You go to a restaurant. You spend quality time with your friends, you have a lovely dish of grilled barracuda with some wine. After eating, you ask for the check and you pay. When you get your change you ask for the toilets. And as the waitress wants to know whether you “wanna piss or take a shit” you suddenly realise that you are very far away from the images of a travel agency’s advertisement. Yes, you are in real … Lue lisää
Only two days until Christmas! We asked a few people from Villa Karo and Grand Popo how they will celebrate the holidays this year.
Villa Karo normally arranges a Christmas dinner for the staff, their families, scholars and their friends. Everybody gathers together in the hall of Lissa Gbassa in the evening of 24th December. In a Finnish fashion, Christmas ham or “porc braisé” is served – but also fish for those who don’t eat meat.
This year some … Lue lisää
As some people already know, Villa Karo has a small museum collection, created by Juha Vakkuri and Matti-Juhani Karila and first opened to public in 2001.
The objects in the collection bring together, in many different ways, West African and European or Finnish traditions and histories. The collection illustrates traditional African beliefs, especially vodun, but also the ways how Christianity and colonialism have influenced West African countries and people – and the ways how for example Finnish nature-based religions bear … Lue lisää
What is the most chaotic place on Earth? It has got to be Cotonou due to it’s 150 000 zemidjans in a city of one million people. And what is a zemidjan? It is a moto taxi usually driving recklessly and a profession for approximately every sixth or seventh person living in Cotonou. Zemis are also the source of massive amounts of exhaust gas in a city known to be one of the most poluted ones in West Africa. Not … Lue lisää