Hope … A Slender ThreadLeslie Banner — Mississauga, ON
One hot humid afternoon following a distribution of four hundred bedkits, our team of six volunteers visited the National Cultural Museum of Togo in Lomé, the capital. We were the only visitors that afternoon, and I would suspect the only visitors in quite some time. We were shown the artifacts by a young man who was able to speak with some knowledge about the items encased in glass in the small museum including cooking pots, early food and weapons. On a wall at some distance from the other items were pictures of the various governors of Togo, including representatives in starched high collars and full morning suits from Germany, England as well as France. In another area there was a very disturbing picture which showed chained slaves, emaciated in body, in the bowels of a ship. A set of actual chains worn by the stolen men and women was on view and brought tears to my eyes as once again our inhumanity towards our fellow human beings was displayed. As Gerald Caplan states in his book, The Betrayal of Africa, the continent has never recovered from the slave trade that enveloped it. He states that while the slave labour enabled the development of both the United States and Europe, it ultimately crippled Africa. In the 350 years that the slave trade was conducted an estimated 36 to 60 million Africans were uprooted from their lands. The labour, skills, and potential of these Africans were denied to their own continent. Western colonialism occurred hard on the heels of the slave trade. In the "scramble for Africa" in the 1880s, almost the entire continent was portioned among the European powers, mainly Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Britain. Ironically enough, no one was hindered by the facts that these lands belonged to others. This scramble created borders that cut through 177 natural ethnic and cultural borders in a purely random and arbitrary manner.
Colonial rule had one purpose only it appears and that was to serve the economic interest of the "mother" country. Colonialism ended for most countries less than forty-five years ago and continues to be felt today. Togo was initially handed to Germany. It is viewed as one of the more fortunate countries created as it borders on the Atlantic and has one of the deepest water ports in Western Africa. In Togo's history, their capital city's streets and the beginning of their port were laid out by their German occupiers, their official language and bread as part of their diet influenced by the French. At the end of WW1 Togo was "claimed" by Britain. Later the League of Nations split Togo between England and France. Only in the last few years leading to independence in 1960, were any infrastructures built by France. However no universities were built, the power grid is unreliable, and water is expensive and unattainable for many except through travelling long distances, usually by foot. Today it is evident that China and Russia are delivering products to Togo and many other countries in West Africa as seen in the tailors working beside the road using new treadle sewing machines made in China. Both the Canadian and American governments have withdrawn financial support from many of the impoverished countries in Africa. We have observed this first hand over the past eight distributions in both Uganda and Togo. A recent article in the Globe and Mail outlined the new policy by the current Canadian government to move support to Central and South America from Africa and in the case of one country close the embassy as well. Togo is a country where the average age is eighteen, of incredibly high unemployment, close to 80%, and university graduates are not able to obtain even menial work.
We met a newly hired social worker who had been one of 60,000 applicants for the position she obtained. With an average yearly income of under $600, poverty is everywhere in Togo, protein is unheard of in most diets save an egg once or twice a month, and children everywhere are seen to be malnourished. Schools are expected by the World Health Organization to provide a meal at lunch time for children attending primary school to ensure that they receive one meal a day. At schools where we distributed bedkits there was no lunch program due to the costs and, even more incredulous, no water or latrines at most of them. When one distribution was held up due to rain, it was evident that the youngest children were famished as they had nothing to eat before coming early to the site and the wait further exacerbated their hunger. We gave pieces of protein bars to some children who appeared to be close to fainting and watched them make the precious food last an incredibly long time as they slowly ate it. Three young men who supported our distribution of bedkits for Sleeping Children Around the World [SCAW] exemplify the Togo of today. Dosseh, a kind, caring and helpful young man of twenty-two, is beginning his final year in accountancy at university. He is fluent in three languages and yet the prospect of a job following graduation is slim. Senior is in his first year at university, having missed a whole year of schooling due to an injury a year ago when his hip was shattered in a fall. He had to wait weeks for surgery, which included the insertion of a titanium rod, until his support network was able to raise the $1,100 before the surgeon would even operate. Both these young men are receiving support from a variety of sources beyond their families as they attend university at a cost of about $1,100 per year. They live in one eight-foot by eight-foot room with a four other people and study on a makeshift blackboard placed outside the door of their room.
Bill is twenty-eight, a trained chef who cooked for our team both this year and last. Every day he arrived well before the sun was up to cook a nourishing breakfast and remained during the day to prepare meals for us, as well as clean our living quarters and ensure security. He shopped with us at one of the few "grocery stores" frequented only by foreigners and led us through the incredible markets where tables overflowed with produce, especially the wonderful pineapples, mangoes and bananas that we all craved, literally rotting in the 40° C heat. Young children played in the dirt beneath these tables as their mothers tried to sell enough to feed their family for that day. All the market goods, used clothing, oil for the car, as well as fish, meat, and fruit are on consignment to the sellers. Bill cooked for those of us with special dietary needs and charged only $10 a day for the team. He has been awaiting payment for more than ten months from a former position as chef, a job which he held for some months until the employer left Togo on business. A week before we arrived in Togo, Bill and his wife welcomed a baby girl, Cita, into their lives. We met her on our second evening in Togo. The small, neat rented home the three lived in was in a compound with a number of other families, including Bill's brother who is currently in medical school. There is no financial aid available from the government or the university to cover the costs of approximately $1,700 per year. Bill is the only support for his brother who has now completed half of his medical school education. In Bill's words, "when one of our family (he has six younger siblings) is successful, he will pull the entire family up with him." The same story unfolds all over the county. Close to the end of our distribution, Bill arrived one morning to make breakfast. It was evident he was not well. In fact, he had a raging temperature and headache. While we were taking our expensive medication to avoid malaria, Bill was having a bout of the reoccurring disease that cripples much of the population in Togo as well as other African countries. We ensured that he went to the hospital, where he obtained a "serum" in an injection to ease the symptoms, at a cost of $40. We insisted that he go home to rest and while he did this it was clearly evident that not being able to work was extremely stressful for Bill. Reoccurring malaria is a fact of life in many African counties and the cost in human lives is evident. How slender is the thread of hope given the life experiences of all of the population. Bill is responsible for many, and if malaria saps his strength and he cannot work, the entire family structure will fall apart. We met his brother and his mother, who was there to support the new baby and Valentine, Bill's wife. We had read that all babies born in hospitals in West Africa were sent home with a treated mosquito net; however, this baby was born in a hospital at a cost of $140 and was not given a net to protect her from this life threatening disease. It was reported as well that due to a difficult delivery, this dear baby had sustained some "muscular" damage to one arm and would require physiotherapy in order to have full use of the arm. The 4,000 children who received the bedkits donated by donors to Sleeping Children Around the World received a treated mosquito net which will help to ensure their lives may be spared malaria. Along with the bedroll, the sheet, flip flops, the school supplies, and the cloth to make a uniform to enable attendance at school, the lives of not only the children will be greatly enhanced. The fortunate recipients may result in whole families being "pulled forward" from the despair of poverty into education and good health. |
