My Last Day in West Africa

Back inside the Ghanaian border I joined a share taxi going all the way back to Accra. The French man and his Togolese wife beside me did not speak a word of English, a shame because they both had a really lovely energy. Unfortunately the man in the passenger seat did speak English.

An argument broke out between the driver and the passenger. The passenger wanted the air-conditioning on but the driver complained that it would use too much petrol and cost him too much money.

“Why do you not have money?” the passenger pried “you have a good job, you make a good wage!”

“I have to spend all my money on my wife, my two children and my girlfriend” the driver whined.

“If you cannot afford to have a girlfriend you should give her up” he coached.

“I cannot giver her up” the driver protested “my wife does not like to have sex, so you see, I need a girlfriend”

Apparently his wife will only have sex with him twice a week and the passenger agreed that in that case he really does need a girlfriend as well. They asked me what I thought. I couldn’t have cared less but decided to suggest:

“Maybe if you gave your wife pleasure during sex she would want to have it more”

“You see…” the passenger interjected “women need cunnilingus…”

I shuddered. I HATE that word!

“…but African men won’t do it” he disclosed.

“And I suspect that those same men that won’t do it to women expect women to do it to them” I say brazenly.

“It is different” he tries to educate “When a woman sucks a man’s dick [I swear to God he used those exact words!] it is just like the skin on your forearm. But when a man gives a woman cunnilingus [argh! that word again!] you get all her fluids… you have to really like her.”

“Trust me… doing that to a man is nothing like doing it to an arm… it also has fluids you know” I argue.

“No! Just like kissing an arm” he retorts.

I gave up.

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” he finishes the ride by asking me.

……………….

Back at the New Kokolemle hotel where David was staying I see him at his usual table near the entrance still ploughing away at his short film on the Agbogbloshie slum. I watch his now nearly finished piece and was impressed at how far he had come on it. The editing was now really tight and had some beautiful shots. Having film making experience I know how much work went into this one-man production and it really turned out to be  a quality film.

We sat out the front of the hotel and drank a beer and ate a sausage on a stick. This was the last night I’d see David, and being my usual sentimental self I was really down about it.

We talked about Ghana, trying to figure this strange place out. We deconstructed its residents and commented on their differences. We talked about David Edem and what has been happening since his death.

Apparently the police were trying to find his family. They told David that when someone is sick their family will disappear because they won’t be able to pay the medical bills. They said that usually it is the family who dumps a sick person on the street to die. They then said that there was a good chance his family will magically reappear – a family is given money at a funeral, so a person is worth more to a family dead then alive. The police took photo’s of his face after his death to be shown on television in Togo and Benin where they believe he may be from. Every night a series of missing and found persons photos are flashed on national television. If he isn’t claimed his body gets thrown into a mass burial out the back of the hospital.

David was forewarned by a patient in the bed beside David Edem that the blood tests showed he had HIV/AIDS. He told David that the doctors will deny it though, that they didn’t want it to be known due to the stigma and hysteria around the disease. It is probably also because they are aware of their poor hygiene and safety measures around their treatment of him. Later that day the nurses informed David that the test results were all negative, that they don’t know what put David Edem in that condition. I think it is highly possible he did have HIV/AIDS but it also seems highly possible that he just slowly wasted away. I guess we’ll never know.

David went back to where he found him and spoke to the people who also lived on that part of the street. They told David that he spoke French and one day had told another French speaker that he was beaten and robbed. There is a chance he was beaten for being a thief, again we will never know. The local men had said he just showed up one day and gradually got weaker, thinner and more and more sick. They said that sometimes they would buy him food and water, but they too were poor and homeless, with barely enough to feed themselves what more could they have done?

As David and I sat there drinking our beer we asked the boy who cooked our sausage about himself. His name is Paul, he is 17 years old and left his village for the big city in pursuit of money. He sells sausages for someone else and works from 5pm til 1am. He gets paid 4-5 cedi a night. He spends 2-3 cedi a day on food, has to catch 4 tro tro’s to get to and from work which leaves him about 1 cedi to pay his rent. Our beers cost 3 cedi each – nearly his whole days earnings.

The next day I left early for my flight, it was delayed six hours which gave me too much time to get emotional in my reflection of the West Africa I saw. I thought about how lucky I was to have met David, to have had a friend and a bit of support, I was grateful for the extra experiences I had because of him. I sat and wrote out two lists, one was all of the negative experiences I’d had in West Africa and the second was all of the positive ones. At first all the negative thoughts flowed out and the list filled up fast. I began to wonder if I would be able to think of many positives at all. But to my surprise, and my delight, I ended up filling up the positives page, in fact the positives list ended up being twice as long as the negatives.

Although all of the good times I had came with the price of a hell of a lot of bad ones, I knew that one thing was for sure: the images I had captured in my mind would stay with me for the rest of my life. Triggered by tastes or smells, brought on by facts or stories, reflected in people I meet or something else I would see. No doubt will I always hold on to the beat of hip life music and the ringing sound of babbling preachers echoing through the streets; the warm rust colours of the dirt and mud huts; the pungent smells of body odour and open sewage; the delight in watching naked, pot-bellied, curious children playing; the sight of strong women with loads on their heads; the carpet of goats and chickens littering the streets. These are the depictions that I will always hold on to, and probably always look back on fondly.

Never Get Stuck in a Border Town

I again had no problem at the Togo side of the border when I crossed in to Ghana but the Ghanaian immigration wouldn’t let me through. The problem was that I only had a single entry visa, but I had been told when I left Ghana to get into Togo that it would not be a problem to get back in on a transit visa (I was flying out in less than 48 hours), that I would just have to pay $20 USD to get back into Ghana. Immigration were far from helpful, they said I would have to go to the embassy in Togo to get the transit visa, and that I better hurry because it shuts in 15 minutes.

A well-hearing man grabs me and tells me he can get me to the embassy, I thought he was a taxi driver but it turned out that he was a hustler who loaded my bag and I into a cab. So now I had two people to pay – him and the driver. I decide to let him come for the ride anyway; if the embassy was closed I may need to use him to get me across the border.

I make it with only five minutes to spare and am told to sit and wait.  Finally the woman in charge comes out of her office and gives me the relevant forms. Luckily I have enough cash and some passport photos ready. She tells me that they are closed now and she doesn’t have time to look at the forms but will do it the next day. I plead with her to look at them now. She says it will cost me money… another bribe. I giver her what she asks for, she tells me to sit and wait again and walks over to sit at a table across the room and rests her head on the desk.

I don’t know what she is doing. She had just finished telling me that she was in a hurry to finish and there she was falling asleep on her desk while I had two guys sitting outside waiting for me, charging by the minute.

I could feel my blood beginning to boil.

I understand she was already staying back ten minutes, but that was what the bribe was for was it not? Surely she realises if she just stamps the bloody passport now she could go home.

I clear my throat and gently, trying not to explode with rage, ask her if she will be long.

With a great huff, she pushes her chair back making a loud scraping noise against the floor. Like a film in slow motion she rises and dawdles off to her office.

I pace the room anxiously staring at the clock. Every second she wastes is costing me money.

She finally remerges “pick it up tomorrow”.

“What? No! Tomorrow? No! I need to leave, I need to get back to Accra” I tell her. “I am not staying in Togo, I am just passing through trying to get back to Accra to catch my flight to South Africa”.

“Get a hotel, stay tonight, pick it up tomorrow” She tells me.

Exasperated I ask if there is any way she can do it now, wondering if she wanted even more money.

She actually yells at me “Usually it takes three days I already do you a favour!”

“How can a 48 hour visa take longer to process than the time I am allowed to stay?” I yell back. I couldn’t believe I paid this bitch a bribe!

All rational thinking shut down. I demanded my passport and my money back. I didn’t have a plan B but this woman had pissed me off.

She stormed into her office to get the passport and I tried to reason with my hot-headed self, telling myself it was just one night, to do as she said, get a hotel, and still I should make it back to Accra in time to get my flight. But my stubbornness was too conceited and when she handed my passport and money back I snatched it and slammed the door behind me.

Back outside I was surprised to see the two men and the taxi still waiting, I had honestly been thinking that they, and my bag, would have been long gone by now. I told them what had happened.

“This is what we do” The hustler said.

“We will take you to another border, at that border I know the guard, you pay him a little money and on the other side we put you in another taxi. That taxi will take you to the embassy in Accra, they will stamp your passport, no problem!”

“And how much will all this cost me?” I ask

“Little little” he says.

“I only have little little. What exactly is little little?”

He says it will be 30’000 for the driver, 10’000 for the border guard and for him ‘whatever my heart feels is right’.

“You are not doing it from your heart, you are doing it for money, how much do you want?” I demand to know.

20’000 he finally suggests.

I manage to bargain them down a small amount and for a moment of irrationality I get back in the car to make my great illegal escape across the border.

A million ‘what if’ scenarios race through my mind. What if his friend the guard is not on today? What if the embassy in Ghana is closed? What if the embassy in Ghana arrests me for entering illegally? What if I miss my flight and am stuck in West Africa?

I tell the driver to turn around. Take me back to the bitch at the embassy and I will grovel for forgiveness. I HATE caving in a fight, I HATE saying I was wrong and I HATE having to beg, but a small sensible part of my brain insisted I had to do it.

I had to beg security to let me back in the closed building and I had to beg the receptionist to get the bitch in charge back. She made me wait twenty minutes… twenty very expensive minutes (the two men and the taxi were once again waiting outside). If I were her I would have made me sweat it out even longer than that!

I swallowed my pride. A great big gulp of pride and manage to stammer an apology.

“I am sorry I was angry, I am sorry I was rude to you” I force myself to say. “I really need your help”. It hurt hearing myself say it.

She snatches my passport out of my hand and snatches the money too and slams the door on the way out.

Back at the taxi a long argument ensues about what I owe the men for their help. They tell me how long they had to wait and that for that they need lots of money. Oh! The irony! In this part of Africa most men seem to spend all day dozing under a tree and now I am meant to pay an arm and a leg for them doing it.

We finally settle on a price and it includes a ride to a cheap hotel. It needed to be close to the embassy and close to the border. But I had very little money left and when I said it had to be cheap I meant it.

They took me right to the edge of the border and knocked on the door of a construction site.  A man let us in and the hustler told him my situation. The man led me through the debris to a little room in the back. It had several mattresses on the floor which were dragged out – this was the room the workers had been using for their midday naps. But it was all I could afford so I said yes I would take it.

I went for a walk to the beach in an attempt to calm down. Border towns are notoriously filthy and dodgy, and this was no exception. The streets were crowded with hustlers, drug dealers, sex workers and people gambling on the streets, it reeked of urine and faeces. As I passed every head turned and stared. Men stopped me every few steps to try to chat me up or sell me something. I was still in a fowl mood so was quite good at brushing them off.

Walking across the sand I had to dodge several piles of burning rubbish and when I got to the shoreline that was meant to calm me I was horrified to see it lined with squatting bodies, I watched poo drop out of one man and roll into the sea. I turned to leave as a wave crashed around my ankles and splashed up the inside of my legs, I leapt in surprise but it was too late. I looked down to see that the water had managed to perfectly saturate only around my crotch and down the inside of my legs. For the second time on this trip it undoubtedly looked like I had peed myself.

Walking back to the hotel I kept my head down to avoid any judging looks. Then I thought ‘to hell with it! What do I care if people think I wet myself?’ So I stopped on the side of the street and bought a plate of rice and beans. The woman serving glanced at my wet pants. “The ocean” I say trying to defend myself.

 “Ahhhh! I thought you pissed yourself” she casually says without even the slightest hint of amusement, as though it would have been completely normal if I had.

I go back to the construction site and lay on my bed listening to my ipod. Eventually I fall asleep and at 7am the next morning I get a knock at my bedroom door.

“My name is Cybel, you met my sister” the man on the other side of the doorway tells me. “At the embassy… the big fat lady… she is my sister.”

I cant help but chuckle at his description of his sister.

“Wait! How did you find me? How did you know who I was and where I am staying?” I ask him trying to draw all the links?

He shrugs and continues.

“I spoke to my sister and she says she will give you your visa if you give her small small” he says rubbing his fingers together in the universal sign for money.

“She wants a bribe?” I try to confirm.

“No not a bribe, just some money” he says

“So a bribe” I repeat.

“You cannot say bribe. Bribe is not a good word” he says.

“But she wants money, illegally, to make her help me. This is a bribe”.

“No bribe. A thank you present” he insists.

“A thank you present before someone does something, when they tell you to give them a thank you present that is a bribe”.

He says this is how Africa works. I ask him if it drives him crazy – all the bribes, all the corruption. He doesn’t understand me, he just repeats that this is how it works.

“OK so I pay your sister a ‘thank you’ present… for a second time, then I have to pay you as well… I don’t have much money” I insist. I show him all the money I have left. He is disbelieving. I tell him the only bank I can use is bank Atlantique. He tells me there is none in this town.

“Then that is all I have”

We get on two bikes and head back to the embassy. While we wait for his sister to come out Cybel tells me a bit about his life. Ten years ago a man had paid him to drive from Togo to Burkina Faso. On the night he arrived soldiers broke into his hotel room and arrested him. He was kept in a cell and beaten repeatedly for a week. He was believed to be a part of a group conspiring to start a coup de tat. Whilst in this cell a guard told him that the only chance he had of coming out alive was with God’s help so he better start praying.

When he was released a few days later he was convinced it was the work of god and now he was Christian. He rambled on and on quoting meaningless passages from the bible. He told me Voodoo was wrong because the practitioners took the money given to them for themselves. I asked him what he thought the Christian church did with the money they collected.

He said to get what you want all you have to do is pray. He said he was praying to get a car so that he could be a driver and “be free”.

“How long have you been praying for the car?”

“Ten years”.

When his sister finally emerged with the passport I bitterly handed over the bribe – all the money I had left. I let Cybel give me his number ‘so that he can tell me more about God’ and made  my way back to the border.

Of course trying to leave Togo the immigration officer tells me I should not have spent a night there without a visa. I tell him the story, I beg him to let me cross, I tell him a hundred times I am sorry and I show him my flight ticket and how urgently I needed to get back to Accra. Eventually he lets me through and I nearly cheer when I step out of Togo and back into Ghana.

Always Shake The Right Hand

In the morning that I was making my way back to Ghana I remember thinking I will have nothing to write about that evening. I imagined a long boring bus ride all the way back to Accra, checking into the same hotel I had already slept in several times, perhaps I would do some reading or washing before going to sleep.

Well, it didn’t work out like that at all.

I took a share taxi shortly after sunrise. Again I was wedged in the back seat between two very large women.

From Cotonou to the Togo border we were stopped constantly by the usual bribe-seeking cops. They would open the trunk and half-heartedly feign a search until the driver would slip 2000 CFA in their hands and the boot would promptly shut again.

Somewhere along the road we stopped for a toilet break. The three men from the front of the car lined up right beside it and started to pee, I was busting but no way was I pulling my jeans down right there.

“Toilette?” I asked one of the women I had been pressed up against for the last couple of hours. She nodded and led me across the road. I had hoped she knew of some secret hidden toilet but instead she finds two small wiry shrubs. It will have to do. I walk off to the farthest one leaving the closer one for her.

It was clearly a popular little bush as many, many people had done their business there as well. I tried to find a place for my feet, not stuck in inches of shit yet close enough to the bush to adequately camouflage my white butt. I had just dropped my daks when I was joined by the woman. Call me prudish, but I like a bit of privacy when I do my business, clearly she preferred company. I didn’t want to offend my guest so I crouched ready to pee. I was busting to go but nothing came out. Her presence had scared it away.

Only a few steps in front of me she hitches up her robes and tucks them under her pendulous breasts. She squats down and her big, black vagina is staring me in the face.

I still can’t pee… but she can.

She smiles at me warmly and her urine trickles onto the ground and rolls toward my feet. I am not sure of the etiquette in such a situation so I try to be subtle when I wriggle my feet out of the way of her oncoming stream.

And still my pee is scared away.

I silently will it to come out.

“Come on, come on, come on” I chant.

Still crouching in front of me, still peeing, she looks down at my vagina. She stares waiting for it to come and this makes me even more anxious and makes it even harder to go.

“Relax” I tell myself. “Relax and let it come out”

Finally it does and she flashes me a big congratulatory smile.

Her flow had ended and with the palm of her left hand she rubs at her vagina and strokes in her crack still only inches away from my face. She raises her dripping hand and shakes it flicking away the urine.

She stands pulling the robes out from under her breasts and waits for me to finish. I gingerly pull some tissues from my pocket and dab at myself, acutely aware of how perplexed she is about this.

Back in the car she holds a bag of dried banana in her left hand and eats them with her right. She holds the bag out for me to take one and I politely decline.

We cross the Togo border with no hassles at the check point – to my surprise the border guards don’t even ask me for money. It seems Togo’s police take their checks a little more seriously then police in Benin. Several times before a check point the driver made us all get out of the car and walk past the police only to have him wait for us far ahead. I can only assume that he was not licensed to drive a taxi and had to pretend he was a regular driver.

I realised peeing with someone was a bit of a bonding experience for me. Every time we were asked to get out the woman and I would walk side by side, even though she was very slow. We didn’t say a word just occasionally smiled at each other.

My Last Day In Benin

The next morning I caught a tro-tro from Ouidah to Cotonou the capital. Although my final destination was Ghana to the West of Ouidah and Cotonou was to the east, I had to go back and out of the way to get to a bank, again I was cashless. It was one very crowded ride where my very presence caused some conflict.

I had been perched on a box with my back against the driver’s seat facing the stares of the 14 other passengers. One woman sitting directly opposite me spent was staring me down with the filthiest look on her face. She announced something to the bus, obviously directed toward me, and an argument ensued. Thankfully the driver stopped the bus and interjected and the squabble ended. The woman continued to stare me down though, and quite frankly I couldn’t blame her, if I were her I’d resent white people too. The woman beside her, her fiercest opponent in the fight smiled and winked at me reassuringly.

After a half hour of me averting her fiery stare and winking back at the kind lady beside, her I tried to buy some water from a street seller through the bus window. A satchel of water is 25 CFA, I only had a 200 CFA coin and the woman had no change. A hand reaches out the window and pays for my water. It was the woman with the filthy face. I couldn’t believe, or understand why, she had just bought me water. I tried to give her money but she brushed my hand away and stared out the window. She still had a look of hatred on her face like she wished she had poisoned the water first. I said “merci beaucoup” but she ignored me. The nice lady winked again.

Getting out of the crowded van was awkward, it always was for me, and no one ever moves to make it easier. I stumbled out the side of the bus hitting every annoyed face with my rotund buttocks, and nearly crashing face first into the pavement. I wanted to say goodbye to both the nice lady and the one who bought me water but was too embarrassed to face the irritated passengers that were still grunting from my not-so-graceful exit.

I went through the same saga as always, riding on a zemi I may not be able to pay for, from ATM to ATM until finally one gave me money.

Back at the same hotel I first stayed in, I was checked-in by Davy. He showed me my room and stood by the door nervously fumbling through English words to ask me if I am married. I lie about my fiancée waiting for me in Australia, I divulge by saying how in love I am and swoon over the fictitious wedding plans. He begs me to see him later. He asks me to buy some beers and tells me that he plans to sneak away from the front desk to join me in my room later.

So I go for a walk and buy two beers. I’d prefer his company over another night of my own. Just before 10pm there is a soft knock at my door and he sneaks in. We sit on my bed and sip the beer and struggle to understand each other through slow broken English. I find out he is only a year younger than me, I thought he was much younger, he is studying law and dreams of moving to Canada.

He then tells me he is very sad.

“Why?” I ask

“Because you have a fiancée and I am in love with you”

“You love me or you like me?” I try to clarify

“Love” he says “it is very much love”.

I ask him what else he loves: Jesus, Benin and Gaddafi. I can’t believe I am on a list with Gaddafi!

He then asks if I will help him get to Australia. I explain that he needs a passport and a visa and I can’t get them for him. He then asks me to buy him the plane ticket to Australia. I tell him no, but that if he does ever get there he can stay at my house.

“You look tired, you should sleep” he tells me and I agree that it’s time for bed.

“I will sleep here too” he says.

“No you won’t!” Although he is handsome enough that the offer is not at all repulsive.

He leaves without anymore attempts at persuasion and thanks me for my company.

He really is sweet and I hope that one day he is a court judge in Canada like he dreams of becoming.

A Voodoo Healing

The sneaky photo

And so the hunt for Voodoo continued.

First stop the next day were the Saturday markets, I’m not sure what I expected to find, maybe jugs of animal blood, maybe pythons or dolls made of human hair with pins in them. I didn’t know. And I never got to find out.

Just blocks away from the market place a muscly man in a yellow basketball singlet approached me speaking no English at all. He motioned for me to follow him. I kept telling him no but he was very persistent and I ended up thinking ‘well, a few good things have happened on this trip as a result of people leading me into the unknown, maybe this is one of those moments’.

He took me to a tin shed full of scrap building materials guarded by three older men all of whom spoke a little English. We did the polite introductions and rehearsed the usual questions and answers:

‘Where are you from? What work do you do? Are you travelling alone? Where is your husband?’

The guy in the yellow singlet seemed to get bored and wandered off. Shortly after I excused myself and told them I needed to find some breakfast. They tried to get me to stay, they told me to sit, that they will send someone to get me food. I insisted I wanted to get my own breakfast and I left.

Less then a block away the guy in yellow was back walking beside me.

“I’m getting food” I tell him in a series of motions and gestures.

He replies by gesturing that he will join me.

“No” I tell him. “I will go alone, au revoir”

“No au revoir” he says firmly

“Yes au revoir” I turn and walk away.

He followed me.

I swung around “you” pointing at him “stay” pointing at the ground.

“No” he says.

I hold my hand up, palm facing him “Stop. Stay. Goodbye” I say as sternly as possible.

I kept walking and he kept following. Exasperated I stop again. I poke my finger at his chest and yell “you go!” I point off in the opposite direction “au revoir!”

“No au revoir” he replies again.

I wave down a zemi, he clearly isn’t leaving so I decide I should. As I am about to jump on the bike he says something to the driver and the driver nods obediently.

“What are you saying?” I ask and they both ignore me. The driver takes off, not even asking where I am going or what direction I want to go in.

“Where are you taking me?” I demand to know, I get no response. I look behind me but the man in yellow has disappeared.

“Pull over” no response. I don’t know where he is taking me, I start to panic “pull over!” I say and tug at his arm.

Clearly annoyed the driver pulls over, I get off and before I can say anything else he turns around and rides off in the direction we came from.

I run up the street turn a corner, then another and another trying to stay off main roads. I get to a little food place where I can sufficiently hide in the shadows at the back. I was sure the driver had made some deal with the man in yellow and I pictured them both riding around looking for me. I ordered rice and a boiled egg and took my time eating it until I could hope the coast was clear. I didn’t think it a smart move to go back to the market area so from there I went back to the beach where Assane was meant to be waiting for me.

From a distance I saw his wide toothy grin flash as soon as I arrived – clearly happy to see me. He left his collection of jewellery under the watchful eye of the man selling paintings beside him and called his friend who he’d arranged to take us to the Voodoo doctor.

Assane and I got on the back of his mate’s motorbike and rode 15km along the sandy path that ran along the coast. It was lined with coconut trees, the beach was practically empty and the ocean was bluer than it had been the day before. We before pulled into a cluster of a half dozen huts made entirely of palm branches and the trunks of coconut trees, they looked sturdy, but I wondered how waterproof they could be.

We were invited in by a very sweaty woman wearing nothing but a white sheet accompanied by a little naked girl. She told us to sit on the wooden bench under the shade of a palm roof and then went to fetch some water.

Three generations of men emerged carrying chairs and sat themselves in front of us and the water was passed around. In Achianse I knew that formal conversations could not begin until water was sipped by all, but this water was local water and I still had a tummy bug reminding me not to drink it, so I faked it. The men talked to our driver in their native language, he translated it into French for Assane who translated into English for me.

They asked me what I wanted, why I had come to see them and what I wanted from the Juju. I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t tell them I was there just to ease my curious mind for even if this was acceptable I wanted as close to the real thing as I could get.

I told them I heard that Voodoo can heal as well as predict the future and that is why I had come. They said I was welcome and that they could help me. Before I went any further though I asked how much money they wanted and was told 3’000CFA ($6 AUD)

All three of us were given sheets of white sheer material and told to get undressed and wrap it around us. We were led inside one of the little huts and told to sit on the bench against the wall.

Near the entrance to the hut was a big, solid, block-shaped wooden sculpture wearing a red and white hula skirt and a matching red and white head piece. With it were three smaller versions of the same carving but without the hula skirt, one on either side of it and the third sat on the large carvings head.

In another corner of the hut was another wooden sculpture, it was hard to tell if it was two figures joined side by side or one figure with two heads. In the back corner of the hut hung three pieces of black and red material blocking that corner of the room from sight.

The zemi driver, Assane and I all sat side by side on the bench, our naked sweaty skin sticking to each other. The smell of all of our sweat was so strong it was burning my nose.

The middle aged man, the Voodoo doctor, sat beside the main carving and his father and son sat on the floor propped up against the wall. He struck a match and lit a cigarette, from that cigarette he lit another and another and lit eight in total. He then put a cigarette in the little open mouths of all of the wooden sculptures, gave one to his father and kept one for himself. This must have encouraged Assane cause he took his packet out and pretty soon everyone but me was smoking – it was a lot of smoke for one little hut.

The man in charge picked up a bell and rang it while he chanted. He was facing the large sculpture and would occasionally tap its head as he chanted, ringing the bell and smoking his cigarette. The rest of us stayed quiet. I forgot to breathe. Up until now I hadn’t really thought about what it was I was going to see or do. I hadn’t done any research or met anyone who had ever been to a Voodoo doctor. I was so obsessed with ‘finding voodoo’ that I didn’t even know what Voodoo was.

The man put down the bells and picked up a bottle of clear liquid and poured some into a shot glass. He poured the little cup full over the head of the large sculpture and splashed it over its skirt. He poured some more and did the same to the three little sculptures with it. He poured some more and splashed it on the two-headed figure and poured some more again, taking it behind the black curtain only to re-emerge with an empty shot glass. As he did it he continued to chant.

He poured a glass and downed it in one gulp, poured another for his father, one for his son, one for the zemi driver and finally one for me (Assane said no, he is Muslim and doesn’t drink). The palm wine was strong and burned my mouth and throat.

The man picked up his stool and took it behind the black curtain. He called me over and I joined him in the dark corner hidden from the others. In front of me stood yet another wooden carving, only about 40cm tall but perched on a table at waist height, it was dressed in a white cloth and somehow I could tell that this one was meant to be female, and this was the Juju. I was instructed to place 2’000 CFA at the foot of this figure. I did and was told to return to the bench. And then the sculpture spoke to me.

Have you ever heard the sound those little plastic toys make that kids talk into and it warps their voice into a high-pitched sound, like sucking on helium or attempting the voice of a chipmunk? That was the sound of the voice speaking to me from the corner of the hut behind the black curtains. I had to suppress my laughter. ‘What a joke!’ I thought. I was picturing the man hiding behind the curtain, talking into a cheap plastic toy pretending to be the wise words of a Voodoo sculpture/God-like thing.

The squawking words of the Juju was translated by the man, I assume he took the toy out of his mouth to do so… only he knew what it was saying of course. The zemi driver translated to Assane who translated to me. The sculpture had told me I was welcome. She then told me that soon I would find a very good job, I will earn lots of money and I will be very happy.

It then told me that all of this good fortune would happen within the next few months, and as she squawked this out the man behind the curtain spoke at the same time and my cynicism was cut off. I couldn’t figure out how the man behind the curtain could talk normally and into the squeaky toy simultaneously and I sheepishly admit I was a little wide-eyed.

The Juju sculpture kept squawking and rattled off a list of things I needed to buy. It told me I needed a white cloth, a pineapple, banana’s, fresh lavender and biscuits. I was to take all of these things to the edge of the ocean and lay it out on the sand. The Gods will then come out of the sea and take them away and only then will I get that wonderful job and all the money promised to me.

The Juju asked what else I wanted to know about my future. Put on the spot all I could think of was asking if I would have children. To this question Assane put his hand on my thigh and grinned as though I were asking about the children I would have with him.

Just two, the Juju told me, but I will only have children if I sacrifice the blood of one goat and two chickens. I wondered how this fits into my vegetarian ethos. I also wondered if a piece of goat meat and two chicken drumsticks from the local chop bar would suffice. Hell, either way these animals were easier to get than fresh lavender.

Assane started to stroke my hair, I pushed his hand away and he placed his hand on my bare back. I cringed and wriggled as far from him as possible which only pressed me into the zemi driver more. All morning I had noticed his affection but tried to ignore it. It started as long lingering looks, closely leaning into me to speak, and the occasional stroke of his finger under my chin. Although I didn’t like it, it wasn’t hard to ignore, but now that he’d started tucking my hair behind my ears and stroking my back whilst I had nothing but a sheet on, I was ready to leave.

But the juju had given me a final instruction so I couldn’t leave just yet, though it also said that I had to be alone to do it, which meant Assane was to wait for me outside – thank you Juju Voodoo God!

On a piece of paper I was to write down all of the things I want in life, it had to be what my heart truly desires. Then I had to write my full name, address and phone number in Australia.

As they all left the little hut the zemi driver stayed back a minute to have a few sneaky sips of the palm-wine that had been offered to the sculptures and then I was left alone. I had been hiding my camera beneath my sheet and now was my only chance to snap a sly picture. I only got one and I didn’t even get time to check what I’d taken but I was determined to get just something.

I then scribbled out six things on the piece of paper I wanted, I didn’t even put much thought into it assuming it would get thrown out or even kept by these men who couldn’t read it anyway.  The list included children, my parent’s good health as they age, my sisters’, girlfriend and best friends’ happiness and I think it may have mentioned a house in the Australian bush.

I handed it over and went to get dressed so I could leave but they told me to sit again. I had to read the list out loud so that it could be written into their native language. They told me that after the sacrifice of the animals was made the men would pray for these things every morning, the Voodoo Gods would read my address from the paper, fly to Australia to find me and that within a week all these things would start to come true.

As I read out the list of wishes to be translated, Assane nestled his head into my neck and I pushed him away. The old man saw this and burst into laughter.

When the translation was finished the men did some serious calculations and decided that the cost of the praying, in addition to the cost of the goat and chickens would cost me 80’000 CFA ($150 AUD – a LOT of money in a developing country) I told them I didn’t have that money on me, which is true (not that it made a difference either way), and they told me to go back to the capital Cotonou to get it. They said that when I bring the money back they will start praying, but if I don’t bring the money back none of my wishes will come true. They also added that once I pay and go back home to Australia, if my wishes aren’t granted within a few months I could fly back to Benin and get a full refund. A warranty from a Voodoo doctor, how modern!

On the ride back I tried to enjoy the palm-fringed beach again but I couldn’t, not just because Assane kept trying to put his hand on my thigh but because I wondered how many people paid these men for their dreams to come true. I wondered how many people lose their money like that. I wondered if I was cursed now because I had no intention of returning and thank god I put fake contacts on that paper. Assane kept saying that although he is Muslim he believes in voodoo, that it really works and I should bring back the 80’000 CFA so my dreams will come true, if I want kids, he told me, I had to bring the money back. I think at that stage I would have swapped the kids for him shutting up.

We dropped Assane at his jewellery stall, he wanted me to spend the night at his house, I lied telling him I will come back and visit him the next day. I felt bad, he was a sweet guy who had given me what I had asked for. I bought a necklace from him – in my head it was a kind of thank you gift but really I guess it was a feeble attempt to relieve some of my guilt. He then gave me a pair of silver earrings holding them up to my face he said they would really suit me: odd considering that my ears are stretched 12mm and I can’t wear normal earrings.

I left hoping I didn’t break his heart.

A Voodoo Ceremony

I was feeling better after a nap and decided to have dinner in the hotel garden, when the woman came to take my order I asked her what the two tattoo’s on her arm said. She told me they were names, one of them was her own name and the other name was Adem… she doesn’t know who Adem is, but his name is tattooed on her. 

A Japanese man was the only other person at the hotel so I struck up conversation, as I tended to do when I met other travellers. His name was Tomo and he’d been travelling for two years. He started in Russia, saw a lot of Europe then went on to Latin America and now Africa. His plan is to return home once he is fluent in five languages apart from Japanese. I asked him what his biggest disappointment with his travels so far was and he said not getting robbed in Rio, apparently he wanted a story to tell his friends so at 2 one morning he took some cash and nothing else and walked the streets alone for hours before going home defeated, cash still in hand.

I told him that during the day I asked some young guys on a street corner if anything was happening in the evening and they had told me about a Voodoo drumming ceremony, I convinced him to come along.

We got a zemi and went into town where I had been directed by the guys earlier. From several blocks away we heard the sound of beating drums and the streets gradually jammed with people. Tomo and I jumped off and worked our way through the crowds. A man named Rafue, with the five Voodoo scars etched on his face nominated himself as our personal guide. When we neared the centre of the mob four people in costume danced out the door of a little mud shack. Their costumes were made of colourful but well worn out material, somehow over time it had managed to maintain a slightly box shape. They wore tight stockings and pointy-toed cloth slippers. Their faces were completely covered in a dirty cream mesh. Two of the four dances marched right up to tomo and I and I took two steps back, I always feel uneasy when I can’t see someone’s face. They held out their hand for money. Tomo gave them a coin, not worth much, and through the translation of Rafue they told us we are to stand back and not come close to them.

Standing back I watched the crowd form a circle around the dancers. The beating of the drums intensified as the crowd got louder and louder, cheering and chanting to the rhythm of the beat. The four costumed men twirled and danced in the centre of the circle as the crowd stamped their feet and clapped their hands. Louder and faster the drum beat grew and louder and faster the four men spun. The intensity grew and grew, it reached a peak and then 

Whack!

At the sound of the crack the crowd ran it was a mini stampede. Those at the back fled up the street and those in the centre scrambled on each other trying to clamber away. My heart began to pound louder than the drums that had just broken into silence.

Whack!

As the crowd dispersed I could see one of the men in costume, stick raised above his head ready to bring it down on a man who was caught in the thick of the crowd. 

One by one I saw the other costumed men, each with a stick in hand, lashing out at the nearest back.

Nearly as quickly as the crowd had dispersed they began to regroup. The drum beat began again and the four men in costume lowered their sticks and began to dance and twirl once more. The crowd were laughing, cheering and began to move along to the beat of the drums.

The costumed dancers in the centre could be likened to a mix of Chinese New Year performers and Turkish Whirling Dervishes. They would vigorously shake the head piece of their costumes like a Chinese New Year dragon, bobbing up and down and waving their arms around then they would spin in circles on the spot, their coats flung out around them spinning faster and faster like a Whirling Dervish. 

Stop. A second’s pause as breaths are held in anticipation…

Whack.

Again the crowds would disperse and people would jump out of the way of the descending sticks.

Only a few people genuinely seemed scared of getting struck, the rest of the crowd seemed to take delight in the game.

The ceremony lasted about a half hour before the costumed characters retreated back into the little mud hut again and people slowly wandered back down the lanes to wherever it was they came from.

Tomo and I decided to de-brief over a beer. Rafue dropped us to a bar lined street on the back of his bike and as we climbed off he grabbed hold of my leg and begged me to stay with him. The only way I could get him to let go was to promise to meet him the next day.

My favourite thing to do on a hot, sticky West African night, after a long exhausting day, was to sit on a street corner with a cold beer. I could sit for hours and watch the locals go about their daily business. I loved watching the kids play with whatever bit of scrap they could find – a bicycle wheel, a couple of sticks and some string or a tin can. I liked watching to women still at work, packing away their food stalls, cooking their children’s dinner, while the men sat idly with their friends drinking beer. It was even better doing it with Tomo, not just for the conversation but for the protection of unwanted attention from men.

Children that passed were far more interested in Tomo then me, they were convinced he was Jackie Chan and demanded he do some kung fu for them. Actually, Tomo had a black belt in karate but was foresighted enough not to start performing knowing too well that if he did they would never leave us alone.

It was nice having company and Tomo’s travel experiences inspired me and excited me for my own still to come. He was leaving the next day, heading for the Congo, and I still had the Voodoo doctor to see the next day. Although most days were frustrating and exhausting, this was one of those moments where I really felt content to be so far away from home. That evening in a place so foreign to anywhere I had known, in the company of a fascinating friend I will never see again, I sat back and smiled, I was sitting in the thick of my dream.

Metting Assane

It is amazing how good energy attracts good energy
.
The next day I woke up feeling positive and determined. My sickness and the delay in getting my visa had cost me a lot of time. I had three days left to spend in Benin, to find some Voodoo and get back to Ghana so I could fly out of West Africa. A guy at the hotel had scrawled on my guide book map where I might find some Voodoo. Two more positive interactions that morning from helpful strangers and I found myself sitting in a share taxi waiting for one more person to fill the car so we could leave. It gave me time to contemplate the visually odd effects of colonialism (the shallow stuff not the bigger issues such as debt, dependency exploitation and Christianity). For breakfast I had eaten a croissant, I rode to the taxi rank on cobblestone streets, people passed me calling ‘bonjour madam moiselle’. Yet beside these quaint additions were stereotypical African images: the houses were made of red clay, the women wore traditional sheets of bright patterns and next to the woman selling baguettes was another woman selling fufu and goat meat. It was the French features that looked peculiar.

 I had been wrong in thinking they were waiting for just one more passenger to fill the taxi, a mistake I often made in Africa, two men came and were squished in the front seat and I found myself yet again wedged in the back in between two very large, very brightly dressed African mammas. The squeeze in the back was so tight that my knees were propped against the back of the man in front and my arms were outstretched and crossed in front of me.

I made it to Ouidah, a town west of the capital where I was told I might find traditional fetish practices, I checked into a hotel and went straight out again. First stop was Temple des Pythons. A small oval shaped, walled in space with a few shabby shrines and a room full of pythons. The man who showed me around draped a few of the snakes over my shoulders which was fine until one of them curled its body around my neck and slowly I could feel the air compressing out and I calmly asked him to take it off, using what potentially could have been my last few breaths.

He explained some of the Voodoo practices and beliefs: he told me that the python is their God; that shedding the blood of animals on the roots of a tree is practiced for blessings of a fruitful life; and that bathing in water after a virgin girl has is done for purity. He showed me the scars on his face: five lines on both sides like the five lines on both sides of a python’s mouth. He and other children of voodoo followers are given these markings at birth. He had two scars between the eyes, two on his cheek bones beside his nose and two on either side of his eyes. I spent the rest of the day playing 'spot the voodoo guy' by searching for people in the streets with these markings.

Next stop was Route de Enclaves, I took a zemi-john down the 4km track where in the 1700’s and 1800’s slaves were marched in chains from a Portuguese fort to the beach to be sailed away to foreign lands. As soon as I got to the beach I was stopped by a very dark man in long white robes which wrapped around his mouth and over his head leaving only his eyes visible. It was quite an image: the bright pristine white of his flowing dress against a back drop of warm red sand and dark grey ocean. He told me his name is Assane and he is Tuareg from Northern Niger on the edge of the Sahara. I didn’t know all that much about Taureg nomads except a romanticised image I had of a silhouetted line of camels and caravans stretching atop a red desert hill. I could imagine the red setting sun behind them casting stretched shadows over the nothingness of the empty barren desert. He said his family are silversmiths and sent him to Benin to sell their jewellery. Obligingly I looked at his jewellery but I was far more interested in knowing his story. He removed the robes that hid his face and a sparse row of crooked brown teeth grinned at me. He told me he is thirty and a twin which means he is full of good luck and he leaned in toward me and lowered his voice to slyly tell me he is not married but looking for a wife. I brushed him off and left for the beach. He called out to me that he will make me tea and I half waved behind me, swatting away his offer like I was swatting away a fly.

 Heading toward the beach I was stopped by another man. His face was covered in scales like a snake, I think I hid my shock well until he took my hand and I winced at the feeling of his swollen hand, three times the size of what it should have been, like a latex glove that had been blown up, his stubby fingers popped out the sides. It too was scaly like a snakes skin. I wondered what the voodoo believers thought of him – half snake half man. I brushed him off too, due to pity I was more polite then I had been to Assane, and I gingerly crossed the burning red sand and stood at the base of the crashing waves.

The sea was rough and the pull was strong. It definitely was not safe to swim which was an excruciating tease as my skin was yet again turning red in the afternoon heat. It was bliss, I stood letting the waves crash around my legs and for twenty whole minutes not a single person tried to talk to me. The energy of the ocean with the serenity of not being hassled left me feeling high, so high that when I passed Assane again on the way out I actually said yes to his offer of tea.

Assane led me onto the sand where wedged in the shade between two shrubs only a meter high he had set up a blanket, a tea pot and two small tea cups. He used an intricately patterned silver scoop to pour ‘traditional desert tea’ into a tea pot balancing over a small flame. He added two full scoops of sugar and then poured it between the pot and the cup a couple of times to mix it up. He offered me a cup but before I took a sip he said:

“The first sip is difficult like life… The second sip is good for love. It tastes like love. It is easy”.

 I took a sip, it had impact, it tasted strong, bitter and sickly sweet. It was distinctly spicy, almost like a chai tea with lots of chilli and too much burnt sugar. I couldn’t tell if I liked the taste or not so I had another sip. And to my amazement the second sip tasted smooth with a much more subtle flavour, it wasn’t sickly at all but quite moreish. “Like magic!” I exclaimed dumbly. Literally there was seconds between sips and it was like sipping two totally different drinks.

We sat wedged between the shrubs attempting conversation, mostly about my fictitious fiancée and me making excuses for why I would rather stay at a hotel then at his house. I suddenly started to feel really ill, and I have to shamefully admit that for a minute I did wonder if the tea was poisoned. I tried to rationalise it though, I was still sick and highly dosed up on Imodium, and he did drink some tea as well. I told Assane I felt ill and had to leave. He asked me if I would spend the next day with him. I told him that I couldn’t, I had plans to see a voodoo doctor.

 “I will take you” he told me.

 “Really? You know one?” I asked way too keen.


 “Come back tomorrow morning, 9am and I will take you to see him”. I shook his hand and left, jumping on a zemi I spent the ride back to the hotel trying not to vomit on the riders shoulder. I stood under the cold shower for 15 minutes trying to bring my temperature down. I was dizzy and dry-retching, but still I couldn’t control my excitement. The next morning I would be seeing a voodoo doctor. I didn’t know what to expect, I had no clue what I was in for, but I was as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve.