Last Tuesday Michael’s father, Perry, and Perry’s sister, Karen came to visit!
They stayed at the illustrious Hotel Obama, which was complete with giant, cheesy portraits of Obama and his family in the lobby. Each room had a different name. Among the room names were: 1865, Chicago, Hawaii and Biden. Perry and Karen spent Tuesday through Thursday touring various sights around Accra and of course absorbing the culture. Tuesday night we ate dinner at Monsoon, an upscale restaurant in Osu, Accra’s nightlife district. The food was delicious! Perry ordered crocodile tail, which tasted like a meaty lobster.
Friday morning Michael, Catherine, Katy and I accompanied Karen and Perry to Cape Coast. We arrived at the guest house in the early afternoon (we had air conditioning in the rooms!!) and we walked into the city to find lunch. We were directed to a restaurant next door to the Cape Coast Castle and dined overlooking the rocky ocean front. Following dinner we scrambled up the rocky ridge next to the ocean, watched waves and of course took pictures. Later that night we caught the tail end of the U 20 Ghana vs. Brazil World Cup final in the lobby of the guest house. Everyone watching the game was extremely animated and cheering wildly. Ghana upset powerhouse Brazil in penalty kicks and as soon as the winning goal was scored, the town erupted. I can only compare the noise to campus / Franklin St. when we won the national championship. We walked out of the guest house and could hear everyone in the town screaming. We decided to head into town to grab dinner and caught cabs. Immediately upon exiting the guest house, we were engulfed in a crowd of Ghanaians cheering, singing and running in the streets. Perry loved the excitement and spent a considerable amount of time hanging out of the window yelling “Obrouni Party!!” (white person party). We stopped at a bar / restaurant in the center of the city and as soon as we exited the cabs, realized we would not be eating a quiet dinner. We watched the town explode for a while, attempting to snap pictures of the madness. A girl who was about eight years old thought Katy had taken a picture of her and told Katy she would “sock her” and bore her tiny fist at us. Inside the bar, people were going crazy. Music was blaring and people waved Ghana flags and soccer balls. We stayed for a while and danced and hung out with all of the locals.
The next morning we headed to the Cape Coast Castle. The castle is an imposing structure, a white stone fortress used during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to house up to thousands of slaves, sometimes for up to a year, to be placed on ships. The tour began with an explanation of slavery in pre-colonial Africa. Prisoners of war and criminals were often taken as slaves in various villages. However, unlike the treatment of slaves in the Americas, slaves in Africa lived in the community, were able to work off their debts and often married into the community and had fairly normal lives. Later during the tour we were led into the holding cells where native Africans were kept. The dungeons were haunting and I can’t possibly imagine living in the squalid conditions. The huge cells were pitch dark with one tiny window per cell providing the only light. It was chilling thinking about all of the people who had died in the cells, and I can’t imagine the trauma experienced by those who survived. Hundreds of people were forced into each cell, left to live for months in these rooms with stone floors, hardly any light and no sanitation facilities to speak of. I know I can never imagine even a fraction of what these people went through, but even standing in the cells was an unforgettable and disturbing experience.
Post Cape Coast Castle tour we returned to the guest house to collect our things and caught cabs to Elmina, another coastal town. Elmina is a fishing town and is home to West Africa’s largest fish market. Immediately upon entering the town, the fish smell was perhaps the strongest and most repugnant smell I’ve ever experienced. The main road was stuffed with row after row of seemingly unending supplies of fish. I can only imagine how the smell of fish must permanently permeate the pores of the townspeople and how immune the locals must be to the stench. We finally arrived at the resort in the afternoon. Pulling into the resort illustrated to me how much I’ve changed since being here. The lush, manicured lawns of the resort, spacious rooms with air conditioning and clean pool seemed like luxuries reserved for celebrities. It was hard for me to believe that I could take a shower with hot water or even have an extra towel to use. Needless to say, Catherine, Katy, Michael and I were overcome with excitement at our living quarters. After settling in we reluctantly left the air conditioning and hung out poolside for a few hours. It felt great to swim in the “bath tub warm” pool water as my mother would refer to it, and to be able to walk on the beach without stepping on trash / feces. We spent the rest of the night enjoying various commodities at the resort, including the restaurant (they had mac n’ cheese and grilled cheese!!!).
The next morning we travelled to Kakum National Park to complete the canopy walk. The park was beautiful, covered in giant, ancient trees and teeming with the noises of various birds and insects. We hiked a few minutes to the beginning of the canopy walk. The canopy walk consisted of huge, swinging rope bridges suspended between huge poles over the canopy of trees. We were up so high and could see literally thousands of trees beneath us! Walking across the bridges was nerve racking, as we were literally only held up by rope, and also there was a large group of obese businessmen from South Africa shaking the bridges behind us with their weight.
On the taxi ride home from the canopy walk, I spotted a sign for an ostrich farm, and insisted to everyone that we pull over to check it out. We drove up to two pens filled with about twenty ostriches total. I’ve decided that ostriches are some of the strangest animals. We originally asked if we could ride the ostriches (apparently they ride / race them in AZ) but the owner of the farm said we would need to give him “small time to train them” before we could ride them. We instead grabbed leafy greens and fed the ostriches out of our hands. We were only separated by a small fence, and a few times I was pretty sure I was about to have my hand bitten. We took some pictures and the ostriches tried to eat Michael and I’s hair (I guess it looks like straw to them?).
When we returned to the resort, we went to check out the crocodile pond which was located about 30 yards away from the club house and contained by a holey wooden fence (so safe!). We tried to lure the crocs out with gifts of leftover chicken, but we only saw a few babies.
Later in the evening, Catherine and I watched the sun set on wooden swings situated just feet from the ocean. It was beautiful. I love the sky here. No matter what time of the day it is, the clouds and sky are a constant source of amazement for me. The clouds consistently look like giant tufts of cotton and almost close enough to touch.
Sunday morning we left early to tour the Elmina Castle, another point used to house slaves before they were loaded onto ships. The castle was similar to the Cape Coast Castle, with the addition of a “death room”, complete with skull and crossbones carved above the entrance way. The small cell was were slaves who were inciting rebellion / resisting were placed. The slaves were then left in the cell to slowly die without food or water. I can’t imagine the mindset of the European forces in charge of the castle. I suppose human rights abuses as horrible as this can never be justified or explained. It’s sometimes unbelievable what humans have been / are capable of. While we in retrospect claim that instances such as slavery and genocide will never happen again, I believe the banality of evil will always allow for normal humans to commit horrendous acts (look at Darfur!).
Another interesting point of our tour of Elmina Castle was a man from Pittsburg who was completing a return to Africa trip. After we heard the man’s story, I completely supported his cultural and spiritual journey back to the place his ancestors has been forcefully taken. However, during the tour of the castle he became increasingly rude. While touring a cell used to punish European soldiers, the man, once he heard it was for Europeans, muttered derogatory comments under his breathe, pushed past everyone in the group and the tour guide and ran out of the cell. Later, when Karen offered to take a picture of him with his camera, he told her rudely that she didn’t know him and that he wouldn’t allow her to take his picture. I’m not sure if this particular man was just naturally abrasive, but considering our surroundings, his actions came across with different implied meanings.
After touring the castle, we headed back to Legon. Along the way we saw a tro-tro stuck in one of the sewage ditches along the roads. Without tow trucks, I can only imagine how it will be removed.
Upon returning to our hostel, we learned we were again without water, but also this time without electricity. Wooo! I hadn’t even thought about this possibility. It was kind of fun using flashlights for a while, until we realized that no electricity = no fans. Boo. Luckily the electricity came back on the next day and hasn’t been off since then for more than a few hours at a time!
Anyway, sorry I’m behind on these entries. Lexi, one of my good friends from UNC came to visit on Thursday! I have things to report from this past weekend. I’ll try to do it before this weekend!!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Benin
The weekend before last we travelled though Togo to Benin!
We left campus around 12:30pm in a private car we’d chartered to take us to Lome. Upon arriving in Lome in the late afternoon, we ate again at Akeif (the delicious restaurant we discovered the previous weekend) and ate hummus, chicken chawrama and burgers. After dinner we hailed a cab to bring us across the border and into Benin. The drive took longer than we expected and we found ourselves driving in the middle of nowhere searching for a hotel to stay the night. After a few hours in the taxi, we finally found a hotel and were dropped off. The hotel was pretty sketchy, with hourly prices and a board in the lobby indicating which rooms had their “mood lights” on. Ew.
The next morning we left around 6am and headed to Ouidah. Upon arriving in Ouidah, we dropped our things at a hotel (which was way more legit than the previous one) and walked around the city. One of the best things about being in a French colonized country is the availability of cheap and delicious baguettes! They are sold on just about every street corner and are flakey and fresh. I’m fairly sure we each ate at least three baguettes that day. Our first destination in the city was the old fort used by the Portuguese in the 17-1800s. The fort had been turned into a historical museum dedicated to the arrival of the Portuguese and the slave trade. In the museum were various interesting artifacts about tribal life as well as some shocking objects used to shackle and transport slaves. Learning about the relationships between the Portuguese slave exporters and local tribal leaders was fascinating. The slave trade consisted of tribes being paid by the Portuguese to capture rival tribes to be exported.
After leaving the fort, we went to the sacred python temple. The temple is pretty nondescript from the outside, and appears to be a clearing with a few small voodoo huts in various places. We entered and paid 1000 CFA each (about 3 cedi, or $2.5) as an offering. A guide led us into the clearing and disappeared for a few minutes, bringing a medium sized python with him. He put the python around each of our necks and we took pictures. Katy and I were a little disappointed and asked the guide where the rest of the pythons were. He then led us to a larger hut and opened the door for us to look in. We peered in to see around fifty pythons covering the floor of the hut. It was wild! It looked exactly like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! The snakes were climbing up the walls and slithering across the floor. Strangely enough, my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, but rather one of excitement and fondness for the snakes. I think this is most likely because my sister Alex has a ball python whom everyone loves and is a very sweet snake. Don’t worry, we took plenty of pictures of us in the room.
After leaving the temple, we searched for food for a long time. We had a difficult time finding restaurants and when we would find one, they would all be out of food. Eventually we gave up and ate more baguettes. After stuffing ourselves with carbs, we headed to the sacred forest. We paid to enter the sacred forest, and then were asked to also pay for a guide and to take photos. None of us wanted to pay more, so we wandered around by ourselves and sneakily snapped photos when no one was looking. The forest was filled with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. The trunks must have been at least 40 ft around and the span of the branches and leaves was enormous! The hippie in me wondered what stories the trees could tell and how much they’ve seen. I found myself lost in the natural beauty of the forest, wishing I could know how many generations of people had found shade under the same tree I was sitting under. Near the end of our forest visit, we were approached by a boy and a girl who were selling batik cloth and wood carvings. They looked to be around ten years old and were both adorable! They only spoke French, but we used basic French phrases to introduce ourselves. We ended up hanging out with the children for a while and the little girl taught and played hand games with me.
Later in the afternoon we walked the route des esclaves, the route slaves were marched down to be shipped in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The route was dotted with occasional statues to tribute the slaves and traditional shrines. About halfway through the route a group of about twenty school children spotted us and started chanting “Yovo, yovo!” (white person, white person). They ran up to us, amazed at our white skin and hair and accompanied us for about half a mile. During this time we were swarmed by the children who insisted on clutching our hands and speaking unknown phrases to us in French. We reached the end point of the route, the Door of No Return, around 6pm. The monument was an archway on the beach depicting images of slaves walking toward ships. As we looked at the monument, the sun began to sink and we sat on the beach and witnessed the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun blazed red as it slowly crept beneath the palm trees and pirogues dotting the shore. Amazing! After taking about a million pictures of the sunset, we rode zimmy johns (motorcycles) back to our hotel. The ride back was pretty scary at first, considering we weren’t wearing helmets and were speeding along down an unpaved road littered with potholes, but once I got used to it, it was really cool.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Cotonou. After dropping our things at a hotel, we left to visit Ganvie, a stilt village. On the way we stopped and ate at a road side stand. We were served a light pink soup-ish substance which was made of maize and sugar. This was accompanied by what I can only describe as soft onion hush puppies. It was probably the strangest breakfast I’ve ever eaten. We took a taxi to the launching point to the stilt village. At the launching point, we joined a French couple on a motorized pirogue. The area surrounding the launching point was extremely dirty and overcrowded. There were tiny wooden sheds where people sold food and goods (and probably also lived) surrounded by a giant open air garbage dump where small children were pooping in plain sight. I can’t imagine sharing these living conditions and I was again reminded of the huge disparity between my way of life and that of these people. We took off from the launching point and were soon in the stilt village. It was so crazy how the village was organized. Literally everything was built directly on the water; homes, shops, a fresh water dispensary, a mosque. We saw a giant floating market where women displayed brightly colored fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts on wooden boats. We visited shops along the way which sold jewelry (they have so much ivory! I thought this was illegal!), quilts made of colorful fabrics as well as wooden carvings.
After our visit to Ouidah we grabbed a cab to the art center in the center of Cotonou. The cab ride was long and along the way we saw a funeral procession and a taxi with live pigs strapped to the roof. At the art center, we were overwhelmed with the number of shops selling art. We spent about three hours there and probably only visited half of the shops. While Michael and Catherine continued to shop, Katy and I got bored and met some of the artists who were about our age. One of them introduced himself as Lil Wayne and proceeded to rap various Lil Wayne songs and show me all of the pictures of Lil Wayne he’d downloaded onto his phone. We played drums and other various African instruments with them and even played golf on a course they’d created in a large lawn.
Sunday we ate delicious cheese omelets and croissants at a French restaurant across from our hotel and headed to the Benin soccer stadium where the Benin Squirrels (least intimidating mascot ever) and Ghana Black Stars would be facing off. We headed into the stadium way too early and found ourselves sitting with nothing to do for about two hours. We met some friendly fans who spoke English and chatted for a bit about America. The game started with a huge black hummer and charter bus driving into the stadium and around a track multiple times to the intense excitement of the crowd. When the hummer stopped, the star player of the Benin team got out and the crowd went wild. The actual game wasn’t very interesting, but I spent most of my time observing the police guarding the barrier between the stadium and the entrance. Apparently people with fake tickets were trying to get in and the police were fending them off by using their belts and what looked like a metal pipe to hit the fans. It looked fairly brutal and at one point I looked down to see blood splattered across the pavement. The crowd was looking down on the police, screaming insults and occasionally spitting. During the game Catherine and I bought a plastic bag filled with a dark juice, which we determined was pomegranate and we munched on snacks we’d purchased earlier at a Lebanese-run market.
We ended up leaving the game early to beat traffic to head back home to Ghana. We chartered a taxi to Lome, but were soon stuck in the celebration traffic after Benin won in penalty kicks. The drive took a really long time and the driver at one point pulled over to the side of the road, made some type of grunting noise and left the taxi. After about ten minutes Michael went to find the driver and spotted him sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Later, at about 9:45pm, the driver attempted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Lome. We eventually convinced him to bring us to the border, and we literally sprinted from the Togo officials to the Ghana officials trying to cross the border before it closed at 10pm. On the way out of the Togo border, the guards were listening to a popular Ghanaian pop song we all love and we sang and danced our way out of the office, to much laughter from the guards.
Phew, it was an exciting weekend. Perry (Michael’s father) and Karen (Michael’s Aunt), arrived last Tuesday and we travelled to Cape Coast for the weekend. I am currently working on this blog entry. I will try to have it up by tomorrow!
We left campus around 12:30pm in a private car we’d chartered to take us to Lome. Upon arriving in Lome in the late afternoon, we ate again at Akeif (the delicious restaurant we discovered the previous weekend) and ate hummus, chicken chawrama and burgers. After dinner we hailed a cab to bring us across the border and into Benin. The drive took longer than we expected and we found ourselves driving in the middle of nowhere searching for a hotel to stay the night. After a few hours in the taxi, we finally found a hotel and were dropped off. The hotel was pretty sketchy, with hourly prices and a board in the lobby indicating which rooms had their “mood lights” on. Ew.
The next morning we left around 6am and headed to Ouidah. Upon arriving in Ouidah, we dropped our things at a hotel (which was way more legit than the previous one) and walked around the city. One of the best things about being in a French colonized country is the availability of cheap and delicious baguettes! They are sold on just about every street corner and are flakey and fresh. I’m fairly sure we each ate at least three baguettes that day. Our first destination in the city was the old fort used by the Portuguese in the 17-1800s. The fort had been turned into a historical museum dedicated to the arrival of the Portuguese and the slave trade. In the museum were various interesting artifacts about tribal life as well as some shocking objects used to shackle and transport slaves. Learning about the relationships between the Portuguese slave exporters and local tribal leaders was fascinating. The slave trade consisted of tribes being paid by the Portuguese to capture rival tribes to be exported.
After leaving the fort, we went to the sacred python temple. The temple is pretty nondescript from the outside, and appears to be a clearing with a few small voodoo huts in various places. We entered and paid 1000 CFA each (about 3 cedi, or $2.5) as an offering. A guide led us into the clearing and disappeared for a few minutes, bringing a medium sized python with him. He put the python around each of our necks and we took pictures. Katy and I were a little disappointed and asked the guide where the rest of the pythons were. He then led us to a larger hut and opened the door for us to look in. We peered in to see around fifty pythons covering the floor of the hut. It was wild! It looked exactly like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! The snakes were climbing up the walls and slithering across the floor. Strangely enough, my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, but rather one of excitement and fondness for the snakes. I think this is most likely because my sister Alex has a ball python whom everyone loves and is a very sweet snake. Don’t worry, we took plenty of pictures of us in the room.
After leaving the temple, we searched for food for a long time. We had a difficult time finding restaurants and when we would find one, they would all be out of food. Eventually we gave up and ate more baguettes. After stuffing ourselves with carbs, we headed to the sacred forest. We paid to enter the sacred forest, and then were asked to also pay for a guide and to take photos. None of us wanted to pay more, so we wandered around by ourselves and sneakily snapped photos when no one was looking. The forest was filled with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. The trunks must have been at least 40 ft around and the span of the branches and leaves was enormous! The hippie in me wondered what stories the trees could tell and how much they’ve seen. I found myself lost in the natural beauty of the forest, wishing I could know how many generations of people had found shade under the same tree I was sitting under. Near the end of our forest visit, we were approached by a boy and a girl who were selling batik cloth and wood carvings. They looked to be around ten years old and were both adorable! They only spoke French, but we used basic French phrases to introduce ourselves. We ended up hanging out with the children for a while and the little girl taught and played hand games with me.
Later in the afternoon we walked the route des esclaves, the route slaves were marched down to be shipped in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The route was dotted with occasional statues to tribute the slaves and traditional shrines. About halfway through the route a group of about twenty school children spotted us and started chanting “Yovo, yovo!” (white person, white person). They ran up to us, amazed at our white skin and hair and accompanied us for about half a mile. During this time we were swarmed by the children who insisted on clutching our hands and speaking unknown phrases to us in French. We reached the end point of the route, the Door of No Return, around 6pm. The monument was an archway on the beach depicting images of slaves walking toward ships. As we looked at the monument, the sun began to sink and we sat on the beach and witnessed the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun blazed red as it slowly crept beneath the palm trees and pirogues dotting the shore. Amazing! After taking about a million pictures of the sunset, we rode zimmy johns (motorcycles) back to our hotel. The ride back was pretty scary at first, considering we weren’t wearing helmets and were speeding along down an unpaved road littered with potholes, but once I got used to it, it was really cool.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Cotonou. After dropping our things at a hotel, we left to visit Ganvie, a stilt village. On the way we stopped and ate at a road side stand. We were served a light pink soup-ish substance which was made of maize and sugar. This was accompanied by what I can only describe as soft onion hush puppies. It was probably the strangest breakfast I’ve ever eaten. We took a taxi to the launching point to the stilt village. At the launching point, we joined a French couple on a motorized pirogue. The area surrounding the launching point was extremely dirty and overcrowded. There were tiny wooden sheds where people sold food and goods (and probably also lived) surrounded by a giant open air garbage dump where small children were pooping in plain sight. I can’t imagine sharing these living conditions and I was again reminded of the huge disparity between my way of life and that of these people. We took off from the launching point and were soon in the stilt village. It was so crazy how the village was organized. Literally everything was built directly on the water; homes, shops, a fresh water dispensary, a mosque. We saw a giant floating market where women displayed brightly colored fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts on wooden boats. We visited shops along the way which sold jewelry (they have so much ivory! I thought this was illegal!), quilts made of colorful fabrics as well as wooden carvings.
After our visit to Ouidah we grabbed a cab to the art center in the center of Cotonou. The cab ride was long and along the way we saw a funeral procession and a taxi with live pigs strapped to the roof. At the art center, we were overwhelmed with the number of shops selling art. We spent about three hours there and probably only visited half of the shops. While Michael and Catherine continued to shop, Katy and I got bored and met some of the artists who were about our age. One of them introduced himself as Lil Wayne and proceeded to rap various Lil Wayne songs and show me all of the pictures of Lil Wayne he’d downloaded onto his phone. We played drums and other various African instruments with them and even played golf on a course they’d created in a large lawn.
Sunday we ate delicious cheese omelets and croissants at a French restaurant across from our hotel and headed to the Benin soccer stadium where the Benin Squirrels (least intimidating mascot ever) and Ghana Black Stars would be facing off. We headed into the stadium way too early and found ourselves sitting with nothing to do for about two hours. We met some friendly fans who spoke English and chatted for a bit about America. The game started with a huge black hummer and charter bus driving into the stadium and around a track multiple times to the intense excitement of the crowd. When the hummer stopped, the star player of the Benin team got out and the crowd went wild. The actual game wasn’t very interesting, but I spent most of my time observing the police guarding the barrier between the stadium and the entrance. Apparently people with fake tickets were trying to get in and the police were fending them off by using their belts and what looked like a metal pipe to hit the fans. It looked fairly brutal and at one point I looked down to see blood splattered across the pavement. The crowd was looking down on the police, screaming insults and occasionally spitting. During the game Catherine and I bought a plastic bag filled with a dark juice, which we determined was pomegranate and we munched on snacks we’d purchased earlier at a Lebanese-run market.
We ended up leaving the game early to beat traffic to head back home to Ghana. We chartered a taxi to Lome, but were soon stuck in the celebration traffic after Benin won in penalty kicks. The drive took a really long time and the driver at one point pulled over to the side of the road, made some type of grunting noise and left the taxi. After about ten minutes Michael went to find the driver and spotted him sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Later, at about 9:45pm, the driver attempted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Lome. We eventually convinced him to bring us to the border, and we literally sprinted from the Togo officials to the Ghana officials trying to cross the border before it closed at 10pm. On the way out of the Togo border, the guards were listening to a popular Ghanaian pop song we all love and we sang and danced our way out of the office, to much laughter from the guards.
Phew, it was an exciting weekend. Perry (Michael’s father) and Karen (Michael’s Aunt), arrived last Tuesday and we travelled to Cape Coast for the weekend. I am currently working on this blog entry. I will try to have it up by tomorrow!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Togo
Last Friday, Michael, Katy, Catherine and I attended my roommate’s dance show. My roommate’s name is Ashley and she’s a senior at the University of Montana, studying dance. The dance show was really cool. It was a mix of traditional African dance and contemporary dance. My favorite was a piece where all of the dancers wore crazy masks and climbed on top of each other (kind of like stunting!).
Michael, Katy, Catherine and I left around 6am to travel to Togo on Saturday. Togo is the country to the east of Ghana. It’s a tiny country and was colonized partly by the French. We took a tro-tro to the bus station, and then boarded a bus to Lome, Togo (the capital city). The four hour ride was nice because I had a window seat and watched the scenery go by. We passed through huge fields that looked like the scenery in Lion King. We also passed through multiple villages and saw people dressed in traditional outfits going to funerals and weddings. We arrived at the Ghana / Togo border around 1pm and crossed the border. Immediately upon crossing into Togo, its differences from Ghana were apparent. Everyone was speaking French and driving around on motorcycles. I ended up using the few French phrases I’d learned during a trip to Paris in high school to get us to a hotel. Along the way we met a very helpful woman who directed us to a hotel and even called the hotel a half hour later to make sure we had arrived safely. The eagerness of people to Togo to help was further embodied by the owner of the hotel we stayed at, who went above and beyond to make sure we knew where to eat, how to get to the spots we wanted to visit, etc.
After settling in at the hotel, we ventured out into the city to find some lunch. We started out walking, which was interesting because all of the main roads are covered in sand because it is a beach town. The beaches were beautiful, with palm trees dotting the white sand and colorful fishing boats, called pirogues moving through the waves. We eventually came to a French / Lebanese outdoor restaurant. We ate hummus which was served with delicious, juicy tomato wedges and fresh pita bread. We also got French chicken burgers which had coleslaw on them that tasted like cucumber sauce and French style fries in the burger. We all pigged out and even had leftovers to bring back to the hotel. After leaving lunch we travelled to the marche des feticheurs, to look for fetish items. It was around 5pm when we got there, so most of the vendors were closing up, but we saw lots of herbs / dried fruits and other items used in traditional medicine. We also saw carved fetish dolls used in voodoo rituals. Later in the evening we went to a nicer restaurant / bar that was playing American rap music and ate really good pizza and falafel.
The next morning we left early and grabbed a taxi to take us to the boarding docks. We weren’t really sure that our destination was accurately translated to the driver, and when we started driving through basically a field of tall grass on a dusty path we became skeptical. However, soon we pulled up to a dock with a single pirogue. We took a pirogue to Togoville, a small village across the water. Togoville is very rural and many naked children wearing only waist beads ran around the streets in between goats and chickens. We first visited two massive, sacred trees which are the center points for the village. We also saw a fertility shrine to a spirit known as Mama Fiokpo and a bull that will be sacrificed soon in a village ritual. We then went to the house of priestess where we were instructed to take off all of our clothes and put on traditional clothes given to us. We sneakily managed to keep most of our clothes on underneath and headed to a waiting room where other villagers were waiting to see the priestess. Upon waiting, we were informed that we would be required to pay a large sum to see the priestess so we decided to leave.
We then crossed the main area of the village to visit the Catholic cathedral built by the Germans. The church is a huge, imposing structure on the outside and a beautiful, colorful wonder on the inside. Basically all of the wall space in the structure is covered in detailed depictions of bible stories with the largest picture being the last supper with a giant rainbow over the entire thing. About 20 yards from the cathedral is a large shrine to the virgin Mary who was allegedly seen walking on the lake in the early 1970s. At first I was confused by how Catholicism could coexist so well with the traditional religion of the area, but upon further pondering I realized how similar they are. The shrine of the virgin Mary is very similar to the fertility shrine to Mama Fiokpo and the way the villagers venerated ancestor spirits is almost the same as how Catholics regard saints. These are just a few of the similarities, but I will refrain from rambling about religions.
The last stop on our Togo trip was another village visit to Glidji. We travelled to Glidji by taxi and set out to find the voodoo shrines the village is known for. We were directed to what appeared to be a small house with various doors with names painted across the top. We walked around for a while, trying to figure out what was going on. Soon, an old man with a cane walked towards us and asked us what we were doing. We were relieved that he spoke English, and soon found out that he was from Ghana. He brought us to the house of the high priest of the village and we waited in a courtyard for the priest to greet us. The priest welcomed us and introduced us to two voodoo priestesses. We thought we were going to have a tour of the voodoo shrines, but before we knew it we were buying a bottle of gin for a voodoo ritual. We were lead into a voodoo shrine for a male ancestor (I can’t remember his name). The shrine was more or less a small crawlspace with a sand floor. In the center of the room was a shrine with various candles, bottles and objects (the most interesting of which was a Barbie doll). We were directed to sit on a wooden bench along the wall of the room. The priestesses brought in some type of smoking wood / incense in a kettle that smelled weird / I liked because it kept the mosquitoes away. The priest began chanting and the priestesses sang along and clapped. A few minutes into the ceremony, one of the priestesses took a glass of water and instructed us each to take a sip. The next thing I knew, Michael was having water spit on him. I slowly realized this too was to be my fate and fought back the urge to laugh / cringe when it was my turn. After the spitting water ordeal, the priestess filled up the glass with gin and instructed us to take a sip. I was really really worried that after this the priestess would spit gin on us, but luckily this was not part of the ritual. The voodoo ritual went on with more chanting and clapping , we also had some type of holy oil squirted on us as well as baby powder. To finish, the priest shook a handful of special shells and threw them into a shallow dish. Two of the shells landed face up, and the other two face down, which supposedly meant that we all would be blessed with good luck. After the ceremony was over, the priest and priestesses insisted that we all take a series of photos with each other. It was kind of like voodoo glamour shots.
The voodoo good luck didn’t kick in, however, because we couldn’t find a taxi from Glidji and ended up having to walk a mile or two back to a station. Whenever we walk anywhere, we usually attract a few locals who approach us, talk to us and basically attach themselves to us. We were having casual conversation with them when Catherine broke out her hand sanitizer and started passing it around. It was so funny to watch the locals use the hand sanitizer. They thought the smell was strange and stared obsessively at the bottle trying to figure out what it was.
We eventually made it back to Lome, collected our bags from the hotel and exited to the border. We chartered a private taxi back to Legon, since it was around 8pm and all of the buses had left. On the way back we saw a 4-5ft. ball python crossing the road! (Alex, it was like a huge Baby snake!) I wanted to go back and take pictures of it, but Katy, Catherine and Michael are lame and were too afraid. However, we are going to a python shrine this weekend in Benin so I will have my fill of snakes.
This week so far hasn’t been too crazy, I wrote a paper about the origins of the dance we’ve been learning in one of my classes. Apparently the dance was discovered by a hunter who used magic to conceal himself to observe dwarfs (who supposedly all have one leg that’s longer than the other) perform dances. Good to know? Michael inadvertently agreed to marry the crazy old woman who sells baked goods outside of our hostel. Also, Katy and Michael both received packages so we got to eat cheez-its, cookies and starburst. Delicious!
We’re leaving to travel to Benin tomorrow! Will report more next week!
Michael, Katy, Catherine and I left around 6am to travel to Togo on Saturday. Togo is the country to the east of Ghana. It’s a tiny country and was colonized partly by the French. We took a tro-tro to the bus station, and then boarded a bus to Lome, Togo (the capital city). The four hour ride was nice because I had a window seat and watched the scenery go by. We passed through huge fields that looked like the scenery in Lion King. We also passed through multiple villages and saw people dressed in traditional outfits going to funerals and weddings. We arrived at the Ghana / Togo border around 1pm and crossed the border. Immediately upon crossing into Togo, its differences from Ghana were apparent. Everyone was speaking French and driving around on motorcycles. I ended up using the few French phrases I’d learned during a trip to Paris in high school to get us to a hotel. Along the way we met a very helpful woman who directed us to a hotel and even called the hotel a half hour later to make sure we had arrived safely. The eagerness of people to Togo to help was further embodied by the owner of the hotel we stayed at, who went above and beyond to make sure we knew where to eat, how to get to the spots we wanted to visit, etc.
After settling in at the hotel, we ventured out into the city to find some lunch. We started out walking, which was interesting because all of the main roads are covered in sand because it is a beach town. The beaches were beautiful, with palm trees dotting the white sand and colorful fishing boats, called pirogues moving through the waves. We eventually came to a French / Lebanese outdoor restaurant. We ate hummus which was served with delicious, juicy tomato wedges and fresh pita bread. We also got French chicken burgers which had coleslaw on them that tasted like cucumber sauce and French style fries in the burger. We all pigged out and even had leftovers to bring back to the hotel. After leaving lunch we travelled to the marche des feticheurs, to look for fetish items. It was around 5pm when we got there, so most of the vendors were closing up, but we saw lots of herbs / dried fruits and other items used in traditional medicine. We also saw carved fetish dolls used in voodoo rituals. Later in the evening we went to a nicer restaurant / bar that was playing American rap music and ate really good pizza and falafel.
The next morning we left early and grabbed a taxi to take us to the boarding docks. We weren’t really sure that our destination was accurately translated to the driver, and when we started driving through basically a field of tall grass on a dusty path we became skeptical. However, soon we pulled up to a dock with a single pirogue. We took a pirogue to Togoville, a small village across the water. Togoville is very rural and many naked children wearing only waist beads ran around the streets in between goats and chickens. We first visited two massive, sacred trees which are the center points for the village. We also saw a fertility shrine to a spirit known as Mama Fiokpo and a bull that will be sacrificed soon in a village ritual. We then went to the house of priestess where we were instructed to take off all of our clothes and put on traditional clothes given to us. We sneakily managed to keep most of our clothes on underneath and headed to a waiting room where other villagers were waiting to see the priestess. Upon waiting, we were informed that we would be required to pay a large sum to see the priestess so we decided to leave.
We then crossed the main area of the village to visit the Catholic cathedral built by the Germans. The church is a huge, imposing structure on the outside and a beautiful, colorful wonder on the inside. Basically all of the wall space in the structure is covered in detailed depictions of bible stories with the largest picture being the last supper with a giant rainbow over the entire thing. About 20 yards from the cathedral is a large shrine to the virgin Mary who was allegedly seen walking on the lake in the early 1970s. At first I was confused by how Catholicism could coexist so well with the traditional religion of the area, but upon further pondering I realized how similar they are. The shrine of the virgin Mary is very similar to the fertility shrine to Mama Fiokpo and the way the villagers venerated ancestor spirits is almost the same as how Catholics regard saints. These are just a few of the similarities, but I will refrain from rambling about religions.
The last stop on our Togo trip was another village visit to Glidji. We travelled to Glidji by taxi and set out to find the voodoo shrines the village is known for. We were directed to what appeared to be a small house with various doors with names painted across the top. We walked around for a while, trying to figure out what was going on. Soon, an old man with a cane walked towards us and asked us what we were doing. We were relieved that he spoke English, and soon found out that he was from Ghana. He brought us to the house of the high priest of the village and we waited in a courtyard for the priest to greet us. The priest welcomed us and introduced us to two voodoo priestesses. We thought we were going to have a tour of the voodoo shrines, but before we knew it we were buying a bottle of gin for a voodoo ritual. We were lead into a voodoo shrine for a male ancestor (I can’t remember his name). The shrine was more or less a small crawlspace with a sand floor. In the center of the room was a shrine with various candles, bottles and objects (the most interesting of which was a Barbie doll). We were directed to sit on a wooden bench along the wall of the room. The priestesses brought in some type of smoking wood / incense in a kettle that smelled weird / I liked because it kept the mosquitoes away. The priest began chanting and the priestesses sang along and clapped. A few minutes into the ceremony, one of the priestesses took a glass of water and instructed us each to take a sip. The next thing I knew, Michael was having water spit on him. I slowly realized this too was to be my fate and fought back the urge to laugh / cringe when it was my turn. After the spitting water ordeal, the priestess filled up the glass with gin and instructed us to take a sip. I was really really worried that after this the priestess would spit gin on us, but luckily this was not part of the ritual. The voodoo ritual went on with more chanting and clapping , we also had some type of holy oil squirted on us as well as baby powder. To finish, the priest shook a handful of special shells and threw them into a shallow dish. Two of the shells landed face up, and the other two face down, which supposedly meant that we all would be blessed with good luck. After the ceremony was over, the priest and priestesses insisted that we all take a series of photos with each other. It was kind of like voodoo glamour shots.
The voodoo good luck didn’t kick in, however, because we couldn’t find a taxi from Glidji and ended up having to walk a mile or two back to a station. Whenever we walk anywhere, we usually attract a few locals who approach us, talk to us and basically attach themselves to us. We were having casual conversation with them when Catherine broke out her hand sanitizer and started passing it around. It was so funny to watch the locals use the hand sanitizer. They thought the smell was strange and stared obsessively at the bottle trying to figure out what it was.
We eventually made it back to Lome, collected our bags from the hotel and exited to the border. We chartered a private taxi back to Legon, since it was around 8pm and all of the buses had left. On the way back we saw a 4-5ft. ball python crossing the road! (Alex, it was like a huge Baby snake!) I wanted to go back and take pictures of it, but Katy, Catherine and Michael are lame and were too afraid. However, we are going to a python shrine this weekend in Benin so I will have my fill of snakes.
This week so far hasn’t been too crazy, I wrote a paper about the origins of the dance we’ve been learning in one of my classes. Apparently the dance was discovered by a hunter who used magic to conceal himself to observe dwarfs (who supposedly all have one leg that’s longer than the other) perform dances. Good to know? Michael inadvertently agreed to marry the crazy old woman who sells baked goods outside of our hostel. Also, Katy and Michael both received packages so we got to eat cheez-its, cookies and starburst. Delicious!
We’re leaving to travel to Benin tomorrow! Will report more next week!
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