finally

abomey ? the traditional capital of the kingdom of dahomey with a palace of two parallel kings, both blood-loving and building their palaces with clay mixed with palm oil and human blood. even now people from the north dislike those from abomey because a couple hundred years ago people from abomey hunted them to offer their lives to the kings.

csft ? centre de sechage des fruits tropicaux ? the only fair trade thing i could find in benin. they produce dried pineapples and mangos and pineapple juice. very well organized and in cooperation with oxfam in belgium, artisans du monde in france and claro in switzerland. fantastic!

and one more incident, short but meaningful? we were visiting a church where there are paintings on the fence (kind of philadelphian murals) explaining the history of missionaries in benin, when we heard someone shouting that there was an owl under the tree and we had to kill it quickly. and there it was, apparently blessed or ill, cause it barely moved. in spite of our protests and cries, the guy started to throw stones at the poor owl and kill it (i suppose, cause i left after the first strike). it was edmonde who explained me afterwards that it was a witch and if we had not killed it, it would have kill us or at least cursed first. in benin there are two kinds of magic: "magique" or "gri-gri"(???) ? a positive kind of spells, healing and fortunetelling performed by the fa and "sorcellerie" ? dark magic and curses cast by evil witches because of jealousy or simple wickedness. sorcelleurs turn themselves often into birds (most often into owls) or snakes. there are numerous films (produced mostly in nigeria) that show "the reality" of magic. the thing that is often present is the taboo ? almost every family has some kind of a food taboo, meaning that the members of this family can?t eat certain plant of animal. if they do, they can die or have some serious trouble. edmonde?s family is forbidden to eat or even touch a certain species of bird. if they do it, they?ll catch a leprous. hmmm? it?s all really fascinating? and what was an ill owl doing in the plain daylight in a church?s courtyard??
sooo. that?s about what i wrote the last time?

and in the meantime? one of the three cinemas in cotonou ? turned into a church of some modern sect (there are lots and lots of them in benin). a very thin and sad lion in the minizoo. the whole minizoo rather depressing ? cages far too small, food rations far too scarce. and another trip with a friend meaning we had to visit about a million of his friends, professors and cousins.

today it was the dissertation of one of our friends here. he waited for that over 2 years... at the very last moment the university?s authorities wanted to cancel all the dissertations of foreign students (he?s from the ivory coast). fortunatelly, with 3 hours of delay, the jury arrived and he did it! gerard, congrats!!!:)