Fête de la Gaani

This weekend we traveled northeast to Parakou, then east to Nikki to attend the Fête de la Gaani, a traditional Bariba celebration that lasts for about a week in the dusty town of Nikki, the capital of the Bariba kingdom, which traditionally spans the north of Benin and into Nigeria and Niger. They are renowned as expert horsemen, and during the celebration, the Bariba kings parade through town on their horses amidst drummers and “race” each other in front of the palace in Nikki (the videos are on Facebook).

This year’s celebration was noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, Peace Corps had a few booths up during the festival to showcase the PC-started Beninese Moringa Association (ABM), a Shea Butter group that three PC volunteers work with, a Peace Corps 50th Anniversary booth to showcase what we as volunteers do in our communities as well as to search for new work partners, and a Tourism booth to showcase the great tourism sites in the country: Abomey, Grand Popo, Parc Pendjari, Boukoumbe, Parc W, and my archeological park in Bohicon, the Parc Archeologique d’Agongointo. Our mayors were supposed to pay for flyers to be printed but my mayor didn’t, so I had only 3 flyers for people to look at (but was able to get the word out, anyway). Second, our American ambassador was a special guest during the celebrations and got to walk hand-in-hand with the king of Nikki during the main celebration. Third, we were able to show off our booths to not only our ambassador and his staff, but also to our PC staff, including our country director; even though Benin is a small country and we have a small PC and embassy staff, we are a tight little community and it is awesome to show such camaraderie for each other.

After the fete, we returned to the Parakou workstation and we had a town hall meeting with the ambassador and embassy staff for us and other Americans who live in Benin. It was great to meet up with them again and to be able to hear our ambassador speak on issues affecting us here, such as what the embassy does for us, funding issues, safety and security issues, and upcoming elections news.

Tomorrow we head back down south to Bohicon, where we will be for a long while without any traveling, which is great because we miss being at home! Heather will go to Cotonou soon for a medical check-up but other than that, we will be staying put until at least April when I come back to Parakou for another training (and Heather heads to Cotonou for a training in May). We are sad that this big block of traveling is over because we love seeing other parts of the country but we will be happy to get home to our wonderful neighborhood and out of the dust. It’s time to focus on our projects and really get some work done.

A bientôt.

Cheers.