Welcome to our first blog post!
Welcome to our Beninese adventure!
We have arrived! We are in Benin. For a long time we thought it would never happen, but here we are! After a four hour drive to Paris and a six hour flight we have arrived in Cotonou, a city close to the sea and one of two cities in Benin with an airport. Our amazing driver Cyrille was waiting for us to drive us to our guesthouse 'les cocotiers', where we stayed for two nights. The first thing we noticed was the warm humid climate and the cozy but busy atmosphere in the city of Cotonou.
Time to explore!
Cyrille decided to take us to the ocean as our first stop of the tour of the day.
Crabs, crabs, tiny crabs everywhere! It was very hard to spot them, they looked like tiny dust particles moving with the wind (can you spot them?). Next, we visited the port and a local fish market. Fish, fish, so much fish, shrimps, lobsters, snails, squids... there's something for everyone! Even small citrus fruits, which turned out to be the perfect late night snack when playing card games.
The next day we really wanted to visit the large market of Dantokpa which is one of the largest open-air markets of West-Africa. Dantokpa translates to 'market next to the serpent stream'.
In Benin, serpents are recurring in many mythes, one myth states that when fisherman accidentally catch a serpent it will bring bad luck to the family so they are obliged to perform a ritual so no harm will come to them.
Despite the myth, we still really wanted to visit the market (not that we were scared, we are tough ladies after all). And I'm glad we did! It was such a vibrant market! A lot of smells, a lot of colors, food, drinks, clothing,... a lot of faces!
After our visit to the market we headed towards Kakanitchoé, towards Ferme-école SAIN! Finally! When leaving the market, we noticed a young lady carrying something very delicious looking. So we decided to buy it. And it was GOOD! We bought a jar of pinda-caramel bites. Sweet and salty, perfect for our two hour drive to SAIN. During our drive we passed rural villages and big villages, where many households were concentrated alongside roads. This because of the big passage of people so they could sell their goods more easily.
Again we noticed a lady carrying something very delicious looking. This time it was yoghurt! And as some of us are big yogurt fans, you can understand there was big excitement. The yoghurt was frozen so it was very refreshing on top of being yummy.
Our eyes could not keep up with all those new impressions. There was so much to see, so much to taste, so much to do... As our distance to SAIN became smaller, our excitement grew bigger.
"C'est le français avec un peu de cheveux on e" - Sarah
After a very exciting two hour drive, we finally arrived at SAIN. We have to admit, we were a little nervous at first. But as we saw later, this nervousness was not necessary at all! It was a very warm welcome by both Bernadin and Pascal (no idea who these people are? Click the button bellow :)).
First full day at Ferme SAIN and what a day it was!
It started with a bit of sleeping in and a delicious breakfast prepared by the lovely Noelie. After stuffing our tummies, Bernadin took us for a walk around the ferme. It wasn’t until this moment we realized how big the ferme really is. Everywhere you look another type of plant pops up from big cocos palms to small pineapple plants, and from larger orange trees to loads of rice plants. As a form of income SAIN produces juices and all kinds of other goods, made from the plants they grow. Juices are made from oranges, mango, pineapples, ginger, papaya, and baobab and sold at the entrance of the ferme as well as homemade cocos oil and couscous, rice, ….
While a lot is made and sold at the ferme, what really stands out is how they work in a circular way, thinking about every little aspect from agriculture and how they can make it as sustainable as possible. So nothing goes to waste! For example, organic waste is used to make biogas which is then used in the kitchen to make delicious meals. On top of that, the waste from making the biogas is used as fertilizer for plants.
As it turned out, what we had seen so far from the ferme was only half of it. The other half consist of more pineapple plantations and several ponds where fish are kept. Besides fish, they also keep chickens, bunnies, ducks, and something called kai (which look like small chickens).
"Boabab juices are life <3 " - Layla
Tuesday afternoon was dedicated to a visit of Kétou, located North from SAIN close to the Nigerian border. Why would we choose to spend five hours of our day in the car? Well, because of the bees! Daniel, a beekeeper that is collaborating on our project, owns a piece of land there where he plans to place up to 100 beehives! And on this particular day he was planning of transferring five bee colonies caught in small ruchettes into the top-bar hives. Super interesting for us to attend of course! Some of us used the time in the car to get some rest and take a small (read: long) nap. The heat of the sun and the wind blowing strongly through the window make quite the recipe for inducing sleepiness. On the road we saw a lot of movement along the side of the road, children playing, women selling goods, many people transporting rather large parcels on - rather limited - motorbike space.
Reaching the actual apiary site was no easy job, at a certain point there was no more roadways to follow, resulting in a large car wrestling itself through small passages surrounded by a variety of plants and trees. Some of these trees seemed to take particular joy in hitting us in the face with their branches through the open car windows - which we closed quickly after.
Finally, after Daniel asked for some directions at people living nearby, we reached the site. At this point of the day the sun was not shining so strongly any more, for which we were quite thankful. We dragged all the necessary equipment to the place where the top-bar hives were standing. Daniel was just about to light the smoker when he realized we forgot to take matches with us - just great. Luckily it was quickly solved by putting a large branch on fire with one of the cooking fires from the nearby village and using this to light the smoker.
Time to put on the beekeeping suits! We assisted Daniel in transferring the bees in the ruchettes to the larger top-bar hives. The bees were definitely more 'energetic' than the ones from Belgium. Taking pictures was a rather risky activity but we got out without any stings! One downside to those suits is that you sweat quite a lot in them. We were happy to get back in the car and enjoy the cool breeze blowing through the windows.
"Food and drinks 10/10, sfeer en gezelligheid 20/10!" - Nell
Aside from the lovely excursions we made, we also worked quite a lot. Our first task was to develop a training program on beekeeping for the students of SAIN for which we scheduled a lot of meetings with Bernadin and Daniel. To achieve good results, communication is key! And for once, all meetings were live! No lost connections, no awkward silences, no ... (fill with own experiences).
There were other activities on the ferme that we also attended in between working. Sunflower picking for example. SAIN has a (for now) small sunflower field. When the flowers are dry, they are ready for picking and gathering seeds. These seeds will be planted in the field so in time more sunflowers will grow. More flowers = more bees = happy beekeepers :). We also planted the very first strawberry plants of the ferme! That was quite the honor. This shows, once again, the innovative way of thinking of SAIN. They don't know yet if it will be successful, but they try it anyway. We also visited the apiary at ferme SAIN and met the bees who are working very hard in order to make the delicious honey we all love so much. The apiary is located in the forest of ferme SAIN so it was quit the adventure getting to the different hives.
We're very happy that we came so far already with the development of the project. More adventures lie ahead! It is definitely worth to stay tuned. Big hugs Sarah, Layla (aka bandito) and Nell.