Cornishmaninafrica

This morning when I went to the loo there was a large toad sitting in the soap holder.

In Kabiye culture, children and teenagers are taught to have total respect for elders and authority. To merely come when you are called is not sufficient. You have to drop what ever you are doing and come running. Yesterday, I called Essotchelinam to come and help me with something. He arrived dripping wet and wrapped in a towel. I told him he could finish his shower first.

Right at the end of the tone workshop, I got sick with some undefined intestinal bug and had to be put on a drip at the local medical centre. In Africa culture a sick person should not be left alone, so between them, Emmanuel, Faustin, Essotchelinam and Eduardo stayed with me the whole time. They did not try to make conversation, or pass the time by reading a book. They just sat there beside my bed, patiently waiting, waiting, waiting for me to get better. Africa.

Kate Fox: Watching the English

T.E. Lawrence: Seven Pillars of Wisdom

…Then later that same afternoon a 12 year old girl fell out of a mango tree. She hit her chin hard on a rock and pierced her upper lip with her front tooth. The colour of the water tthey wanted to clean the wound with reminded me of how urgently we need a borehole. I provided some basic first aid and Faustin followed it up with daily treatment over the following days. OK, but I really don’t want to get a reputation for being a medical centre. An eventful day.

On the same day I was just about to sit down to lunch when a group from the Lomé Paragliding Association turned up, complete with military escort from the parachute regiment. Two guys flew from my place down to the outskirts of Kara. Spectacular! They said it’s an ideal site, so I expect they’ll be back. Would like to try it myself sometime.

Last Friday, very early in the morning, the primary school teacher came to my house asking if I could help. One of his pupils had been bitten by a snake two days earlier. The family did not have anything like enough to pay for hospital treatment, so they had tried to treat her with traditional remedies. This didn’t work, and the venom was rapidly advancing up her leg. Thanks to donors in England, I was able to pay for her treatment, including an anti-venom serum and a three day stay in hospital. She would probably have died without this. Now she is fine and back at school.

Spent Friday evening at the Palais des Congrès, where the local lycée students were putting on the final show at the end of their Cultural Week. Three hours of breakdancing, fashion parades and karaoke. Yet another Africa.

This morning before dawn, Faustin and I went to visit our next door neighbour, who has just been widowed.

Her husband died last week. I guess he was about 70 years old. Nevertheless, in the days following the burial, the diviner was called in to establish who was responsible for his death.

The diviner accused M of using sorcery, and he admitted to it. Everyone in the village is surprised, but (as usual) no-one more so than me. I mean, M was my friend. Nice guy, friendly, regular church-goer.

Nice or otherwise, M has now been banished from the village. He will lived in exile for five years as a bonded servant with a diviner in Benin. It is not clear to me how his wife and eight children will manage in the meantime.