Bonjour, les blancs!

...est-ce que vous avez du travail pour nous?"

"Hey, whites, do you have any work for us?"

This was how we were greeted by two women standing alongside the quiet avenue in our Lomé neighbourhood. Granted anyone who doesn't look like a domestic worker in this enclave is a likely employer, so I guess it was worth a shot. But calling us 'whites' instead of Monsieur et Madame seems like a poor opening gambit. A bit offensive.

Not that it made any difference, we already have someone working for us. And we can't even find 2 days of work per week for her! Even if we improve her productivity by acting as babysitters for her 2 year old son Daniel who she brings to our place.

He seemed bored so I pulled out a big mac computer box that we used to ship cargo here from Canada, cut a couple windows in it and showed him how great it would be to get inside it. This seemed less appealing than pushing it noisily around the house, Especially with my flashing bike safety light on it.

Here is Brigitte, our 'houselady', coming back with produce in our Canadian 'Planet Organics' bag.

Today was also the day to go back to the dentist again. Two weeks ago I came down with an infected tooth (under my one gold crown) and when he couldn't get the crown off, he drilled a hole right through it to dig around in the root canal. Mmm-mmm! What fun for my vacation week. Three visits in a week and another in two weeks. Togo wasn't my first choice for major dental work. Perhaps choice number 180 of the world's countries, but it turns out that there are some very well-trained medical folks here and at least it's a lot cheaper than in Canada or Europe. Well, ignoring the fact that I would have been covered by a good dental plan back home.

Last night we had another Sri Lankan 'Green Banana Curry in coconut gravy', with bananas straight off our tree. Well, not quite straight. The tree with the huge bunch in this photo is gone. The school gardener who comes by every week to massacre things chopped it down. Why? That's the normal way of harvesting bananas apparently. Not necessary and the tree would have continued growing but hey, it's easier than getting a ladder. Kind of like the typical way of managing plastic garbage: burn it, right outside your house, with the acrid fumes drifting through your neighbours' houses.

Don't get me started on plastic!