Togolais Diaries...contd

Le 2nd Avril 2009

Bonjour!

The last day basically involved attending a lecture by a professor from the university of Lome who had studied at Harvard and had taught at Princeton. The topic was ‘History of West Africa and origins of Togo.’ Though pretty informative, some extremely outlandish statements were made by him like these,
All the religions of the world have been invented in Africa and yes even Christianity as Palestine is like down the road from Egypt!!
The biggest fear of the Queen of England was that one day Prince Charles would have a black child at she was related to some Ethiopian queen
And this one was the mother of all statements,
USA is getting into satanic things such as homosexuality, that’s why as punishment god was sending stuff such as Hurricanes, fires and murders there!!(NO, im not kidding at all!!) but God is great, now he has sent our own man Barack Obama there to correct things out! A conversation followed later with him and turned out that like others in Togo he too really appreciated India’s ascent to power and wished me luck!
Rest of the day involved, researching over the internet and seeing off Floor, the Dutch intern here since 3 months and also meeting the new Dutch intern, Dorienka who had arrived a day before. Floor had been rather friendly so was Babs and to continue this Dutch tradition if it can be called that, Dorienka too was extremely friendly and easy to get along with. It was her first time outside Europe and so like me she was in for a bug shock when she arrived in the country, I guess the shock would have been far greater than my own though. Finally Floor left and then everyone called it a night.

The next day was mostly about India, the day was spent researching in the computer lab and in the evening I chanced to come across a huge supermart and guess what it was Indian!! So the customary greetings followed and I must add the conversations were only in Hindi. Its pretty funny that back home to prove the decency of the education one has received the person tries to speak only in English, avoiding Hindi on purpose but then here one longs to speak in his own mother tongue and suddenly the thought off showing off one’s command over English doesn’t even occur. I guess that’s what is meant by love of your motherland. Its too powerful to deny as hard as you may want to try.
Also at night when Alain, Dorienka and me were just chatting, we chanced to meet Sammuel and Babs who had just come after swimming. Then suddenly out of a brainwave I invited all of them for an Indian dinner. Anyways I had so much food which I just don’t eat so I guess that would have been a good start to attain the purpose of finishing the suitcase full of food so that I can throw in my clothes there. So me and Sammuel laid out a spread of Indian namkeen, pickles, khakras, Dal makhani, bhaji, alu mutar, paneer matar. Everyone seemed to love the food though they did find it very spicy which was no surprise as Indian food is famous or notorious (depends whether one likes spices or not) for being spicy. To go along with it, we even played Indian songs and the 1st song which was played was none other than Sutta!! Yes, its not exactly an Indian song but so what Pakistan is our brother nation too, followed by the likes of Sindbad the Sailor (which Sam particularly loves), Bachnaa e Haseeno ( which had everyone grooving, especially Alain who by the way is amazing at belly dance) and even Emossanal Atyachar. It was a lot of fun explaining the meanings of the songs as everyone was pretty amused as to how every Indian song talks about love. So this party was a lotta fun with some great cross continental and cultural understanding. Thus now we have planned a Dutch party too and then maybe a dutch and an Indian party toether as anyway there is so much food that al these parties would be required to finish the thing off.

So great fun and tomorrow we plan to see the city by night, check out its sounds and smell and also maybe go clubbing on Saturday. On Sunday it is my host’s Sam’s birthday so that promises to be another rather hectic day with the day at the beach and at night a party at our house so great fin and with such friendly people around it even better. Though im missing India a lot and especially my sis, parents and my friends. But hopefully I shall make great friends here too!!