We had a normal start to the day and then it went sideways. As we were sitting down to breakfast, Messah, one of our OVPs, said that Laurent had called and said to delay our departure by half an hour. We were told that this was because the truck carrying the mattresses and bedkits was delayed on the road to Kpalime. We all thought that it was a mechanical issue, only to learn when we got to Yokele for the distribution that it was because the President was going to be using the main NNW road to Kpalime and that all heavy goods trucks were banned from using it.
As such, we used the time to entertain the children with music, singing, blowing bubbles, tossing a Frisbee back and forth with them, and even playing soccer. There was no doubt that the Togolese teems from the local area were not affected by the heat and humidity as much as much Ian Culbertson was when he was playing soccer with them.
The AED truck with our bedkits and mattresses finally arrived at the sites to cheers from the recipients and from the members of our Travelling Volunteers and the OVPs [Overseas Volunteer Partners]. We all pitched in again to unload the truck and bag the mattresses so that they could be presented to the children.
We had started taking pictures of the children while the unloading was going on and had the children stay in one of the classrooms form until the kits were ready to be handout. Once they were, the team was able to hand the kits out to the children with their broad smiles and grins. Despite the delay, it was another great distribution as can be seen in this team photo as the 5,000th bedkit was handed out.
On the way back to our residence in Lome, we stopped at the Centre de Formation de Haute Couture – Heritier Eternal, which the tailor shop where the skirts and short for the 6,000 bedkits were sewn. The owner and master sewer welcomed us and the apprentice students sang and danced traditional Togolese songs. It was great to see where the clothes were made, but even better to experience the culture.
It the evening, we hosted our OVP team partners at “Les Nuits des Orients” restaurant in Lome. The food was delicious and it gave us an opportunity to know our partners better. They have done so much work to make this set of distributions a success.
Team Togo 2018
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