Australia Day celebrations (in a Beninoise police station)

Ozzie ozzie ozzie. Oi oi oi. Happy belated ‘Straya Day everyone!

Whilst we had plans to have a thong (flip-flop for the Brits) throwing contest amongst other fun things, somehow I ended up at a police station in Cotonou, Benin.

Here I was on Australia Day in a Beninoise police station sitting on a bench just opposite the ‘Garde-a-vues’ (cells where they keep hooligans, drunks and bums for up to 48 hours – after that you go straight to jail). Occasionally there would be an outburst – ranting and raving emanating from the cells. One guy was clearly getting punched – the sound of flesh on flesh – and he was evidently traumatised and wanted to get the hell outta there. We were told the cells are ‘sale, sale, sale’ (dirty, very dirty) and the bars only began at head height so little light filtered into them.

One guy (not sure if it was the one who was beaten) was taken from the cells in handcuffs, dumped into a paddywagon and taken off to prison, leaving behind two wailing women with babies tied around their backs.

We waited for a while to see the Commissaire, and when he arrived, the owner of our campsite went in to start negotiating.

Let me go back and explain a little. I was with Nev, our driver. Yesterday he was pulled up by the police who told him he did something wrong and confiscated his driver’s licence and carte grise.

The owner of our campsite came with us to the police station the next day to help negotiate for us, and I came to help translate. It ended up being a bit of confusion as trucks are only allowed to drive on some roads at certain times of the day. The police thought we were a truck, but actually we are classified as a safari bus. Nonetheless, we still had to negotiate on price as they held the documents overnight and there was a fee associated with that.

We did have a fun ride back to our campsite though – each of us jumping on the back of a motorbike, speeding along 11kms of dirt/sand road. Our drivers had to use their feet at times to push through the sand and I held on for dear life as we bumped over it. Clearly the driver was used to it as he was humming gently the entire way.

The day ended much more pleasantly, however, with Shaun and Karen’s Aussie flag proudly on display (which had been used for a nuddy run along the beach whilst I was at the police station) and drinking sangria around a fire at our bush camp. Inquisitive locals came up to our truck and brought us some agouti (grasscutter – a rat that is eaten here) which some of our group have tried before and quite enjoyed.

Jo and I slept on the truck that night in our mozzie net tent and gazed up at the sky, looking out for shooting stars.

Not your typical Australia Day but certainly one to remember!