Water Village in Benin

These photos were emailed to me by a member of the  Moot Court Team from my university taken when they went to Benin a couple weeks ago.  One of the days when there was a break in the Moot Court competition, the students were taken to a very unusual village, called the Venice of Africa.  The village is called Ganvie and it was founded in the 1700's.  The whole village is in water and people have to take boats to go anywhere.  

The reason this village was built in water was to escape the slave traders in the 1700's.  The people who built the village, the Tofinu people fled the slave traders from another tribe that happened to believe in a water demon so would not go near water.   

The two tribes get along fine now.

If you want to see more of this village, here's a link to a video on YouTube.  I don't know who took the video, but it's interesting.  Only the first couple minutes show the village.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12nfu_cotonou-benin_travel