Un peu avant cinq heures, Zakhar ouvrit prudemment, silencieusement la porte du vestibule, puis, sur la pointe des pieds, il gagna la chambre, et s'approcha d'une seconde prote, celle du cabinet de son maître. Il y colla, pour comencer, son oreille, puis, s'accroupissant, regarda par le trou de la serrure.

Du cabinet venait un ronflement mesuré.

Not always there is a connection between what Oblomov does and what you can read in this blog. For so far Oblomov doesn't even manage to live with one woman, how could he possibly live with two?

Polygamy is still common here in Benin, although since a few years ago, when a Code de famille was introduced, a man needs the written autorisation from his first wife (wives) in order to marry another one. Polygamy can be successive (i.e., by separation) or simultaneously.

Children are most important for the African family, but even more important is it that the child is a boy. Surprised? Things are a bit more complex, nevertheless. Girls will eventually marry out into another clan or family, and belong there, and follow their traditions. It is the boys who will be the successor, and as such he has the important duty to carry out the ceremonies for the memory of the ancestors: for when there is no ceremony, the ancestors will get angry and might punish the family.

In the state television, there are several "necrology" emissions every day, where one can present the memory of the deceased. One boy once told me that in Benin one does not celebrate birthdays but funerals.

So a man may be happily married to a woman, but if she cannot or did not give birth to a son, he will start looking for another woman in order to fulfill his -ceremonial- desire for a male successor.

What happens to the woman who has no son? Does anybody care who will celebrate her memory?

Logical that in this strongly hierarchical and male dominated society this question doesn't even come up. Oblomova will look into it and report.

In the meantime, I continue my backyard safari. Here are more pictures of the wonderful world of Benin's minuscule creatures.

Our domestic cicada

Dragonflies come in endless different shapes and colors

I found this little fellow one morning among what will hopefully become cilantro

Taken today

The intellectual spider

A young girl carried this in order to sell it to some collector

And a brief excursion into the realm of wildflowers

25 June 2009

Three days without internet, due to frequent blackouts and connectivity problems. There is sun out again, everything is fine and the internet works smoothly.

However, not much happened during these days. Apart from one thing: Christian can swim. This deserves a big applause, doesn't it?

no quote day

You will start missing the introductory quotation which you don’t find in this message either. The reason is that I completely stopped reading the Oblomov. Of course I’ll continue.
Time to explain to you, what this Oblomov is about. Oblomov is the biggest procrastinator of all times. His life was written down by a certain Iwan Alexandrowitsch Gontscharow (1812-1891). Originally he (Oblomow) was one of the old Russian rural aristocracy, but due to his incurable inertia he is about losing everything. Even when he finds out that his verwalter systematically betrays him he cannot get into gears. Like spending his life in eternal siesta. No wonder I feel a strong sympathy for him.
I’ll keep you updated also about Oblomow.
This time I brought you photographs of Benin’s wildlife. As most of Benin’s surface is under small scale agricultural exploitation, the wildlife is also mostly small scale. Have a look. Maybe you can even come up with a name for one or the other beast.

The Lesser Red Velvet Spider

The Bug With The Yellow Ribbon

See how the fabric shines through the wings

This bugger was HUGE

And his belly

This fellow on the other hand only showed me his butts

Later on we came across this

Ants hunting a lacewing

19 June 2009

Barnard complained that he does not appear on my blog. There is of course no excuse for this omission (actually, there is a photo, but he hides behind his cocktail glass), as he is our VIPpest person here. Further, you have to admit, he is very cute. As you can see here.

Si seulement je pouvais disparaître sous terre

Dear visitors

You will certainly appreciate the big effort I made to overcome my Oblomovczinska in order to present to you some photos from the subterranean village. The museum was already closed, but a very friendly guardian let us crawl through the fence and take photos from the main exhibition hall. Still, you may excuse the quality of the pictures, my little camera sometimes just isn’t strong enough.

The museum from outside

The staircase

Sleeping and storage chamber

Entrance to one of the sleeping chambers

The following pictures hopefully give you an impression of everyday life in Bohicon.

Big market


Main road in Bohicon

Leftover of the former (before 1989) State of Workers and Farmers

Mrs. Clotilde Abouta in front of her atelier. Consumers here rely very much on artisans for their everyday products, be it furniture, doors and other parts of the house, clothes etc. If you need a new dress, you buy a piece of cloth (the colourful cotton prints from the Netherlands, if you can afford it, or else the less expensive counterfeits from China. For comparison, stroll through your local quarter of African immigrants) and have it tailor made. Tailors are specialized for women’s clothes, traditional men’s clothes, European men’s clothes, and stitching. I have not yet found an atelier where those dramatic African women’s hats are produced.

Mrs. Abouta’s atelier

The dress she made for me

The date of final high school exams is approaching. This is a big event here implicating the whole extended family. Two candidates are preparing together for the exam.

The following day we left for Natitingou, a pleasant little town in the high north, where we arrived late in the evening.

A rock in the central province Collines. Note the birds' nests in the palmtree.

Another rock in the Collines province.

Many days have passed since then, with bad internet connections, lost texts, and virus infections. I have been in Natitingou for several days now, so I can give a due impression of this town.
Natitingou is situated in the rolling hills of the Atacora province. It has become a very touristic place, as it is the main starting point for excursions into the Pendjari national park. Of course, this has had repercussions on the living costs. Everything is almost twice as expensive as in Cotonou – people say this is at least partly due to the tourists who do not negotiate the prices.
Anyway, everything is more expensive for whites.
Agriculture is small scale, as usually, yams, mangoes, maize, karité nuts. There is one swimming pool in town, situated in the most expensive hotel and rather minuscule. Enough to learn swimming though.
This is where I got stuck without money last year, as the guidebook had said there was a money machine up here, and indeed there was, only it did not take my visa card. Apparently they have adapted to the touristic needs now, and you can now yet money against a visa card. Well, there are worse places to get stuck.

The Mosquée du Centre, marking the town center, as the name says

Another Natitingou downtown street

The chef in his kitchen

I had a little birthday celebration the day before yesterday. Big thank you to the friends for their cooking, passing by, presents and tremendous hospitality.

Patricia and me

Christian and me

Gislain and Vasco

Barnard, Ahmed and Christian

Dear readers
You cannot imagine the troubles I underwent in order to give you an update about my life. Not only that all the keyboards are in French. I arrived in Natitingou high up in the north in the evening of the day before yesterday (the bus was several hours late due to an incidence) and went to an internet café the very next day. No satellite connection. I came back yesterday and got a virus immediately. The other internet café had a functioning antivirus system, but no connection. When I went back there in the evening, they had connection, in principle, but a general electricity blackout.
This was when we realised that the blackout we had had in our house for the whole day was not due to the communal electricity network, as in town there had been energy, but a problem of the local counter. Promises were made to repair it today. In the meantime, batteries of torches, telephones and all the other tools necessary for survival run out of energy.
We terminated the utterly successless day that had been yesterday with a - delicious - dinner prepared on a gas stove at the light of a candle, rain pouring down on the little yard that has to be crossed each time one goes from the living room to the kitchen, accompanied by warm beer.
This morning at daybreak we returned to the same internet café. They have electricity, but the modem has been damaged during yesterdays downpour, accompanied by a blackout, of which we noticed nothing, since we didn't have electricity anyway.
So I went on to the other place, the one with a functioning, if slow, connection and the virusses.
To make a long story short this is why you don't find pictures. Patience is what you need.

Day +8: Bohicon

I woke up to pouring rain which lasted about5 hours. Therefore we missed the bus, could not get a motortaxi venturing out through the rain and mud. Large parts of the bumpy earthen street were under water. But for the first time since I was here, the air in Cotonou was fresh and clean, and one could actually see the horizon.

Some pictures of Cotonou:

This is where I live in Cotonou (the open door), a house in the Campus.

my workspace

Students hacked a hole in the wall round the university campus. It was erected in 2000 following some protests and strike, mostly for a more reliable management of scholarship payments. The wall had foreseen only two entrances to the campus; students opened them at several places. The holes were closed by the administration, then opened again by the students, until the administration gave up. This one has become one of the main roads through the campus.

Christian is learning to swim. He already moves through the water quickly, but breathing still poses a problem.

Later on we took a taxi to Bohicon, some 150 km north. Those taxidrivers don't regard the taxis as full if there are not two persons on every seet. This time I sat on the buckle of the seat belt. Ouch. I slept as much as I could during this trip in order to survive.

Bohicon is a lively place with a very agreeable atmosphere. It is the second economic center of Benin. In its immediate neighbourhood there is Abomey, ancient city of kings. The royal palace is on the list of UNICEF world heritage sites. It was also the place where the famous amazones were stationed, who made it round the world and even to Vienna as part of ethnographic exhibitions in the 19th century. No time to visit it this time, otherwise I would put some photos. Look here: http://images.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lesanneauxdelamemoire.com/SiteAlliance/Images/PalaisRoyalAbomey.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.lesanneauxdelamemoire.com/SiteAlliance/Afrique/PresentationBenin.html&usg=__fet2zBJt_KN7nVB_JN9ZfFeubAw=&h=218&w=534&sz=79&hl=fr&start=7&sig2=o6QIkPKjsAOeGD5XC4DvRQ&um=1&tbnid=gYl736_fqtv-UM:&tbnh=54&tbnw=132&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dabomey%2Bpalais%2Bdu%2Broi%26hl%3Dfr%26safe%3Doff%26rlz%3D1T4ADBR_frBJ315BJ316%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=t5YySpiqB9GNsAaa9JDHCQ. Another place not to be missed is the subterranean villaga (probably under water right now), world heritage site as well, referring to the main war tactic of the army of Abomey: They would dig holes into the earth where they would hide while the enemy was approaching. As they had stocked up on food and water they could remain there hidden during several weeks. When the enemy had invaded far enough, they would attack from behind. Again, no photos. I see what I can do.

Pictures of Bohicon will follow. Patience, dear visitors.

Day +5

La position allongée n'était pas pour Oblomov un besoin, comme elle l'est pour un malade ou quelqu'un qui a sommeil. ce n'était pas un hasard, comme pou run homme fatigué; pas non plus une volupté, comme elle peut l'être pour un paresseux: c'était l'état normal.

This heat knocks me down like a hammer. I spent the last three days more or less entirely in lying position with the ventilator creating a soft breeze. No photos yet, but they will come, I promise.

In the meantime I started to learn Fon, the main language here. I learned to say that I stole maize: Un fi bade. Locals on the other hand would say: yovo fi bade, the white person stole maize, which makes them laugh a lot - here I am so exotic, I cannot go unnoticed, and whereever I pass, the children go yovo yovo, bonsoir! (Apology to those who actually master this language, I learn to speak, not necessarily to write.) It seems to be an easy language, no conjugations, meaning of time and place is deducted from the context, but it becomes difficult by its intonation, a bit like chanting.

Until the next time, edabo (bye)

Preparation day -5

-Miséricorde! dit-il en revenant. -Du boeuf et du veau. Oblomov, vieux frère, tu ne sais pas vivre!

Apart from a cleaning marathon, I prepare myself by cooking. Necessarily this will be fusion food, as many ingredients are not available here: talk about Peulh cheese. Or have you ever heard of aiman bean leaves? Luckily I brought several kilos of yams and maize meal to reminisce Benin cuisine.

Here is one of my absolute favourites that I have not even thought about making myself:

Ablo.

2kg de riz, 100 g de sucre, 1/2 cuillèrée de levure, une pincée de sel

1. Lavez le riz et laissez égoutter. Faites finement moudre au moulin à maïs. Faites une buillie assez lourde avec le 1/4 de la farine (ne le laissez pas trop cuire au feu) Laissez refroidir. versez le reste de farine dans la bouillie et pétrissez correctement. Ajoutez la levure. Malaxez le tout et salez.
2. Couvrez la pâte et laissez fermenter environ 7 heures. Versez une quantité raisonnable d'eau pour obtenir une pâte onctueuse. Sucrez. Couvrez à nouveau la pâte et laissez fermenter encore 30 minutes environ. Remuez la pâte fermentée.
3. Mettez 1/2 louche de cette pâte dans de petits moules tapisés de sachets lavés et disposez-les sur une grille. Mettez de l'eau dans une bassine et portez à ébullition.
4. Déposez la grille au-dessus de la bassine d'eau buillante. Couvrez avec une seconde bassine, fermez hermetiquement et laissez cuire à la vapeur 15 à 20 minutes environ.
5. Servez avec du jus de topate et d'oignon avec du poisson braisé.

Yummie. The result is a slightly sourish, spongy and pleasantly glibbery noodle-like object one cannot stop devouring. Until I develop my capacities further, I limit myself to the many different polentas, although stirred with an ordinary wooden spoon instead of the paddle-like instrument a real Benin cook would use.

This recipe is from THE regional cookbook in 3 volumes, Saveurs du Bénin et de la sous-region, by Valérie G. Vinakpon, Editions Tioni ISBN 99919-54-74-0. In case you want to explore.