One day in Togo, West Africa, I returned home to find a group of village women gathered around my house.  The house was roofless.  Its corrugated lid lay thirty feet away. Inside, I found everything heaped in a pile at the center of the room.  Even the most fragile...

Sitting in my living room, Kodjo told me about a recent accident.  He said a truck had hit a married Peace Corps couple as they were crossing a small bridge on a motorcycle.  The two of them were friends of mine.  Kodjo said he had heard that they were headed home...

 But I want to get back to what happened to my roof. To describe Kpagouda – or any of Togo for that matter – as ‘superstitious’ doesn’t do it justice. Togo and Benin, its next door twin, are the birthplaces of Voodoo.  Here tree spirits are very much alive. If you...