Pandemic worsens Waterville diversity crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak economic havoc on the world. Numerous organizations across the United States like the Center for American Progress and the American Action Forum have documented how minorities have disproportionately shouldered the medical and economic effects of the pandemic. The New York Times reported on these challenges in an article titled “The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequality of the Coronavirus” on July 5. The Times also reported on June 18 that black-owned small businesses have been hit particularly hard. 

Mé Lon Togo (translates to “I Love Togo”), a traditional West African restaurant with locations in Waterville and Searsport, Maine, has been no exception. Colby African Music Professor, Messan Jordan Benissan, is the founder and owner of Mé Lon Togo.

According to Benissan, he was the first restaurateur to open up a West African restaurant in Maine. However, his business has been hurt significantly by the pandemic, and Benissan has been forced to close his Waterville location.

“I only could afford to keep the restaurant if I was operating, and I was not operating for three months,” Benissan said. “I was also not qualified to get any of the pandemic stimulus package, so I did not get any money from the government.”

Benissan explained that his interest in cooking began at a young age and was nurtured by his family.

“I occasionally helped my mom in the kitchen, so I watched her and learned the type of dishes she was making,” Benissan recounted. “I started making those dishes and the end result has been always very impressive.”

Originally from Togo, Benissan remains proud of his accomplishments in exposing students and patrons to West African culture and cuisine. 

“I was the first West African master musician to bring traditional West African music to Colby and being very successful teaching that and [building] a community around it,” Benissan explained. “I love teaching because I think it is very important for institutions such as Colby or [universities] to put emphasis on teaching nontraditional European disciplines at college level and [making] sure they are one of the main academic disciplines.”

Benissan has taught at McAllister College in St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as at Bates and Bowdoin. He believes that teaching African music helps students celebrate diversity and acknowledge and engage with otherwise overlooked disciplines.

“If we are to fix the problems we are facing today at colleges and universities, they need to step up and give young people the opportunity to sit in front of a professor or artist that is from a different part of the world and learn something that is very important, something they are not going to get otherwise,” Benissan said. “If everything is focused on science and European art and European music, then we are not learning from one another.”

Benissan believes that opening students’ eyes to the diversity present in our world is crucial to building a just world. 

“It is by engaging [with] other professionals from different parts of the world who have developed a highly regarded intelligence either in art or music [that] we can really teach young Americans something.” 

Benissan went on to say that it is important for people to ask if “there is anything from another part of the world that will help them.” 

According to Benissan, “the rest of the world has a lot to offer also, but it’s been ignored, so that’s why we have problems. Because people from around the world, they have some good ideas also about how we can learn together, and improve, and get along, and appreciate one another and have respect for one another, and institutions are failing society because they are not putting emphasis on that.”

Benissan used his restaurant as another way of encouraging diversity beyond his teaching career. 

“I opened up my restaurant as a support system for diversity and also [as an] educational institution to educate people about West African cuisine,” Benissan said. “European people don’t really think that, for example in West Africa, that we don’t have any kind of gastronomic reputation we do . . . we do have a gastronomic reputation but the thing is it’s nice for somebody like me to come to the U.S. and open up a restaurant.”

Benissan did note that opening a restaurant can be a difficult enterprise at the best of times.

“It is a real serious challenge and that’s why you don’t see . . . many African chefs in the U.S. In that regard, it means if I am to succeed, I need support,” Benissan explained. “So, it is a very good place to engage [in] dialogue between students, faculty, and community people also. But, for example, if there is no support coming from Colby, Colby can really help if they were involved in helping small businesses succeed and flourish in Waterville. A good support would help small businesses like mine who’s bringing diversity to Waterville.”

However, Colby offered Benissan no institutional support during the beginning of his operation. 

“I did everything on my own. I didn’t get any help from Colby,” Benissan said. “Even after I opened the restaurant – it’ll be almost a year in June – I have only seen a handful of people I know from Colby.”

Benissan explained that he did receive support from his students and credited the rapports developed during his classes, saying “[students] will go out of their way to do anything to help to support.”

The devastating impact the pandemic had on Benissan’s business was compounded by his landlord’s recurring attempts to force rent money from him.

“He’s unreasonable,” Benissan said. “Not willing to work with me, especially during the pandemic, he has been harassing me almost every week. Calling me asking for rent money, pushing me to go borrow money to pay his rent.”

“I asked him whether he’s planning on helping me out or reducing rent, or letting me reopen when we reopen and then pay back rental,” Benissan recounted. “He said he was going to send me a letter, and I got some certified mail from his lawyer asking me to come up with the rental – that’s almost four months and that’s eight thousand dollars I don’t have.”

“I realized that if I have a lender like this, then it’s not going to be a good decision to stay in that space, ‘cause this was not even my fault,” Benissan said. “It’s not even worth it to stay and deal with an unreasonable lender.”

Even as the shutdown took its toll on his business and he was harassed by his landlord, Benissan was not helped directly by Colby. 

“I don’t know if I really have anybody [at Colby] who I know to call,” Benissan said. “I don’t really know anybody who would come to my rescue at Colby even though I’ve been there for twenty years.”

However, Benissan was contacted by a food blogger from Portland, Maine, after he posted that his Waterville location was closing on Instagram.

“When he saw that we posted that I was going to close because of the pandemic, then he right away reached out to me and asked me if I needed help,” Benissan explained. The blogger helped him set up GoFundMe to raise money so that Benissan could relocate and reopen. “If I did not get this help, I do not think I would do anything after this,” Benissan said. 

The GoFundMe in Benissan’s name has been deactivated after raising $16,665.

Benissan was amazed that the food blogger and others who contributed to the GoFundMe were so helpful.

“It was very hard to believe that people I don’t know, that I’ve never seen before, would step up so quickly like that,” Benissan said. “So that really made me feel good that there are some people out there who really care what I am doing in Maine and they want me to keep this thing in Maine.”

Benissan was, however, disappointed by the circumstances that have forced him to close.

“Well, you know I was really enjoying the progress I was making in Waterville until the pandemic,” he said. “I was getting a lot of followers from all over to Waterville and customers who were dedicated to coming to the restaurant once every two weeks. They were recruiting a lot of people every time they came, and they said they really wanted to see me succeed. It was a good feeling that people were responding to what I was doing and it really made me feel encouraged. It is too bad that things are ending this way.”

When asked about his future plan’s Benissan said there was a possibility he would return to Waterville someday to reopen.

“I mean, if people have some ideas or suggestions about how I could come back to Waterville, I am open to that possibility,” he said, “because it’s been something that’s been needed for a very long time until I brought it to Waterville.”

Benissan does plan to continue teaching at Colby, if possible.

“Teaching is something I love, and I think I am really making a contribution and changing something in my own small way because I care about making a contribution to humanity,” Benissan said. “I think my teaching has opened up eyes and hearts to African music and culture.”

~Conall Butchart `22