Africa 2006

There’s nothing like an evening with politicians…

After my one day of labour in Abomey, I headed (via a “quick” stop in Cotonou to collect the passports) to the village of Possotome, home of Benin’s mineral water, for a day of relaxation by Lake Aheme at Chez Theo, an auberge which someone had recommended.

While the day was quite pleasant, relaxing was probably not the best word for it, since the auberge was hosting a conference for the day with representatives from the mayor’s offices of four different Beninese cities. (In fact, the auberge had no rooms left, but the owner cleaned out his own room for me to use! – I have no idea where he slept, but at least 50% of the conference delegates assured me that if there was a problem, I could sleep in their rooms in the “extra beds”..)

A lot of the day was at the restaurant Les Yovettes (Yovo being the local word for a white person), sitting on stilts on the Lake. In the evening, the conference delegates invited me to dine with them, as they indulged in the local schnapps, a palm wine / vodka combo concoction from a long thin blue bottle. The German man who organized the day wryly assured me that the men were as rowdy with the palm wine as they were during the day’s meetings.

They were all very excited to talk to someone who was going to write articles about Benin (despite my emphasis that Iceland is a miniscule country and was not going to make them famous).

Conversation at the delicious dinner of spicy fish and pork, as it often seems to, centrered on why I was not travelling with my husband. Are you really married, they would ask. Show us your ring, they would demand cheerfully.

After convincing them that I was indeed married, then they would try a different tactic: ‘You know, if you spend long enough in Africa, you’ll fall in love with an African man. It’s unavoidable.”

Or from the other direction: “Of course you know your husband is seeing lots of different women when you’re away. It’s just normal.”

I explained that it wasn’t always “just normal”.

And then my favourite: “Well, your husband will definitely be seeing other people while you’re gone because I saw it on a European TV show on TV5 once.”

Well, who am I to argue with television?