Ingetje Tadros

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Various Ghana|Benin|Togo|Burkino Faso { 50 images } Created 10 Mar 2014

Various Ghana|Benin|Togo|Burkino Faso.
©Ingetje Tadros
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  • Art on the beach at Cape Coast, Ghana.<br />
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Chained metal statutes, made out of tin.
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  • Ouidah's past is closely linked to the slave trade, and here it is still possible to travel the 4 kilometers that thousands of men and women have walked chained, leaving behind their villages their families and their freedom for a future marked by privations, torture and forced labor.<br />
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Along the way of the slaves there are the statues of the kings of the kingdom of Dahomey, each king is not depicted as a person but in the form of the symbol or animal that in life represented him; for example there is the statue of a chameleon that was the symbol of a king who rose to power at the age of 60 and who, due to his age, took decisions very slowly, such as the movement of a chameleon.<br />
Ouida, Benin
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  • The Royal Python Temple, where Ouida's ancient snake cult is still very much in practice. Ouida, Benin, 2014<br />
©Ingetje Tadros
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  • The Port of Elmina, with in the background Elmina's Castle. One of the about forty Slave Castles built along the Coast where the horrific slave trade took place.<br />
Cape Coast, Ghana.
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  • Ganvie Lake Village in Benin, West Africa is very often dubbed‚ "the Venice of Africa." This unique floating city is built completely on water, with the exception of a school, which is the only building set on dry land.
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  • Ganvie Lake Village in Benin
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  • Ganvie Lake Village in Benin
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  • Ganvie Lake Village in Benin, West Africa is very often dubbed‚ "the Venice of Africa." This unique floating city is built completely on water, with the exception of a school, which is the only building set on dry land.<br />
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Generations of Tofinu people have lived in simple bamboo houses on stilts and fully rely on the Nokoue Lake. The only possible means of transport, or leaving one’s house as a matter of fact, is simple wooden boats cut out of tree trunks. As a result of peculiar nature of Ganvie Lake village, the ethnic Tofinu people are also described as "The Water People of Benin."<br />
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The question therefore is why did Tofinu people of Ganvie chose to live on the water houses instead of the land? According to historians during the colonial era when the Europeans made slavery their major trade, a small group of  ethnic Tofinu people living outside of what is now Cotonou, Benin, took advantage of a different set of circumstances to evade capture by the Portuguese. At the time, the powerful West-African Fon tribe who had been coastal trading partners of the Portuguese was hunting and selling other native tribesman to the Portuguese.
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  • The Akodessawa Fetish Market is located at Akodessawa, which is a district of Lomé, the capital of Togo in West Africa. The Akodessawa Fetish Market or Marche des Feticheurs is the world's largest voodoo market The market features monkey heads, skulls, dead birds, crocodiles, skins and other products of dead animals.<br />
Togo.
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  • The Akodessawa Fetish Market is located at Akodessawa, which is a district of Lomé, the capital of Togo in West Africa. The Akodessawa Fetish Market or Marche des Feticheurs is the world's largest voodoo market The market features monkey heads, skulls, dead birds, crocodiles, skins and other products of dead animals.<br />
Togo.
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  • Open pit, golddiggers, Ghana
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  • Open pit, golddiggers, Ghana
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  • Open pit, golddiggers, Ghana
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  • A days work!<br />
Open pit, golddiggers, Ghana
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  • Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary<br />
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This monkey sanctuary has no fences, the monkeys are here because they want to be. There are two types the Black and White (Geoffroy's) Colobus, and smaller Campbell's Mona. The Colobus live high up in the trees eating just leaves while the Monas are at lower heights, eating a wide variety of food, including that brought by visitors. These smaller monkeys that travel in troupes of 15-50, come down to take food like bread and bananas from the hands of visitors. There are said to be around 500 Monas and 200 Colobus monkeys, that form 13 troupes within the sanctuary area.<br />
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There have been sightings of Green, Patas, Spot-Nosed and Diana monkeys, but probably not resident populations.<br />
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In this small area the monkeys are protected and treated as sacred, so they have become used to being fed and looked after by village people and interact with them. The guides make a noise which the Monas come in response to.<br />
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There is also a graveyard where monkeys and priestesses are buried together that visitors are shown.<br />
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Local folklore has it that a hunter, who once lived in Boabeng, came into contact with a spirit being called Daworo sometime around 1842. In the course of the relationship he went into the forest one day and saw five monkeys gathered around a pot covered with calico. The hunter was mesmerised and could not shoot them. When he consulted Daworo it told him to<br />
treat the monkeys as relatives. Dawuro asked the hunter to take the calico home and when he did, that the monkeys followed him home. With time the number of the monkeys increased and the fortunes of the hunter also increased. The hunter attributed his improved material condition to his association with the monkeys and this led to a symbiotic relationship that has persisted to this day. Any monkey that died was buried and funeral rites held for it just as human beings.
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