Today marks the one year anniversary of the death of Mr. Djagri, my Togolese counterpart in Kpatchile, Togo. As I was walking home today I was thinking about all the things I wanted say about this day, about what happened and about my regret.
It was a Monday morning when the first person arrived at my house to bring me the news. It was Mr. N'Ghantche, president of the cantonal village development committee. I remember being shocked but not surprised. Mr. Djagri had been sick since March, about six months. Every time I saw him, I asked after his health and learned about what new medicines and healers he had seen, none very effective. Unfortunately, without proper medical facilities, staff, medicine or money available, my counterpart continued to seek help, in my opinion, in all the wrong places. I urged him to go to Kara, the regional capital, and go to a proper hospital, relatively speaking. He eventually did, but not until it was too late.
The last time I saw Mr. Djagri alive, he was sleeping in a dim room on worn out couch cushions. He was so skinny and had lost so much weight that his rib cage was clearly visible and his arms were the size of my wrists. Normally, he was already a small man. He reminded me of a black Robin Williams with a baseball cap, popping peanuts into his mouth and a cute little chuckle. I recall my gasp at seeing him that last time on the floor, and I knew then with certainty that he was going to die soon. This was the first time I had ever been exposed to anything like that. I urged his family to get him help, but they told me by that time they had no more money left. He needed some kind of surgery that he could only get in Lome, Togo's capital, and even then there was no guarantee that he would survive.
Two more people visited me that day to tell me Mr. Djagri had passed away and each time it got harder and harder to hear. The family buried him that morning in a grave directly in front of his house, covered in cement. I missed the burial, which at the time, I was upset, but in the end, it was probably better that way. The Togolese do not really express sadness openly, so when I arrived at the memorial and openly wept, a woman approached me, tried to pull my hands away from my face and tell me to stop crying. I got angry and pushed her away. That day I did not care about cultural norms. I was going to have my grief and express my sadness whether it made other people uncomfortable or not. I mostly just sat there with my head in my hands and cried while the villagers talked and drank and ate. It didn't seem that different from my own culture. Just before I left, I noticed that the family had a picture hanging next to the entrance of the house, and as I walked by I saw that it was the picture my friend, Jamie, had taken of me and Mr. Djagri in the marketplace, drinking calabashes of Tchouk. I walked away as a new set of tears emerged.
I spent the rest of the day on the floor of my house crying and sleeping, sleeping and crying. Mr. Djagri was someone I had known for two years. He had welcomed me into his village and his home. He helped me set up countless meetings, some productive some not. He was my translator, and when I was upset about work, he was my sounding board. He was always giving me food even though he probably could have used it more than me. He did the best he could. He did too much; I think he was on multiple committees and a full time farmer and Tchouk drinker. I wept that day partly because I could not believe he died and partly because I felt like I failed him. I should have taken him to Kara. I had the means. But, I didn't. I have no excuses. My host family that day told people that I was "sick" that day to keep them from bothering me.
I must have purged myself that day since the next day I felt remarkably better. Life moves on. Mr. Djagri passed away on September 28th, 2009. He widowed three women and orphaned twenty-two children. This is why I do not support polygamy. In the aftermath of his death, one of his oldest sons, Emmanuel, came to me repeatedly to discuss his struggle to find the means to finish his last year of university. In the end, I gave him the rest of the money he needed to finish school, and I am very happy to have at least done that. I think I owe it to his father.
I sometimes think that even those closest to me do not fully understand all that I experienced when I was in Africa, so this is my way of sharing my story and allowing myself to heal and move forward. I hope to one day go back to Kpatchile and see Mr. Djagri's family again and maybe lay some flowers on his grave. May he rest peacefully.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Untying the Knots
Now is a good time to reflect on my impressions and experiences in Togo as a Peace Corps volunteer.
I must admit that the last four months I was in Africa were some of the most stressful moments of my life, so my return to America was a welcome respite. September brought with it distinct highs and lows, beginning with the excitement and luxury of the Close of Service Conference. However, it was quickly followed by a car accident and the death of my counterpart ("homologue" is the french word). October was riddled with the anxiety of saying goodbye to the village and people I now called "home," in addition to the frantic scramble to compile two years worth of work into legible reports. Perhaps a glutton for punishment, I spent a tumultuous two weeks with my significant other and obsessing about how to spend the six-week, post-service vacation I allotted for myself.
Overland travel throughout Western Africa is not a small, comfortable feat. Six weeks of sitting in hot, dusty, overcrowded buses, dodging the vomit on the floors for ten hours at a time is not for the weak or faint of heart. Then imagine, sleeping on dirt floors, or if we were lucky, in grungy hotels, on sheets that looked like they had never been washed. Our destinations weren't resorts on the beach, but meeting your boyfriend's family which is hard enough when they are from your own culture, let alone a completely different one. African families love to force feed strangers, which instead of becoming a pleasurable experience became one filled with dread. Traveling is inherently stressful, so if we didn't like each other so much, we may have parted ways, especially since I was the sole funding source for the expedition. That is an aspect I do not recommending copying. So, it is not entirely unimaginable that I eagerly welcomed the familiarity of my family's faces and a hot shower upon my return.
To be continued...
I must admit that the last four months I was in Africa were some of the most stressful moments of my life, so my return to America was a welcome respite. September brought with it distinct highs and lows, beginning with the excitement and luxury of the Close of Service Conference. However, it was quickly followed by a car accident and the death of my counterpart ("homologue" is the french word). October was riddled with the anxiety of saying goodbye to the village and people I now called "home," in addition to the frantic scramble to compile two years worth of work into legible reports. Perhaps a glutton for punishment, I spent a tumultuous two weeks with my significant other and obsessing about how to spend the six-week, post-service vacation I allotted for myself.
Overland travel throughout Western Africa is not a small, comfortable feat. Six weeks of sitting in hot, dusty, overcrowded buses, dodging the vomit on the floors for ten hours at a time is not for the weak or faint of heart. Then imagine, sleeping on dirt floors, or if we were lucky, in grungy hotels, on sheets that looked like they had never been washed. Our destinations weren't resorts on the beach, but meeting your boyfriend's family which is hard enough when they are from your own culture, let alone a completely different one. African families love to force feed strangers, which instead of becoming a pleasurable experience became one filled with dread. Traveling is inherently stressful, so if we didn't like each other so much, we may have parted ways, especially since I was the sole funding source for the expedition. That is an aspect I do not recommending copying. So, it is not entirely unimaginable that I eagerly welcomed the familiarity of my family's faces and a hot shower upon my return.
To be continued...
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Gripping Surreality
9/29/09
I am uncertain I can stop crying long enough to recount the tale. First, you should try to pronounce his name. Bilambiliba. Try to imagine what a black Robin Williams might look like. That’s him.
Some things that are flashing around my mind are the way he laughs – his shoulders shake a little, his chin is tucked towards his chest, he’s smiling and making a scratching noise in the back of his throat.
It always kind of annoyed me the way he ate peanuts; he wouldn’t place them in his mouth. It was more like a projectile launch from around the region of his chest to his mouth. But, why be annoyed by this? Death has a way of turning a person’s idiosyncrasies into something dripping with nostalgia.
He was one of the only people here that consistently gifted me yams, as if I am lacking the resources to eat let alone march out into my courtyard and pound yams in a giant pedestal and mortar. But, we know this is not the thinking. What about his family? I am the one who should be giving him food.
It’s what breaks my heart now. What are his three wives and twenty-two children supposed to do now? He now makes my case against polygamy here. There are so many things wrong here. What a mess. The least of my concerns now is polygamy.
I feel just a little more defeated when one of the good ones is lost. This world needs all the gems it can get its dirty, grimy hands on.
I went to the burial yesterday. I lost it, just f**king lost it. I didn’t care. Some woman tried to make me stop crying by clawing at my face. People don’t show this kind of emotion here, not really, not as an adult, not even when someone dies, at least, not publicly. Since this death was personal, all bets were off and I went there with all my American sentimentality hanging on my sleeve.
It’s amazing how much his brothers, and definitely one in particular, look like him. Every time I saw that brother and the sympathy I felt for him it was enough to bring forth fresh wells of tears to my eyes.
What really got me shaking with grief was seeing the photograph famed and hanging next to the entrance to his home. It was us – my homologue and I having a calabash of Tchouk in Kossia’s stand at the market. How classic.
A votre santé!
Vous reposez en paix.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives
My last day as a Peace Corps Volunteer: 11/11/2009!
But, I won't be back in America until just before Jesus Christo BDay.
But, I won't be back in America until just before Jesus Christo BDay.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Material Dreams
8/24/09
My host sister Freesia is about 13 years old; age can be an abstract thing here where the day of the week is often more important than the year in which you were born. For the most part, aside from a migration from Ghana to Togo when she was just a wee tot, Freesia hasn’t ever really left the Dankpen prefecture. A prefecture is similar to a county. In fact, she’s never really left my village. So copying her older brother’s trip to the regional capital two years ago, courtesy of my predecessor, I wanted to offer his hard working, slightly timid, younger sister the same opportunity to see the bustling city of Kara, the regional capital. We spent two days in Kara meandering the streets and avoiding kamikaze moto drivers and one day in Guerin-Kouka, the prefectural capital of Dankpen, serving a nice transition back to village life. My purpose for doing this was to have her see for herself and possibly imagine a life and future filled with more than water pumps and mud huts. The tall buildings, the paved roads, the electricity, the running water, relative ease of transportation and access to resources all help to keep her focused on her goals, to know that there is more out there. It’s strange to say it, but they give hope for a brighter future and to avoid catastrophes like HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy and abandoning school. If girls like Freesia can see that their dreams are real, tangible, it makes them more inclined to pursue and realize those dreams.
During our plunge into the urban jungle, I was most excited to witness Freesia’s reactions to various scenarios. It was her first time eating in a restaurant, it was her first time staying in a hotel, it was her first time using a flushing toilet and running water, it was her first time eating Fanmilk (think ice cream) and it was her first time seeing and using a computer. She giggled throughout the Microsoft Word and Paint demonstrations. I don’t think she’s ever eaten so well in her life, meat or protein with every meal. We slept in. We gazed at people, taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of big city life. She remarked at how large everything was: the city, the hospital, the market. She noticed all the women riding around on motorcycles, some even driving cars. Where she comes from, girls are lucky to even own a bike. I gave her some money and made her go into the market to buy presents to bring back to her family, teaching to navigate a market five times the size of her village’s as well as managing the funds to buy gifts for five people. Despite all this, what made me happiest was when we finally returned home. Amidst the signature belly laughs of her mother, Kossia, and squeals from her cousin, Hannah, I heard her recounting all of her experiences to her family. Freesia is not the most expressive person at times, but the perma-grin told me a lot. I was and am just happy I could do something like this for her and I am guessing she is too.
My host sister Freesia is about 13 years old; age can be an abstract thing here where the day of the week is often more important than the year in which you were born. For the most part, aside from a migration from Ghana to Togo when she was just a wee tot, Freesia hasn’t ever really left the Dankpen prefecture. A prefecture is similar to a county. In fact, she’s never really left my village. So copying her older brother’s trip to the regional capital two years ago, courtesy of my predecessor, I wanted to offer his hard working, slightly timid, younger sister the same opportunity to see the bustling city of Kara, the regional capital. We spent two days in Kara meandering the streets and avoiding kamikaze moto drivers and one day in Guerin-Kouka, the prefectural capital of Dankpen, serving a nice transition back to village life. My purpose for doing this was to have her see for herself and possibly imagine a life and future filled with more than water pumps and mud huts. The tall buildings, the paved roads, the electricity, the running water, relative ease of transportation and access to resources all help to keep her focused on her goals, to know that there is more out there. It’s strange to say it, but they give hope for a brighter future and to avoid catastrophes like HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy and abandoning school. If girls like Freesia can see that their dreams are real, tangible, it makes them more inclined to pursue and realize those dreams.
During our plunge into the urban jungle, I was most excited to witness Freesia’s reactions to various scenarios. It was her first time eating in a restaurant, it was her first time staying in a hotel, it was her first time using a flushing toilet and running water, it was her first time eating Fanmilk (think ice cream) and it was her first time seeing and using a computer. She giggled throughout the Microsoft Word and Paint demonstrations. I don’t think she’s ever eaten so well in her life, meat or protein with every meal. We slept in. We gazed at people, taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of big city life. She remarked at how large everything was: the city, the hospital, the market. She noticed all the women riding around on motorcycles, some even driving cars. Where she comes from, girls are lucky to even own a bike. I gave her some money and made her go into the market to buy presents to bring back to her family, teaching to navigate a market five times the size of her village’s as well as managing the funds to buy gifts for five people. Despite all this, what made me happiest was when we finally returned home. Amidst the signature belly laughs of her mother, Kossia, and squeals from her cousin, Hannah, I heard her recounting all of her experiences to her family. Freesia is not the most expressive person at times, but the perma-grin told me a lot. I was and am just happy I could do something like this for her and I am guessing she is too.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
I Win You!
6/26/2009
You would be surprised how much heat one little bandana will trap on a person’s head. At least, I am -- surprised by many things here.
Today it rained a solid three hours and for once, I am feeling cool instead sopping my face with a sweat rag. If you decide to brave this world, these little handkerchiefs will be your new best friend.
Seems I have found myself something of a new best friend, that’s not to say an old best friend got replaced. Never fear. Shortly after my last blog was written 4/21/09, not published mind you, I welcomed a visitor into my home for an undetermined amount of time, which to my astonishment turned into about five weeks. I like to think that I was the first person to have ruled out the possibility of finding any local romantic interests while in Africa -- for many reasons. But naturally, I was forced to eat my words in a very hearty helping of never say never. After all, living together is not exactly an appetizer. Seems stereotypes are social constructs set up to make us look the fool… The challenges, or let’s face it, the problems I thought I would encounter never materialized the way other issues I assumed to be non-issues turned into major epidemics. Even now as I am sitting here alone in my house in the middle of the Togolese bush, I feel beaten, but thankfully not vanquished by all that has transpired. If anything, I am curious to see what the future holds for me and, well, for us.
Shifting gears a bit, there was an event or an incident that occurred on Friday, May 1st, 2009 that I, for myself, need to document. If you look back in my blog archives you will read that historically May 1st in Togo has been a bit stressful. 2009 did not disappoint. This momentous day happened to be the second day of my boyfriend’s visit in my village and it was a national holiday, Labor Day. Holidays are essentially excuses to eat and drink and drink and drink some more -- a favorite pastime of many villagers. Also the day before, Thursday, was my village’s market day, another opportunity to drown your sorrows in calabashes of Tchouk. So imagine, by Friday night two full days of festive inebriation coming to a close. Normally, this kind of debauchery is fine when one sticks to one kind of alcohol, such as the local brew, but when people start hitting the moonshine, the spirits change. This is not anything new; people turn from happy drunks to aggressive ones; this happens anywhere and everywhere. It just happened to be here in my village that my host father Yao chose to drink gin on the first of May that resulted in one of the most fucked up nights of my existence to date.
It went down like this: my boyfriend Amed and I were enjoying a relaxing evening lounging in my private backyard. The hour was somewhere around nine o’clock at night. My host mother Kossia was home with the baby and as far as I could tell, all the other kids were out studying at school or at the video club. The evening was pleasant, until my host father showed up piss drunk. Africans are known to speak with a certain amount of passion and heat in their voices, at least when compared with Americans, so that what I often think is a fight is just a discussion. My host parents have lots of discussions. This night I thought the same thing at first; they would talk it out and everything would be fine, go back to normal.
For all intents and purposes, they were yelling at each other, which was par for the course. Then I hear what sounds like a strike, not a slap which has its own distinct sound. Initially, I was too shocked at what I was hearing to really process it. Was I actually hearing what I thought I was hearing? Or was it my imagination? I do remember Kossia crying at one point and calling Yao the equivalent of “asshole.” They were in their bedroom at this point. There was some silence and I remember thinking it was over. I turned to Amed and told him this wasn’t normal. He held my hand as the arguing resumed. I have never been around domestic violence, so I felt like it took me too long to register what was happening. As Yao started beating Kossia again, she started crying and shouting more loudly and calling, at first, for her eldest son, Georges. I was paralyzed with shock or disbelief and this sickening feeling. I tried to block it out by holding onto Amed, wishing and praying for it to be over, reliving childhood memories of my own parents fighting. Then Kossia started screaming my name, my village name. When she started yelling for me to help her, I knew without a doubt I had to do something. I had to.
I ran out of my house and into the family courtyard. I turned for half a second to look at the door to my host parent’s bedroom, knowing I didn’t have the strength to go in there seeing Yao beat Kossia with a belt, as it turned out later. So instead, I started screaming at the top of my lungs, “HELP ME!” with the notion that people would come running. How often does the white girl run screaming through village? No one came running, so I did. I ran all over my neighborhood screaming and crying “HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME!” in french of course. All I thought is that I can’t do this alone, I need help. One girl from the middle school asked what was wrong, so I asked where her father was; I needed help at my house. She looked at me blankly. It felt like forever, but in reality it was probably more like one or two minutes before I ran toward my chief’s house and caught his brother. All I said was, “Yao, Kossia!” and he ran off in the direction of my house. By the time I made it back to my house, to my astonishment, a crowd of people had arrived and in the middle was Amed, sitting with Yao, trying to calm him down. Relieved, I started to cry for real, until a neighbor came up to me and told me to essentially stop crying. Perhaps culturally that was normal to say, but I was left feeling angry. I walked out of the courtyard and sat under the tree to cry silently to myself. A different neighbor came over to sit with me. I am guessing to make sure I was okay. He was surprised as I was about the whole incident. Never would I have taken Yao as someone who would do such a thing. He may be a lot of things but I never would have guessed this from him. And, for what? He came home drunk to a child-free house and wanting to take advantage of the situation have sex with his wife. My conjecture is that she refused him, so he forced himself on her. Whether he was successful or not, I do not know. I do know she started calling him names, insulting him, naturally. So for insulting him, he decides to beat her??? I am getting these bits and pieces from what I heard and what my neighbor was telling me under the tree. By this point, I was sufficiently numb, as more neighbors began to surround me. Amed came over and sat next to me as Yao asked for my pardon. My pardon??? He should be apologizing to his wife! I could have said so many things at that point. It was really tempting, but instead I said that I just wanted to go to bed and deal with it in the morning. All I wanted was for the nightmare to end, to go to sleep instead of wake up.
Amed told me later that after I had ran off screaming into the night, he went in the bedroom to stop Yao. The room I was too afraid to go into. He said the sight was basically how I had imagined it: Yao, in his underwear, arm raised with a black leather belt in hand, Kossia crying, clutching the baby. He was beating her while she was holding the baby; I am not sure who’s in the wrong here… Luckily when Amed entered, it shocked Yao back to reality and he stopped. Amed separated the two by taking Yao outside to calm him down while help arrived.
So what the hell is wrong with people? Even writing about this causes me to feel sick. It was strange and bizarre and awful, like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I thank my lucky stars that Amed was there; I am just sorry that was his introduction to my village. Needless to say, it is difficult to look at Yao the same way and I have come to dread the Thursdays and Fridays that he is perpetually drunk since now it seems like anything can happen. Most of all I feel bad for their kids. Amed told me that Freeshia, their 13 year old daughter did come home at one point during the commotion; I just don’t know how much she saw. RPCV’s have told me that it is in your last six months of service that you start to see people for who they really are for better or worse.
You would be surprised how much heat one little bandana will trap on a person’s head. At least, I am -- surprised by many things here.
Today it rained a solid three hours and for once, I am feeling cool instead sopping my face with a sweat rag. If you decide to brave this world, these little handkerchiefs will be your new best friend.
Seems I have found myself something of a new best friend, that’s not to say an old best friend got replaced. Never fear. Shortly after my last blog was written 4/21/09, not published mind you, I welcomed a visitor into my home for an undetermined amount of time, which to my astonishment turned into about five weeks. I like to think that I was the first person to have ruled out the possibility of finding any local romantic interests while in Africa -- for many reasons. But naturally, I was forced to eat my words in a very hearty helping of never say never. After all, living together is not exactly an appetizer. Seems stereotypes are social constructs set up to make us look the fool… The challenges, or let’s face it, the problems I thought I would encounter never materialized the way other issues I assumed to be non-issues turned into major epidemics. Even now as I am sitting here alone in my house in the middle of the Togolese bush, I feel beaten, but thankfully not vanquished by all that has transpired. If anything, I am curious to see what the future holds for me and, well, for us.
Shifting gears a bit, there was an event or an incident that occurred on Friday, May 1st, 2009 that I, for myself, need to document. If you look back in my blog archives you will read that historically May 1st in Togo has been a bit stressful. 2009 did not disappoint. This momentous day happened to be the second day of my boyfriend’s visit in my village and it was a national holiday, Labor Day. Holidays are essentially excuses to eat and drink and drink and drink some more -- a favorite pastime of many villagers. Also the day before, Thursday, was my village’s market day, another opportunity to drown your sorrows in calabashes of Tchouk. So imagine, by Friday night two full days of festive inebriation coming to a close. Normally, this kind of debauchery is fine when one sticks to one kind of alcohol, such as the local brew, but when people start hitting the moonshine, the spirits change. This is not anything new; people turn from happy drunks to aggressive ones; this happens anywhere and everywhere. It just happened to be here in my village that my host father Yao chose to drink gin on the first of May that resulted in one of the most fucked up nights of my existence to date.
It went down like this: my boyfriend Amed and I were enjoying a relaxing evening lounging in my private backyard. The hour was somewhere around nine o’clock at night. My host mother Kossia was home with the baby and as far as I could tell, all the other kids were out studying at school or at the video club. The evening was pleasant, until my host father showed up piss drunk. Africans are known to speak with a certain amount of passion and heat in their voices, at least when compared with Americans, so that what I often think is a fight is just a discussion. My host parents have lots of discussions. This night I thought the same thing at first; they would talk it out and everything would be fine, go back to normal.
For all intents and purposes, they were yelling at each other, which was par for the course. Then I hear what sounds like a strike, not a slap which has its own distinct sound. Initially, I was too shocked at what I was hearing to really process it. Was I actually hearing what I thought I was hearing? Or was it my imagination? I do remember Kossia crying at one point and calling Yao the equivalent of “asshole.” They were in their bedroom at this point. There was some silence and I remember thinking it was over. I turned to Amed and told him this wasn’t normal. He held my hand as the arguing resumed. I have never been around domestic violence, so I felt like it took me too long to register what was happening. As Yao started beating Kossia again, she started crying and shouting more loudly and calling, at first, for her eldest son, Georges. I was paralyzed with shock or disbelief and this sickening feeling. I tried to block it out by holding onto Amed, wishing and praying for it to be over, reliving childhood memories of my own parents fighting. Then Kossia started screaming my name, my village name. When she started yelling for me to help her, I knew without a doubt I had to do something. I had to.
I ran out of my house and into the family courtyard. I turned for half a second to look at the door to my host parent’s bedroom, knowing I didn’t have the strength to go in there seeing Yao beat Kossia with a belt, as it turned out later. So instead, I started screaming at the top of my lungs, “HELP ME!” with the notion that people would come running. How often does the white girl run screaming through village? No one came running, so I did. I ran all over my neighborhood screaming and crying “HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME!” in french of course. All I thought is that I can’t do this alone, I need help. One girl from the middle school asked what was wrong, so I asked where her father was; I needed help at my house. She looked at me blankly. It felt like forever, but in reality it was probably more like one or two minutes before I ran toward my chief’s house and caught his brother. All I said was, “Yao, Kossia!” and he ran off in the direction of my house. By the time I made it back to my house, to my astonishment, a crowd of people had arrived and in the middle was Amed, sitting with Yao, trying to calm him down. Relieved, I started to cry for real, until a neighbor came up to me and told me to essentially stop crying. Perhaps culturally that was normal to say, but I was left feeling angry. I walked out of the courtyard and sat under the tree to cry silently to myself. A different neighbor came over to sit with me. I am guessing to make sure I was okay. He was surprised as I was about the whole incident. Never would I have taken Yao as someone who would do such a thing. He may be a lot of things but I never would have guessed this from him. And, for what? He came home drunk to a child-free house and wanting to take advantage of the situation have sex with his wife. My conjecture is that she refused him, so he forced himself on her. Whether he was successful or not, I do not know. I do know she started calling him names, insulting him, naturally. So for insulting him, he decides to beat her??? I am getting these bits and pieces from what I heard and what my neighbor was telling me under the tree. By this point, I was sufficiently numb, as more neighbors began to surround me. Amed came over and sat next to me as Yao asked for my pardon. My pardon??? He should be apologizing to his wife! I could have said so many things at that point. It was really tempting, but instead I said that I just wanted to go to bed and deal with it in the morning. All I wanted was for the nightmare to end, to go to sleep instead of wake up.
Amed told me later that after I had ran off screaming into the night, he went in the bedroom to stop Yao. The room I was too afraid to go into. He said the sight was basically how I had imagined it: Yao, in his underwear, arm raised with a black leather belt in hand, Kossia crying, clutching the baby. He was beating her while she was holding the baby; I am not sure who’s in the wrong here… Luckily when Amed entered, it shocked Yao back to reality and he stopped. Amed separated the two by taking Yao outside to calm him down while help arrived.
So what the hell is wrong with people? Even writing about this causes me to feel sick. It was strange and bizarre and awful, like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I thank my lucky stars that Amed was there; I am just sorry that was his introduction to my village. Needless to say, it is difficult to look at Yao the same way and I have come to dread the Thursdays and Fridays that he is perpetually drunk since now it seems like anything can happen. Most of all I feel bad for their kids. Amed told me that Freeshia, their 13 year old daughter did come home at one point during the commotion; I just don’t know how much she saw. RPCV’s have told me that it is in your last six months of service that you start to see people for who they really are for better or worse.
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