Finishing the Chapter

“England” is beginning to feel more like an invention than a reality.

Six weeks of stifling humidity and cloaking dust have made me question my memories of biting cold, incessant drizzle, and cloaking fog. Is there really a land where this exists?

Meticulous organisation seems equally like a laughable concept. I am not sure that I believe myself when I picture wide, concrete pavements free from the paraphernalia of goods that are peddled at the roadside. Is there really a world where everything has a non-negotiable price; where stopping in the middle of the road for a conversation would either result in instant death or an earful of expletives from a passing driver?

I am not sure if I would prefer to return to this imaginary land, or to remain in my current reality. Returning to England would give me the reprieve of not having my posh accent stand out a mile. My bizarre turns of phrase like “I’m up for that” and “nutty as a fruitcake” would be considered banal rather than worthy of mockery. England would be a land where everyone would speak my language and French would hardly be needed at all.

Yet at the same time, I am beginning to feel at home in this chaos, and flying back would create frustration and a fair amount of culture shock. Surely no country exists where vegetables are thrown away after two days, and where perfectly wholesome food rots in skips two streets away from impoverished council estates?

Plastic gloves and food hygiene certificates seem comical as I stand at the roadside for my avocado sandwich; complementary flies nonchalantly swatted away.

Through this process, I have begun to see myself as a chameleon rather than an ugly duckling who cannot identify with either culture. Being adaptable to a variety of countries and climates is a huge benefit. There is a great advantage in being equally comfortable with tossing a freezing cold bucket of water over my head as taking a scalding hot power-shower.

Fully aware that my rusty-orange chameleon skin may soon have to change to grey-blue in the transition back to England, I feel a definite twinge of sadness. Friendships from all over the world have been forged in Togo: it is bittersweet to realise that this may have been the only season where my path will ever cross with such a wonderful group of people.

On the other hand, there are things about my work at “le CACIT”, that I will not miss: the hours in front of the computer trawling through admin, the projects I agonised over that ended up in the Recycling Bin; the sinking realisation that a lot of what I was doing had been created to appease a white intern rather than to create change.

Overall, I am glad that I did the internship. I have definitely achieved my objective of  greatly improved French. I now have some understanding of how Human Rights Law works within a professional context, even if I do not feel that the Human Rights Situation in Togo is remotely different to how it was six weeks ago. 

I was pretty naïve to think that I could create change within such a short period: the Togolese have been fighting for ten years and have still not received a single Franc in reparation from the government.  

However, my time here has reinforced my suspicion that the source of Africa’s problems resides in my half of the globe rather than theirs. The reason that the Togolese citizens have not received reparation for being tortured by the armed forces in 2005 is because just like his father Eyadema, the current President, Faure Gnassingbé, is fully supported by the French. During the clampdown the soldiers fired French bullets at civilians from French guns.

All over Africa, the fortunes of the corrupt are comfortably stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

I was horrified to discover that the United Kingdom is the world’s second largest weapons exporter. We stand on our moral high ground and condemn the rest of the world, only to discover that our platform of piety consists of the bones of the nations that we have crushed.

If we want to change the lives of impoverished Africans, we first need to wash the blood off our own hands. We need to tell our government to remove the stranglehold of debt that the West leaves “developing” nations in: forcing them to always be economically dependent upon us. We need to stop buying 30p chocolate, and pay Africans a decent wage for our exploitation of their raw materials. We need to support African entrepreneurships. We need to stop throwing our clothes in the bin every time we get “bored” of them.

I always find a dark amusement in noticing the clothes of the passers-by. They are either wearing a kaleidoscope of multi-coloured traditional outfits, or an oddment of assorted western clothes. KFC uniforms are combined with Donald Duck pyjama bottoms. I had to blink twice as I walked past a scrawny child with a “Feed the Children” T-Shirt hanging off his bony shoulders.

These are all clear signs of what the locals call “Dead Yovo Clothes”. It is impossible for the Togolese to believe that the clothes that have been donated to them from western countries could ever have been taken from the bodies of the living. Which human being has that many clothes that they can give them away to others? The only logical explanation was that they were taken off corpses during the preparation for their funerals.

I do believe that the West can right their wrongs. One of my heroes is a man named William Wilberforce. For eighteen years he fought for the abolition of the slave trade. He was the constant butt of jokes as he was ridiculed by the British Parliament. They told him that his absurd ideals would bankrupt the entire British Empire. Even if they did free the slaves, surely the French and German Empires would just sweep in and claim them instead?  Besides, it was blatantly clear that the slaves actually enjoyed their bondage so why deprive them of such a pleasure?

 Undeterred for eighteen years, Wilberforce incessantly petitioned parliament for the abolition of the slave trade. He never let go of his desire to be a voice for the voiceless; an ideal that was formed within him when he became a Christian  in the 1780s.

In 1807, the slave trade was finally abolished, and in 1833, all existing slaves were freed within the British Empire.

Privileged Westerners could have come to Togo for six weeks and mopped the poor slaves’ brows as they were dragged onto slave ships, but that would have done nothing to change the fact that slaves were about to commence the most hideous voyage of their lives, where many of them would not live to see the American shore. For those Westerners, refusing to eat slave produced sugar and wear slave cotton would have been a far louder cry for change.

I do not regret coming to Togo. I feel no shame in admitting that this has been a time of personal investment, rather than a time of giving to others. The panic that I was initially consumed with as my aeroplane slowly descending upon Lomé, has now been replaced by the confidence to wanderer alone across three countries.  The fear that I once felt expressing my opinions has now been replaced by the fear of not wanting to appear too confident.  I have matured, developed and asked an enormous amount of questions. I have tried to understand other peoples’ perspectives and philosophies. I have learnt to trust God with the future, and walk with Him in the present.

Above all, I have learnt not to associate sensitivity with weakness. I strongly believe that if more people empathised with others as acutely as I do, then mindless torture would be impossible. No soldier, brutally aware that the rest of his week would be spent reliving the gunshots: the petrified faces of his victims seared into his eyeballs, would ever be able to break upon the front door. It takes great strength to be weak.

I feel equal exhilaration and anxiety as I consider the following chapter: adventuring through Togo, Ghana and Benin. There have been numerous times when the magnitude of what I am about to do has paralysed me and left me frozen in indecision.

However, the fact that I am currently on the other side of the world from friends and family means that I have no safety blanket to run to. I still have twelve days until my plane leaves, and I want to make the most of every last minute. I have dreamed of travelling through Africa for so long. Once the niggling details have been smoothed over, then I hope that the anxiety will dissolve as I embrace the adventure before me.

Discovering my limitations has also been extremely helpful. It is useful to know when to terrify myself, and when to hold back. I decided to abandon my trip to Northern Togo, as I realised that it would have created more anxiety than enjoyment. There is nothing wrong with having limitations. Closing one door often opens another.

I have no idea what I will see or who I will meet in the next ten days. I simply know that it will be an adventure, and that I will return home with plenty of stories to tell.

Things to pray for:

·         For safety during my travels

·         That the border crossings will go smoothly, especially crossing to and from Ghana

·         Praise God that I have been given the opportunity to visit IJM’s offices in Accra, (www.ijm.org) and pray that it will be an incredibly worthwhile time.

·         Pray that I will be able to relax and recuperate after my six weeks of working.