Blogs from South, Benin, Africa

alive and well in cotonou! a whole hell of a lot has gone on since moving into kpovie. firstly, this is a french keyboard so expect many spelling errors. secondly, there is no electricity or running water in kpovie which means i quite awesomely go get water from a well and carry it back to my house on my head. not going to lie, it took me a good 2 weeks to actually be successful and not spill water everywhere. the first few weeks were pretty difficult especially being completely cut off from everyone back home. my homologue and i are both citygirls so village life and all the rules set in place by SYTO benin were a lot to deal with. there was a lot of not adapting, some yelling, a minor mental breakdown, and ... read more

HI ALL I'm in AFRICA. It's 28 degrees celsuis and the SUN is beautiful (ok it's night right now, but ... yknow... it's winter where y'all are right now. Sucks to be you?) Arrived in Cotonou 3 a.m Saturay morning convinced it was Sunday morning. The plane got delayed and detoured to Marseille France making an already super long journey 6 hours longer. But, the all in all went pretty well considering. So Cotonou. Firstly, I am very much loving the city. It's nice to see people out and hear cars go by and just listen to the hum of citylife. We're staying at Cotdiam which is a... religious... housing.... unit? of some sort. They host a lot of weddings and SYTO doesn't feed us very well. :( The food here so far has hardly been ... read more

Soft sand with crashing waves and coconut trees blowing in the breeze. The more you travel Africa the more mixed your emotions become. Sure you feel sorry for them but than you feel like its time for them to take ownership for their problems. Yes the western world requested slaves but how did they get them? And how did those slaves come to such a tranquil place? I arrived in Cotonou Benin’s capital not that impressed. Unlike Lome in Togo the capital here is a block or two from the beach. So instead of the pollution of the cheap Chinese motorbikes and other fumes escaping along the coast. There is no escape. No sea breeze from the low rise buildings. In fact my first claustrophobic thought was ‘Oh no this is not how I’m going to ... read more

Cotonou, the 'safest city in Africa', was quite dull. Miles and Sally ate a pizza and were strolling towards the hotel when Sally's bag was snatched. Miles bolted after the thief at slightly less than top speed, down narrow dark alleys, leaping across drainage ditches, vaulting fences, and kicking a dog in the head. Cowboy boots were not made for running, nor was Miles. He casually wondered about the abandoned Sally, whether he would see or hear of himself again and pounded stupidly on, thief still in sight. The robber entered a house. Miles followed, bursting into a simple sitting room where a family watched TV, no thief in sight. Miles, huge and white, stood panting, then spun on his Cuban heel and exited wordlessly. In a candlelit night Mileset he laughed guiltily at the remnants ... read more

Monday June 14: Ghana This day was awesome! Spent most of it outside at a Botanical garden, Dr. Opoku’s farm, and also went to an Herbal Medicine Center. We went from Accra (which is a large city) to the mountains (and I can’t remember the name of where we went to). The mountains were beautiful and made me feel right at home. The first stop up the mountain was the Herbal Medicine center where they have found many natural ways to help people. Some of the main issues they are currently working on are Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Typhoid, and some issues present in Africa and around the world. We were also able to purchase some of the herbal remedies if we wanted to; so I bought a natural painkiller, so we will see how that works. ... read more

Wednesday June 16: Benin We left the beach in Ouidah to go to Cotonu, with some stops along the way. We started at the Door of No Return, which was one of the last stops for the enslaved to be taken to the New World. There was a memorial set up to represent the last stop of the Slave Trail in West Africa. We continued along the road, which was the Slave trail, and saw many statues that had been put up as part of the Dahomey Kingdom and the religion of Voodoo. The next stop was at the Dahomey Kingdom and the palace that still exists today from it. The Kings would build their own palace right beside the previous Kings palace. It was interesting to see how Benin functioned before colonialism began. We then ... read more

I was we would say in Ghana...I have gone and come. Rachel and I left to go to Benin on Wednesday. I'd like to say we got up bright and early but considering we were up in moving before the sun...we just got up early. We hoped on a bus bound for Aflao, the border crossing point to go into Togo and of course got the bus without air conditioning, hooray!! But we did see an old woman who looked exactly like E.T. which basically made my day... Unlike my last time going through Togo, crossing in this time was pretty easy, thanks in part to the fact that we bought our visas ahead of time. Needless to say, I was a bit relieved not to have to deal with threats to my physical safety or ... read more