Scenes of Benin

My Nagot Tutor and Friendly Roadside Peanut and Okra Saleslady


Mama's Stand (palm oil in the front, cookies in the back)


Door to Door Salesgirls (frequently eggs, this time it was spaghetti and condensed milk)


Looking out my front door


The well where I get my water


A lot of these next photos were taken from a moving vehicle
This is on the way from Djougou to Parakou, in the Borgou region.


Kouffo region (notice all the palms, it's in the south)


Mono region (also south)


CEG Manigri!


Kouffo region on the way to Klouekeme


On the way to the stilt village Ganvie, via boat taxi


A fishergirl in a pirogue. Most fisherwomen/men use nets, i have not seen line and pole fishing at all.


The traditional medicine center of Porto Novo. Everything in this photo, from the dead birds on the tables, to the animal skins on the floor, roots and herbs, are used in traditional medicine.


A lot of traditional medicament is comprised of two main ingredients: sodabee (palm moonshine) and sticks.
They use this medicine, which is far cheaper than modern medicine, to cure everything from malaria to sexual dysfunction.
These premade bottles of medicament cure AIDS and Hepatitis in 10 months... I don't really know where to begin with that.


The village of Ganvie, one of the three stilt villages outside of Cotonou in the middle of a large shallow lake named Lake Nokoue. According to Wikipedia the village has 20,000 inhabitants. To travel within the village, villagers take their pirogues (traditional canoes). The coolest thing about this is the marche, where women row their pirogues to a central area with their boats full of fish, tomatoes, onions and piment. Villagers then row their boats up to the edges of the market and barter with the floating marche mamas for goods.
Maybe about seven kilometers from land