- Originally, voodoo is from Meccah
- Welcome to my country, Togo
???? Let's go
After my trip to the country of Benin, I wanted to visit the country of Togo
But the problem was that the land borders were closed
However, I have found a way by chance
To get an "emergency visit" permit from Togo's embassy
To be able to pass the borders
I took the permit successfully!
And I'm now going towards
The borders, to the country
#58
I took the permit
And went from the embassy towards Downtown
And found a taxi going to Togo's capital and hopped on
I arrived to the borders
With my magical permit paper, everything went pretty good
And I went on a trip the next day in Lome, the capital of Togo
Antoine and I are now on the way
- Hi
Hello
- Hello!
How are you?
Antoine doesn't speak English
And he will be driving me around for today
So I hope we understand each other
The first thing I came to do in the morning
Merci
Came to eat something called Fufu
I ordered Fufu and fish
Fufu is a vegetable called yam
It looks like potatoes
That gets mashed and mashed
Until it becomes dough
And it gets served as a side dish with other foods
You also eat it by hand
It tastes delicious
Everything tastes good, the fish sauce is good
Tomato sauce
👍
Nice
♫ Music ♫ | Video call from Los Angeles by Trevor Kowalski
I arrived at the fetish market in Lome city
In Togo
And as I arrived there, I started finding weird things
I found everyone gathered
Around a barrel
Containing a crocodile
And they're trying to secure it for some reason
Turns out someone brought this crocodile to sell it
He wants to sell it for the priest of this region
Because they can use it for healing purposes
For spiritual diseases
The word "fetish", in English, is linked to weird sexual desires
But they have a different meaning to it here
The fetish market
Is a market where you can buy dead animals from
And specific spices
And all the items that a priest might tell you to buy
To heal you from a certain spiritual disease
- You know, around 70 years ago in Africa
- Our grandfathers didn't go to hospitals
- When you get a sickness
- You have to go and see the voodoo priest
- After consultation
- He will prescribe an animals list to get
- And then you go and buy them, after buying them you have to go to the voodoo priest
- So that he can make all of it in powder (form)
- To make the ceremonies
- If its a spiritual sickness
- The only person that can help you get healed is the voodoo priest
The amount of items used on voodoo healing
Is many, out of them is this thing here
A necklace made from the snake's backbone
As you can see, they made a necklace out of it
And they wear it to heal rheumatism
♫ Music ♫ | Scary stairsteps by Stationary sign
- In Africa, our grandfathers were animists
- Before the appearance of voodoo in Africa
- Therefore, voodoo is not from Africa
- It was imported to Africa
- The origin of voodoo is from Meccah (Before Islam)
Meccah?
- Yes
Really?
- Really
- Many people think that voodoo is bad
- But, normally, voodoo is not bad
- It has two faces just like other religions
- The good and the bad
- The good face is using it for protection and saving
- For healing and many things
- But the bad side
- Is what we call, the evil spirits
- This is sorcery
Are these things expensive?
- Yes, its expensive sometimes
- Because this fetish market, from our point of view
- It is considered a traditional pharmacy
How much is the eagle for?
- Yeah, you can find it for like 25 thousands francs ($40-50)
- I want to show you the difference between voodoo and sorcery
- You see these ones, people are calling these statues "Voodoo dolls"
- But normally, in our traditions, voodoo is not used to do bad
- Its to do good
- Its possible for the voodoo priest
- By using this, to heal someone far in another country
- Even if you are in Europe or Spain
- He will represent you with the statue
- So he will make the ceremonies in the name of the person on the statue
- So you get the healing
- On the same way, some people do
- Bad side
- When you sleep, your spirit comes out of you
- He will call your spirit and the spirit will be inside the statue
- For him to do bad
This market is actually very interesting
My goal of visiting Togo and Benin
That I get to know their traditions here
And the voodoo religion most specifically
So now I have learned a lot here
- We use this one to know the present, past, and future
- This one is used for protection
- We just cut small pieces of leopard, hyena, lion, and different kinds of animal furs
- And we turn it to powder
- You put it in a glass, add alcohol, and drink it
- Its like you get the power of the animal, in you
- We have here, this statue, of the god of "reanion"
- He's got on leg
- That means, we have many kinds of religions
- But we believe in one God
Mark is the guy who taught us all the aspects of voodoo religion
Thank you for all the information
- Thank you for you 😊
♫ Music ♫
[rapping]
I came to a place called Grand Marché
Which means "the great market"
The big market
The market is very big and it contains everything
It is the most important market in the city
And in the center of the market, there is a church
We can see the remains of the colonial era
That was present here
It is a big church that they kept
In the middle of the old market
[rapping]
Uncle Antoine is telling me that we don't need to spend a lot of time in the market
Because it might be dangerous
I usually come to these markets alone
And never has anything happened
But when you ask a local guy, he tells you not to go
And this is what just happened
Because I'm with him and he's very scared, I just decided to leave then
And the capital city, Lome
Is on the beach
So we are now on the beach
This beach itself
Goes long towards Benin
And if you walk for 10 minutes in this direction, you will arrive to Ghana's borders
This city itself is between 2 countries
Togo and Ghana
Because its a weekday, there are only few people here
But tomorrow is a weekend so it will be full here
Everyone comes and they get their fishes with them to grill out here
We went back to the house, the Airbnb
After our trip for the day
I had not time to discover the city completely
The driver, Antoine, got me very concerned
And we saw a bunch of people with some chaos on the beach
And he kept scaring me about having robbers all around
And such things, so I felt uncomfortable in the city
We went back home at the end of the day
I have taken an amazing Airbnb house
And the day is over
This trip was yesterday
I will now go and take a taxi towards Benin for the second time
Towards Cotonou
Because my flight is from there to the next country
May God increase your travels
See you in the upcoming videos
Peace
Subtitles by Omar Younes
Hello
I am Ibn Hattuta
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Subtitles by Omar Younes