Lomé, capital of the Republic of Togo

Sorry for the long delays between posts, the country I'm in now is very poor and internet is unreliable.




So I crossed the border from Ghana to the east and I'm now in the Republic of Togo, a tiny country. Both a and its almost eaually sized neighbor to the east, Benin, are the birthplaces of Voodoo and despite Christianity and Voodoo most people still privately adhere to some form of Voodoo practice. Contrary to what you may think, Voodoo is not about dolls and evil spells although that form of Voodoo known as black magic here, does exist though most people consider it quite pathetic.

Like Ivory Coast, Togo is a Francophone nation although there are some English speakers here as a result of the largest ethnic group, The Ewe people, being a cross border tribe with Ghana who also are a majority in the East of Ghana.

This nation is very much a dictatorship and the son of former president is now in power and he is unliked here in the capital as he is a northerner (north is mainly muslim and non-Ewe) whose father came to power in a coup.

In fact I practically met the president! Sort of, not really. As I was walking down the main street I always walk on I noticed people clearign the street as if there was an air raid siren followed by a soldier waving his AK-47 in the air while blowing his whistle.
People were quickly clearing the streets just like out of a film where there is about to be a mafia hit and the whole neighborhood knows it except the target. Except in this case I knew I needed to clear the streets as it was obvious and before I knew it a girl about 16 years old that didn't speak any English and only pigeon french grabbed me from the back of my neck and yanked me into an alley way and locked the hatch on the door. I kept trying to peak over the gate to see what was going on as this sort of stuff interests me but even to this she responded ne regaredez pas (Don't Look!). I kept trying to peek over and she kept pulling me down. I found out after the all clear whistle that it was the presidential motorcade and the young president doesn't like being looked at in addition to the the fact he is in the capital which is smack on the south east and despises him.

It was an interesting experience to say the least.

The people of Lomé and Togo are very nice and despite the unbelievable poverty here, people still go out and drink beer, so,ething not done ni Ghana by the locals.

 

I have been in the capital city Lomé for two weeks as I'm studying French via my "40 Lessons to learn French" book which is a very good book and my good friend Edem gives me a French test every two days based on the material I covered in the book. I barrage him with questions pertaining to grammar rules and of course proper pronunciation (the hardest thing for an English speaker learning French).

The great thing about Edem's French is that it is educated and proper because despite what perception you may all have, many here speak a pigeon French and/or pigeon English. Edem's wife speaks Ewe and hardly a word in French. Learning French from a pigeon speaker (they don't always realize they speak improperly) is very bad because you learn everything according to the local pigeon style, so Edem is a blessing.

As always the food here is 4 stars above Ghana's cuisine in everything from coffee, to meat and fish as a result of this being a former French colony instead of a British one. The people here are MUCH poorer then in Ghana but they still eat for enjoyment as well as subsistence unlike Ghana.

Another interesting side note concerns the new US embassies popping up in every single West African capital and the enormous size of them which is hard to put in words as they simply dwarf entire areas in sheer size. The embassy here in Togo is brand spanking new and is somewhere around the size of the Pentagon. The US embassy in Accra , also brand new, is even bigger. The first of the new West African US embassies was built in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and that one is only 3-4 years old.

An Italian friend of mine I met in Accra, works for a major Italian construction company and has lived in Ghana for 20 years won a contract to lay foundation for the new US embassy in Ouagodougo (capital of Burkina Faso) which is now completed. It is also a monstrosity of a building.

Most Africans are generally welcoming of these new super embassies, they brag that there US embassy is bigger then so and so, on the other hand they ask me if I know why the US needs such a big embassy in Togo or Ghana and I have no answer for them.

The Africans love the US in both Bush times and of course Obama but Clinton is still a god here.

Anyhow I will load up some pictures and attempt load videos though it can take five hours here. I check my email twice a day here while I'm in they capital here studying French, in a week or two I'm going up to Kpalime which has West Africa's tallest peak (3,000 feet lol) but it should provide some needed relief from the brutal humidity here as well as it is coffee country with lush hills.

Ohh and by the way I stepped in my first shit puddle, for almost three months I've avoided them but one got the best of me and it took some shampooing and blow drying to get the smell out.

Update: I will try hard to add photos and videos to this post so I'll send out notices each time I do

The Ivory Coast

I am writing to you from the city of Abidjan which is the capital of the Ivory Coast now officially spelled Cote D'Ivoire. This is without a doubt the nation I wanted to avoid like the plague as it was considered the most dangerous nation in Africa along with Somalia up till 6 months ago.



So why on earth am I here you ask? I met an American in Kumasi who said he was going across the border into Cote D'Ivoire since it was safe now and very stable. I checked it out for myself and sure enough it was removed from the UK travel ban list. Strangely enough Americans don't need visas to enter Cote D'Ivoire until February 15 so I got waved across the border while others had problems.

I first headed to the Beach town of Grand Bassam which was 90 miles from the border and had to endure 9 military checkpoints though suprisingly enough not one asked me for a bribe.

The Ivory Coast is/was the gem of Africa. After independence their president poured money into education and agriculture as well as infrastructure. As soon as you cross the border from Ghana you notice an immediate difference in almost everything. First thing you notice is the excellent roads that still exist in the country followed by a 1st world agriculture and farming system. You see farm after farm as well as freshly plowed fields and nice healthy cows grazing on them (a rare sight in Ghana). The pineapples and bananas are twice the size of Ghana's and taste fantastic. The meat, fish, and food culture in Cote D'Ivoire is night and day when compared with Ghana where people eat for subsistence and not pleasure. Everywhere serves excellent French bread and croissants

By far the best African dish I've eaten is the Ivorian Kedjenou which is a lemon based sauce with tomato and pepper made with chicken, beef, or fish served over an excellent local specialty called Attieke which is grated Cassava and tastes like Cous Cous only better.The people here are extremely friendly despite not speaking much English.

Yesterday I arrived here in the capital to more or less see if the capital can live up to the hype and it definately has. The city is beautiful and is littered with modern skyscrapers. I had no idea that Sub-Saharan Africa had such a city outside of maybe CapeTown. My hotel is right on the lagoon with an amazing view.

Aside from the Armored Personal carriers tha you see here and there the city seems extremely stable and normal the outskirts of the city are slummy but that is normal in any big city

Kumasi and Ashanti people

Sorry I haven't posted recently but my internet access has been limited and extremely slow when possible. So I have plenty of pictures and will upload them when I can

I'm currently in Kumasi which is the 2nd largest city in Ghana and is the capital of the Ashanti people which are by far the largest tribal group in Ghana with about 50% of the population. In fact their political party, the NPP, just lost the elections by 23,000 votes out of 10 million votes counted. The NDC won with a coalition of the other tribes and areas by 50.1%.

The people of Kumasi are very nice and the city is nice as well and not at all hectic like other cities.

Immediately I noticed that the woman here are a little healthier looking in size and have some meat on their bones unlike all the other places I've been. Many people here also are a little lighter in skin which has much to do with the slave trade.

The Ashanti were the ones who more or less were the dominant forces in rounding up other tribes and handing them over to the slave trading companies. In fact while at the Cape Coast slave castle, two Ghanians of different tribes were teasing one another along the lines of my tribe enslaved yours which did not at all amuse any of the Africa-Americans who were there watching that exchange.

I've visited and stayed with a suprisingly well off family here. They own two compounds side by side in a suburb of Kumasi and their living conditions are a world away from most. Much of this wealth was retreived by simply caring for people in Syria which one of the aunts did. So apparently that money that is earned in western nations does bring buy them a lot here.

Today is the Obama inauguration and it should be on here at around 5 p.m. so I hope to check a few places on the sreet that I think will show it and I will take my camera along and takes some pictures and make some videos. It should be interesting.

There is here in Ghana the "Barack Obama Song" which is sung by a local group who sing a song about Obama and it is played constantly and even has the video played continuously on TV.

Also the food here in Kumasi is significantly better then anywhere in Ghana and the street food here is the best food in town as it is served every hour fresh from gleaming cookware with a variety of sauces, meats, and vegetables to choose from to go along with the awesome "Wachi" which is a rice with beans style rice which is fabulous and unseen of anywhere else in Ghana thus far. They also have 30-40 freshly boiled eggs sitting their in a brand new pot which is lovely for me as I love to mash it up in my rice. Eggs here are usually not very good as the yolk is usually the size of a pea but here in Kumasi they are real eggs.

I've also noticed that there are many foods from Israel and walked into a supermarket here and found a whole wall of "Prigat" fruit drinks. The Snickers is also always from Israel and written in Hebrew in the back. I found one place that sells Phildelphia cream cheese at insane prices as well.

Alas however there is no milk anywhere in the country. You can buy powered or UHT sterilized but there is not a single ounce of pastreuzied milk in the country as there is no facility. So have some milk and cookies and dedicate a few sips to me!

Cape Coast Castles

I spent a little less then a week in the central city of Cape Coast. Cape Coast is definately the most historic city in the world in terms of the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.



Cape Coast is home to the two largest slave forts/castles in Africa and Ghana has 40 such forts all along the coast. The various forts were all built by either the Portugese, British, or Dutch who all fought one another in Ghana for control of the slave trade. I think this castle was featured in the Spielberg film "Amistad"

While in Cape Coast my friend Kofi took me to his neighborhood in Cape Coast and while we were walking I saw a place called "Tel-Aviv Spot". I asked him about it and he said the owner was a Ghanian lady who lived in Israel for awhile. I went inside and had a nice talk and a beer with the lady.

The castle was amazing and the dungeons and cells were haunting as well. The castle has a door (door of no return) which is the door you were sent out of when you left to be sold off in the new world. Since this was the largest slave fort it is likely that if you are a black American whose ancestors came here as slaves, one of them may have likely walked through that door as most African-Americans are West African descendants from the Ghana region.
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I made a lot of friends in Cape Coast and recieved invitations to come and stay with different Ghanians who were in Cape Coast to vote in the runoff but live in various regions from all over Ghana. I will take some of them up on the offer

Updated post with pictures and videos

I've updated the last post with pictures and some videos as well. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Cape Coast which is the sight of the two largest slave forts/castles in Africa. I should be able to have some internet access there so I will try to update from there.

Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas to all!

Back from the Beach

Sorry for the extended absence from the blog. I traveled around 5 hours west to a portion in the country where I had no electricity much less internet. I took a bus to Takoradi which is the third largest city in Ghana and is about a 40 minute drive from the beach area there. The beach there is amazing in both beauty and its swimmer friendly current. The first place I went to is called Busua Beach and it is a tiny little place that has about 5 or so places for sleeping accomdation, one local pub, and the rest is part of a small tiny village. I stayed there for three nights in a small lodge called Busua Inn which is owned by a nice French couple. It is right on a beautiful beach with a lovely island about half a mile away in the water. I went to meet my friend Fabio there who comes to Ghana every year from Italy and has a well deserved repuation as the most cheap person, ever! He is known everywhere he goes as the guy who won't ever buy anything at a restaraunt. It was quite funny. He also walks around Africa with an esspresso maker from home as well as he haggles his way across the tiny market in order to buy himself supplies to make Tomato sauce for his fish which he buys and then eats over three days! After Busua beach I headed to another beach with a few British people I met. The name of the second beach has no name and is simply known as the Green Turtle Lodge which is a small few huts built on the beach 4 years ago by a young British couple. The place has no electricity and the electricity that does exist there is for light in the eating area and heat for the kitchen and it supplied by solar power. About half a mile from the Green Turtle Lodge is a small village called Akwibba of about 2,000 people that has no electricity, industry, or anything else. The village is the only inhabited place next to the lodge for 30 kilometers. I along with my friends John and Nick went often to the village to play with the kids. Everyone there is very friendly and the kids surround you and beg you to play with them until your energy is drained. My friend Nick opted to buy a big sack of small water bags to hand out to the kids which turned into a near riot between the kids as they simply ripped the bags apart as they tried to claw them from one another. In retrospect it was probably not the best idea to bring water as stronger kids simply took it from the weaker kids. Now I'm back in Accra, the capital, and will be heading somewhere in the next day or so that will hopefully have some electricity as well as some internet to go along with it. Kids dancing (and punching at village)
More cute kid moments

Experiencing elections, Ghanaian style

I spent election day with a nice Ghanaian guy named Daniel who works in the hotel. I asked him when and where he was going to vote so he invited me to join him in the neighborhood behind the hotel and we went to the polls, talked local politics, and I got introduced to the entire neighborhood where we sat down in a local bar in what is a very friendly shantytown.

While we were walking he gets a call from his sister who I find out has lived in Israel for 15 years and is a musician and model in Israel who married an Israeli and is now separated but is actually an Israeli citizen. He passed me the phone and I spoke to her in Hebrew and she was in shock that I'm walking around her neighborhood in Africa and speaking Hebrew to her while she is in Israel! It trully is a small world

So we went to the polls and he voted without incident and as I'm typing this the election results are being counted out every 5 seconds from the various districts as ballots are hand counted in Ghana. I'll be uploading a lot of video from today so be patient as it will take some time, so come back to this post if you only see a few videos.