Togo

On Sunday Rivky, Zahava, and I went to Togo, which is a small French-speaking country on Ghana’s eastern border. (BTW, none of us speak French which makes everything all the more so exciting). At the CIEE Olympics, we had a referee, Jean, who Zahava befriended who is half Ghanaian and half Togolese. We ended up arranging our trip with him and we were able to stay with him for a night. We took a tro-tro to the border town in Ghana, Aflao and Jean met us there. We dropped off our stuff in his little apartment and we went to cross the border into Lome, which is Togo’s capital. Jean is a soccer coach/manager (not really sure what the deal is) and thankfully one of his players took us around for the day on Sunday. The player (we were never sure of his name) is from Togo so his French is great and his English is not so great. Anyways, as we were going through the border control, it started POURING. And the border control is a little shack, so the water was leaking in. Luckily, I had my umbrella, but it kept getting in everyone’s way so I had to shut it. They told us we couldn’t cross because it was raining, but then they changed their minds and we were able to get through with minimal hassle.

In Togo, the predominate mode of transportation is motorcycles. They are often used as taxis, which is the best part of Togo. We took motorcycles in the rain to the Grande Marche, but it was pretty much closed. We walked around Lome a bit, but not much was happening because it was raining and it was a Sunday, but we saw some of the main things to see, including some political monuments. Lome is really nice. It is much greener than Accra and much smaller. Also, at some point over our stay in Togo, new president was supposed to be sworn in, and the opposition party had already announced that they were going to protest. They were unclear about when the swearing in would be or what would happen, so we were slightly nervous. But luckily we had this nameless guide the whole time.

After a few hours, we crossed back into Ghana to return to Jean’s apartment. He had just moved a week before we arrived. Zahava, Rivky, and I slept on one twin mattress on the floor and he slept on the floor in the common room. It was definitely cozy in that twin mattress. Jean was unbelievably hospitable constantly offering us whatever we needed and making sure that we were okay. It was really generous of him to host us like this and even have one of his players escort us.

The next day, we decided to go north of Lome to Mount Agou, Togo’s highest mountain. The player took us to the station and we were on our way, now with no French-speaker to help us. Rivky and Zahava’s two years of French was pretty useless at that point, but we did have a French dictionary, which was minimally helpful. Luckily, there was one woman on the tro-tro who spoke Twi, so I was able to communicate with her and tell her to tell the driver where we were getting off. After a couple hours of driving, we arrived at the base of the mountain and we got a guide to take us up and we planned to have a motorcycle take us down. We climbed about half way up the mountain in flip-flops (we were carrying all of our stuff including all of our food for days so we didn’t have room for sneakers), and then we decided to take a motorcycle for the rest of the way, which was amazing. We reached the top of the mountain and a man in a beater told us he was a soldier and we need to pay 2,000 CFA, which is about $4 because of something with our visa. Then he says if we had gotten the visa we would have had to pay 7,000 CFA, which made no sense. (Keep in mind no one really speaks English and we don’t speak French). Zahava asked where his uniform was, so then this other guy in a uniform came over and we eventually just paid him. We saw the view and we had a little picnic. We were able to pick fruit along our way up the mountain and we ate it at the top. After awhile, we headed back down the mountain on the motorcycles and I sat in the front and the driver sat in the back and helped me steer. They ended up taking us all the way to Kpalime (pronounced Palimay), which is the town we were staying in. We were pretty low on money at this point so they took us to three ATMs all of which were broken.

Anyways, we arrive at a relatively fancy hotel with minimal mold on the ceiling and they tell us the ATMs will be working in the morning. At this point we have VERY little money, not even enough to pay for the hotel. That night, we walked around the town and we met a Nigerian man, who spoke English and French, which was very helpful. We had planned to visit some cascades and he was going to take us, but since we had no money we had to go to the bank first in the morning, which opened at 8:00. We go to every single bank trying to use the ATMs, but every single one was broken (there were two or three in the town). We are having MAJOR communication problems and I’m just waving my ATM card around while everyone tells me all the machines are broken. I cried while explaining to the banker that I have no money, but he didn’t seem to care very much. Also, we had to get back to Ghana because Rivky had a final. We considered having someone wire us money (there were two Western Unions) but we had no phone to call. After two hours of trying to get money, we returned to the hotel still broke and we all gathered every cent we had and counted it on the bed. After discussing all of our options ranging from begging on the street to bartering our cans of tuna, we decided to try to explain to the receptionist (who doesn’t know English) our predicament and tell her we can only pay for part of the cost. We paid for more than half of the hotel, saving enough money to get us back to Ghana and we were out of there. We got motorcycles to take us to the Ghanaian border, which was about an hour and a half away. At one point, there was a random checkpoint where we had to give our passports (as if people are trying to sneak into Togo).

Finally, we reach the Ghana border and are relieved to be speaking English again. We get on the first tro-tro to take us to Ho and there we find an ATM to get money from. There was a REALLY long line and everyone is looking at the person in front typing in the PIN. Finally, when it’s my turn, Zahava makes everyone stand back so I can type in my PIN without everyone seeing. As everyone is screaming and distracted, we successfully get enough money to get back to Legon.