Togo - Mia do go!

It's time to say goodbye to Togo!  I've just realised that I've spent the past two months blogging about Togo, which is an incredibly long time (note to self - blog a bit faster in future!!)

Anyway, it's been an interesting journey and I've learned a lot about Africa, languages, Dead Aid and phosphorus.  As usual with my final blog I want to highlight some of the other things I learned along the way, but didn't have time to blog about.  I learned that:

The largest religious belief in Togo is indigenous beliefs, unlike other African countries, Christians and Muslims are both minorities. 

Often in Togolese villages there are no doors to knock on, so people usually clap to let you know that they've come to visit.

Blacksmiths are revered in West African societies and masks play an important part in traditional rituals.

The Ewe people worship the female-male moon twins Mawu-lisa and they are also famous for their 'talking drums' the vu gbe.

Togo was one of the first Allied victories in World War One. 

Lome wasn't the capital of Togo during the colonial period, as the capital of German Togoland was at Aneho.  Togo's second largest city is Sokode. 

I learned about the stilt dancers of Atakpame and the Taberma people of Northern Togo and Benin who are famous for their fortified dwellings.  When a son gets old enough he shoots an arrow from his father's house and wherever it lands, he will construct his own house, known as a tata. 

I learned that children in West Africa are often named after the day of the week on which they were born.  Kofi is a popular boys' name and means 'Friday'.

I learned about Le Mouvement Togolais pour la Democratie which is Togo's exiled opposition movement. 

I learned that the Pope John Paul II visited Togo in the early 80's.

I learned that in some traditions a stillborn baby's hand is cut off, to stop it from returning to the womb and creating another cycle of miscarriage.

I learned about mianta-mianta, a fern that reacts quickly to the human touch.  

I learned about the monster Ague and how reptiles are believed by the Mina tribe to be the 'children of the earth' because they touch the earth with their whole bodies when they move.

I learned that France is called Yovode, literally 'white man's country'. 

Most of all I learned that I have still got a lot to learn about West Africa and the countries there - I look forward to my next 'journey' to that part of the world. 

Image credits:

The image of the young boys playing on a street in Lome was taken by flickruser * hiro008 aka Dietmar Temps.  Dietmar is from Cologne in Germany and works in the communication media.  He also has experience working as a photographer for film crews and television. 

You can find out more about Dietmar's work at his website http://www.dietmartemps.de/  Thanks to Dietmar for sharing this wonderful image with us, using the Creative Commons License. 

Togo - Moyo's theory on the failure of Aid to Africa

Not specifically related to Togo, but rather a text that deals with Africa as a whole continent, I was told about Dambisa Moyo's book Dead Aid by a Kenyan economist I met at a writer's day here in London back in July.  I've been itching for an excuse to read this book, so I'm using Togo as my platform for the issue of Aid, which is one that practically every African nation has been affected by. 

The culture of giving Aid

I must admit, I was pretty sceptical at first, when I understood that Moyo's main argument was to stop all Aid payments to Africa and throw African nations into the maelstrom of a capitalistic, market-based economy.  I guess, culturally, as a Westerner, I've never really questioned the logic behind aid to Africa - it's always just seemed to be the 'right thing' to do.  Especially being Irish, with all of the charity work that Irish aid agencies have got involved in, through (I believe) a genuine desire to improve the lives of people who are worse off than ourselves - the culture of aid-giving is something I was brought up and never thought to question, before I read Moyo's book. 

In some ways it's reassuring to think, no matter how much I have distilled the leftist political beliefs I developed in my teenage years, that I am still open to learning something new about the world, to looking at things from a different angle and questioning things that I would never have thought to question before.

African economists

Perhaps one of the most attractive things about this book is that it was written by an African woman from Zambia.  The debates about African economics and the future of the continent have been so dominated by the theories of white politicians, white economists and white celebs, it's refreshing to read something by a black economist and I genuinely believe that Africa's 'problems' will only ever be solved by African people.  The West and white Europeans have dominated African history for far too long! 

Having said that, I don't think Moyo's arguments are inherently African.  She is Oxford-university educated and, perhaps, her views are merely a product of her education.  Her arguments have evolved from a very Western way of thinking and I'm a little bit weary of the idea that she might be used by (Western) free-market economists, to pursue sinister right-wing solutions to the situation Africa finds itself in today.  I guess what I'm saying is that it would be much harder for a white, Western economist to put forward the solutions that Moyo does - in our very liberal way, we might accept her right to do this, as a leading African economist and a black woman, whereas her arguments should be analysed for what they are, without reference to the colour of her skin. 

Statistics

Moyo's book is peppered with statistics, most of them incredibly alarming and the bottom line is that despite the estimated $300 billion that has been given to African nations since the 1970's, the reality of life in Africa is that it has gone from bad to worse during that period and levels of poverty in most countries is much higher than it was 40 years ago!  Moyo believes that, not only has aid to Africa not worked, it's made things much worse.  There is definitely a lot of logic in the argument that Africa has become aid-dependent and the whole continent is like one big welfare state.  I also share Moyo's belief that aid has discouraged entrepreneurship and stifled economic growth, led to an increase in despotism and made little difference to the lives of the average African. 

Different types of Aid

Moyo divides aid into three categories:

Charity aid - ie. non-governmental donations from ordinary people - the type of aid most of us will be familiar with.

Disaster relief - eg. charitable donations given to Haiti or South East Asia, after the tsunami. 

Systematic aid - ie. direct cash transfers from a Western government to one or more African governments.

Moyo's main focus is systematic aid and I was really surprised to learn that this makes up the majority of aid that is given to African nations.  She does criticise the other two forms of aid as well and I was really upset to learn about the Bush administration's President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief which pledged $15 billion to Aids/HIV relief over a five year period (2003-2008), but with the proviso that at least 1/3 of this went to organisations that promoted 'abstinence' and that none of this went to clinics that advised women on abortion.  It's absolutely outrageous that aid could be qualified in this way and I can't believe the blatant moral colonialism of the PEPFAR programme! 

Also, the whole Haiti thing makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable - I read a book about eight years ago that opened my eyes to the desperate situation that Haiti is in, so I've been very aware of the issues Haiti is faced with and the lack of interest or concern that the West had shown about Haiti prior to the horrible earthquake earlier this year.  All of a sudden, concern about Haiti became very fashionable and I know people mean well, but this sudden concern really bugged me and seemed incredibly superficial.  Almost a year later and the world has moved on and the challenges that Haiti faces are more serious than ever. 

The origins of Aid

Moyo gives a very concise overview of the origins of Aid in a Europe devastated by the Second World War.  She talks about the significance of the Marshall Aid programme and how instrumental it was in ensuring that European nations got on their feet again and rebuilt their shattered economies.  Moyo makes some pertinent comparisons between the Marshall Aid programme and current Aid to Africa, namely that the Marshall Aid programme was timebound (5 years) and had a very tangible purpose (restructuring), whereas Aid to Africa has had no timeframe and been confused in its purpose.  She also highlights the fact that most government to government aid in the 70's and 80's was in the form of loans, with interest rates so that, by the 90's debt repayments ended up dwarfing grants in aid from the West.  Ironically, we now have the absurd situation where vast sums of money are flowing south to north and from the poorest nations to the richest ones. 

Live Aid and the work of Western celebrities

Moyo's book is called Dead Aid for a very important reason and, although she acknowledges the well-meaning involvement of Western popstars and celebrities in African affairs, she slates their contribution as ignorant and damaging.  Of course, she's incredibly aware of the fact that Africa has an image problem which can only ever scare away potential investors and she feels that the interference of Western celebs in the Aid debate only highlights the unattractiveness of Africa as a place to invest money and reinforces the negative perceptions westerners have, which over-simplifies the economic reality faced by the continent.  She also believes that they don't really know what they're talking about and I share her concerns that people in the West are more willing to listen to someone like Bob Geldof or Bono, than listen to the opinions of African economist like Moyo. 

Again, I grew up in the 80's and remember the Live Aid concerts and all the charity-work in relation to the famine in Ethiopia.  Ireland in the 80's was hardly the richest country in the world and, I guess, it felt strangely reassuring to know that there were people out there that were worse off than yourself.  Often the poorest people in western societies are the ones who will give most and, rather than be cynical about it, I would like to think that there was a genuine empathy in Ireland during the 1980's, where people understood that we were suffering as a nation, but that there was still enough money around to ensure that others weren't going to starve to death, especially at Christmas time!  It's no coincidence that both Geldof and Bono are Irish and I think there's something deep in our mentality that makes us feel strongly about aid-giving, especially famine relief.  I'm sure there are direct parallels to the Great Famine that wiped out 2 million Irish people in the 1840's and sent another 2 million overseas in search of a better life. 

Democracy and economic growth

There is no doubt that stable democracies are more likely to experience economic growth and Moyo also deals with Africa's colonial past, the Berlin conference that randomly threw competing tribes into European-style nations and how decades of ethnic rivalry, civil wars and (in the extreme case of Rwanda) genocide have only made things much worse.  When most African nations were gaining independence in the 1960's, Nigeria, with its rich oil deposits, was heralded as a future African success story.  Whilst Nigeria is still in a strong position economically, its history is one that is typical of the failures of African nationhood - in many ways, civil war or inter-tribal wrangling is one of the biggest obstacles that an African nation faces. 

Quite controversially (from a Western perspective) Moyo states that democracy isn't always the best thing for an African nation and that democracy, especially in nations that have precarious ethnic divisions, can slow down economic growth and led to a lack of clear decision making.  I think I understand what she means and, unlike some of her critics, I don't believe she was espousing benign dictatorship as a political model, but that she recognised the need for stronger political leadership in African nations.  Moyo also believes that a functioning democracy is an ideal partner for economic growth, as politicians will be held accountable to the public who vote them into office.  The reality for a lot of African nations, of course, is far removed from the democratic 'ideal' that exists in the West. 

Western dependency on aid-giving

Moyo also points out that an estimated 500 million Western jobs are tied up in the aid 'industry', including the very existence of institutions like the World Bank.  There is a strong argument that the West has become dependent on the idea of giving aid to Africa and I guess it's undeniable that anyone who works for the World Bank, or even an aid-giving charity, will automatically refute Moyo's arguments, because it's in their best interests to do so.  Whilst I was reading her arguments around this, I had some even more sinister thoughts that Western governments are somehow using aid to get rid of excess cash from our taxes, to keep a low baseline of earnings in western countries and maintain the rich/poor divide that keeps the whole capitalist wheel spinning in perpetuity.  I'm weary of right-wing arguments on the subject, but you do have to wonder, during this time of austerity and cutbacks to important social services, especially here in the UK, why the development aid budget has been so strongly protected by our current government. 

Moyo's proposals for African economic growth

Importantly, Moyo's book isn't just about the failure of aid in Africa.  She has also come up with a plan to stimulate economic growth in African nations, which is divided into four main strands:

1. International bonds  I'm not an economist, but I did manage to get my head around the concept of International bonds and how a country can raise capital against its very existence.  Moyo promotes the raising of international bonds as a good alternative to Aid, as it is time-bound and has conditions that are meant to ensure that the capital is used wisely.  Moyo's argument is that when aid is given again and again to African nations, with no end in sight, then it's more likely to be spent foolishly by the nation's elite (eg on shopping trips to Paris!), as they have no real motivation to invest in the country's infrastructure, or improve the conditions of their poorer compatriots.  Moyo's critics have said that she is overly-optimistic in putting this forward as a solution to Africa's economic woes and, indeed, since her book was published last year, the international bonds market seems to have fallen through somewhat and the global economy is even more mistrustful of Africa's ability to fulfill its commitment to such bonds.  Only three African nations have ever issued bonds - South Africa, Ghana and Gabon. 

2. Direct investment.  I agree with Moyo that direct investment is a win-win situation for African nations and the nations that choose to invest in Africa.  With around 1 billion people, Africa has a large chunk of the world's population and (potentially) the world's consumers.  Geographically, Africa is at the centre of the world, much closer to European markets than countries in Asia or the Americas, but Africa lacks the infrastructure that is necessary to compete in a global economy.  Rapid transport, hi-speed internet and an educated workforce are the things that will drag the African economy into the 21st century global market. 

Moyo gives an interesting analysis of China's ongoing investment in African infrastructure and I think she's right to be optimistic about Chinese interests in the African economy and how this can have a much more positive impact on the lives of African people, than 40 years of Western aid-giving has had.  I think it's quite easy for people in the West to turn their noses up at Chinese investment (in Africa and elsewhere) and fall back on our practised mantras of Chinese self-interest and lack of commitment to human rights, but the reality is that whilst the 21st century global economy is being driven forward by countries like China and India, Europe and the West is in danger of being left far behind.  Moyo points out that any investment in Africa over the past ten years has reaped impressive returns and I share her optimism that the African economy isn't doomed to an endless cycle of corruption and economic stagnation.  The future for Africa could be very bright indeed!

3. Free trade - I touched on this before, when I was blogging about Lesotho, but what Africa needs much more than billions of dollars in handouts is the chance to sell its products in western markets on an equal footing with local producers.  I'm a great believer in European unity, but economic measures such as the Common Agricultural Policy are crippling Africa's future which, like it or not, will have an effect on Europe's political and economic stability.  It's hard to understand the world we live in, where an average European cow is subsidised to the tune of $2.50 per day, whereas most Africans live on less than a dollar a day!  Which are more important, cows or people? 

In fairness, she also apportions part of the blame on African countries themselves, that are perpetuating outdated colonial bureaucracy around import and export duties and trade between African nations.  In a bid to make a quick buck, African governments are shooting themselves in the foot.  Moyo quotes an interesting statistic to illustrate this, in that it's cheaper to ship a car from Japan to Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire ($1500), than from Abidjan to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ($5000).  African nations need a common market just as much as European nations do. 

4.  Microfinancing - One of the most interesting of Moyo's solutions is the growing industry of microfinancing.  Again, not being an economist, I'm still trying to get my head around this, but I guess it's a bit like a credit union.  Rather than rely on world-famous banks, who are nervous about investing in small African businesses and don't wish to deal with small sums of money, which is less profitable to a big corporation, Moyo suggests the development of microfinancing corporations, that raise money from donors in the west, or even from Western governments, then lend this locally, enabling African entrepreneurs to get a foot on the ladder of industry.  It's an interesting concept and Moyo cites several examples from around the world, notably the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and points to the success of this type of financing.

Ironically, one of the outcomes of reading Moyo's book is that I've started seriously looking into the idea of financing an entrepreneur, in Africa or somewhere else.  There is an online microfinancing website called Kiva.org that, despite criticisms about the interest the local microbanks charge, does seem to work surprisingly well.  The idea is that someone in the west can lend $25 to a small community bank in the developing world, they will lend this to a local entrepreneur who will (hopefully) pay this back and then you can get your money back or, as most people will do, reinvest in another entreprise.  I think it's important not to be naive about initiatives like Kiva.org and I still have reservations about how this money is used and whether or not the 'real' person at the other end is being exploited.  Still, it's better to be an optimist than a cynic! 

The impact of Dead Aid

Love it or hate it, I think Moyo's book is an important one and one that you should read, if you're interested in aid-giving and the future of Africa.  I'm going to remain optimistic and share Moyo's view that things can and will change for Africa.  Whilst her suggestion of cutting off all aid to Africa within 5 years might be a bit extreme, I think she has verbalised concerns that a lot of people in the west have been too distracted to take seriously.  She has also convinced me that this endless flow of aid to Africa isn't going to solve Africa's problems and I hope that other African economists and community leaders can take some inspiration from Moyo's words and find a solution that will make the world a better place for the majority of Africa's 1 billion-strong population. 

Image credits:

The photo of the Dead Aid bookcover was taken by me - I read the Penguin edition published in 2010 (Dead Aid was originally published in 2009 by Allen Lane)

The image of the Live Aid ticket is by flickuser Chim Chim, a.k.a. Mark Couvillion, who is a web designer and photographer from Austin, Texas.  You can see more of Mark's photos at http://www.flickr.com/people/chimchim/

The image of the Chinese man in Ghana was taken by flickruser oneVillage Initiative which is all about Holistic ICT for Ecoliving - you can find out more at their website

Thanks to Chim Chim and oneVillage Initiative for sharing their images with the world using the Creative Commons license. 

Togo - Venus, Lucifer and the Philosopher's Stone

Togo's main industry is phosphate mining and this small African nation is the world's fifth largest producer of phosphate rock.  Not having studied science beyond the basics at school, I decided to do a little bit of research into phosphorus and what that is exactly, in layman's terms!

A German alchemist taking the piss?

Phosphorus was discovered, or rather, identified in the late 17th century by a German alchemist called Hennig Brand (a very apt name indeed).  Brand had been trying to trying to discover the elusive 'philosopher's stone' - something of an obsession with alchemists at that time, as it was believed the philosopher's stone could turn ordinary metals into gold, thereby making its discoverer a very rich man indeed.  It was also believed that the philosopher's stone would give its owner the powers of a god and raise him beyond the capabilities of mere mortals. 

I guess Brand was working on the theory that each man has elements of god inside him, as he experimented with his own urine, boiling it, making it into a paste, leaving it in jars for days, to see what might happen to the essence and salts that urine contains.  I imagine he was quite surprised one night to find that the results of his experiment had left a sediment that glowed on contact with the atmosphere.  For a while, he may even have believed that he'd finally found the philosopher's stone but, as it turned out, he'd identified phosphorus, a potential goldmine, if he'd only known what to do with it!

So what is phosphorus and what do we use it for?

I've read the scientific definition of phosphorus and I'm none the wiser!  As far as I understand it, it's some kind of inorganic substance that can be found in rocks.  It comes in different forms, but the main two forms are white and red.  White is incredibly reactive to the atmosphere (it's the form Brand 'discovered') and isn't usually found in the open air, hence the need for phosphate mining.  It's used in the production of fertilisers and incendiary bombs, but most famously it was used in matches, as it ignites on contact with certain surfaces.  We've all seen phosphorus believe it or not, as it's that sort of bluey-white glow that you get from matches when you strike them. 

And why do I have phosphorus in my urine?

For some reason I've yet to really get my head around, the human body seems to contain traces of almost every metal and element that exists.  Thus, we naturally have a miniscule amount of phosphorus already in our bodies, mostly in our teeth and bones.  The phosphorus that Brand identified was from urine, however and, apart from the phosphorus that naturally occurs in our bodies, we are also constantly ingesting small levels of phosphorus, which is in the food we eat, getting rid of this again when we go to the toilet. 

Etymology

The word phosphorus comes from the Greek for 'light bearer', which is also the Greek name for the planet Venus, which appears in the first light of the morning.  In Latin, light bearer is translated as Lucifer, which I guess most of us usually associate with the Devil and this sent me off on a spiral of thought about how the Devil has had bad press and perhaps he was originally a kind of Prometheus, ie. the one who brought knowledge (or fire) to mankind, therefore helping us become like the gods. 

Again, there are interesting parallels with Brand's desire to find the philosopher's stone and this knowledge that only the gods should have.  To this day, in countries like the Netherlands, safety matches are still referred to as Lucifers.  By the way, there are different spellings for the noun and adjective - the noun being phosphorus and the adjective being phosphorous with a third 'o' at the end.

Matchmaking, phillumenists and the Scandinavian connection

I realise this sub-title is probably going to crop up in Google searches of a different kind!  If you've ever looked closely at the head of a match, you will have noticed the sort of patches of chemical that is a combination of gum arabica, ground glass and phosphorus.  In the early days of matchmaking, white phosphorus was used, but this was incredibly dangerous, as it's reaction on striking could sometime result in mini-explosions, not to mention the damage that exposure to white phosphorus does to the human body. 

In the early days, match-sellers would suffer from a terrible disease called phossy jaw, which was a build up of phosphorus in the jawbone, due to exposure to white phosphorus.  Left untreated, this level of phosphorus would eventually lead to organ failure and death.  It was such a serious problem in 19th-century England that the matchgirls of East London went on strike in 1888 because of the hazards of their working conditions.

White phosphorus was eventually replaced by red phosphorus in match production, which was less reactive to the atmosphere and less harmful to the people who were handling matches.  This new type of match became known as the safety match and eventually most countries in the world banned the use of white phosphorus for match production. 

Interestingly, just as people who collect stamps are known as philatelists, people who collect matchboxes are know as phillumenists. 

For some reason the Swedes have dominated the world of safety matches and the Swedish match company is, to this day, the main player in global match production.  It was a Dane however (Hans Christian Anderson) who popularised the plight of The Little Match Girl in his phenomenally popular short story. 

Phosphorus and the Togolese economy

In many ways the fate of Togo's economy has been closely connected to the world market for phosphorus and phosphate rock.  The main company that mined phosphorus in Togo during the colonial and post-colonial periods was the Companie Togolaise de Mines de Benin.  This was famously nationalised by Eyadema, who suspected the company's involvement in his plane crash in Sarakawa in 1974. 

Phosphorus prices soared in the mid-70's, so that Togo should have really come out the other end a much richer country, but bad management meant that when prices crashed again at the end of the 1970's, Togo was left as poor as it had ever been.  Demand for phosphorus also plummeted in the mid-1990's, sending Togo's economy into a recession.  After Eyadema's demise in 2005, the phosphate industry was once again privatised and the company was renamed Société Nouvelle des Phosphates du Togo.  Phosphate mining continues to play a large role in Togo's industrial output. 

Image credits:

The painting is by the 18th century English painter, Joseph Wright and is called The Alchymist, In Search of the Philosopher's Stone.  The original painting hangs in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery in England.  This image is in the public domain and (therefore) copyright free. 

The photograph of the matchbox with matches was taken by me.

The amazing image of the Phosphate mine in Togo is from Wikimedia Commons and was uploaded by a wiki enthusiast called Alexandra Pugachevsky.  Thanks Alexandra for sharing this image with us, using the Creative Commons License.  You can see the source of the image at Wikimedia Commons. 

Togo - Chicken Groundnut Soup with Fufu

Food, just like language, knows no boundaries in West Africa and Chicken Groundnut Soup with Fufu is popular, not just in Togo, but in many neighbouring countries as well.  I used a website http://www.celtnet.org.uk/ to give me an idea of which ingredients I should be using and, to be honest, I improvised a lot.  In fact, I think I'll improvise even more in future, as I like fusion cuisine and it's nice to put your own stamp on things!  If you want to see the original recipe, click here

Ingredients

For the Fufu:

1 yam

1 plantain

For the Chicken Groundnut Soup:

chicken thighs (I was lazy and bought fillets)
2 tomatoes
1 large onion
A jar of peanut butter
Tomato puree
chicken stock (about 500ml)

Making Fufu

Fufu is one of the main staples in West African cuisine and is similar to Pap in Lesotho (see my recipe for Chakalaka in an earlier blogpost).  Fufu can be made from various different starchy vegetables, such as cassava, but also from grains or cassava flour.  I used polenta when I was making Pap, but I wanted to be a bit more adventurous this time and decided to used yam and plantain.

Yam is not to be confused with American yam, which is sweet potato (although I'm sure this would have been a nice option as well).  It was my first time cooking yam, although it's practically identical to cassava (at least I can't see much of a difference, except in size).  First, I peeled off the tough bark-like skin, chopped the yam up into manageable chunks and boiled it for twenty minutes or so, before adding the slices of plantain. 

Yam takes a bit of getting used to and I can't quite make up my mind whether I like it or not.  Mashing it up with plantain certainly helped lighten the taste a bit, but I'm wondering what else I could do, in future, to make it more 'interesting'. 

 

Making the soup

This bit was easy.  I prepared all of the vegetables and cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces.  I ignored the recipe at this stage, which was telling me to boil everything in water, I did my own thing really, frying the onion until it softened, then frying the chicken pieces until they were starting to brown.  After that I added the tomato, cooking everything with the lid on for another five minutes.  Finally, I added the tomato puree, most of a jar of peanut butter and the chicken stock, then stewed everything on a low-ish heat for around twenty minutes.

 

How not to serve Chicken groundnut soup

I couldn't quite figure out how to serve the dish, opting to create a base layer of fufu, then spooning the soup on top.  As you can see from the photo, it ended up being a big mess really!  I had some left over though and it occured to me that it might be a good idea to roll the fufu in balls, so it would hold together in the fridge until the next day.  The groundnut soup also seemed to thicken a bit over night and I also made the wise decision of eating everything out of a bowl the next day, rather than off a plate and, I guess, this is how the dish is meant to be eaten.

I think in Africa people tear off bits of fufu with their hands and dip it into the soup.  I tried doing the same with pieces of buttered bread and it was absolutely delish!  A surprisingly good 'winter food', now that the weather in England has turned really cold.  Surprising because the dish comes from such a hot place!

As usual, it was fun to try something new and if I make this dish again, I will probably add a few more ingredients, spice up the fufu and serve the whole thing in bowls!
Image credits:

All photos were taken by me!

Togo - Tété-Michel Kpomassie: An African in Greenland

The hopes of finding a treasure like Tété-Michel Kpomassie's book An African in Greenland is exactly the reason I started blogging about different countries in the first place, ie. I wanted to find those books from all around the world that I would otherwise have missed if I had stuck to the mainstream and what's popular in my own society right now.  Born in Togo in 1941, Kpomassie developed an obsession with Greenland and spent years working his way through West Africa and Europe, until he could get the money together to go to Greenland, where he spent a year and a half in the 1970's.  The book is about his journey and is an amazing read, I would recommend it to anyone interested in other cultures and the commonalities of human experience.

An African Travel writer

I've read quite a few travel books in my time and several as research for this blog, however, most travel books I've read have been written from an 'anglo-saxon' point of view.  The term 'anglo-saxon' is used widely by the French to describe British culture, but it goes beyond that and is the only way I can think of describing writers from Australia, the US etc., as well as those from the UK and Ireland - it encompasses cultures which are very different from my own, yet we share a common language and there are certain concepts and moral viewpoints that are understood without footnotes.

Reading Kpomassie's book, I found myself somewhere between the African perspective of the writer (although influenced by the European societies he lived in) and the 'strangeness' of Greenlandic culture.  I could relate to many of Kpomassie's experiences as an 'outsider', having also been in this position, but at the same time, the way he interpreted Greenlandic culture said a lot about his home culture and sometimes there were similarities between Togo and Greenland that I could barely relate to at all. 

Love and hate

I guess by learning about someone else's culture, by default, you will also learn about your own and Kpomassie's experiences followed a rollercoaster of emotions in relation to Greenland; idealising the culture and loving it from a distance, becoming disappointed and hating it during his experience there, then finding a middle ground somewhere, that is neither idealisation or disappointment, neither love nor hate, but acceptance of the culture for what it is.  I've been on the same rollercoaster with Russian culture, much more than any of the other countries (or cultures) I've lived in and, in the same way as Kpomassie felt he was predestined to go to Greenland, I feel I was predestined to go to Russia.

Snake cults and leaving Togo

Kpomassie's story starts off in Togo.  When he was a teenager, he had a terrible accident, encountering a snake on a coconut tree he was climbing, he fell off and injured himself.  It doesn't seem like a coincidence that it was during his convalescence that he found the book about Greenland and started to dream of a land far-away from snakes and the heat of the jungle. 

Kpomassie was born into a Mina tribe, with obscure roots in Benin and a special relationship with snake-worship and the snake priestess of Bé, a village hidden in the depths of the forest.  His father took him to the priestess, who said that he had offended the snakes through violating certain taboos.  She eventually helped bring him back to health and rid him of his 'curse'.  As a token of thanks, his father pledged to send him to the snake cult to be initiated as a priest.  Before his father had the chance to send him to the snake cult, Kpomassie ran away to his aunt in the Ivory Coast, starting a ten-year journey through West Africa and Europe, culminating with his trip to Greenland. 

Greenland - culture shock!

His first experience of Greenland was incredibly disappointing, which isn't surprising, considering how high his expectations were.  He first arrived in K'arkotoq in the south of Greenland and was shocked by the reality of Greenlandic society, which he felt had been degraded and debased by the modern world.  Arriving in the middle of summer, he witnessed the excesses of drinking and promiscuity that Greenlanders are infamous for.  He was disappointed by a society that he felt had lost touch with its traditions and preferred to take the easy option, living off benefit payments from the Danish government.  As summer slid into autumn, with its incredible dreariness and the feeling of 'waiting' that drives native Greenlanders into a kind of hysteria, Kpomassie decided to move further north in search of a more traditional way of life.

Man versus Beast

There's a lot of cultural information in Kpomassie's book, but one of the things that really struck me was the constant butchering of animals throughout the winter, in a desperate bid to stay alive.  Most Greenlanders are not, by tradition, fisherfolk, but hunters.  I found the descriptions of animals being cut into pieces disturbing.  Some parts of the animal are eaten raw and, it seemed, at the end of every 'massacre' there was blood everywhere.  I know this is my cultural prejudice shining through, but I'm not sure how I would cope with all that blood and guts!  Some of the poorer villagers would resort to eating their huskies when times got bad but, despite the fact he got used to most Greenlandic foods (blubber, seal skin and raw intestines), Kpomassie couldn't bring himself to eat dog, as culturally, for his tribe, this is taboo.  He pointed out that a lot of the differences in African tribes were centred on food taboos and I think eating habits (snails, horse meat, haggis) are equally relevant in European societies. 

The Race of an Outsider

Of course, in each village he visited, the sight of an incredibly tall black man getting off the boat excited all kinds of emotions in the locals, from fear to hilarity to desire, but the longer Kpomassie stayed in each place, it seemed to me that the colour of his skin was hardly relevant.  Much more relevant was the fact that he was an outsider and, in the minds of most of the people he met, he was categorised as European, like most of the Qashluna (foreigners) the Greenlanders had encountered.  I'm sure anyone who has spent time living abroad, especially in Asia, will soon realise that, as far as the locals are concerned, there is no great difference between British and American or even British and French.  We're all just farang!  There is a funny scene when Kpomassie meets Robert Mattaaq, an old man from Upernavik, in the north of Greenland - the old man says he has a picture of one of Kpomassie's tribesmen, which he'd cut out from a magazine.  When he eventually finds the cutting and lays it out on the table, Kpomassie's kinsman is Charles de Gaulle!

Children should be seen and heard

He experiences other cultural differences, for example, in the way that children are treated in Greenland.  In Togo, the father is the supreme head of the house and there is a rigid hierarchy through elder sons and half-brothers to the youngest child, who is of least importance in the household, especially when the child is a girl.  In Greenland, on the other hand, adults trust a child's intuition above all else and will rarely reprimand or contradict a child.  In the same way, village elders will rarely contradict the beliefs of younger adults and Kpomassie is surprised to visit an old people's home and learn about the former tradition in Greenland that dictated that old people should walk out into the snow and die when they become too much of a burden on the family.  This is a complete contrast to the position old people hold in his native Togo. 

Tarningerneq and Eklan

One belief that was incredibly similar was the way that both Greenlanders and people in the Mina tribe explain the occurence of dreams.  In both cultures, each human being has a soul which can leave the body and go wandering at night (Tarningerneq in Greenland and Eklan in Togo).  The soul goes on all kinds of adventures, in a parallel universe, as it were and returns to the body in the morning, waking us up when it re-enters.  The adventures of our 'dreaming soul' are only remembered as a dream.  In both Greenland and Togo the wandering of the dreaming soul leaves us susceptible to manipulation and attack by dark forces, such as wizards.  If your soul is killed whilst you are wandering, it is believed that you will never wake up. 

In Greenland, however, there are many more types of souls than the three that the Mina tribe believe in and even inanimate objects have souls in Greenland.  Also landscape features, such as mountains and lakes, have souls, which reminds me of Icelandic, Scottish and Irish traditions, kelpies, underground people and even the Loch Ness monster!  I can understand in a barren landscape like the one in Greenland (or Iceland), where there is immense stillness and a general lack of life, that people will start attributing life to inanimate objects and the landscape itself.  In Africa, where every tree and patch of land is teeming with life, I guess there was enough animism to worry about without assigning life to inanimate objects. 

More of the same

The end of Kpomassie's book left me craving more.  I really believe that interacting with other cultures is an incredibly enriching and rewarding experience and I understand the privileged position I'm in as a Westerner, in that I can travel, explore and learn about other cultures.  But there are lots of Westerners travelling and exploring and learning about other cultures.  It's more interesting to read about cultural interaction between two very different cultures, like those of Greenland and Togo.  I guess on some very basic level, all human cultures share the same obsessions and concerns, certainly we all dream at night of faraway lands and experiences beyond our understanding, however we might want to interpret these in the broad daylight of our home cultures.

Credits:

The copy of An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie that I read was the 2001 reprint as part of the New York Review of Books Classics series, with a foreword by A Alvarez and translation from French by James Kirkup.  Kpomassie wrote the book in 1979 - if you want to buy a copy, you can find it on Amazon (this is the link for UK). 

The image of the book cover was taken by me.

The image of the Huskie puppies was taken by flickruser chrissy575 aka Christine Zenino, who is a freelance travel writer and photographer from Chicago.  You can find out more about Christine's work at the following link. 

Togo - An Introduction to African Linguistics

Apologies to regular readers of this blog, as I walked the West Highland Way in Scotland this month and didn't have any time to blog about Togo.  I thought I would kick off again with one of my favourite subject areas, Linguistics.  I have a degree in Linguistics and find the subject fascinating, although it's been many years since I studied it in a formal way.  As I've been reading about Togo, I've got more and more into the language side of things and the general picture of language in Africa.

The study of Language

I guess Linguistics, like many academic sciences, was born from the great 19th century desire to classify everything and put things, whether species or types of behaviour or languages, into convenient little 'boxes'.  The 20th century seemed to take this to a whole new level, not only wishing to categorise things, but also to minimise the number of categories and draw comparisons between things that are, in my humble opinion, very different.  For example, it still amazes me that we readily accept the term Indo-European and believe that somehow languages such as Icelandic and Hindi belong to the same language family, when it's obvious to anyone that they are incredibly different languages.  If you have a look back on my blogposts about Rajasthan, you'll read about the influence of British Indian orientalists on the concept of an Aryan race that somehow justified the British colonisation of India and I think this can be extended into the field of Linguistics and theory of an Indo-European language family. 

My point is that, far from being a 'black and white' empirical science, the study of Linguistics is very much a product of the culture of the Linguist.  Is an English linguist more likely to gloss over the influence of native British-Celtic languages on the language of the Saxons, Jutes and Angles who made England their home?  Is a Japanese linguist more likely to prefer a theory of Japanese as an 'independent' language, unrelated to Mongolian or the Turkic languages of Siberia and north Asia?  Well, of course they are.  The classification of languages depends a lot on who is classifying them and the culture and generation of the classifier.  It makes Linguistics more exciting in many ways, as I believe each generation needs to make its own contribution to the study of languages, with reference to past theories, but also taking into account historical prejudices.

Greenberg and the classification of African languages

The American linguist, Greenberg, is probably the greatest figure in African linguistics and developed a classification that is, more or less, universally accepted.  He divided African languages into the following sub-categories:

Afro-Asiatic - previously this was called Hamito-Semitic, after Noah's sons, Ham and Sham - Ham being African, Sham being the Middle Eastern one.  Arabic is, by far, the most prominent of the languages in this language 'family', but it also includes Hebrew, Maltese and African languages such as Somali and Hausa.  It's a controversial grouping in many ways, as it links up language speakers who are incredibly diverse in terms of their ethnicity, religions and cultures.  What I like about this grouping is that it recognises a shared history between the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa.

Chari-Nile languages - this family contains lots of relatively small languages from the Nile valley, reaching into the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Chad.  It's the language of the Nubians and the Masai people of Kenya. 

Niger-Congo - this is the biggest language family in Africa and covers most of the African languages that you will be aware of, probably the most famous being Swahili.  The family is further divided into branches, which are pretty much geographical and spread all the way from the Atlantic languages (eg. Wolof, Fulani) in Senegal to the massive Bantu family (eg. Zulu, Sesotho, Xhosa) spreading all the way down to the southern end of Africa. 

Khoi-san - are the languages of the Bush people in southern Africa, which have defied classification by linguists, but have been happily grouped together as a language family.  This family includes Hottentot or Nama and San, which is the language of the bushmen of Namibia and Botswana.  The Khoi-san languages are famous for their clicking sounds, some of which have been 'borrowed' into neighbouring Bantu languages.

Austronesian - interestingly on Madagascar, they speak a language which belongs to the Austronesian family and is much closer to Malay or Bahasa Indonesia, than to anything which is spoken on the African continent.

Indo-European - European languages, such as English and French, are spoken everywhere in Africa, however Afrikaans, which comes from the Dutch settlers on the Cape, is considered to be a 'native' Indo-European language. 

Lazy linguistics?

As far as I can see, lumping the vast majority of African languages into one convenient family 'Niger-Congo' smacks of incredibly lazy linguistics and I call for someone to do a little bit more work on the classification of African languages.  Interestingly, if you compare this to the work that has been done on Native American or Australian languages, there has been no attempt to lump all of these into one language family but, rather, recognition of the diversity of languages and the need for separate classifications.  I think it will take an African-born linguist to open up the subject properly and give us a new classification for the 21st century. 

Linguistic policy in Africa

With over 2,000 languages, Africa is incredibly diverse.  What's more, levels of bi-tri-multilingualism exist on a scale that we in Europe can only ever dream of.  When I lived in Uzbekistan, my students switched from English to Russian to Tajik to Uzbek with relative ease and, in an increasingly competitive global economy, I think proficiency in languages will be something akin to a commodity in this new century.  In Africa, French and English still prevail and are official languages in most African countries.  At another level though, there are many alternative lingua francas and Arabic, Hausa, Swahili, Igbo, Yoruba and Amharic are also spoken by millions of people as a second or third language. 

Language in Togo

Togo is a good example of how language works in Africa and this is partly why I became so aware of the general situation.  A country of five million people, Togo has more than thirty native languages.  French is the official language, the written language and language of education but, since independence, both Ewe and Kabiye have risen to prominence, being the two native languages with most speakers.  There is a real north-south divide in Togo and, although most languages, fall into the Niger-Congo family, the southern languages, including Ewe, are loosely connected to the coastal Kwa languages of Ghana and Benin (eg Akan, Fon and Ga).  The nothern languages, including Kabiye, are related to other inland languages of the Volta river such as More and Gurma, the languages of Burkina Faso.

Of course, when the European colonial powers were dividing up the map of Africa in Berlin in 1884, language didn't always come into it and, to be honest, the complexity of how languages are spread around West Africa would defy any attempts to create nations out of the main languages (something that was enforced, to an extent, in Europe).  Initially, most Ewe speakers ended up in the same country, German Togoland, but the further sub-division of Togoland, means that Ewe speakers are now in two different countries, with approximately 2 million speakers of Ewe in Togo and 2 millon in Ghana. Of course, language is a continuum and doesn't really recognise political boundaries.  I think this is less obvious to a European, where French is spoken in France, Italian in Italy - the reality being that French and Italian are in a continuum of dialects that flow from one country into another and don't just change on the border!

I would love to see the result of having had European languages classified by Africans in the 19th century and whether they would have come to the conclusion that we all basically sound the same, or whether they would have found immense differences and classified European languages in a radically different way. 

Credits:

A lot of my research for this blog was done on the web, through Wikipedia and other sources, however I also referred to Kenneth Katzner's book The Languages of the World (the 2003 edition published by Routledge). 

Both maps are from Wikimedia Commons and are being shared using the Creative Commons License. 

The Linguistic map was uploaded by wikiuser Seb az86556 - you can see the original and other maps by Seb at the following URL http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Seb_az86556

The map of the Ewe and other Gbe languages was uploaded by Mark Dingemanse who works for the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and is based in the Netherlands.  Mark's website and blog are great sources for those of you interested in learning more about African linguistics.  His page on Wikimedia Commons also has some interesting facts about African languages.

Togo - the Village of Waiting

The first book I've read about life in Togo is ex-Peace Corps volunteer George Packer's The Village of Waiting.

A frank, vivid account of contemporary African life

During my time in Central Asia, I became friends with several Peace Corps volunteers and have, since then, really admired the fortitude of the volunteers and their determination to learn something about this amazing world of ours, rather than live in the bubble of 'the West'.  I'm sure lots of Peace Corps volunteers have written books about their eye-opening experiences, living in countries, like Togo, that are otherwise forgotten about and misunderstood by the rest of the world.  I really enjoyed reading Packer's book and it was, as the subtitle says, an incredibly frank and vivid account of life in Africa, as he experienced it.

What I liked about Packer's book is that he didn't romanticise his experience in Africa, nor did he shy away from being brutally honest about his experiences in the Togolese village of Lavié.  He also didn't get bogged down in more 'challenging' aspects of his life in Togo, nor was the book a list of grievances about the inadequacies of the Togolese government or the society around him. 

Customs and traditions

 

As can be expected, Packer mentions some of the customs and traditions of the Ewé tribespeople and I found these very interesting, for example:

- the fact that it's customary in Ewé tribes to keep the chief's death a secret for one year.  Even if everyone knows that he is dead, they go on talking about him, as though he is still alive.

- He also mentions a pretty horrible tradition that, when a newborn baby dies, one of its hands is cut off before it's buried, to prevent it from crawling back into its mother's womb and starting the life/death cycle all over again.

Packer writes about animism and the villagers' fear of the forest, about the evil spirit Sakpaté and how it's taboo to say his name aloud at night.  Packer comes to the conclusion that the villagers belief in animism is a logical by-product of the lack of electricity in Lavié.  In the dark night of the forest, one can fantasise about the vulnerability of humans in a world ruled by supernatural forces.  It reminds me of something I read somewhere that pointed out how ghost stories died in England with the invention of the electric bulb.  Shadowy corners and creaky floorboards seem less threatening in the glare of artificial light. 

An African Bildung

Like a lot of Peace Corps volunteers, Packer ends up in the village school teaching English.  He makes some important points about the history of European-style education in Togo, starting with the German missionaries and their desire to educate the Togolese well enough, so they could read the Bible, but not well enough to think for themselves or became anything other than labourers in their Müsterkolonie.  The French took over with their model of education, establishing a bureaucratic system of formation that continues to hinder the development of Togo, well into the 20th century. 

I've never been to Africa and can't claim any expertise on the subject, but I can see the logic in Packer's argument that a European educational system is one steeped in failure for African students.  The entire system served to make the European colonisers feel superior and helped them impose their culture on their African 'subjects'.  Rather than breaking with an unnatural, European education system on gaining independence from France, Togo, like many other African nations, continued to use this system as a tool to control and contain the various different tribes making up their country.  It makes as little sense now, as it ever did and, from Packer's experiences, it's obvious that an African child, especially a girl, has the odds stacked against her.  Even if he/she does get an education, it will prove useless in a country that toes the line, idealogically and intellectually.

Le petit nordiste and Authenticity

Like far too many countries that I've blogged about, Togo lived for many years under the shadow of one man, Gnassingbé Eyadéma.  Elevated to the status of demi-God, after surviving a plane crash in Sarakawa, Eyadéma maintained a stranglehold on Togolese politics that lasted 38 years and is continued today, in many ways, by the current Togolese leader, also Eyadéma's son, Faure Gnassingbé.  Eyadéma was very much an opportunist, having fought for the French in Algeria in the 1960's, he was one of the many disgruntled soldiers from the northern Kabye tribe, dubbed les petits nordistes by Togo's first president Sylvanus Olympio.  In the first coup d'etat of the newly independent African nations, Eyadéma dramatically deposed (and apparantly murdered) Olympio, eventually replacing him as President of Togo.

Eyadéma believed his aircrash to have been a ploy by the French to get rid of him and he emerged from the ashes of the crash with a renewed determination to legitimise his authority and suppress any opposition to his regime.  He introduced a period of Africanisation, called Authenticity, banning the use of (French) Christian names amongst other things.  Interestingly, despite his criticisms of the Togolese regime, Packer does mention the fact that Eyadéma didn't really have the resources, as President of such a small country, to engage in excessive repression as was so common elsewhere in Africa, like Idi Amin's regime in Uganda, or the Apartheid regime in South Africa.  He points out that the Togolese regime, although inwardly oppressive, didn't really engage in the wider politics of West Africa and was only ever vaguely supportive of the leftist politics of its neighbours, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso (Upper Volta). 

Reverse Culture Shock

Something I could really relate to in Packer's story was the intense reverse culture shock he felt coming back to the West.  I imagine most of us don't really realise what we're taking on when we decide to live in another country, especially one with extreme poverty and daily hardship.  Nor do we expect the infectious joy of life lived in a way that doesn't revolve around greed and money-making.  It's obvious that Packer really came to feel part of the community that he lived with, so much so that, when he went to Barcelona for a Christmas break, he felt displaced and could relate more to the Africans he met there, than the European culture so similar to his own.  It was also interesting when he went to visit the north of Togo, a region that is very culturally and ethnically different than Lavie, he also felt a kind of 'culture shock' and the unfamiliarity of a different people than the ones he was living with.

I experienced something similar, returning to Uzbekistan after a week in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, everything in Uzbekistan suddenly felt so familiar and it really felt as though I was coming home. 

The Cicada's Life

An overarching theme of Packer's book is the wasted lives of some of the people he met in Togo.  He writes three really touching portraits towards the end of the book, about three different men he had become friends with and how they had each failed to acheive their full potential, in a country that, despite being their country of birth, was holding them back in so many ways.  It's the travesty of an intellectual mind, in a regime that cared little for independent thinking.  The concept of the Cicada's life for an intellectual in an oppressive regime is based on the premise that if you want to live happily, you need to live hidden. 

The significance of the title of Packer's book was not lost on me.  Amongst the joy and horror of life in the village, he also explores the monotony of life for the villagers, which is a constant round of toil and hardship, interrupted by occasional funerals which, far from being mournful, acted as a good excuse for a knees-up. 

The Ewe word for tomorrow is etso, which is the same as the word for yesterday or any day which is not today.  Other words I learned from Packer's book were: yovo, kazoo, baché, prestidigitation, kapok, iroko.

Image credits:

The image of the book cover was taken by me.

The photos of Togo were taken in 1984, around the same time that George Packer was living there, and have been provided copyright free by flickuser Paul-W - thanks Paul for sharing these images using the Creative Commons License. 

Togo - Woezo!

It's more than 3,000 miles (or 5,000 kilometres) from the Saudi capital to Lome, the capital of my next country, Togo!  I'm quite excited to be blogging about Togo as it's a country I know practically nothing about.  Until I started researching this blog, I didn't even know what the capital of Togo was and I would have been hard pushed to pick out the Togolese flag from the range of similar flags of West African nations.

I've just started learning about Togo and I know now that it is a small slither of a country sandwiched between Ghana and Benin.  Togo is approximately the same size as Croatia, less than half the size of England and slightly smaller than West Virginia.  It has a population of over 6 million people and is made up of various different tribes and languages, the main one being the Ewe people of the south coast (including the capital). 

Something that fascinates me about Togo is that it was colonised by (the newly unified) Germany during 'the Scramble for Africa', one of two German colonies in West Africa (the other one being Cameroon).  Germany's colonial ambitions came to end after the First World War and the German Togoland was divided between Britain and France, British Togoland being incorporated into their neighbouring colony in Ghana, French Togoland becoming an autonomous country within French West Africa.  I'm not sure how much of a legacy the Germans left behind, as French is now the lingua franca, as in most of West Africa.  It's something I'm interested in exploring. 

I've got a couple of books lined up, have already spotted a Togolese dish I want to cook and I've started listening to some Togolese music.  So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride - the video I'm posting is from YouTube and fascinates me, just watching the coast glide past, you get a sense of what life is like in downtown Lome.  The artist is called Yawo and I really like the song Mi La Woe, which translates something like 'let's keep pulling together'.



Image credits:

The map of Togo is from Wikipedia, but originally came from the CIA's World Factbook and is in the public domain.