Adventures in Togo and Benin

As usual, a lot has happened since my last post. For one thing, school has ended and finals are beginning. Exactly one month from today I will be on my way back home to California. Part of me is of course sad to leave, while the other part can’t wait to be back on Zig Zag for a while. But, I still have 4 more weeks of adventure. Speaking of which, I am excited to finally write about my trip to Togo (the country bordering Ghana to the east) and Benin ( to the east of Togo).

October 24^th …

We (Miriam, Rebecca, Liberty, Matt, Kevin and I) arrived in Togo on Wednesday evening after a full day of travel, crossed the border on foot, and found a cab to take us to a hotel near Lome. Because it was dark, because we were tiered, and because our French was limited, we ended up paying 10 dollars to go 2 miles. “Well, it looked a lot further on the map” Rebecca consoled. At least we made it to hotel Le Galion, (which we would later refer to simply as “France” – because of the amazing food, the décor, and the attitude of the clientele). The next morning we woke up to the sound of rainfall and took a cab to the center of the capital city. Lome has a very different vibe than Accra. For one thing, it is much quieter. It lacked the kind of manic chaos that in my mind defines large capital cities. Right away I understood what the tour book had meant by “decaying colonial charm”. Togo obviously had at one point experienced a build up of infrastructure. A lot of buildings, roads, stoplights, and much fewer shanties, and shacks lining the roads. But everything we saw was old. Crumbling. Falling apart. Paint peeling. Metal rusting. It contrasted greatly to Ghana’s current development. Ghana is heading forward while Togo is slowly slipping backward.

After walking through Lome and checking out the cultural center, we spent some time at the Grand Marche (market). It was one of the more relaxed markets I have been to. No pressure. No cars. No foreigners. Only foot traffic. Women carried large stacks of clothe on their heads while men pushing carts full of produce or electronics. It began to sprinkle again and we found another taxi to take us to Togoville, the voodoo capital of Togo. The 6 of us squeezed into the tiny cab and arranged ourselves as comfortable as possible for the 1-hour ride from Lome – 4 in the back and 2 in the passenger seat.

We were dropped off at the edge of Lake Togo where we would have to get a canoe to take us across the lake into Togoville. We went for a quick swim in the beautifully calm lake and trekked through cornfields, houses, and mounds of dirt to get to the dugout, wooden boat. We crossed the lake at sunset and arrived in Togoville in the dark. The following morning, before we left for the Friday market in Vogan, we had breakfast – omelets – in someone’s backyard. We had been searching for something other than chicken and fish all morning. I’m not exactly sure how we ended up there, but before I knew it, three Togolese men were cooking us breakfast in the small dirt courtyard. They had arranged themselves under the metal overhang of a small, unremarkable house. a mango tree in the center with a clothes line connecting it to the mud brick building. The men took shots of gin while cooking our eggs.

The market in Vogan was truly breath taking. I have never seen a market as picturesque. Everything about it was beautiful. The colors, the people. It was so easy going. Crowded but manageable. Somehow it felt safe and calm. Women wearing large brimmed straw hats. No one really even noticed us (the only foreigners). It was as if they were too busy going about their normal activities that they didn’t have time to give us special and generally unwanted attention. There were people selling everything you could ever want (well, need). It was an outdoor market organized into sections – beads, livestock (goats, chickens, etc), fruits and vegetables, clothes, and then we came across the voodoo fetish section… It was like nothing I have ever seen. Live chameleons for luck. Skulls – birds, alligators, monkeys. Skins, bones, teeth, turtle shells. It was right in the middle of everything. Just another part of life in Togo in which -59% percent of the population have animist beliefs. The men invited us to sit down under their wooden awning to get out of the sun. They explained some of the fetish charms. Miriam and I ended up buying necklaces that were supposed to provide us with protection.

While we were exploring, we got separated from the boys. We found matt in the voodoo section, but couldn’t find Kevin and unfortunately our phones weren’t working. While walking around searching for the “tall obruni man in a bright pink shirt” we found a man with a bullhorn – preaching the gospel or trying to sell something (I couldn’t understand the French). Somehow Rebecca convinced the man to give her the bullhorn and she began shouting for Kevin. When there was no sign of him, she handed back the bullhorn. As we were about to walk away, the Togolese man decided to help us. He started yelling “Evan! Evan!” We all laughed and joined in trying to enunciate the K in Kevin. Before we knew it the whole market was laughing shouting “Evan! Kevin! Evan!” Man shouted. Needless to say, we finally found him.

After exploring the market, we decided it was time to head on to Benin. We got lucky and found a trotro to take us to the Togo/ Benin border. Comfortable but very bouncy. The driver was being kind of crazy, making sharp turns and passing other cars, reminding me of Indian driving. At one point, we were passing over a short bridge when our driver decided to overtake the car in front of us. Only there was another car coming in the opposite direction. Before I knew it we were facing a head on collision. On a bridge no less! I don’t know how we squeezed past the car at the last minute avoiding what could have been a very bad accident. Miriam and I looked at one another. “Maybe this voodoo stuff really does work” we decided, thinking of our newly purchased fetish necklaces. Finally we rolled to a stop near some a large group of trucks, not too far from the border. We had found out that the trotro break had gone out. I guess the driver had motioned to Matt during the drive that he couldn’t stop the car. Apparently, Matt suggested the emergency break. With an unease smile he indicted that the emergency break did not work either. “It is finished”. Upon hearing this, Miriam and I explained to the group how lucky they all were that we had bought or voodoo protection necklaces. However, I think the group consensus was that if the charms did actually have some kind of voodoo power, we wouldn’t have gotten into a brakeless trotro in the first place.

The trotro driver helped us find another car to take us into Benin. By this time we had crossed the border out of Togo, but had not yet passed the border to enter into Benin. Traffic at the border was awful. Jam packed. Bumper to bumper. We were at a complete standstill. The driver got out of the car in front of a restaurant bar. Becca had to pee and before I knew it we were all out of the car. After all, what was the point of sitting in a hot car when it wasn’t going anywhere? The boys ordered drinks while Miriam and I decide that we should at least watch to see when the traffic lightened up. We sat on the patio with a view of the car and started talking about the day. We got completely distracted until Becca came over and asked where the car was. Miriam and I looked up. It was gone. Shit. We ran to the side of the road and it was nowhere in sight. “I guess we will have to find another car”. Oh f*ck. “Our bags are in the car!!”. Shit. (at least I had my passport and valuables on me – Mom has taught me well J ). Miriam, Rebecca, and I ran through the street frantically searching for the white car. We caught up with the traffic, hoping that the driver couldn’t have gone too far. We found a security guard and in broken French tried to explain what had happened. By this time I was sure our bags were gone forever. He told us to calm down. “You don’t understand. We can’t calm down!” We kept running through the street. Dodging people and motorcycles as we ran. The vendors on the side of the road yelling at us. Found driver parked near the border with a bunch of other cars. Thank goodness. We all hugged him. Kevin, Liberty, and Matt found us with in 10 minutes. I guess everyone on the street was pointing them in the right direction – the direction the other obrunis were running. We paid the man, grabbed our bags, and crossed the border on foot. Before I could comprehend what had happened, we were in Benin.

To be continued…

Love from Accra!