Abidjan--Random Thought

So today, I think I solved some of CI's problems. With the dismantlement of the Ivoirian army and the rebel forces, there are many ex-combatants that will need jobs. The rehabilitation and reinsertion commission has done a great job of that. BUT, I have figured out a great civil service job that will help of CI. Garbage men and the construction of dumpsters. That's right. You heard it here first. I want to have the ex-combatants construct dumpsters for CI and then serve as garbage men.

Why? First of all, there is trash and litter everywhere. I mean everywhere. When you walk down the side of the road, you have to dodge all kinds of weird trash. In the abject poverty parts of town, there are hillsides that are covered in trash. It's like Trash Mountain or open landfills. Horrifying. Even our hotel manager, who I think of as being fairly enlightened, threw trash out the window as we were driving down the street. I get anxious when I "litter" fruit peels and I only do so after I rationalize to myself that it's actually better for the Earth if I do that. *sigh* I'm such an American.

Second, I was appalled when I walked past several mounds of festering organs this afternoon. Yep, right next to the stall where they were grilling a quarter of a goat (that the vendor was hoping to sell), there was a mound of boxes and random internal organs. I thought to myself, "Hmm. This walk would be almost pleasant if I didn't have to see a mound of intestines right in front of me. What would solve this problem? Dumpsters!" However, simply having dumpsters wouldn't solve the problem, as seen at the market yesterday. You need people to empty the dumpsters. Who's available to empty dumpsters? Ex-combatants! It's the perfect marriage.

All over the U.S. we have people doing community service cleaning up the sides of roads. CI could very easily employ their ex-combatants. Plus, by working to make their country beautiful, that helps build a sense of pride in their country. Crim kids know that building pride in your community is an important way to stop crime before it starts. Plus, many of the people we have talked to have mentioned the sanitation and potable water situation as a serious concern. By employing ex-combatants to be garbage men you kill two birds with one stone--employ the ex-combatants and get a more sanitary society. I think it's genius, but who knows what will happen?

Abidjan--The Farewell Tour

It's hard to believe that I only have three more days in Abidjan. I can't say that I'm not glad to go home. It will nice to be able to relax on my couch with my husband and my dog for a little while and be the master of my schedule again. Having to rely on other people to set up meetings and cart me around has gotten old. I'll also be glad to get home so I can process all that has happened in these two and a half weeks.

One portion of this adventure that I absolutely need to process is the market experience yesterday. We decided to go to Adjame market, which is the busiest market in Abidjan, to find some more fabrics for Amy. Amy has become obsessed with African fabrics. I don't blame her; they're beautiful (Side note, our African outfits turned out awesome). In any case, we were going to be Big Girls and go to the market by ourselves, but the manager of the hotel was nice enough to come with us. This ended up being both a good and bad decision.

The market pretty much defies description, but I will do my best. To set the scene for the market, picture a long boulevard with small access streets running parallel with the main boulevard. Add in 100s of stalls/vendors/guys on blankets set up on each side of the main road. All of the merchants hawk their wares as you walk by and try to get into your face about buying their product over the person next door. Next, add 1000s of people bustling about. I am not exaggerating when I say 1000s. This is the largest market in town and it sells everything. Everything from fabric and clothes, to food, to electronics, to steroids. That's right. Steroids. Women walk about carrying purchases or wares on their heads, children run around after their mothers, men push huge wooden cards stacked high with all sorts of things--buckets, bags of stuff, yams, whatever. Next, I want you to envision the worst rotting thing you have ever smelled. Now think of it sitting outside in 90 degree heat. That's pretty much the smell of the dumpsters at the market. I am glad that I did not eat lunch before heading out.

For the most part, the market was perfectly lovely and slightly overwhelming at first. The colors of all the fabrics were beautiful and it was an interesting social study to watch all of the people at the market. At one store, we learned that one of the fabric lines was called the "Obama" because it had come out just around the time Obama was elected. This was all fine and dandy. However, at one point our manager took us down a small side street. When I say small, I mean it was more of a stone alleyway than a street. Because of all the vendors, we had to turn sideways to walk down it and avoid some sort of creepy liquid running toward a drain (I am so glad that I have no idea what that liquid was). What met us at the other end of the side street could only be described as chaos. There were people of every walk of life. It was the first time I had seen a woman in a burqa in CI as the Muslims here tend to not be very strict in their beliefs. Men cried out at us to buy fabric or hats from their stalls. Young teenagers held out pictures. I'm not totally sure what the pictures were for nor am I certain that I want to know what they were for. Women stopped at stalls and walked past you holding their baskets above their heads to avoid them from spilling into the streets.

There were people everywhere and barely enough room to walk. I'm not big on crowds to begin with, so this was a nightmare. It was a warren of food vendors, clothes vendors, and random odds and ends vendors. Without our hotel manager we would not have survived. However, without our hotel manager, we would have stayed on the main drag. I can remember only a handful of times when I was more alert than I was in that market. At one point, Amy got separated from us because she got stuck behind a guy pushing an ancient wooden cart. It was bad news. I almost went into an autistic style meltdown with all of the sensory overload. Not good at all. It was a panicked moment for me watching Amy try to fight her way toward us. Our hotel manager seemed fine and like this was no big deal. But, it was like fighting a rip current to get through the crowd of people. I've never gone shopping on Black Friday, but I am going to assume that that's what it's like. Only this was an every day occurrence. If I were ever to live in CI, I would have to be rich enough to send someone out to do my shopping for me. I like to think of myself as pretty adaptable, but I don't think I would ever be able to adapt to that. I've been Western for too long and I don't know if I could change my habits enough to survive.

When got out of the crazy labyrinth, we told the hotel manager that we needed to go back to the hotel for some lunch. I have never been so happy to see a cab (especially with all of the terrible luck we've had with cabs) in my life. Back at the hotel,we rested and ate for a little bit before we got our dresses from the dress maker. Thankfully, the dresses turned out AWESOME so there was at least one good thing came out of yesterday. Oh yes, and our team returned. I was so happy to see Murtala and our philosopher monk friend. Granted, the philosopher monk is neither a philosopher nor a monk, but he just looks like one. Anyway, off to work for me on a Sunday!

Abidjan--National Lampoons Tries to do a Conflict Assessment

The past few days have been on par with a Salvador Dali painting—surreal. I'm going to preface this entry with the knowledge that a blog cannot express how BIZARRE the last 48 hours were. When I return stateside, I'll do my best to relay the information. As another word of caution, this is an extremely long post. I didn't post yesterday because I knew that there would be so much more to add today.

In any case, we went from one extreme to the other. Our first meeting yesterday was at the home of the electoral counsel. It was a palace--armed guards, beautiful winding staircases, tables with lapis lazuli inlays--the works. I literally almost ran into the British Ambassador, who had a look on his face like "Dit quoi?!" "Say what?! Who are these two little white girls?" At this meeting, we sat with the entire senior leadership of the electoral counsel who are some of the most important people in the country. I was extremely nervous. To make matters worse, they switched up the system of questioning such that I read all of the questions at once instead of a back and forth kind of thing. I got totally flustered and made a semi-fool of myself. No harm, though. He and his team took a picture with us in the end. They were extremely nice and their meeting room was delightfully well air conditioned. Anything that is well air conditioned is a.o.k. in our books.

Now, the surrealism started after our meeting with the electoral counsel. We went to the other end of the richesse spectrum to the local college dorms. Yuck. I'll post some pictures later. Earlier in the week we had mentioned that we wanted to meet with some students and some of the questions that we came up with pertained to a militant student organization. So, our nice Ivoirian hosts asked if we wanted to meet with that organization. We thought, sure? Why not? We'll be relatively safe. The team worked on it and set up a meeting with the second in command of this organization for yesterday.

When we arrived on campus and got out of our taxi, everyone was either giving us the stink eye (especially the women) or the "Dit quoi?!" face. Mostly, the students are very suspect of foreigners and DESPISE the French, so seeing us was kind of a shock. In any case, we stood under a tree for awhile until a street urchin like child came up and spoke with one of our Ivoirian counterparts to tell him that the secretary general was ready. We had no idea what to expect. As we were walking up toward the dorm, I saw a group of about 50 students sitting outside and I immediately thought that we were going to have to go to some sort of counsel and be grilled by these people. It was going to be like Blood Diamond right there on the college campus. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the urchin took us up to a random dorm room where a group of about 6 extremely buff 22-30 year-old guys were standing. One of them stepped forward and introduced himself and led us into his room.

Now, this dorm was somewhat like an American dorm. For the U of I-ers, kind of like a room in the Six Pack. But, envision a room in the Six Pack that had not seen a good cleaning or a single repair since 1960. Then picture it with unreliable electricity and no computers and you have the dorms in this building. Our host had his own room, but the tiny rooms sometimes hold 5 people. No good. Needless to say, there wasn't a ton of room in this place. So, poor Amy had to sit on this guy's bed. It was creepy to the max. One thing I will say is that this leader was not creepy in the least. He was tall, buff, handsome and charming--almost disarmingly so. If I didn't know that he had ransacked several offices in the previous year, I would have thought he was your average passionate student leader. Who knows what else he had done? Amy said that as she brushed arms with this guy and looked at the Valentine that he had posted on his cork board that she couldn't help but wonder where this guy's small cache of weapons was. I was astounded by the number of cell phones that he had. There were at least 6 in plain view.

During the whole preliminary interview, I tried to maintain eye contact and both be as unthreatening as possible (not a difficult task for me) and as confident as possible (slightly more challenging when you're facing a thug). For the most part, the pre-interview went well except for a slight bobble when the SG asked our partners if they were Ivoirians. They quickly responded that they were because this organization has been known for their violence against non-Ivoirians. At the end of the meeting, we set up a time to have the formal interview for the next day (today). This would give the SG enough time to call his superior and ensure that our questions were ok to answer and prepare somewhat official answers.

After the meeting, the SG was kind enough to walk us out and get a cab. Let me tell you, our reception on campus TOTALLY changed. There were no more stink eyes. There were some "dit quoi" faces, but they looked at us in a totally different light. Amy compared it to walking with the star quarterback. When we got to the street to flag down a cab, several young men came up and bowed and saluted the SG. That creeped me out and I kept thinking, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." As we were leaving, we couldn't believe that we would have to come back the next day.

Last night, I had not a very good night's sleep. Partially, because the power went out and the air conditioner stopped running, but partially because I was nervous about our meeting today. I didn't know who I would be meeting with and what they might have done. In any case, we were supposed to meet with the SG and his group at 11. However, 11 came and went with no word on when the meeting would happen. This was a power play on their end to show how they could manipulate us and push us around. Noon came and we were getting hungry so we ordered food. About 10 minutes after we ordered food, the call came that it was time to meet with them. We wanted to make sure that we ate so we did our own "power play" back and were a little bit tardy.

This time, we knew where we were going and called up before heading to the dorm room. I still cannot believe that we were meeting in a dorm room. Today, when we got up there the SG had a random girl sprawled across his bed, which ended up being a good thing so that no one had to sit on the bed with him. The unprofessionalism continued with them keeping the TV on (on mute) while the interview was going on. It was totally bizarre. My interviewing skills had improved by this point, so I was able to make connections and light conversation instead of simply reading my prepared questions. It was all-in-all very bizarre, though. We got our information and left in one piece.

You would think that the surrealism would end after meeting with the militant student organization. But, you would be wrong. After we had finished our second interview of the day, one of the directors of our partner organization informed us that the ruling party in the country had asked us to a night "out on the town" with dinner and dancing. This was problematic for many reasons, not least of which was that we had (and continue to have) nothing that would be appropriate to wear to this event. Other problematic aspects were that this could be a potentially dangerous outing and could jeopardize our mission of writing a fair and impartial report of the conflict here. When the director told us this, Amy and I went into a little bit of a panic. I didn't want to be rude to the party but I thought that this was a terrible idea. Amy was trying to figure WWUSAIDD, What Would USAID Do? There were a frantic 20 minutes when we couldn't get a hold of our chief of party. Amy finally called our Gambian colleague to get his take on the situation. He agreed with us that there should be no reason why we would go to this soiree. Therefore, I politely called our director and told him that we were very grateful for the offer, but would have to decline. It was crazy.

You might wonder why we started panicking at this offer. This offer was not a sincere, "Let me show you a nice time in Abidjan." The politicians basically wanted to show us the riches of Abidjan and how wonderful the work is that they are doing. Yeah right. It was crazy time.They were were going to use us as a propaganda machine again and try to influence us to say nice things about all the progress CI has made under their regime in our report. You used us as pawns once, ruling party, but not again!

Instead, Amy and I went back to our hotel, ate some pasta and drank some Flags (which have thankfully been replenished). As an indicator of how crazy our day was, when we told one of our interviewees that we met with the militant group, he gave the "dit quoi" face and looked at us with shock. This was from a man with a PhD in statistics. This whole day was like National Lampoons tries to do a Conflict Assessment. Thankfully, this time next week I will be sitting on my couch watching TV and eating all the American food I can stomach. I'm one tired puppy and am ready for some boneless, skinless chicken.

Abidjan--Are you afraid of the dark?

Originally, I had planned to take the time to talk about our 3 favorite waiters here at the hotel. But, events of yesterday changed my opinion. As background for the adventure, here is some information on the daylight situation. I mentioned previously that CI is very close to the equator (approximately the same distance as between Chicago and St. Louis). Therefore, the sun rises at about 6:20 right now and sets at 6:27--very equal days and nights. Because the sun sets so early, there is a lot of activity after dark. It's almost surprising how much activity there is. When we drove from the airport to our hotel, I was shocked by how many people were out (it was about 8:30). Back at home, there are very few people outside past 7:00, 7:30. Seeing the streets teeming with people was very different for me. To get to the point, it's very difficult to do all that you need to do during the daylight hours and the culture is very much in the outdoors.

Anyway, after a day in the hotel, Amy and I decided to eat at the Vietnamese restaurant that we had eaten at late last week. Unfortunately, the restaurant does not open until 7:00, which then required that Amy and I go out after dark. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, and it wasn't a problem getting there because we took a taxi (taxis are usually worth every penny). However, on the way home, we ran into the SHADIEST cab driver of all time. I will preface the story with the ending--Amy and I are ok and nothing happened. But, after the scary cab ride, we reaffirmed and are planning to stick to the rule that we do not go out of the hotel after dark unaccompanied.

They say that hubris is one of the great faults of mankind. Amy and I suffered from hubris yesterday. After several successful outings, we thought that the trip to La Nuit de Saigon would not be a problem. It wasn't until the car ride home that hubris came back to bite us. When we left the restaurant at around 8:30, a seemingly nice gentleman flagged us a cab. However, this cabdriver was somewhat shadier than the first cabdriver we encountered at the airport. When Creepy McCreeperson pulled over to pick us up, he pulled onto the sidewalk. This should have been our first sign. Then, I told him where we were going and told him the price we wanted for the trip. In CI, you tell the cabbie your price, and they can either agree to take you or negotiate. It's kind of nice. Anyway, I told him that we would pay 1,000 Francs (approximately $2) to take us back to our hotel. Our hotel, mind you, was approximately 5 minutes away from the hotel and 1,000 Francs was a very reasonable price. The cabbie then asked me, "8,000 francs?" I was appalled and told him, "No, it's only 5 minutes away. 1,000 francs." To which he tried to play dumb and replied, "5,000 francs?" as if I had said 5,000 francs as opposed to 5 minutes, trying to trip me up. So, we walked away and he screamed, "1,500 francs" and we yelled, "No, 1,000" and he finally agreed.

When we got into the cab, the cabbie started chatting with us. This was very different. I don't think I would have been so creeped out had he not been a younger man (I am super agist here) and had the shady bargaining not taken place. But, he kept asking about who we were, where we were from, how cabs worked in the United States (he asked about how many Euros cab rides cos in the US--awkward), about the water we were bringing back with us, etc. I was definitely trying to be on the top of my French game in order to make sure we were going to be ok and that I could demand he stop somewhere public if it came down to it.

After several long minutes, we got to our hotel. However, instead of dropping us off at the front, like cabbies normally do, he pulled into the side parking lot to drop us off. That was incredibly scary because there aren't that many lights back there. Then, he wouldn't take money from my left hand and demanded that I give him the money from my right hand. I'm not sure if that's a cultural thing or not, but it was definitely a way to assert his power over us. Thankfully, the armed security guard was coming up at this point to talk to him and save us. As we were getting out, he asked for one of our bottles of water and when I denied him, he said, "You're not nice." As a response, I slammed the car door.

When we got back upstairs, we were somewhat shaken and decided to have a beer on the terrace. That is when we decided that lunch will be the only meal that we eat out from here on unless we are accompanied by a local or a man. No good. However, all's well that ends well. No more adventures in the dark for us.

Abidjan--Hope and Thanksgiving

Today I took a little time to think about some of the things I take for granted in the United States. Through all of our interviews, many of the parts of my life that I never think about are brought into harsh relief against what the Ivoirians deal with on a daily basis. For example, I never think about having a national identity. National identity is a huge issue here. There are ethnic identities (Malinke, Baoule, etc.) but having an actual nationality is a very different thing. As background, in the 1990s, the Ivoirian president made a big push about establishing what it meant to be an "Ivoirian" citizen. In his defense, one of the main ways to nation build after colonization is to create a national identity around which many groups within the country can rally. However, in a country with very little infrastructure, establishing parentage and history without birth certificates is incredibly difficult. As a result, the last national identity cards were issued in 1998. That means there is an entire generation of children who do not have identity cards. They are essentially without a country. Citizens of the world, yes. But, they are citizens of nowhere tangible. I normally don't think about the fact that I am an American, but when I think about the possibility of having no country, I am really glad to have my passport.

Usually, I never take for granted my right to vote. Never. I am HUGE on voting. However, here in CI, if I were Ivoirian, I could not vote. The concept of "ivoirite" and the right to vote are the most contentious issues here in CI. Ivoirite, I explained above, but the right to vote is another deal entirely. For each election, the Electoral Commission kept a list of all the people in the country who were eligible to vote--if you were over 18 and an Ivoirian citizen, you could vote. However, as I mentioned above, it is extremely hard to prove that you are Ivoirian. So, for elections, they used the electoral register from 2000. Unfortunately, not a lot of people voted in 2000. You then have a double whammy. If you didn't vote in 2000, you have to get on the electoral register by proving your Ivoirian. If you don't have a national identity card, then you must show your birth certificate. Birth certificates=very hard to come by. Therefore, there is an entire generation who are not allowed to vote. As an American, that is crazy. My entire age bracket and anyone younger than me would be disenfranchised. For anyone who studies the social sciences (especially criminology), you know what a major problem it is to have the 18-30 age bracket unable to legally express their political views. That is why you get groups like les Jeunes Patriotes, a super scary fascist student group that supports the government. No good.

Other thoughts on what I take for granted:

1. Fresh drinking water FROM THE TAP.
2. Free, compulsory education up through high school.
3. Electricity that is effective and on 95% of the time (we've had three black-outs over the past 2 days) that isn't run by the government (another story for another time).
   
4. Internet. Granted, we have good internet here, but it's not like home.
5. Vegetables.
6. Access to effective health care. While, I still envy Europe's health care system, I don't have to be seriously concerned about getting AIDS when I go to the doctor. Well, I guess if I went to a hospital in D.C. that would still be a problem where the AIDS rate is higher than West Africa (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/14/AR2009031402176.html?hpid=topnews) . Way to go, D.C.!
7. Good roads. Well, with all of the winter weather in MD, the roads in Abidjan might be better. But, as a whole the streets are way better at home.
   

However, there are some aspects of CI that I will miss when I leave. I will mostly miss the hospitality. We are little mascots here at the hotel. They do just about everything for us and seem very happy to help out. We will be giving them huge tips and Amy and I plan to write GLOWING reviews of our hotel on Trip Advisor. Seriously. They are incredible. My next blog entry will describe our three favorite waiters who have come to miss us at meals where we decide to eat out. It's kind of nice.

Additionally, I will also miss the fruit. Bananas, mangoes and papayas have been forever ruined for me. I never knew a banana could taste so good. Back in the States, I only eat the bananas that are still a little green. The bananas here are another story entirely. They almost have a pineapple flavor. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

The speed of life is so nice. If you're late, no one terribly cares. If you want to take a "pause cafe," that's fine. It's a genuine joie de vivre. Yesterday, Amy and I were discussing how bitter and sad the Ivoirians could be based on all the terrible things they could face. But, no. They are a generally happy people. I know I would be bitter and sad if I had to face all that they face on a daily basis. It's really a testament to the resiliency of a people. Many of the people we have interviewed have stated how tired they are of the political situation, but they still have hope. I suppose that's the lesson of the day. Regardless of how terrible your situation is, it's important to still have hope.

Abidjan--This little piggy went to market

Thanks for all of your emails and comments! I'm glad that you're at least telling me that you like my blog, even if you don't. It keeps me going.

Enough of the sappy stuff. Today is Saturday, and thus a day of rest for us busy bunnies in CI. Amy and I have been doing some shopping and went on some adventures by ourselves. One adventure was a great success. The other, a moderate failure. Our shopping adventure success occurred when we went out this morning to get some typical African fabric and get some outfits made. The other night when we went to the Vietnamese restaurant, we walked by a bunch of fabric stores and made mental notes to go back and get fabric to have clothes made. So, on our day off, we took the 20 minute walk up the hill to look at some of the beautiful designs. After much deliberation, I chose a cobalt blue fabric with a large yellow and white diamond in the center with some intricate vines and birds in the center. The base of the edges of the fabric are white and yellow stripes with some geometric designs. It's a Ghanaian fabric, which was moderately disappointing, but I love it. The woman would not really bargain with us. She took one look and decided that we could pay a higher price than normal. Which is why we will be going with our new friends to the main market.
After we had gotten our fabric (Amy couldn't choose, so she got one Ivorian and one Ghanaian), we went back to the hotel to see if they could direct us to the tailor. Luckily, the manager (who is one of my favorite people here) speaks English very well and was able to take us to a tailor who she knows quite well. When we got there, we looked through books of designs that would work in the US but would also fit our fabric. I chose an A-line skirt and a short sleeved, V-neck shirt. I'm interested to see how it turns out. We're going on Thursday for our fitting. They probably ripped us off because we look like we have money, but the whole shabang from fabric to finished product will probably cost $45. Not too bad to have an outfit perfectly tailored to you.

At the market

This afternoon, we went to Cocody Market (the largest market in town) to look for some souvenirs. Let me tell you, that was intense. Intense. Envision a small alley way lined with tons of shops all carrying more or less the same things. The proprietors hang out of their shops waving sandals, tee shirts, purses, wooden masks and traditional cloths and your face. They go a little crazier when they see that not only are you a European, you're an English speaking European, so clearly VERY rich. Luckily, we again had our hotel manager with us to help negotiate and make sure that we weren't ripped off. They were throwing prices around like mad. I think I got pretty good deals, but who knows. We weren't getting things for 50 cents, which was what I hoped would happen, but we definitely did some damage and helped the Ivorian economy in an extremely short period of time. When I say a short period of time, I mean a short period of time. We left the hotel at around 3:15. Got to the market at around 3:30 and had bought all of our stuff and gotten back to the hotel by 4:45. Mayhem.

Abidjan--"I would totally take Africa over a burrito"

The quote in the post title is attributed to Chad after I gchatted that I was jealous about his getting Chipotle.

As such, I suppose I should take the time to describe the cuisine here in the ever lovely Cote d'Ivoire. First, African portions are about on par with American portions--I never leave the table hungry. Each morning, the hotel gives us (Nes)cafe au lait, three chunks of baguette with butter, an omelet, lemon/ginger juice or bissap, and a banana or half of a papaya/mango/pineapple. See the picture for a typical breakfast. I practically go into a food coma after breakfast. The rest of the food is very much centered on fish, chicken, fruit, and eggs. There are so many chickens roaming about and TONS of eggs at the little food booths.

Second, and most importantly, CI is a former French colony. That means many of the French food customs. For example, there are creperies in the mall, patisseries all over the place, and we get baguettes at every meal. Additionally, the Ivoirians subscribe to the ideal of giant French lunches. For the lunches that were catered during the trainings, we got three course meals. Delish. However, for a lot of the other meals, I get an omelet and some sort of fried food. French fries, fried plantains, or fried yams. Upon my return to the states, my diet will consist of salads, oatmeal, and Cheerios to lower my cholesterol. My arteries are probably on their way to solidifying as we speak.

Finally, and probably most strangely, there is a wide variety of types of food. Last night, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant that was quite fabulous. There are TONS of Vietnamese restaurants. We weren't the only ones who had decided to go to Nuit de Saigon. Almost every single ex-pat in Abidjan was joining us for dinner. For once, Amy and I weren't minorities. It was actually the first time that I have really thought about being white versus African. Strange.

Tonight, we are going to go with Murtala to a Senegalese restaurant. I'm pretty pumped. Apparently, a lot of rice and a couscous like thing are involved. It should be tasty. I'll report back later. A plus!

Abidjan--Hot as Africa

(Picture with the RDR. Bottom row from left: Amy, Secretary General of the RDR, me, Country Director for WANEP CI Marguerite Kone. Second row from left: Bamba Sindou, Guy Whose Name I Forgot, National Secretary for NGOs, Murtala Touray. Back row: Technical Advisor)

Update from the past few days:
We are famous in Ivory Coast:
With the Opposition Party on their official website: http://www.rdrci.org/lire.asp?idx=5627
General Ivorian news: http://www.africatime.com/CI/nouvelle.asp?no_nouvelle=515535&no_categorie=


Main post:
Once upon a time, I used to compare temperatures to those of Africa without a real point of reference. After yesterday, I now know the heat of Africa. On day two of interviews, our team went out to meet with the main opposition party (incredibly interesting interview) and a group of inter-religious leaders. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, "A priest, an imam, a pastor and two Americans were sitting in a room..." However, the room we were in was in direct sunlight, was about 10X10, had about 12 people in that space, and there was only a small fan to cool it off. To exacerbate the situation, it was 1:30 in the afternoon and the hottest part of the day. To double exacerbate the situation, we were wearing suits. I thought I was going to pass out it was so hot. It was at a minimum 90 degrees in there and I was wearing long pants and a lined jacket. Here's a pleasant image for you, when we got to the car, I had almost sweat through my jacket. By the time we got back to the hotel to change, the lining of my pants were sticking to my legs. That sounds super appetizing, doesn't it? It really makes me wish that I had ponied up the money to buy a new skirt suit. And, with all of the fancy people we are meeting with, my suit is going to need to be dry cleaned like nobody's business.

However, for the most part, I have adjusted to the climate quite well. There are wonderful breezes throughout most of the day and Amy and I are able to do a lot of work on the rooftop terrace. Most of the hotel is built in an open air concept with a courtyard in the center. At night, the restaurant is open so the breezes can come through. What's even more telling to my adjustment is that I set my air conditioner to 20 degrees (68 degrees) at night before I go to bed and I wake up freezing. I burrow into my blankets when my alarm goes off. It's kind of sad that 68 is INCREDIBLY cold now. At least when I get back to the States it will be April, so a little warmer.

Abidjan--First Interviews

Yesterday was a day to remember, to be certain. Not only was it the first day I was able to leave the hotel, but I met with the most important person I will probably ever meet in my life. As I explained in the last entry, our delegation was set to meet with the president of the Ivorian president’s political party. However, not only did we meet with the party president, but pretty much the entire senior leadership of the party. In the United States, we could never have dreamed of meeting with the House Majority leader let alone the DNC chairman.

Six of us went to the meeting. Amy, Murtala and I were the “representatives” from USAID and we had three local partners who set up the meeting. It was unsettling to drive through Treichville, which is a somewhat dodgy area of the city, and pull past a bunch of fruit stands to a seemingly ramshackle building with several guards holding AK-47s. At that point I was thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?” Once we walked through a small courtyard, we got passed off from person to person until we got to the information minister’s office and sat waiting for them to finish preparations for the meeting. The information minister was very…smarmy. He reminded me of a caricature of a typical bureaucrat—very nicely dressed and very smug. He had the air of someone who could open doors for you if he wanted.

We sat in the information minister’s office for a while and the Ivoirians made small talk as I tried to not panic. I was panicking because I was in charge of asking questions to the President. Normally, I probably would have asked Murtala or one of the Ivoirians to ask the questions because they are obviously much better at French than me. But because the meeting was specifically set-up to meet with the Americans, I had to step-up. After about 20 minutes, the minister left to check on the preparations. In that time, the director of the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) in Cote d’Ivoire went over the questions that Amy, Murtala and I had prepared and made some changes. The WANEP people also went over ways in which I could prevent myself from offending the president. With the changes in questions and the discussion of how to be respectful, I was internally panicking about not causing an international incident. Granted, the probability of me causing an international incident was slim to none, but I am naturally a “yes” person and a people pleaser, so I wanted to be sure that I offended no one.

When we finally went to meet with the political delegation, it was a circus. The entire senior leadership of the party was there including several camera people and reporters. They were basically using us for a publicity stunt. The next hour of questioning was surreal. I got through the questions and the political delegation was moderately patronizing, but we got the answers that we wanted. In retrospect, I am incredibly proud of myself that I was able to sit at a table and ask questions to one of the most powerful men in all of the Côte d’Ivoire. It probably helped that I was asking the questions in French. By only having prepared certain questions and phrases, I could not get myself into trouble by running at the mouth—I did not have the words to do so. After the interview was over, the press (most likely reporters from the political party) took pictures of the entire group and interviewed the president about our interview. I will check the websites to see if there is video of me standing next to him. Today we will be meeting with the main opposition party. Hopefully, I'll get to update on that later.

Abidjan--Training Day 1

**Breaking News** Our bags arrived! They look like they may have been dragged across the tarmac, but they arrived. For those of you who know my distaste for putting anything away ever, you will be surprised to know that I was so excited to see my bag that I immediately put everything away in my closet when I got it at 12:30 in the morning. Shocking, I know.

Today Amy and I began the first day of training for the field assessment. We are working with 10 people from local NGOs to create interview teams who go into the "field" and gather information about the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire. Right now we are doing a "post conflict" assessment. Basically, that means that we are examining the political, social, economic, and security context of a country that has experience conflict in the past but is no longer in the midst of active fighting. The last assessment that Amy was on in Jos, Nigeria was in a currently "hot" situation. If you have been watching CNN at all, there was a major massacre of the citizens of suburban Jos last weekend. Don't worry, none of that is going on here.

At any rate, today we worked with my new favorite person, Murtala, to translate the West African Conflict Assessment (WACA) framework into French so that the local groups can understand. Everything went pretty well. I had a hard time understanding the accents and my spelling is HORRENDOUS. However, a nice man from the north (a major distinction here) helped me out and was our not taker. Here are some lessons I learned today:

1. Amy and I are kind of a big deal. Yesterday I mentioned that we were celebrities for being white. Now, we are SUPER celebrities because we are being funded by USAID. How do I know that we are celebrities? Well, the president of the Front Populaire Ivorien/ Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) only agreed to meet with our assessment team if Amy, Murtala and I all went on the assessment. The FPI is the political party of the Ivorian president and this guy who we are interviewing used to be the Prime Minister and is more or less the right hand man of the current president. He's sort of a hybrid of Rahm Emanuel and the chairman of the DNC. Amy just commented that he may be very disappointed with the Americans who show up at his office. Not only are we female, but we both look much younger than we actually are. To quote Amy, "On the government food chain, we are plankton." Oh well!

2. You have to take serious bribe money if you plan to do any traveling in the north of the country. My note-taking savior told a story where he had to pay approximately 200,000 CFA (approximately $400) to travel safely between two cities which are relatively close together.

3. The Ivorian national soccer team is called The Elephants. I like it.

4. I learned about "bissap." Bissap is like a juice made from hibiscus flowers and is the orange juice of West Africa.

5. One of our participants believes that the French intervention known as Operation Unicorn (perhaps named by a six year old girl?) was set-up to destabilize the Ivorian government so that the French could reassert control over Cote d'Ivoire. I'm not saying that he's wrong, but I'll be interested to see what his field notes look like.

Alright, I'm off to prepare for my interview tomorrow!

(Picture is a view of the car lot/church as seen from our "office" on the terrace)

Abidjan--Observations

After nearly 24 hours of travel, Amy and I safely arrived in Abidjan. Much to our dismay, our bags decided to stay the night in Paris and will be joining us this evening (or so says Moustapha from Air France). Thankfully, I had heeded my mother's advice and had a change of clothes in my carry-on.

Here are some observations from the past 48 hours:

1. Amy may, in fact, be cursed with travel. We had problems at nearly every airport. We almost didn't get a seat on the Baltimore to New York flight. In New York, we had to go to a new terminal. And, the coup de grace, our bags decided that gallivanting in Paris was preferable to coming to Abidjan.

2. The Sahara is beautiful. When we flew over the Sahara, it looked like a red moon. It was absolutely incredible. At one point over Mali, the sun and clouds hit the sand in such a way that you could not tell where the sand ended and the sky began. It looked like an impressionist painting with zigzags of color going from Earth to sky. Incredible.

3. We are somewhat like celebrities. Granted, it's unusual to see white people in Cote d'Ivoire to begin with, but to see two white women traveling without at least one man is strange beyond belief. There have been several people that have come up to us just because we are such a curiosity and they want to know who we are and why we're here. It's understandable, because if we were an episode of Sesame Street's "Which one of these things doesn't belong in here" we would definitely be the right answer.

4. My French is decent, but not that great. Today at lunch, after we had already had several conversations the waiter asked me, "What are you, because you aren't French." Some win and some fail on that one.

5. I have already eaten some things that I swore I wouldn't eat. Example: I have now eaten two whole fish. Whole meaning with head and tail. I also had some sort of ginger milk drink. I'm not totally sure of what it was, but that won't be a repeat order.

6. Open air terraces with Wi-Fi are amazing. If you have to do work on a Sunday, that's the place to do it.

More later.

Trip 1: Cote d'Ivoire, Predeparture

When I originally applied to be a part of the West Africa research team, I thought it was more or less a shot in the dark. Now I am having to cope with the fact that I will be getting on a plane on Friday and that I will be getting off of the plane on Saturday in Cote d'Ivoire. The planning stages have somewhat allowed it to sink in, but some part of me kept thinking, "Don't get your hopes up, you're probably not going to go." But the time is almost upon us, and I will be going to Africa.

Planning for the trip has not been easy, to put it lightly. Normally, the preparations for going to a developing country are time consuming, especially when the country requires visas. To get a visa to go to Cote d'Ivoire (henceforth, CI), all travelers need:

• A letter of support from their agency;
• A valid passport with at least 6 months until it expires;
• A yellow fever card;
  
• Plane tickets or an itinerary; and
  
• Hotel confirmation.
  

However, we have been on an abbreviated time span. Amy (my colleague/boss/friend) and I did not receive the green light to do the assessment in CI until Sunday afternoon. We had a tentative go-ahead on Friday, but were unable to make any travel plans until we had a firm "yes" from our partners abroad. Therefore, as of 8:00 a.m. on Monday March 8, we had exactly 0 of our travel plans confirmed.

Unfortunately for our visa situation, we desperately needed the flight and hotel information before we could dream about showing up at the Ivorian Embassy. Normally, our African partners would set-up a hotel for us in the assessment country. Again, unfortunately, Ghana (where our partners are based) had a holiday on Monday and would not be working to set our reservations. From the minute I set foot into the office, Amy and I scrambled to get things together. As I called the hotels in Abidjan, it was like Mary and Joseph looking for lodging in Bethlehem: no room in the inn. How all of the 4 and 5 star hotels (not even the guidebooks recommend hotels with fewer than 4 stars) in the entire city of Abidjan were booked for the 13 and the 14 is beyond me. After a two hour struggle, I was able to find a decent hotel that could provide us with the necessary hotel confirmation so that we could go to get our visas.

While I had been working on the hotels, Amy had gotten our flights together. After I literally ran to the CVS to get passport photos and money orders, it was 11:00. This will probably be the last time I say this, but thank God for African Standard Time-in which time frames are general guidelines instead of requirements. Amy was extremely skeptical that we would be able to get from College Park down to Embassy Row in time. I figured that it couldn't hurt to try. By the time we had gotten from our office to the DuPont Circle metro station, it was 12:10. With a 4 block walk, it wasn't looking good. With interspersed spastic running (we both were wearing backpacks), we were able to make it to the Embassy by 12:20. Again, it wasn't looking good. The door was locked, but there was a buzzer. We operated on the "it doesn't hurt to try" philosophy and were buzzed in. Thankfully, African Standard Time reigned and we were able to drop our information off to get the visas. Hopefully our next trip to Embassy Row will be more leisurely.