Oh my GOD this semester is over! But the adventure certainly did not end with exams! My mom and I just got back to Accra from the most outrageous trek through Togo and Benin. I can’t get over how every single country is so incredibly different in language, scenery, attitude, and food. And so easily accessible in comparison to international traveling from the US. All you have to do is spend a few hours on a crummy bus and you go into a completely different universe.
Our journey started out in Lome, the shore-side capital of Togo. My mom was absolutely delighted to be in the seemingly familiar realm of Franco-everything. Of course, as soon as you step the border, there are baguettes and French speakers. We crossed the border at night, which is always nerve-wracking on foot. These borders are just such a hassle! I can’t even fathom the amount of money I have spent on visas and all that nonsense. And with every embarkation and disembarkation, you have to fill our this extensive paper work (that you know is just going straight in the garbage can! Its all bureaucracy) At the Togo border, one of the passport agents actually asked my mom for her contact info (as many people do, its thought of more as an autograph...NOT) and RIPPED apart her visa paper work in order to write it down! Ha, of course.
The next day we went to a village on the coast called Aneho, which has a pretty amazing fetish market. Moving this far east of Ghana, you are really getting in voodoo territory. Historically, most of the slaves that were exported from this area were brought to Brazil and Haiti, which are well known for their inherited voodoo culture. It’s so funny how Hollywood has made voodoo seem so scary! After now having coming into closer contact with it, I can vouch for the fact that it is just like most other religions. You have an intermediary between yourself and God in order to pray for things. All the skulls, skins and stones are just this: intermediaries. Each item is thought to have certain symbolic properties and you use them according to the objective of your prayer. And most of the traditional prayers and rituals are for warding of evil spirits. It was really nice though; we got to talk to a very nice fetish priest who explained all the meanings.
From the very first day, the character of Togolese people seems to be very different. First of all, besides kids calling out “yavoe, yavoe” (the local term for white person), people just don’t approach you as much as they do in Ghana. Also, the corruption is by far more obvious. Driving along the main coastal road, every car is stopped in ten-minute intervals by cops who are expecting to receive something of an informal toll. Very uncomfortable and we always wondered if the drivers were charged more for having us whiteys in the car. This is not particularly surprising because Togo is considered to be pretty politically and socially unstable. Whatever that means, they did have a somewhat recent military coup that is still having an effect on the attitude of many people. It seemed to me that people were much more likely to take advantage of foreigners.
We learned this the HARD way when we went to the passport agency to extent visas (again with that nonsense) and our cab driver insisted that we owed him more money. Now I don’t know if I would say that my mother is generally a hot tempered woman, but I think that the emotional strain of just being on the road in Africa loosened her buttons…so to speak, lol. She actually screamed bloody murder at this cab driver, calling him a liar etc. I have additionally learned the hard way that you just don’t cause a scene like that in public because it makes people nervous and they tend to act extremely irrationally. That mob mentality just took over in the parking lot and before we knew it there were about 30 people, including cops, surrounding us and yelling at….my mother! It’s so characteristic because she was making the most noise; I think that people assumed she was the criminal. And they weren’t about to let justice slip into the hands of this apparently rich American. Of course we caved and gave the guy the extra money, but it was really scary because they were grabbing and her and her suitcase and making all sorts of ridiculous threats. Hopefully that was a lesson learned.
Needless to say, we were relieved to get the hell out of Togo, even if it was by way of yet another crummy car jammed with hella people in the back seat. We ended up jumping out of the car early in order to take a motorcycle taxi to the beautiful Gran Popo beach. It was so incredible. That sunset was one of the most stunning I have ever seen.
In a nearby town, Ouidah, we visited the local python temple, which essentially consists of a fetish prayer site and a room with a ton of pythons free for picture taking. We were lucky to have the python fetish priest’s sons as our guides. The role of the fetish priest is passed down from father to son and they are marked with two lines on each cheek, one on each temple and one on the forehead. You have to wonder whether or not they are really passionate about their position considering that they didn’t choose it. Aside from petting pythons and doing a fetish ritual, we had a most interesting debate with the guides. Upon hearing that we were American, we started discussion our upcoming elections. They were absolutely adamant that a black man would never become the president of the US, Their reasoning was that people were far too racists and that Bush’s power was too strong to allow it to happen. Frankly, it was pretty humiliating to realize yet again that this is how the rest of the world views us. As a bunch of racist fools. No matter how much I tried to convince them of the existence of a ‘movement’ years of exploitation by the white world rigidly defined their perspective. But I got their contact information on the pretense of getting in touch as soon as I would be able to say “I told you so!!” I hope we can prove them wrong!
SO on to Coutounou, the economic capital of Benin. It was really awesome to see this place because for as much as I define my self as a city gal! I really haven’t enjoyed the cities I have been in here. In contrast to the cities I love (a la New York of Paris) the cities here aren’t half as culturally vibrant as the rural areas. But Coutounou is poppin! And the people seem to be very intellectual and diverse. All those speeding moto-taxis also known as zemi-johns were also pretty fly. It’s funny how our standards for safety and sanitation have plummeted. Case in point, picture zooming around a city with no stop lights on a rickety moto with no helmet, cuddled up against the sweaty back of a stranger. MMM. It was too fun though.
From Coutounou, we went to the town of Ganvie, the city on stilts. This place is crazy. It’s a city of around 30,000 built on a lake. All the people get around in wooden pirogues and their houses are all on stilts. They ended up there as an escape from the Dahomey Empire during the 15th century (?). Once established, their bizarre location also allowed them to escape slave capturing. We woke up and went out on the pirogue at 5am and watched the fishermen go out and the market women who have themselves set up on the boats, working by candlelight. So incredible!
From there, we traveled on to Abomey, the former center of the Dahomey Empire. Despite a very bloody past, the kingdom provides the same kind of cultural inheritance as the Ashanti kingdom does in Ghana. There was a great museum that was made within the ruins of some of the last Dahomeyan kings, including a temple painted in human blood and a throne mounted on the human skulls of the king's enemies. Badass.
Up in the north of Benin we went to visit the Somba country. Their houses are constructed like small mud fortresses. Each room has a very specific meaning and function. For example, they keep the elders in the bottom floor along with the animals because that is seen as the room for beings that are soon to die. How interesting. The most fascinating aspect of this trek was seeing how the Somba people have become modernized as a result of contact with the Western world. They were allegedly not wearing clothing up until the 1970’s. As a result of this, they have gained the reputation of being that stereotype of the extremely primitive African society that so many tourists want to see. But they seem to be trying to portray the opposite now. I saw many women that were walking around topless and then seemed to cover up on account of my presence. They also have these elaborate tours through their houses that are genuinely but definitely feel like they are trying to prove something.
Interesting to note. So this picture with the guys standing outside the car with huge jugs of what looks like olive oil...This is actually the way that gasoline is sold/bought/traded. My mom and I took this shared taxi and after about 30 minutes of traveling, he stopped in order to sell the five jugs of gasoline that he had in the trunk..... we were traveling with enough gas to blow up a small building!!!! The guys buying the gas were handling the stuff like it was mineral water, putting their mouths on the tubes and everything. And the driver was so blase about it, that 'c'est comme ca' sensibility. At this point in the journey, however, we were less pissed that he had put our lives in danger and more delighted that we had the opportunity to take sweet pics of such an outrageous situation.
From the beginning, we decided that our ultimate goal of this journey was to see some daggone wild animals! For as many people that have asked about the giraffes and lions, I have not seen anything of the sort! (Although my neighborhood does seem like a goat farm at times) We FINALLY made it up to Penjari national park and saw some elephants, warthogs, monkeys, biches, etc. It was so fun to sit on the roof of our truck and search for these animals that were so damn elusive. The elephants were especially fun because their destruction was absolutely everywhere! They are so enormous; they just knock down trees wherever they go. I love them. It was such a sad scene to see this lonely elephant grazing all by himself because he had been rejected from the pack for being too old. OOooh so sad and so cute.
And the baboons. Hmmm. They certainly are not very afraid of humans. Although you are not allowed to feed the animals, there was this park guard feeding one of the pink-bottomed baboons. The problem is that when you start to give them food, they become so demanding for more! My mom goes into our car to get a mango….for herself!....while the baboon was near. And that baboon charged her! Haaaaa. What a funny scene! He jumps up at my mom and was grabbing at her for about ten seconds before she finally tossed the goods. Yet another lesson learned.
The adventures in Africa are absolutely endless. I don’t want to go home! But I know that adventures will await me anywhere I go as long as I make them happen. This was officially the last trek for now, but I have a feeling I’ll be back……!
