The Trip

We departed via Air France on March 7th, 8 pm, arriving in Paris very early in the morning, their time. We had a six-hour wait at the airport (yawn) and then another 6 hours or so to Abidjan. Our first taste of the experience ahead of us was when the plane landed; as soon as it touched down, people began to jump out of their seats to unload the overhead compartments. No waiting for the complete stop and the signal from the pilot!

Erin was waiting for us – last people off the airplane, but Customs was relatively easy. Since we don’t speak French, the guy just waved us through (he was a bit exasperated!). Whew, what with all our village presents, two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, Camembert from France, and a half dozen frozen bagels, we were relieved.

Heather Smith and Todd were with Erin, although Todd wasn’t going to Assouindé with us that night. The ride out there, in a “set place” cab (French for 7 places) was a nightmare – it was dark, and we quickly learned that the only important things on a cab are: 1) a horn that works; 2) headlights (that don’t necessarily have to work very well); and 3) a horn that works. For those of you who have already traveled to Côte d’ Ivoire, we are just reconfirming that driving there follows our theory of “pick a lane, any lane, and create a new one if need be.” Pedestrians are at the mercy of their own wiles – the horn means “get out of my way or get hit.” To our retroactive amazement, though, we never saw a pedestrian get hit by a car, though there were more than a few close encounters. Whew, poor jet-lagged Russ never should have sat in the front with the driver! We made it, however, to the l’Amitie hotel – a delightfully situated, if minimally appointed, abode. We found two more PCVs at the Beach – Kathryn Stewart and Emily McKennon. It’s hard to describe the delightful sounds that Peace Corps volunteers can make when eating a fresh (well, almost fresh) bagel for the first time in over a year. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the weekend with these ladies, along with all the other volunteers we met there and elsewhere.

Up at 10 on Saturday morning – only due to Erin waking us. We had an air conditioner in our room that just barely worked -- not a lot of cold air. Saturday was Erin’s birthday – we spent it swimming, watching all the vendors and Italian tourists roaming the beach. One of the real treats for us was the anana -- fresh pineapples sold by young girls on the beach. They sliced the skin off, cored the pineapple, and leave the stem to hold it with as you eat the sweetest pineapple we’ve ever had – all for 100 francs, or about 13 cents. We had a birthday dinner and then drumming on the beach. Heather and Erin know two Sengalese men who live in Assouindé, Omar and Omar. One is an incredible drummer. We went to bed early – and when everyone else turned in at 1:30 and turned on air conditioners, a fuse blew and there we were – in a small room with no ventilation and no air. Fortunately the girls loaned us their fan.

On Sunday we continued to relax and read and swim. We had a whopping thunderstorm that afternoon – and lost electricity for a long time. Fortunately it came back on by the time we went to bed and yes, the a/c worked that night. One thing we learned was that the Ivorians DO NOT GO OUT IN THE RAIN – EVER. Not sure why, but even a few drops and they race inside! For dinner that evening, we went into the village and had chebb, a Senagalese rice dish with vegetables and meat – it’s a favorite of the PCVs when they are at the beach, because it is both tasty and cheap!

On Monday we went shopping in the village and picked up some pretty good gifts. It’s a bit of a struggle getting used to bargaining –complicated by the language difference. All in all, we got some good bargains – and no doubt we made the store owners happy, as well.

Other major recollections from Assouindé include the fishing fleet. The fishermen venture out into the ocean in long wooden canoes, fighting their way over the surf with everyone paddling madly. Occasionally, someone falls out, only to climb back in. It’s not clear how far out to sea they go – but it is well out of sight of the shore. When the boats come back in, this time using the surf to guide them in, they place logs under the boats to roll them up onto the beach.

The beach itself also is unusual in our experience: it runs East-West. You can see both the sunrise and the sunset from the same spot. There is not a big tide differential here; but there can be a fairly strong sideways undertow.

We left for Abidjan on Tuesday, went to the Peace Corps Hostel. It was brimming with volunteers – some in for their mid-term physicals, others for help with training new volunteers, others for meetings, etc. It was nice to sit around a chat with the volunteers there, sitting out on the porch. They really are an amazing group of young people, who are working and living under very trying conditions – but who have a wonderful sense of humor and observation.

We found a hotel about 5 minutes walk away – the Bertille included a swimming pool and some lush gardens. Went to the PC Office on Wednesday, where Erin had her ear checked out (infection). We went to the Sococie Hyper Marché (and we thought Super Stop and Shop was big), and Cocody – the city market for more shopping.

We ventured into the downtown business district, Plateau, so that Erin could cash a check she had to help fund her latrine project, and so we could cash in our remaining dollars. Citi Bank had more security than US airports, but we welcomed it – we cashed in $900 and Erin’s check was for over $2,000 – this translated, between us, into about 2 and a half million CEFA (Ivorian francs). Now the franc may not be worth a whole lot, but anytime you’re walking around with 2 million plus of any currency, it sure feels like a lot! Erin wrapped it in a bandana, stuck it in her bag, and was an old pro. Russ, on the other hand, was like a little old lady, wanting to get back to the safety of the hotel. It’s an amazing lesson in how acclimated Erin has become in her time there. [As a follow-up, Erin told us in a recent e-mail that some of the bills she’d been given were counterfeit! She’s not sure if they really are, or if it is just a rumor, but she has had trouble using a few of them.]

We were delayed a day getting out of the city due to a taxi strike – a policeman had shot and killed a driver – no one is sure why, but no one would take us to the gar (bus station) where it happened and that was the only gar at which we could catch a bus to Daloa.

We spent Friday traveling by bus to Daloa. Not a bad ride on MTT (Metal Trading Transport). We stopped in Yamoussoukro for lunch and arrived in Daloa late that afternoon – very glad we got a 7:30 am bus. It was a long, hot, dirty, ride. But an adventure!! Daloa is particularly dirty – trash everywhere. We found that very disturbing. The PC regional house there is a haven from the outside stresses. We met Raven from New Jersey, who is finishing here service the following week, and Katie, who is the third year volunteer in charge of the house, as well as Baba – the groundskeeper. The Hotel Sonia was nearby – nothing great, but relatively clean. We went to the marché (market) where Linda tried to buy up all the pagnes (pronounced panya) for sale in Daloa. Pagnes are large pieces of cloth – a pagne compleat is about 10 feet long by 4 feet wide -- enough for three pieces-- cloth for a skirt, a shirt or head dress, and a carrier for your baby.

We ate dinner in an outdoor maquis (bar/restaurant) – chicken and rice for dinner. Even in a restaurant, you throw the bones on the ground. We found it a bit disconcerting at first, but we soon realized that it is what everyone does. Sometime during the night, some critter comes along and eats them.

On Saturday morning we found a taxi to take us to Gboguhé – Erin’s village. The road there is dirt, winding through fields with tall bushes, maybe 6 or 8 feet high. Because it was Saturday, we passed many people on the way to the marché in Gboguhé. We tentatively were planning on 4, or even 5 days. Three days was perfect. What an adventure! She has a nice concrete house complete with a detached latrine that doesn’t have a roof, so what a rush to shower (pouring water from a cup – from the bucket – treated with Clorox) and be looking at the sky!! It is very cooling on a hot afternoon.

She has a porch (actually it’s an apatam – frond covering), where we spent every afternoon – too hot to do much between 1 and 4! Her yard has a marvelous view of the land and trees and fields. Great sunrises, too. After resting, we went down to the village – but typical of each trip we made, it took a lot longer to get to Leo and Freddy’s house (they live at the other end of the village) – because you have to stop and greet everyone you see/know, etc. Of course, we were a huge curiosity! Often, we would greet everyone, then they would say, “You’re her mother and father!?!” and we’d have to go around and shake everyone’s hand again. On the second day we counted 150 people and gave up. IT IS EXHAUSTING!! And that’s why 3 days was enough!! Poor Erin, caught in the middle of trying to translate our questions to the villagers, and trying to translate their questions to us!

Wonderful people and love Erin very much. Her nickname is “Dogore,” which means “beautiful stranger.” The older people don’t speak much French and so we were learning how to greet them in Beté – a sing song call and response that we never did quite right, much to the amusement of the seniors. The greeting is something like “Aye OWE,” with a response of “OW OWE.” The children are absolutely beautiful – and dirty – and sick much of the time. FYI we learned from a UN worker we met on the plane coming home: The top three killers of children in Cote d’Ivoire are 1) malaria, 2) upper respiratory diseases, and 3) diarrhea. And the last one is the reason Erin needs to build latrines.

When meeting people, they often ask you to tell them the news. Now, they are not interested in the state of the world or the economy or the fate of sports teams, but rather what you have been doing in the last day or so, how your family is, and whether you are enjoying yourself.

We met the chef (Chief) and, of course, he gave us a live chicken (that was hard enough to think about taking with us; thank heavens he didn’t give us a mouton (sheep)). We were not supposed to speak directly to the chef. To ask us a question, he would ask it of Freddy in Beté; Freddy would translate it into French for Erin, who would translate into English for us. Erin then translated our response into French for Freddy who translated it into Beté for the chef. Needless to say, a simple question and answer becomes a very big deal. One memorable part of the evening is the closing. When it was time for us to go, we had to ask the chef to “give us the road.” His eventual reply is that, “I will give you half the road. I will keep the other half so that you can come back again.”

We ended up with at least 4 chickens. We ate three (one each night) and gave one to Leo to save for Erin. One of the humorous events – at least to Russ, although no one else seems to laugh at it – is that the night Leo and Freddy gave us a chicken for dinner, he wore a tee shirt that said, “Team KFC” evidently a tee shirt from Kentucky Fried Chicken staff training course.

We drank lots of Bongy – palm wine. Doesn’t taste too bad, but also didn’t seem to have a lot of kick to it. We never were offered moonshine, thank you very much.

One of Erin’s friends – 16 year old – just had a baby (for any health care providers, she is classic teenage pregnant/mom) 2 months premature, baby is now a month old and didn’t have a name yet . . . and she’s pretty ambivalent about nursing the baby – Linda did some health care teaching through Erin, hope it works. Well, to make a long story short, there’s now a young African girl named Linda!!!!

Men don’t eat with the women; women don’t eat with company. The last night we insisted that Leo eat with us and what bedlam that caused. All the men that normally eat with Freddy arrived, so we had a huge crew for dinner!! The children all get bathed after dinner and put to bed. The women work so hard – gather water in the am, go to the fields, come home and spend hours cooking dinner (foutou takes forever – pounding manioc and plantains, adding water, pounding some more – it’s like kneading bread for an hour or so), plus the rice and sauce. Then dishes and kids; we watched one young woman, after the babes were in bed, sorting rice!! The men – can’t figure out what they do besides go the fields and drink.

Most men have several wives and girlfriends. So that’s the other thing they do. . . . meanwhile women are abstinent while nursing (6 months) and then get pregnant again. One of Erin’s friends has had 14 children – 9 still living. Family planning isn’t in their vocabulary!

On Monday we went to Mart’s fields and planted maize, picked avocadoes, mangos, papaya, manioc. Looked at her rice fields, cocoa and coffee plants, cola plants. They grow everything they need to eat, as well as cash crops such as cocoa, coffee, and cotton. One striking thing, though, is that there really seems to be a slash and burn approach to field maintenance here. In front of Erin’s house, the owner had sold many of the trees, and they had been chopped down and were being burned for charcoal. On many, many occasions, we saw fire and smoke – in the villages, towns, and in Abidjan. Some of it is a way of burning trash, but a lot of it seems to be burning fields and dead crops.

Tuesday we left Gboguhé for Yamoussoukro – it’s difficult to comment on this city. The long time president Felix Houphouet Boigny (from 1960 until his death in 1993) turned his village of 600 people into a city of 100,000. Yamoussoukro is now the official capital of Côte d’ Ivoire (although there are no government buildings or embassies located there – they are all in Abidjan). The city has several miles of 6-lane highway with some 10,000 lights along the side of the road; but very few cars on it. The most conspicuous building is the Basilica (which Felix built). It is impossible to describe, other than obscenely grandiose. Every one of the 10,000 seats in the Basilica is individually air-conditioned (it is, after all, routinely in the 90s here). But only about 100 people attend mass each week, and the air conditioning was only turned on when he was in attendance for the dedication. The building itself is only slightly smaller than St. Peter’s Cathedral – with the large gold cross on top, it is actually taller. This was one of several reasons that the Pope visited it for only one day at the consecration, and that he, evidently, was extremely displeased. It boggles our minds to think of all the money that was spent on this extravagance in a country with very dire needs for the most basic services. Still, it was worth the trip since we were so close.

But we can’t complain too much or be too self-righteous. Another edifice he constructed in Yamoussoukro is the President Hotel. After rolling off a 6 hour trip – 2 hours on the baijan from Gboguhé to Daloa, and 4 hours from Daloa to Yamoussoukro on a bus – our bags, faces, and clothes covered in red dirt, we walked into the marble lobby of the President Hotel, wondering if they were even going to let us in the door of this 600 room facility. As it turns out, we were one of 4, maybe 5, sets of guests at the hotel. So, yes, they welcomed us. We paid the native rate because Erin is a PCV. This, also, was the only place on the entire trip that we pulled out a credit card. Both of us have to admit that a Gin and Tonic – with ice!!—was mighty good--also, the only ice that we had while in the country.

Wednesday we headed back to Abidjan, packed for the beach, and returned to Assouindé for a couple of days of relaxation before flying home on Friday night. Somehow the trip out there, the hotel accommodations, and the small fishing village seemed much more relaxing than they had when we first arrived almost two weeks earlier. All in all the two weeks flew by and we were sad to say goodbye to Erin and Africa.

It’s hard to say enough positive things about the Peace Corps Volunteers we met. We have tremendous respect for all of them – they really are a marvel!! Parents, family, friends should be incredibly proud of them. They live and work under very trying circumstances, but seem to keep their sense of humor (albeit tinged with a bit of sarcasm on occasion). They’ve adapted to the culture, the language, the traffic, and the food. And they all claim that the regularly take their malaria medication!!