Ago? Amé.

Listening to History in West Africa

Benin • Togo • Ghana | December 2025

Content warning: This post contains descriptions of slavery, sexual violence, and human suffering connected to the transatlantic slave trade. The history described here is disturbing.

If you could travel anywhere in the world to truly understand history - not just read about it - where would you go?

For me, in December, it was West Africa.

I often tell my students that education shouldn’t only be information; it should be transformation. On that front, West Africa delivered - fully and unapologetically.

Benin: Arrival, Attention, and Ancestry

We arrived in Cotonou, Benin, as the sun sank into the Atlantic. Dinner was on the beach - grilled fish, warm air, and the sound of waves that have carried both life and loss for centuries.

That evening, our guide Isaac taught us a simple call and response:

“Ago?” - Are you listening?“Amé.” - I am listening. You have my full attention.

The words come from the Twi/Akan language tradition most closely associated with Ghana, and are often used across West Africa to gather a group. They set the tone for the next two and a half weeks. From day one, West Africa had my full attention.

The Black River and a Fon Village

The next morning, we traveled the Black River in a pirogue - a long wooden canoe sitting low in the water. The riverbanks were dense with plants used as medicine. The area is protected not only for practical reasons, but spiritual ones. In many West African traditions rooted in animism and ancestor veneration, the natural world is alive with presence. Ancestors are believed to dwell in the water. Fishing with nets is considered disrespectful; a pole is acceptable. That distinction stayed with me. Nature here is not a resource to be extracted - it’s a relationship to be honored.

Our pirogue carried us to Adjarra, a rural Fon village. The Fon - historically linked to the Kingdom of Dahomey - are known for agricultural life, rich oral tradition, and Vodun as a foundational spiritual system. We were welcomed with drumming and dancing. One child wore a Santa Claus mask. In sociology, we talk about cultural leveling - the gradual global spread of Western symbols, clothing, and norms. That Santa mask was the first of many reminders that globalization is never abstract. It shows up in unexpected, human ways.

Twins, Names, and What It Means to Be Ready for Life

That day we were honored to witness a twin naming ceremony. In Fon culture, twins are revered. Babies are not named immediately; for eight days - a sacred number associated with completeness - they remain inside. On the eighth day, they are “outdoored,” introduced to the community.

Water is thrown onto the roof and onto the baby. Silent prayers are spoken. Drops of water and then gin or honey touch the baby’s tongue - sweetness and struggle, joy and hardship. Life requires readiness for both.

Names are tied to the day of the week you’re born. I was born on a Thursday, so I would be Yawa Stacie.

Power, Kingship, and the Architecture of Inequality

In Porto-Novo, Benin’s capital, we visited the palace of King Toffa I, now a museum. Toffa is remembered for cooperation with the French and for promoting Western education and religious tolerance. The palace includes ceremonial courtyards, masks, instruments, and stories that are both fascinating and deeply unsettling.

It was said that kings had hundreds of wives. Women stepped over a symbolic chain to approach him. If a woman bled while doing so - menstrual blood - it could be interpreted as infidelity, punishable by death. When kings died, wives were sometimes killed to follow them into the afterlife.

The king never “ate” - he “admired his plate.” He never “died” - he “joined the ancestors.”

Outside stood the Tree of Justice, where punishments were handed down. Some were sentenced to servitude. Others were sold into slavery.

That night, we walked through Dantokpa Market - one of the largest in West Africa - and paused at the red-and-white Notre Dame Cathedral in Cotonou. Beauty and brutality coexisting, again.

Resistance on Stilts and Guardians of the Night

Day three brought us to Ganvié - often called the “Venice of Africa.” The Tofinu people built homes on stilts on Lake Nokoué to escape capture by the Dahomey Kingdom, whose beliefs forbade enslaving people who lived on water. What began as resistance became a thriving community. People have lived there for centuries. The population is growing.

Resistance doesn’t always look like revolt. Sometimes it looks like architecture.

That evening in Ouidah - the Vodun capital of Benin - we attended a Zangbeto ceremony. Zangbeto are guardians of the night, protectors of community order. They dance, spin, and confront wrongdoing. At the end, to prove there is no human inside the towering figure, the community lifted it from the ground. No one was there. Instead, something smaller appeared- Legba, a chaotic intermediary spirit who opens pathways between worlds.

We left with gifts: a cigarette, matches, and a kola nut. Kola nuts, native to West Africa, were once used in early Coca-Cola flavoring. A reminder that global connections often run deeper than we realize.

The Route of the Slaves: Walking What Cannot Be Forgotten

The walk along the Ouidah Route of the Slaves was one of the heaviest days of my life.

This four-kilometer path traces the final steps enslaved people took before being forced onto ships. Along the way: auction plazas, salt ponds used to heal wounds so captives would fetch higher prices, mass graves, ritual sites meant to sever memory. And finally, the Door of No Return—where people were loaded into small boats and taken to slave ships. Our guide described how men were chained face down, women face up, to facilitate sexual assault.

There are no words that soften that reality. Nor should there be.

That evening, we attended a Vodun ceremony - one rooted not in harm, but in healing, balance, and protection. Survival is also a tradition.

Togo and Ghana: Women, Mountains, and Living Culture

In Togo, we learned that women are often believed to be heard by God before men. Women are revered. That reverence shows up everywhere - from Vodun practices to the legacy of the Nana-Benz, elite businesswomen who dominated the wax print trade and helped fund independence movements. One fabric design read: “If you go out, I go out.” Equality woven into cotton.

In Ghana’s Volta Region, we hiked with local schoolchildren up Mt. Afadja, swam beneath Wli Waterfalls, and wandered through villages where life unfolded around us - not for us.

We encountered fantasy coffins shaped like airplanes, sewing machines, fish - because many believe you continue your work in the afterlife. Funerals here are communal, expressive, and unapologetically alive.

The Castles: Beauty Built on Horror

At Elmina Castle and Cape Coast Castle, the weight of the transatlantic slave trade became unbearable. The dungeons were dark, airless, and suffocating. The floors - cobblestone beneath centuries of compacted human waste and suffering. Above them, airy governor’s quarters. Churches on the grounds. Ocean breezes. Luxury stacked directly on cruelty.

Standing there, I understood in my body what no lecture could convey: oppression was not accidental. It was designed.

Why I Will Go Back

West Africa is not easy. It shouldn’t be. But it is essential.

History here is heavy, but the people are not broken. They are hopeful, resilient, joyful, and deeply alive. West Africa teaches that you can hold trauma and still create beauty. You can remember honestly and still move forward. I met good people everywhere. And I left reminded, again, that the world is far more generous than we are often taught to believe.

On our first night, Isaac asked: “Ago?” West Africa asks for your attention. If you’re willing to offer it, it will teach you in ways no classroom ever could. Amé.

(I’m considering returning with a group in late 2027 or early 2028. Email me at freemans@bethelu.edu for more info)