Benin
Overview
There is a country in western Africa where the sea has a voice
and tells charming stories about kings and princesses, gods and
wizards, strange creatures and living dead. The waters of exotic
shores flow together with the tears of thousands of slaves who saw
that land as their last home before they crossed the Atlantic. The
journalists refer to it as one of the most stable democracies in
Africa. It is a country both fascinating and frightening, because
in fact it is the country of Voodoo.
The Voodoo is one of the oldest religions on earth and has its
deepest roots here in Benin. Those who put their faith in it
believe that everything around us is inhabited by spirits and they
don't really care if we divide our world into animate and
inanimate. Here everything is linked to an invisible spiritual grid
through which everything and everyone exists and communicates with
each other.
The voodoo that we know or at least have heard about with the
spiritual existences, the dark deities, the mysterious symbolisms
and the bloody sacrifices
offered to unearthly forces that rule the world seems complicated,
barbarous and obscure in our western eyes. Anyway, let's leave back
the loads of our world and rejoice in the charm of this parallel
and equally true world. How? Just by travelling to Benin!