About two months ago I started teaching two brothers named Herve and Sidjwon. I first got to know them by playing soccer with them on Saturday mornings with other members in the area. Herve is 16, Sidjwon is 14 and they both live with their aunt because their parents are gone. They don't speak the best french because they've only been able to go to school when their aunt has had extra money. (Side note: Here you pay the school daily or weekly so if you don't have money you might only go to school once a week, or one week out of the month). They were excited to get some education about the bible, english, and I helped them with their other homework. They live in a town called Zongo that's a littler farther away from Lome so we were only able to go out there about once a week.
In one of the lessons we were talking about chemistry, history, and what makes a sin a sin. After I had explained what a sin was they looked at me with very worried faces. They talked in hushed voices for a second and then Sidjwon hit Herve indicating that he had something to say. Herve turned to me with a very somber face and said in french "I think we're going to have to keep sinning every morning and every night, we kind of need to if we want to eat." I was a little confused by their response and agreed that everyone sinned everyday but we always have the opportunity to improve. He insisted that they couldn't stop that they did it every sunrise and sunset. I asked him to explain exactly what they were doing he just kept saying "We sin". I asked him to repeat what he was trying to say in Ewe to see if I could better understand. Turns out he was saying that they fished every morning and evening. To sin and to fish are the same words in french. After I figured out that that was what they were talking about I quickly explained that fishing isn't a bad thing to do. They have a drainage ditch/ stream right by their house. So after we cleared up that confusion about fishing and sinning we started talking about fishing and how they do it there. I was intrigued and wanted to try but we don't exactly have a lot of time to do stuff like fishing while we are here. I explained that to them and they were both pretty sad that they wouldn't get to show a white man how to fish in Africa. Seeing that they were upset I decided to make a deal with them; when they got baptized we would go fishing right after the baptism and stay out with them for the rest of the day.
That's exactly what happened last Saturday. I baptized both of them in the morning and then all of us head up to Zongo to hit the river (drainage river). Their poles were some bamboo sticks with string attached and a hook. We dug around the river found some worms and then we were set. I ended up showing them that apparently I am a master african fisherman. I caught 5 fish, Sidjwon caught 2, Herve caught 1, and everyone else combined caught 0. The fish were about as nasty looking as the water (see the attached pictures). That didn't stop us from frying them up that night and eating the with a healthy serving of pat.
Later while we were eating I got my call from President where I learned I'd be leaving Togo the next morning. Really thankful I got to spend my last night in Togo with Herve, Sidjwon, and the fish.
Hope you guys all have a great week.
