The Adventures of Akosua and Rasta

I wish I spoke French. New goal. I should master my German first, but I feel like if I ever want to come back to West Africa, French would be super useful to know. Not that we were lost the whole time in Togo, because it was surprisingly easy to get around, but I think I would just feel like less of a jackass walking around speaking English in an area where they mostly speak French and Ewe.

Anyway, our adventure began on Friday morning, when we caught a trotro to Aflao, which is the city on the border of Ghana and Togo. It should have only taken about 3 hours to get there, but it took more like five. About halfway into the ride, one of the back tires blew out. It was completely shredded. And it was quite alarming just driving along listening to music, then I just hear a loud CLUNK and we're all of a sudden lopsided and smelling burning rubber. Mmm. So we all get out so the driver can change the tire, which took about 20 minutes because there was some problem with the car jack or something, and then we all pile back in and we're on our way.

15 minutes later:

Spare tire blows out. The first time it happened, I honestly didn't mind at all, considering I had to pee really badly and it gave me an opportunity to relieve myself without asking the driver to pull over. This second time however, I was much less eager to get out. Because we happened to be fresh out of spare tires and the driver hopped on another trotro going the opposite direction to head somewhere to get another tire and left us in the middle of nowhere on the highway. And about half of the other passengers ditched and got on another one headed to Aflao. Chekwube and I opted out, considering they were charging an extra 5 cedis that we didn't feel like paying. So we waited, and hoped the driver would actually come back. (He did.)

Basket fail.

In the mean time, we had arts and crafts time and made baskets out of dead plants, because there was nothing else to do in the hour we had to wait for the driver to come back. And I walked down the street to buy a mango. Instead of buying one, the little girl who was at the stand gave me NINE for free! She refused to take my money, I think because she saw we were stranded, bless her little heart. I was so thrilled, so I went back and offered everybody a mango who was stranded with us. No one wanted any so I was like, okay great, what the hell do I do with nine mangos? So I ate two and Chekwube had one and I gave away the rest at the Togo border to this guy who wouldn't leave us alone and was offering unsolicited help and then asking us for money. So I handed him a bag of mangos instead. He seemed quite satisfied with that, so problem solved.

Anyway, so we got through the border just fine. I thought we were going to have problems, because there always seems to be frustrations when crossing borders, but it went smoothly. We got ripped off REALLY badly by a cab driver though when we got to the other side because he was clever enough to know that a couple of Americans are probably really confused by having to convert cedis to sifas. We were. And felt really stupid about it. But by the end I think we kind of had it figured out.

Our hotel was adorable. It was this cute little hotel down a side street off of the main road, which runs along the beach. So we were about a block away from the ocean. The rooms were tiny. Literally just a bed in a tiny room with a little bathroom, which we paid a little extra for because not all the rooms had bathrooms. It wasn't bad at all though, just small.

So after we checked in we headed out to just go walk around. We didn't know it at the time, but we walked through La Grande Marche (the grand market) and just kind of explored Lome a little bit. I love it there. They sell baguettes on the street! With this delicious avocado salad that they spread on the inside of it and it was incredible. Easy to make too, I think it was just avocado, tomato, onion, lettuce, oil and a little mayo. On a baguette. That was my dinner. Along with 4 fan-milk products. I don't know if I've talked about fan-ice, but it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. In Ghana they have fan-ice (vanilla ice cream), fan-choco (frozen chocolate milk), and strawberry fan-yogo (frozen yogurt). But in Togo, they have fan-ice, fan-choco, VANILLA fan-yogo, fan-vanille (frozen vanilla milk), fan-lait (a slightly different tasting vanilla milk), and fan-cocktail and fan-joy, which are both fruity things. So with all these new flavors to try, we went a little overboard and bought a ton of them. I have no shame.

But it's not just street food that makes Lome awesome. It's a beautiful city, right on the ocean with so many palm trees everywhere. It was so tropical and pretty. It's also just a really interesting mix of people. There's a ton of Ewe people, because that ethnic group is split halfway between Ghana and Togo, and then most people speak French as well. And then there's also a few Twi speakers here and there since it's right on the border with Ghana. And then a lot of people spoke English as well, thankfully. Otherwise we would have been quite lost. But walking down the street in the market, people were yelling at us what I could only assume were the same things people yell at us in Accra, but we just couldn't tell what language it was in half the time.

Also, I have two more names to add to the list of things I now respond to. Afi, which is the Ewe version of Afia, and Yo Vo, which apparently means "white person" in Ewe. I don't know if that's how it's spelled but that's what it sounded like.

And the city was also cool because the preferred mode of transportation is motorcycles. They were EVERYWHERE. Like fleets of them. Being a pedestrian is terrifying because I think I almost got hit by one about 15 times. But they're fun to ride. I know what you're thinking…haven't I had enough? What with the infected burn from the exhaust pipe and whatnot? Well, I guess the answer to that would be no.

Dead monkeys :(

On Saturday morning we caught a motorcycle taxi (which the guidebook says they call "zemi-johns") to the fetish market. It was a traditional African voodoo market, and it was SO COOL. But also a little gross. We got lucky too, because my motorcycle driver, Ange, said he knew someone there so he came with us, and then ended up being our translator for the tour of the market because the guy giving us the tour didn't speak much English.

But there were all kinds of smelly dead animals there. Used for all sorts of things. For example, apparently dead owls are used to keep away bad dreams, and snake vertebrae are used for rheumatism, and dead chameleons are for people in love. Romantic, right? There were also dead porcupines, monkeys, crocodiles, hippos, horses, you name it.

And then the tour guide introduced us to the chief of the market, and they took us back into this little room where there was this voodoo spirit shrine thing set up. And the chief asked us for our names and asked each of the spirits to bless us with a long life. And then they told us a little more about the rituals they do and showed us more of the objects they use for the rituals. I just love that kind of stuff. Like cool rituals and whatnot. It was so great.

Then Ange took us to the Musee International (museum), but it's apparently closed until next month, so they let us look around the lawn at these statues instead and we could only peer inside the windows of the museum. Kind of a bummer, but oh well.

BFFs

Then we parted ways with Ange, who had hung out with us for like 2 hours acting as our personal tour guide, and from there we just walked along the beach for a while with some more fan-milk products. After a while we called it a day and headed back to the border. It was a short stay, but worth it just to see the city. It's one of those places where you don't have to do much. You can just walk around enjoying the view, so that's what we did.

We got back successfully without more tire blowouts, so that was good as well. And I managed to get one last avocado baguette sandwich at the trotro station before we left Aflao. Success.