West Africa 2025

 Monday, February 24  Ouidah, Benin   We began the day with a talk on the slave trade which started in the 16 th century.  It lasted 300 years as the slave traders, beginning with the Portuguese but involving the British, the Germans and the French, took advantage of tribal wars, buying the prisoners of war as well as captive women and children from kings and chiefs along the coast to be transported to the New World as slaves.  Colonization reached its peak with the 1884-85 Conference of Berlin, at which Africa was divided up.  There were no Africans at the Conference. On the road we stopped at a small village named Okola to see the farming and harvest of casava.  The Dahomey scarification is unique:   The casava is literally pulled out of the ground and gathered and sold; some is used by the villagers:  There is corn (maize) in a granary for when there is no casava available: We went to the Abomey Royal Palace, which is being renova...

 Sunday, February 23,  Voodoo   A phenomenal day today.  The emphasis was on voodoo and there’s so much to tell and we’ve just scratched the surface.  Voodoo is essentially a religion with a focus on spirits which have enormous influence over everyday life and who, when angry, can be very destructive or, when pleased, can be responsible for good things happening.   As an aside, the understanding which we have of dolls representing people and your being able to harm them with pins is totally false.  There is no such thing here.  Perhaps in the Caribbean?  I’ll need to check that.   The vast majority of the people throughout coastal West Africa have voodoo in their lives, even though they may be part of another, organized religion.  Both Christianity and Islam exist here in substantial numbers.  Christianity, and especially the Catholic church, has been amenable to syncretism, with animist (voodoo) elements in the churches....

 Saturday, February 22,  Ganvie, Benin   This morning we drove about an hour out of Cotonou to Lake Nokoue which is a wide, slow moving part of the Nokoue River.  What’s special here is a village of 30,000 people on stilts, which dates from the time that there was a sanctuary tradition that people were not taken to be sold as slaves if they were on this water.  The village persists, as the old traditions and habits are solidified over time and by the spirits.   On the way out of town we passed a huge, long seawall which has been adorned by murals representing the history and traditions of Benin.  We stopped at a portion of the wall which represents some aspects of Voodoo.  Here is a woman pouring water out of a gourd to attract the spirits.   These women are adorned with voodoo clothing:  And this is a voodoo priest:  Here’s a representation of modern Amazons:  We arrived at a very busy wharf from which we took a boat t...

 Friday, February 21, 2025  Cotonou, Benin   This is our last day before the formal trip begins, and we had signed up for a tour to Porto Novo with others from our trip who have arrived early.  Eight of the 12 are here, and it seems like a lovely and compatible group.   We left Cotonou and drove about 45 minutes to the town of Porto Novo, the actual capitol of Benin but not the largest or most important city.  Named by the Portuguese who colonized this part of West Africa, it’s about half the size of Cotonou.  As we picked up our local guide, this woman walked past with an incredible load of yams:  Our first stop was at a remarkable place.  A man named Louis Oke-Agbo who had been abandoned by his family and had grown up on the streets, has become a very successful photographer and artist, with showings at galleries in Paris.  He has used his money and his success to found an NGO dedicated to street children who suffer from mental ill...