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TOGO | Visit Togo with TransAfrica |
Togo is a small country (approximately 56,700 square kilometres) situated
on the Gulf of Guinea with Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina
Faso to the north. Often Togo is closely associated with Benin and, in
fact, the people of both countries are very similar – they greet
visitors with the same degree of kindness and exhibit the same kind of
free spirit. The terrain in Togo, however, is quite different to that
in Benin. In Togo, the palm groves are for the most part made up of coco
palms and in the west of the country there is a high ridge whose slopes
are covered in equatorial vegetation, with some small cocoa and coffee
plantations here and there – features like these cannot be found
in Benin. In the interior, there are more differences and similarities
to be found. The high plateau of Kabye country for example, strongly resembles
the Atakora region in Benin but the plains in the north of Togo are much
more voltaic than in the north of Benin. Moreover, the high density of
the population has brought with it something even more important –
the interweaving of cultures and peoples.
A Pleasant Capital City
Lomé, the capital of Togo, stretches along the coast for about 12 km between the Ghana border and the new Port de Lomé. It should be noted that Togo today, independent since 1960, is an ex-French Colony; part of the country also used to be colonised by the British, but this territory was later annexed to Ghana. This goes some way to explaining why the Ghana border is so close to the capital city – it is so close, in fact, that it is practically in the city itself.
Lomé is a pleasant city, where you can walk freely between low houses, through bustling crowds of market traders and goods carriers and stop at the stalls or at the artisans’ workshops to watch them work with iron and wood. A visit to the different storeys of the central Grand Marché is always characterised by the lively discussions you are bound to have with the Togolese Nanas (female market traders), who are as communicative as their Beninese cousins! In the evening, cooled by a very pleasant breeze, you can easily take a stroll along the seaside road to the accompaniment of the light wind rustling through the palm trees.
The Land of Voodoo
Voodoo originally began in the south of Togo and Benin and it is still the religion that is most firmly embedded in the local culture: the proof is in the presence everywhere of temples, altars and fetishes. In the village, whenever there is a special occasion, the faithful initiated, often more than a hundred people, meet together and offer collective praises and, once the propitious sacrifices are made on the altars of the gods and divinities, the dancing begins. The fetishists sit beside the fetishes; the chanting of the women accompanies the rhythm of the tam-tam drums which then becomes more and more frenzied – some participants fall into a deep trance: on a physical level they are in fact in a catatonic state, with very strong muscular tension and an insensitivity to pain. During their trances, in this very unique state of altered consciousness, the participants come into direct communion with the spirits.
The People of the Plateau
Once onto the plateau, the landscape changes quite dramatically. Wide open areas of scrub pastures interspersed with rock, give way to thicker and thicker vegetation. After several kilometres, a mountainous landscape comes into view and beyond there lies the Kara valley, home of the Kabye. This valley is in itself a kind of sprawling pastoral city, with huts, often made of stone, scattered here and there in the fields amongst the kapok, teak, mango, palm and baobab trees. In order to cultivate the little land that lies between the rocks there, the Kabye people, renowned for their hard-working approach, have adopted an agricultural system that works by terracing their fields. The same kind of work and design can also be found in Losso country, up towards Niamtougou and towards Defale, where a long palm grove can be found thriving at the foot of a valley. Throughout the whole region, waterholes create mini-oases.
Castles of Clay
A track leads to the place where we will meet with the Tamberma. These people have found refuge for centuries in the least accessible territory of the Atakora in order to protect themselves from the black slavery of the Arab world. Huge fetishes shaped like phalluses protect the entrances to their homes. Tamberma architecture is one of the most beautiful in Africa: the fortified houses are really more like small clay castles, three storeys high.
The north is inhabited by the Moba. Their homes are made
of clay and are built in a circular shape, with conical roofs made of
straw. A wall surrounds and protects the huts belonging to members of
the same family: in this way they form small villages spread out over
the territory.
