Henry and I sat drinking beer on the terrace of the Benin Hotel.
The Benin was the only luxury hotel in all of Togo, West Africa,
situated on the beach of the capital, Lomé. I had told Henry
I was going North to Dapango, where I was working with another Peace
Corps volunteer farming fish. I was feeling guilty about how long
I had been goofing off in Lomé.
Henry was an A.I.D. worker, U.S. Agricultural and Industrial Development,
this meant we were sort of in the same line of work and Henry could
justify tagging along to see what we were up to. Also, there were
a couple of tractors in Sokode, halfway to Dapango, that he needed
to look at. U.S. congressmen sent these tractors and other farm
machinery to Togo so that the Togolese would not go communist and
start a domino effect that would turn the entire continent of Africa
into one big federation of Communist states. Of course the Russians
were also sending tractors to Togo. According to Henry they were
ahead of the game because one of his Russian counterparts was sneaking
around painting USSR on the sides of all the American tractors.
I was glad Henry was coming along. He was always good company, even
when he was drunk, which was much of the time.
 It
was fortunate that Henry had Sylvia, his wife. She was the opposite
of Henry, refined and soft spoken, when she spoke at all. She spent
most of her time reading and re-reading “Lady Chatterley’s
Lover”, marking small neat notes in the margins of the book.
Sylvia had the same soft spoken manner as my grandmother. Mostly
we talked about what was going on with Lady Chatterley and her gardener.
It was Sylvia who kept Henry in line. The foreign services had a
lot of cocktail parties. Henry could have done without these parties
all together, but he relied on Sylvia to tell him whether or not
to go, and would go along with her decision. She would go out on
the upstairs terrace where Henry would be sipping whiskey and watching
the sun go down. She would ask Henry a few simple questions and
deduct from his answer whether he was fit for society. On rare occasion
Henry did not heed Sylvia’s decision and disaster would often
follow.
One evening Henry passed into the realm of irrational intoxication
out there on the terrace with his whiskey. Sylvia instinctually
told Henry to stay home from a cocktail party she would attend alone.
Late in the evening Henry decided it would be a nice surprise if
he and his pet baboon Pierre showed up at a party. Sylvia really
loved Pierre. Seconds after arriving at the soirée Pierre
spotted the hors d'oeuvres, stopped picking imaginary bugs out of
Henry’s hair, and dove from his shoulder to the middle of
the table, stuffing paté into his baboon face as fast as
he could. Any attempt to remove Pierre from the table was met with
paté-stained-fanged resistance. Finally Pierre had eaten
his way into nausea and went home with Henry to rest.
When Sylvia got home Henry was on the terrace sulking and somewhat
sobered. Pierre was taking a nap. Sylvia stood staring at Henry
for a few moments and then said “Oh Henry.” Those two
softly spoken words cut straight to Henry’s heart, and would
keep him on the straight and narrow for months to come.
Henry suggested we do the Sokode trip in a mammy wagon, arguing
we would make better time than the train, “trading velocity
for comfort,” as Henry put it. I was against it. They would
crowd as many as 50 people in those trucks. If you were lucky you
would get a bag of manioc to sit on. A short trip was a lot of fun,
but Sokode was far.
Mammy wagons were trucks owned by market women, used for transporting
people and produce around Togo. They were brightly painted and would
always have a slogan painted on them, some in English. My favorite
was “lord willing, we’ll make it.” I voted no
on the mammy wagon, much as I admired the market women entrepreneurs
who owned them. There were always cheerful and always laughing.
I remember watching 100 men on a beach hauling an encircling seine,
a type of fishing net. Also watching from the rise on the beach
was a market woman, with hands on her hips. She surveyed the catch
as it lay spread on the beach sparkling in the sun and called out
the share each of the men were entitled to, then moved rapidly among
them, smacking one, berating another, making sure no one took more
than was due him.
 In
the Eve tribe, the largest ethnic group in Togo, if a woman wants
to divorce her husband, she puts his shoes outside. That’s
it, it’s over. Togolese women would often have several husbands.
Young boys who were brothers would always explain; meme mere, different
pere, or meme pere. Each of the husbands were responsible for all
of the woman’s children. A mother who had once had a fisherman
for a husband could send any of her children to him to learn how
to fish, regardless of whether the fisherman was the child’s
father.
We decided we would take the train to Sokode where we would spend
the night, then drive to Dapango in the Peace Corps jeep I had waiting
there. The next day Henry and I bought first class tickets to Sokode.
The difference between first class and second class was that first
class was more expensive and therefore there would be less people
on the car. The train was made of wood and looked like something
out of the Old West. The seats were wicker, like they used to be
on old Mexican buses, and the doors were sliding boxcar style in
the middle of the car. People got on and off at the same time, pushing
their way.
When the train pulled in a lot of people were getting off and we
were not aggressive enough so we rode sitting in the doorway with
our feet dangling. After a couple of stops a group of market woman
climbed aboard the train with bags of produce, chickens and hauling
a couple of goats behind them. You had to be careful about sitting
under luggage racks with chickens on them. Fat and cheerful, and
as always, colorfully dressed, the market women sang Christian hymns
which helped pass the time.
There was a family that had drunk, apparently, a gallon or so of
water before the trip. Mom had thought ahead though and conveniently
produced a bowl for the kids to pee in. They would squat on the
floor, fill the bowl, and chuck it out the window. Everyone on that
side of the train would hop into the aisle to avoid the spray. The
husband would just excuse himself and pee out our door.
There was a very casual attitude about pee in Togo. A friend who
recently visited Togo told me that men were still peeing at intersections
in Lomé. Women carrying heavy loads on their heads on the
beaches peed standing up as it took the help of another woman to
unload and it was just too much work. Jean Hewyt, one of the Peace
Corps nurses said with a little practice there was nothing to it.
You just have to bend your knees a little and go into a slight squat
to keep the pee from dribbling down your leg. It was a graceful
maneuver to watch. I think Homer Butler, the Peace Corps pharmacist,
told the story of seeing a limousine drop off a Togolese man in
an elegant dark suit and tie in front of the presidential palace.
After he climbed the few steps to the main entrance he paused to
take a pee off the terrace into the garden.
Other than the peeing family the train ride to Sokode was uneventful.
We arrived in Sokode a few hours after dark. Henry had a letter
he promised to deliver to the chief of police. We decided it would
be better to deliver it right away as we planned on leaving before
dawn. Sokode was very dark at night. There were no bars or restaurants,
generally no one on the roads. We found the police chief’s
house and knocked. A white woman in a tight red dress and red heels
answered the door. Henry explained why we were there. She asked
us to wait. The police chief came to the door and invited us in.
He led us to a rear patio. We sat while he bent forward to read
the letter in the light of a single kerosene lamp while the woman
who he had introduced as his wife served us beers. He asked if we
would wait while he wrote a response that Henry could bring back
to Lomé. Most of the police and soldiers in Togo were Kabey,
the warrior tribe, tall, very black, strongly built and handsome
people.
While he wrote his wife sat slightly apart in a large high backed
wicker chair. In the warm light of the kerosene lamp she was very
beautiful. Henry and I struggled not to stare, fidgeting some under
her cool gaze. Finished writing, the police chief stood, shook hands,
and thanked us warmly for the favor. He apologized for not having
more time to visit but explained that he had papers to prepare for
the next day. As his wife led us to the front door Henry and I marveled
at her walk. At the door she said in English with a French accent,
“Good night gentlemen. Have a safe journey.”
“Wow,” breathed Henry, as the door closed behind us.
 We
had been driving through the lush green mountains of Togo’s
cloud forest when we decided to stop at a pretty little village
we saw in the distance, winding its way up the side of the mountain.
The jeep struggled with the rough mountain trail. Several ancient
women came to greet us as we approached. One at a time they knelt
in front of us, wrapping their arms around one of our legs and with
wide smiles pressing the sides of their faces against our outer
thighs. Never in my life had I felt so awkward and foolish standing
there with an old woman squeezing my leg. But when I looked into
their faces they seemed so pleased with the ritual I relaxed a little.
When they had each given us a big leg hug it was over.
After this we were each given a wooden bowl of water with a spoon
of flour stirred into it. A good thirst quencher. We both stared
at our bowls of unpurified water then took a few small sips, hoping
we would not regret it later. We decided against the steep climb
to see more of the village. We still had a long day to go and wanted
to make Dapango by night.
Henry was working his way through a delayed hangover. While we were
in the mountains there had been shade and cool breezes. Now he was
feeling the effects of last night’s spontaneous party with
the Peace Corps medical team in Sokode. Henry had the expression
of a man having his teeth drilled without novocaine. The vibration
caused by the washboard road went straight from the tires through
the jeep’s frame to the steering wheel and straight into Henry’s
head. The sun rained white heat onto the jeeps metal roof. Every
inch of our bodies were covered with the white dust of the Danyi
Plateau. Despite this Henry kept the pedal to the floor and we were
making good time across the featureless plain of dead grass and
sand.
After a couple of hours I asked Henry what he thought the dark speck
ahead on the road was.
“Someone walking, I think,” he answered.
As we got closer the figure came into focus through the shimmering
haze. She wore a cord around her waist with one long thin leaf hanging
straight down in front. Against the plateau’s white glare
she was very black, tall and muscular. She looked like a Kabey,
but they lived in the mountains. On her head she carried a load
of sticks tied together, about as long as her body and a meter high.
On top of the sticks road a small bundle.
“Should we offer her a ride?” I asked Henry.
“No,” he answered,
“she probably wouldn’t understand what we were saying.
We might scare her if we stop,” he added.
A few minutes later I saw in the distance what I thought was a glimmering
mirage of a lake.
“Nope,” said Henry, “its real water.” Slowing
down, Henry turned the jeep onto a vague trail. There was a thin
split of sand that reached out maybe twenty meters into the water.
“Where’s the water come from?” I asked. Could
be an underground spring or just collects during rainy season. I’d
heard there is marsh land around here. In any case, there’s
a breeze, and I’m gonna rest my head a little.” With
that he climbed into the jeep, pulled his hat down over his eyes
and went to sleep.
Whenever I am near a body of water I have to get in. Even brown
muddy water, as grimy and sweaty as I was today, would be no exception.
I took all my clothes off except my hat and waded in. It was shallow
but smooth bottomed and I waded a fair distance before I was waist
deep. Then I slid in, did a few breaststrokes, then rolled onto
my back and floated with my hat on my face. It felt wonderful. I
wondered as I floated around if there were crocodiles like there
were in the watershed up in Dapango.
Finally satisfied I started wading ashore. When the water was about
thigh high a pick up truck turned off the main road and was headed
straight for where we parked. The truck jammed to a stop in a cloud
of dust. The doors of the truck flew open and three market women
started wading full speed in my direction, leaving a wake behind
them, like a small skiff with a 20 horsepower outboard. They were
talking, laughing and pointing. They were Eve, who are naturally
cheerful, especially market women, but these girls were downright
giddy at the opportunity for a close up at a white boy’s pecker.
They took turns at bending over for a closer look. When they had
satisfied their curiosity they waved goodbye. Chattering amongst
themselves they waded ashore, got back in their truck and roared
off in another cloud of dust.
I stood knee deep in water in a vacuum of silence. I decided it
was not the penis but the blue-white skin and red-orange hair that
caught the market woman’s attention. The penis itself, especially
in that cool brown water, was not particularly remarkable.
As we plowed onto Dapango I thought about how different all these
women were, one from the other. What made a country only twice the
size of Maryland with 1/10 the population have such a diverse society?
I thought about growing up in my New England seacoast town in the
50’s. There were no women there who wore tight red dresses
and red high heels, and today, 50 years later, there are still none.
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