A boy from Togo and a girl from Mayo share common traditions

Afo comes from Togo. He has been living in Galway since 2000, and has an Irish-speaking girlfriend from Mayo. We met at a pavement café, and as we chatted, he was constantly being greeted by acquaintances passing by.

Myself I have 32 brothers and sisters. In my country, you have to have many wives. At that time, children were like cattle. The more kids, the better. Now things have changed.

I have many mothers. They live in different houses. I stayed in my stepmother’s place. I didn’t stay with my mother. Every kid stays anywhere. We lived in the middle of the country, in a village called Sokode.

Tell me about the customs, the culture.

When you are eighteen, you have to start to make a farm yourself. You have to grow maize. You have to work hard, not be lazy. To be responsible for yourself: sleep properly, stay warm, not waste the education given by your parents.

Some people are fishermen. But whatever you choose, you have to know a skill. They have to be able to fix a boat. Your father will teach you. ‘Now take this boat, go fish,’ he will say. Every time you get a fish, you make your money. You can get a wife, feed your woman, make love with your woman. Make some children. That’s what it’s all about.

Are the scars on your face tribal?

Yes, it’s my tribe. So people know where you come from, who your mother is. They know who you are. If somebody dies, if your mother has one or two babies, they know straight away.

You said there are 32 children in your family. Did you feel close to your siblings?

Every time, you have one close to you. The mothers make food, they put it in a big dish in the middle of the room. Then everybody eats. If you are ten to 15, you have one bowl. From 5 to 10 you have one bowl. You eat together. Some people think if you eat together, the little ones, they get an appetite. Some people don’t like to eat alone. But when you eat together you get an appetite.

What did your father do?

He was a farmer. My father died more than 20 years ago.

Did you farm?

No - I went to school and then to college.

What did you study at college?

Languages and geography. I was a teacher. I was teaching, in the dialect of my pupils. I taught from ‘97 to 2000. It was good.

I speak my own language, and also French, German, now English too.

Tell me about Togo.

Togo was a German colony. The whole country was divided after the Second World War. The English took one side, Ghana, the French took the other side, Togo. Now we have independence. But we are not independent. We have a dictatorship.

The country has a strong European influence. From France they bring tomatoes, potatoes. Manufacturers come to Africa and sell European products, produced by foreign companies. We go to our shops. In the shops, everything is imported, and the prices are cheaper than our local prices. We can’t compete with imported prices. In Europe they give subsidies to their farmers so they can sell cheaper. We cannot export our products to France. It’s the system of oppression, an economic scandal.

What is the weather like?

We have a humid climate, like Durban in South Africa.

Do people practise religion?

We have many religions. We have in our culture, our own religion. Then we also have Christian, Islam, many religions.

What are the people like?

The people in Togo are very welcoming. It doesn’t matter if you are a foreigner. You are invited to eat with them. Vegetables, rice, they make for you, they make you welcome. You have a beer with them. They give freely, even when they have so little.

We have 35 tribes but the problem is not the tribes. After the Second World War the people tried to change: if it is like that in those countries, why can’t we change our country, our system? Create our own resources. Develop our country. We can look there, to America or France or England. So we tried to do something about the situation in our country in 1990. People wanted their voices to be heard.

What happened in 1990?

90% of the people went into the streets, making demonstrations. We tried to organise a political party. The PPR. The army used weapons given to them by the French to kill demonstrators. We were talking about how we can change the system, do better. In communist times there was war. Now it’s not communist, but it’s still not our country.

In Togo we have oil, we have a lot of things. We have iron, manganese. We have resources. But it doesn’t help us! We live with nothing, while the French own everything.
It’s still a colony.

Togo is our country. The French come, but they don’t pay tax, they don’t need a visa to stay there. It’s like a French country. But we need visas to go to France.

I was there, organising meetings. I was arrested during the demonstrations. 90% of the military and the cops they’re from one tribe. Gabyé tribe. My tribe is Eogose
The government doesn’t like educated people. You know too much. You can talk to people, educate them, show them what’s wrong with the government. It’s very dangerous. I was dangerous for them, so it was dangerous for me to stay there. I had to leave.

How did you come to be in Ireland?

Mary Robinson was talking about Africa suffering. She compared Africa’s suffering to Ireland suffering. You would hear about her. Every time you would see her on the African news. She was in South Africa at the time, talking to Mandela. She said Irish people are welcoming. They are so friendly in Ireland. She talked about how Ireland has suffered. So they understand suffering.

Mary Robinson made me want to come here.

What did you know about Ireland?

I knew about Dublin, Belfast. I read about Ireland, about Celtic problems. It was exciting. You see Irish people in the movies, you see the writers. I think African music is like Irish music.

What happened when you came to Ireland?

When I came here, I went to Dublin, but then they sent me straight here to Galway. I couldn’t speak English. There were a lot of people from other countries, and like me, they couldn’t speak English. But I got the opportunity to start learning.

What have the biggest challenges been?

Adapting to the differences in culture. You try to understand the country, how the structure is. People have opportunities. It’s a fantastic country. The government builds houses for people, uses money to create jobs. I can see a lot of opportunity here. They set things up, and then the people work, and then the government get this money back, through taxes.
Do you have a job?

I sometimes go and work. Sometimes you don’t have work. I am still trying to work in my field. But the system is different. They prefer to take the French. I say, ‘I speak French.’ Sometimes they ask me, ‘How do you speak French?’ I say, ‘Same like you speak English!’

I see sometimes people think we in Africa don’t go to school. But we are educated.

If you are Irish, and you want to teach English in England, it’s very, very complicated. It’s the same for us Africans who speak French. They have more French people. They get the jobs.

Now I do work I never did before. I work in construction. I work with CDs, with internet, satellite dishes. I can do work for Arab countries or Sweden or French countries. The work is easy. I can get office jobs. People have work for me. I’m happy. I am busy.

How do you see the Irish?

The Irish aren’t bad. People from Africa have been coming only in the last 10 years. The Irish are curious why people come here. ‘Will they take our jobs?’ People in America said Irish people are taking our jobs. The same is happening here. ‘Every time you open the door, a foreigner comes to take our job,’ they say.

It’s a normal reaction. If economy is bad, they look to the foreigner. ‘It is their fault’, they say.

Many Irish go to other countries to work. People think they are IRA. Foreigners make people afraid. They don’t know these people. Look what is happening in England. It’s like hot water together with cold water. If you are wise you can make warm water. You have to accept.

I live here now. It’s more peaceful than my country. Here, you can say what you like. You have a lot of newspapers. I read them. The law is fair. You can do this, do that. It’s different from my country.

What else is good about Ireland?

My country is dry. We don’t have so much water. People have to go to church to pray for rain. We don’t have water. Here, every time. You have plenty. You go to church, but not to pray for rain! Maybe for less rain! In my county you might have to walk more than 50km to get water.

So you don’t mind the rain?

I don’t mind, because we have plenty of water!

Do you see any similarities in the cultures?

Yes – like us, the Irish don’t forget their history. They are very good to their families. In Ireland, they feel strong with the family. It doesn’t matter where their families are, north, south, Connemara, they want to go there to see them.

It‘s the same in Togo, but people have to walk. Also, they don’t have jobs. So they are on the alcohol, they are on the drugs, they are desperate. They’ve got nobody to buy milk for them. Sometimes the children have no milk for two months. I see a lot of things.

In Togo, people will do anything for work. They have to come to the city. They have no house. Nobody can buy their meals. But everywhere you see bananas. With bananas you don’t go hungry. They cost 2c. People are working too hard, thinking about their family. They send money home to the village.

The Irish have the same tradition. Everybody in Ireland has somebody in America. Many Irish went to America for work. Most of them they were doing something illegal there, but people knew! Nobody said anything. And then after five years, they can get their green card. So the Irish understand how hard it is for immigrants.

What do you miss about Togo?

What do I miss about Togo? I miss my parents. I miss the wood fires. We make a fire outside in my village. We don’t have lights in my village. Here you have light. We don’t have lights, except in the city. So we make a big fire outside the village. We chat, we talk about the people, we recite poesie (poetry). We tell stories. I miss my language. Not French or English or German. I want to speak my language. I miss all that. When you speak a different language, you become a different man. You have to find different words. We have some jokes in our language, like, which cannot translate into English jokes. Sometimes, I just feel like seeing my people.

In the village, people all know one another. They say, ‘hello, how are you! You are welcome.’ It means I don’t need to go home, I can stay with my friends. I can stay here, there, everywhere. Then you go back, you know.

We used to eat rice, potato, yams; we ate beans. We have some exotic foods, like Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, South American. Now we have shops here, with some of our foods. The majority are for people from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, but our food is similar. Here in Ireland, we just all mix together. We are all African.

Afo is engaged to an Irish-speaking girl from Mayo. While he goes to the bathroom I ask her how they met.

In the pub. I went up and asked him to dance, and he refused me. Then he came back and we danced. After that, we kept meeting each other.

I brought him home to meet my family, and I remember my mother saying to him, ‘it’s not what’s on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts’. Two of my sisters have married English guys. The others have married Polish, Thai and Dutch men.
I don’t know how that happened, how they all married foreigners. Now I’m marrying a guy from Togo!

I resume my conversation with Afo on his return, and ask if he’s happy living in Galway.

I’m very happy here. I have my fiancée, her family. I have good friends. They make me feel welcome.

Do you think you’ll return to Togo?

One day I will go to visit. I would love my woman to see Togo. I want my people to know how we live in Ireland.

Can you tell me a memory of the village?

In my country, it’s like here when somebody dies. They talk about him. Then they play some games, make some imitation about his life. What he loved to do, how he chatted, how he loved to make jokes. They do this for the family, and to remember him. Then people cry, but they are also laughing at the same time. People give songs. We do this for three days. They come, they sing. People they have tea, say everybody look, here is my family, we have someone who has died, you know. We have voodoo, bad voodoo, good voodoo, you have statues, and everything. You eat, you put maybe one grain, on the ground for your ancestral spirits. You have a drink, you put some on the ground for them.

His fiancée tells me that Irish rural customs are similar, and instead of the local brew, they pour Guinness on the ground.

I ask Afo if he plans to have more than one wife, as is the custom in his country.

Only one wife!

Not like my father, five! Because of war, many wars, women numbered more than men. Some men only have one wife. Some women maybe they are widows. They have to stay alone. Some think for such a woman to get a man is not easy. So you have one, you get a second one so she is not alone. She is happy. She can have a child.

And the first wife?

It’s tradition. They understand. They live with that kind of thing. Some men don’t marry, they want to stay alone. Or maybe they don’t have money. You need money to marry. You pay in cows for a bride. How do you pay here?

Afo leaves to buy a round, and I ask Bríd her age.

I am 43, he’s two or three years younger. I think he’s 40.

Did he have a wife before?

You’ll have to ask him! A lot of the things he was saying there, especially with funerals, we do that as well, where I come from. I come from South-West Mayo, an Irish-speaking area. Where the Rockford Five come from. My village is Cartagh.. You know, I remember sitting round the fire, storytelling, chatting, going into houses, eating, etc. Our cultures are not so different.

My father died. My mother’s still alive. But I always speak to her in Irish. It would be weird speaking to her in English. I only started learning English when I went to secondary school.

There were ten in our family. It’s not really so different.

What age were you when you came to Galway?

I was 35 – I came here in 2000.

Afo returns and I ask him if he had a family of his own in Togo.

I used to have a wife and children. It was a political match. She is from a different party. We tried to unite two minority parties. I have one child aged 20 years. I have another one aged 14. They haven’t been here. We have contact, but they don’t need to come here. No one has come here. Life in Togo is not easy, but I think they are happy to stay there.

Do you feel displaced?

I didn’t come here to stay. I came here with the plan to go back. It’s normal. Your home is your home.

Do you have any criticisms of Ireland?

They don’t speak their language. They learn it, but they don’t speak it. They don’t care about reading their language in the media. They’ve lost their culture. In Belgium they have Flemish. In Denmark, they speak Danish. In Norway, they speak Norwegian. But in Ireland, why don’t they speak their language? When I go home and they ask me what is it like in Ireland? What is their language? What is their culture? I don’t have a word to say. I’m learning Irish with my girlfriend. But most people don’t speak it. Many Africans and Arabs have noticed this. Why don’t they speak their language? I learned English here! Why don’t they learn Irish? I was in Bantry, and I saw some people speaking Irish. Why don’t the government do more about this? If my father sees me not speaking my language, he would have something to say about that!

The North is another thing. It’s very important to have peace. Now they must use the opportunity to bring Ireland together. All the politicians must work very hard to bring North and South Ireland together. It’s very important for them. I met one Irish guy in the north, he tells me it’s like apartheid in South Africa up there!

And one more thing: Irish people don’t know their own country. I know my own country, my neighbouring countries well. Irish people just want to go to Spain, to other countries, but they don’t know their own country. I’m very sorry for them. Some people will tell you, ‘I’m Irish’. But their own geography, they don’t know. They know America, a lot of things. They don’t know the geography of Africa either, the different countries. They think it’s all the same country! I don’t know if they like to learn. They know all about New York, Washington. They just don’t want to know about Africa.

People here come from Libya, Niger, Egypt. They have to learn more about these countries. They have to try to understand why people are coming here. Which problems bring them here.
They come here, because Irish people have also been under colonialists.

It’s very important for immigrants to see that the Irish people understand their problems. There are big problems in France, in England. They don’t want to go there. They come here to learn. Here they can survive. Why not? Irish people talk about the war, about the famine. Irish people can say, ‘We had the same thing 150 years ago’. This means a lot to us.

My idea is to involve Irish politicians in Africa: to build up tourism; to be curious, to see why it doesn’t work in the African countries; to try and help us. If Togo wants to buy fuel they should be able to get it cheaply, next door, from Nigeria. But Nigeria has to sell fuel to the British. The British sell to France, France sells it to Togo. The fuel is as near as from me to you, but the Nigerians can’t sell to us. And the money doesn’t stay in Nigeria, even though they have the assets. That is the problem. The system creates this problem.

Rich countries are still taking money from Africa – they must return the money. Africa is powerful because of the resources. The people must learn this. Africa is not an independent continent. Why not? We must learn from the west. Become independent. Trade equally, fairly.

I think Ireland gives us the opportunity to learn their language, opens doors for us. At the moment, I think, the door is not too much open. The door is stuck. We are waiting.

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A narrow strip of land on Africa's west coast, the former French colony Togo has for years been the target of criticism over its human rights record and political governance.

Togo formed part of the Slave Coast, from where captives were shipped abroad by European slavers during the 17th century. In 1884 it became the German protectorate of Togoland. It was seized by Britain and France at the start of World War I, divided and administered under League of Nations mandates. The British-ruled western part was later incorporated into what is now Ghana.

France granted independence in 1960 and Togo's first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated in a military coup three years later. Head of the armed forces Gnassingbe Eyadema seized power in a 1967 coup and dissolved all political parties.

Although political parties were legalised in 1991 and a democratic constitution was adopted in 1992, the leadership was accused of suppressing opposition and of cheating in elections.

A joint UN-Organisation of African Unity investigation into claims that hundreds of people were killed after controversial elections in 1998 concluded that there had been systematic human rights violations.

Veteran leader Gnassingbe Eyadema died in early 2005 after 38 years in power. The military's immediate but short-lived installation of his son, Faure Gnassingbe, as president, provoked widespread international condemnation. Mr Faure stood down and called presidential elections, which he won two months later, with 60% of the votes. The opposition declared the elections to be rigged, while political violence surrounding the presidential poll prompted around 40,000 Togolese to flee to neighbouring countries.

The developments of 2005 led to renewed questions about a commitment to democracy made by Togo in 2004 in a bid to renew ties with the EU, which cut off aid in 1993 over the country's human rights record.

Source: World Almanac