Wednesday afternoon, July 31, Lome

Today was like travel-war, long periods of relaxation interrupted by an hour of chaos.
Togo has a strange provision for we tourists. You can get a visa at the border but it's only for seven days. You must renew it before the first week expires. Way to encourage tourism, Togo.
The renewal takes two visits to a distant building (a four dollar taxi ride). Yesterday I spent a half hour filling out a form and giving them my passport with two photos.
Today I returned in the afternoon to pick up the visa-stamped passport. I waited outside the building with about 75 other folks. The internet indicated that at some point the officials would begin reading off the names of visa holders. They would do it by country. After waiting for about an hour I got fidgety and started wandering around. Very soon I noticed a group of people in a semicircle near a walk to my left.
They were handing out the passports! I moved quickly to the spot and joined the riot. There were about  75 men and women of various sizes and ethnicities shoving and pushing to get near three police officers standing against a wall. A woman to my right had a baby on her shoulder. The kid was balling. Several groups of frustrated people were conversing in French, apparently trying to figure out the best strategy for getting close to the officers. The officers were shouting out names in heavily accented African-French. Every once in a while I'd understand a word.
"PAT TREEEK!"
"ERR EEEEN?"
90% of what I heard was unintelligible to this anglicized listener. I moved around the periphery of the mob to see if I could get closer to the cops. The roll call went on but only occasionally did anyone respond to one of the names. The number of supplicants barely diminished.
Gradually I elbowed my way closer. When I got within three layers of the officers I noticed that it wasn't enough to hear your name. Once your passport was found you still had to push your way to the front to a little table. On the table was a register. You were supposed to print and sign your name and write down your passport number. The whole process seemed impossible.
Suddenly two guys to my left began shouting at each other. They seemed ready to come to blows. The cops had difficulty mollifying them, but finally that eruption simmered down.
I despaired. For one thing all the passports were crimson. I saw nothing of the USA blue. There were hundreds of passports on the table all in rubberbanded piles.

Everyone wants their passport! This was after I'd gotten mine. 

Then one of the cops made eye contact with me. He asked me a question in French. I took a guess and said, "Etats Unis". He furrowed his brow and mumbled something. I said, "America!" This he understood. He said something else. A helpful guy in front of me translated:  "What's your name?" I told them. The cop shuffled through about 25 US passports and found mine.
Then he threw my passport near the register book amongst 50 others. I had made it to the second bureaucratic pile. I still had a long way to go.
I shoved and maneuvered close to the register, only to be pushed back by larger and more aggressive folks. But the crowd was thinning as people began signing the register. After about 15 minutes the third cop found my passport and gestured me to the front. I signed, and was gone.
Dictatorships don't always make the buses run on time, or develop rational ways to distribute visas.

I'm discipling myself to avoid the duty trap. Le Gallion is my kind of place, except for the creepy old French guys pawing at young African women downstairs. The weather is perfect, the trees provide some pleasant shade, the ocean breeze makes me happy. I'm determined to do nothing but read till I hear from my tour director later tonight. If all is well we'll head out tomorrow morning.