I have slowly been coming to terms in positive ways with my 30’s and learning to embrace those flecking greys as distinguished looking, meals in with friends as a genuinely ‘big night out’, and becoming more tidy as a good trait to be developing.

My job though can bring my age into sharp focus. I will always remember two young people I have worked with loads over the last 5 years pointing out with deep concern my grey hair just a few months before my 30th Birthday….”‘I remember when you used to look so young matt” they said.

Well, My youth has officially returned and it has been awesome to be young again this week. However this is not just because I am here at the African Youth Summit with loads of young people, or that according to the Africa Union, the official definition of a young person is up to 35, but because in fact its currently mid-february in 2002 in the Ethiopian Calendar….and that means I am 23.

Officially.

On long-haul flights, the little snacks you get your with your gin and tonic, or whatever your nerve dulling drink of choice is, are usually pretty boring, dry and over-salty.

So it was extremely exciting to get handed out quite simply the most fun plane snacks I’ve ever had.

Well done Ethiopian Airlines for having the best – it was a a highlight in the otherwise tedious same-ness of long-haul flying

I often have lizard friends on my travels most recently Lizzie and her family who I room shared with in Kanyakumari

Togo isn’t all hellhole prisons, and it seems that everywhere I look in Togo there are lizards. Literally everywhere. Many of them are brightly coloured, with vibrant markings who seem to be able to jump as well as they can run. Then there are also loads of brown dull ones who seem to be put on this earth simply to be chased all over the place at high speeds by the cocky brightly coloured ones.

Fun to watch but strange to understand. LG has just informed me that the colourful cocky ones are the males. Don’t know if thats true, but it certainly explains it.

We’ve been doing some advocacy training out here in Togo for young people, so its been good to try and be all ‘youth workerey’ in a totally different context (and language!) The first was in Lomé and was suitably youth workery as we stuck flip charts on trees, did moving evaluations and led the sessions outside amongst the cluster of sandy trees outside the Y office. All informal and safe.

Well, today we travelled up to Attakpamé, (check out his random youtube clip of the town) a small town in the centre of Togo to do another session with a group of young people there. Despite having insisted before hand we could do outside and we didn’t need desks or anything formal like that, the Y had hired a classroom for us to work in! Now I am totally addicted to flip-charts when i do session…it is my comfort and lifeline, so you can imagine I was horrified to be told there was none…just a blackboard!! To make matters worse, as i entered the young people were sitting neatly in rows on individual desks as formal as it is formally possible to be!!

Still, it was actually a great day and as I got progressively covered in chalk dust I found myself going back to the year I spent as a teacher in Zimbabwe. The school we were in was so similar – the smells, the sounds and dusty ground. As were the eager faces of young people so happy in their formal classroom and studious in their learning. I have my own opinions now on gap year kids going to ‘teach’ in developing countries, so because of this maybe I don’t appreciate actually what an amazing impact it had me, not only as a person, but in terms of my understanding of what I do now, and how much it has underpinned my life decisions since.

So thank you the people of Zongoro and the Daneford Trust for making it all possible so many years ago. It was because of you that today I found myself sweating in the heat of a hilly Togolese town, covered in chalk, speaking rusty French to a group of young people about campaigning and making do without my flipchart.

At the moment the only things i can write about Lomé prison is a list of adjectives. It seems impossible to write on the blog other then something that wold only downplay the conditions that people held there are kept in. Adjectives such as anarchic, medieval, noisy, claustrophobic, filthy and simply wrong.

As you come through the huge black metal gate in the stone arch of the entrance and are exposed to the courtyard that at first impression just seems like the busiest and noisiest african market you’ve ever seen. It then dawns on you that that is it…thats all the space there is other than the cells that must obviously surround it, but are totally blocked from view by the sea of people filling the ‘court’ . No guards are in sight. They stay ’safely’ out side the main prison.

The prison is meant to hold 500 inmates. The day we were there the chalk writings on the the inside of the stone archway say there are 1625 inmates. It also states that of these only 375 have gone to court and been tried and found guilty of a crime. The rest…they are waiting to be judged. Many have been here waiting for years. Young people, old people, children, petty criminals, innocents and murdered are all mixed up and it matters not if you have been given a 20 year life sentence for murder or are innocent and awaiting trial to prove this.

We are ushered into a small room in the stone archway where there is a room full of young people all of whom are being trained to be barbers. This is project we are developing and it was obvious it was the only thing in the prison. We chatted for ages with the guys, though the constant noise of shouting, bangs and the generally loud din made it difficult. It was no surprise when they said they could never sleep. Some talked of their crimes and how long they would serve, other hadn’t been tried yet, and other wanted to talk of their futures. BUt what they all wanted to talk about was the conditions. . They all said that food was the most worrying thing, as they are basically not fed and rely on visitors who bring food. Those without visitors have to rely on the ‘generosity’ of other inmates. They are all also terrified of getting ill. They say even if the guards let you leave to go the prison clinic here is not the medicines and man spoke of knowing inmates die of curable diseases.

One of the inmates then wanted to take us to his cell and through the courtyard. Only on entering it do you realise the utter crazyness of the place. It is rammed, with barely room for people to sit down, as groups of men talk, chat, shout, fight, wash, sleep, cook and sell things from small stalls they have set up on a ground constantly muddied by human waste and washing water. Clothes hang everywhere on make shift lines and in amongst the mayhem you can make out the doors to the ells, all which sleep over 60 people in. “We are like sardines” he told me, smiling as if knowing this was a ridiculous understatement. We went into his cell, which like the outside, was rammed with people and he showed us some paintings he had done. We then left pretty quickly as it was very obvious we were also not safe at all, 3 white people wandering around and I have to admit being pretty terrified as it dawned on me actually where we were and my mind filled with the terrifying possibilities of what could develop in this powder keg of a place. Men were suddenly running everywhere and shouting so we made our way out, hastily saying good bye to our new friends.

It is without a doubt the most awful place i have seen in all my years of travelling. I know we are supposed to not feel pity etc and be all pc and stuff, but sorry, its impossible to see this and not just find it inexplicable that it is allowed to go on and to leave feeling traumatised, angry and basically so sad for the people forced to live like that.

The sign above the prison proudly has a large EU flag on it. They funded (and are allegedly funding) a so called ‘redevelopment’ project of the prison. How they can allow this place to operate in its name made me even more angry.

It was 10.40 at night, and we were sitting in our open meeting room being encircled by baying mosquitoes debating the terms of a baseline study. We’d been at it since 8.30 in the morning, but at least we were all sipping a bottle of local beer. We’ve been staying at a catholic priests training school in the country, and as you can imagine, Togolese trainee priest are not exactly prima donnas, so neither is the accommodation fit for one. But if i needed to motivate myself in any way for the days of meetings, i just needed to remember our visit to the Brigade, the youth prison, which we saw just before heading back out here again. After all, that was essentially why we were here.

The brigade is small…well really small. We went to talk with the social worker there who our project supports and immediately I was shocked to find out that the brigade not only holds children accused of crime but also takes in other vulnerable children, such as those living on the streets. The state here is so unable to support them that this seems the best way to look after them. It is insanity as the regime here makes no differential between those held here judicially and those whom are here because they are just vulnerable.

We were first taken to the TV room which is the only place where they are allowed, other than their cells. It was dark and had an old TV blaring away to itself. It was empty because at weekends they are held in their cells the whole time and not allowed out at all.

We entered the courtyard between the cells and could see the faces of the detainees behind the bars, peeking out curiously at the visitors.

The rebel in me kicked in and i decided i was not going to make sure I didn’t get the ‘official’ tour. Then the youth worker in me kicked in, so I went over to chat to them in their cells. There were 8 boys in one cell – just go and chat to them i thought – but meaningful conversation is pretty impossible through a metal barred window. Still, they were all avid supporters of Arsenal (the Adebayor link you see) and were playing a game of cards that seemed to be at a crucial point. They all want to go back to school when hey get out, but when pushed they began to move away from standard responses. “There is nothing here to do at all..its just so boring..even the tele is rubbish as we only have 3 local channels and we can’t even go out at the weekends.” They all loved football, but there was simply no where for them to play, even if they would have been allowed too.

Seeing the reality of children behind bars and the obvious impact on the future it must have on them and their prospects, it seems crazy that so many are being incarcerated for such small and petty crimes, without any thought going into the psychological and physical effects on them as young people Yet its not just a Togo thing…or a distant problem…in the UK, we now lock up more children that any other country in Europe (Click to see stats). We have the resources to ensure they are not kept in the crowded conditions I’ve seen here in Togo, but we do not have the moral high ground at all to think that what goes on in the Brigade in Lomé is wrong.

If i will need any extra motivation, we are spending the morning in the real prison next week….I am sure that will provide it in abundance.

It was a moment of pure comedy genius.

We have had to do a fair bit of translating at our first weeks meeting, as there are two German participants who can’t speak French. So me, LG and Noxy have taken turns translating their English into French and visa-versa.  All good, but surely there was some room for comedy……or even some unintended religious irreverence.

Indeed there was.

LG was translating into French. The guy from Germany was, well shall we say, rather evangelical. As he began his speech it was not long before he turned “to a story from the bible”. I could see LG cringe thinking she’d struggle with the vocab as he launched into a min-sermon.  All was going fantastically well, until he said “Jesus is Risen”.

She paused, miss hearing him and asked him for clarification. “Jesus isn’t….?”

“Jesus is Risen” he replied a little bit more emphatically.

“Jesus isn’t” she retorted.

“Jesus is Risen” he said, this time with traditional charismatic hand gestures.

LG smiled, thinking she had finally got it and then began to say to the room rather triumphantly in French that “Jesus n’est pas..” to which the whole room piped up in exasperation saying “Non!, Jesus est Ressuscité!!!!”

There in that exchange of words caused by a simple misunderstanding of a translator was a summary of debate on the whole foundation of Christianity. The evangelical insisting that Jesus is risen, and the sceptic reply that Jesus isn’t. Comedy genius

The religious irreverence didn’t end there though. as later on that night, we realised Noxys room was decked out in the finest piece of religious kitsch I have ever seen; hands down (as seen in the piccie). At first sight it looked fine. A large crucifix on the wall with Jesus on the cross.  The genius was that when we turned the light off, Jesus glowed in the dark…..very brightly!

I always thought that running a wine bar in Paris for no profit and letting friends use it to play music and sell art was going to be my ‘Breakdown’ job; you know, the job you think you’ll do when all goes belly up and you need to just start again. Well, i now have a new one. I am going to man the land border at Aflao between Ghana and Togo, raising and lowering the rubber rope that constitutes the countries boundaries.

The border was quite simply chaotic, chilled, manic, confusing, logical, noisy and relaxing all at the same time. It seemed almost too cliched to be real. We joked that it was the sort of experience you had on a gap year and would then regale friends on your return for years with ‘this one time, we went through the Togo border and…” So I will spare you this, but you can imagine it was a brilliant experience. The officer even felt obliged to live up to stereotypes and try and bribe us, except he only asked for a bottle coke and he had already issued our visa!

We called our colleague in Lomé who said he would come to meet us but to just relax at the border, so we sat catching the rays on a wooden bench in no-mans land between Ghana and Togo, looking out to the sea, chatting and taking it all in. I then bought us drinks off a passing cart and waited there by the road leaning on a wooden post directing cars and lorries through the border as everyone seemed oblivious to everything going on. It odd to feel so relaxed in such chaos. That was it, that was to be my new breakdown job. If i couldn’t work the rope, then i could always sell bottled drinks from a wooden cart.

So you now know where to find me

A four hour drive from Accra to Lomé via the border town of Aflao is not exactly beautiful, so the thought of the driver putting on a Ghanan political chat show did not at first fill me with excitement. Little did I know I was about to hear the famous Matilda Asante

Now she makes Paxman look like a shy kitten in a new house. She was simply awesome as she took politician after politician apart one by one. She was not overtly aggressive though, just brilliant at reading between the lines and exposing them. You could almost hear the guys sweating at the other end of the telephone line as she prepared to ask her questions. “Are you saying then that you have failed in your responsibilities and duties for which we are paying you?” was one deadpan line she delivered, followed by another where he simply said “So, reading between your words, you have hoodwinked the electorate”. It is now wonder she has won numerous awards, including BBC Local On-Air Campaign of the Year.

I would encourage you to google her and see if you can see or hear any of her work.

I am often told that i flirt a lot: rarely told that i flirt well….

I am currently sitting in business class, sipping a fine red wine and enjoying my almost flat seat courtesy of the First Officer, whose name i actually can’t remember anymore. For once it has paid off. Me, LG and Noxy have just been personally escorted from our seats (in what i will now refer to as pleb class) to our new ones by the well dressed officer whose name i just can’t remember. Even listening to Coldplay is an enjoyable experience.

It all started when I did my usual tactic of flirting with the stewards, which has usually got me a few extra chocolate bars and on one occasion a bag full of plane wine to take to Sierra Leone, developed into a conversation about why i was flying to Ghana and what i was then going to do once I got to Togo. He seemed genuinely interested and told me the First Officer’s daughter was going to to Ghana to do voluntary work. I said wed be more than happy to talk to him if he wanted a chat. A bottle of extra red wine later (which would have been bonus enough) and he appeared next to us and we got into a chat about his daughter and her future work. I admit at this point Noxy took most of the lead, whilst LG was almost oblivious to it all, but once it was finished, as if asking us out on an illicit dates he said ‘would you be embarrassed if i asked you to come and sit in some free seats up the front?’. Embarrassed?!?! Ecstatic more like! For once it had paid off! As we left our stuff on his command, as if escaping from prison, he led us up front to our new fully reclinable seats, as we struggled to contain our childish excitement.

We live in our own world at times in this job,and it was nice to feel special and valued. I have often written about how it is very easy in our field to be so damn self-relective and PC that we often loose the bigger picture. Well, the First Officer whose name I am now really upset I still can’t remember due to the wine thought what we do was important job, he warmed to us in our talk and wanted to do something special for us.

Thank you First Officer. Not just for the seats, but for the recognition.