Tuesday, March 9, 2010

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.

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