A Week in Togo - Briana Thomas

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If you’ve been following along with my Togo series so far, some of this will definitely be a repeat. I journaled a week of my life to share with my husband’s extended family email group back in March and thought I’d share it here as well (with some modifications for privacy) in case any of you are dedicated enough to read it. =)

*visiting some caves to the north of us where local tribes used to hide from enemy tribes who were trying to enslave them*

Thurs, 3/13/25

Thursday is one of my free days – the other being Tuesday. On those mornings, no one comes to my house at 8 am, and I have no commitments. Those days are glorious, and I always plan to get so much accomplished, but in reality those days are slower because I have no reason to hurry…and I suppose that’s fine too.

I spent some time working on my first “Africa quilt.” It’s outside my typical style both in terms of design and fabric. In fabric stores I gravitate towards old-fashioned, small print calicoes. West African wax print pagne is anything but! To showcase it, I chose a simple, bold design: 9 inch blocks with a solid black “optical illusion” shadow to give a 3D effect, and grey sashing. I wanted to highlight the African prints. (Some are scraps from clothing we’ve had made, and I also got a lot of scraps from other people!) All the solid fabric available in market is pantalon fabric, which definitely has a high polyester content. It has a nice drape for the mens’ pant suits but isn’t ideal for quilts. Therefore, I bought some used sheets when we went to Dapaong (a town with a larger market about 45 minutes away) and that is my solid grey and black. Actually, the black was a duvet cover and cost me dearly.

We are working on kind speech between siblings. To this end, we have been practicing a verse that was in Hadassah’s kindergarten book.
In one breath I heard, “I don’t like Noah!”
In the next, “A friend loveth at all times!”

It’s currently hot season, which means high temps in the 105-110*F range during the day (as high as 112 in the past week), and no rain since November. It’s amazing what the body acclimates to, but it’s still not entirely pleasant to be soaked in sweat all the time. Honestly, it’s not much worse than Louisiana was, but the difference is that you’re not in AC the majority of the time so there’s really no break from it. Thankfully we do have an AC unit that we run at night in our room, but so far the children have been sweating it out with fans. Honestly they do fine. We just don’t wear many clothes. (Notable exception: the night last week that we went swimming and Hadassah decided she was cold so she wore a turtleneck and sweatpants to bed. It was 95* in the house. She slept great. Vraiment Togolaise, n’est-ce pas?)

But Thursday night…Thursday night there were clouds in the sky, and heat lightening was putting on a show in the clouds. We went swimming before bed to cool off and wash away the day’s grime. (In Africa I bleach my vegetables and my children too.) The rain was so tantalizingly close I could smell it – it smelled like spreading mulch when I was a kid. But not a drop did we feel, and likely won’t until next month (hopefully) brings a few scattered showers.

Even though it hasn’t rained, the trees that dropped all their leaves during Harmattan have been pushing lusciously vivid green fronds. It’s been fun to see the variety of fauna here…one notable one being the African locust bean tree that produces these bright red pom-pom balls that are sprouting into sprays of bright green helix seed pods. They’ll eventually harden and turn black, and when you shake them the seeds inside sound like a baby rattle.

Locust bean seed pods after they filled out a bit and lost some of their helix shape. Once these mature the outside turns dark brown and the inside is a soft yellow pulp around lots of small seeds. The MKs love to eat them and call them “Monkey Cheetos.”

Back to the pool – I want to retain in my memory the image of Noah belly flopping, completely horizontal for a split second before submerging, then coming up in giggles, wiping the water out of his eyes, and doing it all over again.

*The pool on compound was a lifesaver during hot season!*

Fri, 3/14/25

Friday is a busy day. Our Moms in Prayer group meets at 8am at my friend Bethany’s house. It’s a highlight of our week. The teenage girls take turns providing childcare, bless their hearts, and my children love playing with their friends who live off compound.

My house helper, Madame F, also comes on Fridays at 8, which means that she can clean in peace for a few hours while we’re out of the house. When we’re done praying I usually walk home, put another load of laundry in, then try to keep the children outside so she can finish le menage.

As much as I love the help, having someone in my house for 5 hours every Monday and Friday morning has taken some getting used to. I still don’t love it, but I don’t know what I would do without it. Even with someone coming in to clean, wash dishes, and hang up laundry twice a week, I still feel like the remaining housework and childcare takes all my time! Cooking and dishes are a big part of that. Most of the other missionary families here also have cooks who come once or multiple times per week, but I prefer to do my own cooking. Everything has to be made from scratch. The other week I made taco salad. I cooked the rice, fried the hamburger, shredded a block of cheese, soaked and cooked dry black beans, bleached tomatoes from market and made salsa, made my own Ranch dressing…you get the picture. I don’t mind it, but it does take a lot of time. I sure wish I could find someone to make tortillas for me. I’ve made them twice and they’re very fiddly. And I think I might miss having a dishwasher even more than having air conditioning.

A big outing means going to market and getting ice cream bars! Sometimes they’re in better shape than others, depending on how often the electricity has gone out lately. The ice cream boutique is next to the live animal market, which is always entertaining.

I AM glad for the opportunity to get to know some Togolese ladies though, by having them in my home. Ryan gets to interact with the local people a lot more than I do due to his work in the hospital; this is one way that I can interact and maybe have some sort of impact for good.

Friday evening I made some good old American food – hamburgers and French fries! They were not as good as a Whopper combo from Burger King, but Ryan and the kids thought they had the cat by the tail. The French fries – made from scratch with real potatoes, of course – were kind of a flop (literally, they never crisped up), but they were oily and salty and potato-y and we devoured them, doused in our $8 American ketchup.

“There’s a tiki!” I have no idea why Hadassah calls the little geckos that run around in our house “tikis,” but that’s another Togo-ism I want to add to my memory bank. Every time they spot one they all race to catch it – Ryan included. If Hadassah or Noah manages to catch one, the poor thing usually passes away from rough handling despite their best intentions.

*These huge lizards are common. Thankfully these aren’t the ones who usually live in the houses!*

Sat, 3/15/25

“Who’s coming in the morning?” “Does Benny have school today?” Those are the two questions that Hadassah asks me on repeat. Her little life revolves around her social schedule. =D She likes to know who is coming and when. “Do we have plans today, or is it just us?” “When is tomorrow? Is it after naps?” Benny is the oldest of the 3 C— kids. They live off compound, and Benny has kindergarten from 8-11am 4 days a week, which means that his mom and younger siblings often come to pick him up. Sometimes they stay while Benny practices piano at the guest house after school, which means that the squad of small C—s and Burkholders can play and ride bikes together. “Judah and Ruthie didn’t show up today!”

This week the C— house was being bug-bombed, so they stayed on compound in guest housing for a few glorious days in which the crew were inseparable. Judah and Hadassah even ran across what may have been a green mamba while playing near the paillote (large gazebo structure for open-air meetings). They both ran, Hadassah farther than Judah, and a gardener dispatched the snake with a stick. Thank you, God, that You are everywhere when I cannot be!

It was quite a week for calamities. This past Sunday morning, Hadassah and Noah rubbed a toxic white substance from some bushes in our new flowerbeds all over their faces, “like sunscreen!” They got some serious rashes to go along with the ever-present heat rash. (PS – good ol’ baby powder works a treat for heat rash. Who knew?)

*the offending bush:* Euphorbia tirucalli, also known as pencil cactus or milk bush

By the way, nous avons déménagé. (We moved!) We originally only signed up for 6 months to give ourselves an exit plan in case things didn’t work out, and the house that we were living in was needed for another long term family that will be coming next month. (We extended our stay until mid August.) This was our easiest move yet – right across the yard. It’s laid out exactly like our old house, just a teensy bit smaller, so it very quickly felt like home. Thankfully the children were excited about the move and haven’t been nearly as attached to our old house as I thought they might be.

Other big news – at the age of 10 and a half months, Rafi has his first tooth! It’s on the bottom, and there’s another one coming to keep it company. He likes to replenish his electrolytes by sucking mine off my face, but now he can bite!

*cashew fruit and cashew nuts – the fruit is edible but the outer shell on the nut is toxic*

Unfortunately cashew fruit season is coming to an end, much to Noah’s disappointment. Every day on our walk he and Rafi consume copious quantities – one day Rafi ate 5! Well, sucked the juice out at least. They’re pretty fibrous so actually chewing them is an investment. Now we move on to mango season: the one bright spot of hot season. The wild mangos are available already, but the larger grafted variety is still coming, The wild mangos are delicious, but you need to floss your teeth after eating them because they’re pretty stringy. We’ve been enjoying them in smoothies!

*wild mango tree during dry season (March/April)*

*cultivated mango being grafted onto a wild mango stump during rainy season (July/August)*

Saturday afternoon I went on a little adventure about 45 minutes north of here near Dapaong with Adam and Faith D—, their 4 kids, a nurse visiting from the States, and another MK (missionary kid) friend. Rafi came along so there were 10 of us in a Land Rover. We probably could’ve squeezed in a few more. The occasion was a visit to the lookout over the reservoir to take some graduation pictures for one of the girls. (There are 6 seniors graduating this year.) The pictures went well and I enjoyed getting behind the lens again. Rafi hung out with Uncle Adam and was a real trooper. It was of course very warm, so on the way home we stopped at a Total station for ice cream treats and cold sodas. The ladies in the boutique had never seen a white baby before so they were very enamored and one even bought Rafi a yogurt. They were also busy trying to arrange marriages for all of Adam’s children, as one does. Back in Mango we stopped to buy some Ramadan donuts – a special treat this month around sundown when the Muslims are breaking their day-long fast. I don’t know how they do it in this heat with no food AND NO WATER all day long.

Sunday, 3/16/25

Ryan was off work, so we all went to church (the local French-speaking Baptist Togolese church) together on the moto. Church can feel a little pointless when you only understand half of the service (me) – or none at all (Ryan) – and the children are wiggly, and it’s freakishly hot, but I firmly believe that there is still benefit in showing up. Showing up shows me that the assembly of the believers is important to me. That I am choosing to put my own comfort aside for the good of the whole. Demonstrating to my children that church matters.

Made a simple lunch of hashbrowns and eggs and sauteed peppers/onions. Took some naps. Ryan played handball in the afternoon and then took the children to the pool so I could go on a walk by myself. We quickly got ready for the English missionary service at 6:30. Ryan had to leave part way through to start a night shift at 7pm. This started a string of 3 nights. I can’t say that I love night shift. I really miss having an extra pair of hands to get everyone to bed in the evenings, and the children really seem to have a hard time going to sleep when he’s working! Like, 10:30-11pm hard. And then trying to keep them quiet the next day so he can sleep is often a losing battle. I know Ryan enjoys the purer medicine of night shift without all the people drama, but the logistics are difficult with young kids.

A beautiful moment: Hadassah and Noah were singing together for the longest time in bed while they waited to fall asleep. I have always been an insomniac myself and clearly remember doing the same thing when I was a kid.

Noah, while pretending to drive a golf cart: “I going to ‘Merica!”
The children have an interesting concept of “The United States.” They’re very proprietary about it and often refer to it as “OUR United States,” like when we were reading a book about Helen Keller and Hadassah asked, “Did she live in OUR United States?”

Hadassah, when I said I was going to put the candy somewhere out of sight: “I want to watch you put the Smarties out of my reach!”

Monday, 3/17/25

Madame F comes on Mondays at 8am. She came today and did a great job of cleaning the house, as always. Clean floors make me feel like a rich woman. They’re usually dirty again by day’s end, but for a few glorious hours, they are clean. No footprints in the dust when water gets spilled or someone’s feet get wet in the shower.

I was intending to try to stay up and get some things done, but after lunch the siren call of naptime lured me to bed in the AC. When we woke up I made pizza dough by hand to make pepperoni pizza for supper! Mom sent a box of goodies with some visitors from the States. It would probably look like a pretty odd assortment to some of you, but pepperoni and parmesan cheese and Ranch powder are gold here. =D

Tuesday, 3/18/25

Tuesday is a free day – oh, the joy! We started off the morning with a child stealing candy and lying about it despite irrefutable evidence. That was fun.

I got out later than usual and took a very hot walk. Anything after 9:30 starts to become an exercise in endurance. After lunch I took the children to the pool, and then we all crashed for naps. I went into a very deep sleep and woke up to my phone reading 5 o’clock. Whoops. A late night, swimming, and then air conditioning made for a lethal combination. Supper became some sourdough starter pancakes and mango milkshakes.

Ryan went to work at 7pm again, and we had multiple poop incidents. I feel like our time in Africa has involved SO MUCH POOP.

Wednesday – 3/19/25

And so we come full circle.

Wednesdays mean French lessons and Madame P. She is a dear Christian Togolese woman with the most bubbling personality you’ll ever see, and she serves as our nanny on Wednesdays from 8am – 2pm. We met her when she was nannying for another couple with an 18 month old who were here when we arrived. Madame P does a wonderful job, understanding the assignment and providing North American style care in a culture where children often fend for themselves. (Or are cared for by their older siblings. When I left the children with Madame F, my cleaning lady, for an hour, I came back to find Hadassah happily pushing Rafi in the stroller quite a ways away from the house, and doing a bang up job of it too. I was not comfortable with this as a long term solution, however.)

Ryan worked last night and had a rough shift with three deaths. Thankfully he was around to watch the children while I went to my French lesson at 9am (since Madame P had a family emergency). I have a lesson every week with I—, a Togolese man who knows several languages and is a great teacher. Quite a few of the missionaries and their children study either French or one of the local languages with him. This is my first opportunity since high school and music camp to do some kind of formal study, and I’ve really been enjoying it (although it can be hard to find time to do homework!). I took three years of French in high school so I have a lot of the basic grammar already (although a big refresher was needed on all the verb tenses especially!), but I was never fluent in spoken French. I can read it quite well and can understand 50-60% of spoken French, but formulating sentences and giving voice to them is where I fall the shortest. The Togolese accent is difficult for me to understand as well. I liken it to French being spoken with a southern accent. =D The missionaries are easier for me to understand because I’m more familiar with their accents and they tend to speak more slowly.

I’ve noticed that my brain goes in spurts, kind of like a developing child’s. I’ll go through periods of a week or two where my brain is constantly trying to think in French and translate everything I’m thinking in English. It’s exhausting…and then all of a sudden I’ll notice a big leap forward in my comprehension and the speed at which I can formulate useful sentences.

Lately I’ve also been using Duolingo to practice. I don’t think I would recommend it to someone trying to learn a new language as I would personally prefer something more comprehensive and structured, but since I’m just using it for review and increased familiarity with common turns of phrase, it’s great.

This morning the children and I slept in until 8, which was so nice for something different! They didn’t fall asleep last night into 10:30 or 11. Rafi has really been sleeping better lately, and I’m not sure what the difference is but I’ll take it. He has been our worst sleeper so far despite being a very easy baby in all other respects. Part of the problem is that I never got around to completely sleep training him…either due to my lazy parenting with a third child or the fact that we had just changed continents around the time that I sleep trained my other children, I’m not sure. Anyway, his frequent wakings during the night mean that I rarely have gone without an afternoon nap since he was born, which has really cut down on my free/quiet time to work on personal projects. I was scared to use coffee for a caffeine pick-me-up because Hadassah and Noah were both very reactive to it, but I’ve been experimenting with a bit here and there lately and haven’t noticed any ill effects so maybe we’re past that now! This afternoon I eschewed my nap, drank some instant coffee with milk, and caught up on some housework, mopping a dirty floor, bleaching and prepping vegetables that Ryan picked up at market, etc. I love having some quiet time to recharge and listen to an audiobook. Currently I’m on #3 of Charles Martin’s Murphy Shepherd series. Highly recommend.

The children woke up from their naps around 4pm. Some of Hadassah’s friends were soon knocking on the door asking if she could play, so she and Noah went outside. I was inside with Rafi working on French fries and meatloaf for supper when I noticed a storm kicking up outside. We have been hot and dry and rainless for months, and the rains aren’t really even supposed to start until next month, and then only sporadically. But grey crowds covered the sky, and the wind was whipping, and the air changed. I heard something on the tin roof but thought it was probably just leaves and other debris; it can sound pretty convincing. But I went outside and lo and behold, there were a few sprinkles! I ran inside and grabbed Rafi and together we stood out from the protection of the porch and a big fat raindrop plopped itself right into my upturned hand. Oh, the joy! Others were pouring out of their houses as well, palms lifted in earnest expectation. To be honest, there was a lot more dust swirling around than moisture, and my clean floors got gritty again, but the air cooled off beautifully and it was a memory to treasure.

Noah: “God make it rain!”
Yes, He did indeed.

While supper was in the oven, I took the children over to the “farm” on compound to dump our scraps for the bunnies. There are lots of babies in varying stages of growth, and I managed to catch one each for Hadassah and Noah to hold. When we had terrorized them adequately, we released them and went back home to quickly eat supper before prayer meeting. I was even able to get the dishes washed before we had to leave, which was quite an accomplishment. I do miss my dishwasher. Too often I end up doing dishes at 10pm, or worse yet, leaving them until the next day, when they also don’t get done until 10pm. Maybe it’s just me but it seems like I cannot stay on top of the housework. More often than not, laundry doesn’t get folded for 3 days and my husband is wondering around in his underwear inquiring about washcloths to take a shower. There are just often more pressing needs to take care of – like poop, or sustenance – and when I have a moment to myself I think, “But folding laundry is something I can do when the children are awake.” And then – surprise – it isn’t.

*taking compost to the bunnies, African style*

Prayer meeting: we break up into groups and our group meets every Wednesday at 7pm, alternating between two houses, both on our little quarter mile of red dirt road. Biking to prayer meeting under the moon is a neat experience. I really appreciate the prayer meetings here. We always start by going around the circle and every person praising God for something. Thanksgiving is also included, but I love the emphasis that is put on praising God for Who He IS, not just for the things He gives us. #humanism We also take time to share from the different ministries we participate in and pray for them, personal prayer requests, and sometimes even the separate tribal groups located in this area. It’s a good prayer meeting. A few songs and sometimes Scripture readings are interspersed as well.