Le chef
The garbage crew came in the morning with le chef de la poubelle dressed in a chef’s hat and apron over his chic black jeans and flip flops. The crew chief ‘s outfit was no practical joke- just practical, I expect. Bronwyn explains that in Togo and elsewhere, this is reffered to as “dead yovo” clothes. The outfits are castoffs, say, the clothes that can’t get sold at American Goodwills and are sent in bulk here for the Africans. The Africans imagine that the people who sent the clothes must be dead, why else get rid of good clothing? Sometimes they end up in odd places like a chef’s hat on the chef, or part of a Burger King uniform on a man in the bush in Togo.