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Bowers spends week in West Africa

Staff reporter

Greg Bowers of Marion traveled more than 6,000 miles from home and discovered it is a small world after all.

The bank vice president spent a week in Cotonou, Benin, West Africa, on a mission trip with Gideons International to distribute Bibles.

While sitting in a hotel lobby one morning, Bowers struck up a conversation with a group of soldiers of the Belgian Army who were training in Cotonou.

"I was visiting with a female soldier who told me her daughter was a foreign exchange student at Towanda," Bowers said. The daughter was living with a family in El Dorado.

Bowers was amazed that halfway around the world, he made a Kansas connection.

One of five Americans to make the trip to the African continent, Bowers assisted in distributing scriptures to schools and universities. Another purpose of the trip was to observe life in Cotonou as part of the Gideon International group.

The country and its people

Just to get to his destination, Bowers said going to West Africa was faster than returning. He left Wichita Mid-Continent Airport at noon Feb. 8 and landed in Cotonou airport at midnight the next day, which was 26-27 hours later because of the seven-hour time difference.

His flight returned to the Wichita airport before midnight on Feb. 17.

Benin has a population of 8.5 million people with Cotonou's population being 800,000.

The city is 30 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

Bowers said there was a wide disparity within the population.

"You have the wealthy, diplomats, and officials living in the affluent areas and then a half mile away you have a more simple lifestyle," he said.

Motorcycles are the most popular mode of transportation.

"It wasn't uncommon to see people riding motorcycles with firewood on their backs, seeing kids, naked as jaybirds, playing outside, and an advertisement for cell phones," Bowers said.

Cell phone usage was widespread.

The city with nearly one million people did not have any traffic lights. Very few traveled in automobiles.

"I was amazed at the amount of traffic and the speed of movement," Bowers said. "It was like Old Settlers' Day every day."

French is the language that was spoken in Cotonou — a language in which Bowers is not fluent.

Within his group of Americans, there was one man from Switzerland, and then 25-30 local Gideon members who traveled with the group.

It was the dry season, Bowers said, and further away from the city in the more rural areas, the terrain reminded him of Kansas.

"There were scrub trees everywhere," he said. The temperature during the days was in the 90s and few places had air conditioning, including some of the rental cars the group used.

Bowers noticed water wells and saw people carrying wind lasses or well cranks used to draw water.

Common crops were maize, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, mangoes, and cabbages.

There were not very many cattle in the pastures but there were a lot of goats, Bowers said.

The group toured one experimental farm where large rats were raised for meat.

Bowers said he did not see any African wildlife.

The schools

The rural schools that Bowers visited were constructed of concrete blocks with no glass windows but holes in the blocks for ventilation and tin roofs. Most of the floors were concrete but some were dirt. Some of the urban schools had electricity and the head master had use of a fan.

The interior of the schools were very basic with a chalkboard and benches.

"There were no maps, globes, chemistry labs, or libraries in the schools," Bowers said. "Some students had notebooks and textbooks but most didn't."

He also observed that most of the schools did not have running water.

"There was a tin cup with a cooler," Bowers said, for students to use as drinking water.

The students wore uniforms and were clean and groomed.

"They seemed to be happy, or at least pleasant," Bowers said.

The high schools are called colleges. At one of the private schools, Bowers made another Kansas connection when he met a teacher who had attended Wichita State University. The teacher told Bowers that a former student currently was attending WSU.

At one of the colleges, Bowers saw students walking back and forth. He wondered what they were doing and was told the students were helping to build a new classroom.

"They were hauling dirt on their heads," Bowers said in amazement.

Schools dismissed students by early afternoon because of the heat.

Accommodations not like home

The tourists stayed at a commercial hotel in Cotonou, the same accommodations for diplomats and dignitaries. The cost per night for a hotel room was $150, Bowers said, which was a special deal, and high-priced by African standards.

There was a restaurant in the hotel which Bowers said was "safe."

"The food was terribly expensive," Bowers said, which he compared with an upper-scale hotel restaurant in the U.S.

Local foods were prepared European-style. The menus consisted primarily of fresh fish, fruit, and pork. Bowers said he was not interested in the pork because he saw the hogs.

Other restaurants were available and were reasonably priced but Bowers wasn't sure about the sanitary conditions of those places.

"I watched how the food was prepared," Bowers said. He only ate outside of the hotel one time.

"I had the fish and thought, 'Oh, boy'," he said.

Most of the restaurants were in people's homes. In one rural area, the group ate a meal. One of the missionaries ordered a hamburger.

"He took one bite and said he wasn't sure what kind of meat it was," Bowers said.

He also learned not to ask for ice in water or drinks because he saw the local water. Bowers primarily drank soft drinks from bottles.

The hotel did provide an adequate laundry service for the travelers' clothing.

"We sent the clothes out to be washed and they'd come back clean and pressed," Bowers said.

People and progress

Local laborers were paid 50 cents per day.

"Much was done by hand. Workers loaded gravel trucks with shovels and mixed cement by hand," Bowers said.

There was a lot of construction activity in the cities, Bowers said, most looked like homes.

"It was done slowly," he said, "and it was hard to determine if they were being built or torn down."

Bowers said the nicer homes were in compounds with high, concrete walls surrounding the properties.

When the group of white men visited the local schools, particularly the elementary level, the children often stared at them.

"I don't think they've seen very many white men," Bowers said.

Since automobiles were not common, how did people get around in the cities or travel from home to a job?

"They use motorcycles as taxis," Bowers said.

Taxi drivers wore yellow jackets which distinguished them from individuals riding motorcycles.

"Women would lift their skirts sufficiently to sit on the back of the motorcycle with their purses in front of them and off they'd go," Bowers said.

Women wore traditional clothing — brightly colored long skirts and tops.

The cost for the taxis were $1.25 for about 20 miles, Bowers said, which was quite expensive.

Bowers said he wasn't sure how the price of fuel calculated to gallons and dollars and cents but did know that bottled water was more expensive than fuel.

Christianity was the faith of choice in the southern part of the country, Bowers said, with Muslim in the northern part, and voodoo in the rural areas.

There were many organized churches in simple buildings with a sign that simply stated the religion preference.

The average life expectancy in Cotonou is 50 years of age.

"I didn't notice very many elderly in the city," Bowers said, "lots of babies and kids."

In the rural areas he noticed more of an aging population.

Bowers would go again

After seven days in West Africa, the first-time missionary and out-of-country traveler said he would do it again but might be better prepared.

"It would help to know the native language," he said.

After numerous airport security checkpoints, including the most rigorous when leaving West Africa, he is thankful to be back home and grateful for the unique experience.

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