Although “inspired by true events,” “The Woman King” clearly isn’t tethered to them, using the underlying story of 19th-century female warriors in an African kingdom as the jumping-off point for a rousing
Israel’s military has ordered the evacuation of more neighborhoods in Rafah ahead of a potential major ground operation in the southern Gaza city, where over 1 million Palestinians are estimated to be displaced. Follow live updates.
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Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in April 2023.
CNN
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Slumped on his club, head buried in his arm, Rory McIlroy looked on the verge of tears.
The then-21-year-old had just watched his ball sink into the waters of Rae’s Creek at Augusta National and with it, his dream of winning The Masters, a dream that had looked so tantalizingly close mere hours earlier.
As a four-time major winner and one of the most decorated names in the sport’s history, few players would turn down the chance to swap places with McIlroy heading into Augusta this week.
Yet on Sunday afternoon of April 10, 2011, not a golfer in the world would have wished to be in the Northern Irishman’s shoes.
A fresh-faced, mop-headed McIlroy had touched down in Georgia for the first major of the season with a reputation as the leading light of the next generation of stars.
An excellent 2010 had marked his best season since turning pro three years earlier, highlighted by a first PGA Tour win at the Quail Hollow Championship and a crucial contribution to Team Europe’s triumph at the Ryder Cup.
Yet despite a pair of impressive top-three finishes at the Open and PGA Championship respectively, a disappointing missed cut at The Masters – his first at a major – served as ominous foreshadowing.
McIlroy shot 74 and 77 to fall four strokes short of the cut line at seven-over par, a performance that concerned him enough to take a brief sabbatical from competition.
But one year on in 2011, any lingering Masters demons looked to have been exorcised as McIlroy flew round the Augusta fairways.
Having opened with a bogey-free seven-under 65 – the first time he had ever shot in the 60s at the major – McIlroy pulled ahead from Spanish first round co-leader Alvaro Quirós with a second round 69.
It sent him into the weekend holding a two-shot cushion over Australia’s Jason Day, with Tiger Woods a further stroke behind and back in the hunt for a 15th major after a surging second round 66.
And yet the 21-year-old leader looked perfectly at ease with having a target on his back. Even after a tentative start to the third round, McIlroy rallied with three birdies across the closing six holes to stretch his lead to four strokes heading into Sunday.
The youngster was out on his own ahead of a bunched chasing pack comprising Day, Ángel Cabrera, K.J. Choi and Charl Schwartzel. After 54 holes, McIlroy had shot just three bogeys.
“It’s a great position to be in … I’m finally feeling comfortable on this golf course,” McIlroy told reporters.
“I’m not getting ahead of myself, I know how leads can dwindle away very quickly. I have to go out there, not take anything for granted and go out and play as hard as I’ve played the last three days. If I can do that, hopefully things will go my way.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow because four shots on this golf course isn’t that much.”
The truth can hurt, and McIlroy was about to prove his assessment of Augusta to be true in the most excruciating way imaginable.
His fourth bogey of the week arrived immediately. Having admitted to expecting some nerves at the first tee, McIlroy sparked a booming opening drive down the fairway, only to miss his putt from five feet.
Three consecutive pars steadied the ship, but Schwartzel had the wind in his sails. A blistering birdie, par, eagle start had seen him draw level at the summit after his third hole.
A subsequent bogey from the South African slowed his charge, as McIlroy clung onto a one-shot lead at the turn from Schwartzel, Cabrera, Choi, and a rampaging Woods, who shot five birdies and an eagle across the front nine to send Augusta into a frenzy.
Despite his dwindling advantage and the raucous Tiger-mania din ahead of him, McIlroy had responded well to another bogey at the 5th hole, draining a brilliant 20-foot putt at the 7th to restore his lead.
The fist pump that followed marked the high-water point of McIlroy’s round, as a sliding start accelerated into full-blown free-fall at the par-four 10th hole.
His tee shot went careening into a tree, ricocheting to settle between the white cabins that separate the main course from the adjacent par-three course. It offered viewers a glimpse at a part of Augusta rarely seen on broadcast, followed by pictures of McIlroy anxiously peering out from behind a tree to track his follow-up shot.
Though his initial escape was successful, yet another collision with a tree and a two-putt on the green saw a stunned McIlroy eventually tap in for a triple bogey. Having led the field one hole and seven shots earlier, he arrived at the 11th tee in seventh.
By the time his tee drive at the 13th plopped into the creek, all thoughts of who might be the recipient of the green jacket had long-since switched away from the anguished youngster. It had taken him seven putts to navigate the previous two greens, as a bogey and a double bogey dropped him to five-under – the score he had held after just 11 holes of the tournament.
Mercifully, the last five holes passed without major incident. A missed putt for birdie from five feet at the final hole summed up McIlroy’s day, though he was given a rousing reception as he left the green.
Mere minutes earlier, the same crowd had erupted as Schwartzel sunk his fourth consecutive birdie to seal his first major title. After starting the day four shots adrift of McIlroy, the South African finished 10 shots ahead of him, and two ahead of second-placed Australian duo Jason Day and Adam Scott.
McIlroy’s eight-over 80 marked the highest score of the round. Having headlined the leaderboard for most of the week, he finished tied-15th.
Tears would flow during a phone call with his parents the following morning, but at his press conference, McIlroy was upbeat.
“I’m very disappointed at the minute, and I’m sure I will be for the next few days, but I’ll get over it,” he said.
“I was leading this golf tournament with nine holes to go, and I just unraveled … It’s a Sunday at a major, what it can do.
“This is my first experience at it, and hopefully the next time I’m in this position I’ll be able to handle it a little better. I didn’t handle it particularly well today obviously, but it was a character-building day … I’ll come out stronger for it.”
Once again, McIlroy would be proven right.
Just eight weeks later in June, McIlroy rampaged to an eight-shot victory at the US Open. Records tumbled in his wake at Congressional, as he shot a tournament record 16-under 268 to become the youngest major winner since Tiger Woods at The Masters in 1997.
The historic victory kickstarted a golden era for McIlroy. After coasting to another eight-shot win at the PGA Championship in 2012, McIlroy became only the third golfer since 1934 to win three majors by the age of 25 with triumph at the 2014 Open Championship.
Before the year was out, he would add his fourth major title with another PGA Championship win.
And much of it was owed to that fateful afternoon at Augusta. In an interview with the BBC in 2015, McIlroy dubbed it “the most important day” of his career.
“If I had not had the whole unravelling, if I had just made a couple of bogeys coming down the stretch and lost by one, I would not have learned as much.
“Luckily, it did not take me long to get into a position like that again when I was leading a major and I was able to get over the line quite comfortably. It was a huge learning curve for me and I needed it, and thankfully I have been able to move on to bigger and better things.
“Looking back on what happened in 2011, it doesn’t seem as bad when you have four majors on your mantelpiece.”
McIlroy’s contentment came with a caveat: it would be “unthinkable” if he did not win The Masters in his career.
Yet as he prepares for his 15th appearance at Augusta National this week, a green jacket remains an elusive missing item from his wardrobe.
Despite seven top-10 finishes in his past 10 Masters outings, the trophy remains the only thing separating McIlroy from joining the ranks of golf immortals to have completed golf’s career grand slam of all four majors in the modern era: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods.
A runner-up finish to Scottie Scheffler last year marked McIlroy’s best finish at Augusta, yet arguably 2011 remains the closest he has ever been to victory. A slow start in 2022 meant McIlroy had begun Sunday’s deciding round 10 shots adrift of the American, who teed off for his final hole with a five-shot lead despite McIlroy’s brilliant 64 finish.
At 33 years old, time is still on his side. Though 2022 extended his major drought to eight years, it featured arguably his best golf since that golden season in 2014.
And as McIlroy knows better than most, things can change quickly at Augusta National.
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CNN
—
This is it.
The media defamation trial of the century is on the precipice of kicking off in Wilmington, Delaware, in just days.
Jury selection in Dominion Voting Systems’ monster $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit took place all of Thursday, with 300 potential jurors being summoned to court. Good progress was made and the presiding judge noted that there were “more than enough jurors” to start the trial as scheduled on Monday.
It is there, in Courtroom 7E, where the biggest figures in Murdoch Media, accompanied by a throng of high-powered lawyers, will attempt to mount their defense after repeatedly failing to convince a judge to toss the now-historic case.
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
It’s, frankly, extraordinary to write those words. When I watched Fox News broadcast election lies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, never did I expect the network to be held accountable in a meaningful way.
I’ve covered Fox News for a while now. I’ve watched thousands and thousands of hours of the right-wing channel’s programming. I’ve seen its hosts over the years undermine public health, make gross anti-immigrant remarks, peddle lies and propaganda and push deranged conspiracy theories that were once reserved for the right-wing’s furthest fringes.
The network has always seemed to find a way to sail through the controversy, even the most hellish storms it has faced. Sometimes it has emerged even stronger and more emboldened than before.
But this time is different. This time, the normal tricks the network turns to during times of crisis will not free it from trouble. This time, in a court of law, the network will need to put forward an honest, fact-driven argument.
Fox News is about to enter the true No Spin Zone, where deception is strictly prohibited. Where it is not in charge. And where its top executives like Rupert Murdoch and Suzanne Scott and hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity cannot simply ignore a request for comment and resort to, instead, attacking “the media” on-air.
In this setting, where lies cannot be casually told and truth cannot be distorted beyond reality to fit a dishonest narrative, it will be fascinating to see how the network fares. If the pre-trial hearings are any indicator, it won’t be pretty. The case hasn’t even started and the presiding judge has already lost his patience with Fox’s legal team and put them on notice.
Perhaps the winds will shift for Fox News when the judge gavels in the trial on Monday. But if they play out like the last few weeks of court have, Fox News is in for a brutal ride.
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CNN
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For years, Alli Nansolo grappled with whether to cut his son’s dreadlocks or not. Although it is not a legal requirement in Malawi, an unwritten policy enforced across government schools meant his son was being denied admission because of his hair.
Nansolo’s could not pay for private education for his son Ishmael from his modest dressmaking income and cutting his hair, an important symbol of their Rastafari religion, was inconceivable to him.
“Rastafari is a spiritual way of life. Keeping dreadlocks is like we are committing ourselves to a vow before the most high creator that we will serve him in our life without denying his laws or commandments,” Nansolo told CNN.
The 48-year-old makes between 200,000 to 300,000 Malawian Kwacha (around $194 to $291) monthly, while his wife Empress supplements the family’s income by selling secondhand clothes.
“I felt oppressed,” Nansolo said as he recalled the staff of a state-run secondary school in Zomba, southern Malawi. refusing to register Ishmael because of his hair.
Nansolo said he contacted an officer at the Ministry of Education who advised him to cut his son’s hair so that he could go to school.
Nansolo found himself caught up in the discriminatory policies of Malawian public schools and decided to take legal action against the Ministry of Education, along with a group of parents.
“I went to the Women Lawyers Association of Malawi to ask for help. The association accepted and we went to court in November 2017,” he said.
For three years, Ishmael, then 15, would remain out of school as the court case dragged on.
Then, in 2020, the Malawi High Court placed an interim order compelling public schools to enroll Ishmael and other Rastafari children until a final ruling was reached.
It was a legal victory that marked a significant milestone for the estimated 15,000 Rastafarian community in Malawi, according to Nansolo, who is also a community elder.
However, the temporary relief did not address the broader issue of discrimination that around 1,200 affected students face, their lawyer Chikondi Chijozi told CNN.
“We saw a number of Rastafari children being admitted into government schools but there were still reported cases of children of [the] Rastafari community being denied admission into government schools, and their parents were forced to take the court injunction to the school to compel them to admit them,” Chijozi said.
‘Free’ at last, but challenges remain
After a six-year legal challenge, the Malawian High Court delivered a landmark ruling on May 8.
The court ruled that it was unlawful to require learners, including Rastafarian kids, to cut their hair before they are enrolled into public schools.
The ruling came into immediate effect but the government has until June 30 to issue a nationwide statement mandating acceptance of all dreadlocked children into school.
Chijoki told CNN: “We got a judgment from the court which essentially upheld the rights of the Rastafari children and abolished the policy that requires all learners, including Rastafari children, to cut off their dreadlocks for them to be admitted into government schools.”
Nansolo expressed his community’s jubilation that their children could now finally continue their education.
“The judgment means that we are now free because most of us in [the] Rastafarian community don’t earn much, so we couldn’t manage to send our children to private schools,” Nansolo said.
“We are happy seeing that our children will now be going to public schools without being sent back or denied their right to education.”
CNN has contacted the education ministry for comment on the ruling.
Despite this victory, Malawi’s Rastafarian community still faces numerous challenges. Unemployment, poverty, and corporate discrimination persistently plague the community. Data on the community is hard to come by but the US State Department says around 5.6 percent of Malawi’s nearly 21 million population is formed of other religions including Hindus, Baha’is, Rastafarians, Jews, and Sikhs.
“Most of us rely on business to survive. Lack of jobs is a big challenge for the Rastafarian community because those in offices are reluctant to employ Rastas,” Nansolo said.
“The corporate world feels that being Rastafari is associated with criminality, but we are not like that.”
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CNN
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Here’s a look at the life of retired professional soccer player David Beckham.
Birth date: May 2, 1975
Birth place: London, England
Birth name: David Robert Joseph Beckham
Father: David Edward “Ted” Beckham, an appliance repairman
Mother: Sandra (West) Beckham, a hairdresser
Marriage: Victoria (Adams) Beckham (July 4, 1999-present)
Children: Harper, Cruz, Romeo and Brooklyn
Retired professional soccer (European football) player.
Married to Spice Girl Victoria (Adams) Beckham, nicknamed “Posh Spice.”
Midfielder known for his ability to “bend” his free kicks, curving the ball around or over defenders to score. The movie title “Bend it like Beckham” is a tribute to his kicking style.
Won league titles in four different countries while playing for Manchester United, Real Madrid, Los Angeles Galaxy and Paris Saint-Germain.
Played 115 times for England between 1996 and 2009.
Leadership Council Member of Malaria No More UK.
1991 – At age 16, leaves home to play in Manchester United’s training league.
April 2, 1995 – Premier League debut with Manchester United.
1996 – Gains recognition when he scores a goal from the halfway line, a kick of almost 60 yards.
September 1996 – Makes his international debut in the World Cup qualifier against Moldova. England wins 3-0.
1998 – Is named to the English national team for 1998 World Cup.
1998 – Beckham is given a red card and ejected from a second round World Cup match for kicking out at Argentina’s Diego Simeone, which contributed to England’s elimination.
1999 – Leads Manchester United to a treble, winning the English Premier League, FA Cup and European Champions League trophies.
November 15, 2000 – Is named captain of England’s national team.
April 2002 – Breaks a bone in his foot but later competes in the World Cup finals in June. England ultimately loses to Brazil in the quarterfinals.
May 2003 – Breaks his hand during a 2-1 win over South Africa in Durban.
June-July 2003 – Traded by Manchester United to Real Madrid. He signs a four-year contract with Real Madrid for $40 million.
November 27, 2003 – Receives an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from Queen Elizabeth II.
January 10, 2005 – Appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadorwith a focus on the program Sport for Development.
August 3, 2005 – Is awarded libel damages from the tabloid, the People, that accused him of making hate calls to a former nanny.
March 9, 2006 – Settles a libel case against the British tabloid, News of the World, over a 2004 headline that read, “Posh and Becks on the Rocks.”
January 2007 – Signs on with the Los Angeles Galaxy, an American Major League Soccer team.
July 21, 2007 – Plays his first game with the LA Galaxy. It is initially reported he will receive an estimated $250 million over the life of his five-year contract, but later revealed that the Galaxy will pay him $32.5 million over five years.
March 26, 2008 – Appears for the 100th time in an England uniform. During the England/France game Beckham receives a standing ovation from both sides as he leaves the field during a substitution.
January 2009 – Loaned by the LA Galaxy team to the AC Milan club. He initially agrees to a three-month stint with the Milan team but the loan is extended to six months.
December 2009 – Is loaned to AC Milan a second time until the end of the Italian season in May.
March 14, 2010 – Tears an Achilles tendon during an AC Milan match and is unable to play in the World Cup.
December 1, 2012 – Plays his final game with the LA Galaxy.
January 31, 2013 – Announces that he has signed with Paris Saint-Germain for five months and will donate the pay to a children’s charity in Paris.
May 16, 2013 – Announces that he will retire from professional soccer at the end of his season.
February 5, 2014 – Announces he will establish a Major League Soccer franchise in Miami.
February 9, 2015 – Launches 7: The David Beckham UNICEF Funda collaboration with UNICEF to help kids in danger zones around the world.
January 29, 2018 – MLS announces that Miami has been awarded the league’s 25th franchiseabout four years after Beckham first announced his intention to exercise his right to buy an MLS franchise in February 2014. The Beckham franchise will be backed by Cuban-American businessmen Jorge and Jose Mas, CEO of Sprint Corporation Marcelo Claure, entertainment producer Simon Fuller and the founder of Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank, Masayoshi Son.
September 5, 2018 – Beckham’s Miami expansion team announces it name, Miami International Soccer ClubInter Miami for short.
March 1, 2020 – Inter Miami plays its debut MLS game.
October 2, 2020 – A company co-founded by Beckham, Guild Esports, lists on the London Stock Exchange, becoming the first esports franchise to go public on the LSE.
March 20, 2022 – Beckham hands over control of his Instagram account to a doctor in Ukraine, in a bid to highlight the work of medical professionals caring for patients amid the Russian invasion of the country.
October 4, 2023 – Netflix’s four-part documentary series titled “Beckham” is released.
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Josh O’Connor on ‘Challengers’ exploring the beauty and pain of modern relationships
“Challengers” could also be called “co-dependancy, the movie,” says star Josh O’Connor.
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CNN
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Coco Gauff said she couldn’t “really get upset” with the climate protestors who caused a 45-minute delay in the middle of her US Open semifinal against Karolína Muchová on Thursday.
Gauff, who went on to win the match 6-4 7-5 and reach her second grand slam final, was leading at the start of the second set when the disruption took place.
In a statement, the US Open called it a “fan-related” incident on Arthur Ashe Stadium and said one attendee “affixed himself to the floor and due to the nature of this action, medical professionals, NYPD and security personnel were needed in order to resolve the issue and remove the fan from the stands.”
As the attendee – who was shouting about “environmental issues,” according to the ESPN broadcast – was removed, fans inside the stadium cheered.
Four protesters were involved, and three of them “were escorted out of the stadium without further incident,” according to a statement from the US Tennis Association.
“Throughout history, moments like this are definitely defining moments,” Gauff later told reporters. “I believe in climate change. I don’t really know exactly what they were protesting. I know it was about the environment. I 100% believe in that.
“I think there are things we can do better. I know the tournaments are doing things to do better for the environment. Would I prefer it not happening in my match? 100%, yeah. I’m not gonna sit here and lie. But it is what it is.”
Gauff and Muchová both left the court during the delay as the protestors were escorted out of the stadium.
Climate protestors also disrupted last year’s French Open and matches earlier this year at Wimbledon, where they sprinkled orange confetti and jigsaw puzzle pieces on the grass playing surface.
“I had a feeling it was going to happen this tournament,” said Gauff. “It happened in the French Open, it happened in Wimbledon. So, you know, following the trend, it was definitely going to happen here.
She added: “I wasn’t pissed at the protesters. I know the stadium was because it just interrupted entertainment. I always speak about preaching what you feel and what you believe in. It was done in a peaceful way, so I can’t get too mad at it.
“Obviously, I don’t want it to happen when I’m winning up 6-4 1-0 and I wanted the momentum to keep going. But hey, if that’s what they felt they needed to do to get their voices heard, I can’t really get upset at it.”
Gauff, the youngest woman to reach the US Open final since Serena Williams in 1999, will next face Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka as she bids to win her first grand slam title.
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CNN
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Rachel Décoste landed in West Africa’s Republic of Benin in August 2018, anticipating an important journey of self-discovery, but not predicting the extent to which the trip would change her life.
On her first day exploring Benin, Rachel asked a passerby for directions. Two weeks later, Rachel and the stranger were engaged. Within six months, they were married.
Rachel grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the daughter of Haitian parents who’d immigrated to Canada in the late 1960s. As an adult, Rachel relocated to Washington DC for college, later working for a bipartisan tech program associated with the United States Congress.
Rachel loved this job, she loved the diversity of Washington and loved working in public service. When her US visa was up for renewal, Rachel, then in her early 40s, figured she’d work remotely for a few months before returning to DC.
But rather than working from Canada, she hatched a plan to set up her desk further afield.
Earlier that year, Rachel had submitted her DNA to an online ancestry site. Rachel had long known she was the descendent of enslaved Africans, but until she got the results, she hadn’t known where her forebears had lived. Now, she had a list of countries where she had roots: Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana and Benin.
“DNA tests for a descendant of enslaved Africans has very deep significance for us,” Rachel tells CNN Travel. “Even though it’s not a precise science, when you get the map of where your ancestors came from, it’s an emotional journey.”
Rachel arrived in Benin towards the end of her five month remote working trip. She’d already visited the other countries on her list, and her African trip was shaping up to be an extraordinary journey of self-discovery. Nevertheless, Rachel didn’t know what to expect from Benin.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I could find Benin Republic on a map before this,” she says.
She booked a room in a bed and breakfast in the port city of Cotonou, planning to stay there for two weeks – working from the B&B and exploring the country in her spare time.
Following a couple of days settling in, Rachel ventured out for the first time. She planned to visit Ouidah, once one of the most active slave trading ports in Africa. She expected this would be a moving and thought-provoking experience.
“I’m sure that one of my ancestors passed by there, just because of my DNA test,” says Rachel.
Exiting her room, Rachel searched around for the manager of her bed and breakfast – she was looking for guidance on how best to travel to Ouidah.
“She’s nowhere to be found. And then I look for the security guard, and the security guard is on break.”
Rachel figured her next best bet was asking a passerby outside, so she opened the gates and glanced around.
The first person she spotted was a man about to get on a motorcycle, parked just outside.
Rachel greeted the stranger in French – as a French Canadian, French is her first language and it’s also the official language of Benin – and politely asked him how to get to Ouidah.
“You have to go to a certain intersection downtown, where all the bush taxis are,” explained the stranger. “You find the taxi going to your destination, you pay for your seat, and then you’ll get there.”
He started passing on directions to the intersection, but then, realizing they were a bit complicated, changed his tune.
“If you want. I can bring you there, it’s about 10 minutes away,” he suggested, gesturing to his bike.
It was about 9 a.m. Rachel was wary of trusting someone she didn’t know, but she decided she was unlikely to come to harm in broad daylight. She agreed.
“I take a chance, hop on the back of his motorcycle, no helmet,” she recalls.
The motorbike-riding stranger was Honoré Orogbo, a single father and business owner in his thirties who’d lived in Cotonou all his life and just happened to be passing by that morning.
When Rachel opened the bed and breakfast door, Honoré had just finished eating some breakfast he’d grabbed from a nearby street kiosk.
From the outside, Rachel’s accommodation wasn’t obviously a B&B. Honoré says he assumed she was the owner of the house. It was only when she asked for directions that Honoré realized Rachel was a visitor.
When Rachel and Honoré arrived at the taxi rank in Cotonou city center, they realized the one heading to Ouidah was pretty empty. Honoré explained it would be some time before it departed – the driver wouldn’t leave until the taxi was full.
Rachel was disheartened. She didn’t have time to wait around – she wanted to spend the whole day in Ouidah without feeling rushed, and to safely return to Cotonou before sundown.
Sensing her disappointment, Honoré came up with a suggestion. He had a friend in Ouidah he’d been hoping to visit – while he hadn’t been planning to go that day, he could, he had a day off.
“I’m like ‘Cool. I’ll pay for gas. Let’s go,’” recalls Rachel.
Just over an hour later, they arrived in Ouidah.
“He shows me how to get back – where the bush taxis are that I can get back that afternoon – and he shows me where the Slave Museum is. And I’m like, ‘Okay, good to go. Thanks, sir,’” recalls Rachel.
But before they were due to go their separate ways, Rachel asked Honoré if he wanted to get brunch. She wanted a bite to eat before she started her tour – and extending the invite to Honoré felt like the polite choice, he’d gone out of his way to help her, after all.
Honoré agreed, touched by the gesture. The two sat down to eat.
Rachel was aware that she was a woman traveling alone, and while Honoré had been nothing but polite and respectful, he was still a stranger, so she told him she was married.
She also didn’t share details of her job, or her life in the US. But she did explain how she was hoping to travel around Benin over the coming days. She asked Honoré if he had any friends or contacts who worked as chauffeurs or tour guides, and who might be interested in escorting her around over the next couple of days. She figured that might be easier than relying on taxis.
Honoré contacted a tour guide friend, but he was fully booked
“So I said, ‘Well, how about you? Can you be my escort? You helped me out this morning, can I just pay you to do that for three days?’” recalls Rachel.
“No, I’m not a I’m not a tour guide,” said Honoré. “I don’t know my country’s history by heart, and that’s not what I do.”
Rachel backtracked. She didn’t really need a tour guide – there would be experts at all the historical sites she planned to visit – she just needed a ride.
After a bit of back and forth, Honoré agreed to drive Rachel.
“When she insisted, I said ‘Why not?’” Honoré recalls today.
He wanted to help Rachel, Honoré says. She seemed like a “good person,” based on the way she’d approached him, the way she’d asked him questions and the way she’d invited him to brunch.
The two agreed Honoré would drive Rachel around for the next few days, starting that day in Ouidah, and Rachel would pay him for his services.
For the rest of the week, Honoré took Rachel to Benin’s most important sites.
Touring Benin was a powerful experience for Rachel. She says visiting the slave fort, inside Ouidah’s Museum of History, “is a pilgrimage that every afro-descendant should visit to remind us of the cruelty that our ancestors survived.”
“I didn’t know this before going there in person, but if Las Vegas was taking bets on the survival of enslaved Africans, the odds of my being alive today would have been slim to none,” says Rachel. “I am a walking, talking miracle. I am the ‘one percent.’ I owe it to those who didn’t make it to live my best life.”
While traveling around Benin, Rachel and Honoré talked. While Rachel still didn’t disclose many details about her personal circumstances, but she found herself opening up to Honoré about her thoughts and feelings. Honoré opened up in turn.
“First conversations were about learning about myself, my family, my situation, who I am, who I really am,” he says.
“We were very open and very candid, because we were strangers and we’ll never see each other again,” recalls Rachel.
She remembers being touched when Honoré explained that he didn’t have a new model of motorcycle because he put all his money towards his son’s education.
“He says ‘I’d rather have my kid have those opportunities than drive a fancy motorcycle.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, those are the values of my parents.’ I saw myself in those values,” says Rachel.
In one of their many conversations, Honoré mentioned his brother was a tailor. On their fourth day together, Honoré took Rachel to a market to help her buy fabric that his brother could make into a dress.
Rachel was overwhelmed by the choice – so much so that she asked Honoré to pick his favorites. He opted for two pieces of colorful, bright Ankara fabric. The third option was a white, gray, lace style, called lessi. Rachel loved it, and figured the resulting dress could be “appropriate for a baptism or some kind of special occasion.”
In one of their many conversations driving to Benin landmarks, Honoré mentioned to Rachel that he would usually travel to Lomé, the capital of the neighboring country of Togo, when he and his friends wanted a night out.
Rachel was intrigued.
“I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever come back here. This is a once in a lifetime trip where I’m getting paid while I’m working in a foreign country. I want to take advantage of every opportunity,” she remembers thinking.
“So I said, ‘Well, I have to go back to work this week. But next weekend, if you’re willing, I could get two hotel rooms and we could go to Togo together.”
The following weekend, Honoré took Rachel to a poetry slam night in Lomé, followed by a bar with live music. They stayed out all night.
“We’re dancing. It’s just pure joy,” says Rachel.
It was around this time that Rachel started to feel things shift. She felt comfortable around Honoré in a way she’d never felt before.
“We get along great. He laughs at my jokes,” she recalls thinking. “I had a bit of a meltdown a couple times – which I’m not proud of – where he didn’t freak out, because usually angry Black women scare people. But he took it all in his stride.”
Rachel even briefly met Honoré’s son.
She described the situation in an email to one of her close friends back in Ottawa.
“I think I think this person should be my husband. But am I crazy? I’ve known this guy for a week. Is that stupid? Tell me if I’m crazy,” she wrote.
Her friend wrote back: “Rachel, you are not a stupid person. You have good judgment. You are a good judge of character. If he’s the one, grab him.”
For Honoré, the trip to Togo was a turning point too.
“I think it’s that night that the lightning struck,” he says. “It was not lightning but it was a feeling of love. I think that’s where the feeling of love started.”
Rachel only had one more week in Benin before she was set to return to North America. She decided she had no time to waste.
“I told him that I really wasn’t married. And he was very happy to hear that. And we got together,” she says.
“I was kind of surprised,” says Honoré now. “I thought a woman like that would probably have a husband.”
“Next day I saw her differently,” he adds. “Not like a tourist but my soulmate. That’s how the relationship started. Step by step.”
For the remainder of Rachel’s time in Benin, Rachel and Honoré spent as much time together as they could.
On the evening of Rachel’s departure, Honoré recalls sitting with her on a beach. He was enjoying the moment, but also considering Rachel’s impending return to Canada, and what it meant for their burgeoning romance.
“We were facing the ocean. In my head, I was thinking ‘the past two weeks that I’ve spent with you, I have no regrets. We had a great time together. I was really happy to meet you.’”
The two talked about the future, and if and how they could make a long distance relationship work. They realized they were both equally committed, and so they decided to get engaged, and that Honoré would relocate to North America.
It was a big decision. They’d only known one another for a couple of weeks. And for Honoré, emigrating had never been a goal. It would be a big change for his son. But Honoré says he decided to “follow my instincts, to follow my heart.”
Meanwhile, Rachel quit her life in DC, and went back to Canada. Rachel says her friends were shocked, but supportive and happy when she told them about the whirlwind romance. Her parents were more skeptical, she says. But they came round when they met Honoré, and saw how in love he was with their daughter.
Rachel returned to Benin six months later, in January 2019, for her wedding to Honoré. She wore the dress made from the white lace fabric Honoré had picked for her in the market the summer before. It felt like fate.
Meanwhile, the couple planned a Canadian wedding celebration for the following year, navigating Honoré and his son’s immigration journey in the meantime.
“I took the time during the separation to start preparing myself mentally and psychologically for a big move,” recalls Honoré. “I had to think about the huge life change that was going to be ahead of me, the cultural differences. I know people who went to the Americas and it wasn’t necessarily easy.”
Honoré also prepared his child for the move.
“I explained to him that, ‘My son, we will go to a different country and we will start over together. With time, you will have new friends, you will have new cousins. You will have everything you wish for. everything that you have here you will have over there, in time.”
Honoré and his son arrived in Canada in the middle of winter.
“It was really really really cold,” he recalls. “I just didn’t understand how cold it could be outside. Because the cold of Africa is a whole different kettle of fish, than the cold in Canada.”
Still, once Honoré was kitted out with Canada-appropriate boots, coat and mittens, he started adapting to life in a new country.
Rachel and Honoré say they were over the moon to be together. The months apart waiting for Honoré’s visa approval had been long.
Honoré’s son settled in very quickly, and Rachel adapted to becoming his stepmother, a role she says she loves.
“I’m embracing the challenge and the joys of motherhood,” she says now.
“It’s not easy when you’ve been single since forever to adjust to having to share your life. But he’s a good kid.”
Today, Honoré and Rachel live in Ottawa. Rachel works as a diversity and inclusion expert, while Honoré is studying.
Rachel also recounted her experiences traveling Africa in 2018, including meeting Honoré, in an audiobook called “Year of Return: a Black Woman’s African Homecoming.”
Rachel and Honoré are also bringing up their son together, and run a business selling warm, Canada-winter-appropriate pajamas with African prints, called Woke Apparel.
The pandemic put a stop to their big Canadian wedding celebration plans, but they enjoyed a small ceremony in summer 2020.
Reflecting on their journey together, Honoré says their story makes him consider that “sometimes you shouldn’t force fate.”
He sees meeting Rachel as “destiny” but considers moving across the world to be with her as proof of the importance of trusting your gut.
“Just follow your heart,” he says. “Follow your heart with reckless abandon.”
As for Rachel, she says their love story is a reminder to her that “it’s never too late.”
“You’re not too old to just travel alone by yourself, in a country that you don’t know, where you don’t know anybody. You’re never too old to find love. You’re never too old to become a mother.
There is no expiration date on opportunity. And grab life by both hands. If I can do it. You can.”