Trip home and Voodoo Festival after

After my trip home for Christmas, I think I have a better idea of how many people actually read this blog... not that many. But those who do read it seem to like it and its kind of like a journal for me too. So, I was home for two weeks, not quite long enough, but it was very nice. I got to see Meme one last time, all my family, and many of my friends. I think you all are included in that list, but if not, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you, two weeks is not a lot of time. I'm in the home stretch now, though, and it won't be too long til I'm home for good. I would expand on my trip home, but since most of you were part of that trip, it would be boring to read. So, I'll just say it was very nice to see everyone. I really missed people from home and enjoyed having time to relax and enjoy the luxuries of America.

When I got back, I rushed to get my next vacation approved, which was a trip to Togo and Benin. After running around Accra like crazy, getting the visas, bring forms everywhere to be signed, I left for Togo on the 8th. I traveled with five other volunteers, which apparently is the perfect number because we filled taxis easily (yes, six people is a normal number for taxis). In Togo, we didn't get to do a whole lot, but saw Lome, the capital, and went to the beach for a bit. We met a bunch of Togo PCVs there and they were great, helpful and fun to hang out with. The best thing about Togo, in my very short visit, was the baguettes! Since Togo was colonized by the French, they have much much better bread than Ghana. I think we each ate about 2 baguettes a day throughout the trip. The worst thing was, that none of us spoke French. That was actually a problem throughout the trip, but since we are used to not understanding what people are saying, we managed "small small" as they would say here. Funny thing was, I was one of the people who spoke the most french, using what little high school french is left in my brain after Dagbani pushed the rest out.

After staying in Togo for one short day, we got up early and traveled to Benin for the Voodoo Festival. As I'm sure you can tell by how far in advance I planned this trip, I knew nothing about this festival. My travel buddies were equally clueless. So, we went into this thing blind. We found a decent place to stay and wandered around until we found white people who looked like they could be in the peace corps. On our second try, we were right (we have a look to us). So, we met up with a bunch of Benin PCVs, also great people, and they told us about the festivities and where to go.

We were there for two days of the festival. The festival included people dressed in big crazy colorful costumes. I think they were supposed to be the ancestors of the tribe or spirits or something. But they danced around and acted crazy. The crowd would be gathered around them watching them dance and they would get angry or something and charge at the crowd. The crowd would all run backwards to get out of the way, sort of running each other over. One of my favorite characters was one that had a fake head and a bunch of leather straps hanging off the back of his head. When he got angry he would charge at people and flip his head forward quickly, swinging the fake head and straps so they smacked on the ground and anyone/thing in the path. There were also creatures covered in a pyramid shaped thing covered in colorful hay. These ones danced and charged the crowd too, but every once in a while they would start to shake, lean forward, and an animal would pop out. I saw a turtle, chicken, and small bird come out of one and supposedly a snake was coming soon. I don't really know what any of this meant, but it sure got the blood pumping and was fun to watch.

At the same time, there was a cultural dance performance going on at the beach. We went to watch it for a while, but it was hard to see and wasn't too exciting. So, we walked around on the beach for a bit, took some pictures at the Port of No Return, and went back to where the interesting stuff was. Another thing in that town, not related to the festival but still awesome, is a python temple. This is not exactly a temple, but it does contain a lot of pythons. There were a bunch of little huts, like the ones people here use for their animals and the guy attempted to tell us about them in his Frenglish and then brought us into one that had the pythons in it. I walked in first and did not know exactly what I was walking into when I saw snakes all over the place. There must have been like 30 snakes in this small room curled up all over the place. I was legit afraid I might step on one. Then the guy calls one of the guys in our group over and puts a python around his neck and tells us to take a picture. We negotiated the picture price while our friend was standing there with the snake hanging around his neck telling us to just take the picture. Then we each took a picture with it around our necks. I haven't seen my picture yet, but I'm pretty sure I have a terrified look on my face.

After the Voodoo Festival, we headed north a bit and learned a little of the history of Benin. It was in the little bit of English that the guide knew, but it was a tour of a museum portraying the history of a major tribe in Benin that I cannot remember the name of. The main thing I remember was that there were lots of cannons because the slave traders came and this tribe traded their people for cannons. The next day, we made a very long trip all the way back to Ghana. The day after that I made another very long trip from Accra to Tamale. Needless to say, I was exhausted and happy when I finally got back to my house and was able to rest.