Day 4 of Marianne and Lisa's Ghana adventure...and we've taken it to a whole new level.

Once they had arrived and 'settled in' (AKA got over the shock of cold showers, figured out the answer to 'which should I apply first, sun screen or mossy spray?' and become completely at home with all the children hanging off the windows staring in and poking fun at the 'nasara's like we are in a zoo!), we got to planning a list of 'things to do'. 4 days in Zebilla really did not seem like enough time, but flip somehow we've packed it all in! And managed a quick trip out of the country to neighbouring Togo too!

I came up with the idea when my Ghanaian friend told me she goes across the border to Togo, to a little border market town called Sinkasse, every now and again to shop for fabrics and clothes to sell in her market stall. It sounded really lovely, and seeing as it's so close we figured it would be nice to go with a local person who knows her way around, and make the most of the fantastic opportunity to see a little bit of Ghana's eastern neighbour described as a beautiful melting pot of culture, lanscapes, affluent markets and wildlife. I hoped that even just a glimse by popping over the border woud give me a taste of life there, and boy did it!

After our lazy breakfast (my favourite habit now that I have visitors!) Memuna, Marianne, Lisa and I trundled off into town to catch the tro-tro out to Bawku, the next town about an hour towards the border. It was a beautiful journey, all green lanscapes dotted wth rice paddies and swept by swathes of tall wispy yellow crops waving at us as we passed. We passed over the stunning White Volta river and down towards the old town. Bawku used to be a real hub of activity, a major town in the Upper East of Ghana. But a tribal chieftancy conflict kicked off a few years ago, causing a humanitarian emergency where many people died and ohers were badly injured. Many of the residents there fled to other nearby towns to escape. Men were banned from riding moto's, and have been ever since, and as a result the economy has slowed down, it's no longer a place to go, and business and development have begun to regress. It's an interesting story in a country that prides itself on one of its strongest characterisics - peace.

So it was strange to see a town that was clearly in its hey-day much bigger and bolder than Zebilla, but is now falling apart at the seams and crumbling under the harsh laws that govern the safety of the people there. Seeing so many men and boys riding bicycles was really bizzare, especially seeing so many women whizzing right past them on their own!

We didn't have much time to potter about there though, time was moving, the rain clouds were bubbling in the distance, and we'd only completed leg 1 of the journey!

Leg 2 consisted of the most insane taxi journey Lisa and Marianne will probably ever make (I don't include myself as I've got 4 months left here and lets be honest anything could happen!), with 2 men squeezed in the front seat, and all four of us in the back, arms and legs poking about everywhere, each one of us absolutely desperate to 'break water please miss', and off we went over on of the bumpiest roads in the world, doors of the taxi hanging on for dear life, and us inside just praying we will soon get there. The mud was splashing up from the puddles and into the windows as we sped aong at daft-kilometers an hour like the driver had a woman in labour in the back!

The view again was stunning, this time we were a lot higher up, and could see right across the border and down into the green countryside and national parks of Tog. It was beautiful. Even including that big moody grey-black cloud we could see fro a distance. Little did we know it was moving our way...

Just as we were entering to the border corssing area, there it came... a HUGE indgo-blue African rainstorm. Flip. It was COLD, and the wind was blowing us all over the place, ut it felt nice!!! I havent felt cold air for so long, it was like drinking after being parched for a while, it was refreshing and exhilerating and I loved it...for a few minutes anyway. Then I rememered how much I hate it beng cold and spent the rest of the journey trying tto duck down and hide from the wind.

It was hillarius, the windscreen wipers were totally pathetic, and the mud was now splashing right up and over the car. I was just praying there were no holes in the roof! By Ghana taxi-car standards, we were very lucky.

So we eventually landed at the border crossing, and were ushered out of our reluctance to leave the taxi, and underneath a small hut-type structure where we sheltered shivering and wet until the rain subsided. So much for my claims that its always hot here!

What came next was all a bit of a blur...meeting with the Ghana border officials, discussions about passports and visas, negotiations with someone there known as 'the big man', and some more discussions and grumblings with another man known as 'the boss man'. There was some talk of a police escort...hmm, might have something to do wth the fact we had two gorgeous Norwegian ladies in the mix...and then a bustling of men who were clearly battling it out to be 'the one' to escort us across the border. I have to say, all of this made me slightly nervous, and gave me the impression that the guys on the Togo side were quite tough and serious and inevitably going to give us a hard time. But there was very little time to think about that...the next thing I knew, we were all on the back of motorbikes, and Marianne and Lisa were being sped off ahead of me, down deep red muddy tracks into the no-mans land of border crossing area!

It was hillarious, all this time I had been trying to look after them both, making sure hygiene was as high as it possibly could be for Ghana so they don't get sick, dishing out the anti-malaria advice left right and centre, making sure they drank enough water and didn't spend too much time in the sun. And now here they were being whizzed across the border on the back of police motorbikes, riding up, along and down the muddiest tracks I have ever seen! And then, there it was, a river, nd we were heading straight for it! A big fat grey gushing river. Feet up girls, we're going through!

My heart was in my mouth for most of the journey, but as we skidded up the muddy river banks and topped over the hill, it was clear we were now in Togo, and it was hard not to notice the subtle change in landscape and urban life, and forget the crazy-ness of what was happening in attempts to soak up the views as we sped by. Whizzing down long straight grey roads, long border villages stretched out on either side of us, rickety wooden shacks shuffling and bustling at the sides of the road, tonnes of tin roofs bouncing off the rain and spilling it to the floor, wonky electricity poles sticking up into the murky grey-blue sky, and the skinny shapes of black people knitted into the picture, moving about and bringing the scenes to life. We got a few stares from the wide-eyed children, a few waves and bouncy jumping-up-and-down 'helloOOO!'s from the smiley excited ones, and a few gawps from the ones who really did not know what to make of these bright white women, two with super-white hair, flying past on the back of policement's moto's. It must have looked very strange indeed.

Apparantly our 'situation' required a quick check in at the official immigration offices on the other side, something I was kind of embarrassed to do seeing as we were given the impression they would be oh-so-serius, and here we were looking like drowned rats, splattered all over with bright-orange mud, and with blue lips and fingers from the cold. Oh dear! However, on entering 'the big man' (Togo-side)'s office, I could see Marianne hiding a smirk, and quickly noticed that really we had nothing to wrry about. This super powerful offcial was sitting laid back and sprawled out in his little wooden 'big man's chair, wearing nothing other than a full on sweater-like pyjama suit, with ENGLAND written across it in big bold knitted letters. His trousers were too short, his skinny ankles poked out as if they were trying to escape, and his sweater top looked like something his granny living in London had bought from the second hand markets of Camden and personalised especially for him with her cross stitch knitting. Al the man needed was from us was three pretty smiles, and a 'your country is wonderful', and we were on our way!

Phew, after all of that the trip around the markets felt somewhat more exotic than I was expecting! The moddy grey sky hung thretaningly over our heads, but the rain stopped and the uggy heat started to hug us back to a normal temperature again. The markets were like black markets, most of the stalls closed as it wasn't offcial market day, so we follwed my friend Memuna and tiptoed our way deep inside down dark alleys scattered with sleeping stall holders snoozing in the aleyways, and children darting about chasing each other through the puddles. The stores we reached that were open were full of bright Togolose fabrics, and mixed in with typcal Ghanaian funky fashion designs, again like the kind of thing you'd probably find in Camden. There were reams and reams of glittering fabrics, sequins, sparkles and colour, each stall older holding our gaze and asking with their mixture of French and African accents 'so where are you from?'.

It was great to get a teeny taste of Togolese life, the shape and make up of the border towns, the mixture of French and traditional local languages, the French drinks (especially Pomme-Pomme) and African cuisine (intestines in sauce with TZ - euk!), and the subtly different face shapes and energy of the people. It was a really fatastic couple of hours. And every ow and again I had to laugh as I remembered that we had a police escort! He even joined in when the girls were shopping for gifts for some of the children, picking out a pretty little dress for one of the little girls they had met. How cute.

Back on the moto's and onto the road...this time we'd left our anxieties and confusions and fear in the river on the way here, so we could actually now enjoy the ride! The rest of the journey back though was a long one, and most of it we spent in a daze, shell shocked and overwhelmed by so many different impressions, all in one day.

If this is only day 4 of their trip, God only knows what's in store for us next!

With love from the Togo border!

Emma

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