Adventure: Night under the stars on the top of tata house

Tamberma is an ethnic group occupying a vast territory between Togo and Benin, to the North of both countries. It is famous for it’s unique houses called “tata”, this was one of the main reasons we chose Togo and Benin as our destination.

Tamberma people live mostly of farming. They live in families and spend all their day working in the field. One tata house would serve a home for one family. Each family would have a head (father) who can have several wifes and multiple children. Aunty of our guide (who is from here) had 22 kids – TWENTY TWO – from one woman. Wealth of the family is measured by the harvests and how good a farmers they are. That is why the more kids you have the “richer” you are. As kids are sent to the field to work from a very young age. Going to school is not cool – why? First it costs money, second – it doesn’t help you to be a better farmer.. the trap of the region?

Once a boy or a girl becomes of age, they are going through various initiation rituals and are expected to get married as soon as possible. Once a new couple is created, they ask the “owner of land” for a spot to build their own tata and farm around it.

there is a large market in the area close to the border with Benin, where all tamberma come and can not only buy but also exchange their goods. The role of money is secondary here (unfortunately under the influence of tourism this is changing, as you will have kids and women asking you for money or being very pushy trying to sell you stuff).

Tata house of this region looks like a small clay castle and is always built to the same plan:

 

Inside the baobab:

Then we were rewarded by the most amazing sunset we could remember – both agreeing that the skies of Africa are special.

Full of impressions we came back to our tata, to be greated by the dinner cooked by Vivien, who still looked drunk. Vivien with his best intentions placed our table on the main road under the only sun-powered street light in the village. In a complete darkness, sitting under the only bright light really felt like being in aquarium or a zoo, as for sure we attracted all the eyes of the villagers.

Dinner consisted of “funio” (i hope i remember it right) which is a gluee lump of muddy sticky couscous with a peanut sauce (great news for sebs allergy)  with lumps of local cheese in there. I couldn’t eat it – so only had a moderate amount and claimed i was not hungry. Seb was more polite, ate full serving of couscous and paid for it next day.

On the roof of the tata Vivien placed a matress for us and we fashioned our own mosquito net. Michael chose to sleep inside.

It was a magical moment, lying flat on your back, observing the endless stary sky and the milky way. The sounds were all very new and strange – choir of frogs, crickets, night birds, very distant barking of dogs… and not a single mechanical sound or an engine. Smells of the charcoal being made under ground near by, and the moist hot ground, releasing the warmth accumulated during the day back to the air with it’s fumes, or the smell of the walls of the tata.

I couldn’t fall asleep for an hour feeling distinctly that i’m riding a planet through cosmos. then i’ve seen a falling star flying with such a massive tail that i not only managed to gasp and say whoooaaa .. but even put my wits together and make the dearest wish. This is when sleep took me.

In the morning we were woken up before the dawn by monotonous “tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk” it was sound of farmers starting their dayly toil in the fields with their simple wooden handmade tools.

We sat up on our bed and this was the moment when the first ray of sun jetted from behind the green clif we were facing – this was a real celebration of life – sun is back and its bathing the whole world with its golden gentle morning rays. Bliss!!

To complete the story – Michael announced that he has a problem with his moto, so we need to get to the near by village where there is a mechanic. But he cannot put weight on his moto,  so he found additional moto to bring us to the mechanic’s place. I was allarmed to find out that this additional moto driver was Vivien, who looked not more sober than yesteday. Jeez.. what would you do… the mechanic is not too far, so we agreed.

This village turned out to be Nadoba – the border crossing with Benin.

While waiting for Michaels moto to be fixed we visited the market and the museum of tamberma.

Only to find out that to fix Michaels moto will take longer than we thought. So he suggested that Vivien and the other guy (who turned out to be Viviens brother) will take us to the final destination. On which i said absolute and categorical NO. I paid for a sobber driver who spoke english. Michael understood and quite quickly located his colleague guide from the park who agreed to take the job. When Michael delivered this news to Vivien – This created a massive scandal. Vivien got very confrontational with Michael and said if he cannot go then he will not allow his brother to go. The heated conversation between them lasted maybe 30 min. During which Michael came back to me begging to accept Vivien, to which he got a polite but strong refusal. All this was happening at the police point where we got our passports stamped out from Togo. The policemen were just observing all the developments, but when Vivien started to detach our bags from the motobikes, police entered the conversation and is was amazing example of local justice. Michael explained all the situation and policemen judged that we have the right to choose who to drive with, Viviens brother is not a minor so doesn’t need his permission, his point was to let us go as soon as possible and reach a collective agreement between Michael and Vivien afterwards. This is when Seb offered Michael to pay Vivien some extra money for his services in delivering us here, but Michael refused, saying that if anyone will need to pay Vivien it will him and not us, as we had agreed the price and should not pay more. In the end Vivien gave up and we moved out to Benin. This is was a good thing we took a confident moto-driver because the road was a real life mountain biking. This is how we got to Benin.