Togo Road Trip

We loaded the land rover with medical supplies and provisions for five days away from the ship. We also threw in the items necessary to survive in the hot sun, or the African Bush, should our land rover breakdown somewhere on our projected seven to eight hour journey from Cotonou, Benin to the small village of Tsiko, located in the lower-mid-western part of Togo. With passport in hand, I eagerly anticipated the adventure ahead. We were headed to Hopital Baptiste Biblique, a mission hospital, for the purpose of pre-screening orthopedic patients and establishing contacts and “scouts” to help locate VVF surgical candidates for the Mercy Ships 2010 field service which will be in Lome, Togo. The participants on the journey: Olivia, a Physician’s Assistant and the current Mercy Ship Orthopedic Program Care Coordinator. Karl, Health Care Development Construction Project Manager, an excellent Aussie friend of mine, an all around trouble shooter (sometimes trouble maker), our driver, mechanic, and “manly” presence on the trip considering white women shouldn’t “road-trip” it alone in Africa. The last adventurous spirit on the trip, me! The seven hour journey went surprisingly fast and without too much excitement. But, mid-way through the journey, I woke from a small snooze to the sound of my Aussie friend, Karl’s accent and him mumbling something about “it isn’t good to drive long on a flat front tire.” I couldn’t really make out what he said over the loud clunk, plunk, clunk, thunk sound of a flat tire, a sound I am only familiar with because of the movies. Karl slowed the land rover down and pulled toward the side of the extremely narrow, one and a half lane road, lined with eight to nine foot high grass. Karl and Olivia jumped out of the car to assess the situation. I stayed in the car and started praying. I prayed that no cars would fly around the curve in the road lined with tall grass and hit us. I also prayed that the problem would soon be sorted. The diagnosis came in: the tire was flat, oh dear! Karl didn’t skip a beat. He calmly looked through the land rover for the tools to change the tire, like he had almost planned to change a flat tire at least once on the journey. I decided I should help in some manner, so I pulled out my camera to document the event for the record books. I know; I am a lot of help. Well, by getting out of the car, I also lessened the weight in the land rover a fare bit, so Karl didn’t have to work so hard to jack it up. Entirely without my help, Karl successfully changed the tire and we were back on the road. I made another huge contribution to the whole tire changing experience by trying to get the “warning triangle” that we had set up on the road when we were pulled over, back into its box. It took me forever, but I finally got it back in the box, and the entire process helped pass the travel time. After about seven hours of travel, driving through one impressive thunderstorm, and a few flooded sections of road, we pulled into the entrance of the Hopital Baptiste Biblique. Destination reached…Stay tuned for Part 2 of My Togo Adventure Story!