Jessamyjoy's travel blogs:
- Senegal 2007
- Two months translating, interpreting and... 2005
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"The Last..."
Entry 32 of 33 | show all | print this entry |
Independence Day. My last day in Benin. I wake up awake again. It could be optimism due to excitement about going home, my body adapting to the drug or...well, it's optimism. I didn't feel that great but I had a big day ahead of me. The guest house here in Cotonou is empty except for Lilian and Judith, on vacation from the hospital in Bembéréké, but they're in a separate apartment so it feels deserted and strange. I stopped by their place a few times today to ask variously if they knew where a moto helmet was, had any idea where to find the action and if they could make change. They were mostly helpful but had no idea about what might be going on or where and the guard at the gate couldn't offer much either. So with more courage than I might have if it weren't my last day but enough recovering from being sick wisdom, I decided to start slow and walk to the beach. It wasn't far and the rushing of the waves crashing on the shore joined the rushing of my ears. Huh. Spare the energy of walking all the way to the water or finding a shell to raise to their ear...if someone else wants to hear the ocean when I come home, they can raise my ear to their ear! It was deserted but for a cluster of cross-legged Qu'ranic School students dressed in brilliant white, sitting listening to their bellowing tutor. The sand was soft and the big buildings of Cotonou in the hazy distance seemed strange after seeing nothing but lush trees and lumpy peanut fields and huts with unhurried herders swatting their cattle along the narrow roads. I had to see what temperature the water was. The waves were frothy and I wondered how wet I'd have to get to reach past the foam to the actual water which was the color of hot chocolate before you decide it does need that last heaping tablespoon. Not far, I played the inevitable game of walking proudly and curiously toward the thundering vast ocean and then giggling and shuffling back, careful not to hold my skirt up as high as I would at the beach in Carmel as the waves chased me away. I considered sitting and listening to the ocean, pretending it was just the ocean making that sound. But the sand was wet, I'd heard stories about people getting ganged up on and well, I was recovering from malaria after all. Best to go home and rest.
But at home the excitement of the day wouldn't let me settle in so I grabbed the dusty old moto helmet and set out walking for a bigger road where I could flag a zemijahn. Didn't take long. They all slow down and look at any white person longingly, as if not only are we made of money but we're lazy and incapable of walking like everyone else. If I had a hundred francs for every time I said no to a zemi driver today, I'd have a few thousand francs. It being the national holiday and this being a huge city with horrible traffic, I did wear the ridiculous helmet, even though it was a bit big. Mind you, in the end, if there were ever a day not to wear a helmet in Cotonou, it was today. The streets were fairly deserted. I told my zemi driver I wanted to see the military parade and after he named 300 and I stuck at 200 francs (I'm getting good! Saved me a whopping twenty cents on that one), he zipped away.
Minutes later he dropped me on a crowded dirt side street where people were packed in, tip-toeing and straining to see. I wasn't confident he'd picked the best vantage point, but decided from here I would walk. I have to insert that I hadn't seen another white person since I left Fiona in Parakou yesterday. So as usual people gave me second takes left and right, but I plucked myself up as if I'd lived her all along and pushed through the first couple layers of crowd. A woman greeted me and let me take her place, to which the man in front of her turned and in a language I couldn't understand except for "white skin" told her (I imagine), "What does this white chick need to see for?" I actually laughed out loud. We all tiptoed and leaned and craned our necks...really, as far as I could tell, the best anyone could make out from there were the impressively shiny silver helmets and the blue shoulders of whoever it was marching by. I figured, well, maybe you never see more than this, might as well just enjoy it like everyone else is. An intermittent cool breeze felt like kisses from heaven and made me wonder if I was the only one dripping sweat. I looked around. Nope. Far from it. Just wondering. I was enjoying being smashed in with everyone else, thinking to myself, now if I were at home, someone would surely have horrible BO and this would be much less pleasant. I guess it helps that whole lack of personal space thing if people don't stink. Deep thoughts by Jessamy Loyd. Someone pulled my hair. At first I decided not to look because I honestly thought it was just someone else wanting to touch a "yovo" (no longer the "baturé" of elsewhere). Then I thought, maybe it's just because my hair is down and frizzing all over and we're 10 in the same square foot of space. I ignored it. Until I tried to move and they pulled hard! What in the...I turned. The nice lady hadn't noticed that my hair was caught in her watch on the underneath of her crossed arms! Yes, pardon.
After what must have been only 15-20 minutes, some cops came our way and started giving instructions in a language I didn't recognize. Why he didn't speak French to a crowd I don't know, because there must have been several other languages represented. I turned to realize the car we were packed around was a police car. People had set up stools and were standing on motorcycle seats and were generally packed like sardines around the thing. They didn't seem to appreciate whatever the guy was saying and some people shouted out and gestured to the passing parade that were all clearly so keen on seeing. A couple minutes passed while the cop conferred with a differently dressed official of some kind and then a small wall of cops started walking toward us. I'll just let you all imagine what's running through my head. Okay, I confess, thinking of the hundred thousand warnings I was given before I left home, it did occur to me that I should make wise decisions and not get myself into anything just to make the whole trip "authentic" in some real or imagined way. Mostly though, I was inwardly really curious to see what was about to go down. I knew the cops didn't want to leave and no one was on the car or bothering it. We were just like everyone else, calmly watching the march.
All of sudden, a ripple shot through the crowd and we were roughly jostled to the side, each of us having no way to keep himself upright but not yet needing it since we had each other. I felt elbows and bums pushing around me and did my own share of smashing the ridiculous helmet into my fellow sardines. We looked around, confused. Someone in the front was resisting something or other, totally uncalled for. The police were literally tapping their plastic shields with their batons and pushing us back! I wished I had been shouting, "Free Tibet!" or at least, "Down with the French!" (it being the celebration of independence from their colonialism obviously) to have earned this treatment. But no. They were pushing and pushing. They could see perfectly well we had absolutely nowhere to go. I've never been so close to anyone in my life, let alone a hundred strangers. The guy in front of me smashed my toes under his shoe-why did he not wear flip flops like everyone else? Then a surge pushed me back but my foot was caught. I let myself lean and be pushed with the crowd, jerked my foot free. I saw a little head sneaking between our legs and had a flash of him getting trampled as we adults struggled to maintain our footing so yelled, "Attention à l'enfant!" to which the nice lady looked down and gave the kid a hand. For what must have been three minutes we were herded, barely scooting our feet along, no air passing between any of our bodies as we shifted to fill every centimeter of space in attempt to find somewhere to go. But there was nowhere to go and I waited with baited breath the moment when we'd collapse side-ways in a giant heap. The surging of the crowd pulsated with the surging in my ears. Then, just as suddenly as it began, there was a break and we all had room. I decided to go. How I wanted to stay.
I walked over a block and tried another viewing place. Not any better. Went another block. Still no luck. Saw some white Red Cross volunteers and some white tourists. Didn't say hi. It's not like I know them! I was starting to think about lunch so I wandered into a bakery and bought some snacks. As I was leaving, I saw a big cluster of flags and followed it to the best view I'd had yet where the guy next to me shared the camaraderie of not being able to see. Now I was really Béninoise! We were watching Scouts march by with the most serious faces. Unfortunately, since I'd as yet really seen next to nothing and it was hot and I could see Dorothé in a bubble above my head telling me to go home and rest, I decided to.
I knew that I'd eat lunch, try to sleep, weigh my stuffed bags one last time, wander out to buy some bread for peanut butter and jelly and wait for Darrin to come take me to the airport at 8 PM four hours early for the whole rigmarole. There would, in theory, be nothing else exciting to report or see. I had seen the beach and the "défilé". I had seen "the bush" and taken a "bush taxi". I had almost survived malaria (that almost meaning that today's the last day of my treatment-not that I died obviously). I had eaten "bouillie" and "igname" and mysterious other stuff. It had all been wonderful. But it was time to go home. I flagged a zemi and said to myself, "The last time I take a zemi."
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