Hello hello everyone,
I've had to again succumb to writing a self-indulging blog; access to internet here is limited and the keyboards cause me a lot of difficulty, so it's too time-consuming to write long messages to all of ya. Thought I may as well continue this as an Africah blog, so read this if you wanna know what I'm doing here!
So I find myself in Lomé, Togo, where I'm spending the second part of my year abroad for French (shout out to Jérôme and the residence abroad office for approving this after much consideration). I've got a 2 month placement here: one month of teaching and one month of journalism.
My first impression of Togo was unfortunately based upon Lomé airport, which is just not an airport. The chaos and disorganisation which I'd believed myself to thrive upon in Africa was of a new level, and an unenjoyable one. The visa 'stall' (literally a stall) took my passport for an hour, during which time I had to wait for my bags to come from different conveyer-belts, not a clue where my passport was and really, not a clue what I was doing there. During this time I'd also decided what a ridiculous idea this was, when finally I found the projectsabroad coordinator and could get out of there.

Following from that the adjustment has been a lot harder than I'd complacently assumed. Having done Uganda a few times I was expecting to breeze the culture shock. However it's been an absolutely massive adjustment and I'm still not quite there yet. It's not only the fact of the language barrier (only French is spoken here, no English at all - literally none), but that I'm living with a local togalese family. Full African immersion and full French immersion, either one of which would probably have sufficed. My host family comprises of a huge grandmother, my 'maman togolaise', her sister, another woman, her niece and a housegirl. They are all lovely and hospitality is togalese custom, but the language barrier has proved difficult - not just with French but they switch constantly to Ewe (the local language), so a lot of the time I've no idea what they're talking about, and they can't speak a single word of English. Every meal is prepared for me here and that's a whole other thing. The plat principal here is 'pâte' which is the some kind of stodge with the texture of slightly hardened toothpaste. I really can't hack it. There's a few other staples which are the same sort of thing, some form of solid, but so different to the food of East Africa; here it's fish-orientated a lot of the time, and spicy (send help). Because I'm the guest I am always sat at a table to eat and my maman is keen to see if I like it. Anyone who knows me knows how awkward I am and how s*** I am with spicy food, so this situation isn't ideal. She must know I'm hating life when I say 'ouiiii je l'aime!'. It's not all bad though sometimes the rice comes out and then I'm sweet. I've learnt just to be very enthusiastic and talk as much as I can to show I'm comfortable, or just zone out and agree thoroughly with whatever she's talking about (and then it's incredibly awkward when she stops and asks me a question, and I've not a clue, which any year-a broader will know is the worst).
The school where I'm working here is a secondary school called CEG, which holds nearly a thousand students from troisième to sixième. I'm working alongside the English teacher. When I first met all of the classes I was greeted by what seemed like a million togalese faces jammed into each classroom, which was too much at 7am (when classes and all life starts here - doesn't seem to phase anyone at all while I'm going to be wrecked). After presenting myself in French to each class the kids reacted by chanting, wooping, laughing or just shamelessly staring. Style of teaching is very haphazard; there's no correlation between the vocab or grammar points - I explained to my teacher the notion of categorizing vocab and it took her a while to grasp it. Despite this the kids are so eager to answer, and when a student answers wrong, they are hissed or clicked at. The teaching here is nothing like teaching at Jolly Mercy in Uganda, where the kids lapped up every single word I said. Here the kids are older and the school is richer (some of the kids even wear vans), so the expectancy we have of African school students may not apply as strongly. This week I've been mostly observing but today the teacher I work with had to attend a funeral, so I was left solo to 5 classes which range from 60 - 80 students. Terrifying. It wasn't the concept of teaching itself which proved so hard, but their understanding of my accent; my English accent is unlike the African-English their teacher uses, and my French accent is not togalese. Even slow slow English just sparks blank faces (DO YOU UNDERSTAND? ...), so I have to teach in French, which is scary enough, but especially to the older classes where the boys are at that w***er age where they either wink or laugh, and the girls don't know how to react to me. I wanted to give up and die after my first 3 classes (they feast on nerves too), then finally my fourth class was going well with quatrièmeA. The kids were understanding my French, responding well, trying hard to answer, then another teacher interrupts the lesson with a list of about 10 kids, calls them to the front and full on smacks them up in front of everyone with a stick. Nothin' like witnessing a bit of corporal punishment to make you feel better.
As for Lomé and Togo itself, I haven't seen a lot yet, but will be exploring this weekend. The centre of Lomé seems quite well-developed from what I have seen, pavements and everything, and even the roads are fairly organised. Nothing at all like the choas of Kampala. Main mode of travel is the same though, motos and taxis. The sea is alongside the city and Ghana is visible from parts too. The main religion here is voodoo but I'm yet to discover what that actually entails. Oh also they drink water out of a sealed plastic bag here (which tastes like smoke?); you have to bite off the end and drink it through the tiny hole. Water everywhere.
The experience so far couldn't be more different to the 4 months I just spent in Québec, can't really compare East Canada to West Africa - apart from that the French accent here is no where near as strong, plus they speak in a relaxed manner. Very different to my previous experiences in Africa also and in fact to anything I've ever done before. In terms of community development and implementing long-lasting change, I don't think my time in Togo will be as intense as Uganda, but it's intense enough in every other way. Despite it being incredibly difficult at the minute, I've no regrets in my decision. Only get one year abroad ey ;)
Hope everyone is doing good in England/Oz/Mexico/France/Spain/Bolivia/Russia and anywhere else I've missed, Jesus we really are all over the place.
Miss y'all loads, à la prochaine x