36 hours in Abidjan

No pictures of Abidjan, so here's a scenic view of Tanzania

I got back to Côte d'Ivoire from Tanzania yesterday, after a very pleasant and interesting trip. Between news of Ebola's spread to Mali and the attacks in Ottawa, traveling was a bit tense. My flight was delayed again, but this time only by about an hour, and I got back to Abidjan without too much trouble. Tomorrow it's back to Daloa and back to work.

I would like to say I took this opportunity to explore Abidjan, the Pearl of the Lagoons, but most of what I saw was out of my window in the taxi or the hotel. I'm staying in the Plateau, the central business district, which is famously dead on the weekend. That's ok with me, I was tired from all the travel, and I don't have tv at home, let alone cable, so I spent most of my time watching the tube. Or, as I prefer to think of it, catching up on popular culture.

An agama lizard in Tanzania.
Reminds me of a slightly crabby Spiderman

This afternoon there was Rugby on one of the French channels, with Clermont-Auvergne hosting the Sale Sharks. It brought back lots of nice memories of going to watch Sale play at Stockport, in the Chabal days. Today unfortunately they got crushed, 35-3. But I had fun watching.

Otherwise it has mostly been coupé-décalé music videos (see, I told you it was cultural!) and 24 hour news channels, with a brief interlude of laundry detergent ads on Saudi TV - there's obviously a more diverse clientele here than I realized. I did escape the hotel for a couple of hours this morning to go to a mall, where I bought ziplock bags, a 9 volt battery and a handful of other things I have no idea where to find in Daloa.  I'll have come back again to get a bit of a better feel for the city. Fortunately that shouldn't be too hard.

R&R - Zanzibar

A dhow on the Indian Ocean

Another eight weeks of work have passed, and that means R&R again.  Woohoo!

About 36 hours later than expected, thanks to an 8 hour flight delay and associated missed connecting flight and unexpected overnight in Dar es Salaam, and all the fun of traveling from West Africa during the Ebola epidemic, I made it to Zanzibar.

It's one of those names that seems straight out of the Arabian Nights, with sultans and everything.  The Spice Islands, in the Indian Ocean.  The kind of place I'd always heard about and always wanted to go.

By the time I arrived I was tired and dirty.  The ferry ride was freezing and not all that scenic, partly because it wasn't that easy to see the windows and partly because it was cloudy out and the sky and sea all kind of blended into a uniform light grey.  I wasn't feeling all that enthusiastic.

Once I finally made it though, I loved it.  It is much bigger than I realized, with an actual city - Stone Town - with an active local life.  There are tons of touristy things around, shops and tour companies and stuff like that, but also schools and shops and a market, and even a weightlifting association.  The old town is a warren of narrow streets, mostly not wide enough for a car, but full of people and everyone was really warm and welcoming - even the ones not actively trying to sell you anything.

Because of all the delays getting there I only got to stay 2 days, and I almost didn't bother making the trip from Dar es Salaam, but I'm really glad I did, and I hope I get to go back.

These boats could have been in Pirates of the Caribbean 

Palace of Wonder - not a bad name!

On the road

Most of the roads between towns are straight, with
gently rolling hills, but a lot more used than this one

This week was kind of crazy, with scheduled work at three camps during the week and surprise work at two other camps over the weekend.  I have always liked driving, especially long distance, so I was happy.

Driving here is exciting.  Here's a little sampling of the kinds of things you have to watch out for between towns when at the wheel:  

• Taxis - almost all 1980s model Toyota Corollas, painted the official city taxi color (green for Daloa) and often decorated with some pictures or text that's meaningful to the driver.  In Daloa they include "007", "Obama", "In Sh'Allah" and "Merci Maman".  They follow a fixed route and will stop for as many people as they think they can fit (which is more than you might expect), so they pull over at a moment's notice.
• Massa - minibuses driven between towns, but stopping at villages along the way (unlike the big intercity coaches).  These are usually old white Mercedes vans, often with the face of a famous person painted on the back - often a pop star or famous footballer, but sometimes a more political figure, like Che Guevara or Nelson Mandela.



You might be surprised by some of the
people that have been celebrated on a massa

• Trucks - especially lumber trucks.  It's probably better to be crossing them than trying to pass them, because they invariably belch lots of black smoke, making it extra hard to see the oncoming traffic.
• Motorcycles - thèse don't carry whole extended families like they used to in India, but they can easily carry 2 to 3 people, sometimes even with helmets.  Their drivers are usually pretty sensible, but they sometimes pass you from unexpected angles, especially if you've slowed down to work your way through a set of potholes.
• Bicycles - most nerve-wracking when ridden by young boys, because they tend to change direction unexpectedly without checking for other traffic.  Can be difficult too when they are carrying wide loads, like piles of wood, because they take up a lot more space than otherwise.  Cyclists often get off and push their bicycle + load up the hills.  I have only seen one cyclist with a helmet since I got here.  He was in Abidjan.  He was black, but I bet he was foreign.
• Pedestrians - people walk to market, fields or forest in single file along the side of the road, with their tools and wares or purchases on their heads.  Women and girls carry babies on their backs, and men sometimes carry children in their arms.  Now and then they'll be accompanied by a dog.  Toddlers often walk too, a little erratically, so you honk as you approach to let whoever is in charge of them know you're coming.  They often stop and step into the bushes as you pass even if there is no oncoming traffic, just in case.
• Cows - large herds are walked along the roads, apparently from Mali to the cities nearer the coast to be sold.  The cowherds are young men and sometimes boys, and are impressively good at getting the cows to stick to one side of the road when you're passing.
• Potholes - these can be anywhere, and come individually or in packs.  Sometimes you can tell the really bad ones because there's grass growing in them - a dead giveaway.
• Breakdowns - often triggered by the mercenary potholes, and usually hidden just behind a bend where they can take full advantage of the element of surprise.  If they aren't equipped with reflective warning triangles to put out they often tear out clumps of grass and put that in the roadway.  Drivers think it might be a really bad pothole and slow down - very effective!

The kind of timber truck you hope
not to have to pass on the road

In the villages, in addition to all the above, there are children playing, passengers getting on or off the massa, people selling snacks or toiletries to the massa passengers, people loading and unloading goods onto the massa, people deciding they should cross right then without looking, and farm animals.  Chickens regularly decide to cross the road, for whatever reason, as do pigs and goats and sheep.  It seems that where there are no fences the grass is always greener on the other side of the street.

All of this definitely helps keep you awake while driving.  I really like it because I get to see village life a bit and how people interact and work together.  It's stressful, but it's fun!

Arriving in Daloa - the green cars are the taxis

Feminist toilet rant

First of all, welcome to any non-feminists, male or female, who started reading in spite of the title (or didn't notice the title). I know feminists can be scary. The very word feminist is a bit of a challenge, because what we really want to be are equalists or humanists or something more inclusive, but the fact remains that half the population is underrepresented in decision-making and paid less for their contributions even in the most "developed" countries, not to mention the exclusion and injustice experienced elsewhere. We're working on improving that, and would love your help, but the word "feminist" reminds us that we haven't got there yet.

This rant, which has turned into more of a lament, was triggered two weeks ago at one of the camps where we were doing annual maintenance on a wastewater treatment unit (which means cleaning out all the sewage sludge, a very messy job) and we finished after dark.  I love sewage treatment, I think it's a noble profession and worthy and honorable work, but I definitely like to get cleaned up after doing it.  The UN provides lavatories, complete with showers, for men and women at all of the camps.  I wanted to go to the ladies' but it was locked.  The woman who works at that camp, in the Security section, keeps the key and she had gone home. Why lock the door? Because public toilets aren't safe.

If only we could all defend ourselves like Hit-Girl

It's not just in Africa, in Europe and the US parents know this and try to avoid letting their little kids go alone. But as we grow up, after we get to a certain size we forget about it. Not everywhere. I'm not suggesting that there are sexual predators lurking in the ladies toilets on our guarded UN camps (although with the male:female staff ratio I probably shouldn't exclude that possibility), but I am now very conscious that Ivoirian women don't feel safe in a public toilet that wasn't locked before they got there. That tells me a lot about how different growing up as a woman here must have been to my childhood.

Meanwhile, Ivoirian men (and male visitors to the country) routinely pee in public. They stop on the side of the road and urinate into the bushes, in town as well as in the countryside, and don't seem deterred by the presence of others. After all, it's perfectly natural, why be ashamed?

Environmentally speaking, of course, they're quite right - urine is full of nitrogen and a great fertilizer, and it is really a waste to send it all to sewage treatment works. Anyway, there are no public toilets - no fast-food or coffeehouse chains where you can buy a drink as an excuse to use the facilities either (seriously, I even checked the Starbucks locator website: the closest I could find was Cairo), and gas stations don't have them. That's what the bush is for.

You may remember, from my very first post, that I was going to relieve myself in the bush when I got my car stuck in the mud and needed five helpful young villagers to dig it out. Even something as seemingly straightforward as nipping behind some vegetation is not without its hazards. And my young villagers were helpful. Judging by the locked ladies' room door, that is something Ivoirian women are not prepared to count on. Women learn to hold it.

The locked door also reminds me that I grew up in a very sheltered, privileged environment. I had indoor plumbing at home all my life and every school I went to had safe, serviceable toilets. As a girl, this leveled the playing field for me and I was completely oblivious. When I got my first period it was a hassle and an adjustment, but it wasn't a reason to drop out of school. I graduated, without a second thought, just like the boys. Unlike poor adolescent girls all over the world, I had access to decent restrooms.

I know it's not all unicorns and rainbows for boys and men in life either. As the saying goes, everyone is fighting a hard battle, and even the biggest, strongest man will at some point need to poo (that last part isn't in the saying, or at least it wasn't before now). The risks aren't the same as for women, but in that moment in the bush I bet the feeling of vulnerability is familiar.

It seems very unfair, but I don't travel alone here any more.  I might have to use the toilet.

A plumbing and electrical parts supplier in the town of Tabou

Further reading:  there's a great Scientific American article this week on evidence showing that diverse groups are more creative, and a wonderful Indian comic book about puberty aimed at 9-12 year old girls (but welcoming all ages, and genders), called Menstrupedia.

Ladies room clip art: http://www.clker.com/clipart-ladies-room1.html
HitGirl: http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120207153754/bleedmancomics/images/a/a2/Hit-Girl.png