Saturday Travel Log: Our final day in Benin

by Wally Langfellow

With an 11pm flight tonight this gives us plenty of time to get more done today. The rainy season is here in West Africa and it arrived in full force this morning…bookending our first and final days here. It was coming down in buckets as we ate breakfast this morning, which seemingly puts our 11am practice with the older boys in jeopardy. Fernando rolls in from a coaches clinic where over 20 Beninese coaches are working with the Japanese all day. Fernando thinks we might have to cancel; but there are some patches of clearing so we decide to head across town to Don Bosco. The other caveat is that we have to check out of our rooms but the folks at the Maizon Rouge hotel generously offer to stow our luggage and give us a room to clean up and even shower if we’d like when we return.

With the rain delays we end up getting to Don Bosco at about 11:30am where Fidele and about 8 or 9 others are waiting under a shelter for us. Fernando drops us off and heads back to the coaches clinic. We spend about the first half hour practicing in a light rain, but nothing debilitating and it actually works in our favor. At least it’s not the scorching hot sun that we played in on Friday. The players rake and prepare the field and set up the portable backstop…the same backstop we dragged onto the plane with us back in 2018. That’s pretty good longevity all things considered.

We practice for about 2 hours, wrapping up as Fernando arrives at 1:45pm. Fidele’s group of 3 players wins our hitting game and they laugh as I give them the leftover 3 suckers I had from the younger kids the day before.

As we say our goodbyes to the players, most of whom were part of the groups that came to Minnesota in 2016 and 2018, Fernando tells us that the mayor of Toffo wants to meet with us. Toffo is a town a little over an hour from Cotonou that has a major development going on and they’re interested in having us put a baseball field there. Interestingly the mayor’s house is in Cocotomey which is much closer than Toffo (maybe this is her 2nd house). Anyway we’ll take the meeting since it’s close. The meeting will also include Armon’s brother Kipre and his friend Donald (both from Kansas City, Mo).

Cocotomey is relatively poor and is about 15 minutes down the road from the Don Bosco field. The mayor’s house is located in a poor neighborhood, although her home is gated and behind protective walls.  Part of the Toffo development is to include hotels, restaurants and other athletic fields. They have offered to give us the property (about  7 acres).  It’s a good meeting and they want and hope to have shovels in the ground by 2026 when her term ends as mayor.  If nothing else it gives us another opportunity down the road.

Here’s where it gets interesting. We leave the meeting and head to our car only to find that the car won’t start. A bad battery cable is the culprit and after about a half hour of trying to get it going, Kipre shows up with his vehicle and jumper cables and comes to the rescue. Can’t imagine that we stood out or anything in that neighborhood trying to get the car started. Kipre becomes AAA of Benin (African Automobile Association) and saves the day. .

Fernando then drops us off at the Spoon restaurant near the airport and our hotel, while he finishes up a final meeting with the coaches and the Japanese. After a couple of hours Gary and I end up walking back to the hotel as Fernando didn’t return. Turns out that he got stranded again with that bad cable and has to get the car fixed, so we don’t see him again til about 7:30.

At the Cotonou airport prior to our departure to the U.S. with (left to right) Tomas, Moukie, Fidele and Ulrich

When he returns, he makes it a family affair with Jocelyn and Shannon in tow. We relax at the hotel until it’s time to head to the airport. Of course when we get to the airport Fidele, Tomas, Joel and Ulrich are there waiting for us to say one last goodbye. Only passengers can come into the airport, and these guys come from a VERY long ways away just to spend an extra 10 minutes with us and take a final few pictures. Not sure how they got there or how they’ll get home, but these are great kids…who deserve better things, including a real baseball field. I feel good that we’re gonna make that happen.