Showing posts with label Benin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benin. Show all posts

November 30 - National Days in Yemen and Benin

 Posted on November 30, 2021


This is an update of my post published on November 30, 2010:



Above, Yemen's flag
Below, Benin's flag



1. On which two continents are Yemen and Benin located?

2. Which two European countries colonized Yemen and Benin?

3. What do Yemen and Benin celebrate on this date?



Answers: 

1. Yemen is on the Arabian Peninsula, in the “Near East” portion of Asia; Benin is on the southern side of the "bulge" of Africa.

Yemen in red

Benin's location

2. The U.K. colonized southern Yemen; France colonized Benin. 

3. Yemen celebrates its Nov. 30, 1967, independence from the U.K.; Benin celebrates the Nov. 30, 1975, renaming to Republic of Benin. The former name, Dahomey, was the name of just a portion of the nation, so a more neutral name was chose. Benin is the name of the body of water next to the country.


Yemeni kids, above.
The kids below live in Benin.



By the way:

Yemen's main national holiday is on May 22, which is Unity Day, celebrating the 1990 joining of North and South Yemen. 

Benin's main national holiday is August 1, celebrating its independence from France in 1960.


These are a few of my favorite things...
...about Yemen and Benin.

  • Yemen is the only nation on the Arabian peninsula to have a pure republic form of government. The other nations have kings (or sultans) of some sort.

  • More than 200 islands, located in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, are part of Yemen. Most of the islands are volcanic in origin.


    Socotra Island, part of Yemen, has...
    ...weird trees!


  • I read that almost everybody in Yemen wears ceremonial daggers or swords on a daily basis. I can't help wondering if “almost everybody” really means “almost every adult man”? 

  • Shibam, in Yemen, is called the oldest skyscraper city of the world and also “the Manhattan of the desert.” Its many-storied buildings are made of mud bricks. With some buildings 100 feet tall, these are the tallest mud buildings in the world.




  • A memorial about the slave trade has been erected on the beach of Benin. Called The Door of No Return, it shows that slavery was a one-way trip into horror for most people.



  • The cathedral in Cotonou, Benin, may be one of the most unusually colored churches in the world.


  • Get a glimpse here of some of the animals you can see at Benin's Pendjari National Park.

  • Grand Popo is one of the most picturesque beaches of Benin.




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January 16 – Martyrs' Day in Benin

Posted on January 16, 2020

There doesn't seem to much data on Martyrs' Day in the small African nation of Benin, but like all other Martyrs' Days, it surely commemorates people who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Where or when I don't know, but while I was looking, I discovered a couple of interesting facts about Benin:

Capital capers...

Porto-Novo
The capital is Porto-Novo, and it's largest city is Cotonou. Having a capital city that is not the largest city is not all that unusual - for example, in the United States the capital (Washington, D. C.) isn't even in the top ten of cities, population-wise, ringing in at #20. (You might not be all that surprised to hear that New York City is #1, and L.A. is #2.)

Cotonou
But I discovered that Cotonou is not only the largest city in Benin, but it is also the seat of the nation's government.



I mean, what does "capital city" mean if it doesn't mean "seat of government"?

So I looked up "capital" in the dictionary, and the definition I found was "the most important city or town of a nation or region, usually the seat of its government and administrative center."

Porto-Novo, it turns out, WAS the most important city in Benin during the slave-trade times, from the 1500s to the 1800s. Benin has a place called the Slave Route, which was commonly the last bit of Africa an enslaved person walked on before boarding a ship for elsewhere (most commonly somewhere in the New World). 

The Point of No Return Monument, above
and below, stands at the end of the Slave Route.


In 1999, Benin President Mathieu Kérékou (who was mostly a dictator who did a lot of harm to his nation) did a good thing: he issued a national apology for the role that Africans had played in the Atlantic slave trade. 

Snake stuff


Snakes are revered in Benin - especially one kind of snake called the royal python.













There is even a Temple of Pythons. At 130 square feet in size, it's the home to 50 to 60 royal pythons! They aren't fed, but instead are let out of the temple once a week to hunt chickens and mice. 


When a royal python enters a house, people seem happy to host it. Most people allow royal pythons to eat and sleep at their house for a day or so before they return them to the Temple.


Benin and the Kingdom of Benin

I've been talking about the small, modern nation of Benin, which used to be called Dahomey. Before there was colonization by European peoples, though, there was a Kingdom of Benin - located in what is now Nigeria, NOT in what is now Benin!


Benin-the-nation got its name from a body of water called the Bight of Benin, which is the rounded scallop of water located along the shores of Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. (The scallop located along the shores of Nigeria and Cameroon is called the Bight of Bonny.) I like to think of these "bights" (which means a curve in a coastline or river) as "bites" into the continent. 

Because of the historical Kingdom of Benin, there are "Benin" things that are only associated with Nigeria, NOT Benin: Benin City and the Benin Bronzes are two examples.

Venice of Africa

There are several African towns built on stilts in lakes or other still-water places - and I have seen at least two of them referred to as "the Venice of Africa." One of these is Ganvié, Benin:











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