Journey North Mystery Class Spring 2005

Introducing Mystery Class #1-- Lome’, Togo
( 6.133 N, 1.217 E)

Greetings from Lome’, Togo, West Africa!
	We are a multi-grade class at Inspiration Academy, in Lome’, Togo. Our teacher is Mrs. Connie Schutte and she is from Seattle, Washington. There are five students in our class and we are all missionary kids. Three of us have lived in Africa all our lives, and two are living here in Togo for one year.

As you can see from our Lat/Long coordinates, we're just a little north of the Equator, and a little east of the Prime Meridian.

Togo gained it’s independence from France in 1960. For the last 38 years, our country has been under the rule of President Gnassingbe Eyadema. He died suddenly this February, which led to a military coup in our country.

Our country is now in the process of trying to hold free and fair elections, which were to take place on April 24, 2005. It is a tense time in our country, and we are hoping that the people of our country will have the freedom to elect a just leader who will be able to restore the economy and safety for the Togolese people.

Togo is a small country in West Africa, located between Ghana and Benin. Lome’ is the capital of Togo.

The climate of Togo is tropical and our temperatures stay pretty much the same year all year, around 85 degrees. We have two rainy seasons where we live, from March to July, and October to November. Another season is called “harmattan”, which happens sometime between December and January. Hot, dry winds blow from the northeast or east in the southern Sahara. It usually carries large amounts of dust, which it transports hundreds of kilometers out over the Atlantic Ocean; the dust settles on everything, and even makes it hard to see very far. Here in Lome’, it gives the feeling of coolness because it takes the humidity out of the air; the Togolese even put on their jackets because they feel cold!


Lots of tropical fruits grow here, like pineapple!	In the rainforest, the Togolese grow and dry coffee beans to sell.

You can see lots of butterflies in the rainforests.

All around our campus, there are lots of lizards to catch. We’ve also caught geckos and a guinea fowl. We’re always on the look out for snakes to catch, although most of the wildlife in our country is in the northern part of Togo. We did find a five foot ball python on our campus earlier this year.

A ball python found on our campus in November

There’s a rainforest area just north of Lome’, in Kpalime’, where we recently went hiking. During our hike, we saw lots of butterflies, birds, and a small black cobra.

Here’s a picture of a waterfall we hiked to in the rainforest

One of the most interesting things for us is learning about all the different cultures that live around us. The main tribal group where we live is the Ewe people, although there are 37 different tribes living in Togo. Although the national language is French, it’s fun to learn greetings and phrases in the tribal languages. If you want to say 'Thank you' in Ewe, say 'Akpae ka ka ka.'

A famous Togolese food is fufu. The preparation of fufu is a communal ritual; a hard, laborious task done by women. First yams are washed, peeled, cut up and boiled until soft. Then two or three women pound the cooked yams in a pestle with thick sticks until the yam has the consistency of baker’s dough. The noise the fufu pounders make is one of the most instantly recognizable sounds in Togo. Fufu is eaten with sauces. Groundnut, goat and palm nut are popular flavors.

Pounding fufu is a lot of work

Akpae ka ka ka ("thank you") for finding our class in Togo!