That seemed like a good idea... FOR ME TO POOP ON!!

The title is a reference to Triumph the Insult Dog.

One thing my mother warned before I left: Don't mess with voodoo.

There are many things in this world that we don't understand and therefore don't believe in. Ghosts, for example. Witchcraft, sorcery, voodoo, hoodoo... lots of people dismiss it as bullshit... but I live in Benin. No one dismisses it here.

**warning: gross stuff ahead. if you've just had lunch, or are faint of heart, don't read this!!!**

I was waiting for Mathieu to pick me up after work on Friday and I was reading the paper. The headline on page 11 of La Nation reads:

Les "gourous" de la mort -- Le fléau mystérieux qui décime la gent féminine (The Gurus of death -- The Mysterious Plague that is Decimating the Female Race)

The article goes on to say that women in love are being killed. Not by AIDS, not by cancer... I have to quote it for you to believe it:

Des prédateurs, ce que les Ivoiriens (de la Côte d'Ivoire) appellent les "gourous", ne sont que des personnalités mues par un souci effréné d'entretenir leur fortune qui font succomber à coups d'argent, leurs victimes en quête de gain facile et gagnant donc leur manger à la "sueur" de leurs cuisses. Le mode d'emploi trouvé par ces gros bonnets, les "grotos" comme on les appelle ici, est tout simple. Pour assouvir leur dessein lugubre, ces exterminateurs contemporains sans scrupule demandent à déféquer ou à uriner sur des filles ou vice-versa après avoir satisfait leur libido avec elles, en échange de faramineuses sommes d'argent. Quelques heures ou quelques jours après, les victimes commencent à sentir des malaises; une maladie "bizarre" s'installe et prend plusieurs formes. Puis, la suite, c'est le trépas en douce.

To translate basically. Rich and powerful men who want to keep or improve their richness and power, get intimate with women and then offer them absurd amounts of money to let them or ask the girls to... well... relieve themselves on the man or let the man do it on them. Days or hours later, the women fall mysteriously ill and die. DIE.

A "marabout" or powerful sorcerer is quoted in the following text, the article's continuation:

D.S., un marabout et exorciste à Abobo BC, très sollicité par bon nombre de footballeurs, d'artistes et de personnalités ivoiriens, a reconnu que "ça existe vraiment" et explique : "C'est une pratique que certains féticheurs (voodoun)conseillent à leurs clients. Soit, la personne défèque sur sa copine ou il demande qu'elle défèque sur lui. Ca peut paraître dégoutant mais, je vous assure que c'est un moyen infaillible pour avoir de la puissance et pour consolider sa richesse". Evidemment, cela n'est pas sans conséquence : "La fille qui accepte de se faire ch... dessus, est, dans 98% des cas, vouée à la mort. Ca peut prendre du temps. Mais, elle finira par mourir", confie le féticheur.

He explains again what I explained earlier, that in Ivory Coast, some clients of voodoo priests come to them for riches and power and they recommend this practice of not-so-golden showers to give them riches and power. The girl dies in 98% of cases, data which I'm sure has not been scientifically verified.

They quote one girl who politely declined a man's requests, despite the offer of 10 million francs or $25,000. Another girl whose friend died mysteriously discusses how they had laughed when she said that her boyfriend wanted her to pee on him:

"Moi, je soupçonne fortement son amant, une grande personnalité du pays qui lui offrait tout ce qu'elle voulait. Il y a un mois, AD m'a confiée que son amant lui avait demandé d'uriner sur lui après qu'ils eurent fait l'amour. On a bien ri. Mais, c'est depuis ce temps que ma camarade est tombée malade..."

They also quote doctors who looked at these patients and declared these diseases as "mal mystique".

How do you convict someone of murder?

I asked Mathieu how these guys can be punished since there's no way to prosecute them in any modern courts, and he assured me that karma's a bitch, although of course, he never could put it that way. I picture their faces shriveling up and them falling into a pile of dust, like in an Indiana Jones movie.

Anyway, I'm sure I've grossed everyone out thoroughly. Voodoo may or may not be a thing of the past, but certainly shouldn't be taken lightly. West Africa, and Africa in general, is very powerful.

The modern world underestimates itself greatly. We pride ourselves on our "intelligence" and our ability to make machines "Go", but these people can cure disease with plants and can create wealth with magic... poop.

Why, then, with all their magic, haven't they dug themselves out of the proverbial hole they're in? Perhaps for the same reason we have an economic crisis, or why we can't seem to put even a small lid on our consumerism to help out our environment... because there is good *and* evil in the world. The Good understand that using magic and powers for your own advancement will not lead to anything durable. And until the Good stand up to the Bad, until women stop taking money and gifts from men for "fecal favours" (lol, i slay me!)... until we really and truly stand up and speak out against that which we know to be evil... then evil will always win.

A little preachin' for those who made it to the end of this post.


In other news, I took SIXTEEN kids to the museum and to the amusement park this weekend. :) More on that, and pictures, tomorrow. SIXTEEN. Started with 8, and then the family got wind of it. You know, I think I'll miss the kids most of all. They're pretty adorable! And really sweet! And very well behaved! I was impressed!

Tick Tock ... M' fon gandji!!

The cool thing about TV here are the documentaries on awesome African dudes.

Like Patrice Lumumba, first elected Prime Minister of Congo. Very anti-colonialist, the Belgians killed him for being a pain in the ass. They really did, and in the documentary, they laugh about it. (The Americans helped. The CIA was going to use poison toothpaste - so crafty, those Americans.) It's pretty gross. Actually, the longer I'm in Africa, the more I think that colonialism is pretty gross... not that I didn't think it was gross before. You can read his speech on Congolese Independance Day (June 30th, 1960) ici en français, and here in English. Apparently the Belgian King gave a very racist speech just before, saying something banal like, "We gave you so much, we're so great, and now we think it's good that we give you your independance." Then, without being on the agenda, Lumumba got up and infront of the international press, gave his speech.

Last night there was a documentary on General Amin of Uganda. What a guy! He was a child soldier, backwoods poor kid who rose up through the ranks because he was smart and ruthless. He's really funny, witty. In the documentary he talked a lot about telling the truth, always. I admire that kind of attitude. He wasn't always right and he killed a whole lotta people, but what a dude. If you get a chance to watch a documentary on him, please do. He's quite charming... and pretty scary. My favourite part of the documentary is when he is waving at the elephants!

Anyway, in one part of this documentary, he had bought a few new fighter jets for his army, which was quite well equiped, and he was talking to the pilots saying something like, "You must know these planes inside and out, you must read the manuals very carefully. You must know all the maps very well so that if you are asked to fly you can go and know exactly where you are going." Good advice.

He went on to say something that touched me:

When you are on your mission, do not think about coming back to the base. Think about your mission only, and God willing, you will come back to the base.

I've been thinking about coming home a lot lately. Maybe it's because I'm at the halfway point, my stomach plays tricks on me weekly if not daily, the heat is beginning to not be so great anymore, and my trips to the beach are becoming less frequent... but the General (aka His Excellency, President for Life) is right. Thinking about coming back to base only makes the fight that much harder. Be where you are now and be where you'll be later, right?

...

I bought the dreamy President Obama's The Audacity of Hope for the plane-ride here and I'm still only 50 pages in. I don't know what happened to me and reading. Up until high school I was a voracious reader. Perhaps I should blame university.

Aaanyway, I just got to the part where Obama is talking about our freedom as Americans (justice and liberty for all), and how at the end of their visit to Africa, just before their wedding, his wife, although she had a great time, talked about how happy she was to get home, how much she missed the freedom and protection from general insanity that you feel there (general insanity is my term, not hers).

They talk about how their family members and neighbours in Africa would loathe the bribes they would have to give to get anything done, the poverty they had to endure, how difficult it was to find work. They talked about the random visits from relatives, how they would expect gifts, food and shelter.

I love that I'm comparing myself to the First Lady.

I expressed to Mathieu how frustrated I was not to understand the language they speak here. He took it as a bit of an insult, thought that I didn't like his language, which is not at all what I said, but I guess what I should have said was, "I really want to learn to speak Fon." Learning to speak a language is HARD, and I don't imagine I'll be fluent by the time I leave, but I should at least give it a go.

I've never been one to expect people to go out of their way to accomodate me. I guess I was expecting for everyone to speak French - my brain really needs to get over it. There are several local languages here... and the language of the conquerer is French. Gotta love the colonials!!

Language is a funny thing. It means so much. In Canada it's the same. Depending on the language(s) you speak, it pretty much defines who you are (where you're from and where you went, how much money your parents had, what country conquered yours centuries ago).

Here, the better your French is, the better the chances you come from a rich family who could afford to put you through school, or you really struggled to make your way through school.

So today's the day I say, "Brain, get over it. Fon is the language you'll be hearing most. Take it and learn it as much as you can because you probably won't get the chance to speak it much when you get back to Toronto!!"

Fon lesson of the day:
Are you good? // Ah dough dagbay yah (accent français: a do dagbé ya - ça va bien?)
I'm good. // M' dough dagbay yah (accent français: M' do dagbé ya - je vais bien.)

Did you wake up well? Tu t'es bien réveillé? // Ah fow gangeeya? A fon gandjia?
I woke up well. Je me suis bien réveillé. // M' fow gangee. M' fon gandji.

You really have to watch when you "hmm?" and "uh huh" here -- you never know what you're actually saying!!!

Data... The first installment of FUN FACTS!

Reading Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge - Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fun fact: (ok, not so fun)

About 96 of every 1,000 children born in SSA in 2005 did not reach their first birthday. Another 163 of every 1,000 children will not reach their fifth birthday. These figures are twice the world averages.

I did the math twice, and that basically means that 25% of kids born in Sub-Saharan Africa don't live to see their 5th birthday. 1 out of 4, if you will.

Good times, good times.
Sigh... and I'm only on page 14.