It’s market day in Bassar. On a crowded street I stroll. Among menacing faces, motos racing, dust, and heat. A gust of wind rushes by carrying with it plastic bags that are strewn about the road and the cries of children off in the distance, amused at the sight of a stranger. Chaos is too easy of a word to describe it. A bustling road when the angry, life giving sun is at its highest, I think about home and how far away I am from it. The dirt on my feet reminds me as I pass an ancient woman who suddenly peers in past my foreignness, smiles, lowers her veiled head, and greets me eye to eye as one of the streets very own: home. A crazy home, a strange home, a foreign home.
Go and Come, Aller et revenir, A cho daa…a very frequent saying in Togo. If you go to a friend’s house, go and come. If you go to the market, go and come. The farm, go and come. The hospital, go and come. The bathroom…go and come. America, go and come. You can probably guess what I was told as my friends and family in Bikotiba gave me gifts of honey, yams, and fabric for me to take on my voyage home.
This time, getting on a plane and coming back to Togo was very different than the first time. It was very different from the second time too. It felt like going back to work after a long weekend doing back flips off a dock into the Wadamalaw River. I never would have thought going to Africa could feel this way.
There’s a world map that hangs in my little hut, in my little village, in the little country of Togo and on it I have marked my homes with a red dot. These places differ from the places I’ve been. Home is somewhere you know how to get back to. You know what it takes because, for the most part, that is always where you are heading. I know what it takes to get to Macon, GA from Bikotiba, Togo-- A dusty motorcycle ride out of the bush with a driver who’s wearing a tight pink t-shirt that’s says “Ryan Adams Sucks” in big, bold letters and rip-off Dolce & Gabanna sunglasses. Normally I wouldn’t trust this guy with a pair of socks, but he knows how to traverse the roads in Togo and is looking for a buck so I let him give me a ride. The whole ride I’m wondering were on earth he got that shirt. I can only think of one notable Ryan Adams, but I’m not sure the alt-rock movement has hit Togo. This still puzzles me. Waiting, waiting, waiting for a car to fill up to travel the 10+ hours it can take to get to Lome and once there, the hustle and bustle of a big city is enough to steal any soul that’s used to the “quiet,” village pace of life. A border crossing—“Egos” dressed in military outfits and flip-flops who pick out the white dude with a backpack just so they can see what he may be carrying inside. “Cool coloring book,” they say… “can I have one?” “Where is my West Africa travel guide?” They rummage, and with a fake smile, I tell them they are doing good work and to watch out for the dirty underwear. I always keep mine on top. Into another bush-taxi and another sanity-testing ride to Accra, Ghana. A plane ride across the pond and back to the land of the free, home of the brave. Heading to Macon, GA. Home. The smell, the hugs, the food, the bed, the noises. Everyone knows the aforementioned and they are unique to each person for this is where the blood begs to be.
Waiting for my flight back to Togo in the Atlanta airport, I thought about what I was leaving and tried to think about where I was going. A world apart where the long flannel and socks I was wearing would not be needed. Go and come they told me. I looked at the choices that were before me at that moment--McDonalds, Chen’s Wok, KFC, Washington Post, New York Times, Dasani, Fiji, fountain water. I wasn’t hungry, that BBQ sandwich from White Tiger was too delicious a final meal to spoil with vile McDonalds or other airport delicacies. To go? Togo. I questioned it a bit, but then I realized I was going back to the home that I had made for myself for the past year and a half. At that moment, I knew exactly what was going on in Bikotiba because things don’t really change too often. I knew Diogie was probably running around, chasing goats and I saw my house and all the kids that were sitting under the lone light bulb laughing and farting, studying the days lesson. I knew the map that was hanging in my house and I saw the red dot marking where I was heading. A little place in a tiny country, a different language, a different culture, a different climate but the same people to laugh and live with. I got on the plane and before I knew it I was being hugged by the hot, muggy, malarial West African scent and being woken up by the muezzin’s beautiful, non-melodic, chilling, and comforting morning call to prayer. Far from the ambient noises of America, I made it back home, to Togo.
Looking at a map of Africa it is easy to lose yourself in unfamiliarity. To pronounce many of the country names and capitals requires great resolve. The vastness of the continent coupled with the depictions we get from news reports, movies, and stories makes it especially hard to connect with. This is exactly how my friends in village felt when I came back from America. A place so unfamiliar and due to the lack of maps, a place many people have no idea of where it is. The voyage anywhere starts by going down the path away from the mango trees. I have fielded many questions about America since returning, just as I fielded and appreciated many questions about the life in Togo. Questions about my family and friends, work, life in USA, food, and what it takes to get there. Sometimes it feels like being a very long bridge. By the way, Bikotiba told me to tell you “wassup?”
I brought a bag full of full of glow in the dark stuff back with me and handed it out to the kids in my compound last night. It was a new moon so the darkness in the village was suffocating, however with the snap of glow sticks the dark paths that wind in and out and around family’s houses became flickering tunnels filled with kids running and screaming with excitement because what else would you do with glow sticks on a dark night? After a while, I headed back inside my house to close out the day. Everyday begins with opening my door, just as everyday ends by shutting it. We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.
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