The bar, the shifting bar: Sleeping menace, slumbering hippo. A cat beneath
the carpet, slinking eastwards, never in the same place twice. Now the waves
are breaking in deeper water, but paddle out and suddenly they're behind you;
turn to chase them and there's a monster rearing on your tail. The tide drops
and the swell builds, now lumpy and gentle, now peaking with enough force to
lift you off your board. The wind picks up, scattering the water's skin in a
confusion of spray and chop. The bright sun makes a beeline for the zenith,
penetrating the sea, now turquoise, the foam blown white and bright.
After three and a half years, we say goodbye to Benin, our home since 2006. We
have lived here long enough to forget what it's like to live anywhere else,
long enough to consider Cotonou's sandy streets, the mangy Basenjis barking at
us from under gates, the chaos and danger of the motorcycle street traffic, and
the stifling, swampy, incessant heat as part of normal, day-to-day life. We've
lived here long enough to call it home in the true sense of the word.
Inexplicably, the thought of departure engenders a melancholy for the very
things that caused me such irritation during the years we made Cotonou home.
Other things I will truly miss from the heart: among them, the beach, and a
hundred meters offshore, the bar break.
How many mornings I wake before dawn, drive out the route de peche with a
thermos of coffee, a bottle of water, some croissants, and the dogs to our
little paillote by the edge of the sea. There, just after sunrise, the
Atlantic swell tumbles over the bar and rumbles up onto the beach unaffected by
the southwest breeze that will arise later in the morning. The sand at water's
edge remains mostly untrodden except for the fishermen amassing down the beach
in preparation for the day's labor. And the world is full of waves.
Muted at high tide when the water poured over the bar undeterred, and thumping,
careening walls-of-death at low tide when the swell hurls itself over the bar
in haste, the conditions are never the same twice. When the barometer drops
and the wind fails, the ocean surface turns glassy and silken, especially
during the rains of July after an afternoon storm. And during the Harmattan
season when the wind veers out of the north, the swell forms delicate barrels
curling over the bar and advancing outwards towards the shore.
The bar, the shifting bar: Sleeping menace, slumbering hippo. A cat beneath
the carpet, slinking eastwards, never in the same place twice. Now the waves
are breaking in deeper water, but as soon as you paddle out they're behind you;
turn to chase them and there's a monster rearing on your tail. The tide drops
and the swell builds, now lumpy and gentle, now peaking with enough force to
lift you off your board. The wind picks up, scattering the water's skin in a
confusion of spray and chop. The bright sun makes a beeline for the zenith,
penetrating the sea, now turquoise, the foam blown white and bright.
On more than one morning, the water pouring over the bar is less than waist
deep, and it is easy work to swim out over the pool and catch waves from a
standstill. As the tide turns and the backsplash strengthens, the ride
shoreward leads you into a wall of water returning to sea, and you rest assured
you and your board will be launched airborne over the passing swell. Other
days the incoming and outgoing waves meet halfway to the bar in an explosion
that sizzles down the line.
Let it be said, the surf in Benin was anything but ideal, and blown out chop,
monster, killer shorebreak, and wave-cutting cross current were too often the
ordre du jour. But this was, in so many ways, the story of life in Benin: you
take what is there and learn to live with it, even enjoy it. And when you move
on, perhaps you'll even find you miss it.
So it is that I depart Benin, taking along my memories with me. But when I
think back to my time here, my thoughts will mostly be pas loin de la barre.
