13.12.2018
Here way up North there is not much internet. WIFI was only in the lobby of the hotel and last night it was not working at all.
I had slept relatively early and well last night without AC for the first time, window open and mosquito net down. But I did get up very early and 07:00 I went to the lobby to try the internet and – surprise! – it was strong and fast! I think it really depends on how many people are actually logged in. I was the only on that early and it was fast.
Breakfast was by the pool again and it was very good. For the first time it was not only bread, butter, jam, eggs, coffee and juice, but also yoghurt!
We were all ready to go by 08:30. Today we would travel back to Togo. We drove to the Koutannakou region. From Natitingou it was more or less east along a side road towards the Togolese border. The road was under construction. Heavy vehicles were working on straightening the road out. The old road seemed to be a very winding gravel track, but the new one would be like a highway. Only parts of if were finished already, though. Therefore it was slow going most of the time.
After maybe 45 min we reached the village of Koussoukoingou. The new road was being constructed right through the village. This small settlement is famous for its Tata Somba houses – fort-like huts with clay turrets and thatched spires. We met a local guide who walked with us through part of the village. First we visited a huge Baobab tree, which was more than 250 years old and was hollow inside.
We all fit inside the trunk together easily. Adansonia is a deciduous tree known as Baobab. They are found in regions of Madagascar, mainland Africa, Arabia, and Australia. The generic name honours Michel Adanson, the French naturalist and explorer. Baobabs reach heights of 5 to 30 m and have trunk diameters of 7 to 11 m.
The village had many of the Tata Somba houses. On the photos I had seen, they seemed really like fortresses, but in perspective they were rather small hut-like constructions, nevertheless very impressive. These traditional houses provide a fascinating glimpse into the lives of many West Africans over the past century. As modernization occurs, much of the younger generation are choosing to move away from their traditional housing into more modern houses, though. Fortunately, a few of the traditional houses still exist.
The tribe of people living in the Atakora region are referred to as Somba. In the Somba language, the word for fortress is tata, so a Tata Somba House is literally a fortress of the Somba people. Our local guide was also one of the owners and allowed us to visit his house. The people here are mostly animists and therefore there were fetishes hung over the entrances. They symbolizes luck and protect the home. There were skulls from animals that were sacrificed or hunting trophies hanging over the door.
The entrance door was rather small – not made for big Western tourists. There was a small entrance room, which was used for preparing food and grounding grains into flour. It had traditional grounding stones on one side and a mortar in the floor on the other. Nowadays however people bring the grains to the nearby mills and get the flour back. Only very few use the traditional methods, they say, mainly only for demonstration purposes and to teach the youth so the traditions do not get lost.
The next and somewhat bigger room was the kitchen – we could not even stay there because they had just started the fire and the smoke was biting. They have to smoke out the interior of the hut regularly to make sure the termites do not eat up the whole construction. So we climbed through quickly. It was anyway a very small and also very low room, not more than 3 people could be in there at the same time.
Tata houses are purely made from clay mud, – there is no added concrete or other building material, it is 100% the earth around them and therefore they can only be built in the dry season and it usually takes around 6 months to complete a home. Some of the homes in the area have been standing for over 100 years. Our guide said that if big rains come, then some of the walls may need repairs, but the structure itself is certainly made to last.
The next small room was a step up through a hole-like doorway and more or less a storage or sitting room and we went through quickly. Also this room was no more than 2 m² large. From there another step up we reached the next level and it was outside. Here was where all the action takes place – on the top floor of the fortress. It was where the storage turrets were located. Those are like huge clay pots with a thatched lid on top. To get to the storage there was some kind of ladder made of out of a forked tree branch. Our guide demonstrated us, climbed up and lifted the lid. The pots have up to 3 different compartments inside to store different things. Imagine, if you have to get something quickly and you have to go through those motions first … It is not like – a step to the side, open the cupboard door and get it – No! – Here you had to climb up from the kitchen through those tiny holes, then climb a funny ladder, get inside a huge bin to get something and then go back the whole way …
Half a level further up was the main roof top of the tata house. It was something like a terrace. There were in total 3 of those storage turrets and 3 bedroom huts. Those bedroom huts were very low and the entrance was very small. People had to get in feet first and it went a step down. Though, inside it is a rather big space and people can actually sit up. Those are mainly bedrooms, though. In rainy season and when the nights are colder – like now …. – people sleep inside. However, whenever the weather permits, they bring their mats out and sleep outside on the terrace.
Up on the top they dry the grains and also do the cooking, if the weather permits. Different grains are laid out in different sections.
The view from the top floor – which is maybe 3 m above ground – was very nice. Getting back down was for us big Westerners – OK – me big Westerner – very complicated. The doorways were very small, low and narrow. But we made it without breaking anything of the house or us. The question came up, if the size of the house differentiates with the wealth of the family – No, it basically just depends on the size of the family.
Sorghum – one of the cultivated grains – was drying the sun, hanging off the roofs or being laid out on shelves. Sorghum is a flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae. Sorghum originated in Africa, and is now cultivated widely in tropical and subtropical regions. It is the world’s fifth-most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, maize and barley, an important crop used for food – as grain and in sorghum syrup or sorghum molasses, animal fodder, the production of alcoholic beverages and biofuels. Most varieties are drought and heat-tolerant and are especially important in arid regions, where the grain is one of the staples for poor and rural people. These varieties form important components of forage in many tropical regions.
We walked around the village some more passing more of those tata houses. There are however also regular clay brick huts with metal roofs in the village and some concrete houses, too. They even had a school in the village. We walked past it to a view-point – to look over the surrounding Atakora mountains. Unfortunately, it was again very hazy today, so the view was not that spectacular. But we could clearly see the new road being constructed.
Back to where the van was park we took a different path and – believe it or not – we had lost Natasha somewhere in the village. Obviously, she had decided to skip the viewpoint and had stayed behind with Rock, the trainee. But since we came a different way back, we missed them. Oh well … She was not happy … but everybody just ignored her …
From this small village it was not far to the Togolese border. The road was under construction all the way to Boukoumbé and from that village we did not see much – other than the road construction which was going right through the village. Here at the border there is actually no border post – imagine that! Therefore we had to stop in the center of the village at the police station to get our passports stamped. We did not want to be illegal immigrants in Togo! If our guide had not known where the police station is, I think we might not have found it. While it was in the center of the village it was all hidden behind that road construction and no direct access was possible. But our driver found the gate for us. The procedure was rather quick – surprise surprise! Usually such a border crossing takes a lot of time. But this police man was not so bothered, it seemed. He did not have to fill in endless lists by hand – No, he just looked through each passport for the entrance stamp of Benin and then put his exit stamp somewhere as well. We all had to show him in which corner of our passport to put it, though, otherwise he would have opened up a new page again. Empty passport pages, however are very important for new visas and therefore it is much better to fill each corner of each page with stamps before spoiling a new page. Frequent travelers can relate to that! Anyway, it was a quick stamping session and we were out of there.
Now we left the main construction road and turned onto a small side road. Well, you could not even call it road – it was rather a dirt track, nothing more. – Where are we going now? – To Togo! – Are you sure this is the right way? – Yes, yes! This is the way to Togo, you will see!
Still in the village the road was blocked by concrete filled old barrels. On the left of it was a wall fence and a big concrete building hidden behind it. Somewhere was a rusty sign stating this was Benin Customs. We had to drive in the gate – no uniformed personnel in sight – and our Maha went to chat with a guy lounging in a chair on the porch. No idea what they talked, but after 3 min he came back and we could drive out of the other gate – behind the road block – on to Togo.
We bounced along the dirt track past dusty fields and scattered clay huts and at some point Maha said – Now we are in Togo! – How do you know? – I just know! We are in Togo!
After another while there was a rusty barrier across the road and a small concrete building with a sign Douane Togolaise or something – No photos allowed anywhere near borders, official buildings or police in Africa, though. Remember that! – Damn, I wished I could have taken a photo of that rusty barrier … Anyway, our driver just had to show some car papers to a teenager in shorts and a red Bayern München T-Shirt who then went to the building and talked to somebody in the off and then waved us on. Not that they actually opened that barrier – No! – we had to drive around it.
Hey, Maha, now we are in Togo? – I told you we are in Togo already a while now! – How about our stamp in the passport? Nobody wants to see that visa we paid horrendous amounts of money for? – Wait! You get your stamp! Be patient!
More of bouncing along the dirt track past dusty fields and clay huts until we reached some sort of village, which turned out to be Nadoba in Togo. Another concrete filled oil barrel – this time painted red and white and “Stop Police” written across it – was sitting next to the road and we stopped there. Oliver sneaked a photo in at some point …
– What are we doing here? – This is the border check point! Take your passports in your hand and have your vaccination certificate in your pocket, but keep it hidden. – There is nobody here! – Wait and see!
And as soon as we got off the van and walked a few meters towards the barrel sign a man in jeans and black t-shirt appeared with a school exercise book and a box of stamps in hand. He sat down right by the side of the road on a plastic chair and used a wooden bench as table. After a little small talk with our guide we had to hand him our passports one by one and he inspected very carefully the visas and all the stamps of the neighboring countries and some of the others as well. He then stamped the passport – in a nice empty corner way – and wrote the entry date by hand. Next he put the passport on a neat pile next to himself on the table and inspected the next passport. If all that already took quite some time, we were in for some more waiting – once he finished stamping the passports he opened his school exercise book and started copying all the information of each passport and visa in it by hand. Fortunately Maha helped him by reading off the necessary information and spelling the funny Western names and places. Nevertheless, it took a long time to complete and we were standing in the midday heat by the side of a dusty road. Traffic was light, so we did not eat too much dust. And while the man was busy I fished my mobile phone out of my pocket and did some secret agent style photos of the procedure – do not tell anybody!
– It is bloody hot! Do they have cold beer here somewhere? – No, most probably not! – Can we go somewhere where they do have cold beer next then? – No, we go visit another village first! – Oh boy, it is hot! – Yes, and do not forget to put you watches one hour back again! They have a different time zone here in Togo, remember!
Driving further along the familiar dirt track we soon enough came to Koutammakou. This is also known as Tamberma Valley – named after the people who live here. There were several Tamberma compounds along the road – like small villages – each a collection of tata houses.
Koutammouko is a cultural landscape which was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. It is famous for its unique collection of traditional Tata houses just like we saw this morning on the Benin side of the border. They were invented in the 17th century by people fleeing the slave-grabbing forays of the Dahomey kings. Today, not only are the traditional mud houses known as a national symbol of Togo, it remains as the preferred style of living for the people here. The houses have a visually striking architecture which also reflects a unique adaptation to the attributes of the local environment by the Tamberma people.
The village here was very different from the one we saw this morning, though. The houses were the same style, however, they were built on a sloping hillside. The van was parked on the bottom of the hill, we met a local guide and since Natasha opted to stay in the van, he led us a few steps up the hillside to the upper most clay fortresses. It turned out, that it was his house which we were then visiting. As soon as we got off the van a bunch of kids and women selling homemade souvenirs were swarming around us. Maha said not to buy anything now, because if we did they might not leave us alone anymore, but we wanted to visit the village first. He made a deal with them – Clever! – He promised them a hefty tip, if they would later perform a dance for us and then we would probably buy something in the end.
We walked up to what seemed the center of the village – several tata houses were clustered together overlooking the valley. The view was beautiful – rolling hills, savannah, sorghum and cotton fields as far as you could see – just missing the elephant walking past …
Our local guide led us to his own tata – a very distinct compound with a selection of fetishes outside for protection – to keep the evil spirits away. They are primarily a practical manifestation of these people’s close association with nature and a reflection of traditional settlement that is still living and dynamic today. Here the fetishes were very impressive and photogenic.
The Tamberma – meaning “skilled builders” – compounds consists of towers connected by a thick wall with a single entrance chamber which is used to trap an enemy. The fortress-like nature of these extraordinary structures – built with only clay, wood and straw and no tools – helped ward off invasions by neighboring tribes. Again we passed the kitchen and store-room before reaching the elevated terrace.
Life in a tata revolves around this terrace of clay-covered logs, where the inhabitants cook, dry their grains and spend most of their leisure time. They even had an outside shower area next to one of the storage turret. Not that they had running water, but there was a drain so they could take bucket showers. Different platforms were formed to dry different goods. Here they had a large stash of peanuts drying in the sun and also chilli.
Also on the top floor was a secret hole for defense purposes. Nowadays it is closed up, but in the 17th century when this type of house was founded, it was very important. It is right above the entrance room – that one with the grounding stones – and in case of enemies entering the house they would shoot arrows through that hole on the enemies below or pour hot water, to fend them off.
This is an agricultural society working in harmony with the landscape and where nature underpins beliefs, rituals and everyday life. People continue to farm numerous hectares of land by manual labour, cultivating food sources such as corn, cotton and millet. On the flip side – childbearing is often encouraged by the family and many children – and adults – within the village are not given the opportunity to receive education due to financial constraints and work requirements. Many people in the village cannot communicate in French and are largely illiterate. Electricity and running water is not present in the village.
Huge Baobab trees were all around the village and we saw a girl working with the Baobab fruits, opening them up and peeling the fruit meat out. The Baobab have no leaves at the moment only fruits which seem to be ripe. Maha had us taste some of the fruit – and immediately I was brought back to Madagascar a year ago when we had this awesome baobab juice when we visited the North.
It was a great visit and soon enough we were again overrun by an armada – it seemed – of women and children trying to sell their handmade souvenirs. This being a UNESCO world heritage site, they do get a fair amount of visitors, but we had not seen any other tourists today yet. The women had interesting hats with horns on, but we could not take photos of them. Maha had warned us not to take photos until he would tell us. But we remembered his deal with them and – being very selfish – all of us – we asked him to have them do the dance up here – the backdrop view was better than in the parking lot. And they were happy to dance for us – at least it seemed as if they had fun.
The song was about the rain – the rain is here – now all come out and get to work in the fields – or such and they had clearly fun with it. We could take as many photos as we wanted. Flo and Oliver even danced with them. That made all the women happy and they went back to their daily chores once we left.
The children followed us however. Back at the parking they stormed us and wanted to sell. We all did buy something off them, of course – I bought some rattle like musical instrument thing and a little clay animal – I think it is supposed to be a pig. It made them happy and me, too.
After this stop we continued along the dirt road and passed several cotton fields. Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds. The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world.
Eventually we reached the Togolese route N 1 in Kandé. There we did our lunch stop. It was a junction town and it had a local bar where they let us have our picnic. We bought some baguette on stall by the road side and then found a seat in the “beer garden”. The guy from the bar came running to clean all the road dust off the tables and chairs and then brought us very cold beer. That sizzled down again like nothing – it was a very hot day again.
During the 1 hr drive South towards Kara I took my afternoon siesta. What can I say – it is a tradition!
Before our overnight in Kara, we had another stop in a small village where they make pottery and forge iron. The village of Tsharé is located in the Kabyè mountains near Kara. People here live in regular clay brick houses and their main source of income are pottery and forging agricultural tools. This has a century-long tradition in the village. Until the 1950s the blacksmiths of Tscharé travelled for days West to buy pig-iron from the Bassar iron workers.
Maha had not been able to reach his local contact all day, so we somewhat arrived there unannounced – well, they did know we would come today, though. The lady of the house came running from the kitchen apologizing for not being prepared, her husband was out doing village politics or something. But in no time she had chairs set up in the shade for us, had sent the kids to get the fire in the forge hut going and had put her pottery utensils out.
They use local clay to form earthen pots by hand. No pottery wheel is used. She had set up a big lump of clay on top of another big pot, so she could reach it easily while standing. While walking in circles around it, she formed and explained at the same time in French. With this technique a good potter lady like she is could form 8 to 10 pots a day, she said.
First there is only the upper part, the actual pot formed and made nice and even. It will then sit in a shelf to dry for 2 days. Once it is hardened the bottom part will be formed and it needs to dry another 2 days. Eventually the pots will be fired to make them last. They do not have a real pottery oven for that, but rather fashion one with charcoal and wood. They sell the pots in all shapes on the markets in the area.
In the meantime the oven in the blacksmith’s hut das been lit and a piece of iron was glowing hot. Our chairs were quickly moved over there. The man of the house still had not shown up, but the woman apologized again and said she knows it all and will explain while her brother would do the forging.
It was an earthen oven with glowing hot charcoal. On the side there was a bellows made out of goat skins and a young woman was working that in a steady rhythm – sure she does not need a fitness studio. Her arms and shoulders were well toned. She looked rather bored, though. The baby on her back was however totally fascinated by the strange people watching. She had to work the bellows constantly otherwise the fire would not be hot enough.
A boy in a green soccer outfit sat in front of the oven and tended the iron. He had some sort of huge pliers and pulled the glowing piece out. Natasha asked if “that boy in the green” needs to sit in her photo – Yes, he has to be there! He has to hold the glowing iron in place when it gets forged. That is a very serious job, he has! – Oh! she said. – A young man in jeans did the forging. There were no hammers involved – here they used a big granite block! The kid in green held the glowing piece in place and the man lifted the rock up high and banged it with all might on the glow. He did that maybe 10 times in a row before the iron had to be put back in the fire to get glowing again. Nowadays, scrap iron is used here, but formerly they used iron that was extracted by the Bassar people further west.
That is indeed a very strenuous work! It would take hours to finish one shovel. He had to hit it with the rock so many times!
The finished shovel would be marked with a special sign which is unique to each blacksmith. Like a trademark. So he would recognize his shovel later on.
All of a sudden the young woman working the bellows started to smile – she totally lit up. It turned out – the man of the house had arrive and she is the second wife of him – polygamy is absolutely normal in West Africa – and obviously she was head over heels for him.
We thanked the lady of the house for the explanations and waved the kids good-bye after this demonstration. Of course, they asked for a gift again. Me – I absolutely oppose to bringing pens and sweets along to give to the kids. I think, the times of that are over. We paid for the visit and Maha definitely also gave from our tip box, that should be enough. And handing out pens is so outdated. When I was in Ethiopia in 2014 there was this guy in the group who handed out pens and old t-shirts constantly to random people. Our guide Kofi back then went absolutely ballistic on him and absolutely forbade it. He very clearly said – If you want to help, then donate money to a good cause – a small NGO or special project. Nobody says you should donate to the huge organizations where the administrative apparatus already eats up most of the donations. Better donate to small organizations or projects. – For example, visiting a school and donating pens and books there, would be a great addition to the tour. Visiting small villages and families who then demonstrate their daily work is already a good start and helps them. – Well, the others had pens with them and did the deed …
It was another 30 min drive to the city of Kara. Too late did I check my geocaching map … there would have been one more geocache in a village just north of the city … but we missed it. In Europe you have caches like sand on the beach – one on every corner. But in West Africa they are scarce. But well … too late.
Kara is in northern Togo situated 415 km north of the capital Lomé. It has a population of approx 95000. Our first stop there was at the post office to buy Togolese stamps. Flo and I went in together with Maha and Rock. We were lucky – they basically closed behind us. It was a couple of minutes before 17:00. I had already postcards, so I just needed some stamps. As usual I asked for especially beautiful ones, but they only had the regular ones. However, they were not so bad either. I did get an extra one with Nelson Mandela on it as a souvenir, though. The ladies behind the counter though we were very funny. They probably do not get to many crazy tourists in here. We then had to leave the post office by the back door – the front was already shut.
It was not far to our Hotel Kara. It was a big hotel. Our rooms where on the first floor – Oliver got the brown end of the stick today, though, the room he got assigned to was not made up and he had to change. My room was good, the view over the city was nice. WIFI was only in the lobby available, but very fast. So I went to the bar by the pool and got myself a tonic for my vodka and sat in the lobby before dinner and I stuck to it tonight.
Dinner we had pre-ordered again and it was ready when we got to the restaurant. Once more we seemed to be the only guests here. I had ordered the beef with couscous. The choice is always fish or chicken or something and then a side of either couscous, rice, spaghetti or such. They do not really know sauces here, though. At least not in the tourist restaurants, it seemed. Lucky, Vero ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce and we just kept ordering more of that sauce – unfortunately, they run out of the sauce too soon. Couscous is very dry without sauce …
We had a lot of fun at dinner, not only because Vero brought the bottle of Sodabi out again. Nevertheless, I went early to my room to write. I slept without AC once more, because it was not so hot here up north.
