World Cup, Live in Dapaong!

Well I guess I’m pulling for Ghana in the World Cup now. Bummer of a loss, if not a little heartbreaking! Not going to lie, having been away from competitive sports for almost a year now, I got into the game last night. I had the occasion to be in Dapaong and was able to sit down for the game in Bar El Dorado, downtown. With the picture, hopefully you now have an idea for what a sports bar in Togo looks like. A small TV hooked up to a satellite for a room full of people holding their oversized beers, trying to follow Ghana as far into the World Cup as their last remaining African team will take them.

Watching on with 5 other Americans, I think I can fairly safely say that we were the only ones in the room pulling for the U.S. Not to say that people don’t like the U.S. here, because that is not the case (as an American I have always felt well received here in Togo). However, African pride for this World Cup (and any World Cup I think, though especially this one, being in South Africa) is very strong! And it’s interesting, because it’s almost like people don’t care which country it is that succeeds in the World Cup, just so long as it’s African. One might think that because Ghana is next door to Togo that of course people would be pulling for their neighbor on the world stage (here in the Dapaong area Ghana is roughly 20 km away and Ghanaians are frequently encountered, even in my village). But, I feel like people would have rooted almost just as passionately against the U.S. (or whoever) whether it was Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire or South Africa playing because they represent “l’Africain”.

In fact, I fairly often feel that people here identify themselves as African, before Togolese, Ghanaian or whatever nationality. I finally really understood this last night when the guy I was sitting next to explained to me why “Les Etats-Unis doivent partir”. In his mind, he was down to his last African team left in the cup out of 5. It was Africa’s last chance for an African team to win the World Cup. As of last night, the Americas still had 4 teams playing (Argentina, U.S, Mexico and Brazil?). He was assuming that my being American meant that I had 4 teams left to root for. “Ça reste 4 équipes pour l’Amérique, or l’Afrique n’a que Ghana! Ghana doit gagner !” Thus for the U.S. to eliminate the last African team would be selfish when I could still root for Brazil, Argentina or Mexico if we lost! Of course, I did my best to explain that our sense of pride rests with the U.S. and that I didn’t really care about the other teams, but regardless, that conversation helped shine some light onto my understanding of the African identity as a continent and what that means to people here.

Needless to say, people were ecstatic when Ghana scored in overtime. They might have celebrated a little more than usual considering that 6 defeated Americans were in the same room, but I think the joy was pretty widespread regardless of our presence. I’m sure the reaction was the same in village, where people are surprisingly well tuned in. A couple people have been running generators and a dish to watch in on the games, and a good amount of others lounge around boutiques or family concessions listening to the matches on their short-wave radios. Anyway, not sure I have a choice now. They still have to be a long shot, but what the heck, I’ll root for Ghana.

Allons-y, au champ!

If you ever start to dislike rain, move to the African Savannah for hot season and I guarantee you’ll have a newfound appreciation for that rain that often dismays and depresses us back home! Despite the harsh storm that I wrote about in the last blog, each time it rains I breathe a sigh of relief in appreciation for the rains that might have otherwise discouraged me at home in the U.S. I now associate a whole list of positive things to rain. With it comes the occasion to bring out pants I’d put away since Harmattan, sound nights of sleep in the cool weather, a green landscape, chirping birds, croaking frogs, a flowing river, less heat rash and maybe most importantly, the new wave of work that can now be undertaken in the fields.

As I’ve mentioned before, almost everybody in village goes "aux champs" to cultivate one crop or another during rainy season. Even village elites such as doctors, chiefs or teachers tend to have their own fields. What are the main crops in the Savanes region of Togo? Maize and millet trumps all, as that takes up the majority of peoples’ fields. Often, legumes such as soy beans or peanuts are intercropped to get more yield from their land (this a good habit of theirs! Any time you can mix in a leguminous plant species, which usually means some sort of a bean or certain trees, with a crop such as millet or maize you create a bit of a symbiotic relationship. This is thanks to differences in root depths and the fact that legumes tend to fix nitrogen, which improves soil quality). Some more secondary crops include cassava, rice, cotton, okra, yams, green beans and watermelons.

As I write, the millet and maize crops are already starting to grow. And despite a quick scare, the peanuts shouldn’t be far behind the maize and millet in germinating. There was a quick moment of doubt when the rain failed to cooperate for a week. Because people rely solely on rainfall to water their crops people have to be smart about when they plant. The rainy season is relatively short, thus they can’t wait too long before putting their seeds in the ground or else the crops won’t have time to fully develop. On the other hand, if they plant their seeds too early and a two week rain drought hits, the seeds will rot in the ground before they have a chance to properly germinate. I shared some uneasiness with my mom before we got a last minute rain that should save our peanut crop. After two big rains in back to back weeks, she gambled that it was time to plant the peanuts. She planted all of them and with peanuts going for 1,250 CFA/bowl (~$2.50), it would be an expensive loss if she gambled wrong. Fortunately, she and many others in village sighed in relief when the next rain made a last minutes appearance.

So if you were to visit northern Togo right now you’d see a landscape neatly tilled in uncountable rows. As you can hopefully make out in the picture, most people till the land with a plow pulled by either cattle or donkeys, in this case cattle. Otherwise, it's going to be all by hand using hoes. They till it as a means to loosen the soil and organize the field. Then they plant it by walking amongst the rows with long sticks, poking holes, dropping seeds in the holes and then lightly covering them with soil. It’s a satisfying thing to see as the formerly barren fields are transformed into organized rows of green. It’s kind of like a freshly cut lawn. However, you have to be careful how you till your fields depending on the layout of the land. One of the things I’ve been trying to work with people on lately has been the use of contour lines in sloping fields. One of the problems with tilling a sloping landscape is that it can exacerbate erosion problems if the lines are improperly positioned. Unfortunately, people often till their lines down slope, allowing water to pick up speed and rush down the sloped fields. This can ruin crops, sweep away precious fertilizer and significantly hamper water penetration into the soil (affecting soil humidity and water table levels).

Thus, I’ve been trying to get people to warm up to the idea of tilling their lines more attentively, paying attention to the contour of their land. This means constructing barriers and tilling in a way that disrupts water flow down slope, instead of intensifying it. It means being able to identify, on a hill, lines that go across the hill at a consistent elevation. If the rows of crops respect these lines and intermittent barriers of notable strength (such as strong grasses, trees, stones and ditches) are constructed while respecting these lines, hill-side farming can be very successful. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a risky business.

So if you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to that’s been it for the past week. Hopefully, if we can get a couple demonstration fields going this year, I can get some more people interested in the practice next year and start to reverse a trend. We'll see!

Other than that, two weeks ago I went down country to work as a counselor for a summer camp we call Camp UNITE. It’s basically a countrywide summer camp for Togolese students and apprentices to bring together the ethnically diverse Togolese and talk to them about important, but often misunderstood youth topics. As I understand it there’s a website for it that you can check out if you’re curious at .

Enjoy the start of summer back home and take a swim or at least go to the beach for me if you can! And go team USA!

Like the kids in my village say, “Bye bye”!