Post by Rick R.
These recent years working as a dishwasher and a server/caregiver are good reminders of my working-class roots. While paths my life has taken would have seemed unlikely when I was young, I must say I’ve been fortunate.
Houssou K. ABETE (1894 - 1961) Ancien Chef Canton de Sotouboua (La Prefecture Centrale du Togo) German colonization of Togoland (for 30 years, from 1884 to 1914) manipulated Togolese labor and geography for economic gain, causing significant internal displacement and forced labor. The large northern Kabiyé groupement (ethnic group) was known for a hard working agricultural ethos. German colonialists took note, deciding to force members of the Kabiyé ethnic group to move south to the underpopulated Région Centrale to develop its agricultural base (Houssou ABETE's Kabiyé ethnic group from the northern town of KOUMEA being among those forced to migrate to the Centrale Region, Houssou thereby becoming the founder of SOTOUBOUA). Ancien Chef de Sotouboua Houssou Abeté is the person sitting prominently front and center in this old photo. I know this because one of Chef Houssou Abeté's numerous sons - tall, thin Abeté Jacques, in his late thirties or early forties when I knew him - is the person who gave me this photo. Just as he was handing it to me, Jacques Abeté took a moment to mark an X on the photo with a blue ballpoint pen - the X showing his father, l'Ancien Chef de Sotouboua, Houssou K. Abeté. I was honored to receive such a treasure from Jacques Abeté in late 1971 - ten years after the death of his father Chef Abeté. A month after giving me this photograph, Jacques Abeté himself sadly died - reportedly from a bout of malaria (un coup de paludisme).
