As I sat down in the bar, her eyes lit up. I tried my best to ignore her, but I could feel the stare even with my head turned. Then she started pacing around, circling me like a shark circles his prey.
When I crossed the border into Togo, a German doctor who was also crossing leaned over and said to me, “Togo is a fun place. Just avoid the prostitutes. They all have AIDS.”
I chuckled and thanked him and he repeated, “I make no judgments. I just have to warn you.”
Alrighty then…
It was late and at the Hotel 2 Fevrier all the restaurants were closed. But the bar was still open. I was hungry and went downstairs for a late supper.
And then she appeared.
Wearing a blue dress and high heels, we briefly made eye contact as I sat down. She smiled at me. I just turned the other way and sat with my back to her.
I ordered dinner and sat there, working on my computer.
She started circling me like a shark.
She’d walk around the table, wink at me, blow me a kiss, and just stop and stare. Even when she was behind me I could hear her heels clanking on the stone floor.
As you might imagine, this was quite uncomfortable. I did not come down to the bar looking for anything more than dinner. I felt like the young man in Proverbs 7.
Of course I could have turned and told her to scram, but she had a perfect right to be in the bar as well (I suppose…that was a little dodgy too).
So I did the next best thing. I used FaceTime on my laptop to call my business partner.
And in my best impression of Albert from The Birdcage, I greeted my partner:
“Hi sweetheart. I missed you so much today. How are you?”
With a snort, the woman muttered something in French and walked right out of the bar and out of the hotel.
Mission accomplished, girlfriend.
This story is part of my An African Adventure As The World Shut Down trip report.
Why didn’t you offer to buy her milk and cereal?
Funny. Your blog posts are starting to sound like a Mickey Spillane novel lately 🙂
She was so impatient. After all, there is such thing as being bi, which you could have been. But the German doctor is right. The Guardian (UK) estimates that 6% of the population in Togo is HIV positive (about 470,000 people), higher if not counting small children and elderly. 5,000 people die of AIDS in Togo each year. This compares with Washington state, which has a similar population and 14,000 that are HIV+.
Besides, Mrs. Matthew wouldn’t like it.
That lady must be well known to the bar because she is probably there often and then leaves with a man sometimes.
I would be wary of anti-gay violence so I wouldn’t pretend to be gay for fun. Instead, when leaving, I would give the woman a half smile and quickly walk away. Of course, that half smile might invite pests, like the man in South Africa who wanted Matthew to buy him headphones and food. (see Matthew’s earlier column one or two weeks ago)
Oh, maybe I made a mistaken assumption. Matthew’s business partner could be a woman (or a woman who looks like a woman but identifies as a man). Or could be a man that looks like a man and self identifies as a man.
In any case, another nice article about Togo!
For the record, my point was certainly not to poke fun at gay people, but to most effectively get rid of the pest. I love Albert (Nathan Lane)!
Only for those that hadn’t seen the original French/Italian film, La Cages aux Folles, with Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault ( itself based on the Jean Poiret play of the same name). It was genuinely funny, unlike the Williams/Lane/Hackman pale pink…largely laughless…imitation.
Largely laughless? I better see the original because I laugh just thinking about the Birdcage
Hilarious! I guess her French reply didn’t include the words “ménage a trois”
Reminds me of the time 40 years ago when I was in a mid-range/dicey Togo hotel *with my girlfriend* and at 11 pm there’s a knock on the door, and there in the one-lightbulb corridor is the manager who asks in French, “Monsieur, do you need a woman?”
I’m just wondering if the one in my case worked for the hotel!
At the 2 Fevrier, I really doubt it. But there is for sure some “arrangement” between her and the manager(s) for some form of compensation (either in-kind or financial), if you get my drift.
You have to be kidding me this is news or worthy of posting or is a preview of 2021?
I just thought it was a funny story that happened during my trip. I sincerely hope to have no repeat encounters in 2021!
It was funny. Keep up the good work.
Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
And call understanding your nearest kin,
That they may keep you from the immoral woman,
From the seductress who flatters with her words.
You really showed her.
Wow, amazing job! Now if only I could come up with something nearly as clever for when I don’t have my laptop handy.
I am beginning to think you are narcissistic.
*are a slight narcissist.
Call me out every time you see it! It is a not a good character trait.
“I chucked and thanked him…”. I think you meant ‘chuckled’, but then….
In Australian vernacular ‘chuck’ means ‘vomit’, aka technicolor yawn, pavement pizza, chunder.
It’s possible in this context..
I wish I could claim credit for effectively using Australian vernacular, but Adil is correct…just a spelling error.
‘Technicolour yawn’ is a new one for me!
To really turn the table, you should have offered your award booking services to her.
+1 for this comment.
Used her miles for a really poor value economy redemption with high taxes. Would have had egg all over her face
Love this
LOL.
Priceless!
You could have said you were only interested in “Dine-in”, not “To-go”.
If you ever need, @JoeChivas and I know a porn star/escort that is a miles junkie and often available for your “needs.” While she mostly lurks at OMAAT, I am sure she could be converted with proper encouragement.
I had a similar experience in Kigali at the Hotel des Milles Collines (yes the notorious Hotel Rwanda). I wasn’t interested at all and eventually she went away but a friend later told me he thinks those women have a boss (pimp?) who keeps an eye on them in the hotel lobby area and literally tells them which men to target…. so they at least have to try. Just providing a different perspective.
You are right and many times the manager at the hotel gets something if she gets a client. This happens all over Asia. I’ve stayed in several 5 star hotels in Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.. and as soon as you seat at a hotel bar they start to surround you. I have a funny story when in the Philippines and a co-worker decided to have a chat with one of these girls. We were having drinks at the hotel bar with another colleague from work who was local. My co-worker was already a bit drunk and the conversation was getting a bit more intense when the waiter came to my colleague who was local and said something to him. He immediately started to wave his arms to our friend who was talking to the prostitute to warn him she was not a real girl and if he ended up taking her to his room he would have a surprise. LOL!!!! He finally got rid of her (him).
I have much to teach you,little grasshopper. The fastest way to get rid of an unwanted person making a pass is by stating you’re unemployed living with your mother. 🙂
The Abuja Sheraton poolside has them in droves. You learn to hire one to sit at the table next to you to keep the others away.
The hotel most certainly is involved. Go to the concierge desk at any top end hotel in West Africa and ask to see “the book”. Pretty much all of them will have a catalogue of high end escorts available with a range of language skills, skin tones, etc.. Lots of airline crew do this as a side gig to make some extra cash. A colleague of mine was quite embarrassed once to find his flight attendant on a domestic Nigeria flight to have been his paid companion a few months earlier!
You didn’t ask if she took plastic. Maybe there was a points bonus that week.
I’ve been a fan of Live and Let’s Fly for many years… until today. As a Million Miler I travel extensively too. My job as President of JOY International takes me around the world searching for children, teens and young women… just like the one in your story. I search for those who are trafficked and forced into commercial sexual exploitation. While you call her a prostitute, I would imagine she’s probably being prostituted for the profit of a pimp or who knows? She is someone’s daughter or sister or a desperate mother who has been placed into this desperate situation of selling her body for a myriad of reasons. She may be ravaged by men who pay to rape her multiple times each night and the night you saw her probably cried herself to sleep due to the sexual abuses forced upon her. If you’d rally like the whole story of what happens to many of these precious young women I’d be happy to send you a free copy of my book The Least of these. My friend, it’s no laughing matter when so many are being held in bondage and forced into this lifestyle.
Appreciate your comment. You’re free to send me the book and I will read it. I will only note that this wasn’t a teenager…she must have have been in her 40s. That may not change your analysis, but this didn’t seem to me anything like the poor women in Thailand or the Philippines that throw themselves at you and sadly look like children.
You are just another guy telling women what to do with their bodies.
You also assume you know the purposes for this woman’s turn to prostitution. If she is the age Mr. Klint says, then maybe she is doing this because of her own free will. Maybe she likes sex and men. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It could be any of a thousand reasons.
Prostitution causes less damage to the world than religion but is far more regulated.
That said, trafficking of minors or sex slaves is unconscionable and the laws against these abuses would be easier to enforce if prostitution were legalized, regulated and taxed like any business.
Religion, like sex, should be practiced ONLY by one or more consenting ADULTS. Anything else is abuse.
You could have said you only wanted “Dine in”, not “To go”.
As a gay man I take no offense to this. Well played Sir.