Where have I been these past few months? I feel like I went to South Africa. Maybe for medical reasons? Where is that place? There, Togo was a dream. Now, back in Togo, and in my little hut on the corner of two glorified footpaths South Africa seems pretty far away and almost dreamlike as I recall different memories of Pretoria.
I don’t exactly remember how I ended up in a five-story mall. I left my village on a Tuesday thinking I would be back in three days and Friday I was on a plane to South Africa. Being ambitiously spontaneous at the airport in Ghana I happened to make friends with a dude from Johannesburg who worked for some big time bank in N’Yawk. After some strategery I found myself sitting in the ritzy first-class lounge indulging in some of the “complimentary” finer things in life. They must have thought I was some sort of big shot walking through those big glass doors in my dirty pants a ratty t-shirt (the JcPenny in Lome was closed for repo when I went there to try and get some new clothes). Maybe they thought I was some celebrity trying to make a fashion statement, or that I was an up and coming musician trying to sell an image. Either way, the First Class lounge at the Ghanaian airport got the best of me. I had to remember what those three-pronged metal instruments are used for and tried my best to avoid causing any disturbances…THE HORROR THE HORROR.
Later on in the evening I was already asleep on the plane and eight to twelve hours later, arriving in Pretoria, I was quickly swept away to the second biggest mall in South Africa. I’m not quite sure what was a bigger shock: the freezing weather that punched me in the face as soon as I got off the plane, or the paved roads. I was with some other Peace Corps med-evacs who were a little more veteran when it came to dealing with things in South Africa. They got a cab with a telephone and paid a set price for the trip to the mall, all the while I’m trying to remember who I am, where I was a week ago, what was going on in my village at that moment and that it wasn’t cool to pee on the side of the road.
We got to the mall. It could have been five minutes or five hours. The ride was so surreal that time was something I didn’t bother to try and manage. The sliding doors opened and consumerism gave me a right, upper cut to the stomach and a hard left to the cheek. Everywhere I went the mannequins followed. They can change their clothes so quick! I don’t think they understood when I told them to stop staring at me. “Who you callin’ crazy!” (Harrelson, Woody. Kingpin. 1:03:43). I ditched the other PCVs and wandered around a bit. I wanted to make the most of the experience. Two extremes back to back. I wanted to explore, talk to people, tell my story and hear others. I ended up walking into the same store six times to look at the same sock-hat because it was freezing outside and took a break only to eat a mini-chicken samich from Chicken Licken’.
I finally bought the sock hat and immediately had intense buyers remorse. I hesitantly brought it to the counter and tried to talk the guy working the cash register into diminishing the price for me. I pointed out flaws in the fabric and told him what it actually cost to sew it together. He didn’t have any idea what I was trying to do and with a look on his face saying, “I’m just doing my job” he pointed at the price tag and bar code. Aaah Haa. I get it, George of the Jungle goes to New York City.
Had it been 45 days in Pretoria I would have been on a plane back to the USA to seemingly start over. Instead, I spent 44 days in South Africa and on the day that the Peace Corps would have sent me home packing I was stepping off the plane in Ghana. It was night when we were flying in and it very much reminded me of the first time I flew into Togo. The giddiness was ever-present. There were many lights and Accra had far more than I remembered Lome having. At first I didn’t recognize the flickering lights that seemed to float in the middle of nowhere, but after a year spent in West Africa and looking out of the window watching the approaching landscape zoom by, I immediately recognized these twinkling gods as family stove-fires. We touched down and all the nervousness, anxiety, and uncertainty of being in limbo in South Africa was lifted as I finally felt comforted that I had made it back and healthy to West Africa.
I wanted to be the first off the plane, which I knew was going to be hard because I was sitting in the back. I tried to run, but in four rows, just as I was getting a good head of steam, someone blocked my way. I made it to the door and was immediately entrapped by the hot, musky, swampy, malarial scent of coastal West Africa. The smell grabbed me and hugged me all the way down the stairs, into the airport, past the customs official pissed off at his job, and all the way to the flat I was staying at for the night. I don’t quite remember falling asleep, but I do remember the roosters the next morning. You love ‘em and you hate ‘em.
After a brief stint in Lome (B-dodd came to visit, we painted the town red) and a few days in transit I finally made it back to my mildewy house, Diogie, 80 rabbits, and an entire village very happy to have me back. The party lasted a few days.
I was really worried about reassuming my life and role here after being gone for two months, but after three days I was back in action. I think this says something about the life here. Things don’t change very often. I’m happy with this normalcy in a very strange environment.
Last night as I dipped my hands in the old tomato paste can to wash up for dinner, Gnon walked over to the stereo to pump some jams while we ate. We dug into the pate, pinching off globs of corn-mush and dipping it in to a spicy sauce, as kids started filing in followed by toothless old men, swaying to the music and light on their feet from the day spent drinking liquid courage, forgetting about the heat. Little old Nikabou Gbati with his loose, long front tooth stood there in the darkness in front of Gnon and I dancing away as we ate. Half naked, energy-filled kids shadowboxed in the background to the rhythm of the Togolese beats. This ensemble could have been the headlining performance for the Grammy Awards…We ate and I’d look up and old man Gbati would be motioning me out to the empty space we sometimes refer to as a “dance floor” to dance for no one to see. I pinched off a few more globs of pate, tossed some over to Diogie licking his chops in the corner and got up to boogey with this little old man. “Excellent dancing!” Gnon would yell from the table as he clapped his hands under the lone light bulb where we had just finished eating. I danced myself into a sweaty mess with old man Gbati under a silent sky filled with stars you could touch.
I didn’t realize it while we were eating, but from my new dancing vantage point I noticed that a man had been asleep on the bench next to Gnon and I while we ate. I quickly recognized this man as a crazy man that roams around Bikotiba and often catches a few Zzz’s on the benches in or around Bar L’Amitie, or the Friendship Bar of Bikotiba. This man might be the looniest, most clueless person in the world, but he seems pretty happy. Everyone knows he’s crazy and I’m sure he does too. You wouldn’t see people like him in the U.S.. He’d be in a home somewhere having people say that there is something wrong with him.
Most people in the village think he got hit real hard on the head one day a long time ago. He speaks English, which makes me think that at one time he was in Ghana, somehow made it over to Bikotiba, got knocked on the head real hard one day and now spends his time, alone, walking around, yelling nonsense from time to time, and often dancing in the street, with no music to be heard. I get up every morning when the mosque calls for prayer, or at the time when you can watch the darkness become light without seeing the sun. I open my back window to let in the light and the morning breeze while I start boiling water on my gas stove. This morning, I looked out and over to the bridge that runs over the creek separating Bikotiba and saw this crazy man dancing away as dawn was fastly approaching. I laughed, better than a cup of coffee at 5:00am, and I have to admit I was a little bit jealous of this madman, dancing away in silence, happy as can be for no one to see.
