Revenant

Jessica was here for a visit and I thought an appropriate trip would be to see Mr. Fawgla, our resident voodoo chief/free meal/drinking partner/source of fun. Those of you whom followed the previous stories have probably seen his name mentioned before in a myriad of contexts. He is an important part of our lives here in the Couffo and, as such, would be a good person for Jessica to meet. Genevieve had a good time when I took her there; he taught her how to do "Sodabi eyes," a method which prevents you from becoming ill from sodabi consumption if you stare down the putrid liquid as it enters your mouth. I have yet to see it work, but he never seems to be sick, so maybe he's onto something.

I had lost my second cell phone at some point during my stay at home so I was hoping our previously arranged plans for a visit would be well-settled when I got a startling call from Fawgla himself confirming our plans - very un-Beninese and much appreciated. I imagine the call was more to change the plans than to confirm them, however, as he excitedly told me that we would be meeting in Lalo to drink then go to another town 9km away to drink some more. What?! And we had to be there early. Double WHAT?!

In all the time I have been living in Benin and visiting Fawgla's we have never traded in our shady circle under the tree, with the wooden table sticky with sodabi and cola overflows and the millions of children and pesty flocks of guinea fowl skittering about as we get to the serious task of drinking while avoiding being drunk. Why would he want to change our location? Our seasoned, well-known and comfortable spot? Never had he given me an ETA. Especially one so early - 2pm! It's still HOT! Despite the fact that we would be on motos, not walking, it's too hot to even just exist under the sun between the hours of 10:00am and 3:00pm. This threw me off a little, but Jessica needed to meet the man and, perhaps, we could convince him otherwise by not reminding him of the scheduled deviance when we got there. People have been known before to forget things while imbibing.

While we tried to get there on time we didn't leave until 2:00pm (the time we were to be there) and then my zemi realized, not before when he was driving around with other people on board, that his back tire was punctured. We stopped for a good 25 minutes to fix it. Luckily, it only took Jess's zem ten minutes of continuing on to realize that I was no longer behind them. He doubled back just in time for me to remount and take off again - what a waste of gas.

The rest of the journey was extremely uneventful (save for the extremely fast and competitive driving in which I had to repeatedly tell my driver to slow down because I imagine feeling myself flying, skidding, then rolling to a dead stop after he hit one of the pock marks in the terribly grooved dirt road). When we finally arrived to Fawgla's all the usual suspects were there: skinny, accomodating kid; whiny, big-butt kid; annoying cluster of indeterminate younger 5-8 children; older girl; repuditedly perverted "animateur"; cross-eyed old guy; spontaneously English-speaking alcoholic guy; yelling wife #1; two younger guys I don't know; and, Fawgla. The two gallon jugs full of sodabi soaking in roots, sticks, nuts and peppercorns were placed as the centerpiece on the low-lying table where they all sat, awaiting our arrival.

Upon our arrival I ordered the two Coke "chasers" I knew were necessary for our get-togethers. To my amazement, however, the old guy brought a bottle of wine and someone else brought a sparkling grape juice (with no alcohol content) that tasted like child spit. Or what I imagine that would taste. So we weren't forced into sodabi consumption for the first time. This was a very atypical visit indeed. After about two hours of this nothing much had changed except Sheena's arrival from Klouekanme -(pronounced -poorly- "Click-a-may") and the arrival of food. Standard fare; pate blanche with vegetable sauce and pieces of cooked, piment-coated chicken. Needless to say, I couldn't each much of this Satan's-fire-ball-sweat-inpsired banquet so I took a few polite scoops of pate and suffered Fawgla's insistances for about 20 minutes until it was all consumed and I could rest, slightly, easy.

Then, shockingly, Fawgla announced that we could be leaving to go to the next location. Whaaaa? Guess my plan hadn't worked and I was only stalling the inevitable drunkfest I knew I had signed up for when coming out to Lalo in the first place. I was still unsure of the meaning behind our relocation so I bewilderdly asked Fawgla again. This time he responded without the usual "to drink a little" (to which I had always mentally responded, couldn't we do that just as well here?), "to see the ghosts," he replied. My eyes widened...he must be kidding. Le REVENANTS! I knew that January 10th was the national holiday for Voodoo, but I didn't know it was a continuing celebration (this was now the 13th). Excitedly, I hopped on the back of my stranger's moto and encouraged Jessica to do the same on the Pervert Animateur's, too.

15minutes and 9km later we were in another town. I have no idea what the name of the town was or where exactly it was. As Jessica aptly pointed out, what was the point of building a town out there? Was there a road already there or did they need to pointlessly build one out to this BFE town, pop. 30? Either way, there we were, and we were given the front view table at the Copacabana. There was a weird empty space opened up in what I assume was the center of town. We were seated under a tree, with enough chairs for our entourage and a whole new sticky table with beers and sodabis displayed on it. "I chose this one for you," Fawgla explained to me as he pointed an 8% alcohol Nigerian Guiness in my direction. "Oh, delightful," I responded as Sheena and Jessica each chose a much more digestible Star.

Almost immediately the action started up. A cloud of dust kicked up as men, women and children scurried away from this man running after them with a stick, whipping whomever was near enough to hit after an odd inaudible exchange. Well, man is not accurate. He, It, was wearing a costume of pumpkin-colored shoes that continued on into leggings with intricate and colorful sequin designs covered by a thick quilt-like skirt of red, orange, packaging paper and pumpkin colors door-knocker designs lined with yellow topped with an impressive head-covering smock thing with beads and a crochet pattern running down where a man's face should be. Attached to this smock was a disturbing collection of animal skulls, a wooden carving bust of a woman, and animal skins. He carried a fistful of thin sticks that he used at random intervals, between his slide-backwards-kick-slide dancing moves, to whip passerby and even people thinking they were a safer distance away. He was the first Revenant, or ghost, who had come to visit us this fine Beninese evening.

As the six of us, Fawgla, Sheena, Jessica, Pervent Animateur, other moto guy, and myself, watched and drank and feared for a whipping another Revenant appeared almost without a point of origin. This one was undoubtedly a more important ghost, adorned entirely with sequins in the shapes of dogs, birds, serpents and other animals on his long quilted dress and head covering. Predominately pink and red, the animals were green, gold and blue, with somewhat muted undergarments he would show off while spinning in his very showy dancing manner. He spun, spun and spun, then stopped to flick a horsetail over his shoulder while kicking one leg back before tilting and spinning again to show off the beautiful colors and handiwork of his outfit. Really something else. Until the other two Revenants appeared.

Sort of boring at first, the two other Revenants appeared and promptly crouched down at the side of the dancing ring. Decidedly much less beautiful they were nevertheless impressive in the detail of their garments. Their outfits were made with marche fabric rather than sequined designs, but wore head (entire head) coverings of beaded concoctions that sort of reminded me of a scary movie I had recently seen involving a scarecrow. One of them looked like someone had just cut up several carpets into strips and affixed them all to his throat. The other had a large weird wooden carving in the shape of a circle with three breasts on it, but it was on his back so I don't really know what it was meant to signify. Both of these ghosts danced in the same circular manner as the previous, but they both were a lot more personable than the former.

In about the top 1/3 of my second gross Guiness I was busy filming the pretty ghost dancing when I noticed out of the corner of my eye two lumbering, bulky carpets eccentric carpets walking towards us. I panicked! You would have, too! It's eerie being told these animated parlor furnishings in front of you revered and feared by every single person around you, every single heavy-breathed, gaping-mouthed, protruding belly-button child leaning heavily on your chair (and there were plenty of these) and gawking are believed to be ghosts of the people; dieties you were not allowed to address, touch or look at without their permission (i.e. giving money). And they are fast approaching your table. I didn't know how to act, where to look, what to say, could I say? I instinctively reached for my coin purse and they bowed and started talking in some weird Kermit the Frog voice. They wanted to greet us, their handler explained (as the guy who played their special drums following behind him beat in agreement). And get money, of course. After they had succeed in their mission they returned back to their crouched position at the side of the ring. As they waddled away I was instantly reminded of Cousin It and lost a lot of the anxious feelings I had initially felt. I wanted to take a photo of them, dagnamit, and I had certaily paid enough to do so.

Fawgla agreed to take me up, but we had to wait until the whipping ghost was long from sight. A fifth, and final, Revenant was center stage keeping up the audience attention and the drummers gasping for breath. It was time to rock. We kicked off our shoes and snuck across the arena to kneel in the ground before the carpet bags. Someone threw a large stick across the path in front of us so as to create a tangible barrier between us, the living, and the Revenants. After Fawgla groveled a bit and asked for permission I clicked away. Satisfied I grabbed two coins out of my pocket and made to place them next to the Revenants's hem. But Fawgla grabbed my wrist, "Oh, no! Do not TOUCH them!" he cried out with white terror in his eyes. I laughed it off, but was shaken at his fear for me, "I know, I was going to put it close enough to them to reach." He relaxed only slightly. "I know not to touch," I reassured. He cooled and we got up to scuttle back before Whipping Guy came back.

"If you touch them," he asserted, "you die." This was his explanation for his behavior as we prepared to get going. The sun was setting and we needed to meet our zemis back in Lalo for the return journey.
I could see he was serious and I was touched at his concern for me. It's a fine line to walk to maintain sincerity in the face of things I don't necessarily believe to be true but mean so much to my friends that I can't take it lightly. How can one say, with any certainty or basis of truth, that something doesn't "exist" when so many thousands, an entire region of the world, believes in it? I believed in Fawgla for that moment and was grateful to my friend for showing us this beautiful ceremony and, perhaps, for saving my life.

By the way, if you are intrigued (or skeptical) and think you might just want to have one of these silly ceremonies yourself you better save up; one of those ridiculous costumes costs around 1.000.000f CFA, or approximately $2,000 USD. I imagine this means there is money in Benin, but is it wise that it goes to the dead and not the living?