#106 TOGO

Togo is a country that I kind of ended up visiting by accident, and by that, I mean that I found a fantastic award ticket on Ethiopian Airlines from Addis Ababa to New York City that involved a four-night layover in Lomé. When I booked this ticket, I wasn't sure I'd be up for so much adventure, especially as this was coming at the tail end of three weeks of intense travel in Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, and Ethiopia. In any case, I'm happy that I did because I had a great time relaxing on the beach with my friend Jessica, who came over from Accra for the weekend and ended up visiting the Akodessawa Fetish Market, where I picked up some Voodoo dolls to take home. So, all in all, it was a pretty good trip!

For the first three days, I relaxed on the beach and swore to wear nothing but my swim trunks for my entire stay. It was glorious, and I had a great time reading, recharging my batteries, and making friends with the curious, bicolored beach lizards. 

Dramatic faces, creative masks, Lomé

Chilling on the beach, Lomé.

Beach lizards, Lomé

Driving through Lomé, I got the impression that the entire coast is one big, beautiful sandy beach lined with palm trees. I usually think of city beaches as full of trash and crowded, but the beach in Lomé was immaculate and sparsely populated with little seafood shacks and bars. If I lived here, I'd be on the beach every weekend!

Crevettes sautées ail et persil, Lomé

City beach, Lomé

But there's also another side to Lomé, far from the tropical beach, where locals and tourists come to stock up on Vodun supplies. This is the Akodessawa Fetish Market, filled with the desiccated bodies of countless animals, ranging from dogs and cats to monkeys, lizards, hippos, cheetahs, and every bird imaginable. I even found a whole mummified baboon, which is something that I never imagined anybody would ever need! To the outsider, it might all seem very gruesome and savage, but this is part of a complex cosmology and belief system that largely relies on animal sacrifices.

Dog heads on display, Lomé Fetish Market

A basket of mixed critters, Lomé Fetish Market

I love all animals, and I don't like any sort of animal cruelty. Still, my emotional response to seeing these carcasses on display in the Fetish Market was basically no different from when I look at the meat counter at Carrefour or Key Foods. In other words, these are animals that have been killed and processed by people for human consumption, regardless of whether it's physical or spiritual. I know this is a pretty extreme view, and many people like to draw a line between pets, like dogs, and food, like pigs, but I prefer not to. To me, animals are animals, and either they're all on the menu, or none of them are (with a few arbitrary exceptions for some endangered species that I'd rather see in nature than on my plate, like cheetahs or pangolins).

Dried chamaleons, Lomé Fetish Market

Monkey heads, Lomé Fetish Market

But, in any case, the guys working at the Fetish Market were all very concerned that I, as a foreigner, would find the sale of animal parts very macabre. And, so they kept repeating the same line to me that I'd heard in Benin earlier in the week, that Vodun is a religion of positivity and light, not something occult or malicious like black magic. So I can only assume they must be used to foreigners, either ignorantly or unknowingly, conflating their religion with magic. Sure, the lines between the two can sometimes be blurry, but I can only imagine how many Christians, Muslims, or Hindus would enjoy being told their religion is witchcraft. Well, maybe that's enough thinking about religion for now, and so I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the Akodessawa Fetish Market in Lomé.

Alligator or crocodile? I can never tell the difference... Lomé Fetish Market

A whole dried baboon, Lomé Fetish Market