Looking back.


This blog entry will be very fragmented, because I am writing it in a hurry. Just some thoughts.

I forgot two very important small things I will miss from Benin: Mo & Mo, meaning Moka (the best sugary drink ever), and motos - the faster you can go, the better! I suppose I have to take some driving lessons in Finland, so that next time I can rent or buy one of my own here - not that I'd like to drive a motorcycle in Cotonou, though. Too chaotic.

So I left Grand-Popo last week, definitively. It feels bizarre. While looking for the main road of GP for the last time, I thought: this is my home. Now I'm homeless again! I feel also a bit lost in Burkina Faso: suddenly I'm not a yovo anymore, but a nassara, and water in plastig bags, usually known as "pure water" (pronounced pjooh-wata) in the southern countries is called Bara Jii here. There are a lot of whites around, many going towards or coming from Mali. I'm heading to the more touristy countries now, and it worries me a bit...

I tried to list a few strange moments during my trip so far - but I forgot most of them, here just a few:

* movie festival Quintessence in Ouidah in January: watching a German film "Kebab Connection" - not a really good film, but the reactions from the audience made it more worthwhile

* finding Valio cheese from the local supermarkets in Lomé and Cotonou: although it's Middle Eastern version is called "Smeds", and the consistence is a bit bizarre, very soft. It was still shocking to find it on the shelf - "Product of Finland" in West Africa!

* brand names are used as generic terms: a pen is usually called "bic" (at least in Benin: here they asked for un stylo, and I got confused), tea is "lipton" and washing powder is "omo", no matter what the actual brand is.

* good-bye song from the radio in the bush taxi from the Togolese border to Lomé: Celine Dion's "Heart will go on". (Why, oh why do they love Celine Dion here?)

Another list of the main events from my trip to the north of Benin:

* seeing the Mercedes Benz of the King of Dahomey in Abomey (in the photo)
* throwing up fufu and agouti in Dassa
* seeing the 104 years old wooden horse of a king in Dassa
* receiving two chickens as a gift in Akouaba, near Natitingou
* being given a tour by a drunken guide in the museum of Natitingou

And now I'm in Ouagadougou, the official movie capital of Africa. FESPACO (http://www.fespaco.bf) begins on the 24th of February, so I'm planning to stay here until the big event and do a tour in Bobo-Dioulasso before that. I'm trying to write a more extensive and deeper report of my feelings next week or so.

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