Bonjour!

Well, bad news…my camera was stolen on my way back from Togo. So the pictures will be nonexistent for a while. As the Ghanaians say, “It is finished.” This past weekend we headed to Togo (country to the east of Ghana) because it was time to renew our visas and if we crossed the boarder it’s free. However, we were only given a stamp for 30 days, so it looks like we’ll be heading to Cote d’Voire sooner than we thought for another visa stamp. Despite those two disappointments it was a good weekend.

We crossed the Togo boarder Friday evening. It’s a French speaking country and no one in our group spoke French…so right away we knew it would be interesting. As soon as we went through immigration (an adventure when you don’t speak the language or have any of the currency to buy a visa) we were being followed by this possibly mentally challenged man on the beach. He kept up a steady stream of French and every time we tried to lose him, he was more determined to follow us. So very quickly I learned my first French words: “Fee shay mwa la pay!” I know my spelling is atrocious, but it means, “Please go away!” It came in handy a few times and was pretty effective.

Lome, the capital of Togo, is known to be the Paris of West Africa. So of course the food was amazing and the architecture was French inspired. And there was cheese! I haven’t had cheese in two months – such a luxury. It was a nice change from Ghana. Our first night we stayed in the city at Hotel de Gallione. It was full of expatriates (lots of greasy old men), but we loved it because there was live jazz music. New people showed up all night long with their own instruments for the jam session: violins, saxophone, guitars, harmonicas, drums. It was great.

The next day I had my first experience on a Moto Taxi – which is basically a motorcycle you hop on to get around the city. I loved it! It was so much faster than the trotros – I wish they had them in Accra during rush hour. We also headed further into Togo to the Safari Hotel, which ended up being amazing!! It had a pool and was right on the beach, and of course, amazing food. When we were hanging out at the beach all of the little village kids decided to come play too. We had no way of communicating with them, because they didn’t speak French or English, but they were adorable and ended up teaching us games and playing in the water and sand. Even the moms joined in the swimming by the end of our beach trip. I walked away with a nasty sunburn, but thankfully the weather back in Ghana has been pretty overcast so my burn hasn’t been too annoying.

This coming Friday is Ghana’s Independence day, so that should be a fun party and a relaxing weekend without travel – I haven’t been home for more than four days in about a month. Also, the athletic director at the university has decided to start up a girl’s softball program, so it looks like I’m going to be on the first University of Ghana softball team. Another American student and I will be teaching Ghanaian students how to play, as it’s likely they haven’t ever seen a softball game…I’m excited about the chance to make some Ghanaian friends at practices!