Life in Togo: the Arrival

 

This post is going back in time a bit to catch up with our 2024 summer spent in Ohio and our arrival in Mango, Togo, the beginning of October. I already had these pictures plopped into a blog post but never wrote anything to go with them, so I’ll just write some quick captions and also share some journaling I did last November when our arrival was still fresh in my mind.

We became Ohio buckeyes again for the summer, moving from Omaha, NE, to Cleveland, OH, when Rafi was 2 months old. We rented a furnished house for the summer while Ryan worked his first “real job” out of gastroenterology training. In hindsight we could’ve just gone straight to Togo, but we were giving Rafi some time to get a little older (and let the worst of malaria season pass) before jumping continents.

We had lived in Cleveland for 3 years previously for Ryan’s fellowship. Hadassah and Noah were both born there, and we had many friends in the area. My maternal grandparents were selling peaches again in Holmes County, an hour and a half south, so we enjoyed getting to see them a bit. (In hindsight, I’m so glad we did.)

The transition from 2 children to 3 was actually easier than the transition from 1 to 2, largely due to the fact that Noah was much kinder to Rafi than Hadassah was to Noah. They handled the moves with grace for the most part. There are always sleep and discipline issues that crop up with changing houses, at least for us, but that’s also just part of the territory with young children so it’s hard to know what to blame it on sometimes!

The most unfortunate part of our summer was that we were living in a furnished house right on an intersection (and under the flight path from CLE). That meant that the children couldn’t go outside by themselves to play – at all. Thankfully we lived close to the bike trail and some playgrounds. Hadassah put many miles on this balance bike which was loaned to us from a good friend in the area! She blessed us with many toys to play with!

Rafi took his first flight to see some friends in Florida…

…and we just managed to fly out before a hurricane hit. (Note the clouds rolling in in the background.)

This will be one of my favorite pictures forever:

We had the privilege of attending Ryan’s Grandpa’s wedding in southern Ontario! (His first wife of many years passed away in 2020, a few months after Hadassah was born.)

Took a trip to PA and reconnected with many friends…

 

Got to see some pretty leaves before leaving the States…

And then it was time to pack up and go! We left on October 3rd, when Rafi was 5 months old.

From here I’ll fill in with some journaling I did last fall which never made it to the blog.

Nov 9, 2024

Bonjour from Togo!

I don’t even know where to start. I have been submerged in a totally new culture, language, and climate in the past month and my brain is very full! All in all, this is the biggest move we’ve done as a family but it has actually been one of the easier ones. Maybe because we were looking forward to it for so long? Maybe because the bulk of the packing was done before we left Nebraska in June (we lived in Ohio for the summer before flying to Togo)? One thing I know: God has been instrumental in smoothing our way. Yes, the trip was long. Yes, the children had some trouble sleeping after the time change (we are currently 6 hours ahead of EST). Yes, we had to double down on discipline when the routine was shaken up. But we moved into the middle of a very close community of wonderful people who have chosen to serve God in an out-of-the-way place. The children have a safe place to play outside all day long, and beaucoup des amis. We have lived 45-60 minutes from our church community for the past 4 years…now we rely on bicycles for transportation, if we even need those! Prayer meeting is a 3 minute walk up the dirt road.

The beginning of October we flew from Cleveland OH (where we spent the summer) to EWR to Lomé, Togo. Lomé is the capital city of Togo, located on the coast (which is at the very bottom of this long, skinny country in West Africa). It’s the home of the only deep-water port in West Africa; from our motel room in Lomé we could watch a never-ending line of ships waiting to dock and unload. Overall the children did super well with the travel. We had an overnight flight from EWR to Lomé, and other than some meltdowns as we were getting onto the plane at 9pm, things went well. Rafi was even given a bassinet to sleep in so I didn’t need to hold him all night! We were all good and exhausted when we got to Togo, but the Lord paved the way for us through every step and I was amazed over and over again at the KIND people we encountered. We got the best TSA agents and got to bypass waiting lines with our trois enfants et beaucoup de bagage. All of our 9 totes were allowed through customs (after a bit of haggling). Ryan was able to exchange money and get our phones switched over without problems.

Luggage list:

• 9 totes
• 4 carryons
• 3 backpacks
• 3 children
• 1 duffel bag
• Double jogging stroller, carseat
• Neck pillows, regular pillow, additional small bag

My Whatsapp status en route: “Y’all have blown me away with your prayers and well wishes. The Lord has been looking out for us already. We got to bypass a huge line for security in Cleveland and all our bags went through without issue. Didn’t even have to take anything out. Every single TSA agent was so nice and helpful…above and beyond…and for Cleveland that’s saying something! At the gate they didn’t bat an eye at the double jogging stroller…or the many bags. Thank you for the prayers!”

 

We were met at the airport by Ethan M – the hospital administrator from Moscow, Idaho, with a red Duck Dynasty beard – and his son Ezra – also redheaded and destined for an orthodontist appointment. (Driving eight hours on African roads for orthodontic work every month is another level of commitment.) They took great care of us and showed us to Robinsons, our motel where we were given a spacious 4-room suite a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean.

Memories from the arrival/airport:

• sweating as soon as we hit the ground
• Hadassah peering out of the jet bridge: “Look Noah! There’s Africa!” And then again as we exited the airport: “There’s more Africa!”
• airport employees trickling out of what must have been a prayer room as the kids and I waited on a bench, shuffling back into their flip flops
• stopping for bikes by the side of the road and getting a glimpse of a microcosm of Togolese life. Smoked fish and goats heads glided past at eye level. A walking Verizon store. A man carrying four tires in an understated show of strength. Winter beanies worn while I sat and dripped.

Memories from the hotel:

• constant sandy grit on the tile floors of our rooms
• the open shower in the corner of the bathroom (very practical)
• beautiful landscaping, tropical flowers, incessant raking of dirt and stones, open air restaurant, primitive play set, the slum right down the beach, erosion that will eventually dump the motel into the sea, the guard changing into his “evening clothes” and turning on lights by tapping the switches with a long stick, half-clothed young kids begging us for food
• delicious Italian restaurant with the deepest, darkest, blackest chocolate gelato…which Hadassah threw up on me on the way back to the hotel after taking a few too many turns on the merry-go-round
• Ryan doing a day of stock-up shopping and coming back with $16 tinfoil

Grandpa

“Waking up the day after arriving in Togo to find out that Grandpa died of a sudden heart attack was the last thing I was expecting. It doesn’t seem real yet. They buried him today and I wish I could have been there. I’m so glad we were able to see him and Grandma this summer in Ohio. I have so many good memories of him…how he always gave big bear hugs and reminded me that I was his oldest grandchild…flying around the back roads of Holmes County doing after hours peach runs…his conspiratorial grin when he was teasing…and his legendary abruptly-ended phone calls. He made the marginalized his business – I saw that up close and personal on many occasions. I love you, Grandpa.“

The morning after we arrived in Togo, I woke to find messages from my mom during the night telling me that my Grandpa Albert had passed away from a sudden heart attack.

Honestly, I barely had time to process it with everything else going on.

I never expected him to be the one to go, at least not now – not yet. He was still full of life and seemed healthy enough. He and Grandma were still making the trek to his birthplace in Holmes County every year to sell South Carolina peaches. But he left this life like he left all his phone calls: abruptly and without a goodbye.

I was glad for him, and sad for us – especially for Grandma.

It pulled not to be able to be at the funeral, to get that closure. But my mom sent me a lot of pictures, which helped. In the coming months I was working on photobooks for each of the children, and I kept healing as I saw the memories we had made with Grandpa. I’m so thankful for each and every picture.

This one was taken at The Peach Barn during the summer before we went to Africa:

Memories from the drive to Mango:

• leaving early Sunday morning for the drive north to Mango after strapping all the totes and bikes on the roof of the van, Africa-style
• periodic dozing, playing downloaded music on Ryan’s phone
• taking our own toilet paper into the bathrooms
• our first taste of Togolese bananas and fresh, soft, sweet bread
• an overturned truck in the mountains
• buying gorgeous carrots and pineapples along the road

 

Memories from our arrival:

• pulling into the compound, Ethan tossing dried plantain chips to the delighted guards, pulling around through the puddles (we arrived right after the biggest rainstorm the hospital staff remembered) to our new house…and pulling down some electric/phone lines with our skyscraper load
• meeting so many new people…receiving muffins and eggs (some washed, some not) and other goodies for our first meals…going to the guest house for supper, followed by church and meeting more people whose names I could not remember
• a constant outpouring of hospitality and kindness in the form of meals and gifts and chats and invitations to events

Overall, this has been one of our easier moves. For the last several years we lived quite a ways from “our people” – our church community. Especially in Omaha it was easy to feel isolated because we were only there for a year and that’s not a lot of time to make close friends right around you, although we did make some! But here we moved into such a vibrant, close community that is literally right next door.

Togo Series:

•  Life in Togo
• Life in Togo: the Basics
• Life in Togo: the Arrival
• Life in Togo: Culture
• Life in Togo: Climate & Cooking
• Life in Togo: Language & Church
• Life in Togo: Fabric (Pagne)
• A Week in Togo
• Life in Togo: Things I’ll Miss and Things I Won’t
• Life in Togo: Common Scenes