Well, even though I have been a busy guy for the past few weeks, I've still been unacceptably remiss in updating here, so to atone for my blogging sins, I'll try to update multiple times this week. To start the week off right, this update is going to be a....travelogue. So, strap yourself in, hold on, and get ready for...KEVIN GOES TO TOGO. And Benin and Niger, too, but let's face it - Togo is just cooler, if for no other reason than the name. Say it. Togo Togo Togo. Isn't it fun?

Randomness aside (I'm sleep deprived; cut me some slack), my trip was another excellent adventure, albeit not quite as much fun as the Mali trip. This is not to say that I had anything less than a great time; far from it. However, there were more frustrations along the way...but I'll get to those in due time.

We left for Togo on Maundy Thursday, and didn't even make it out of Accra before (predictably in my life) chaotic hilarity ensued. We had fits trying to find transit to the border - being Easter weekend, every tro-tro and bus was packed. We nearly had to pay out the yin-yang to get a bush taxi that was going to LAGOS. Yep, we nearly had to hop a ride heading to Nigeria just to get a lift to Togo. We finally found a small tro-tro/large taxi that agreed to take us, plus a few others, to Aflao, but not before I got propositioned in the tro-tro station. This woman came up to me and said "mmmm, I like you papa," and then her friend tried to sell me palmnuts, saying that they would "make (my) penis strong." This is apparently the first step in propositioning someone in Ghana. I replied that it was strong enough without any help from her and walked off quickly.

We (we being Jenna, Ginnie, Alexa, and Liu) got to Lome (the Togolese capital, and a really cool city) around 20:00, crossed the border without any hassle, and found a hotel - the Hotel la Galion. It was fairly nice; the rooms were middling quality and a smidge too hot, but the restaurant made up for it - really good food, and they had omelettes made with real Gruyere cheese for breakfast. That omelette was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. After breakfast we went and went through the usual banking hassle of nobody simultaneously having a working ATM AND also changing traveller's cheques, so we had to go to several banks before all of us succeeded in getting our money squared away. We then hopped on moto-taxis (motorbikes) to catch a ride to Ouidah in Benin. The bush taxi station is along the main boulevard in town, so we zipped through a Good Friday procession while also being only about 100 feet from the Gulf of Guinea - Lome has gorgeous, sandy, palm-tree lined beaches. We got in our taxi and took off for Ouidah, crossed into Benin, and got to Ouidah around 16:00.

Ouidah is a fascinating little city. It was a major center for the slave trade (most Haitians can trace their origins at least as far back as the slave market in Ouidah, as Ouidah was the main source for French slaves), and still is a major center for African traditional religion - particularly the branch of it popularly referred to as voodoo. The others wanted to visit le Temple des Pythons (the Python Temple) in the city, and I went along to ask questions about the nature of ATR worship. Having been brought up as a Christian in late 20th/early 21st century America, ATR has always been a bit of an enigma to me - it doesn't make sense. Honestly, I still can't entirely wrap my mind around the "why would you want to worship like this?" side of things, but I suppose that's to be expected. At least I know WHAT voodoo practicioners believe and do now between class this semester and the visit to the Temple des Pythons. Basically, in ATR, there is a supreme creator God (roughly theologically analogous to the Christian conception of God the Father) whom everyone worships, but there is in addition to this deity many other minor gods associated with certain parts of the natural world - certain animals, the sun, the moon, the sea, etc. It is these lesser deities that become associated with certain clans and tribes. For example, the people of Ouidah worship the god of snakes, who they believe to be physically incarnated and personified by pythons (again, if you stretch a little bit, you can kinda-sorta see this as being a bit of a parallel to the idea of God being made flesh in the form of Christ). They worship the snakes, refuse to harm them, etc. Seeing as how I hate snakes, I was majorly freaked out and did not let the temple attendants come near me with a python, and after we left, I went and said some Good Friday prayers in the church across the street. Curiously enough, so did many of the worshippers of the pythons - because of the way ATR understands the world, many people see nothing strange or contrary about worshipping the local snake deity and also worshipping the Christian creator God and Jesus at the same time.

We walked back to our hotel afterwards, had a nice dinner (delicious grilled fresh fish), and slept, then got up in the morning to do the Route des Esclaves - the Slave Route. Just as happened at Cape Coast, I found myself in disbelief over the sheer ugliness of human beings contrasting with the gorgeous location - the Beninese coast is an absolute paradise, yet also the setting for one of the greatest atrocities in which we humans have engaged. The 4 Km route is lined with monuments of fetish gods and local historical figures, and it culminates with an arch called the Point of No Return, which depicts the final departure of captured slaves for the New World. Further down is the Point of Return, which is devoted to the descendants of slaves who have opted to return to Africa. Our experience was somewhat marred by our moto-taxi drivers, who kept hitting on Ginnie and make off-colour comments about her in French; I had to pretend to be her husband to get them to back off a little.

After devoting the morning to the Route, we left for Abomey, capital of the old kingdom of Dahomey. Two of the royal palaces there have been converted into a museum devoted to the history of pre-colonial Benin, and our guide gave us an excellent overview of the history of Dahomey - including its mythical origins as having been founded by a man whose mother was a princess and whose father was a leopard that had raped the princess. Really. That frankly makes the Declaration of Independence, Boston Tea Party, etc. pale in comparison. Our guide spoke English, which was nice after two straight days of having to communicate in French. Jenna was the only actual French speaker in our group; I was the next most fluent, which is really sad given how limited my French skills are, but I'm picking a fair amount up and definitely plan to continue learning more upon my return home. The other part of our tour group at Abomey spoke neither French nor English; they were a group of septegenarian Japanese tourists, one of whom had on an outrageous safari hat - it was quite funny.

After Abomey, we left to spend the night in Parakou on our way up north and got to participate in the Beninese national sport, which is evidently trying to cram as many human beings into a taxi as is possible. We had 8 people in a Corolla. For real. I was completely exhausted and suffering from a cold or some bad allergies by the time we got to Parakou, so we all crammed into an air-conditioned double room at the hotel to catch some Zs, and I awoke on Easter feeling much better...for the time being.

And now, since I'm nearly out of internet time right now, I'm going to stop this entry for now...look for Part Two tomorrow!