a Ouidah

We were sent to Oudiah (we-dah) Saturday for a cross-cultural training session. Just a day trip this time, not overnight. Ouidah was one of the largest ports for the embarkation of slaves from Africa to Europe and America. There is a very good museum along with other sites around the city about this sad chapter in human history. There are several monuments along the route the slaves took through the city to the ships. After a tour through the museum we were given a tour of this route.
There are four main stops on this route. The first is the site where the slaves were housed while waiting to be sold and shipped out. The building is now gone with only a monument and several statues in a small park. The building was several floors high and had only a single small door and no windows. The slaves were held there with no light to disorient them, not allowing them to know where they were or who they were with and to get them used to being on the ship, under the same conditions. Next to this was the site of the mass grave. Whenever a slave died before being sold the body was just thrown into a hole next to the holding site. The bodies have now been buried, but were never removed. There are no reliable estimates as to how many people are buried there. There is a very moving monument there now that is kept up very well, unlike many things here.
The next important site is the tree of forgetfulness. This is a tree that was planted by the king of the area. He was the one doing the actual selling to the Europeans and Americans. The king planted a tree and had some kind of voodoo magic buried beside it. The slaves were forced to walk around the tree nine times in order to forget their homeland before they were shipped out. The original tree is now gone but a tree of the same type is there now;
Further along the route is the tree of hope. The slaves were told to walk around this tree three times and there would be the hope that they would one day be able to return home. Obviously this was a scam to keep the slaves quiet but there was no voodoo done here. The original tree is still there however. It is now almost four hundred years old.
The final site is a large monument at the point where the ships were loaded. The point of no return. The piers have washed away and there is only a beach there now. The entire route was about two miles long. The slaves were forced to do this walk at night so that they wouldn't know where they were or where they were going.
Slavery was not uncommon in this area at the time but it was different than it was in Europe and America. Slaves here were generally captured prisoners of war and had some hope of rescue at some point. They were also used as forced labor but were not mistreated. They were merely not allowed to go home. Most of the slaves along the coast were from inland tribes and kingdoms. Many had never seen the ocean much less an oceangoing ship. The practice of not letting them know what was happening was intended to keep them compliant. They had no reason to suspect their future overseas because they had no experience or knowledge of such.
Ouidah is also the birthplace of voodoo. It is still the predominant religion in the area and is very common throughout the country. We were not told much about this during the trip. We have classes about religion and other cultural differences in Azove.
I also learned that the Oro is active in Ketou, where I will be posted. The Oro is a secret society based upon voodoo like beliefs. They require that no outsider see them during their religious activities. It is known who the Oro members are, but others are not allowed to see them only during their ceremonies. The only problem with this is that they perform their ceremonies in public. Everybody else is required to go inside whenever the Oro are around. In the past they have been known to kill those people who don't comply. The government has forced an end to that practice now however. Apparently, the Oro are still a very powerful force in local matters. Disrespecting them will get a person shunned and even threatened with bodily harm. One volunteer was forced to move from the area because of this. I don't expect to have any problems with them. The society sounds somewhat interesting and I hope to be able to get to know some of them in time. Their main activity now seems to be policing the streets at night and occassionally getting drunk in public.
I am now almost completely recovered from my head butting incident. I still get an occassional headache, which the doctor said would be normal for a week or two. I cannot engage in any strenous physical activity or drink any alcohol for two weeks. The doctor is coming to Azove this week to continue the immunization schedule (Oh boy, more shots) and will check me out again then.
Nothing else is going on right now, just more classes and French practice. We go to Abomey next Saturday for a history class. Abomey is where the kings of one of the former kingdoms in this area lived. The following week is post visit. We all go to live at our post for four or five days to see the area and get introduced to some of the people we will be working with. This will be a short trip for me to Ketou, but some of us have rather long trips to the far north of the country.
A bientot.