BENIN
Crossing into Benin, another slither of a country right next to Togo, we put our watches forward one hour - seemed so strange to have to do this, looking at the geography. We are now no longer on British time. We got another 2 day transit visa, as we did for Togo, as they are easily available at the border.

Politics
After independence from France in 1960, Dahomey as it was then known went through 12 years of instability, being ruled by several military leaders. In 1972, Kerekou, born in Burkina Faso, seized power and restored order. He adopted communism as the political model, renamed the country Benin and nicknamed it "Africa's Cuba". The economy suffered and the government coffers were in a dire state. In 1991 (?), Kerekou called elections, acknowledging that the country needed a fresh mandate. He had changed his own favoured political system to a purely capitalist ideology around that time. A rival, Soglo, was elected and stringently followed the advice of the International Monetary Fund to improve its economy. This pulled Benin from ruin but the economy is still one of the poorest in Africa. Soglo introduced such stringent economic change that he lost the 1996 election and Kerekou was re-elected, this time on a capitalist platform. Kerekou stayed in power until February 2006 when he stood down due to constitutional conditions. A new President is in the process of being elected.

Benin is a stable country and is one of the two best in Africa for media freedom.

Voodoo festivals
Benin was probably, as one friend said to me, the closes to a National Geographic moment that I have come across in the trip. I was lucky enough to attend 2 voodoo ceremonies in my 2 days in Benin - one alone, another with Thoby.

The first was in the Benin voodoo capital of Ouidah. A friendly guy invited me to a voodoo ceremony in his area. The festival was to celebrate the return of the spirits of the community's dead who were buried a few years ago. Men danced in heavy, flamboyant dresses with their faces covered. They danced around, making good use of their dresses, before chasing men, aged about 14 to 30 around a tree and down the street - some kind of game aspect to the ceremony that the participants and spectators really seemed to enjoy. This is what made it all so funny.

The second ceremony (and the better one) was in a village near to where we bush camped off road. Thoby and I walked into the local village as we often do to meet locals, shake their hands (the children love this - they are excited to see a white man as it is but to touch a white man makes them ecstatic!) We heard some drumming and a jovial atmosphere so followed that and met a guy called Alain who invited us into the ceremony and explained to us its significance. We were introduced to the Chief (Juju) and we asked to take the nicest chairs they had in a prime viewing spot. We were given wine and gin - far too much of it but we had no choice in the matter. To decline a gift can bring shame upon the giver in some African societies. The ceremony is called kokou, an annual event that aims to ask the fetish to protect the village from evil sorcerors in the coming year. There is music 24 hours in advance throughout the night and day and then during the ceremony. Around 10-15 people from the village danced around like crazy, often low to the ground. Eventually, they are selected, one at a time, to put on a reed skirt and then continue to dance like mad. This enables the fetish's wife to observe them. They then add white ground maize to their faces and maize dyed yellow with maize oil. They continue to dance with the maize making them look stronger and more aggressive to frighten the sorcerors who are watching. Some of the older dancers got gin spat on them as alcohol pleases the fetish. The older (non-child) dancers also took a large knife and tried to cut themselves on the arm (one time, while shaking Thoby's hand) and neck. The supposed lack of blood is because the fetish protects them but of course, it's not true and blood did come from one person's arm. The lack of blood shows the sorcerors that there is no point targeting the village in the coming year because they are protected by the fetish.

This really was a highlight. I felt so fortunate to see it and be treated like an honoured guest.

Stilt village
The one touristy thing we did in Benin was to visit the stilt village of Ganvie. We took a pirogue journey across Lake Nakoue to the village, which was created in the 17th century by people fleeing the Portuguese. The Portuguese were not allowed to cross internal waters so left the people of Ganvie well alone. In the village, the buildings were made of wooden brances, held up on wooden stilts and sheltered by roofs made of reeds. There's a floating market, a hospital, school, some solar power. The village was pretty, although the locals were far too used to tourists and so they were regularly asking for gifts or money or simply covering their faces as we approached because they didn't want photos taken of them. The poor tourist relations with the locals took the edge of things a little.

So...Benin - action-packed given I was there for just 2 days. Was an enjoyable place to be.

PERSONAL HYGIENE
One of the more unusual side topics to include at the bottom of an email, I guess. It's hard to understand how foul we all are nearly all the time. On average, we shower once a week as we bush camp between towns and cities. After just half a day here, one gets really dirty, sweaty and smelly. Clothes are changed rarely (I have just 4 t-shirts for example, one more than I started with) and washed when they get really brown or black. Travelling along dirt roads means our clothes and faces are often red after an hour or so due to the dust. We don't wash our bodies en route as we can only carry enough water for drinking and cooking.

Toilets are not used to often - we use shovels to bury our business.

Really, we have lost a lot of dignity. I was asked in Nigeria by a concerned lady why I was so dirty. She was concerned that I slept outside all the time and rarely washed. Looking dirty and with a beard, she thought I was over the age of 40 (another person said the same another time)!

TOGO
We were in Togo for a mere 2 days and my experiences here were limited so I can't pass too much judgement on the country. It is a tiny country - barely noticeable on the map of Africa as it is just 50km across - yet it is 1.3 times the size of the Netherlands.

Politics
Togo was a German colony until after World War 2 when it was divided between France and Britain. The Western, English-speaking part decided to become part of Ghana in 1957 as the people are of the same tribe and both speak English.

It has the record for Africa's first ever coup. In 1963, 3 years after independence, its President, Olympio (whose son is still the opposition leader today) was overthrown by Eyadema who stayed in office until February 2005, when he died. For years, Eyadema ran a dictatorship with a bad human rights record. In the late 1980s, France piled diplomatic pressure on Togo to hold elections. In response, the President aired propaganda TV programmes in 1990, showing riots in strikes in neighbouring countries, blaming this on their democratic societies. Pro-democracy groups protested to which the security forces responded heavy-handedly. 28 bodies were pulled from a Lome (the capital city) lagoon by protestors and dumped on the steps of the US embassy so that the whole world would know of the atrocities. Security collapsed, the country's relatively thriving tourist industry (similar to that in The Gambia today) collapsed. Elections were held in order to restore order, although they were said to be rigged and the opposition was suppressed. When Eyadema died in February 2005, his son took over, which led to widespread riots. Eyadema Junior stood down and called elections, which he won, amid controversy in April 2005. At that time, Togo was off-limits to us as tourists.

Lome
Passing from Ghana into Togo took us right into Lome, Togo's capital of 650,000 people. There was little to evoke the emotions, although the increase in motorbike traffic was noted. This was the 1st of several countries where motorbikes are the way most people choose to travel. The locals were not particularly amazed by us or our truck, unlike in every other place so far. I guess the people remember the times of the booming tourist industry and so seeing a white face is nothing spectacular.

We stayed in a German-run place, which unfortunately had 2 monkeys tied up under a tree in the courtyard. They seemed bored (jumped up and down on the spot for extended periods) and the strap on their back didn't exactly seem comfortable. This was shocking to us at the time, although it was merely the first of very much animal abuse we saw in Africa. These monkeys were some of the best kept. We were disappointed that some educated Germans could keep monkeys in this way though. When I asked why they kept them, I was told it is because they "like monkeys". If they really like them, perhaps they'd like to not purchase monkeys and keep them that way?
Further down the coast though, a hotel our company had previously used, had a monkey in a cage, an owl in a cage and a crocodile in a pond-sized pool. Thankfully, the "zoo" section of that hotel is now closed.

The one day I spent in the centre of Lome was not the best of days.
Thoby and I walked around the crazy central market. Perhaps one of the most bustling on the trip. You may have noticed by now that markets are a characteristic aspect of African life.

I then visited the fetish/voodoo market with 5 others. The market is run by Beninese people. Togo and Benin have a mixture of Muslims, Christians and animists. Animism is the largest group in each country. Animists believe in the eternal life of the spirits, which originate in people and exist in objects [can probably find a better definition than that]. The fetish market contained among other things:
monkey skulls - if you buy and use these somehow, you will get better memory
dead owls - for protection from dark spirits
dead bats - for a good erection
chameleons - are an aphrodisiac
elephant femurs
horses' and cows' tails - for dancing
dead armadillos - for cuts
porcupine spines - also for cuts
Inside one stall, we met the son of the Chief (called Juju, who communicates with the spirits). The son is the chief when the Juju is absent. He showed us 6 items which have a fetish/spirit living inside:
*Small piece of hollow wood with congealed pigeon blood around it and some string with a wooden plug to plug the hole.
-->When the owner travels, they can ask the fetish (via the hole) to protect them on their travels. You put the plug inside and take the "device" with you. I was given one of these by a Togolese man local to where we camped.
*Ebony seed --> put this under your pillow at night to help with memory or hold it during exams for improved performance.
*Necklace with cowrie shells on it and spices inside --> helps with luck in love.
*Stick of a tree/shrub --> grind it up and add tofood or drink to improve libido.
*Small wooden doll-like figure --> protects the house. During the day it's an object but the fetish comes out at night as a person to protect the house and family. Have to give a cigarette or some alcohol to the doll (actually, the fetish inside), every year.
*Pipe/stick --> speak into this saying the name of the woman you want 7 times. Then say your own name 7 times and go to the speak to the woman and she will be yours.
The market wasn't that fasctinating. Visually, it was nothing exciting and the stories about the products can be learnt without going to the market. Given that I paid one pound for a guided tour, I regret that my money has helped to promote the sale of monkey skulls and the like, even if it part of a religion.

Earlier on, there were six of us had jumped in a taxi to go to the fetish market. The driver had no idea where it was so he asked someone on the side of the road, who said we should follow him on his motorbike at no cost to us. That same motorcyclist had waited until we were out of the market when he asked us for 500 West African Francs (CFA), about 50 pence. People trying to get money out of us is common and we nearly always take the principled stance and stubbornly don't give in. However, this guy was aggressive. The fact there were 6 of us didn't matter. He threatened the driver of the taxi we had jumped in so he would not move. We walked to get another taxi, by which time the situation had escalated and other local men, having heard that the rich white men had tried to rip off the poor black man trying to earn a decent wage (ahem) joined in, also shouting to hand over the money. By the time we got into another cab, people were kicking the taxi and all but one of our doors was being held open. It escalated to a level where the alarm bells ring and Martyn quickly handed over 1000 CFA (one pound) to get rid of them. I got a punch in the arm as the taxi pulled away as I had my arm resting on the door. All this was enough to round off Lome for most of us. We all had to chill out for a couple of hours so missed out on much more time in Lome. Smaller bad experiences in the morning gave others a similarly disappointing image of Lome and hence Togo since it's all of Togo we really visited.

There weren't only bad experiences though. My German friend, Andreas, met some nice people with whom he spent the day. He did go to visit the German Culture Centre though, only to find a lovely building with nothing inside but rubbish. The former director of the institute happened to see Andreas there and explained that the German intelligence service believe that it was the Togolese government who firebombed the cultural centre, resulting in Germany suspending all foreign aid to Togo.

I notice that the leader of the opposition, Olympio, has recently been accused (past week on BBC News Online) of being behind an arson attack on the central police headquarters in Lome. Togo seems a bit messed up! I got the impression from people I spoke to that there was little hope for people in Togo as little changes there and their chance to do well in life is determined by who you know rather than how hard you have studied!

Togo
Translated into French by: Cécé
TOGO
We were in Togo for a mere 2 days and my experiences here were limited so I can't pass too much judgement on the country. It is a tiny country - barely noticeable on the map of Africa as it is just 50km across - yet it is 1.3 times the size of the Netherlands.

Politics
Togo was a German colony until after World War 2 when it was divided between France and Britain. The Western, English-speaking part decided to become part of Ghana in 1957 as the people are of the same tribe and both speak English.

It has the record for Africa's first ever coup. In 1963, 3 years after independence, its President, Olympio (whose son is still the opposition leader today) was overthrown by Eyadema who stayed in office until February 2005, when he died. For years, Eyadema ran a dictatorship with a bad human rights record. In the late 1980s, France piled diplomatic pressure on Togo to hold elections. In response, the President aired propaganda TV programmes in 1990, showing riots in strikes in neighbouring countries, blaming this on their democratic societies. Pro-democracy groups protested to which the security forces responded heavy-handedly. 28 bodies were pulled from a Lome (the capital city) lagoon by protestors and dumped on the steps of the US embassy so that the whole world would know of the atrocities. Security collapsed, the country's relatively thriving tourist industry (similar to that in The Gambia today) collapsed. Elections were held in order to restore order, although they were said to be rigged and the opposition was suppressed. When Eyadema died in February 2005, his son took over, which led to widespread riots. Eyadema Junior stood down and called elections, which he won, amid controversy in April 2005. At that time, Togo was off-limits to us as tourists.

Lome
Passing from Ghana into Togo took us right into Lome, Togo's capital of 650,000 people. There was little to evoke the emotions, although the increase in motorbike traffic was noted. This was the 1st of several countries where motorbikes are the way most people choose to travel. The locals were not particularly amazed by us or our truck, unlike in every other place so far. I guess the people remember the times of the booming tourist industry and so seeing a white face is nothing spectacular.

We stayed in a German-run place, which unfortunately had 2 monkeys tied up under a tree in the courtyard. They seemed bored (jumped up and down on the spot for extended periods) and the strap on their back didn't exactly seem comfortable. This was shocking to us at the time, although it was merely the first of very much animal abuse we saw in Africa. These monkeys were some of the best kept. We were disappointed that some educated Germans could keep monkeys in this way though. When I asked why they kept them, I was told it is because they "like monkeys". If they really like them, perhaps they'd like to not purchase monkeys and keep them that way?
Further down the coast though, a hotel our company had previously used, had a monkey in a cage, an owl in a cage and a crocodile in a pond-sized pool. Thankfully, the "zoo" section of that hotel is now closed.

The one day I spent in the centre of Lome was not the best of days.
Thoby and I walked around the crazy central market. Perhaps one of the most bustling on the trip. You may have noticed by now that markets are a characteristic aspect of African life.

I then visited the fetish/voodoo market with 5 others. The market is run by Beninese people. Togo and Benin have a mixture of Muslims, Christians and animists. Animism is the largest group in each country. Animists believe in the eternal life of the spirits, which originate in people and exist in objects [can probably find a better definition than that]. The fetish market contained among other things:
monkey skulls - if you buy and use these somehow, you will get better memory
dead owls - for protection from dark spirits
dead bats - for a good erection
chameleons - are an aphrodisiac
elephant femurs
horses' and cows' tails - for dancing
dead armadillos - for cuts
porcupine spines - also for cuts
Inside one stall, we met the son of the Chief (called Juju, who communicates with the spirits). The son is the chief when the Juju is absent. He showed us 6 items which have a fetish/spirit living inside:
*Small piece of hollow wood with congealed pigeon blood around it and some string with a wooden plug to plug the hole.
-->When the owner travels, they can ask the fetish (via the hole) to protect them on their travels. You put the plug inside and take the "device" with you. I was given one of these by a Togolese man local to where we camped.
*Ebony seed --> put this under your pillow at night to help with memory or hold it during exams for improved performance.
*Necklace with cowrie shells on it and spices inside --> helps with luck in love.
*Stick of a tree/shrub --> grind it up and add tofood or drink to improve libido.
*Small wooden doll-like figure --> protects the house. During the day it's an object but the fetish comes out at night as a person to protect the house and family. Have to give a cigarette or some alcohol to the doll (actually, the fetish inside), every year.
*Pipe/stick --> speak into this saying the name of the woman you want 7 times. Then say your own name 7 times and go to the speak to the woman and she will be yours.
The market wasn't that fasctinating. Visually, it was nothing exciting and the stories about the products can be learnt without going to the market. Given that I paid one pound for a guided tour, I regret that my money has helped to promote the sale of monkey skulls and the like, even if it part of a religion.

Earlier on, there were six of us had jumped in a taxi to go to the fetish market. The driver had no idea where it was so he asked someone on the side of the road, who said we should follow him on his motorbike at no cost to us. That same motorcyclist had waited until we were out of the market when he asked us for 500 West African Francs (CFA), about 50 pence. People trying to get money out of us is common and we nearly always take the principled stance and stubbornly don't give in. However, this guy was aggressive. The fact there were 6 of us didn't matter. He threatened the driver of the taxi we had jumped in so he would not move. We walked to get another taxi, by which time the situation had escalated and other local men, having heard that the rich white men had tried to rip off the poor black man trying to earn a decent wage (ahem) joined in, also shouting to hand over the money. By the time we got into another cab, people were kicking the taxi and all but one of our doors was being held open. It escalated to a level where the alarm bells ring and Martyn quickly handed over 1000 CFA (one pound) to get rid of them. I got a punch in the arm as the taxi pulled away as I had my arm resting on the door. All this was enough to round off Lome for most of us. We all had to chill out for a couple of hours so missed out on much more time in Lome. Smaller bad experiences in the morning gave others a similarly disappointing image of Lome and hence Togo since it's all of Togo we really visited.

There weren't only bad experiences though. My German friend, Andreas, met some nice people with whom he spent the day. He did go to visit the German Culture Centre though, only to find a lovely building with nothing inside but rubbish. The former director of the institute happened to see Andreas there and explained that the German intelligence service believe that it was the Togolese government who firebombed the cultural centre, resulting in Germany suspending all foreign aid to Togo.

I notice that the leader of the opposition, Olympio, has recently been accused (past week on BBC News Online) of being behind an arson attack on the central police headquarters in Lome. Togo seems a bit messed up! I got the impression from people I spoke to that there was little hope for people in Togo as little changes there and their chance to do well in life is determined by who you know rather than how hard you have studied!

GHANA

Ghana was the first English speaking country we came to since the UK, 2
months previously, to the delight of most people in our group. The chance
to communicate with locals seemed to enable my fellow travellers to enjoy
the country more. The day we crossed into Ghana, serious heat hit us for
the 1st time. We always drive with the tarpaulings (which act as our
windows rolled up to let the air blow in and hence cool us down) up but for
the 1st time the air was so hot it made things worse. This was in dry
Northern Ghana where bush fires were raging (some deliberate because some
farmers try to bring down electricity pylons in protest of the electricity
company). The cause of the heat: the harmattan winds coming from the
Sahara. "Harmattan" means "evil thing" in Arabic because the winds are so
hot and carry Saharan dust. They blow Saharan sand as far as the French
riviera and in 1989, Saharan insects and sand were found deposited on
Antigua, a Carribean island, as the wind had blown so far. December to
March, the harmattan blows south.

Into Ghana, it was obvious that we were in a country that is more wealthy as
the roads were excellent and electricity seemed to be carried by modern
pylons to even small villages. We stopped in Tamale, a hot northern town
where we became acquainted with Fan Ices, vanilla ice creams costing 14
pence, available everywhere in the country and sold by men on bicycles. The
Fan Ice business is everywhere in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria and is a
social enterprise, enabling people who find it difficult to find employment
to hire an Fan Ice bike and uniform and sell gorgeous, addictive ice creams.
It operates in a similar way to the Big Issue magazines in the UK.

Tamale is perhaps the only place in Ghana with any trouble these days. At
times, there are curfews because of ethnic tensions. We went to the nearby
Mole national park where we stayed at a hotel with swimming pool (how
exciting is that!), camping outside as usual but having the same facilities
as full fee paying guests. The hotel had an amazing view over the national
park, only a little hazy due to the harmattan. We walked for 2 hours in the
park the following morning for a mere one pound each, getting as close as
15m to groups of elephants. Elephants can only see within a 20m range, i.e.
they have poor eyesight. We were able to get close since the elephants in
question were known to be friendly to humans. According to our guide, they
are the 2nd fastest land mammal, able to run at about 50 km/h! Another
interesting fact: they are right or left tusked as humans are right or left
handed. One tusk is for work, the other is for defence.

As we drove further south in Ghana, the landscape changed from barren Sahel
(Sahel meaning "shore" in Arabic and refers to all the areas around the
Sahara that are semi desert) to beautiful tropical forest . Along with
this, the climate changed from intense dry heat to very humid but less hot
(closer to 30 degrees rather than 40). This meant that we sweated an awful
lot and so from here on, we were sweaty, smelling like things that we had
never known we could smell like. We all became very used to this though.
It's also useful to look dirtier than locals so that we don't look like
ultra rich foreigners. This way, it's easier to relate to locals!

We stopped in Kumasi, Ghana's 2nd city and home to 1.3 million people. It's
also the centre of the famous Ashanti culture. Here, we stayed in the
grounds of a Presbytarian guest house, one of the many "different" places we
have stayed. It was also the 1st time since Morocco we had had any rain.
It rained heavily for a few hours, which scuppered our plans a bit. Plans
up to now had taken the weather for granted. Nevertheless, I visited the
huge market they have, which was made even more colourful with the dark
gloomy skies. Normally, everything in Africa looks bleached to the eye
during the day due to the overhead sun. The market surrounded the railway
line and was crammed full of people as usual. When a train came, everyone
had to somehow cram into even less space so that the line was free for the
train to pass. The market also reminds me to mention a common African way
of going to the toilet. In the market, below a bridge where I stood, ran
the open air sewer, full of people along the side lowering their bum over
the side to do their business. It was all very communal.

I visited the city hospital in Kumasi, built just over 50 years ago. We had
low expectations but were actually fairly surprised and pleased with what we
found. The labs had some modern equipment that I had used myself at
University, there were some brand new machines in the children's intensive
care unit, although the general wards had a lot of people crammed in large
rooms and nowhere was particularly clean. About 7.5 per cent of the country's GNP is spent on healthcare but people still need to pay for treatment. There is a new insurance scheme for people with stable jobs where you can contribute 2.5% of your income and receive free treatment when you need it.

Next stop was Accra, the capital of Ghana and home to about 2 million people. It's a sprawling city that can take up to an hour to drive into depending on which route you take. I loved Accra, not for its beauty and it really had no heart or real centre but had a few central districts that I travelled between in so-called tro-tros which are minibuses that whizz around for 10 to 15 pence per journey. Thoby and I met a nice guy called Edward on our 1st tro-tro who took us around Accra a little. We first went to the main stadium where a football match had just ended. The seats had been ripped up over the years by angry fans, there were no safety bars to stop people falling from stands or stairs and there was a near riot on the pitch because the underdog team won the match, which suggested the referee was corrupt and some fans wanted to beat him. Nice.

Edward was not a football fan. He is a chef in a decent restaurant (had to study really hard to get there) and a chef to the President of the 3rd political party in Ghana but has to keep this secret in case he gets pushed to release secret info he overhears. The party is the CPP, the political party of Kwame Nkrumah, the 1st President of Ghana, which was the 1st independent country in black Africa. Ghana gained independence in 1956. Part of the reason it gained independence first is because the British educated the people of their colonies much more than other colonial powers and as people become educated, they become empowered and start to demand more freedom. This was Ghana's story and Nkrumah was the leader of the movement for independence in Ghana. The rest of Africa noticed newly independent Ghana and wanted to follow suit. Nkrumah dreamed of a united Africa and was leader of the pan-African independence movement, educating independence leaders from across Africa.
Britain was not bitter though once it granted independence to Ghana. In fact, it gave money to allow the country to deal with the transfer of power, to build ministries etc. This contrasts to the French attitude to the departure of their first black African colony, Guinea. The French administrators there cut telephone lines, burned all documents and trashed public buildings as they departed. This was not the pattern of French behaviour but is an interesting contrast of colonial behaviour at the time. But then, no colonial power really deserves much credit!

Nowadays, Ghana is one of few true democracies in Africa, among with Mali, Senegal, Botswana, South Africa and possibly Kenya now. Others are dictatorships or somewhere in between. Signs of democracy were everywhere in Ghana. The country is also on the up. Its economy has been growing for about a decade, I believe. The people here are the most positive about the state of their country since Morocco. People know and feel free, they value peace (they often mention freedom and peace when you talk to them) and they seem to be empowered with good education, freedom to make something of their lives and a positive attitude that they will be successful.

On one day in Accra, we went to the large Independence Square where Muslims were celebrating one of their most celebrated festivals of the year, Tabaski. Muslims gather for prayer in the morning and then go back to their homes to slaughter a sheep and feed the family and those who are unable to afford it. For the 2 months up til now in Muslim Africa, we have seen sheep everywhere being transported and kept for this special day. Ghana is mainly Christian but has a sizeable Muslim population. So many African countries have 2 or more religions that co-exist peacefully.

Another interesting sight in Accra was a running mass of cheering people wearing red, carrying a coffin which was a ship painted in bright colours. We visited a coffin maker too where coffins included agigantic wooden coca cola bottle, a car, a phone, a pineapple etc. The coffins are made to order and reflect the life of the deceased person. In Kumasi, Thoby and I saw a street party, which was actually a funeral.

Out of Accra, we stayed on an idyllic beach for a few days where tourists thankfully don't come. Unfortunately, the village 500m along from us used the beach as their toilet so the beach was littered with unpleasant stuff. Going for a jog at 7am (we generally get up at 6:30 here and 10pm is a standard time to go to bed as we live outdoors and therefore live with natural daylight) means that all the locals who have just got up are doing their morning business in full view of everyone. Africans are very communal and social people in every way.

We visited Cape Coast and Elmina, which are former colonial towns of the British and Portuguese/Dutch respectively. We toured Elmina castle, which was a slave fort built by the Portuguese but then captured by the Dutch. The tour was harrowing. Our guide was shared with some black Americans of whom one muttered under her breath that she cannot believe how they can let whites come on this tour - what a disgrace. A sensitive New Zealand travel companion was more than a bit upset about that. I write this not only to show that racism still exists but to show how strong feelings still are about the slave trade. The visitors book was littered with comments similar to this and many black Americans complaining how they should have to pay the "non-Ghanaian" price to enter as their ancestors came from slave forts like this. Nowadays, Elmina is well invested in by the Dutch government, trying to improve sewage systems etc, no doubt to deal with guilt from past atrocities.

I went to Kakum national park which was my 1st ever rainforest visit. I also got to walk on Africa's only canopy walkway, which provided great views of the rainforest.

Tabloid newspaper's front page:
LOVER PULLS LADY'S CLITORIS AND DESTROYS IT 'PASAAAA'

Landlord tells his female tenants: "Sleep with me or leave my house"

Happy New Year.

This was a shock to my view that Ghana was religious and sensitive. Signs of religion are everywhere in the country. You find cafes called "The Lord is my Shepherd cafe" and hairdressers called "God loves us all hair salon" etc. but the Ghanaian tabloid really was a shock. The paper went on with equally shocking stuff.

Street children
On a more serious note, I visited an NGO called Catholic Action for Street Children in Accra, which has been run by a Dutchman from near Eindhoven called Jos. He is a carpenter by trade but moved to Ghana aged 20, 35 years ago as a missionary and set up a carpentry training school in northern Ghana. He moved to Accra in 1993 to set up the NGO for street children as noone was helping them. There are now 20,000 street children in Accra (population 2 million) aged 5 to 18. They run away from their homes in the country due to violence, neglect etc. and try to survive on the streets, earning 20 to 30 pence a day, helping disabled people to beg (blind people pay the children to take them to people to beg for example), cleaning the sewers in markets at 5am and other menial jobs. Catholic Action for Street Children (CAS) does a sound job in trying to educate children the basics, training some in trades where there is a shortage of trained workers and even sending some to University. It is a mammoth task and they really only touch the surface of the problem. It isn't only for Catholics. The Catholic reference merely demonstrates the fact that Jos was originally a Catholic missionary. No religious education is provided. The Ghanaian government doesn't like people to know about street children. It is a problem but they would prefer to help the poor majority than a small minority of even poorer people. Jos said British MPs visited Ghana and toured some schools. Jos spoke to them and they told him that they believed Ghana had excellent schools and no help was needed. He found out that they went to some of the very best schools in Ghana. The Ghanaian government had selected them especially! Jos had to tell them that he knows of places in the north of Ghana where teachers sit under a tree and talk to the children - there are more resources. They didn't know of the street children issue either! Why on earth does the Ghana government hide their problems? Surely, they would want the MPs to lobby for help for Ghana? If a child would like to be educated by CAS, a staff member has to get the written consent of a family member so they have to go to look for them somewhere in Ghana! Otherwise, CAS is in trouble for kidnapping. When CAS talks to the media, Jos has to ensure that noone writes anything that the government wouldn't like. An advertisement on TV in Germany led to Jos being investigated by the Ghana secret service as he was accused of undermining the country. I could go on for ever writing about CAS so I will cut it here but in summary, CAS does an outstanding job. I admire their work enormously. Trouble is, the situation is getting worse with teenage street kids giving birth to children who live on the streets as well and they grow up knowing nothing but the street. Some kids aged 12 upwards (boys included) are working as prostitutes :-(
Their website: http://www.cas-ghana.com

MINI LIBERIA
Another highlight was a visit to the Liberia refugee camp about an hour from Accra. Thoby and I visited ourselves. It no longer resembles a refugee camp as it is fairly self-sustained and looks like any other Ghanaian small town from the outside. It houses 40,000 people and has been there since the start of the Liberian civil war in 1991(?). At the time, it had emergency accommodation (tents) and was run by the UNHCR but with time, it became more permanent and is now run by managers with funding from the UN. The education etc is paid for by the UN but managed independently. Unfortunately, due to corruption, parents are forced to pay a little for education, health care etc. We were shown around by a shy guy called Romeo, aged 20 and fled Liberia when he was aged 5. His village was bombed and everyone ran from their homes. His neighbour pulled him over and ran away to the refugee camp with him. He has no idea what has happened to his parents so is alone, educated and has no job. He earns a little money by helping friends with odd jobs. His family consists of other people in the same situation as him. He can barely remember Liberia. Now the war is over, refugees will return when the new government has been in power for a while and the country is deemed safe.
The camp is as modern/not modern as any Ghanaian small town but has a Liberian feel and everyone speaks a weird African/American English. I got to eat Liberian food and really felt I was in the country for half a day.

We were privileged to be there the day the new Liberian President, Ellen Sirelaf-Johnson was inaugurated as Liberian President. Many were watching on TV but I was surprised to see how people were not very happy about it all - indifferent really. Apparently this is because there have been so many broken hopes of peace before that they are waiting for peace to last and for progress to take place. Ellen is Africa's 1st ever female President. Liberia has no running water or electricity, has not a single functioning hospital and no government building was in a safe enough state to hold the inauguration ceremony so it was held outside in a marquee where all the guests sat on plastic chairs, including Condoleeza Rice and many African Presidents.

Cinema
I also went to the Ghana Film Institue in Accra where I saw a Nigerian film. Nigeria has a strong film industry in Africa. I have to say that it was probably the poorest quality film I have ever seen. The 1st thing that came on was 1 and a half hours into a another film. That ended after 10 minutes and everything went fuzzy. Tom and Jerry cartoon came on briefly until the actual movie came on, apparently a sequel to what we had just seen. The acting was dreadful, the plot simple, there was one song that kept repeating for much of the movie, it appeared to be filmed with a video camera and the sound quality was equally bad! Made for a fun evening. We had to stop ourselves from laughing at the film as we didn't want to offend the locals who think like the film for what it is (maybe).

WHERE WE SLEEP
Outside in a tent or under a mosquito net. Places have included a school, a school playing field, quarries, church grounds and once inside on the seats of a restaurant in Morocco! No mattress since the UK. Really helps for my kudos with Africans!

BURKINA FASO
After passing the Malian immigration post, we stayed the night in Mali but between the immigration posts of Mali and Burkina Faso. Some call it no man's land and get overexcited about being in a "stateless" place. A number of years ago, a Spanish traveller on the same trip as me but with another company, Af Trails, died of dehydration. He apparently sat on "the beach" (open air place to sit/lie down on the truck) all day, every day drinking alcohol but drunk no water and refused to listen to people advising him otherwise despite being sick so often as "the sun couldn't harm him as he's from Spain". Getting his body back past Malian immigration was not possible. Burkina Faso also didn't want a dead body being brought to their country so the trip organiser had to arrange for a local passing car to carry the man in his boot across the border. A sinister warning to us!

At the Burkina Faso immigration office, the first thing that struck me was a local boy selling peanuts, wearing a baseball cap with a picture of the President, Blaise Compoare. Compoare is a corrupt President who rigs elections and suppresses opposition in what is one of the poorest countries in the world. He used to be a minister in the cabinet of an excellent leader, Thomas Sankara. During the 1980s, Sankara seriously clamped down on corruption, embarked on a massive school building program, improved the economy and vaccinated hundreds of thousands of children against preventable diseases. He was hugely popular among the masses as he increased the quality of life so much but his lack of willingness to work with traditional tribal leaders to ensure they creamed off money for the upper class meant that Sankara was toppled in a coup d'etat, which included Blaise Compaore who is the leader to this day. Compaore t-shirts and caps were very visible across Burkina Faso as the election was in November 2005, just a month before we arrived. I wonder if the people wearing them actually wanted to wear them? I swapped a t-shirt for a can of fizzy tropical juice.

The first town we stopped in was Ouahigouya and then was Ouagadougou, the interestingly named capital city. The city of 1.3 million was fairly Western in a way. There were well-paved pavements, litter bins, the sewers were closed ( i.e. not open air) and there were even some cycle lanes on some streets (plenty of cyclists in Burkina Faso). Didn't need to look far to tell we were in Africa though.

The people in Ouaga as the locals call it were friendly and fairly modest. They were unfortunately bad for asking for contact details of white people though based on a 10 second conversation. In that situation I explain I have moved out of my house and have no phone number because I am travelling but they can have my email address, which they are happy with but never contact.

The city also had a great atmosphere with music playing all over the place, most notably on the forecourts of petrol stations where the music blasted far around. The people there seemed to live life to a rythm. It's an artistic country with a famous film industry (in Africa).

I spent New Year's eve in Ouaga but having had ice cream, yoghurt and milk in one day while still having Timbuktu diarrhoea, I was sick in the evening because it's common to become lactose intolerant when one has diarrhoea and given we eat few dairy products in Africa, the body has to work harder than normal to digest anyway! At 5 minutes to midnight I was still trying to vomit, probably like millions of others in the world but without having had alcohol!

Also in Ouaga, I went to an open air cinema with wooden benches, costing about 40 pence to see a film that was a few years old. Popcorn outside was a massive 10 pence. We also visited an orphanage and donated 280 pounds from the pockets of just a few people as groups got together to bid to have the right to do whatever they wanted to Thoby's hair that he put up for auction. He ended up having half of his long hair being shaved off and the other half staying on, hence looking stupid. The orphanage houses 54 children aged up to 18 who live in 3 dormitories. The place included a classroom, basic pharmacy and sick bay and a vegetable garden to help with self sufficiency. The children sang songs and danced for us when we were there and we were asked to do the same in reverse (!) - a brilliant way to spend time with them as people connect quickly in such situations.
Three people in our group are going to sponsor a child each at the orphanage so that they can go to school - costs about 100 pounds a year for secondary education. This is a lot of money where the GNP per capita is just one dollar per day.

Before leaving Ouaga, we were interviewed by the BBC Burkina Faso correspondant who was fascinated by our truck and what we were doing. The interview of me and 3 others, which was not news worthy to us, was played on the BBC World Service the following morning. To listen to it was funny (in a laughing at it sense). I have a copy of the interview on CD and will aim to send a file with it in a future email - definitely worth a listen.

On the way to Ghana, we bush camped but were visited at about 10pm (i.e. when most people have gone to bed normally) by 6 men with AK47s. My job to speak to them as ever in Francophone countries, it turned out they were the police and were looking out for us.

Verdict of Burkina Faso: a sweet country with friendly, yet modest and fun-loving people despite their poverty. We all wanted to stay a wee bit longer but such is life.

MAKE-UP OF PEOPLE ON TRUCK
Forgot to say last time:
19 men, 7 women
13 British, 5 Australian, 3 New Zealanders, 2 Canadians, 1 American, 1 German, 1 Irish

MALI
Our arrival into Mali was not the best. Getting our passports stamped felt reminiscent of leaving Mauritania as an angry Malian police officer wanted 1000 CFA (one pound) for stamping each of our passports. Andreas, my German travel companion, was insistent that we must pay immediately. Not doing what a policeman said was out of the question for him. Canadian Thoby and I were very insistent that we would not pay as "the Malian embassy said we pay nothing at the border" (that was our story anyway). The conversation went on for a half hour or so while we refused to pay and spoke politely while the policeman lost his rag, throwing his rattle out of the pram, because we were being awkward. Eventually, he went outside for a cigarette and got laughed at by all of his colleagues. He let us go on return, throwing the passports across the table. Keeping your sense of humour, being patient, calm and outwitting people seems to be the best way in Africa.

We were sure not to let us feel that this "welcome message" was typical of Mali but actually, it sadly came to demonstrate Mali reasonably well to a certain extent.

Having argued too much, we were now too late to get a shared 7-seater taxi to Kayes. All taxis and minibuses stop moving after 7pm as bandits operate in the area. We didn't want to stay in the rather uninteresting border town due to our time pressures. We found a lorry that was going to Kayes that night and so we paid them to take us on the 2 hour journey. Again, we were "excited" to travel by another means, a lorry carrying cement, squashed up in the cab, in the middle of a police convoy of trucks (I'd never seen quite so many trucks!) to protect them from bandits.

Kayes is believed to be the hottest town on earth so that was nothing for us to look forward to. An Australian in the town told us that the record there is 71 degrees celsius! Locals told me that 50 or 60 degrees is the hottest it will get in a normal year but then the official records (google search) claims 58 is the hottest recorded temperature on earth, recorded in Libya. When we were there, it was just 35 or something normal for tropical Africa. We bumped into 4 others from our truck who wanted to take the same train as us to Bamako, Mali's capital. Departures was scheduled for 12:15. The police were clever enough to pull us all into the police station at 12:00 to make us fill in unnecessary forms and get our passports stamped. Again, 1000 CFA was demanded for the work - cost of ink etc. We refused and sat on the floor, playing games while we each had a turn at debating with the policeman. He could see we weren't going to pay and we found out in the meantime that the train was delayed til 3 or 4pm so he let us go without paying. Police corruption on 2 days running!

The train eventually turned up from the garage and left at 6pm. I found my seat, which had fallen as it was not bolted to the floor. It was also facing away from the other guys of our group of 7 so Andreas and I turned it around. I like this flexibility on trains :-) The train had no glass covering the top half of the windows anywhere in our carriage. The lights in our half of the carriage didn't work at all, allowing for a dark night. We had about 30 policeman and army officials on the train in case of bandits. The train was slow, painstakingly slow. It took 16 hours to cover about 500km. It felt like the train stopped in every settlement that was more than a hamlet, while noone actuallly seemed to get on or leave the train at those destinations. Each and every stop turned into a desperately hard sell of food etc. by locals - fried dough balls, apples (!), bananas and so on being passed through the windows in exchange for small change. At some of the longer stops, we could get off to go and eat at street stalls. Everywhere was under candlelight. All this made for a classic and quite memorable journey.

In Bamako, we met up with our truck again. Bamako is a city of 1 million people that is bisected by the river Niger. I really liked the place but that may have been because I got shown around by Djibo, a worker for a non-governmental organisation whom I contacted to chat to him about his work before I left on the trip. I got to meet his friends, family and chat about Mali in general. One incident stands out in my mind though: being stopped by police while riding with Djibo on his motorbike. The policeman asked him in Bambara "this white man...does he have any money?" Djibo said "no, he is a student and has only come to visit me so has almost no money with him". We were then allowed to go. Day 3 in Mali - 3rd attempted theft against me - all 3 times by police!

Mali is a country of 10 million people, yet is the largest country in West Africa. It's one of the many countries in Africa that has straight lines for borders, stretching hundreds of kilometres. The European powers split up Africa by drawing lines on a map, totally lacking any intelligence on whether that would split communities, tribes or put people together who regulargly fought. The existence of many colonial boundaries is the cause of many conflicts in Africa today - Sudan being a classic example.

Mali is one of the world's poorest countries and apparently receives the 2nd largest amount of aid money in Africa (after Ethiopia). It had socialist leaders for pretty much all the time since it became independent from France in 1960, although has had a new President since 2002, who has taken steps to put Mali on the road of development. He is not a member of a political party so is considered very independent. The press in Mali is the most free in Africa (along with Benin), described a having "good freedom" by "Reporters without borders", the same as most of Europe. Mali qualified for 100% debt relief at the G8 in Scotland, 2005, but I wonder at what cost? They were probably forced to change policies that favour Western countries' trading. Mali, like other countries in the region, suffered a drought in 2005 and so malnutrition was obvious for us in Mali. The West did not give the amount of money or food that the UN asked for.

Of our 2 weeks in Mali, we did and saw a lot. Highlights...
*Dogon country trek.
This was the biggest highlight of all. A 3 day trek through villages of the "Dogon country" in southern Mali. The Dogons are a small tribe that has maintainted its culture for several hundred years. They were people who fled other parts of Mali to escape the spread of the Muslim religion. They forced out the Telem people who lived in mud huts built on ledges of the 120km long cliff along which the Dogons live. The cliff provided too much of a challenge for those spreading Islam, so the Dogons were protected. They built up a strong animist culture, although nowadays, many Dogons are Muslims, while few are Christians.

Dogons believe that God, called Amma, created the world as we know it by mating with earth. The termite mounds, representing the female sex organs had to be destroyed first because they prevented Amma from mating. Dogons believe that termite mounds represent the female sex organ, while ant mounds represent the male sex organ. To this day, girls undergo female genital mutilation at the age of 4 or 5 where there clitoris is simply cut. Boys undergo circumcision at the age of 10 or so. A group of boys undergo the operation at once - each one is held down by the hands and legs on a flat surface and someone (non-medical) cuts off the foreskin. The boy who is bravest is allowed to pick the prettiest girl in the village to be his wife as he is clearly the most manly of all the boys of his age. Female genital mutilation happens all over West Africa and predates Islam, the major religion of the region. It's very common in rural areas but less so in urban areas. The highest rate is in Sierra Leone where 90% undergo the rather unhygienic operation, which leads to complications far too often.
When Dogon women bleed as part of their menstrual cycle, they all go to a building and bleed together until it stops! They then return to the family.

There are many interesting tales about the tribe but the most impressive thing really is that they have managed to maintain their culture through 4 centuries of change, especially in the last century. Everything in the villages is made from the resources in the local area. They don't have imports beyond the drinks they serve to tourists and footballs and clothes sold in the rotating markets. This means almost everything in their villages is biodegradable.

*Niger river pinasse
Most of us took a 3 day trip up the river Niger, on a pinasse (long wooden boat with a motor and "drop toilet" at the back) to reach Timbuktu. This was relaxing and enabled us to see how people live on the river. The river is the lifeline of Mali and other countries it passes through. The river runs from Sierra Leone through the Sahara in Mali and Niger to the Gulf of Guinea in Nigeria.

*Timbuktu for Christmas!
What a totally random place to be for Christmas! Timbuktu is is where the Mr Men come from apparently and is of course, synonymous with the middle of nowhere. Many people believe it's a non-existent but really, it's there. Explorers such as Mungo Park had tried to reach Timbuktu and also map the river Niger for decades in the late 1700s and half of the 19th century. The town is not quite on the Niger so we had to take a standard Land Rover with 20 people inside to get to the centre - also fun! The town is very important for the salt trade. To this day, people of the Tuareg tribe go out on caravans ( i.e. convoys of camels/dromadaries) of sometimes 100 camels on a 50 day round trip to collect salt slabs weighing 60kg each. The people who work in the salt mines work for 3 month periods and are paid 30 pounds per month. They are allowed to keep 1 in 4 slabs that they mine (worth 5 pounds per 60kg slab) but they have to use almost all the slabs to buy water from the chief. Water is collected from an oasis, which is 1.5 days away on a camel.

In ancient times, the town was very important and very wealthy as salt was a valuable commodity. Nowadays, it's not quite so attractive and life is hard here. It's in the Sahel region (Sahel meaning the shore in Arabic, i.e. the shore of the desert) but the soil has become sand like the desert, as the Sahara has expanded. It's a hot, desperate place. Really poor. I remember draining the water from tins of tuna and the children fighting to get their hands into the water flow so that they could have some flakes of tuna that fell from the can. When Paul, a travel companion, took 2 black bags worth of rubbish out to some bins at a bar opposite, the kids ripped the bags out of his hands and ran off with them, only to rip open the bags around the corner to take out all of the glass jars and anything that could possibly be reused for something. There wasn't exactly much left! The market was fly-infested and had desperately poor quality food and little variety. In the traditional Tuareg parts of Timbuktu, I saw the abbatoir on one day. A cow would be killed by cutting its throat. It would die in a couple of minutes or so as it was left to wriggle in the sand. Then it would be chopped up on the sand or dangling from a stick as the customer ordered. The place was smelly and fly-infested. The cow horns were left in a gigantic pile.
One of the most disturbing things was the presence of cat skins draping over the electricity cables in the town. Bambara and Songhai people eat cats and then throw the skins and head over cables.
We all became ill in the days just after Timbuktu. We had spent Christmas in a dream of a place that is actually desperate and non really a place attractive to travellers despite the fact many go on long journeys to get there. Package tourists even fly into Timbuktu these days!
Mali in general has a lot of tourists compared to neighbouring countries.

*Djenne
Djenne is home to the world's largest mud building - a huge mud mosque.
Picture: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Africa/Mali/photo310559.htm
It has to be repaired after every rainy season using 4000 volunteers from the town. Close up, the mosque didn't really excite us as we had seen so many smaller versions of mud mosques around Malian villages with perhaps more character and charm. More exciting were the journeys in and out of Djenne: in by a car containing 16 people inside (3 rows) and on the roof! Out of Djenne by horse and cart. These are just some of the normal experiences of an traveller in Africa. We have to pinch ourselves when doing such things that at home are so out of the ordinary (random ;-) ).

What I haven't mentioned about Mali is the poverty and given so many tourists go to Mali, the children and some adults ask for cadeaux (presents) persistently. It is annoying but it's understandable why they do it and pulls our heartstrings. This, plus the hassle of the sellers and money-making scams directed towards members of our group eventually gives you a bad feeling about the place, justified or not as it becomes so hard to relate to the people. Mali is a great place (has good and bad people as everywhere) but the hassle takes the edge off it and we were glad to leave for Burkina Faso after 2 weeks in Mali so that we could walk the streets without being hassled persistently.
I will write about poverty in a future email where there is space.