Off ship

So I almost met a king....It all began with a day off and a trip to Abomey, a town a couple hours drive north of Cotonou. Early this Saturday morning 7 nurses (one who is 79 I might add and still working in the OR here!!!) and one dental hygienist hopped into a Mercy Ship landrover with our driver Karl and set off on a bone rattling journey. About an hour into our trip we had a flat tire....the main roads here are paved but full of pot holes...Karl quickly changed that tire with the help of a local boy, and once more we set off, fingers crossed that we wouldn't get another flat because we were out of spares...About 3 hours later we arrived at our destination, Abomey, once the center of the Dahomey kingdom before the French got in the way. We had to ask for directions a few times, and the people here were very helpful: the first time we asked the guy hopped into his vehicle and escorted us to a historical site he thought we might be interested in seeing. We weren't, so we carried on, and had to ask for directions again. This time the guy offered to come with us and hopped into the back of the landrover. Along with proposing to me he also did some negotiating for us when we arrived at a palace we were hoping to visit, so we didn't end up paying the foreigner's rate (many places have rates for the locals, and then a much higher rate for anyone else). The first palace we stopped at was a private palace where a tribal king and his extended family lived...kind of a compound of sorts. I have no idea what sort of power this king holds...Have to look into that. Well, we all had to take our shoes off before we could enter and walk barefoot through the mud and gravel. First we were shown somes tiles set in the wall portraying the history of the Abomey kings and then our guide told us he could help us meet the king. Well, as we were being shown around there was also some sort of meeting going on in the grounds, and we could hear voices droning on and on, occassional shouts, and clapping and laughing, and well...we said we didn't want to interupt whatever meeting was going on to meet the king, and so, well that's my story of how I almost met a king:). And yes, I did say no to our helpful guides proposal...actually he first asked our driver if I was his sister and then offered to swap his sister for me...

After visiting this private palace we set off for the official palace of the Dahomey kings, which is the central tourist attraction in Abomey. Whenever there was a new king a new palace was built so the grounds are made up of 12 palaces and we were allowed to see 2 of them. One of these 12 kings had a harem of 4000 women, and when he died 41 of his wives volunteered to be buried alive with him to keep his spirit company! Taking loyalty a little too far, I'd say.

It was really nice to get off the ship and see a bit of Benin! There is so much contrast here: poverty and prosperity...mostly a lot of poverty with the occassional BMW; different religions, with many gorgeous Roman Catholic churches, mosques, and some voodoo sites; western and african dress...the odd thing is we could be driving through what looks like an extremely poor area with nothing but dirt and ramshackle huts, that pass as stores and people would be walking around very nicely dressed in button-up shirts and suits and talking on cellphones.

Along with a flat tire our day held a few more challenges. We tried to fill up with gas when we first got to Abomey but 3 of the gas stations we went to had no power so we weren't able to fill up until later in the day when the power came back on. On our way home we were stuck in a traffic jam and Karl did not want to wait so we were introduced to the back roads of Cotonou. At one point we took a narrow road across a swamp...I think we were driving on sandbags with some dirt on top. At the end of the road some guys had a rope strung across the road and were charging people 200CFA (about 40cents US), to go through. Karl refused to pay and a nice shouting match ensued with 4 guys and Karl...I was getting a little nervous here...would have just paid...in the end though they did let us through without paying. Because of the traffic jam we missed dinner on the ship, so we went out to a restaurant.. The power did go out briefly during dinner...but if you ever find yourself in Cotonou, I highly recommend the lasagna at Livingstones:). All in all quite a day!