The weekend has been very busy. While shopping in the well stocked supermarket in town, we met an Austrian lady, Roswitha, and her young friend Dorothy who invited us for a meal on Sunday evening at her place to meet her New Zealand husband. I have now completely changed my opinion of the Beninois - lots of friendly help, especially from Amil who has spent a great deal of time with us trying to assist with our plans to fly. His uncle is a Manager at Cotonou Airport and we have sent him a photo of the balloon to explain what type of aircraft we wish to launch from the small airport here near Nati. We are awaiting his reply, but if the answer is not what we wish to hear we have another alternative.
We have also spent several occasions chatting with Lucy, a young Coastal Engineer from Perth, Australia who is travelling on her own. Hi again Lucy. We hope your offer of a shared trip to the Pendjari National Park has been successful and we will be in touch by email later.
Our second night here we remained at the Bourgogne as Madame agreed to allow us to park free of charge and sleep in the Enterprise. The third night, after a busy Saturday surveying the area for possible places to fly, avoiding the hills and trees, we tried another hotel at the top of the hill - the Bellevue - where we were again allowed to park in the garden and took the opportunity to fill our fresh water tank from their watering hose! We had a chance encounter with a policeman who wanted to see our motor documents and obligingly gave Chris his very nice leather cap! No exchange necessary. His colleague later turned up at the hotel looking for us with a hand-written letter requesting our name, address and nationality, with his name and tel. no. in case we need his help. Police hat count now 3 to 1.
We had a quiet Sunday to rest, recuperate and shower before finding our way out of town following Roswitha's directions, through a teak forest, past the sign of the 'Madonna with the big boobies' (a Catholic charity for orphans), up and down 2 very steep hills and under low power lines which we had to hold up with long sticks to get under. When we arrived shortly after 5pm we found they were in the middle of an Evangelical prayer meeting which they hold every 4th Sunday of the month. I was able to join in with the French hymns from the printed sheet and join in the clapping to the local language part of the service. While the 'congregation' gathered for prayers afterwards Chris and I went for a walk down the hill to the river to see local children watering their vegetable gardens of beans, carrots and greens.
Gordon is an ex-sheep farmer from Dunedin who was called to the evangelical faith when Billy Graham visited New Zealand. He met Roswitha here in Benin when he was lured by her cherry pie! They are both evangelical ministers, and a charming couple of about our age, who have been in Benin since 1977 and had planned to retire in 2003 before being asked to start the Leweitari Centre in Nati (apparently it's on Google Earth). Their son and his family will be taking over from them later this year and are having a beautiful house built for their arrival out of local materials, with a stunning view over the valley. We were shown around by Elizabeth, wife to Heinrich, who are a German speaking Swiss couple, also living at the Centre for the past 4 year. Heini is an architect and mechanical engineer who designed the buildings including the new house, and has all sorts of projects on the go: solar boxes for cooking, bio-fuel from locally grown nuts and he is training young men in various engineering specialities. They are also assisting in setting up a new school for girls in need.
We had a very nice meal cooked by Roswitha followed by tea and some hot flavoured biscuits. Gordon was very enthusiastic about suggesting the best places to fly and with his local knowledge and contacts we are very hopeful that we will get at least one flight in Benin avoiding the need to use the airport. When we told him we wanted to cross into Togo via the Somba country of Benin which has a dirt road from Nati to Boukoumbe, he said that it would be a wonderful place to fly over with the Tata Somba turreted mud palaces and he has local connections and would come with us to fly and follow by road. We are very excited with the prospect. Roswitha believed it best to have someone along to explain to the people that we were not dangerous as she said they still shoot with arrows here!
We parked the Enterprise for the night on the level at the top of their hill and Rositha insisted on lending us a torch to walk back the short distance in the dark as she said there are spitting snakes, spiders and scorpions!!
We hope to update when we are successful before leaving Nati as we will refuel with gas here. Togo is an unknown. We hope to be able to fly there before the Harmattan wind begins to blow. I would have liked to visit the far south of Benin with its voodoo and slavery heritage, but time will probably prevent this. It will give us a reason to return on another occasion in the future.
We have also spent several occasions chatting with Lucy, a young Coastal Engineer from Perth, Australia who is travelling on her own. Hi again Lucy. We hope your offer of a shared trip to the Pendjari National Park has been successful and we will be in touch by email later.
Our second night here we remained at the Bourgogne as Madame agreed to allow us to park free of charge and sleep in the Enterprise. The third night, after a busy Saturday surveying the area for possible places to fly, avoiding the hills and trees, we tried another hotel at the top of the hill - the Bellevue - where we were again allowed to park in the garden and took the opportunity to fill our fresh water tank from their watering hose! We had a chance encounter with a policeman who wanted to see our motor documents and obligingly gave Chris his very nice leather cap! No exchange necessary. His colleague later turned up at the hotel looking for us with a hand-written letter requesting our name, address and nationality, with his name and tel. no. in case we need his help. Police hat count now 3 to 1.
We had a quiet Sunday to rest, recuperate and shower before finding our way out of town following Roswitha's directions, through a teak forest, past the sign of the 'Madonna with the big boobies' (a Catholic charity for orphans), up and down 2 very steep hills and under low power lines which we had to hold up with long sticks to get under. When we arrived shortly after 5pm we found they were in the middle of an Evangelical prayer meeting which they hold every 4th Sunday of the month. I was able to join in with the French hymns from the printed sheet and join in the clapping to the local language part of the service. While the 'congregation' gathered for prayers afterwards Chris and I went for a walk down the hill to the river to see local children watering their vegetable gardens of beans, carrots and greens.
Gordon is an ex-sheep farmer from Dunedin who was called to the evangelical faith when Billy Graham visited New Zealand. He met Roswitha here in Benin when he was lured by her cherry pie! They are both evangelical ministers, and a charming couple of about our age, who have been in Benin since 1977 and had planned to retire in 2003 before being asked to start the Leweitari Centre in Nati (apparently it's on Google Earth). Their son and his family will be taking over from them later this year and are having a beautiful house built for their arrival out of local materials, with a stunning view over the valley. We were shown around by Elizabeth, wife to Heinrich, who are a German speaking Swiss couple, also living at the Centre for the past 4 year. Heini is an architect and mechanical engineer who designed the buildings including the new house, and has all sorts of projects on the go: solar boxes for cooking, bio-fuel from locally grown nuts and he is training young men in various engineering specialities. They are also assisting in setting up a new school for girls in need.
We had a very nice meal cooked by Roswitha followed by tea and some hot flavoured biscuits. Gordon was very enthusiastic about suggesting the best places to fly and with his local knowledge and contacts we are very hopeful that we will get at least one flight in Benin avoiding the need to use the airport. When we told him we wanted to cross into Togo via the Somba country of Benin which has a dirt road from Nati to Boukoumbe, he said that it would be a wonderful place to fly over with the Tata Somba turreted mud palaces and he has local connections and would come with us to fly and follow by road. We are very excited with the prospect. Roswitha believed it best to have someone along to explain to the people that we were not dangerous as she said they still shoot with arrows here!
We parked the Enterprise for the night on the level at the top of their hill and Rositha insisted on lending us a torch to walk back the short distance in the dark as she said there are spitting snakes, spiders and scorpions!!
We hope to update when we are successful before leaving Nati as we will refuel with gas here. Togo is an unknown. We hope to be able to fly there before the Harmattan wind begins to blow. I would have liked to visit the far south of Benin with its voodoo and slavery heritage, but time will probably prevent this. It will give us a reason to return on another occasion in the future.
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