Street food and other random things

Eight months into Peace Corps service, I’m feeling good about where I’m at. Parts of life that seemed bizarre or even aggravating a few months ago now seem relatively normal. I rode in a jam-packed car—seven people in a five seat car, several chickens in baskets tied to the roof, and huge sacks of rice bulging out of the trunk—to the workstation without any trouble at all. It’s been very hot the last couple weeks, probably over a hundred degrees, but at this point I can’t imagine being in cold weather or snow.

 

Now that it’s dry season, people in village seem to have a bit more free time. People will wait until the rainy season comes to plant their crops, so once the soil is prepared, they are free to work on other income generating activities. Many women are making “gari”–cooked and ground manioc and has a very distinct crunchy texture. They sell it in huge bags in the market since the Togolese add it to many different foods—especially beans! Other families are out selling Payne or household goods in the market, or collecting firewood on the mountainside, or whatever else they can think of to make money. Unfortunately I haven’t seen anyone making the neem lotion that I demonstrated to the Femmes Lumieres in October. Apparently it isn’t easy to find the neem tree in the village.

 

I’ve been enjoying my days in village even more than usual, since I recently spent time away for PDM and for Christmas vacation. Everyone seems to have a project or idea to discuss with me or a new food to share. I’ve been eating my lunchtime special, beans and gari, every afternoon at the same lady’s stand by the side of the road. She serves cooked beans with a little oil, topped with crunchy gari. I can’t remember the last time that I cooked an elaborate meal in my own kitchen! In the afternoons, I sit outside and drink bouille—warm oatmeal-ish concoction made from flour, sugar and water—with a handful of fried dough.

 

Drinking bouille in the late afternoons is the perfect replacement for tea-time, and it’s a great social activity too. Old men in the village always gather to play “pickets”–a peg game for two people—on the benches by the bouille tables. Other people just sit and gossip or pick numbers for the village lottery; I find it frustrating that people buy tickets for 25 or 50 cents yet complain they don’t have enough money saved for important purchases like school fees or seeds.

 

The other evening, a guy sitting next to me asked me a few funny questions about life in the U.S. “Do women sell things from baskets on their heads in the U.S.?” he asked me. In Togo, there’s always women (or children) walking by with a basket full of veggies, fruits, Tupperware, fish, or something in a woven basket on their head. But I had to think back if I’ve ever seen a woman selling things on her head on the U.S… nope, I guess I haven’t.

 

Ok, I’ll write more later! If you’re reading this and have some free time, feel free to send a letter/post card/note my way! Merci bien.