Dog Tired

What’s the difference between a sick day in West Africa and one in the States?

Twelve colleagues, direct from the workplace, visiting you at home.

That’s right. On Monday I wasn’t feeling well so I called in sick to my morning meeting at the guild. A classic 12-hour stomach bug induced by expired lentils and too much moldy jam – yes embarrassing – but in retrospect, true.

So I lay on the couch, tried not to move, and hoped the electricity would hold out at least for the morning. Of course I should have seen it coming. I should have put on a bra; I should have washed my face and I should have brushed my teeth. But nausea is a great equalizer and the effort of moving from the bed to the couch was enough for the first hour of the morning. Pouring a glass of water to sip was about it for the second.

Of course, around sometime before noon the first two guests came a knocking.

I’m coming… uh yes, hi. How are you. How was the session this morning? Yes I don’t feel great but its fine. You are here to visit, how nice. At this point I sat down in the one weensy corner of shade, on the ground. Sooo, should I get you a chair. Yes? Right. Wait, you say there are more? POURQUOI??? (Out loud, whoops!)

So at this point the effort of standing back up and slipping through the approximately two feet of direct sunlight before heading inside toward the chairs, of course, induced vomiting. Lovely. Just in time for the guests. Two more arrived. Then four more again. Oh hello, how are you all. You came to visit. I’m fine. Really. Now I ran out of chairs and the second thing the president of the guild said to me upon arrival went something like, What?? But there is sunlight here? But… No shade. Where. How. We must go inside. HOW??

OK, fine. Grab the chairs and come in the house that’s fine. Then my counterpart who always graces me with French and never tries to befuddle me in local language goes for the traditional greeting of we are come to visit you, oh sick friend, to give you the encouragement, courage and human company necessary to heal, don’t worry, God will forever hold you in the palm of His magnanimous, beneficent hand so let us pray. And I’ll pray too right after I throw away that moldy jam those expired lentils.

And OK – maybe he didn’t say all this in Ewe and said something else more like Goodmorning. How did you wake up? How are things in your home? But I’ll hear what I want to when my usually wonderful counterpart refuses to communicate in a language that he speaks perfectly and that I understand. AND when, meanwhile, he is leading the troops in a tradition SOO far from AMERICAN that I want to ask all twelve people have you MET me? Who thought this was a GOOD idea?

And anyway, that first thing is totally what they WOULD have said if that had thought of it before hand…

People are very Christian here in Togo. First thing every day my host family listens to church from about 5:30 to 7:00 in the morning except on Sundays when they actually go there and afford me a precious few hours free of depressing, unharmonious chanting bleating from their staticky radio. On weekdays, if I’m still around the house, from about 7:00 onwards in the morning another neighbor takes over Christian radio duty and plays more depressing chants until the sun really starts to get hot.

Luckily I experienced it all yesterday morning when I had my sick day. Thankfully, by late afternoon I felt MUCH better. Well enough to make some margarine pasta and eat it so yeah!

That evening, after a boring day alone I decided to hang with the host family for a bit and maybe even try eating again. We got to talking about the family dog. His name, I recently learned, is Ideal. In six months I have never once touched this animal essentially living in my courtyard and dog lovers please don’t take this the wrong way. NO ONE touches this dog or most other dogs in Togo, Burkina, etc. unless the plan is to kick it or apparently… I’ll come back to that.

Well, one other time recently Mama and I got to talking about this dog and she explained to me that really, she loves the thing. He’s the perfect kind of dog because he does his rightful job of guarding the home and barking like crazy upon seeing any intruders (including me – the confusing white member of the family – often enough). We got to talking about him again last night while I recalled our last conversation about Ideal.

He smells. He is dirty and smells very bad but we can’t wash him because if we try to touch him he will bite.

Oh, well, you know. You’ll figure it out.

No he is too dirty I am thinking of getting rid of him.

But no, last time we talked you said he was a good dog! You love him, no?

Yes he is a good dog but he is too dirty now and I think I will sell him and get a new dog.

But who will buy someone’s old guard dog anyhow? Won’t they have the same problems as you?

No of course not, we will sell him to another ethnicity – there are some that will buy and eat dogs.

Aah. Ok. (pause) So why don’t you just eat him yourselves?

Our ethnicity does NOT eat dogs!