"Ca Donne La Force"

You're warned before coming to Peace Corps Togo that much of West African culture places a big emphasis on drinking alcohol. Are you, the applicant, okay with this?

It's a tough line to walk. Drinking at the market with my neighbors has been an incredible key to integration - they appreciate that I'm excited about something so culturally important to them, and a drink sure helps my local language flow a little more fluently. After school meetings, it's expected that we share a drink, my director sometimes treating us to a real bottled beer (warm, of course - no electricity to power a fridge). However, setting a precedent like that can become a little less comfortable when I find myself encouraged to share a round during recess, before my last two classes, or to help wake us up in the morning before my family heads off to the fields for the day ("ça donne la force" - a drink gives you strength!). It's a balancing act, and a good lesson in big cultural gaps.

In the south of Togo, everyone drinks Sodabi, which is a moonshine made of distilled palm wine. But here in the north, it's tchakpalo (which is, unexpectedly, the French word. In Moba, we call it "dam.") Tchakpa is a beer brewed with millet or sorghum, a major crop here.

Tchakpa, though enjoyed by everone, is women's work. Most of the women in my village brew it, and I sometimes see older girls from my classes proudly selling their own tchakpa at the market.

Brewing is a process of several days. First, millet grains have to spend a day or so in a big clay jar of water in order to germinate. After that process has finished, the millet is piled into giant metal marmites which are then filled to the brim with water. A stalk from an okra plant is added to give a certain je-ne-sais-quoi (but really, je ne sais quoi), and the whole mixture is boiled for a few hours, until the water is more like millet juice. The liquid is scooped into big clay jars to cool overnight, and the sapped millet is drained, and then tossed to the pigs for a delicious breakfast.

The next day, the pre-tchakpa (which is drinkable already) is moved back to the marmites where it's boiled again, along with the yeasty remains of yesterday's brew (usually purchased from a neighbor) in order to get some good fermentation going on. The tchakpa is left to cool overnight and, voila, is ready to be presented to a sleepy Peace Corps volunteer in her pajamas at 7:00 am.

Slaving over the tchakpa stove

Because it's all done at home, and the fermentation process continues throughout the day, you can never be sure how strong the tchakpa you're drinking is. Sometimes one calabash (the dried gourd bowls it's drunk from) is just a pleasant way to pass the time, and other times, one calabash will knock me out for the rest of the night.  Some tchakpa mamas add hot pepper to their brew, which supposedly increases the potency of the alochol (and also, according to my village friends, gives you diarrhea).

Tchakpa is one of the most important - or at least ubiquitous - staples of Moba culture. It's everywhere. Sold in paillotes at the market, crowdsourced at funerals to get a good block party going, and offered to neighbors who come over to help with work, or just to talk, it's an inescapable part of every day life.

Fortunately, it's delcious.

My village market, where tchakpa is sold every Thursday and Sunday (and, really, most other days too)

Mama in her Sunday Market best, sitting on her stool, serving up calabashes of Tchakpa to neighbors.