A couple weeks ago (...maybe a month? It was whenever kadafi died) my close mates Jared and Heather and I had a nice little pow-wow in Jared's town of Aledjo. They each live like only 10k away from me, but they are both teachers, and somehow our schedules never really line up, so it's very rarely that we're all together! We had the goal of climbing the Aledjo mountain which is in a town right next to Jared's, and it the highest elevation in Benin (although not the tallest mountain I'm sure).
Aledjo is super cute, and actually really huge, especially for being out in the bust and off the main road. It is the main market town for goods coming across the border from Togo, and has the biggest marche in the county (commune) of Bassila. I really should be going to Aledjo for market days, but it's kind of expensive for me to get there ($6 US round trip), because I have to zem on a dirt road for a little ways. Anyway, it's right on the Togo border, so it has a cool mix of cultures!
So the three of us got there on Friday afternoon and hung out chatting for a while at a buvette (bar). We went a got some yummy cheap-ass traditional food (corn pate and goat for less than $0.50 US). And after that we went and hung out at another buvette owned by a friend of Jared's who's really cool. And by then it was getting kinda late, but we walked down to the Togo border to go to Jared's favorite chouck hut. Chouck is homemade millet beer, and it's really popular in the north. It was an awesome hut, in the middle of the forest, in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Benin? Or Togo? Who can tell. We spent an hour or two drinking beer, shooting the shit with some of Jared's Beninese friends, and petting an adorable newborn puppy. All in all it was so so much fun. It's great to see how village life is for other volunteers, and get to see a little bit of traditions in other villages.
In the morning we went and hiked the mountain, which was steep!! It's dry season, so there is 5 ft. tall grass overrunning everything. And the last half of the hike, we kept losing and finding the path in the grass. So it was a little bit of a struggle getting up, and then there wasn't much of a view. But it was fun all the same, and some good exercise!
Bottom line: hiking=awesome. buvettes=awesome. village=awesome. good friends=supreme!
Aledjo is super cute, and actually really huge, especially for being out in the bust and off the main road. It is the main market town for goods coming across the border from Togo, and has the biggest marche in the county (commune) of Bassila. I really should be going to Aledjo for market days, but it's kind of expensive for me to get there ($6 US round trip), because I have to zem on a dirt road for a little ways. Anyway, it's right on the Togo border, so it has a cool mix of cultures!
So the three of us got there on Friday afternoon and hung out chatting for a while at a buvette (bar). We went a got some yummy cheap-ass traditional food (corn pate and goat for less than $0.50 US). And after that we went and hung out at another buvette owned by a friend of Jared's who's really cool. And by then it was getting kinda late, but we walked down to the Togo border to go to Jared's favorite chouck hut. Chouck is homemade millet beer, and it's really popular in the north. It was an awesome hut, in the middle of the forest, in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Benin? Or Togo? Who can tell. We spent an hour or two drinking beer, shooting the shit with some of Jared's Beninese friends, and petting an adorable newborn puppy. All in all it was so so much fun. It's great to see how village life is for other volunteers, and get to see a little bit of traditions in other villages.
In the morning we went and hiked the mountain, which was steep!! It's dry season, so there is 5 ft. tall grass overrunning everything. And the last half of the hike, we kept losing and finding the path in the grass. So it was a little bit of a struggle getting up, and then there wasn't much of a view. But it was fun all the same, and some good exercise!
Bottom line: hiking=awesome. buvettes=awesome. village=awesome. good friends=supreme!
