Since I wrote last it's been Independence Day here and is nearly Labour Day, plus Sarah has left Projects which is not such happy news! Tomorrow we're heading to the beach with Projects to basically eat all day I think, and am going to pass by school beforehand as well. Again in true Togo style, the headmaster announced today that tomorrow (Labour Day) we would have a party at school, make lunch there, and everyone had to come up with a menu, plus give him their money to pay for it. Cue also very typical Togolese shock! So consequently, we taught no classes today but instead spent the time encouraging the men to give away their money and coming up with a menu which was feasible. In the end, we decided on an entrée of basically a kind of potato salad with cucumber, peas, tomatoes, onions, potatoes obv, mayonnaise, chili obv and some other bits and pieces; followed by none other than FUFU! With I think sauce ademe, but not sure. It really amused me this morning because noone could decide on what they wanted, and he went round asking every single teacher their opinion, so therefore there were way too many things to choose from! The money was also an issue, because it ended up being 4000CFA per person which is quite a lot really, and so not everybody had it, or was able to give it so they were ordered to go to the bank which is a solution but seems to forget that we're running a school here... and it's not like the children are even invited! Sadly, it sounds like lots of them don't have a day off tomorrow as all their mothers who are market sellers are taking the day off so it's the children who are working the stalls instead. But at least they get a break from school. It just amused me today how the whole thing was so diplomatic, and yet we didn't manage to get anything done! And, surprise surprise, it was the women who ended up doing ALL the organising, plus buying the food. (Btw, going to be working with Women's Rights from May at CACIT, something about which I am really passionate, especially here. Can you tell...?)
So that's tomorrow! Independence Day was a bit bizarre really, went to the beach as that was supposed to be the place to be, but actually ended up in a fast food restaurant which I used to really like and have now kind of gone off (will explain more in a minute) because we were warned off the beach. In fact, there was a demonstration linked to CACIT who I will be working with next, because it was Independence Day, but it was repressed by the soldiers so there was some violence. Really wanted to kind of watch, or at least see something, but we did see a whole train of motos with people dressed in yellow which was something! Was saying I've gone off the restaurant, because it's just too Westernized, and you get the feeling when you walk in that you're not in Togo any more. And at first, that was not always a total relief, but a change, and now I don't like it at all. It just feels fake and false, and I kind of despise the people you meet there who turn up in their massive great cars and you can tell that they don't really live here at all. And it makes me really... cross, sad, all sorts of emotions really. So then on Friday night we went to Club 54 where there's always great music, and there were supposed to be fireworks after the big concert in the Independence Square but sadly they didn't happen.
Then Saturday night, Sarah left Projects Abroad and we had a big party and dinner to send her off with! It was really nice, but really sad; she'll be truly missed here in so many ways.
Just had a really interesting discussion just now about the ageing population in Europe and what we should do about it. We've come to the conclusion that we should send some of the young people here to Europe, and exchange them with some of the old people so that the populations balance out and see how it goes. Can see that working really well!!
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