My student came to visit me the other night. As he was leaving I gave him a little bread for the walk home. He spotted a few spoiled oranges on my windowsill and asked if he could have them. I was curious as to why, maybe he was going to help me out by throwing them out? No, he wanted to eat them. He wanted to eat the parts of the orange that still had some nutritional value. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t even consider the fact that someone could make use of them as I was going to feed them to the compost that I had created for the garden. I allowed him to take one, making him promise me that he would only eat the edible parts if there were any. Yes Greg you are in a 3rd world country and this is your wake up call.
I also went through an inquisition of sorts when Pelimliwa started naming off the things that I had bought since arriving in Togo after I told him that I had no money to give/buy him something (I forget what it was, but it was a modest request) I think my total expenditures have been less that $400 including travel money since I have been here. And I have been skimping since leaving Lomé, where most of the major purchases took place – phone, hotel, and food from the restaurant 3 times a day. It was very difficult to stand there and listen to him rattle off the little things that I have purchase (ex a cd, a soccer kit – shorts and a shirt, a pair of cheaply made soccer shoes, my moto rides in to Kara…etc). I didn’t give him any money afterwards on principle, but holy buckets was it tough. I haven’t bought anything here out of the want to be extravagant and in fact everything that I have purchased has had a very specific use. And it is not that I have forgotten the very favorable exchange rate here, but my few expenditures here is the equivalent a small fortune to the people here. Crazy
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