Dear Togo, Let Me Count the Reasons for My Love

1) Guacamole on fresh baguettes. 

2) Taxis didn’t honk at us. They didn’t try to over charge us. They didn’t lie about knowing where things were. 

3) The gutters were covered.

4) No one came up to us for the sole purpose of speaking to us in a language we didn’t understand and laughing at our blank stares.

5) People gave us space. They didn’t stare. They didn’t yell. They didn’t mob. They didn’t harass.

6) Their Fanchocos (frozen chocolate milks) tasted like if you somehow made a brownie into the best ice cream ever.

7) The air smelled delicious and not like fish and sewage. 

8) We weren’t dragged into one shop.

9) I got to speak French. (Kind of.)

10) Everyone went above and beyond and out of their way to help us. Whether it was figuring out where we were going in our broken French or getting us to the closest bakery stat, everyone was full of hospitality like I’ve never seen in my life.

The best example of this was our taxi driver from the mountain where we took the hike back down to Lome, the city on the border of Ghana. It was a shared taxi, which means there is a set price and a set route. He got to the end of his line when we asked him where the nearest bakery was. 

He told us to get back in the Taxi and he’d take us. We asked him how much and he said no no. We thought he was doing the Ghana thing where people don’t want to tell you the price to get somewhere and then try to charge you an arm and a leg upon arrival. What he was actually saying was that he would take us there for free.

Once we got to the bakery he told us he wanted to walk us in. He walked us in on his injured foot and asked where we were going next. We said the border but that we’d probably just take motos (motorcycle taxis. Oh add that to the list. Motos are the greatest). He once again said this was no good. I thought he was wanting to guilt us into paying him to take us to the border in exchange for his kindness (vehicles are 2-3 more times expensive than motos).

Wrong again, he thought leaving us on our own with no ride was no good. So he asked the owner of the bakery to call and negotiate motos for us when we were done eating. He then shook our hands and headed out.

My heart was all warm and happy, and those were the kinds of things that happened consistently all weekend. 

Togo, you’re the best. 

beach, baguette, birkies

Kuma-Kunda

After our stay in Lome we headed up to the mountains where the were rumors of hikes and butterfly gardens. Have you ever cut your way through a rain forest using nothing but a butter knife in the search for insects? It was a fantastic stay. Our guide was great, the village was all too sweet, and the mountains were breathtaking. And there's nothing quite like a motorcycle ride through rain forest roads.

All these paintings are made using leaves... you'll see.

Slap this fern on you!

And get a cool fern tattoo. 

Rubber!

There was this sad moment where I thought about all the 

people who lost life and limb over something so simple. 

The grasshopper whose face looks like an African mask.

Our first butterfly!

Up in the mountains. 

Natural sand paper.

You can actually do some serious damage with that stuff.

Pretty.

Pineapple! In its natural habitat. 

This was once a green leaf.

Crush it up and you get red paint.

That's how they make those paintings.

Inside of this bark is orange.

Painting.

Hurray for butterflies.

Oh gosh.

At this point I was just impressed with his insect

whispering abilities. What a pro.

Crazy rain forest disease.

That is my friend being all graceful and stuff in that tree.

Just moments before I tripped on a vine and fell out of said tree.

How????

On the upside, I can now say I tripped off a waterfall in Fiji and out of a tree in Togo.

We found avocado and mango in the forest and feasted.

Using the same butter knife used to cut through the forest.

So multi-functional!

Orange lichen? Mold? Fungi??

This is what I mean by cutting our way through.

Our guide used nothing but his butter knife.

Do you see any real path?

Yeah, me either.

And I have the scratches to prove it.

Cool picture of grass.

Psyche!

That stuff cuts you like a razor.

How crazy is that?

It felt like one of those stretchy ball things.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Does it get better?

The answer is no.

Moral of the story is that the only thing better than a hike through the rain forest is a guided hike through the rain forest. He showed us so many cool things. Lots of things that aren't shown here too because it was more fill-your-head-with-cool-facts stuff than anything visual. We got to smell the plant that gives us black licorice! So many things I never knew came from the rain forest!

Akodessewa Fetish Market

Fetish markets and voodoo and all that jazz originate in West Africa. That's why you've heard of it in America. Voodoo came over with the slaves. The Akodesseawa Fetish Market is considered the largest fetish market in the world. As I was in Togo I figured I shouldn't let this opportunity pass me by. It was interesting, not really what I was expecting either. Mostly just a lot a lot of dead things, each with its own purpose and power. I don't suggest looking at this post if you love animals, like animals, or are even apathetic toward animals. Also, if you get nauseous easily. 

Our guide.

He tried to convince me to hold the bird head and he'd take the picture.

Yeah.

Rawr?

Chameleons as far as the eye could see.

So many mixed feelings.

Voodoo.

They were just all these little guys with nails in them.

Just your casual delivery of dried-rats-in-a-box

mmmhmm.

So many heads.

He was actually kinda cute.

Edgar Allen Poe?

Kid chillin' with a hippo.

Porcupine quills. 

For asthma he said.

The End.

No pun intended. 

Bus Station Justice

Anyone who knew me growing up knows I was never exactly a beacon of patience. Waiting for things was never really my style. I’ve gotten a little better, maybe just older, in college. Ghana has been the pinnacle of this, though. I’m as cool as the average bucket shower. I’m patient beyond all belief. We all have our breaking points though.

I headed to Togo this weekend with a friend. We were warned by another friend that the people who exchange money at the border will try to steal and or cheat you from the full amount they owe you.

I checked and recounted and watched my surroundings like a hawk. 

They still somehow shorted me 10,00 CFAs ($20). My friend also thought they stole 20 Cedi ($12) from her. We went back to our “friends”. I told them that they may not touch anything, they are just to watch, and I counted out 42,000 CFA. They owed me 52,000. Obviously caught in a lie they quickly handed over the 10,000 CFA. The real issue came when trying to get the 20 Cedi back. They obviously denied doing any such thing and pointed out that we could not prove that they had stolen it as they didn’t know how many Cedi we’d started with. What logic. 

What ensued was something like a ten minute rather heated argument where I said many awful things and called them many awful names. Whatever. 

At this point I was called over by someone else who asked what the problem was. Sometimes people are nice and like to help people with their problems. This was another money changer and thinking he may be able to talk to his friends I nicely explained the situation. 

He wasn’t interested in helping.

What he said was that I should forgive and forget. Just forget about it and move on. I asked him if someone stole 20 Cedi from him if he’d be upset. He looked up with his little smug face and said, no he’d forgive and forget. Thank you Mr. Thief for giving me a lesson on Christian values. Thank you for steering me away from that path of corruption I was obviously headed down.  

This was not a turn the other cheek moment. I’m not saying I’m proud of my actions, but I am saying I have no regrets. And it was kind of awesome. Ok, so maybe I’m a tiny bit proud. 

In my moment’s rage at being told to forgive and forget I bent over to where the man was sitting and grabbed 10,000 CFA off the top of his money pile turned around and walked away into the crowded station. 

Obviously I didn’t make it far.

There were instantly some 3 large Ghanaian men pulling me backward by my backpack. I spun around, looked them straight in the eye, slapped on a smile and said “forgive and forget!” and turned to continue walking. 

Two of the men were obviously surprised and walked away laughing leaving their friend to figure out the crazy white girl for himself. 

You know that scene in Christmas Story where the bully kid is yelling “Say uncle! Say uncle!!”

Well there I was in the middle of a hot, dusty, border town bus station yelling “Say you’re upset! SAY IT!” to some guy who had 15 years and 6 inches on me. He tried getting the money from my clenched fist, which was obviously fruitless, it’s like my three little brothers have spent their lives training me for this moment. I repeatedly told him that all he had to do was admit that he was upset and I’d give it back. He stubbornly kept saying things like “No, no, I’m not upset. Just please give it back. I beg you.” Unfortunately out-stubborning me is just not something most people are going to win at. He pleaded and I told him to say he’s upset for a good period of time. I only relented when he got a truly desperate look in his eyes. Like he was beginning to believe he was never getting his money back. It was pathetic and I finally decided that I value my time too much to be spending it with begging, sniveling thieves. 

Do I recommend forgetting that you’re a 5’6”, yellow-headed, weakling and getting in such altercations with people obviously void of any moral value? Not really. But do I condone the corruption, bigotry, and patriarchal nonsense that ruins things for all the truly wonderful people that inhabit this country I have grown to love? Absolutely not. And sometimes the latter just wins out over the former. 

SAY YOU'RE UPSET

Intimidating, I know.

Just to get you excited for Togo

This happened. 

I'll stop procrastinating now. 

It's The Final Countdown

I never thought I’d say this, I know just how crazy it sounds, but I miss finals at Berkeley.

Woah. 

Here’s what I’ve realized- finals are going to suck no matter what. It’s just a matter of deciding which sort of suckiness you prefer. 

The Berkeley Final- You regularly forgo sleep over the course of a semester just to have it end in a week or two of all nighters. You haul around books and readers dooming yourself to a life of chiropractic nightmares. You read and read and read, accept defeat, attend office hours, do problem sets, and by the end of classes maybe have something like a tenth of everything your professor has said mastered. You highlight you reread you redo the problem sets. You take a final and pray with all your might that you nail average. All hail being spectacularly average. 

The University of Ghana Final- You spend all semester trying your very best to decipher accents. You sit in sweltering heat with professors that may or may not decide to show up either physically or mentally. You hear rumors of readings but locating them is a whole other horse and pony show. Then, despite feeling like very little productivity has occurred during lectures, you pull out the syllabus because in the end you are being tested on that and really not much to do with lecture at all. Then comes the truly daunting part: finding all those forsaken books. Here. In Ghana. 

I have spent more hours tracking down books than actually reading books. There are many libraries here. Some you can check books out from, some you have to read there. And some books I swear are a fabrication of the professors imagination. The Berkeley proxy server doesn’t seem to work in Africa, so that means soliciting friends to pleasepleaseplease find me journal articles. It also means getting in near yelling matches with UG librarians who don’t want to let me check books out because I’m only here another month so it’s not worth their time to put books under my name. 

That’s like saying I only have a month left so may as well kick me out of the dorms now. Who needs a bed for their last few weeks anyway? Who needs books for finals? Silly Brit. 

Moral of the story- You can suffer the devastating stress and defeat of finals because you’re expected to learn more and be brilliant beyond your capacity or you can suffer the devastating stress and defeat of finals because your professors showed up to half their lectures and the library holds its books hostage.

BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR FINALS AMERICA. Ha. 

In other news, had a fantastic weekend in Togo this last week. I’ll get to updating on that as soon as I figure out the difference between an exegetico-theological study of Matthew, Johannine Literature, and the writings of Paul.