Wedding, voodoo priest, kyltti dudes and Lomé

Some time has passed. I was criticized for writing too personal on this global internet site that is open to everyone which led to the fact that I haven’t been writing at all. Anyways.

The wedding was a blast. It was a three day party after which everyone was quite tired. The Finnish quests felt a bit silly though in the beginning as it is custom that the quests make dresses from one and the same fabric that has been chosen for the occasion, so there we were; all looking exactly the same. A bunch of berries.

Last week the Finns and I went to a voodoo priest/chief in Togo. That was surely an unforgettable experience. The voodoo priest that we visited is one of the big chiefs that also attended the national voodoo festival the 10th of January. So there we were, in his house. There was smoke, chickens and goats: both dead and alive, blood, the smell of gin and the sounds of drums. When arrived there were some local women asking him for advice so we got to see the end of their ceremony and we were relieved that we didn’t have to drink from the glass of blood that was passed around. Then it was our turn. He asked our names and chitchatted a bit. A few of us asked for advice or made a wish. I asked him for advices concerning my future and the response was that my future looks brilliant, very brilliant. Phew. Glad to hear, not that I had any big doubts. He invited us to stay for dinner; to eat the animals that had been sacrificed by the people before us, but none of us thought that was a good idea. Then a lady came in and we got to follow her consultation as they talked in mina so we didn’t understand anyways. Otherwise it is just the voodoo priest and the one asking for something (and a few helpers) that are allowed to enter the room. It was very interesting to follow the process even though the smell of old gin and blood made most of us a bit nauseous.

The following day the  HYPERLINK "http://www.kyltti.com"
www.kyltti.com dudes came to Grand Popo. We had dinner at Lion Bar, good food and nice atmosphere as always, and had a great evening. Kyltti boys were a lot of fun. They were a real äijä group, in a good way. The next day I left for Togo which unfortunately meant that I didn’t have the time to show them around in Grand Popo but I heard rumours that they had a good time and left the village with a smile on their faces. I sure hope to meet them again one day, maybe in Finland or somewhere else. They seem to be on the road quit actively so wouldn’t be completely unthinkable to see the guys carrying their road sign somewhere in an unknown location. Yesterday I found out that one of them succeeded in putting his finger in the fan so he received 4 stitches without local anaesthesia somewhere in Burkina Faso. Good job!

Then two Finnish scholars and I went to Lomé. We took motorbikes, that drove like mad, to the boarder where it took around one hours to walk over to the Togolese side. There we found a bush taxi that drove us to our shabby but friendly hotel. In the evening we went to a Lebanese restaurant and I can’t even describe how nice it was to eat something else than rice or pâte with fish. We ordered falafel with hummus and ate until we almost dropped. It was marvellous to get tastes that have been gone for so long. After midnight we took motorbikes back to the hotel. This was one of the first times I held on like it would be my last day on earth. Well, when the speed meter is jumping between 70 and 130 km/h and you of course don’t have helmets and your cheeks are pulled back like in a roller coaster you easily see your life flash in front of you. To make things even a bit more exciting we slowed down at red lights but couldn’t stop as we were not in a good area of town which meant that if stopped by a red light on a moto I would have been robbed directly. So the drivers just screamed “allez allez allez” to each other and kept on driving. I was even pleased to greet the cockroach in the hotel room., even though I tried to kill him a while later without succeeding so we ended up sharing the same room and the bastard didn’t pay for his share.

The next 3 days we saw a lot in Lomé and had a lot of fun. It is an easy city to get a grip of with lots of friendly people and not as polluted as Cotonou. The down side is the corruption and all the military road blocks that demand money or take your moto if you don’t have all papers in order which many people don’t. We luckily managed to avoid them which was a very good thing as we didn’t have our passports on us as they were at the immigration office in order to extend the visa and of course we didn’t have any other id’s with us. So a hello from the militaries would have cost us quite a bit.

Then we put one of the Finnish scholar in a bush taxi and sent her to the Beninese boarder as she was leaving for Finland later the same day. She had a successful trip even though she doesn’t speak any French. The other scholar, Camilla and I, were invited to talk on the radio about sexual harassment. The host of the program wasn’t doing a very good job so one can easily say that we saved his show. It was very interesting to see a radio studio on Togo and I was told that Riki Sorsa is on their play list… I never found out why, but there he is.

All in all we spent 4 very nice days in Lomé and it was also nice to get out from Grand Popo a bit. Even though it is a lovely peaceful safe beach village one can get the urge to see something else.

The rain has started to fall heavily and sometimes at night I think the rain is coming through the roof but so far all is good. Nisse is in terrible shape which means that I have to push/run in order to start him. Luckily there are no traffic lights in grand popo as I couldn’t stop and easily continue the journey. I wonder if Nisse will make it to the end, meaning my time in Grand Popo?

A few days I made dinner to Florence and Boris and it was great to see their surprised faces as I prepared things they have never heard of or tasted before. I had bought egg noodles and Soya sauce in Lomé (things you definitely don’t find in grand popo) so I fried some onions, lots of garlic, different vegetables that I found that day and finally put the precooked noodles in the frying pan and poured some more soya sauce over the entire thing. Fried noodles! They really enjoyed it even though they looked at it a bit suspicious at first.

Now I am on Easter holiday meaning that I have Friday to Monday off. I was thinking about travelling somewhere but it is also quite nice to just relax for a few days, and besides I just a few days came from Togo. We shall see.

pictures finally

so here comes a link to a few pictures! as i am in cotonou for 2 days i finally got the chance to use faster internet and post these!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40297&l=8e867&id=688982348

enjoy and hugs