TOGO - Country Number 7 – TOGO

4-8 April 2011

TOGO - Country Number 7 – TOGO

Kpalime and thereabouts

Lome beachfront

Well this was the quietest frontier I have ever crossed but even so, it still took us 3 hours to travel the 35kms from Ho, Ghana to Kpalime in Togo. The road was a shocker both sides – Ghanaian side due to being reconstructed and Togolese side due to general neglect. But the countryside is nice with is nice with forested hills of cocoa and coffee. Kpalime has a relaxed feel and I spend the evening chatting to a couple of German volunteers who are working at an orphanage in Aneho and invite me to visit them if I have time. They claim they’re happy to meet someone who speaks worse French than they do –hey I’m a bit rusty after a month, but I’m sure I’ll improve? J There is a bit of pressure here at Hotel Bafana Bafana where we are all staying to ‘take a guide’ for mountain hikes etc. All sounds too familiar to me and the nearby mountains are the same range that I was staying at on the Ghana side, so I chat to one guy to try & find out about visiting a nearby monastery that sounds interesting and unique. He claims I will need a guide because “the monks won’t talk to you”, which sounds a bit trite so I dismiss the need for a guide and use the next day to change over my phone’s sim card and exchange the last of my Ghanaian cedi into West African CFAs. As I wander about the market I’m back to the continual demands of vous allez (where are you going) and men wearing gumboots and carrying machetes – local farmers going to work on their lands. 

Wednesday I walk down the hill headed for the lorry station to travel up to the plateau where the monastery is located and when I reply to the vous allez, the bloke immediately hails a ‘taxi partage’ for me! So within 5 minutes of leaving the hostel, I’m on my way – some things are just unbelievably easy (and other unbelievably hard)! Soon enough we get to Adeta, where I ascertain that there is still another 33 kms to travel and I decide that I don’t want to do it on the back of a motorbike. So I get directed to a car, one bloke starts yelling at another, then I have to follow the yelling bloke – apparently he has a car waiting. We’re off again, and when I see the route we take I am oh so glad I didn’t take a moto as we are heading up, up, up along a bad road wide enough for one car only. Then I’m deposited at the end of a driveway, literally at the front door of the monastery, the Abbaye de L’Ascension for Bendictine monks with a cheery bon arrivee! Soon enough I have a great room, self-contained with louvered windows looking out at greenery and trees. With a mild climate up this high on the plateau there are even ‘blanket square’ blankets on the beds that are actually needed at night! The church, which celebrated its 50^th anniversary this year, is built from local mahogany, teak and stone and instead of windows, it has massive screens made of bamboo & timber that pivot out, perfect for admiring the view. It has a stone bell tower used regularly throughout the day to signal the various events such as Laudes, Vepres, Vigiles and of course mealtime (very important!). Then there are the monks – nearly thirty in all, dressed in cowled or hooded robes, they ‘sing’ their prayers which is absolutely sublime to hear, accompanied by kora, harpsichord, birdsong and insect chatter. The monks live totally separate from the visitors and in conjunction with the Benedictine Nuns’ monastery a couple of kilometres away, they work creating wooden artifacts, baking biscuits, making jams, packaging their local coffee and the Sisters even sell fresh yoghurt! There are quite a few Togolese here on retreat and it is requested that visitors keep silence. So it is almost coincidental that I pass Linda’s 30^th birthday here, in this contemplative quiet to consider my ageing grief and guilt over her death almost 12 years ago. Walking the roads early in the mornings here is gorgeous with children running out to wave hello but alas I make most of the small babies wail in fright! The monks cook all the food here which is very simple – although I was asked if I could eat ‘african’ food and even though I indicated to the positive I was still served a special dish of mashed potato when everyone else got yam & plantain. Herein all I spend 3 glorious nights here before heading south to Togo’s capital, Lome.

FACT: Togo, previously called Togoville, then Togoland by the german colonisers was split by the League of Nations after WW1. By 1956 British Togoland was incorporated into the Gold Coast (Ghana) and French Togoland gained independence in 1960 and by 1963, modern day Togo became the first African country to have a military coup after independence! Now there’s infamy for you!