Rien ne leur manquait. La vie pour eux coulait, telle une fleuve paisible. Ils n'avaient qu'a demeurer assis sur la berge et à observer les phénomènes inévitables dont chacun, au moment voulu, se présentait dans un ordre monotone.

Last Sunday, Gislain and Silvie baptised their little daughter. Meet Marie Ines.

the life and suffering of a couch potato

Si on lui donnait le premier tome d’un ouvrage, il ne demandait pas ensuite le second; si on le lui apportait, alors il le lisait, lentement.
Plus tard, il ne parvint même plus à terminer les premiers volumes ; il passait la majeure partie de son temps un coude appuyé sur la table et la tête posée sur le coude. Parfois aussi, au lieu du coude, il se servait du livre que Stolz prétendait lui faire connaître.

One of the dark sides of life in Benin is the television program. All those who don’t have a satellite dish depend entirely the state television ORTB, which is the case in our house, as the satellite decoder here has been destroyed during one of the frequent blackouts.

ORTB calls itself “votre partenaire pour les grands évènements”, but the consumers call it rather “votre partenaire pour les grands énervements” – you got the idea.

Oh those days spent in the library, when putting my elbow on a book and putting my head on my elbow sent me off to blissful forgetting!

Of course, if I seem to remain glued to the screen, it is only in order to report to my estimated readers.

Take last Friday evening, they filled what in any other country is the best TV time entirely with a 3 (three) hours interview about the raising cost for electricity, frequently interrupted by some studio technique problem, which, the interviewer underlined, this time were not due to electricity disturbance (for some inexplicable reason, evening blackouts occur only during football matches. Of the match Benin-Togo we saw exactly the first 52 seconds, when the Togolese scored a goal and some seconds of the keeper’s tantrum, and electricity was only back for the termination of the match, still 1-0 in favor of Togo.)

The program is basically a platform for local politicians. Apart from this, it resembles an over-dimensioned advertisement – emission time must be cheap, as some ads go on for several minutes; once we even had 15 minutes filled with the ORTB jingle.

Watch the enthusiastic public during an end-of-school-party, broadcasted in real time.

Emissions have to be cheap or free, and this is why, now and again, the public is treated to several unbelievable Mexican soaps. They are usually about love and jealousy amongst the super-rich, but apart from that I have not yet been able to figure out the story lines, nor what exactly the problem of a given personage at a given moment is. Understanding is even more inhibited by the fact that all the actresses are blond and the same actors and actresses appear in several soaps at the same time. But I’m not sure that this is very important, they find an enthusiastic public (including me) and represent without doubt the most creative thing on can see on ORTB.

What is left of emission time is filled with videos of rightfully unknown music bands.

My absolute favorite is called “Necrologie”, announcing funerals and commemorative celebrations for people like you and me, with different music for Christians and Muslims.

There is a good hour of Necrologie emission every evening – remember that here death is attended to more enthusiastically than birthdays.

Time and again, there is a real little gem, like this musical intro to the weekly puppet show: groovy and good to look at.

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