So, red spots update. creeping eruption. i.e. worms crawling through my skin. again. but, I got drugs that killed them. I feel like god.
Pump project update! I forgot about this in my last post, but about 6 weeks ago or so I received all the funding for my half of the project. I used this money as a down payment on our combined pump parts. D’s half of the project just got funded today. this is very happy.
Do you know what 10 grand (USD) looks like in francs CFA? A brick about the size of my head. Kader and I went to Kara to take the money out of my account and deposit in the account of our pump parts supplier. I was a multi- millionaire, Togo style, for about 35 minutes. I could have bought a nice moto, a house, a car, some wives, etc. At once.
Kader arranged for the pump parts to be shipped up the next weekend. It was exciting to see the piles of piping and pistons in Kader and Daré’s houses. Now that we have all the funding, we’ll program our installation dates for each village.
Richard called me Monday morning. He sounded terrible. He said that he was in a moto accident the night before and was calling me from the hospital. It happened Sunday night. he was coming back from a call when a drunk guy on another moto, without a headlight, or brakes, swerved into him. He woke up in the hospital. He should have been dead. I went to see him on Tuesday and he looked terrible. He said he was peeing and coughing blood, had a concussion, and a bad cut on his arm. I went to visit him again yesterday and he was a lot better. Still peeing blood, but he looked human again. Luckily people saw the accident, so the other guy should have to pay for everything. Hopefully. Its been a rough year for Richard.
D’s visit the other week coincided with a “magician’s” visit in Nampoch. He did a performance on marche night. It was held in the Nampoch bar owner’s compound. they hooked up a generator and strung lights over the place. the “magician” had two warm up and three main acts. the first one was pretending to swallow a razor blade. in the second, he cut off pieces of his tongue. which was actually a tomato slice. the performance was halted while they calmed down the home owner who was upset because the “magician” spilled “blood” in his house. the third act was the “magician” laying on the ground while a couple volunteers pounded fufu on his chest. the fourth was him laying on the ground while another volunteer drove a moto over his chest, across boards. the 5th act was him laying on the ground with a big rock on his chest while a volunteer beat it into pieces with a hammer. some people, especially the younger guys, thought this performance was great. D and I enjoyed it for the “I wonder what crazy “magic” stunt he’s going to try next” factor. it drizzled the whole time. that didn’t really help my mood. but it was good that D was there. otherwise i would have been wet and wishing she was there the whole time too.
I went up to koulfekou a couple days ago with N’tifoni, Jacques, and Nicco to do a follow up for our gender equality formation. Koulfekou is in this narrow strip of Dankpen between the Kara and Oti (one of the Volta branches if you are in Ghana). its really pretty up there. we continued on to a fishing village on the Oti itself. Koulfekou is Tchossi, which isnt related to Konkumba. This little fishing village, and its neighbors in Ghana are Ewé. The people I was with know a little Tchossi, they definitely don’t know any Ewé. There was one guy in the village who spoke French cause none of the children go to school apparently, so we talked to him. it was interesting because my friends were 40k from their hometown and could only communicate with fellow Togolese in French. the fish there was amazing though, and I usually don’t like freshwater fish here.
On the way back I made N’tifoni stop his moto and climbed up this little hill that overlooked probably 70k of Togo. it was amazing.