Out on the Town Moba Style!

Welcome folks to the Tchakpa market! Long overdue, today you get the mini tour of the most significant part of a distinctly Moba market! It’s like the Old Port, St. Catherine’s St. or Bourbon St. of my village/county. Bar hoppin’ ain’t easy in Togo, but if you equate a bar with a tchakpa stand, you’ll think Bourbon St. ain’t so special once you’ve been to my market. Two days a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) over 40 women set up shop in my village to sell their local brew, from 8 a.m on until the drink’s done!

Of course tasting all 40 brews isn’t possible. Generally, everyone has their go to stands; women they can count on to come to market nine times out of ten with a successful brew. Traditionally, tchakpa is sold in simple round huts like pictured in the second picture. These are found everywhere, from remote villages, to pit stop markets along the roads, to the city of Dapaong, you can find such a “vrai cabaret” with the thatch roof, and circular mud or cement bench, which surrounds the marché mama selling the drink. You even find other women selling their drink under shady trees. In our market, some women post up in the more modern and industrial looking market stands made of concrete and tin roofing. Such is the case with my personal favorite stand that I’m pictured in above. I’ve never tasted a bad tchakpa with this women, and just like a favorite bar the people there make the atmosphere. I can count on meeting the same rough group of friends coming through this stand at some point in the day, to yuck it up over a pitcher of beer.

And just like home, you can indeed get pitchers, costing about 40 cents. Instead of coming out of tapped kegs, these drafts come to market in oversized plastic buckets, charged on the heads of women. Amazingly, some of these women will walk their drink with the help of their daughters and girl friends several kilometers in this fashion, and there’s usually 3 or 4 of these brimming buckets. Imagine going to the effort of carrying 4 kegs on your head 4 kilometers to run your bar. That’s on top of 4 or 5 days of labor just to make the drink beforehand. Once in the market, you have to keep track of running tabs in crowded, raucus stands of imbibing villagers. Just look at the pose of the marché mama in this picture. She can’t even take time out to pose for the picture because she has to serve the next thirsty farmer!

Believe it or not, tchakpa is made with little more than sorgum/millet and yeast. (The yeast is recycled from whoever you know that made tchakpa yesterday. With tchakpa, the fermenting yeast constantly rests in the bottom of the drink. Don’t drink it or you’ll be in trouble, but it can be taken and added to a non-alcoholic tchakpa to ferment it over night). The seeds of sorgum and/or millet are partially germinated, ground into a flour, and then brewed in water over 2 days in giant cauldrons. The only other ingredient is smashed gumbo stalks, which contain a coagulant that can help clear the consistency of the drink before it’s filtered through a sack.

When it’s ready it’s delicious and the Moba drink it like water! The tradition is, when you enter a tchakpa stand you’re entitled to taste the brew for free. That way, you know that the brew wasn’t botched (which happens, especially with some of the less experienced women) in case you were planning on ordering a lot! If it is bad, you can pay a courtesy 25 CFA, about a nickel, gulp it down or give it away and be on your way to the next stand. Otherwise, order up for you and your friends and settle in. Be sure to pour a taste out for the ancestors (it’d be rude not to tell them you were drinking without them) and hang out. You drink out of a traditional calabash that you hold in your hands. If you plan on being a while, sometimes the women have little drink holders made of rebar to set your calabash on, like in this picture. Others even have wooden caps to cover the drink to keep thirsty teams of flies out of your drink! Now enjoy your drink until only the mucky yeast is left and then plop it on the ground to try and make a nice “clack” sound. Other’s throw it out in a straight line instead, perfected like a tobacco chewers spit from years of habit. One way or the other, the ancestors will know the drink’s now done and you can be on your way. That is unless you’re sucked into entering another one of the 39 bustling suds shacks on your way out!

You can call it superstition if you want

Tucked away back towards the Tchakpa stands is where one finds the local fetish market. That is to say, if there is any sorcery you wish to perform, you’ll probably need to make a visit here to find some essential ingredients.

Although foreign religions (namely Islam and Christian sects such as Catholicism) have been adopted by the majority of the population, a substantial portion of the population retains their traditional beliefs (generally known as animism), sometimes while at the same time practicing Islam or Christianity. In fact, when I was counted in the Togolese census and I told them I was neither Muslim nor Catholic, their best next assumption was to put me down as animist!

These traditional practices are often led by healers or notables sometimes known as marabous or charlatans. They perform a variety of healing acts, some based on a degree of science (usually revolving around plants, and hence the connection they have to the botanical garden I’ve previously talked about) and others based on what we’d probably call superstition. That is, it is superstition unless you think it’s real. In that case, you might call it animism, sorcery or gris-gris. This is all where the fetish market that is the topic of the day comes in to play

Understanding their superstitions has been a fairly complicated thing for me to do in my time here. This is in part, because most people have their own interpretations and beliefs for what traditional religion is. I’ll get one explanation from one person and then the next will tell me something slightly different. Yet, what I’ve commonly heard is that people believe that each person has an animal spirit or incarnation attached to their being. Sorcery affects these incarnations or spirits, allowing one to protect themselves from evil spirits/incarnations of others or in some cases inflict certain desired effects on others. But if I was going to simplify it, I would leave it that there is the basic belief that the traditional healers or fetish priests have the power to protect people through certain ceremonies.

According to each case or problem, certain ingredients are necessary for every ceremony, whether they are performed in family or by traditional healers. Some of these ingredients are not easily found and can cost a villager a decent penny. What’s done with the ingredients in the ceremonies one can never be sure of, unless he’s there. But we can marvel at some of the ingredients nonetheless shown in the close up picture. I can’t tell what half of them are myself, but among them are turtle shells, snake skins, rat skins, bird skulls, animal hair and various bones. In other stalls yet are fetish stones, rings, bracelets, shells and additional accessories. The ingredients aren’t the secret, but the ceremony is. If you ask me it’s in the fear of that unknown, from which comes the traditional respect for it, and part of the secret to it too.

Now these beliefs have less sway than they once did. This is evidenced by the fact that they now take water from, swim in and fish in the river and burn brush fires and cut trees that have destroyed countless sacred forests, among other things. These places were formerly very hallowed places and none of them would have been disturbed for fear of upsetting the spirits surrounding these areas. Such is no longer the case. Regardless, the tradition still remains to a degree. Even my favorite mango trees still have fetishes hanging from their branches to help ward of greedy kids from steeling the fruit. That, and the fetish market is clearly still in business as well.

The Village Deli

Relative to the rest of the country, the savannah region is known in Togo for, among other things, its meat. While the south is well known for having abundant fruit, one strong suite of ours is animal husbandry. Our livestock routinely gets shipped down south where it gets a pretty penny. I routinely see bush taxis filling up in my village with guinea fowl. Other times motorcycles leave with crates full of guinea fowl strapped onto the backs of them. Pigs are another staple export of Savanes. I’ve seen moto’s go whizzing by on my road, the drivers pressed up close to their handle bars because they have up to 3 full grown, squealing pigs strapped onto the back, taking up most of the sitting space. Once in Dapaong, bush taxis take them south as extra cargo.

Fortunately for those of us up north, that same meat stays pretty cheap. Of course that’s relative. A live chicken cost $3-4. A goat can cost around $20. It’s still a privilege to eat meat with a meal in village and is by no means present in every meal for the average inhabitant. Nonetheless, we do eat our fare share.

With certain meats the way to go is to buy your animal live and whole and prepare it on the spot. This applies to fish (okay that one doesn’t come in live but it’s one of our biggest sources of protein so I have to mention it), doves, rabbits, chickens, guinea fowl, goats and sheep (increasing respectively in price). However, some of the more costly animals are more often killed by a butcher, brought to market and parceled out on the same day. And thus we come to the subject of this week’s blog; the meat market.

In general, the only day you can get a cut of raw meat in village to bring back to prepare at home is on market day (Beef is one exception, as they are only killed in village sporadically and on random days. Because it’s the most expensive, most steer are herded into Dapaong and slaughtered there). The butchers come in with their meat already cleaned and usually strapped onto the back of a bike. Once there they set up shop and parcel out the raw meat according to the desires of the customer. You can literally go to him, point at the piece of meat you want, tell him how much you want to buy and he cuts you off a slice and bags it in a black plastic baggy. As all other market purchases, he adds a “cadeau” (gift), in this case usually boney or fatty meat (to give your sauce more flavor!), as a gesture to gain or maintain your loyalty to him as your butcher.

On top of their raw meat, they also sell select parts cooked. So if you want a snack after your millet beer you can mosey over to the butcher and request some morsels of meat or innards (can’t waste anything!) dipped in some hot pepper powder to tide you over until the evening.

So what are the meats I can always get fresh in village? Well unfortunately this isn’t a market for Muslims, since they’re all banned for eating in Islamic faith. And for fair warning, two of the three might not agree with an American even if you aren’t Muslim. Anyway, pork is the first and probably the most common. The other two are donkey and dog. The pictures here are of the pig and donkey butchers, who happily abided to pose for us!

The Market's in Town!

A central aspect to village life is the twice weekly village market. On any given day, people and various goods can be found in the village center, also known as the marché (market) or daag in Moba. Nonetheless, pickings are generally sparse on your average day, limiting you to more or less some simple foods and millet beer. However, every Tuesday and Wednesday the same barren market that was nearly empty on the other days comes to life. In local language, they term it as “the market giving birth”. If it was a good market, you can come home bearing “the market’s children” (aka the goods you found and bought) and safely say that yes, the market did indeed, give healthy birth on that day!

Some market days are better than others, but more or less you can count on a bustling center on these days. These are the days where everyone comes out, usually in their best dress to do what trading is necessary and oftentimes more importantly, to socialize with your fellow townsmen and women. Villagers trek in from the bush on bike and foot. Almost all your organic goods (meat, grains, vegetables, local beer) come in this way. Others from the village just wander in with some pocket change or a chicken to sell with the intention of indulging in market day food and millet beer, while in the company of friends.

All told, there’s quite the variety of sights. Tied chickens dangle from bike handlebars. Live goats or freshly killed pigs come in strapped onto the backs of bikes. Seamstresses walk in with their sewing machines on their heads. Market women bear tomatoes, onions, grain, fruit or basins brimming with millet beer. Random traders whizz into village with merchandise precariously strapped onto their motos. Cattle herders mosey in with their herds to present them in the side market to sell. Tradesmen open up their work shops with their apprentices, displaying their most recent works in full view. Generators fire up to charge cell phones, run the video club or chill the normally warm bottled beer. On some days, you’ll see a hustler taking bets on a shuffling game. I can even find youngsters peddling frozen yogurt and juice in coolers from Dapaong! No there’s no ice cream truck music, but they do have a little horn to let me know where they’re at!

Nonetheless, the market can’t be considered fully animated until the market trucks clunk in with the material goods and the traders selling them. In essence, it’s a traveling market. The trucks and the traders they carry serve different villages on different days. Of course, every Tuesday and Friday these guys save the day for us and anywhere between 10 and 11 am I can count on hearing or seeing the old clunkers rumble into village brimming with goods. The merchandise piles high inside and the passengers perch themselves along the edges, swaying in unison with each bump that the old truck begrudgingly takes. The other day I caught one of the trucks coming in and posted the picture here for you!

Most of the goods they unload in village are clothes of some sort. New clothes, all sorts of pagne (the cloth used by tailors and seamstresses to hand make clothes) and plenty of second hand clothing shipped in from the western world are included. This by the way is one of my favorite aspects of the market. It reminds me of shopping at the Salvation Army, where I can find all sorts of treasures and at the very least see clothes that remind me of home, since much of it does indeed come from the U.S. I do some of my best shopping there, getting t-shirts at 10 cents a pop. The top picture is of one of the market trucks packing up to leave in the evening while the market center is still, more or less, in full bustle.

But there’s so much to the market that this one blog wouldn’t do it justice! I want to spend the next couple of blogs trying to bring part of this experience to you. So hang on, give me a few weeks to get some more pictures and I’ll be back with a couple more entries to give you the best digital tour I can!

Workin’ with the youth

Life seems to be speeding up for me here by the day! I’m 2/3 of the way home for my service and I don’t see things slowing down for what’s left (well hot season may have a word to say about that). Talking to other volunteers, it sounds like the sensation is par for the course, but as time’s gone on and I’ve integrated in the area and gained contacts I’ve picked up more and more activities to keep me busy. Among some of the work I’ve been picking up, has been more frequent work with youth, especially the high schoolers in my village.

In general, the people I’m working with in village are of an older generation. Generally, they’re all farmers, usually upwards of 30 years old, lots of them over 50 in the case of my association. In this context, I do think I’ve been a part of some really positive things in the past year, but the importance of involving youth in activities is huge and has become much clearer to me over the course of my time here. In all areas that Peace Corps volunteers are trying to contribute to in Togo (agriculture, health, business and girls education), we’re up against some very engrained practices that can be very hard to change, especially in the older generations. Negative trends were adopted over years and years and solutions to these things don’t lie in the immediate future, but rather in the decades ahead. A country’s youth is a country’s future and their ideas and aspirations will eventually decide the character of Togo in the years to come. Fortunately, we have a chance to engage some of these kids in their formative years to work for a brighter future.

Last year, I mentioned that one of the ways volunteers engage kids is through camps. In Peace Corps Togo, we run two major camps called Camp UNITE (for motivated students and apprentices) and Camp Espoir (for kids infected or affected by AIDS). The goals of the camps are very similar. Basically, we try to give kids basic direction on a variety of key life issues such as HIV/AIDS, self-confidence, girls’ education, time management, small business and child trafficking. This means taking time to introduce these issues to kids in a fun and positive environment. As an extension of Camp Espoir, volunteers in the Savannah region are now organizing a monthly Club Espoir, similarly directed at kids in/af-fected by AIDS. Half of our goal is to just have fun with the kids to keep up morale despite their situation. But it also gives us a chance to broach other important subjects with them as well. For example, yesterday we held our first club meeting and we discussed the importance of gender equity (check out the second picture).

Work I’m leading with youth recently has all been through our village high school, although none of it has actually been based on agriculture. As is common among volunteers, I dabble in other areas of work outside the realm of my agriculture or “natural resource management” assignment. For a while I’d been sitting in on English classes, offering my insight when useful. My relationship with the teacher there has led to two clubs. Related to English, we just started up a pen pal program between 4th graders in a Maine School and the top English students in the high school. Despite the age mismatch, it seems like the best way to put kids in both countries in touch with each other’s lives and culture. It offers the chance for the cultural exchange that Peace Corps emphasizes. We just got a batch of letters from two classes two weeks ago (and for sure we had some fun explaining certain things 4th graders in the U.S. might talk about, like pets, Pokémon, video games, pets or snow!). Now, my kids are working on their responses. Hopefully, before the school years both at home and here in Togo finish, we can do a couple rounds of exchange.

The other club, which has been going since November, is for the girls of my high school. Like most other schools in the region, girls are severely underrepresented. For those girls who are in school, they can benefit from any kind of encouragement to keep them in the classroom. Having more and more successful and educated women only strengthens the chances of the next generations and hence why girls’ education is something we volunteers try to stress no matter what our assignment. Lately, I’ve been teaming up with a nearby volunteer whose assignment actually is girls’ education, to hold monthly meetings where we read articles, talk about them and play a game or two. In the first picture, we’re animating a little game after one of our sessions. (By the way, March 8 is international women’s day!)

The clubs and camps are my attempts to branch out and have some “secondary activities”. Hopefully, it gives you an idea for some of the stuff I’ve been trying to get involved with here, apart from the other agricultural/natural resource management oriented stuff.

I hope everyone’s spirits are high back home! I’m always looking forward to hearing from you all! Talk to you soon!