Les Togolaises

This past weekend I left Ghana for the first time since coming here, and yet in some ways I hardly left at all. On the other side of the country's border with Togo, things look more or less the same. The signs are in French, and the food brands are slightly different, but immediately it's hard to tell that you are in another country.

Some people still speak English, especially in Lome which is right on the border, but for the most part French became the language we used to get around. (And by "we" I mean me and the one other girl on my program who speaks French. We left the boys early in the day, and frankly I'm not sure entirely how they got from place to place.) It was incredibly encouraging to speak French and have people actually understand me. Perhaps more useful was the ability to understand what people said to me. I still have not been to Paris, but from what I hear I would be terrified to speak French there. In West Africa, though (and it might be different in places like Dakar) everyone speaks slowly with imprecise verb conjugations, so I fit right in.


In some ways walking down the street was much the same as it is in Ghana: instead of "Oh, there is my sweetheart!" it was "Ma cherie!" from the men, and "Donnez-moi un cadeau" (give me a gift) from the children. Somehow being accosted in French is easier to deal with... Actually shopping was a bit difficult, however, not because of the language barrier, but because of the new currency. We knew how to translate cefas back into cedis, but it was still really difficult to bargain for good prices. Everyone in Ghana kept telling us that everything was sooo cheap in Togo, but because of our white skin and inexperience in bargaining in cefas, we paid a lot more for crafts and things than we would in Accra.

We were ripped off beyond anything I have ever seen in Ghana at this fetish market, also known as a crazy tourist trap. In the end, I ended up paying $US 10 for a little "traveller's fetish" that I plan on sewing into my backpack. It better bring me some freaking amazing good luck. When stuff like this happens - when people try to charge you $20 for a cab ride which should cost 2 - it's just incredibly annoying, as if we have no idea what the exchange rate is.

Though I guess we made up for the cash we spent in the markets with all the free alcohol we drank both nights in Lome. (Let me assure you, this is far from a typical weekend of partying in Accra. Maybe it was the reputed craziness of Lome, or maybe just the craziness of a certain Saudi Arabian man staying at our hotel...) Long story short, different people in our group (which was larger this weekend as we travelled with study abroad students from another Ghanaian university) befriended a very generous Arab man and a Togolese pop star. Mohommad bought the whole group countless rounds of beers and several bottles of high quality alcohol, which was lucky since we had just arrived were stuck in the hotel with no local currency Friday night. Saturday night was another story. It started with possibly the most expensive Taquila I have ever had, and ended in the hotel swimming pool (don't worry, the two were at least 6 hours apart). In the middle there was some kind of exclusive club where we got a live performance from one of Togo's hottest pop stars. Yeah, I still have no idea how it all happened, but it was great.

Yet the best part of the trip - the best part of any trip I have made in Ghana - was the homecoming. Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of travel that I have discovered is the fresh perspective it gives you on "home." And of course it is a mark of how long we have been here that Accra feels like home.

PHOTOS: Stolen from the internet for now, I'll have my own up soon enough.