I had forgotten what African heat was like. Okay, honestly, I’m not good with heat anywhere. Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Africa, or Ohio, it doesn’t matter. I sweat more than any other person I’ve ever met. My natural look anywhere in the tropics is completely drenched. When I tried to photograph student art outside in the Philippines, I had to be careful not to drip on the artwork. Meanwhile, in the Peace Corps, I remember waking up so hot at night that my skin would sting. I’ve never experienced that anywhere else but Liberia. I’d take a bucket bath and pray that I’d fall asleep before I started stinging again. No, I don’t handle tropical heat well at all. Lomé, Togo, was no exception. For the week that I painted my mural at the US Ambassador’s residence in Togo, the mural was outside, but we had an awning for some shade. As long as I stayed under its protection, I was drenched but comfortable (provided there was plenty of cold water to guzzle). For a huge chunk of the rest of my week, I resided in what is considered the nicest hotel in the city, just around the corner from the mural. I really didn’t have to set foot out of the hotel for any reason. I could shop, swim, relax, eat, bank, communicate online (to some extent) and be entertained – almost all in air-conditioned comfort. I did much more of that than usual, because there was whoLlyOppressive huMidity evErywhere!LOME!
For my second week in Lomé, there wasn’t quite so much luxury. I moved to the Hotel Galion, recommended by Peace Corps Volunteers in Togo when they head to the capital. If you were never in the Peace Corps, most likely, you’d never stay at the Hotel Galion either. My standards are not as high as most people I know. I want safe, relatively clean, and again safe. Toilets and showers may be down the hall. But, this time in Lomé, I had my own toilet and shower (such as they were) and I opted for air-conditioning. I just had to!
A view of Independence Park in Lomé, TogoThe Ambassador’s Residence is located by the extremely lovely Independence Park in Lomé. Togo did it right. It’s a beautiful park. But, it took me a while to find anything within walking distance of the residence, park, and hotel. For the second week in the city, I wanted to be in a more convenient location for a hint of an African experience, which you just do not get at super luxurious hotels anywhere. They are the same no matter where you find yourself roaming. They leave me wondering why people even bother to travel. I limited my walking to daylight hours. It doesn’t matter what city I am in the world. I stay in my room at night. If someone wants to get mugged or face any multitude of problems while traveling, mix alcohol, crowded bars, and the cover of darkness with your trip. I don’t risk those problems as I blog about my adventures in the evening hours, safely inside my hotel room.
The Galion Hotel is about two blocks from the beach where a beautiful palm-lined boulevard accentuates Lomé’s lovely shore. And, one of the first things I remember hearing from the embassy staff was, “Do not go to the beach at night. You will be mugged.” I even read that if you walk along the beach, for added security, walk on the opposite side of the boulevard instead of the water side. Guess who didn’t walk either shore there? But, I did walk. Every day. Lomé has been called “the Paris of West Africa”. I think it deserves the name. There are several wide boulevards, and the streets are kept clean. There is certainly a French influence with some bakeries and restaurants. However, there is so much more traffic in Paris! Togo appears to have a lot more motorcycles than cars at the moment. It was never so hard, or life-threatening, to cross the street. It's easy to trip in the Paris of West Africa.A word of warning to the wanderer in West Africa – you have to look down much more often than you look up and around in big cities. Sidewalks have uneven surfaces, gaping holes where manhole covers should be, and various other traps to trip you up but good. It just so much easier to walk on dusty paths in rural villages. But when it rains, it’s no fun walking anywhere. As I walked the same neighborhood a couple times a day for several days, my face became a little more familiar. White guys wearing fedora hats stand out a little in West Africa. And, I particularly enjoyed it when I start to recognize faces like the man who made custom furniture next door, the guy at the fish shop, the woman at the corner stall who sold me cold water, the taxi driver who hung out by my hotel, and the woman whose patio was stuffed with hand-crafted brooms, baskets, fans, and kitchen needs. However, my favorite face was the little woman closer to the shore who made beaded necklaces. I had absolutely no need for a necklace, but that didn’t stop her from luring me into her shop no bigger than a bathroom. And, one necklace caught my eye. Of course, she wanted to sell me two or three, but my eye was captured, and I just needed the one.
If you’ve ever been to Paris, or had a wonderful French teacher like I did in high school, you may have had escargot. No French experience? No fine dining in Paris? Well, they’re snails. And, snails just are not much to write home about, even when you eat them in Par-ee! But, my little necklace maker in Lomé made chains with snail shells. Finally, something useful to do with a slug! I found it very resourceful and had never seen this in any of my world travels. The snail charmer at her shop near the beachAs I wandered every day around the blocks near my hotel, the neighborhood streets off the boulevards were sandy and so much more interesting. A variety of things were sold on many street corners. The pictures I’d never thought I'd get were people collapsed in the corner of a building or atop a bench with a cloth over their faces, trying to escape the heat and humidity. I understood so very well how it wiped every bit of strength from the body. Every time I walked, whether 15 minutes to find a cool drink of bottled water, or 45 minutes to get a feel for my neighborhood, I came home drenched and drained, sapped of any and all energy. On record heat days in Liberia, I took five bucket baths to cool down. That never happened in Togo because I had running water and a shower on this go around. The Hotel Galion was still a Peace Corps dive, but it was way better than what most volunteers experienced on their sites. Staying in this neighborhood provided me exactly the kind of African experience I hoped for during my extra week in Togo before heading back to Ohio. Sad but true, I will never get use to wHollyOppressive huMidity evErywhere! But, no matter how far off the beaten path I wander, there really is no place like HOME!
I really wasn't the only one who suffered under the oppressive heat in Africa.
