Ivorian driving that blows my freakin' mind
For a brief moment, here and there, I actually drove in the capital of DR Congo, Kinshasa. It was insane, but once you go through the what-the-fuckery of it (like someone passing me in reverse at 40kph), you realized that a) everyone follows one rule that b) there are no rules. Driving was all about watching out for yourself and being the cheekiest.
In Côte d'Ivoire, no matter which seat you're occupying in the car, you're engaged in the driving. Outside of Abidjan, the driving isn't horrid. Taxi are spawn of the devil as they are everywhere, but it's manageable. Within Abidjan the traffic is quite insane and it's mostly due to the taxis again, causing sordid congestion everything their constantly-honking ilk cruise, looking for passengers. I hate them like nothing else I know.
But beyond evil taxis and traffic, there are two driving "rules" that I just don't freaking get.
Roundabouts (aka, the Fuckabout)
The roundabout is a genius system to manage traffic without doing anything more than making the merging lanes go around in a circle. The Ivorians have managed to shoot this in the foot though as it's the circulating traffic in the roundabout that has to wait for the cars merging in from the spokes. I had no idea how this completely backwards implementation of the roundabout happened, but the running theory is that there is a major roundabout at the top of one of the bridges to Plateau which has lights at each merging spoke and it must be that the model for all other roundabouts (where there are no lights) are based on this. Whatever the case, it doesn't work and despite the honking, we refuse to bow to this system as it's loony.
Headlights (aka Local Energy Conservation)
For those who didn't know, headlights can cause optical damage, or so the thinking must go in Côte d'Ivoire where people refuse to turn their headlights on unless it's more than two hours past sunset. To make matters, if you drive with your headlights on so that people hellbent on suicidal passing can see you, people will flash their lights at you.
My pet theory on this is there is great fear that if you have your lights on, then the authorities will require everyone to have their lights on and then they would have to replace them sooner. I don't get it, but what really blew my mind was a a truck flashing us when it was so dark that we couldn't even see him coming at us to only them turn the headlights off again once he was past us. That kind of thing is scary and reason to stay off the roads at night.
Again, we refuse to this insane system. The headlights come on at least a half hour before sunset and people can flash all they want. In fact, I encourage it, so that it wears out their lights faster to defeat this attempt at saving the bulbs which doesn't work.
08 03 2010 4 comments
Tags: abidjan, cars, cote d'ivoire, customs, transportation
Defining West African hotels
#1 Fan has been dutifully trying to plan our trip to Mali. As my French is still, "du merde", I'm pretty useless in the process. That and I've stayed around enough places in Africa at this point to have pretty low expectations in accommodations, so I'm useless in choosing which hotel I should choose. This is why my stay with friends in their 6th floor apartment in the Plateau District of Abidjan last weekend was heaven, even with the power cuts.
So, in this search, #1 came across reviews on the Lonely Planet discussion board that should be taken as gospel. The reviews themselves were great, but it's the breakdown of what to expect in a West African hotel that was complete genius:
*The Standard: the "lock" on the ill-fitting balsawood door is extremely sketchy. The mosquito nets used to be white, but the lower edges are now... unwhite. You take in pillow-smell as you listen to the people hanging out on the street outside your window at night. Mattresses are distinctly concave. There might be a plastic shelf above the sink, or it may have broken off. The soap will slide into the sink, no matter what. You may or may not get a towel, it's like a fun towel-roulette. Plastic bathtub or just a drain on the floor - either way there's not enough water pressure to warrant a shower curtain. Broken tile floor with lots of dirt embedded in the grout. Handheld shower sprayer, and under no circumstances is the wall mount it formerly rested in still intact. TV Cable and mount are visible in a poorly chosen corner, but the TV is long gone. Frequent mosquitoes, occasional lizards. Do they eat mosquitoes? One can hope.**Below standard: comes with (someone else's) hairs all over the smelly pillow and sheets. No hot water. Makes you wish you were camping. You still pay 20k FCFA. Be glad you brought the sleeping bag liner, and next time make friends for goodness sakes and stay in someone's home.
Truer words have never been spoken.
04 03 2010 1 comment
Tags: hotels, in to africa, mali, travel
Spaghetti is like crack-cocaine to rodents
It was the middle of the day. The middle of an unbearably hot, 43C, kick your ass right down in the shade and wait for evening kind of day. And there, when I strolled in to the kitchen (which works as an intergalatic amplifier for the sun) to get some water, this cheeky little bastard rat popped up out of a bag of spaghetti sitting on top of our backup water jerry cans. He glanced at me for just a second before tearing out of the kitchen, under the exterior door, which has a 2cm gap that exists soley for the purpose of transporting all manner of pestilence through it.
Thinking that I am vastly more evolved than a rat, I hung the spaghetti from a door handle before going to bed, smirking happily in thoughts of a stupid rat trying to get at hanging spaghetti. Well, the rat had deftly thought ahead of me in this spaghetti chess game and came equiped with his climbing paws that night. At somewhere around 01:00, #1 Fan and I heard the tell-tale rustle of plastic from the kitchen. "Fucker", I thought, "He has outfoxed me yet again, this rat." It was post-cut, so the power was out and bastard rat saw me coming with a flashlight before I was even out of the bed to chase him away.
Thinking that yet again, I shall outsmart this rodent, I then put the spaghetti two meters up in a closed cabinet in the bedroom. Returning to bed and being awoken to the sound of rustling plastic two hours later, I realized that there is some kind of addictive, crack element to spaghetti when it comes to rats. The bastard had not only realized where the spaghetti was, but he had somehow went out to the 24 hour Rat Market and bought even more enhanced climbing paws that allowed him to go up the side of the wall and in to this closed door. NIMH was coming to mind...
I yanked open the cabinet on him, he fell down to the floor and then ran off to his lair in the kitchen. Thinking that was the end of it, I went back to bed, yet 30 minutes later, bastard was back up there again. Yanking the door open and shining the flashlight at him, he glanced at me with this, "Oh hey. What's up? Yeah, you caught me." And then, he did what seemed to be a slow motion, Matrix-esque flying jump at me from the shelf. I sidestepped him, nearly yelping like a little girl. He seemed to fart in my general direction and again, he ran off in to the kitchen to plan some kind of evil revenge as well as new purchases at Rat Market.
Realizing the spaghetti was doomed, I put it up on a shelf in the bathroom that was surrounded by tile and then shut the door. At the very least, if he upgraded his climbing paws again, I wouldn't hear him in the spaghetti this time. In the morning, we gave up on this staple and tossed it out as we had previously dealt with some kind of weevil that had required picking out. It's a doomed pasta here in Africa.
The next day we set about getting rid of our rat. Driving around to all the shops in Abengourou, we discovered that nobody uses rat poison here. The suggestions all seemed to revolve around placing out some food, surrounding the food with glue and then killing the rat once you found it in glue. A colleague from El Salvador made the joke about catching a few of them and serving up a "brochette de viande de brousse" which you really don't want to imagine as that literally means a skewer of bush meat. Thankfully, this same colleague also had some poison left over from his own rat adventures which he gave us.
I've since put out the poison that the bastard devoured last night. I hate killing a creature this way as it's not the fastest death in the world, although I think it's a bit more humane than the glue solution. And forget about finding a trap, as they just don't exist here. Anyways, I hope that this will be the end of our rat adventures for some time as a) they spread all kinds of disease through their fur/crap/piss (and possibly sense of humor) and b) while you know that nothing will happen to you, all the noise that they make doesn't allow for a lick of sleep.
24 02 2010 2 comments
Tags: food, pests
Renewing faith in West African repairs
"Oh god! Oh no! No! Help!!!" Fearing some near-collapse of the roof or some other disaster that would be the end of her life, I came running in to the bathroom to see #1 Fan standing in the shower over some washing she was taking care of. Behind her, where the faucet had been for the shower, there was just a jet of water shooting in to the opposite wall.
I told her to go outside and ask the guard to find the main water and shut it off. That was easily done and once finished, I was able to assess the damage. Yes, the faucet had indeed broken off. After a perfunctory two years of service, this cheap, possibly-not-metal-from-this-planet, Chinese faucet had just sheered off at the pipe. That was it. No threads to re-thread. No duct tape to re-apply. Our shower was dead and due to there being no redundant line cutoffs, the water of the house was off too.
This was a Sunday, in the evening. Looking in to the hole of the pipe, I assumed that the wall was going to have to be knocked out to replace the pipe. Basically, given the general perception of how long repairs can take in Cote d'Ivoire, I thought we'd be without water and showers for the next week. Still, we had to do something to start the wheels in motion towards a repair.
#1 Fan went out and found the block superintendent, who was, as usual, napping under a tree around the corner. He came in, looked at the problem and gave his standard-issue chuckle, which we were rather pissed at given that he wasn't the one who was going to be going bucket-shower for a week. He did call a plumber to come over and check out the problem. The plumber said he would come over right away on this Sunday evening.
Needless to say, we were in no end of shock when the plumber actually did show up 20 minutes later. With him, he carried an old rice sack which he had repurposed in to his tool box. He plopped everything down in the bathroom, eyed the broken faucet threads in the wall, pulled out a screwdriver and a wrench and went to work breaking out the threads. Naturally, the wrench was being used as a hammer as any tool can be a hammer, yet a hammer cannot be any tool.
In no time, he had cracked out the old threads. From the "tool sack" he then produced a new faucet. It was obvious the man knew this repair well. In a matter of 10 minutes, he had the new faucet on, readjusted, and re-pressured. And that was that. My mind was blown and stereotypes were needing to be re-thought, or at least tweaked slightly. In less than an hour, life was back to normal and it went to show that if living five degrees above the equator, once the sun sets, anything is possible.
23 02 2010 0 comments
Tags: in to africa, praving
The journey to Jacqueville
Not heard of Jacqueville? That wouldn't come as too much of a surprise. It's a town about 60km west of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. While this is relatively close to the main city of the country, it happens that Jacqueville has no direct land routes. This aspect, in addition to missing signs makes it a tough spot to reach.
The ferry is really the biggest hurdle. It feels like you could throw a rock across the 450m of water that separates the island that Jacqueville sits on. To add insult to the injury, the ferry travels at 1/2km an hour, thus making the trip across this scant stretch of water take 20-30 minutes. It would seem apparent that given there are two ferries and that this isn't a massive destination, your wait time would be minimal. Au contraire mon ami, as the ferries take a lunch break that starts at 12:00 and goes until 14:00. If you hit it at the wrong point (as we did), you are stuck waiting there, staring at the other side of this miserable stretch of water for hours on end with a fat ticket guy shrugging and giving you a lame TIA excuse as to why the lunch breaks can't be staggered.
Once you load up and do get across, you then realize that it's 25km to get to actual Jacqueville. As you make your way along this quite good and straight road, you see that yes indeed, coconuts are the main source of revenue on this island. They are freakin' everywhere, growing in any corner of land you might catch a glimpse of.
Jacqueville proper is a small town right on the beach. It's pleasant, but overall quite basic. The stretch of coast that is lies upon is one of the nicer stretches I've seen in West Africa. It arcs gently around, with mild waves crashing away. I love how in the hot part of the afternoon, it seems that most of the town takes a mattress to go lie amongst the coconut trees next to the beach. I'm assuming they resume normal operations once the sun starts to hint at going down. Can't say that I blame them, given that 43C or so in the peak of the day is pretty nasty to doing anything.
And that's about it. A bit of coconuts, a bit of beach, some old French Colonial ruins, a pile of local kids thrilled to have their photo taken, maybe a beer, some sitting at the beach and you've seen Jacqueville. It's an interesting trip that I recommend for anyone staying in Abidjan for some time who has access to a car. For those who only want beach, Grand Bassam, to the east of Abidjan would be a tad more practical, albeit more expensive destination.
17 02 2010 0 comments
Tags: coconuts, cote d ivoire, in to africa, travel
In a state of perpetual evening
Probably one of the weirder language things I'm having trouble adjusting to are the greetings for the time of day. This may not seem like such a big deal, but people in Côte d'Ivoire are quite gregarious. Everyone greets everyone. While in the US, a nod, or depending on the setting, just eye contact can be acceptable, if you don't verbally respond back, it's considered offensive and people will repeat their greeting to you as they assume you simply didn't hear it because everyone responds. I don't really mind this and on a great many levels, it's quite enjoyable to engage with people in a country, as opposed to just being an outsider unsure of how to interact.
The one thing that gets me though is the actual greeting. In the US, traditionally we've done away with "good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening", and "good night" to use one size fits all phrases such as, "hey". The art of linguistic articulation is not one of America's finer points…
In Spanish, I've gotten used to "buenos días", "buenas tardes", and "buenas noches" as well as the respective times of day in which they're used. Croatian took a bit more getting used to with "dobro jutro" until about 10, "dobar dan" until about 18 (depending on the time of year), "dobar večer" until about 22, and "laku noć" at the very end of the night, which also works in place of "goodbye" for the evening. The times are surprisingly punctual for these different phrases and people have some kind of very accurate clock in their head to just know when to say them.
As French would have it, there is only "bonjour" and "bonsoir"; "good day" and "good evening". This probably seems simpler overall, but when one is used to having all the shades of time through the day, it seems blunt. Obviously, you get used to it, although while writing this, I said, "bonsoir" at 10:45 in the morning to a fellow who walked in the door.
In Côte d'Ivoire, probably the hardest thing is getting used to saying these at the right time. The reason that I made such a dumb gaffe with this fellow who walked in is that "bonsoir" starts at noon. Yes, the "evening" starts in the middle of the day and while people tend to get up around 6, they go to bed at 12 (don't ask me how they do it) and so, evening is making up the vast majority of their day.
I still find it weird and I doubt that I'll really quite get it at any point, although I'll just go along with it as that's the way the day goes here.
08 02 2010 0 comments
Tags: customs, in to africa, language
Barack beyond US borders
Yesterday, I was invited to talk at the English club for a local high school here in Abengourou. No, I wasn't lecturing or anything that fancy. I was merely there to talk and have the kids asks questions in order to practice their English. There is another American girl in town from Michigan who is working on English teaching and goes to the club every week.
It's always interesting to see the perception of your country from the eyes of others who see it from an extremely distant vantage. Despite all the problems the US has, it is still, to many in the world, a mythical land of opportunity. Anyone living through the economic crisis and part of the unofficial 20% without work would probably question that at the moment, but time and again, to many people the United States is the greener grass.
Naturally, a lot of the questions revolved around visiting the US and the differences in life there vs. Côte d'Ivoire. Not easy questions to answer obviously as the US is enormous and so we tried to mainly focus on that aspect and how life in Michigan differs from life in California, which is a large topic unto itself. But eventually, the question of politics and elections came up. For those who don't know, Côte d'Ivoire has been without official national elections for 15 years, having dealt with a number of coup d'etats and other unfortunate, power hungry lunacy. So, these kids have not actually seen an election in their life and given that Obama has been in power for only a year and is African, they're fascinated by him.
It goes without saying that in America, the fascination exists as well. But, while we're now starting to look at Obama's policies and wonder what the hell he's actually doing, the man still is an icon outside of the country. Even though he's half white, it doesn't matter and I doubt that it will ever matter. He could be a complete failure and serve one term, but to these kids and to a great many people, he still represents the achievement of a dream that seems impossible.
This is all incredibly on the nose and may seem obvious, but you really don't see what mythic quality a person has until you see him/her through the eyes of others.
04 02 2010 0 comments
Tags: obama, politics, us america
A toilet without a proper seat is no toilet at all
Word had come down prior to arrival in Côte d'Ivoire that the seat on the toilet in the house that #1 Fan had rented was less than optimal. Replacement was not going to be easy as the only seats you can get in the smallish town of Abengourou are all the same thin, cheap, plastic seats that stick to you when you're hot and don't support you when you're sitting. This was not going to do for my half a year stay.
So, given that I had 46kgs of space that I wasn't really sure what to do with, I decided to pick up a $15 toilet seat at Home Depot and actually bring it with me. Preposterous sounding, perhaps, but if you've never dealt with one of these skinny pieces of junk, then you don't know just how bad it could be. Oh yeah, on top of the construction of the seat, it was an oval seat for a round toilet. I think in the US, there would have been a lawsuit over this.
On my first night of arrival, out of the suitcase I produced a proper round seat. In removing the old seat and thoroughly cleaning everything, I saw that yes, this was going to be a perfect fit. Ah, but there is just one thing as it appears in the US, 14cm bolt centers on the seat are used whereas here, it's 16cm. Now, I could have just tried to smash it in to place and hope for the best. Well, actually I did try that initially, but it was pretty bad. Ultimately, I ended up unscrewing the hinges and moving them 1cm out on each side. The result of which you see below and while it isn't pretty, it makes for a proper seat, as well as 2kg of extra space in my bag for the trip back at the end of June.
01 02 2010 1 comment
Tags: in to africa, praving, toilets
Sad to be leaving, but happy to go
I have to say that while being in San Francisco for a week and a half, I'm quite happy to be leaving. I went for a walk up to North Beach two days ago to buy salami and I thought, "Hey, I won't see this place for awhile, let's have a stroll." That was a rather tremendous mistake as shop upon shop is closed. It was just sad. This city is a husk of what it was and it goes to show how intangibly debt-driven the economy is here. Although, it did make me anxious to leave.
So, that's it. A total month and a half back in the US and now I'm off again. Why am I off again? Because economically, things are really still quite down. I knew that this would be the case though as January-March in any year are a hard time to find work. Of course, I had a sunnier disposition about things this time last year, which ended up burning me. But, given the fact that my rent wasn't increased for the first time in five years and a quick perusal of Craigslist shows that yes, things are not turning around, I am tossing in the towel and leaving the country.
Heading off to Europe again? No, not this time. As much as my in-laws would probably like to have me grilling meat and watching the puppy, I'm going a bit more adventurous this time; I'm heading to Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) for five months. Yes that is in Africa (West, not South) and yes, they do speak French there. And yes, it is quite hot there. So, why on earth am I doing this?
First off, I've wanted to actually live outside the US for an extended period of time. I've only really traveled outside for a maximum of maybe three months through a variety of countries. The closest I've come to living was staying in Figueres with my in-laws and that didn't really count as I wasn't paying rent, mom-in-law did the shopping, and I was there on the three moth tourist visa which I damn near went over on. Really need to use the other passport more...
So, this will be not only the longest time outside the US, but also the first actual living in another country. It just took until I was 33 to actually pull this off (I'm a late bloomer.) This is all being made possible by #1 Fan having a temporary contract there that was will take care of basic living expenses. Seeing how the economy was heading, she did something very smart last Fall and found this position which will not only allow us to hopefully weather this economic storm, but also work on that other project that I spend so much time on, Maneno. Also, I am hoping to come back speaking decent, as opposed to chicken-scratch, French by the end of this as well. Even though it's not my favorite language in the world (the multiple 'u' sounds and the numbers kill me) it is an incredibly useful one.
Most people who read this blog probably don't read Subsaharska that much as it's about Africa and African technology primarily. This one is a bit more fun, dealing with such things as food, tea, airport frustration, and of course, toilets. Speaking of which, there should be an article forthcoming about that last item. Otherwise, if you want to see some of the more cool things I'll be doing and the people I'll be working with, take a look at that blog.
If I didn't get a chance to meet up, I'll make sure to do so in July and will be happy to see a lot of folks again after so much time away, although I will be online just as much as here in the US and I have a SkypeIn number for those wishing to call as well. Au revoir!
27 01 2010 0 comments
Tags: california, in to africa, san francisco, us america
Time for a re-read me thinks
In looking up the exact definition of a Prefect and realizing that, as I assumed, we really have no equivalent in the US, except those wanting to sound fancy-like, I was reminded of Ford Prefect; the character, not the car. Obviously, this joke of a name from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which the film version of sucked hard) was funny to me, but never completely ha ha funny. I was not alone:
Adams later observed that this joke was lost on U.S. audiences who assumed it was a typing error for "perfect." In the French version, Le Guide Galactique,[1] Ford's name was changed to "Ford Escort." The joke is also now largely lost on younger audiences in Britain also, since the Ford Prefect is now a rare sight on British roads. In the film adaptation, his last name was never actually stated on-screen, but it is given in the film's credits as "Prefect."
Sadly, Ford Escort would have worked in the US as well, but the French got that bit of humo(u)r. Anyways, maybe it's time to go back and read that trilogy in five parts. I had forgotten how funny it was as again, the film version that came out five years ago was crap on a stick.
