here are long-awaited africa pics.... unfortunately, my camera broke two days into the trip, but fortunately for me, rob-b is an amazing photographer and used his 11 gigs and my 4 gigs of memory to take the most amazing pictures. here are just a few of the 15 gigs he took. i'll try to explain some of the photos but i can't even begin to explain how amazing the trip was and how welcoming and accomodating the people around us were...


before leaving for africa, i spent a few days with rob-b's family. they were very welcoming and loving. =) i was sad that i was not able to spend christmas with my family, but this was second best! here's them gathered in rob-b's family room with renee's AMAZINGLY DECORATED tree.... kudos to you renee.


this is the first night we got there. after 2 days of travelling.... we were pretty shocked when they packed all of our luggage onto the top of a crappy old van and then packed us all in there. i almost broke rob's legs sitting on his lap while we drove the one hour to our hotel.


this is Martine, our tour guide's house. they did all their cooking outside in this small space. it's amazing how resourceful they are.


this is the kitchen of a cafe we went to.


here is a photo from the top floor of our hotel. our hotel was the tallest building in the city (minus the catholic cathedral) so we had an amazing view. our hotel was called "hotel oasis"


Martine, our AMAZING tour guide. She knows so much about the culture and history of the slave trade and was such a great teacher. She also helped us with every aspect of living there.


the markets were packed with really cheap/handmade things. here are an array of baskets. rob-b and i got some and they are awesome.


one of the women at her stand threw her baby onto me and wanted me to take her baby. Child trafficking is a very a very big problem in Benin... a lot of times, families have too many children and too little money to feed them, so they would sell their children to others who are able to afford them. The children then are not put through school and instead go out during the day selling goods, and being physically abused and treated like slaves. Things are being done to solve this.... like outlawing polygamy and sheltering abused kids.


we went to a python temple..... i look happy but i'm really freaked out! take note of my diseased arm. the mosquitos were merciless there. thank goodness for maleria pills!


there is no limit to how much you can put on top of your car.... it was amazing.


a guy climbling a palm tree.


a guy on stilts dressed up in a costume and a charlie choplin mask? there were many people on stilts and the goal was to knock one of'm down. as easy as that sounds, it was really hard. these guys were fast on their stilts.


this is a type of costume worn by dancers (yeah, can you believe it? wearing THAT for an hour and dancing in it in 95 degree weather?). the dance is comprised of spinning around really really fast.


a few teenagers from the school performing a dance for us


some of the kids we got to play with. a big part of the trip was being in the presence of these amazing kids. their smiles would MELT YOUR HEART. they called us "yovos" (which means "White person". only in africa will i be recognized as white) and you would hear them screaming it from everywhere as you're walking down the street.


we brought balloons for the kids as well and they enjoyed us drawing on them and popping them =P


a tree that slaves walked around to get rid of the bad memories they had about slavery


this is an igungun. They represent spirits of voodoon. They have different voices and dances and costumes. It is tradition that they come out into the streets and you offer it money. You can't touch it or else death will come upon you..... it's fun to see them come out and chase little kids and adults.


taking a break... we walked A LOT and it was 95 degrees everyday.


a very hard shot to get.... but rob and i had to have it. we love this pic.


Gerard, one of the guys that helped us all 3 weeks of the trip. He's only 18, but is super mature and helped us out tons. He was dancing on this boat while we were off dancing under coconuts trees.


the main religion in benin is Voodoon (voodoo). Western ideas and mythologies of voodoo is totally wrong and derived from NOTHING that these people believe or practice. Voodoon is actually based off of a lot of Christian ordeals. This is the Daagbo Hounon (aka the "pope" of Voodoon). We were lucky to have to opportunity to talk to him and have him answer our questions about the religion.


we were there for National Voodoon Day, which is an annual holiday that attracts thousands of tourists and local people. We gathered at the beach three miles away from our hotel and there were many dance performances going on.


all the moms carry their children on their back like this... it's actual quite comfortable, and the child is VERY secure in there.


me and paule, the daughter of our tour guide. she braided a lot of us girls' hair, hung out with us during the day, and went out with us at night. she won Miss Benin last year.


Benin was a huge slave port and this is an arch commemorating all the slaves that were shipped off these shores.


awesome beach shot.


rob-b and me at the beach =)


me on a boat docked on the shore. it felt so good to be on the beach in mid december =)


we visited Ganvie, a village built on stilts on top of a lake. The people did this a long time ago to flee from being taken as slaves. African Kings were actually a big part of the slave trade, and they would sell their people to the Europeans. One of the lesser kings were afraid of having his people enslaved by the more powerful king, so he was looking for a place to flee. He found this lake and realized his solution. There was a rule that you could not cross an body of water to enslave people, so he and his people went to the middle of this lake and built their town upon it. People still live like this, and it is a part of their lives. Markets will be inside boats and every family owns a boat that they will travel on like a car.


here are some people selling stuff on their boats. they used the big sticks to navigate.


a guy doing a handstand for us. they later asked for money because we took pictures.. this happened a lot.


a fisherman casting his net


a monkey chained to a tree =( this was the most exotic wildlife we saw the whole time we were there, ha.


look closely.... see the chimpanzee hands? haha.... gross,eh? this was part of the market where they sold animal parts for voodoon sacrifices. it was a scary place to be.


while i was freaking out about the dead animals being around me... a boy put a chameleon on my shoulder.. what fun!


we had dance and drum teachers come to teach us how to.... drum and dance =P here's me attempting to get jiggy wit it


rob and i brought probably 30 packs of gum to africa to give away. the kids in this village discovered how amazing gum wrappers were. i joined in.


Tarrez, Odette and I at the place we ate everyday. They were amazing helpers. They would help bring the food from their house everyday, made sure we were all served before they ate, and cleaned our plates/tables when we were done. I brought play-dough and coloring books and crayons which i gave them, and it was amazing to play and laugh together for hours at night without even speaking the same language. Tarrez is a very talents actress and acted out to me the demeanor of her school teachers, and Odette is a great dancer.


my favorite girl, Odette, on our last night in Benin.... i love her and miss her sooo much


gilo, odette, and anne dancing for us


me with anne. it took us forever to get her to look into the camera let alone smile... obviously, we failed.


me with memai, who acted as our loving mother the three weeks we were there... she was truly amazing. she cooked for us from morning until night with a huge smile on her face and was always giving us big hugs and kisses. she's wearing scarves that rob's mom gave us to give away. she was really happy with her gift.