Boat Rides In Benin Cause Vomiting

Moving to the left (stage left) along the West African coastline, a few days ago we crossed over from Togo into Benin. The border was pretty frenzied. My first impressions as we came into the country is that Benin is decidely more developed. Much like exiting Pennsylvania and entering Maryland, one notices immediately that the roads are wider and better maintained. Other hallmarks of development were fatter chickens, more scantily clad women (my friend claims to have seen bare knees), and less friendly (but by no means unfriendly) people. Seems to be an inverse relationship between average per capita income and hospitality. With a wopping 540 USD a year, the Beninois are the wealthiest people that I will visit on this trek through Africa. Barring a brief flirtation with communism, Benin's history is a lot like Togo's. She is a former french colony with many regime changes since independence in 1960 but is now considered a bonafide democracy and even got a visit from George and Laura earlier this year.

We spent our first 3 nights in Benin in a beach town with the awesome name "Grand Popo". We found a beachfront hotel with infestation free mattresses and a clean bathroom, both luxuries on our budget. On day one, we ran into some peace corps volunteers that we knew when we were in Burkina and who inspired me to lay around on the beach and drink too much beer. On day two I went out on a very eventful excursion on a fishing boat. I strolled over to the beach around 7 in the morning which was just in time to catch a medium sized boat about to be put in the ocean. With the help of a random guy on the beach who spoke both french and the local language, I managed to secure myself a spot on the boat in exchange for a liter of the local moonshine liquor, called Sodabi and made from distilled palm fruit. The boat was wooden, really heavy, propelled by something that looked like a lawn mower engine, and steered by the captain who was a billion years old and who I hoped would lay off the moonshine till we got back to shore. It took about 30 people heave ho-ing in unison to get the me and the boat (they correctly predicted that I wouldn't be much help so they let me sit in the boat while they did all the work) from the beach onto the really choppy waves. Then about 20 people, 15 extremely athletic teenagers and 5 old-man-and-the-sea types, jumped in the boat.

I clutched to the side of the boat expecting it to capsize while everyone laughed at me for being such a scaredy cat. The waves got choppier as we made our way out to sea and I scanned the boat looking for something I could use as a buoy in the likely event of disaster and wished with all my heart that a life jacket would magically appear. When we finally got about a kilometer out, the fishermen heaved a small portion of the giant net into the ocean and then a few of the teenagers jumped in to adjust the net and then swim a long distance back to shore in a micheal phelpsian manner. This repeated every ten minutes or so until we ran out of net and teenagers. Then we doubled back along the entire distance of the net while i dry heaved (fortunately i skipped breakfast) over the side of the boat and the remaining old guys laughed hysterically. After about a half an hour I curled up in the bottom of the boat and spooned the anchor while the old guys stopped laughing and started shooting nervous glances my way. We hustled back to shore and the captain scooped me out of the boat, deposited me under a palm tree and demanded that I drink water. I layed on the beach for a few hours and watched the crew undertake the herculean effort of bringing the net in. All that work for about a hundred fish. Then some guys on the crew offered me their share of the days catch. My impression was that they felt proud that a person would come all the way from America to watch and appreciate their work. For about the thousanth time in the last few years, I was humbled by the kindness and humility of people who work so much harder and have so much less than me.

Pictures: my friend Jon's gross injured toe in Sindou, Burkina Faso (he took the picture); voodoo village in front of Lake Togo in Togoville, Togo; and the boat ride from hell in Grand Popo, Benin.