For two weeks we lived with my cousin in Lome, Togo. Robin (my cousin) and her husband Phil are children’s missionaries with Assemblies of God (AG).
When we were debating our next destination from Europe, we kept going back and forth… do we go East or South? Eventually Africa won the argument, mostly because I really wanted to go see Robin. For the last 10 years I have been trying to follow them to West Africa to see what missionary life was all about. This was finally my chance, and I couldn’t imagine we would ever be closer to Togo than now. And yes, I’m counting thousands of miles as ‘close’.
After our Great Southern Africa Road Trip we flew to Lome, via Ethiopia and some 18 hours later finally made it out of Togo customs and found two smiling familiar faces. There is nothing better after crazy travel days than to have family pick you up on the other side.
Matt and I were excited to just tag along with Robin and Phil and experience what life was like in West Africa. We were also looking forward to relaxing a little after our crazy busy tour of South Africa. Because it’s hard to sum up two weeks easily, here are a few of my favorite memories:
Driving the car into a ditch
Yup, we drove the car into a ditch. We wanted to visit a local AG church after a small hike to a waterfall, and it so happened that our guide attended the church down the road from the trail. He came with us to the church, and at the turn off from the road was a small bridge mostly used for motos and people. The ditch below was around 5 feet deep. Phil tried driving the 4WD car over the bridge, but it wasn’t wide enough for the turn and we ended up with our front left tire hanging over the bridge’s edge and the whole car balanced on it’s chassis. This was near crisis situation: we were all hot and very sweaty, hungry, and rapidly burning in the hot sun. And to top it all off, it was a borrowed car!
Togo has their own version of AAA roadside assistance, namely, the men who happened to be passing by that day. One by one, men stopped to help the hilarious looking foreigners who were trying to push their nice mission branded car out of the ditch in front of a church. It took about 20 minutes and 7 Togolese men with Phil in the driver’s seat to get the car out. The men built a ramp underneath the tire with the logs that were laying around the side of the road, and essentially drove the car up, totally unharmed, which just might be a miracle.
Once the car was back on the main road, the men who helped us shook all our hands as we all said “Merci!” as many times as possible. Then they left, one by one, just as they had come.
Thanksgiving
Over the last year, Matt and I celebrated many holidays alone. But Thanksgiving was a different story. We got to have a true American feast in Lome, (minus the turkey) with a whole lot of West African AG Missionaries. I baked actual chocolate chip cookies and Robin contributed an apple crisp. I can’t quite explain how delicious an entire plate of homemade food is when most of our meals have been in cafes and restaurants.
Custom made clothing
One of my favorite things in Lome was the clothing. I love colorful clothes, and the Togolese have mastered the art of color. We met up with a seamstress named Agnes, who Robin knows through one of the AG churches they work with. Agnes took measurements on all four of us to make us some new shirts, skirts, and dresses from fabric we had picked out at a local shop.
Agnes has an incredible story. She taught herself how to sew despite an un-supportive family who thought she was wasting her time. But after much time and effort, she now makes a living sewing clothes on a pedal powered machine. Currently Agnes’s husband is out of work, so her sewing income is vital to the family. And most impressive, she sews without patterns. It’s all by memory! So when I picked a dress style, I simply pointed to a picture of two different dresses and said I like the top of this one and the skirt of that one. Agnes combined the pictures and created a unique dress just for me, with hidden pockets and everything!
Exploring Lome with no guide, and no French
There were a few days when Robin and Phil had to attend meetings and Matt and I were left to our own devices. So we did what we do best, explore. One of the AG missionaries gave us the phone number of a taxi driver who spoke a little bit of English, and we gave him a call. Robin had given us our exact address and the name of the neighborhood we were staying in so we could pass the info along to a taxi driver. When our pick-up time came and went, we started wondering maybe when the taxi driver said “yes” to our, “do you know the place” on the phone, he actually didn’t understand us at all. Matt tried calling the driver again, and repeated our address. The driver said he was coming.
We really didn’t have a deadline for the day, so we set about figuring out where our taxi driver could be. Pretty sure he didn’t understand our English on the phone, we tried to communicate to Agbe, one of the workers Robin and Phil employ, but he also doesn’t speak English. He knows some words, but sentences and explanations are difficult. Even so, we had been around him enough that we had developed a sort of understanding using words and a lot of gestures to communicate our idea.
That day we were planning on going to the nice hotel by the water to swim and read our books in the shade. The hotel has a nicely maintained Olympic length pool that sounded delightful. Somehow Agbe knew where we were going. When our taxi was not there we tried to ask Agbe if the driver would be able to find the place. This was interpreted to mean, “we need a new taxi” and off Agbe ran to find us a new one on the main street. Matt and I scratched our heads for a minute or two until we realized what he was doing then thought oh no! we’re going to have TWO taxis now.
The guard for the house across the street had been watching this situation and with a smile on his face. Then he spoke to us in English! About that time our phone rang, the taxi driver was calling us back. The neighbor guard agreed to talk to the driver in French and figure out what was going wrong. After a short conversation the guard hung up and assured us the driver was coming and he had given him specific directions to the house. But where was Agbe?! We didn’t have his phone number and he was all the way out at the main street. The guard that was helping us also didn’t have his number. During all this, a third guard joined the fun. He said he had Agbe’s number! But his phone had no credit to make a call. We handed him our phone and said, can you please please call him and tell him to come back?
Agbe was rescued and minutes later he was walking back up the street, smiling at us all. He had successfully found us a taxi, but our call had come just in time and he let it go. We felt so bad for making him run like that, but Agbe didn’t seem to be very upset. I think he actually found us pretty entertaining – and probably rightly so.
We didn’t know how long it would be before the taxi we called would come, so we went back inside to wait. It took maybe 5 minutes. The driver was OK with English when you can talk face to face, and he explained to us that when we called, he just assumed since we were speaking English that we must be at the Bible School. This was not a bad assumption, the Bible School was the only place he had ever picked up or dropped off non-French speaking people.
Off we went to the hotel! On the way we told the driver we would need a pick-up in about 3 hours from the hotel to take us back home. He agreed, and said he would be waiting in the parking lot. We had a very relaxing afternoon and our driver took us home, no problems. He even agreed that in a few days he could take us to the airport at 4am.
The next day, Robin and Phil had more meetings so we explored some more. This time our destination was the Gran Marche (market) and lunch. Now the driver knew exactly where to collect us, Matt successfully agreed on a time over the phone, and the pick-up was smooth. He took us to the market, and pointed to a tree down the road and said he would be waiting there. We would find him in about one hour. The Market was crazy and fun. Matt bought a Machete (see his post I bought a Machete, if you want to know why) and I bought a wonderfully tacky retro Christmas table cloth to decorate Robin’s table.
Once the shopping was complete, we headed for the taxi and told our driver take us somewhere for lunch that is traditional Togo food – somewhere you would eat. Our driver smiled and said, “not pizza?” We assured him no! we want something local. Prior to this Matt had looked up a few Lonely Planet recommendations but we thought it would be more fun to have a local suggestion. We agreed that if it looked terrible or like food poisoning on a plate, we would decline. But turns out the place he took us was also in the guide book as a place for traditional food. We figured that was a good sign and ordered a small lunch of chicken and fufu (hammered yams). Matt thought the chicken was tasty, I thought it was passable. We would not be craving this meal at home. But sitting on the sidewalk made for some great people watching.
Again, our taxi driver was waiting for us. I’d love to have a personal driver every day. On the way home our driver hopped out a couple time and tried to get the machete sharpened, but no luck. Hot and tired, we were looking forward to the afternoon under the AC and a cold shower. I considered it a successful morning.
Without stories attached, here are a few more of my favorite photos from Togo:
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