Voodoo People - 13/02/07

The border crossing between Togo and Benin was surprisingly easy; the only problem we had was that the Immigration official on the Benin side was more concerned with buying a bag of tomatoes from a vendor and constantly interrupted her long list of questions to barter for a good price.  She was amiable enough however and once the bureaucracy was fulfilled we were free to go.

All I knew about Benin before was that is the home of voodoo, which was taken to Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean by slaves.  It comes from the word ‘vodun’ which means ‘the hidden’ or ‘the mystery’ but over the years a sinister spin has been added by filmmakers and cheap novelists!  For many Beninese and Togolese it is a part of everyday life and lacks any evil side.  There is a system of gods and lesser spirits.  The juju men (priests) are consulted for their supernatural ability to converse with the supreme powers which often results in a sacrifice, mostly inanimate but sometimes a living creature such as a goat or chicken.  As well The Benin government also damaged voodoo.  The previous Marxist administration led by Kerekou outlawed the practise as it did not fit with their socialist ethic.  Since democracy in 1989  it has been permitted and in 1996 voodoo was formally recognised as a religion in Benin.  It took me a while to figure why there were so many scarecrows in the street, then I realised, they are voodoo dolls.  This was the only real evidence of voodoo in Grand Popo but our next destination in Benin, Ouidah, was in important place in the history of both voodoo and slavery.  We walked the ‘Route des Enclaves’ (Slave Road) in the heat of the day, a 4km walk from the town to the beach, where the ships would be waiting.  Along the way are various voodoo statues and monuments.  At the end is an ugly, but well) meant, memorial.  Walking back to town we stopped en-route to chat with some friendly shop owners.  Back in town we visited the museum but it was disappointing, just a collection of faded photos and broken artefacts that may or may not have been connected to Benin, voodoo or slavery.  I have also developed an allergy to Beninese embroidery, which is reminiscent of primary school sewing lessons, large pieces of garishly coloured cloth, using bright pink to signify French people and black for Beninese, all done very simplistically and childlike.

Fetish market, Ouidah

In the Market in Ouidah are many stalls selling fetishes.  A fetish is an object or potion that supposedly holds a spirits power.  Think of it as a voodoo chemist.  The juju man writes a prescription and the buyer takes it to the market.  It could be anything from a birds wing to a snakes head or just some grasses, all often combined with some sort of ‘perfume’.  Even in voodoo however photography is taboo, to photograph a stall cost me a dollar.

Our next stop in Benin was Porto Novo, the capital city.  It is an administrative city with nice buildings and friendly people.  There is another museum; the museum of Ethnography, marginally better than in Ouidah it showed the history of Benin through a display separated into birth, life and death.  My favourite feature of Porto Novo is the brightly coloured mosque next to the market.  It used to be Portuguese church until it was converted.  The market itself is very relaxed and we even managed to photograph the mosque without any complaints.  There are people selling cold drinks and tasty fish paste baguettes and there are FanMilk vendors everywhere.  They cycle around every town in Benin and Togo, selling sachets of delicious frozen natural yoghurt.  One of my favourite images is of the bikes lined up outside the depot, filling up with their icy treats. Later in the evening we bought a whole chicken, barbecued ad covered in a spicy marinade, which we ate with bread.  On a night when Benin played Senegal at football, France played Argentina and England lost against Spain, Benin TV showed Egypt with Sweden.  Classic logic.  Good game though, Egypt won 2-0, doing something England have not managed for over 36 years.

Mosque, Porto Novo

Whilst Porto Novo is the official capital of Benin, Cotonou is by far the biggest city, the financial centre, and working capital in every other way.  Cotonou however is ugly, crowded and chaotic, dirty and disgusting, hot, dusty and humid.  One of the worst cities I have ever visited, like a combination of the danger of Managua, the traffic, crowds and humidity of Manila and the stench, dirt, heat and dust of Madras.  We had to pass through on the way to Porto Novo and again as we left.  We entered over the ‘new bridge’ and gazing along the banks of the Lagune de Cotonou we saw piles of rubbish burning next to the slums over-spilling from the central market.  Unfortunately I did not dare brandish my camera to record this sight.  It took a short stroll to find a taxi but soon we were heading north through the city to the port of Abomey-Calavi.

Abomey-Calavi is the port for pirogue rides to Ganvie, the famous stilt village.  It is probably the most famous tourism site in Benin, and it showed..  There are fixed prices, based on the number of passengers, for the pirogues and tourists are not allowed on the local boats. This might act as a protection, there is no danger of any trouble if you get your camera out on a tourist pirogue, other than the risk of it overturning, and with all of our gear on board I was slightly nervous throughout the trip.  We shared our boat with a slightly strange Spanish woman, Martha, as it made it cheaper for her not to be a single passenger.

Ganvie

Whilst the village and surrounding lake were very pretty and most people friendly, many of the children were shouting “donnez moi un cadeau” (“give me a gift”).  If I ever caught a tourist giving a gift I would push him off the boat!  People don’t seem to realise the damage this behaviour causes.  Some countries, such as Indonesia, have worked hard to eradicate and prevent this kind of behaviour and I hope other countries follow their lead.  There are ways to help people but blindly throwing money, sweets and coins is not the way. 

Ganvie

We left Abomey-Calavi and headed to Abomey.  Along the way an almighty storm erupted, the first rain we have felt in Africa.  Abomey is Benins UNESCO Heritage site, a restored palace transformed into a museum of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey and 14 other sites of ruined palaces and temples around the town.  After the museum we walked around the town looking for these sites and found none, only some ruins that we hoped were genuine but were probably the ruins of some poorly built mid-20^th Century housing.  We were slightly disappointed because if it is UNESCO you expect something more, perhaps our map was totally inaccurate!

Abomey ruins?

From Abomey we began a long haul journey up towards the Burkina Faso border, final destination Ouagadougou.  We were not sure how long it would take.  Predictably I woke up in the morning with my stomach churning like a washing machine, perfect timing!  12km from Abomey lies Bohicon, on the main North-South highway.  Here we, eventually, found the bus station and watched as five buses heading North all pulled in at the same time.  In a scene reminiscent of Trainspotting I dreamt of a pristine bathroom, I will leave you to imagine the reality of a toilet in a bus station in Benin.  The bus trip was long, hot and stuffy, in the heat of the day it became unbearable.  We did make it to Nattitingou however and once there realised the bus was going closer to the border:  We stopped in Tanguieta where some touts tried to get us on motorbikes to the border for a vastly inflated fare, even finding a posh woman who spoke perfect English, carrying some important letters to tell us of armed bandits and other tales.  We left them and walked north out of town to Hotel Baobab.  It is a nice place, the rooms are all faux mud huts.  They are cramped and airless however, inferior to the real thing.  There was no food nearby so we had to eat at the hotel, it is horrible, being forced to eat steak and chips! Monika settled for the other option, chicken and cous-cous.  We were joined for dinner by Alex, a French guy who came to Africa by car from France with his dog, Alto.  He left the car in Mali and is now carrying the dog on the back of a motorbike.  He wants to take a ship from Cotonou to India.  He did not seem to know how to do it, nor even where he would get an Indian visa enroute but he was determined and we wished him luck.