January 10: Fête du Vodoun

Fête du Vodoun was one of the holidays we were most excited about when we first found it online.  Every year in Benin, there is a festival celebrating Vodoun (more commonly known in the states as Voodoo).  So, when I started looking on Thursday for things we could do for it, I was excited to see that there was an international contingent that attended the festival and that it was a big deal for many of the people of Benin.

Then we started looking at what things the festival entailed.  There were Vodoun ritual demonstrations, dances, drinking, and feasting.  Fantastic, so we'll just mimic a couple Vodoun rituals, do some dancing like they do in Benin and call it a day.  Because there's no possible way a couple of well meaning white people could be horribly offensive by semi-adopting the cultural traditions of a nation previously known for its role in the slave trade.  Yeah, there's no way that could go badly.

We very quickly reconsidered as we began researching the Vodoun tradition in West Africa.  In particular, we noted our own ignorance almost immediately.  The first thing our holiday research uncovered - there are different branches of Voodoo with very different traditions and ceremonies.  Specifically, there are three main branches: Haitian Voodoo, Louisiana Voodoo, and West African Voodoo.  Within West African Voodoo, the version practiced in Benin is slightly different too.  We couldn't find out how it was different though because West African Voodoo is an intensely private religion.

Not Pictured: Real Voodoo

I would highly recommend reading this fantastic BBC article on West African Voodoo - we both found it incredibly enlightening and it completely sealed the decision NOT to attempt to reproduce aspects of the festival in our own home.  In America, in part because of the more boisterous nature of Louisiana Voodoo, it was easy to look at Voodoo as a caricature of a religion, instead of the very serious belief system that it really is.

I'm going to be completely, bluntly and embarrassingly honest here.  While the vast majority of the decision not to reproduce the festival at home came from respect for the religion and culture that we found in our research.......... we also do not have the resources or stomach to sacrifice a goat, which is the actual and real way the festival is usually kicked off.

SO MUCH CUTENESS.

We would highly recommend this video of the 2013 Fete du Vodoun if you're interested in seeing a small portion of the things that happen at the festival.  There are shots of the dancing, rituals and some text explanations of what is happening at various points.  It was very informative for us.

So, what, today was a total cop out?  We just read up on West African Voodoo and called it a holiday?  NOPE!  We decided to forego the dancing and ritual part of the celebration, but we feasted the hell out of this holiday.  The festival includes a feast, imbibing of delightful spirits and (interestingly enough) soda pop.  So... cool.  We did some research on the traditional foods of Benin and made it our first feast day of the year.

So - pausing for a moment for both some background and a little bit of an overshare.  One of the things that worried us about this particular project was that we are both wanting to get in better physical condition, but SO MANY HOLIDAYS include a feast.  So, you can see where that would be a problem.  Because of that, we set some rules for feasting to make it less gorge-yourself-y.  We don't make a massive quantity of food - but we indulge in as much creativity in the kitchen as possible when we prepare it.  We don't make super unhealthy or rich things (unless specifically called for).  We sit at the table, with all the food laid out before us and spend a lot of time eating and enjoying each other's company - so for feast days, we do everything a feast entails, except for the overeating.

For this feast day, we made chicken (one of the commonly eaten meats in Benin), sweet potatoes and corn (both very common foods), tortillas (those we bought - because corn meal based breads are common so we compromised a little), and lots of fruit.

And we made it look as feast-y as possible.

It was both delicious and exciting.  Whereas we're, you know, lazy asses who love take out - with the feasts, we got really into cooking everything.  It was super fun - because there was more purpose to it than just dinner.  That part was really lovely.  And please note the booze and pop at each of our seats - that was one base we made absolutely sure to hit.

The whole day was really delightful - we learned a lot, had a lot of fun cooking and discovered some new cuisine.  We also realized we're going to have to tread lightly some days and that's okay - we can still celebrate and experience a lot of the holiday without acting out parts of it ourselves.  There is so much joy in learning new things about a cultural or religious tradition that we hadn't experienced before - and we've replaced our ignorance about West African Voodoo with knowledge and respect for its traditions and practitioners.  The holiday was everything we'd hoped it would be.