Our family's week in the village

Last week our family went to Koudjo’s village for the second time (the first was over Christmas). This time was much easier for our kids: most importantly, they quickly bonded with the village cousins they had gotten to know last time. With a little more language (although the main language spoken in the village is Aja, not Ewe or French which they’ve been learning), and with many more months of just being in Togo under their belts, their time there was much more enjoyable.

When we first arrived, after us handing out lollipops to break the ice, the cousins and other kids jumped right back into having our kids teaching them to count in English, one way they had learned last time to get our kids to interact with them:

In the mornings I would often teach kids some of the games that I was planning to do in the afternoon at camp to try them out. Favorites: Chicken, chicken goat (i.e., duck, duck, goose); shoe thief (i.e., steal the bacon), cat and mouse, lizard and cricket (Fox and Squirrel), lion and antelopes (sharks and minnow), and lots of different kinds of tags.

One morning we went with the cousins and sowed peanuts in one of their fields. For us it was a lot of fun (minus the mosquito bites) since it was just a couple hour experience for us. Of course, the villagers do it many days for many hours a day! Soon they will be harvesting corn and then planting beans and then drying corn and then harvesting beans, and so on.

The main event that brought us to the village was the camp that we were putting on, which you can read about here. However, from the family perspective, our kids really jumped in and participated so well in camp. It helped that their cousins came to, but they joined right in with the other kids (although they did find it a bit chaotic at times). Having something else to do for a few hours every afternoon also helped this week be more enjoyable for them.

One morning Koudjo and I went to town about 5 miles away to buy more snacks for camp. Two other people needed to go to town and so got a ride with us. On the way we saw a lady from the village who was walking to town (with a load on her head) to go sell at the market so we added her and two others she was with to the mix. It’s hard to imagine walking about 2 hours each way, much less with a load on your head, to go sell some of your harvest at the market. On the way back from town we saw a man from Koudjo’s village who had come to market and was on his way back because he had to buy medicine at the pharmacy…a 4 hour walk round trip to go buy medicine that wasn’t available in the village! The fact that the roads were so bad that it took us about 30 minutes to drive 5 miles mattered little once I was reminded what others have to deal with on a regular basis. Another time we drove Koudjo’s aunt from another village back home after she had come for a visit (and brought us a big pot of rice and noodles as well as a pot of chicken and sauce as well as a humongous bag of peanuts in their shells (think about the size of an oversized Santa’s sack) and tons of tomatoes, all on a motorcycle). As with the trip to town, we came across people from Koudjo’s village on the way back that we were able to give a ride to. They had been working in their fields, about an hour’s walk from the village, a trek they do daily when there is field work.

(These are not the same ladies we gave a ride to but it gives you an idea of the heavy loads they carry on their heads.)

The villagers work so incredibly hard, just to put food on their tables. And village kids also work so hard. Now in the summer they often go to the field for hours and have other work back around the house. Sometimes the older three cousins (ages 14, 10, and 8) would go alone to work in a field about 15-20 minute walk away. Once back from the field, the work didn’t stop for the kids: taking dried corn kernels off the cob (which gave my fingers blisters), shelling peanuts, sorting beans, making brooms, sweeping, cooking, taking care of younger siblings, and more. And yet not once did I hear any of the kids complain (maybe they did, but I didn’t hear it). Definitely puts the chores that most American or even Lomé city kids do into perspective!

I’m thankful that we had a surprisingly enjoyable week in the village, especially after our first time in the village was more challenging as a family. It still wasn’t comfortable to sleep on mats on the floor or have to use cement “toilet” or see huge cockroaches scurrying about or have to eat food for a week that one doesn’t care for too much…but being able to spend your day playing with kids you enjoy makes all that manageable.

A few other pictures from the village:

A few more of our family in the village: