe.

It’s interesting, because I feel comfortable walking at night in almost every city I’ve been in – including here in Togo. I think this is because as a woman, I am aware of the various precautions I must take, and I am often hyper-aware of my surroundings. I walk confidently, trusting that I will ultimately be okay; but trusting my gut instincts to keep me safe.

It is in the space I call ‘home’ (wherever that happens to be in the world) where I assume that I can let my guard down. Lately, some things have occurred that clue me in that perhaps I have taken for granted the fact that I can let my barriers down. This is a very weird feeling. The result is that I am overly suspicious. I find it hard to trust – and these last 7 weeks in Togo have been an exercise in trusting and in remembering the higher goodness and innocence in all people, even though their outward behaviour may appear otherwise. In this non-trusting state, I tell myself I must be paranoid, because I am not at peace.

So, it all began about a week ago when I was woken up at 2am by what sounded like a crazy man yelling, singing, and shouting for at least half an hour. It was so loud and really annoying. The only way I could come to understand it in my mind was that it must be a drunk old man coming home from the bar… on a Monday night. As the sounds came closer, I began to feel afraid. Although I could not understand what he was saying (in Ewé), his yelling sounded hostile. I lay in my bed curled up, frozen in place, feeling like a dear caught in headlights. It was as though I could physically feel the energy coming at me with each yell.

My rational brain told be to calm down and not be such a baby. However, in this strange context that is Togo, where there is no ‘911’, where the police do not come and help in the middle of the night, where I sleep in a little apartment away from the main house… it is hard for me to trust ultimately in my physical security. And what about the magic and voodoo that is practiced by 60% of Togolese? Is there something to this?

As I was sitting in the dark, in my fear, I debated whether I should get up and lock my door. Then, sure enough, this crazy man begins rattling and banging on the main gate of the compound. I was scared. I was also scared that he would hear me turning the key in the lock. I felt as though he was energetically picking up on my fear; and the more scared I was, the louder his cries became. I remembered a yoga teacher telling me that I must not try and block negative energy – “you create what you defend against”(ACIM). Rather, I should try and let the energy just pass through me, realizing that it cannot harm me. As I breathed in meditation, the man gave up banging on the gate, and continued singing and yelling on his way to disturb the sleep of somebody else.

The next morning I asked my host-mother if she had heard the crazy man the night before. She was quick to clarify that it was not a crazy man; he was an evangelist, preaching the Word of God. I said that is not the way to talk about God, scaring people in their beds! She replied, ‘this is how we do things here’.

So this was yet another glaring example of how we each interpret things from our own perspective. At the same time, I feel that my experience of fear and this man (crazy or an evangelist… or both) was real. Even if it is the way things are done in this culture, my intuition tells me that it was healthy and normal to feel fear that night. The balance between openness and vulnerability…

A few days later, my host-family has a new puppy. I think, ‘hmm, that’s fun’. Then I hear the reason: thieves entered the compound the previous night and stole two large bins of corn. Great. So people can enter the compound. And regardless of a locked bedroom door, all I have separating me from them is a large window that can be easily opened.

That night I awake to an inhuman high-pitched sound – I don’t know if it is my host-family’s visitor’s (a couple) that are having incredible sex at 2am; or if it is a dying hen; or maybe it’s the hen killing the new puppy! This nocturnal wake-up call continues throughout the week. I try and figure out what it is I’m hearing; I also hear new night sounds – are there people walking around outside my door? I must be paranoid again…

As I become friends with the puppy, I realize the poor little thing is frightened in the middle of the night. The next time it happens, I open my door and turn on the outside lights – I still wonder what this puppy is really afraid of. Is there someone lurking in the dark? Is this the puppy’s brave attempt to protect the house? I brave the darkness, and open my door to pet the shaking little puppy to calm him down.

Funny where the mind can take me when everything I thought I could stand on – such as culture, language, expressions, different definitions/understandings of the same words/expressions, facial and body language cues, things that are valued, perspectives on appropriate moral behaviour – is no longer so solid.

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So here I am, sitting (finally) in front of a computer. Every time I go to write another journal entry, something comes up and it never gets finished! Whoever said that in Africa, things just happen more slowly and you don’t get anything done and all you do is wait around – they obviously weren’t working at Vivre Mieux! As weird as it is, I still find myself saying: “I wish I had more hours in the day!!!!!” And from what I’ve heard of the other Crossroaders in Lomé and Vogan, they are hopping too! (Perhaps this is a testament to the great work being done by CCI’s partners!)

Some funny moments:

• My little 6 year old host-brother Giovani REALLY wants me to learn Ewé. Often he’ll speak to me in Ewé without translating, thinking that I should just be able to figure out what he’s saying. So, lately he’s been pointing at objects around the house, asking me what the word is in Ewé. I tell him I don’t know, and he’ll have to teach me. To frame my story a bit, let me just say there is a huge French influence (from France) in Togo in many areas, from infrastructure, government, education, and more importantly, language. One thing that seems to be common in France is calling things by their brand name: e.g. saying “Kleenex” instead of “mouchoir” (just like we do in Canada). So, in my language lesson with Giovani, he pointed to a pen, and told me that the word in Ewé is “bic” (like the brand name of pen – it’s what they call it in France). I laughed and said, that’s the word in French! And he said, very seriously, that actually, the French word is “le bic”…!
  
• I was in a taxi the other day going into the mountains, packed full of people; to the point where there is just absolutely NO WAY that any other person or thing could EVER fit… thus says my most rational brain, taking into account that fact that I AM in Africa and here you can always fit in more into a car than you would ever think possible. Sure enough, my concept of how many clowns you can fit into a clown car was proven wrong yet again, as the driver made us play Chinese Firedrill for a few minutes and he shuffled us around. The end result was that in a SMALL station wagon that should legally carry 5 people, we piled in 11….!!! (this was the point at which the Yovo in the front of the car – which was now holding 4 people – broke into hysterics laughing at the ridiculousness of it all!)
  
• My host-family has a baby boy who is actually a very hefty 11 month old boy named Gallius. We got off to a rough start, as he was scared of the Yovo, and cried absolutely every time he caught a glimpse of me. I kept my distance, letting him get used to me. Gradually, he has warmed up to me, and now we are the best of friends. It is such a joy to cuddle with a baby, engage in baby-talk with him and my host-parents, and see his wide eyes and huge smile when I say hi to him. I’ve watched him learn how to stand up all on his own, and wave bye-bye. We also have moments where we just have laughing fits together. It’s rather humbling to consider that fact that he will probably know more words in Ewé by the time I leave in April than I ever will! (How babies learn and develop and just KNOW absolutely amazes me. That course in Child Language Acquisition I took back at McGill even applies here in Togo! It reminds me that the way nature unfolds is so much wiser and bigger than we humans.)
  
• My host-family got a puppy; he’s very tiny and young, and whines at night making this strangely inhuman sound that kept me awake for about a week. But I am determined to be his friend because here in Togo, dogs are trained to be more vicious and threatening than friendly little playmates….and on those occasions when I come home alone and the family is in bed, I want the dog to be my friend, and not rip my ankles off… So far, this strategy is working. I came home last night after 10pm, and he yapped away, but when I spoke kindly to him, and knelt down to pet him, he was shaking because he was so scared! Poor little guy.
  
• Anyway, speaking of this dog who has no name except “le petit chien”: (I’ve tried to sell the idea of giving him a name, telling them my dog’s name is Sam when my fellow Yovo friend drilled little Giovani on why he didn’t want to name his dog, Giovani suddenly decided that the dog’s name was indeed “Sam”…!) Well, Gallius, the baby, is very curious of the new live plaything hanging around the house. When he sees the ‘petit chien’, he begins screaming in pure delight. This scares the little puppy however, and the dog starts making his strange, high-pitched, inhuman squealing noise (which sounds quite like a chicken being tortured, if one was to imagine what that might sound like). Gallius hears this, and screams louder in response, and thus the cycle begins where dog and baby feed off each other. Thus, we regularly have screaming matches at our house…!

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... on to December.