On the field

Until end of january my schedule will be 3 days in WAO Afrique transit centre, and 2 days in the offices. I've started work on wednesday at the transit centre, a place where young girls victims of violence or abuses stay until they can reintegrate home or placed in foster homes. The youngest girl at the centre is 8 years old. She is here because while she was placed as a servant with relatives, she stole an egg because she was hungry. Her employer burned the tip of her 10 fingers.
I've spent these first few days getting familial with the girls at the centre and their stories(15 at the moment but they can accomodate up to 32), participating to a few staff meetings, observing the day to day running of the place. I was worried I'd get bored since the first two days were fqirly quiet, but friday afternoon, I've participated to my first rescue mission. A case of child abuse was reported to the centre, and we went to the child protection agency to collect a girl who had been severly beaten by her uncle. We went back to the centre we logged her story in the files, the nurse checked her and then we were out to the girl's house to get some clothes and school stuff. There was confrontation with the family who tried to follow our car to the centres location but thanks to the chaotic traffic in Lomé lost our trail.

I wasn't all that familiar with the area of child abuse and here I got to dive straight into it. Very distressing stories, and many of them. Here the fight for the right of children is nowhere as advanced as in Europe and ther US, but then again neither are economical and political structures and if there one thing I have learned in the past few days, it is that the two issues are intertwined. It is economic desperation that sees parents sending to town 8 years old to work as domestic servants. It is the same desperation that drives an educated man to beat his daughter with a heavy pestle (used to ground maize or pound yam) because she's a "witch" and caused him to lose his job and the means to feed his family.

Much more to come on this topic, my rantings on NGOs, the state of Togo today but i'm in a cybercafe and running out of time.

1st impressions of Lomé

It is hot.
I was expecting Lomé to be humid and hot, but not this hot.
Picking up the phone and dialling numbers makes me break a sweat
Towelling myself after a cold shower too
so I don't do a thing.
It is HOT.

Il fait chaud, vraiment très chaud.
Je transpire a grosses gouttes au moindre geste alors je ne fais rien!



I had forgotten how sweet pinapples really are. I was bracing myself for the usual tang that comes with the canned stuff, instead it tastes like honey but nicer. Canned pineapples are only good for piña coladas anyways.

J'avais oublié que les ananas étaient sucrés! plus jamais les ananas en boite à part peut être pour faire des piña colada



Just like I discovered in Tai Chi classes, it is very hard to slow down and adopt a slower pace. Here things happen "soon", "later", "in a while", tomorrow. It is difficult to adjust when coming from a place of here and now.
Six years on, things havent really changed in Lomé, or more accurately things havnt changed for the better. The city is looking shabbier than ever. Wednesday I experienced my 1st power cut. The electricity went down at 6 pm on the dot and i ended up helping my cousins do their homework under the light of one of those rechargeable lamp. The electricity goes out every other day or so exept for the weekend I have been told, and each neighbourhood at a different time. Wednesday it was from 6pm till 2 am, Friday it was from 8 am till noon. Consequences of old and decrepit power plants, and the country's unability to pay its bills to the neighbouring country producer of energy.
Things havn't changed really

Ici on fait les choses plutard, demain, bientôt. Débarquant d'un monde ou tout se passe maintenant et tout de suite, ce n'est pas facile de ralentir la cadence.
Lomé ne s'est pas améliorée en 6 ans. Les choses ont l'air un peu plus miteuses a vrai dire. Le seul vrai changement sont les coupures de courant un jour sur deux. Il parait aue cela fait quelaues moi que ça dure. Chaque quartier voit son alimentation en électricité disparaitre quelques heures a tour de role.
Je me suis retrouvée a aider mes cousines a faire leurs devoirs a la lueur d'une lampe tempête mercredi soir car il n'y avait plus de jus de 18h à 2h du matin , et privée d'éléctricité vendredi de 8h à midi. Comme dis mon cousin, le Togo est un pays en voie de sous développement.

At The Movies: The Departed

Went to see the last Scorsese The Departed yesterday. I was quite looking forward to the movie, having seen some pretty exciting trailers. It turned out to be a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, a movie as it happens, I watched on tv tuesday night ( wednesday morning 12am till 2 actually).
In an interview, Andrew Lau, the co-director of Infernal Affairs, said very diplomatically that Scorsese had made the Hollywood version more attuned to American culture.
What he meant is that his psychological thriller had been dumbed down into action movie.
The Departed is also longer (friends I went with and hadn't seen Infernal Affairs pointed out the fact that it dragged a bit), more violent, and sex scenes were thrown into the mix ( I will not even get started with the treatment of the female characters in The Departed, let's just say women seem to be treated better in Hong Kong) . The Departed is a less subtle, less atmospheric, not as visually stunning as Infernal Affairs (great photography and I usually dont even notice stuff like that).
Once I realised I was watching a remake, I really tried to enjoy The Departed. I thought Scorsese would have made the movie his. Great performances by Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson his usual self, interesting soundtrack. But I just could not get over the fact he made a nearly scene by scene and word for word copy of Infernal Affairs.
But then again it might be my fault, what was I doing at early hours of the morning watching a brilliant and original Chinese cop movie in Cantonese with subtitles? I should have known a remake was on the way. After all Hollywood doesn't create anymore, it just snatches ideas from the world over, "americanize" them and distribute them at a watchable hour.
I should have just gone to bed.

Loose Ends

Should have been in a warm place right about now but instead I am sitting in a near empty flat that just wont get warm enough, with a lousy internet connection because my internet provider got their dates all wrong and they're telling me I'm lucky I still have a phone connection.
I am starting to believe thing happens for a reason, especially this delay in my traveling schedule (caused by a South-African gangster.. long story). Yesterday evening I finally tied some loose ends. Had I traveled as planned, I would have left with wrong impressions, false hopes, unfinished business. Now I can go away and really mourn, and celebrate, and start a new chapter without too many regrets.