Africa 2006

Benin’s de-facto capital, Cotonou, (the official capital is Porto Novo) is a perfect example of a sub-Saharan African capital getting too big for its britches. It’s grown significantly over the past decades, and there is plenty of pollution, garbage, and unemployment to show for it. But most visitors to the country need to spend at least a day here – visas issued at the border are only valid for 48 hours and need to be renewed at Cotonou’s Directorate of Immigration.

Fortunately, having two passports comes in handy in situations like avoiding spending extra time in boring cities: I deposited the Canadian one at the bureau of immigration, and my UK one at the Ghanaian Embassy, where, after much discussion (apparently you now need confirmed hotel reservations before a visa can be issued!) and nit-picking, the stern official was won over by the fact that I said I lived in Iceland purely “for love”.

And so after a day in the capital I was off again, this time 120 kilometres north in a shared taxi (two in front plus the driver, four in back, as usual) to the town of Abomey, site of the ancient royal kingdom of Dahomey. (en route receiving a record three marriage proposals by noon – my average has probably only been one a day; perhaps it was my freshly washed shirt…?)

At my guesthouse, Chez Monique, I quickly met a group of volunteers from Switzerland and the US who were in town for two weeks to work on an orphanage which they had funded. Would I be willing to help them paint walls for a day, they asked?

And so after an afternoon of touring the old castle (where the tomb of one of the Kings has been made of walls lined with the blood of human sacrifices!) I spent my remaining moments in Abomey at the orphanage Peuple du Monde.

The three-storey building houses 120 orphans, and, despite constant improvements, still does not have electricity, running water, or enough mosquito nets for the children. It is thought that up to a third of them are HIV positive, although it was only on this visit that the group was finally able to make arrangements to have every child tested and to have a pediatrician visit regularly.

I spent my time painting the walls of the kitchen and two bathrooms – the smell receded once the first coat of paint had been put on. It was stiflingly hot and the sweat was pouring off my nose and into my eyes. – But at least now my husband will not be able to say that I can’t paint properly!

And that’s a lot more worthwhile that an afternoon at a museum.

PS: The orphanage could use a lot of help - and from what I saw, the people working on it, both locally and foreign, are putting a lot of heart and soul into the effort. For more information, visit their detailed website: www.peupledumonde.org

Burkina Faso means “Land of the Honourable”, accordng to my guidebook. So, for this honourable nation, here are my top ten favourite experiences:

1. The relaxed atmosphere - even the customs agent had to climb back on the bus to find me because he had forgotten to charge me for the visa!
2. An image of a young boy in in unbuttoned fuscia shirt doing a cartwheel down a dirt side street in Ouagadougou: everyone has somethng to be happy about
3. Finally buying a great souvenir for G, after extensive hunting.
4. Auberge La Pierredot and its delightful owners.
5. The pastries - pain au raisin and apple turnover - at a little patisserie in Ouagadougou.
6. Negotiating over the price of silver spoons at the SIAO fair.
7. Visiting the Ecole Christ-Roi
8. Visiting the mayor’s number 2 for great meal and great company
9. Feeding the huge ugly sacred fish at Dafra near Bobo-Dioulasso.

 OK, this is only nine things - not that Burkina wasn’t worthy of more, but I forgot a number when I wrote this down!

COMING UP: I have a small hassle getting the Ghana visa, get three marriage proposals in one morning (a record!) and agree to volunteer at an orphanage in Abomey.  Don’t touch that dial…

I arrived early in Ouidah, Benin after an uneventful shared taxi from Togo. I was the only guest at the Hotel Oasis in the centre. After settling in, I collected a few things and left the room to find some lunch.

There was a group of people loitering around a restaurant at the hotel - “Ici, madame!” they gestured to the restaurant, obviously crowded forsome function. There was a police officer guarding the entrance; even he was inviting me in.

And that is how I crashed the gala lunch commemorating the investiture of the Supreme Chief of Vadoun Religion,the Daagbo (Majesty) TOMADJLEHOUKPON II METOGBOKANDJI.

There I sat during a great three-course meal (with free beer!!) and chatted about this new supreme leader. One of the guests at the table,an engineer named Rodrigue, invitedto accompany me tovisit the supreme leader the next day.

There was lots of singing and dancing in the supreme leader’s compound the next evening. The man himself was seated in a largish receiving room, with plenty of well-wishers surrounding him, as well as an (empty) bottle of whisky.

Rodrigue introduces me as “an adventurer” (which, as spmeone who is too scared to ride a bicycle, I find ironic) who was going to write about the trip.

So the supreme leader invited me to come and have a chat with him in a smaller receptionroom.

He asked me what I thought of Benin and I said I was fortunate to have had the chance to meet him on this auspicious occasion. “Yes, you are,” he replied (!).

Then he asked for my email address so I could have a little correspondance with the “King”.

My first brush with royalty …

PS - I did other things in Ouidah besides mingle with the high classes; visited the sacred temple of pythons (where I gotmy photo taken with a huge python around my neck) and saw various sites associatedwith the slave trade - most of the slaves from this region were sent to Brazil and the Caribbean.

PPS: I will write a more interesting,”proper” version of this story later, with better descriptions ofthe dancing, but the internet cafe where i am writing has a horrible keyboard so further work will haveto wait! 

All’s well that ends well. But, boy was it a long day… (and, strangely enough, another one involving public transport).
My next stop from Burkina Faso is Benin, but it’s a 1100 km journey from Ouaga to the de facto capital, Cotonou, on the coast, about a 20-hour bus ride. In my quest to avoid having to take public transport at night, I came up with a cunning plan: take the bus as far as Natitingou, a large town in the north of Benin, and then continue on early the next morning to Cotonou. Flawless.
So I called and reserved my ticket for NATITINGOU. Then I arrived at the station and purchased the reserved ticket for NATITINGOU. Then I put my bag in the bus storage, clearly marked with masking tape for NATITINGOU. I showed my ticket for NATITINGOU at the door of the bus, and again to the conductor when the journey started.
And then 2-1/2 hours into the trip the chauffeur announced he was going to Togo.
I wasn’t the only one heading for Benin (although the only one for the north). Everyone else for Cotonou, who would now add at least three hours to their 20 odd hour journey and would have to cross another border (and maybe pay other “taxes”) was pretty pissed off.
I was given another option: the chauffeur told me I could disembark at the small Burkinabe village where we were and that another “bus” would be along “any minute” which would take me to Natitingou, in fact probably “even faster” than the initial estimates. Yeah.
So of course I continued on to Lome, Togo’s capital. So much for the plan to avoid driving late at night.
The journey continued with no problems, and it’s only really when we started the daily “race against the sunset” that I started to get nervous:
1) Who knew Togo has hilly parts? All along I’ve been taking these journeys in the comfort of knowing that if the driver did fall asleep or run over a donkey, we’d just careen off into a nearby millet field. Here the picture postcard scenery meant lots more big trees and, as the sun showed us tantalizingly before slipping away, lots of hairpin bends in the road and steep drops. I hoped the hills would end before the sun.
2) After a brief supper stop (tinned sardines squished on a baguette for me), we stopped briefly just down the road where a big discussion ensued with some youths at the side of the road. Turns out they were our mercenaries and the chauffeur was negotiating their fee to accompany us on the bus, in order to protect us from possible bandits at roadblocks – that’s when I noticed the machine guns slung over the shoulders of these kids. In the end, a suitable price wasn’t reached and the youths stayed on the road – I wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but there was really no time to dwell on the threat of armed robbery because I began to realize that….
3) The driver must have been exhausted. He had been driving straight since 7am (and anticipated arrival time in Cotonou was at least 4am) and everyone else on the bus was sound asleep (except me – rigidly looking out the window).
But we arrived safe and sound in Lome at 1am. Then I had to face a throng of taxi men who saw the lone foreign face get off the bus. I agreed a price with one and followed him to what turned out to be an unmarked taxi. Then his “friend” jumped in with him – for “security” I was told. They told me my hotel was 15 km away outside of town.
Although they seemed friendly enough, I was thinking I should ditch and get another ride, but I babbled to them about how I knew the owner of the hotel and he was waiting up for me to arrive and would already be expecting me. And my instincts felt that they were legit people and the “security” was to protect them against rogue clients. A police officer who stopped us at a checkpoint soon afterwards and confirmed the distance of the hotel made me feel even better.
And when I finally arrived at 2am, the taxi drivers really wanted to wake up the owner to confirm that I really had been deposited safely! For the first time in my life, I actually paid them more than I had initially promised – and even threw in a couple of those little Canada flag pins as bonus.
That was the last time (well, never say never…) I’ll be taking mammoth transport like that on this trip. Even better, the hotel where I’m staying has a pool, so it’s all good. And that’s where I’m going right now….

In addition to the school visit, I was fortunate to attend another event in Ouaga: the SIAO festival is held over a 10-day period every two years and is the largest handicrafts festival in Africa. Room after room is filled with handicrafts of all varieties – I could visit the continent under one roof. I enjoyed the bargaining process very much here – and at one point agreed to up my offer for some Tuareg spoons if they could name the capital of Iceland (a cunning bargaining tool I will have to keep up my sleeve for the future, since no one ever knows the answer to this).
Patrick bought me a beautiful cotton Burkinabe coat of arms here as a gift (of course I am the one who should be giving gifts because he was so hospitable – but that’s how generous everyone in Africa seems to be). He also took me to visit his home and his family in a neighbourhood across town – he spends one hour each day commuting on his motorcycle.
Thanks to a contact of Patrick’s, I was also invited to an afternoon meal at the house of M. Kabore, the Number Two to the Mayor of the district in which the school is located. (The district has about 400,000 people, and he really liked it when I told him that was bigger than all of Iceland and therefore it was a similar rank to Vice-President of Iceland – if that position existed).
Monsieur Kabore has been helpful regarding dealings with the school. Patrick and I visited his home in Ouaga where his delightful wife prepared traditional to (like a white starchy polenta) with beef sauce, and roasted chicken pieces. At the beginning of it all, my host even came out with a bottle of very sweet sparkling wine! Such a treat!
We were also privileged to be in the company of the chief of this quarter of town, a man given the authority to mediate disputes and to be a sort of moral leader in the community. He has three wives (but is Catholic) and ten children.
In the 10 square metre room (I’m guessing, but it wasn’t big) we dined on this fantastic food, chatting about our different countries and drinking tea cups of the champagne.
In the end my host made an eloquent speech to me, saying that he hoped we could stay in touch and that people who helped the school like me (although I don’t feel I’ve done much yet!) did so not because we have the means, but because we think people should share in life. I was touched.
Then he presented me with a beautifully wrapped gift of some Burkinabe cloth.
Yet another unforgettable evening.

Before I left on this trip I made plans to visit two organizations I had been put in touch with through contacts. One of these is the Ecole Christ Roi, a private (and non religious, despite its name) primary school in Ouagadougou (pronounced WAGAdougou), Burkina Faso’s beautifully named capital city.
The school was founded by Patrick Nitiema, a local teacher. It expanded after the involvement of a group from the Netherlands who have established a charity to support the school. The low sandy coloured brick building in one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods now has six classrooms which accommodate over 200 students in Grades 1 to 6.
Patrick, a soft-spoken and earnest man of 38, took me took the school last week to meet the students and the teachers and the visit has been one of the highlights of my trip.
The students of Ecole Christ Roi may just be the politest I have encountered. Each time I entered one of the classrooms they all stood to attention and recited “Bonjour, Madame” in perfect unison. With each presentation of a little gift, they would even bow or curtsy a little and say merci.
The oldest class has six pupils and I asked each what they wanted to be when they grew up. Their answers were varied – doctor, businessperson, priest, police officer, journalist (this by the lone female student) – and with the same childhood aspirations that everyone has at this age. I hope they all have the opportunity to realize those dreams, but I don’t know how realistic that is.
I will only do this once more on this blog, which is just little travel ditties rather than social commentary, but for this entry I would like to point out a few things: as a privately funded institution, the students of Ecole Christ Roi are expected to pay some tuition, which covers the running of the school, including the teachers’ salaries. Normally, this is equivalent to 91 Euros per month, but at the moment the school is only able to pay them half of this. There are only two toilets (holes in the ground) for the over 200 students, and they hope to construct a set of latrines as well as expand the building. Like the rest of the neighbourhood, there is no plumbing or electricity.

The foundation which has been established in the Netherlands has set up a program of sponsoring a child at the school. A donation of 100 Euros will cover the costs of the child’s tuition and books, as well as make a contribution to the teachers’ salaries. The child will write letters a few times a year to go over his or her progress.
If anyone is interested in sponsoring a child at this school (note to the Icelanders: this is about the cost of one hair cut with highlights), please contact Mieke Rietveld at g-m(dot)rietveld(at)planet(dot)nl. It would help a lot.