Whirlwind adventure in Benin, and "au revoir" to West Africa

Continuing my recap...

Friday, Aug 28-Saturday, Aug 29: Benin in a whirlwind
Benin is another francophone country to the east of Togo that is a bit larger than Togo. Since it’s so easy to get to Benin from Togo, I really wanted to check it out even for a couple days, just to catch a glimpse of another country in West Africa. We didn’t have Benin visas and couldn’t get them at the consulate the day before, and had also heard that they were very reluctant to give temporary tourist visas at the border. So the plan was to go to the Benin border (which is only an hour drive from Lomé, hence it only takes one hour to drive along the entire Togo coast) and try to get visas, and if they refused to give them to us, we’d just hang out in eastern Togo.
We hopped into a very squishy shared taxi (a regular sedan size car, but takes 4 people in the back and 2 people in the front passenger seat) to get to the Benin border. Once there, we went through some slow customs (sitting down with a customs agent as he slowly takes down all of your information by hand) on the Togo and Benin side, and then finally they asked us for our visas. I explained that we did not have visas but that I had read in all the guide books that you could get a 48-hour visa at the border (true) and that the Benin consulate in Lomé had also confirmed this (false, they told me that you could only get one if you had already visited Benin before, which we hadn’t). The customs guys thought it over for a few minutes, then decided to give us the temporary visas, which are about $20 each. Success!
We then hopped in another shared taxi to get to the very busy city of Cotonou (you can buy other seats on a shared taxi so that you don’t have to squish with other people in ways that these cars were not made for), and once there we were supposed to head to another station in the city to get another shared ride to a jetty north of Cotonou so that we could go to Ganvié, a stilt village on a lake. When we reached the Cotonou area, the taxi driver ended up dropping us off in a random spot in the city after I explained we were going to Ganvié because apparently it was in the other direction than the way he was going. So, sort of stranded on a busy freeway, Eric flagged down a shared taxi that was headed towards the jetty. This taxi ended up dropping us off way past the jetty and not giving us change for the ride, and stranded again, a nice lady directed us to hop on zemidjans (taxi motorbikes) to get to the jetty. I have refused to take a zemidjan all summer, which are abundant in Lomé and totally accident-prone, with the chaotic way that people sometimes drive around here. Well, there’s a first time for everything... I hopped on, shut my eyes as we weaved through traffic, and we made it down to the jetty in one piece.
At a little reception area, we bought our ride on a motorized pirogue to Ganvié, which is supposed to be the largest stilt village in Africa and was cleverly built long ago by a community escaping a warring tribe that would not enter water due to religious reasons. People have continued to live here on the water, with their fishing traps and floating markets, and now a pretty good tourist industry. What was not explained to me, or was lost in translation, about our overpriced pirogue ride was that the guide that was coming with us for the boat tour was not included in the price that we paid – and Ganvié quickly became one of those frustrating places where everyone is blatantly asking you to give them money. I basically explained to the guide that he could just sit there and not talk because we weren’t paying any more money.
Since it was getting late in the afternoon, I thought that we could stay at one of two hotels that are actually located in the stilt village. Sadly, the nicer one was closed due to a strike, so we stayed at the ‘interesting’ Expotel on stilts. Interesting because I thought it was really a neat experience to spend a night in this extraordinary village, but also interesting because we were the only guests here and it felt like we had been the only guests in a long time, and because there wasn’t a whole lot to do and everyone passing on a boat was asking us for money and our room was pretty rough and a bit smelly to say the least, with all kinds of clanging sounds from the wind and water throughout the night. We were able to buy a mankala board and played the whole evening until hitting the sack at about 8 pm. A rough sleep, but no regrets – a memorable hotel experience! We booked it pretty quickly in the morning, then made our way back to crazy Cotonou to get a westward ride to Grand Popo close to the Togo border.
Grand Popo was a nice place to slow down after going through the chaos of navigating our way through Cotonou and going out of our comfort zone in Ganvié. It’s a little peaceful town on the coast and a great place to unwind. We got dropped off at a junction in Grand Popo, after making friends with a Japanese passenger in our taxi, and took a half-hour walk to the Auberge de Grand Popo, a little inn and resort on the beach, where we got some lunch and hung out on the beach for a while. Then we hoofed it back to the junction and hitched a ride on another westward taxi to the Togo border where we hopped on another very squishy taxi back to Lomé, where we were again very relieved to return to feeling clean and using ‘normal’ toilets. I also had my last dinner at my beloved Greenfield’s restaurant down the street which I have enjoyed frequenting at least weekly all summer for the $1 glasses of delicious boxed wine and Tuesday movie nights.

Sunday, Aug 30-Monday Aug 31: au revoir Lomé
One more full day in Lomé to pack up all my stuff, get another messy but yummy Togolese lunch at William’s, and clean the apartment.
The next morning, I went over to the PNLS (national AIDS program) office to say my goodbyes to the super nice and welcoming people that I had worked with over the summer. It always stresses me out to do goodbyes, but they were short and sweet, and no waterworks on my side!
I then had my last plate of maquis (street stall) spaghetti and we took off to go through the Togo-Ghana border for my last time and say au revoir to Togo.
4.5 hours later, we were back in Accra to hang out and grab some more fufu and Ghanaian fare for a last time.

The next morning, Eric took off and is now safely back in Boston. I’ve been just enjoying some last indulgences in Accra before I leave myself, doing some shopping and getting a one-hour massage for $20! My flight takes off this evening, and I’ll reach London early tomorrow morning. I’m planning to escape Heathrow during my 10-hour layover to go into the city and explore for the first time (not including my voyage from the train station to Heathrow on the tube during Ireland-Hungary Disaster 2005), go for a nice walk, weather permitting, and grab some lunch.

Leaving West Africa is quite bittersweet. I had wanted to come volunteer in West Africa since the middle of college and I’m so happy I finally made it. From the small chunk that I have been able to experience, I have really been smitten by West Africa; it has been so enjoyable to explore different regions, see different ways of living, and learn a little more each day about how things work here, whether related to my volunteer work or just getting around the region, or how to properly eat in public or interact with people.
Despite the adventure being out of the comfort zone and a bit difficult at times, I must say that some of the random acts of kindness that I have seen here in West Africa are quite unparalleled in any other place I have visited before. Whether it is a fellow passenger offering you food on a tro-tro, or a complete stranger going completely out of their way to guide your taxi to your destination to make sure you get home safe, or a lady on the street arguing with a driver to make sure that he doesn’t charge you the obruni/yovo price for a ride to your hotel – the way that some people can be so welcoming has made such a difference. And all the children, so much fun…
I am also looking forward to going back to Boston and starting a new chapter, with no guaranteed timelines or plans for next steps, or job/grad school acceptance lined up yet, but some kitchen cabinets to install, cookies to bake, and a beautiful little Frenchie pug to look after.
I definitely hope to come back to West Africa again in the future, for work or travel, and return to Togo but also see more of the other countries in the region. I find there’s such a pleasant confidence that comes with returning to a familiar place, and still having more to explore.
:)

Ghana/Togo: welcoming Eric to West Africa

I now have just 2 days left in West Africa…
Eric arrived on the 21st and we had our 11-day whirlwind adventure! Yesterday morning, we left Lomé and took our last tro-tro ride over to Accra, and Eric got on a plane back to the US this morning. My flight takes off tomorrow night, going to London first for a 10-hour layover (allowing for a little bit of sightseeing) before finally making my way back home to Boston.

OK, bear with me as I recap the last two weeks…

Sunday, August 16: Lomé
I woke up very early and left the house at 5:30 am with our driver, William, to go to the public beach in Lomé and watch hundreds of people run at dawn! (something I mentioned in my earlier entries on Lomé, but had never seen before) I did not participate (don’t be crazy) but just enjoyed the sunrise in the city and watching the crowds go by. There were some big groups that were very lively, with some people singing and pounding on gas cans, dressing up in costume (like one man who was wearing a little skirt and a stuffed sports bra, motivating the crowd).

Side notes on Lomé:
- The public beach that stretches through Lomé has never ceased to amaze me; driving by on a nice bright day, I find it strikingly pretty. There is a boulevard that runs right along the beach starting from the Ghana border on the west side and running east towards Benin, and a semi-circle boulevard comes off of the beach boulevard, enclosing the half-moon shape centre ville area of Lomé. The sad thing however is that this long public beach is apparently not very safe. If you are walking on the beach at night, I have heard that you have a 90% chance of getting mugged, and the daytime is questionable. The beach in my previous entry is actually a private beach on the eastern outskirts of the city, which is why it looks so empty. Sunday is the only day that is supposed to be OK to hang out on the public beach because they increase (or implement some) police surveillance. It is too bad that more investment has not yet been put into maintaining/rebuilding/improving the city, at least since the 70s (the city has much evidence of crumbling former 70s glamour if you look at many of the business buildings and hotels). Lomé could become a very attractive beach city and tourist hotspot, ie moneymaker, if the beaches were cleaned up with added security and some nice resorts were put in…just my two cents...

Thursday, August 20-Friday, August 21: Accra
Since the bulk of my work was coming to an end, and Tom encouraged me to enjoy some travelling during Eric’s visit and not work, Tom and I went out for a wrap-up lunch to sort of bring my summer volunteer time to a close. After lunch, I hopped on a tro-tro to Accra and caught up with a friend I had met earlier through Sofia.

The next morning, I was very excited to go pick up Eric at the airport for his first visit to Africa! I am impressed with the energy that he had after a long flight and his willingness to experience a little bit of Accra “as the locals do”... After sorting his Togo visa at the embassy in Accra, and taking a stroll around Osu (a busy section of Accra that I am most familiar with from the beginning of the summer, and the area where we were staying), we made our way over to the bustling Makola outdoor market, a massive maze of merchants selling everything from dried fish to underwear, and very tight crowds of customers. I had originally gone here on my 2nd day in Africa and it was quite overwhelming. At least this time going with Eric, it has cooled down since my first few weeks in West Africa, when it was extremely hot almost all the time. After touring the market and this busy area of town, we tried to take tro-tro’s home, trying to figure out the not-so-evident codes of how to take this hectic method of public transportation. As I learned over again for probably the 10th time this summer, when you want to go somewhere you have to be very explicit, and explain your destination in a variety of ways to make sure that your driver knows where you are trying to go, and is not just nodding and thinking of a completely different place with a similar name. In this case, when both Eric and I ask separately whether the tro-tro goes to “Danquah Circle” and the tro-tro mate says “yes, come”, that means that we are going to a completely different circle. After going around in a massive circle in rush-hour traffic, 3 tro-tro’s and 1.5 hours later, we made it back to our side of town.
We went to a nice little West African restaurant for dinner and enjoyed a nice evening of smoking shisha at a Lebanese bar and trying out all the different types of local beers at an outdoor party spot in Osu :)

Saturday, Aug 22-Sunday Aug 23: Ada Foah
Eric felt like heading to the beach for some relaxing, so we went east to Ada Foah, a peninsula on the eastern Ghana coast that enjoys the peaceful Volta River on one side and the rough sea on the other. We took a bumpy ride on a struggling tro-tro from Accra and arrived in Ada Foah about 2 hours later, from where we hopped on a pirogue (wooden canoe-like boat) for a half hour to take us to our beach camp. The boatman ripped us off quite a bit, also seeing as how Eric also had to row to get us moving a little past snail speed, but aside from that it was a beautiful ride on the Volta River. We made it to our beach camp, sandwiched between the ocean and the river, where we stayed in a sand-floor beach hut, without plumbing but with outhouses and bucket showers. The beach was beautiful and we enjoyed walking around (despite some unsightly piles of trash) and watching the camp staff perform traditional dancing and drumming in the evening. Even though the location was very peaceful, sleeping was a bit tough since we hadn’t brought sheets and the beds end up being a little damp from the sea air. Plus, I have always been a little weird about being outside of my toilet comfort zone, so we were looking forward to heading back to my apartment in Lome to a dry bed and flush toilet. We got on a motorized (and cheaper!) pirogue back to the bus station, where we had to take two different tro-tro’s to bring us further east to the Togo border. This was one of the squishiest tro-tro’s I had been on, where I think Eric and I had no more than 2 feet of sitting space for both of us in the very back. And two ladies had brought on buckets of dried fish, which made for an interesting scent throughout the whole ride.

Monday, Aug 24: Lomé
We took it pretty easy on Eric’s first day in Lomé. The jet lag, collection of new experiences for the senses, road travel, and new food (and maybe a bad cut of steak at the restaurant we went to the night before) finally caught up to Eric, so we hung around after lunch at Hotel Bellevue and went out for a stroll around my house in the late afternoon. We had a nice tapas dinner at Annexe (all continuing a restaurant hop of my favorite European eateries in Lomé before leaving) and relaxed for the evening.
Tuesday, Aug 25: Lake Togo and Togoville
We had planned to head up north in the morning to Kpalimé in the mountain region to do some hiking and stay for a night, but we woke up very early to some monsoon-like showers. We instead waited for the weather to clear up throughout the morning and then decided to ask William to bring us a little out west to see Togoville, a village on Lake Togo that they say is the birthplace of Voodoo, from which many slaves were brought to Haiti, forming the voodoo culture there. William first invited us to his house for a pâtes lunch (he had promised to make me some homemade Togolese food before leaving Africa). The French word pâte can mean many things – pasta, paste, dough… here in Togo it is a starch that goes with different sauces, like fufu, but instead of being a starchy vegetable that is pounded with a bit of water to make a sticky ball of dough like fufu, it is a powder (such as corn flour) that is stirred with water over heat to make a mashed potato or polenta like texture. It was served to us with a fish sauce with greens, and like in Ghana, we had to eat it with our right hand only. A pleasant surprise – Eric liked it! Most foreigners I’ve met do not like fufu or pâtes because of the texture and the messy way of eating it, plus Eric doesn’t like fish. William and his wife were ecstatic that we both appreciated their food and generously invited us for more découverte (“discovery”, as William called it) at their place two more times before we left Lome, once for pounded fufu and a broth-like chicken sauce, and again for pâtes and a very gooey duck sauce.
We arrived at Agbodrafo on one side of Lake Togo, where we caught a little wooden pirogue, which had a sail made out of flour sacks and pretty much had capsize written all over it once we looked at the choppy lake. The pirogue took us over to Togoville on the other side of the lake; the ride took about 30 minutes and got us soaked in some refreshing lake water…
An overpriced guide took Eric, William, and I around the village, showing us various voodoo statues and buildings. As it started getting late, we hopped back on the same funny little pirogue and made our way back to the other shore to head back to Lomé (to eat my favorite grilled chicken and fries at a street spot called Fifty-Fifty).

Wednesday, Aug 26: Kpalimé
We decided to just do Kpalimé in a day trip with William, instead of staying overnight to hike. Kpalimé is a town 120 km north of Lomé on the Ghana border, and is set in the mountain region that crosses over into Ghana, which features some great hiking and cooler climates. Throughout the day, we checked out various little artisanal shops, went on a walk with William through Mount Klouto so that he could point out all the medicinal plants that he uses in his traditional medicine practice, tried to avoid various sorts of tourist traps trying to take our money, and went to the big Kpimé waterfall where we got sprayed from head to toe. The sun was in and out, and we even got a little bit of rain, but the landscape was wonderful with rolling hills and rainforest. It was a whole new side of Togo, and besides the frustration of people pushing you for money for their tours or souvenirs, or straight up just asking you for money (“Donnez-moi de l’argent/un cadeau” – Give me some money/a gift) – which never ended throughout our travels but varied in intensity, it is a great getaway from Lomé.

Thursday, Aug 27: Lomé
We took another day to hang out in Lomé, have another traditional lunch at William’s, and then check out the Grand marché in the city, another big outdoor market, set up differently from the one in Accra but also chaotic. Since we were leaving for Benin the next day, we attempted to get tourist visas at the consulate in Lomé, but they refused to turn around the visas in one day. In the evening, we went to another one of my favorite spots to get fancy French fare for moins cher (yes, in Togo you can get great, relatively inexpensive French food, and I’m not ashamed!) that features the great crowd-pleaser, tartiflette... (can you ever go wrong with potatoes, cream, cheese, and bacon?)

I'll pick up with the last few days, starting with our whirlwind adventure in Benin, in my next entry tomorrow (my last day in West Africa...sniff) since this entry is already far too long... :)

.

Lome: time running out...

At this point, I just have 2 and a half weeks left in West Africa. Coming close to the end of the summer, now it starts to feel as though time has gone by quickly.

I haven't left Lome since I came back from Dakar, just doing some work steadily and hanging around. One of our regional managers who kickstarted the Clinton Foundation program here in Togo, but has now returned to the US, was in town for a few days, and it was great to hear her insight and get to see a new dimension of our program here. After being here for 2.5 months, you would think that I would really know all the ropes by now, but I find myself still asking very basic questions about how we work on the ground in Togo and in West Africa in general, and sometimes the answers are very simple but they make more and more sense to me the more weeks I spend here.

Though I'm sure I will get increasingly sentimental to leave West Africa in a couple weeks, and saying all my see-you-laters will be sad, I have been feeling very positive this last week as I come to the end of my trip. After going through some bouts of insecurity and frustration which come with any new working territory for a rampant over-thinker like myself, I am starting to realize what I have learned in my time here and that it's OK that I don't have all the answers or know how to do everything right now. I've had some interesting little projects to work on for my final weeks, and I really enjoy working with the people at the national AIDS program here, they are fun and very receptive. So I am glad to be coming to the end of my volunteer term feeling this positive about my experience.

And it also helps that Eric is coming to visit on Friday! Which is very exciting... He will be flying into Accra, so I'll head over there on Thursday and we'll spend a few days exploring Ghana before coming back to Togo. I'm also happy to have this opportunity to see a few more sights in Togo, I haven't really done much sightseeing at all in this tiny country since I got here. Eric will be here until the end of my trip, leaving the day before me from Accra as well.

More to report once I'm finally back on the road...

:)

Lome: it's not malaria...

So last week, a day and a half after I came back to Togo from Senegal, I got hit with some heavy flu symptoms. I immediately thought it might be malaria, which would be quite funny after the way I closed my last post, and would make sense from the ungodly amount of mosquito bites I got in Dakar. But alas, I waited it out for a day, hobbling around and staying mostly in bed, consulted the guidance of some contacts in Boston, and it seems like I had a case of food poisoning. Lucky for me, I got over the symptoms in about 36 hours and felt like a new person afterwards. The sad thing is, since I returned from Senegal, I had bought groceries and only made food for myself at home. So indeed, I had poisoned myself... of all the VERY sketchy foods I have eaten in the street in West Africa, I finally got food poisoning from something I prepared at home. At the time that I was sick, I'd almost preferred it was malaria, because that way, I would have been sure what caused it, and wouldn't have been surprised. But food? It may have been the tomatoes, I had just rinsed them with water and we have to wash all produce here with a bit of bleach...

Tom was away on vacation for a little over a week after I got back to Lome, and at first it was nice to be home and enjoy the apartment, but after a few days I admit I started to get cabin fever. I've never really been alone in such a big apartment before, plus we don't have lounge furniture yet so I go between the chair and table and my bed. I definitely have a new appreciation for some of our Foundation staff members who are alone in various parts of the world (Tom)... it can get quite lonely and tough to focus.

On a positive note, rainy season here in Togo is over! (Though a mini rainy season will reappear in about a month)

:)

Senegal: Oh I forgot to tell you, I have really bad luck when I travel...

I got back to Lome this afternoon from a week in lovely Dakar, Senegal. Though the trip got off to a rocky start, Dakar is stunning, and - mosquitos and heat aside - seems to be a very comfortable place to live.
So if I start from the beginning... Tom and I were invited to join a couple colleagues in Dakar to work with the national AIDS program there during a weeklong workshop to define their care scale-up plans for the next three years. So we booked our flight to Dakar from Lome, with a connection through Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.
Now if you knew me during Adventure Western Europe a few years ago, you would know that missing trains/planes and getting lost/stuck in unfamiliar places happens to be my forte.
When we checked in at the Lome airport, they were not able to give us our boarding cards for the Abidjan-Dakar connection and said we needed to pick them up at check-in once we reached Abidjan (which I knew from my previous visit happens to be a little tighter on security). When we got to Abidjan, some airport agent immediately starting guiding us around to try to check-in for our boarding cards - he was really high-strung and would grab our passports and run around while we chased after him. Our random airline had apparently closed check-in so we had to put in a little more effort to get our boarding cards. Tom got his card no problem, but they started flipping through my passport and realized that I did not have a Senegal visa. Senegal happens to be one of few, if not the only, country in West Africa where I don't need a visa as a Canadian. A very rotund lady with a stubbly beard was explaining that I couldn't go without a visa (trying to justify it by saying that if a Senegalese went to Canada, they would need a visa, which is clearly not the same thing), and got a colleague at the boarding gate on the phone who apparently confirmed this. They explained that Tom could go ahead as an American, but that I had to stay in Abidjan and then ripped up my freshly printed boarding card. We had about 30 minutes to spare before the flight took off for Dakar, and stunned I was really no help as Tom continued to argue with the bearded lady and others at check-in to let me get on the flight. The beard was referring to a guidebook that they use that says that I needed a visa (which still wasn't right), but after she walked away all stubborn, we realized that the most recent version said that I was exempt from needing a visa. It was too late to try to get on this flight at this point and Tom stayed with me so I wouldn't be alone in Abidjan, so we got lead around by high-strung man (who I later realized was not just a nice helpful man working at the airport, but expected us to pay him $100 for his help, which Tom unfortunately did) to a travel agency kiosk, drawing a crowd of people who had nothing to do but watch us struggle with our situation, and after more confusion and arguing, we ended up having to buy new flights to Dakar which didn't leave for another 8 hours. (Tom is currently trying to confirm that our travel agent doesn't pay the bill for our missed flight)
As we were trying to locate Tom's checked bag, we ran into the beard again - at this point after our planned flight had already left for Dakar - and she apologized to me, realizing that yes I really could have gotten on that flight, saying "Je suis vraiment desolee, I am deeply sorry... je pense que Dieu n'a pas voulu (I think that God didn't want you to get on that flight)." Ughhh...
So we killed 8 hours reading, watching DVDs on our laptops, eating duty-free cookies... When we checked in for our 11:15 pm new flight, they started joking that I could go and Tom could not go, which was not very amusing. We had heard that immigration in Senegal was a huge hassle, so we were not looking forward to our 2:30 am landing. Surprisingly, it was a BREEZE; after all of the chaos over me not having a visa, and our worries that we'd have to bribe our way into the country, they just stamped our passports and waved us along!

Finally, we were in Dakar! The next day, once we got in a car to go to the office where the workshop would be held, our first glimpse of Dakar by day was stunning - cliffs pouring into the bright sea, nicely paved roads and freeways, hundreds of people running and exercising on the beach, modern storefronts, beautiful houses, so many great restaurants, big grocery stores... We were thinking, what is this place and why don't we live here!
So to quickly run over Monday-Friday which was mostly spent working... We were introduced in the Terms of Reference as a team of expert consultants coming to help... umm and I got put in charge of Monitoring and Evaluation, and I think I know what that means? Again, like the rest of the summer, I was a bit daunted and needed to do some homework...
In general, the national AIDS program team there was very organized and motivated, and a lot of the time I really couldn't figure out how I could help them since it seemed like they had it all figured out. (Now I realize that I may be able to help out a bit, and will continue to do so from Togo)
I got to spend some time with some other Foundation colleagues that are based in Dakar or passing through, which was great. And the whole workshop was very well-catered - I got lots of Senegalese hearty lunches and deep-fried treats, mmm... (the caterers would even by freshly deep-frying french fries for lunch in the middle of this hospital)
In Togo, the sun sets at 6:30 pm which is very sad, but in Dakar it stays out until closer to 8 pm, which meant that even after a long day of meetings, the guys could run over to the beach and go surfing before nightfall.
Finally we reached Saturday where I could finally do some sight-seeing (on my own, Tom left on Friday for a week vacation with his family), since we had been busy at meetings all week. I hopped on a ferry over to Ile de Goree, an island just 20 minutes from the Dakar coast, which is just a very colorful little island with historical sites, cobblestone paths throughout, and a lively atmosphere.
I was convinced that I was leaving on Sunday morning - I had to book my return flight in Abidjan when we arranged the new flights and had requested that I return the following Sunday (we hadn't been exactly sure when I would come home, but again with their visa excuses they said it would be better for me to book the return flight right away), and didn't realize that my itinerary had said that I was returning to Lome on Monday instead of Sunday until after I had already gone to the Dakar airport at 5:30 am with all of my packed bags... I went to check-in and the lady was like, umm this is not for today...
I was staying at another volunteer's (beautiful) house in Dakar for my last couple nights, and the sliding door that I had let myself out of at 5 am did not open from the outside. So, when I returned to the house, I was locked out and so I just doused myself with bug spray and sat outside the house for 2.5 hours until I was confident that everyone inside would be awake so that I could get inside.
With another unexpected day, I decided to of course do a little more tourism and got on a very squishy seven-seater, which is just a very decrepit station wagon that fits 7 people other than the driver - and I had to take the middle seat (both ways) with about a foot's width of space to sit, not the most comfortable, especially in 95* weather. I went southeast along the coast to La Somone, where I heard they had a really nice lagoon. I went on a boat ride tour of the lagoon, did some bird-watching and walked around wtih thousands of tiny crabs, got some great sun and freshly caught seafood. I then got a ride over to Mbour, the main fishing town in Senegal with a huge, bustling fish market on the beach - hundreds of people on the beach running around with fish and rows of colorful fishing boats.
Finally, I made it back to Lome no problem today, thank goodness. Back to work and staying put for the next few weeks, as far as I know.

:)

Side notes on Senegal:
- unlike the other West African countries I have visited, Senegal is majority Muslim - I believe over 80% of the population. It is definitely a different vibe in terms of common views and daily rituals.
- Senegalese people love to work out! I haven't seen locals exercising outside in any other countries here, with the exception of playing soccer in the streets or on the beach. In Senegal, the sidewalks are filled with runners, there are makeshift South Beach-style gyms outside, and a hundred people will crowd a 50-yard stretch of beach just to run back and forth.
- if I haven't already explained how awful mosquitoes are here, they are pretty awful. I got bitten especially badly this past week in Senegal, I have 8 swollen bites just down this one line on my forearm, and I think for the first time every I have a bite on my eyelid. Thank goodness for malaria prophylaxis, or I would have definitely had malaria 8 times by now (though there is still a chance I can get it while on prophylaxis, eek...)

Cote d'Ivoire: Are there tourists here, and what do they do?

I returned to Togo from Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire on July 7. Well, really I flew from Abidjan to Accra in Ghana and then got right to the bus station to get on a very nice tro-tro to the Togo border. And thankfully, I did not get conned into giving any customs agents any money this time! I am really starting to figure this out...
Security at the Accra airport was really light - I can't remember the last time I didn't have to take my computer out of my bag through security check. Coming back through the Abidjan airport was quite different though; not only was my bag searched at security check, but at the boarding gate we all had to have our bags searched again - they pull everything out and shake containers and all that - and get patted down!

Day 1 in Cote d'Ivoire
Precious, who is based in Accra, and I got on our plane to Abidjan, which was delayed a few hours, and arrived in Abidjan around 8:30 pm. I seemed to attract a small Ivorian boy to play a game with me in the immigration line at the Abidjan airport - I can't tell if he was playing some kind of hero-villain game, charging me and saying "Caught you!", or putting a voodoo spell on me. We went to the hotel to meet our other two travellers, Shaloo (based in Benin) and Adam (Niger), after a long shouting match between myself and the taxi driver who was trying to insanely rip us off, turned off his meter, and then in the end was trying to explain to me that he was a dad and really needed the money (to which I responded that I was a mom too and didn't care), and finally I still let myself get horrendously (but a tiny bit less) ripped off.
We went to go get a late dinner, and following the advice of the hotel security guard of a place to go for “live music”, ended up at Saint-Germain which was really a discotheque with loud dance music and dim red lights. After a while, we kind of noticed that Precious and I were the only expat girls and that the club was filled with expat men and Ivorian women in very skimpy outfits, so we started to notice what kind of place it was…
CdI is the first country I’ve ever been to where I needed to carry my passport with me at all times; vehicles are frequently stopped on the road at night be policemen who want to check everyone’s Ids and maybe the trunk too.
In response to my last post, I finally opened up the Lonely Planet guide for CdI while waiting at the Accra airport to leave for Abidjan, and the chapter opens with a disclaimer that the LP authors didn’t even go to CdI at the time of writing because it was one of two countries (other than Somalia) that the British foreign office advised not to visit because it was too dangerous (this would have been in 2005 right after the civil war), so they had just relied on journalists and friends for travel info. Great! In summary, we realized that we needed to exercise extra caution than, say, in Ghana.

Day 2 (Happy 4th of July!)
We checked out of our first hotel, as it ended up being one of the nicest hotels in Abidjan and too expensive for us. In the daytime, walking around a little bit, we started to think that we might just be the only tourists in Abidjan… (by the lack of tourist attractions and the curious looks we got from Ivorians)
Abidjan is different from Lome and other cities I’ve seen in Ghana; after much investment before the civil war, it has skyscrapers, modern storefronts, and all nicely paved roads and freeways.
After lunch, we tried to find the museum of contemporary art which proved to be very difficult since our taxi driver and everybody he asked along the road didn’t know where it was (turns out the LP is too outdated and the museum doesn’t exist anymore). One person we spoke to on the roadside asked us what people do at an art museum.
Finally we gave up, but since we were in the vicinity of the US Embassy and couldn’t think of any other tourist attractions to see in the late afternoon, we decided to go see if we could join a 4th of July party – they must be having one? After much wait at the gates, an American lady came out and chatted with us for a bit about living in Abidjan, then decided to invite us in to their party (apparently these parties are not a free-for-all but invited guests only), but then realized it might be impossible since we had all of our bags with us from the hotel and looks like strangers can’t just tote big luggage into US embassies anymore these days. As we were about to leave though, she said that they would make an exception and let us in with our bags. Inside the massive US Embassy, they were having like a big backyard party with beach volleyball, tug of war, and lots of cookout style food, yay America! We met some nice people and made ourselves comfortable.
After checking into a new and cheap hotel, we went out to the very nice Havana Club for food and drinks, then to a reggae club for some good live music, a dance club, and finally one last nightclub for a few minutes before Precious and I decided to head back to the hotel and leave the boys to party.

Side note on Abidjan:
- And this really goes for my experiences in Ghana and Togo as well, but if you ask for help people are very friendly here. When our ride home had trouble finding our hotel on the way back from the nightclub, we asked a couple security guards who then called their friends to find out and when they figured out the directions, hopped into their truck to escort us to the hotel to make sure that we found it OK.

Shaloo quote: “They should play more classic films about Africa here, like ‘The Land Before Time’.”


Day 3
After a lazy morning, we went to lunch and then went to go check out the Cathedral of St. Paul, a worthwhile (dare I say, unfortunately, the only?) tourist attraction in Abidjan. It’s a very modern structure that is a big statue of St. Paul with his cape stretching back over the church.
With poor weather, we went and hung out over some drinks, and then decided to fulfill Shaloo’s wish to see a movie at the cinema; we checked out a couple cinemas and gave up when the manager refused to show English subtitles (Precious doesn’t speak French) because the Lebanese customers would get mad.
After dinner, we grabbed a drink at a reggae bar then called it a night.

Day 4
We went to lunch at the best patisserie/bakery in town, yay! To get a little outside of Abidjan, we decided to go to Grand Bassam just less than an hour away, which was the first colonial town in CdI and is right on the beach. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and rainy so it wasn’t the best beach day but we enjoyed some drinks and snacks by the beach under some shelter. We then checked out some pottery and craftwork before getting back on a bus to Abidjan.

We went back to the cinema since the manager had said the day before that we could have a private showing of a movie in English while the cinema was usually closed that night. It was too good to be true though, and the manager backed out in the end. We did get some great Ivorian food for dinner though!

The next morning, we parted ways at the airport and Precious and I headed back to Accra. I’m glad I got to see a different city, and think it would definitely be worthwhile to return to CdI again in the future with hopefully better weather, more time to see the interior of the country, and a knowledgeable Ivorian guide.

Now back in Lome, I’ve gotten back to work and will actually be heading out for country #4 tomorrow – SENEGAL! Tom and I will be heading to Dakar to do some work there for the week, and I am looking forward to seeing Dakar and seeing what work is like in a new setting. Hopefully I will have a little time to explore the city while I am there.

:)

Togo/Ghana: Back on the road

I came back to Accra from Lome on July 1st (Happy Canada Day!), going back through the hustle and bustle of the Ghana-Togo border and the very bumpy roads stretching 30 miles or so from the border. Being back in Accra, it almost feels like I just came home, being in familiar territory. It has also reminded me of how different it is from Lome, being anglophone of course, but also with more urban development, traffic stop vendors, public transportation and cars (and much less of those crazy motorbikes). I am back to visit Sofia as her time here in Africa ends, but I am quickly heading out this afternoon to get on a plane for Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire!
Visas here in West Africa are a real pain sometimes, considering that I've hardly ever needed a visa to travel anywhere else except here, and consulates can be tough to find in Togo, but alas after a little hassle I secured a visa for Cote d'Ivoire. I am going to meet three other Foundation volunteers that have just finished their work here in different parts of West Africa and are celebrating their victorious end proposals (now that my work is actually starting to get very busy, and I'll actually have to try to open up the laptop this weekend) by making a trip to the Ivory Coast. None of us have been there before, so we might need to read up a little bit on our flight over there...
Cote d'Ivoire has also had a rather tumultuous history, but I hear Abidjan is really lovely, so more to come on that after I get back to Lome on Tuesday!

The last couple weeks in Lome have been getting progressively busier as I've started getting more work on my plate. My feelings range from some days feeling like I am getting the hang of things and putting together what I've learned so far, to feeling totally lost and not knowing what anybody is talking about. I guess that's to be expected!
One of our visiting colleagues is a clinical advisor, and I followed her to two hospitals in Lome as we are starting to build a national clinical mentorship program. Though I wasn't exposed to many patients, it was interesting to see the difference between the two hospitals, hear about the challenges they are experiencing, and listen to our advisor suggest ways to better organize HIV/AIDS treatment. One head pediatrician had some especially passionate thoughts about the need for more children to be born from able women - that women didn't have the right to choose to have just one or two children, that they should have as many as they can... after I picked my jaw up, I couldn't help but laugh...

I've been eating very well in Togo :) at nice French and Lebanese restaurants - possibly too well as my cash seems to run out rather quickly...

Side note on Lome:
- there are noticeably less taxis in Lome than in Ghana, which can make it a little more time-consuming to make your way home in the evening - though we are pretty spoiled to make frequent use of our unofficial Clinton Foundation driver, William (who has invited us over to his home three times for huge avocado salad lunches and wildlife DVDs). Instead, there are zemidjans, or taxi-motos, everywhere that are very cheap but do not strike you as being all that safe... Cars and motorbikes seem to share the road reasonably well, but there is at least one point in each car ride that I take that I feel like we've escaped a collision. And both in Ghana and Togo, my vehicle standards have definitely lowered, when you feel like the strength of your car is equivalent to a cardboard box, and the taxi driver laughs at you when you try to make your seatbelt work...

Togo: I'm wrecked

So Friday evening before dinner, I decided to work out for the first time in 5 weeks with Tom outside on the veranda. We were doing a high-intensity workout in quick intervals, which I thought would be fine since I was in decent shape back home. However, after 20 minutes total, I was getting the spins and was convinced I would either pass out or throw up, which has never really happened to me. I ended up sitting on the floor sipping on Propel for a good half hour until I was ready to stand up. I think part of it is that I am pretty out of shape, but Tom thinks it is because I am dehydrated here and am not used to working out in this heat and humidity. In any case, I was pretty sore all day yesterday and beginning yesterday evening to right now, I am having the worst muscle pains I've ever had. Most of my muscles are a bit sore as usual, but I've got some serious pulled muscles in both my quads - so bad that I have trouble walking without having my legs buckle under me, my thighs would hurt just from touching my mattress this morning when I was sleeping, and I have to put my hands down on a seat first and lower myself down so I don't collapse. Hopefully the muscle pain will go away soon though, and I'll be ready to try out this workout again!
We have two other Foundation colleagues in town this week, one staying at our apartment as our third roomie. There were scheduled protests today against the government here in Lome, and though we didn't run into any crowds, when we left the hotel where we had lunch with our fourth colleague this afternoon, we were definitely glad to hop into a taxi within a few minutes as the atmosphere felt strangely more tense than usual. Though Togo has quite a turbulent political history (the president's own brother just attempted a coup a couple months ago), Lome is safe for expats if you just exercise proper caution and common sense - don't worry!

Side notes on Lome:
- apparently, as my Lonely Planet explains, and as some people I've met have confirmed, Lome used to be the "Paris" of West Africa in the 70s, and you can see how this is true from its picturesque location on the beach, simple route planning, and tall chic buildings (at least formerly, as they look noticeably aged now). However, with political instability over the last couple decades, very little has been done to maintain/rebuild the city and this is quite remarkable when driving around Lome.
- I have yet to witness this, but every Sunday morning at 6, as a tradition that started some years ago when the President insisted that everyone do more exercise, hundreds of Togolese people crowd the streets of Lome and go running for hours! It is apparently really fun, so I hope to join in at some point this summer, when my legs are less incapacitated...

:)

Togo: Learning curve...

Here's the view of Lome from our lovely veranda!


So after some whirlwind vacationing in Ghana, I'm settling down now in Lome and getting to work. We are basically assisting the national HIV/AIDS program to decentralize and improve medical care and treatment in Togo. I have been following Tom around to lots of meetings, and I have had to study, and continue to study, different materials so I can start to figure out this new language of work, from names of different drugs to new formulas to use in Excel.


Yesterday, I went on my first site visit with some representatives from the national program; we went to a drug dispensation site in Aneho, about an hour from Lome, and worked with the staff there to provide more information about how to work with people living with HIV/AIDS. I am slowly starting to understand more about HIV/AIDS, how the Foundation works with partners on the ground, and what we can do to help.


It is certainly a new lifestyle for me to not be working in an actual office all day, and of course not being bombarded by a hundred emails everyday! We work from home and go back and forth between the national program headquarters and other sites for meetings. And my stress level is at a comfortable low :)


Other than work, I've been able to meet many of Tom's friends who are all good people. I also had the chance to go to a private beach last weekend, which was lovely. In fact, a main road in Lome runs along the beach and it is really nice being on the coast all the time.


I still don't really know my way around the city, but I don't really know my way around back home either, so I guess it will be a long process for me!

:)

Togo!

I meant to come to Togo on Sunday, but there were no coach buses running to Togo on Sunday, so I arrived here yesterday (Monday) but not on the bus as planned (when the bus schedule says that the bus leaves at 5:30 am, 8:30 am, and 2:30 pm, apparently that really means that the bus only leaves once at 6:30 am) but on a shared taxi instead. After 3.5 hrs, I made it to the Togo border from Accra and went through some surely unnecessary hassle crossing the border on foot where I was escorted all over the place in this tiny square, filling out forms, going into this room, showing my suitcase, and of course shelling out some money here and there at different "check points" which I'm pretty sure is not legit.
Tom, who also works for the Clinton Foundation in Togo, met me on the other side and we went into Lome (the capital) which is just 2 km from the border (Togo itself only has 52 km of coastline). I feel a little guilty to say that our apartment here is quite luxurious - AC in the bedrooms, warm showers, internet, and a washing machine!
My French is coming back in pieces, and on top of that I have a lot to learn, now that this will be a whole different type of work. I'll be following Tom around a bit and meeting different people here in Lome before i get started on any projects.
Everybody who has been to Togo seems to really like it, so I'm looking forward to getting to know the country better. It is definitely nice to settle and unpack the suitcase. Food is good so far!

:)

Ghana: Ever slept in a sauna?

This week in Accra has been quite relaxed, I've been spending time catching up on email and eating good food. I had no problem getting my business visa for Togo so I should be all set to head off to Lome on Sunday (it's only a 3-hour bus ride from Accra).
Last night we lost power in our neighborhood from about 6 pm yesterday to 7 am this morning (and the power just died again at 9:15 am). It may have been one of the roughest sleeps of my life - sleeping in a hot room with no fan when it's 90 degrees and humid...yikes...

2 more days in Accra then off to Togo!
:)

Welcome to Elaine's first blog!

Hi everyone!
I haven't written in a journal or put together a travel scrapbook in years, so I thought I would find a new way to chronicle my trip to West Africa this summer. This is hopefully a way to help me remember my time here down the road, but if you are interested in finding out about what I've been doing here, "you are welcome!" (as strangers will often tell you here in Ghana)

Please bear with me as a recap the last 12 days or so since I arrived here...

Wednesday, May 20
After a 6-hour flight from Boston to London, a 6-hour layover in London, and a 5-hour flight to Ghana, I made it safe and sound to Accra! Here I met up with my UBC bosom buddy, Sofia, who is doing her internship for her masters program here, and was also greeted by the stifling heat and humidity.
Cold showers feel awesome, constant sweating not as awesome...
Still fighting a cold and cough - quite annoying on long flights - that stayed with me for another few days...

Thursday, May 21
Sofia works at the International Organization for Migration in Accra, and two of her friends work for the Child Trafficking unit, which rescues trafficked children who leave their families to work in the fishing industry here in Ghana. They bring the children to rehab centers for a few months to work with counselors before bringing them back to their home villages. The team very generously invited Sofia and I to join them on a field trip to a village a couple hours outside of Accra to return three children to their families. We first went to the school that they would be attending, where we were greeted by about a hundred very enthusiastic and beautiful children! Then we brought the three boys (probably about 10 years old, and very apprehensive to return to their families, who - I have been told - usually consent to 'selling' their children) to their village and sat down with the chief to review contracts of responsibility for their guardians.

Side notes:
- symbols of Christianity are everywhere, e.g. Christian music on the radio, bumper stickers, "Ask God Hair Salon"
- things are very inexpensive
- most Ghanaians are very friendly, even when they are referring to you as "obroni" (foreigner). They love to say hello and wave to you!

Friday, May 22
Got my first taste of traditional Ghanaian fare, and had fufu and "light soup" with fish for lunch. Fufu is a doughy, sticky ball of mashed plantain/yam/cassava - food is extremely carb heavy here, and hot and rich despite the hot weather. Though delicious, this fufu soup was an absolute mess and I was clearly a spectacle for the locals watching me eat. First of all, you have to eat with your hands - and actually only your right hand - so I was immersing my hand in this hot and spicy food, when it feels like its 100 degrees out and your skin is on fire, pouring (literally) sweat, nose running from spiciness and cold, eyes watering, and constant coughing fits. But in the end, I finished it! which I hear is quite a feat since foreigners don't usually finish/like fufu the first time.

Sofia and I then went to the huge maze-like Makola market, which is overwhelming but a dive-right-in intro to crowded market culture where you can buy just about anything under the hot sun.

Side notes:
- it is incredible the things that people can carry on their heads here! You can see mostly women and children carrying/selling anything on their heads, from 8 gallons of water to a dozen live chickens.


Saturday, May 23
In the afternoon, Marloes (Sofia's roommate/friend from university in the Netherlands) left for Cape Coast, about 1.5 hours west of Accra and stayed with a Rastafarian (plenty of those here!) friend of a friend who drove us around for the weekend.

Sunday, May 24
We spent the morning at Kakum National Park, less than an hour from Cape Coast, where we went along a canopy walk in the rainforest (not for those afraid of heights) and took a nature walk through the forest. We had lunch at Hans Cottage, which features a big pond with crocodiles. Then we toured Cape Coast Castle, which is one of the larger castles along the West African coast, initially used for the European-West African gold trade, and then used to hold captured slaves.
We returned to Accra that evening to prepare for our weeklong trip around Ghana!










Monday, May 25
Sofia, Marloes, Anna (Sofia's English friend from grad school who joined us from Benin) and I got to the bus station at 5:30 am to take an 8 am bus up north to Tamale. I'm happy the bus was air conditioned, though since we were sitting in the back right by the hot engine (that had to be washed off with water halfway through the trip since it was overheating), our seats started feeling like they were heated for the last third of the trip, so we were still all sweaty. After 13 hours, we made it to Tamale!

Tuesday, May 26
We spent the morning strolling around Tamale, then spent the rest of the day in a small village outside of Tamale, learning about how they make shea butter, pottery, clay huts, and string. Best of all, we had a big entourage of children from the village that followed us around everywhere. Being around children here so far has been my favorite way to experience West Africa of course, but at the same time, it has been very surreal to think about how different our childhoods are - they have so few material things, they are so easily amused, in the villages you will often see 6- or 7-year-olds carrying around their younger siblings - children taking care of children...

Wednesday, May 27
We got on a 5:30 am bus to Larabanga, which took 3.5 hours, after which I have never been so thankful to get my personal bubble back (tiny seats, dirt roads where it's like you can feel every tiny rock under your seat, and people squeezing in the aisles but hovering over you so it felt like a woman was actually breastfeeding her baby on top of me). At Larabanga, we got a ride to Mole National Park to hang out with the wildlife! We checked into the one motel they have in the park, then watched the elephants hanging out in a pond down below. We went on a safari walk in the afternoon where we got to get close to the elephants and also see warthogs, antelope, baboons, and monkeys.

Thursday, May 28
We had meant to take another safari walk early in the morning but after a night of monsoon rains (rainy season is coming quickly), we decided to leave the park after breakfast (where a monkey jumped on our table and ate all of our sugar cubes). Our next stop was Kumasi in central Ghana, which proved to be a feat...
We got a 40-minute ride in a Land Rover (those are so awesome here on all the dirt roads) to Damango, where we had to get on a tro-tro (minibuses all over Ghana that can fit more people than I thought possible) to Damango Junction, which took us 3 hours on dirt roads though it was only 41 miles away. After that bumpy ride, we were stuck at Damango Junction for a while, befriended by a bunch of children, which were also tough to leave. We got on another tro-tro for 2 hours to Kintempo, where we waited an hour to get on another tro-tro to Kumasi which took 3.5 hours, finally making it there close to midnight.

Side notes:
- travelling from bus station to station has really made me appreciate my idea of normal toilets. I have come face-to-face with my lifelong nemesis, the squat toilet...
- I see what people meant by needing to get used to being dirty and sweaty all the time...

Friday, May 29
The highlight of our trip to Kumasi was to visit the big market they have there, which tragically burned down entirely the day before. The streets around the market were chaotic, with police and single-file lines everywhere, trying to move around the damage. Anna left us at Kumasi to return to Benin, and we went to the Palace Museum to learn about the Asante royal family. We then proceeded to journey to the last leg of our trip, Busua beach. We got on a 5-hour tro-tro ride to Takoradi back on the southern coast, getting there at 8:30 pm. Despite people telling us that it was too late to venture to Busua at a late hour from Takoradi, we thought it would be fine to hire a taxi to take us there to stay for the night, which would be about 40 minutes. However, getting to our hideout lodge, which was off the beaten path to say the least, was not easy in the dark. We followed all sorts of signs, taking our poor disgruntled taxi driver down miles of bumpy dirt road with no street lights or signs of life, and our 40 min drive was closing in on 1.5 hrs. Once we got to 1 km from the lodge, the road was way too treacherous for our taxi, so we turned around and he brought us to the very accessible but top-end Busua Beach Resort, where we paid 10 times what we would have paid at the lodge. We invited our taxi driver in for some drinks (and he cheered right up), then tried to enjoy our unusually swanky splurge at the fancy hotel.

Saturday, May 30
Wasn't exactly the beach day we were hoping for as it poured for hours. A bunch of Marloes' and Sofia's other housemates joined us in Busua, and once we were starting to regret our beach weekend, it cleared up a little and we made our way over to the hideout lodge (fitting 8 people in a small taxi plus the driver, which was incredible but cost-friendly), which is far more accessible in the daytime when you can walk a little along the beach to get there. We chilled out on the beach, swam, drank, and ate tiny lobsters for the rest of the day/night, then slept in our little hut bungalows.

Sunday, May 31
We enjoyed the beach in the morning then made our journey back to Accra to conclude our backpacking week around Ghana. We all got covered in bug bites (HUGE bites, though I like to think the bug spray helped a bit) and sunburns, but on the bright side it looks like all my heat rashes are starting to pass...


And now I am back in Accra, chilling out, eating more food, exploring a little more of the city, catching up on work and emails at the internet cafe. I will be in Ghana for about another week before I make my way over to Togo!

:)