Top 6 Must Do Activities in Benin - Ultimate Travel Experience!
[Music] about to go meet up with Neil from maima travel this is Neil and that's head hey what's up my guy how you doing come on Jesse hurry up and cross let's see before it starts raining again look at this every single page has filled out I don't think it's ever happened before in a in a [Music] trip my experience in benine made me feel connected to a storied history that is dispersed around the world A Story of Survival of Ingenuity of courage and bravery is it moving though one of Africa's smallest countries venine is far from a monolith each experience in town had its own personality I am from language food history people and the environment reflected that diversity sandy beaches lust tropical forests dry a of land concrete jungles in the middle of Commerce the only commonality the eagerness of the Benes people to welcome you m of and they consider you descendant of you now and our ancestors are blessing you [Music] here R to embark on our journey here in gamb hey hey hey so right here is the fish market in the morning time they'll go and they'll fish then they'll bring the fish back over here this a port let me show you where the port is this is the port right over there and they'll come and they'll bring the fish and they'll sell it here the men are out there fishing and the women will come and they'll sell the fish 5:00 a.m. to 700 a.m. you can barter you don't have to pay with actual money in cash right you can barter you know with different Goods but from 7:00 a.m. to uh 11:00 p.m. you got to pay that smoney so it just goes to show that the early bird does catch the fish or is it the worm you know what I'm talking about this is our guy for the day Edmund Edmond I'm going to show you my my hometown oh really okay so you were you were born in the NBA then I'm B in Gambia all right well let's Go's morning so boat is VIP boat oh we got the VIP also he cover SN we are all pathetic hey okay [Music] VIP Galer a modern-day Water World in the Venice of Africa roughly 30,000 people living in the middle of the lake for 400 years and cting in the 1700s the tofu people tofu meaning people of the water fled the Fallen Warriors who were capturing Africans and selling them to slave Traders so they established a village in the middle of a lake to escape it was called gamier meaning we survived from above it looks like a mosaic of houses but they're not there are also restaurants markets churches hospitals businesses you name it the people primarily live by fishing so households typically have three boats one for the Waterman the man one for the wife and one for the kids houses last about 20 years and the planks supporting the houses are changed individually every 5 years the way I it takes about 10 minutes to arrive to the center of Gambier so Edmund took that time to educate me about bombas the traditional clothing they wear in benane sometimes colorful sometimes not and how men and women can ask each other to marry one another man say no that is the end of conversation can a woman ask you to marry her of course but if the women say no that's the beginning of conversation so get this if a man man says no that's the end of it if a woman says no well he can keep on trying and as we got closer to the center of the city we could hear drum beat so as we get closer oh they're singing and we the B piur it was a welcome like none wow [Music] I was nervous when they climbed in our boat because I knew they were going to ask me to dance I didn't want to disappoint folks back home and lose my black card or the ancestors who I'm sure were watching now my rowing skills I was with it [Music] solid and that's how you welcome someone to your town trying to show up the family Barbecue showing that up man that's a welcome that's a welcome wow [Music] beautiful okay so you are welcome to [Music] Res welcome home man thank you cheers yeah right compliments to the chef and also thank you for having us in our house [Applause] [Music] what a prot so he will tell us how to greet the king how to meet the king and how to greet the king it's part of the instructions we have we cannot record until we get to the king and we will have to ask permission so we have to be off until you know we get clearance effectively okay so you want to cut it now yeah please yeah [Applause] okay what I thought I knew about slavery was a mere fraction compared to what I learned walking the same path as enslaved Africans my ancestors you can see that the dirt is really really red and I'm guessing too that this was also made to construct the fence or the wall around the kingdom here just how um expansive it is the tour started in a boming Where it All Began a powerful Kingdom that derived much of its wealth by trading prisoners of War soon to be slaves with European Merchants our local guide at historian U took us to the first palace that is still preserved today all of the Palaces were made with mud mud bricks and adorned with carvings depicting the culture and recounts of Victorious battles this Palace is deemed a UNESCO world heritage site so it is protected not quite yet open to the public but later we tried any way to fly a drone to see if we could find it from above suffice to say we weren't successful one of the most frustrating things is being this close to this history and not being able to go inside of the Kingdom right now because it's being renovated that's about as closest I'll get right now at least on this visit let put okay hat will be off shoes will be [Music] off one of the highlights was meeting with the descendant of King bazan who was quite active in the slave trade I didn't know how I was going to feel meeting a descendant of a king that sold my ancestors into slavery indignant emotional indifferent to enter the kingdom you must be barefoot then bow your forehead to the ground then you present the king with a gift we gave whiskey I was unprepared when is aaho the person who speaks for the king asked what I would like to ask the king I said my first thought what does it mean for the king to meet he said all of us are sons of the king so how should a father meeting his sons be extremely happy and they consider you descendant ofo and our ancestors are blessing you pray that she will uh everything will be well here have a nice Journey back and that from time to time you need to come back yeah so here you want any initial Impressions here while we're still in here um yeah I guess I guess we can't film any he I don't know I just um so one thing that he said was just that was um really I don't know why it just made me emotional but he said that the ancestors bless you and you know that was just really nice to um to feel and see that love was there that was still you know um cuz often times we don't feel as connected to history at least I haven't um and so to see that that was um that was the first thing he said and then to say how should the father feel when his son returns I don't know just um just really got me that's all I got right now came I'll be honest in that moment as emotion as I was I was confused why would the king who sold my ancestors into slavery be blessing me now we're in the middle of downtown weeda right now as you can see it's just in the morning time so people are still kind of getting up the first part of the tour we learned about the kingdoms and how they got involved with the slave trade and now we're actually going to walk the similar path Africans were walking once they were captured right now I'm in the middle of Chacha Square but let me tell you the reason why this is so significant this tree right here is over 400 years old and just to imagine like where we are standing right now this would be the auction block or where they would bring the slaves up bring all the captured Africans up and they would sell them to the various Europeans and sitting right there in the middle of this square is the slave master who was orchestrating at all Francisco Felix duza and he is of of Brazilian descent and it's called chaa because Chacha means very hurried and quick because duza was really rapid about his business and could just move people in and out and so they called this chaa Square still to this day his descendants can look out the window and see this part of history that has affected so so many around the world it's just a it's wild and incredible at the same time walking in history can be overwhelming especially a history marred in so much sadness but I needed to know I wanted to be here the place where it all began the jail where they kept the enslaved the 120 km walk to the beach I was experiencing the journey in real time so if you can just imagine walking kilom talking about 1 and half km in the hot sun shackle you're not able to speak because they don't want you to be able to communicate with anyone remember you are captured and you're with the Europeans and they don't know what language you're speaking so it's all done in silence making your way all the way down from CH Square to right here down the slave route they would stop here at the house of zi now this is the house of zi of course you can see right now that it's been destroyed but this was a training ground zi means no lights so there was only one door to go in and no lights and so they were kept there for about 2 weeks they weren't allowed to speak to each other because they didn't want them to revolt and this is what they did it was training so they taught them how to sit like this because this was going to mimic the way that it was on the ship this is where they would bring the sick and the dead that did not survive survive the house of zi and they would just dump them here in this grave but in 1992 they discovered bones of a lot of the insl and so about 12 M wide and about 12 M deep remember a lot of them did not want to go they were scared they had no idea what was going on they couldn't understand the language and they were just told to be quiet and so you've got to just understand the mentality they're like you know it would be better to die in my homeland that I know than die in a foreign place those that survived the houses humai they would come here this is the tree of return the idea was they would March around this three times before getting onto the ship now tree of return no one who was enslave has ever returned so what does that mean it means their Spirit when their Spirit dies over there it will come back here to the Homeland Where it All Began and our ancestors are blessing [Music] [Music] you so right here I'm basically at the Monument of the door of no return you can right see right here in the backdrop that's the ocean it's a door of no return because you could either go this way but you can never go back and so as a way to memorialize what happened they built this door and at the top you see the slaves and the ship and on the other side of that you see this exact same image but there is a tree of return in the middle because of course no one that was ever enslaved has ever returned um but their Spirit has and um so I have their descendants that moment in front of the water I thought about the captured that jumped overboard and never made it to the ship or Final Destination better to die in one's Homeland than in a foreign place so we just got to and basically it's where the mono river meets the Atlantic Ocean and they just converge the mouth of the king it actually changes depending on the currents this is just a big pile of sand and so a few years ago the mouth of the King was back there it really just depends on the way the tide is going at that time just had breakfast and now we're about to go tour the city on a motorcycle tour um so one of the ways the main way that people get around here is on motorcycles all right so this is this is Yanik director of operations of Motors Company they're effectively revolutionizing what's here in Ben from Electric Mobility perspective those two models are electric right so in a country that's you know effectively full of motorcycles it's good to have the ability to transition to cleaner energy yeah and so that's what those guys are doing and so today you get to visit the town with one of those sweet let's do it yeah let's do [Music] it cot to no population 700,000 and growing a budding economy eager to compete in tourism on the global stage this is not the Africa mini belief the continent to be this is Enterprise this is entrepreneurship this is investment downtown is anchored by scaffolding cranes and domestic and international Engineers that bring Innovation and while the streets May Buzz with motorcycles this banine envisions an energy efficient economy so they welcome efforts to popularize electric vehicles we are at the wall we are the gravity wall of konu uh which is the longest gravity wall in West Africa and soon the longest gravity wall in the world crosswalk here still got to get the shot part of the festival graffi Festival that we have been doing in Ben since 8 years now wow so we last year it was the eighth edition of the festival uhhuh and we invite we invited many artists from over the world the graffiti wall more of an outdoor Art Museum spans 940 M making it the longest graffiti wall in Africa it is host to artists from around the world who proudly display aspects of their culture and sometimes benese cultures it represents the benine that Endeavors to become the next great tourist destination all right y'all so I thought that the MLK statue in the monument was big but check out this queen hang Monument right here this represents Queen tasi hang which was she was the only woman to rule the kingdom of dhom in the 18th century now she is tatted because of her bravery and her military expertise but she led in all women regime to defend the kingdom and if you've ever seen that movie The Woman king of course there are a little bit of discrepancies here and there but it's based off of the story more importantly you see how Grand this is and it's basically a testament too to the way that Ben these women are seeing in society that they're not just behind the curtains they're not in the kitchen they're not doing the laundry but they're the leaders they're the leaders in Commerce they're the leaders in Military and it's a respect thing and so to be able to tell this story and concretize it with this Monument it's a huge tourist attraction just think about that of all the things in the world that they could have actually put up here as a tourist attraction they chose Queen hung chunga is basically the way that they grilling the me that's good Southern barbecue it's like being at a reunion got one J Jessie come on get you everyone have to walk Jessie how is it how is it it's good good that's really good drink we can share and that is Africa when I Africa yeah this is I know what is That Yo juicy it's Savory but this sauce right here I'm not even sure what like a [Music] powder trying to touch the fish oh it's a catfish let me see you do it yeah see see oh he can't be caught oh okay here why did you tell me that why did you tell me that you oh no that's an electric fish oh my God sorry why did you tell me that because I want to I want to make surprise for you yeah yeah a big surprise close the door hell no you hell no you ain't riding in the car close the door take that back uh-uh this is the first of the rainy season we've ever experienced so it's now it's raining L is a French name but his real name is venos so we're about to check out the Black River which I've heard a lot about it's a secret right secret so all the area of Black River is a saet area but openet area the Black River of a Jada mysterious dramatic yet peaceful and actually black flanked and nearly shrouded by a lust tropical forest we slowly made our way down the river with only a canoe and a long stick it's just you and nature I noticed the silence we barely spoke we were captivated by the river's Beauty and peace the trees contain the medicine and the river is filled with Fish And reincarnated ancestors you can see it's just so Lush but all these plants are actually pretty purposeful in fact the palm trees is used for the roof is is used for drinks and one of them is called the elephant ears that's a one right there but all of these plants are used for medicinal purposes so malaria typhoid fever it even helps women to get pregnant just imagine living literally off of nature nature is medicine just underscores that notice this piece of string hanging from the stick in the middle of the river and he says it's a trap he's going to take us around so we can look at it you can put on a fish meat fish meat goat meat goat or any kind of meat uhuh and then after you finish to put meat on it you let the wer in the river but this technique you must wait for maybe uh 700 p.m. this is a ancal technique they were very clear certain Customs must be observed or one suffers the consequences that could even be fatal I tell you that we have token of SAA okay okay so we have an close SAA and an open sa area but you must follow the rule our ancestor and on this area now let me tell you a meaning of sad s s is a a people or a king who create this Village okay when we say in my language me it's for me I have it okay I have Ito is for me I have it so this Village is for S because it's s who created this Village so it's for s s is a people or person who create this Village who found who who was the founder of this Village we soon arrived to the end of the Black River to ofan we were greeted by women patiently waiting for a canoe to return back to the mainland to sell aasa so this is akasa so what they do is they will boil the corn the maze when they cook the starch that comes out it kind of comes out to this jelly like texture right here now they eat this you know with soup and what they'll do is they'll wrap this inside of banana leaves why banana leaves well banana leaves as we all know are they have like medicinal properties and so as he's put it you're eating medicine as well I'm going to try this is akasa and in the local language they call it Kaa ka ka ka okay okay here we well okay it wasn't for me but to be fair I'm not a huge fan of fermented food very good yeah you can taste a little bit of the Corn but it's almost like a sour taste so it would go really well with the soup I asked them why is it still hot when's the last time they cooked it they insulated it right here so in order to keep it hot to transport to the market they put it in these baskets and the baskets on the outside of it they they've created an insulation with that cow manure so they're going to a Jal Market where we just came from thank you to choose our our trip thank you to enjoy what we are doing and thank you to support us thank you so much okay my man I was grateful centuries later the Customs are still observed and this experience was more enriching because of [Music] [Music] it you with [Music] make a look like family style this is probably the best thing I've tasted on the this is so good and that's how you make the qua and Grand po po peace okay this is centuries old history a living textbook in modern times a method so proven it has resisted the urge of modern technology to farm and harvest salt this is JB merely one of several salt island Villages that exist around the country the kitchens where the salt is naturally cooked and cleaned are called janji and the final product mineral Rich salt is called so first you find the shiny part where you see that there could be some crystals you pack it up right here you see you can actually kind of see some of the salt crystals right there and then dump it over here and it filters down through about here takes about maybe 2 hours for it to filter through you want to continually test it you take some of the water here that's being filtered out you go add the Palm nuts to it if the Palm nuts are floating like this then you know that the water's salty let this continue to to filter out and then take it in the house to go and cook don't fall this is the salt right here so they're going to continue to cook that until it turns white but the good thing about this is that again this is a natural way of salt production if you see my eyes watering right now it's because they'll burn this wood right up under here this is all manmade for 3 to 6 hours so there's a lot of smoke in here here and since it's rainy season they've actually covered up the top part so there's not a lot of ventilation but they'll burn this for about 3 to 6 hours until it turns white when it turns white we'll come over here and they'll put it into these large salt bags I think that the most cool thing about this is not just the preservation but it's the fact that it's so natural you're going to get all of the minerals and nutrients this is all good for you this is less about leveraging technology to be more efficient and more about the preservation of a process to create a product so pure that is often undervalued yet quite necessary in our daily lives and diet mineral Rich salt all right Kev you ready to hold a snake I'll be honest with you I've been I've been excited about seeing it but now that I'm here my anxiety is way up I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it [Music] Jesse and this is what they worship okay in here so they communicate with the python through this divin here only initiated people and the worshippers and priest can go inside but when you are not initiated you stay here and just pray okay hurry up hurry up with the photo okay all right is it moving I'm good I think I have enough photos hurry up and get up okay okay there we go this one's moving where's he going is he staying there let's get it think he's that's Jesse freaking out by way I [Music] know you can see behind me um I'm here at one of the things that I've been most looking forward to I think me and Jesse were both looking forward to [Music] this [Music] Zang Betto one part historic one part celebration all parts Majestic historically Zango which means Watchmen of the night policed the streets to maintain Law and Order a giant imposing dancing structure draped in diet thin hay and adorned with color is empty believed to be inhabited by spirit and so what's happening is that they're trying to capture the youngo and and zto is trying to escape truly remarkable to see [Music] oh oh Che now it's part of the vundo culture in banin and parts of West Africa that is still observed today it's as entertaining as it is unifying the whole village come to celebrate and watch for hours [Music] empty o o o as part of the celebration they would offer the spirit of the Zano something for the protection of the village and I was confused when they offered dry spaghetti and tomato sauce but the spirit cooked it cooked pasta it better not be cooked it's hot wow wow w w oh it's hot it's hot it's hot undoubtedly this was one of the most beautiful and unique experiences of a lifetime [Music] [Applause] we later met with the local Village Chief and Chiefs act like a mayor but with more power yeah so water is what gets you to feel at peace okay and that's why they do that they help resolve conflict and are the mandatory first stop before escalating an issue to the government so they keep the pulse of the community I was mesmerized by the chief not only what he said but also how he seemingly glowed imagine melanin so rich it even colors the white of your eyes you can't look away can you give me a little bit of insight into what your role is here in Foundation to go higher is to become chief of Village okay H being president of the country okay I was honored the chief enjoyed our conversation so much he invited us inside his home a privilege rarely send it to Outsiders you heard ofi right s the alcohol local alcohol okay no no no I have not but this is first time going to take the first step and then for the [Music] ancestors okay oh good not bad every single page is filled out I don't think it's ever happened before in a in a trip fish oh dried fish yeah dri with guava and r no Crossing [Music] oh when you go to a person's house here in eding first thing they'll do is they'll give you water but first they will take a drink to show you that it's good it's not bad it won't harm you and then after they take a drink you can take a drink because we are all brothers and sisters and we share the same thing it's symbolic so a drink for me a drink for you and a drink for the [Music] ancestors benine you owe me nothing [Music] [Music]
2023-12-23 04:29
