Musings

I knew when coming to Togo that most Africans had a different outlook on time than Americans. Americans hate when people are late, rush to complete errands and view their time as a valuable work component. Togolese, in my experience, operate on ”l’heure africaine" and only show up at meetings once they know you have already arrived, they bike slowly on the road until they notice you passing them (at which point they speed up), they can space out for hours in a long bush taxi ride, and they wake with the sun, not an alarm clock. Despite this, I have learned that they are surprised when I am on time and respect me for it. I have learned that they get impatient when a bush taxi is full yet the driver takes an additional 30 minutes to leave and we form a comradeship over our shared frustrations. I have learned that they don’t like to wait in line and will march to the counter and demand service immediately without thought of the others already waiting. However, when I refuse the instant service offered to me because of the color of my skin and declare that I will wait my turn, their irritation quickly diminishes. I have learned that they will continue with a time-consuming task even after you show them a faster way, purely for the enjoyment of the company they share. Most importantly, I have learned to slow down and take the all that I can during the quickly depleting time I have left here.

Hot Season

Hot season. Those two words have haunted me since the day I came to Togo. Conveniently, my stage arrived in June, the beginning of rainy season (and also the end of mango season–yum!) so I had a good 9 months to ask Togolese and older PCVs how they survive and how hot it really gets. The answers I received didn’t calm my fears at all. One PCV said that during hot season she would quickly run inside to house to retrieve something and then rush back to the safety of the mango tree shade. I can now officially say that I have survived hot season (or so the Togolese say–I don’t know, today was HOT). It normally lasts through mid-May but the weather this year has been odd. Rain usually does not touch the Togolese Savanna region from mid-October to mid-May, but this year it rained–no, poured–in the beginning of February, again at the end of the month, and a few more times, as recently as last week. Some villagers have started planting and, with one more rain, the rest will follow.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that I have escaped a fiery hell of heat, but it has still been hot. Probably hotter than I’ve ever experienced living in California. There have just been more “not so unbearably hot” and “still hot but with a breeze” days than there are usually. A PCV who lives about 5k north of me clocked the temperature one day at 122°. We’re not sure of the accuracy of that reading though because his digital thermometer may not be able to record temperatures higher than 122°. You can look up the weather for Dapaong online but I can’t verify the validity of their resources.

What is like to live in extreme temperatures? Well, for starters, every pore in your body exudes sweat. Your thighs sweat, your shins sweat and area where you butt becomes you legs sweats. Your bottom looks like you wet yourself when you stand after sitting for just 5 minutes. Your clothes have salt lines from your massive pools of sweat. Sleeping naked at night with a fully powered fan pointed at you still causes there to be a wet sweaty body outline on you sheets when you get up. Food rots and starts to smell within a day of buying it. Your dog would rather be locked in the house all day than forced to be outside because he’s found a special cool spot under your bed. It’s completely acceptable to do absolutely nothing from 11am-3pm every day. You continually have a salty layering on your skin despite the 4 showers you take daily. You avoid cooking because it means that there is a good possibility that the epic beads of sweat cascading down you face will make it into your meal.

I have had the added pleasure of experiencing an extreme heat rash. It’s normal to have little spots of it on different parts of your body but my body has chosen to have it all over my neck, back, chest, stomach and face consistently for the past few weeks. I had experienced a few cases earlier on in hot season but they only lasted a few day. Heat rash is also called ‘prickly heat’ because it can feel like someone is sticking a thousand needles into you skin. I’ve tried everything recommended to lessen it but nothing seems to be working. I have had Togolese pointing at my red spots and expressing their sympathy (or asking why my face looks like that of a pubescent 13-year old–Togolese get heat rash but the red spots show up a lot easier on my light skin).

So how exactly does one survive hot season? Find a magical mango tree to snooze under (it’s amazing how much the temperature drops under one of these things), flag down a fan milk (essentially frozen flavored milk) guy, order a sport actif (closest thing Togo had to Gatorade), wrap yourself in a wet pagne with the fan blasting on you, befriend the workers in the air-conditioned post office, and befriend the workers in the air-conditioned bank (you can never have too many friends). Or you could just strategically plan a long vacation and escape West Africa all together.