voodoo Archives - Wandering North

Africa Benin West Africa Trip 2019

Ouidah

Leaving Grand Popo was something that initially concerned me. There is nothing there. No taxi to call, and when I mentioned it to the hotel they didn’t offer to get me a car to anywhere but they said it would be “no problem” for me to get to Ouidah – my next destination (also in Benin, just a little down the coast). I took a last look at the sea and walked to the small road. Within seconds a moto driver was speeding me to the main street, where he dropped me off in front of a shop? A cafe? I don’t know, but there were two guys out front and I told them I was headed to Ouidah. They flagged a car – their 2nd attempt was successful – they told the driver I was going to Ouidah and the driver offered me a price that was so low I felt no compulsion to haggle. And just like that I was in a random car (not a proper taxi) with 5 guys speeding down the road.

The ride wasn’t exactly comfortable; with a sweaty body pressed into me on one side and the car door on the other. The compression of passengers acting as a de facto seat belt, I suppose. But the drive was an hour at most and for the 50c or so that I was paying I was quite happy. They asked me where I was going and I gave them the name of my hotel, which was right on the main road, so they dropped me off out front. Easy.

The name of my hotel changed twice, I think, between booking and arrival, but ultimately it was called Hotel DK. And it was weird.

Upon arrival I kind of wanted to leave. It is huge and run down and abandoned-looking. I couldn’t find anyone as I walked around reception, the kitchen, the dining room, the creepy, empty murder pool. Just as I was wondering why I booked the place and how I would find another hotel with no wifi, data, guidebook, or human assistance, a young man popped his head out. Seemingly from a nap.

He showed me to my room. My tiny, airless room of questionable plumbing and security, but which weirdly had lovely, ironed and embroidered, monogrammed sheets.

It was a weird place. I can’t recommend it, but it was cheap and the staff were great. They made me meals and ensured I had what I needed. And it was technically walking distance to the town centre, if you like a long walk.

Enough about the weird hotel. I was in Ouidah for voodoo. It is the literal or de facto centre and origin of voodoo in West Africa, which basically means the world. They have a big voodoo festival each year, though I was not there at that time. I wanted to see pythons and…well, that was the draw as i headed down the coast.

I visited a small museum, which had a good, guided tour about slavery and Portuguese influence.

From there I was heading towards the Python temple, but was sidetracked by a parade and festival. It was the festival of the city. I couldn’t find out much information about it, but it amounted to a lot of music and dance performances and much of the people in the city outfitted in clothing made from one common fabric, which had the name of the festival on it.

I then went to the Python Temple. Let’s be clear: there are a lot of voodoo temples with pythons, but this one is open to tourists and curious wanderers. They don’t give a bunch of information about voodoo, but they do explain some things before letting you into the inner python temple.

I was the only person there at the time and so i had a lot of time to play with the snakes….and take photos, of course. It was cool. The pythons are let out into the community periodically to feed and they return, allegedly. And if one shows up in your house, it is good luck.

After I had my fill of snakes, I wandered around a while. Ouidah is a pretty little town. I could have spent an extra day I think, but I was happy with the time I had.

I visited the small but excellent Foundation Zinsou, which is a very stylish modern art museum showcasing African artists and with a great cafe. I hung out there and chatted with a Brazilian girl also traveling solo.

There is a historical slave route in Ouidah that leads to a door or no return on the sea, But I opted to not do that, having seen so much in the way of similar sights in the past days; instead, i wandered around some more.

I rested for a bit at a bar…no, not a bar. A collection of tables and plastic chairs under some trees where beer was sold by ladies walking around with baskets. I don’t drink beer, but it was such an inviting place that i bought a bottle of sugary “juice” and enjoyed my cigar with the buzz of people, the shade, and the hypnotic drum music that loudly played. I tried to blend in, which was impossible.

Checking my map and relying on my internal sense of direction , i decided i would walk back to my hotel along some leafy, rural roads. It was hot and after about a half an hour, red faced, lost, I emerged on the main road from the fields and asked the two women i saw if they knew my hotel. They looked at me like i was nuts and after some initial communication difficulties, they drew to my attention that I was in fact standing in front of my hotel. At least i know my sense of direction is in tact, even if my eyes fail me.

I spent the night ay my weird hotel, where there was one other person staying – a guy, traveling solo, maybe a bit younger than me. He had no interest in chatting, but i filled the evening with dinner outside and a cigar and an intensive map study to prepare to the morning’s journey to Cotonou.

Africa Togo West Africa Trip 2019

Togoville

My third day in Togo I went to Togoville. At this point I had been on the road solo over a week and the idea of giving myself over to a driver and guide was appealing. Fortunately, I had run into a guy, a guide, in Lomé the day before. He seemed like a good guy and the price was right, so I made plans with him.

He picked me up in the morning and we drove to Agbodrafo and visited the slave house, which is a small house near the sea that was built in the 1830s, after slavery was made illegal, so that Europeans could continue to kidnap and ‘export’ slaves despite the ban.

*commemorative art outside the slave house*

Weirdly, it looked like a regular house, except that under the floor boards was a space about 2 m high where slaves were kept while waiting for the boat to come for transport. Very interesting and, as with the slave castles in Ghana, troubling.

We walked down to the sea and watched the place where the ocean collides with the lake and the fishing boats unloaded their cargo.

We then drove to the Hotel Le Lac Paradis, which sat on the shores of the lake (Lake Togo), of which Togoville was on the other side. The hotel sells you a ride across the lake and back in a pirogue, so theoretically, if you can get to the hotel on your own, you could hire a boat to Togoville. (I didn’t note the exact price, but I recall that the boat was very cheap; maybe a dollar or two.)

The ride across the lake was very pleasant, past fishermen, crab traps, and boys swimming. I wish I had thought ahead a worn a bathing suit, as it would have been heavenly to have a swim alongside the canoe.

At Togoville, we landed on shore and I paid a fee for a guide and to visit the village. That was a lot more expensive than I expected. I think it was 30,000 cfa and they would not budge on the price. There are no ATMs at the hotel or the village, so take cash. I had enough, but I started to feel worried that I would be out of pocket.

I loved visiting the village. There is a cathedral built in 1910 by the Germans (Togo was once a German colony, before it was a French one) and a shrine to where someone once saw a vision Mary on the lake, but other than that, this is a voodoo village.

We walked around and everywhere there were Legba. Legbas? Not sure of the plural. I am also not sure if Legba is the name of the voodoo shrine or the spirit it represents. Anyway, they were everywhere, providing protection and a place to sacrifice animals, as was evident by the blood and feathers on and around them. They were a bit creepy but very cool.

Also a bit creepy were bouquets of entrails nailed to some of the houses by the door for protection purposes, where they would stay for about three days.

There were also voodoo trees, some acting as courts, where the guilty would be made to walk around the tree 7 times at which point their lies or guilt would be revealed.

The village was pretty quiet, but we did see some people. My guide taught me to say a few greetings in the local language, Ewe, which either caused shock in the recipients of my greetings, or peals of laughter. But they understood me.

*me at the monument to German-Togolese friendship*

There were voodoo houses containing pythons and practitioners of voodoo, but I could not enter those. I had told my guide early in the day that I wanted to have a voodoo experience – whatever that means. I wanted to see something weird or amazing. At the end of my tour, the guide said something was arranged and ready for me. I asked how much it was as I was pretty much out of local money on hand. I did have a stash of Euros, but I was on a budget and relying solely on cash, so I wasn’t keen to break into that. My guide said the price depended on a number of factors but that the middle price was about 200,000 cfa (that’s over $400 cdn). I was unable to contain my shock. I politely declined. This clearly disappointed both my guides and the fixer who had arranged whatever it was that was planned, but I firmly said ‘no merci.’ I would have inquired about the price earlier but I had no idea that anything was actually being arranged.

voodoo house (yes, there are pythons inside)

So I never did have my voodoo experience. I am ok with that, but I can’t help but wonder what they would have done for $400. Maybe a series of cheap magic tricks, or maybe…something truly inexplicable. I’ll never know.

I spent the evening reflecting on the day as I smoked a cigar and drank fruity mocktails in a karaoke bar in Lomé while young Togolese women practiced their dance moves in front of a mirror to, amongst other things, “Jailhouse Rock.” A fittingly odd end to an unusual day. The next day I would travel to Benin.

Africa Togo West Africa Trip 2019

The Gruesome Menagerie: The Fetish Market of Lomé

My first full day in Lomé I planned to go to the Akodessawa Fetish Market (aka the Marché aux Fetiches aka the Marché des Féticheurs) and, mission accomplished, I did go. The fetish market in the Akodessawa area of Lomé is, reportedly, the largest fetish market in the world. (For clarity’s sake, we are talking about a voodoo market selling items for rituals, not a marketplace of latex dresses and ball gags.) This was, in fact, the thing I was most looking forward to in Togo.

One of the main things that drew me to West Africa on this particular trip is that Togo and Benin are the birthplace of Voodoo (as it is known in the Americas) or Voudou, Vodun, or various other iterations (as it is known in Togo and Benin) – I’ll stick with the common American spelling. Today about half the population identifies as a practitioner of this spiritual practice, and, I am told, even many of those who identify as Muslim or Christian will still turn to Voodoo when they need help or protection.

There will be a lot of Voodoo references in the future blog posts for this particular trip. But on this day, I went to the Fetish Market in Lomé.

To get to the market from central Lomé, hail a moto from any street. It should cost 500-700 cfa (that’s around $1 cdn). You can ask the driver to wait for you and drive you back if your French is up to it. There is really nothing else to see right around the market, so having your driver wait might not be a bad idea. I didn’t want to feel rushed, so I sent mine away.

The market is not that big, but there is a lot to see. As far as I could tell, this is a legitimate fetish market. Locals were there shopping and seeing the Voodoo practitioners, but it also welcomes tourists. Tourists pay a fee of the equivalent of a few dollars, which includes a guide. You could go without the guide, but you really wouldn’t learn anything.

My guide was great. He explained to me that the dried creatures on display, with a few exceptions, were all to be sold and used in rituals or potions; often grounds up with plants or other natural items.

Ringing the market were displays of carefully laid out dead things: birds, snakes, chameleons, insects, monkeys, rodents, dogs, lions, apes, etc. Some were whole; most were merely heads.

In one area there were some freshly severed animal heads drying in the sun. (I’ll not post the picture of that.)

There were also some things they had on display only because they were old specimens of creatures that could no longer be legally killed, like a hippopotamus skull, a lion cub head, and a fully dried baboon).

Now, I love this kind of dark, gruesome stuff, so I was fascinated. However, I am not unaware of the fact that all of this is a collection of animals who were killed for spirituality (which, as an atheist, I give no practical merit to). That is a lot of senseless killing. And as a vegetarian, it does give me pause…but then I remember that people kill animals for all sorts of stupid, selfish reasons: for entertainment, for food, for fashion, for byproducts of the pet industry…its all morally reprehensible, but I am not above it as I still wear leather. So I left my judgment aside and indulged in my curiosity about this cultural and spiritual practice.

I did visit one of the Voodoo practitioners. He (through my guide) explained what many of the items were that he had in his tiny, dark hovel. I selected a couple of items and had them blessed (that’s not really the right word) for certain uses. One for luck. One for protection in travel. I don’t believe in it, but it was neat. I had to say and do some things and then the Voodoo man rang a bell and said some chants over the items as they lay in a calabash.

And I left, with my magic charms in tow (but without any severed heads) and feeling slightly more knowledgeable about Voodoo. I had not had my moto driver wait for me, but a guy from the market walked with me to the main road and stayed with me until we hailed a moto that agreed to take me back downtown (500cfa).

*Me at the fetish market with a chameleon and with one of the Voodoo practitioners*

There certainly is a tourist element to the market, but it is a real place for people without cameras and questions. And honestly, I am glad it does welcome tourists or it would have been rather difficult, if not impossible, to ask questions, poke around, and take pictures. It is certainly worth a visit.

The next day brought more voodoo with a day trip from Lome to Togoville.

Tag: voodoo