The day began with a walk on the beach outside our bungalow. The mist was thick, but the fishermen were there slowly and skillfully pulling in their daily catch. They had a five-kilometer rope that was slowly, slowly pulled by hand from both ends, taking hours for the fish in the net to be pulled to shore.
A walk through the picturesque Possotome neighborhood gave us a look into the role of voodoo in day-to-day life. Benin is considered the cradle of the Voodoo religion, which is practiced in some shape or form by the majority of the population. Boris, our guide, shared little bits of information about voodoo that led us to understand the movie version of pins being stuck in small dolls and real voodoos are not the same. Real voodoo is a person’s relationship with the essential parts of life: air, water, fire, and earth. For instance, a child should always be good and kind to their mother, because it is the mother who began the relationship and gave them life. The village had a few shrines that served as protection to the village and the people. From the looks of the tranquil life, things are going well for these people.
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