{"id":1599,"date":"2010-04-29T13:51:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T12:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/?p=1599"},"modified":"2020-10-26T13:16:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T13:16:58","slug":"crossing-into-togo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/blog\/2010\/04\/29\/crossing-into-togo\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossing into Togo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chester from DHL Ghana is at the wheel, driving The Ball, Amazing, the DHL team and Andrew to the Togolese border. Unusually, we are permitted to film at the immigration station and all the way across the border. When you have government support in Africa, anything is possible. The Ball is stamped out of Ghana and then in gets its Togo visa.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ghanaian<\/a><\/span>Ghanaian customs officer heads and stamps The Ball<\/small><\/div>\n

The Ball breathes a massive sigh of relief through its air-hole and seems proud of its newest stamps. On the Togolese side a party is going on; they have been waiting for The Ball for over an hour. DHL Staff, Special Olympics volunteers, many dignitaries and an expectant crowd are awaiting us.<\/p>\n

\"Hey<\/a><\/span>Hey Ball, welcome to Togo<\/small><\/div>\n

We are caught up in the pandemonium; no one seems to know where to go. Traditional drummers and dancers, some on enormous stilts, accompany our delegation as we unveil The Ball in the DHL box to the crowd that has gathered.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/span>Dignitaries welcome The Ball<\/small><\/div>\n

The Ball’s police escort seems to know what to do. He recommends using white gloves to handle The Ball.<\/p>\n

\"Special<\/a><\/span>Police escort with The Ball<\/small><\/div>\n

We are piled into a waiting car and led by the police escort, riding a huge, expensive BMW motorbike, to meet the Minister of Sport who is the first to sign The Ball in Togo after a bullet header — he was surely a footballer!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chester from DHL Ghana is at the wheel, driving The Ball, Amazing, the DHL team and Andrew to the Togolese border. Unusually, we are permitted to film at the immigration station and all the way across the border. When you have government support in Africa, anything is possible. The Ball is stamped out of Ghana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,232,214],"tags":[44,73,133,83,132],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-ball","category-the-journey","category-togo-countries","tag-ambassador","tag-dhl","tag-lome","tag-press","tag-togo"],"geo":{"latitude":6.1377778000000002833758117049001157283782958984375,"longitude":1.212499999999999911182158029987476766109466552734375,"description":"Lome, Togo"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/04\/togo_arrival_002.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3345,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions\/3345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}