Benin Adventure Wins Travel Contest

First time Travel Tales winner Richard Shepherd told a delightful story of squirrels, slaves and voodoo. Using his cinematic sense, Shepherd plunges the reader right into a frenzied thrum of Beninoise paying homage at Dankoli, the most powerful voodoo shrine in Benin, which is the birthplace of vodun. Benin is the only country to recognize vodun as an official religion.

His essay, “In the Birthplace of Voodo,” appears on page 3 in this week’s Travel Tales supplement.

Writer/filmmaker Shepherd made his first exploratory trip to Benin in December 2007, pursuing a story on the Squirrels, the country’s national soccer team that was striving to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. They never made the World Cup because after the preliminary competition in the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, the Fédération Béninoise de Football dissolved the team.

“As a Brit, they would take my passport away if I didn’t have an all-consuming interest in the sport of soccer,” Shepherd told the <i>Palisadian-Post</i>. “I had an interest in Africa, since my dad had worked in various countries on the continent, and so I thought I’ll look for a team that is a complete underdog, but may have a chance. I wouldn’t have to compete for the project.”

Over the course of two years, Shepherd traveled to Benin, which is located on the continent’s West Coast, four or five times to make his film, “Luduma! Benin’s Journey.”

In his debut as a director, Shepherd certainly learned more about the country, its history and religion than he could have foreseen.

“I had read Bruce Chatwin’s ‘The Viceroy of Ouidah,’ which offered an interesting aspect of the cruel and tragic slave trade between the English-speaking African countries along the whole coast and Brazil and Haiti.” Chatwin’s novel portrays the life of a fictional slave trader, who became powerful in Ouidah, the “Slave Coast of West Africa,” now Benin and Togo.

Shepherd said exchanges between Africa and Brazil and Haiti have continued to this day beyond the spread of voodoo, to include music, singling out Angélique Kidjo, the Beninoise singer/songwriter whose musical influences include Latin styles, Caribbean and Afropop.

Shepherd immigrated to the United States in 1997 to pursue a master’s degree in USC’s Writing Program. He currently heads the producing program in the USC Cinematic Arts’ Peter Stark Program, where his duties are varied, including mentoring students, admissions and alumni relations. There are 25 students in each year of the two-year program.

Energized by his work on “Luduma,” Shepherd is starting work on a story that takes place in California, much closer to home. He and his wife Niloofar have two young boys, two-year-old Blake and three-month-old Wesley. “It’s another sports story, this time about high school football,” he said.

The Shepherds moved to Pacific Palisades 3½ years ago, “specifically because of the schools,” Richard said. “Anybody thinking of having a family and able to afford a place like this couldn’t find a better area. The jewels are the schools.”

As the <i>Post’s </i>Travel Tales winner, Shepherd receives a free overnight stay at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica and a dinner for two at the hotel’s restaurant, FIG.