Borders, Togo, slave kings

To cross the borders in Africa could be a challenging proposition. The officials were all corrupt and the governments sometimes went to extreme methods to try to control them. Some countries like Nigeria put extremely high penalties which could be up to death for smuggling and corruption. It did not stop the corruption. A Cadeau as it was usually called was always expected by the officials or police whenever you were forced to deal with them like at a border crossing. The size of the bribe depended on how much they thought you were worth and what you needed to get your paperwork correct. If you are in a hurry the price goes up, if you dress in expensive clothes and jewelry, the price goes up and so forth. My solution to all of this bogus hassle was to walk up to the border station and sit down. Then I would pull out my book, War and Peace the complete unedited version and sit there reading until the official asked me what I wanted. I acted totally unconcerned about time and all the irritating paperwork these petty officials tried to bog people down with. I just smiled and said, just a minute I will be right with you I just want to read a little more of my book first. It worked like a charm most times. Other times when I did have to pay a bribe to get through, I always argued and bargained my way through as slowly as I could so that they would be missing out on other people that they could be getting their cadeaus from. Sometimes it took hours to cross a single border. Entering Nigeria from Dahomey we had to go through about thirty different check points. Each one would shake you down and a smuggler could bring a load through all the stations but he would have to pay each one their share. It was kind of insane.

I crossed the border into Togo from Ghana. I met a young black American at the border crossing and we became friends almost right away. He was traveling through Africa to reestablish his roots he told me. He wasn't having much luck. He was traveling just like I was--on the cheap. The locals treated him like dirt. He was very discouraged by the way he was being treated. After much discussion with him and the Africans that were treating him badly I figured out that the Africans were angry at him because he had the opportunity to live and work in the United States and he was blowing his opportunity. He was not rich or famous. They worshiped Muhammad Ali and James Brown or black people that made it big time. The Africans dreamed of going to America and working hard to make a big name for themselves and getting really filthy rich then bringing their entire family over with them. They did not want to hear or see someone like this man that wasted the opportunity and shattered theirs dreams of America.

I traveled with him for a couple of weeks. We toured the slave history of West Africa together. We went to the palace made totally out of human bones and flesh. It was made by the King who was a big slave trader with the early Portuguese slavers. He had thousands of wives and children and ruled the entire area with a blood thirsty rule. They would go and round up slaves from the surrounding areas and kill ruthlessly and take the women and children as slaves or wives. It went on for centuries. Lots of people mistakenly think the early white slave traders went to Africa and rounded up slaves on their own but the reality was that slavery already existed when they arrived and they merely exploited it for their own benefit. Slave trading still goes on in West Africa today on a fairly large scale. Wikipedia has a lot of good articles on the history and current state of slavery in Africa.

We spent time in Lome the capital sitting in the French style cafes and going to museums and things during the day. We talked endlessly about Africa. I learned a lot from my friend who had recently graduated from New York City College. He had a good book knowledge of Africa but he lacked the on the street experience that I had by now. We both benefited from each other's experience. I eventually had had enough of the big city and wanted to head north through Togo. We split up and I hitched North out of Lome.

I easily caught rides on the well paved roads. I rode past all the cute round houses with the pointed thatched roofs in every size possible. There were large fields of multiple crops from sugar cane to grains and corn. Tapioca was growing all over West Africa and was a major starch for the people. There were a lot of cattle being tended by farmers. The fences were often just branches woven together in a small circle with a gate. The fences surrounded the little multi sized buildings forming family compounds. There was a little jungle here and there but as we went North it turned quickly into grasslands.

I met a married American couple at a market in central Togo. They were here working in the Peace Corps helping to get good clean potable water available to all the people. They were very nice people and took me into their little house. I stayed with them for a few weeks and we traveled around the country when they had time off. We cooked for each other just so we had a bit of variety. We played some chess and other board and card games to pass the time. I was starting to see a common thread in all the Peace Corps people I was running into. They were all lonely and feeling isolated from the people they worked with. Even as a couple these workers were lonely. They loved having me visit. I learned a lot from them about the local customs.

One day way up in the Northern part of the country we visited a village where the young men were having a wrestling match. They took turns fighting each other in a brutal almost no rules style of wrestling. I was a wrestler in high school and was very interested in their style. It ended up with me wrestling them one after the other for hours until I was just so tired I started to vomit and shake. I taught them some new moves that they had never seen before and I explained how the rules work in American high school wrestling. They were totally absorbed in learning and relentlessly asked me questions and tried to keep me out in the dusty ring where they were fighting. The fact that I could beat their best fighters even though I was a lot smaller impressed them and they all wanted to learn how I did it. I gave lessons for a couple of days before we had to leave. I really enjoyed those days wrestling with all the boys.

We went to a small National Park and saw a few animals but nothing that impressed me. We never got close to any of them. The animals were smart enough to run away from humans. That is a wise strategy for any animals in Africa if they want to survive.

As we traveled around we saw women and girls carrying large quantities of water long distances on their heads. We always stopped and the Peace Corps workers talked to them about how far and how often they carried water like this. They took careful notes for future work. These two were some of the only Peace Corps workers I found that felt like they were actually doing something to help the people. Lots of the other volunteers I met up with around Africa felt like they were wasting their time and not accomplishing anything helpful. I tried to cheer them up when ever I could.

I left my friends after a few of weeks of great times to head back down to Lome and then head East to Dahomey. I rested up in Lome before I headed East.