Why a Booktrail?
1950s/1960s: We liked the sound of this ‘cultural exchange’. What makes a teenager in Togo head off to Greenland of all places?
An African In Greenland
What you need to know before your trail
Tété-Michel Kpomassie was your average teenager in Togo hanging out with his friends and living life when he discovered a book about a far away land, a cold one, covered in ice – very very different to the humid heat and dry desert of Africa.
So, he spent the next ten years or so working his way north and then finally arriving in the country of his dreams. His wonderful adventure in the land of ice has just begun for what happens next is the stuff only of novels….surely.
Travel Guide
Out of all the travel books and travelogues we’ve read, we’ve never come across one where an African boy travels West instead of a westerner travelling East. From the humid heat of African desert, from Togo right to the heart of the coldest place on earth? Now that is a travelling premise that will really get you excited.
In order to get to Greenland and to fulfill his dream of living with the Eskimoes, the journeys through Ghana, Senegal, France, Germany and Denmark in order to raise the money to go. This is an adventure in itself and a lot of credit has to go to a young man who had the determination and the strength to do this – an adventure in itself!
But it’s Greenland which shines – as he arrives there – one of the first African men to do so at that time. He lands at the most southwestern tip of the island and then journeys up the western coast which sees him being invited into many homes and meeting lots of new people. The colour of his skin making him an instant celebrity but his warm heart, wit and humour making him a lasting one
“As soon as they saw me, all talking stopped. So intense was the silence, you could have heard a gnat in flight”
So just how does an African find Greenland? What does he make of the people, its food, the cold, the transportation, the religion? Thule in the North West was his ultimate destination but the rest of the country was his home for a while he didn’t want to rush the experience
As he plans to leave –
“Now that I had been sharing these people’s lives for sixteen months, their food no longer disgusted me, and I thought nothing of eating a breakfast of seal fat and dried intestines every morning . . .
The best example of one man adapting to the culture and the lifestyle of another county we’ve ever seen
Where Next?
