Four months ago a group of Ghanaians had come for an extended stay in his village on a tour of “reconnecting and reuniting,” and the villagers intend to repay the favour in the near future.  More than goodwill, those traversing the border bring fish and petrol from Ghana, and from Togo they bring hard liquor and cigarettes. 

“We don't go through the checkpoints,” said a young man from Kpime-Seva.  “We sneak it under the border; we traffic it using roads in the bush.” 

The families of Razack, Mensah and Marc, curio traders in the small town of Kpalime, have been importing masks from Ghana through the checkpoints for 23 years.  They would not divulge how much they pay in import duties, but did say that although the border is easily crossed, the costs add up to a considerable business expense and use of time.  “It involves paperwork to get your stamp; you pay your duties, and it makes border crossing expensive,” Razack told The Statesman.    He said that importers have to pay whether or not they have papers, that the amount paid is not fixed, and that being caught without a yellow fever vaccination also induces a fee.

This information corresponds with what The Statesman correspondents witnessed crossing the border: almost no one"s ID cards were checked, and traders simply plopped CFA coins into a tin plate for calmly nodding immigration officers sitting in their undershirts on a hot dusty road blockaded with a piece of rope.

The young traders had not heard of ECOWAS despite their frequent border crossings, but they did say that the border has become easier to cross in recent years, but no cheaper.

On the Ghanaian side, palace residents in Ho explained that while ECOWAS is making good efforts to unite West African nations in general, funding limitations blunt even the best intentions.

Many in Volta Region expressed the view that it is easier for the Togolese to enter Ghana than for Ghanaian Ewe to enter Togo.  Mrs Gyan of Dodi quipped, “I don’t know how they regard us; they think we are smuggling gold and clothes, which are cheaper over there.  Some Ghanaians want to go to Togo for trade but can’t.”  Instead they go to Accra to buy food, clothes, and bags to sell in the village.

Yet Dodi residents consider themselves very welcoming of the Togo Ewes, and are currently hosting one such trader.  The area’s Chief noted that if the Ewe in the two nations were truly united, trade would be easy. 

The village youth were as split as the Ewe themselves.  “I will follow my country,” said one.

“I will follow the jobs,” said another, implying that he would go to Togo if the right economic opportunity arose there.

One palace source in Ho explained that Ghana is a welcoming, transparent society with a resulting higher demand for entrance from other nations.  On the flipside, the perception of Ghanaians as being well-off causes resentment with our neighbours. 

Family Matters

In fact, it seems easier and cheaper for traders to bring goods across the border than for other travellers to make the journey.  Whitey Jojo, an elderly palm-oil maker from Kpime-Seva who has siblings and children in Ghana, pays what for her is a large sum (500 CFAs) to enter Ghana when attending funerals and weddings, and another ¢5,000 to return.  For her it is more difficult to return to Togo because she has a Ghanaian name.

Whitey was born in Togo to a Ghanaian mother who had crossed the border for medicine and fallen in love with her healer and borne his children.  Her brother remained in Ghana.  With the birth of his children after Ghana’s independence and Volta Region’s still-contentious choice to become part of Ghana, a close family found itself irrevocably divided.

She continues to work hard to pay for such trips because, she said, “Family is important to us.”  In fact, she always tells her children that their brothers are Ghanaians. 

Jojo’s family and many other Ewes essentially swap children with their cross-border families.  A young person, once reaching the other side, will often marry a distant cousin to keep those family ties alive, according to Ms Jojo.  This practice was intensified by the 1991 political crisis in Togo, during which tens of thousands of Togolese Ewe fled to Ghana as refugees.

Her chief, Togbisatats II, would prefer that her relatives, and his, were more accessible.  Ideally, he said, “We want Volta Region to be part of Togo.  We want the land, and some [Ghanaians] are already coming to Togo” to be with their families. 

Despite language and cultural barriers family ties still bind, and prove stronger than ethnicity or nationhood.

Some Togolese Ewe, like the mask dealer Mensah, feel so close to Ghanaian family members that they call themselves Ghanaian first.  “One hundred percent Ghanaian,” Mensah put it. 

He came to Togo to be with his grandmother when he was six years old and he speaks minimal English, but his father remains in Accra and he visits him whenever he is in town on business.  According to Mensah, the border is no added impediment to divided families.

“The Ewe themselves are divided,” he said in French, “border or not.”  Cultural divisions are stronger than a rope barrier, but even they cannot fully keep the Ewe separated from one another.

As Ho’s Stool Father Effiam Akpah explained, “We are not a divided people.  Even if artificial barriers are removed, they [Togolese Ewe] are our kinsmen.” 

Despite this, he and many others interviewed by The Statesman would like to see a more porous border for the Ewe for the sake of Ewe and family unity.