Full Day In Abomey

I got up a bit late since I still have a mild cold. I finally left at about 10 and walked downtown and then headed north to the Musée Historique d'Abomey. But when I got there, I had a problem. I did have a CFA 1000 and a CFA 2000 bill, but I wasn't willing to use them because after those, I had nothing but CFA 10000 bills left. Already one place didn't want the CFA 10000 because he couldn't make change. So I went in and when the ticket woman came, I handed her the CFA 10000 bill. She said she didn't have small bills. I told her I didn't have any either. Finally I said I might came back later. I left. I wandered around the downtown looking for places where I change the CFA 10000 into something smaller. The gas station guy wouldn't do it. The banks were closed because it was Saturday. Finally, I went back to the Motel d'Abomey and ordered a beer. As the expensive hotel in town, it would have larger amounts of all denominations. I ordered a small Castel beer for CFA 850. That gave me a CFA 5000 and 2 CFA 2000 notes.

I headed back to the museum having lost an hour. I still wasn't going to pay the CFA 2500 entrance fee with with of my CFA 2000 notes. I was back an hour later and I gave her a CFA 5000 bill. She wasn't happy. But she took it and wrote that they owed me CFA 2500 on the back of the ticket. I went in and a tour had just started. It was in French and I didn't get much but I got some. It's an interesting museum. It was the palace of some of the Dahomey kings. They were a blood thirsty lot. There are several buildings with these high relief depictions of various things. One king has decapitations, killings, torturing, and other such bloody scenes. The last one we saw was of a horse with a necklace with the head of the enemy hanging in front. The tour guide and a couple of the women in the large tour group sang a song that is probably about that event. There would be another depiction of a horse with the enemy head necklace in another place as well. We saw all sorts of things. There is a throne on top of 4 skulls of vanquished enemies. The tour guide kept telling jokes but I didn't get them. But the people on the tour were having a good time. We went to the mausoleum of one king. We had to take off our shoes and socks and went in. There was a bed and just to the right of the bed, a cloth on the floor. Another smaller cloth was a meter of two away from the larger cloth in the ground. I assume the cloth covers the grave. I'm not sure what the smaller cloth is for. The tour was quite long. Over an hour. But it was interesting.

At the end, I went to the front desk and presented the IOU. The tour guide was there and she had to come up with the CFA 2500 from her personal cash. This museum really needs to be able to make change for tickets. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and gets lots of visitors.

I was pretty wiped out since I still am fighting a cold so I went to have a water and a beer at the local place I went to the previous night. I sat there and after a while a 20-25 year old cute Asian girl came in. She looked for the owner who was sleeping. I tried to get her attention to point him out, but she got on her phone and started talking with someone. I heard her say "moshi-moshi" as she walked over to a table on the other side of the place. She made some more phone calls and then started writing stuff into an organizer.

I decided that I would try to talk to her. But I'm not good at approaching random women and just starting to talk. I suck at it. I was trying to figure out what to say. I was trying to remember the word for "to reside" but I couldn't. Then, as if it wasn't me, I observed myself get up out of my chair and start to walk over. It was like a part of me was acting while the other part was still trying to figure out what was happening. There is a small wall between her and the area I was in. I leaned on the wall and said "sumimasen, Nihon no kata desu-ka." She turned to me, a mixture of shock and delight on her face. That put me at ease. Certainly the last thing she expected was some random white guy coming up to her and speaking to her in Japanese in Abomey, Benin. She is a JICA volunteer. It's like the Japanese Peace Corps. I got the lowdown in it from some Peace Corps people. JICA is better funded and the qualifications necessary to get into the JICA program are much stricter for the volunteers, so they are the cream of the crop. We chatted for a while. There are 3 JICA volunteers in Abomey. She works with handicapped children and is 2 months into a 2 year stay. I told her about where I lived. She is from Nagoya, so we lived in the same area. I have been to Nagoya many many many times. After a while she had to meet other people so we parted. It was nice to have another chance to speak Japanese.

I returned to my room and rested for a while. Then for dinner I decided to got to The Source--a place with cous-cous an chicken. It was a long walk to get there. I didn't think it would be so long. It came with a big helping of cous-cous and chicken in onion and tomato. It was pretty good and with two small Castels, only CFA 3300 (US$6.60). I walked back and fell asleep in front of the oscillating fan.

Sunday, November 9, 2008 Benin local time