Songhai Center, Porto Novo

Finally. . .  a day off! 

So we visited a place we've been wanting to see - Songhai Center. It is a site located just north of Porto Novo, Benin's capital city. It's about 35 km east and north from Cotonou. We traveled in convoy with another teacher for an interesting outing.

On our way east toward Porto Novo, we came across a goat market, located next to the highway. The day we visited Songhai was the preparation day for the Muslim holiday Tabaski (Eid al-Adha), Feast of the Sacrifice. It commemorates Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his son. The market sells goats for Muslims to use in their observances. 

Part of the goat market for Tabaski.

Most people took their goat(s) home on a motorcycle. This picture of full of images! (Craig Johnston)

Others used larger transportation.

After making our way east, just a few kilometers from Nigeria, we headed north toward Porto Novo and arrived at Songhai Center.

Songhai Center, named after one of the great ancient West African kingdoms of the 14th century, was established in 1985 by Father Godfrey Nzamujo, a Dominican priest, who had prior instruction in microbiology, chemistry, and computer science. He saw a need for training West Africans to be self-sufficient. The mission of Songhai "aspires to develop alternatives to help Africans stand on their feet through agricultural entrepreneurship" (Songhai brochure).

Almost 30 years later, Songhai continues to train young West Africans in an integrated approach to agriculture, technology, manufacturing, and marketing.

We had a guided tour of the site, in French, of course!

We started out with a visual display of the basic ideas.

 We saw many aspects of the center, from agricultural activities . . .

Tomatoes

Corn

Citrus trees, including limes, oranges, and grapefruit

livestock . . .

Cane rats, known in Ghana as grass cutter. Would you eat a rodent?

?

Turkey!

Pigs!

Geese!

and fish (pisciculture) . . .

Tilapia ponds

Catfish pond

Feeding time!

Songhai attempts to produce much of it energy needs through converting animal waste to bio-gas and harnessing solar energy.

 

A solar food dryer, this one was drying herbs.

Solar panels amidst a tomato patch.

 

The crops and animals raised on site are either sold in the onsite store, or processed into other products. Raw materials not grown on site were also processed after being brought in from around the area.

This woman is stoking the fire for a fish/poultry smoker.

The fish/poultry smoker wasn't filled yet.

 

Bread/cookie oven

 

He's grinding corn.

 

Palm nuts will be pressed for the oil.

Cashew removal from the shell. (Craig Johnston)

Cashews were dried, sorted, and bottled here.

We were a bit concerned about quality control, which looked virtually not-existent, except for the building where yogurt was made.

 

Manufactured products get sold at the store onsite. They are also trucked to local cities (Porto Novo and Cotonou) to be sold at stores there. Songhai's model of entrepreneurship has been utilized in other cities in Benin, as well as in other African countries.

Another product made onsite is a water filtration system. These clay pots filter about 2 liters of water an hour. Safe, clean water is a luxury in most of the country.

 

Songhai Center also has sleeping accommodations for visitors.

After our tour, we ate at the restaurant there. Our choices were African or European cuisine.

This was our menu!

Our last stop was the store. Those are papayas in the foreground.

We took the same route home the way we came. Most of the goats had been sold, but we did see some other interesting things packed in cars to get to the markets.

This car is loaded with oranges, on top in bags and inside all the way to the front seat.

We were impressed with what Songhai represents and accomplishes for the people who work and train there. Many of the workers at Songhai are university interns - sometime as far away as Gonzaga. They even use the interns sustainably. At the end of each cycle, they select one or two of the top interns to stay and train the next batch of students. We might arrange Songhai as a future field trip for our school.

This was a near closed system for producing agriculture. It was very interesting to see in this part of the world. Our short experience with Benin has given the impression that the people are consumers rather than producers. Albeit the consumption is survival based - get enough to survive today. The idea of investing now (energy, time, finance, etc) for future gain is not part of the local mindset (Donn did some reading on this phenomenon). Songhai is a model of being producers. Almost every part of their system produced something that could be consumed or used as a resource for the next level. It is promising to note that the Songhai model is growing in this part of the world.