The Village of Ganvie

This place is called the Venice of Africa, and our adventure started on a boat. Fifteen of us loaded into a wooden canoe with an outboard motor and started slowly across the broad brackish lake, our guide John explaining the history of his village, Ganvie, in loud broken English. This is a place of fisherman, of daily life on water, of houses built on stilts and children barely eight years old paddling their own long canoes. It is a place where each child learns how to swim before his third birthday, where the market goods float in the bottoms of women's boats, where young men stretch yards of cloth between their arms to catch the wind and lessen the work of paddling.

But at it's heart, Ganvie is a place of refuge. It was built in the years when the slave trade was thriving and animistic voodoo ruled the minds of the kings. The kingdom of Abomey, located on the coast of Benin, had an especially corrupt king known to capture his people and sell them to the slave traders. Some of the people fled to the water, which according to the local religion, could not be crossed, and only here were they safe to live. Today, over five thousand people reside on thin wooden platforms with tin walls and roofs, each propped on spindly sticks that somehow support a life. There is a school, a hotel, a restaurant, two churches, barber shops, a market place, tourist gift shops, all the pieces of a community.

As we floated down the water streets, I wondered what it would be like to grow up in Ganvie. There were little kids everywhere. As soon as they saw our boat, they skillfully maneuvered their canoes loaded with nets and little brothers and sisters to nudge ours, hands outstretched, "Madame, madame!" coming from their mouths. They wanted gifts from us, whatever we had that was edible or Western. We gave them apples and cereal, then they kept asking for Bic and chewing gum, the only English words they knew. It was clear we were not the first rich "Yovos" to come here. I was overwhelmed by their constant requests and I had brought nothing to give but smiles.

It did take away from the experience some, this nagging in me illuminating my fortune. Is it even possible to image what my life seems like to them? I've been thinking, even before I came to Africa, about the reasons God has given me all the gifts of my life, and the best I can do is that He wants me to use them to the fullest for His glory. Funny how the most we can understand of God's plan is this simplicity, that we must run after Him always, and from this will come our lives. Pray for me, that I can continue to follow in His way, and specifically for my time reading the Bible: that I would be disciplined and passionate in it this week. Thank you for reading and supporting me in these first two weeks. Much, much love from Cotonou! Pictures coming soon.