Yikpa-Au Village

About Yikpa
Yikpa -as you can see in the picture above- is a small village located in a lush valley not far from Adeta and thus Kpalime. Its location in the middle of mountains and its great landscape and waterfalls makes it a touristic attraction explaining well the meaning of the name Yikpa: “If you go there you wouldn’t want to leave”. You take a taxi from Kpalime to Adeta then another taxi from Adeta and you’re in Yikpa right at the border with Ghana.

Yikpa -comme vous pouvez le voir dans la photo ci-dessus- est un petit village situe dans une vallee verdoyante pas loin d’Adeta et de Kpalime. Sa situation geographique bien au mileu de montagnes, son paysage et ses cascades font de Yikpa une attraction touristique. D’ou l’explication du nom Yikpa: “Si tu y vas, tu n’aimerais plus quitter”. Si tu prend un taxi de Kpalime a Adeta puis un autre taxi d’Adeta tu arriveras a Yikpa juste sur la frontiere avec le Ghana.

Yikpa is one of the Ewe Villages created after all the EWE fled the harsh and wicked chief Agokoli in the Notse kingdom. All the kingdom was surrounded by a big and strong wall in order to prevent any one from fleeing the authority of the chief. But the EWE managed to escape the kingdom. They started pouring their used waters against the wall day after day until that part of the wall became weak and they could break through and escape. They escaped walking backward to confuse Agokoli’s soldiers who would try to follow their step marks and catch them. They were then able to get away. As they were walking some decided to stay at the location they loved and they settled there while the others kept on walking until they at their turn found a convenient area to settle. The people from Yikpa kept walking until they probably found the location called KESEBAME (the valley of the monkeys. Maybe there were a lot of monkeys in that valley at the time.) and settled there. When the Ashanti kingdom located in the central part of the actual GHANA declared war trying to conquer territories, they tried to conquer EWE territories. The people from Yikpa fled to hide in the valley surrounded by mountains where Yikpa actually is. After the Ashanti war, they liked their new place and their fetish also told them to stay at that location. And they stayed where Yikpa actually is, a beautiful place with great landscape and amazing views, “the place where you go and never want to leave”(Yikpa).
Agbessi

The creation of Yikpa Dafo

At some time in the history of Yikpa there were only two Yikpas: Yikpa-Dzigbe where the Chief is located and Yikpa-Anyigbe. At some time in late 1900 s, there were problems and disputes between two groups of families in Yikpa Anyigbe. As my mom told me, her family was one of the ones that taught they were being mistreated by the other group. Her family(DUMENU) and the other friend families decided to move and create a new and better village for themselves and where they will feel in peace. At the time she was just a young teenage girl. There’s a tradition of moving houses in Yikpa which consists of holding the top of the house with strong sticks tied up to it and with a lot of people move the whole top of the house until they reached the new location. There they will only have to build new wall under the top and then have a new strong house. It was a team effort and all the strong young people of the village were called by the chief to participate in such moving. They all helped do this kind of moving. My mom told me that she and her sisters, brothers, friends along with my grand father Vincent Dumenu and other families proceeded that way to move the houses they had at Yikpa-Anyigbe to their new location which they called Dafo which in EWE means “we are out of that”. She told me that as they were moving they were singing “Miawo mi de afo le eme, Miawo mi de afo le eme” ( We are out of that we are out of there).
That was the birth of Yikpa-Dafor where today are the police station and border control officers and the Yikpa market. There she told me her brother Pascal Apelete Dumenu was the first baby to be born in Yikpa-Dafor. My uncle Pascal is now between 35 and 40 years old and my mom is 56. It means Yikpa Dafor is only four decades old.
(To be continued)
Agbessi

DETIEDE, la fete qui unit les trois Yikpas!

DETIEDE literalement traduit veut dire “le palmier qui porte comme fruit d’autres palmiers”.
C’est le nom de cette fete annuelle qui reunit les trois villages de Yikpa (Yikpa-Dzigbe, Yikpa-Anyigbe et Yikpa-Dafo) toutes les annees dans un de ces villages. Cette fete a ete nomme apres un palmier qui portait d’autres palmiers!! miraculeux n’est-ce pas? Et bien ce palmier se trouve ou se trouvait quelque part entre les villages de Dzigbe et Anyigbe. Je me rappelle quand j’etais petit et que cette fete rassemblait tous les ressortissants de Yikpa pendant les grandes vacances, on allait tous visiter ce palmier miraculeux et c’etait vraiment une grande fete. Chaque annee l’un des trois villages et ses ressortissants preparent et organisent cette celebration a tour de role. C’etait l’occasion pour tous de retrouver, pour les gens qui vivent a Yikpa de retrouver leurs freres et soeurs qui vivent dans les villes et autres villages du Togo et du Ghana et aussi pour ces ressortissants des trois villages de Yikpa de se connaitre entre eux et de se rejouir ensemble et de discuter de l’avenir de Yikpa et de comment faire pour developer Yikpa. Pour nous les enfants et les jeunes, c’etait bien l’occasion de nous rejouir dans notre village natal la ou sont ne nos parents et grand-parents. A un certain moment cette fete avait cesse pour des problemes dans le comite organisateur. Mais il y a quelques annees, je pense a partir des annees 2000, les gens de Yikpa se sont encore reuni et ont renoue avec la tradition de cette fete. C’est la celebration de la riche culture, de la tradition, et de l’union des trois villages de Yikpa. Desormais c’est dans les conges de Paques que cette fete est desormais celebre. D’habitude le village qui a le tour forme un comite organisateur qui s’occupe de l’organisation, et quelques jours avant le jour de fete se passe une reunionde development pour jauger les idees et petits projets de developement pour Yikpa. Ensuite le jour de fete meme (d’habitude le jour de Paques) c’est la rejouissance populaire et le lendemain le lundi de Paques c’est le jour de la cascade. Tous vont se rejouir et se baigner dans a l’une des cascades de Yikpa, celle de Akpalabo, celle de Agumatsatodzi, ou celle de Agumatsa du cote de Wli (Ghana).
Agbessi

Laura Wendell and the Library of Yikpa

In the 1990’s American Peace Corps sent a girl named Laura to this village in the middle of mountains to help the villagers build fish ponds since the village had a lot of rivers around it. After helping couple people build fishponds, she found that the real need of people of Yikpa didn’t seem to be fish ponds butbooks. Books to help its young population get a good and stronger education, books to help the non-alphabetized adult population get an education, books to help develop Yikpa. She decided with the help of the Peace Corps and her contacts and the help of the people of yikpa to build a Library. The boutique of Norbert Adewuho was first the place where the books mostly written in French were placed. I remember I was 14 and was in 9th grade and me and my family went to Yikpa because there was a long general strike in all Togo at the time. Laura launched a reading contest which I loved and will never forget because it strengthen my ability and desire to read. The first 5 young students who would have read the most books were going to get a prize. Each time you get a book from Fo Norbert he would mark down the date and the title of the book you rented and when you brought it back he would make sure you really read it by asking you pertinent questions about the contents of the book after you made him an oral resume. There was really no way you could not read the books. I rented a lot of books annd really enjoyed reading them. I read books of 500 pages in three days partly because the books were interesting and also because there was not much to do in Yikpa at the time apart from going to farm some specific days of the week . Each day of the week was named. There was “Agble te gbe” (first day of farm), Agble vea gbe (second day of farm), agble susoe gbe(last day of farm), then there was “Afene vigbe”(first day of rest) and “Afene gagbe” (big day or second day of rest) and so on.
The end of the contest was when Laura was getting ready to leave Yikpa. There was a big gathering with a lot of celebrations. All the village was gathered on the primary school’s compound. It was a big day for us because Laura who had already become a member of our community was going to leave and also it was the day of the results and prizes of the reading contest. I was so happy to be called at the fifth place of the reading contest. I received prizes which I kept for a long time.
Later on they built athe library and put the books on shelves in it. It was wonderful. This library is really a great heritage Laura left us in Yikpa. It’s part of Yikpa and Yikpa’s history.
Agbessi

My thoughts about Yikpa
As I was growing up and started reading a lot of books I was about 11. I started to analyze nature and see its amazing and marvellous things. One thing that struck about mother nature was the location of my native village Yikpa. First I thought what the hell would have brought my ancestors to settle in a place surrounded by mountains where it first was hard to get to by car until the 20th century and where one might think there’s not enough land for farming. Then I stopped one day in the middle of the street in Yikpa and looked around and comtemplated the tall montains and the beautiful grasses and the big trees and I thought uuh! This is so beautiful.
In 1992, I’ve got to spend more than six months in Yikpa during the long general strike of Togo. I then had the chance to climb the montains around Yikpa going to farms and also for fun. I was amazed by the beauty of the places.
I then visited the cascade Agumatsa somewhere between Yikpa and Wli village of Ghana. It was wonderful. Me and my brother and some friends swore that every Easter monday as it became a custom for a lot of people in Yikpa to be going to the Agumatsa Cascade to contemplate not only the great waterfall but also sit down and get inspired by the passing water.
I’ve sometimes caught myself thinking “May be when I get some chance later in my life I could get some organizations to help build little motels in Yikpa where Tourists could stay and enjoy the wonders of Yikpa for couple days: the two or three waterfalls, its many rivers, its numerous fruits like bananas, banana plantains, oranges, mangos, pineapples, “goyaves”, and a lot of others, traditional palm wine, locally made hard liquor called “Sodabi”, its great foods, its rivers, … and of course its great people !” (To be continued)

Agbessi “Spartacus”

Mes pensees sur Yikpa (version francaise de my thoughts about yikpa)

Alors que je grandissais et que j’avais 11 ans, j’avais commence a reflechir a propos de Yikpa apres l’avoir visite pendant quelques vacances. A premiere vue je me suis demande ce qui a vraiment pu amener nos ancetres a se localiser et a choisir d’habiter un lieu si montagneux et un peu isole. Mais lorsque j’ai commence a faire un peu plus attention a ce qui entoure mon village, je me rendu a l’evidence que c’etait au contraire une benediction et un atout de vivre dans un lieu si pittoresque. Ces grandes montagnes et ces grands arbres qui entourent Yikpa constituent en fait une beaute inouie. Ces cascades et ces rivieres si rafraichissantes que nous possedons sont pour nous en fait une benediction de la mere Nature. Ces bananiers, ces orangiers, ces ananas, ces manguiers qui nous entourent et ces autres nombreux fruits que l’on peut savourer a longueur de journee sous l’ombre rafraichissante des arbres ombrageux, sans oublier bien sur le peuple hospitalier et courtois dont Yikpa regorge font a coup sur du village un lieu ou l’on aimerait etre. Parfois meme je me suis surpris en train de penser ” Peut-etre qu’un jour quand j’aurai grandi et que j’en aurai la possibilite, moi et les amis nous pourrions amener des organisations a nous aider a construire des motels ou pourraient venir habiter le innombrables touristes qui feront sans doute epanouir le village.” (a suivre)
Agbessi “Spartacus”