Dantokpa (Lock Woman)

Dantokpa is for the thick skinned. First, it is VERY big, with several different areas and lil alleys. It's easy to get lost.
I went with my stepmum and another aunty. I was mainly looking for waist beads (I have a thing for them)
We found them and my stepmum haggled for a tiny lil while, not much to argue about, the price was already low...
People walk pass you and bump into you, wandering sellers come right up to you and are genetically modified to not take NO for an answer, some people beg for money, after they see you buy something, and a lot of the women at their stalls are either lethargic or agressive. Most wear a top and an african cloth... They either look tired or agitated when they sell alone, but when you find two or three people selling, they are smiles all around and jokes... I guess the more the merrier huh? The guys pushing the "pousse-pousses" (2 wheeled carts) are dangerous, they can go over your foot without a second thought and their carts are usually heavily loaded.


We went somewhere else after, still in 'tokpa. It was in a building, which I recognised from my vague memories of Benin.
There was a woman selling african art in one of the many narrow alleys. I naturally stoped. For half an hour! Choosing what I wanted took a while, haggling took WAY more. My stepmom did it all, in "Fon" (her language). It would have cost us 11000 Francs CFA, it ended up costing 7000. Hats off to her!
I think every stall around us must have seen how long we spent there and guessed I was "foreign", I tried not to look incongruous, and blend in with a blasé air. Didn't work, they grabbed my arms as I walked past and didn't let go, they held me back against my will, trying to sell gold or cloth or even skin bleaching things! (the INSULT).
The guys were the scariest, they'd stand right in front and wouldn't move until my stepmum would intervene, they'd call me "LOCK WOMAN" and talk in what I guessed to be pidgin english... The alleys were too narrow to go around them politely, so I had to endure the same thing at every stall until we were far from the place we stoped. I guess people there, hadn't seen me buy half of the african art woman's stock.

I didn't like being touched so much, my arms felt violated, but we left the place alive and whole, it was fun actually, despite it all, it was very alive, and I admired the way people did business, living their lives, best they knew how... it was a nice invitation into ordinary beninese people's world.