Festival of Sheep (Pt. 2)

Time for a few awkward moment stories…1) I don’t think there are too many whit folks who have showered outdoors in plain view of every passerby on the main road to the university. Not only that, but there were two of us and we both have long hair (the likes of which most Togolese have never seen in person let alone touched, which seems to be a point of amusement for the kids and even some of the women – not that I should ever need to, but if I ever get in a scuffle with a Togolese woman I always have the line in my back pocket, “but my hair is real, and it’s got bounce!”). Also the showers are private peeing stalls, if one feels the need to be descrete about it, which isn’t often. But I reminisced about the Seinfeld episode where they get into an argument about peeing in the shower…”IT’S ALL PIPES!” With that said I let it flow.

Well that was the only awkward moment, but there was one other time when I felt just slightly uncomfortable. That is your one and only warning. So the morning after spending the night, it was kind of chilly out for Togo (a brisk 60 degrees), and I was walking around outside at 6 in the morning when I realized that I had to poop. Nothing too bad right, just nature calling. Well there isn’t running water here, and unlike the monastery there isn’t any real plumbing where dumping buckets of water (when there isn’t running water) down the toilettes acts like plumbing. Here, there is a hole in the ground. But it’s classy. There are cement slabs where you stand and a nice little slot where you squat. Not that I was that curious, but I looked down and my initial reaction was that there was a giant glistening rock that you poop on and then dump water on to wash everything down the hole. Then I realized that I was one of the first one’s up that morning and there wasn’t yet water in the barrel to use for the daily chores. The rock wasn’t glistening. There was no rock. I was pooping into a maggot hole. At least they keep the smell down and there’s no water required!

Ok moving on. The next day, Colin and I visited with the family a little and then took off for the cyber to get our internet fix for the week. I got most of my work done, but the ESPN college football site was glitchy so I only got half of my scores (not including the Temple-Ohio game ) But I did manage to get the main scores and the game notes of the Big12 games for the past week. Let’s just hope that the Blackshirts can hold yet another QB to career lows in just about every category. And not that anyone in the BCS/AP/USA Today reads this, but TCU is the best team in the country. I don’t care how badly Boise beats up on the weak WAC foes, or how good their statistics are. TCU’s defense has been the most impressive week in and week out. Read the game log of the game against SDST (who is actually a decent team, believe it or not – they are two plays from being ranked in the Top 15). And there are only 2 teams who have held a Top 10 team under 10 points: Iowa against an overrated Michigan St and TCU against Utah (who can be argued to have lost twice to TCU considering they had nothing to play for against ND a week after getting pounded by the best team in the country – if Virginia Tech lost twice to Boise, then I think it’s fair to say the same for Utah). Sorry, I can’t vent my frustration at the ESPN writers so I figure at least someone will see this and maybe if I can get it right from across the great big ocean then someone sitting in a pressroom in the same country can do it.

Anywho, we finished off our day with a birthday meal for Christian (he turned 21 on Tuesday) followed by some more walking and talking and finally the 30 minute moto ride back to Agbang.