Maison de Adebayor!
The village! Stunning isn't it??
Le 9th Mai 2009
Dusk envelopes the azure blue sky and the splatter of rain falling on the lush green leaves and trees with some smatterings of thunder providing an ominous warning for the time about to come is all I can hear as I write this somewhere in the middle of the way to reach the peak of Mt. Agu, Togo’s highest point at 949 mts inside a makeshift open hut of thatched bamboos and hay surrounded by the greenest setting one could possible imagine. Lush green vegetation, red parched earth now smelling of sweet rain with hazy mist gently enveloping the place almost makes me wonder that if there is actually heaven could it be possible better than this?
I am at Kpalime to work in a village to develop tourism in that place by conceptualizing and building the necessary supporting infrastructure for the same. For the past day I have stayed in a village based on this hill and the experience has been to put it rather crudely has been magical. Mud houses, red bricked houses with tin sheds, upheaval stone stairs meant to traverse the rocky terrain on the place which overlooks the greenest valley surrounded by hills. This is the setting of the one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life and I count myself lucky for this opportunity. Due to the often-false existing prejudices in the minds of most people, not a lot of people would visit this place in their lifetime anyway and it is a real pity because they would certainly miss a part of the world completely unexplored but which at the same time is enchantingly beautiful.
For the past two days I have been here, just soaking in the beauty of the place and on the few occasions when I am not overwhelmed I visit the sites of the village in order to understand the social conditions prevalent here and to visit various locations in order to see which of the could be possibly developed in order to ensure that few other lucky souls who come here have the requisite infrastructure to fully soak in the beauty of this place. I have had varied experiences in the past two days like staying in the village, experiencing their life, meeting the chief of the village who very kindly welcomed us with a bottle of his prized Gin (by the way he had Martini as well!), eating at his house, seeing the festivities of the village by night like playing with fire accompanied by typical rhythmic African chants, seeing first hand a general body meeting of the village which was frequently interrupted by songs and dance in which the women like everywhere else in Togo shook their bottoms rather vigorously. The place too has a rather upheaval terrain thus its pretty exhausting to go up and down to visit various places in the village but it is really rewarding with extremely beautiful sights greeting you wherever you may go.
The last few days have been a roller coaster ride with the extreme fun, which I have had while visiting the Voodoo fetish market in Lome, which was run by Beninese people as Voodoo originally is from Benin. The market was one of the most mind numbingly chilling/ disgusting which I have been to EVER. It had the skulls of every animal possibly imaginable like crocs, dogs, hyenas, leopard, antelope etc. etc., skins of snake, leopards, horns of antelopes, buffaloes, dead lizards, rotting mice, all for ‘medicinal’ purpose of course as claimed by our over enthusiastic guide who kept on claiming that we should listen to him because it was ‘very interesting’ to listen to him. After that he took us to visit the room of the Voodoo chief who turned out to be a guy in his late 20’s clad in a tee and jeans. We were told later that he was the ‘son’ of the Voodoo chief as the chief was very famous and was away on an assignment to Benin. We were introduced to small objects which bring luck and protection in various places like travelling (phone fetish), love (he claimed that we could land up with more than 300 people at the same time with it, the potentially scary thought didn’t tempt me much and the fetish object was way to small and obscure anyway), teak wood which he called ‘natural Viagra’ and would give a man ‘buffalo power’ to make love (Yes, he thought that this would induce me to buy it! Yes, me because I was the only man as the others were Dorienke, Babs and her mom who had come the night before). Refusing to give into this pretty pathetic sales pitch and also very well aware of the fact that this place was a perfect tourist trap, I refused to buy anything. This kind of cheesed off the guy who expected everyone to pick up stuff so he very bluntly told me to get out of the place as the room was a ‘holy place’, fit enough for only those who wanted to buy things. I gladly obliged. This gave me the opportunity to check out the compound while the other three tried their luck. The place as I described earlier was extremely disgusting and a good half an hour later, we finally left. Even though the place was anything but appealing, it did give an insight into a new culture albeit in a highly commercialized way. Still was good to check it out.
After this we went to another mind numbing place, the grand market of Lome. This place is always an exhausting destination, simply because one has to bargain for each and everything and every shopkeeper personally wants to be your friend and then he’ll show his ‘own work’ in his shop and will very innocently whisper in the ear that since he was a friend, he would give a very good price which would be pretty exorbitant anyway and you are supposed to bargain at 1/3rd of that price. So much for friendship! This story is repeated in shop after shop and lane after lane. To emerge from the market after buying what you intended to/ or did not even dream in your wildest dreams is like emerging from a battlefield, exhausted, irritated, drained out and frustrated. Anyway this day was special, apart from the fact that Dorienke was leaving, we bought two jerseys of god of Togo, Emmanuel Adebayor, one national and one Arsenal and in the most touristy decision ever, went to check and gape at his house in the town. In no time we were there and a grand house under construction with a circular top floor, with a white statue of liberty on top of it with a football on top of the torch greeted us. Ridiculous as it might sound, we put on the jerseys of Adebayor turn-by-turn and shouted out his name and posed for pictures against the backdrop of his house. No surprises then that in no time we were the ones who became the ‘attraction’ as the people around had a good laugh at this extremely immature behaviour by 4 ‘Yovos’ but what the heck, it was awesome fun and something I am going to remember for a long time to come.
After this it was time for Dorienke to pack up finally and catch her flight which was due in 4 hours so after changing the 4 of us met for our last evening together, very fittingly at bar ‘3K’ which has been my favourite hangout joint here with the spaghetti salad to kill for. It was pretty emotional to just sit there and reflect on all the great times that we had and in a few hours the 4 of us would never ever come back together again and in a few days Babs was leaving as well. The occasion made me extremely sad to be honest but a man must do what he gotta do so that was to keep his chin up in such times to pretend that everything is normal and fine and smile even though nothing is. Sometimes really tough to be a guy, that was one such occasion. As it happens the time one dreads always comes way sooner than one expects and in no time it was time for Dorienke to leave and this time it was really tough to hold my emotions as I saw her leave through the glass pane when she waved at the three of us. All the memories just came flashing by, Benin, graduation party, Kpalime, Porn motel, Pool, NLDS, cooking spaghetti, Indian food and so many others. Don’t know when was the last time I felt this emotional. I do sincerely hope that I do get to meet her again. Some bonds just overgrow the actual time spent together and maybe this was just was one of them for me. Looking forward to meet her and Babs at some point in my life again.
P.S. Applied for the visa of Ghana so should be there next week, though I do have to overcome some challenges there and I am also confused about which place to visit but I am sure that it will get sorted out.
The work too looks promising after a lull in between. I have completed my policy document, which appears to be promising according to the initial feedback and now I am waiting for a meeting to be granted with my N.G.O. so that I can duly present it to them. The meetings with prospective partners should follow soon.
Also ate at the Lebanese rip off of McDonalds here in Lome, the place was called ALDONALDS!The name was accompanied by half the signature M of Mac! Though my burger had no meat as i am a vegetarian, it had only omlette with extra cheese and mayo and salad. It was pure gastronomic pleasure to get American junk after ages! mouth smacking delicious!!
26 days left and I almost don’t feel like returning just because of the sheer amount which I have learned here, the absolutely wonderful people I have met, the love which I have received from people, the beautiful places I have visited and so many more which I still want to visit but all good things must come to an end and as my other friends leave I do realize that my time here is coming to an end as well. One thing is definitely for sure that this is not my first and last trip to West Africa, the visit to Mali is due, right Do? :)
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