We woke up excited to explore the spiritis, skulls, and city views, and all the things to do in Lomé, Togo.
Breakfast at Hotel 2 Février was excellent, very much on par with our Indian room-service salvation the night before. After the previous day of salt villages, Vodun ceremonies, border paperwork, and spicy biryani, I woke up thinking maybe Lomé was going to be kind to us. We had slept well. The room was comfortable. The hotel was modern and calm. Downstairs, breakfast was abundant. I should have known this was the travel equivalent of a horror movie opening with birds singing.
We started the morning in Lomé with the Independence Monument, which our room had looked down on from above. From the hotel, the monument had seemed almost orderly — a geometric circle in the middle of the city, with roads curving around it and Lomé stretching outward in hazy layers. Up close, it felt more symbolic, more deliberate. Togo gained independence from France on April 27, 1960, and the monument commemorates that break from colonial rule; Togo’s tourism office describes its imagery as a man breaking the chains of domination and a woman holding the flame of independence.
It was a fitting place to begin a day that would become obsessed with borders, documents, authority, and the occasionally theoretical nature of freedom of movement. Nothing makes you think about sovereignty quite like being told by a man with a stamp that your perfectly valid paperwork is still somehow missing something.
But first: the fetish market.
We headed to the Akodessawa Fetish Market, one of Lomé’s most famous and confronting sites. The Togolese Ministry of Tourism says the market was founded in 1946 and later established in Akodessawa, in eastern Lomé, to meet demand for traditional medicine and ritual objects connected to Vodun practice. That official description sounds tidy. The reality was…not tidy.
There were dead animals (and smells!) everywhere, so we had to get over that real quick. Skulls, skins, dried birds, heads, bones, horns, tails, powders, bundles, and objects I could not identify and did not particularly want to identify. Our local guide told us most of the animals had been found dead in the bush and then brought to the market to be used in Vodun ceremonies. We nodded politely, as one does when receiving an explanation that feels perhaps a little too convenient. I am not saying it was untrue. I am saying my eyebrows had questions.
It was a difficult place to process. On one hand, markets like Akodessawa are part of a living religious and medicinal tradition that outsiders often misunderstand or sensationalize. On the other hand, standing in front of piles of animal remains is not exactly a soft cultural landing. It was fascinating, uncomfortable, and visually overwhelming — which is, honestly, a pretty accurate summary of many travel experiences that end up staying with you.
We looked at masks and wares for sale, trying to balance curiosity with the quiet question of what we actually wanted to bring into our home. Eventually we were led behind the main market to meet with a Vodun shaman. He told us a little about Vodun and sat near a fetish idol with a face that looked like it knew several things about me and disapproved of all of them.
Then we asked to have our fortunes told.
I went first. Brendan and I each had our readings done individually, though we were allowed to stay together.
My reading apparently required soap — special soap, naturally — to help make the good premonition come true and ward off attacks.I am always impressed by how often spiritual protection, across cultures, ends with the opportunity to purchase a product. The price to purchase this special soap was several hundred dollars in local currency. We had a good laugh when I clarifyied whether it was “soap” or “soup” (through the translations, I wasn’t sure if I put it on me or whether it was for drinking). When I asked this question in English the shaman laughed, so we knew his English was actually pretty good.
Then Brendan went.
He asked if he had children. He said no.
He asked if he wanted children. He said no.
He asked if Brendan’s parents wanted him to have to children. He said no.
There was a pause. A double take. A visible disturbance in the cosmic order. They asked again, clearly assuming something had been lost in translation. Brendan again said no, and I watched with quiet amusement as this answer appeared to break several internal systems at once. You could almost see them thinking: Surely this man does not understand the question. Surely all humans want children. Surely the spirits did not prepare us for this level of American stubbornness. There was only one direction the shaman wanting to take this conversation – to provide spiritual aid to help with fertility – which is not something either one of us wanted. We basically broke him with our counter-culture choices.
The shaman eventually pivoted to other areas and gave Brendan a tiny seed or rock that he was supposed to spray with perfume. Between my soap and Brendan’s perfume rock, we were apparently one invoice away from becoming fully spiritually accessorized.
The problem was the price. The shaman wanted a lot of money for the soap and rock. We negotiated him down to around $30, which felt ridiculous for what, to our untrained and admittedly skeptical eyes, looked like soap and a tiny object of unclear origin. So we walked away. May the spirits forgive our budget discipline. The shaman left us with a bit of disdain maybe sadness, not quite a curse, but a look of “you’ll be sorry.” Writing this blog a year and a half later, I can confidently say we are still not sorry.
With the pictures of the shell readings for each of us, I consulted ChatGPT for the direct meanings. Even though this information is passed down through generations and supposedly not available unless you are selected into this spiritual role in a West African community, I assumed there still would be plenty of information out there on the interwebs. Here’s what it had to say, with a caveat first.
One caveat before summarizing: identifying the exact Odu from a photograph of an Opele cast is inherently uncertain. In a traditional consultation, the diviner knows the orientation of the chain, the order of the cast, and often confirms the result through recitation and follow-up questions. So the summaries below are based on the patterns you’ve reconstructed and, just as importantly, the themes your Bokonon actually emphasized during the consultation.
CJ
Chandra’s reading emphasized conflict, opposition, and protection. The diviner’s message was that there may be people who are jealous, competitive, or attempting to undermine her progress or take from what she has built. The advice was not to become consumed by conflict, but to be discerning about whom she trusts, protect her interests, and avoid unnecessary confrontations. The overall tone was ultimately encouraging: while obstacles and adversaries may exist, they do not determine the outcome. Through patience, wisdom, and maintaining her integrity, she is expected to overcome them rather than be defeated by them.
Brendan
Brendan’s reading centered on legacy rather than literal children. Given that he does not want and cannot have biological children, the diviner’s message is best understood as referring to what he leaves behind—his work, influence, reputation, and the lives he impacts. The reading suggests he is entering a period where the choices he makes will have long-lasting effects, and he should intentionally build something that outlives him, whether through leadership, mentorship, creative work, or service. It also implies that his ancestors or spiritual path are encouraging him to think beyond immediate success and toward enduring significance.
Interestingly, the two readings complement each other. Brendan’s focuses on what he is building for the future, while Chandra’s focuses on protecting what is being built. Whether or not the exact Odu identifications are perfect, those overarching themes align well with the messages you remember the Bokonon delivering during the ceremony.
Back in the market, we did eventually buy an authentic Vodun mask from the region. From a design perspective, it wasn’t our absolute favorite, but the masks we liked more were from other places, like Nigeria, and we may someday make it there. So we chose the one connected to where we actually were, which felt more meaningful.
As we left, our local guide hassled us for more money for taking photos. Typical. Annoying. Also apparently universal. Nothing says “thank you for visiting our sacred cultural marketplace” quite like a surprise photography fee shakedown on the way out.
From there we headed into a local market in Lomé. After the intensity of the fetish market, the regular market felt both more familiar and equally exhausting — color, fabric, voices, bodies moving in every direction, vendors calling, piles of goods, the humid air thick with dust and motion. We bought some soft fabric to have made into shirts in Ghana, and also picked up African fishing-net shower sponges, the long exfoliating nets we had first seen in Banjul. Practical souvenirs are my love language.
By then, between the fetish market and the regular market, we were sensory-sapped. There are only so many sights, smells, sounds, negotiations, and surprise fees a person can absorb before the brain starts quietly placing itself in airplane mode.
And then we headed for the border. Along the way we enjoyed many interesting things on the road and some more street food – this time we sampled koliko, which consists of thick chunks of fresh African yam (igname) fried until golden brown. It was not as good as the fried peanut butter.
Leaving Togo wasn’t too bad, and overall Togo was pretty good. This was the last easy sentence of the day.