Hotel Palm Beach Lome

Looking at the map on Thursday night, I realized we had headed almost entirely north all day. It was pretty depressing to feel how much my body ached and realize it was all sweat and tears put into walking UP not ACROSS the country we were traversing.

(by the way, i am writing my blog in several entries per day because I think I deserve to have pegs on every city I stopped in---we WALKED threw every town, saw every town in depth, and got to experience them to an extent that i ...

... WALK ACROSS TOGO in one weekend.

The country looked like it would be about 50 miles across at the narrowest point, but that point was far north and wouldve taken us 8 hours or more just to reach by car--and there would be no immigration center for us to get our passports stamped there...so we settled on entry into Togo at the Lome border.

We didn't have reservations at hotels and knew that the cities in which we planned to stop on the ...

... large bags. We got back to Dagbamete, only to realise that one of the drums still didn’t fit into any of the bags. Luckily, Kwasi was willing to lend me the biggest bag I have ever seen. I finally solved my packing problems on Thursday morning (I left the village on Thursday at noon).

The last excitement of my trip came on Thursday at noon, when I was supposed to leave. Initially, I told Kwasi that I wanted to leave the village at 10 am. This would give me the ...

... dungeons and chains were still in tact (and were very disturbing). Some of the dungeons (about the same size as a livingroom) were used to hold up to 100 slaves at a time. After seeing this fort, I am very hopeful that I will get a chance to go to Elmina castle in Cape Coast (a very important, well-maintained fort). After hand washing all of my laundry (with a lot of help from some locals), I went to a drum performance in Dzogadze (a nearby village ...

Today we have sun, yeah! It has been cloudy and rainy for days now. We had breakfast at the hotel. Omelettes once again!! When we left the hotel we asked if they had a map of the city. They said no but that they could find us a guide for the day. So for a negotiated price of 25$ we had a nice man join us in our vehicle. What a treat!

He guided us to Sanga and Van Damme's neice’s place ...

... because – well, let me explain – I’m probably overstating my morals here because, I mean, if he was a millionaire.... but I mean a millionaire in GOOD OLD BRITISH POUNDS thank-you-very-much (maybe I'd settle for Euros, what’s the exchange rate like these days?) not in CFA – I most DEFINITELY can NOT be bought for a few euros!!!

No one tried to persuade me to keep those gifts.

After that he started calling me every ...

... AND WHY. Not an open question to everyone, just me!! Avoiding answers is not accepted. Luckily, Brigitte saved me from my being mighty uncomfortable (ha, I am so British...) by detailing for everyone her own preferences! So, in conclusion, I have left, and I have a new job. Which I will write about some other time because it's nearly 9 pm and thus the gate will soon be locked. Also coming soon - the story of the landlady's brother. It's a good one.

... br>On Thursday, my friends went to Cape Coast. Aunty and the family went back to Anyako for another part of the funeral. I went back to Medie. Alfred’s sister made banku for me as a "welcome back" meal. Friday morning, Uncle Sulley had some other guests that had arrived at the airport. They’re pretty cool. We all hung out and got to know each other a bit.

Originally, we were planning on going to Ashema on Sunday to perform at a wedding, but the ...

... was really nice. Then we ran into EK’s daughter, who was on her way back home from choir practice at school. We asked her and her friends to sing a song for us. It was very sweet. I have it on video. The ground is covered in shells. We picked out some really nice ones as souvenirs. It started getting dark, so we walked back to Todia’s house. Aunty came to visit us. I was cooking dinner, so I didn’t really get to talk to her, which kinda sucked.

Anyako, Ghana neilis

... local schools up in the highland country of Western Togo. As anyone can imagine we were the center of attention, it seems that every kid and most of the adults in town came to inspect the foreign visitors, including the school principle and local Police and military. Apart from having a rock thrown at my tent as I was going to sleep it was a good experience.



As this is only a small country we will only be here for 3 days transiting through before crossing to Benin.