Notes From Childhood

7/3/2008

Today I learned that one of my favorite little girls left with her family to go to Ghana while I was at camp. No chance to say goodbye. If I ever wanted to adopt a child here it would have been her. She was one of the most charismatic and intelligent little kids I have met here thus far. She has such potential…::sigh:: I wish her well.
Funny thing is, I never knew her name. Knowing someone’s name doesn’t seem to carry the same weight here as it does other places. I suspect it is along the same lines with their fear of individuality and non-conformity. If there ever was a place that dreads and panics in the face of originality and uniqueness, values I personally hold very dear, it is here in Togo. I haven’t been all over the world, so there may very well be other places that encourage uniformity. I find here that instead of creative, self-expression, there is communal solidarity. Granted, this is all in degrees and I speak in generalities, but for the most part… It has been said (not by myself) that the people here would rather drink than ever be alone. There’s lots of drinking in Togo.
Thursday is market day in my village, and market days are an opportunity to consume as much Tchouk (local brew made of millet) as your pocket will allow. I am sure I have mentioned before and to my display that babies and small children are given Tchouk to drink by their parents. The complications and disastrous consequences that alcohol can have on children has not yet permeated the communal consciousness here. They would protest that Tchouk is not alcohol. ::ahem:: Right. Whatever you say. So one fun-filled Thursday evening au marche, I was waiting to buy some soja (tofu) for my dinner from one of my neighbor-ladies. Her daughter, about two or three years old, who is already known to be not quite “normal” approaches me. At first, like all things, it was all fun and games. She was jumping and running around me, trying to tickle me. Innocent horseplay, right? I was playing right along, until I noticed my internal clock rang to indicate that enough time had passed that such horseplay should be tapering off. It wasn’t. The little darling, with the same psychotic intensity as before, kept running around me, taunting me, touching me and pushing me. I told her to stop, repeatedly, in French, but, ha ha, she doesn’t speak French. I am yelling at her at this point, and even her older sister stepped in to say something but to no avail. Mind you, I was in the middle of the market, with a three-year old trying to molest me, surrounded by Togolese who refused to help me. I suspect they either 1) thought it was ok because she’s just not “normal” or 2) expected me to strike her. Beating children is commonplace in the home and at school here. My American conditioning told me that I could not hit this child, but I couldn’t leave because I hadn’t got my soja yet and I had no rope to restrain this child. So, what do I do? I put my hands out and, oops, she ran into them, fell down and started crying. I felt slightly guilty, only slightly because what the hell was I supposed to do? No one around really tried to help me and she wasn’t going to stop. I only realized afterward that she had been drinking that day; her Mother serves soja and Tchouk in the market. So yeah, I was attacked by a drunk three year old. Nice.