Benin!

The first thing I noticed about Benin was how clean and quiet it was. The airport was small, but it looked like an airport – uncomfortable chairs, overpriced gift shop, luggage carts. We called the hotel where we had intended to meet up, if I didn’t make it onto the plane and no one ever picked up (yet another reason we were insanely lucky). During our cab ride/tour of every hotel in Cotonou, we found out a few things about Beninese culture – the price is negotiable even after you’re in the car, their French is raspy, slurry and mumbly; and there just aren’t nearly as many people. When you’re in Cameroon, you always see people. They’re walking, selling, drinking; they’re on foot, on motos, in cars or even riding on mountains of plantains in the backs of trucks, but everywhere there are people.

We arrived at Hotel Nicolif (10,000/night). It was clean and had electricity, running water, a ceiling fan, a real shower, and even wifi.  It was already way nicer than any hotel we could afford in Cameroon and then there was this thing called customer service! The clerks at the front desk gave us advice on how to get various places and hotels to stay in when we arrived. They told us how much things should cost and areas we should avoid.

Beignets and bouilli - Notice how they're sterilizing the spoons?

Our first day in Cotonou, we laid in the hotel and recovered from the entirely avoidable stress of my ticket mishap. Now that I;m thinking about it, we spent most of our time in Cotonou relaxing. We went to grocery stores and ate ice cream and cashews galore. (Spending the better part of a year with the only choice being peanuts is enough to drive you nuts! Ba dum ch!)

We of course took in the sites, which we limited to Notre Dame des Apotres cathedral (handily located next to the grocery stores) and Vlisco pagne shop. Vlisco was incredible. It was the anthropologie of pagne shops. Most of the time a pagne shop consists of a shack with fabric draped on string, but Vlisco was a whole nother story. They had window displays with artfully draped pagnes on new mannequins. They had brushed nickel fixtures and a lighting scheme. The saleswomen wore black dresses with pagne accents. Sarah and I were dumbstruck. We weren’t sure how to act, so we ended up acting like we were in a library or an art museum – whispering and touching nothing. We did actually get our shit together enough to buy a few yards each. It is the most beautiful fabric you’ve ever seen in your life.

The best thing about Cotonou besides the ice cream, cashews and high class pagne is its proximity to everything – it’s within a few hours of Porto Novo, Ouidah, Abomey and Ganvié.

Ganvié is the “Venice of Africa.” It’s an entire village built on stilts in the middle of a lake. Brief history of southern Benin – There once was a kingdom called Dahomey populated by fierce warriors. They warred on all the neighboring tribes and would sell their prisoners to the Portugese in exchange for porcelain, liquour and cannons. (The going rate for one cannon was  41 very pretty young girls or 21 very strong young men.) Not surprisingly, the neighboring tribes did not like being killed or sold into slavery. Three men were looking for a way to escape the tribal wars, when they came upon a lake. One man, being particularly strong in Voudun, transformed himself into an egret to fly over the lake and look for land. He found an island, but the island already was the home for one man. The island man told the egret man that he had come to island to escape the wars. When the egret man said that he was trying to do the same, the island man invited him and all of his people to build in the lake and live in peace. The egret man then transformed into a crocodile and went to shore to ferry his people to safety. The crocodile is therefore sacred to the people of Ganvié, which means “safety together.”

Nowadays to get out to the city, you have two options – you can take a powerboat or a dugout canoe. Being tourists and not in a hurry, we opted for the canoe. On the way we learned how their fisheries work, where they get water and food, and how their market works. Everything except the houses is mobile. We saw a frip on a boat (thrift shop). We saw raw veggies on a boat. We saw braised fish on a boat.

We also got to see some terraforming. Like in our nation’s capitol, they built up the land by dumping their trash until it was tall enough to build on. Some people even had a little grass for their goats.

Weaving fabric on a loom

After our trip to Ganvié and after we picked up all our visas, we took a "petite voiture" (ride share) up to Abomey, the seat of the kings of Dahomey. We were able to see the homes for the spirits of the kings and some very cool reliefs. The spirit houses were built from bricks made of the blood of 41 enemy warriors, gold, liquor, pearls, cowry shells, coral and of course dirt. The reliefs on one of the palaces depicted the Dahomey warriors vanquishing their enemies and then torturing them. A few highlights include babies in the beaks of giant birds and someone being killed by dirt suppositories. Sadly, they did not allow photos. They had a wonderful artisan market with bronze jewelry and handmade cloth produced by the descendants of different kings.

Abomey had an interesting colonial history as well. As I said earlier, the Dahomey were slavers and they had a trade relationship with the Portuguese. It was apparently so friendly that the Portuguese had their own house within the kings' compound. The French had a decidedly less friendly relationship depicted in handmade quilts. The last king of Dahomey was deported to Martinique during the 20th century and some of his Amazon warriors were living into the 1970s.

On top of a tata somba in Natitingou

On our way north, we stopped at Savalou and stayed with a dozen Benin PCVs, who were putting on a camp. It was interesting to hear about their experiences. The coolest part of Savalou was that we went to a restaurant with multiple hand-washing stations! We just couldn't get over it.

Again on our way north, we stayed with 3 more PCVs in Natitingou. They treated us to a Mexican feast, banana cake with Nutella icing and gin and tonics. La vie de luxe! On our second night, we had guinea fowl with French fries on top of a 'tata somba' house. In the north of Benin and the east of Burkina Faso, they build two story houses. The bottom floor is to keep your animals at night and the top floor has individual bed rooms (see the little grass-roofed hut to the right) and graineries. It was so cool! And the fact that the traditional housing was two story went a long way to explain why there were a lot more multistory structures in Benin.

More on Burkina soon!

PS Thank you to "Father R. Cheek" for the wonderful care package! I look forward to meeting you in person in January!