In Benin it is not easy to move at night, especially if you're in Cotonou, the country's economic cities, the city where there is a higher concentration of foreigners and especially whites.
And for white people is not easy to move. During the day if you are not motorized or prefer to avoid the traffic remained confusing and sickening to breathe in the warm car exhaust pipes as old as our grandparents, jumps on a zemigian, the moto-taxi driver.
In every corner you find qulacuno, some like to go back and forth to the city or someone waiting in his area with other colleagues in the shade of a tree. The customer is white the best score, there is always the possibility to make a nice booty, doubling the cost or inventing some excuse, increased gasoline, traffic on the streets, lengthening journey due to work or accident.
The white man is always seen as a transition, a tourist, an outsider.
Even after months or years in Benin, a white man will hardly be able to pay the same price as a local, mainly because they have less patience and will not want to spend half an hour to bargain for 30 cents.
It's fun but take their time in negotiations of this kind, because they give you the opportunity to know the mentality Benin, establish a relationship and ended the race you greetings with a handshake and a smile to the crack.
But this is what is going on until midnight. Normally zemigian work up to 22.00 from 20.00 and the fare increases. After midnight, however, very few taxi drivers in circulation and does not trust the people to rise for fear of hitting some bandits that you can rob. Realized foreign plays by the locals and avoid the zem.
The only choice, if you have another choice is out with his own half. To start the big risk is cross another rider tipsy. You must know that there is no license for the bike and everyone can guide, in Benin then there are the controls as in Italy and therefore the risk of crossing a drunk without a license are high. For your safety then avoid willingly to prefer two wheels to four more secure.
Unfortunately for the car, there are other problems, this time not for personal safety, but to bring him emptied, not by bandits but by loving cops.
These incorporate a low salary from the state and to supplement the salary nights patrolling the city. Usually create roadblocks in round or traffic lights. Stop the wheel and only the whites are always something that is not in good standing. Suffice it to say that the code Benin road every car should have a fire extinguisher and medical kit, two accessories that even the diplomatic machinery or the presidential possess. Not being told to rule you leave your car at the police station and spend the night in the barracks.
Almost no white will spend time in the night and leave those 5,000 francs CFA (7,50 €) for a faster return home.
I am not among those, I have absolutely no desire to leave cash at the police, I have never done and I hope I never will .. then to spend much quiet I returned to my village, there are no police there, only the military brigade, quiet people who recognize you for road. For Adjohoun not have any white, are one of the few whites, there are Nico.
So the city this week may be enough, too complicated, in some ways seems the 'Europe. No thanks, I return to my village on the red dirt track, in my nocturnal sensitization in remote and beautiful places.
Among ordinary people, happy, and then just walk to get from one place to another.