Zebrafish

Sitting outside this restaurant at the pavement tables I started talking with Damien and Yorvan from Brittany. They were going to see the Ivory Coast Reggae star Alpha Blondy at the stadium, so I joined them. We waited outside the stadium for their Togolese friends to arrive then queued to enter. Yorvan had his ticket in his hand and there was a scuffle in the queue. Everyone got pushed around and suddenly his ticket was gone. A new one only cost £2 but we could sense a desperately enthusiastic crowd.

We paid another £2 to sit on plastic seats inside the stadium grounds. The atmosphere was electric and getting through the gates Yorvan was pick pocketed again as someone had spotted him put his passport away just in his combat trousers outside pocket. After a blues support band the crowd went mad and started jumping over the barriers and took the remaining seats around us. The leader of the rebellion in Cote D’Ivoire was rumoured to be here watching too.

Alpha Blondy really worked the crowd well; people were dancing and singing, sweating ad smiling all around. Later he made them think about the tragedy of human suffering brought about by the war in his home country in an emotional speech spoken in French. Afterwards about five of us went to a late night drinking spot until 3.30am. There were a few drunken scuffles outside, two men arguing about which one was richer, I was glad that my friends offered to walk me back to my hotel.

Sunday Dec 15

The diabetic man I met in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso was a liar and a conman. I was beginning to expect as much and this was confirmed when his phone number and address in Lomè proved phoney. The Ghanaian border was just a few kilometres away from central Lomè so pretty soon I was back and glad to return to Ghana. Ghana retained a friendly familiarity for me and I didn’t feel so far away from home.