Weta 4 Life!

Two days ago, I crossed back into Ghana from Togo. I faced a minor incident at the border. The half-mile stretch of road at the Togo-Ghana border has a number of vaguely official looking checkpoints, manned by officials in blue or green camo gear or police uniforms. I never really understand where I'm supposed to stop or what I have to do... I usually just walk straight past everyone unless a guard calls me to come over.

This time, a guard summoned me over right after I got my Togo exit stamp.

"What are you bringing back with you from Togo?" he asked.

I felt like answering "probably hookworm and malaria" but I decided that he probably wouldn't get the joke. I told him: a small fetish, some Ashanti masks, Togolese clothing. The guard said that he would have to check and see if any of the items were cultural relics being taken away in contravention of an international agreement called "CITIS" (at least, I think that's how it's written). I told him that unless priceless Togolese relics were available at the tourist market for less than $5, I was probably ok. The guard started to get mad and insisted that I take everything out and dump it on the ground. A sketchy-looking guy with bad teeth whispered that I should just give him 5,000 CFA (~$11) to shut him up, but I was having none of it. The guard was yelling at me and threatened to take away all my souvenirs but then saw a 1,000 CFA bill among my things and pocketed it. I looked at him, incredulous, but he said that I could leave and that I passed the inspection.

As I was stuffy my sandy clothes back into my bag, the guard shook his finger at the bedraggled man with bad teeth who was still lurking nearby. "Watch out for him. That man is a thief," he said, shooing the guy away. I think the irony was probably lost on him.

Before I went away, I decided to mess with Captain Corruption a little bit. I gave him a friendly, I'm-not-mad-about-the-1,000-CFA smile and got him to tell me his name. "David Esegma? I'll remember that. My uncle advises your President on matters of corruption. I'll make sure to pass along your name to him." This was perhaps a dumb thing to do, but it sure was fun. I haven't seen an African official look so unhappy in my life.

Facing petty graft by military officials is never fun, but I put the experience in perspective. This is the only time I've ever faced bribe-taking like that crossing a border -- not just on this trip, but across all trips to West Africa. It says a lot about the quality of ECOWAS' success at regional integration, in my opinion.

Once in Ghana, I decided to visit Wisdom, an Ewe guy my age that I met on the tro-tro to Togo a week earlier. Before we parted ways the first time, he made me promise that I would visit his village before I left.

Wisdom (his Evangelical Presbyterian baptismal name) lives in a small village called Weta deep inside Volta Region, a rich and fertile farming area bordering large stretches of Togo. I enjoyed relaxing and hanging out in the village. It was completely relaxing, since there was absolutely nothing to do except visit people in the village, eat dry Ewe biscuits, and drink Malta Guinness (a non-alchoholic malt beverage, made by the Irish beer company, that tastes like milk at the bottom of your cereal). Wisdom made me Jollof rice for dinner, and it was very good, but way too filling -- I was still full by the next morning.

There were some humorous highlights to the visit as well. Wisdom and his buddies (Debaris and Thomas) were very nice village kids. Wisdom described himself as a family guy and very obedient to elders, as well as a hard worker (which I observed to be true). He helps his relatives run the Weta town general store most days. But Wisdom also likes American hip-hop and gangsta' rap (his words, not mine).

I didn't pick up on the rapper-obsession at first, but it crept into the conversation when I dropped my stuff off at his house in the afternoon. We had been talking about Wisdom's involvement in the church on the way there.

"Nice house. Very big," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "This my muthaf*cking residence, niggah!"

You know those times when you really want to laugh, but know you shouldn't? This was one of those times. Wisdom, whose English was the best of his friends, wanted me to teach him the right way to speak "Negrin," as he called it -- basically, the way American rappers talk. I tried to do that with a straight face for about fifteen minutes, and they couldn't get enough of it. My main teaching contribution, I think, was to explain the meaning of "cap yo' *ss" and suitable places to use it, as well as describing the importance of "rolling deep," and how many people were required to constitute acceptable deepness. Of course, the fact that I was teaching young African guys how to speak in African-American slang has got to be pretty high on the irony-meter.

Here are Wisdom and I, somewhat at a loss for the right hand signals to make. (Where's my brother Calum when I need him?)



Before I left, the guys took me to see the massive rice fields growing outside of town. While we were touring the paddies, we met Richard (the "biggest gangsta' in Weta" according to Wisdom). I guess he's the biggest gangsta' because he had dreads and because he does that Rasta thing where you touch your chest after you shake someone's hand. Maybe that wouldn't cut it in Compton, but it's all relative, right?

Richard the Gangsta' was working the rice fields when we came along. His English wasn't great, but he could understand if I spoke slowly. I asked if he was the owner of the field next to us. He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "Yeah, all this is my shit! Rice, man!" When we left, he went down to the hut to help his mother with harvesting.

Before I left town, I stopped in at Wisdom's family's shop to say goodbye to people. Or, as my host put it: "let's give a big shout-out to all my niggahs!"

Check out this homeboy. He was briefly the eighth-biggest gangster in Volta Region:

I have this fetish

[People who don't like grisly or macabre things, this post is worth skipping.]

Back again, with reports from sunny Togo.

I went earlier today to the Fetish Market just outside Lome. To clear up any confusion: it is not a meeting place for Togolese sexual deviants. Rather, it's a place where people can meet with vodou practitioners, buy components for vodou magic, or just pick up bizarre animal-based souvenirs to horrify their families with.

The fetish market is genuinely fascinating; it's a courtyard filled with stalls piled high with all sorts of vodou components and bizarre curios. Most common are the dried animal parts. They stock an impressive selection of mammals: leopard skins, puppy pelts (a la Cruella), monkey heads and feet, even a whole dried bat! They have a large buffer stock of dried reptilian and amphibian life (ex-life?) -- dried frogs, lizards, snakes, baby snakes, baby lizards, etc. There are numerous bone-based carvings which offer protections against a number of maledictions. I should note that the range of skulls was very substantial, with everything from tiny rodent heads to a half-shattered elephant cranium (tusks gone, of course). Here are some medium-sized heads (mostly primate) for your grisly viewing:



Although it probably plies a good trade selling to tourists, the market has genuine links with vodou. Vodou (or vodun) is the name of a set of religious practices from coastal West African, but centered around Benin. New World interpretations of vodou have given birth to the popular understanding of voodoo, at least as portrayed in a number of Hollywood movies (aside: the worst of these is surely Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson). So, many of the items the vendors sell are indeed traditional healing items or components of various vodou spells.

Surrounding the animal-part heaps are a number of vodou shrines, which double as boutiques where various relics can be foisted on the eager tourist. The first shrine I went to was staffed by two very young kids (the eldest was probably 11) who were subbing in for their father, who was in Nigeria. They explained a number of different herbal remedies to me and asked if I would like to try a pungent-smelling stick that the kid claimed was "comme prendre le Viagra naturel" if boiled in water. How does an eleven-year old know about that stuff anyways? Kids these days!

The next shrine I went to was staffed by a priest and a translator who explained the properties of various charms: a traveler's talisman, a memory-enhancing device, a love amulet, a gri-gri to enhance luck, a little clay figurine to whom you feed a cigarette in exchange for protection. They were all arranged against a clay monster-looking thing that I later learned was the god of the shrine. When the priest said a blessing for me and rang a bell at the clay god, I knew I was in the middle of an elaborate sales pitch. When we finished the introduction, the priest asked me if I wanted to take any charms, and that if I did, the god could suggest a price for them. I agreed, because I had to see how this pitch was going to play out.

Here's how it went: I picked out a few charms that I said I wanted and the priest muttered things in Gbe and threw some cowrie shells on the ground. He talked to the god for a moment and then told me that the god (lucky me) was willing to reduce the normal price by 60% and offer me the talismans (talismen?) for a mere 9,000 CFA ($20). I asked the priest to tell the god that I was a student and could probably only pay 1,000 CFA for two items, so I couldn't pay the god his original price. (Although really, if the god was so great, wouldn't he have known how much money I had?) The translator explained this counter-offer to the priest who relayed it to the god, who replied that it was willing to lower its asking price but that I could only have one charm for 1,000. The god also said that if I was willing to throw in a little more, I could take a picture with him and get the phone number of the priest for a follow-up call. Would that I had the money!

In the end, the experience was highly amusing and quite informative. I am also the proud owner of some vodou items blessed by the small and tough-bargaining clay god of Lome.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Fetish Market, you can probably find stuff online, but you might want to make sure your Adult Content filter is switched on. Because of the name and all that. I'll also upload some videos of the market when I get back to the US. Until then, may the god(s) be with you.

Lovers' Lane

Howdy, folks. I am sitting in an internet cafe in the fine city of Lome. I just remembered how to change this horrible French keyboard into one that converts key entries into the right Anglo-American characters. So I can now write this post in under three hours!

I've spent the past few days in Togo and Benin, possible two of the least-known countries in West Africa. This might be because of their size; they're both small, slender countries wedged in between the more famous states of Ghana and Nigeria. In Togo's case, it might be because the country's long-time political instability and occasional rioting mean that few tourists come here.

I started my trip East from Ghana a few days ago. I didn't want to get stuck in Togo any longer than I had to, so I made a plan to get to Porto Novo, the quiet capital of Benin, by nightfall. Basically a few things had to go right: I needed to cross two borders, get the right visas, and find transport between cities. Above all, I wanted to avoid running out of daylight and having to find a place to stay in Lome or Cotonou at night -- both cities aren't exactly known for being safe. But then neither again are Togolese roads after dark... I'm sure that Togo holds the world record for unsafe passing on blind turns.

In the end, I made it to Porto Novo just after nightfall. The trip was pretty uneventful, but a little grueling. I had read about the 'sept places' (seven-seaters) that the Togolese use for shared transport and assumed that they were the same Peugeot saloon cars with seven seats that they use in Senegal. Wrong: here, they have normal mid-size sedans that they pack with seven people (four in the back, two in the passenger seat, plus the driver). It can be a moderately to highly uncomfortable experience depending on whom you're sharing with. One or two large African ladies really makes you wish for a different form of transport. But I was thrilled to see a slender Tuareg-looking guy climb in next to me coming back to Lome!

Still, the so-called 'sept places' are nothing compared to using zemi-johns (or zems for short); they are cheap Chinese moto-taxis that do all the short-haul trips in Togo and Benin. Unlike in Rwanda, the ones here aren't closely regulated and the drivers don't give customers crash helmets. I've had to take four so far, and each time has been hair-rising: zipping and weaving through crazy traffic, through smoke and dust, or often at night. After skidding around sandy roads last night, I think I'm going to try and avoid them from now on.

I was in Porto Novo for two nights and didn't really do much. I did, however, see the 'Musee da Silva,' a museum dedicated to Porto Novo's Afro-Brazilian history and community. I have a passing interest in Brazil, coming from an amazing Spring Break in Rio two years ago and from my girlfriend, a Brazilophile who spent a year there (http://teffsinbrasil.blogspot.com). I learned that many of the capital's buildings (churches, mosques, town halls) are directly based on cities on the Brazilian coast (such as Bahia). There are also a lot of people of Brazilian descent living in Porto, which explains the Cape Verdean-looking people I saw around town.

I liked Porto Novo, and I planned to stay in Benin for a few days at least. But it was not to be. I went to the Directorate of Emigration and Immigration in Cotonou to get my visa extended yesterday morning, and met probably one of the rudest women I've ever encountered in an official capacity. At first, she refused to process my visa because the office was going to close for lunch in fifteen minutes, even though no one was around. After she finally agreed to help me, she insisted that I list the phone number and room number of the hotel I stayed in the night before. I told her that I thought it was room 12, but that I wasn't totally sure. She told me that if she called the next day and I hadn't been staying in exactly that room, I wouldn't be able to get my passport back unless I paid a "sanction" of indeterminate amount. She said I would need to travel back to Porto Novo to confirm if I wanted to get the visa. I'm sure that she was looking for a bribe, but unfortunately for her, I don't pay bribes.

My failure to get the visa meant that I had 6 hours to leave Benin or else my transit visa would run out and I would really be over a barrel. I decided to try and squeeze in one last tourist site first: Ganvie, one of Benin's best attractions. Ganvie is a large village, home to over 45,000 people, built almost entirely on stilts. The town was established in 1717, when a local tribe fled from the Dahomeyans (another, stronger tribe) that wanted to capture them and sell them as slaves to the Europeans. Because the Dahomeyans were forbidden by custom from entering the lake, the strategy worked well and Ganvie sprung up from there.

I joined a group tour of eight older French travelers who were going to Ganvie by motor-pirogue. It's a 20-minute boat ride to the village, and the route passes through a number of the fish farms that the locals make out of local vegetation. Their fishing technique involves staking brush in the shallow lake bed and then slowly creating giant pens using netting to catch the fish that come to eat the decomposing plants. Once the fish are trapped, the fishermen can collect them fairly easily. Some fishermen:



Ganvie, despite getting some regular tourist traffic, is about as traditional and interesting a place as you could hope for. About 90% of the houses and buildings are built on stilts sunk into the mud, and the remaining ones are built on artificially-created ground made out of clay. There are houses, markets, churches, shops and even a nightclub built this way. Many merchants and service-people have their wares loaded in a pirogue and travel from house to house trying to sell. I even saw a floating pharmacy laden with cheap medicines from Nigeria. Basially, everyone older than 5 years has access to a dugout canoe (or pirogue) and can easily use it to get between buildings.

The most amusing thing about the town was the names people gave to different waterways. Locals joke that Ganvie is the Venice of Africa. There is a stretch of quiet water called Lovers' Lane where teenagers dress up nicely and cruise down the strip on their pirogues looking for a little action or flirtation. In keeping with the Venetian theme, there is even a part of town known as the Rialto -- really, it's a partly-constructed cement bridge spanning a waterway between two neighborhoods.

After getting back from Ganvie, I was anxious to cross the Togolese border before my visa expired. I made it just in time, shortly before the main post closed for the day. The Togolese border officials let me through without any hassle or even visa charges, probably to avoid missing the Egypt-Cameroon game.

I made it to Lome and found my hostel quite late last night. I'm about to go to the Market of the Fetishers -- folks who sell eye of newt, python skins and other vodou-style indispensables. More on all that later!