TOGO 2 BENIN

14 -17 April 2011

KARA, Togo and Codhani

Long bus ride up to Kara, in the Kabye Region but soon enough I’m on the back of another moto zooming about town looking for a room. I try one place but only 1 room for 1 night and I can’t be bothered moving so head over to stay at La Douceur for a couple of nights. Very nice place and very comfy, especially after today’s eight hour bus ride. Not a lot here in town, more a jumping off point for the area. Next morning I chat with Bettina, a German woman who has been here in Togo for many years on and off working in the social sector for the German Corporation and now here in town for a disability conference! Bettina invites me to attend their conference for morning tea to meet up with the Codhani staff, where I had planned to travel the next day. As far as I’ve seen social services are not high on anyone’s agenda here in West Africa, so I’m very curious to listen to the participants. I also meet Franz who knows Miriam and Salah – I ask him to pass on my regards and also give voice to my lack of understanding of the place… I meet with the Codhani bosses who take my number and tell me to call when I arrive tomorrow. They even want to know if I’d like them to get staff in to work to show me how it all operates – I tell them to leave them to enjoy their weekend. I’m happy just to patronise their accommodation and check out the shop. Next day I head off in the bush taxi north to Codhani, which is just south of Niamtougou. I am soon met and shown a hut to stay in, although the staff seem a little reluctant to produce the bathroom key – later, later. I check out the shop and meet a bloke who recognises me from the Girl Guide function in Lome last Sunday. Small, small world! I get the full royal tour of Codhani which provides an accessible workplace for many people with disabilities, producing tie dyed and batik fabrics by folk who would otherwise be unemployed and begging somewhere. I organise for a moto rider to take me out to Koutammakou otherwise known as the Tamberna Valley named after the collection of fortress like mud houses, founded in the 17^th century by people fleeing the slave grabbing forays of Benin’s Dahomeyan kings. A great ride over the hills to arrive at a police post where aggressive money demands are made. They want the equivalent of $25 which will go directly into their very deep pockets as I am still expected to pay for the villages I visit and give gifts (money) to the village chiefs. 

My moto driver is unimpressed and I tell the ‘police’ that I won’t visit today but will pass through tomorrow on my way to Nadoba and the frontier. Oh, you will still have to pay they say… very grabby and very dispiriting. Not a red hot CFA do the villagers ever see of the money being collected here. I still refuse to pay so its back over the hills and I return to my hut to unpack and realise that the room is actually quite grubby and when I am shown the bathroom, it’s an ensuite to another room and the shower doesn’t work. OK, let’s get Adele onto this – she actually quite pissed that I want anything. After much waiting I return to the restaurant to find her serving people so I remind her that she is meant to be looking for the key to the other bathroom. With a disdainful look Adele finds the key and opens another dirty room. Wait until I clean it, she says… OMG I am gathering that when the bosses depart the able bodied staff are running this place into the ground. Lights in this room are not working – later says Adele. I am so OVER Adele that I tantrum to get my room cleaned as well, NOW PLEASE. Finally my room is cleaned, I get a shower in a grubby bathroom (later says Adele) and I am thinking that I want to be anywhere other than here. But the village is nice and it is on the road to the border etc etc. Dinner time – what do you have? Rice. Anything else? Tomato sauce. I remain unimpressed and decide to drink beer for dinner. They chase patrons away by 7pm to close up and I remain alone here except for the 3 folk with disabilities sleeping in the dirt outside! Hmmmmm Sunday morning cannot come quick enough and I pack to be gone by 7am. Only to wait 30 minutes for the first moto to stop and get a ride to Niamtougou where I’ve been told I can get transport through Nadaba and over the border to Benin. Now I find out that THAT transport doesn’t leave until the market is finished this afternoon. I meet my moto driver from yesterday, who offers me an alternative route to Natitingou where I am ultimately headed but I turn him down on the basis that I have to go through the frontier to ‘get the stamps’ or else there will be problems when I exit to Nigeria next week. So I sit & wait for the fabled ‘Nati’ transport to turn up in the salubrious surrounds of a small town’s lorry park. Eventually a mini bus arrives packed to the hilt from Benin, unloads and now we wait to collect enough passengers to head off. After several hours it does and we’re underway by 3pm. We arrive at the police post, where the driver chats to the blokes and we pass by – but you just have to imagine the look on the face of the same bloke from yesterday as we head on through and he sees me in the van!! PRICELESS!! They start yelling, but our driver is not hearing them but within 10 minutes we are overtaken by a motorbike with two riders who block the road and pull us over. It’s the police chasing their 10K CFA. Much discussion follows with lots of references to le blanc and the passengers are a little confused – they never pay money to cross these hills but the police maintain that I should pay and the driver understands that if I have to pay, they will too as we are all travelling together! I sit quietly in the van and the driver is great as he and humours the blokes along, maintaining that it’s ok, no need to pay today and eventually pays them off with a baguette, laughing: no 10k CFA today for them again today and they are not very happy BUT I am! Up and over the hills some more on a good dirt road – The actual distance is only 95kms from  Niamtougou through Nadaba (Togo) and Boukoumbe ((Benin) but it is slow going as the van is so heavily loaded with everyone’s goodies from the market. At one hill we all get out to walk because the van is just not up to the effort. But the scenery is lovely, with lots of the Taberma compounds to see. These houses were very effective at warding off enemies including the germans in the 19^th century due to the style of construction which has a single entry point used to trap and attack invaders. The compounds are built without tools using only wood, clay and straw and waterproofed with a mixture of cow dung and sand! And of course the requisite fetish shrine out the front and lovely huge, old boabab trees dotting the countryside.

Eventually around 7pm I realise we’re in Benin and no Frontiere in sight. I’m not too worried about the Togo exit stamp; it’s the Benin entry stamp that will cause me problems at the next border if it’s missing. I can feel in my bones that I am going to regret having taken the road less travelled over the next few days. Time to start asking questions in very poor french - Natitingou, everyone says, so when we do eventually arrive in Natitingou around 9pm I get a zem (moto) straight to the police station there to try and get a Benin entry stamp. I doubt if they could have expressed any less interest and told me I should go to Porga, the northern frontier with Burkina Faso.  OK off on the zem to the 7E auberge – full. Try the Auberge le Montagna – full. Who is filling all these rooms? We head to Le Vieux Cavalier – yes they have a room and some dinner. Alas no water and my purifier is on the blink (probably batteries) but a kind kid there offers to go the nearby store to get me a bottle of water – cold, sparkling mineral water – what a treat! Go Benin!

FACT: I am a sucker for anyone who personally produces anything as opposed to mass production, especially when they are trying to create an income for themselves because they are a marginalised woman or a person with a disability… I have sent so much stuff home now because I have so little room in my bag. I am hoping this trend will wear thin very soon, unlike their gorgeous textiles, tie dye, batik, weaving etc. J