Trip to Benin

Hey Everyone!

I just got back from Benin a couple of days ago, and thought I'd give a report...or rather right a book.  It's long I know.  But I've got to record this stuff somewhere!

I was there visiting my sister, Lynne, and her cute family.  They are there as she does research on her dissertation, researching a precolonial palace.  

It's not an adventure without some risk and uncertainty.  Here are some of the unexpected turns that got our adrenalin going.

The Accidental Bribing

Before my trip began and I was getting my vaccines, the doctor told me that although my yellow fever card had a note that it expired in 2008, it was really good until 2017.  It turns out that the last nurse wrote down the expiration date on the bottle, not when the vaccine wore off internally.  Anyway, unfortunately this last doctor didn't correct the card, and I trusted that everything would be fine.  Oops.

When the medical staff in Benin asked for my card, we argued about the situation for about 10 minutes with a huge language barrier.  All I could tell, is that they assumed I needed a shot and wasn't going to let me go without one.  So I finally threw up my arms and said, "Fine, give me the shot.  How much does it cost?"  Blank stare and long pause.  "Like, $10?"  The two staff members looked at each other and said.  "Oui, $10."  I was then taken to a small, dingy, office where I signed a new yellow fever card and gave them my $10.  She was taking a while.  "Are you going to give me a shot?"  I motioned.  "Non.  Your country.  Au revoir." Doh!  I'm part of the system!  They tricked me.  Oh well. 

 Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

My big brother Kevin and I were suppose to meet on our third and final leg of the trip, flying from Ethiopia to Benin.  My flight arrived about an hour late, so I thought for sure he'd be there waiting for me.  According to all of the airport staff, his flight had already arrived.  That was so not true.  After a few minutes of concerned searching for him, I felt assurance from the Spirit that he was fine, but that didn't stop me from searching for him for a while.  It turns out Ethiopian Airlines did some bad planning and he missed the connecting flight by a half an hour and was stuck in Ethiopia for 2 days.

When we finally got to the airport to pick him up 2 days late, the luggage people temporarily "lost" his stuff and it took him an hour and half to make it out of the airport.  By this point in the trip, I had already experienced about 3 instances of corruption, so my imagination kept going back to some hostage kidnapping situation.

This is how happy we were to see each other.  

Phony Police Attempted Mugging

My first night in Benin, we ate at a tasty Chwarma Restaurant and began our walk back to the hotel.  It was dark, and a man in a partially tucked in police shirt introduced himself as a police officer and demanded to see identification.  I didn't know what was happening so I kept walking a bit with the kids and Lynne while Brian chatted for a minute.  It turns out, as we kept walking he said, "Do you want me to shoot??  When Brian told him that he didn't have ID with him, the man started searching Brian's pockets.  He grabbed his wallet.  Brian grabbed it back.  This went on for a few minutes, and since Lynne could tell a little better than me what was happening.  She approached the situation and said, "This is not o.k.  We've got to get away from this guy."  Meanwhile, Liam (who is 8) went up to the "police" and pushed him away.  That kid has guts.  We walked away and the guy zipped up a jacket to hide his fake police shirt, and rode away on his motorcycle.  Weird!  His lack of aggression, was a huge blessing.  But it was still enough to shake us up a bit.   

Real Police Hijacked our Taxi

While Kevin was still in Ethiopia, the rest of us were in a packed taxi driving from Cotonou to Porto Novo.  We were stopped at a police check.

Sorry, for the bad quality.  But this was the taxi, before the check.

Our last experience with the "police" already made us a little weary.  This is what happened from my non-french speaking perspective.  The police told the driver to get out.  Then he told Brian and a very large woman to get out of the front seat.  The woman argued, fiercely.  She was outraged.  He then told a woman to get out of the second row and placed the driver there.  He pulled a bystander off the street to sit in the driver's seat...unfortunately he couldn't drive well....and sat himself in the passenger seat.  And we were off.

  There we were, driving away without 3 passengers including Brian!  Lynne and I were stuck in the back with the kids and couldn't get out.  Lynne said something like, "Monsieur! We can't leave without my husband! He has the money for the taxi driver!"  No one responded.  She kept saying Monsieur, monsieur!"  So, I joined in.  And feeling a little helpless not knowing any other French, I said it LOUD.  Like, shouted it from the top of my lungs.  Then Lynne did, and so did Liam.  The police didn't turn around, or explain.  He just rapidly wrapped the shoulder strap of his gun around his hand tightly, and held his large gun up a bit, enough for everyone in the car to get a good look.  Not exactly comforting.

Fortunately we only drove for another minute to the police station where the taxi driver was told to get out, and while they started to chat....the rest of us got out of the car quietly, and inconspicuously got outside of the police gates as quickly as possible.  Fortunately, Brian met us there, and we were off.  It may have not been as bad as it felt.  The driver didn't have his licence, so the police took him to the station.  But I think they could have taken the 10 seconds to explain to the rest of us that we weren't being held hostage.  

Attack of the Small Antelope

The village where Larsens live, Abomey, has a little hotel with some fenced animals including this really cool Bushbuck.  This picture was taken by Kevin.  

This one was taken by me.  It's upside down.  I was standing on the bottom ledge of a stick fence and thought I turned my flash off just to be safe.  My suspicions were confirmed. Bushbucks do NOT like flashes.  These are his hooves flying at me right before he rammed my leg through the fence.  I barely had enough time to think, "Hmmm, where did he go?"  before I fell back a bit. 

It didn't really hurt, but he did leave these to symmetrical horn bruises.

It looks cooler in person. :)

O.k. with all of the drama aside, Benin is a dream!  It doesn't seem to be dealing with the amounts of poverty I saw in Namibia (let alone the post apartheid divisions), or the post colonial decay and civil war aftermath I saw in Mozambique.  I was surprised at how bustling the cities were, and how peaceful the towns felt.

Our first stop was Ganvie, an island stilt village.  Some people call it the Venice of Africa.

If you're going to get your camera out, be prepared to share it.

The next morning we visited Obama Beach.  The water felt great, and was shallow enough for the kids to go out pretty far.

It would have been more fun to have Anthony there.

Cotonou has a beautiful Botanical Garden

My cute nephews swinging on the swing-less swing set. 

Porto Novo has an amazing agricultural school, where students can attend for free.

We stayed there for a couple of nights.

Chickens

Papaya

Palaces and Temples

So, most of us probably don't associate the word "palace" with Western Africa, but historically Benin has had loads of Kingdoms, each with their own palace(s).  We visited a few of them, including the one Lynne has been studying. 

It started to rain/flood during the tour.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of Lynne's palace, but this is one of the gigantic courtyards.  

I never considered the African side of the slave trade much.  Cannons like this were traded for 15 strong men, or 21 strong women.  People still look back at the slave trading kings with respect though, because people say they only traded prisoners of war, the enemy, not his own people.  Unfortunately, all the incentives from Europeans encouraged a lot of war.  I guess we could call it the Military Slave Complex. 

There was one especially sacred part of the palace where we were told that were would need to remove our shoes, bow low to enter the room, and would have to remain outside if we were menstruating   There was a long pause...and eveyone started to look at me.  "Oh!  I'm fine.  We're good to go."  I don't know how Lynne got off the hook so easily. 

Another Palace

Temples like this are dotted throughout Abomey.  There are large compounds where about 200 members of a family live.  And outside the compound walls, there is a small place of worship.  

A funeral tradition.

This is one of the Vodun gods that people build in places of potential contention.  He's the god of peace.

Views from the Taxi

Black market gas like this is sold everywhere.  A tube is placed in the large bottle, and the person "pumping,"  starts sucking the gas up the tube, and then fills the smaller bottle once the flow begins.  I saw one guy accidentally get some of the gas in his mouth and spit it out.  

Fill 'er up!

Transporting chickens to the market.  Every time the car stopped, there were dozens of heads bobbing in unison. 

This is how we got around most of the time.  The motorcycle taxis are called Zims.

Can you tell who's bananas were rejected?

U&U's look strangely familiar, but taste more like soap then chocolate. 

Funeral Parade.  Jazzy, happy, improvised music. 

Yes.  That is a coffin.

This was a flooded rode we drove through on our 5 hour drive to Abomey.

I think they're making coal here.

My international graffiti fetish.  In Benin Graffiti is legal if it's done on corrugated steel. 

Fast food delivered through our window.  Boiled peanuts and hominy-like corn.  Yum!

Hanging out in Abomey

I couldn't get enough of the hand painted signs and murals.

Lynne's research assistant

Lynne's closest Beninese friend. Diane, made us an amazing dinner.  I still need to get the recipe (hint hint Lynne).

Hanging out at the Larsen home

It took most of us to catch a mouse our first night there.

Liam's Popsicle stick game.  Man, those kids are getting creative.

Mmmm.  French influence. 

Mangoes for our nightly bedtime snack.  They range from 2-10 cents and are deeelicious!  I'm salivating just remembering them. 

The Larsens were incredible hosts.  It was an amazing experience being in Benin, but if I had to choose my favorite moments, sitting around and talking with Lynne, Brian, and Kevin would be at the top.  I feel blessed to be related to such fun, fascinating people.  If it weren't for all of my cute guys waiting for me at home, I would have wanted to extend my stay.  Next adventure will have to include Anthony....and we'll wait a few more years for the boys. 

Touch-a-Truck

Before Sharon left I took Ira to the 'Touch-a-truck' event held by the town we live in. They had every kind of big truck you can think of on display for the kids to get into and explore. We were a little late so we had to be judicious in picking our favorites that were worth waiting in line for before they all drove off.

I liked this fire truck, Ira was a little freaked out by the giant dalmatian siting in the front seat.

Ira liked the school buses for some reason...

Couches, Quiet time, and sooo many Cupcakes

Happy Sunday all!

The past week has been eventful.

We've continued working on the house and will have a new (non-smelly non-disintegrating) garbage disposal and dishwasher installed on Friday!  Woohoo!  I'm in the process of hemming all of the curtains, and finally got around to covering some mini-couches a friend gave us. 

Before

After

Couch covers are tricky and these have turned out a little baggy and saggy, but the pillows I covered help distract a little.  Meh, maybe after hemming curtains I'll work on tightening them up a bit.

This illustrates Ira's recent "If it's in my hand, I want to throw it at someone" attitude.  sigh...  Last night we went to a fundraising event for the preschool coop that we'll be apart of in the Fall, and Ira was chasing bigger kids around, hitting them with a "balloon sword" and growling.  They were all significantly older and taller, so I'd like to think they were just pretending to be scared.  Hopefully they won't kick us out. On a more positive note, we went to the Library this week where Ira approached some kids and instead of snarling or roaring, he said, "Hi!  Would you like to have a tea party with me?" My eyeballs almost fell out of my head! ..and they continued to play PEACEFULLY together for at least 10 minutes before an argument broke out.  Not too shabby for our little man. 

We got our first lawn mower.

It's a motor-less reel mower, and works great!

Can't quite fit that head through...

Eliot has hit a couple of fun milestones.  He took his first couple of steps on the 22nd.  He cut his 5th tooth, and has been signing "more" for a few weeks, and has just started pointing.  I love it when these little people can start communicating their feelings! 

He has been really into books lately.  Mostly pulling them off the shelf, but also occasionally sitting and reading them to himself.

It's so rare to have both boys sitting quietly, that I had to take a picture to prove it was real. 

Anthony is doing really well.  We celebrated our 6th Anniversary by going to the temple to do sealings which was very happy!  What a man.  I'm so glad he decided to marry me. 

He also got recognized for some extra effort he put into a work project, and he was given a bunch of gift cards (all of which we put towards our dishwasher and garbage disposal.)  

So, that's pretty much life.  Happy.  

Below are some cupcake experiment results.   I had a free naptime, and lots of (frozen fondant/ frosting/candy melt) odds and ends to use up.  So, unless you are really curious about tiny cakes, you'll probably just want to stop here.  Peace out!

I wanted to try dipping cupcakes in icing (just powdered sugar and water.)  The cupcake on the left, had icing too thin.  In the back it was too thick (it rips off the surface of the cupcake).  On the right, it was just right.  

Icing on icing.  Easy and looked blobby, but o.k.  By the next day they bleed all over the place.  It's not like on a sugar cookie when the icing stays hard.

Icing and fondant.  Easy Peasy.  I used a flag and train cookie cutters to make the continents.  They held up a little better than the icing on icing, but didn't look quite as nice the second day.

Failures.  

Upper left: icing too thin.  Bottom Right, the circle was too small.  The purple ones I used Candy Melts.  I don't know, the candy melts might look smoother if I worked with them faster.  They definitely hold up better over the next few days than any other combo I tried. 

Fondant Cupcakes

                                    

The cupcake on the left, just had a button size blob of frosting spread out.  The middle one was generously covered, and the one on the right had a fluffy, soft-serve icecream dose of frosting.  The one in the middle was by far the best portion.  The one on the right was more spherical, but the frosting was oozing out all over. 

This size cookie cuter works great for fondant full coverage.

Mmmm.  Earth Day cupcakes.

In my opinion, the fondant on fondant looked and tasted the best.  They also held up well enough to make again.  They look the best the day of, and almost as good the day after.  If you wait much longer than that, the cake starts to get a little soggy.  Alright, let's all go recycle and shrink our carbon footprints now.  Peace.  

Eliot and Easter

This is Eliot's cute friend that was born two days after him. 

 Hopefully these failed attempts of ring gifting to cute girls isn't foreshadowing.

Failed attempts to swap some saliva.  Sorry!  I couldn't resist.  These captions are almost as bad as those horrid posters of toddlers dressed up like adults giving each other red roses and such.  

Working on our garden to be

Ira pausing to play with his shadow

The big news here was that Eliot turned 1!  Time flies when your working as a body guard to protect an infant from a playfully aggressive, older brother. :) 

The tubes and circus tent were his main presents.  He loves the tubes especially.

Neither of the boys wanted to take a nap after playing at the Hand's On Museum, so I didn't have time to decorate as planned.  But here was my makeshift, quick job. 

Eliot's first taste of dessert!  

He nursed this thing for about a minute straight before moving on to the actual chewing.

 

Ira constructing some words....with a little help from mom of course. 

Eliot enjoying conference.  We loved the parts we were able to pay attention to.  We'll have to read up on the parts we missed.

Both boys had their checkups this week and are looking good.  Eliot is finally over a stomach bug he got which is a huge relief.  We really love our pediatrician who was extremely patient with a flailing, screaming, scared Ira.  She kind of laughed at the fact that usually kids Eliot's age begin their stranger anxiety, and by the time they're 3, they're getting over it.  Eliot was as pleasant as can be, despite the fact that he had thrown up that morning, had diarrhea and an ear infection, and got four shots.  It's just another example of how different our two boys are.  

Ira has been walking around the house pointed out how tall he is in different locations.  "Look how tall I am next to the table!  Look how tall I am on the chair!  Look how tall I am on my bed!"  We finally bought him new pants since his were starting to look like capris.  

  Eliot's new favorite game is pat-a-cake.  The "roll it" part is pretty stinkin' cute with such short arms. 

We've been visiting preschools in preparation for the Fall.  I've also just finished a really time consuming, but fun wedding present for a childhood friend, and am moving on to making couch covers and pillow cases.   Pictures pending.  We were also sad to see some of our good friends move across the country.  But since they're not too far from Kristen, we're hoping too see them again soon. 

Anthony is hoping for clear skies so he can start biking to work more often, and is enjoying a little bit of a more normal pace after a surge of business.  

We failed to take any good Easter pictures, but it's really fun exploring possible holiday traditions.  The focus on Christ and the Resurrection was really clear until Ira realized there was candy associated with Easter too!  Oh well.  

We're keeping lots of you in our prayers as many of you have been facing difficult trials.  Love you lots!