With the Fon again in Benin

I’m catching up with more old friends in Parakou, sorting out furniture to take back or sell at rockbottom prices here, and changing my mind every few hours about what to do with my old car (take or sell). The price I would get would give me perhaps a quarter of the price of a secondhand car in Ouaga, and there are none of that car model (or age) on the roads there. There are however some older taxis of close models which the local mechanic said can be used for parts in Ouaga so it is not hopeless, and could give me transport for a while until it dies or parts can’t be found.

Last Sunday I was in the tiny church of Patmos, planted in a watery suburb of Cotonou just after I left, and this Sunday in my ‘first’ UEEB church at Parakou, the big French one where Joy and I used to sweep back in 1993-4 with the little local bunches of grass (terrible on the back those hours of bending) while on the cleaning roster.

Earlier in the week I took the opportunity to go to the Fon churches’ conference held on the Bible college site (see photo). The site hasn’t changed much - a lot more empty now it is closed and most of the contents have disappeared but during these days bursting at the seams with Fon church goers, who had arrived in cars, utes, and cattle trucks and were still coming.

I caught up with old friends, and fielded lots more questions about when I was coming back, and what I’d be doing for the church. Friends and some church leaders have propositions about me becoming involved in restarting the bible college, in teaching January leaders’ training as in the past, in teaching womens’ groups, in helping out again with the Fon literature … I tried to explain that I already have more than one job in Ouagadougou.

I've also seen the difficulties invovled with travl here and overlaps with my Ouaga schedule so not sure about taking up this.

Speaking of traveling, the trip on the bus back up here was interesting too. We stopped for about 25 minutes on the northern side of town sweltering without air in the heat as the driver got the bus papers delivered to him until I felt about ready to faint, sped up the road to Bohicon where the short stay in the muddy market didn’t allow enough time to get through the queues waiting to use the wet ‘closets’ used for toilets (5 cents gets you a large cup of water to throw over the floor before your turn), to grind to a slow halt in the small space between two long lines of trucks either side of the highway as we approached the central town of Dassa.

As the Fanmilk bikes drew up to the door (sell frozen and cold yoghurt, ice-cream and cordial in small plastic sachets) they each soon had a small crowd listening to the tale, which involved a dispute over payment of 80c for loading a fourth sack of charcoal, a driver dumping the sack untidily on the road, a police or forestry officer shooting, truck drivers coming down in force, building a barricade across the road and refusing to let the body be removed until higher authorities came to investigate. Others told of rioting, buildings and windows damaged, and two women killed in the aftermath. We heard the military helicopter overhead delivering the demanded Minister, and two hours later (almost 4.5 hours after we had stopped) we finally slowly made our way past barriers and the lanes of traffic lined up in the opposite direction. The driver poured on the speed so we made it back to Parakou only 5 hours late.

Some things differ, others stay the same

After a draining multi-stage trip to get here, I found lots of things still the same at Cotonou, and other things had changed.

Things the same…• The Fon language: surprising how I seem to be able to understand and speak so much of it despite almost 4 years’ absence. It’s been helpful in the markets, negotiating prices of travel, listening in church, and in meeting old friends who don’t speak French.
• The welcoming smile, loving concern and good cooking of my former neighbour in Agla, Brigitte, who is now sewing me a traditional outfit in the new UEEB cloth.
• The sandy back roads with deep puddles
• Zemidjans (taximotos) who will go anywhere - at great speed and within inches of traffic either side, behind or in front
• I was able to reactivate my old sim card so I have mobile phone access - but it’s still very limited, and doesn’t include text messages.
• Talking about needs for leadership training for Fon church elders with Pastor Bruno, possibly speaking at Fon womens’ conferences with Mama Folley, Fon Christian literature technical problems with translator Emmanuel … aware that I can’t promise take on much more than my existing schedule in Ouaga.
• Eating under the mango trees at the church in the village Hevié, built on Pastor Folley’s farm, with a bed provided for siesta in the breezy shade - a well-remembered calm break in the country from the bustle of town


Things that differ…
• The large number of large buses going between towns - it seems the bush taxi industry is suffering but it’s nice being less crowded and apparently more reliable.
• Main roads are wider, a new bridge cuts down the across-town time enormously
• Multiple storey houses in Agla and building up around Cotonou
• Internet and phone access seemed to have deteriorated since I left, despite a large number of people with mobile phones. The government shut down two large cellular networks just before I arrived for nonpayment of taxes, leaving thousands without phone access and the other networks’ sim cards sold out. The email and the internet system doesn’t seem to have evolved, and after the convenience and speed of SIM Ouaga’s broadband going to a cybercafé (especially when you forget passwords) is a big step downwards.
• Agla’s single young people who helped with initial evangelism as part of youth group activities are now established in Hévie and are the families leading the church, involved in that church’s planting of another church on the village outskirts, under their old pastor, Pastor Folley. Agla itself is going further afield and planting a church 30 minutes’ drive north of Cotonou at Glogibgbe under Pastor Bruno, a big change from the elimination of evangelism from the church budget by the intervening pastor who was in charge my last term.

The trip further south

After my wild trip in from Burkina, a day resting up in Djougou after my late night arrival greeting acquaintances there and catching up with old friends I was off 6am the Thursday for a day’s work at Parakou.

I arrived by taxi before the office opened and was able to spend some time over breakfast talking to Alain from SIM France as I had hoped, a former Benin missionary who regularly leads short-term teams back, last year’s being over 80 strong.

During the day the office staff resurrected my keys and papers, I got a mechanic to start looking at my car for an estimate of costing repairs, and started sorting through some of my stuff piled high in the storeroom. I picked out mainly the fragile stuff and my ‘first months’ survival kit’ I had set up before leaving: my village cooking stuff and water filter; folding table, bed, and lounge chair; my tools, and also flat metal bookshelf frames if they could fit. Someone was coming for a few days from Benin from Burkina while I was going to be in Cotonou and could take stuff back for me, the reason for this one-day detour before coming back for two weeks to do the big sort-out. It was exhausting, but I had at least a car load of stuff sorted out before I left again at 6.30am the next day for the coach to Cotonou.

Having your own (even narrow) seat was relative comfort, and despite a lack of toilet stops (at least ones that would be useful to ladies) we arrived 7.5 hours later in the traffic chaos of my old stomping grounds, Cotonou.

Getting to Benin ain't so easy

“I’ll be going to Benin for a month to see old friends and sort out my stuff”: sounds easy, doesn’t it? Where was that creepy music that warns you in films that something unpleasant is going to happen?

I asked the office staff about buses to Parakou or Djougou in Benin: I was told I could get one only Thursday or Sunday, which would really have cut down on my time there, so opted for a trip to Tanguieta, the first large town inside Benin. Apparently a minibus left for there every day at 7am. So I rock up at 6.30am on the Tuesday after finishing teaching and the one late Bible school exam Monday ready to get a ticket and get sold a ticket instead on the direct bus to Djougou instead which left near the mission. Soon I was told to get on a motorbike to go over there with my luggage in front and objected since I was at the bus/taxi station for all trips east and was then told the bus would stop by on its way out of town. Next the story was it was full, and my ticket was changed to Tanguieta at 7.15 for the 7am minibus, almost full. I ended up in the back row without through airflow, but after a lady and two kids joined were left alone for the trip so not too crowded.

At 1.30pm I was dumped at the Burkina frontier town with a slight refund for ‘the taxi the rest of the way’. I asked the border police several times in the next hours if there really were taxis and if I could walk across to the Benin frontier and learned that it was in fact 25km away. At about 3.30pm a crowded minibus pulled up and the police arranged for them to take me across to the Benin border.

I had changed my dates several times lately working on different information about what visas were available at the border for Benin and had no idea of cost but had all the trimmings ready (photo, addresses, money,…) and hoped I wouldn’t be too long holding up the taxi as had happened in other border crossing. After a nice conversation about UEEB (the Benin church) and SIM I ended up just getting an entry stamp and no visa and on to the next stage (I ended up paying the border visa cost later in Cotonou).

It was another trip, another wait, and 6pm before arriving at Tanguieta, and then 8.30pm before starting out for Djougou and arrived at 10.30pm at the mission station there after wandering a bit the streets on a taximoto trying to find familiar landmarks. All the lights were out and everyone asleep. I had tried to contact them from Tanguieta but the fixed phone was dead and two of the 4 mobile phone networks (including of course the one my friend was with) were out due to nonpayment of back taxes. So I couldn’t buy a sim card for my phone as hoped either, since everyone had already used them up switching to the two working networks.

But at least I made it … and had one day of rest before the travels started again.