A day in the life of a land rover

After finally deciding that I would see nothing in Benin if I waited for Giles to join me, I decided to venture out on my own with various groups of friends during my days off. Giles and I always seem to work opposite weekends, meaning that we rarely have days off together to go exploring. The few that we’ve had have been rainy ☹ ps. Rainy in Benin means torrential downpours.

So, today’s entry will take you on a little tour of Benin through the eyes of my camera and the camera of the Mercy Ship’s photographer. Many of Mercy Ship’s events/locations are restricted from random crew’s photography attempts for obvious reasons. However, there is almost always a crew photographer present to take photos on behalf of us. One camera vs. 100 is much less intrusive to the locals. Which, as it turns out, is not so bad after all. Crews are given access to the photos a few days or weeks later, and the majority of them are fantastic. This is a magical little folder, quite dangerous to a scrapbooker’s hard drive. As of today, our Africa Photos file is > 1100 pictures! So, if you see the Mercy ship’s copyright logo on some of our photos, you’ll understand why. I was still physically there in most cases, but couldn’t use my own camera.

Today I joined a group of crew to visit the Mercy Ships land based projects. I was particularly interested in seeing the agricultural project that Giles had told me about when we first got here. He saw it earlier while doing some work related errands. Mercy Ships has partnered with a local NGO called Bethesda, and is helping build an agricultural school. One of our crew, originally from the Congo, is training the future teachers of the school how to cultivate the land and grow productive crops using what they already have available to them.

Construction is hopefully going to be finished Mid-End of August, and classroom studies will begin.




(picture: beans & corn)

I had a lesson in farming today, and have included some pictures of the practice farms. There are 9 students (the future teachers of the school) presently working on this piece of land. They started from the beginning, learning how to clear the land without destroying the nutrients of the soil. The traditional method of clearing the land is a two-step process where the growth is cut down by machete, then burnt. This however kills the soil, and the crops don’t grow. We had a brief half hour lesson which included:


(picture: termite hill)
- how to make compost
- how to plant seeds where the bugs won’t kill them,
- how to plant corn and beans alternatively
- which plants when ground up and sprayed on the corn will ward of flying pests
- which trees, when planted around the perimeter of the bush will help deter animals and flies.
- Onion & garlic, when planted on the outskirts under a fence will ward of rats and other small animals.
- If ash is poured around the corn crop, it will deter snails.
- Coconut skins help retain water in small raised plots of land, and the fibers will keep the soil moist.
- Soil close to termite hills is the most fertile.




(picture: tomatoes & eggplant nursery)
It was a lesson in how all plants, and worms, when used properly, can help each other. Some of these students are already applying the principles they’ve learned in their own farms at home and teaching the community (which is the idea). Some of the community members were doubtful that there was anything valuable to be learned until they started to see the dramatic difference between their crops of corn and the ones now growing in the small demonstration gardens.




Students will stay at the school for 3 months, where they will learn in the classroom and on demonstration plots like the ones we saw today. Mercy Ships’ involvement with the school will end once the ship sails and Bethesda will continue its work there.

We also visited the dental center. This building was built a few years ago by a NGO for the department of health as a maternity hospital. The building has sat empty since it was completed due to a lack of finances to run it. The government has lent it to the ship for our dental and eye clinics. I don’t think there could have been a better set up for the dental clinic. True, I’ve been told the heat is a little overwhelming when it’s sunny… but I suppose you can’t have it all ?!


I think everyone should have a land rover experience in Africa. It’s something else, and if you didn’t have a headache at the start, you will likely have one at the end from all the jostling in and out of potholes. Being the rainy season, there were some huge bigger-than-puddles to be driven through. My pictures don’t even begin to capture it!