one saturday during my rotation in togo i decided to go
visit ghana. i had obtained a visa in advance and wanted to make sure i at
least used it. jumped on the back of a motorcycle from the hospital to the main
road, then took a shared taxi to the main town, kpalime. there, i found my way
to the taxi park, where dozens of taxi drivers compete for your attention. i
procured one with limited effective communication to drive me to the ghana
border, which was supposed to be about 20 minutes south of kpalime. from there
i was hoping to find another taxi to go the ghanaian city of ho, which should
have been about another hour or so to the south.
once in the taxi, however, we started going in the opposite
direction, up a mountain to the northwest of kpalime. the taxi driver was
insistent that he was taking me on the most direct route to ho, and i
eventually stopped asking and just sat back, as i admittedly didn't really know
if he was wrong. we went through a town called klouto on the crest of a
mountain, which apparently is a worldwide destination for butterfly
enthusiasts. the togo border police had a gate set up there, through which they
let us pass. we then continued on an ever-narrower dirt path for a number of
miles, with no other cars or even pedestrians for miles. at this point i had no
idea where this guy was taking me. eventually after about an hour, we arrived
at a border post though! the guards sprang into action, breaking out their
collection of passport stamps and ceremonially carrying out a huge ledger book.
i saw that the most recent entry of someone who had used a passport to make the
crossing was 3 weeks earlier. they asked where i was going, but this really
intensified on the ghanaian side. i told them that i just had always really
wanted to visit ghana, which is true, and they thought that was hilarious.
through long deliberations in the local tribal language ewe with my taxi
driver, the taxi driver and the ghanaian border guard decided i would visit the
nearby border town before returning to the border post and kpalime. it also
became clear that the taxi driver was going to charge me much more than we had
initially agreed upon. sadly i lacked the leverage of using another taxi at
this point, as there wasn't one for miles, the nearest city was now > 2
hours away, and getting back to the hospital after dark or the next day wasn't
an option.
we continued to the nearest town in ghana, dafar. i took a
walk around the dusty market area and witnessed a funeral procession. the taxi
then made a few stops so the driver could pick up some things for his friends,
including a large, 2 foot long object concealed within a garbage bag, for which
money was exchanged. when i was asked what it was, he said it was
"soup." it was again exchanged for money with the togolese border
guard on the way back. the border formalities on the trip back were faster now
that they knew me, and were complicated only by the togolese border guard's
insistence on a bribe "for beer." when he refused to give my passport
back for a few minutes i finally caved and gave him the money with the
insistence that he use it only for beer. i then asked if i could take a picture
of a spray painted sign that said "welcome to togo." he told me no,
it was against regulations. i then asked him of collecting bribes was also
against regulations, and he gave me my money back. cool! that was my couple
hours in ghana, and i made it back to the hospital is tsiko before dark!
