I don't do voodoo, do you do?

I've fallen a bit behind on writing up the stories I've intended to share. This is mainly because I have been crazy busy at work, but also because normally when I have (what I think is) something interesting to tell you, the sensation is a bit like athletes foot: it itches and burns until you do something about it.  

Though I surely have no personal experience with such medical inflictions, I’m in solidarity with those who do, because if there is something I feel compelled to write about - even if the timing is extremely inconvenient - I can’t find relief until I’ve pounded it out on my keyboard, done a little editing (mostly to remove the stuff that might lead you to question my mental health status), pasted it in blogger, hit “post” and received at least one email from my mom telling me how funny I am. (Or ridiculous. Depends on the day).

I just haven’t had anything that needs scratching lately.

Oh I could still tell you stuff of course, it just probably wouldn't be all that interesting. (And I suspect my public has acquired a taste for a certain standard).

I blame my lack of itch inducing stories squarely on my experience at the voodoo market in Benin. I think I mentioned previously that Benin is the birthplace of voodoo, and I was pretty damn stoked to collect some interesting anecdotes, preferably about man parts (because everyone is a fan of a good man parts story). The voodoo market was supposed to provide some serious itching.

The problem I ran into was 2-fold:

1. I was enjoying myself too much to stop playing in the pool with Mika and The Package to get my ass out to visit a voodoo practitioner
2. I was enjoying myself too much to stop playing in the pool with Mika and The Package to go to the market each time we planned to, and on the day we actually went, it rained.

Generally I’m ok with rain. I’m not afraid of getting a little wet. I’m also ok with dead stuff. But we were in the largest market in West Africa, standing in the voodoo section, being stared down by rows and rows of the heads of dead animals – cows, dogs, monkeys, rats, horses – some with fur and faces, some just skulls. There were dried chameleons, skinned hedgehogs and leopards, bones of animals I couldn’t recognize and some fish and other small animals that were still alive (but surely wouldn’t be for much longer)… and then it started to rain, and all I could think was that the water was running over all these dead things that were ogling us and that we were thus frolicking around in puddles of their muck. It felt icky. Plus, this one guy made me touch his snake.

So we went home. (And had a look around for a new purse on the way out).

That’s all I got. Basically, instead of actually having a story that I’ve been burning to tell you, today’s story was about how I don’t actually have anything interesting to say, and I tricked you into thinking that this might be some great tale about an encounter with voodoo by putting the word in the title. Sorry about that.

Thank you for reading anyways.

(If you want to revisit the story about the witch doctor and pretend that it's completely new information, click here)

I’ll try to see if I can rustle up something interesting next time, but for now I will leave you with this - a photo that depicts why The Package got his name:

Just kidding. Did you think I’d really show you that photo?