Ivory Coast et al 2010
Introduction from 2025:
This email is a little more riskee than my typical communication. The email below is mostly as it was sent in 2010. My observations about Ivory Coast are more negative than most of my emails. I generally like 99% of the places I have visited, but Ivory Coast resided in the elusive 1%. One thing I like to do is walk when I’m in a new location. While I am often TOWGIS (The Only White Guy In Sight) in many locales, I rarely feel awkward or out of place. Most places, even the harsh ones, can be friendly and inviting to visitors. Not so in Ivory Coast. No one was unfriendly or rude, but there was a complete lack of eye contact and no smiling and/or greetings, not just with me, but also with each other. In fairness, about six weeks later, a simmering on-again/off-again civil war flared up, so it may have been the building tension that made this place so uninviting. Now, back to March 2010…
West Africa
March 2010
(Generic Observation Email. Reading may cause dizziness, nausea, hallucinations, and intestinal irritation, but not prevent malaria. But reading this may be as effective as Malrone. Discontinue if side effects continue over 24 hours or you begin speaking Russian.)
Vacation Planners:
Greetings from the Wild Wild West. At least the Wild West of Africa. It is time for another test. Can you name the countries of the cities I have, or will, transited through or parked in: Frankfurt, Accra, Abidjan, Lome, Libreville, Port Gentil, Douala, Malabo? If you answered Germany, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Gabon, Gabon (tricky – two cities in the same country!), Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, then you are spending way too much time perusing the atlas - get a life!
I arrived in Accra, Ghana against my better judgment. Even my luggage chose to stay in Germany and not go to Ghana. There are many ways to explore Africa. Without clothes is not one I recommend. The only options for purchasing replacements locally look like something a colorblind schizophrenic would assemble. I’m sure they look very good in the right setting. If I wore aboriginal Native American clothes in America, I would look just as out of place as I did in aboriginal African clothes in Ghana. I had four chiefs offer me their fattest daughter and most attractive cow. I thought they had reversed it when translating, but they assured me they hadn’t. I kissed the porter the third night when he finally delivered my vacationing luggage. I immediately realized that was mistake, but elation got the better of me. Hey, before you judge a man, remember the old saying: first walk a mile in his sweaty four-day-old underwear.
On to Abidjan. Cote d’Ivoire is known to the uninformed of the world as Ivory Coast. You may think Ivory Soap comes from here, but I can assure you no soap has ever been here. If you don’t believe me, just smell for yourself. To the best of my observation, I the only white guy in the second largest city in West Africa (Lagos is the largest). In addition, I was the only guy that spoke English in the third largest French speaking city in the world. Fortunately from all my days in French Africa, I remember important words, like; jambon, champignon, and fromage. That means ham, mushrooms, and cheese. French for “pizza” is “pizza”, so in essence, I have all the French I need to survive. Abidjan is like so many African cities I have seen. In traffic, waves of natives walk through the cars selling everything you can imagine. I did see one new item for sale today: a guy was walking along with a birdcage containing very colorful small birds. While I have been given the bird while driving in traffic in Houston, I have never seen one for sell. Abidjan use to be the capital of Cote d’Ivoire until it became so corrupt there was only one thing to do: fight the corruption! No – just kidding! You don’t fight the corruption in West Africa, you just move the capital to a safer location. They moved the capital of Cote d’Ivoire to Switzerland. Oops, sorry, that is where I would have moved the capital – the Ivoirians moved the capital inland to Yamoussoukro. Yamoussoukro is safer because the bad guys can’t spell it to find it on a map, nor can they pronounce it and tell someone to take them there. I think the USA should consider moving the capital to Waxahachie.
Walking in tropical West Africa presents special challenges. Specifically in Abidjan, if I’m not in the crowds, I set a lazy stroll pace. That allows all the lizards to see me coming and to move out of the way. There are thousands of lizards on every street. And not little 3 inch geikos - I’m talking 12-18 beefed-up inches. If you walk too fast or too erratic the lizards might not make it out of your way and you’ll end up stepping on one. They’re not poisonous, but their bite still hurts, which they only dole out in retaliation for being stepped on. There are a couple of other interesting observations I could write about Abidjan, but it wouldn’t be very appropriate, and some would accuse me of making it up.
I’m staying at a Novotel (Or No-Go-Tell!) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. I am here through Monday. This is the scraggiest hotel I have been in EVER! There are stains on the hall carpet that I deduce to be a mixture of blood and semen. I won’t even begin to guess what is staining the carpet INSIDE my room!! There are huge 10 foot bars with spikes fencing in the hotel and guards with really big guns. Overall, this is a lot like prison except that prison is cleaner and doesn’t have a choice of six fuzzy channels all showing American reruns with French dubbing. Bart Simpson is a moron when he only speaks French. The street looks like a war zone, but I am clearly in the business district. I would hate to see what the bad part of town entails!!! The restaurant had a bunch of unrecognizable poop on the buffet! No, scratch that. I see cow poop all the time and that seems tasty compared the bile they serve down there. I got some mystery meat that I had to spit out. The tasted didn’t completely repulse me, but I seriously could not chew it. Jack Link beef jerky would be considered to have a Jello texture if you put it next to this “steak” for comparison. I couldn’t add rotting toxic waste to Indian food and come up with a more revolting concoction than the hotel buffet.
Gee, I’m here for four days - I’m not sure what I’ll do for entertainment. Oh wait! I don’t have a minibar, fridge, water, snacks or even coffee in my room, but let me open the desk drawer and there is no stationary or even a pen, but there is a pack of three condoms! At least they didn’t put them in the minibar, located fully inside the refrigerator like they did the condoms at the Hyatt in Azerbaijan. The seems like that would be a mood killer! And the only signage or instructions in the entire room is a sign showing a hand holding a used condom over the toilet with a red circle and slash, then the same hand holding the condom over the trash can with a green check. At least my luggage stayed with me on this leg of the trip. I guess when the luggage gods heard I was headed to Abidjan, they decided I needed a break. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the cyanide pills in my luggage.
Finally paroled from Adidjan, My first stop is Lome, Togo. But it is only a stop for the Air Ivoire pilots to recover from their daring escape from Cote d’Ivoire before continuing to Gabon. I’ve been to Gabon so many times in the last five years, that I get mail delivered there. I written previously about Port Gentil and all the logs floating in the harbor destined for China, so I won’t spend a lot of time writing about Gabon. I will overnight in Libreville. The only other time I had ventured out of the airport in Libreville was to walk about a mile to a pizza shop I had heard about where I ordered a large jambon, champignon, and fromage. (See how handy that is!) I will also overnight in Douala when I leave Gabon for Malabo. Douala use to be the capital of Cameroon, but they had to move it to Yaounde because everyone else had moved their capital.
Finally I will arrive late next week in hell. Oops, sorry, I meant Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Hell is much nicer. So much nicer, I’m expecting Equatorial Guinea to move the capital there. Parade Magazine does a special edition once a year where it lists and gives details of the 10 most evil dictators in the world. Up until 2008, the president of Equatorial Guinea was always on this list. He is the same as always, but the world has moved more to the dark side and new rulers have bumped him off the list. It’s kind of like Bonnie and Clyde not being able to make the FBI’s most wanted because some new and really bad criminals appeared. Our client mandates the use of Malrone, the anti-malaria medicine, for everyone working in Equatorial Guinea. I went ahead and started taking it because the mosquitoes are pretty bad everywhere I’ve been. Unfortunately, the hallucinations – one of the side effects of Malrone – haven’t occurred, so I’m still fully aware I’m still in West Africa. I’m thinking about drafting an irate letter to the manufacturer.
I hope this finds you well and not in West Africa. You have my condolences otherwise.
Adieu, and pass the pizza,
Keith