I don't have everyone's email. That's why there's a blog.

Here's a mass email. If you didn't get it, I'm too lazy to look up your address. So here you go.

Dear y'all:

I have not written in a while. And now that I am writing, and am using an American keyboard, I keep typing as though it were a French keyboard. "Some" becomes "so;e" and my name looks like Qnthony. If I wanted to type "wezelo," the Ewe word for welcome, it would be "zewelo." Those French are loony.

That notion is reinforced by the story I found in the "Readings in Intermediate French Prose" book I liberated from the essentially abandoned library in village. It's clearly a donated book, published sometime in the 60s. It was in between a history of the United States (in French), and old homework assignments past volunteers assigned to kids. All was surrounded by rat shit.

I've been reading this book to improve my French, obviously. I learned the word "desespoir," the opposite of "espoir;" the latter also has its synonym "esperance" (they both mean 'hope,' though espoir is masculine and esperance is feminine; please excuse any lack of accents). Within this book I found a story of a Frenchman who decided that too many people died on shipwrecks. After months of research into the nutritional content of seaweed, the amount of ocean water you can drink, etc., the maniac set off in a rubber raft with a bottle of water, some string, a knife, and a hook. He lived.

I decided to read this story to my troisieme class, to give them an example of the importance of being well-acquainted with the environment. I sent three kids home early, and stopped reading to make the kids put their heads down on the desk. I hate teaching.

That's the real reason I haven't been writing. The truth is I've been miserably depressed for about a month now. The only things I have to write about are my frustrations, and I was tired of sending out letters like that; they made me even more depressed.

To cap off this month, I'm going back to Agou-Nyogbo, the village where we trained. That really is a beautiful place, and I did love it there. During our Thanksgiving field trip the girls made a superlatives list, and we all voted. I was elected Most Likely to be Adopted by my Host Family. Daniel was as much my brother as Gaetano or Nick. My host mom used to call me "TH," for Tony Hadzi (their last name).

But when I called Maman last week to tell her I would stop by to see her, neither of us were too excited. "Ca va?" I asked. "Ca ne va pas," she replied. Papa had died.

While my bond with Maman was as strong as my bond with my real mother, Papa and I were not quite as close. Nevertheless, Papa was a good father, and the only Togolese man I've ever seen horse around with his wife. We used to sit and listen to the radio together, watching soccer on Ghanian television. The day I left Nyogbo for good, he called me into the living room. He looked me in the eye, through his crooked glasses with the prescription sticker still on, and he said, "Tony. Stay healthy. Stay happy. The work will follow from there."

I don't ever ask this, but if you could, whether it be by prayer or some hippie method, send good vibes to Chez HADZI this weekend. Maman is a good woman, with good kids, and she loved her husband as he loved her. They have been the best part of Togo for me, and Papa's death is taking its toll on Maman, and I'm sure the kids as well.

Sorry for the downer email. I'm changing malaria meds, so hopefully the hallucinations and depression will stop. Then I'll be able to write positively "instead of bitching to [my] ever so supportive and beauiful and wonderful girlfriend all the time."** Till then, toodles. I hope you're all doing well.

-Tony

**quote forcefully inserted by said girlfriend

Adele, part two

The next day was normal. School was cancelled in continuation of the May Day celebrations. I don't remember anything that I did.

Towards evening, the sky clouded up. It had the texture of hand-whipped cream, and the color of a quiet pebble. Monsieur was standing outside the compound. He'd spent the day playing board games beneath the rafia tree. "Que pensez-vous?" I asked. "La pluie va tomber?" He was positive that it would not. I decided that I would not walk to the field to water the trees.

The night before I'd heard Monsieur chastising the boys. It was in Kabye, so I didn't understand it. There was no punishment doled out as far as I could see. Monsieur is a good man, but a product of his culture. Punishing the boys was not necessary. Warning them not to do it again would suffice.

What kills me about the whole thing is that those boys did something terrible to her. Adele is not a crier. I've never seen anybody weather the injustices doled out to her with such dignity or patience. To find her drenched in tears, shaking with sobs, barely able to breathe because of it, I knew whatever happened had been bad. I told this story to a volunteer friend, and she asked if I'm sure hitting her was as far as the boys had gone. I don't want to entertain the notion. Besides, I think those boys are homosexuals.

Back to Friday, the day after. After quizzing Monsieur on the weather I piddle around for a bit in the house. It's tchouk day chez moi, so several of the old men in the community have stopped by to drink. I tell them I'll join them as soon as I take a shower. As I shiver under the first callabash of cistern water, the rain begins to fall.

While I'm inside changing, the boys and Adele are running around the compound, putting buckets in strategic spots to catch the rain water. I close my windows against the wind and head under the paillote to wait out the downpour with the old men. Everybody is under some sort of roof.

Pretty soon the wife of the history professor is yelling across the compound. "Adele! Adele!" A bucket of insufficient size has been placed under the gutter runoff on the roof near their part of the compound. She wants Adele to empty the bucket into the cistern. Adele does not protest, but sprints across the compound and takes care of the job. When she puts the bucket back under the gutter, the wife tells Adele to wait for it to fill up again. She does not invite her inside.

I'm wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and my fleece jacket, a clothing combination unheard of in this climate, but I'm freezing. Adele is under the gutter; the wind is blowing the rain straight at her. She is dancing, hopping from foot to foot, her hands clasped together across her body, trying to keep warm. Her skirt and thin blouse are completely soaked.

She empties the bucket into the cistern again, places it under the gutter, and continues to wait. Nobody in the compound is paying attention to her but me. She's absolutely freezing. And I decide I hate this place. I hate that a day after what must have been a heartless beating, if not worse, Adele is called out in the rain, tiny and shivering, to empty water from a bucket she did not place into a cistern she will not use. I hate these people and their customs. I hate the mentality that says cultures aren't wrong, just different. I want to wake up Adele one night when she's fallen asleep on the concrete patio, wrap her in a blanket and take her home. I want to give her sisters, and friends, and coloring books, and a day with no chores. I want to save her, but I have no idea how.

As I'm watching her, as guilty as any of the indifferent men under the paillote, I wonder what she's thinking. What she must wish for in the face of a life like this. Then Adele takes a stutter-step running start, and dives on her belly across the smooth concrete porch. She must have slidden ten feet. I can't help but laugh out loud. She gets up, turns to me, and buries her hands in her face. All I hear is the sound of the rain, and her giggles. She smiles at me, checks the bucket. She dives again.

Adele, part one

She stays with Madame and Monsieur, but she's not part of the family. Eleven years old, the only girl in the compound. She usually walks around in just a skirt, no shirt; she's not developed yet. Her hair, like that of most Togolese children, is close cropped. Her head has a long shape to it in the back, which counterbalances the bulge of her under nourished belly. The scar under her left eye is thick and off-angle, and looks more like an accident than the ritual scars of the others. She is a beautiful girl. Being a guest in the house, she does the majority of cooking, cleaning, and laundry than any of the other kids. She is also the scapegoat when anything goes wrong. Madame frequently smacks her, usually on the back of the head, or on the arms; once across the face that I've seen. The boys pick on her mercilessly. She is forbidden to touch any of their possessions, and they exclude her from most of their activities; or they would, that is, if she wasn't constantly occupied by chores. Sometimes they hit her, too. I had never seen her cry.

The May Day party ended and I went to water the trees. When I came back to the compound, no one was around. The only sound in the air was the static and music blasting from the speakers in the abandoned school building which now houses the mill, and is a favorite site for parties and pick-up soccer. As I came toward the rear of the compound, I heard the rapid hiccough of air that signifies crying. Leaning against the wall near the shower stalls was Adele. Her face and chest were soaked in tears; her body was shaking. I knelt beside her and put a hand on her back. "What happened?" They hit her. "Who?" She wouldn't say. I told her to come sit down with me, have a mango, drink some cold water, calm down. "I can't," she said. "I have to make dinner."