Kneeling as she gazes out to sea draped in white cloth and strings of pearls, Simenou Dangnitche has just completed the final stage of her annual ritual.
Every January for the past 15 years, the 48-year-old local has joined hundreds taking part in Benin’s famed Voodoo festival.
Participants gather at the “Door of No Return,” an arch built by the beach at Ouidah in southern Benin in memory of those crammed onto slave ships bound for the New World.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s more than just a festival,” Dangnitche said. “The meeting here is a pilgrimage, a rejuvenation, a reconnection with the ancestors to hear them speak to us again.”
Voodoo, known locally as Vodoun, is a religion that worships gods and natural spirits along with respect for revered ancestors.
It originated in the Dahomey kingdom — present-day Benin and Togo — and is still widely practiced sometimes alongside Christianity in coastal towns like Ouidah, where memorials to the slave trade are dotted around the small beach settlement. This year, Dangnitche said she was “stunned by the organization and structuring of the festival.”
Photo: Reuters
Benin’s government has rebranded the event and changed the format to make the festivities more appealing to tourists in a bid to boost the country’s economy.
It opted for a two-day celebration on January 9-10 with a reorganized program in an event dubbed “Vodun Days.” According to politician Kakpo Mahougnon, chair of the Benin Vodun Rites Committee, the government is considering further extending the length of the festival.
“It’s a new way of presenting Vodoun,” said President Patrice Talon, who took part in the celebration.
Photo: AFP
‘NOTHING SATANIC’
“Our intention is to fully reveal to the world what Vodoun is and how it is practiced, to explain Vodoun and its spiritual and sociological concepts,” the president said.
“Vodoun is of economic interest to us, since tourism is an important sector,” he added.
Ouidah was given a makeover for the occasion, with several of the town’s attractions refurbished. American Christopher Swain, who said he comes every year to “recharge and reconnect spiritually,” noticed “significant changes.”
Ouidah’s public squares hosted celebrations including jazz and dancing and even the president joined in.
The religion’s 73-year-old spiritual leader Daagbo Hounon said: “We need to prove to the world that there is nothing Satanic or evil about vodoun.”
“Vodoun is about tolerance, sharing, love, generosity and peace,” he said. “Vodoun is spiritual, but it is also several arts combined, as we can see from the songs and dances of the faithful.”
Alain Godonou, one of the heads of the Heritage and Tourism Agency, said the revamped celebrations “represent a major development in the promotion of Vodoun as a real catalyst for tourism.”
They were “a way of attracting more curiosity so that people come to discover the essence of Vodoun,” he said.
As well as international tourists, the government wants to focus on domestic tourism to boost the local economy and “reveal Benin to ourselves,” as Talon put it.
He declined to give details of the budget allocated to promoting and organizing Vodoun Days to attract visitors.
Taiwanese chip-making giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) plans to invest a whopping US$100 billion in the US, after US President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on overseas-made chips. TSMC is the world’s biggest maker of the critical technology that has become the lifeblood of the global economy. This week’s announcement takes the total amount TSMC has pledged to invest in the US to US$165 billion, which the company says is the “largest single foreign direct investment in US history.” It follows Trump’s accusations that Taiwan stole the US chip industry and his threats to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent
On a hillside overlooking Taichung are the remains of a village that never was. Half-formed houses abandoned by investors are slowly succumbing to the elements. Empty, save for the occasional explorer. Taiwan is full of these places. Factories, malls, hospitals, amusement parks, breweries, housing — all facing an unplanned but inevitable obsolescence. Urbex, short for urban exploration, is the practice of exploring and often photographing abandoned and derelict buildings. Many urban explorers choose not to disclose the locations of the sites, as a way of preserving the structures and preventing vandalism or looting. For artist and professor at NTNU and Taipei
March 10 to March 16 Although it failed to become popular, March of the Black Cats (烏貓進行曲) was the first Taiwanese record to have “pop song” printed on the label. Released in March 1929 under Eagle Records, a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned Columbia Records, the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lyrics followed the traditional seven characters per verse of Taiwanese opera, but the instrumentation was Western, performed by Eagle’s in-house orchestra. The singer was entertainer Chiu-chan (秋蟾). In fact, a cover of a Xiamen folk song by Chiu-chan released around the same time, Plum Widow Missing Her Husband (雪梅思君), enjoyed more
From insomniacs to party-goers, doting couples, tired paramedics and Johannesburg’s golden youth, The Pantry, a petrol station doubling as a gourmet deli, has become unmissable on the nightlife scene of South Africa’s biggest city. Open 24 hours a day, the establishment which opened three years ago is a haven for revelers looking for a midnight snack to sober up after the bars and nightclubs close at 2am or 5am. “Believe me, we see it all here,” sighs a cashier. Before the curtains open on Johannesburg’s infamous party scene, the evening gets off to a gentle start. On a Friday at around 6pm,
RSS