Day 9: Yovo, Bon Soir (Abomey)

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Day 9: Yovo, Bon Soir (Abomey)

Written by Eric Mathurin

Sunday, 14 December 2008

Today's ride, at over 90km, was the longest of the trip. However, the road was flat with only gentle uphills and, until noon—when we had finished a full 80 km—the sun stayed behind a cover of cloud so it was relatively cool—although increasingly humid.

Annoyingly, nearly everyone today on greeted us with requests for gifts today. Often, children will normally sing:

Yovo, Yovo — bon soir!
Ca va bien — merci!

Here, they add, "Donne moi des cadeaux!"

David and I have been occasionally poking fun, and the conversations will go something like this:

Kids: "Cadeau! Cadeau! (Repeat indefinitely)
Me: "J'ai na pas du gateau!"
David: "Bateau!?!"

Apart from substantial traffic and a few horrific, blood-soaked crash scenes on the highway (none involving us) the ride was uneventful. One man on a motorcycle rode next to me and asked me if my bicycle was for sale.

Bohicon, even on a Sunday, was a swirl of activity: people, motorcycles and cars. David, Il and I waited at a roundabout for almost an hour for Jorgen and Lena to appear as they had broke for lunch somewhere en route. By the time we left Bohicon for the last 10 km ride to Abomey the harassment for gifts had pretty much stopped.

We soon arrived in Abomey, the heart of the Dahomey empire and former capital of Benin. The Dahomey were a warrior culture and played a central role in the slave trade: they eventually switched from their practice sacrificing their captured enemies by the thousands in ritual slaughters and sold them instead to the Europeans.

We pulled into our hotel, a rambling facility of various courtyards, gazebos, art sculptures (made on site) and hotel compounds out the back gate. After my shower David asked how it was. I told him it was a great shower—except for, of course, the fact there was no shower head: just a stream of water pouring out as though from a faucet. David said he had a couple of shower heads with him, and I laughed.

Except that he was serious. David actually was carrying two extra shower heads for this very occasion. He happily installed one and will leave it behind when we go.

After cleaning up we met at the courtyard and decided on our plan for the evening. WIlliam, who works at the hotel, wanted to take us to some kind of ritual tonight at 6:00pm and we were game for it. We killed the time chatteing while, munching on Lena's fries and discussing today's ride—most found it long and tiring except the Cameroon veterans: David, Il and myself. After having a beer I went back to the room where I tore off a piece of my knuckle unlocking the door. I then discovered that although I packed my First Aid kid painstakingly to handle any misadventure, including a major wipeout, I had forgotten to put in any Band Aids. [sigh]

At the appointed hour we all took motos to what appeared to be an alleyway. Down the alley was a large crowd of Beninese. What followed was largely confusion and chaos for us: those wearing flip-flops in our group had to take them off and we were led to a back courtyard with many people sitting and many standing.

Ancestral spirit. (Photo by Il Kim.)

There was drumming and elaborately-dressed spirits dancing menacingly and chasing people.We were sat in the dirt amongst a crowd—the only white people present. This was clearly an actual ceremony and not put on for the benefit of tourists, which was also evident by the various reactions to our presence: no one, neither them or us, seemed quite clear on the protocol for our being there. As we sat on the ground one of the men with a drum around his neck came up to us and asked us to tap once on the drum. Once we did, we had to give him a coin—as the others were also doing (so this wasn't just a Yovo tax). When it became clear to them that Richard was our "leader" they went to him instead. It was fascinating to be a part of but also extraordinarily awkward and a bit frightening: which is why I have no pictures.

We spent much of the rest of the evening trying to puzzle it all out but the gist is that they were ancestral spirits and required some kind of payment or appeasement for protection and intercession on behalf of the family. It was complicated. We had been ushered out at a certain point as there was part of the ceremony we were not allowed to be part of. In fact, it seems the part we did see was forbidden to many others judging by how many people had been milling about in the surrounding alleyways and could not enter.

Kids burning back the brush.

Il playing with her food.

We had dinner in a quiet restaurant (rice, sauce and choice of protein) and walked the ~2 km back to the hotel. Since we'll be spending a full day here tomorrow to explore we discussed our plans and retired to our room while Il, Annie and myself (though I fell asleep almost immediately) listened to David give a history of the Dahomey empire and Abomey.

Part of the ancestral ritual.
(Video by Il Kim.)

One person has commented on this article.

No.1 Untitled

Hahaha...that brings me back to when I went to Benin to visit family. I, too, was called "Yovo" and my mother is Beninoise (i'm fairly light because my father is French-Canadian [white])! The kids just love to mess around...

Shayna (Unregistered) • 2010-01-28 17:37:25

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