Sunday, October 16, 2005
Cotonou, Benin October 16, 2005
I don't like Benin. I might even dislike Benin. It is easily my least favorite country that we have so far visited and I feel this awful urge to crap all over it in my public writings. This feeling began to establish itself during our first two days in this country, which we spent at Grand Popo and Ouidah, respectively a simple beach village and the Voodoo capital of the world. The beach village, though renowned for being the country's best, was bland and unexceptional. The beach was monopolized by abandoned and poorly conceived hotel/camping sites and the ocean itself was extremely perilous. I have never experienced such immediate downward and outward bound currents. These sucked back with such power that waves were piled up into two meter high walls that incorporated all of the water from the previous waves onto which they should have broken, leaving them to crash onto dry sand. This meant that riding waves was humping sandpaper and swimming was trying to stay on your feet in a manageable zone of about two meters that immediately preceded the part of the sea that was ready to swallow you whole. Since both of our guidebooks had advertised the treachery here I had expected it to be fairly unimpressive and reasonably negotiable; but, for once, about the ocean, they were right. It is frustrating to be in my second straight coastal country with no opportunities to surf, even if the waves are poorly suited to the sport.
In this beach town a pattern began to emerge. A Beninoise man lied to us about the presence of cheap local food and then overcharged us for tiny half portions of fish. Locals also proved unusually ready to make us feel ridiculous and unwelcome by chortling and snickering about us in public places such as restaurants, cafes or bars. In Ouidah, a teenage girl completely mischarged us for her gooey bean sandwiches on stale bread, slithered her story about when confronted and refused to treat us fairly, all the while smirking at the only other table of diners, who had been making jokes at our expense from the moment we walked in. This sort of reception is totally unusual in West Africa. Local food sellers have been welcoming and fair and passersby or fellow diners have been far more likely to ensure that we are treated fairly than to giggle and point. I hate being treated like this and so Benin has started inching its way towards my doghouse.
Ouidah, also, was lame, lamer than bad clowns, as lame as relying on people who get lazy and disappoint you. The world center of Catholicism is the Vatican, which is impressive; the world center of Islam, whether Mecca or Medina, is impressive; Hinduism, Buddhism and most other major world religions have some awe-inspiring structures bestraddling their points of origin or points of focus. Voodoo, which supposedly sprang from Ouidah and its surrounding region, is represented there by some amateur painted sculptures and an artless concrete egg strewn with pampered and dinky pythons. Incarnate Voodoo deities also tend to look very much like malignant piles; the egg yolks, chicken blood and bird feathers that are regularly smeared across them do not improve their appearance. That said, after I finished being underawed by the public face of Voodoo's homeland, I realized that Voodoo wasn't in the habit of extracting great sums of money from its practitioners and faithful members in order to construct ostentatious and self-important buildings. It was also comfortable keeping its secrets, without making a great stink out of doing so, which might completely excuse the hokey modesty of the town. Ouidah's deity is the python; numerous people there are facially scarred in a way that resembles a python bite to either cheek and to the forehead. This can either appear disfiguring or attractive.
After Ouidah, we drove into Cotonou, the nation's defacto capital. This experience cemented my gathering malice toward Benin. The drivers, mostly on mopeds, but especially those in cars, were particularly pushy and inconsiderate; the city was splattered all over a dingy beach and around a river. Despite these two assets, it appears to have no charm whatsoever. The buildings are blockish concrete, ensnared by drooping tangled wires, mounted by crooked rusting antennae, encased by metal bars. Our map was also bungled in its usual way, which lead to a vexing tour of the industrial area and the commercial district. I want to leave this city as soon as our visas to Niger are processed.
I don't like Benin. I might even dislike Benin. It is easily my least favorite country that we have so far visited and I feel this awful urge to crap all over it in my public writings. This feeling began to establish itself during our first two days in this country, which we spent at Grand Popo and Ouidah, respectively a simple beach village and the Voodoo capital of the world. The beach village, though renowned for being the country's best, was bland and unexceptional. The beach was monopolized by abandoned and poorly conceived hotel/camping sites and the ocean itself was extremely perilous. I have never experienced such immediate downward and outward bound currents. These sucked back with such power that waves were piled up into two meter high walls that incorporated all of the water from the previous waves onto which they should have broken, leaving them to crash onto dry sand. This meant that riding waves was humping sandpaper and swimming was trying to stay on your feet in a manageable zone of about two meters that immediately preceded the part of the sea that was ready to swallow you whole. Since both of our guidebooks had advertised the treachery here I had expected it to be fairly unimpressive and reasonably negotiable; but, for once, about the ocean, they were right. It is frustrating to be in my second straight coastal country with no opportunities to surf, even if the waves are poorly suited to the sport.
In this beach town a pattern began to emerge. A Beninoise man lied to us about the presence of cheap local food and then overcharged us for tiny half portions of fish. Locals also proved unusually ready to make us feel ridiculous and unwelcome by chortling and snickering about us in public places such as restaurants, cafes or bars. In Ouidah, a teenage girl completely mischarged us for her gooey bean sandwiches on stale bread, slithered her story about when confronted and refused to treat us fairly, all the while smirking at the only other table of diners, who had been making jokes at our expense from the moment we walked in. This sort of reception is totally unusual in West Africa. Local food sellers have been welcoming and fair and passersby or fellow diners have been far more likely to ensure that we are treated fairly than to giggle and point. I hate being treated like this and so Benin has started inching its way towards my doghouse.
Ouidah, also, was lame, lamer than bad clowns, as lame as relying on people who get lazy and disappoint you. The world center of Catholicism is the Vatican, which is impressive; the world center of Islam, whether Mecca or Medina, is impressive; Hinduism, Buddhism and most other major world religions have some awe-inspiring structures bestraddling their points of origin or points of focus. Voodoo, which supposedly sprang from Ouidah and its surrounding region, is represented there by some amateur painted sculptures and an artless concrete egg strewn with pampered and dinky pythons. Incarnate Voodoo deities also tend to look very much like malignant piles; the egg yolks, chicken blood and bird feathers that are regularly smeared across them do not improve their appearance. That said, after I finished being underawed by the public face of Voodoo's homeland, I realized that Voodoo wasn't in the habit of extracting great sums of money from its practitioners and faithful members in order to construct ostentatious and self-important buildings. It was also comfortable keeping its secrets, without making a great stink out of doing so, which might completely excuse the hokey modesty of the town. Ouidah's deity is the python; numerous people there are facially scarred in a way that resembles a python bite to either cheek and to the forehead. This can either appear disfiguring or attractive.
After Ouidah, we drove into Cotonou, the nation's defacto capital. This experience cemented my gathering malice toward Benin. The drivers, mostly on mopeds, but especially those in cars, were particularly pushy and inconsiderate; the city was splattered all over a dingy beach and around a river. Despite these two assets, it appears to have no charm whatsoever. The buildings are blockish concrete, ensnared by drooping tangled wires, mounted by crooked rusting antennae, encased by metal bars. Our map was also bungled in its usual way, which lead to a vexing tour of the industrial area and the commercial district. I want to leave this city as soon as our visas to Niger are processed.
3 Comments:
Hi Nate: This is Elizabeth, We just read your Benin story and are outraged! The gsll. We just got our electricity back this morning, and it sucks to be in the third world in America...when can you come visit Miami? pythons to you!
-e
-e
The things you wrote about the Benin really shows me that you must be a typical American guy and that is not a compliment as the picture that we have of Americans is superficial, reckless and ignorant! The United States is the only country I never want to visit!
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