Parc de la Pendjari (or The Four Days I was Covered in Dust)

Parc de la Pendjari (or The Four Days I was Covered in Dust)

Note: I wrote this in two parts…I started the post right after I finished the one about our travel day, and I finished it last night when I couldn’t sleep. I think the humidity was over 100% and it was hot, but it wasn’t raining. Gross.

Benin really is beautiful. Krissy and I left her village last Saturday morning for our trip up to Natitingou and eventually the Parc de la Pendjari, and as we made our way north, I was struck by the transitions. Krissy’s village is in a lush, green, forested region where Benin’s second largest cash crop (cashews) grows…well, it would be green if it wasn’t all covered in red dust. There are some barren, rocky hills in places, but for the most part, as you head north, the forests give way to the quintessential African savanna. There are small villages of mud brick huts with thatched roofs scattered among the savanna scrub brush…which they burn every year to scare the snakes away. I know it doesn’t sound beautiful, but there is something special about seeing the spirit of the people rising from the dust and ashes.

Natitingou is a small city, and it sits among the hills. The people are much more pleasant. Kids still wanted to get the attention of the yovos, but instead of yelling at us, they had a little sing-song chant they all seemed to know…”yovo, yovo, bon soir, ça va bien, merci.” (Correction: I was just informed that they do sing it in most of the rest of the country, but I guess I only noticed it in Nati…whatever…it’s still going to be stuck in my head for awhile.) We went to a restaurant up on the hill that first night, and waited at least an hour and a half for some of the best garlic fries I’ve ever had, and the first antelope meat I’ve ever eaten (like most of the rest of the meat I’ve had here, it was about as close to jerky as you can get without actually being dehydrated meat). The wait didn’t seem that long because we watched a gorgeous sunset with some great company.

Sunday morning, our driver/guide picked us up from our super cute hotel, and we left for the park. We drove through a section of Benin that reminded me of parts of eastern Washington (which is a desert for those of you that thought the whole state was rainy and green like Seattle as I once did). As we made our way down the road the led to the park entrance, we didn’t see the fields, but we saw the gathering/loading points for Benin’s first largest cash crop (cotton) alongside the road. (At one point, we saw a loaded truck that was piled so high it looked like a strong wind would tip the truck over on its side. They also didn’t cover it as well I might have because they were losing a lot of cotton along the way…it was Benin’s version of a snow storm! Not that I’m considering a career in cotton, but I understand it’s hard work and to see it go to waste like that would have frustrated me if I had gone to the trouble of picking it…)

We got to the park, and the short version is that we drove around for hours and hours and saw lots of cool animals.

The longer version is that we woke up well before dawn, got bundled up because it was freezing in the morning. It seemed crazy when I was packing, but I am so glad I brought a pair of wool socks. And yes, I wore them with my sandals, but I’m from Seattle so it’s okay. I was a wonder to behold with my socks and sandals, capris and my hoodie tied tightly around my face; in my defense, I wasn’t the only one who would not have my picture on the cover of Vogue. Thanks to harmattan dust, local dust and smoke from the controlled burns in the park, we saw some amazing sunrises. An hour or two after the sun rose, we began to shed our layers. We usually drove around until noon-ish, and then went back to the hotel for a break during the hottest hours of the day. Later in the afternoon, we would head out in search of animals for a few more hours, and we would return after dark, clean up and have dinner at the hotel. Thanks to harmattan dust, local dust and smoke, we saw some equally amazing sunsets, and we were covered in all kinds of layers of dust. I have a confession: I don’t always clean behind my ears when I’m in the States; my mother would be proud that I cleaned behind my ears while I was in Pendjari. (Since we have been in Cotonou the last day and a half, where it is ridiculously humid, I’m beginning to feel like the dust is being purged from the subcutaneous layers of my skin. A day at the spa, here I come…)

We saw hippos, crocodiles, birds of all sorts of kinds, lots of hooved creatures (I called them all deer because I didn’t recognize a number of them, I couldn’t remember their French names, and so I have no idea what their names were in English), baboons, and lots of elephants. Apparently, there aren’t any giraffes in Benin (bummer), and of the 78 lions in the park, we saw 0. (I’m not sure who counted all of them.) However, we saw some big cat paw prints in the dirt on the side of the road and the tracks appeared to be following one of the families of baboons…I’m not sure if I should cheer for the baboons or the lions (I took pictures of the prints)…A group of Germans visiting the park saw 3 lionesses on the road about 5 meters outside of the hotel compound (they showed me their pictures), so that’s comforting, knowing the lions are just outside the door…awesome.

Anyway, the elephants were my favorite. They are so amazing. At one point, we saw them pulling grass out of the ground and they would whack the grass against their foreheads. It seemed strange, but just so you know, the next time you see me smack my forehead with a cheeseburger, I’m just trying to get the dust off of my food like the elephants. I did not know elephants had their own version of the 10-second rule…(speaking of the 10-second rule, for all you mothers that worry about what your children have possibly put in their mouths, it can’t be worse than burned SPAM can the neighbor kids pulled out of Krissy’s garbage pile, or the used-up spray cans of insecticide that Krissy has witnessed in kids’ mouths.) Yeah, so elephants are cool.

On the way out of the park, we stopped at this waterfall. We weren’t quite sure why we had to pay to go back to see the waterfall, or why we each had a guide assigned to us, but once we started climbing up the falls in the middle of the river, it made sense. It wasn’t very deep because it hasn’t rained since November. (It was awesome!! It reminded me of family trips to the north shore of Lake Superior as a kid.) The first few sets of cascades we encountered were beautiful, but then it opened up a bit, and we were at the base of 100-foot(ish) high waterfall. The pool at the base looked inviting, except for the knowledge there were parasites and things living in the water that invade bodily orifices-but that didn’t stop one of the guides from climbing up the cliff next to the falls (barefoot, no less) and jumping in from a ledge near the top. It looked like fun, except for the parasites…

After all of that, we basically went back to Cotonou and had an amazing bus trip, which you’ve probably read about already. Krissy, Nicole and I have a few more adventures planned for tomorrow, but then it’s back to the States for me. If I feel the need to write about those adventures, or if Krissy asks me to, I will send my thoughts to her at some point in the near future. I probably won’t have time tomorrow.

In the meantime, thanks Krissy, for inviting me to come and see your life here in Benin, and for letting me send my ramblings off into the void, and for being a great friend! I’ve had such an amazing time with you!

Special thanks to Krissy, Nicole and Katie for putting up with me talking incessantly about my new camera (I just really like it and I’m still excited about it…sorry…hopefully the rest of y’all will get to see some of the pictures of Krissy’s village life and our safari soon.)

Lydia

PS: I have been informed that it is “cute” that I’m spelling “zemi-johns” incorrectly. I figure if PCVs can speak in acronyms and franglais while I am here or forget to translate for me, I can spell unfamiliar African words fuh-net-ick-ly. Besides, I think I saw it spelled that way on one of the six pages dedicated to Benin in the various guidebooks I checked out before coming to Africa. Clearly, the author/editors didn’t bother with fact-checking, so the rest of their information is probably useless too, so don’t use that book if you are planning on visiting…

PPS: Nicole let us stay at her incredibly wonderful apartment the last few nights-(she has running water and electricity and a few other benefits that I probably shouldn’t mention for fear of inciting a riot among other current volunteers)…however…her bathroom(s) are so narrow that I have to sit sideways on the toilet because otherwise my knees hit the opposite wall. I can’t say that I’ve experienced side-saddle toilets anywhere else. C’est l’Afrique.