Milk – It Does a Body Good

Abomey, Benin.

     Half awake, lookin’ for momma, outta milk, hungry and wanting some cereal…

     This little girl would wander into the compound of our hotel just about every morning around eight. Her mother was our cook during our stay at Chez Monique in Abomey, Benin. This little one wanted breakfast, and didn’t care where she had to find mom to get it. By the third day we would have a bowl of cereal waiting for her, as her mother did the big inhale, and all the other workers laughed and slapped their thighs. This girl wasn’t shy. She was hungry… 

Simple

Abomey, Benin.

     Sometimes life is simple. It’s just plain black & white. A lot of places in Africa, I got that same feeling. Simple, not easy. Almost animalistic. Survival of the fittest. You live and work that day to eat and survive that day. If you have the luxury of falling asleep that night, you won on that day. Everything else is just “fluff”.

     …the scars on the cheeks a symbol of this boys tribe, made with razor blades a few weeks after birth. Your in the middle of the land of voodoo here, in Abomey. It can’t be easy, and it’s definitely not simple, but sometimes it just looks that way.

February 7, 2008