Lomé

The coast between the Volta River and Lagos was known to Europeans as the Slave Coast, and the shore around today’s Lomé belonged to Ewe and Mina communities long before it was a capital. Fishing, farming and trade in cloth and salt supported small towns on the lagoon and the beach, and Little Popo, now Aného, was one of the older ports to the east. European ships called for slaves, and the trade left a mark on the whole region.

In July 1884 the German explorer Gustav Nachtigal signed a treaty at Togoville, on the shore of Lake Togo, with the local ruler Mlapa III. Germany used it to claim a protectorate, which it called Togoland. The colonial capital was moved to Lomé in 1897, and Germans built a wharf, roads, a rail line inland and a European-style town behind the beach. Togoland was described as a model colony, although the model relied on forced labour.

In 1914 British and French forces invaded Togoland at the start of the First World War, and after 1919 the League of Nations divided it between Britain and France. Lomé became the capital of French Togo. The western strip joined the Gold Coast, which became Ghana, after a vote in 1956, and the eastern French territory became independent on 27 April 1960.

Independence was troubled. The first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was killed in Lomé on 13 January 1963, in the first coup of the post-colonial period in sub-Saharan Africa. Gnassingbé Eyadéma took power in 1967 and ruled until his death in 2005, and his son Faure Gnassingbé has led the country since. The politics are contested, and visitors should read their government’s current advice before they travel.

For a visitor the layers show up in small ways. The cathedral and some older buildings near it come from the colonial period, and the street plan behind the market follows the colonial grid. The museum tells parts of the story through objects, and a guide at Togoville or Aného can connect the treaty of 1884 and the old trading coast to what you see today. Ask what a building was called before independence and you will often get a story.

Trade explains Lomé better than any monument. The Grand Marché spreads across several blocks in the centre and sells almost everything a household needs: cloth, spices, dried fish, tomatoes, plastic buckets and mobile phones. Traders arrive before dawn and the market is busiest before ten, so a visitor who comes at seven sees it working and comes home before the heat.

Cloth is the market’s most famous trade. Colourful wax-print fabric, first imported from the Netherlands and later also from Asia, is sold in six-yard pieces called pagnes. From the 1950s a group of wealthy women traders built a business in the Lomé market by selling the most sought-after prints. People nicknamed them the Nana Benz because they were said to drive Mercedes-Benz cars. Their business has faced cheaper competition and the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994, but the cloth trade is still a core of the market.

Cloth is not only a product but a language. A print can carry a name, a proverb or a political message, and a woman may choose a pattern to say something to a rival. Tailors sit at sewing machines beside the stalls and turn a piece of cloth into a dress or shirt in a few days. The practical advice is to compare prices at three stalls, ask about the quality, and agree the tailor’s price before the cloth is cut.

Behind the market stands the port. Lomé’s deep-water port, opened in the late 1960s, is one of the few on this coast that can take large ships, and it serves not only Togo but also the landlocked countries to the north, including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Containers, fuel and cotton move through it. The port is a security area and not open to visitors, so photographing it is not allowed.

A practical morning plan follows from all this. Arrive at seven with small notes and only what you will spend, walk the outer streets first to see the daily trade in fruit and fish, and enter the cloth lanes when the stallholders are fresh. Take a break at a shaded café before the heat, and leave any big bag at the hotel. Prices fall if you are patient and polite, and a firm ‘non merci’ ends most offers.

Religion in southern Togo is layered. Christian churches, mosques and the older Ewe religion sit side by side, and many families follow more than one. The traditional religion is called vodun, a word in Ewe and Fon meaning a spirit or deity. It gave its name to Voodoo in the Americas, where the beliefs travelled with enslaved people, but in West Africa it is a living religion with priests, shrines and a calendar.

Vodun teaches that a supreme creator is distant and that people deal with spirits of nature, ancestors and forces of the world. Shrines are dedicated to spirits of the sea, iron, smallpox, thunder and other powers. Priests and priestesses serve them, and initiation can take months and includes seclusion, song and dance. Divination and healing with plants belong to the same tradition.

Lomé’s best-known window on the religion is the Akodessewa market, on the east side of the city. Its stalls sell dried animal heads, skins, bones and objects used in rituals, and it is often described as the largest market of its kind in West Africa. It is a working market where people buy things they need, not a museum. Visitors who go should take a guide, agree the entrance fee, and ask before every photograph.

Respect is the rule. A ceremony is not a show, and many objects are charged with meaning. Do not touch a shrine or an object, do not step over offerings, and follow your guide’s instructions about where to stand. Ask before you photograph people, and accept a refusal. If you are uneasy about animal parts, skip the market and learn about vodun through a guide’s talk, a museum exhibit or the town of Ouidah across the border in Benin.

A short note on words helps. Visitors will hear the French word ‘fétiche’ used for an object charged with spiritual power, and locals use it without the negative meaning it often has in English. A shrine, its priest and its objects are treated as one whole, and asking your guide to explain the local terms is better than assuming they match what you have read. Answers differ from one family and one shrine to another, and that variety is part of the tradition.

Togolese cooking is built on starchy staples and rich sauces. In the south, the classic base is a dough of fermented maize, akoumé, or of cassava and yam pounded into fufu. A cook rolls the dough into a ball and serves it with a stew, which a diner pinches with the right hand and dips. Sauces use tomato, onion, chilli, palm oil and leafy greens, and fish or meat gives them body.

Gboma dessi is a stew of leafy greens with fish or meat and a base of tomato and pepper. Djenkoumé, a red maize dough cooked with tomato, is often served with chicken. Atassi, rice cooked with beans, is a cheap lunch, sold with fried plantain called aloko. On the coast, fish is grilled whole over charcoal, and diners pick the fish and ask the price before it is cooked. Breakfast is bread with an omelette and coffee at a street stall.

Drinks are simple and strong. Cold juices are made from hibiscus (bissap), ginger and pineapple, and are sold in cafés and by street vendors. The local beers are Flag and Awooyo, and small glasses of sodabi, a palm-sap spirit, are drunk in bars. Homemade spirits are a health risk, so choose sealed bottles. Tap water is not safe, so the standard drink is sealed bottled water.

Eating well and safely is mostly about choice. Pick a busy stall or canteen where food is cooked hot in front of you and pots are emptied. Skip raw salads and ice of unknown origin on the first days, wash your hands before you eat with them, and carry small notes. Menus are often spoken and in French, so a few phrases help: ‘Qu’est-ce qu’il y a aujourd’hui ?’ for what is cooked today and ‘C’est combien ?’ for the price.

A few practical rules apply at the table. Ask the price of a plate before you sit, because menus are spoken and prices for visitors can be higher than for locals. Fish sold by size is priced by the piece, so agree the total before it goes on the grill. For vegetarians, the choice is thin: ask for rice, beans, plantain or a plain tomato sauce, and say clearly that you do not want meat or fish stock. Allergies to peanuts are a serious issue, because groundnut sauce is common.

Lomé speaks several languages at once. French is the official language and the language of signs, menus and government. Ewe is the main language of the south, and Mina, a related language of the coast, is widely used as a city lingua franca. Kabiyè and other languages come from the north. Greeting people is the key courtesy: say ‘bonjour’ before you ask anything, and use ‘akpe’ (thank you) in Ewe to earn a smile.

Music is everywhere. Ewe drumming and dance, such as the agbadza, are played at ceremonies, funerals and festivals, and the beat carries into the popular music of the coast. Bars and hotels host live bands and DJs, and a visitor’s best guide to the evening scene is the hotel’s front desk. Ask for a venue that is safe to reach and leave, and book the car home.

The city runs on motorbike taxis. Zémidjans, from an Ewe-Fon phrase meaning ‘take me quickly’, weave through traffic and carry passengers, cargo and families. They are cheap and fast, but accidents are common, and many drivers wear yellow shirts. A visitor should agree the fare first, wear a helmet if offered, and use a car with a driver at night and with luggage.

The rhythm of life follows heat and light. People start early, stop in the hottest hours and gather again in the evening, on the beach road, in bars and at grills. Sunday is for church, family and rest. A polite visitor dresses modestly, uses the right hand for eating and passing things, asks before taking photographs and avoids pictures of police, soldiers, government buildings and the port.

Money and courtesy go together. Carry small notes for every small purchase, because change is scarce, and count what you get back without making a show of it. Bargain with a smile and stop when you reach a fair price. Tipping is small: XOF 500 to 1,000 for a good meal or a driver who waited. Dress modestly in markets and churches, and hold your phone low near the kerb, because snatch theft from passing motorbikes is the most common crime a visitor meets.

Lomé sits on a low strip of sand between the Atlantic and a lagoon system, and its year has two rainy seasons and two dry ones. The heaviest rains fall in May and June, with a shorter wet spell in September and October, while the long dry season from November to February brings hazy skies and the dry harmattan wind from the Sahara. Temperatures stay between about 23 and 32 degrees all year, with high humidity.

The sea is not for casual swimming. The Gulf of Guinea has strong currents and rip tides, and locals warn visitors off most of the beaches near the city. The beach road is for walking in the sea breeze, and hotel pools are the safe way to cool off. The coastline itself is under pressure: the building of harbour walls in the 1960s disturbed the movement of sand, and erosion has eaten away beaches and buildings to the east.

The coast east of Lomé is a good day out. Aného, about 45 kilometres away, was once the capital of a German colony and still has colonial buildings and a lagoon setting. Togoville, across Lake Togo, is a small town of shrines and a church that tie the story of the 1884 treaty to the present. The Plateau Region around Kpalimé, in the hills two to three hours from Lomé, offers cool air and forest walks.

Crossing borders is possible but takes planning. Ghana lies just west of the city, and Benin is a short distance to the east. Visa rules, the yellow fever certificate and border queues change, and a car and driver are the reliable way to cross. Treat a border day as a day of its own, and check your government’s travel advice before you set out.

A last piece of advice is about time. The city’s pace is slow in the middle of the day and fast at dawn and dusk, and a day that fits this rhythm goes well. Start early, rest from noon to about three, and go out again for the beach road and a grill at dusk. Book the car home before you leave the hotel. Days that fight the rhythm, with a midday walk or a late night on foot, are the ones that go wrong.