Steve and Cathy's Blog

The Smile String Quartet

Another day, another time change.  Now I guess we’re four hours ahead of home.  The laptop and the iPhone don’t know where we are, so can’t keep up.  Somehow I have got to figure out how to adjust these devices myself.  At any rate, our coffee + is delivered at 5:45, and Steve has a workout with Sho that was as hard as any he has done so far.  Daughter Margaret would be proud.  We had breakfast at Waves today.  I just sat there like a zombie.

Cathy went to Bible study at 8:15.  She likes it okay, and it’s nice to meet more people.  Then she hits Needlepoint for more conversation.  She is really our social chairman because she has met so many people through her participation in these two activities.  Good for her.

David Smith has another photography lecture that I attended at 10:00, this one on all the applications you can use to create nifty slide shows, books and the like with your photos.  This was well worth the time, because it would seem that even I can learn to master these applications and hope to do so at the end of the trip.

Following his lecture was one by Angela Schneider with the intriguing title Spirits of West Africa, Togo and Benin.  As always, it is organized, full of information and non-stop.  The pace of the information flowing at you during her lectures makes it difficult to take notes, so here are Random Facts: Togo is indeed one of the poorest and smallest countries in West Africa, although one source I checked said that it has one of the highest standards of living on the continent.  I cannot square that with the info we received on the ship.  It is home to 8 million, with 800,000 living in Lome, the capital and largest city where we will dock.  Over 1.5 million live in the Lome metro area.  The economy is by and large agricultural, and the country does export coffee, cocoa, and cotton.  It does have enormous reserves of phosphates and thus is a huge exporter of this mineral.

Bulk freighter loaded with phosphates

The governmental structure is, unfortunately, all too familiar to anyone studying African nations.  The country gained independence from France in 1960, and a year later held its first election, in which the winning candidate won 100% of the vote owing to the opposition party boycotting it.  Awe served until 1963, when a military coup took place and he was assassinated. An interim government was formed, and an election took place in which Nicholas Grunitsky, who was running the interim government anyway, was elected.  In 1967, another military coup took place, and the guy that took power ruled as a dictator until 2005, when he died suddenly.  The military then installed his son.  Elections were held, and massive irregularities were claimed.  He has ruled the place ever since, although protests over rule by father and son for over a half century are starting to happen.

The history of this and surrounding countries is, well, interesting.  Very little is known prior to arrival of the Portuguese in 1490, as there was no written language.  Shortly thereafter, the slave trade began with a vengeance and continued for the next three centuries.  The people of the region was neck deep in it, as well as the Europeans.  Slavery was already prevalent within the region, and increased exponentially once the Europeans developed a market, primarily in Brazil and other areas of South America in the 16th and 17th centuries, and elsewhere through the early 19th century.  During that period, it is estimated that 20% of all enslaved people originated in this area, yielding an estimate of 2 million human beings.  The slaves were collected by the Africans themselves, and brought in chains to the ports where the Europeans were waiting with their ships.  In other words, the Africans were not reluctant participants in this industry, although one lecturer described the society at the time as one in which you either enslaved others or were enslaved yourself.  Slavery was almost the entire economy for a time, earning the region the sobriquet “Slave Coast.”

Slavery was outlawed by Britain in 1807, and they attempted to shut down the transportation of slaves after that time – unsuccessfully at first, although the trade diminished as, one by one, countries followed Britain’s lead.  This was prior to what is known colloquially as the Scramble for Africa, which began in 1884 with the Berlin Conference.  This conference was called by Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of a newly reunified Germany, in which 14 nations participated.  There was a great deal of jockeying for position by the lead participants – too much to go into here.  Driven by the wish to exploit the continent’s immense natural resources, the nations spent four months essentially framing an agreement of how to divide up the continent, and thus the colonialization period began in earnest.  Borders were defined by the Europeans, the indigenous people completely lost their autonomy, and colonies were administered by and from Europe.  This lasted until World War I, and that’s enough about the history of the continent – and Togo – for now.

As far as religion is concerned, Togo is one of the countries where a majority (in this case, 51%) practice an indigenous religion.  Voodoo is widely practiced here, and our lecturer Angela gives a no-holds-barred critique on the most unusual practices, especially concerning fetishes.  Here is one description I read:

“Vodun (voodoo) is the age-old West African belief (mainly in Togo and Benin) in a magic field of force that rules our earthly existence. A world in which fetishes, ritual pots and figures made out of clay can attract gods, goddesses, ancestors and spirits. Also a world in which the Vodun gods have to be fed offerings so that they will not land people in disaster, and in which figures charged with powers can liberate an individual from a hopeless situation.

“With no exact definition, a fetish is usually a manufactured object that is entered by spirits or impersonal powers after the appropriate rituals. The European concept of fetishism (belief in fetishes) dates largely from the 19th century, when the ethnology of religion regarded fetishism as the precursor of religion. Most fetishes are collections of energy-given substances, often including certain stones, horns, claws, teeth, bones, nails, keys, whistles, hair, locks, animal skin and so on, but also dirt and other similar ‘unclean’ but effective things.

“The power of fetishes can be activated through sacrifices and are magically used for protection, causing harm, or increasing wealth or fertility. Particularly well known are the fetishes of the Aja, Ewe and the Fon in Togo and Benin (the local population refers to an inanimate object like a magic bottle as Bo, and a humanlike figure as Bochio).”

Okay, maybe that’s more than you want to know.  Me too, except that Angela kept showing photos of a fetish market, which seems to consist mainly of body parts of animals that had been killed.  She said that we would hear that the animals were all road kill, but no one really believes that.  As objective a scholar as she is, you could tell that the animal cruelty involved in creating these objects was repulsive to her.

By the time she was done, Cathy and I were quite satisfied that our decision to sit out a visit to this country was okay, that we would be able to educate ourselves on western African culture sufficiently when we visit Benin, the country to the east of Togo.

After the lecture, Cathy and I headed for … oh hell, I don’t remember … to have lunch.  I’m sure it was delicious.  [Cathy here to rescue Steve from his bad memory: Cathy had kobe beef patty and a salad, Steve had grilled marinated chicken paillard. Then both of us needed our daily power naps as we had afternoon activities to attend.  Cathy had a spa appointment, this time to get an “Awakening Massage.”

Steve had spotted an activity billed as Service Club Meeting in Martinis at 3:30, something he was hoping would happen.  So at the appointed time, he went there and met six other people that also thought that this would be a good way to be introduced to other members of such organizations.  It is an instant friendship club, as all of us come to the meeting with enthusiasm for such work.  I met Linda, Tim, Peter, and Graham who were Rotary Club members, H.L. the Kiwanian, and a former Episcopal priest involved in Sail and Power Squadron.  The meeting lasted about 45 minutes, as all things seem to on this ship.  Peter and I are the only ATW passengers, the others disembarking in Cape Town.  Steve, the staff member that called the meeting, said that he would call another one soon after leaving Cape Town.  Note to Rotary Club of Wallingford: I got a slip of paper certifying that this qualifies as a makeup!

I went back to our stateroom and waited for Cathy, looking out at the water and noting that the ocean is practically at a flat calm.  Cathy staggered in a few minutes later, all relaxed from her spa treatment.  She ran into Larry and Kerry there, and we are trying once again to schedule dinner together.  At 5:30, we attend Peter Croyle’s lecture on Togo and Benin as well as more information on the Mercantilist Era of exploration and exploitation of Portugal, Spain, Holland, France and Britain in that roughly chronological order.

Shortly after the lecture,at 6:25, we race up to the Terrace Cafe to be the first in line at the buffet and avoid the other milling, wandering guests.  We both enjoy roast leg of lamb, which is perfectly cooked.  Steve has two types of bean medleys and Cathy has roasted marinated vegetables.  She also enjoys two small desserts while Steve has wine as a last course.  Dinner is over in no time, which was the object of going to the Terrace Cafe.

But we are not done yet!!  At Cathy’s suggestion, we head for the Upper Hall to hear the Smile String Quartet.  “The Girls” are all dressed in black and look gorgeous. (see the picture at the beginning of this post).  They play for five minutes (we have the times confused), take a fifteen minute break, and then play for another 45 minutes.  They begin another break and we decide to call it a night.

Back up to the room and it’s time to relax, read and snore.  We are due to arrive in the port of Lome tomorrow around 9:00 after five straight days at sea.  It’ll be great to see something other than just water out of our window.