Foyer des Marins Lome

... and explaining our story, we pulled out the map and had this man show us directions/give us distances to the next town and next available stop for pure water sachets.. He pointed to Gati on the map. “c’est ici”/ that’s here. We were in Gati drinking water from lord knows where—water that was probably one of the biggest lifesavers of our entire trip, just handed to us from a really nice stranger. Again, one of the ...

... stands for us to purchase water, bread, and (our favorite) peanut candy (like peanut brittle...they dont have it much in ghana so we're always on a mad search for it being sold atop a woman's head or on the side of the road)

I think we stopped 3 times on this walk---but never stopped to rest, we literally just briefly stopped to pick up water and kept walking. Our day of walking ended by 4pm.

... This meant that the next morning, at 5 am (before drum lessons), we both had to go back to the village. I would not advise anyone to ride a motorcycle (even as a passenger) at 5 am. Waking up while going 50 km/h through the bush is a terrifying experience. We made it to the village, worked out the details, and got back in time to go around Dagbamete with Kwasi greeting everybody (literally everybody!) in the village.

In the last two days, I tied up all of my loose ...

... there was even a drum jam that went late into the night. The drum lesson on Thursday was a very weird experience. Right beside the drumming spot, the village diviner sacrificed a goat and chicken. At first, I tried to ignore it, but eventually I realised that sooner or later I would have to come to terms with this tradition. Ten minutes later, once we were settling back into drumming, a snake fell out of a tree and landed on me. At first, I thought it ...

... us.

Now that we are through we have about 180 km to go only 40 of which are bad so we should be in Accra a decent time. We hit an immigration check just before we crossed the Volta. They took our passports and wrote our names in the book. That part was easy. Van Damme on the other hand does not have a passport just id; which can be used to travel by nationals of a number of West Africa countries. We were stopped for almost 2 hours while a government official tried to get money ...

... of all I saw six bottles of water. Presulabely because I siad I was going to buy some the night before. I told Erica I’d already bought it, and that I didn’t need presents...

She then handed me the second gift. She said they were bonbons, but on closer inspection, it was a packet of Laughing Cow cheese in Ham and Tomato flavours!

Next, she handed me an envelope, which I opened. It was full of money! I have no idea how much because I did ...

... getting the car into Togo.

There is a lot beach here and very little development along it. We tried a couple of hotels near the beach but they were too expensive. We came to the Hotel Pelican about a block off the beach and got an apartment with big rooms, each room has its own bathroom and a sitting room. We have decided to stay here for two days; not go to Benin and then go back to Ghana to get the plane to Germany

... would speak to the visitee in Ewé (pronounced ay-vay... it was written down by Germans), the local language, then has to be translated to me for report writing. This means that I can't speak to the people at all, as they don't speak French, so just have to sit there... The final straw, however, was during an exposé (each week a staff member has to do a presentation) on contraceptives (oh dear, it took me far too long to remember what ...

... and I wanted to have kente made as a gift for someone. So Egbor was going to come on Wednesday. When my friends got back from the shop, Bright came over and said he wanted to take us out to a special place. It’s a restaurant that they go to with the family before they leave Ghana to go back home. I told them that I had spoken with Egbor and he was on his way, so we couldn’t go. Well, they left anyway. I stayed behind. I was disappointed that they left ...

... EK. He has a beautiful family (6 daughters). I met his wife, who was so cute. He’s a tailor, so we hung out in his workshop. Some people were walking by and saw us in the window. One of the guys was trying to get me to marry him (it sucks being the only young one). Anyway, we kept going. EK came with us. We saw some fisherman working on a huge net. We had kids running after us singing the "white person" song. It’s a song they sing that goes like this ...