What I actually do (Mail From Lomé to London)
Once again I'm cutting and pasting...
Hiya
At last the long awaited mail to let you know what i'm up to in this God forsaken little place.I'm not doing much although it might sound like i'm busy saving the Earth!!
One thing to start is I don't know if Togo can be saved since the President is the Antechrist!!! seriously the man was born on june 1966: 06/66 and people say he was born on the 06/06/66....
I'm on the process of getting a small and symbolic promotion: from intern to assistant project manager on the child trafficking project. I'll know monday for sure. It would just mean loads of reading to catch up on the child trafficking situation in Togo and what had been done etc. It would be a welcome change because some days i just seat at my desk and watch flies pass by. I've knocked at all the doors at WAO's headquarters to get something to do in vain. People dont seem to know how to delegate.
Up to now, I've participated to a seminar on capacity bulding on children's rights and protection addressed to security forces, customs officers etc...I've translated WAO's newletter (11 pages in 2 days....), brainstormed with the ECPAT representative for french speaking West Africa.
2/3 days a week i work as a youth worker in the Centre de l'Espérance, a transit camp for children and young girls victim of abuse or trafficking. There were 17 of them friday but as i was leaving for a meeting i was told that 10 kids coming from Côte d'Ivoire were on their way. In the Centre I supervise playtime, conduct interviews with new kids, participate to the reintegration of some in their famillies, try to make people understand what child trafficking is and some people really don't have a clue that they're actually selling their children when they send them away with strangers to unknow destinations to do some unprecise type of work for an unknown amount of time in exchange for a small radio player, a bag of rice and some soap...!! Poverty indeed but my question since coming here is: can poverty rob people entirely of their morals and principle?
Sometimes the days are frantic but since the festive season it's been fairly quiet and i've even had time for an occasonal under the mango trees in the afternoon.
Last but not least I'm Global March representative in the Togolese Human Rights Defenders Coalition (CTDDH). It's a grouping of NGOs working in the field of human rights including Amnesty International.I was sent for a meeting and I thought i would be a one-off thing, but I found myself coopted to be part of a "redynamisation" commission because as a chauvinistic tosser said, I was a woman, and women all learn to type at school don't they? We are just 2 women among 17 people, and since my colleage is off sick for a month i'm on my own, and i'm going in a couple of weeks to be alone with 30 odds men to participate to a week long workshop. I hope there will be women speakers...because being a women and being young is no easy task here where it is the oldest man who prevails.Was very disappointed when AI general secretrary, a young man of 30, after 3 professional meetings felt free to ask me to stay in Togo for good so we could make a life together as a couple!! Men are so corny really.
Other than that, Togo is a funny little country... Sometime I start wishing we actually were Ghanians...From the moment you get up you have to start to fight and argue: to be charged the correct fare when you get a cab, to be respected by the policeman who has to stamp your passeport, even crossing traffick at at red light involve shouting and being shouted abuses at. If all this negative energy was channeled towards doing something more constructive maybe we would stand a chance. In the mean time we're crawling backward.
Anyways Happy New Year to you again because the new year here really start the 13/01, bank holiday to celebrate the miraculous survival of the former president after the crash of his plane in the 1960s, and occasion for a military parade. There were banners saying: "we thank you president for your humility and the efficiency of your actions". You've just got to laugh...We've got plenty bank holidays coming: 24/01 when The former president regained the capital (the crash was in a small town inland) the 02/02 ( i think it's surviving an other coup a different year), 24/04 (an other failed coup i think by Ghanians actually) etc... Seriously they all look even more like a joke since the man who fixed those ridiculous holidays is now dead.When i'll be President my birthday will be bank holiday, and yours too if you want. The people will love me because i'll distribute money on those days just like they do here....
This is a very long email so i will stop now!! Let me know what's going on in London etc...à bientôt
Kékéli
Hiya
At last the long awaited mail to let you know what i'm up to in this God forsaken little place.I'm not doing much although it might sound like i'm busy saving the Earth!!
One thing to start is I don't know if Togo can be saved since the President is the Antechrist!!! seriously the man was born on june 1966: 06/66 and people say he was born on the 06/06/66....
I'm on the process of getting a small and symbolic promotion: from intern to assistant project manager on the child trafficking project. I'll know monday for sure. It would just mean loads of reading to catch up on the child trafficking situation in Togo and what had been done etc. It would be a welcome change because some days i just seat at my desk and watch flies pass by. I've knocked at all the doors at WAO's headquarters to get something to do in vain. People dont seem to know how to delegate.
Up to now, I've participated to a seminar on capacity bulding on children's rights and protection addressed to security forces, customs officers etc...I've translated WAO's newletter (11 pages in 2 days....), brainstormed with the ECPAT representative for french speaking West Africa.
2/3 days a week i work as a youth worker in the Centre de l'Espérance, a transit camp for children and young girls victim of abuse or trafficking. There were 17 of them friday but as i was leaving for a meeting i was told that 10 kids coming from Côte d'Ivoire were on their way. In the Centre I supervise playtime, conduct interviews with new kids, participate to the reintegration of some in their famillies, try to make people understand what child trafficking is and some people really don't have a clue that they're actually selling their children when they send them away with strangers to unknow destinations to do some unprecise type of work for an unknown amount of time in exchange for a small radio player, a bag of rice and some soap...!! Poverty indeed but my question since coming here is: can poverty rob people entirely of their morals and principle?
Sometimes the days are frantic but since the festive season it's been fairly quiet and i've even had time for an occasonal under the mango trees in the afternoon.
Last but not least I'm Global March representative in the Togolese Human Rights Defenders Coalition (CTDDH). It's a grouping of NGOs working in the field of human rights including Amnesty International.I was sent for a meeting and I thought i would be a one-off thing, but I found myself coopted to be part of a "redynamisation" commission because as a chauvinistic tosser said, I was a woman, and women all learn to type at school don't they? We are just 2 women among 17 people, and since my colleage is off sick for a month i'm on my own, and i'm going in a couple of weeks to be alone with 30 odds men to participate to a week long workshop. I hope there will be women speakers...because being a women and being young is no easy task here where it is the oldest man who prevails.Was very disappointed when AI general secretrary, a young man of 30, after 3 professional meetings felt free to ask me to stay in Togo for good so we could make a life together as a couple!! Men are so corny really.
Other than that, Togo is a funny little country... Sometime I start wishing we actually were Ghanians...From the moment you get up you have to start to fight and argue: to be charged the correct fare when you get a cab, to be respected by the policeman who has to stamp your passeport, even crossing traffick at at red light involve shouting and being shouted abuses at. If all this negative energy was channeled towards doing something more constructive maybe we would stand a chance. In the mean time we're crawling backward.
Anyways Happy New Year to you again because the new year here really start the 13/01, bank holiday to celebrate the miraculous survival of the former president after the crash of his plane in the 1960s, and occasion for a military parade. There were banners saying: "we thank you president for your humility and the efficiency of your actions". You've just got to laugh...We've got plenty bank holidays coming: 24/01 when The former president regained the capital (the crash was in a small town inland) the 02/02 ( i think it's surviving an other coup a different year), 24/04 (an other failed coup i think by Ghanians actually) etc... Seriously they all look even more like a joke since the man who fixed those ridiculous holidays is now dead.When i'll be President my birthday will be bank holiday, and yours too if you want. The people will love me because i'll distribute money on those days just like they do here....
This is a very long email so i will stop now!! Let me know what's going on in London etc...à bientôt
Kékéli
posted by Kékéli at 18:57
3 comments
