Friday 11 January 2008

Coz I'm a voodoo child . . . .

National Voodoo Day
I once made the terrible mistake of flying Air Bulgaria. In very tired Russian Tupolev 154s. I was trying to get from London to Harare (Zimbabwe) for Christmas and all other flights were fully booked. The trip to Zimbabwe was OK, but the return trip which should have been Zimbabwe, Lagos, Malta, Sophia, Amsterdam, London, was diverted to Cotonou in Benin, because of bad weather over Lagos, Nigeria.


Cotonou. What a hell-hole. We were transported from the plane to a hotel in three clapped-out minibuses, one of which caught fire on the way. When I decided to take a walk on the beach, armed guards escorted me back to the hotel becuase the beaches were not safe from bandits.
So I am not suprised to learn that today, January 10th is national Voodo Day in Benin.
And as they are having an outbreak of HN51 Bird flu there, it seems a bit risky to be sacrificing chickens and spraying checken blood about the place. Especially since the favoured method of voodoo priests is to tear the birds throat open with their teeth and drink the blood.
But, using perfect religious zealot logic, Aligbonon, a Voodoo priest from Abomey said "If you buy a chicken to sacrifice it to your God, he will not let you buy an infected bird," Can't argue with that. "We don't fear infection from bird flu ... because there is a divine power that accompanies our sacrifice," Infallible.

1 comment:

King Aardvark said...

Oh, goodie. Global pandemic, here we come. All thanks to crazy religious types in a cultural backwater.