Today I woke up in my own bed, in my own apartment, in the U.S.A. Had I arrived at night and gone directly to bed, I’m sure that upon waking I’d have begun the impossible task of scrawling the dream of time ("it felt like weeks") in Togo on my sheets with the nearest Sharpie. But my flight arrived in the morning. I took a whole day of non-contemplative indulgence in the luxuries of home, a half-hour hot shower being one of the first. Knowing I was finally home, my body basically fell apart. I gratefully and contently nursed myself all day – overdosing on fiber and (instant!) hot water, wearing a heating pad over the war in my uterus, welcoming a fever from this low-grade cold I got last week, and regularly inspecting my throbbing and bleeding gums in the multitude of mirrors in our home. The vanity registered and my face instantly bloomed spots where, in spite of pretty constant filth, there had been none.
At any rate, my back ached when I got up. My back never ached in that not-my-bed way during my trip. There was other stuff to think about.
1. “WTF is that?” to whatever (usually musical) racket made it past my earplugs.
2. “JEEEEZ!” to being again drenched in sweat from the latex mattress and pillows.
3. “Holy shit, I’m in Togo.”
I was staying in one of many bedrooms in the 3-story house (this making it a veritable palace in the city, right on one of the main drags so the real estate was gold). The walls were bare, with 2 nails. One had a hanger on it when I arrived so my summer dress hung there, more for decoration than necessity. There was a low bookshelf on which I arranged and rearranged my belongings on late nights when I needed me-time and to feel some control over things. At the foot of the bed, an old wooden armoire. Curiosity got the best of me and I was busted by the marbles-in-the-medicine-cabinet- a landslide of random shit that had been thrown in there spewed out. After scrambling to pile it back up without a chance to look at it, I shut the door and never opened it again.
The mattress was latex foam. “Your Partner for Life,” according to the hand-painted mattress company-signs we saw on trucks and a billboard in Accra. Very comfortable, most like the million dollar mattresses here without springs – I forget what they’re called. Also. F-ing hot. The two small pillows also felt rather nice – also, f-ing hot. My head would be soaked in sweat before falling asleep. Our first time at the market, my co-traveler bought me a small towel (they don’t seem to have bath towels there) after discovering I was using what we would call a dish towel to dry myself after a bucket bath. I cherished it, and used it on my pillow. There was a bottom sheet on the double bed that I just wrapped over me, to keep from mosquitos (a mosquito burrito, I called it) and because the room had a row of windows to the hall at eye-level, which no-one had qualms about looking into. Had there been a lock on the door and curtains on them windows, that bed would not be eternally soaked in my sweat. I didn’t ask for a second sheet firstly because it wasn’t really necessary and secondly because it took a couple of days for the other woman to get any sheets at all – it involved a third party somehow to get them. I regret not having washed those sheets and pillow cases myself before leaving. It’s a lot of work – though one of the many people squatting in that big house would probably be asked or paid some needed change to do it.
If it were the middle of the night and some musical rukus was the culprit, I’d grab my camera (in the bed, once I got used to this) and pull my drugged sleepyhead up to the window. Standing on the bed, I’d aim the camera into the darkness toward the noise, and record video since I had no way to record audio only. Most often this was the 4 hour amplified church service inciting singing over a band, screaming and shouting, and apparently speaking in tongues, though I’d never have known that. Rest assured, the insomniacs of Lome’ have been saved. (My Dell can’t recognize the video format, so after much editing at someone else’s house I’ll post it).
After toweling myself off and putting on some more clothes to be presentable (tank and boxers = not okay, contrary to pre-visit assurance that there were no real issues with clothes/coverage and whatever I wear here would be fine) I’d pee in the toilet-closet. Sometimes you just left it, sometimes you dumped a baby bucket of water in it, sometimes you could actually flush it. Around 3am, there was adequate water pressure to get water upstairs and the toilet tank would fill. That was great. If up, one would put a giant bucket under a faucet in the shower room and fill it. That was loud. But it saved 4-5 trips up from the yard the next day - otherwise you’d have to pour water obtained from the outdoor faucet in the back yard into the fill tank. I enjoyed carrying water up from the spout, so I endulged in flushing sometimes when not really necessary.
Togolese don’t really do breakfast. Mom had her magic tea (a fragrant sedative like no other and digestive aid), and maybe they’d have a bag or whatever-that-was. I think it was like cream of wheat? Watery corn-something? My blood sugar issues couldn’t be flexible on this one so we developed a breakfast ritual of boiled egg (available on the street), sweet bread, bananas, and pineapple. We were taken to the grocery store where only rich people shop to get some familiar foods for comfort (and sustenance, when the protein of many meals was too spicy for us to eat). We got stuff to make “French toast” for everyone. Wary of leaving the foreigners to the kitchen, especially with so many questions, Dad and this helper-guy we called Kenyay got involved and the resulting Spanish-Togolese-American fusion was deep-fried eggy baguette slices with honey. The Spaniard busted out the “Jabon” which was probably the only part Dad liked. She, I believe, was disgusted by the habit of the parents to touch just about everything on a plate with their hands (which they of course eat with) before making a selection. I loved that morning. Our host-friend would later reveal in a drunken rant that we were basically travel-pussies and didn’t really want “the real African experience” as exhibited by our small stash of familiar foods (cheese, Nutella, butter which was mostly a gift to mom, and 2 cans of tuna), by eating breakfast, and inquiring about parks or places we could see nature. Not my favorite night.
(the trip North to “see nature” in the more mountainous region of Kpalome that led us to bathing in the cascades of the jungle-woods was no doubt our host’s favorite part of our stay. Funny how out-of-towners can introduce you to your habitat!)
Anyway, the not-jungle junglescape was marred by only one thing - the noise of a powerplant coming from somewhere below. The trickling falls I baptised myself in are apparently torrential, flooding the whole area we walked, when they open some dam at the top of the mountain. It all seemed to defy the primitive, natural state of the place. So he walked us up to the building where the racket came from. Our Togolese host got the scoop and yelled in my ear that the Germans had this rigged up when they took over "Togoland" ages ago - and the machinery itself was I think Hungarian. It looked like something out of Wonka's factory, not like something that could provide electricity for a century or so to a section of the country.
