We had a week to kill before our reservations at Green Turtle Lodge, and no idea what to do with it. We don't really like big cities, and there is very little “tourist” infrastructure in Ghana, so getting around and finding places to stay wasn't easy. Inspired by Marie McCarthy's kindle book Travels in Ghana,…

Since we were almost at the Togo border, and didn't want the inflexibility of the bus, we decided to take a taxi from Doutou to the Benin/Togo border and then take some form of local transport (shared-taxi) across Togo to Lomé. In many ways that sounds more challenging than it actually is. Marianne arranged the…

Our day began with the discovery of a flat tire on the truck we had borrowed, so we added fixing the tire to a list of chores for the day (along with washing the fabric we bought yesterday, so that it can be dried and hopefully sewn someplace else along our journey). It is our…

After our short walk around Ouidah, we hopped back in the taxi and continued to Doutou (DUE – TOO), the village where Marianne lives. Marianne is a Christian missionary working to translate the Bible into the Saxwe (SAHW – WAY) language, living in a Saxwe community and learning the community language and culture. Her goal,…

With the conference over, we accepted an opportunity to visit Marianne in a village 90 km outside of Cotonou (northwest, near the Togo border). Conveniently, she was in Cotonou for other reasons, and we were able to share a taxi back with her to her home. Few people in Benin own cars, and there is…

Songhai is about 40 km away from our hotel, just outside the nearby town ( and capital of Benin) of Porto Novo. Unfortunately, in Benin, transportation can be a challenge. I could have hired a taxi for the day from the hotel, but that would have been boring. I decided to try public transport, and…

Today I visited Songhai, a 25-year-old community, business and experiment in African entrepreneurship. The Songhai website has a much more thorough explanation in the Songhai charter , showing how they combine education, experimentation and integration of other ideas to create some very interesting programs and products. They started out in 1985 farming and raising animals,…