I slept well last night which was much appreciated. My alarm went off at 07:00. I prepared for the day, repacked as needed and had breakfast. I always enjoy the fruit at breakfast when I'm in the tropics, papaya, mango (really good mango), pineapple (the good sweet kind) watermelon, etc. The coffee however is another thing. It’s a delicate thing producing a good cup of coffee, even when coffee grows in the country. Choosing the right beans, roasting them properly and so on is knack not everyone has. It’s is darkly amusing in African countries that grow coffee to see that the morning brew is sometimes so bitter or murky that people prefer Nescafe. In virtually every restaurant where I stay in Africa, there will be a big pot of brewed coffee (which often is not very good), and next to it a container of individual packets of freeze dried instant. The latter is at least as popular as the former. The brewed pot is usually very strong by US standards, more of the French style, so I take it as café au lait (with a generous portion of hot milk mixed in).

I was alone in the airport shuttle at 08:00 which was bit early, since it only takes 10 minutes to reach the airport from the Ibis. Pulling my suitcase as I went, I reached the terminal door and had to go through the first scanner. Passengers had to place their bags aside and walk through a metal detector before recollecting their bags and proceeding on.

Inside the terminal we walked to the check-in area where another guard controlled access. The check-in area is always chaotic with competing lines of people, on the positive side, the air-conditioning has now been working for a record of several years. When I first came to Cameroon, there was no air in the entire airport, and it had been built for air-conditioning so in the check-in luggage carrousel areas, there were no windows that would open. It was quite close.

As I waited in line at the ASky counter, I was amused to see the safety signs overhead, which informed us of things we could not check in our luggage. No hand grenades please and no radiological or bacteriological weaponry, among a long list of examples. I would have loved to take a photo, but that’s a no-no in airports.

Exit formalities went fairly quickly and smoothly. After the long walk to the departure gate, A 21, I went through the security check. Agents put my carryon through the scanner and I emptied my pockets and walked through one as well. Then, immediately, one step forward there was another two-person team that went through my carryon again. It’s either a make-work program or a lack of trust in their security teams. The lounge was well air-conned, so the hour-long wait passed pleasantly enough; I worked on my laptop until boarding time.

As usual in Douala, when it came time to board we did not use a jet bridge. A uniformed woman entered the lounge, announced the flight and we followed her in a line. We walked out of the lounge to a stairway, which we descended to the apron. Then we walked across the concrete to the plane, a Bombardier Q 400 turboprop, and stepped up the planes narrow fold-down stairway. I noticed the air-con was working in the plane. For some reason I’m very attentive to that this morning!

The flight left on time, but we hit a lot of turbulence off and on throughout the flight. In smaller planes like this one, a little turbulence goes a long way…. On arrival in Lomé we parked far from the terminal and were bussed to it.

I went to the line where one requests a visa on arrival, and filled out the paper work. My passport is almost full, but there were two completely free pages left, one of which would serve for the Togolese visa. The agent looks through the passport. "You have no empty pages left for the visa" he tells me. I respond that there are two at the end. “They are not visa pages” he tells me. “Sir they are all the same” I tell him. They always have been in my experience. Suddenly he shouts at me “They are not all the same, do not presume to teach me! I will put the visa there as a favor to you, but if you try to tell me they are all the same, I know the legalities, I will not do it!” He is well and truly shouting. I kept silent. I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on, but he’d said he’d give me the visa, that was the thing.

He motioned for me to step to the side and have my biometrics measured. I stood in front of the camera as instructed. The second agent adjusted the camera on a flexible neck but gave me no instructions. I was told to go and sit on a bench against the wall. I want and sat. A moment later another agent came to me. “Do you have a checked bag?” he asked. I say that I do. “Please go and collect it and come back here.” I moved toward the baggage carrousel. The second agent from the counter, the one who took my photo, runs over to me, “please come back” he said. “I was told to collect my suitcase” I explain. “Come and have your prints taken.”

So I walked back to the counter with him and this time he took the photo and my finger and thumbprints. Now, he said, I can collect my bag. It was already on the carrousel, so I pulled it off and went to sit on a bench. A few minutes later an agent came to give me my passport with a completed visa. He told me if I stay longer than a week, I’ll need to get an extension. That won’t be a problem. I put my luggage through the metal detector and then walked out into the afternoon heat of Lomé. Guy and Pierre were waiting for me. We shook hands and exchanged greetings as we walked to the vehicle. They drove me to the hotel. The newly refurbished Radisson had an Internet promotional price, just slightly more than the Ibis, so I had decided to try it for the first time.

On arrival we had to go through a fairly complete security screening. The team ran a mirror under the vehicle looking for bombs. They looked at my suitcases and in the glove box. If ISIS sympathizers were to aim at a hotel in Lomé, as they recently did in Côte d’Ivoire, they would aim for this one first.

I checked in at the desk and took my luggage up to my room on the eighth floor. I put my laptop, passport, wallet and the video camera in the room safe then I went back down to catch up on news. We sat in the lobby and talked for half an hour about family, friends and acquaintances. Things seem to be going well since my last visit. The country and city are calm and everyone is well.

We agreed to meet tomorrow for an evening Bible Study and during the day sometime one of them will take me to change some dollars for CFA Francs, not so much for here in Togo, but for Côte d’Ivoire where I will need local currency to pay for transportation and for our trip into the bush up country.

I saw them to the front door and said goodbye then went to the pool-side restaurant where the menu was surprisingly well priced. I had a Neapolitan pizza (a recipe from Naples) with fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella (preferably made from the milk of water buffalo) anchovies and capers. It’s one of Marjolaine’s and my favorites, and it was well done. The pool area is lovely, a world away from the hard life on the streets down below. I was able to truly relax for a few hours.

I was surprised during lunch to hear much American English being spoken. I usually hear more French, but Americans can afford to stay at the better hotels, where I usually am not, and there are also more Americans coming to French Africa now than used to be. Economically, France cannot support its former colonies the way it has in the past, and US aid is entering what used to be France’s exclusive zone. I knew all that but it was still surprising to me. I often feel like the lone American in Lomé, where there are apparently many others, just in different places.

All afternoon I worked in my room. At dinner I went back to the pool deck and had a “Mexican” salad for dinner. It was good, the lettuce was well washed, hopefully with clean water. I’ll find that out for sure during the night!