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| Greer needed something at the local store, only a house away.
The Yele family runs the store and let us take their picture. |
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Greer gets water from the local pump
(about a 5 minute walk from her house).
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Mother also got a chance to pump a headpan full of water...
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...and they both carried it back to Greer's house on their heads.
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This is a view from the pump.
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Here we are at the Yade marche.
Sunday was market day, but it rained, so we came on Monday.
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In the background is a chouc (local sorghum beer) stand.
They are covered so "God can't see them" while they drink, but Dieu
te voit!
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Here is Greer outside her church, the Catholic church in Yade.
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The church was locked because there had been some recent theft
but we got to peer in through the gate-doors. Greer sits right behind
the musicians.
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We also peered in from the other side.
Greer attends the 6 AM service on Sunday that is in French and Kabiye.
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Next we visited the local CEG (middle school) where students were
pen-pals with my students in spring 2003.
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This is the interior of the classroom of the pen-pal students.
There are no lights, no running water, no latrines, and no lunchroom.
End-of-the-year grades were still being calculated during our visit.
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Greer doesn't have a phone in her house; she uses the cabine, a
village phone "across the street" from her compound. She pays the
cabine
owner to use the phone.
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The presidents (and some secretaries) of the local groupments came
over to greet use. It was a variety of men and women. Samuel
translated the French into Kabiye and Greer translated the French into
English. They asked us questions and were curious about aspects of
our life in the U.S. (including where we were on September 11th, 2001).
We were given castanets and hoes.
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A close-up of the hoes we were given by the groupments.
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Here is a close-up of Greer's engraved headpan, showing her family
name (Gurganus), village name (Hezou - means Peace), and given name, plus
the pretty flower : )
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Mr. Yele invited us to his house that night for dinner. Guests
included (left to right) the NGO man (he studied in Russia for 6 years!),
his wife, Mr. Yele's wife (Samuel's sister), Samuel, and Mr. Yele.
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Mr. Yele gave us two gifts after the dinner, this basket (hand-woven;
used to be used to filter chouc) and a basket of peanuts.
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The next morning (before it got too hot), we walked up the mountain
a ways to see Greer's field.
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Greer's field goes far up the mountain but only a small portion
has been planted (as it is all done by hand; Togolese in this area do not
use animals or machinery). Greer's is the small section closest to
the bottom of the photograph (with the white thing in the center).
Greer is planting pigeon pea as part of her MTU Master's thesis.
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The view of Yade from Greer's field was spectacular.
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Yade is right on the Route Nationale, the paved two-lane highway
through the center of Togo. To go anywhere by car, Greer walks the
few minutes out to the road and hails a taxi. It was Monday (the
day after church and market day), so it was harder to catch one (at least
one with room for three adults with bags). Samuel and Mr. Yele came
with us to the road.
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