THAT TIME YOU VISIT YOUR FRIEND’S CHURCH BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON || PORTO-NOVO || BENIN || AUGUST 2018

Day 14 – Wednesday, August 1st, 2018

I’ll just start by saying, this was 24 hours of “I’m sorry, what?” and “wait, what is happening now?”. That was the tone of the next two days for me. My faith was in the thick of being tested at this point. But I learned a lot though.

We started off having breakfast at MB Hotel Porto-Novo and went through the normal disconnect between our expectation of customer service and the service we got. At this point, we were all used to it. The hotel itself was one of the nicest, most air conditioned, cleanest, biggest bed, best TV rooms I had so far on the trip.

From there we visited the following locations.

We visited with Ministre of Culte (Minister of Culture) of Benin and learned more about the vodun culture in the area.

We witnessed the Egungun ancestral masks performance at Adjibodou compound. The Egungun performed blessings and prayers for each of us. It is said that the ancestors’ spirits take over the costumes and masks, meaning there is no actual person in the costume but only a spirit that manifests itself physically. Hope I explained that right.

Egungun, Zangbeto, and Drummers Compilation - Porto-Novo, Benin

We took a break to shop for fabric and crafts at the Central Art Market in Porto-Novo.

We stopped for lunch lake front lunch at Palais Hotel, Porto-Novo, Benin. This fish was almost as delicious as the homemade fish we had the day before. Super delicious!!

We then had an audience with His Highness Kpoto-Zounme HAKPON III, The Panther/Leopard King of Porto-Novo. We learned the history of Zangbeto, which are the watchmen spirits in vodun culture. They are like the spiritual security force for the community. We received more prayers and blessings and took pictures with the king. While we were sitting in the area he received guests, we had to sit with our legs straight out on the floor, at a lower position, as a sign of respect. Y’all, I definitely needed more booty meat for this because we were sitting on the concrete ground, which was only covered with flat colorful mats, for an hour. We all had to go around, stand up, and say our names. They got excited about my last name again because of the significance of the deity, Ogun, in the area.

Once we finished with the king, we went back to baba Morpheus’ compound and some of the ladies started receiving their Fa and getting their spiritual baths so we had to wait until the first round of ladies finished before returning to hotel.

We spent one more day full day in Porto-Novo before heading back to Ghana which I’ll go over next time. I’ll also go over what the Fa is next time as well. The details of the Fa are very private and unique to each person but I can at least tell y’all what it is in general/try to explain the concept briefly, though I’m far from an expert. Until next time…

Thanks for reading all these words!

Love ya!

Taste Tutor

TRAVEL BLOG THURSDAY - PORTO-NOVO (part 1) || BENIN