Current Status: Research for my ISP has been going fairly well thus far, keep your fingers crossed that it keeps moving along smoothly. I have two days less than three weeks left to finish my research, write up 20 plus pages on my findings, print, and bind three copies. I know it seems managable, but if I have bad luck with my research, I'm pretty much screwed because I need at least a week and a half to write.... this is boring. Who cares? I don't even care all that much.
On to more exciting things!
Benin!
It took quite a while to get to Benin, even though Togo takes, at most, an hour to cross. We had to be processed out of Ghana, into Togo, out of Togo, and into Benin (and again, backwards, on our way back). Like I said, it took a while. Once we arrived, though, it was a very good, and strange, experience.
The first thing we did was change money into CFA, the currency used in African francophone countries. Nordia used the ATM, and was baffled as to exactly how much money she had withdrawn when she withdreww 10,000 CFA. For awhile we thought it was 4 dollars, but it actually turned out to be roughly 20 USD. I certainly felt rich carrying around 5,000 dollar bills, but less so when a coke cost 300 of those dollars. Sigh.
4 of us changed money at a bank, and the other three went to a forex bureau afterwards. Sitting outside the forex bureau, my eyes wandered to the shop next door and spotted the word "boulongerie" next to the word "patisserie" (I'm not exactly sure how those words are actually spelled...), and my heart started to beat a little faster. "Guys! Let's go! There's a boulongerie right here!" My companions looked at me a little oddly, and one wondered if it had anything to do with loungerie. I tried to explain the type of heaven that resides in French bread and pastries, and failed, but excited my friends enough that I was not the first one off the bus. Bliss, hunger, and a love for all things French filled me with an odd peace as I stared at the cheese croissants, brioche, and chocolate cakes. Speaking French in Benin felt a little odd, but made me happy. A strange battle began to be fought within me: Hate for colonialism against my love for French culture. Unfortunately my hate for colonialism won out in the end. Benin, or at least the town of Cotonou, was very developed and cosmopolitan. The French idea of colonization was this- if one abandonned their own culture and adopted French culture then they were French, and could even become part of the French government. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, this system was incredibly destructive to local cultures and only the very very tiny elite benefited- and not even that much. If you remember those riots in Paris a couple years back, they were caused by tensions created because many people and much of the government was referring to people of colonial descent as immigrants, when many have really have been in France for generations. If someone from an African francophone country wants to visit France, they must obtain a visa first. And, in order to obtain a visa, they must be able to prove that they have a certain, fairly sizeable, amount of money in their bank account first. So who has French colonialism really helped? I'm not saying that the French have done all bad things (nor am I trying to say that Britain did a comparably credible job, either) but I am of the opinion that they could have done much more and in a better way... if they really had to colonize in the first place. But, feel free to let me know your thoughts concerning this issue. I am still far too ignorant to feel I can say all that much, I can only go off of what I have seen and the stories I've been told by those I've met.
The next day we visited a Portugeuse fort, a sacred forest, the Temple of Pythons, and traveled the Slave Route to the sea. The fort is the only European fort left standing in the Ouidah area. At one point the French, Portugeuse, Dutch, Danes, and British all had forts there used to trade slaves, amongst other goods. Have I mentioned why we even went to Benin in the first place? Well, Ghana used to be called the Gold Coast because they exported so much gold, and the Ivory Coast was the same, and Benin used to be known as the Slave Coast. So, on this trip focused on the history of forced migration Benin provides a wider look at the subject and its own tales of resistance. The Slave Route began at the market where slaves were purchased (called Place ChaCha, it's located in front of the house of a Portugeuse merchant that they called ChaCha because he did everything quickly and "cha cha" means "to hurry" in the local language- interestingly enough, a descendant of this merchant is now the first lady of Benin... I think ChaCha had a few local wives), then the slaves were kept in the various forts, then taken to the Tree of Forgetting (a tree that the King of Abomey had a voodoo priest perform some rights on so that when the men circled it 9 times and the women 7 they would forget where they came from- salt water, though, undoes things like this, and thus explains how voodoo survived to the New World), then the Dark Room (where salves were kept for a few days before the trip in order to weaken them further), then the mass grave (where those deemed not strong enough to make the journey were left), then the Tree of Return (that all circled 3 times so that, even in death, their spirit would return to their homeland... a nice sentiment, I suppose, but there's that whole salt water thing that was overlooked...), then to the sea (a giant gate of No Return monument now stands at the water's edge). It was a sobering journey, but necessary. None of these places actually remain, there are only monuments in the spots where they once stood.
The Sacred Forest and the Temple of Pythons are both linked with the Voodoo religion. The forest has statues representing Voodoo gods (such as the god of twins and mutated children, and the god of smallpox) and two trees with divine stories. One is said to be a king- that the king did not die, but rather became a tree. The second was chopped down, but the man who did the act lost his mind, and later on it was discovered that the tree had stood itself back up. The Temple of Pythons has a house used for divining, a small god in a tree, an orb that represents all the people of ouidah, and a temple of pythons. There's an incredible amount of snakes in this place. The attendants brought one out, and 5 of the 6 who had ventured inside put it around our necks for pictures. Talk about feeling like we were commodifying their culture! Buuuuut... I have a pretty sweet picture series... I hope the python gods forgive me. Directly across from the temple was a catholic church- we were told by a couple guides that people in Benin often practice Voodoo and Catholicism 50/50- church in the morning, and voodoo rites by night. It made me wonder how Jesus feels about pythons...
Day 4 consisted of 3 lectures and a trip to a village built on stilts called Ganvier. The lectures were all about Benin, one was particularly interesting- it was about the female warriors of Dahomey, or the Amazons, that were the special warriors of the King. Woot- Girl power!
The trip to Ganvier was the most uncomfortable experience probably thus far in my trip. Ganvier was built in the middle of the 18th century in an effort to escape the slave raiders. The people of this tribe knew that the King of Abomey's slave raiders had a taboo on water and were not allwed to cross it. The people knew that a village on water would be an effective way to escape capture. This, however, is not the story told to tourists. Our group got the real history from a professor that we took with us on the boat. The issue was that we took a motorized boat into this community of 30,000 people- all who use canoes. We loudly announced ourselves as foreigners, were brought to two hotels to buy things, and then taken out of town- the whole time adults were looking at us with contempt, or waving their hand in a circle indicating they did not want to be photographed, and the children persistently approached us with open palms. Afterwards we asked Uncle Eric why we couldn't visit the town elders and make it be known that we are NOT tourists, but students that want to learn, like we did in Gwollu and Sankana. He explained that the residents of Ganvier are hostile to outsiders since the government opened their village for tourism- well, no shit. We had a long group discussion where we firmly told Uncle Eric that while we agreed it was important to learn about Ganvier, if there was not a culturally appropriate way to visit the village that it should be skipped altogether. It was interesting to see, but not at the price of the damage we unintentionally did or at least maintained. Sigh.
The day after that was spent exploring Cotonou, the town where we were staying. The group went to an artisans center and the market, which is a crazy crazy place- it is larger than any market in Ghana, and incredibly overwhelming.
The next day we traveled, at the crack of dawn again, back to Cape Coast.
The End (...of the trip to Benin)!
Approximately 27 days left- my, how time flies!
Love you all and hope all is well!
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