Togolais Diaries: Ghana and back!

Le 21st Mai, 2009

Bonjour mes amis

Long time since I put up a post but this post just kept on getting delayed due to various factors.
The last few days have been particularly difficult to deal with but at the same time have been greatly rewarding. I have forged new bonds, met some great people, travelled around Ghana and Togo and met up people I really wanted to meet yet had to deal with some tough farewells and had to say goodbye to people I had absolutely come to admire and adore.
After an absolutely heady trip to the village where people lived in hell amidst the most heavenly surroundings one could possibly imagine, the days were used up in planning the trip to Ghana as well as meeting up with a great guy who works in the Ministry of Finance and Economics, Togo. Just the two days in that office uncovered some extremely shocking facts and figures about the country, which obviously I am not going to disclose on a public platform, like this but lets just say that it would make any person cringe if one had the luck to go through some of the documents. It was a grand building; made me really wish that the government would also show the same enthusiasm in formulating grand schemes of developing negligible existent public infrastructure for the benefit of the people of the country.
After haggling which each and every bank and paying a commission of a whopping 20 euros on my TC, I was finally prepared to go to Ghana, my mum’s homeland for a good 8 years. Crossing the border yet again, this is a thing, which I really like to do, imagine an invisible line separating air, land, people, culture, policies, nationalities, and languages. Kiddish as it may sound but just the feeling of walking over into a new territory denoted by all the things which I mentioned above really fascinates and at the same time, perplexes me. Unlike the last time when due to confusion regarding the visa, Dorienke and me ended up visiting Kpalime (not that I regret it of course, because it is stunning and had the good fortune to meet Amanda there), this time the visas were stamped on the passport and in no time we were across.
I have travelled a bit in West Africa and seen a few cities but Accra is extremely different from all of them. It almost feels like Europe if one visits it after going to cities like Lome, Cotonou, Porto Novo, Abomey and others. Everyone seems to have a car in Accra and the roads are in state of perpetual jam. There is crazy rush everywhere. Unlike Togo and Benin, motorbikes are hardly seen and mototaxis as a concept doesn’t exist.
This was the city where my mum stayed for most part of her teenage years so I had decided that I will find the place where she stayed but to my extreme disappointment, I found out that the place where my granddad had worked was sold out and the place which my mum had described over the phone had undergone sea of change. So no luck there.
Apart from this the stay was just fine. Met up with Amanda again, it was great to see her and being the one of the smartest girls I have met in a long time, it was an absolute joy to talk to her. The next day we left fro Cape Coast where all the Europeans had indulged in slave trade. Could only gape and stare in extreme horror as the guide told us stories of the torture inflicted upon the locales by the Europeans as he showed us around Elmina Castle. There we also paid a visit to the Kakum national Park, the major highlight there was a canopy walk which was suspended through ropes and overlooked dense vegetation 40 to 50 meters down. When a person walks on it, it creeks and shakes rather vigorously. It was great fun and unlike all the other people who were petrified while walking on it, the 4 of us were having races across the walkway by timing individual score. With great pride i have to say that i won that race and beat a local Ghanian boy in it as well!! But my joy was not shared by the others who were in the group and the tour guide who i suspect got cheesed off by this immaturity and they literally abandoned and left us in the middle of the forest and went ahead on their guide through the forest without us. What the heck man! Why do want us kids to grow up!! The innocence of childhood is seriously no longer appreciated in this world!
Amanda was leaving the next day for home, so went to see her off back to Accra and again, it was really tough to see her go after all the fun which we had in Accra, Kpalime. On this trip she has been one person who has really really inspired me by her beliefs and just her extremely easygoing nature and as such it’s an extreme delight to be around her. Going to miss her a lot. Trip to the States lined up as well. Period.

Went back that night to Kumasi, reached there at 1 in the night all alone, with a little cash and a phone battery about to die in a strange new country. I really don’t know how I pulled it off but I have to add that I was extremely lucky not to get into trouble. If the phone battery had died off on the way to Kumasi, I would have been probably sleeping on the street that night. : P
It was crazy and being a lil neurotic as I am, I LOVED it. Thrilling would be the word! Kumasi, which is the capital of Ashanti Kingdom in Ghana, too was a great city. Checked out the National Cultural Centre with its museum, which gave a good insight into the culture of Ashanti Kingdom. Apparently the king can never be found bare feet and if he is then from that moment on he is no longer the king. Also the current queen of the kingdom is not the wife instead the mother of the King!! Beat that! Doesn’t mean that they have a scandalous relationship or something but just that the wives of the King are just normal women and not the Queen. Cool concept.

That evening we were back in Accra and the next day I capped off my trip by visiting my mums school in the city. It was just fascinating to be there, see young girls in their uniforms and then trying to imagine my mum in that uniform as a young girl. I really hope that she does like the pictures.
Back in Lome, Babs had only two days so we decided to make the best use of the time by going to Brochette de la Capital, the legendary Lome institution which serves lip smacking African cuisine, partying across at Metro till wee hours of the morning. The next night, it was time for another farewell and this time it was the turn of Babs. By now I was prepared to see her go especially after seeing Dorienke and Amanda go as well and then in no time she was gone as well leaving behind only the funniest and the most adorable memories I have ever had with a person.
These past two weeks have been particularly tough with everyone whom I was close to, leaving around me, going back home and when I was just thinking about it in AIESEC office, I came across this list which was put up which specified the date and the timings of all the new interns who would be coming. There are like 8 of them all coming in end May and June. It was then that it just struck me that my time here was over as well. In a matter of 12 days Ill be back home and all the people whom I had met here, had the fortune to share my ideas with, had come to absolutely admire, forged lifelong bonds with would be only in my memories and new ‘Yovos’ would be here figuring out the country, continent, forming their own opinion about the people, culture, discover the African way of life, get their own ideas, just the way me, Dorienke and Babs had done here. Essentially our time here was over. Dodo and Babs were two people in Togo I was extremely close to, they had left, I would be leaving in some days as well and new people would come, forge new bonds and chart their own way and so the circle of life moves on. Time waits for none and it flies especially through the moments you want to hold on to and cherish forever.
It has been a long time since I got this philosophical but then Africa does to a person, or at least has done to me. Made me fall in love…. with the chaos, mayhem, culture, music, food, indefatigable spirit of people and above all life itself, it has pretty much changed the way I perceive things and some of the people I have met here have left a lasting impression on me.
Honestly when Ruhi called me today, it felt so good to hear the voice of my friend again and it made me miss my home, city and friends but still I am just not prepared or ready to go back. There is so much which needs to be done here, so much needs to be built here and above all people need to be taught to hope here, if I had my way I would have stayed on, don’t know for how long but would have stayed on and would have continued working. The fact that apart from family, friends and city, I return to those silly college jokes, extremely irritating Malhar discussions and its brain-dead events , inconclusive political discussions leading to nowhere and just general lack of depth in things back home also contributes to a large extent to my general hesitance to return but of course they cannot be avoided and I do have to go back.

P.S. After coming back, checked out Togoville, which is situated across the lake Togo. Did you know that Togo literally means On the other side of the river and this was the first town of Togo developed by the Germans who named in Togoville which meant, town on the other side of the river and then the entire country was named Togo. Like all Europeans in Africa, they came here for slave trade and then were pretty much successful till French wrested control of the place and then they pretty much ruined the place. It hasn’t still recovered. I hope it does, the people here deserve better and mankind deserves better!