A Togo Thanksgiving

This was the second thanksgiving I have spent abroad. I was in Italy for the first. While I had had a good time, I remember thinking that it didn’t feel like thanksgiving, and I was scared that I would have the same feeling here in Togo.

I’m not sure if I’ve explained this before, but PC Togo groups volunteers into clusters, for safety and also for sanity. I’m part of the Dapaong cluster, which is the biggest in country with eleven PCVs. The Savannes region is the furthest north (thus furthest from Lomé, i.e. admin and availability of Western food) and mainly rural, so they try to keep the volunteers close together and it creates a sort of family. I’m really grateful to be a part of this great group of people. Well, most PVCs went to a big thanksgiving party in the Centrale region, but us Dapaongers decided to throw our own fête.

We arranged to have the dinner at a hotel. Hotel Campement is one of the nicest and most Western hotel/restaurants in Dapaong. I had actually been there the week before for my birthday. (My birthday, btw, was great! I bought a Roman candle and we set it off that night, but I found out after the fact that fireworks are actually illegal in Togo. Oops!) The chicken cordon bleu is absolutely mouth watering. Based on this experience, I knew the food was going to be good. The hotel prepared servings of French onion soup, mashed potatoes and green beans for everyone. Two Volunteers (one of which recently COSed and had already left Togo) received packages from their moms full of thanksgiving dinner essentials, such as stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie filling and even themed napkins!

The PC Togo Country Director decided to make the trip of north to fête with us. Her name is Carolina and I give her major props because the trek from Lomé to Dapaong is no easy feat. We had tried to find turkeys locally but had some difficulties so she brought two with her. They had put the turkeys in cages and loaded them on top of the car. As they were driving down the Route, they heard a big thump and stopped the car. One of the turkeys, probably knowing his fate, had escaped from his cage and jumped off the car. Yes, the turkey committed suicide. Not wanting to waste the meat, they loaded the dead turkey into the car and kept it on ice for the last 8 or so hours of the journey. (I have no idea where they found the ice and must have had the AC on full blast the whole way to keep it from melting.) Knowing that we were expecting to cook two turkeys, they stopped along the way and found another turkey. We ended up cooking the suicide turkey so we had three turkeys for twenty people. It was probably the freshest turkey I have ever eaten and completely void of any hormones.

The suicide turkey

In unrelated recent news, I got a puppy! I had wanted one for a while but wanted to wait until I was more settled in at post. I’d been searching the last few weeks and finally found one that seemed healthy. It’s a boy and I’d guess that he’s probably around 6 or 7 weeks, although I was told he was two months old. I named him Achu (like the sound when you sneeze) and so far he’s been very well behaved. He whined to be let out of my house, went outside and then exited the compound before pooping. Who knew Togolese dogs came potty trained?

yes, I know I have dirty feet...