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Late Thursday night, I read the journal Greta had been keeping of her stay in Benin. I was delighted to find an objective writing-eye with personality… so I kept it and am publishing it for all to read. I am doing the same with Grandpa’s too, but not with my own. I am the author, I get to choose.

Reading their Journals, by Greta

Erika Kraus
2006-10-07 13:47:14

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gifts we brought to Africa with us. It was a nice afternoon. That evening we went to go have drinks with the county chief. He is an area leader rather than a town leader. Athiémé is the capital of the Mono region, so he works there. The chief had been to Moscow, Russia, once long ago for some leadership training. He knew lots of dates and reasons for the history of the government of Benin. We asked him lots of questions about how the Benin government works, when it changed from a French colony to communist, when and why it changed then to a republic. He had lots of very good answers. Mathurin joined us after a while. He wanted to know our opinion of Africa, over another beer of course. For having to take lots of time to translate, we had a pretty good conversation.
After Mathurin left, we walked down to the Mayor of Athiémé’s home. He seemed like a very friendly guy, even if he can be a tough mayor sometimes. Erika gets frustrated with him occasionally, but he’s still a nice guy.
He invited us out to drinks at the Athiémé bar on Thursday. Erika said he must have been very impressed with having us visit because he so rarely asks people out socially.
Wednesday, September 13
We left early that morning for Abomey. Our trusty chauffeur was wearing a nice bombah and happy to let us stop for breakfast in Lokossa. That’s when we had Erika’s favorite coffee-flavored sweetened condensed milk. Grandpa had Erika’s favorite omelette sandwich.
The terrain between Lokossa and Abomey was very pretty. Most of Benin seems to be weedy. It could be because I have only seen it along the highway, and it’s more grassland elsewhere. There are lots of palm trees and coconut trees along the road that are easy to recognize. We occasionally see a baobab tree in the distance with its enormous size.
There are small plots along the road being farmed. There are LOTS of teak trees since they need little maintenance; however, they take five years to mature. ...