Togo is a french speaking country which means that I am typing on a French keyboard. Luckily, I know where most of the key are because what I am typing doesn't match what is on the keyboard. Little bit of a pain in the _____.
So let me begin by saying that jealousy is a universal emotion. Enough said on that topic.
However, with that said, we took a bus (more like a van) to Lome (pronounced Low-May). We left later than we had hoped. Accra (pronounce A-Cra) has the worse traffic I have ever seen in my life. Once we got on the van, it probably took us an hour and a half to get out of the city. After we were leaving the city, the driver stopped the van to look under the hood. Bethel panicked thinking that we should take her kids and go back to her mom's place. I was ticked because I had just spent 50 Cedis to get out of the city and I was bound and determined to get to Lome tonight. I would have to say it was our first knock-down-drag-out since high school.
The van was so hot. It had AC but the driver keep it on low. I think I have lost 10 pounds in water weight from sweating. My ankles are the size of small pineapples.
Some of the roads to the border are paved and some are not. There is road construction but the detours are not very planned, if you can go that way good luck! Needless to say, after two hours of driving somewhere up to 90 mph on paved and unpaved road (my butt is so sore from potholes and speed bumps), we arrived at the border. The border look like a war zone. There is a walking path with the random cement pavers but most of it is dirt. The iron rod fence is place in no particular style. Honestly, I felt like it was out of a movie. Bethel did not have her passport, and I had mine. She had to go in one direction and I had to go in another. I was about to follow her and the guard (for lack of a better word)told me to go another way. I was going to continue to follow her but the guard said "are you going to listen to me or to her?". I thought I better listen to him. What I realized later is that he was a Ghanian and I had already check out of Ghana. He had no jurisdiction to keep me there. However, it was probably best not to find out what the recourse was. The border guard is just a policeman who sits at a non-lit desk with a flashlight and a stamp. I could have received my visa at the border but I am glad that I didn't because it probably would have been too much of a hassle.
Bethel and her husband are in the process of building their home. The house will be beautiful when it is complete. So far it has taken two years to build and they still do not have the toilets in. You have to be patient with the trades or they may never show up again. I woke to someone banging on a sink to make a hole in it. An hour later, they were still banging the same hole. Hopefully, he is not getting paid $50 per hour for it. The nice thing about the house is that my room has AC, that is a beautiful thing. We use the rental house next door for the kitchen and bathrooms. It's a typical rental house and leaves a lot to be desired. It makes me appreciate my landlord.
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