Unité

One of the aspects of myself that I like the most is that I always want everyone to get along and work together. It’s a trait that I try to use frequently in the different projects that I’m working on here in Togo as well. In fact, that’s pretty much my job description: getting different people and resources in the community to come and work together for the common good and development of the community as a whole.

At times, it has proven to be harder than I thought. Especially because I find most Togolese to be very frank and direct. If you are white, you’re called whitey (even light-skinned Togolese), if you’re fat, they call you fat, if you are old, people refer to you as ‘the old one’. It’s not normally ever said in a demeaning way, just matter-of-factly. But at least in my village, some seem to hold on to the stereotypes that these traits entail. Even whole neighborhoods or villages have certain stereotypes placed upon them, much in the way that Americans always say “southerners are so…” or “people from New York are so…”

So one of the things I’ve always tried to do in my community is to say, “okay, yea you are Togolese and I’m American, you are a boy, she is a girl, you are from zongo neighborhood, you are from iko neighborhood, sure, whatever, but let’s all still work together for x,y,z.” I gave a speech last year for International Women’s Day along those lines. This year, I’m working on a World Map Project along side with my little brother’s class at Littlewood that gets kids together to draw and paint a giant but accurate map of the world. In the process, they learn team-work, self-confidence, learn about new cultures as well as math and geography skills. It will be neat for each school to share photos and updates on their world maps throughout the process, uniting kids from half way across the world.
I’ve finally purchased all the materials and am excited to get started on it in my village. Next to the map I’m going to paint a giant slogan saying “Ensemble, Tous est Possible!” (Together, everything is possible!). Many people in the community seem to doubt that kids, especially girls could ever do something along these lines, but we’ll show them!
Here’s to building the self confidence and knowledge of a little girl, one brushstroke of a country at a time.