Togo Memory #6: Those wet spots on the road

It was the year that Rachel Phillips was here teaching.  She noticed EVERYTHING about the environment around us and always asked a lot of “Why and what?” questions.  More than once she made me think about answers to questions I had never thought of about Togo. She and I walked 2 or 3 times a week in the early mornings.  Sometime in late January/early February during the height of the dry and dusty season, we were walking along and she said, “What are all of these wet spots on the road?” as she walked around them.  “Should I step on them?  Are they ok?”  I had been walking on these roads at this point for 6 years in the dry season and for some reason had never really thought much about those wet spots.  “Well, I guess they’re just animal urine…” I began and then I opened my eyes to the details around me as I noticed most of the wet spots were near the edges of the road and at that moment two men just woken from a long nights’ sleep on opposite sides of the road were shaking their “things” as they zipped up their pants, turning to walk back into their houses/huts.  “Actually, the spots on the side of the road are from the men,” I said kind of chuckling at the irony of it all.  I’ve watched men (especially) urinate alongside the road for years but had never made the correlation that the wet spots on the dusty roads during the dry season were from them.  Well, it made me not want to even be tempted to wear my shoes inside once I got home.  I still shake my head in a smirk of somewhat amazement when I walk over the wet spots in the dry season in the early morning.  (In the rainy season the dirt’s wet everywhere so I can kind of forget )

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