Under the Mango Tree - Jaren and Steve in Benin

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Touring the Cashew Plant

Tchaourou commune produces 95% of Benin's cashew exports, and we had the good fortune to tour the plant about 2 km away from our house. It was cool, nice to see efficiency exists here and encouraging that some natural resource transformation is benefiting the local economy.

That said it was a factory, and aside from Jaren getting caught committing industrial espionage (taking pictures that is), it is a fairly unremarkable factory.

Bottom line - go ask your local grocer for Beninese Cashwes. Now.

Friday, April 04, 2008

See! A Beninese Funeral

Not sad this time, I promise. Earlier this year I was informed that the mother of the President of the welders association had just passed away at her home in Dassa, and that all the members of the group would be going to the funeral. Knowing that funerals for old folks here are a celebration rather than a mourning - not to mention a good chance to hang out with some of the artisans -- I lept at the invitation.

However, that leap didn't mean we were going any time soon. No no, funerals here require a lot of planning, and the dead don't mind waiting (what else are they going to do ?). Music, food, matching outfits and a parade all need to be mobilized before community elders can be laid to rest. Yes, I said matching outfits.

Nearly a month after the initial announcement, I received my invitation along with the opportunity to buy some of the matching fabric. Jaren was invited too, but unfortunately had scheduled another activity for that morning. That said, had she come I have no idea where we would have put her. The plan was to go and come back the same day, 'caravaning' the dozen welders down.

On the morning of the funeral I was told to wait by the side of the road by the house and wait for the group. Not 2 minutes had passed before I saw the clown car like sedan with 9 people pull up, at which point I was shoehorned in the middle of the rear bench seat on top of the pull down arm rest (increased surface area, of course). I got very lucky that sitting next to me was Pierre, VP for the commune wide artisans group, whose outsized personality is counter balanced nicely with a 5'4'', 125 pound frame.

The next two hours were a blur - a sweaty sweaty blur - as we headed south. Two stops were made, once to eat some rice (can't do anything in this country without stopping to carboload at some point), and once at another welding shop to take the arm rests off the doors in an effort to better accomodate the 6 adults sitting in the back seat. Amazingly, it worked.

On arrival, the scene was surreal with dozens of people in matching outfits sitting and talking, eating and drinking. We had a snack, then walked around the corner to see some other people and have another snack.

This basically went on for 2 hours, meandering and eating. Finally someone said it was time for the funeral, so we walked a half kilometer into a densely packed neighborhood until we got to a nondescript house with a makeshift awning built out front with banana leaves.

That's when they told me we were going to see the body. « Umm, hasn't she been dead for over a month? » I thought to myself while trying to figure out how a country to which refrigeration is a pretty new phenomenon could have developed a tradition of burying bodies after a month of waiting. Ew.

So after removing shoes and hats, Valentin and I entered a doorway to find a body thankfully shrouded, with clothing then laid over the top of the shroud. We paid our respects for a few moments and then headed back to the main festival point for another meal.

And what of all this eating. Some was good – can't go wrong here with rice, fish and sauce – and some was terrible, mainly the akassa (old pate) with leather (the often discussed local custom of eating boiled cow skin).

After a few more meals, a bit of music, the moving of some chairs to get back under the shade, and a short public group nap we piled back into the car and headed home. And that was that, one funeral attended.

Photos Below

Innousa and Rafiou doing the funeral thing

Pierre, rebelling with some non-matching tissue

Guy I call President because he's the president of the welders for the whole commune (and I can't remember his name)

Musicians.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Making local celebrities for a cause

Child trafficking** is a major concern in Benin, specifically in cities near the Nigerian border such as Tchaourou. Why? Cutluarlly, children work here; they help run the kitchen, keep the house tidy and sell items (produce, shoes, drinks, etc) to make ends meet for the household. Yes, even kids younger than aged 6 do this. However, there are “traffickers” who exploit this culutural acceptance by telling parents that if they send their child to, lets say, Nigeria that the child’s life can be more prosperous doing the same work that they would otherwise do here in Benin. Moreover, the parents PAY to send the child away with the trafficker usually a couple thousand CFA and a few pagnes. The parents believe they are giving their child a better life; a life they otherwise could not provide. Once the child is gone, they are rarely ever heard from again and that child ends up living a life of, for lack of better word, in slavery not earning a dime. So, you see why this is a problem. And this is just one example of Benin’s problem with child trafficking.

There is a lack of knowledge about the reality of the situation here. To create an awareness campaign, I worked with local singers to create a CD of songs in Tchaourou’s local languages addressing children’s rights. This CD will be played in public areas, specifically the market where most children are either enticed or abducted to work in Nigeria, as well as in taxi cars and stores.

To create the CD, I took the local artists up to Parakou (the closest big city) to a recording studio.

Here’s a clip of one Nagot song.

Yes, that is a big poster of USHER on the back wall

After the recording tech was done, we “feted” by going to get a snack at a buvette next door.

Overally, the day was a success.

** Child Trafficking: "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."

World Women's Day Fete

World Women’s Day was March 8th, but like all holidays here in Benin, it was not celebrated on the actual day but rather a week later. Preparing for this event took a few weeks to plan and countless hours of waiting. Waiting? Yes, waiting because working with the local Women’s Groups (women who all live in the same quariter who work together to process a certain product to sell in town. Ex: taking manioc and processing into gari) they have NO concept of time. This lack of punctuality was not new to me, but having to wait that long was a new concept. For an average meeting, let’s say it was to start at 9am would not start with at least quorum until 11:30 while most turned up around 12:30. Time wasted?

It gets better.

In the meetings details of the event were discussed. How many drinks were needed, what would be the parade route, what VIPs would be invited, etc. The detail that astonished me because it took an hour, yes an hour, to decided were the sandwiches. Here in Benin, there’s really only one of kind of sandwich offered at big events (or on Confort Lines Bus) and that is a purred mix of fish, onion, garlic, oil on bread. So when the discussion of the sandwiches turned into this huge debate basically about where should be buy the bread, how many sandwiches to make, how much oil do we need, and then when someone mentioned adding carrots to the mix that just set everyone off and thus the hour long debate.

Here’s a group of women the night before making the sandwiches. I helped cut onions for 3 hours. My hands smelled awful for days.

It gets better...

Check out this outfit!!!

But really, there's more waiting.

The day of the event, the parade was to start at 8am with all the women’s groups lining up at 7am. After waiting and waiting…and waiting for everyone to turn up the parade started at 11!