Solo in Togo

January 25th, 2007.. I hadn't planned to come here, but here I am in Togo. Stefan and I get treated on our arrival at the hotel/campground in Dapoang to some local whiskey made from palm trees and dates. Yummy stuff. Seems people are going to be nice here too..

The guys and I go seperate ways and I join the ranks of the African mini buses and other forms of public transport. -Overloaded with people, bags, produce, etc., -leaning heavily to one side or the other and in general in dilapidated condition. My feet are on a bag and I have one of those thoughts that never occur to me on buses in Dublin, "Gee, I better check to make sure there aren't any live birds in that bag." There aren't, but surprise surprise live birds are under someone else's feet. Guinea hens. A relatively short ride is rendered painful by a driver eager to stop and pile more people in at every oppurtunity even after it's impossible.

I get to Kara and it becomes quickly apparent that as a solo white female here I'm going to get a lot of attention. Three guys at the internet shop try to convince me that I should have a baby with one of them. They said he'd be a great father, he has 2 kids already. It's 'more the merrier' here. I had to work all of this out in French of course which gets interesting but I know how to say the word, 'Non'.

Internet is close to impossible in the region, it's just too slow or there's no connection or what good is a connection without electricity anyway.. hmm?? Africa makes you appreciate the finer things in life like consistant electricity, RAIN!, hot water taps, water taps full stop.. (not that water taps necessarily work in Ireland, but with existance exists potential.) And I'd love to be in an internet shop where I don't have to bring a book..

Back to all the attention. In some ways this is an advantage. -People come up to talk to me. -my hotel tells me where to buy bus tickets to Lome for the next day, wants me to take a moto, then when I say I'll walk since it's close they come after me on a moto and take me there for free. And that was a good thing because though they'd showed me where it was on the map it was no where near there. Perhaps they knew that they couldn't work out the map.. I don't know.



I'm on the Posh bus this morning when I leave for Lome, but it's not without a hitch. It's all very organized and seats and tickets are ticked off and checked, but it seems the wealthier women of Togo are the size of a house... and so I'm once again crammed into a bus because the woman next to me overflows out of her seat. But she was nice. I met a peace corps volunteer and his visiting mother on that bus when I asked them if they could explain why we went darting over to the side of the road and everyone including the driver is leaning excitedly out the window and shouting out numbers. Apparently there was a stand selling bushrat.. or grasscutter.. I'm not sure which, but a large rodent -skinned -stretched- and beheaded. The auction was on.. And then off we went with several little corpses stuffed precariously over my head in the bus shelves.

Lome. Is a basket case. Ramshackle. Really run down. I read something about loads of political problems in the 90's not really resolved of course, bodies dumped on the steps of embassies, massive exodus of population to neighboring countries, rife instability and corruption. What I see are dirt streets, shacks, street stalls, electrical outages (constantly).

But again people are really friendly. Curious. Moto drivers get Rock Star Status at red lights with me on the back because all the other moto drivers want to talk to me and then to them and it's all smiles and laughs and more questions and "HHHOOOOOONNNNKKK!!!" from the cars behind who are not privy to the conversation. Everyone says 'oh' 'ee!' 'ah' and off we all scoot as it's the cars behind who remind them that they were waiting for a green light. Being on my own causes people to come up and talk to me. Or just talk about me, and sometimes I find out that people talking about me but not to me have walked off after buying me breakfast. Retired men invite me to sit and chat over a coke and won't let me pay for it. I have a collection of phone numbers and email addresses since I keep insisting I don't have a number here myself. -all men of course.

Not that I'm fooled. After a year of no attention whatsoever in Dublin I have no delusions that I've become a supermodel overnight. These guys see a commodity in me that no western guy is ever going to see. Money and a possible visa oppurtunity. They all want to know where I'm from. I say I live in Ireland and this is a source of confusion. If I said America well hey they know everyone there is dripping with gold because they too have seen it with their very own eyes on MTV Cribs and in Hollywood movies. But Ireland. Where the hell is that??

Anyhow, at the police station they tell me where I must go for my visa extention and one asks me to come back later. At the cafe the guy gives me his number. Walking down a busy road the ARMY sentries STOP TRAFFIC and make me cross the street to them. (Shit is this for a bribe? I'm thinking..) But no, one of them just wants to tell me he loves me. Then walking back in a shower of horns designed specifically to shatter my eardrums enough that I will seek relief in one of these tooting taxis, Peter stops. I didn't know Peter yet, but after he laughingly convinces me that no he's not a taxi, that he's just offering me a ride, and showing me his government issued ID card as a tax collector.. ok, I accept the ride. If you travel alone you have to trust people sometimes, as difficult as that is for me, or you never talk to anyone..ever. Peter doesn't speak English. Peter of course was also in love with me, but he accepted it when I told him that that was not on. I told him I had a boyfriend in Ireland (ha ha!! Not true, and I hate to lie but it is just easier in some instances). Over the next few days Peter would come and meet me for breakfast and he ferried me back and forth a bit and gave me a little Togolese Agenda Book. I got to practice my French and got quite conversational, talking about politics and loads of other stuff. And usually I knew what we were talking about. I knew what I meant anyway. So I enjoyed my time in Lome because I met mostly good people there.



I did have one incident at dusk where I was walking down the street with my Thai handbag on one shoulder and a shopping bag of food in the other hand. A guy of about 20 approached on my left and instantly made me uneasy. Then a guy came on my right and I realized immediately that they were together and that this was bad. I didn't even talk to them when the second one showed up, I just backed straight up and left them staring back at me. I stared at them for a bit and crossed the road. They were up to something and I wanted them to know I knew it. Possibly they were going to grab both bags and hope for one. But I clocked on to them and got away.

Mostly it's been good.. the electricity goes out constantly and leaves me sweating to death without a fan at night, it's too hot, I had to kill a refusing-to-die cockroach the size of a pet, I was fed bushrat when I ordered the vegetarian dish, and on day three in my hotel I notice worms living in the water that used to only be a UNESCO Protected World Heritage Mosquito Breeding Ground otherwise known as my sink. I'm gonna have to get myself wormed when I get home. Like a dog. Do I go the the doctor or the vet for that? Please help me. . And I have a gorgeous mix of a golden brown tan on face, arms and the bits of my toes that stick out of my sandals -and my Irish Tan on the rest of me. Beautiful. And I forget how to speak Korean for French. I met a Korean couple running a photo shop and couldn't talk to them. Ended up talking to them in a mix of Korean and French of all things. Their employees wrote my name on the envelope as Ms. Christ. Wonder how God would feel about that one..

Kpalime. -Has been talked up in the guide book for it's waterfalls and lake you can swim in 'even in the dry season'.. well.. things have either changed or the author of this section of the Lonely Planet Guide book.. never actually went there. The town of Kpalime itself is not bad, again people are friendly and I have a chat with the hotel ladies. I tried to go to the waterfalls on Feb.4, a Sunday. The book describes the waterfall at Kplime Seva as 'not much in the dry season but you can walk 30 minutes up to the lake at the top, a popular weekend spot and a guide is unnecessary.' So I didn't expect to be alone.. getting off the moto.. for a pack of flies posing as guides to descend upon like as in a feeding frenzy.

I lose all but the seediest one by saying no I don't need a guide thanks. He follows me even though I've said no. Nattering away at me in French. Me saying I don't understand French and making him repeat it in English. Then I'd answer him in French and he'd speak French again. I'd tell him I didn't understand again. Round and round we went. I was trying to wear him out. At a place where we were alone he gets tired of this and tells me to pay him 1000 francs and he'll leave. I say no. why. He gets in front of me and pushes me backwards saying 'then leave!'. I go to get round him and he pushes me again. I push back. We get in this little wrestling match about 5 different times. Him saying, 'leave' me saying, 'no you leave.' I stop. Something I've learned about adversaries such as these is they often lack patience and endurance. I fold my arms and say, "ok. We will wait until someone else comes along." And I glare at his face remembering every detail for later. His gaze goes from my face to my bag as he wonders if he can get that away from me and keep his teeth in their present terrible state. At this point I'm mad and willing to try to make myself a force to be reckoned with. I wonder how far this little scrap is going to go and think shit I wish I hadn't left the Hatori Hanzu on the movie set. Five minutes later he breaks and leaves. He lives in the village here so he does have something to lose. But I worry he's off to get his Little Fly Friends.. I hear a moto on the road later and duck off behind some weeds where I can see but they can't. It's not The Fly.

The walk is much longer than it's supposed to be. Two hours go by. It ends up the same moto returns and I get the driver to take me to the lake. Which is dirty and weedy and not swimable AT ALL. And no one is there. -The Lonely Planet completely wrong in this case. I get the moto guy to take me to town, but I arrange to stop in the village because I want to see the chief. At the bottom of the hill are 3 older men sitting in the shade. I stop my moto and tell them what happened (French! in french! and they understood!!). The oldest one jumps on another moto and drives up with my moto to the Resting Place For Flies (there's maybe 12 of them) at the entrance where they accost tourists. I point him out, "He is there, with the very bad teeth." -In front of his friends, because if you're going to behave like that you give up all rights to be described as beautiful. The old man starts shouting at him. The rest of them come to me, sorry sorry madame, sorry. The Fly comes over and tries to put his hand on my shoulder, sorry sorry, but I'm having none of that. I swish him away with, "Ne toucher pas! Bouge de la!" And whether it's correct or not he gets it. I told the old man I'm an author for guide books. I want to make as big a deal out of this as possible so that this little weed thinks twice before doing that again. I am tall and not so easy to push around. Another tourist at another time might have more of a problem if it comes to confrontation so I want The Fly to remember this as a negative experience. I ask to see the chief still, but am told he's not in town.

So I have my moto driver drop me at the police station in Kpalime. Not that the police are going to do anything, but the moto driver lives in the village so he will certainly go back and report that I've been dropped at the police station. And this is about all I can do except tell people in the town what happened and I certainly did this. I tell guys I meet in the cafes and I tell the ladies from the hotel. They are shocked and then it becomes smiles and "Bon courage, sister. Bon courage". But I don't realize how this little event affects me until I get to the beach the next day. I also tell the hotel I'll leave a day early because of these guys. With all of this, hopefully news will get back and The Fly will think twice before he tries this one on again. Hopefully. There is enough to worry about in Africa without this. All sorts of scary diseases. I'm told that the children I see with the really snotty noses.. well that's malaria. So I can see how prevelent it is. And I'm reminded of my friend Kinga who tragically died here last June of this. I'm taking my pills. I'm taking my pills..

So this day was a flop. I ended up back in my hotel room with the explicit 'how to' poster on the application, use, and disposal of condoms in cartoon picture style that is posted in most hotel rooms. This is good this program. It's a UN program and it's good to see the UN doing something other than driving around in expensive white vehicles and forcing me off the road into landmined areas when they see me someplace they think I don't belong.

I return to Lome the next day after meeting 3 Italian speaking Swiss people who tell me of a nice campground/auberge about 15 K outside of town on the beach. I go there. To a place called Chez Alice. The Swiss people are friends with Alice from years ago. Alice is a 73 years old tough bird from Germany and for the first time in a while a good group of people develops around me again. I meet people from Sweden, Latvia, Germany, France and Togo while I'm here. Plus the nice Swiss ppl. The Swedish and Latvian guys are on an around Africa trip on motorbikes. I end up catching a ride to town my first day with the Latvian one, Kasper, when he sees me stranded on the road, my driver's moto having given up the ghost. -And wound up spending the next few days with the three of them. I wish them luck on their vast adventure.

When a Togolese guy approached me on the beach though, I automatically backed up because I was alone and this is where I realized I'd been affected more than I thought by the experience in Kpalime. But he only owned a snack shop on the beach and he wanted to tell me. When I backed up like that and he learned why.. he gave me a pineapple and a necklace. When I came to his restaurant to buy a coke later to be nice more than anything else.. he wouldn't let me pay for it. I have to remember that most people are good. Most people in most places are good.



I didn't really do too much in the 3 or 4 days I was here, just lazed on the beach and played cards, and talk and talk but it was nice. Met loads of cool people. One of the Swedish guys was complaining that "everybody likes you! even Helmuth is nice to us now (an older German man they'd had a conflict with) -because he likes you!".. I told him don't worry, there's plenty of people in my other life who don't like me. But it was restoring to have a good group of people around me for a while.

I left the beach on Feb. 9th. Tired of sand. New friends have moved on. Ants keep trying to get into my bag and the lizards keep pooping on my bed here. It occurs to me that this is another one of those things I never think of in Dublin. Like I never say to myself, "Gee I better turn on the light and make sure the lizards haven't pooped on my bed. " On my way out the door Alice thinks I've paid my previous bill. I could have gotten away with saving 23£ English and that's a bit of money. But I could not try to get away with this. These people have been nothing but nice to me so I told her that no I haven't paid. She's grateful and sends me off with a hug and a kiss on each cheek and gets a taxi for me. Well yes everybody liked me here and that's a nice feeling. Now it's a new crossroads. I leave for Ghana and new adventures today.