Traveling in Togo

Sometimes, when people ask me what Togo is like and I’m feeling like a pithy smart-ass, I dead-pan that it only has one paved road and it’s riddled with pot-holes. It’s hyperbole, yes, but it’s not too far from the truth. The paved road in question, the Rue Nationale, runs the length of Togo north to south and is the main transportation route for everything: 18-wheelers, motorcycles, private cars and bush taxis. The Rue runs 317km from Lomé, the country’s capital city in the south along the coast, to Dapaong. A friend calculated that it takes her four hours to drive that distance in the United States. It takes about 12 hours here, if all goes well. The fact of the matter is that the Rue is not taken care of by the government or any private businesses, and all the traffic it gets physically tears this two-lane road apart. Togo has some of the lowest trade tariffs in West Africa, meaning it’s popular for international businesses to transport their wares via giant trucks up and down the country. I’ve seen license plates from as far as Rwanda transporting for French and German companies.

The best bet for traveling the length of the country is to take the “Lomé Limo” provided for free by the Peace Corps, but that only runs a couple of times a month. The next option is to take the Post bus which is run by the Togolese post office, “La Poste,” and makes a daily run from Dapaong to Lomé with a few stops along the way. The Post bus is typically like a Greyhound bus in style – but Greyhound after it’s been chewed up and spat out by the Rue. Also, one time it tipped over on its side while a volunteer was on it. Frankly, it’s still better than the last option, the bush taxi.

Bush taxis are usually vans, though I’ve seen a couple of four-door sedans, that are filled to the brim with people, animals, bags, oil drums, and if there’s anything left over its strapped to the roof. It’s not uncommon to see a van with a pile the size of its own height on the roof, sometimes with a bleating sheep strapped up front… which reminds me of a conversation I had with a volunteer from North Carolina.

Me: “Does that remind you of home?”

“Nah, there we’d use duct tape.”

The bush taxis are legally only allowed the car’s manufactured seat limit buuut that doesn’t happen. The back seats of sedans that theoretically only seat three can, in fact, sit up to five (if there’s a kid in the equation) but more commonly four (which once included three strapping young lady volunteers and one “marché mama,” typically a large middle-aged woman who will not attempt in any way to shift her bulk to make the seat more accommodating for the other passengers). The drivers charge a flat fee for each location they drop you off at, so cramming in as many people as possible is, uh, “fiscally prudent” for them. I’ve also been on one when it broke down in the middle of the day, meaning an hour-long wait on the side of the road while the driver, in French known as the “chauffeur,” (said as un-ironically as possible by Americans) tinkers with the engine and his apprentice hands him the tools.

                So imagine being squeezed in an old wreck of a van (always with a cracked windshield. Always. I think they come standard for cars shipped to Togo), of course with the crying baby and chickens running around your feet, and add on the driver swerving around pot holes, animals, and any other cars that dare to be out on the road as well. Some volunteers get used to it, especially when a significant other or work takes them around the country, some can simply become habitué to not being afraid to die, and some become home-, ou bien, “region”-bodies. Volunteers up in Savanes have a reputation for disappearing because we don’t like to travel around the country, and nobody wants to make the trip up here to see us. Can’t imagine why. There’s a West African PCV conference that takes place every year. It used to be in Togo until the volunteers in other countries basically refused to come here anymore. Of course this fills me with a scrappy type of pride: our country of service is so scary even other West African volunteers avoid us! Really, though, they do have a point. Luckily the only real traveling I have to do is from my village to Dapaong, a 12-15km bike ride – depending on who you ask. I’ve already made it clear (to anyone who will listen) that the only reasons I can find to travel down to Lomé is if administration drags me down, I’m sick enough to need the med unit, or I have to fly out of the country.

                Everything’s going well, otherwise! Thanksgiving was lovely and I’m looking forward to Christmas up here.  I’m helping facilitate a Women’s Empowerment regional conference that takes place on March 8 of next year, co-running a day of activities for a club for AIDS orphans this Saturday, and helping out with an AIDS day…event(?) on Thursday with the same kids. December 1^st is International AIDS day, it turns out. Hope you’re all staying warm and dry back home. My neighbors are complaining about the cold around here, too! Its Harmattan season, so winds are blowing down from the desert/Savannah up north. This means I occasionally have to sleep with a blanket, even throw a sweatshirt on in the morning. The people in my village are wearing ski caps and jackets. All day.

Disease

Something that’s a given by serving in West Africa is illness. Here we are exposed to diseases I have only read about in adventure novels and histories: Yellow fever, giardia, malaria, tuberculosis, scurvy (the one thing that I refuse to succumb to in my landlocked state in f-ing Africa is scurvy), amoebas, etc. Thus far only one person in my stage has had malaria. Fun fact: even when taking the malaria medication properly, it’s only about 85% effective. At least it’s still easily treatable, although because it’s so over diagnosed in West Africa the parasite itself is becoming immune to the treatment. Not to belabor the point or scare anybody back home, but two people in my stage have been med-sep’d due to sickness that couldn’t be treated in Togo. I’ve been pretty lucky thus far with only a couple of colds and the basic gastrointestinal complaints of a yovo becoming “habitué” (translated colloquially as “getting used to”) to living in a developing country. However, I believe my luck has finally run out.

Yesterday I spent my time curling up in a ball on the couch at the work station in Dapaong, groaning, and collapsing onto my side while clutching a pillow to my stomach (“Maggie’s hitting the deck again!”). The theatrics were making me feel better, I think. To be blunt, I could actually feel my intestines vibrating along with intense cramping, nausea, and my personal favorite symptom: sulfur burps, which are exactly what they sound like.

“Do you smell that?”
Me: “What? I don’t know. Whatever. I think it’s from outside.”
“It smells like burning. Did you light a match?”
Me: “I think someone’s cooking outside. IT MUST BE A BUSH FIRE.”

Though I’m innately a private person, I’m mostly thankful for the transparency I share with other Volunteers here; I feel like I can get an honest answer about anything I ask about my new home: culture, language, emotional ups and downs… sometimes when it comes to physical issues, I still blanche.

“Do you feel nauseated after you eat?”
Me: “Sure.”
“Do you ever get this (imitates rumbling sound – it’s kind of like a double bass-pedal) in your stomach?”
Me: “Yes.”
“Lose your appetite?”
Me: “Indeed!”
“Have you been passing cysts?”
Me: “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Anyway, because I am, I’ll have you know, a Health Professional, I’m pretty sure I have giardia. I think I’d be hard pressed to find a volunteer in Togo who hasn’t contracted it once or twice, no matter how many precautions we take. According to our S.H.I.T. (Staying Healthy In Togo) book, one can catch giardia by untreated water or unclean food. I’m pretty good with filtering my water here, and ice is impossible to find so I haven’t had to worry about tainted drinks. Due to my love of street food and the questionable hygiene practices of those who prepare the food in Togo, I brought it on myself by being lazy and not wanting to cook. The usual procedure for getting treatment here is to complete a M.I.F. kit, which is a stool sample you send down to the nurses in Lome. They do some tests on it down there, hopefully figure out what it is and send you the appropriate treatment. Of course, because I’m in the furthest region from Lome this is a process that can take several weeks seeing as it’s via E.M.S., a mail service that Peace Corps contracts out via the post. I know people in my stage who have already done three or four of these bad boys, and I’m not looking forward to my first experience.

Although I’m sure it would lead to another great conversation with a volunteer on the best way to package and send a stool sample in Togo.