Africa Part 3 : the Long and winding Road to Mango

So We are Finally in Togo. Lome, the capital, where we flew into in is in the southern part of Togo, Mango where we would be working is in the Northern part of Togo, about 300 miles away. 300 miles on the presidents Highway. Now don't start to think that because it is the main highway let you think that this road is a "well maintained" paved highway. In a way Yes and in a Way no. Parts of it are well maintained and paved, and others are not, but compared to a few other roads, the Presidents Highway is actually a nice road.

Girls at a Pineapple stand, that we stopped at, along side the road.

So after making a few stops, at the money changers, Lunch at Al Donalds ( a burger place with a golden arches sign), a pineapple stand, and pastry shop. we left Lome and headed off for Kpalime ( Pau-lee-may). The Road to Kpalime is not on the presidents Highway, and was a very bumpy road. It was only about an Hour and half drive, and we arrived there in in the early evening. We arrived at the "Village of Light" a school ABWE set up to train blind children. School was not in session; so unfortunately we were not able to see the students making there hand crafts or hear them sing. This is were we spent our first night. Joan the administrator of the Village of Light welcomed us and showed us were we would be staying. She immediately honed in on RC and told him her vehicle needed to be looked at. Joel and Rob were quick to the task. While they worked on cars, the rest of the group looked around, it was raining, but very warm. We quickly found a Giant Millipede, that was about 6 inches long about. there were plenty of other things to look at as well, beetles, frogs, birds. Kpalime had a very tropical feel with dewy grass, big trees, little animals all around.

The Giant Millapede.

Later we all were gathered in the home of one of the missionaries that was on furlough where some of our group was spending the night. Randy let us use his computer and we were able to call back home!! it was great to hear Phillip. Later we left to go have dinner at Chez Fanny's. This was a french restaurant, they had very good food. Out side we saw Huge escargot (snails). But at this time I was very tired and very weary and ready for Bed. So to Bed we went.

The Next morning we woke up early, we were in the same house as Jim and Sally, and since no one else seemed to be up, We had a little Devotion time this them. ( A quick Sidenote, I prayed for my neck and Sally's ankle that morning, and after this neither of us had any major issues with either PLT). We then went over to the house were everyone else was staying and had Breakfast. Croissants, Pain de Chocolat (croissants with chocolate in them, Yumm), Yogurt, Fresh Pineapple, coffee and orange Juice called tampica that comes in a little bag and tastes like Sunny D. Tim Nuefeld made 3 pots of coffee for the group, He said he had never had a group that he had needed to make 3 pots for, We think he was a little proud of this fact. Later we were able to go to the center boutique. The Blind school teaches the children how to make woven hand crafts, so the individuals can go on and have a skill. At the boutique they sell the crafts along with other wooden "African" Crafts; sales go to help keep costs down in the blind center. This was our one place to buy these sort of items so we all took advantage of this. After going to the boutique and finishing up on some cars, we loaded the Van, again and headed up to the hospital in Tsiko.

A little Boy that came up and Hugged my knees.

The Road to Tsiko is very bumpy, even that is an understatement. After a quick stop to pick up, yet another car in need of repair we got to the hospital at about lunch time. We all got to eat lunch there then we got to tour the hospital. Touring the Tsiko hospital was one of the Highlights of my trip. It was great to see what ABWE has done in Tsiko. The Hospital is the 3rd largest in Togo, but really compared with most hospitals and clinics in the USA, it is really small. Every person that come to get treated hears the Gospel of Jesus three time before they leave. Really the Hope that they are able to give people is Just amazing. I Loved seeing the little babies in the pediatrics ward. The Other really cool part was called the "Cuisine", the families of Patients in the Hospital are required to prepare food for the patient (this is pretty standard in this part of Africa); so the cuisine is were they are able to do this. The families have this area were they can cook over an open fire, they have out-houses and a place to get water. There is also places for them to sleep. Tsiko was really one of the places that we got to mingle with the Togolese people, The kids would come running up to us and kind of hug our knees. It was really a neat experience to see the Hospital in action, and to see what the Hospital in Mango is going to do up in the North.The Cuisine at the Tsiko Hospital.

Joel and Randy Loading up the van

So after tours, giving blood, fixing yet another car, we turned in, tomorrow was an early morning, as we needed to be on the road at 7am. We all got up early had breakfast and packed up the Van again, this time we were more crowded. Tim and Esther were taking two more people in their car, so we had to fit Pastor in the van and more stuff. it was cramped to say the least (but really compared to vans loaded with Togolese this was roomy), But we got on the road by 7am. The Drive to Mango is 9 hours with stops. Some parts of the Road are Really bad and bumpy, some are good, but the Whole road is inundated with over loaded trucks and vans, there are animals running along side the road, people walking with huge bowls on their heads, bicycles, and Motorcycles with 2+ riders. The Whole trip was very much a Ride, as we would swerve to miss people, potholes etc.. or drive on the wrong side of the road to pass someone or something passing Broken down trucks the whole trip. We actually got to see a Sheep get run over by a truck (not by us). I asked why we didn't see more Road kill, the answer was "Oh there is road Kill, but they will go out get it off the road, cook it and eat it." We made frequent stops every few hours, One stop, we were right by a bunch of trees that had tons of Fruit bats in it, that was cool.

Common sights on the highway to Mango. It was not uncommon to see a goat strapped on top of a van load like this one.

We finally got to Mango at a 5pm, we went straight to the building site, as Randy our driver needed to Pay the Workers, it being Friday. We were really excited to see the project site. A little later we headed over to the Guest house and were able to get the van unpacked, have dinner and start unpacking all of the supplies and equipment we had brought.

Our Group right when we got to the Project sight on Friday. l-r Pastor Bob, Myself, Jim, Joel, Sally, Joselyn, RC, and Robert.

So we had made it to Mango Safe and sound, Now the real work would begin.

Africa Part 2 Are We There Yet?

So you have now heard why we decided to go to Africa now we I get to tell you the great story about what we saw the Lord do on our trip basically from the time we started out.

So We all know that Airlines have strict rules about how much "stuff" we are allowed to take with us. We also know that they charge you an arm and a leg if you go over these limits. So each individual passenger on a international flight is allowed two 50 lbs checked "bags" and one 15 lbs carry-on bag (more on the carry on later). Now keeping under that weight limit shouldn't give some God fearing minimalist worry right? right!! But we had a really big shopping list of supplies for the building project, stuff the Nuefelds and other Missionaries wanted, gifts that trickled in from various family missionary members and 20 deflated soccer balls that were donated for us to hand out and a printer. We had to get all of this Stuff into 16 "bags" weighing less than 50 lbs each ( if you do the math that is 800 lbs). So all of the Team members vowed to try to keep all of our things to as little as possible with couples keeping their stuff to one bag between the two of them. So we had 12 bags devoted for all these supplies. We had this Brilliant Idea that we would just take all of this stuff over in boxes, some plastic, some cardboard. That way we would just be able to leave the boxes there.

So we spent the better part of two evening getting all of this stuff distributed between 12 boxes. Most of the the boxes teetered on the scales between 47 and 49.5 lbs. Two boxes were light at 27lb and 35 lbs, but they had fragile goods in them. We all just prayed that the airline scales would not be far off, because we just didn't want to weigh any extra. We get down to Seattle with plenty of time for check in and hang around the scales they had down there. Weighed and re weighed boxes distributing things when we needed too. Finally we taped and tied all of the boxes shut, zipped up the bags and checked everything in. Everything was under weight!!!!!!!! Praise the Lord. When I say everything, we mean everything, all bags, boxes and carry-ons.

So we were set for take off. Flights to Togo are very expensive and the cheapest we could find were on Ethiopian airlines. Our travels took us on the Red eye flight from Seattle to Washington DC on United airlines. Then in Washington DC we would change over to Ethiopian and fly from DC to Rome (where the plane refueled) then to Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia (Oh for those not up on African Geography Ethiopia is in Eastern Africa, Togo is in the west, so we did backtrack a wee bit). From Addis we would travel to Lome the capital of Togo. We were to take off from Seattle at 11pm (pst) Sunday and land in Lome at 12:00 Tuesday (which was about 4am our time).

Joel, Jim, Sally and Pastor Stretching their Legs on the Flight to Addis.

Our flight from Seattle to DC went off with no problems, (other than my breakdown over leaving Phil). Most of us tried to sleep as best we could ( I personally don't remember much about that flight). We got to DC, soon found our next gate for Ethiopian airlines. We soon found out that our flight was delayed 2 hours. We all knew our layover in Addis was not that long so a delay could really screw up our schedule. The Airline soon told us that we miss our flight to Lome on Tuesday and would be arriving a day later in Lome. They would put us up in a hotel in Addis and provide our food as well. Most of us on first hearing this were a little disappointed that we would be missing out on one day that we could be working on the project. But we soon all agreed that having a chance to sleep in an actual bed sounded really good. We took the chance in DC to get our last Starbucks, get some Breakfast, magazines, stretch our legs one last time, or call or e-mail, before it cost us.

The Flight from DC to Addis was long to say the least, but the flight wasn't crowded in the section we were in. We tried to sleep as much as possible, which on a plane is really hard, you doze off, then some part of your body wants to stretch and there is no place to stretch it. Ethiopian airlines fed us quite often, I don't say that they fed us well, being airline food, but they did feed us. We all tried to follow the plots of the 4 movies they were showing on board. We also noticed that Ethiopian airlines was a lot more lacks on stuff like sitting all the time, turning on the seatbelt sign every little rumble. Joselyn and I called it the Party plane, because everyone was standing up talking with one another, nice atmosphere.

We finally got to Addis!! We had to wait around the airport for a while waiting for our transit visas to process and get our hotel arrangements. Finally we got on a Bus and headed to Hotel Panorama. We noticed Right off the bat that we were not in the US anymore. There were tons of people walking right on the street (no sidewalk), stuff being sold out by the road, goats along side the road, people living in hut under bridges. Big difference than to what we were used to.

The Hotel Panorama is probably considered Nice Hotel by Ethiopian standards, and considering what we saw on the way over, it was way better than some of our other options. The Rooms were okay, but the bathrooms had one towel, two bars of soap and one toothbrush that could or could not have been sterile, but it was wrapped in plastic. We get to the hotel, check in, check out our rooms and then go down to the dining room for Lunch. Let me just interject here to say that Addis is 8000ft above sea level. Meaning the Oxygen is lower than what most people are used too. So while in the Airport I started to feel like the room was spinning and that I was walking like a drunken sailor. This is what they called Altitude sickness, due to lack of Oxygen. I would climb two flights of stairs and my heart would be pounding. I was the only one that felt this. So after we ate I was anxious to Sleep and sleep we did, until dinner time. My drunken sailor feeling was gone, but now I had terrible heartburn. Joel and I went down to dinner and had a light meal. then back to our rooms for a shower and more sleep. I slept Fine until 2am (which was about noon at home), and then couldn't fall back asleep. 5am I went down to the Lobby and found all the Coty's who were in the same predicament. So we waited for the dining room to open together.

We all got breakfast, got on a Bus and back to the airport (which looks like a gigantic lopsided glass box, not kidding). We got through security checkpoints, had our passports stamped and waited for our flight to Lome.
Our Group in the hotel dining room (clockwise from the bottom; RC, Sally Rothwell, Joselyn Coty, Jim Rothwell, Pastor Bob, Joel, myself, and Robert)

Remember how I told you that we were allowed a 15 lbs carry-on? well we found out why. ( I don't mean to stereotype here, I am just telling you what we observed). Well a lot of the Africans people had up two Huge carry-ons. They really didn't weigh at the gate (even though they had a scale), but as you were lining up to get on the plane, they would pull the bigger of the two bags from the people and put them in pile. The Africans also have no idea how to use escalators (okay we only saw one of these, very funny to watch), nor do they respect North Americans idea of Personal space or the idea of waiting in Line. If we took our time to move up in line, they would take the opportunity to fill that gap with their body. Then we all got on the same plane and Waited, for take off, landing etc..

I also Must say that the Flight from Addis to Lome, was the first time in my entire life I think that have been a definant minority. There was like 12 white people on that flight, and I was traveling with 7 of them. Very different feeling.

So we finally landed in Lome, it was Hot and Humid. We were greeted at the airport by Randy, a missionary, very funny guy who also became our translator, bus driver and tour guide. He helped us get through customs. Then we found our "Bags". We weren't in the clear yet though. All of our Boxes Flagged to customs officials that we were not your normal tourists. In theory the Hospital Building Project is supposed to be tax exempt, but that doesn't always happen. Randy was at the ready, talking with officials trying to get us out of having to open up all of our luggage, so that they could asses the value of everything and charge us a duty of 53%!!! The Lord came to our help and a higher up official let us get off. We and our bags quickly got out of the airport. We quickly found Tim and Esther, who welcomed with a warm reception. We loaded the van and car and headed out.

Sunrise in Addis Abbaba Ethiopia

We later found out how providential it was that we got out of customs like that. Randy commented later that evening at dinner that we probably would have still been there accessing the value of things. The Lord had looked out for our travels from the lay over and rest in Addis to getting through customs.

More on our time in Togo next Post.