Distant Horizons

09/15/2025

On our way to Goree Island. The musicians on the ferry provided distraction to this poignant and haunting reminder of how the enslaved were shipped off to the Americas without any idea of where they were going or what their future looked like.

09/05/2025

Here are the unmarked graves. Untended. No one acknowledging the tragedy. Someone asked..have the French apologized? No answer. Just silence

09/03/2025

08/30/2025

One of the main wonderful lemurs we saw in Madagascar with We will be back in 2026!

08/05/2024

On our long drives together, Alex talked a lot about Voodoo which he pronounced as Voodun. Voodun is a way of life in Benin, indeed, according to Alex, it is followed by more than 60% of the population and is recognized as an official religion. Our time in Ouidah had included visiting a sacred Voodun sight and I began to understand that Voodeun is more than a belief system, it is a complete way of life, including culture, philosophy, language, art, dance, music and medicine. I was shocked at the complexity of the belief system and how little I knew. As we crossed into Togo, we agreed we should include a visit to the Lome Vooden market. We got there early morning to a number of dusty stalls showing shriveled monkey’s heads, animal skins, squashed lizards and tangles of slightly moldy looking snakes. It was weird and we were the only ones there. I was beginning to question the authenticity of the market when a black expensive looking car pulled up and a young man went to one of the stalls and left shortly thereafter clutching a brown paper bag. With our western focus on rationalism, I had a hard time taking this seriously but when I thought about the bigger picture of Voodun’s underlying belief on the importance of balance in the natural world, I was not so sure.

08/05/2024

We crossed the border into Togo with the goal of visiting the “Maison des Esclaves” sometimes simply referred to as the “wood house,”. The site has been inducted into the UNESCO-protected slave trade historical sites along the West African coast. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, Togo was known as the “Slave Coast.” Instead of building any slave forts on the Togolese shoreline, European colonialists built wooded slave houses where captured men and women would be held until they could be shipped out to the Americas. I was led underneath the comfortable wooden house to feel and experience the conditions in which the slaves lived. There were no ladders or stairs to help me descend to the sandy basement below. I eased myself down and tried to imagine what it would have felt like to have lived in that tiny space for weeks.

08/05/2024

I arrived in Ouidah determined to find the statue of Francisco Félix de Souza. For many years de Souza, one of the biggest slave merchants in the history of the transatlantic slave trade, sold slaves to Portuguese, French and British merchants, from right here in Ouidah, Benin. The slaves usually from rival tribes were gagged and jammed into boats bound for Brazil, Haiti and the United States. De Souza controlled it all. I wanted to understand how he could possibly be honored in a country where he had caused such indescribable pain. I told my guide, Alex, that it was not the Python Temple or even the Gate of No Return, that I wanted to see. I wanted to understand this statue and see where it was placed in the city. Four hours later after countless conversations with locals, with the street cleaners, with mothers and their children, and with construction workers, no-one could answer the question. I think we possibly got to where the statue was placed, a demolition site but I am honestly not sure. We were relying on one street vendor. But where it is now? No-one we spoke to had any idea. So has Benin just wiped him away from history? It reminded me, of course, of the debate here in the US. What to do with these remnants of the past. Is the statue sitting somewhere? Do we just toss them into the ash bin of history, purging them as if they never existed? Not a simple question. Having come to terms with the fact that I could not get resolution, I had sought we moved on to the Door of No Return, a humbling place to find yourself with the sound of the pounding waves and some vendors hoping that people like me would contribute to the country’s economy.

07/30/2024

There are some legacies of slavery that somehow were not part of my education. Today, I spent the afternoon in Ganvie, an expansive lake village on Lake Nokoué, near Cotonou. When Alex, my guide told me that the population was around 20,000 people, it was hard to visualize that number of people living on a lake. We drove to a pier through a market teeming with people and then took a boat and meandered through canals with, just as Alex said, a fully-fledged community. Why here? It turns out that in the 17th century, the powerful West-African Fon tribe was hunting and selling other native tribesman to the Portuguese. Fon religious practice forbade their raiders from advancing on any peoples dwelling on water, which laid the groundwork for the Ganvie Lake Village. In the roughly 500 years that have passed since, Ganvie has developed an intricate and prosperous culture within the constraints of life on the lake. As the sun set and we watched the human activity, I wondered if the young children, expertly navigating through the waters, were aware of the heroic acts of their ancestors.

07/30/2024

Back in Cotonou, I stood in awe in front of a enormous statue of a female warrior which was erected on 2022 -another indication that Benin is reckoning with its past. Known as the “Esplanade des Amazones”, this striking bronze statue stands 30 meters tall and commemorates the Dahomey Amazons, a remarkable group of female warriors. These brave women formed the only documented female army in modern history, defending the Dahomey kingdom (now Benin) with unwavering courage. The statue symbolizes feminine strength and empowerment, celebrating the rich history of the Beninese people.

07/30/2024

I was lucky to be in Abomey during a ceremony honoring one of the king’s key advisors. As I stood on the outside of the compound, I was invited to join and sit with the audience. Extraordinary.

07/30/2024

Excited to be in Benin working on a new program to West Africa. Today I journeyed to the heart of Benin's ancient Kingdom of Dahomey and learned more about the multi-dimensional complexities of the slave trade in Benin. Today Benin and other West African nations are struggling to resolve their own legacies of complicity in the trade. Benin’s conflict over slavery is particularly intense and the government’s plans to build two museums devoted to the slave trade will likely provide a different perspective than previously

06/28/2024

Avoiding the crowds everywhere in Kyoto is challenging but a night time walk through Tenryu-ji temple in Arashiyama is one way. My only company was a series of figures guarding this UNESCO site.