For my last day in Lome I thought I would take a trip up to the Marchè de Feticheurs (Fetish Market - not what your thinking). The place was pretty interesting although probably a Vegetarians worse nightmare, I think the RSPCA would have a thing or two to say about it too. One of the guys offered to show me around, how could I refuse.
They pretty much have every animal part you could ever imagine, dried up and sitting on a table, and I mean everything! Leopard Head, Elephant Dick, Monkey Claw etc; god knows where it all comes from. The chap explained what they do with each item, I think it was the same for all of them ‘grind it into a black paste and drink it with honey’, or in some cases wash with it. In a weird way allot of the things made sense, for snakebites they grind up a snakes head and make you drink it, elephants dick for impotency, monkey skull for memory loss etc.
Eventually I agreed to go and see the fetish priest. If anyone else was there I probably would of laughed through the whole thing. You walk in a dark room full of weird objects and a guy in colorful clothes sits in the corner, he asks you your name and then chants it a bit. They then adorn you with a few fetiches, one for safe travel, one for love, etc.
After all the blessing he asks which ones you want to keep. So playing the game I picked a couple, next he picks up four cowrie shells. ‘Now we shall find out the price’, he tosses them onto the floor to see which way they land (a bit like pass the pigs), all four land face down, ‘you are a lucky man’ he says; and for the second one, two shells up and two down, ‘you are a lucky man indeed’, i cant help but smile, ‘it will only cost you twenty five pounds’. I think the look on my face said it all, 25 quid for a crappy bit of clay and a stick with some string on it. ‘But you must buy them as they are now blessed with your name’. Yeah right do I look like I care? ‘i can give you 2 quid’. In the end I gave him a fiver as it was a bit of a laugh.
Back on the road I took a bush taxi up country to Atakpame, nice place but nothing to do, so today headed for Kara in the far north. Five hours in a bush taxi, pretty severe. The one thing that impressed me most the driver manged to squeeze 17 full grown adults and two babies into one small toyota minivan. I was sat on ‘mommas’ lap like a big baby, much to everyone elses amusement.
As for my route, currently planned as follows, explore Northern Togo for a bit, then cross into Benin and back down to the coast, with a few stops on the way. Then Nigeria and Cameroon, allot depends on the attempts of the car sale as to what happens after Cameroon. I should be able to include photos if I find an internet cafe that has USB ports for my camera, so for the time being I hope words arent too boring.
