Ganvie, the Venice of West Africa, and more
Trip Start
Jun 02, 2003
1
5
41
Trip End
Dec 31, 2006
Lokossa,
Benin
Saturday, July 19, 2003
Many of you have responded to me, and I have loved getting your emails! Thanks for writing! A lot of you have asked about the people and the food, and I will try to write some more about that today. There is just so much to say! I have been trying to go chronologically and talk about things as they happen, but I may never catch up at that rate! You'll have to forgive me if things seem disjointed and random.
The Ganvie trip is definitely worth writing about, though, and I am going to begin with that. During our stay at Paul VI, we took a daytrip to the stilt cities. We all climbed into three long, covered boats and, after a few false starts of the motor and some tinkering around (the tinkering and restarting of the motor actually happened quite a bit during the trip--good thing our drivers seem to be pretty good mechanics as well), began to putter down a small river surrounded by beautiful, lush, green countryside
Down the River
. We passed by villages, and small children would run over to the bank to wave, show us their kung-fu moves (kung-fu and action movies are VERY popular in Benin), and practice their singing skills: "yovo, yovo, bonsoir! ca va bien? Merci!" This chanty song announces the arrival of white people everywhere around the south. It basically means "Whitey, whitey, good afternoon/evening [soir starts at noon here]! Are you doing well? Thank you!" Sometimes, especially when passing through the stilt villages, children would reach out their hands and call out "Cadeaux! Cadeaux!" (Gift! Gift!). The stilt villages are one of the more popular tourist sites in Benin, and many children have become accustomed to white tourists giving them candy or other presents when they pass through on their boats, according to our tour guide. This happens in other places in Benin, too.Eventually, we left the river and entered into a lake that sort of feeds into or is connected to the ocean. I know that I should put some names of lakes and rivers here. I forgot to bring them with me, but you can look on a map and find it. It is in the south near Cotonou. Anyway, we passed through a couple of different stilt villages: Veki and Ganvie. Ganvie is the most famous. The reasons why these villages exist vary. The one that I have heard the most is that certain ethnic groups fled to the middle of the lake and created these villages in order to escape being caught and sold into slavery by other ethnic groups. The main form of transportation in these villages is by 'pirogue,' or small boat similar to a canoe, but they are often poled along like a punt (for those British folks!) or a gondola. There are very few motor boats. Even 5-year-old kids navigate pirogues through the tight channels of the stilt villages. Some will do tricks, such as balancing on their heads in the boat, for passing tourists in order to make some money, according to the guides, but I didn't see this that day
Stilt Town
. Fishing is the main livelihood of these towns, and their techniques are very interesting. They build enormous traps that are basically gates made out of nets and a type of bambooish plant that acts as a fence. They start them out HUGE, and the bamboo-like plant attracts all the fish. They gradually rein in (or reduce the area of) the nets so that eventually they have a small area chock full of fish that they can catch with their nets. We saw these fishing areas spread out like and marked off like agriculture fields throughout the lake and along the wider areas of the river. The lake was fished so much in this way that the fields have created little channels where the boats can go. We saw marche mamas wearing ENORMOUS palm leaf hats guiding their fish-filled pirogues off to the markets.
The tour was very cool and relaxing. For those who may visit Benin one day, I recommend beginning a tour in So-Ava. Make sure to reserve a day for it, and if you don't speak French or Fon, bring along a translator. The guides may not say a lot, but if you ask a lot of questions, they will provide interesting answers.
Before I finish for today, and I should soon (Model school begins next week! Much homework and planning to do!), I will tell you a bit about the food. I'm sure people who know me are eager to find out how I am surviving in this area. :) So, let's see...the main dish of Benin is pate. There are several different kinds of pate, which is generally made from either corn, manioc, or yams. The main pate is white pate, which is made from corn. It doesn't have much taste and isn't too bad, though it isn't too exciting either. Pate is always served with a sauce. Most sauces contain some sort of meat or fish; therefore, I haven't tried them, as I am sort of a vegetarian (i told my host mom I would eat chicken if necessary). I did try once in Cotonou one of the leaf sauces that a volunteer renamed "Snot Sauce" because it is sort of green and slimy, like snot. Before I heard this, I tasted a bit, and it wasn't so horrible. It had a lot of sesame taste, but after I heard about this nickname, I lost my appetite, and I can't say I have had a hankering to try this sauce again. We'll see. The opportunity hasn't shown itself again. Pate rouge tends to be the favorite amongst most volunteers because it has the most spices and is usually made with chicken and chicken broth. I haven't tasted this, yet. My host mom doesn't ever make it, that I know of, though she has served me chicken twice. The chickens here must get a lot more exercise than our cage-bred chickens at home because they are a lot skinnier, and their meat, what there is of it, is a lot tougher. I have to say, I didn't eat much of the chicken that was served to me. I had a hard time getting what little meat there was off the bones because it was so tough. The Beninois just stick the bones in their mouths and suck off or chew off the meat. I think they even eat the little bones (in fish, at least). I haven't quite mastered this technique, and forks and even my fingers don't seem to work as well. For the most part, I have been eating a lot of omelettes, potatoes, pasta, and wagassi. Wagassi is wonderful! It is a type of cheese that they make in the north. It cooks much like tofu, though. It doesn't melt when heated. The sauce they give me for these various dishes is usually oil, onions, and tomatoes. They cook with a LOT of oil here, which is a little frustrating sometimes (probably one of the biggest complaints out of all the stagiaires), but this has improved. Our Peace Corps doctor, who has eagerly utilized his meetings with our host families to provide mini lessons on nutrition, met with the families and asked them not to use so much. I heard from my host mom that he even drew a picture of the heart's arteries on the blackboard and told them that oil isn't absorbed into the blood, that if there is too much build up, they have to do a bypass. Apparently he drew a picture of this, and my mama made a joke that this was like a deviation, or a road detour. My host mom just died laughing when she told me this story. She is quite cool, though, especially on the food issue. She really appreciates it when I tell her what I like and don't like, thank goodness. If I tell her I don't really like something (like this strange fruit I tasted today--rare for me not to like a fruit), she gets very excited that I feel comfortable enough with her to be honest and direct; then she goes on about how wonderful I am because I am so direct and communicative about everything (she is great for my ego!). She is also direct and communicative with me, though, and will honestly tell me that it bothers her that I am vegetarian simply because she wants to share her foods with me, not because it is too much trouble or too difficult to prepare something else. I try to complement and go on and on about how delicious foods are that I do like, and I think she appreciates that.
Otherwise, one of the girls in our group eagerly tried snake and declared that it is delicious. Not all of the Beninois eat snake, though, only certain ethnic groups; the other groups wrinkle their noses in disgust when they hear of people eating snake. In certain areas of the country, bush rat is considered a tasty treat. For a fabulous picture of this, check out the pictures on the Fon is Fun website. Do a search on any search engine, and you will find it easily.
Well, my time has run out for today. With the craziness of model school, I don't know when I will next update...hopefully within a couple of weeks at least.
