Heart of the Matter

A long day of travel

Wednesday - October 15, 2003

Well, I'm here in Abidjan after about 12 hours of flying (first to Paris and then here.) I have to say that I miss traveling on my magazine's dime. I'm used to flying business class when going overseas and the journey in coach was a little rough by comparison. Plus, I'm going to have to have a word or two with my travel agent when I get back. (The agent actually works for the fellowship I'm on so I didn't have any role in selecting her.) On my first flight I was in the very last seat on the plane and as a result, I had a chair that didn't recline very far. On my second flight, there was some sort of metal component under the seat in front mine which meant I couldn't stow a bag there. Next time, I'll have to check out where my seats are beforehand.

As it so happens, I slept through most of the first flight any way. There was a little turbulence on the way out of Washington but that was about the only problem. (Dulles, by the way, is really depressing at 11:00 at night.) I almost lost my US cell phone and office keys while making my "correspondence" in Paris. When making the transfer, they make you go through security again and I put them in one of those little gray plastic trays and forgot to pick them up along with the rest of my stuff on the other side of the X-ray machine. Luckily, when I realized this and came back 15 minutes later a security guy remembered me and returned the items. Then I searched for a place to change euros to West African CFA (the local currency) in Paris, but couldn't find one in my terminal and I didn't have time to go looking anywhere else. Just getting from the terminal where my Washington flight arrived to the next terminal ate up most of my two-hour layover.

The flight to Abidjan was fine. I tried to brush up on what little French I know. I watched two decent French movies (although I wound up relying on the subtitles.) I already forget what they were called. The guy next to me worked for France Telecom and we talked for a while in English. He had formerly been stationed in Indonesia and Thailand. Now he came down to Abidjan occasionally to do some sort of consulting to the two local cell networks.

The flight landed a little late and by the time we exited the aircraft the sun was down. But it was still a balmy tropical evening. There were the typical problems with Third World airports (most of which could be avoided if they all didn't seem to exist as part of some sort of scheme to achieve full employment.) There were all kinds of soldiers and guys in uniforms in the airport. I saw some UN peacekeeping troops from Romania go by. I didn't realize they were here. Luckily, my bags arrived -- or actually my bag and my box (I narrowly escaped paying overage charges in Washington after a helpful Air France ticket agent suggested I pack two of my bags into a single large cardboard box and thus avoid breaking the two bag maximum.) But getting through customs proved problematic. First, they inspect everyone's bags, no exceptions. So you have to wait in a long line to get to the customs agent. Then they made me unpack part of my top-loading backpack -- which was annoying because I had to repack it while they were yelling at me in French to hurry up. They made me take a box cutter and open my box and remove the two smaller bags inside. The whole time they kept telling me to move faster. They weren't very polite about it. I kept thinking that if they weren't trying to be so thorough this would all move along a lot more efficiently.

And then they discovered my flak jacket. This caused quite a stir. I was told to follow this one guy in a uniform into some little office and where I met three other men in uniform, none of whom spoke English. I told them in French that I was an American and a journalist and that I need that (and here I pointed to the flak jacket since I don't know the word for it in French) for my work. Beyond that my French wasn't much use. More and more guys in uniform kept coming in, looking at me and touching the jacket. They took out the ballistic plates and thumped on those. At this point I was sweating profusely, partly from the heat and partly from nervousness. They asked me for my press ID. I showed them my UN press credentials and my Fortune ID but told them I didn't yet have an Ivorian press card. Finally, after 10 minutes or so they realized I really wasn't understanding very much of what they were saying, they told me to go. Dripping with sweat, I walked out into the main airport hall and met Konate, this kind guy from the BBC who had agreed to meet me at the airport. He had brought along Fanny, who I am supposed to be using as my translator and another guy who was a driver.

The drive to the hotel took about forty minutes. There was a lot of traffic. The city seems dusty and polluted, although there are some nice glass skyscrapers downtown. There were a lot of people out walking on the sides of the road. We passed some women carrying stuff on their heads. This is what Africa is supposed to look like I guess. They were also a lot of people milling about outside, cooking in small courtyards outside tin shacks or sitting at little outdoor restaurants built under thatched roofs. These are called maquis and the huts they are built under are called paillote.

I arrived at the hotel I had booked -- Le Palm Club -- and, perhaps not surprisingly, they didn’t seem to have any record of my reservation despite the fact that I called to confirm it -- in English -- with the manager. (The manager was nowhere to be found of course.) They had plenty of rooms available any way. The place is pretty rundown. It's not the worst place I've ever stayed but it really isn't suitable for my purposes. I think tomorrow I'll try to find a better hotel. I picked this place because it was cheap and another journalist I was corresponding with by e-mail said she knew someone from Newsweek who stayed here and liked it. Well, I think I've learned my lesson: start with a top-end place and work your way down. There's not even a working phone in my room. In fact, there is no working public phone here either, so I have no way to call my parents and tell them I have arrived safely. And, needless to say, I can't access the Internet. But the room has a TV (4 channels, all in French) and a working air-conditioner. It isn't filthy but it isn't spotless either. And there isn't very much light. It's pretty gloomy.

The hotel has a small restaurant under a paillote but today it only had two dishes: fish or beef, both served with frites. I had the fish. It was okay. In the middle of dinner, the skies opened up and it was a torrential downpour for about half an hour. (The rainy season is supposed to be over, but I guess someone forgot to tell the clouds that.) The place is overrun with stray cats too (perhaps they came with the rain, although I have yet to see any dogs.) The cats are kind of cute (those of you who know me know I have a thing for cats) but when they were brushing up against my legs under the table I couldn't help wondering whether they were giving me fleas. Oh well, it's only one night. Tomorrow I have to get a cell phone, change some money, find a new hotel, get a press pass and start making calls to contacts. I hope I can get most of that done. I'm also not sure about my translator. He seemed pretty quiet during dinner. I can't tell if his English is good enough. That's all for today...

Posted by Jeremy Kahn at October 15, 2003 06:29 PM