On the Beach Road

Donn tries to get a run in every Sunday. After one of his runs a few weeks ago he described to me a fishing village with a rockin' church service going on. So today he took me on a LONG walk to the village, and further along, on la Route des Peches (actually, it's the Fishing Road, but everyone calls it Beach Road).

We followed a main road west and passed many house plant and yard plant vendors (I'm going back to make some selections soon!). Eventually the pavement gave way to packed sand and small potholes. Apparently this road goes on for about 30 kilometers to Ouidah, a famous vodoun site as well as the historical exit for slaves sold to slave traders. We hope to get to Ouidah soon, once we have a car. We also walked by the airport. The runway literally ends at the road; hopefully the planes taking off are airborne by then! Here's a plane that isn't used any more. Is there a "U-Pull-It" around?

The rusty plane sits at the western-most end of the airport.

After awhile, we came upon the village Donn told me about. We could definitely hear the music from the worshipers. Our plan was to come back to the church and check it out. So we continued on through the village, which I think is more like a town. We figured out later that the village is actually called Fidjirosse Beach. It is a destination for locals as well as expats for a fun time at the beach on Sunday afternoons. When we were walking through, many vendors were setting up their stands to sell food and drink. We appeared to be ahead of the crowds.

This goat was one of many along the road.

The doors were open to this church, so we peeked inside and saw this colorful sanctuary.

One of many "food carts" setting up for the afternoon rush.

Something is grilling on the barbeque, not sure what it is, though.

Here's an example of a restaurant on the north side of Beach Road. Hmmm, would you want to eat there?

Not sure why it's called "First Beach," there were others before and after it. But it is colorful!

Not far from First Beach was Love Beach. I think I'd pick First Beach myself. On the mid-right is a large sign that has fallen over due to the metal supports rusting from the ocean salt.

We continued walking along Beach Road until we came to this deserted amusement park. It was very surreal to see it. There was no one around, not even workers to run it.

Here's a secure place to park your zemidjan if you want to head down to the beach!

It was time to turn around, so we decided to walk from la Route des Peches to the beach and walk east toward Cotonou and home. 

There are a number of fishing boats along the beach side of the village. It's too bad we missed the fishermen hauling in the nets. There's a place for an outboard motor (we think) to my left as I face the camera.

 

This boat is a bit more colorful. The large building in the background is the outside of the church we walked into.

We decided to walk as close to the water as possible, but encountered a bit of trouble in doing so. One was that a sneaker wave knocked me over and I was completely soaked. It felt good with the weather being hot, but my cell phone got wet. Luckily it wasn't ruined. The other "trouble" was the rather embarrassing spectacle of seeing people use secluded parts of the shore, close to the water, for a toilet. Gross and unsanitary for sure. We decided it was safest, although hotter, to walk away from the incoming waves and the "toilet zone".

By the time we reached the area where the rockin' church was, the service had ended and so did the raucous music. Oh well, maybe next time!

Before we headed back to the streets, we stopped by the local golf course! We walked from the beach up to these holes. There's another one in the short distance. The golf course is part of the amenities of The Marina Hotel, which is about a 10-minute walk from our house.

We walked for about three hours. When we left our house, it was overcast and pleasant (not too hot, but the humidity was bearable because of the ocean breeze). By the time we walked away from the water and back towards home, the skies had cleared and it was quite toasty, even with a breeze. We saw a lot of interesting things on our afternoon "stroll".

An Electrified Village

We set out on another Hash Run/Walk on Saturday. This time the trail was set up near and in the village of Podji les Montes. It was about an hour northeast of Cotonou, with the last 7 kilometers on a very bumpy, pot-holed road. We rode with a couple new to the Hash crowd, Michael and Christel, originally from outside of Stuttgart, Germany. We found out the Christel is a newly retired teacher, so Donn immediately asked her to be a substitute teacher for us!

Along the way to the village we came across these cattle and the herder. Talk about open range!

The village started receiving electricity in 2009, thanks to two private companies from Germany and The Netherlands. It was the first of over 100 villages in Benin slated to have electricity brought out to them. The village consists of about 3,000 people, living in smaller grouped mini-villages. Our path led us through the collection of huts and houses.

The house on the left has an antenna of some sort.

The first example of electrification was this building where these men were milling corn. Doing it by hand takes much longer and the quality isn't as good. Increased production and better quality can translate to a better income.

Uli, the Hash Hare for the day (the hare sets up the trail) works for the German company that set up this village. The electricity is used mostly for lights and entertainment. The village school teacher has a fan and a computer as well. The houses have meters attached to them that require the user to purchase a pre-paid card. The card is inserted into the meter and then the electricity is sent to the house. Unfortunately the users also divert some of the electricity to other unauthorized lines (dangerous to do and touch). This diversion of electricity lessens the strength (?) of the electricity coming in to the original user's house, so they get less than what they paid for.

 

The small wires to the left of the meter are used to share the electricity with unauthorized users.

One part of village life that hasn't been affected by the introduction of electricity is running water. Villagers still walk to wells throughout the larger village are and collect water that way. Norbert, our Hash leader, who works for the same German company as Uli, informed us that perhaps two-thirds of the water is contaminated in some way, leading to incidences of cholera and other water-borne illnesses.

Uli's daughters watch while the water is hauled up.

I'm thinking he's carrying maybe 15 gallons of water. He must not have any sisters, because collecting water is a female responsibility.

We had a local guide, Passcal, from the village lead us to the mini-villages. His presence on the trail with us helped us to feel more welcome and accepted with the villagers. He showed us signs of vodun (voodoo) that is heavily practiced in the area. Here is an altar, on which chicken sacrifices were used to appease the spirits

There were also signs hanging from the trees to warn people not to enter parts of the forest.

Our final destination before heading back to the cars was to deliver some goods to some of the matriarchs of a mini-village. We brought cans of tomatoes and sugar for their use. They certainly could use much more, but in the conditions the villagers live in, practicality is important. The tomatoes will be used for making the sauce served with their version of mashed potatoes. This village uses corn meal as the basis for that staple.

A collection of huts and chickens, always lots of chickens!

The land surrounding the mini-villages is used for farming. We saw many different crops being grown, mainly maize (corn). But there were also large gardens of pineapple, as well as groves of bananas and papaya.

This garden plot is terraced because of an incline, a rare find in and around Cotonou!

It was difficult to take pictures of the villagers, most of whom didn't want their picture taken. We did come across two separate church services, one of which was a group of Celestial Christians. Another was a more "traditional" church. They were using the electricity in the church for lighting and for electric instruments!

Dancing and singing inside the church.

Some people were just hanging out outside the church.

There were many kinds of structures in the village. These look well kept.

We took about two hours to finish this Hash run/walk. We are learning that with this group of people, it's not about the exercise or the Hash rituals, but about getting together and learning the culture of the area. We feel fortunate to have found a fun group of people to do this with.