-Eurythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’-
We had a free day in the Tata Somba region and this
morning was an included walk around an authentic village. After staying in the eco-lodge last night, I
was looking forward to seeing the ‘real’ deal today and how the local people of
the area live. I have done more village
walks on tours than I can count and I generally find them all very touristy,
not real and to be honest a waste of my time.
In saying that, the last one that I did was last month when I did my Kenyan
Wildlife Safari and we visited a Masai Mara village which was the real deal, it
didn’t feel touristic in the slightest and I had a feeling todays village walk
would be the same. From the looks we get
from people while on the road, from awe at such a big vehicle, to having
‘white’ people on board, to curiosity, to a little fear as people step back
when they see us coming to bewilderment as to why we are here, of all places
with more than one person shrugging there shoulders with palms up asking
why? Yes we get a mixed reaction where
ever we go and I have a feeling that not many tourists come through here,
unlike their East African counterparts for sure.
After breakfast we were met at 9am by our guide for the
morning Matais, and he is a local that lives in the village we were to visit by
foot. One of the first things that
Patrick and I noticed yesterday was the scaring marks on the faces of the
people at the eco-lodge. To explain it,
the markings were like when you fall asleep on something and then you wake with
the indentation on your face from whatever you had been sleeping on. They were very faint lines across the whole
face and it was one of the first things that Matais addressed when we moved on
from the hotel. Both men and women get
the scarring done when they are 3 years old and as they get older they can
choose to have additional scarring if they wish. Women do it as they get older, as in this
region, a lot of the women walk around topless and it is a way for them to make
themselves more beautiful. The men do it
as an act of courage. When they are
children they are held down and wriggle and squirm but as a man, they have to
show they are brave and can’t cry out or show that they are in pain. Either way, it really is beautiful and we saw
these marks on all of the people of the village during the morning.
The Tammari
people, or Batammariba, also
known as Somba, are an Oti–Volta-speaking people of the Atakora Department of Benin and neighboring areas of
Togo, where they go by the name of Taberma. They are famous for their two-story
fortified houses, known as Tata Somba ("Somba house"), in which
the ground floor is used for housing livestock at night, internal alcoves are
used for cooking, and the upper floor contains a rooftop courtyard and is used
for drying grain, sleeping quarters, and granaries. These evolved by adding an
enclosing roof to the clusters of huts joined by a connecting wall that are
typical of Gur-speaking areas of West Africa. The Tammari are mostly animist by religion. Their
language is in the Gur family.
During the walk we were shown a massive baobab tree that
was at least 100 years old. The center
of the tree had rotted out, but it still continues to grow and there was an
entrance as big as a normal door that you could walk through to stand in the
middle of this remarkable tree. You could
fit more than 7 people in there at one time-that is how big it was. The baobab tree is an important tree for the
locals as they eat the fruit and nuts it bears, they use the hanging roots for
ropes and also the leaves for soups and sauces.
We walked past crops of yams, which is a major staple for all of Benin
and not just this area. The plant fruits
twice in its life, the first fruit, after 4 months is eaten and the second
fruit 4 months later is used as the new seed for a new planting. It is amazing how nature works
sometimes!!
Yam plants were another plant we saw. These are perennial herbaceous vines are cultivated for the consumption of
their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America,
the Caribbean and Oceania.
There are many cultivars of yam. Although the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) has also been
referred to as a yam in parts of the United States and
Canada, it is not part of the family Dioscoreaceae, rather it is in the Morning glory family Convolvulaceae. The true yam is a versatile vegetable. It can
be barbecued, roasted, fried, grilled, boiled,
baked, smoked and when grated it is processed into a dessert recipe. Yams are a primary agricultural and
culturally important commodity in West Africa,
where over 95 percent of the world's yam crop is harvested. Yams are still
important for survival in these regions. Some varieties of these tubers can be
stored up to six months without refrigeration, which makes them a valuable
resource for the yearly period of food scarcity at the beginning of the wet season.
Yam cultivars are also cropped in other humid tropical countries. Yam tubers can grow up to 1.5 meters in
length and weigh up to 70 kilograms. The
vegetable has a rough skin which is difficult to peel, but which softens after
heating. The skins vary in color from dark brown to light pink. The majority of
the vegetable is composed of a much softer substance known as the
"meat". This substance ranges in color from white or yellow to purple
or pink in mature yams. And were also shown
the peanut plants, where Matais dug up a few and let us taste a pure peanut
straight from the ground and it tasted just like a fresh pea, which I believe
is where the name peanut originated from (according to Sam) and it makes sense
after tasting the raw product. We walked
past soya bean crops, sweet potato and maize crops and then came across our
first original tata.
Before entering the tata, we were shown the voodoo
‘fetishes’ outside the home, which symbolizes the luck and provider of the
home. There were also skulls from
animals that were sacrificed and also hunting trophies (skulls) of kills also
hanging around the door. The tatas are
purely made from the earth, there is no added concrete or other building
material, it is 100% the earth around them and with that being the case they
can only be built in the dry season and it usually takes around 6 months to
complete a home. Some of the homes in
the area, including the one we were about to enter have been standing for over
200 years! Imagine. Matais said that is big rains come, then some
of the walls may need repairs, but the structure itself is certainly made to
last. Maybe we could learn a few things
from the Somba? We entered the front
door to a small room where the maize and other foods were prepared, no cooking,
just the stones to prepare the food for the actual cooking process. The next room was the main living room of the
home and it was so dark in there we couldn’t see past our noses, but with the
approval to take some photos inside, with the aid of the flash we could see
just how big the rooms were and their worldly possessions. We then walked through another door, the
place is not made for fat people, we came into a small room where the cooking
is done when it rains and then 3 small steps that lead out to the roof. The room was where the cooking was done
during the summer and it also contained 4 smaller round huts which were used
for the sleeping quarters and also the storage of their nuts and grains. The size of the sleeping huts would have been
3x3m and they dropped down, like a fire pit to give the area more space and
would comfortable sleep 2 people. It
always looks smaller from the outside than what it actually is on the inside,
especially with the round shaped buildings. Harj asked the question does the
size of the tatas differentiate the wealth of the family and the answer was no,
it basically is just the size of the family.
We did stop in and look at a larger tata, which was built exactly the
same as the first one, just on a larger scale, and they really are a cool piece
of architecture and to think that they have been building these as long as
Australia has been a country, its’ pretty mind boggling.
We walked past a school, a church, and with it being
Sunday there was some singing coming from within which sounded amazing, some
locals that were cooking beigneg, which is a form of fried donuts made from
local nuts and they were delicious and we just kept asking if it was okay to
take photos and it always was, but, Africans can be funny about taking photos
and unless you can get a sneaky shot in it is always best to check. Can you believe that there are people on the
trip that take more photos than, me. I
KNOW…imagine. That is a tough act to
follow for those who know me, but I am proud to say I know the photo etiquette,
where and when it is okay to take a photo, some of the people on the trip
forget this unspoken rule sometimes and it makes me a little cranky at
times. But it takes all sorts and I can’t
let it worry me at the end of the day.
We got taken to the edge of the village that overlooked the Atakora
Mountains, and it looked like a scene straight out of Jurassic Park and I
expected a dinosaur to walk across the plains, it was just beautiful. It was a clear day so we could see Togo to
the left and Burkina Faso to the right.
Ah the serenity.
We finished the walk passing through Matais nick of the
woods and we met his mother, who was sitting on the floor with a bowl of
berries next to her as she worked and we tasted the fruit of the baobab, which
was like a custard apple taste and you can drink the juice of the fruit as
well, but we didn’t get a chance to do that and with a wave and a photo of Mrs
Matais, we rounded back to our hotel getting back at 11.30am. It was perfect timing as the midday sun was
starting to really heat up and we had some free time before lunch was served at
12.30pm. The option was chicken or fish,
for a change, with fresh tomato or vegetable sauce with sides. I could eat chicken till the cows come home
(is that PC) but after lunch was more free time till the group were going to go
on an optional walk in the afternoon, which I was passing up as my blog was
nearly up to date I wanted to make sure I was completely up to date, to the
actual day, and I am happy to report as the afternoon wore on, even with
welcome interruptions, I am now currently up to dinner tonight, which should be
ready in about 20 minutes. This doesn’t
happen very often, where I am up to speed on the actual day, and I think I
could count on one hand how many times this has happened, including my world
odyssey, over 20 months. It is an
achievement and it is something, for me at least, to be proud of.
huh
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