These two words are sufficient to keep alive a generation. Before computer era the world was as natural as ever, post men were happy to ride and distribute mails here and there, ships and planes made brisk business but this was subverted by invention of computer and internet. Western world and industrialized nations rapidly grew with these new technologies that bade farewell to an older generation.
Despite great unemployment created by this innovation, the world seems to be happy. Back in Grand-Popo, the craze by the youth to possess a computer, get connected to the internet for a chat with friends and relatives abroad is felt everywhere. If we comb our memory back to early years of Villa Karo’s operation when Scholarship holders are happy without internet, it was another world of communication when telegrams took days and days to reach Finland. In those days slow connection 28kbs modems were appreciated with modest desk top computers. Inhabitants of Grand-Popo queued up in the Library waiting for messages from Finnish friends (Stipendiates). Downloading and sending mails took irritating hours, a real “corvee” in the past especially when there is an attachment.
Today, it is a differentstory all together; people of all ages seek for nearest internet café just to get in touch with the outside world. All hotels with internet access are inundated with more clients every weekend even if they are expensive. Internet network companies like MOOV, GLO, KANAKOO and MTN revolutionized the system with MOKKULA services, a system well praised and accepted by all as the only means of internet communication though relatively slow compared to ADSL or WIFI.
In Villa Karo almost all Stipendiates are surfing satisfactorily with MOKKULA in their studios, under the akasia trees or anywhere in the open garden whilst in town, folks seeking for news, students and pupils besiege the two available internet cafes for researches and chatting with friends on facebook.
Economic measures announced by the Nigerian Government to impregnate sanity in public finances also provoked total instability in neighboring countries. On the 9th of January, the Federal Government of Nigeria announced subsidy suspension on petroleum products which resulted in price increase of petrol, a controversial decision taken and aired during a nationwide radio and television broadcast by President Goodluck Jonathan became a point of discord between Nigerian and her population. Few hours later strike action was pronounced by various Nigerians trade unions who unified their forces to force the iron hands of Goodluck Jonathan to revert to the old pump price of N65. The new pump price of N141 was judged too exorbitant by a populous nation of 150,000,000 inhabitants.
This situation rapidly generated panic in countries like Cameroun, Togo and Benin. Artificial scarcity was suddenly created by illegal road side vendors of gasoline. One could openly see these vendors everywhere in Benin, who procure their petroleum products fraudulently from Nigeria through middle men who smuggle them across the borders both by land and sea at a price three times lower than the official pump price thus paralyzing the officially registered petroleum companies in Benin. The strike action negatively affected motorists and nearly crippled some commercial activities throughout the country. Most of these commercial activities between these two sister countries almost came to a standstill as most customers from Nigeria were unable to make the trip across both borders for normal business.
The biggest market in West Africa “Dantokpa” in Cotonou keskusta got paralyzed for days. Motorists thronged one time abandoned Government filling stations to fill their tanks as unauthorized informal street vendors tripled their price per liter to make more profit. Long queues were noticed everywhere, cities most affected were Cotonou, Porto-Novo and Abomey though other cities like Lokossa, Bohicon, Dassa, Natittingou, Comé were also slightly affected. Transport fares tripled, prices of food stuff received sky rocketing shocks and market ladies who normally chant to attract customers became sour and slightly rude to express their disagreement with fares charged by zemidjans and taxis.
For days, Benin felt the importance of Nigeria, as a powerful cum important neighbor. Every home in Benin felt the pinch of the Nigerian strike action as if we are living in Nigeria.
It's unbelievable how good quality these old time plastic boxes are. This one's cover still stays on and everything.
This used to be my snack box when I started at the Maternelle of the Ecole de Jeanne d’Arc, in Marseille, as a three-year-old, sometime in September 1986. I know this because the teachers gave each of us kids a special sign before we learned to write and read our names. The sign helped us to recognize our own things among the belongings of 40 or 50 other children. My sign was still visible on the cover of this box up until a few years ago when it finally faded out with time and constant washing.
Over 25 years ago my mother filled this box every morning with apple wedges, a voileipä and Petit Ecolier -cookies that I would eat at snack time with my fellow kindergarden pupils in the school’s yard under a platanus and the Mediterranean sun (Mom, I’ve never thanked you for the snacks, so thank you!). By then I wasn’t called Miikka but Mica (and my family name most certainly wasn’t Pörsti but Poersht or something like that) and I was the only child with blue eyes and parents that spoke to him in a strange language.
By now, Mica is gone and I often wonder what ever happened to him. He and his friends couldn’t come to live with me in Finland a few years later when we turned ten and our family moved back. Although the colour of Mica’s eyes were OK and typical here, he felt just a bit too weird and different to stay with his perhaps slight French accent and different mental scenery. Everything he he knew was from a different world and somehow many, many people didn’t want to hear from it at all. Many kids said it wasn’t true that he hadn’t grown up here and for some reason coming from abroad created aggressive reactions in some people – both adults and children.
In Finland he was simply too much of a stranger – as at that time, in order to be different here, it sufficed that somebody didn‘t know the rules of ice hockey or who Rölli was. Sorry for the exaggeration, but I’m sure you get my point. Today, I often wonder about those who came in or out after Mica and are stranger than him: actual, not hidden immigrants and others who are so easily hated for what they just are by birth or as the outcome of sad circumstances.
But I think Mica just went on hiding. I often have the feeling that he comes back to say hi when I sleep or I‘m tired. He’s always ten and he still counts in French and reads Tintins in the language Hergé wrote them in. He tells me what we used to do when we were kids and how Rémi B. and all the other people we knew are doing back in Marseille, back in time.
This morning, I put my lunch into my red box, as I often do, before going to work. Call me unecological, but as a former missionary kid I thank God for plastic as I don’t know who else to thank for this material that outlasts memories, tears, hellos and goodbyes. Call me sentimental, but for a person whose childhood’s scenes and cast has been wiped off and rewritten so many times as mine, a simple, durable plastic lunch box may become a priceless, personal artifact.
Roots, memories, personal feelings, identity and the public recognition of these elements are crucial in order to survive for all of us, perhaps especially for minority groups – be they hidden, unrecognized, public, strange, difficult to grasp or unpleasant in the eyes of others. None of us can choose where we are born and what we are as a person. Some of us can’t even choose where we grow up, live, how we are treated and what we become.
I wish you all a very happy week on this national Sami people’s day because the celebration of a minority should be a real party for us all. And I hope for the many silent, screaming, weird, singing, disappointed, fanatic or mumbling voices we’ve heard during the past couple of weeks in Finland prior to the presidential election to be taken in account by all of us in the future – not just the voices we recognize, understand, like or approve. There is a message and a desire for a better world behind every statement, no matter how we label the person making it – be he or she fanatic, gay, straight, conservative, demonic, immigrant, humane, patriotic, ignorant or liberal. PS. Samis? Who are they? Find out here. Voileipä? What’s that? Oh, that’s a sandwich in Finnish, although we usually don’t put another slice of bread on top of the other as a cover as, i.e., the French and the Beninese do.
For a decade now, I had witnessed almost all the Vodou ceremonies regarding annual commemoration of Vodoo festival that takes place every tenth of January. Those who had migrated to Benin and witnessed this event in the past should count themselves lucky. Lucky because they had received blessings from number of Vodou spirits present during the ceremonies.
As a preacher, I admire those who are driven by curiosity to deepen their knowledge and discover more about Vodou and I am ready to dish out some secrets holding aloft our religion in exchange for a transparent bottled liquid, not trying to sell my religion but transparent oblige as in other religions.
This year’s celebration was stuffed with colorful activities enrolled in different performances involving all Fetish priests and Priestesses followed by adepts of Heviosso, Mamiwata, Tron-Kpetodeka Zangbeto, Sakpate, Age-vodou etc who converged at Gbecon, Grand-Popo to demonstrate their fidelity and attachment to Vodou religion. A great multitude defied the heat, struggled to witness a five hour procession through sandy couloirs between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mono River. All started with the sacrifice of a goat to all the vodou spirits by a famous fetish priest from Gbecon.
A beautiful scene that attracted the attention of the crowd for a while was a fleet of canoes that transported beautifully dressed Mami Wata adepts across the river from Hève. The men aboard responded rhythmically, with their bodies and paddles to chants from adepts, unified their movements and ferried all to their destination; “PLACE DE VODOU”.
Kokouhoun Adept in Trance
Interesting performances during the procession were so mysterious that visitors, new to such occasions bombarded me with questions to which I was unable to answer publicly. More questions without answers rained lot of doubts in the minds of numerous visitors who adventured for the first time to Grand-Popo and Ouidah. The departure of the supreme head of Benin’s Vodou religion DAGNRON GUEDENGUE signified the end of 10th January vodou day celebration. People got dispersed into their respective communities for a big feast mostly organized by Chief Fetish Priests for adepts and friends.
Villa Karo hosted a group of important Vodou personalities who took refuge in Lissa-Gbassa to avoid being drowned by admirers. A delicious dakoin served with barracuda accompanied by some centiliters of unidentified transparent hot stuff proclaimed the end of an interesting afternoon.
Heviosso Chief Fetish Priest
NB: I am creating a special platform for Questions and Answers for vodou in the near future. A Bientôt
