Cotonou, c'est aussi chez moi!

The Lonely Planet for West Africa summarises what each country in West Africa is famous for. According to Lonely Planet, Benin is mainly famous for Voodoo, slavery, the kings of Dahomey and Angelique Kidjo. Nigeria on the other hand, is famous for corruption, email scams and writers. This gives you a very different first impression of the two countries. And believe me, it is true!


View from my hotel room

I visited Cotonou for the first time in three years. It was amazing. It is really weird to realize the big differences between two neighbouring countries. Simply the atmosphere is incomparable. It’s hard to define the difference, but I can really feel it when I am there.

And of course I loved seeing my friends again. It is amazing how the little baby who was just born last time I saw him, goes to school now and speaks better French than me. I loved eating pizza at the beach, enjoyed a great buffet with loads of Lebanese food and shopped in the new hyper marché. Of course, Cotonou is the economic centre of the country and I should not be surprised I can find more western products and food than in Ilorin. But still, it was great!

 

It was interesting to see how Cotonou is developing. In some areas, so many new building arose that I hardly recognised it. New roads and fly overs are making the traffic easier. Power is much more reliable than it was some years ago. My friends told me there are still power cuts, but they last only a few hours and are not on daily base. Compare that to Nigeria where we often have no power for a day or more. (And keep in mind that Nigeria exports power to neighbouring countries).

It seems like the government in Benin is doing a quite good job, while in Nigeria things seems to slow down. For example, a company has been assigned to repair the road between and Ilorin and Abuja several times. So far, nothing has happened.


With my good friend Armand

I think I understand what the problem is. When I crossed the border between Nigeria and Benin, at the Benin side the most heard words were: Bon Arrivee! Welcome in Benin! Only one official tried to get money from me.




Travelling back to Nigeria, the officials stamping my passport at the border were ok, but as soon as we passed the border, problems start. Here people don’t say Welcome in Nigeria, they say; what do you have for me? And the poor taxi driver had to pay. All the time. Within 500 meter he got stopped probably 10 times, not by officials but by normal people. They have a kind of a golf club with nails in it and if you don’t stop they destroy your tires. So, what can you do? Telling them you just paid 10m before (what the guy saw of course), doesn’t help, you have to pay. The police sees it and the only thing they say is; ‘Anything for us?’ so you have to pay again.

When I was living in Benin in 2006 I never expected to go to Benin to be in a ‘normal’ and ‘developed’ country. Or that I would go to Cotonou because of the variety of food. Or the great condition of the roads… But now… Spending months in Ilorin changes everything! So, hopefully again in September. It feels like home. Because, well, Cotonou, c’est aussi chez moi!



Pizza at the beach