Creepy Guy

I was walking home the other night and saw one of my student’s fathers sitting at the bar near my house and so I ended up sitting down to visit for a little while. I know this family well as they live down the street and I see them almost daily. I’ve eaten at their house several times and always have such a nice time. The father is a much older Australian and we both enjoy speaking English freely and not struggling our way through communication for basic things in French or Ewe (sounds like ev-ay). Visiting with him always reminds me of my dad’s unique friends.
Let me pause for a moment and describe what a bar is here in Togo, well all over West Africa for that matter. There is a small small cement room that could be used as a variety of boutiques or restaurants or bars. The people then add a stereo with HUGE speakers, a bar, a small refrigerator, some shelves behind the bar to stock a few bottles of alcohol, and a few beer posters tacked to the outside wall announcing the bar’s presence. Please note that you really can have your own bottle of alcohol, like in the Wild West, and pour your glass and then mark the bottle each time you’re there. You can also have your own page in the Bar Tab notebook at the bar if you know the right people. In some establishments there is also a table and a T.V. inside for the bar help. Then the classy part is how many tables and chairs they have and how dusty the street is. This bar in particular has five tables that each has four chairs. This is my street so I walk past at least four times each day so people kind of know me, including a large man named Rock who works there with his sister. One table is next to the building and four of the tables are separated from the bar by the very sandy street. I mean sandy as in even experienced moto riders fishtail all over. Oh and the four tables on the opposite side of the road are up against the tall cement wall that belongs to the Catholic Church. The street light is what illuminates this place as the blaring stereo may play anything from Bob Marley to Dolly Pardon or Elton John and Mariah Carey singing Michael Jackson cover songs. I can hear the music at my house down the street mixed with the singing from the Catholic Church and the neighbor’s chickens and ducks. There is only peace and quiet in the very wee hours of the morning and even then the surf from the ocean and the breeze come to claim their place to be heard. This is an amazing place for sounds, smells, and colors. I am always amazed that there are new things I experience yet it is comforting how familiar it becomes.
So I was visiting with my student’s father and I notice out of the corner of my eye, in the dark, that there was a man’s shape on the other side of the road and he was walking in a strange manner. Also take note that you always need to be aware of who and what is around you just to be proactive. This man paused on the bar side of the road next to the bar and was staring at me on the opposite side of the road. I felt weird but I’m white in a black country, people stare ALL the time. It wasn’t until he shuffled across the street and stopped in the road near our table that I actually turned and looked at him and what he was doing. He was standing with his pants pulled down, smiling, and playing with himself. I turned away to the dad and the dad got up and shoved the guy away. The man pulled up his pants and slithered off.
I mean this is on the top of ‘the gross, disturbing things that happen to you’ list in most places but really we acknowledged it as bizarre and then it became a joke the rest of the evening. Of course the dad insisted upon walking me home after our visit and I’m sure that this incident creeped him out too. We now refer to this strange man as “Masturbation Man”. YUCK!!!!