What’s More American?

We Americans love our baked goods. We have our birthday cakes, holiday pies, bake sales, and milk and cookies.  I mean, after all, we are a nation that measures American-ness by a baked good.

A fake pumpkin pie I baked for Thanksgiving with papayas.

Like many of my peers, I baked occasionally when I was living in the U.S., but since living in Togo, with a bit more time to myself, my baking habit has increased quite a bit. When I’m bored I bake, there definitely are worse habits to have, but it sure hasn't been the best for my waistline! In an attempt to moderate my baked good intake I occasionally bring what I bake into work with me.

I've brought in a number of things from peanut butter cookies, to brownies and carrot cake into the office to share with my colleagues. Each one has proven to be quite a novelty; baked goods hardly exist in Togo. You can find packaged cookies in some of the boutiques, pastries in Lomé and some of the biggest cities, and bread that is made in some of the larger towns, but your average citizen never really bakes. You can find wheat flour based treats, but they are almost always fried.

My colleagues frequently ask how make the cake and cookies I bring in and finally on Friday my friends Felicité and Delphine came over to learn how to bake. After lunch we made some brownies. I taught them how to set up a Dutch oven to bake on the stove and showed them all the little baking techniques I've watched my mom use from since I was a child. Of course some of our implements were a little different; with no measuring cups we used tomato paste cans and our baking chocolate was a chocolate drink mix. In the end, though, we sat around the pan and dug into the warm gooey brownies by the spoonful.

I translated a few other recipes for them into French and the tomato can measures. They both excitedly said they were going to go home and bake this week-end so, maybe tomorrow I’ll get to hear about their experiments with cakes and cookies. My second goal here with the Peace Corps is to share American culture and what’s more American than apple pie, er… brownies?

Vogantↄ

Being a foreigner, it can be difficult to really feel as though you belong in your community, especially in a larger town where you cannot get to know everyone. This is even truer on market days when people from all over the region convene in Vogan and I run into people I don’t even get to casually see around town. Being seen as the foreigner can be disheartening after living in a community for nearly two years, and occasionally events occur that make you feel conflicting emotions. Today I had just that occur, making today quite possibly both the best and worst day I have had in Vogan, as far as dealing with my sense of belonging here.

While running my typical errands to the market, I was harassed by a couple men I had never seen before. As I was chatting with one of the women from whom I frequently buy my vegetables, a man grabbed my arm and a second reached out to stroke me cheek. When I told them not to touch me and moved away from them, they began verbally abusing me, shouting at both me and those around me that I was a number of bad words for daring to tell them to leave me alone. For more than ten minutes the man yelled at anyone nearby about how I didn’t belong there, that I offended them, and that I was scared of a little stroke on the cheek. I chose to ignore them and continued buy my eggs, vegetables, and spices, greeting each vendor as though there wasn’t a man yelling about me just five feet away.

While I may have been working on pretending they didn’t exist, I was worried. I have had people try to touch me and shout at me, but never with such vehemence. But while I was frightened, at the same time I felt the most overpowering sense of love and belonging that it almost brought me to tears. Each of the women that work the stands told me to ignore them and let me know that they were there for me. They protected me, telling the men to leave their sister alone and to get away from their part of the market.

I couldn’t help feeling a little jumpy as I completed my shopping, but as I passed vendors shouting my name saying hello, friends shaking my hand, and a few extra sticks of soja as a gift, I knew I had nothing to worry about; these men and women were my community and they would be there for me. I always tell people that I am Vogantↄ (one from Vogan), but today I didn’t need to say anything, because by standing with me, they were the ones who told me that I really am Vogantↄ.