Sumaila Togo is the head of the Socio-Economic Division at my work with the Multifunctional Platform Project. He’s an interesting guy. He grew up in a Dogon village not far from the Burkina Faso border and knows the rural life very well. He did his schooling in Russia where he got a degree in International Law. I see his ice fishing pictures all the time. We’ve become good friends ever since I went to his house for dinner. He invited another EWB volunteer to his house but she got stuck in Malian transportation and couldn’t make it. Since his wife cooked enough food for another person he decided I would have to be my friend’s replacement. We spent the whole night watching home movies of Dogon festivals from the early 90s and I loved it! Although he has a full time job he volunteers for a small NGO giving them advice and helping them learn how to do good rural development.
The last few months we have done a lot of work together. We have been writing reports based on the big evaluation we did and trying to plan the next steps of the work we’ll do. This has taken us past Monday to Friday nine to five. Almost every Saturday we go to his little NGO’s office and get down to work. We’ve written reports together. Made the most complicated excel spreadsheets we are capable of doing. I’ve translated things from French to English for him and he’s translated my French into French for me. Last week he fixed my cell phone which apparently had eating a little too much dust and needed a little cleaning. He’s always messing around with some new computer gadget like turning his laptop into a television. It’s good to work with someone curious to try and figure things out together.
I really prefer working on Saturdays to well, not working. Actually working on Saturdays sucks but working with someone you like is always nice. I feel that I am able to do what I really want on Saturday with Togo. I want to build relationships. At the same time I want to work with people here to help them solve their problems. I want to empower people. I feel that Togo and I are able to empower each other, which is a pretty good deal.