Peanuts

One of the mainstays in our diet in CI was peanuts or "ground nuts" as they are called in Africa.  Our favorite waiter, Augustin (more about him later), brought these to us as we worked diligently in our terrace "office." On these blustery winter days, I long for the hot and humid afternoons with dodgy electricity on the roof in CI. I'd even take the smell of diesel over sub-freezing temperatures. Granted, I wouldn't necessarily want to be there now, per se, but the thought of enjoying tropical breezes makes doing any kind of work more palatable. Oh, Africa.

The Election

It's been a long time. But, as you may or may not know, Cote d'Ivoire has been in political turmoil for about a month. Why the turmoil? They succeeded in having an election. Isn't that what everyone Amy and I talked to wanted? Yes. Everyone in CI desperately wanted an election. They thought that it would be the cure-all for their political troubles. Our participants knew that they would need to do some work in order to achieve a stable society, but few could have predicted what actually happened.

In October, Cote d'Ivoire had their first round of elections. The way the electoral system works in CI, and much of Europe, is that the candidates win and if no one achieves an absolute majority, the two candidates with the most votes have a second round of elections. In CI's first round, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and main opposition leader Alassane Ouattara received the largest proportion of the vote. After four weeks, CI was able to hold a run-off election. In the run-off, Ouattara received 54% of the vote and Gbagbo received 46% of the vote, as counted by the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI). Most would say that this is a pretty substantial margin.

Unfortunately, in CI, elections have two groups separate groups that monitor them. There is one group that counts the votes (the CEI) and one group that signs off on the votes (the Constitutional Council). The Constitution in CI states that the CEI must produce the vote count within a proscribed number of days. With this vote, the CEI failed to produce the numbers by the deadline. As a result, the Constitutional Council stated that votes were invalid. By the CC's count, Gbagbo received 51% of the vote while Ouattara received 49% of the vote. Interestingly enough, the CC's head is one of Gbagbo's cronies. Leaves one to be slightly suspicious.

However, this is not the most interesting part of the whole saga. The interesting part is that neither man has stepped down and accepted the other's victory. As a result, there are essentially two governments functioning in CI. It's the equivalent of a political tee ball tie. The West, the UN, the Economic Cooperative of West African States (ECOWAS), and many others all recognize the Ouattara regime and demand that Gbagbo step down and accept his loss. However, he has not yet packed up a single Post-It note.

Violence has broken out all over the country and they have suspended foreign journalists, closed the borders, and have ceased allowing trade with the North (Ouattara's stronghold) and the South (government center). It's a scary, scary time for CI. I will try to keep up to date as much as possible.

Abidjan--Views of the University

During our interview with the scary student militant leader, we were able to take some pictures of the University of Cocody. I vow to never again complain about the accommodations in large state universities.

This is a view of some of the dorms. Notice the lovely mid-century architecture.

Above is a shot of the "downtown" of the university. On the left is the place where students print their papers and have them bound and/or laminated. In the center is a grocery "store" and the two stalls on the right sold food. Fortunately, there were no quarter goats roasting on open flames.

Finally, this is a better shot of the dorms and one of the ubiquitous orange taxis. Notice all of the towels hanging outside of the dorms. It is so unbelievably humid that the only hope you have of anything drying is hanging it out the window.

While I'm not fond of the old student militant group, they have a point. The facilities need to be a little better for the effective education of a population. Allegedly, 60,000 students attend this university. That's about the same as a major state school in the US, but in less than 1/4 the size of a state university campus. From what the militant leader said (and take this with a grain of salt), students have to show up to class an hour early to get seats. Militant leader probably had some lackies save him a seat, but that's neither here nor there (I'm captain cliche today). Regardless, university is like going to a concert. Heartening that there is so much desire to go to class, but disheartening that the facilities to support it.

The Aftermath

I don't know if anyone is reading this anymore now that I am home, but I had the need to get some thoughts down on electronic paper. Here you go. Look for more to come.

**Warning Melodrama, but Sincere Melodrama, Below**

I've been home for over a week now. It's strange to be back. Strange in a good way, but strange nonetheless. When I was in Africa, every day went by in survival mode. Perhaps that's why it felt like it went so quickly--I was just trying to make it through the day. Now, it feels like Africa was just a dream. It's nice to be able to talk to Amy about it, because otherwise it might have really been a dream.

One thought I have had much trouble getting rid of after leaving is a sense of guilt. Guilt for being American, guilt for being privileged, guilt for not being able to give more. In my life I have felt many emotions regarding my nationality. I have loved being American; I have mocked being American. I have denied my Americanness; on occasion, I have flaunted my Americanness. Never before I have I felt true guilt for being American.

Guilt, you might think, sounds strange in this situation. People talk about White Guilt, but this is more than White Guilt. It's American Guilt. Guilt in the sense for what it represents. To the people that we worked with, who were rather well off by Ivorian standards, we represented help, wealth, prosperity, health, and salvation. There is a lot of weight that comes with being American. But the idea of help is what stuck with me.

I love being helpful, I really do. But, I could not help the Ivorians in a way that I wanted. I could take the stories with me and put them in a report to give to USAID and other American organizations, but I could not help them. I could report, but that was all. I could help them apply for grants, but not actually give them what they need. I have never felt so helpless as when one of our participants asked for a scholarship to continue her studies and I had nothing to tell her. I spent 18 months of my life doing nothing but help students find scholarships and I could not help the one woman who truly needed it. It was a terrible feeling.

However, when I returned to the States and read the interviews, I knew that I was not simply someone exploiting a country's plight. I was a part of something important and the people knew it. As I translated the interviews from the West of the country, amongst all of the stories of women being raped the second they leave the main cities I read over one interview in which the informant told the interviewer "Thank you." He said, more or less, "Thank you for speaking with us. We now know that was are not forgotten. Please tell the world that we are here as servants for the message of peace." I'm paraphrasing terribly because I can't remember the direct quote, but that's the gist. We are the messengers of peace and that the world cares about their problems. That, despite the terrible guilt and feelings of selfishness, has helped me remember what we went to Africa for: to help understand the conflict and help find solutions.

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.