Tomegbo in Pictures

Recently my two friends Sandra and Joanna and I spent a weekend up north with some of our African friends that work on the ship.  Every day about 200 local Africans to come and work on board the Africa Mercy.  Many of these day workers move to Lome from northern parts of the country because Mercy Ships provides a small but steady income, which is often hard to come by in Africa.  This was the case with our hospital day worker friends Kossi and Walanyo, who wanted to show us around their home village about two hours up north in the mountains.  We had a fun weekend getting out of town and learning about their culture.  Here's a recap in photos. 

First stop:  the Kpalime market.  A popular town for Mercy Ship visits, this is about half an hour from Kossi and Walanyo's small village of Tomegbo.  We stopped here to get some food for the weekend.  We also slept in the town of Kpalime at night.   

After our pit-stop in Kpalime we went via zimi (motor bike) to the more rural village of Tomegbe where Kossi and Walanyo grew up. Tomegbo is home to about 3000 Africans.  We were greeted warmly by Kossi's friends, and ate each meal in the village at Kossi's friends house - a local pastor of the main church.  It was one of the nicest houses in town that we came across (meaning it had a concrete floor and real walls with electricity).  They were so good to us and made sure we only got bottled water so we didn't get sick.  Here we are eating one of our many meals in good company.

 

The first night we went to a choir concert where we heard at least eight different choirs from all over West Africa belt it out.  Everyone was dancing and singing at the concert, and I even got a "congratulations for dancing so African!" comment from the guy next to me.  Clearly I fit right in =)  On another fun note, apparently all the African women like to wear their hair curly for church on Sundays, and have no qualms with wearing curlers to the concert in town the night before!

The night only got more exciting as I felt a little something on my heel halfway through the concert.  I looked down and screamed (thankfully the choir was mid-song) as I came across this beauty of a bug that was just about to attack me:

The guy sitting next to me looks at it and says "oh this bug is really dangerous.  It pinches you and doesn't let go.  Really painful..." as he stands up mid song and carries it out of the concert.  About two minutes later another pincher scurried by again, so at this point I decided my feet would stay off the floor for the remainder of the concert. 

Post-concert we socialized again with the locals in town, and then headed back from the village to the larger city of Kpalime to spend the night in a hotel.  As we were driving on the zimi's down the mountain it was pretty dark.  All of a sudden we ran into a bat.   I was sitting behind Kossi and Jo on the bike so I didn't actually get hit, but Kossi did! Thankfully he was ok and the bat kept on flying.  It also started raining which always makes for a pleasant drive on a motor bike late at night.  Here are Kossi and Joanna.  Please note Jo's very stylish hair cover for the rain, so kindly provided by Kossi's sister. 

 The next day we spent the morning at the typical African style church service which included copious amounts of song and dance, and then more choir singing, and an auction including not only fruits and vegetables but yes that's right - live chickens as well.  We were invited to sit in the front of the church right next to the pastor since we were the guests! 

After church we made some fufu back at Kossi's friend's house.  Fufu is the local African delicacy that is very popular here.  Fufu consists of pounding cassava dough with a pestle in a mortar.  You mix in a little water and before you know it you've got a mush kind of like sticky play dough that doesn't really taste like anything.  Yum!  It's eaten with your hands and served with a tomato soup or peanut sauce to give it some flavor.   Here are Wulanyo and I pounding some fufu for dinner. It's harder than it looks!  

We also walked through the entire village and met the extended families of Kossi and Walanyo

 ...and we made a trip to the pure water factory where they produce the clean water for the city.

Finally, Kossi and Walanyo also took us to the local clinic where we got a personal tour by the town's doctor.  They were both very excited to show us the local clinic since we all work on a hospital ship.  Here is a patient room:

...and the birthing room of the clinic.  The doctor said he delivers about ten babies a month here.  

Many people here on the ship say we don't live in Africa. Technically, we live next to Africa.  So to spend the weekend in the local village and get a taste for some true African hospitality was a delight. We were treated so wonderfully by our African friends and we got many an offer to return again - not only from Kossi and Walanyo but from the village folks as well!  All the thought and preparation that went into our stay was amazing.  We learned a common phrase in the local language of Ewe - "Agbekakaka" (said with the many "kakakakas" at the end) and we were sure to say it often, as it means thank you very much.