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Well, not real chickens, at least I don't think so. I'm talking about decorative chickens, all over my kitchen.

So here I am with plenty of time on my hands so I decide to clean the soffit area in our kitchen. I take down the ceramic chickens that reside up there - some of them inherited from my mother - and dig into the difficult task of cleaning all the greasy grime from their myriad surfaces. The job is so tough that I clean one and then take a long break before I attempt another one. Slowly, clean and shiny chickens join each other on the opposite counter top.

I come to a point when I am almost done. Turning slightly, I glimpse something disturbing. There is a mob of chickens clustered on the counter . . . are they ganging up . . . is that a sinister look on the old rooster in front? . . . is he guarding his clutch? . . . why is that one hen so surprised?

. . . maybe it's time to put them back up on the soffit. Separated.

gang of chickens

Click on this link for a past blog entry on my obsessive chicken collection and the Chicken God.

For a photo of the chickens back up on the soffit and a little techie photo talk, click on "read more" below.Chickens back up on the soffit:

chickens on soffit

Below is a photo of the chickens on my counter with a lot of clutter behind them. I decided this type of photo didn't get my point across, so I removed the background clutter. Later, I went back to the cluttered shots and played in Photoshop to see if I could get more details in the shadows. Here is the result:

merged HDR

I created the above image using the "merge to HDR" function of Photoshop. The original shot employed "bracket exposure, 7eV", which means the Sony camera took two separate different-exposure photos. Then you open both photos in Photoshop. The program aligns them and makes shadowed areas clearer and brighter without over-brightening the non-shadowed areas. It took awhile for my MacBookPro to render the photo, and it looks pretty good, except I should have used a tripod. As a sidenote, the camera will do the same function in a shorter amount of time, but only if you choose to shoot in jpg, not in arw (raw).

Two original photos:

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When we toured the village, we said “this is so interesting, it should be an ecotour!” Well, Tammy has done just that: arranged several ecotours. This brings one more small business into the Tsevie area.

Becky decided not to bring her dog back to the US, but the carrier was used by some other PC volunteer.

Tammy’s bunnies had bunnies!

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Tammy got a kitty, too. She said “it was stuffed into this cage with all these ducks, and I just had to bring it home.”

John and I realize that not only are we richer for the travel experience, we are stronger. We can travel to a place that is out of our comfort zone. We also realize how much we missed seeing the wildlife of Africa, like elephants and lions and monkeys. This isn’t Tammy’s fault, she offered us the option of going to Mole National Park in Ghana and we declined. But when we got home, a flyer offering a certain tour, arranged through the CU Alumni Foundation, came in the mail. We both looked at it at separate times, and then one evening looked at each other and said: “Let’s go!!!” So next May we are off to Africa, this time on . . .

Safari!

First post in the African trip series.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=114 Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:13:50 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=113
We just scratched the surface of learning about the culture of west Africans, and we liked it. I am so proud of my daughter for immersing her life amongst theirs, learning so much about their ways, and sharing with them some American ways, and helping them learn methods to improve their lives.

I could delve into the issue of the abject poverty that we saw. Are they happy living in the conditions? Yes, mostly, it seems; at least they were not angry. But they have few opportunities to change how they live. Could they, should they? We have such a wealth of ways in which we can spend our days, spend our lives. If we get sick, we can get medical attention. We have freedom of choice and lots of choices. We may get angry at our government, but at least it is not corrupt at every level. I don’t necessarily wish on the rich African culture the hectic, busy, consumer-goods-obsessed ways of Americans, but to me, never to have had the chance to study science, nor have a plethora of foods to choose from, nor be able to travel, nor have a daughter who can devote her life to whatever she chooses, nor have my son cured of cancer . . . I know where my heart is.

I used to think it would be easy to help pull Africa out of poverty. Just start opening factories there, why not? There are a lot of people there who need work. Well, the infrastructure is just not there. Roads, power, stable governments, sewage and trash systems; the issues are mindboggling. When we first got back from our trip, people asked us what we thought of Africa, and John and I both said “It’s complicated.”

And to those who say “the US is becoming a third world country” we say “uh uh, no way near it”. If that’s what you think, travel to one, and you will know.

We are glad we traveled to one, and especially that we traveled to west Africa. Our lives are a lot richer for the experience.

Epilogue.


First post in the African trip series.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=113 Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:30:51 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=112
The hotel was close to the Togo-Ghana border, so we rolled our bags along the sidewalk next to the beach. At the border, we got through the typical passport/visa border rituals, and then walked to the tro-tro station.

This time, we found an actual bus to take us to Accra. It was large, pretty new, clean, had good shocks, had seat belts, and even a DVD screen. It sat probably 20 people. It took awhile to fill this bus - probably 45 minutes - before we could leave. During this time, of course the vendors are trying to sell us stuff.

One woman gets on the bus and in her bag is a chicken. Could that really be what I saw? Why yes, it soon squawked, proving it was there. What’s a trip to Africa without a chicken on a bus?

A little later we hear the apprentice arguing with one of the women on the bus. It went on for awhile. Finally they stopped arguing, and started stuffing a large matress onto the bus. Most of the people on the bus started laughing! This was rare, usually everyone just sat and endured whatever was happening.

So they get the mattress on, and it’s right in front of John, kind of vertical. For a long time, the driver played the same irritating music tape over and over. Then he put on a DVD, on a screen that John couldn’t see because of the mattress (no loss). The movie was locally produced and about a village and killings and witchcraft. Tammy says that this type of melodramatic film is quite popular.

The driver didn’t drive too fast, amazing. But the bus kept getting stopped by the Ghana police, who repeatedly pulled this one guy off the bus for questioning. The police carried guns, by the way. AK47s. Each time, the police checked this guy’s papers and then his bags in the back of the bus. Probably, each time the guy had to pay a bribe. Tammy said he was either Nigerian or a rastafarian.

One time the bus stopped, and everyone started getting off. Finally I figured that this is a “rest” stop. So I followed Tammy to the “restroom”. So far on the trip, when out in public I had always used a restaurant or bar’s toilet facility. And except for once, that meant an actual toilet. Only once was it a “urinal”, and that time, it was a private urinal. A woman’s urinal room is a tiled room, and along one side there is a trough. You are supposed to pull down your pants, squat down, and direct your pee into the trough. This time, I follow Tammy into the restroom facility, and plunk down a coin and am directed to a room that was a urinal. There are about 10 women there peeing. They are all wearing dresses. I start to pull down my pants and then just can’t do it. I went back out and paid more money and was directed to a real toilet. (Men in west Africa often just pee in the street, in the open.)

We hit traffic about 10 miles out of Accra. One time, there was an accident causing the traffic, other times it was just volume. Our flight doesn’t leave until 11 pm, so we aren’t in a big hurry for that, but Tammy had an errand to run for her PC site mate, Becky. Becky supposedly has a pet carrier waiting for her at a certain pet store in Accra and supposedly the pet store closes at 3 pm. (Becky has a dog that she wants to bring home with her to America in a few weeks.)

Tammy looked at a map and figured the general area of Accra the pet store must be in, and asked others in the bus where to get off. Before we are in the heart of Accra, the bus stops, and someone on the bus told her that this is our stop. People in Ghana are really helpful. We found a taxi, and the driver helped us find the pet store, even calling the pet store on his phone and asking strangers inside a local business. Again, helpful people.

We arrived at the pet store at about 2:30 pm. But they didn’t have a pet carrier. The salesgirl called her boss. Finally by about 5:30 pm, the boss came. In the meantime, we had drinks at a bar and then dinner across the street from the pet store. The time was well spent, as we were all together, enjoying food, drink, and conversation.

When the boss came with the pet carrier, he told us that he didn’t take Tammy’s Visa card (the whole point was that he was supposed to take Visa while Becky had been there and they didn’t take Mastercard). The guy was really nice, though, and offered to take us to an ATM so she could withdraw cash. Then, he drove us directly to the airport. That was awfully nice. We all got out and went inside the terminal.

Tearfully, we said good bye to Tammy.

John and I went to catch our plane for Dulles. Our plane left at 11:15 pm. As the plane rose off the runway, I gazed down at nighttime Africa, pale orange lights spotted through the city, and then just large areas of darkness.

Next: Africa, last impressions.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=112 Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:35:32 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=111 great tuna lunch at Tammy’s friend’s house. A taxi picked us up at Tammy’s house and took us all the way to the Hotel Phoenicia in Lome. No more bush taxis for us!

After we settled into our hotel room, we walked a couple blocks to the beach, and sat at a “bar” that was sheltered tables and chairs on the sand. As we sat and talked and ate a few snacks, hawkers kept coming by to sell us stuff. Tammy bought some DVDs. One guy was selling cigarettes and viagra. Yup, viagra.

Later, we walked to a restaurant for pizza. We felt kind of guilty for abandoning the food of the local culture, but we were hungry for something other than rice and sauce. We wanted cheese! We had to ask the restaurant workers to turn down the music. I forgot to mention this before, but the Ghanaese like to play loud reggae music through bad speakers. I like music, but it’s hard to hear over it when what you really want is good conversation.

The Hotel Phoenicia had TVs, hot showers, and even wi-fi. They also had a restaurant and bar. Our last night in Togo began a slow transition back to the creature comforts that John and I are so used to. We snuggled into the crisp sheets, cooled by a noisy but effective air conditioner. It's bittersweet, though. We know that tomorrow we have to say good-bye to Tammy.

Next: To the airport.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=111 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:05:56 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=110
As a PC volunteer, Tammy works with the women in several villages to help build their pottery businesses into profitable enterprises. She has taken groups of these women to Ghana to learn pottery techniques. She also teaches them better business practices, such as how to keep track of costs and income. She is encouraging the village women to increase their efficiency by renting a cart to carry the pots to market in one trip instead of taking several trips, carrying them on their heads.

On Thursday, Tammy’s friend came with us on the excursion to the village. She served as an interpreter, since not all the villagers speak French. We took a taxi to the village, although Tammy usually rides her bike. (The PC provides her with a bike, bike helmet, and a motorcycle helmet, since she is allowed to ride on motos in Tsevie.) The taxi’s windshield was a mess of cracks.

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taxi

From the taxi, we saw women carrying large loads of pots on their heads, on their way to Tsevie. We stopped and Tammy said hi.

We arrived at the village and were greeted by the pottery women. They brought out benches for us to sit on, we made introductions, and Tammy gave them gifts (mostly candy). One woman (sorry, I was unable to get the names!) stood out. She was tall and seemed quite smart and capable and was wearing an attractive red and black top. She took charge and led us through the village and demonstrated how the pots were made.

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Tammy, her friend, and John walking through the village.

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at the village

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at the village

(This blog entry has lots of photos and more commentary - click on "read more".)159
fires that serve as kilns for the pots

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raw clay; I was interested in where they got the clay for the pots

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a big, pretty tree

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beginning to make a pot

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beginning to make a pot - note the woman on the right, she was dressed in a big piece of cloth that was just wrapped around her

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making pots

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making pots

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making pots - the woman in the background is putting a coating and design on them

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pots

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firing pots

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making pots

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cute kids playing

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our leader village woman with a pot

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our leader village woman with a pot

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at the village

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at the village

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Tammy at the village

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a really cool tree at the village

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detail of one of the structures

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the village cemetery

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two cute little boys

After touring the village itself, the woman in the black and red top started walking out of the village. We didn’t know what to expect, since we couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but we were told to follow. The woman in charge picked up a machete, and in single file we followed her out from the village, across the road, and then into the countryside. John and I expected just a short walk.

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The road we cross to venture into the outlying area - this shows the type of vegetation in the areas outside the city - dense undergrowth, large bushes, large trees.

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a large and pretty tree

We walked on a narrow path through the dense vegetation. Sometimes lines of poisonous ants crossed our path.

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the start of the path we took

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ants

We kept walking along the path.

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walking along the path

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the view from the path

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the view from the path

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the view from the path

Eventually we came to a palm tree, laid on it’s side. In the photo you can just make out a bottle connected to the palm tree. The bottle is collecting oil from the tree.

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collecting palm oil

We kept walking. “How far are we going?” John and I wondered, silently. It’s hot, and I’m glad I’d worn my good walking shoes.

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pineapple

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flower

We eventually realize that we are walking through the fields that belong to the villagers. I’m not sure if these are actively farmed, or simply harvested as the natural plants yield fruits.

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I’d asked where the clay was mined, and our leader pointed out this spot. Each family has a different “plot” for clay.

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another plot for clay

Our leader stops and goes off the path, and comes back with a bunch of bananas. John volunteers to carry them. Another time, she stopped to use the machete to get a pineapple, and another time, she harvested a yam.

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Our leader stops and goes off into the jungle. She comes back carrying a big yam root that she puts in a black plastic bag (a “sachet”).

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John and the bananas.

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Our little group, carrying the harvest.

Our leader says we are going to the place where the village sotobe is made (we learn this through gestures and translations by Tammy).

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This is the large drum where the palm oil is mixed and allowed to ferment. The top is crusted with debris and bugs.

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The fermented palm oil becomes palm wine, which is distilled to make sotobe. Here is where it is boiled, and the tubing coming out of the barrel goes to the next container, a big pot.

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The distillate is siphoned through two more big pots.

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The distillate from the final pot is siphoned into a clear glass container.

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Tammy’s friend drinking the palm wine, and the leader holding a funnel and strainer that gets the debries out of the fresh palm wine.

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John trying the fresh palm wine - he said it’s a lot better than the palm wine we had bought outside the national park in Ghana.

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Tammy trying the fresh palm wine - I’m not about to try it, my tummy’s still iffy.

We leave the sotobe still and begin our walk back to the village.

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along the path back to the village

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Tammy’s friend with a container of sotobe

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John and Tammy - Tammy is carrying a pineapple that our leader harvested

Back at the village, we say our good-byes and go to the taxi. The villagers gave us the pineapple, bananas, and sotobe to take with us.

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back to the taxi

All in all, it was a long and very interesting tour. We saw how pretty the Togo countryside can be. There were lots of big trees and lots of pretty green plants. I found the village a cleaner and nicer place than the city. Our adventure into the village and the village farms was so interesting that it could be made into an ecotour.

Next: Our last night in Togo.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=110 Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:16:36 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=109
Lunch at Tammy’s host family’s home

On Thursday, lunch was at her host family’s. (Her “host family” is where she stayed during her first two months in Togo.) It was “fatty rice” - rice with some veggies and a lot of palm oil; it’s another of Tammy’s favorites. It was good. The family served us the meal, then left the room. This Togoese custom shows respect for your guests, according to Tammy. We did not stay long - another custom, she said, is not to linger after a meal. Often, people in Togo rest or sleep in the early afternoon when it is very hot.

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Two piles of corn drying in the courtyard of the host family. One pile is corn still on the cob, one is corn off the cob.

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A lizard on the corn.

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More lizards!Dinner at Tammy’s local host family

For dinner we were invited to Tammy’s “local host family” - this is the family that lives a couple doors down from her and that the Peace Corps designates to “watch over” Tammy. In mid-afternoon, it poured, and I mean POURED. Big huge drops of rain. Tammy had some errands to do; she waited until the rain stopped, then went out on her bike. She was gone a long time, and while she was out it rained some more. When she got back, dripping wet, she said that she had a flat tire and had to have it fixed. Okay, we are not too late to get to our dinner date. Then the power went out. Oh, this is interesting.

The streets don’t have streetlights anyway, so it’s no big deal. Everyone seems to have cell phones with flashlights on them. So we walked in the dark down the street, trying to avoid the red muddy goo in the streets.

The local host family had nice furniture, computers, and a digital camera, but no indoor plumbing. They turned on their (noisy) generator so we could have some indoor lights. They served us fresh fish in a tomato-vegetable sauce over rice. I kept telling them that I just wanted a little because of my tummy, but they wanted to feed me a lot. I felt bad because I just couldn’t finish it - although the food was very tasty!

The father asked us how long we were staying in Tsevie, and when we said only 4 days, he said: “Why aren’t you staying a month?” Long visits are common in Togo - Americans are always in a hurry.

We left soon after we finished dinner, and when we got back to Tammy’s we found that the power was on. Yea!

Lunch at Tammy’s friend’s place

On Friday we had lunch at the home of a woman that Tammy calls her “counterpart”. This is a woman who has a small business in Togo, and she helps Tammy with her Peace Corps work. We were joined for lunch by her daughter and grandson, and Tammy’s best (local) friend in Tsevie.

This meal excellent. The woman had ordered a special fresh fish from Lome, and had cooked it both grilled over a fire and simmered in a broth. The fish tasted a lot like high-grade tuna, meaty and flavorful.

Tammy ate a lot of this fish, as she gets so protein-deprived in Togo, a condition perhaps exacerbated by her recent marathon. I was impressed with the great fresh salsa that accompanied the fish. It was an uncooked mixture of sliced tomatoes, onions, and seasonings. I could have eaten a big bowl of that! A bottle of sotobe made the rounds.

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The fish and the salsa. I think the round balls in the other bowl are a fermented corn mixture.

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Another photo of the lunch.

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The Friday lunch group.

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The Friday lunch group.

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The Friday lunch group.

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The Friday lunch group.

Final comments on foods

Meals in Togo are generally one dish served with rice or another starch. The meals have only one course - not like our meals of salad, main dish, then dessert. They don’t serve bread with the meal, even when there is a good sauce to dip it in. They do not serve desserts. We did see some sweet cakes sold on the streets, but these were not served after dinner.

We were served fruits after some of the meals. They had a type of citrus fruit, melons, bananas, and pineapple. The pineapples were very sweet and a little different than the ones we get here in the US.

What they don’t have in Togo are milk products. No cheese, milk, yogurt, ice cream . . . none of that. They don’t eat a lot of meat. They have lots of goats, but we didn’t try goat meat. There aren’t things like big crunchy crackers in Togo. Since we are used to these food items, we sort of missed them. But we were happy to find that they do have good food, if you are lucky enough to be invited into their homes, or have a Tammy to cook for you.

Next: Our visit to the village.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=109 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:49:37 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=108
Wednesday was a slow day for me, because I woke up with some stomach issues, and slight fever and chills. That day, I hung out at Tammy’s while John and Tammy made forays into town for various food stuffs and house repair items. Thursday, John woke up with the same issues I had, so we both started taking the antibiotic for dysentery that the doctor in the US had given us, and we felt better almost right away.

But other than that, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were adventures into the local culture. This post and the next will focus on the food, and the one after that will focus on our trip to a local village.

Tammy cooks us meals

Tammy made us a couple fish and vegetable dishes, served with either rice or “pot”. She would tell us “it’s a simple meal to make” but each time, it seemed like she spent hours in preparation. The fish was smoked fish; smoking is a good way to preserve fish when you don’t have refrigeration. The spice base for most of the dishes she prepared is a mixture of fresh garlic, ginger, and local chiles, put into a mortar and ground to a homogeneous mush. The vegetables are greens, local small eggplants, onions, and tomatoes. To make the “pot”, we took the dried corn we had bought at the market to a local stall and they ground it in a big machine. She mixed the ground corn with water and cooked it, then put pieces of it in the vegetable/fish sauce. It’s very good - we both liked it.

Party at Tammy’s

On Wednesday, about ten friends of Tammy’s came over for a dinner party. The group of friends included both locals and Becky, another PC volunteer. The main food item was Tammy’s favorite local dish, called “fufu”.

The fufu was made from plantains and yams, although other combinations of starches can be used. The yams are huge, root-like vegetables that we saw sold all over Ghana and Togo. For fufu, these are peeled and then boiled. Then, they are put in a huge wooden bowl and pounded with a large mallet for about an hour. The whole process a couple hours. Traditionally, the men take turns doing the pounding, and the women move the mixture around under the mallet between pounds. When the pounding is finished, the fufu has a consistency of sticky mashed potatoes.

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Making fufu.

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Making fufu.

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Group photo - Tammy’s party.

The fufu was served in a sauce-soup-like mixture consisting of chicken, tomatoes, and other vegetables; it was seasoned with the same garlic-ginger-chile mixture Tammy used before. As was the “pot”, people eat fufu with their hands, using it to scoop up the sauce mixture. Fufu isn’t supposed to be eaten too late in the day, as it’s considered “too heavy” for the digestive system. In fact, by soon after 6 pm, most families are home and have finished their evening meal.

Just about everyone at the party had some sotobe, a distilled palm liquor. (I looked this up online, and according to Wikipedia, it’s spelled “sodabe”.) It’s similar in taste to tequila, so John taught them to drink it as shots with lime and salt. During so much of the time spent with locals, John and I were left out of the conversation, since we don’t speak French. But the sotobe made the language issue less of a problem!

Remember that I mentioned that we left some material at the tailor’s to be made into outfits? Well, near the end of the party, the tailor came by and delivered a skirt for me and a shirt for John. He had them done in one day, and the total charge, including the material, for both outfits was less than $15 US! He did a great job!

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John in his shirt.

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Patty in her skirt.

Next: Home-cooked meals part 2.
]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=108 Sun, 13 Nov 2011 08:57:15 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=107
Her place is enclosed in a wall. Inside the enclosure is the main house, a courtyard, and a long narrow building that has several rooms (including a toilet) and one covered but open area (for eating outside). The rooms are used for storage and one is used for her bunnies! She has the cutest bunnies.

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Her wall and gate.

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The hammock in the courtyard. The window next to it is the kitchen window. You can see the faucet in the planter next to the wall. Note the huge basil plant!

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John sitting next to the door to the house. The hammock is to his left.

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Two of Tammy’s bunnies. The black one is the male. The third bunny is shy and didn’t come out as much.

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That’s me in with the bunnies. Behind me is the little room where they hide, sleep, and nest.

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John built this wire gate for the bunnies. When we got there, Tammy was keeping them locked in the little room, sometimes letting them run loose in the courtyard. But they ate all the plants she tried to grow, and made messes. So the gate allows them to get out in the fresh air so we could watch them run and play, and allows Tammy to have her basil and other plants.

Lot's more! Be sure to click on "read more" below.Here are some photos of the inside of her house:

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The kitchen area.

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The kitchen area.

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Looking from the kitchen to the two bedrooms. The bathroom is off to the left.

She has a propane stove with a couple burners - no oven. There is not running water in the kitchen area, so to do dishes, she brings water into two big basins in the kitchen. One on the working table has soapy water, and one on the floor has a little bleach in it for rinsing the dishes.

For drinking water, she runs the water through a filter set-up. She drinks that water, but for us, she treated the filtered water with bleach. (John and I usually drank bottled water, though, either in plastic bottles or in sealed plastic bags that you drank from by biting off a corner.)

The bathroom toilet and shower are plumbed. Sort of, at least - the shower works (no hot water, though) and the toilet is flushed by adding water to the bowl itself from a bucket (that we refilled at the faucet in the courtyard). (We now call this method of flushing toilets "Togo flush" as we had to use it in October in Colorado when we had a long power outage.) City water costs, so in Togo they conserve it as much as possible. Tammy collected rain water too.

There is no trash pick-up. This is not a minor point: it has lots of implications. Just think of all the trash and garbage we generate when making a meal in the US. Try to think of how you’d get rid of all that trash without a garbage disposal or trash pick-up. She doesn’t have a refrigerator, so leftovers have to be eaten soon.

So this is how she handles it all. The bunnies get all the vegetable peelings. Most goods come in thin plastic bags, and she throws these in a pile on the street and burns them when they gather, along with any paper (not much paper gathers). The goal is to produce as little trash as possible.

Clothes are washed by hand. John washed some clothes and we hung them on her clothesline. It took them a long time to dry. It's so humid there that I didn't even use any of the hand lotion that I brought with me. When I wore shorts, I'd rub my legs together through a layer of moisture.

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John washing clothes.

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Tammy burning trash.

Tammy accesses the internet using a set-up through her cell phone connected to her laptop. She pays as she goes, and the connection is slow. That’s why she’s not online a lot.

She has electricity. The light in one of the bedrooms didn’t work when we got there, but John got it working - most of the time. The main area lights usually worked, but the bedroom and bathroom lights worked sometimes, and sometimes not. John thinks it’s a weird wiring job, in series rather than parallel. Sometimes the power went out everywhere, and all the people were ready with their flashlights on their cell phones.

Well, that’s how Tammy lives most days in Togo! She likes her house, it’s a safe and restful haven after trips to other cities or villages. We liked it too!

Next: Home-cooked meals.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=107 Sat, 12 Nov 2011 04:59:40 -0900 http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=106
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Tammy and John walking back to her house, through a park. Note the huge sack on Tammy’s head.

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This cute little girl wanted her picture taken, and I was glad to oblige!

Tammy said “Let’s stop at the bar for a beer.” We of course agreed! It’s hot, and we are tired and thirsty. We sat in a shady area that is her favorite bar. The bar girl would come walking all the way out to us with our beers, usually “Flag” beer.

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Tammy and Patty at the bar. Note the bell on the table (it looks like an upside copper funnel). You use it to summon the bar girl for your next drink.

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This photo is taken from the table we were sitting at, looking towards the bar on the corner. Yes, those are chickens.

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Tammy and Patty.

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Bar fowl.After a nice chat and rest, we continued our journey back to Tammy’s. But first, we stop at a little tailor shop. Tammy knows the guy who runs it, says he is the best tailor, as long as he isn’t drinking. Inside the shop are some fabrics, tables, sewing machine, and on the walls, poster-sized books of all types of shirts, skirts, and dresses. John and I flip through all the pages of the huge books and finally choose a couple styles. Tammy negotiates (in French) what the tailor will make and how much it will cost. We leave two of the fabrics we had bought at the market that morning with the tailor. The tailor was very animated and talkative, but I had no idea what he was saying. And I did smell alcohol on his breath! (This thread will be continued later in the blog.)

After the tailor’s, we continue on our way. We do only one more stop, this time to get a little something to drink for the evening. We step into a dark little shop. There are bottles of all sorts on the table and on shelves. Tammy talks to the guy (in French) and he pours some liquor (probably imported gin) into a baggie.

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This is how liquor is often sold in Tsevie.

Okay, finally we are on our last leg to Tammy’s. This time, John is carrying the big bag.

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On the streets of Tsevie, closing in on Tammy’s complex.

In general, we found it nicer in Tsevie than in Accra, it’s less crowded and the pace is less frantic.

Next: At Tammy’s complex.]]> public http://www.pfeist.net/blog/index.php?itemid=106 Thu, 10 Nov 2011 05:27:01 -0900