a maizeing

Where to start?
So I was going to talk about the trip up from Lome… but that will come later. I’ve just had the opportunity to escape the bubble that is the Kara Centre, and I am particularly excited about the adventure.
Whoa, Les… Kara Centre?
Right, the Centre in Kara where I live is run by SIL and is a wonderful place, amazing and intelligent people wandering in and out all the time, working on incredible projects, everything from dictionaries to oral narratives, direct language translations to literacy training, phonemes, syntax, tones … and anything else along the way…. A Linguistic Anthropologist’s dream centre. It is however, a bubble. You can live here and never interact with Africa if you never leave it’s walls. But that’s ok, because it was never intended for anyone to live here full time, it’s a guest house, people are suppost to come and go. There’s even a rule about the length of time one is allowed to live on centre (not including the people who are the “centre managers”-those keeping the place going- those being the people who I’ve come here to help with schooling!). That said, pray with me as I decide when and where to move… The details are REALLY up in the air- I am here for a short enough time that I could live here… but I don’t think it would be good for me.
Bubble burst, where’d you go?
Today I went with one of the kids (Lisa) and a missionary named Dave (who is doing some project on compiling data about tones in the Kabiye language…) To help Dave’s gardener (Bleze) bring his maize crop into town. More and more families have sent the younger generations down from their homes into the towns to work, but the families still work together to support eachother. So we set out to pick up Bleze, we found him and two of his friends? (I don’t know who they were… maybe related? My French is so bad I’m sure someone told me but I missed it) and we jammed into Dave’s little Toyota and..
Hold on, why does a missionary have a gardener?
Good question! It’s not like North America where only the rich have gardeners or house help, nearly everyone does, it’s one way of helping people out-providing jobs.. besides, the money needs to be shared anyway, and who has the time for housework… remember, this isn’t Canada we’re talking about, it’s a completely different system, and it’s not a class thing. Families here would have young relatives come live with them who would do the same thing-and the money would go back to the families in the village… OH! almost exactly what Bleze is doing! ;) where was I?
Oh yeah, jammed into the Toyota, and bumped and banged our way out of town (not too many paved roads in that direction) ok. None. Dave though it would be a good idea for us to go to see the family before we drove in to take the maize out, so we parked, and began to walk. We walked for about 10 mins, baobab trees rising out of the grass... this is grass WAY over my head, I’m talkin’ grass 11 or 12 feet high, it bows in and you walk through a tunnel in places. Coconut and Palm, Mango and Papaya in the clearings, groundnut plants growing between them. Scatterings of partly finished homes and decaying huts. (I’ll tell you about buildings another day).
We stopped under a group of large Baobab and Mango trees that were somehow growing out of a tall pile of rocks. The rocks were really smooth… worn from generations of people coming to rest in the shade… it was incredible to think of the number of people who must have sat there to affect the rocks the way that they did. In some places there were large (three feet by two foot) oval rocks that were shaped like basins, but they had holes in the bottom of them. Bleze explained that they were used grinding stones that had worn through! Women use these flat stones to grind maize and millet they place them on the rock, and crush and grind with another rock…. How long would it take someone to wear right through a rock? These were at LEAST half a foot in thickness.
Then we came to Belze’s family’s compound. Homes here are generally set up with 3 or more buildings (one room each) turned so they create a courtyard in the centre.. that’s where all the living happens, out in the courtyard.
Inside we were met by chickens ducks goats and his grandmother, a tiny OLD woman, sitting on a step, her skirt around her, and a little baby toddling around nearby. When we came “in” another woman (an aunt) and a young cousin appeared. We (Lisa and I) were seated while Belze went over to his grandmother to tell her why we were there. Then Dave was brought over to meet her, where he surprised her by speaking in her own language… she thought it was HE-LAR-IOUS, and laughed and laughed and launched into some dramatic story about falling down the day before… and being deaf and why would a white guy know her language? She was pretty excited. Then I was invited over (next in age order) I’ve already forgotten my rehearsed greeting since then… but anyway, a hand shake with my right hand, left hand holding my own forearm (out of respect). Lisa and I were sent back to our seat against the mud bricks, and a young girl brought us some water in a gourd to drink… Dave said just to put it to our lips as a sign of thanks/respect for the gesture; we couldn’t really drink it since it wasn’t filtered. Then she brought us some groundnuts to eat… and we just sat there taking it all in. The young girl brought the nuts to Dave and he responded in Kabiye and she looked so surprised (she’d missed him talking to her grandmother) and she said she was relieved because she didn’t know what to do with so many white people!
It’s so different… village life. There’s no hurry, you just do what needs to be done when it needs to be done… until then you live. We sat while one young girl sorted beans and another shelled groundnuts. Then when enough? time had passed -so it wouldn’t seem like we were rushing out, we started our goodbyes (rather our “see you tomorrow’s”, good bye is too final, it’s like saying, “well, I’ll certainly never come back here again”. And we eventually left, only to round the side of the building into a cousin’s compound. The young girl who had brought us the water had followed behind us with a small bench.. she knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon.
EVENTUALLY we left. It probably was around 5:00 (sun sets at 6:10, dark at 6:20) but when we reached the clearing where the partly finished homes were, there were people sitting on the step… so we started again… handshakes, water, groundnuts…. Millet beer. Dave said, as a gourd filled with the cloudy brown stuff was passed to me, that he should have waned us that there is no fellowship in Togo that is complete unless it is around a calabash. (More on Millet beer another time).
Yeah, we didn’t leave there till close to 6. By that point I was sure I’d met every relative of Bleze’s that existed, and we still hadn’t even seen the maize that we were suppost to bring into town. We walked back to the car and drove it down a path to another set unfinished buildings, inside of one (surrounded by guinea hens) were the sacks of dried maize cobs, there weren’t enough bags so the rest was piled on the floor, a young girl with a hand broom to shoo away the hens and ducks sat beside the door.
We piled the bags into the back of the car.. ok, not we… they… man those things were HEAVY! Lisa another girl and myself climbed on top of them and squished ourselves in for the bumpy ride back to town, the guys squished into the front.
We arrived at Bleze’s home and the unloading began. This time I helped… I had to! This one lady with a baby strapped to her back stepped up to carry a bag… so how could I not? I walked up to the car and said “sur la tete s’il vous plait” Bleze LAUGHED and looked at Dave to see if I was joking, when Dave nodded that “yes” I wanted it on my head, he helped me with my load then followed me into the compound… I’m sure just to watch his family’s reaction! They doubled over laughing at this white girl with a giant sack of maize on her head, but I know that they appreciated the help, and really, anytime we try anything (us crazy white people) they appreciate it so much, even when we mess it up really bad… just to interact/ show that we aren’t so different!
Anyway, the whole experience was great, I learned a few more phrases to add to my severely limited vocabulary, learned a ton of cultural stuff, and just had fun in general.
Sorry this was such a long post…. I did cut a lot out.
Wish you were all here!
Lesley