Heart of the Matter

More dispatches

Starting today, the online magazine Slate (www.slate.com) is running a week's worth of Ivory Coast dispatches from me. The first one is at the following link: http://slate.msn.com/id/2091913/entry/0/

I have adapted a couple of the dispatches from this blog, but two are totally new and the others are slightly different than what has appeared here. Slate is also running several of my photos. In addition, I have provided a news update on events in Cote d'Ivoire since I left the country.

Photos (really!)

I've finally managed to post some photos from my trip. Right now, they're not captioned, but some are self-explanatory. I'll try to add captions later. In the meantime, check out photos from Grand Bassam, the basilica at Yamoussoukro, Bouake, Man, and elsewhere.

I've got a few other things I've written that haven't made it up here yet -- they'll be up soon, I promise. And I promised a grand wrap-up post, as well.

No Way Out

Some clever young magazine writer has written an interesting story about the French intervention here for The New Republic. Check out: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=Am7UADqoemmmfuYdl5YafB%3D%3D

Again, sorry about the lack of posts. I've been busy -- off traveling in Tabou in the southwest of Cote d'Ivoire -- and also a bit sick lately. I will try to get more on here real soon.

The banks of the Cavally

This may appear later in an online publication. But here is a preview for Heart of the Matter readers:

I hadn't bargained on getting wet. This morning when I met Anne Dolan, the head of the field office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Tabou, she had warned me that Yeouli, the village we planned to visit today, was not accessible by car and that we would have to hike for about 3 kilometers to reach it. No problem, I said. She hadn't mentioned the part about wading through muddy water up to our knees.

"It's not a body of water, so there shouldn't be any schisto risk," Dolan says blithely as we prepare to enter one of the massive puddles that cover the path. She is referring to the dreaded schistosomiasis, a disease endemic to Africa that is transmitted by tiny worms that live in fresh water and can enter a person's body through the skin. If not caught promptly, the worms cause irreversible organ damage. I force a smile and try hard not to think about the phrase "irreversible organ damage" as I slog through the first puddle.

Yeouli is one of the principal entry points for Liberian refugees fleeing across the Cavally River into southwestern Cote d'Ivoire. But because frequent rains render the dirt road to the village impassible by vehicle, it is rarely visited by humanitarian organizations. Dolan hasn't been to the village in several months so she is anxious to find out how the refugees there are faring. She also knows that government authorities have been planning on moving the entire village to firmer ground and she is eager to see the new site, in part because the UNHCR must make a critical decision about whether to invest any money in the old village or simply wait until the new one is built.

To reach the head of the trail that will take us to Yeouli, we take one of the UNHCR's white 4x4s and bounce along badly pitted dirt roads for about forty-minutes. The journey takes us through massive palm plantations. The fronds of row upon row of neatly planted palm trees filter the morning light into a kaleidoscope of green. Dolan says Liberian refugees often find work on these plantations, but because of their tentative legal status they sometimes have trouble getting paid.

We pass through Gozon, a village where 100 Ivorians host many times that number of refugees. Many Liberian refugees arrived in Cote d'Ivoire in 1990 when the civil war in Liberia first broke out. They were welcomed by the Ivorian villagers in places like Gozon and even given land on which to build houses. Many stayed for more than a decade. But when the war in Liberia began to calm down, the Liberians started returning home. Many more fled back to Liberia when the civil war in Cote d'Ivoire started in September 2002. Villages like Gozon became ghost towns. But then, when fighting in Liberia flared up again in May, tens of thousands came rushing across the border again, with many returning to the same houses they had deserted years earlier. Only this time the Ivorians weren't so welcoming. During Cote d'Ivoire's civil war much of the fighting in the western part of the country involved Liberian soldiers and as a result many Ivorians regard Liberians with suspicion and hostility. This makes for tense relations between the refugees and their host communities.

A little ways past Gozon, the road becomes too muddy for us to continue by 4x4 and so we get out and begin our walk. Even in places where it isn't completely flooded, the path is slick. My hiking boots, initially purchased for a trip to Iceland, don't seem to provide much traction on this wet African soil and I fall twice, meaning that I am pretty dirty by the time we arrive in Yeouli and I am forced to waste precious drinking water trying to clean off.

We enter the village through a large clearing, at either end of which sit rectangular wooden frames strung with netting. Yeouli may not have electricity or running water, but it has soccer. Across the soccer field a herd of goats eyes us impassively from their perch atop the stone sepulchers of the village graveyard. A young man we encounter at the edge of the clearing leads us to the center of the village, where a semi-circle of wooden benches is hastily set up. Here the village chief and other elders assemble to greet us. We are offered cola nuts, water and a kind of alcohol made from fermented sugar cane. Dolan says we should take the cola nuts to show we are accepting the villagers' hospitality. These are no fun to eat - they are tough, bitter, and turn your teeth red - but we each chomp into one. We pretend to drink the water so as not to offend and politely decline the cane juice. Then Dolan introduces us and gives the villagers a chance to present their grievances.

The village chief - who by custom speaks a tribal dialect and addresses Dolan only through a translator even though he knows French - complains that there isn't sufficient food for the villagers and the refugees. He also says that primary education is lacking and that a new latrine and water pump that the UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee had promised have not yet been built. A member of Yeouli's Liberian refugee committee, 29-year old Elijah Kuma, voices many of the same concerns. "It is only by the grace of God that we have not gotten cholera," he says in pleading for help building new latrines. Dolan says she is aware of Yeouli's food shortage and she promises to hold a meeting back in Tabou to discuss the village's problems.

For Dolan though the good news is that, unlike in some neighboring villages, both the refugees and the villagers here report that relations between the two groups remain cordial. "There is no problem with the Liberians at all," says Klah Lazarus, a 27-year old Ivorian villager. "I don't think they are a burden on the village. They help out doing work and sometimes they help with the planting." Lazarus says that there are about 400 Liberians currently in Yeouli, with six to nine new arrivals every day or two. This sounds like a lot, but 25 Liberian refugees were crossing into Yeouli every day back in May when the fighting in southeast Liberia was at its height. Lazarus estimates that more than 1,000 Liberians have passed through Yeouli on their way to other villages in the area or the large transit center outside of Tabou. He also tells us that Liberian rebels sometimes cross the Cavally here to buy items from the village market, but that so far the rebels have never brought their guns with them or harassed the refugees.

We take a tour of the site for the new village, a 15-minute walk from the old. Kuma helps serve as tour guide. His story is typical of most of the Liberians I speak to. He has been in the village for seven months, having fled with his wife and five children from the Liberian town of Plebo, where he was working as a pharmacist. Kuma and his family walked for 8 hours to reach the Cavally and then crossed over to Yeouli by canoe. Now, he tries to earn money working on the palm plantations or clearing brush for the village's sugar cane fields. This is the second time Kuma has been a refugee. During the first Liberian civil war, he escaped to Ghana where he lived for eight years before returning home. He says he won't go back again until UN peacekeepers arrive and there are free and fair elections. It is a sentiment echoed by every Liberian I speak to in Yeouli. They won't go back until the blue helmets arrive.

The Ivorian government selected the location of the new village and a schoolhouse and several homes have already been built there. (The school is awaiting the arrival of a teacher before classes can begin.) The new site is on drier ground, so the villagers can use mud brick to construct their houses rather than the bamboo they were frequently forced to use in the old village. But Dolan is dismayed to discover that no new access road is planned, so it will remain difficult to bring in humanitarian aid. That's why Dolan thinks it is actually a good sign when Kuma tells us that many of the Liberians in Yeouli are currently off in the bush trying to gather food or out working on the palm plantations. "At least they are finding some way to feed themselves," she says. "Because they can't count on food aid here." Dolan thinks food aid is dangerous any way, since it quickly breeds dependence. After seeing the distended bellies of some of the children in the village, I am less sure.

After interviewing more refugees, we begin our hike back. Kuma and two of the Ivorian present us with a parting gift of sugar cane to help sustain us on our walk. A few hours later, as we try to dry our feet at the UNHCR office in Tabou, Dolan says conditions in Yeouli were better than she expected. "All in all the relations between the Ivorians and Liberians were peaceful," she says. "And they really to do get fewer resources than the other villages because of that road."

Dolan says there are 45,000 Liberian refugees in this corner of Cote d'Ivoire, the majority of them in small villages like Yeouli. But despite the tremendous need, she does most of her planning on a month to month basis. She is reluctant to start any long term programs - like vocational training - because she hopes that as UN peacekeepers move out from Monrovia, more and more Liberians will chose to return home. But she is worried about the political situation here in Cote d'Ivoire. Like many Westerners here, she isn't optimistic about the prospects for peace. "I just want to get as many Liberians as possible back across the Cavally so that they are ready to host the Ivorians when the war starts up again here," she says. It is a chilling postscript to my visit to Tabou. Returning to my hotel, I learn that a summit in Accra that many had dubbed "the last chance for peace" in Cote d'Ivoire has ended without a major breakthrough.

The old farmer of Za

Okay, I tried to post a photo of the old cocoa farmer from Za (see the entry "Twilight in Za") but it wasn' working so I've removed it. I promise other posts soon. I am sorry I have fallen so far behind on posting. Basically all is well, although work has been very frustrating this past week.

Abidjan Again

Well, it?s Sunday afternoon and I am finally back safely in Abidjan after being gone for almost nine full days. It was a long and tiring trip and I am glad to be back, even though to a large extent the story I want to cover is taking place outside of this commercial hub. Still, having traveled around much of central Cote d?Ivoire, I now know how much better Abidjan is from other places in the country.

As you all know from my lack of postings, for most of the time I was gone I was either not able to find a working cyber caf? or couldn?t use one for long enough to post. I have seen a ton of things on my journey and I will try to include most of them in posts soon (if for no other reason that I am already afraid I will forget much of what I have seen if I don?t write it down.)

After getting arriving at residence ? it was great to see it after over a week ? I fired Fanny. He seemed very upset. I think he hadn?t seen this coming. I think he almost cried. I felt guilty since I don?t think he?s a bad guy and he had done an adequate, although not great, job these past few weeks. And, with my poor French, I had come to depend on him. He kept asking if he had done something to make me angry. I said no ? although that?s not exactly true, since there were several times in the past week when I thought he had a really bad attitude (he didn?t seem at all enthusiastic about the job) and his lack of initiative troubling. I also found his reluctance approaching people on the street to ask them questions ? an essential skill for a journalist ? a problem. I didn?t tell him this. Instead, I told him that as I started doing more reporting on business and economic subjects I needed someone whose English was better. He asked if it was a matter of money. I said I thought he charged a lot for the level of service he provided, but that it was primarily a matter of his English. He offered to renegotiate but I refused. He asked me to give him one more chance but I told him I didn?t want to do that, I?d made up my mind. He asked if he should immediately leave Abidjan and go home to his village near Seguela, where he digs diamonds to try to make money. I said that was up to him. He asked if I would still be willing to help him come to the U.S. This is the part where I felt really guilty because he said that he really wanted to continue his studies and that he had no future in Cote d?Ivoire. He said there were no opportunities in the country for someone from a poor family. He said he only wanted to come on holidays. But I know he wants to come and work and I am not about to help him become an illegal immigrant. I said I would research what he would need to do to get various kinds of visas and then report back to him. I said that if he came to the US I would try to help him out if I could do so. Then I asked him to leave.

Emma came over for dinner last night. I cooked pasta, nothing fancy. Emma said it was the first time in her entire life a man had ever cooked a meal for her, which got us talking about gender roles here. Apparently women?s lib hasn?t exactly arrived in Cote d?Ivoire. Even though many women work, they are still expected to do all the cooking, cleaning and child rearing. In the villages, Emma says that women typically do all the real work. They get up early to make their husbands breakfast. They go and fetch water from the well. Then, while their husbands head off to farms by bicycle, the women are obliged to walk to the farm, often with a toddler in tow and an infant strapped to their backs. Meanwhile they balance incredible loads on their heads. They work with their husbands on the farm and then when they come back they are expected to cook dinner and clean. It sounds like a very hard life. I asked why more educated women and those living in cities hadn?t revolted against such inequality. Emma looked at me sort of strangely and asked how it was possible for women to do anything about this ? it?s part of the culture, she said. I told her that it used to be the same way in the US but that over the past 40 years gender roles have been transformed, in large measure by women fighting for equality. She said this wouldn?t happen in Africa, at least not any time soon.

Well, I promise posts on my past week of travel soon. I did an initial post -- that covers my trip through last Tuesday. It is called "Lasers in the Jungle" and I back dated it so you should find it below.

Twilight in Za

After lunch, I meet back up with Fanny and Yoda and we make a last attempt to meet Colonel Magnon, but he doesn't pick up his phone. We drive off for Man. Just outside of Yamoussoukro the road is completely flooded. We have to ford a small, muddy lake where the road used to be. We are assisted in this by a group of boys who spend all day running back and forth through the muddy water in their bare feet guiding cars in exchange for a few dozen CFA. The last time I forded water this deep was in Iceland and I was in a serious 4x4 equipped with a snorkel. I am worried Yoda's Toyota wagon isn't exactly up to the task. I worry that the engine will flood or that we will become mired in the mud (another car is stuck in the middle of the big puddle and some other boys are trying to push it out, without much success.) But somehow we make it through just fine.

We drive on past banana plantations and groves of cocoa, coffee, palm trees and occasionally maize. Once or twice we pass a rice paddy. Yoda is trying to teach me the difference between the different types of tress, although given the fact that Yoda never speaks English I am not sure I quite get it. Fanny is dozing in the back as usual. This drive is more interesting than some of our recent legs. There is less elephant grass so I can see more of the landscape. Here and there you can see what remains of the ancient rain forest that once covered all of southern and central Cote d'Ivoire. There are these incredibly tall old trees that don't have any branches except at the very top where they unfurl a leafy green canopy. They are beautiful trees, but there are unfortunately not many of them left. Most of the land we past what you might describe as thinly-wooded savannah, planted with cash crops. And judging by the logging trucks carrying gigantic tree trunks that pass us on the other side of the road and the occasional timber yards we cruise past, there soon won't be any big trees left. At some point we pass through what look to me like fairly dense woods, but the trees are not that tall. Fanny says these trees are actually planted by the government along the sides of roads. At some point the trees are cut and the wood used to generate electricity for villages.

We pass through Koudougou a town that Yoda says is all Burkinabe. I think about stopping and trying to do some interviews, but Fanny is asleep and we are driving fast. Then we come to Bouafl?, where Yoda has a niece. Yoda's press ID says he was born in Bouafl? and he often tells people this, especially policemen at checkpoints. But it's not true. Yoda was born in Burkina Faso. From Bouafl? it is only a 6 km drive to the entrance to Parc National de la Marahque, one of Cote d'Ivoire's smaller nature reserves. I am not sure the reserve is open to the public any more because of the political situation, but I wish I had more time to find out. It is the first of several times on this trip that I wish I wasn't here to do a job or that I didn't have such limited time. I want to play tourist. Parc National de le Marahque for example is supposed to be home to lots of hippos, baboons, chimps, buffaloes and antelope. There are also supposed to be about 25 rare "forest elephants" (a kind of dwarf elephant) left in the park. I am sorry I have not scheduled time to go and see this.

At little outside of Bouafl? I ask Yoda to stop so that I can photograph one of the small villages we keep speeding past. I just want to document how people live here to show people back home. I am amazed by how rustic and undeveloped these villages are: small collections of tiny mud brick rectangular dwellings with thatch roofs and that's about it. No electricity. No running water. I photograph some of the buildings and some children who come out to investigate the white guy who just showed up in their village. Some of the children are clothed, but the younger ones are running around naked. Fanny points out some weird sort of pineapple-looking fruit lying on the ground. He says it comes from a certain kind of palm tree and is used to make a "grav" (I am sure I'm spelling this wrong) sauce - a sauce that I have had with chicken and foutou -- and also a kind of palm wine.

Suddenly we arrive in Daloa, a major trans-shipment point for cocoa and coffee. There is a lot of truck traffic in the town, which houses some big cocoa and coffee processing plants. During the war, Daloa (pronounced Dal-wa) fell to the rebels. Then it was recaptured by the FANCI. After FANCI retook the place, local Ivorians - perhaps encouraged and assisted by FANCI -- went on a rampage, massacring Burkinabe and Malian immigrants, including members of the Malian and Burkina Faso consulates that were in town. (These immigrant groups are thought to be sympathetic to the rebellion.) In one of the clearest cases of attempted ethnic cleansing in Cote d'Ivoire, the immigrants' houses were burned and those who were not killed were chased off. But the process was not complete and there are still a few Burkinabe left in town. Yoda says he knows a guy here who documented the massacre on behalf of the Malian Embassy. He still has the negatives and Yoda says he would be happy to sell me some photos for my magazine to use. I express some interest because I am curious to see the photos but I am pretty sure I don't want to buy any.

Yoda calls his friend and we drive over to some hotel where he is swimming with his family. The photographer doesn't have the negatives with him and he immediately wants to know how many photos I will buy. I tell him I won't know until I see the photos. This causes some consternation on the photographer's part even though I think it is a perfectly logical position. He says he needs to know what I want to buy so he can make the photos - he only has the negatives. I say I would like to see the negatives then. The photographer seems reluctant to do this. He objects that it will take time to get the photos made and that if I just see the negatives on Saturday - when we might be passing back through Daloa - then he might not be able to make them in time. I say fine, I'll try to find him on Saturday, but I'm not buying anything sight unseen. We leave. I am a little annoyed. I have wasted some valuable time and now Yoda is saying there is no way we'll be able to make it Man before nightfall. Driving into rebel-held territory at night is very dangerous, so we'll have to spend the night here in Daloa or drive on to Du?ku?, about 85 km further west, and overnight there before heading on to Man in the morning. I wish Yoda had told me that the trip was going to take this long beforehand. Yoda says I shouldn't worry - I can get some reporting done on cocoa here.

Lunch with guns for hire

In the morning, I meet up with Fanny and Yoda. Fanny informs me that Yoda is a bad man because he slept with the girl from the basilica last night. I roll my eyes. We try to see Yoda's friend Constant, the head of the gendarmes in town, but he isn't in. We hit a cyber caf? and I send a fax off to Timothy in Abidjan so that he can try to get me an interview with Gbagbo. Then we take the official basilica tour that weren't able to take last time. The guide speaks pretty good English considering he never attended school after 14 and learned the language just by listening to English and American tourists.

In the morning, Yoda spoke to his sources at the hotel who informed him that the Russian and South African mercenaries who fly the government's attack helicopters tend to come back from the airport for lunch at about noon. I want to try to meet them. We arrive at a quarter to and Yoda asks if they are back yet. He's told they aren't yet here but should be soon. We start heading toward the restaurant when we are stopped by an army officer. He wants to know why we were asking about the mercenaries. He wants to see our Ids. He summons two other soldiers with guns over. This is starting to look bad. Yoda tries to explain that I'm a journalist and just want to chat with the Russians. This may be one of the cases when honesty is not the best policy. The army officer gets angry. He says no interviews are allowed and tries to kick us out of the hotel. While he's doing this, the first group of mercenaries strides quickly past us heading for the restaurant. Fanny says we should leave. I say that's ridiculous. I'm a guest here and I have every bit as much right to eat lunch in the restaurant as the mercenaries do. And if I happen to say hello to them in English... Yoda agrees that this is a good idea. He says the last time he took a journalist to meet the Russians that's what she did - she sat down at their table for lunch and spoke to them in English and the guards were none the wiser. Yoda says the mercenaries themselves are friendly guys and will be happy to talk. Fanny and Yoda say I should go alone though. The guards are unlikely to hassle a white man whereas Yoda and Fanny just might get arrested. Fanny thinks I'm crazy for trying this. "You are a brave man," he says.

I head back down to lunch and sure enough no one stops me. But the problem is the place is pretty empty so I can't just walk up to the mercenaries and say "is this seat taken?" So I sit at a table near them and nod my head in their direction. This elicits a reciprocal head nod back, but that's about it. More and more Russians keep coming in. (The last time I was in Yamoussoukro I only noticed four of them. Now there are more than a dozen.) Some of them look fairly old. I wonder if they are Afghan war vets. I wait until one guy is in the buffet line and I get up to "get seconds." Standing next to him, I make some comment in English about the food being bad. No response. Back at the table, I try saying hello to another guy passing by - he says hello back but that's all I get. Man this is harder than I thought. I wonder if they've been told not to talk to me. I notice that the mercenaries seem to be divided into groups sitting at different tables. I try the buffet line again. This time on my way back I stop at one of the tables and just ask, "Excuse me, but are you speaking Russian?" "Bulgarian," the guy answers. I introduce myself and say I am an American journalist. The Bulgarian doesn't seem to mind. He's very friendly. He invites me to sit down. Pay dirt! The Bulgarian introduces me to all the men at the table. They are all Bulgarians. The other table, he says - he points behind him at a long table at which about 12 men are seated, wolfing down gigantic quantities of food - those are the Russians. (Of course, the Bulgarians and the Russians wouldn't sit together!) That table over there, he says, pointing at four men sitting together, those are the South Africans. They are all mercenaries, but they work for different companies, the Bulgarian explains. The Bulgarians fly the president's own helicopter and utility choppers. The Russians fly the MI-24 attack helicopters. The South Africans do various unspecified and no doubt murderous things. The Bulgarian says he has been here three months and his contract lasts another four - maybe more after that. He says he hasn't seen any combat in this war, but he says that the Russians have flown against the rebels.

Checked out

Leaving Bouake is easier than arriving, in part because we have a pass from Colonel Bakayoko that is supposed to grant us unimpeded passage through the territory held by Force Nouvelle. But, despite this laissez pass?, we are still hassled for money at a few checkpoints. This prompts protests from Yoda, who shows them the pass. In the end, we don't pay anything. At one of the checkpoints where we aren't asked for money, I get out and talk to the soldiers manning the barricade. The guy in charge of this checkpoint is 35, which makes him much older than most of the rebels. He says he was a carpenter in a town in the south before the war. He says he was born in another southern city as were his parents, but he is from an ethnic group that originated in Guinea and he says he joined the rebellion because he "didn't want my children to grow up in a country where they are treated as foreigners." It is a moving sentiment and one that I have heard from other rebels. It is also part of the reason I think the rebels probably would have won the war had it been allowed to continue. They are simply better motivated than the FANCI troops.

We drive out through the Zone of Confidence. I want to try to stop and talk to some villagers who live in the middle of the zone. I am curious which side they support and how they feel about the war and the French intervention. But Fanny falls asleep in the back seat and there is some miscommunication with Yoda, so we speed along without stopping. As it is, I don't see many villagers outside to talk to. Once through the zone, however, I do make Yoda stop so that we can talk to some boys in one village who are using the traditional looms to weave cloth. It is amazing how quickly they can move the shuttle carrying the thread through the loom. They say they buy the yarn in Yamoussoukro and try to make clothing out of it, which they then sell in local markets. Their work is beautiful, with vibrant blues and reds. The boys say they support the government in the war (I didn't expect them to say anything different - no one living in the south would admit to having sympathy for the rebellion and no one in the north would admit to supporting the government. If anyone found out chances are good that they would be killed.) They say some men from the village are serving in the army, but that the village has mostly been untouched by the war. I take some photos and move on.

At the checkpoint on the outskirts of Yamoussoukro we run into problems. An old, fat FANCI soldier notices that the license number listed on our FANCI-issued laissez pass? doesn't match our vehicle's license plate. Why no one noticed this before I have no idea. Why Yoda didn't notice this and have it corrected is a bigger concern. Yoda begins arguing with the FANCI troops at the checkpoint. Fanny suggests that maybe they want money and maybe they do but I'm not about to pay it. Yoda is trying to explain that they let us travel into the rebel zone without any problems and that we've cleared every FANCI checkpoint until now. The FANCI soldiers here don't seem to care. They want our license plate to match our pass. Yoda calls the captain back in Abidjan who issued us the pass. He gets on the phone with the soldiers at the checkpoint and apparently tries to plead our case, but that doesn't work either. We are told to drive immediately to the local military base - which is located next to Houphouet-Boigny's former presidential mansion - to get a new pass. This is going to be a very long delay indeed. I hope we don't get stuck here in Yamoussoukro another day. I am eager to get on to Man so that we can do reporting there and then get back to Abidjan.

The military base in Yamoussoukro is kind of sleepy. We meet another graying, chubby soldier - a sergeant I think - having a drink with his family on the porch outside his office. (On Ivorian military bases, soldiers live with their families on base.) At first he doesn't seem to want to lift a finger to help us. He tells us that it isn't so easy to have a laissez pass? issued up here. We should go back to Abidjan, he says. But we aren't about to do this. There is another call to the captain in Abidjan who gets on the phone with the sergeant. This seems to get the sergeant to change his mind. He bellows something out and suddenly two young privates appear on the porch. They escort us into some over air-conditioned office where they ask all our details - even though all of this information is written on the first lasses pass? -- and we have to present our Ids. They say they will try to issue us another pass but it may take awhile because they need to find Colonel Mangon, the commander of the base, to sign it. This is not good news. I had been trying to get in touch with Colonel Mangon last time I was in Yamoussoukro and he didn't seem very responsive. After half an hour - during which time the soldiers act as if they have never seen a computer before despite the fact that they use the thing every day - one of the privates prints out the pass and heads off on his motor scooter to try to find Colonel Mangon. We sit and wait. And wait. And wait. The sun is starting to go down.

The only benefit of all this waiting is that it gives me an opportunity to assess the condition of the FANCI soldiers. Now I'm no military expert, and I didn't exactly wander around the whole base (in fact, I stayed planted on the stairs outside the sergeant's office), but the following was abundantly apparent: while the rebels seemed lean and mean - if under-equipped and sometimes high - the FANCI troops seem, well, old and fat. (To be fair I did see some trucks go by with younger troops who seemed physically fit.) Recently Gbagbo and FANCI have engaged in some tough talk, implying that they may be forced to end the ceasefire and go back on the offensive if the rebels don't agree to rejoin the power-sharing government soon. But, judging from the look of this base, FANCI isn't an army in high state of military readiness. There is no sense of urgency to anything being done on the base. When I share this thought with Fanny he laughs and says that FANCI troops are rumored to desert their posts in droves in the face of rebel attacks, often slipping away in civilian clothes. I don't doubt this. The rebels aren't exactly known for taking prisoners.

The young private on the scooter returns as night falls. He tells us that Colonel Magnon is not here so he had to get someone else - a captain - to sign the laissez pass?. Fanny tells me that he thinks the private is lying about Colonel Magnon. He thinks Col. Magnon is here but trying to avoid us because he doesn't want to grant me an interview. This is probably the case. In any event I am too tired to care.

We head back to the Hotel President. I was going to ask that we not stay here again - it's too pricey -- but I am exhausted so I decide to go along with Yoda's decision. This time we are given rooms in the tower. The rooms look a little less '70s than the ones we had the first time here, which is too bad. It's also too bad that the airconditioning hardly functions. After freshening up a bit, I go out to eat at a maquis on Yamoussoukro's main drag with Yoda and Fanny. Both of them are joking about finding me a companion for the evening. "My friend, you will not sleep alone tonight, this I know," Fanny says. Well, in fact, he is wrong. Whenever he points out women at dinner (which by the way is grilled whole fish with onions and tomatoes and the ubiquitous attieke) I simply shrug my shoulders or pretend not to be listening. Yoda on the other hand calls someone. Not his regular girl in Yamoussoukro it turns out, but the young woman we had met on Sunday when we were touring the basilica (she was on her way to Mass.) Much to my bewilderment, she agrees to meet him later that evening. (So much for good Catholic girls.) After dinner, we go back to the hotel. I lay down on my bed and am asleep almost immediately. I wake up at 3 a.m., sweating and still in my clothes. As I head into the bathroom to wash up I spot a cockroach skittering across the counter top. I pause to make sure my luggage is sealed (I don't want any stowaways) although it occurs to me that the roach may have actually come from my bags in the first place.

Lasers in the Jungle

I was happy to find that the shower worked this morning. The water was even sort of warm. I had been worried about this, in part because there is a mysterious bucket filled with water in the bathroom. Next to the bucket is what looks like a plastic cereal bowl. Oddly, this too is filled with water. My first thought was that these items might constitute the bathing facility. (My second thought was: man, you've got to be kidding me.) But, much to my relief, the tap and the shower seem to work -- except when they don't (a few times I've tried the tap and nothing has happened. But it seems to be a sporadic and temporary condition.) So maybe the bucket is a back-up system. You know, in case the shower cuts out when you're all lathered up. If that's the case, it's nice of them to have these redundancies. The bucket, however, also looks like a wonderful breeding ground for mosquitoes and I'm tempted to dump it out. The problem is that I'm afraid to do so without knowing its real purpose. I meant to ask Fanny today, but I forgot. And so the bucket remains.

I know I have made some disparaging remarks in my previous post about the appearance of many of the rebels. But I imagine I look pretty ridiculous myself sometimes. Today, I was in my best "Ted Koppel, foreign correspondent" get up: Gore-tex hiking boots, light khaki linen slacks, a loose-fitting dark khaki shirt from Columbia Sportswear (the shirt is vented in the back and is made of some high tech fabric that is supposed to wick moisture away from your skin), and my light khaki field vest (one of those things with tons of pockets that photojournalist and fly fishermen wear.) I was a walking clich?. I always think dressing like this silly - this outfit in particular is bad because the shirt is a little big on me and I appear young to begin with, so I always feel as though I must look like a kid playing dress up. But there is a reason so many foreign correspondents dress this way - it's very practical. Especially that vest. Those pockets really come in handy. And, with the exception of the boots (which were originally purchased for a trip to ICELAND), this outfit is one of my cooler ones (I'm talking temperature not style here), which is important. Because it's hot here in Bouake. Really hot. It's not as bad as it was in Iraq but there were times today when I felt nearly as uncomfortable as I did there. The only benefit to the heat is that my laundry dries really quickly when I put it out on my hotel room balcony. I washed some things in the sink this morning and by 12:30 they were dry.

I am finding that I waste a lot of time here sitting around waiting to meet with people. It doesn't help that Ivorians seem to think nothing of keeping someone waiting for them and frequently don't show up at all. I find this outrageous. Today I showed up for a 9 am meeting with the spokesman for MPCI (it's a French acronym for the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire), the rebel's political wing. The rebels have their administrative headquarters in a former ministry public health building. I arrive, we are checked in by some vacant looking young men with guns, and then ushered into a large unairconditioned conference room to wait for the spokesman. An hour later he still hadn't arrived. So I decided to leave and try to make another appointment for later. (He actually was there for that meeting and didn't make me wait for more than two minutes.) But it seems that everywhere I go I have to wait for long periods of time. Or I can't talk to them because it is lunch - a period that last for two and half hours. Or they are sleeping. While in Abidjan I used some of that waiting time to make phone calls to try to arrange more appointments, here in Bouake the phone service is poor so it is hard to even do that.

Bouake is a weird town. It sort of sprawls out from the center, where there is a crowded marketplace. Like most cities I've seen here, it is relatively squalid by Western standards. One day, near the hospital, I see a guy herding cattle along the street. You would think you were in the country, but this is right in the middle of Bouake. I later see this in other cities too.

***

Fanny took me to visit the campus of the University of Bouake, where he and the woman he calls his "wife" (who is really just his fianc? and the mother of his child) had been students prior to the war. The place was a complete wreck, far worse than the conditions I saw when I was at the University of Baghdad. The University campus had been the scene of ferocious fighting during the war - in December -- between FANCI and the rebels. At the time, FANCI was making a push to reoccupy Bouake. They managed to take the university but the rebels then recaptured it. Afterwards, they executed many of the FANCI forces they captured there and buried them in mass graves or burned them in pits. (Apparently this event is referred to as Lundi Noir - or Black Monday.) The grass of the campus is now overgrown and the place is deserted. The buildings all look badly damaged. We enter one former woman's dormitory to try to locate Fanny's wife's student identity card. She left it behind when she fled the campus at the start of the war and now has no identification papers whatsoever, which is a big problem here in Cote d'Ivoire. Fanny's wife isn't the only one to have left things behind. It looks as though most students left behind the majority of their belongings. It also appears that the rebels later came and looted every room - strewing people's things all over the place in the process. The floors of the rooms and the hallways are littered with the personal effects of the former occupants - clothing, toiletries, notebooks, letters and photographs. We find the room that Fanny thinks belonged to his fianc? but we can't find her card right away and I don't want to stay long, so we leave. Fanny seems upset about this, but Yoda was getting nervous waiting outside. While we were inside, a couple of rebels who are living on the campus grounds had approached the car to find out why we were there. We receive icy stares on our way out. (Fanny said that when he had returned to the university to try to salvage some of his things it had taken him two full days of searching to locate his own student ID card amidst the wreckage.)

My last day in Bouake I met with the French colonel who commands the battalion of soldiers assigned to the area around Bouake. I really wanted to meet with him and talk to some of his troops because I thought I would use them in the lead to a magazine story I am supposed to file soon. But, unfortunately, this was one of the most useless interviews I've ever in my entire career. The colonel, a nerdy, lanky guy in his 40s with glasses, was probably annoyed with me because I showed up 15 minutes late for my appointment with him (I had been stuck in Col. Bakamoko's office). Maybe that's why he decided to give me only 15 minutes (and exactly 15 minutes at that - he timed the interview and cut if off abruptly when the time had elapsed.) Trying to get him to say anything interesting during that time was nearly impossible. He spoke English but then he kept saying he didn't understand my questions. He said he had no opinion to offer about discipline among Force Nouvelle. He offered no security assessment of Bouake except to say that things were improving. (I asked him from what they were improving and he said he didn't know, he wasn't here before. I asked how he could say things were improving then. Well, there are fewer guns on the street and more security, he says. So when his troops got here there were many more guns on the street? How was it less secure? How have the French helped take guns off the street? He wouldn't answer any of these.) He refused to tell me how many soldiers he had under his command, saying only it was a heavily reinforced battalion (I have no idea what that means in the French military.) He refused to delineate his area of operation, only saying it was a large zone that happened to include Bouake. He refused to offer any useful assessment of his troops' morale. He kept saying the French were "professional soldiers" and would act accordingly. Why he thought this is what I wanted to hear I don't know (except that maybe he was trying to overcome the American stereotype that the French army drills daily in how to raise a white flag.) Any way, it was totally frustrating and I think he could tell I was getting angry with him. And he wouldn't let me interview his rank and file soldiers or his other officers. So far my experience with the French army has been exactly the opposite of that I had with American soldiers in Iraq. There, the top American spokesman generally offered platitudes while the field commanders were far more open. And the enlisted men were happy to talk. (Of course, maybe that's changed after some soldiers were demoted for talking to reporters about low morale and criticizing Rumsfeld.) 0h well...I will have to go back to the French colonel in charge of public relations for Licorne and try to get another opportunity to spend time with French forces.

If this was one of my more discouraging experiences during my time in Bouake, one of my better ones was visiting briefly with the team from Medecins Sans Frontieres that is currently running the hospital here. A group of seven doctors, all ex-pats of varying nationalities (including one American), treat 5,000 casualties a month here. (They only perform emergency services.) The surgical team, which consists of four of the seven doctors, performs 250 operations a month. They are aided by a local staff of 150, a quarter of the hospitals normal workforce. The hospital looks kind of creepy. I certainly wouldn't want to be treated there. But the MSF program director says conditions in Bouake are actually pretty good compared to other places he's worked. Laurent, the MSF program director, says they still get gunshot wounds from time to time but that they are never sure of the circumstances under which they occur. They don't ask too many questions. They just treat the injured and move on.

Crossing over...

I am sitting here in my dingy room at Hotel du Centre in Bouake, the heart of the rebellion in Cote d'Ivoire. It's Sunday, October 26th, but I don't know when this entry will be posted. I have a feeling it may be awhile. There is limited cell phone service here (I've been told that Orange, my cell phone service, hasn't been operating here at all for the past few days.) There is also no television reception for some reason. I'm guessing that my chances of finding a functioning cyber caf? are not good. I am sitting here typing away on my laptop while listening to the news from the BBC over shortwave. (Thank God for the Beeb right?)

(Okay it is Monday and much to my surprise I have found a working cyber cafe, which is how I am able to post this. My cell phone also works today too which is very good news. The cyber cafe even has decent AC – which is great because this place is freaking hot.)

The last two days have been interesting, although not particularly productive in terms of work. Yesterday morning, I went over to the main military barracks in Abidjan to pick up a pass that would let me cruise through government checkpoints in the south of Cote d'Ivoire. This pass was supposed have been ready the night before, but of course it wasn't. Once I had the pass in hand, I abandoned the lap of luxury at the Novotel and decamped to the homey but far less posh Residence Bertrille. Emma and Timothy were waiting for me there to make sure I settled in okay, which was very nice of them. But no sooner had I moved in than I set off again with Fanny and Yoda to make my way north from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro. When Yoda drove me around last week he had some sort of old Peugot. But today he is driving a newer Toyota Corola wagon.

Yamoussoukro, which is located 200 km north of Abidjan is the political capital of Cote d'Ivoire even though in reality almost nothing of importance happens there. (Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who served as the president and semi-benign dictator of Cote d'Ivoire for 33 years, moved the capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro in 1983 because it was close to his birthplace and because it was located in the center of the country rather than on the coast.) The road out of Abidjan starts out as a four-lane highway, but it quickly narrows to a single lane in each direction. This is crazy given that it is one of the primary north-south transport routes in Cote d'Ivoire and hundreds of 18-wheel trucks ply it daily on their way back and forth from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The road is fairly well paved, but every kilometer or so there is a pothole large enough to swallow a bus. To avoid them, Yoda swerves suddenly from one side of the road to the other, which adds a bit of excitement to an otherwise monotonous two and a half hour journey. (The trip feels longer than this because to economize on fuel Yoda has decided not to run the air conditioner. That makes for a very hot and dusty drive with the windows rolled down and reggae tapes blaring on the stereo. The heat makes me drowsy and I find myself nodding off frequently. Fanny catches a long nap in the back seat. I just hope Yoda stays awake.)

I am told the highway leads through farmland and scrub brush, but frankly, it is hard to say what the countryside looks like because for the most part it is obscured behind green curtains of elephant grass that line both sides of the road. (It would be very easy to set up an ambush on these roads.) We drive through a few small villages, which look fairly impoverished. We pass a convoy of French soldiers heading south. Every once in awhile there is a checkpoint manned by Ivorian troops, but as soon as we show them our pass we are waved on. Only once do they actually ask see our luggage and even then the inspection seemed cursory. As we get closer to Yamoussoukro, we drive past some kids selling stuff on the side of the road. One child, who looks to be no more than six, is hawking a monstrous looking lizard that he holds aloft by its tail. The thing is almost as long as the child is tall. Fanny tells me it is called a "varron." He seems surprised I have never seen one before.

Just when I think we will never get there, we approach a hill with tall lampposts sprouting from its crest and the highway suddenly widens to six-lanes across. This is the entrance to Yamoussoukro. The city is entirely overbuilt, with broad boulevards mostly devoid of traffic. Supposedly 100,000 people live here, but I bet the actual figure is less than that. The place seems fairly deserted except for the central market, which is in section of town called Habitat that was the site of a small village before Houphouet decided to turn the place into a monument to himself.

Yoda wants us to stay at the city's premier hotel, Hotel President. I object, but Yoda says he knows the manager and can get us rooms for 25,000 CFA, or 10,000 less than the normal rate. I am starting to discover that Yoda is extremely well connected everywhere we travel. With the price reduction the rooms don't sound too bad. (We only need two of them because Fanny plans on staying with relatives of his friend Konate who live here.) Hotel President is weird. It is actually a large complex, consisting two buildings separated by a well-manicured lawn and a large pool. It has several bars, all of which are empty and a nightclub that Yoda says is very popular. The main building is a tall, gray concrete structure with an incongruous octagonal observation deck jutting out from its upper stories. This makes the place look as though a flying saucer has crash landed on the roof. Inside, the clock stopped in 1974. Really. I'm not exaggerating. I am sure they haven't redecorated since then. Back in New York, you could probably sell the furniture, light fixtures and carpeting from this place in some hip boutique on the Lower Eastside for a small fortune. (I took some pictures of my room that hopefully I will be able to post at some point.) Next to the hotel is one of Africa's finest 18-hole golf courses. Unfortunately, I've forgotten my clubs. (I also realize that I left my bathing trunks back at the Novotel. I will have to buy a new pair at the SOCOCE when I return to Abidjan.)

We drop off our bags and go for a brief drive around. As we pass through the bustling, ramshackle market, we can see the giant dome of the basilica of Notre Dame de la Paix looming through the humid red twilight. It's an impressive sight. Near the center of town is a giant walled estate. This was Houphouet-Boigny's presidential palace and apparently his family still lives in the compound, which is closed to the public. On one side, the palace grounds are bordered by a moat populated by a dozen or so lazy crocodiles. (Fanny says they are just one part of a vast menagerie Houphouet kept at the palace.) We look at them for a while. But staring at motionless crocodiles gets old fairly fast. So we head back to our hotel and Fanny and Yoda head off for dinner. I won't see them again until morning.

I have dinner plans with Jason, an American radio reporter based in South Africa where he knows my good friend Adam. Jason happens to be in Cote d'Ivoire working on two stories, one about the political situation and the other about the basilica here. We have dinner at a maquis -- more chicken, attieke and the obligatory bottles of Flag. Jason seems like a really good guy and a smart reporter. I'm sort of relieved to find that his French is almost as bad as mine. (It makes me feel a little less crazy for wanting to cover things here without having a firm grasp of the language.) Jason has been based in Africa since December, but he had previously traveled to Cote d'Ivoire from Boston to cover the war. He isn't optimistic about the country's future. Actually, Jason thinks all of West Africa is in terrible shape. He says it is his least favorite part of the Continent. As for Cote d'Ivoire, he thinks it is only a matter of time before violence returns. He even thinks that if the current impasse goes on much longer, the government might try to fly troops over the French peacekeepers and launch an offensive from the north. (I don't think this is likely, but it's an intriguing idea.) After dinner, Jason drops me off at the hotel. I pop into the nightclub but it seems deserted. I go back to my room vowing to check out the nightclub again in a few hours. Instead, I pass out on my bed.

In the morning, I oversleep. Fanny calls to say he is in Yoda's room. I pop up there. Yoda opens the door and lets me in. Fanny is sitting in one of the chairs, but the curtains are drawn and the room is still dark so it takes me awhile to notice the braided hair peeking out from the covers of Yoda's bed. I'm guessing this is neither Yoda's wife nor the mistress he has mentioned before. (Later Yoda says it is yet another girlfriend and Fanny wags his finger and tells me Yoda has "a wife" in every village.) The woman turns over and stares up at me groggily. I say hello and try to act nonchalant. She says nothing. Fanny and I try to call an army colonel who is supposed to be in town. I'm hoping to interview him before heading to Bouake. But we can't reach him and I decide to go grab some breakfast. The massive hotel dining room where breakfast is served is largely empty. This whole complex, like Yamoussoukro itself, seems so overbuilt. I wonder if it is ever full. I also wonder how much money the Intercontinental chain, which now owns the place, is losing on it per week. There are three white guys sitting behind me at breakfast and they are speaking what sounds like Russian, which makes me suspicious about what they are doing here. A few hours later, we pass one of them in the hotel lobby and much to my surprise Yoda stops to shake his hand. It turns out they know each other. (I guess this shouldn't surprise me. Yoda seems to know everyone.) It turns out the man is in fact Russian as is one of the other men I saw at breakfast. Yoda says the third man is South African. It also turns out that the men are mercenaries. They fly attack helicopters for the government. Yoda says that if I want he can arrange an interview them for me when we pass through Yamoussoukro again on our way back south.

We go off to visit the basilica. It really is a massive edifice, modeled closely on St. Peter's in Rome. In fact, with the huge gold cross atop its cupola, it is taller than St. Peter's, which makes it the tallest church in Christiendom. The project was conceived by Houphouet, a devout Catholic. Completed in 1989, it was built in just three years by a labor force of 1,500 working around the clock. Its full cost has never been revealed, but estimates put it in the neighborhood of $300 million, an amount equal to about half of Cote d'Ivoire's budget deficit at the time. Yearly maintenance is some $1.5 million. Certainly, given the amount of poverty here, this money could have been better spent. The basilica has 7,000 seats - each individually airconditioned. It can hold another 11,000 people standing and its plaza, which is larger than St. Peter's, can hold 300,000 pilgrims. But there are only 1 million Catholics in the whole country and the basilica has only been full twice: once when the Pope came to consecrate the building and then again for Houphouet's funeral. Interestingly, the only depiction of a black man in the whole Church is the image of Houphouet himself in one of the 36 gigantic stained glass windows. All of the other images - of Christ and the apostles and what not - are of white guys.

We don't get to tour the whole basilica because Mass is starting when we arrive and we are soon shooed out. But it is interesting to see who is attending the Mass. There are many Ivorian families as well as some whites that I assume are French. The bishop and the priests are all white. Three jeeps pull up and drop off a contingent of French soldiers still wearing their combat fatigues. They join a large group of ECOWAS soldiers from Togo and some Ivorian troops who are also coming to Mass. One hopes they are praying for peace.

Heading for Indian Country

There are a couple of little things about this country that are really starting to drive me nuts. One is that no one ever has any change. I'm always suspicious when people tell you they don't have change. I always think they are hoping that you will just decide to overpay. But here this isn't some sort of scam. They really don't have change. And I'm not talking about overpaying by vast amounts. I'm talking about trying to pay a 1,200 CFA taxi fare with a 5,000 CFA note. (This is like paying for a $2.40 cab ride in the US with $10. In the US, the cabbie would definitely have change. In fact, you could probably offer him a $20 and he might grumble a bit, but he would have enough money to give you change.) Here no one ever has enough money to give you change. They always expect you to be able to produce the exact amount you owe or to get within a couple hundred CFA. If you are more than 500 CFA off, you have a problem. I have run into this phenomenon before in the developing world (it was true in Venezuela too) and I find it baffling and infuriating. I mean how hard is it to get a bunch of small bills and coins in the morning and keep them on hand. Maybe it really is hard because people are so poor that don't have any extra money. And I guess that without bank accounts they can't get a lot of small bills and coins to use as change. But still it is just ridiculous. It puts the burden of the transaction on the customer rather than on the seller, which is bad for business. Change helps grease the wheels of commerce. I wonder if development economists have ever looked at this problem.

My other complaint is that the window cranks in the back of most taxis are missing. You get into these unairconditioned cabs and the first thing you want to do is roll down the windows, but oh no, invariably you can't because there is just this nub where the window crank should be. So you have to ask the driver for the detached crank he usually has with him in the front seat and he will pass it back to you so you can roll down the window. Then you can pass this to your fellow passenger so he can roll down his window. Then you hand it back to the driver. In some taxis, they don't even have a broken-off crank so they pass you a socket wrench instead. I asked one taxi driver why none of the cabs have window cranks and he said it was because, given the heat, everyone wants to roll down the windows and as a result the cranks break off really quickly. But you figure this would be a good reason to REPLACE THE CRANKS. But I guess that would cost money and people here don't have it.

Okay, now that I've gotten those two rants out of my system, on with the blog...

Well, this morning I finally broke out the suit I schlepped over here for an interview with Albert Tevoedjre, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special representative to Cote d'Ivoire. I figured I ought to dress up for the occasion, but it also happened to be the cleanest article of clothing I could wear. I tried washing some clothes last night in my hotel bathroom. When I was in Iraq, I washed stuff all the time and hung it out on my balcony. In the desert air, it was dry in an hour or two. But here, I don't have a balcony and in my air-conditioned room, everything was still wet when I woke up this morning. I am hoping laundry is easier to do when I move to my new residence in Vallon.

Any way, my interview with Tevoedjre was interesting. His office in the MINUCI (some sort of French acronym that stands for UN Mission to Cote d'Ivoire) headquarters, a fair-sized compound located down a quiet road in Cocody. The place has fairly tight security to begin with and this morning the government defense minister and some army generals were visiting when I arrived, so the place was practically in lock-down. (There were some scary looking dudes in plainclothes with wires dangling from their ears on all the stairways.) I had to wait while the army chiefs were ushered out of the building and into waiting luxury cars before I could have my meeting.

Tevoedjre must have been the first person I've met here who was optimistic about the prospects for peace in Cote d'Ivoire. (It is of course his job to be optimistic, but still it good to hear something positive for once.) He seemed convinced that the rebels would have to return to the government. He said the only way for Alassane Ouattara (the RDR politician who now lives in self-imposed exile in France and is believed to have financed the rebellion) to get what he wants, i.e. the presidency of Cote d'Ivoire, was to continue with the peace process and go for elections in 2005. Tevoedjre was sure economic pressure, applied by the international community and Cote d'Ivoire's neighbors, would force the rebels back to the table. He said he expected a breakthrough within the next week.

Tevoedjre's optimism was balanced out by the brief chat I had this afternoon with the bureau chief of an international news service. He thinks the country is totally screwed. He is certain violence will return with the next election, if not before, and he believes that ultimately Cote d'Ivoire could go the way of Liberia or Rwanda. He doesn't see any way out of the current political deadlock and he thinks France's only hope of extricating itself from its expensive commitment here is to turn the peacekeeping operation over to the UN. The bureau chief hates Cote d'Ivoire in general. He thinks the people are rude and arrogant. He finds Abidjan expensive, dirty and dangerous. (He says he worries every night that someone will attack him in his home - in part because there is so much hostility toward the foreign press here.) He says he likes Liberia better than Cote d'Ivoire, which is saying something. He also said he is planning on moving the bureau to a neighboring country soon. (The bureau chief said he had heard that I had visited La Sorbonne. I am not sure how he knew this. For all I know he reads this blog. He said that going over there was very "unwise." He said I was lucky to be alive.)

I had a long chat with Fanny at some point today about the problems in Cote d'Ivoire. Fanny is from the north and is a Muslim and he clearly has some sympathies for the rebellion. He says he liked the fact that when Ouattara was prime minister he really tried to tackle corruption in the country. But Fanny told me he thinks ultimately nothing with change for the poor people of Cote d'Ivoire. He said the reason was that all African politicians are corrupt and only want power for themselves and their friends and relatives. He says that no matter how much money and development assistance the West gives to Africa, Africa will remain backward and impoverished because there were no good political leaders in Africa. All of them were corrupt and only looked out for their family or maybe their tribe, never the country as a whole.

Fanny is from a poor family. His father dug diamonds for a living and died when Fanny was 14. (Fanny says he sometimes digs diamonds too to earn spare cash. He keeps promising to show me some uncut stones he has dug up. Why do I have feeling he's planning on trying to sell some to me? Don't worry, I'm not buying.) Fanny was the first person in his family to go to university and yet he says he almost wishes he hadn't gone. After all, despite his geography studies, he hasn't been able to find a good job (except working for me as a translator.) Having gone to university has only increased his frustration with his lot in life. He thinks poor people in Cote d'Ivoire have no opportunities for advancement. They will always be poor. The choice positions and business opportunities go to those who are already rich and have government connections, he told me. He said he wanted to go to America, where there were real opportunities. And then he came round to what I figured he was building up to: he wanted to know if, after we finished working together, I could help him come to the US to work or study. Wasn't it true, he asked, that I could get him a visa easily? No, I said, it's not true. I have no idea how one gets a work permit or a student visa, but I have a feeling it's really difficult. Surely, Fanny said, if you really wanted to you could sign the papers for me. No, surely I could not, I said. All I could possibly do is try to find out a little about the application process and give him that information. Fanny seemed a bit disappointed, but I have a feeling I haven't heard the last of this request.

Almost everyone here wants to come to the US. People really do think it is the Promised Land. Timothy says he would love to study in America, but he knows he'll never be able to get the money together. So he is thinking about going to South Africa instead. I talked to Timothy about what Fanny had said. Timothy said he didn't like Fanny's attitude. If he thinks the poor will always be poor, then he will be, Timothy said. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Timothy said there were plenty of rich people in Cote d'Ivoire who had begun life with nothing. I was glad to hear Timothy say this. But later he mentioned that he had been trying to get a job with the UN or a foreign embassy here and that for the most part they hadn't even bothered to send him a rejection letter; he just never heard back from them. He said he knew that many of jobs went to people who knew someone already working there, so maybe Fanny was right after all. (I couldn't tell if this was simply a much subtler version of what Fanny had done earlier in the day: did Timothy want me to write him a letter of recommendation for a job with the UN or an NGO or the American Embassy?)

When Timothy came over to meet me at the hotel this afternoon, he had prepared an elaborate hand-written diagram for me. It was some sort of complicated flow chart, labeled in English that was supposed to show the relationship between a master and a slave. Timothy proceeded to tell me that he thinks France is like the master and Cote d'Ivoire like the slave. After a bit of discussion, he told me he thinks France is behind the rebellion. He thinks they encouraged Ouattara and the rebels in order to protect their economic interests here, which Gbagbo had threatened by calling for the cancellation of several large contracts with French companies (French companies run the water, electric and telecom monopolies here.) I have heard this conspiracy theory before and I have to say it is sort of intriguing. For one thing, it is hard to underestimate the cynicism of French foreign policy. And these kinds of things aren't without precedent in the world: the US encouraged a coup in Chile in part because it wanted to protect ITT's business interests; it supported pro-government paramilitary groups in Guatemala in part to protect the interests of United Fruit. It is also hard to believe that French intelligence didn't have some inklling that an attempted coup was afoot. But somehow I don't quite buy the whole theory. It's far too neat. If the French had really wanted the rebels to win, I think they could have made it happen. Plus, there's no way France wanted to be in the predicament it is currently in here - hated by Ivorians of every political persuasion and yet stuck here as the only real guarantor of peace.

Later in the evening, JP brought an Ivorian social science professor over to the hotel to talk. He too suspected France of being behind the rebellion. In fact, he was really against the French. He talked for a long time about the history of Cote d'Ivoire, the evils of colonialism and the roots of the current conflict. He was very passionate. He is working to try to train people to appreciate the diversity of Cote d'Ivoire and to have tolerance and respect for one another. He said he was optimistic that there would be peace because the average Ivorian is fed-up with the war. I told him I hoped he was right.

My adventures with Ivorian food continued today. At lunch, Fanny brought me to a place that made foutou banane, which mostly cassava and a little bit of banana pounded until they whole thing turns into a glutinous paste. It is served as a big oval lump on a plate. Then you order a bowl of sauce. I had chicken in a thick, somewhat spicey, reddish-brown peanut sauce. You take a spoonful of the foutou and dip it in the sauce and then eat it. It was pretty good, although the foutou is really heavy so you fill up very quickly. This evening, Timothy, Emma and I went to a lively maquis and had poullet brase (grilled chicken with onions and spices) and attieke. Timothy showed me how to eat attieke properly - and the proper method is even more messy (and possibly unsanitary) than I imagined. You take the attieke and need it in your hand into a ball and then dip the ball into whatever dish it is you are eating. Then you sort of lean forward and shovel the whole thing into your mouth. (Earlier, I had been making the mistake of tilting my head back and trying to drop the attieke into my mouth.)

Tomorrow I am planning on heading up north, first to Yamossoukro, the country's nominal political capital, then into Indian Country - across the zone of confidence and into rebel-held territory. I want to visit Buake and then maybe head west to Man. While this sounds dramatic, it isn't supposed to be dangerous. I have been that things are actually very calm up there right now and that the rebels are very welcoming to journalists, so hopefully I find this be to true. In order to head up to the north, you need a pass from the FANCI, the Ivorian army. I applied for mine yesterday and it was supposed to be ready today. But when I arrived at the military barracks to pick it up it wasn't available yet. The soldiers said that if we came back at 6:00 it would ready, or if it wasn't, it would be ready tomorrow morning for sure. After we heard this, Yoda suggested offering the soldiers a 5,000 CFA bribe to process the papers faster. I didn't like this idea. But I also didn't want to be too delayed. Fanny and Yoda assured me that we wouldn't get in trouble. It's the way things are done here, they said. So I gave Yoda the bill and he ran off to give it to the soldiers. He came back and told me the pass would definitely be ready at 7:00 pm. But at 7:40 Yoda called to say he had gone back to the office and it had been closed. So we will have to go back tomorrow morning any way. I am not really sure what it was I paid for then. (Timothy later told me I shouldn't have paid a bribe. He said I would have gotten the papers in time any way and noted that paying bribes only fosters more corruption.)

Tomorrow I switch hotels before I head off. Wish me luck. I don't know what Internet access is like up north, so this may be my last post for about a week. I'll be sure to fill give a full report when I return... (At least one of my readers has pointed out several typos and spelling errors in the blog, which I will have to try to correct at some point. I apologize for these.)

A lesson at La Sorbonne...

Two nights ago --Tuesday -- I left the hotel and had dinner at Bar des Sports right down the street. My guidebook describes the place as a bustling old sports bar where many French ex-pats and "old-school Ivorian professionals"hang out. And it is true that when I've passed by the place at lunchtime or just after 5 pm, it does seem crowded. But I think the war has devastated the nightlife here in Le Plateau and the evening I visited, it was absolutely deserted. Although they still had a French football (soccer) match blaring on the television, the only other patrons were four young English-speaking consultants, fellow refugees from the Novotel. I had a mediocre brick-oven pizza and a pint of beer and wandered back home to the hotel.

I awoke the next morning to the news that while I was digging into my pizza, a French journalist was being murdered less than a half mile away. Jean Helene, who worked for Radio France Internationale (RFI), was shot in the back of the head by a police officer while waiting outside the National Police Headquarters. The National Police Headquarters is on the Boulevard de Republic and I've passed it many times on my way to interviews in Le Plateau. Helene had gone there to interview some members of RDR (Rassemblement des Republicans, or Rally of Republicans in English), an opposition party that is perceived as being closely aligned with the rebellion. They had been arrested some days earlier --in what was probably an example of political harassment -- and they were supposed to be released that evening. Helene had apparently gotten into some sort of altercation with the policeman, who then went inside to tell his superiors, came back out and attacked Helene. The government claims he acted alone and was not following anyone's orders. But, even if that is true, it's a shocking incident. As the head of one NGO told me today, "if a policeman feels he can do this kind of thing with impunity, no one is safe."

This killing is the big news here. French President Jacques Chirac has demanded a full investigation. Most of the politicians here have condemned the attack, including the President. Since Helene's murder, a number of Westerners I've met have asked me if I'm doing okay and cautioned me to be especially careful. The public affairs officer from the US Embassy phoned to make sure I was all right, as did JP, an African doctor I know who is currently working as a surgeon here in Cote d'Ivoire. I appreciate their concern and it's good to know that people are thinking about me. So far, I haven't had any real problems.
Knock on wood, that will continue to be the case.

Yesterday afternoon, however, I did get myself into a rather uncomfortable situation. After picking up some documents from the UNDP, I was walking past La Sorbonne, that dusty lot where every day members of the Young Patriots hold a rally. A couple hundred people --most, but not all of them, students --gather here at lunch. Some of them sit on benches, and the rest stand behind them, and for hours they listen to a variety of speakers spew political invective against the rebels and the RDR. The speakers stand at a microphone set up on a small platform in the middle of the lot and preach to the crowd. The whole thing reminds me of pictures you see of Nazi rallies or Nation of Islam gatherings (although the numbers here are fortunately not that large). It's a highly charged environment and my acquaintance at the BBC had cautioned me against going there uninvited. She said JPP (the Juenes Patriots) were frequently hostile to the foreign press, especially if they thought you were French, and it was obviously the kind of gathering that could easily give way to mob violence. Given that it was the day after Helene's murder, I probably should have stayed away completely. But I'd been sort of fascinated that people would come here every day and sit in the heat for hours listening to diatribes and harangues. I would think they would be bored to death after awhile. Fanny says he thinks that Gbagbo's party, the FPI, pays many of the people to stand there. Any way, I was passing by and decided it would be good to get a photo of La Sorbonne. I mean, it would be interesting to show people. I thought I could probably do this inconspicuously from the far side of this fence that surrounds the vacant lot. But this is Africa and, as I'm discovering, it is impossible for a white person to do anything inconspicuously here.

Fanny wisely realized this and told me that it would be better to ask permission to take the photo. That way people wouldn't turn on me. But in order to ask permission, we had to actually enter the lot. No sooner did we do this than about 15 people rapidly approached me and started yelling things. They obviously thought I was French and they seemed pretty hostile. Fanny quickly told them that I was American and I started speaking in English. Their anger seemed to evaporate almost instantly. "Oh, American," they said. "Welcome, welcome." Now, rather than attacking me, everyone wanted to shake my hand. It is sort of refreshing to be somewhere where Americans are greeted with enthusiasm rather than resentment. But my presence was creating quite a scene. More and more people started crowding around me, pulling on my arm and asking to see my press pass and my business card. I don't like crowds like this. It's too easy for the situation to get out of hand. I kept telling people I didn't have enough cards for everyone. Meanwhile, I was uncomfortable about the commotion I was causing. One well-dressed young man, a kind of lieutenant of the student leaders who run La Sorbonne, took my card and brought it down to the organizers of the rally and suddenly I was being told to follow another one of these young aides down to the front row. I didn't want to do this. I just wanted to hang back and take a few photos and leave. But I didn't feel like I had a choice. Needless to say, a murmur arose from the crowd and everyone was staring at me (some menacingly) as I made my way down an aisle. A place was cleared for me --they actually made other people move --so that I could sit down next to the student leaders. Then the speaker told the crowd in French that they had a special guest here today, an American journalist. The whole crowd applauded. I felt compelled to wave to everyone. But I was extremely embarrassed. I was also more than a little angry with myself. In my business, you cover stories, you aren't supposed to BE the story. In fact, if you become part of the story it usually means you've screwed up -- badly. I was worried my presence would be used for propaganda purposes by the JPP and I didn't want to be perceived as endorsing them in any way. And yet I felt compelled to stay awhile and listen to them.

I have to say the whole experience did give me some insights. The people next to me introduced themselves. Surprisingly, there were actually some older people in the crowd including many professionals. The man next to me was TV producer. The old guy behind me was a director at the Port of Abidjan and he spoke excellent English. He told me the JPP were taking up a collection to create a legal defense fund for the police officer that shot Helene. They said they didn't think he did anything wrong. They said the French were to blame for the rebellion because they wanted to keep Cote d'Ivoire economically enslaved. The speaker yelling at the microphone while I was there was in his 30s. I was told he was a high school math teacher. When he finished his speech, people threw coins at him. (A way of showing their appreciation.) It is scary to see educated professionals engage in this kind of extremism and endorse murder as a political tool. I sat for a while, took some photos, and after a decent interval said I had some other appointments and made my exit.

One of my meetings today was Jean-Yves Dibopieu, the secretary general of the Federation of Students of Cote d'Iovire. Dibopieu is 30, but he looks much younger, in part because he has a bit of a baby face and in part because he dresses like an American college student (puma shirt, baseball cap, baggy jeans.) Dibopieu's post has been a launching pad for many of Cote d'Ivoire's current politicians (including Guillame Soro, one of the leaders of the rebellion, and Ble Goude, the current leader of the JPP) and Dibopieu clearly has political ambitions of his own. He is also clearly in the government camp. He is a big fan of Gbagbo, who he feels has a great vision for the future of Cote d'Ivoire. He is also a supporter of the JPP, which he says is a legitimate organization for the self-defense of the country. Dibopieu holds a master's degree in philosophy and styles himself "an intellectual."So again it was sort of shocking to hear his political rhetoric. He too thinks that France is behind the rebellion. And seems to believe that the rebels will have to be driven out by force. If Dibopieu really represents this country's next generation of political leadership, Cote d'Ivoire is in big trouble.

Last night I decided to go out for dinner in Cocody. I called Emma to see if she was free because she lives near there and I figured it would be better than eating alone. She agreed to meet me and she said she would ask her younger sister, Nancy, to join us. Nancy is a university student and lives in a dormitory near the restaurant at which I wanted to eat. We stopped by Nancy's dorm first so I got to see what an Ivorian dormitory looks like. (To any Penn alum readers out there: think unrenovated Quad.) The rooms are really small, but they each have their own bathroom which is nice. The halls are dark and decrepit. But for the most part it seemed like a dorm anywhere. Lots of people roaming the halls, loud music blaring, funny graffiti on the doors, people hanging out. Still it was interesting to see.

This morning, while waiting to meet with Dibopieu, I actually saw people cleaning the streets. Two women were working with a whisk broom to sweep trash into small piles. Fanny claimed a truck would later come and pick up the piles, although I didn't get to see this part of the operation. He told me that the garbage pickup is run by a private company and paid for by local businesses. That may explain why there is more garbage in some areas than others. I also don't know how frequently they do this sweeping. There was so much litter around, I was starting to assume there wasn't any garbage service.

This afternoon, I took some papers over to the army base in Le Plateau in order to apply for a pass that will allow me to travel to the rebel-held areas of the country. The application is fairly simple, but we were directed to several different buildings before we found the right office which gave me an opportunity to see a good portion of the place. The base was built for the French, so it still has all the old colonial architecture. My pass should be ready tomorrow and I may leave on Sunday and travel for several days to the north.

Before I leave though, I want to check into switching hotels again. Emma's friend Timothy had investigated some "residences"(self-catered apartments) for me and he took me out to Deux Plateau to show them to me. I really liked one. It was clean and had a friendly staff. It had big suites --including a kitchen, a sitting room, and one and half bathrooms. (It reminded me a little of the place I stayed in Baghdad.) The place had a pool and they said they could hook me up to the Internet in my room, which would be cool. I think I am going to probably move there.

After looking at the residence, Timothy showed me a bit of the neighborhood. We visited this fantastic French patisserie called Pako Gourmand and had some ice cream there. (Some former Peace Corps volunteers had told me about this place and it certainly seemed as nice as they described it.) Then we checked out SOCOCE, which is modeled on an American mall. It has a gigantic supermarket (where everything seemed fairly expensive -- I saw a can of soup for $6 -- but still it was all the food you would recognize from Europe or the States including an extensive wine selection). It also has several clothing stores, a sporting goods place, a bank, a three-screen movie theater (they were playing "Catch Me If You Can,"and "The Bourne Identity") and even a fountain in the middle. There were French ex-pats all over the place. It was really nice.

Ater SOCOCE, we stopped by one of Timothy's friend's houses. His friend wasn't there, but we were invited in for a glass of water. The friend's sister and cousin were there making hand-made cards. They were really nice. Perhaps I will go back and buy some. Timothy's friend is a lawyer. (Business and tax law.) We went to her office to visit her. She has spent a lot of time in the US and her other sister is currently studying at Mount Union College. She seemed nice and says she hopes to go to the US to study for an LLM. She said if I ever wanted to her a lawyer's perspective on the country's political problems I should call her.

Finally Timothy said he wanted to show me Hotel Ivoire, a famous hotel complex, once considered the nicest accommodation in West Africa. Hotel Ivoire occupies a peninsula that juts out into Lagoon Ebrie and offers a fantastic view of the Le Plateau skyline. We took a cab over there. (As we drove, I noticed the sky was teeming with bats again.) Like so many of the once nice things in Abidjan, the place was built in the 1970s and feels like it could use a little sprucing up. But still it was an impressive complex. It has two hotel buildings, including one big tower, and the main lobby has a grand concourse full of all sorts of fancy boutiques. It was also full of white people, most of them French. But several business people don't want to stay here any more in part because rumor has it that many of Gbagbo's associates, including JPP leader Ble Goude, are using the tower as a base of operations. Any way, the place offered a great view of the sunset and the lights of Abidjan.

A note about spelling: I've been kind of writing this one the fly and realize I haven't always done the best job in terms of proof reading or checking my spelling. This is particularly true of some of the French and Ivorian words I've used. So, for instance, I think in one post I referred to "Le Sorbonne"when I should have said "La Sorbonne." When I talked about the lumpy cous cous like stuff I was eating, I called it achekay. Well, that is how it is pronounced but I have seen it written out on a menu now and it is spelled attieke. And its made with pounded cassava bean, not with some sort of grain, so even though it looks and tastes a lot like cous cous I don't think its really a related dish. The fried plantains I had are call alocco, but somehow when they say it here it just sounds like loco. Also, I had said in a previous post that Galerie du Parc seemed to be owned by some Lebanese immigrants. Well I talked to one guy there today and he said he was actually Moroccan. So I stand corrected.

IF I HAD A HAMMER...

...I think I would use it to smash the equipment of the band that plays every night in the hotel bar here. They are truly awful. The band usually consists of two guys: one plays keyboard, while the other sings, often in falsetto and frequently off key. A female vocalist sometimes joins them, but she's equally bad. They do covers of famous French and American songs. Their version of the folk classic "I had a hammer," was one of the worst things I've ever heard. They make it rather unpleasant to go to the bar and yet every night many of the guests spend hours sitting there nursing drinks. (I make an occasional visit.) I guess there really isn't anywhere else to go. Some people even clap when the band finishes, but maybe this is more out of appreciation for the sudden silence than it is for the band's performance.

The clientele at the Novotel bar is overwhelmingly male. I think most of the guests here are probably businessmen. But at one corner of the bar, there is usually an African woman sitting alone. It's not always the same woman, but I am fairly certain that this bar stool is reserved for the resident prostitute. I came to this conclusion after recognizing one of the corner sitters as a member of the small group of "ladies of the evening" who hang out across the street from the hotel entrance each night. They wave and yell out to men getting out of cabs here. I don't think they get much business (but then again, they are there every night and I doubt they would be if there were never any takers.)

I find that I spend a lot of my time sitting around waiting for things to happen, which is frustrating. I wait for people to call me back so that I can arrange interviews. Then, when I have interviews, I go to their offices at the scheduled time and end up waiting for a long time even though I have an appointment. People never seem to apologize for keeping you waiting. Sometimes they even forget about the interview altogether. I think this is all pretty rude, but I've been told it's just the way things are here.

That said I have had some good interviews in the past couple of days. I met the head of one of the major political parties here. He seemed very slick. Ivorian politicians have definitely mastered the art of spin. I also had an interview with the guy who runs the Coffee and Cocao Bourse. He was a pretty colorful character, sort of like an Ivorian version of Juan Valdez. He is in charge of marketing Ivorian cocao beans. He was a short guy, who dressed in a bright red and blue patterned African tunic and matching pants. He wore an old farmer's hat even though we were inside. (The hat must be his signature. He was wearing it in every one of the numerous photos of him meeting with various politicians and celebrities that decorated his office.) The interview was in French. I'm not sure Fanny did that great a job with the translation. He seemed to have trouble understanding my questions, which involved some more economic and business terms.

By far the best interviews I have had so far have been with French officials. I have been struck by how frank they've been with me. They seem so different from many of the American officials I met when I was in Iraq. With a couple of notable exceptions, the Americans always felt obliged to say they were optimistic: Sure, things were tough, but they were making progress. For the most part they remained "on-message." Only rarely did anyone let their guard down and admit how terribly frustrated they were with the way things were going. (They usually told you these things off the record, in whispered tones, and none of them ever seemed despondent.) The French here, on the other hand, seem perfectly willing to admit they are in a terrible bind. "Mission Impossible," is how one of them described their predicament. There is a kind of existential fatalism to some of their comments. It's all very French. And it's all very true. I really feel sorry for the French here. They tried to do the right thing and, despite what many people suspect, I think they tried to do it for the right reasons. But the peace process they helped engineer is deadlocked, with no obvious solution in sight. Meanwhile, they are hated by all sides, even though the French are probably the only thing keeping the country from sliding back into outright civil war. They have 4,000 soldiers here and they will probably have to keep them here for a very long time.

On Monday, I met a French army colonel who is the current spokesman for the French forces in Cote d'Ivoire. (The French mission here is called "Licorne," which means "Unicorn.") We shared a drink in the hotel bar. He arrived in his fatigues, carrying a French-English dictionary under his arm (although his English was excellent.) You have to love French military officers - they have such ?lan. He told me he thinks the rebel military leaders are ready to disarm, but that their political representatives aren't ready to take that step. He said he had served two tours in Bosnia and one in Afghanistan and he said this was both easier and harder than those missions for exactly the same reason: because the people of Cote d'Ivoire were culturally French. (I think some Ivorians might beg to differ, but it was an interesting, and self-deprecating, answer.) He also acknowledged that although France would like to see a reunified Cote d'Ivoire, their peacekeeping operation is essentially having the opposite effect. By enforcing a demilitarized zone across the middle of the country (they call it a "zone of confidence") and keeping two opposing armies apart, they are helping to create a de facto partition of the country.

Tuesday, I spent some time over at the French Embassy meeting with the political officer there. Given the huge French economic influence and presence in Cote d'Ivoire, you would expect their embassy to have a kind of colonial grandeur. And it does in fact occupy a prime piece of real estate in Le Plateau with fantastic views of Lagoon Ebrie. But it wasn't really as impressive as I expected. The building is a rather plain example of uninspired modern architecture (probably from the 1960s or early 1970s). Inside, there is also a distinctly 70s-ish feel to the d?cor. The whole building, like so much in Abidjan, seemed a little run-down. Perhaps that's why they are currently doing major renovations - a fact that has left the building temporarily without air conditioning, much to the chagrin of the diplomats working here. The poor guy I met with seemed haggard, even though he's only been here a few months. He wore the obligatory tan, cotton suit. (At least this seemed properly colonial.) He was also very honest in saying that the French are out of answers: they can't figure out what they should do. Like everyone else, they would like to see the rebels rejoin the power-sharing government (the rebels have been boycotting for the past month). But they can't figure out what would entice them - or pressure them - into doing so. They had encouraged Gbagbo to offer certain concessions, which he did last week, and they were hopeful that this would be the breakthrough everyone had been looking for. It should have offered the rebels a face-saving way to climb down from their current position and rejoin the government. But the rebels didn't take the opportunity Gbagbo handed them. In fact, they simply ratcheted up their demands. The political officer told me he is going to conduct a policy review and brainstorming session next week to try to generate some new options. (I thought it was really surprising and wonderfully honest that he admitted all of this to me.) Oh, by the way, if you want to know where all the attractive young French women are in Abidjan (something I'd been wondering myself): they are at the French Embassy. Perhaps I shall make another appointment to see my friend the political officer again soon.

After my stop at the French Embassy, I went to look at some "residences" - cheaper hotels, some with self-catering, designed for longer term stays. I am thinking about moving out of the Novotel and going to one of these residences. I'm afraid the Novotel will bankrupt me. I saw one that was fairly nice. But I'm having trouble deciding whether I should move there.

On the drive back from this excursion, as twilight settled over the Lagoon, I saw an amazing thing: the sky was filled with thousands and thousands of tiny black dots moving diagonally across the sky. At first I thought I was watching a gigantic flock of migratory birds. Cote d'Ivoire is a great bird watching spot (or so my one bird-watching friend tells me.) But then I realized that these weren't birds at all: they were bats, thousands and thousands of bats leaving wherever it is they stay during the day and going out to hunt for the evening. Their progression across the lagoon took at least ten minutes.

Back at the hotel, I met a friend of Emma's named Timothy. Like Emma, he also studied English at university. He was working for Nestle for a time, but he is currently unemployed. Emma had suggested I might want to use him as a translator. I have to say his English is better than Fanny's. But, as with the hotel, I am having trouble deciding whether to switch. I hate the idea of having to fire Fanny, but I think Timothy might be better (and less expensive.) He is also a devout Protestant, which might have some pluses. For one thing, I probably wouldn't have to worry about him trying to find me an Ivorian girlfriend, which seems to be Fanny's number one preoccupation. (Fanny is Muslim, but apparently not that religious.) He keeps asking if he should call Solange and have her meet me. I have decided that the correct response to this question is to laugh. Then Fanny laughs too and we can move on to some other topic of conversation.

Some of you have asked me to say something about Internet access here. Well, currently I have a great Ethernet connection right in my hotel room. (I can even do instant messaging, as some of you have discovered.) But this wonderful luxury, like everything else at the Novotel, doesn't come cheap. It costs 7,500 CFA (or about $15) a day, although if I stay here for a whole month, I will only have to pay 90,000 CFA (or about $180) for the connection. That may sound like a lot - and it is -- but it compares favorably to my other in-room option, which is logging on through a dial-up connection. It turns out that AOL actually has dial-up access numbers here - mostly at 28,800 baud, although I think they have one faster modem. The problem is that they impose a ridiculous connection "surcharge" of $24 per session. I have also visited one of the local "cyber cafes." The one I've used is located in Galerie du Parc, a kind of mall on Boulevard de Republic here in Le Plateau. (I use the term mall loosely: the ground floor has a restaurant, a bakery and an ice cream parlour, as well as a furniture store and the cybercafe. Upstairs is a large clothing store. I think Lebanese immigrants own the whole place. Throughout much of Francophone West Africa, the Lebanese own many of the more successful retail businesses.) Internet usage at the cyber caf? cost 500 CFA per 15 minutes, unless you buy a pre-paid card that allows you 5 hours of access form 5,000 CFA. I like the staff at this cyber caf?, but the place's biggest drawback is that it isn't airconditioned and as a result it can be rather uncomfortable to work there. When I use up the rest of my time on my prepaid card there I think I will look for another place where the working conditions are a bit nicer. I have not yet explored any local dial-up options that might be cheaper than AOL.

Well, there is plenty more to say, but I this entry is getting long and it is late here. So I think that will be all for now.

Grand Bassam and grand metaphor...

October 19, 2003

After sleeping in, I call Emma. We are supposed to do something today and she had talked about inviting me over to visit her family for lunch. It is Sunday so I can't do any reporting. When I call Emma she says we can't have lunch because the wife of one of her brother's has died unexpectedly. I say this terrible news and I express my condolences, but Emma doesn't seem that upset and insists that we do something together anyway. I can't believe it. If it were my sister-in-law who passed away I wouldn't be going out. I tell her that this is ridiculous, she should be with her family. But Emma is adamant that we do something. I ask her what there is to do on a Sunday in Abidjan. Nothing, she says, except many Abidjan residents escape the city and go to the beach in Grand Bassam, the old colonial capital of Cote d'Ivoire which is located about 45 km away. So we decided to go to Grand Bassam.

To get to there, we take a taxi to Gare de Bassam, which means Bassam Station. I imagine this to be a bus terminal but it turns out Gare de Bassam is simply a corner in Treichville next to a Texaco station. Or, at least that is where Gare de Bassam used to be. When we get to this corner, it turns out that Gare de Bassam has moved to another location some 5 minutes drive away. But to get over to the new spot we have to take a "lorry." In British English a lorry is a truck. But here a lorry is a beat-up old white station wagon into which the driver crams eight passengers. The lorry won't move until every place is full. Needless to say, there is no air-conditioning. Two women climb into the lorry after us in colorful dresses and headdresses. One woman has a child slung over her back in a kind of papuss. Soon the lorry is full and we drive over to the new Gare de Bassam, which turns out to be a pot-holed dirt lot located next to a coffee roasting plant and populated with the cannibalized hulks of old school buses. We transfer to another lorry and wait some more. Eventually all the spots are full and we head off for Grand Bassam.

The drive is pleasant. On the outskirts of Abidjan, there are shanty towns where people raise livestock: chickens, sheep and some scrawny cattle. Soon we are surrounded by stands on palm-trees and we pass decrepit villages hard by the shore. Emma says these people are lucky to live right on the beach. They don't look too lucky, I think to myself. They look really poor.

As we approach Grand Bassam, we pass private beach clubs. These are the ones that middle-class Ivorians belong too, Emma says. They seem fairly rustic. Closer to the city, the road is lined on either side by thatched huts where artisans sell wicker and carved furniture as well as other kinds of carvings and pottery. Emma suggests I stop for souvenirs, but I tell her I'll do that some other time. Closer to the lorry station in Grand Bassam our lorry actually breaks down. We hop out and hail a taxi that takes us to the beach. On the way we pass some tents filled with white people scrambling over cars covered with advertising decals and caked with a light-brown mud. Our taxi drivers says there has been a car rally today.

At first, the beach at Grand Bassam seems like the tropical paradise it is purported to be. But on closer inspection, this image begins to crumble. The beach is littered with garbage, some of it floatsom, and some of it left by beachgoers and raked into small piles. The place smells of rot and decay - some of it from the garbage and some of it from dying marine life. The sand is very coarse and the rough surf kicks up a lot of it, turning the water an unattractive shade of brown. The waves breaking on the shore leave behind scummy tan bubbles. I am not sure if this is just salty froth or the residue of pollutants in the water (it reminds me of bubbles I've seen in lakes where motorboats have discharged gasoline.)

Emma and I wander the beach. We find some Ghanian fishermen emptying their catch from their traditional boats, which are large wooden dug-outs. Their families are gathered around. Many of the boys are naked. There are some white people on the beach, but most belong to fancy private clubs that line the shore. Emma and I pay a few hundred francs to sit under a simple thatched hut. Emma doesn't know how to swim but keeps saying she'll wait while I go in the water. I think about it but the surf looks ugly and given the amount of crap on the beach, I'm not sure I want to go into the water. All kinds of vendors ply their trade of the beach. There are some local artists selling batiks and boys trying to sell horse rides to young French girls - these beach hustlers are now different from the ones I've seen trying to scam tourists in the Caribbean or down in Mexico. But there are also some interesting salesmen from Niger selling cheap jewelry and wrapped in linen robes and turbans. And several women wander in colorful dresses with all kinds of goods balanced in baskets on their heads. Emma and I buy coconuts from one women, who uses a machete to open them up for us. We drink the milk and then she chops them up for us to get to the meat.

Later, Emma and I walk around old colonial buildings of Grand Bassam. The place must have been beautiful once, but it is now in stay of amazing decay. Shutters hang precariously from the upper story windows of grand old French mansions. The roofs of several buildings seem to have collapsed. Other residences have lost their battle against the jungle and rather large trees sprout from their foundations. A few buildings are covered in graffiti, which is too bad. The afternoon light, however, is beautiful and the place has a certain charm, as do ruins everywhere. The only thing is that people still live among these ruins. Emma says they have been trying to restore these houses to their former colonial majesty. It doesn't seem like they've made much progress. We are given a tour of the old town by a colorful local wood carver. He takes us to a store run by one his friends that sells all kinds of masks from the different tribes of Cote d'Ivoire. I really enjoyed that place. I vow to come back and try to buy some carvings. Next weekend there is a "Day of the Dead" feast here in Grand Bassam. I think I may come back to see that. It is supposed to be quite a spectacle. It's a kind of carnival in which one of the local tribes dresses in costume and honors their deceased ancestors.

As it is getting late, Emma and I take a taxi back to the lorry station in the newer part of Grand Basam. Unfortunately, a really fat Ivorian businessman sits next to me and my leg cramps up on the return trip. As we approach Abidjan again, a bend in the road provides a vista out to sea and I can see two large off-shore oil platforms looming on the horizon. Cote d'Ivoire's economy has largely been based on agriculture - cocoa, coffee, pineapples, and cotton. But recently they discovered large petroleum reserves just off-shore and a Canadian company has signed a contract to begin production. The government is hoping this may turn the country's economic fortunes around. In fact, the Novotel where I'm staying is swarming with Texans and Scotts. They all work in the oil industry. Also on the way back, we pass the airport and then the giant French military base at Port Bouet. Lined up on the other side of a high fence capped with barbed wire are dozens and dozens of armored personnel carriers, trucks, jeeps and bulldozers. There is probably more equipment here than in all of the Ivorian army.

On the taxi ride back to the Novotel, we drive across Houphouet-Boigny bridge toward Le Plateau, the business center of Abidjan. Illuminated by the setting sun, the modern office buildings of Le Plateau sparkle and it appears like a beautiful, bustling Western city -- or at least Dubai. But, just like the beach at Grand Bassam, this image does not stand close inspection. Close-up, the buildings are not so beautiful. Many are starting to fall apart. Everything is dirty. The streets are strewn with garbage. If things don't start to improve, this place may one day become much like the old town at Grand Bassam, a living ruin.

No War, No Peace

Saturday, October 18, 2003

I am happy to see that it is sunny today. Fanny comes over in the morning with a list of telephone numbers for potential sources. We spend the morning making phone calls in an attempt to set up interviews for the week. We have some success - I have a meeting arranged with a French army colonel who is the spokesman for Licorne (Unicorn), the French peacekeeping mission here. We leave messages for several other people, most of whom want me to call back on Monday. Fanny tells me that Gbagbo's ban on demonstrations has angered the Young Patriots and who are now saying the president has "betrayed them." They are threatening to turn against him. This seems to be an ominous development.

I pass the afternoon back at the cybercafe in Galerie du Parc. They really need an air-conditioner in that place. I spend two hours there and I am soaked with sweat. While there, I stumble upon what I imagine to be a bit of international intrigue. Among my fellow patrons is an Asian man in his 30s. I think he's Korean, but he might be Vietnamese. He is accompanied by a woman. I am unsure if she is his wife or his mother. She speaks some French but he seems to speak only English - and he is speaking it loudly into his cell phone. I can't help but overhear. He is attempting to get whoever it is on the other end of the call to meet him in the lobby of Sofitel. Apparently, the person he is calling has been evasive and the Asian man is growing increasingly agitated. There is a desperate tone to his voice. He accuses the person he is calling of purposefully avoiding him for the past two days. He is shouting now, trying to force the person on the other end of the time to commit to a time and place to meet. He says he has been switching hotels daily. He says he can't go to the airport because - get this - the police are looking for him. I wonder what he's done? I imagine he is an arms dealer or a smuggler of some sort. I try not to stare at him. He and the woman are still hanging out in the place when I walk out.

Tonight, Fanny and Yoda are supposed to take me out to a popular nightspot called Rue Princess. It's a street in Yopougon, a suburb of Abidjan. Emma told me the place was dangerous, but Fanny says it is okay. But, then again, he also tells me that we should have our own car when we go in case there is trouble and we have to make a hasty exit. This makes me a little nervous, but I am curious to see the place. At the appointed hour, however, only Fanny shows up in the hotel lobby. He tells me that Yoda is "not a good man" and that, despite promising to drive us, he suddenly has other plans tonight. Fanny says he is very angry with Yoda. I am a little annoyed too. So much having our own car.

We take a taxi over to Rue Princess. It takes about 20 or 25 minutes to drive there. Rue Princess is a dusty street lined on both sides with maquis and nightclubs. Ivorian music and pounding hip-hop blares from every direction. I can hardly hear Fanny. We stop by a maquis and Fanny orders me a whole grilled fish (poisson braissie) along with something called achekay - which seems like a kind of lumpy cous cous. There is the obligatory soixante-sanc of Flag and the bowl of soapy water. I make a mess trying to scoop up the achekay and gobble it up out of my hand. Plus, I make the faus pas of eating with both hands. (As in many places in the developing world, one hand is reserved for eating and shaking, the other for, well, other activities...)

At one point, Fanny runs over to a man and woman walking on the road and drags them back to our table. He says the man, Sebastian, is his brother. (This term is used loosely here though and I can't figure out if Sebastian is actually his brother or just a good friend.) Sebastian is an English student and is eager to speak with me in English. The woman with him is Marion, his girlfriend. I ask Sebastian about the political situation in Cote d'Ivoire. He tells me, as many Ivorians have since I've arrived, that despite the political tension, they are just trying to enjoy life and live as normally as possible. Sebastian says the current situation is tedious: "There is no war," he says. "But there is no peace." That seems to be about right. Most people say they want peace, but no one seems to have the political will to make it happen. The result is a cold peace and constant tension.

Uninvited, Sebastian helps himself to my some of my fish and achekay. I wonder where his hands have been. As always, they all expect me to pay for them because I'm white. This is starting to piss me off - after all, I'm paying Fanny very good money. He could afford to pay for himself and to even treat Sebastian. Yet he keeps asking me for more money to cover his expenses. I may have to bring this up with him.

While I am talking to Sebastian, Fanny keeps interrupting to point out various women and ask me if I like them. When I answer, in what I think is a circumspect manner, that one woman is "nice," Fanny gets up and walks over to her. A few minutes later he leads the woman - or maybe I should say the girl; she looks pretty young, maybe she's 20 - back to our table. Fanny says he has brought the woman for me. I find this troubling. I really don't want Fanny to "get me a girl." The woman seems to be humoring Fanny but doesn't seem that interested in me. Fanny, however, is very insistent. He keeps asking if I want her to come to the hotel later tonight. Not tonight, I say. Fanny says he already told her that I wanted her to meet me later tonight. Why did I say she was nice, he asks, if I didn't want her? Well, I don't want her, I say. What about tomorrow? Fanny asks. No not tomorrow, I say. When? Fanny asks. He keeps saying I must have a woman and he is particularly eager to find me an African woman. I find all of this disturbing. Fanny presses me to take the woman's name - it's Solange - and her mobile number. He tells her that I will call her on Monday. I have no intention of doing any such thing.

After eating, we got to an outdoor nightclub. Sebastian, Marion and I dance a bit. I am the only white person there, which seems to make me an object of some amusement. Several other club-goers, both men and women, come up to dance with me. A few of them laugh - I'm not sure if they are laughing at me or with me andit makes me a little uncomfortable, but the music is good. Sebastian and Marion both say that I am a very good dancer, especially for a white boy. (Even in the States, people always seem to say I'm a pretty good dancer for a honkey. I am never sure whether to believe them.) Fanny stands and watches us. He says he doesn't like to dance (he also doesn't drink or smoke because he's Muslim.) After 15 minutes of dancing I am, for a change, soaked with sweat. Sebastian and Marion take their leave and Fanny and I go to another club for a final drink (I have a second Flag; he has some gross-looking sort of Orange cola.) While we're there, my family calls me on my mobile. I can barely hear them over the music and I am sorry I am not back at the hotel when they call. It is good to talk to them though.

Fanny says we should get back soon. The cab rates double after nine and go about exponentially after midnight. I head back to the hotel, my ears ringing from the music. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

Soaking in...

Friday, October 17, 2003

The rainy season was supposed to be over. That's what my guidebook says. But clearly the man upstairs has not read the Lonely Planet Guide to West Africa. Last night it rained again -- hard and steady -- and this morning I awoke to more of the same. Looking out the rain-pelted window of my hotel room, across Abidjan's Lagoon Ebrie, the sky is a kind of green-gray. It is dreary and wet.

Fanny is supposed to meet me at the hotel at 8 a.m. so that we can make a 9 a.m. appointment with the public affairs officer for the American embassy here. (It turns out she works not at the embassy itself, but at the American Cultural Center in Cocody, a residential district that is 15 minutes away by taxi.) But Fanny is late. Very late. And I am angry. Very angry. Fanny doesn't have a cell phone so I can't even call him to find out where the hell he is. I contemplate leaving without him but I am worried I won't be able to meet back up with him later in the day. I call Konate and ask him if he knows where Fanny is. He says
he thinks Fanny probably left late because of the rain. This really annoys me. At five minutes to nine I call the woman at the embassy to tell her I will be 20 minutes late. Luckily, she doesn't seem upset. At five minutes after nine, I step outside to take a taxi alone. Just then, Fanny waltzes up. I scowl at him and point to my watch. He says he is sorry but that he is late because of the rain. He claims he left his house at seven, but that it has taken him two hours to get here because of traffic. He says that only certain roads
in the city are passable when it rains and that these roads quickly become jammed with traffic. I don't know whether to believe him. "Rain or no rain, you must be on time," I tell him.

I am glad to see that he has at least dressed up (the past two days he's worn jeans, a Chicago Bears sweatshirt and a Yankees baseball cap - the kind of second-hand clothing so many young, poorer Africans seem to wear. I wonder if any of the old clothing I have given away is here in Abidjan, wandering around on the back of some African.) Fanny is wearing a colorful African style shirt, with long-sleaves, and pair of dressier-looking trousers. He looks more professional than I do with my business casual look and my orange North Face backpack.

Driving over to the American Cultural Center, I am more inclined to believe Fanny. There are what appear to be small lakes in the middle of several roads and the traffic heading into Le Plateau is backed up for miles. Fortunately, we are doing a reverse commute. We arrive at the American Cultural Center, which is adjacent to a TV broadcasting antennae, about 20 minutes behind schedule. The center is an ugly two-story, white rectangular building. It is protected by a contingent of private security guards, who seem skeptical when I tell them in clearly awful French that I am an American journalist here to meet the PAO. (Isn't it obvious I'm American? Maybe not. One woman has already told me she couldn't believe I was American because I am short. She thought all Americans were tall and strapping with blond hair.) Inside, I have pleasant meeting with the public affairs officer, who promises to try to get me an interview with the economic affairs officer and the ambassador. The American Cultural Center is decorated with posters from exhibits at American art museums. The public affairs officer confirms what Fanny has said about Abidjan in the rain. She says it took her an hour to get to work this morning. When it isn't raining, it takes her just 10 minutes. My anger at Fanny's tardiness is starting to dissipate. She also tells me that the rainy season is not in fact over. (Or rather, it turns out that there is a second, "petite," rainy season in October.) I must write the editors of the Lonely Planet West Africa guide and complain.

At the end of my meeting with the public affairs officer, I ask her if she knows who won yesterday's Yankees-Red Sox game. This is the American Cultural Center after all. But, surprisingly, baseball does not seem to be an element of American culture represented at the center and the public affairs officer, who admits she is no sports fan, has no idea who won the game, nor does anyone else in the building. She tries calling a Marine guard over at the Embassy to find out but it turns out that the guard doesn't know either. I find this all very disappointing. (Later I visit an Internet caf? and learn that the Yankees have won. I know as a Clevelander I'm supposed to hate the Yankees, but after six years in New York I've developed a certain affinity for them.)

Next we head over to the compound of the UN High Commission on Refugees. I meet with the deputy head of the mission here who provides me with a good briefing on the status of Liberian refugees in the west of Cote d'Ivoire. Apparently, their situation is far less dire than it was a few months ago, although the UNHCR is continuing with an emergency resettlement program for several thousand of the most desperate. With help from the US State Department, they are being processed for resettlement in the US in what is a relatively unprecedented program. I express interest in visiting the UNHCR refugee camps later during my trip and the deputy chief of mission says he thinks this will be possible.

By lunchtime it has stopped raining. Fanny and Yoda take me to eat some local food in a crowded warren of corrugated tin stalls. We have thieb (pronounced "cheb"), a Senegalese dish made with rice, steamed vegetables and grilled chicken and some sort of hot pepper. It is very tasty - and very cheap.

I head over to the BBC office where I meet up with a British journalist. We wander over to a nearby caf? - it turns out she hasn't yet