The Truth about Voodoo, My experience in Benin!

This blog is going to be a long one, and it will include everything I did on my trip to Benin. Most of my trip was focused on discovering the truth about West African vodun (what we call voodoo) and you will be surprised by reading this blog to realize that most everything that you first think of when you hear the word “voodoo” is actually false! I myself after an 11 hour ceremony with a vodun priest now practice vodun and no, contrary to your impressions of “voodoo”, it does not conflict with my Christianity in any way. I will explain all of this in this blog, so read on!

We’ll start with Monday which was mainly a travel day. I met my guide Boris in Accra and we set off on an air conditioned tro tro to the border of Togo, a town called Aflao. Once we got there we change my money into CFA’s and went through the Togolese border. We traveled trough Togo on motorbikes for an hour (motorbike are my new favorite thing in the world . . . don’t know why I have never been on a motorbike before this . . . but yeah) Then we went through the border of Benin and took motorbikes again to get to Ouidah, the first destination city on our tour. This whole travel process through the borders was actually quite hectic and stressful because of people constantly hassling us to change money or for motorbikes or for us just to give them money . . . mainly in Togo, I really did not like Togo, it was dirty, dusty, smoggy, polluted, and the people were very persistently rude! Anyways, back to the arrival in Ouidah! We first checked into the hotel I was staying at and dropped off our luggage, then we walked for about 20 minutes down the road to go to the Python Temple. Before I describe the Python Temple I would first like to say Kudos to Benin for being a very esthetically nice country, there is hardly any garbage on the ground, no open sewers, little pollution, and beautiful cobble stone streets with great architecture throughout the cities (I am assuming this has a lot to do with their government, so bravo!, maybe they can teach Ghana a thing or two!) Now Onto describing the Python Temple we visited.

First I will explain why they think that Pythons are sacred. Back when Africa didn’t have countries there were tribes in different regions that would battle against each other, Ouidah (which was still called Ouidah at that time) had a tribe, but they were not very strong fighters. The tribes from other areas would chase them into highly wooded area’s where there were loads of Pythons. Scared of the pythons the other tribes would flee the battle, so the people of the Ouidah tribe began using the Pythons to scare off opposing tribes by wearing them around themselves during battle. The Python Temple today is a sacred place (I will be using the term sacred a lot in this blog do to the vodun culture) to honor the pythons that saved their city and the culture that lives here. They perform a ceremony every 7 years to bless the town through the pythons. In old times they used to get virgin girls to go to the river to get sacred water to put in the Calabash, but now it’s harder to tell when girls are virgins, so they use elderly women. The water from the calabash is mixed with healing medicinal leafs and is used for people to drink small amounts and bless the whole town. They sacrifice a goat in this ceremony as well and share the blood of the goat to bless people. The significance of sacrifices in Vodun culture is huge, because a sacrifice is the only way to link the spirit world of their ancestors to the physical world (I will talk more about that in a bit when I give a full description of “voodoo”). At the snake temple there is still a vodun priest that lives in a hut on site. There is also a sacred tree called Iroko that is 400 years old, they have a white cloth on this tree that they throw yolk and spices on so as to feed the tree through the sacred cloth. When you arrive at the Python temple they take you on a tour of the temple and tell you everything I have just said, then they bring you into the temple where they keep the Pythons. Then in tradition with how they used to go into battle they drape the huge pythons around your neck (yes there are pictures of me to go on facebook with pythons all over me!). Interesting fact about the python temple is that when the pythons die, because they are sacred, they bury them in a cemetery just like humans. So that covers the Python Temple.

After that we walked back to the hotel and got some of our things, and then headed out to a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was very nice and in an outdoor setting and so we sat down at a table across from a local Benin couple. I had steak and chips (I know I am not a steak person but the only other meat option was rabbit, and that wasn’t happening) and then Boris started asking me about why I was interested in Vodun. I then told him the story of a séance I had preformed when I was a teenager, and I told him all about the scary things that happened that night like my posters falling down and my dolls having red marker around their eyes and such. I told him that bad things have happened after that (which I didn’t want to get into) and I wanted to see the roots of vodun and try to find out what I did wrong. He said that he was impressed by my true belief in the vodun culture and he thought before that I was just another “tourist” that wanted to see it as a joke for back home, but he said “now that I know that you are serious about our culture and beliefs I think this is an issue we should take to a vodun priest”. The benin man from the table next to us heard our conversation and he came to the table to wish me healing in the country and then payed for our meals . . . very good impression of Benin right off the bat! So we finished our dinner and I went to bed while he changed the plans of our trip to involve a consult with a vodun priest.

Tuesday morning I woke up very early and we went to breakfast at a different restaurant, it was good but the service was bad. We then finished seeing all the tourist sights in Ouidah. We started off with the museum, which I was not allowed to take pictures at, and it was a basic overview of the history of Benin, slaves in the area, and of Vodun. I will give you an overview of what I learned here:

The Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá (in English St. John the Baptist of Ouidah Fort) is a small fortress built by the Portuguese in the city of Ouidah on the coast of Dahomey (originally Ajudá, from Hweda, on the Atlantic coast of modern Benin), reached by the Portuguese in 1580, after which it grew around the slave trade, for which the Slave Coast was already renowned. The Fort, built in land given to Portugal by the King of Dahomey, remained under Portuguese control from 1721 until 1961.
In 1680 the Portuguese governor of São Tomé and Príncipe was authorised to erect a fort. In 1721, after having been abandoned for some years, it was reconstructed and named São João Baptista de Ajudá.

Pirate Bartholomew Roberts at Ouidah, with his ship and captured merchantmen in the background

The fort had an important impact in Benin, greatly contributing to both the Portuguese and African slave trade. Its importance is attested by the fact that the Portuguese language was the only foreign language that the Kings of Dahomey authorised. Portuguese descendants were also important in the political structure of the kingdom and some established Portuguese-Brazilian families, such as the Sousa, whose descendants still exist in Benin, were powerful and abided by private law. In January 1722 the pirate Bartholomew Roberts ("Black Bart") sailed into the harbour and captured all the eleven ships at anchor there.
Following the abolition of the legal slave trade in 1807, the fort, which had before been one of the major slave ports, gradually lost its importance and although Portugal continued to claim it as one of its possessions, formal occupation and administration were abandoned on several occasions. It was only when French presence in the region started threatening Portugal’s interests that the settlement was again permanently manned. This didn't prevent the French conquest of Dahomey (1891–1894). After this, São João Baptista de Ajudá - now reduced to the territory actually within the walls of the fort - lost what remained of its importance.
The fort was reoccupied by Portugal in 1865. In this period it served as a base for a brief Portuguese attempt to create a protectorate in the Kingdom of Dahomey of which the city of Hweda (Ajudá - Ouidah) was part (1885–1887).
Until its annexation by Dahomey in 1961, São João Baptista de Ajudá was probably the smallest recognized separate modern political unit: according to the census of 1921 it had 5 inhabitants and, at the moment of the ultimatum by the Dahomey Government, it had only 2 inhabitants representing Portuguese Sovereignty who tried to burn it rather than surrendering it.
Only in 1975, after the Portuguese Estado Novo regime has been overthrown due to the Carnation Revolution at Lisbon, did the annexation of the fort by Dahomey (now renamed Benin) gain official Portuguese recognition. This was followed by the forts' restoration, which was paid for by Portugal. The fort is a small square with towers at the four corners. It comprises a church and officers' quarters. The Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá now houses a museum.

That’s the basic history of the museum that I learned but in the museum I learned other cultural things as well . . . here is a point form list of some interesting points:

è    Every 10^th of January (every year) Benin holds a very large (largest in the world) voodoo festival.

è    They had horns in their time which they believed they could send small pox to people through.

è    When people die in Benin their spirits are kept alive through statues and torches.

è    They put statues on their front lawns of Legba (I will explain what Legba is soon) to protect their houses.

è    They traded 15 strong slaves for 1 cannon, or 21 women slaves for 1 cannon.

è    Because so many slaves were sent to Brazil from this region, brazil now has a huge vodun culture

è    Kings during that time had the right to have 41 wives . . .

è    The last day of king dahomey’s 41 day ceremony he sacrificed a human, he did this by throwing the slaves off a boat onto land, if they landed on their feet they were free, but if not they were killed.

è    When going to battle they had to promise the king that they would come back with the head of an enemy.

è    There were 5 forts in Ouidah, the French, Danish, Dutch, British, and Portuguese (the Portuguese is the only fort still standing, as a museum of coarse)

Just some more things I learned at the museum. We then got on motorbikes and went to the sacred forest. Here is what I learned there:

The sacred forest is a sacred place filled with sacred trees and interpretive statues of Vodun Gods. It is sacred for two reasons:

1 à Sacred trees are inside (duh)

2 à The first vodun festival in Ouidah took place in here.

The name of the community the sacred forest is in is called Kpasse, There was a king Kpasse and the first statue we saw was a representation of what he though he was . . . a panther. Originally the sacred forest was King Kpasse’s farm. I will now give you a run down of some of the different statues of the gods that we saw. Interesting fact first though, in vodun originally, anything that they didn’t understand in life or in nature became a God (since they didn’t understand it, it was powerful, thus a God).

We’ll start with Legba, Legba is a general protection God, he is said to be the link between the physical and spiritual worlds. Most people keep a statue of him in their houses for protection. There are several other Gods but I will describe them in the photos I took of them when I post the photos on facebook (it will mean more that way) Legba is the most important of the Gods anyways. On a side note an “adept” person is what they call a practicing voodoo person, and there is traditional dress only during the voodoo festival for them. Perhaps on January 10^th in Canada I will dress as an adept, because I now am and adept.

An interesting belief in vodun culture that I learned at the sacred forest is that they believe that cats and dogs have a stronger ability to view spirits, so you can take the eye crusts from your cat or dog and put them in the crests of your eyes and then be able to see spirits as well.

There is a story of a tree that fell down from a lightning strike in 1993 and because the tree was sacred 2 men tried to cut it away and preserve it to move it to a different location. Apparently the two men became ill while trying to do this and lost consciousness, when they woke up the tree was back in the same location it originally was and was alive again. They have now built walls around this tree and it is a huge sacred site in Benin.

There was a place in the sacred forest that I could not pass through because I am not an initiated person, it was a door to another even more sacred area, but I got a great picture of the door! So that is the basis of the sacred forest.

Next we went down the slave road that is famous in Benin, it is basically the same basic story of the slaves that I have already covered, but on this slave road they prepared the slaves in dark rooms so they would be prepared for the dark that they would experience for months on the boats, they also had a burial point along the road to bury dead slaves, or bury alive weak slaves. There is a memorial grave for all of these deaths there and in order to walk on it you need to be barefoot (in any sacred place in Benin you must be barefoot). Then we went to the door of no return on the beach which was the final step of the road, and it was the same idea as all doors of no return’s for the slaves, it basically means that they were put on ships to be sent to brazil.

After all of this sight seeing in Ouidah, we got into a shared taxi and headed off to Cotenu, then further on to Porto-Novo (the purpose being to go see the voodoo priest in the morning). When we arrived in Porto-Novo, we decided to stay at Boris’s Aunt and Uncle’s house in a village in the middle of the bush a half hour out of the city (because the voodoo priest lives in the village so it was easier to be close). It was really nice to be staying in mud huts with no electricity or technology, living they way village people do, it gives you a great sense of Africa! The bathrooms were just area’s behind your hut where you peed on the ground and washed it away with water, and you did other things in a bucket . . . for showering you just stood there and poured water on yourself. This type of travel adventure is not for everyone, infact I can think of lots of people I know who could not handle this. So we went into our mud hut (there were four in this compound) and went to sleep for the night.

The next morning we woke up and headed off to see the vodun priest for my consultation. It was an 11 hour day in the vodun temple because I needed several ceremonies for healing, but before I get into that I want to clear up your impressions of “voodoo” and give you an actual description of what voodoo is.

Vodun cosmology centers around the vodun spirits and other elements of divine essence that govern the Earth, a hierarchy that range in power from major deities governing the forces of nature and human society to the spirits of individual streams, trees, and rocks, as well as dozens of ethnic vodun, defenders of a certain clan, tribe, or nation. The vodun are the centre of religious life, similarly in many ways to the cult of intercession of saints and angels that made Vodun compatible with Christianity, especially Catholicism, and produced syncretic religions such as Haitian Vodou. Adherents also emphasise ancestor worship and hold that the spirits of the dead live side by side with the world of the living, each family of spirits having its own female priesthood, often hereditary.
Patterns of worship follow various dialects, gods, practices, songs and rituals. Vodun recognises one God with many helpers called Orishas. A single divine Creator, called variously Mawu or Nana Buluku is an androgynous being who in one tradition bore seven children and gave each rule over a realm of nature - animals, earth, and sea - or else these children are inter-ethnic and related to natural phenomena or to historical or mythical individuals. The creator embodies a dual cosmogonic principle of which Mawu the moon and Lisa the sun are respectively the female and male aspects, often portrayed as the twin children of the Creator.
Mawu's youngest child, Legba, was to remain with her and act as a go-between with her other children: in some clans he is young and virile while in Haiti he takes the form of an old man. Other deities might include Mami Wata, god/desses of the waters, Gu, ruling iron and smithcraft, Sakpata, who rules diseases and many others. Eshu, a messenger deity who relays messages between the human world and the world of the Orishas, is depicted as a dark, short man with a large staff and often a pipe, candy or his fingers in his mouth. As the mediator between the gods and the living he maintains balance, order, peace and communication.
All creation is considered divine and therefore contains the power of the divine. This is how medicines such as herbal remedies are understood, and explains the ubiquitous use of mundane objects in religious ritual. Voodoo talismans, called "fetishes", are objects such as statues or dried animal parts that are sold for their healing and spiritually rejuvenating properties. Sorcerers and sorceresses called Botono (or Aze/Azetos) are believed to cast spells on enemies on behalf of supplicants, calling upon spirits to bring misfortune or harm to a person or group. Animal sacrifice is a common way to show respect and thankfulness to the gods.
Mama, or Queen Mothers, are usually elder women who are elected by the kingmakers upon the death of the previous Queen Mother and are given the name of one of their highly respected female ancestors. The woman who is chosen is usually the oldest women in her clan, but this tradition may be overruled due to factors such as health, education, and national influence. The responsibilities of a Queen Mother are mostly geared towards activities among women. They take part in the organisation and the running of markets and are also responsible for their upkeep, which is vitally important because marketplaces are the focal points for gatherings and social centres in their communities. In the past when the men of the villages would go to war, the Queen Mothers would lead prayer ceremonies in which all the women attended every morning to ensure the safe return of their menfolk.

The basis of Voodoo is to link humans to the spirit world and to respect the spirit world because it is more powerful then us. Voodoo is NOT spells, witchcraft, black magic, vengeful, satan related, or any of the things that most people associate the word with. It also does not conflict with christian beleifs or the Bible, so you can be a christian who practices Voodoo! Voodoo is about healing yourself through nature and using the spirit world and the power of nature to cure problems, and to know yourself by being in touch with these natural powers. It is all about energy in the world and learning how to channel your energy to benefit you, and also to benefit nature so that you are in harmony with the outer world. Christianity and voodoo work quite well when both are practiced even John Paul the 2^nd as the pope went to visit Ouidah in 1989 to pay his respects to vodun priests. Now that you have a brief history of what voodoo actually is I will begin to describe my 11 hour day at the temple.

I walked into the temple and immediately had to remove my shoes and was given a big piece of material to cover my street clothes with so that I was covered from chest to ankle. I walked into the temple and the priest invited me and Boris to sit down (Boris translated for me because the voodoo priest practiced only in Ewe, the local language). He began to contact the oracle (the oracles are gods that priests consult to learn about other people, and to get advice from on how to help them) he did this by putting oil on stones, putting them on my head and then the sacred well, then he threw them on the ground to get readings. Immediately he began to tell me all about my past, he knew everything about me and I hadn’t really spoken to him yet. He said that in my past I had an abusive boyfriend who did damage to me, and I have had more then one of them, he knew that I had a miscarriage, he said that both my intestines and my womb were diseased and that I should never give blood because of this, He told me I was a person who was short tempered, he said because of my short temper and anxiety I was on medications, he told me about when my grandmother died, he told me of random childhood moments I had, and then he drew a picture of my house (scarily acurate). He had me convinced at this point because I have no idea how he would have known all of this, but what happened next shocked me to my core. He said, “there is a little girl present with us, do you know a little girl who has died or why a little girl would be with us?” My heart sank, because I knew exactly which little girl he meant. See, when I was a teenager and did that séance I brought something to my room in my parents house, and for years I have been seeing the ghost of this little girl in my room (I told very few people of this because most people would not believe me) and she always asked for help. So immediately I told the priest all about that, and he gave me a very stern and fearful look, he said you should not have done that, he said that I am a very vulnerable person to the spirit world which is rare, and is also why I could see this little girl but my friends could not. He told me that this little girl was infact not a little girl, but a very bad spirit disguising itself as a little girl to intruige me because the spirit knew my love of children. He said that since I was 14 this spirit had been trying to “take me” and has been responsible for anything bad happening in my life. He said that even when I didn’t see her, she was inside me creating a bad aura to attract “Noukumbia” (sorrow) to my life, which he siad is why I have had bad boyfriends, miscarriages, car accidents, failed attempts at school, and why my career has never taken off. He also said this spirit has been making my illness worse.

Immediately after explaining this to me he said I first needed an exorcism, then I needed two sacrifice ceremonies (one of a chicken to rid me of bad spirits and the negative aura I have accumulated and one of a goat to heal my womb for children and to heal my illnesses made worse by this spirit).
So he first preformed the exorcism, I have no recolection of what went on here but at the end of it I remember seeing the little girl and I started to vomit, I asked why I was vomitting, and he said that the spirit was coming out of me, and the vommitting got rid of the spirit.

Then we moved on to the first ceremony of sacrificing the chicken, now as I said earlier in this blog sacrifices are to link the physical world to the spirit world, in this case to rid me of my negative aura attracting Noukumbia (sorrow) into my life, because even though the spirit had left me, I needed to get rid of the damge it had done. The ceremony began by him giving me kola nuts (the kola trees are sacred) to rub all over me, I then gave him the kola nuts and he put them on the sacrificing altar. He then made me chant and repeat things in the ewe language, then he made an idol representing bad spirits in a dish. Then we plucked the feathers from the chicken and put the feathers in the idol along with a few of the kola nuts with my aura on them. We then covered the bowl, this is to represent the bad spirits effects leaving me, and for me to leave them in the past. He then took the chicken and while it was still alive rubbed it up and down my body (wings flapping and all) to link the chicken to me. Then he cut the chickens throat and poured the blood on the kola nuts, he then took the chicken out of the room and let it die, I then had to put my foot on it until it stopped moving to ensure it’s death and offer it to the gods. After that I had to end the ceremony by licking the chicken blood off of the kola nuts so that the gods blessing of my aura stays within my body.

Next was the goat sacrifice to cleanse and heal my womb for future children and to help de intensify my illnesses. I had to take the leash and rope and hold the goat in place, while doing this we had to be facing the sun (the sun is a diety) and he got me to repeat a great deal of chants in the local ewe language to bless and offer the goat to cure me. We then tied the goats legs and laid him on the ground. We dug a hole and in the hole we poured sacred leaf water and palm oils, we then placed the goat so that his neck was over the hole containing the sacred elements. Then he and I put our hands on the knife and together we cut the goats throat and held his head straight so that the blood poured into the hole. Once the goat was dead, they cut the head off and added it to the collection of my ceremonial offereings (shrine bowl, dead chicken, blood covered kola nuts, bag of herb blessings, and now the goat head). Then I had to soak my hands in the hole of goat blood, oil, and water for two minutes, then lick each fingertip to ensure that the doings of the ceremony and the healing of my womb and illnesses stays with me. After this I had a bit of a resting break while they butchered the goat meat (they did this so they could give half of the meat to the temple people and half to me).

He then gave me the sacred items from my ceremonies (shrine bowl, dead chicken, blood covered kola nuts, bag of herb blessings, and the goat head) and gave me a sheet of paper with a prayer to recite. He told me to walk into the woods by myself for 3 minutes and when I reached a place by a tree to dig a hole and recite these prayers. After reciting the prayers I buried all of these items, and he said it was very important once I covered the hole, to walk back to the temple without looking back. The significance of this was leaving my illnesses, negative aura, spirits, and Noukumbia behind me, so they would no longer be a part of my life. He could not be present for this because he helped perform the ceremonies.

After these ceremonies were through I went back to the vodun priest for council to make sure everything healed my soul, and for him to predict and bless my future. He began consulting the oracles again, and he said that all had worked, that I was free of spirits and negative auras, that my Noukumbia attracting agent was gone from my energy, and that my body had been healed. He then told me some very important things that I had to do to ensure that my life would stay this way. He said that I should never wear solid red, because as a person who is vulnerable to seeing the spirit world, red attracts bad auras and spirits. He said when I get back to Canada that it is important for me to buy gifts or candies for children and give them to a large group of children to sacrifice of myself unto them (to help me have children in the future by being in touch with them). He also said that that night when I went back to the hut I was staying in that I would bleed (period wise) heavily for one hour, and not to be afraid because this was the gods cleansing my womb as a part of the ceremonies (I didn’t know about that because I am on the depo). He then began to tell me about my future, I will put the oracles findings in point form:

è    I will have a husband within the next 4 years.

è    I will only be pregnant once, but I will give birth to twins

è    I will have an impressive career, but not in radio(what I do now and what I studied), it will be in helping hopeless or troubled children.

è    It is important that I never gossip or involve myself in arguments that don’t concern me at work, because that would be the downfall of my career.

è    When I am in vulnerable situations in life (sick, stressed, weak) I need to protect myself from the spirit world because I am vulnerable to it, by carrying legba (a small statue, size of a phone, in my purse)

è    Cockroaches in the spirit world are a sign of pending danger unless when I see one I also see it die.

è    \I will die from a very short (2 month) painful illness when I am 77.

He said it was very important that I never try to conjure spirits into the physical world again, and from this point on in my life I would lead a happy sucessful life. He gave me instruction on how to use the things that he wanted me to buy at a fetish market (legba statue, wooden skull, kola nuts, luck shell charms, and chants and prayers) to enhance my life when I get back to Canada.

After this long 11 hour day, we said our goodbyes to the vodun priest, but he assured me that he knew he would see me again. So we hugged him and he gave me a chicken (live) to take with me on my journey back to where we were staying, also goat meat. He instructed that the live chicken had to be released half way through our journey onto the road and then we must continue forward without looking back. He said the Goat was the only thing I was allowed to eat that night to ensure the purity of the ceremonies would stick. So off we went, and we stopped the motorbike halfway to his Uncles house and let the chicken run free without looking back at it.

When I left the temple, I was overcome by the strangest and most wonderful feeling I have ever had in my life. It was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I have a new outlook on life now. I used to be such a cynical, negative person, and I could always feel my negativity coming out of me in all life’s situations . . . but now it’s like I no longer know how to be negative or cynical, I just can’t get myself to feel that way anymore, which is fantastic. Just by this feeling I know that this negative aura that the spirit had on me is gone, and I know (even though I haven’t seen it yet) that my life has changed for the better, I can feel it in my bones and my soul. I know none of you can understand such a rapid change in personality and outlook, and honestly I don’t fully understand it either, but I know that it has happened.

So we got back to the village to Boris’s Uncles mud huts and began to cook the goat. We then feasted on goat (I was only allowed to eat the unspiced goat chunks, but others had cous cous with it). I then went to bed because it was quite late. Then I woke up and the strangest thing happened, even though I had my doubts because of being on the depo provera needle (meaning I haven’t bleed at all period wise in 3 years) I started to bleed, very very heavily. I put on pads (not enough) so I stood outside in the “bathroom” area (villages lol) and I bleed, but just like the priest said, this only lasted one hour, then it stopped completely. I was shocked and at that moment I realized just how powerful the spirit world really is. At that moment there was no doubt in my mind of the validity of what I had experienced and the power of vodun (if it can break through chemicals and make my body do that). I then went back to bed and with the help of kola nuts, slept peacefully.
So, I am now a beleiver of vodun and I am an adept (practicing voodoo person). But as a described in my voodoo explanation earlier this does not conflict with my christianity at all and I am still a christian as well as an adept. I know many of you may not understand it, but if you are curious I can talk to you about it.

So Thursday morning I woke up refreshed and a new person! Boris and I got our bags and I profusely thanked the family for letting us stay with them. We then took off on motorbikes to go pick up a shared taxi to get to cotenu. In cotenu we went to an art market and I bought some decoration type things to take home with me. Then I said my goodbye’s to Boris and thanked him for being a great guide (seriously if you are going to Benin look him up!) and I went on my way to find a shared taxi to Lomei (Togo). I got in that taxi and had to get out at the border to go through the passport stamping and get across the border, then I met the shared taxi again on the Togo side of the border. I drove in the shared taxi to Lomei (border town) and got out. I then got a motorbike to take me to the huge fetish market that they have in Lomei to buy my things on my list that the vodun preist gave me for practice at home. I got to the fetish market, now to describe a fetish market, it is basically a place where you can buy idols, statues, potions, blood, animal heads, skins, or body parts, live animals, and sacred things like stones and healing products. Because it was my first time at a fetish market a man showed me around it and told me what everything was used for, and he helped me find all the things on my list to buy, so now I am set to practice healing vodun when I get back to canada. He also let me take pictures of the whole fetish market, so everyone can see what it looks like. After that I got back on the motorbike and headed to the border to get back into Ghana. Once I was across the border and back in Ghana I got on an air conditioned tro tro and made the sad trip back to Accra, I really never wanted to leave Benin!

I got back to Accra after a 5 hour tro tro ride (it should have been a 3 hour distance) and as soon as I got to the hostel it started to downpour and the power went out. But people here were having a party for Linnea leaving the next day, and were very interested to hear my stories!
So that concludes my Benin blog! I hope you all have a better understanding of what voodoo ACTUALLY is now and all of your past conceptions of it are now gone! I will be happy to answer any questions you have that I haven’t covered as well! This is also the last blog I will be writing while I am in Ghana (there will be one last blog after this, but it will be writen when I am back in Canada) I leave Ghana on Thursday (will be back late on Friday night) which I am very sad about . . . but I think I ended my trip on a great note in Benin, very healing and I am fully prepared to go back to Canada and start my life now! So again thank you for reading!