BECA Travels: Troubles in Hohoe

Troubles in Hohoe

This weekend we are spending at a “resort” close to the town of Hohoe and the border between Togo and Ghana.  Several lodges are built here at the town of Wli, which means “struggle” in the Ewe language.  It would appear to be an odd name for this bucolic town featuring a spectacular waterfall.  The purpose of our trip is to swim in the waterfall.  That will be tomorrow – more on that later.

We have been hearing on the radio about a Muslim-Christian conflict in the town of Hohoe, probably about an hour from Kpando by car.  Today we drove through the center of the town enroute to the waterfall.  There was a huge presence of police or security personnel throughout the town.  Muslim shops both in the main part of town and in the Muslim section, or “zongo,” had been burned.  A curfew of 6:00 PM – six to six – had been imposed.  We didn’t see anything beyond a lot of people in the streets, and the burned-out stores, but the security presence itself was frightening.