-George Eliot-
Even though we were in a room, it was a little bit of a
hot box and after speaking to Zoe this morning, I am glad we had a fan in our
room as she didn’t get much sleep with it being too hot in her room. Would the tents have been cooler? I’m not sure.
The good thing with the room being so warm is that the washing I hand
washed last night was bone dry. See,
there is always an upside to the downside-always. We tried in vain to get back onto the free
Wi-Fi that seemed to go down yesterday afternoon and stayed that way with no
luck and I think we may have overloaded the poor modem in our excitement, can
that happen? Besides not being able to upload my blogs, I am not that worried
that I don’t have internet access. No
stress on not receiving messages, not hearing from people and after checking
quickly that no news from home is always good news and really that is all I
need to check. Yes this is a more
chilled out trip without the Wi-Fi and I am actually enjoying it, well for a
short term, I think 2.5 months is enough break from technology, I am not losing
it that much that I won’t ever NOT have access from my precious Facebook.
Our first stop this morning was just a 2 minute drive
from the camp site called The Point of No Return. The Point of No Return is a UNESCO heritage site marking
the exit point from West Africa to the Americas during the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade. From this beach in Ouidah, Benin, West Africa millions of slaves were
captured, shackled, then marched to their enslavement or, in many cases, death.
A shadow hangs over this beach. The sadness in the air is palpable. We stood on
sands that are marred in blood and despair. The monument, a stark white arch
surrounded by frenetic, heaving sculptures. It marks the physical spot where
imprisoned slaves would circle around a sacred tree three times before boarding
Western ships, in order to forget everything about their past and to prepare
for their new life of servitude. It was
very poignant, looking out to the ocean, imagining the slaves, men and women,
tired and scared after walking from the slave market and seeing the waiting
ships to take them away from their homes, possibly forever. There would be people that would prefer to
die and jump from the ship and because they were chained to other slaves there
would be a handful of them that would go over the edge and die. Matais then explained some more about the
slavery history and I find it really fascinating and really I was ignorant of
the period and history.
There was an artisian that was patiently waiting for us
to finish and he then asked if he could show us some of his works. Well we were there and I am a sucker for that
type of souvenier at the moment, so checking with Zoe we quickly went and had a
look and there was nothing there that I hadn’t seen before, but Eve and Duck
bought something and after looking at his ‘studio’ we saw another monument just
down the road and again checked with Zoe, and Harj, Duck and I went and had a
quick look and it was a Christian monument that was nearly as big as The Point
of No Return memorial whjich we took some photos of and then back to the truck for
the scenic drive to Contonou. We
basically followed the beach on a sandy road, and at some points we were
literally only meters from the ocean.
The sun was high in the sky and the locals were happy and giving us
waves and beautiful smiles. Really a
smile is worth a thousand words and something that doesn’t need to be translated. We bumped and weaved our way along the sandy
road, passing small villages made from palm fronds and the local people going
about their daily routine. We got the
opportunity to stop and see how the local fisherman pull in their nets from the
ocean. We were warned not to take any
photos which was okay, but they weren’t happy that we were just going to sit
there and watch, well certainly not for free, so if we were going to pay to
watch them, we were going to take photos as well. They were very abrupt, even after we had
settled on a price, but they didn’t stop us from taking photos and they even
asked us to join in. basically these
massive nets are cast into the ocean and then every morning they need to be
pulled in and then the catch is divided up into the families. The rope that they have to pull would be over
1km long and they all pull on the line to the beat of drums, whistles and a
bell and they sing at the same time. It
was quite a sight to see. Apparently
they drink during the process that could take 4-8 hours to get the net into
shore.
It really was a magic drive and we had to help some
locals get their cart that was stuck in sand.
Initially, they were asking that we use the truck to help them out, but
Madge would have got stuck for sure, so a bunch of the crew jumped off, I was
the official photographer of course (secretly through the front
windscreen). Madge was going to have to
take care crossing the same patch of soft sand, so to be on the safe side, Sam
told us to hang on as he was going to gun it over the patch as he reversed back
to give us enough room for the run up and have enough speed to not get
stuck. I felt like I was about to get
shot out of a cannon as we then lurched forward as Madge gathered speed and we
hit the soft sand and made it over safely with whoops from us inside the
cab. Talk about an adrenalin rush.
We arrived into the big smoke of Contonou at 11.45am and
what a busy city it was. I would have to
call it the motor bike city. There were
boda boda’s everywhere and you can distinguish one from a normal bike rider as
they wear the same colour yellow jacket.
It was a sea of yellow shirts in the traffic. It was that busy and not really knowing where
to find the port, we paid a boda boda to navigate us through the city and at we
made it safe and sound to the port at 12.30pm.
We were leaving Madge for the night as we were taking a oat to the
overwater village of Ganvie. So after
speaking to security making sure that they would keep an eye on the truck
overnight we walked about 500m to the wharf where we would board our boat. It was super busy with lots of people, mainly
women all selling their goods and fish from their small wooden pirogues and
people gathered on the shore. It was a
sea of colour and a bustle of a market.
I was a little worried that our boat was going to be one of the small
wooden pirogues that were sitting around waiting for people to take out to
Ganvie, but there was a sigh of relief when we saw that we had a covered boat,
it was large enough to take us all and it also had a motor. Phew.
Not being a small boat person this is the one thing I worry about when I
do trips like this, but so far so good (touchwood) and after we were helped
onto the boat we were on our way for the 30 minute ride to Ganvie. It was an interesting ride as we witnessed
what daily life entails for people who live on the water. There were pirogues, which are long local
canoes basically made out of wood, full of daily items that get sent out to
Ganvie. Like boats of fish, day to day
goods including boats full of tomatoes, and fresh produce. We also saw a lot of men fishing with nets
that they cast from the front of their pirogues in the attempt to catch
fish. It was a hive of activity and
always something to look at for the ride.
Ganvie is a
lake village in Benin, lying in Lake Nokoué,
near Cotonou.
With a population of around 20,000 people, it is probably the largest lake
village in Africa and as such is very popular with tourists. The village was established in the sixteenth or
seventeenth centuries by the Tofinu people,
established on the lake because the Dahomey's
(a slave trading tribe) religion forbade the Fon warriors from entering water,
therefore the lagoon was a safe territory for other tribes. Originally based on farming, the village's
main industries other than tourism are now fishing and fish farming. As we approached the village, there were even
more boats, and it was like a small city, but instead of boda boda’s and cars
there were pirogues (boats) everywhere.
I got the distinct impression that we were not to welcome here as there
seemed to be a lot of hostile looks and no amount of waving was breaking the
Ganvian’s. Some did wave back, and we
made sure that we were not using our cameras in an intrusive way, but they were
just not friendly at all. The water
village reminded me of the one that we saw near Lightning Lake in Venezuela,
everything is done by boat and all the shops and services were accessed by them
as well. We passed a small ‘pirogue’
market where there were up to 10 boats, all floating around with shoes,
handbags, fruit and vegetables, waiting for people to come to them. I guess the upside to the business is that it
is mobile and they can pole around the waterways in search of work too. We arrived at our guesthouse for the night
and in a way I am thankful that we were not ‘overwater’ as such in a hut with
bamboo floor as I am not sure if the bamboo would be weight tested to my
weight, but we were basically on a small plot of land that had a big courtyard,
rooms were located to the right and the bar and restaurant were located to the
left. It was actually a really cool
place and would be great for our night here.
When we arrived there was a monkey chained to a pole and after
looking at some of our photos of him, we
noticed that he had a blood nose. He had
some shade from the pole, but it was a scorcher of a day and he really looked
sad the poor thing.
We had pre-ordered lunch (as they take time here in
Benin) and even with us arriving at 1pm, lunch was not on the table until 2pm
and after we had eaten we jumped back into our boat for a cruise around some of
the water village, with 30,000 people living over the water I am sure we are
just seeing a snap shot of the whole area.
Again we were very aware of our photo taking and not making it obvious
that we were taking photos and at times none of us had our cameras out at all
and we still got some hostile stares and the kids were giving a gesture that
wasn’t a wave and it wasn’t asking for money but it wasn’t a good sign, I did
ascertain that. I don’t know why the
people don’t like us and don’t get me wrong we did get some waves and not every
single person was scowling, but there was just an under-current vibe that was
not friendly. On this trip we noticed a
lot more children in the pirogues on their own.
They would have been maybe 8-10 years old and I rekon we would have seen
over 20 of them all in boats, either empty or with goods or water in them. They just seemed so young, but I guess they
have been bought up here, on the water and this is their daily life. We headed back to the Auberge for free time
in the afternoon. Our place was located
just across the river from the fresh water pump and it was interesting to sit
and watch the process of people waiting to fill their drinking containers. If people had more than 3 containers they
were queued to the right and if a person rocked up in their pirogue with a
single container they were allowed to ‘push’ in and get theirs filled and
nobody had a problem with this system.
It was a massive hose that was run by a generator and it just didn’t
stop. Once one person had their
containers filled the hose was just directed to the next boat and away they
went.
I blogged for the afternoon and then came back outside in
time to watch a beautiful sunset over the village and the colours were amazing
and we watched it from a small dining room above the bar, a slight breeze
coming in and watching the ‘boat’ traffic pass us by-with a bird’s eye
view. It really is a beautiful part of
the world that is for sure. Apparently I
missed some of the action with the monkey.
Zoe and Sam explained to the guesthouse owners that it was cruel to keep
a monkey chained up like that and they let him off the chain for him to run
around, and then they decided to just let him go. They thought it was a good thing to show
tourists, to bring them to their place and they also found out that they had a
turtle chained to one of the posts where the boats pull in to drop off the
guests and they also let that little fella free. I’m not sure how long both animals will last
now on their own, but if we taught some people that it is not right to chain
animals, then they hopefully won’t do it again and also spread the word top
others.
Dinner was bought up to us in the room upstairs and we
could see what sort of night traffic was passing by. The water libe finally emptied at 8pm and
then they turned out the burning candle for the night. As we headed to bed (the guys were off to
play poker) we checked the water way one more tim and there was only 2 boats
out, poling in the dark. We wondered how
they could see as it was pitch black, besides our lights burning brightly on a
generator. The rest of the village was
in pitch darkness, I couldn’t even see a single light at all and if we hadn’t
of seen the village today, it was that dark that you would think there was
nothing there.
We turned our lights off at 11pm and you could hear
people calling to each other from their homes, some loud music played for about
45 minutes and then there was absolute silence.
Our window faced onto a waterway, and occasionally you could hear the
splash of a pole through the water, but it was like the second the sun sets,
everyone is in bed and then when the sun rises I bet it would be a hive of
activity. I guess when you don’t have
lights at home (maybe just candles) this routine makes sense. Could I live here? The immediate answer would be no, purely for
the fact that the Ganvians don’t seem to like us, but to live on the water ALL
the time? Just need to nip to the
shops-in a boat. I need to head into
town-in a boat. I need to buy a new bag-from
a boat. Yeah I don’t think that would be
me, but it is amazing to see how people adapt to environments and make it work
and Ganvie is one of those rare and beautiful places.
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