Heart of the Matter

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 had lunch - which is across from a vacant lot that people here call "Le Sorbonne." It is where Le Juene Patriotes hold daily rallies and one is going on now. Fanny tells me they are declaring themselves "the army of Gbagbo" and expressing their willingness to continue the war against the rebels. The British journalist warns me not to wander over there. She says the Young Patriots have been known to attack journalists, especially if they think they are French. (She says I am fortunate in that I may be mistaken for Lebanese. Why do people never believe I'm American?) The British journalist has been here for three years. She says she is hoping to leave soon. She seems tired of Cote d'Ivoire. She says the situation here is very depressing. She says the current political stalemate could continue indefinitely or the whole country could spiral back into civil war. She gives even odds on either scenario. She says the ethnic divisions in the country are only hardening and that Gbagbo has been trying to disenfranchise Burkinabe by passing new laws under the guise of land reform that rob them of title to farms they have owned for decades. I need to try to find some of these farmers.

I pass part of the afternoon in a decent, but overheated cybercafe inside a kind of shopping mall that is owned by Lebanese immigrants. I go over the US embassy to register. The place seems deserted. It takes several minutes after I ring the bell at the consular window for someone to appear and hand me the registration form.

Later at the hotel, I meet Emma, a young Ivorian woman who studied English at university. (I got her number from an Ivorian cab driver in Philadelphia named Pascal.) Emma works in collections at a state housing agency. She has brought along her colleague Max. Max and Emma take me out in Cocody to a maquis. A maquis is a traditional Ivorian outdoor restaurant that serves grilled meat that you eat with your hands. The place is hoping. Ivorian music blares through gigantic speaker set up around the maquis and the young Ivorians crowded around the maquis' plastic tables and chairs seem to be in a festive mood. The meal is kind of messy, especially if you aren't used to eating with your hands. They give you little bowls of water with soap chips in it to wash your hands and children wander through the place selling tiny tissue packets to use as napkins. But the soapy water and napkins seems to be mainly used to clean your hands after you eat. People here seem extremely blas? about hygiene before the meal. I regret not having brought some hand-sanitizer with me. I try not to think about E-coli as we dig into a delicious platter of grilled chicken, covered with onions and tomatoes. We have a side order of fried plantains and drink 650 ml bottles (called "soixante-sancs") of the local brew, Flag. It is a decent lager. On a whole, the meal is very good and costs less than $7 for the three of us.

Afterwards, we catch a shared taxi back to Emma's and Max's neighborhood. (The taxi seats about five and you wait until it is full before it sets off. Then it drops each person off in turn and sometimes picks up others on the way. It isn't the fastest or most comfortable way to get around, but it costs less than 50 cents for a 10 minute ride.) On the way, we are stopped at an army checkpoint. They want to see the Ids of everyone in the car. I show my passport, which seems to do the trick. Later, on the way back to the hotel, I pass more checkpoints. The soldiers at them seem pretty bored (some of them aren't even armed) and it isn't really clear to me what they are looking for.

Posted by Jeremy Kahn at October 17, 2003 08:50 PM