South Africa Part 1 - 05 May 08 to 07 May 08

After all of the wonderful excitement and learning experiences of 5 months in West Africa, I was feeling fulfilled in my goals that I'd had for that portion of the trip. At the same time, my nostalgia for a return to Mozambique was steadily growing. The first step was to transit South Africa, picking up a visa and getting a little R and R in Johannesburg before returning to the 'Bique.

Here is a shot of the hostel that I stayed at in Johannesburg: Brown Sugar. A castle-like building situated on a hill in a pleasant suburb, I was told it was formerly an old mob hideout.

A view of downtown Johannesburg from the hostel's deck.

I walked around Jo'burg a lot, despite the vast distances. One of my favorite things about South Africa is that they post the newspaper headlines on the roadside with really sensational and humorous titles in order to try and sell more newspapers.

The main thing to do in Johannesburg is to go to the mall. You can get all your errands done and catch a movie. In this mall, I think you can even go bowling.

More mall madness.

Another person walking along by the side of the road like me.

"Africa's Greatest Shopping Adventure"

A big divided highway I had to cross in order to get to the mall. Traffic is now on the left like in the UK. Notice the big "2010" sign in the grass on the left with soccer balls for the 0's.....anticipation is building for the 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa, the continent's first hosting of soccer's quadriannual event.

An interesting shot of the skeleton of an escalator.

A few trips to the mall and an excursion to the Mozambican Consulate......that was about it for my first pass through South Africa. After a few days and a few errands, I took the public transport downtown to the bus station and boarded the bus for the 8-hour trip to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Stay tuned for a significantly longer posting about the month I spent in Mozambique.

Lagos, Nigeria - 01 May 08 to 04 May 08

You're going where?  Lagos?  You must be crazy!!  My uncle went there 5 years ago and they stole a briefcase right out of his hand!!  Do you have to go?  Why would you want to go there?  Don't you know that that place is very dangerous?

These were the type of responses I got from people, even in neighboring Benin, upon telling them of my final destination in West Africa.  But something about this pulsing megalopolis, the world's third-largest city in fact, was drawing me in.  I scheduled my outbound flight from West Africa down to Johannesburg from Lagos intentionally so that I would have an opportunity to visit this unique place.  

I first had to make it into Nigeria, however.  Getting the visa while I was in Accra, Ghana had been a multi-day process involving much pleading and cajoling and had cost $100 for a simple transit visa.  After I made it through the official customs post, I then had to run the gauntlet of corrupt border officials on the 200-meter or so walk from the border crossing to the motor park where the onward transport waited.  I counted how many times I was stopped by different uniformed border officials, who lurked at various spots about every 100 feet or so: 7 times.  In Nigeria, when someone asks for a "dash", they're asking for a little bribe to facilitate whatever action or transaction you desire.  I could tell these guys were all scoping me out, so I took a deep breath and tried to summon patience.  

Seven times I was ordered to stop and show papers, make an explanation of myself, state my purpose, whatever.  All the while I could tell these guys were just digging for any small discrepancy to hit on so that they could demand a "dash".  My ngoni saved me every time.  Invariably, people wanted to know what was this instrument that I was carrying, why, where did it come from, could I play it.  After playing a simple melody, receiving a smile and a good laugh, they always let me go.  In fact, I passed my entire 4 days in Nigeria without ever having to pay a single dash, which might be some kind of record.

Here is the motor park that I reached to look for onward transport after having run the gauntlet at the border.

Making it into Lagos was a bit confusing.  I had to take a car to another motor park on the outskirts, change to a big collective van that took me in to Lagos Island, then get a taxi to take me downtown.  It took a couple of hours.  I was all jacked up because of all the hype about how dangerous it was, but really, it was just like any other big African city I've visited, and every time things were confusing someone was there who offered me help and advice on how to get through the next stage.

I walked all around the lower downtown for a couple hours looking for a place to stay, but the few hotels in the guidebook were either full or too expensive.  Finally, I wandered by luck into an area between Lagos Island and Ikoye (which have now merged) called Obalende, which was an entertainment and residential district packed with people and bustling little streets that had a really cool vibe.  I found a run-down old place called the Obalende Guest House run by a blind man and his wife who were very nice and offered me a discounted rate.  With a home base, I now had the opportunity to let loose and explore Lagos.

Here is the Obalende Motor Park, located inbetween the islands of Lagos and Ikoye.  The central part of Lagos, similar to New York City, is located on a series of islands.  The main downtown is Lagos Island, Ikoye has most of the embassies and consulates, and Victoria Island has most of the really rich (from oil money) banks and upscale properties.  On the mainland are most of the residential neighborhoods in a sprawl that spreads for several miles.

This motor park seemed to be perpetually submerged in about 4 inches of black, oily water.  The cars and busses would just cruise on through, sending black waves splashing up toward the sidewalk so you had to watch out.  

I spent the next few days wandering around Lagos Island.  

This building had a typical message written on it: "Beware of 419".  419 is the Nigerian code for fraud.  It can refer to those mass emails we've all gotten soliciting help getting a large sum of money out of Nigeria, if only you provide your bank details; it can also refer to the practice of breaking into an unoccupied property and then selling it off to an unsuspecting third party.  

Evangelical Christianity has a lot of clout in southern Nigeria.  

The iconic entrance to Tafa Balewa Square in downtown Lagos.

The entrance to the National Museum.  A fascinating place, I spent the whole day here and still hadn't seen it all when they closed the doors.

The licence plates from Lagos State.  

Motorcycle taxis awaiting clients in the shade.  

While heading uptown toward the market district, I passed this outdoor wedding, very similar to many other weddings I saw in West Africa.  

A famous old bookshop in Lagos.  I read that there is some Afro-Brazilian architecture in Lagos, similar to Benin, that was built by returned former slaves from Brazil.  I thought this might be an example of one of the buildings but I am not sure.

There is a raised expressway called Ring Road which runs around the circumference of Lagos Island.  Central transportation centers can also be found periodically along the perimeter.  

The downtown Lagos skyline.  

The harbor in Lagos.

Getting close to the market district, which takes up the entire northern third of Lagos Island.

Lagos' downtown mosque, with a garbage dump in the foreground.  

This building spontaneously collapsed one day.  I asked a street vendor about it and he told me that one day a couple of years ago, as everyone was minding their business, they heard a huge crash and looked up to find the building had caved in with no warning.  Unfortunately, several hundred people died in the collapse.  

A closer view of the collapsed building.

Getting in to the market district.  

Masses of people thronging the streets in the market district at the northern end of Lagos Island.  

More market and more people than I ever saw.  There were streets and streets forever packed with people and stalls selling anything and everything.  

Getting near to sunset.

The daily commute home.  Lagos is infamous for its traffic jams, called "go-slows".  At the end of the working day, thousands and thousands of people were trying to get off of the island back to the residential districts on the mainland.  Traffic was at an absolute standstill and many thousands of these people were simply walking across the bridges back home.  

Another day, I walked east through Ikoye and across a big bridge onto Victoria Island.  Here is a roadside statue as one arrives on VI.  

This guy reminded me of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but I don't think he was a police officer.  

A megabank built from millions of dollars of oil money.

Hey everyone, pay up.

Taken from the bridge back to Lagos Island, local fishermen ply the waters.

A view from underneath the raised causeway encircling Lagos Island.

The ruins of this boat were lying at the bottom of a ditch underneath the raised expressway.

The Obalende Guest House, my home away from home in Lagos.

My room in the Obalende Guest House.

The street outfront of the guesthouse in Obalende.

Below is a picture of me and my friend Shuaib Mumuney-Bako.  I met him while walking around the Obalende District.  He invited me to have a few drinks and we hung out for a while.  He was really nice and showed me around Obalende, but at first was very suspicious of me.  He was confused about the purpose of my presence in Nigeria and in Obalende (I was the only foreign tourist I saw the entire time I was there).  He asked me outright if I was an undercover CIA agent.  I have met with this suspicion before in different African countries.  Unfortunately, the suspicion is fully justified as the CIA has taken part in many covert actions in Africa in the past, some resulting in the assassination of legitimately elected African leaders such as Patrice Lumumba.

Politics aside and suspicions assuaged, my friend Mumuney invited me to his friend's bachelor party the next night.  It was held in a small park almost underneath a raised expressway adjacent to the Obalende Motor Park.  There was much drinking and dancing, as to be expected, and I got some leads on some new dance music.  Nigeria has a great music scene from the little that I observed and heard.  

The highlight of a bachelor party in Nigeria is when everyone is supposed to spray the groom with beer until he is completely soaked from head to toe.  Because we were in a children's park, the agreement was that we had to soak him with water instead so the ubiquitous plastic bags of water known all over West Africa as "Pure Wata" were handed out and we all rushed the groom at the appropriate hour and doused every inch of him.  

Me and Mumuney.

As evening approached on May 4th, I made the journey via public transport and motorcycle taxi out to Nigeria's international airport, at the north end of the city on the mainland.  The whole time it was running through my mind that this was my last day in West Africa.  I felt nostalgic already, missing the people and places I'd seen, and at the same time excited and anxious to return to Mozambique and see all of my friends there after 5 years of absence.  

The next post will be a short account of my transit of South Africa, followed by a post on my month spent in Mozambique.  Stay tuned.

Benin - 18 Apr 08 to 30 Apr 08

I was quite excited to visit the country of Benin, for a number of reasons. The first one was the good fortune of having a personal connection there. The best travel scenario is usually when you have a local contact that can show you around and give you the insider's view of wherever you are. My friend from Boulder, Olatundji Akpo-Sani, has a large extended family in southern Benin as his father is from there, and for the next 3 weeks I was the guest of the Akpo-Sani family.

The other reasons I was excited to visit Benin all had to do with the wealth of culture and history that this country contains, despite its small geographical size. From learning about the authentic nature of voodoo (properly called vodoun and born in Benin, vodoun is an official religion here), to having another opportunity to come face to face with the harsh historical realities of slavery, to learning about the Dahomeyan kingdom, to visiting a small town built in the middle of a lake entirely on stilts, Benin has a lot of unique and fascinating facets that I was ready to explore.

My first stop on the way from Lome was the commercial capital and largest city, Cotonou. Most of the Akpo-Sani family lives there so it seemed like the place to start.

Cotonou doesn't have a lot of historical or cultural tourist sites of note; most of what's in the guidebook is found elsewhere in the country. But it is full of hustle and bustle, huge swarms of zemi-johns (motorcycles) swarming everywhere on the streets, and more people than any other city in Benin.  And it is also home to the large and diversified "Peace and Love" corporation, whose various commercial holdings caught my eye all over the city.

Marguerite and Alime are a wonderful couple who live with their kids in one of the neighborhoods of Cotonou.  Marguerite is Olatundji's aunt, and two of their oldest kids (Tundji's cousins) are pretty close to my age so I spent the most time hanging out with them. The oldest son, Taofic, is quite a well-known pop star in Benin so we had a lot in common talking about music. He had a room in a compound just around the corner from his parents' house where I stayed while in Cotonou and we would come back to Marguerite and Alime's for delicious home-cooked Beninese meals.

Here is a picture of Taofic, my host and guide all over the city of Cotonou. As he had a zemi-john, we were able to cruise all around and check out the town, as well as experience the thrill of cruising through Cotonou traffic.

Taofic's next youngest brother is Loukman, pictured here. While Taofic insisted on going everywhere on his bike, Loukman and I cruised around the city on foot. He took me all over Cotonou.

Here is a photo of the neighborhood near where Marguerite and Alime live in Cotonou. Off of the main streets, most of the sideroads are sandy little back alleys where huge mudpuddles form when it rains. People leave strategically placed rocks where the big puddles usually form so that if you know the secret of where they are, you can still get by without having to get your feet wet.

This is a photo of the pinkest church I've ever seen in my life, on the way in between Marguerite and Alime's and Taofic's.

Some close friends of Loukman's. We went over to their house on my first night in Cotonou and they shared a bottle of really good imported German beer with me that they had been saving. It's fortunate that they decided to wear different clothes, otherwise they might be indistinguishable.

After getting acquainted with the neighborhood, I went out cruising with Taofic in order to get a feel for the city. Here we are swarming with the other zemi-john traffic.

Here is the statue on top of the Place de l'Etoile Rouge, the "Plaza of the Red Star".   Benin passed through a communist phase shortly after independence and there are many landmarks around Cotonou that attest to this history.

Another place we went was the new parliament building which was still under construction. It reminded me of 1950's architecture, maybe something by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Another sighting of the "Group Peace and Love" empire in downtown Cotonou.

As I mentioned before, Taofic is a big pop star in Benin. Together with his friend Romeric, they have a group called "Weziza", which Taofic told me was recently voted one of the 5 most popular groups in Benin. When I arrived, they were just in the process of releasing their 3rd studio album and they were doing some live shows in clubs around town in order to promote it. Here is a picture from a promo show they played. Taofic is on the left and Romeric is on the far right.

A different day, another one of the uncles in the family (I forget his name) came and got me and we went to visit some different members of the Akpo-Sani family that live around Cotonou.

This man is one of the people we visited. He owns this little quiosque that is right out side of the family compound where he lives. It was a nice little shop and very typical, I think, of the little roadside quiosques all across West Africa. He made me an awesome lunch and we hung out for awhile.

A bunch more family that all lived in the compound by the quiosque

That particular day happened to be election day and the uncle I was with took me with him to the polling place while he voted. Here is a picture of Beninese democracy in action.

We drove by the huge "Marche de Dantokpa", reputed to be the largest market in West Africa. On a different day I came back and wandered around this massive place for a few hours. The building shown in this picture is only the central heart of the market, which also spreads out through the surrounding streets and is really like its own neighborhood. To me, walking around in a big market is one of the most quintessential African experiences, and I tried often on this trip to capture what it's like in photos. I felt like I had little success in trying to portray the nature of these massive, bustling places with pictures. In retrospect, I wish I would have taken some videos while walking through some of these markets.

On another day, Loukman and I wandered all over the city on foot. We passed by this restaurant, which was located in a richer neighborhood of Cotonou where most of the embassies are located and the majority of expats live. As I walked past this restaurant, which was called "The Livingstone", I was struck by the fact that every single person who I could see inside was white, which seemed very odd in downtown Cotonou.

My first excursion outside of Cotonou was a two-day trip to the nearby town of Ouidah. During the height of the slave trade, the Dahomeyan kingdom would capture people and sell them to the Portuguese who would ship them from here to the New World, mainly Brazil and Haiti. In addition to museums recounting the history of the slave trade and the subsequent impact that the people of the African Diaspora have had on culture in the Americas, Ouidah has what is called the Route des Esclaves, a 4 km history walk following the route that slaves took on the way to the beach where they were loaded onto ships bound for the other side of the Atlantic. Ouidah is also the seat of the Vodoun religion in Benin.

Here is the central square in Ouidah.

This historical museum is housed in a former Portuguese fort. The Route des Esclaves starts here, and leads 4 km to the beach where the slaves were rowed out to the waiting slave ships. Following along the path there are many statues and historical markers along the way.

This was the first stop on the Route des Esclaves. Shortly before reaching this point I met some people in a vodoun temple who invited me to come back later and meet the high priest, which I did, but I wanted to walk the Route first.

This is the Place Cha-Cha, where slaves were auctioned off. The full plaque under the statue was buried under several inches of sand; I had to dig it up to read what was written there.

Further along the Route.  The big billboard on the left was part of a cell-phone advertising campaign that was ubiquitous in Benin at the time I was there.  

The Route des Esclaves was lined to either side with at least ten different statues such as this one, all having significance in the vodoun religion. Because I couldn't afford to pay for a guide to accompany me on the whole route, I missed a lot of the significance of what the statues meant. This one, however was well explained by the plaque.

This spot marks the location of the former "Tree of Forgetfulness". The male slaves were forced to circle the tree 9 times and the female slaves 7 times. This was to attempt to strip them of all memory of their homeland so that they could be more productive workers in the New World.

This compound I saw along the way belongs to a vodoun healer and the sign outside advertised their services.

When I got to about a kilometer before the beach, I encountered this place, which was a partially finished museum celebrating the contributions of the African Diaspora worldwide.

On the grounds, I met this man, named Kuku Fineboy, who was an Ogoni refugee from the Niger Delta in neighboring Nigeria. I was starting to feel like I was missing out on some of the important history of the Route des Esclaves, plus Kuku Fineboy was quite a nice guy, so I decided to hire him to guide me a little. After his tour was over, I also got to hear some of his personal story which was quite interesting.

He first explained that the African Diaspora museum here had run out of money before it could be finished. However, the grounds are partially finished and are used sometimes. There is a small, covered gazebo where Kuku told me there is a ceremony every year that takes place where the "Torch of Forgiveness" is lit and people from all over the world come to reflect on the evils of slavery and ask forgiveness of the ancestors.  They pledge to forgive but never to forget.  There are also some statues inside, of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., and W.E.B. du Bois, and one of a man I hadn't heard of before, called Litman.

Here is the statue of Litman. According to Kuku Fineboy, he helped in the invention of the light bulb. I looked up the history and although Thomas Edison is given credit for making the first mass-producable and commercially viable light bulb, there are reputed to be some 22 other people who came up with earlier prototypes that influenced Edison's work. However, Litman was not mentioned as one of them. Not only could I not find his name anywhere in Wikipedia, a cursory search of a couple of black history websites also turned up nothing. If anyone knows anything about the history of Litman, please let me know (you can post a comment right on the blog). Perhaps Litman is one of the forgotten geniuses of American history.

Kuku Fineboy showed me around the vicinity of the unfinished museum. Out back was an artistically stylized statue that represented the brutal and inhumane circumstances in which rebellious slaves were kept, as a way to intimidate the other slaves into obedience.

One other thing that he showed me was also a bit of a mystery. I had already seen the site of the "Tree of Forgetfulness". This next tree that he showed me was known as the "Tree of Return". Why the seeming contradiction? Apparently, the Portuguese slave masters were the ones to force the slaves to circle the "Tree of Forgetfulness". The Dahomeyan slave masters, by contrast, then later made the captives circle this "Tree of Return" three times. The purpose was so that even if they forgot Africa in this lifetime, their spirits would return here after death. At the bottom of the plaque explaining the story behind this tree, it states that the return is not "physical but mystical".

After we returned to the unfinished museum where I had met Kuku, he then told me a bit about himself. As you may know, there is a virtual war raging in the Niger Delta over oil and the subsequent degradation of the environment and people's living conditions by the companies who are extracting the oil. Many guerilla rebel groups have formed to fight this injustice and occasionally make international headlines by kidnapping foreign journalists and oil workers. Kuku comes from the small Ogoni tribe, who have decided instead to fight this injustice through entirely nonviolent means. He is currently a refugee from Nigeria trying to make enough money to feed his family and that is why he came to Benin.

Further along the walk, just before I got to the beach, I passed this small stilt village built in the coastal lagoon.

Finally, I reached the beach. A symbolic "Door of No Return" was built here to commemorate the spot where the slaves took their last steps on African soil before being shipped off into lives of bondage and toil on the other side of the Atlantic.

Just down from this monument there is a museum dedicated to the "Return of the Diaspora" which features a large "Door of Return". I wanted to go inside but they had closed it a half an hour early so I had to take this picture standing on a stump and looking over the fence.

Back in the center of Ouidah, I wanted to visit the Temple of the Serpents. This Catholic church was erected in Ouidah by the Portuguese who intentionally placed it directly across from the Temple of the Serpents to counteract what they saw as the demonic nature of the Temple.

The outside of the Temple of the Serpents. As the guidebook states, this vodoun python temple is now more of a tourist trap than a sacred site; it seems most of the important ceremonies are now performed in the new temple I passed earlier and was to return to shortly. However, I had to get my python fix so I paid my money and went inside.

You get to pose with the pythons draped round your neck and held in your hands.

As I mentioned before, I had previously met some people at a vodoun temple along the Route des Esclaves. They had been drumming and dancing as I passed, which of course attracted my attention. I stopped to watch but the dancing was just ending. A man came up to me and told me to come back later, that I could meet with the high priest then. I didn't really understand, but promised to return anyway.

When I came back, I was ushered into the chamber of His Majesty Daagbo Hounon, the Tomadjlehoukpon II, the spiritual leader of the Vodoun religion, or as he put it to me, the "Pope of Voodoo". I had to prostrate myself on hands and knees as a sign of respect, then we sat down to talk. He told me a little about the history of the Vodoun religion and showed me portraits along the wall going back hundreds of years of all the previous leaders of Vodoun, his predecessors. Each one, toward the end of his life, would perform a special ceremony at the edge of the ocean where the water would open up and they would walk into the ocean to join the ancestors, never to return. The next person in line would then take their place as the Daagbo of Vodoun.

Daagbo was quite an interesting and engaging person, but he wasn't quite sure what to make of me. We had some interesting conversations about culture and politics, and he expressed his wish to travel to the United States and pray for peace, as the Catholic pope has a number of times. He expressed his dismay that he is not treated with the same level of respect as his other religious counterparts around the world. After this, he asked me what I wanted from him and seemed frustrated when I said I didn't know. Apparently, many foreigners come and offer small gifts to him for him to pray for them and invoke the power of vodoun to help them in their lives. After I finally hit upon what he should pray for, we had some more interesting conversation, then he sent me with one of his acolytes to see a vodoun ceremony, which was quite cool. I thought it would be rude to ask to photograph inside Daagbo's temple, so I have no pictures of him or the encounter, but I did take some photographs of the ceremony, which was going on outside in public.

Here are a few pictures of the ceremony. I wasn't sure what the significance was, but the last picture shows someone wearing a python costume. The drumming accompanying the ceremony was awesome, and sounded almost exactly like some of the Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian drumming I have heard, with many simultaneous bell patterns and polyrythmic hand drumming.

After the ceremony, we went to the lead drummer's house and I met his family. He told me that if I ever wanted to come back and study the music they run intensive month-long classes. Anyone want to fund such a venture?

After learning about Vodoun, I didn't have much time left in Ouidah so I just walked around and checked out the town a little bit before returning to Cotonou.  

Here is a picture walking around Ouidah. This road is under construction.

This was an old colonial building I saw while wandering around Ouidah.

After my two days in Ouidah, I returned to Cotonou. I decided that the next place I wanted to visit was the stilt-city of Ganvie, which is located in the middle of Lake Nokuè just to the north of Cotonou. It's about a half an hour ride on public transport to the subburb by where the main port is with boats bound for Ganvie. I had to wait around for a couple of hours until more tourists showed up so we could share the price of a boat ride out to Ganvie. Because the only way to get around the town is in a boat, you can't really go there on the normal public transportation, as once you arrive, you would be stuck where the boat dropped you off.

Most of the residents of Ganvie survive by fishing. On the way there we passed several fishermen at work. They cordon off a large area with nets that go all the way down to the lake bottom, then put palm fronds down in the mud at the bottom of the lake (about 20 ft. or less down). When the palm fronds start to rot, fish come to eat them and the fishermen harvest these fish with relative ease as they are already in a contained area inside the nets.

A "fishing field" of palm fronds planted on the bottom of the lake.

Here is a view looking down the "street" coming in to Ganvie.

Another view as we drifted slowly through the town. I didn't get a sense of how big Ganvie is, but I know we only saw a small portion of it. The Lonely Planet put the population at 27,000 people. The reason they live in stilt dwellings in the middle of the lake goes back to the slave-trading era. The powerful Dahomeyan kingdom would capture as many local people as they could and sell them to the Portuguese and other European slaving powers, but the Dahomeyans were prohibited by a taboo to cross over open water. The stilt villages thus were refuges formed of whole populations fleeing the reach of the slavers. Though this time has now passed, people choose to continue a lifestyle their ancestors have been leading for the past 300 years or so.

I was particularly struck by the ingenuity of this house, which was replete with its own floating yard of imported soil.

Reach out and touch someone from Ganvie, Benin.

Our last stop on our tour of Ganvie was a hotel, where tourists can have the novelty of spending a night here. They have an extensive gift-shop that we visited which they politely ask you to peruse before you leave.

On our way out of town I caught a glimpse of Ganvie's mosque's two towers in the distance. I really would have liked to see it up close to see how they pulled off a stone building like a mosque on stilts, but it was not part of the tour.

On the edge of town looking across to the lake's shoreline in the distance.

One last view of the fishermen of Ganvie as we departed.

After returning from Ganvie, I went with Taofic to meet another branch of the Akpo-Sani family who live across the bridge in a different section of town called Akpakpa. This is Mouniratou, Taofic's oldest sister who is now married with her own children.

Next we went to visit Taofic's oldest aunt, Madeleine, who made me a special lunch of delicious salad. We hung out and talked and I got to meet the kids in her household as well.

One of the kids there had on one of my top-ten favorite t-shirts of all time.

The crew over at Aunt Madeleine's house.

Since we were in Akpakpa, we went to visit Taofic's agent who is also one of his best friends and we put a few away. This combined with foodpoisoning (I think from mayonnaise that had been out too long) contributed to my most serious bout with illness on my 6-month trip. The next morning I woke up feeling like crap, but determined to go visit the nearby city of Porto Novo. I made it as far as the bus station, and while sitting in the car waiting for it to leave I started to get really dizzy and puked. I thought I might be coming down with malaria but I'd left my medication at the house. I got a motorcycle driver to take me back to Taofic's. On the way I had to stop and puke again, and the violent contractions in my stomach caused the diarrhea I'd been fighting to hold back to come shooting out with a vengeance.

I spent the next day and a half laying down at Taofic's, so weak I could barely stand except to go to the bathroom. Loukman and the neighbors made me a special folk remedy consisting of the pulp from papaya leaves mixed with water and lemon juice, in order to help clean the parasites out of my system.

I was now running short on time in my itinerary, but I was determined to still see Porto Novo. After a couple of days of fasting the infection felt as though it had passed and I just felt weak from not eating, but generally fine so I dragged myself to Porto Novo for an afternoon.

Porto Novo is the administrative capital of Benin, but is definitely the second city. It is much smaller and has a very relaxed feel. The streets are full of people walking around instead of zooming everywhere on Zemi-Johns. There are also several interesting museums in Porto Novo.

This musem, the Musée da Silva, explors the link between Afro-Brazilian culture and the effects that repatriated Brazilians of African descent had on Benin when they returned here, as many did, at the end of the 1800's.

The main building in the museum is the former residence of an Afro-Brazilian family who returned to Benin and settled in Porto Novo.

Walking down the street in Porto Novo. Notice all of the little bottles on the table. They are filled with gasoline. This is how fuel is sold all over West Africa.

Next I went to visit the Musée Honmé. Pictures were prohibited on the tour, except for here in the courtyard.

The museum is housed in the former palace of one of West Africa's longest-running dynasties, consisting of a line of 25 consecutive kings from 1688 to 1976. It was very bare inside, and luckily the guide was knowledgeable and explained the history and function of each chamber, otherwise I would not have understood much.  There were various official burial chambers, an exercise room, a dining hall and so forth.  

I thought the exposed root system of this tree outside of the Musée Honmé was quite beautiful.

Porto Novo's market, pretty laid-back by African standards.

One of Porto Novo's colorful mosques.

The last major goal of my excursion to Benin was to visit the home village of the Akpo-Sani family, called Pira. Loukman and Margerite hadn't been to see their family there in a while, either, so we decided to all go together to visit the village and the family and spend a couple of days there. We caught a bus from Cotonou in the late morning and arrived in Pira just before nightfall that same day.

The very first place I was shown upon arrival in Pira was the Akpo-Sani family shrine, where sacrifices are made to ensure the ancestors are happy. Here is the shrine.

This lady in Pira made a local "cheese", which was fermented something tasty and funky (although not milk I think). After fermentation, it is fried in hot oil and served wrapped in a big leaf. I thought the cheese was really good and ended up eating 3 or 4 pieces.

One of the uncles in the Akpo-Sani family. I forget his name but he showed Loukman and I around for a while and was a really great guy. I asked Loukman later how he had lost his arm. Late one night, he was coming back to Pira on his motorbike when he was ambushed by bandits. Not only did they rob him of his possessions, he was forced to fight for his life and lost his arm in the process.

As we were walking around town, we passed this large group of women who were walking all over town clapping and singing the most beautiful music. We went to meet them.

The ladies asked me to dance with them so I did. Loukman was holding my camera and he snapped the action shot.

This woman seemed to be appreciative of my dancing skills.

Loukman and I went around the village and visited many aunts, uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles. Many of them are getting quite old and I thought it would be a good idea to try and get some good pictures for posterity (I gave a copy of all my photos to the family before I left). After a while I started to feel like the family photographer, which was fun. Here is one of the great-aunts with some of her children and grandchildren.

Lots of pots, handmade and handfired in the village.

Margerite cooked for us on this cool little oven which was built right into the base of the wall of one of the houses in the family compound.

On the second day in Pira, Loukman and I went for a walk past the edge of town to see the fields where crops are grown. On the way we passed this massive termite mound.

Piles of cassava (manioc) roots which have been harvested.

I saw the most beautiful and colorful grasshoppers I have ever seen.

On the way back from the fields, we met a man who raised rabbits at his house and he wanted to show them to us, so we accompanied him to his house to see the rabbits.

Here is another great-aunt in the Akpo-Sani family (middle left). The man on the far left showed up just before I took this picture. He was returning from a traditional ceremony and was still dressed for the ceremony.

Sunset in Pira.

On the way back from Pira, Loukman and I stopped by the next town over where his father Alime is from (his mother Margerite stayed in Pira after we left to visit and catch up with family). Loukman went to boarding school in this town for a few years and has lots of friends here still, who he hadn't seen in quite a while.

This bizarre sign was sitting by the side of the road. If anyone can figure out what it means, let me know.

Here is Loukman with one of his cousins in front of a mural of their uncle, Alime's oldest brother. He was reputed to be 110 years old when he passed away.

There are two hills in this town, and we climbed one of them to get a nice view of the area. Here is the other hill across the way. Local legend is that one hill is male and the other female and they are married. Occaisionally they disagree or even fight, which can bring disaster to the village. In order to prevent this, a ceremony is performed every year to ensure harmony between the couple.

I think the hill in the distance is the male hill and we climbed the female hill, but now I'm not sure.

The village from the top of the hill.

Loukman and I then made our way back down in the direction of Cotonou. On the way back, I left Loukman in the crossroads town of Bohicon and he continued on to Cotonou. I caught a Zemi-John for the few kilometers over to the historic town of Abomey.

Abomey was the seat of the former kingdom of Dahomey that was feared throughout the region for their hostile nature (each king pledged to leave his successor more land than he inherited) and participation in the slave trade (southern Dahomey was once known as the Slave Coast). Once very powerful, the kingdom gave its name to the entire country of Benin, whose name was changed to the current moniker only in 1975 by the Communist dictator Mathieu Kérékou.

The first order of business was to find a place to stay in Abomey. I happened upon the Hotel Pussy-Cat and made a deal to stay there for a couple of nights.

Here is a shot of my room in the Hotel Pussy-Cat. I put this picture in the blog because this room is very representative of what the rooms were like in the small hotels I stayed in across West Africa. A room like this costs about 7-10 dollars a night and most of the clients are other West Africans who are traveling on business.

The next day I went to take the tour of Abomey and learn about its long history. Here in the main plaza is a statue of Béhanzin, the last king of Dahomey who fought against French colonization.

There were 12 kings of Dahomey and each one built his own palace. The whole tour around the town is known as the "Dahomey Trail" and encompasses many things to see.

I got a guide from the local tourist office who also had his own moto. We began cruising around the town and checking out all of the sites.

Here is one of the former royal palaces. Notice the yellow fish with the green net on the wall. Virtually all of the palaces have been restored and rebuilt for tourists, but the symbols are authentic. Each king had his own symbol which told an allegorical story representing him and was the symbol of his dynasty.

This unassuming-looking ditch is actually the remains of the moat which used to surround the central area of Abomey. "Abo" means "moat" in the Fon language and "mey" means inside, so this moat is the source of the town's name.

Here is a vodoun shrine where sacrifices are made.

Some local moto-taxi drivers taking a break in the shade.

This was the site of the former "Court of the Amazons", where the female Amazon army of Abomey was trained. The plaque states that the Amazon force was as many as 200-strong at its height.

Here is the Temple Zéwa. My guide didn't know anything about it, but the Lonely Planet said that this temple was built to appease the spirits of a rebellious group of King Ghézo's wives, who he had executed by covering them in red palm oil and letting ants eat them.

Although interesting at first, the tour started to drag on as all of the buildings were reconstructed ruins and the guide ended up knowing precious little about them beyond what I could read for myself on the signs. I started getting anxious for the grande finale of the tour, which was a visit to the Musée Historique d'Abomey.

Here are the doors to the museum, bolted shut. When we arrived there I was given a rude surprise: The museum was closed for at least a week while the workers there were on strike for better wages and benefits. The crown jewel of my visit to Abomey was shut and would not reopen until after I had left the country. I was bummed.

The museum is a UNESCO World Heritage site which contains most of the artifacts from the Dahomeyan kingdom, including famous tapestries telling the history of the kingdom and a royal throne mounted on human skulls.

The next day, I got up early as I wanted to briefly visit Ouidah again before returning to Cotonou. I actually had to pass through the outskirts of Cotonou to transfer to a car to Ouidah, and while I was waiting for the car I found another couple branches of the Peace and Love Group's commercial empire: The Peace and Love Hotel and the Peace and Love Restaurant.

After feeling a wonderful sense of completion at finishing my collection of Peace and Love Group sightings, I also finished seeing the historical museum in Ouidah and made a quick visit to the Sacred Forest as well. The Sacred Forest was pretty much of a tourist trap but is at least a nice park and was shaded from the brutal noonday sun.

The highlight of the Sacred Forest is seeing this iroko tree, which, as the story goes, King Kpassé, the founder of Ouidah, turned himself into while fleeing from danger.

This amazingly elaborate statue is in a small square near the center of Ouidah.

Finally it was time to return to Cotonou and say my goodbyes. Here is a family shot with my wonderful hosts, the Akpo-Sani's, during my stay in Benin.

Taofic took me to the gare routiere (station) to catch onward transport to Lagos, Nigeria, my last stop in West Africa before flying down to South Africa in order to make my way over to Mozambique. It was the first day of May, 2008.

Togo - 16 Apr 08 to 17 Apr 08

My next stop on my journey eastward from Abidjan to Lagos was the small country of Togo, which is quite long from north to south but very narrow east to west.  Originally colonized by the Germans, Togo was split after World War II and the western third, administered by the British, became part of Ghana.  Thus there are many Ghanaian families you will meet whose parents came originally from Togo.  The eastern two-thirds was administered by the French and became independent in 1960.

The capital of Togo is the city of Lome.  It literally butts up against the border, so after I arrived from Accra in public transport I walked across the border and found a cheap hotel less than half a kilometer from the border.  I could still see Ghana from where I was staying.

Here is a market on the beach just adjacent to the border.  Lome has a most beautiful beach, but being quite steep the undertow was pretty wicked. 

One of the two days I spent in Lome was a bit stormy.  April is a transitional month when the dry season is ending and the rainy season beginning, and the weather was starting to change across West Africa.

Local fishermen on the beach in Lome.

Here is one of the central banks for West Africa's common currency, the CFA (pronounced Sefa).  This currency is used by all of the former French colonies in West Africa except Guinea, and is used in Guinea-Bissau even though they were not a former colony of France.  The symbol you see up high on the building is the official symbol of the CFA and appears on all the currency.

A close-up of the CFA symbol on a gate to the bank.

This is the Place de l'Independance, right across from Parliament and the National Museum.  The big statue in the middle of the roundabout is the Togolese independence monument.

A close-up view of the independence monument.

The monument from the front.

Here is Parliament.

On display in the National Museum, this hat from the Moba people is made out of overlapping strips of leather.  Something about its look really appealed to me.

This photo shows migratory patterns in the Yoruba Empire.  Lome is at the bottom left of the map.

A map illustrating the division of Togo into two parts by the colonial powers.  In the center is a traditional hat worn by the Tamberma people who build fortified compounds known as Tata Somba.  They live in the north of Togo.

Relics from Togo's slave-trading history on display in the National Museum.

I saw this somewhat bizarre fountain (at least I think that's what it was) on one of my walks around the city.

I also saw this guy wearing a pretty interesting backpack.

A canal choked with water plants.  I walked along this canal for awhile, which seemed to demarcate the edge of downtown.

A rather barren and lonely-looking soccer field on the edge of town.

A street scene from Lome.

Another street scene from downtown.

Here is another street scene illustrating the massive amounts of motorcycles and scooters zooming around Lome at all hours of the day and night.  Known locally as "Zemi-Johns", many are for hire and they are the quickest and cheapest way to get around town.  It can be a pretty exciting ride sometimes.  From what I heard, Benin has even more and crazier Zemi-Johns zipping around everywhere, so Lome was a good warm up for what was to come.

Just up the street from where I stayed in Lome.

A very brief visit to Togo.  I would like to return at some point in the future to see more of this fascinating country.  However, there was only so much time in my itinerary so it was time to move on to the next destination: Benin.  Look for it in the next posting.

Ghana - 06 Apr 08 - 16 Apr 08

My next stop in my journey across West Africa was the country of Ghana.  I only had time to visit 3 places, but I learned an enormous amount about Ghanaian culture and even more about history, particularly the history of slavery.  I also had the opportunity to meet some of the Mensah family, brothers and sisters of Maputo and Mawuenyega Mensah who live in Boulder.

Here is the river that marks the border between Ivory Coast and Ghana.  I got a car from Abidjan to the border, walked across this river and to the Ghanaian immigration post, then found another car to take me onward to Cape Coast.

My first stop in Ghana was the town of Cape Coast.  It's a vibrant fishing community about halfway along Ghana's coastline.  The centerpiece of the waterfront is the Cape Coast Castle, one of about 137 forts constructed along the coast of West Africa by European powers in the 1600-1800's.  Cape Coast Castle was the former seat of the British colonial administration of the Gold Coast (Ghana's colonial name).  It is one of the oldest forts on the coastline and, like many of the others, changed hands between various European powers as they all vied for commercial dominance of the region, until being held by the British for over 200 years.  When trade turned from gold and ivory to slaves, Cape Coast Castle became the largest slave-trading center in West Africa.

Looking out over Cape Coast from inside the castle.  The boats in the foreground are fishing canoes, made locally.

Cape Coast Castle.

A visit to Cape Coast Castle includes a tour of the former dungeons, explaining in depth the treatment of the slaves and the conditions they were forced to endure.  I'm going to give a short recap of this tour.

This is the beginning of the tour.  This doorway leads down into the Male Slave Dungeon (the slaves were held in separate dungeons depending on their gender).

Inside the Male Slave Dungeon.  Our guide explained that the slaves were held here for about 3 months awaiting transport to the New World.  In that time, the human waste, including urine, fecal matter and vomit, accumulated to a height of a couple feet deep covering the whole floor and the slaves were forced to stay in their own filth during the entire time they were kept here.  I tried to imagine how a person could sleep (not to mention survive) in these conditions.

This is a collection of wreaths left by various African American groups that come to the castle every year in honor of the memory of their ancestors and what they went through.

Here is the Female Slave Dungeon.  Although the conditions were similar to the Male Slave Dungeon, the density of persons kept here was not as high.

Female slaves were routinely raped by their captors.  The female slaves who refused to endure this atrocity were placed in this special punishment cell for several weeks.  This tiny cell would accommodate up to 14 women at a time.

Here is the cell where rebellious male slaves were kept.

These marks on the floor of the cell for rebellious slaves were made by captives who carved them into the stone with their shackles.  They were forced to wear the shackles even though they were already locked up in a cell.

Here is the "Door of No Return".  Slaves were marched out of this door and into waiting slave ships for the 3 month journey across the Atlantic.  Waiting for them at the end of that journey (if they survived it) was a life of captivity and endless labor for someone else's profit.

On the outside of the "Door of No Return" is written "Door of Return" in honor of all of the people of African descent from throughout the diaspora who have made the journey back to Africa to find their roots and witness the historical remnants of slavery in Africa.  These "Doors of No Return" are thus transformed into symbols of hope.

On the top floor of the castle are the old quarters of the British governor, considerably nicer and more comfortable than the dungeons that lay 2 stories directly under his feet.  There also used to be a church in the courtyard of the castle, built directly on top of where the dungeons were.  It was said that after service on Sundays, worshipers who walked out of church could hear the cries of the slaves in the dungeon below them.

An inscription mounted on the wall at the entrance to the Male Slave Dungeon.  The tour of the castle ends here.  

After the tour was over, I took a little break to try and let the enormity of what I'd just experienced soak in.  I took some pictures from the castle walls looking out at daily life going on below me.

Here are some fishermen preparing to launch their craft.

More fishing activity as nets are unfurled and boats are prepared to be launched.

After my little break, I entered the museum portion of the castle to finish the learning experience of Cape Coast Castle.

Here is a map that shows the Triangular Trade Route, which I mentioned in my earlier post from Senegal.  For those not familiar, this is the name given to the trading network that developed around slavery.  It started and ended in Europe, with European vessels loading manufactured goods and sailing to West Africa, where they traded the goods for human slaves.  They then loaded the slaves in place of the goods and set off across the Atlantic.  Upon arrival in the Americas, the slaves were sold and plantation goods such as cotton and rum, the product of slaves' labor, were loaded onto the same boats which then returned to Europe and sold these products, bought more manufactured goods to trade for slaves and the cycle continued.  The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was responsible for displacing something on the order of 12 million African people.

This display in the museum shows shackles and collars that were used to restrain slaves.  There is also a branding iron, which was heated up red-hot and then used to sear a mark into the slaves' flesh, signifying ownership.

The business end of a slave branding iron.

This diagram shows how slaves were packed into a slave ship for transport across the Atlantic.  It was a brutal journey and many did not survive.

A poster advertising a slave auction from the 19th century United States.

A picture showing a slave who was whipped by his master, with intense scarring on his back.

The museum also featured an excellent display on the traditional cultures of the local Akan peoples of this region of Ghana, explaining everything from domestic life to cultural symbols used by the king.  

The next day I walked around town and took some pictures.  Most of the small shops in Ghana I saw had names with some sort of Biblical or religious dimension.  I saw many stores with names such as "God is Great Electronics".  Here is one below.

A dumptruck stuck in a deep pothole.

After Cape Coast, I got a car to the capital city of Accra.  Accra is a large city, and quite modern.  It is also quite an approachable place, fairly easy to navigate, and full of friendly people.  I stayed with Afi Mensah, the sister of Maputo and Mawuenyega Mensah, two drumming and dance teachers who live in Boulder.

Here is a picture of Afi preparing Fufu, which in Ghana is made by cooking yams and cassava, then mashing them together (what she is doing here).  The resulting mixture has a consistency like super-sticky play-doh and is eaten with the right hand by dipping in the accompanying sauce.  I really liked fufu and Afi made it several times during my stay there.

Afi's kids, Patrick and Ma Mary.

I also got a chance to meet Afi's brother Joseph Mensah.  Here he is pictured giving me a kpanlogo lesson.  Kpanlogo is a popular drumming and dance style from Ghana.

Here is a view over Jamestown, a densely populated neighborhood of Accra close to the water.  I took this picture from the roof of a building shortly after walking through Jamestown to check it out.

A view looking down to the street.

Here is Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, dedicated to Ghana's first president.  He was a very important leader, not just for Ghana but for all of Africa.  Ghana was the first African country to win their independence from colonialism and thusly Kwame Nkrumah became the first African president of the modern era.  He was instrumental in the formation of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), and in setting an example for other nations and leaders to follow.

A statue portraying Kwame Nkrumah showing the way forward.

W.E.B. du Bois, the famous African-American activist and scholar, moved to Ghana at Kwame Nkrumah's invitation and spent the last few years of his life living in this house.  It is now a museum dedicated to his memory.  Du Bois was an ardent pan-Africanist and was engaged in writing an encyclopedia of pan-Africanism during his final years in Ghana.

This quote from du Bois reads: "One thing alone I charge you.  As you live, believe in life.  Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life.  The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long."

A book that was a gift to du Bois from Einstein, bearing a handwritten note from him to du Bois.

W.E.B. du Bois' final resting place, constructed in the form of a traditional Ghanaian chief's burial site.  On the right you can see two stools.  There are a total of seven in the burial chamber, each with an elaborate base carving that represents some aspect of W.E.B. du Bois' life.  In Ghanain culture, particularly that of the Akan peoples, these stools are important symbols of authority and are often the property of chiefs and kings.

Here are some shots walking around the city's various neighborhoods.  I found some more small shops with interesting names (I don't think these are Biblically inspired).

I wonder if Pepsi knows about this.

This is Rawlings Park, dedicated to one of Ghana's former presidents.  Other than the arch, the park pretty much serves as a parking lot and open-air market simultaneously, with parked cars and people set up everywhere hawking all sorts of goods.

This huge arch houses the Eternal Flame of African Liberation, lit by Kwame Nkrumah after Ghana's independence was achieved.  It sits in Black Star Square, a huge, empty expanse of concrete next to the ocean.

This is a statue of King Tackie Tawiah I, the 20th king of the Ga kingdom, which encompassed the region around Accra.  His reign was from 1862 to 1902.  

A view walking around inside the massive Makola Market in downtown Accra.  Vast markets like this are divided into huge sections, with a region for produce, another for clothes, another for cooking accessories, another for electronics, etc.

Here is the outside of the National Museum in Accra.

Inside the museum.  The displays here were very interesting, explaining everything from the special textiles used by Ghanaian peoples to the ceremonial stools (mentioned earlier) used by chiefs to musical instruments, farming methods, dances, etc.

My last stop in Ghana was the city of Kumasi, northwest of Accra in the hilly country at the heart of the Ashanti region of Ghana.  The Ashanti are the most prominent of the Akan peoples who populate a large region of southern Ghana and are closely related to the peoples living in the central region of neighboring Ivory Coast.  Kumasi was formerly the capital of the Ashanti kingdom and still houses the royal palace and the Ashanti royal family.  Kumasi is also something of a cultural convergence zone, with many neighborhoods of primarily northern Ghanaian people, who unlike their southern Christian neighbors are primarily Muslim.  

Here is a view looking over the massive Kejetia Market, right in the heart of Kumasi.  You can probably buy just about anything you could imagine here.

Walking around inside Kejetia Market.

A narrow thoroughfare through the market's stalls.  

These women used the sandals they were selling to play a rhythm, accompanied by a song, to attract customers to their stall.

Here is a shop selling authentic Kente cloth, which is painstakingly handwoven on a traditional loom.  The bright fabric is often used in clothes for weddings and is highly prized.  

A statue on the street showing a man playing traditional Ashanti drums that were used to announce the arrival of the king.  

This seemed to be the place to come if you need anything typed up.

The entrance gates to the old royal palace, now a museum of the Ashanti royal family called the Manhyia Palace.  No photos were allowed inside, but they have an interesting collection of artifacts, from traditional stools, swords and guns to Ashantiland's first television, a gift to the royal family from the British.  At one point during my visit, some men came in and opened up the cabinet containing the ceremonial guns and removed several of them.  Apparently, court was in session that day and the guns, far from being dusty artifacts in a museum, are still used as symbols of authority when the king holds court.

Kumasi is chock-full of museums.  Here is another, the Prempeh II Jubilee Museum, which is dedicated to the life of one of the former kings of the Ashanti.  One of the interesting things in this museum is a picture of the Golden Stool, the central relic representing the power and authority of the Ashanti Kingdom.  A fake Golden Stool was made and handed over to the British and the fake stool is also in the museum.  

Here is the Royal Rolls Royce, formerly owned by Prempeh II.

The Prempeh II Museum is housed within the National Cultural Centre.  This sculpture, on its grounds, is one of the 54 or so Adinkra symbols, which are pictorial representations of Akan proverbs.  This symbol (pictured below) is called Nyame Ye Ohene and represents power or the supremacy of God.  My favorite Adinkra symbol (not pictured) is Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu, which is an image of two siamese crocodiles who share a stomach.  The message of the proverb is that the two heads of the crocodile will only hurt one another if they fight over food, as they share one stomach.  Thus, we should have democracy, or "unity out of diversity", a reminder to think of the bigger picture and share with others.

Typical public transport in Kumasi.

Here is a Ghanaian version of the Sword in the Stone.  It is called the Okomfo Anokye Sword, and is housed in a small museum on the grounds of a hospital, making it a bit tricky to find.  The sword, according to legend, marks the spot where the Golden Stool descended from the sky at the founding of the Ashanti kingdom.  It's been in the ground for over 300 years and if anyone ever pulls it out, the Ashanti kingdom will fall.

After a very full ten days in Ghana it was time to head onwards to Togo, the next stop on my trip.  Here is a street scene from Aflao, the border town and my last stop in Ghana before crossing over to Togo's capital city of Lome, the subject of my next posting.

Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire - 28 Mar 08 to 5 Apr 08

My arrival in Abidjan marked a turning point in my visit to West Africa. The first half of the trip was focused primarily on musical study in Guinea and Mali and related travel to better understand the cultures where the music comes from. From Abidjan across to Lagos, I followed a coastal trail through the most densely populated urban region of Africa, taking a quick survey of all the countries and their big coastal cities along the way, which lasted about 5 weeks.

I spent about 10 days in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast). My original plan was to visit the family of my step-mom's brother's wife, who is from the country. A couple days before I was to travel, I telephoned to confirm my arrival and heard that the entire family had gone at the last minute to a remote village far removed from Abidjan. Their grandmother had also passed away, less than 3 weeks after mine. Being unable to visit them and knowing noone in the country, I decided to just take it easy and see what I could see.

Cote d'Ivoire is still struggling to free itself from the aftermath of a destructive civil conflict that started in 2002. Although there is no more active fighting going on, many unresolved issues remain. Many of the outlying areas of the country, particularly the north and west, are still controlled by rebel groups. The economy, once renowned as one of the strongest in Africa, is now a shadow of its former self. But the people on the streets are still open and friendly, as people are almost everywhere. I decided to contain my visit to the capital city only, as things upcountry are still questionable at this point and I had no Ivoirian contacts to accompany me. So I spent my days relaxing, doing lots of catching up on the internet, getting visas for onward travel and most of all walking everywhere I could, all over the massive city of Abidjan, getting glimpses into life in some of the various neighborhoods. The pictures that follow were collected in my various pedestrian wanderings across the city.

The Abidjan city skyline at night, on my first evening in the country. The city of Abidjan wraps itself around a large semi-coastal lagoon and the central tongue of land known as Le Plateau is the heart of the city, home to all its highrises. Here is a view of Le Plateau from across the water in Blockhaus, the small neighborhood I stayed in for the first several days. Blockhaus is part of the larger Cocody suburb (remember the song Cocody Rock by Alpha Blondy?)

My room in Blockhaus. Aren't those puppy-dog sheets so cute?

Some graffiti around Blockhaus, threatening to beat (frapper!!) anyone caught urinating on this wall. These painted warnings are very common across West Africa, although they usually have a posted value that one must pay as a fine if caught urinating.

The sign reads: "Village Community of Cocody Village. Sacred Site. Entry Prohibited."

My first full day I took a walk from Cocody all the way around the lagoon into Le Plateau. This billboard promises hope for building a peaceful future in Cote d'Ivoire.

One of the fancier houses in Abidjan I saw, this mansion overlooks the lagoon.

A view across the lagoon with Cocody on the left and Le Plateau on the right. The tower on the left is the Hotel Ivoire.

St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by an Italian architect. Abidjan is proud of its architecture, with many unique buildings being found here. The tall figure on the left that serves as the portal to the church is an abstract representation of Paul, and the sweeping robes that follow him are the body of the church.

A stained-glass mural inside the church, depicting the first arrival of European missionaries to Africa, coming to spread their religion and culture in a new land.

On my way into town, I passed a wedding in full swing on the rented outdoor patio of the library. The security guards invited me in to enjoy the festivities with everyone. Here wedding guests are dancing to the DJ's selection.

More architecture in downtown Abidjan. This famous building is called Le Pyramid. It is now unfortunately run-down and in need of renovation, which is supposed to happen sometime soon. Once home to many shops, everything inside the windows I could see was demolished and nothing looked open.

Abidjan's central mosque.

A view of downtown.

Bats circling overhead just before nightfall.

Another day I went to walk around the grounds of the once-majestic Hotel Ivoire, formerly West Africa's top hotel. Things are quieter these days, although the hotel is still open.

The now-empty pool of the Hotel Ivoire.

Anyone for a swim?

I shot this photo looking through a lamp at the evening sun.

This smaller pool on the other side of the Hotel Ivoire complex is still functional.

A view from the Hotel Ivoire grounds of the bridge from Le Plateau across to Treichville.

Another day I walked from Cocody north to Les Deux Plateaux, a retail district that is also home to many embassies. On the way I passed this outdoor barbeque place, once the spot to eat out with friends but now looking pretty empty with only a few stalls open. Notice the Maggi advertising painted all over its walls. Advertising for Maggi and their competition Jumbo are omnipresent in West Africa. Maggi makes cooking stock that is chock-full of MSG, and people put it in everything from soups to sauces to chicken glaze to salad dressing. Their slogan is "Me and Maggi, the secret to goodness".

A more low-rent district of Abidjan, found in a low-spot inbetween the Cocody and Les Deux Plateaux areas.

Another day I went to visit Cote d'Ivoire's National Museum. There were many cultural artifacts from the country's various ethnic groups on display, and a guide gave further explanation as to their significance.

In addition to the displays on traditional life in Cote d'Ivoire, there were a few modern pieces by the renowned 20th-century Ivoirian artist Christian Lattier. This piece is entitled "The Ram".

On my way back home from the museum, I passed through some densely populated central neighborhoods and then crossed over the major freeway back to Cocody.


On the way I bought some street food, which is normally wrapped up in old newspaper. The lady I bought these snacks from, however, used these large leaves.

Freeway-Land, Abidjan.

The last few days I spent in Abidjan I moved across the water to the district of Treichville, on the south side of the lagoon. One day I walked past the outskirts of the neighborhood down toward the port, and got a glimpse of Industrial Abidjan.

Trucks waiting to ship goods all over the region.

Moss growing on a factory gate.

My hotel in Treichville, "Le Success".

A shot from the balcony outside my room.

The internal square of the big market in Treichville. A cool place to hang out. Right outside and across the street are some of the best outdoor food-stalls around. My last night in town I treated myself to a jumbo shrimp-and-turkey sandwich, constructed with freshly grilled ingredients bought from the local vendors.

After Abidjan, I caught a series of taxis to the border with Ghana, my next stop on the Abidjan-Lagos route. Ghana will be the subject of the next posting coming up soon.

Guinea Part 3 - 21 Mar 08 to 28 Mar 08

I made my way from Dakar back to Conakry for one final week of study there. It was a great final opportunity to be involved in Guinea's rich musical tradition and complete my program of study that I started back in December.

The day after I arrived Sekou took me with him to play for a wedding on the outskirts of Conakry. Here we are playing for dancers.

More playing for dancers at the wedding. The tray on the ground is where they put tips after they have danced their solo.

We videotaped all of my lessons on the last day. Here is the set.

These kids were hanging out while we were videoing, going through the trash looking for anything useful.

The crew.

My lessons in the afternoon were generally held at the outdoor spot pictured above. However, in the morning we usually played at the Gbessia Youth Center, home to a couple of ballets, including Ballet Saamato, and numerous local groups practicing everything from acrobatics shows to breakdancing. Below are a few shots of the Gbessia Youth Center and the murals adorning its walls.

Sekou and friend hanging out.

Some drummers getting ready for ballet practice at the youth center.

Here is a picture of an old-school clothes iron that uses charcoal instead of being plugged in.

Around the Gbessia Youth Center.

Fara's Mom.

That's it for this trip to Guinea. Please check out my earlier posts for more on my time in the country. After my last week there was over, I continued on to Abidjan, Ivory Coast.