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Published: March 30th 2008
Clever, I know. I wanted to say that a lot yesterday, but tought a lot would be lost in translation, and didn’t know if the Togolese had the same affinity for puns, as I do. For a variety of boring reasons, our Togo trip became a day trip, really to help us re-new our visitor’s stay in Ghana. I’m pretty sure we spent 8 hours in the van and 3 hours actually in Togo, most of which was spent in this wonderful, but incredibly slow French restaurant. What did I consume, one may ask? Well, the first thing I noticed corssing the border as how ridiculously blue the ocean was, and the sand was sooo yellow, but a pretty yellow. I guess the ocean is always bluer….. We started off with incredible French onion soup, then you know some filet mignon (spelling), sautéed potatoes, and green beans. Things in Togo are a lot more expensive than Ghana, and so this was by far my most expensive meal so… but clearly so worth it. My dad would be proud to know that when people can’t finish their food, I am usually the first person their plate gets pushed to, a real honor, no doubt. This just means, I also sampled, some avocado, chicken, mashed potatoes, and some hamburger which I made a bit of a shepard’s pie with. (like I said, they were so slow, especially to bring the bill, so I had some time to breathe) Someone asked if I had a stomach worm, but since a big appetite, is my only symptom, I believe I am in the clear, with a healthy appetite.
With the rest of our 45 minutes in our neighbor country, I walked around the craft market, which had beautiful wood carving- there is a different varnish used in Togo than in Ghana… it’s shinier, and who doesn’t like shiny things right? Anywho, the sellers were a lot pushier, but my Ghanaian haggling skills worked just fine. People change Ghanaian cedis to CFAs (used throughout previous French colonies in W. Africa), on street corners, it’s pretty cool.
During all of this, I met Benjamin, a musician who helped me get good prices, find a guy to give me a fair exchange rate, and was generally great to talk to. Eleanore and I talked to he and his drumming teacher for a while. Hopefully, we can come back and visit our rasta friends in Togo, and drum (or you know, clap “along”). He and Maswell, were really refreshing to talk to, they weren’t trying to sell us anything or get our address in the US, or be our boyfriends… Which could lead to many a tangent, but all I’ll say is that has certainly been one of the hardest parts of being here- a lot of people come up to foreigners wanting to be their “friend” asking for their # or other pieces of information that would take more than a 2 minute convo in the US to warrant giving. Last night some guy I had never met before asked me for my room number in ISH. I wouldn’t tell him, and he asked if it was because I was afraid he was going to show up at my door with a gun? Playing the race card, I should have said, listen buddy, I don’t want to be friends with anyone who feels that way or think that I feel that way… or something explaining how this kind of interaction (1 minute convo and then give #), doesn’t happen much in the U.S. Oh hindsight.
I think I’ve mentioned the West African University Games (WAUG) were being held here in Legon, where pretty much every big university in West Africa is here to compete against one another. It’s been really cool to play a picj-up basketball game with people from Benin, Burkina, and Nigeria. Or talking to members of the University of Lagos football team who were staying in our hostel. I really lucked out that Legon was hosting these this year, the amount of people on the campus was insane, and being able to here a little bit about life in other countries in the region was awesome. For a part of the week, I had seen Ben, a member of the Uni Lag football team around, but the last couple days he was hanging out in our room and talking about all sorts of stuff… anywho, long story short, he proposed to Eleanore (which is certainly not uncommon for Eleanore or any other white girl), this is one of those stories that does not translate into blog world, but the length of his proposal was really incredible, I may have not been able to control my laughter during it… I’ll leave you all in suspense on how she responded.
I think that’s all for now- tomorrow I leave on a week-long trip to the northwest of Ghana, hitting-up a hippo sanctuary, Mole (elephants, baboons, camping), Wa (3rd oldest mosque in the world)… Oh so pumped.
Love from Ghana, thanks for reading.
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Lunch
If you keep this up, I will have to dub thee, "Lunchgirl."