FOOD

So apparently it's very important to write about the food here so that you all get an idea of how it works. When I was thinking about what to say I realised that actually it's quite complicated so hope it's comprehensible! Plus I don't know most names in English, and sometimes not even in French! Will put the French in italics and the African into italics AND bold to make it simple :)

Staples: manioc, inyam, maize, rice, couscous, sweet potatoes
Meats: pintade, agouti, chicken, beef, goat
Fish: dried fish, doeviVeg: épinard, gboma, yovo gboma, ademe, vovou, haricotsOther bits and pieces which I like and can remember at this moment in time: akpono, botoquin, gateaux, atitoe, mangue indigene

Ok. The rice and couscous are for richer families, and although manioc, inyam and sweet potato are officially interchangeable, only manioc can really be considered a properly base element as the others are expensive. Eg, at the end of its season 5 inyam can be only found at 1500CFA whereas the manioc can be as little as 800-1000CFA again for 5. Real potatoes are also available but they are v expensive and I'm pretty sure are imported so not the most common foodstuff.

So, manioc can be used as a vegetable or made into flour (garri). As I said technically it's interchangeable but in my family we tend to get the inyam to be used as a vegetable, but still use the garri. The inyam season runs from October to April or thereabouts, and in the meantime sweet potatoes are the substitute but work mainly fried.

As a vegetable: fufu - pounded inyam
                         cólico - fried, like roast potatoes
As flour (garri): bwi - kind of like porridge, but using flour in place of oats and no milk, but water and sugar, sometimes citronelle. Drunk most often as breakfast
                           djékoumé - a version of pate, but made with a tomato and onion jus in the mixture to turn it orange and change the texture
                          pino - another version of pate, more grainy and with a different taste
                          acheke - sort of like our couscous, a little bitter
                          ablo - flower-shaped parcels of something a bit like compressed rice, sweet
                         akpan - a very bizarre thing, sort of plasticky texture... But enjoyable nonetheless!
          Garri is also eaten plain with sugar and sometimes arachides as gouter for little ones (and me).



Akpan with poulet grillé et jus

The maize is dried and this is the main ingredient for the pate which is the most basic dish here. Between May and September fresh maize is also available with the rains.
                         akumé - the normal type of pate, very non-offensive, kind of like mashed potato
                         dokumé - fermented pate, can also be made into kom which is like a condensed version, most often served in maize leaf parcels with VERY strong piment

Pate with sauce graine

Two other common dishes are ayimolu and riz au gras. Ayimolu is the haricots with quite hard rice, and then riz au gras is a way of cooking rice with vegetables etc all mixed in together.

All of the above can be eaten with anything, although ablo and pino tend to go more often with fish, as does acheke. The most common complement is sauce, with or without meat etc.

Main sauces include: ademe, gombo, (yovo) gboma, vovou, graine, arachide, blanche.
Meat and fish can be used with any sauce, but ademe, gombo, and gboma tend to contain fish. The most common meat is chicken, pintade and agouti are more expensive. Fish is mostly dried as there is little fishing off the Lomé coast itself. Doevi are little fish which are often eaten whole, or crushed, and again dried.

Épinard, (yovo) gboma, vovou, and ademe are all spinach related veg. Gombo has a funny shape, sort of like cannisters and gives a stringy quality to its sauce.

Other things: botoquins - like the mixture for pancakes, but fried in balls
                      akpono - the sweet bread, mostly eaten at breakfast
                      atitoe - a fruit, very bizarre to describe... quite nice!
                      gateaux - small cakes, pastries, of all kinds, literally!
                      mangues indigenes - small mangoes, very stringy, that are sucked instead of bitten like other mangoes.

So that's what we eat, in terms of cultural context etc...
The Togolese often eat little for breakfast - bwi with bread if anything most of the time - and then eat a meal at 9-10am. This can be spaghetti, acheke, ayimolu etc, with sauce and piment. Then 12-2pm is eating time again, followed by supper between 7-8pm.

Zowoe

Food is very important - it's offered to a guest coming into the house, or you at least receive an offer of a drink. Inviting people to eat is not only a tradition, but a genuine request too. But when an elder invites a younger, it should never be accepted. Plus, if you invite someone else out to eat, either at your home or a restaurant, you foot the bill!

Untitled.

It's been ages since I last wrote - and now we're no longer less than halfway through 2012 and halfway through my stay here, but almost halfway through 2012 and over halfway through my time here! Time does definitely fly here, don't know why but it seems to more than ever. Or perhaps I'm just getting old...


Doesn't matter if you're black or white... Groceries are still just as interesting!!

So the last thing I told you all was that Togo was being graced with the Presence - and so it was! Mummy came to pay us all a visit over here and I'm not sure if she finished by being more or less worried for me than before she came... It was a pretty exciting 6 days, as got to see Mama's village which I haven't up until now, as well as the market there which is fantastic. A real typical market, everything crowded up together and such smells, sights and sounds as to make your eyes water - either from nausea or delight! (In Mummy's case I'm not sure it wasn't nausea...) But we had a lovely 6 days, and I am very grateful that she was able to come out. She also took back to England with her a stack of things to help lighten the load in the summer - what else are mothers for?! Plus a stack of photos and videos if anyone wants to pop round for tea and a viewing - advance warning required though.

At the CACIT office

Apart from that, life goes on pretty much as usual, or unusual, here. CACIT is very interesting, though frustrating at times in terms of normal Togolese lack of organisation or real direction but you get used to dealing with it. I miss school a little because it was more familiar that this is plus I only worked mornings! But this will be familiar all too soon - 2 months and a week or so left and then that's it... Unfortunately, it's a bit delicate to talk about work too much on here because it's an NGO so isn't officially liked, and is technically officially disliked so will pipe down a little on that! Suffice it to say that it's Human Rights, so as the knowledge of personal rights and duties here is minimal among the majority our work isn't disappearing anywhere fast. Next time I'm going to give you a lesson on food here because although it's obviously an integral part (and even more so than just from necessity here) of day to day life, I find it very hard to actually describe so consequently needs a bit of thought! I had the same problem when trying to describe our diet to the children at school... Not sure if I'm already told you this story, but they were asking me if certain things grew in England and I was saying no, not naturally, so they asked me if the first time I'd eaten a mango was in Togo... Of course I had to say no and explain that they were imported into England. This then provoked a flurry of questions as to this, and that, and this - and by the end of the class, if anyone asked about anything new, they got the immediate response 'importé, importé'!!

My children started their real BEPC today and I've been having nightmares for them! I've spoken a little about the conditions in which they're expected to succeed, and my heart will be in my mouth until their results day which is fortunately soon. Sadly I can't see them this Thursday, but as soon as I know anything I'll be sure to let you all know too. Please cross your fingers for them - even across the sea it will help!

x