Arriving in Togo

Sunday, May 8th, 2011
I woke up early to have time to eat breakfast and drink coffee before my 7:30 Twi exam. I got ready in plenty of time and we left at six fifty to go to our unknown destination. There are daily time tables that come out with the time and center that you will be tested in. Next to Twi the description was ambiguous and it appeared that no one knew exactly where the room is located. We made the decision to go to the school of Nursing building since the third word in the description was Nursing. On our way, about two minutes from the building we were headed towards, someone called us over (due to the fact that we were a group of twenty white people people knew that we were looking for the place where we would write our Twi exam) and told us we were passing our destination. They were correct and we arrived for our paper with more than enough time to get our bags checked and find our seats. Nothing is allowed in the exam room except for the essentials for the exam, the rest of our belongings remained in the hallway. When we walked into the room we discovered that our ID numbers were written on the desks in chalk in an arbitrary order, so we were forced to walk around until we found the desk that corresponded to our ID. When they finally distributed the exams they discovered they were about fifteen short. Unfortunately for me I was in the last row; therefore, I was one of the individuals that had to wait for the proctor to print more exams. We waited for about thirty minutes without talking for the new copies and then the students discovered that everyone had the first sheet printed twice and the third sheet was missing. So everyone who had already begun had to recopy the first page onto a new copy and staple the missing sheet in. After the many interruptions I was able to begin the exam. Before long people began walking around first to check ids, then to have us sign by our photos, and again to have us sign my our names. When we went to hand our papers in, once again we were forced to sign our names at the top of the page. I am not sure why we had to sign so many times, but I am positive there is no way they can make a mistake with identity.
After the exam I went back to the dorm and realized I had failed to stop at the ATM to get out Cedis for the trip out of Ghana. Luckily, Peter was around and he lent me his bike to run to the ATM with. As soon as I returned we left for Madena to catch a trotro going to Lome (A city right near the boarder of Togo and Ghana). Our trotro ride was extremely nice, the road was smooth for a long time before it got bumpy and it became smooth once again. The car was spacious and we did not appreciate the amazing ride until a couple days later when we learned what traveling in Togo and Benin would be like. Although there were bad incidents on the trotro to Togo they were minimal. There was a time when we were driving on the left side of the road, because the path was smoother (a very typical occurrence), but our driver was not focused and another car was coming towards us. We did not get into an accident the other car just went to the left and we crossed with both of us on the wrong side of the road. We also saw a huge truck turned upside down on top of a smaller car. Besides these things it was a great trip and we did not stop until we reached the boarder.
We had to exit the vehicle when we arrived at the boarder and we were guided to customs. The men inside were extremely kind and were very patient as we attempted to speak Twi. We filled out the necessary forms and the entire time we waited on line the men spoke with us in Twi and we were all greatly entertained. We got our passports stamped and headed outside to cross over to Togo’s customs. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain outside so we decided to stand aside and wait out the down pour. However, we did not select the best place to stand because the wind was blowing the rain directly towards us. Hannah decided to take a picture of the mess and one of the officers witnessed her do so. He called her over and looked through her camera because it is against the law to take photos at the boarder. The most entertaining part was Anna had warned her shortly before not to take photos. The officer did not seem angry he just told her not to do it again. I assume he was a bit entertained because there were only three pictures on her camera. One was of the rain, the other of the trotros, and the third was of a cartoon that was inside the customs office of a male and female condom talking to each other about preventing AIDS.
After the incident we went back inside the office to stay out of trouble until the rain slowed. When it finally did we ran across the road into Togo and once again filled out forms and got our passports stamped. This time the papers were all in French and none of the officers spoke English or Twi. From this point forward we were forced to rely on Anna and her amazing skills in French. We completed the process and continued on to find a taxi to bring us to our hotel. We first found men who took out calculators and CFAs and traded cedis in. The exchange rate is about one cedi to three hundred CFA, but we were given a terrible rate. We had no option, so we decided to only change over a small amount until we could find an ATM. The men attempted to rip us off on many occasions. First, he tried to type fifty into the calculator after Anna had given him sixty, then he handed me fourteen thousand instead of fifteen in hopes that I would not count the bills. Finally, we got a taxi that charged us 2,000 CFA to go about five minutes. We clearly were not aware of where we were going or we would have never paid that much. We finally got to the hotel and we were thrilled to see our room. We had our own bathroom with toilet paper and someone had left behind soap on the sink. There was a dirty cigarette butt on the sink, but besides that it was great. We had a working fan and they even brought us a cot for me to sleep on. We got settled and decided to go for a walk around the town.
The first thing we did was find the president’s palace and continue on in a large circle to get a look from the front. On our way a motorbike stopped on the sidewalk and drove extremely slow right next to us. When we finally acknowledged it we discovered two boys that were thrilled to talk to us. One spoke a little bit of English and they stayed by our side for about five minutes before Anna got fed up and made them leave. As we continued we came across a gate that was partially opened. We were unsure if we were allowed to pass, but since there was no guard we figured it would not be a problem. We walked about twenty feet before someone sitting in a small booth yelled at us to turn around. We complied and began to leave, until someone called us back. Once again we headed towards the booth and a guard from the other side caught up with us. Then he began yelling at us in French and Anna took over like a pro. I have no idea what they were saying, but she looked petrified. He was not accepting her excuse and he continued to yell for a long period of time. As he yelled he walked towards the gate and we followed behind him. Hannah and I were trying our hardest not to laugh, but it was very difficult since we could not understand a word they were saying. We finally got to the gate and he walked us to a small sign in the shape of a circle, with a red outline and a black line through the middle. Some how we ere suppose to know that that meant we were not suppose to enter. He did not leave our side at that point, he continued on with us. We were now unsure what was going on and Anna was under the impression we were going to get led to the police station. That is not what happened after a while I assume he got tired of yelling so he turned around and let us go. We made the decision that it was time to go back to the hotel and get dinner. On the way we stopped a fan ice man and got the new types of fan ice they sell in Togo and not in Ghana. I got Fan Xtra and it was disgusting and the other two girls got Fan Yogo- Vanilla, they greatly enjoyed.
We decided to treat ourselves to a good dinner at the hotel. We were first served bread, which is the first time this happened in Africa. We were so happy we ate so much bread we were almost full by the time we ordered. I got spaghetti and tomato sauce and it was phenomenal, we even got real butter to go with the bread. After dinner we went to our room and took warm showers  We studied for some time and then went to bed.