Rebels and Roadblocks: Escaping from Côté d'Ivoire

This is taken directly from my journal 30 January 2010. My exit from Côté d'Ivoire turned out to be even more interesting than my near arrest in Bouaké. For those of you who think I'm an idiot for even considering traveling in countries who've all been through major conflict in the past decade, I'd advise continuing no further.

Last night, I totally got hooked up while at dinner in Man. I'd finished writing for the day, had finished eating, was exhausted beyond all belief from an all-day hike and was waiting for my check when in walk two Germans, a married couple, who spoke good English but barely any French. What shock! The first tourists I'd seen in over a week. So I introduced myself, blah blah, from America, blah blah, first travelers I've seen since I left Yamoussoukro, blah blah, so where are you going? Well my husband here is working with the embassy in Monrovia, so we decided to fly to Accra, rent a car, and drive overland to Liberia. Have you been in Man long? Oh no, we're leaving tomorrow, just here for the night. Ya, I'm going to Liberia tomorrow as well, but I'll probably be jumping bush taxis with a prayer in my heart for easy transport. Well there's room in our car if you'd like to go along. I couldn't believe my luck.

Knut and Bianka have lived the past ten years in Kenya. She's a doctor; he's an electrical engineer. They never planned to end up in Kenya, but on a trans-African road trip, they just fell in love with it and never left. They regaled me with stories of sailing around the world (Knut had his own boat and took tourists to all ports of call in all the far-flung seas and oceans.) It's actually where they met and fell in love. Knut now tends to travel on land, working with German embassy projects all over Africa, and Bianka's work takes her to the refugee camps and the like all over Kenya. Needless to say, I was fascinated with these tales of adventure from seasoned travelers and felt amazed that they'd be at all curious about my adventure. I guess hoofing it around West Africa by oneself can seem pretty interesting to other wanderers as well.

Taking a ride from Knut and Bianka would turn out to be one of the best decisions I have yet made on this trip. The road from Man to Danané is paved the entire way and really rather nice. We left around 8 am and were at the gendarme's post by ten. They told us in town that we had to get our passports stamped in Danané because there was no passport control at the border. It quickly became apparent that the commandant had never done this kind of thing before as he had to be instructed by a junior officer. After he had stamped two of the passports, Knut's and mine, he said that we had to pay a little something. I objected saying it was "obligatoire," at which he took some offense, refusing to stamp the final passport. I suggested to Knut and Bianka that we just leave, as there had to be something near the border if he didn't know the procedure for exiting the country. As I got up to leave, he lectured me on how he was doing us a favor (instead of his actual job), and called me a "bad boy" for leaving Bianka behind without a stamp. He took care of her passport, and continued to call me a "bad boy." I couldn't tell if he was joking.

If I hadn't gotten a ride with Bianka and Knut, I don't know if I'd be in Liberia today. I think it would have been nearly impossible to get a car in Danané, where the road basically ends. Despite this being the main road from Côté d'Ivoire into Liberia, these border posts only see a few people a year and probably no Westerners for months at a time. The entry book was pitifully empty at the first control point, which we thought was the border, where we were asked to pay 5000 cfa (about $10). I don't know why I thought this was legit, but I did it, assured that we would have to pay nothing else the rest of the way to the border. At the second stop, a mere 12km down the road, we were told we had to pay again. "Because this is a different post. You paid at that post, but that isn't this post, and you have to pay to cross." We didn't pay that time through, as we'd forgotten the car papers, and had to return to Danané, a full hour's lost time on the shoddy, unpaved road. We picked up the papers from the commandant (who pointed at me from across the yard and shouted "BAD BOY!") and again started for the border, bouncing over crater-like potholes, fording giant puddles, and teetering along crevices carved by the rain. I don't know how I fell asleep on the way back to the border, but I somehow slept through about three more border posts, where uniformed men demanded 5000 cfa at each site. Knut and Bianka, though, are old hands at handling African corruption, and we didn't pay a dime. After another 45 minutes, I awoke just in time for the complete clusterf*** at the bridge.

The bridge spanned a small creek separating Côté d'Ivoire from Liberia. It was the final Ivorian checkpoint and probably the only official one of the whole 30km to the border. Knut went through the whole rigamarole of passing the barrier while Bianka and I waited. Of course they wanted more money, but back we went to the car. There was only one soldier at the control, only one man in any kind of uniform, and when he called to the guy Knut had been talking to, "Is everything okay? No, they didn't pay, it's not okay." I just figured we'd play the waiting game or at least negotiate the price somewhat. I was wrong.

As soon as we were in the car, Knut blasted through an opening in the peage. Some of the guys who would come to cause the greatest problems tried to stop him by running in front of the car. I'm not entirely sure he wouldn't have run them down if they hadn't gotten out of the way. The soldier, shouldering his kalishnikov, tried to block the car with a bench, which Knut quickly drove around. This was kind of funny, but I could never shake the thought that there was one guy with a gun involved, and I made sure I never took my eyes off him. Knut, meanwhile, ignoring shouts for us to stop, blasted it for the frontier. We made it as far as the bridge across the creek. So close to our goal, but we were blocked by a big truck and a tire blockade.

That's when all hell broke loose. Knut got out of the car to move the tire as I looked back to see about half a dozen guys, including the soldier, still with the kalishnikov, running after us. They caught up while we were at the blockade. Shouting ensued. One guy stood on top of the tire Knut was moving, and Knut, being a 6'5", heavily-built German, continued to move the tire with the other guy on it. He took a swing at Knut and I thought shit was really going to go down, but Knut didn't retaliate. He just moved the tire and drove on to the bridge, where we were stopped by the soldier and his friends, who were in the process of barricading this plank bridge, no wider than the car, with branches and a log stuck upright between the slats like a pylon. This started another fight about the bridge toll, etc when I noticed a guy letting the air out of the back left tire. I moved toward him, he ran around the back of the car, and I grabbed him on the other side. I wasn't afraid he would take a swing at me, I was more afraid of what would happen if he tried.

All this time, the soldier is looking more and more nervous, like he's gotten himself in over his head. And that's something you never want: a nervous guy holding an automatic rifle. Let me just repeat that for emphasis: YOU NEVER WANT A TWITCHY GUY HOLDING THE ONLY KALISHNIKOV. I got into an argument with a guy who was claiming racism, that we thought we didn't have to respect the law because we were white thought of them as stupid, black men. If there's one thing I hate, it's this argument: that because I'm white and he's black, I'm trying to get one over on him, when the reality is this: he and his friends are assholes, and we were tired of all the graft. More yelling. They've now changed tack from bridge toll to requiring a laissez-passez from the rebel commander. It's starting to sound desperate as none of these guys are in uniform, and the only one who is has disappeared. I walked back to the passport control to hash things out as the yelling has started to calm down. The bridge is broken, the commandant is on his way, you have to go around, the bridge has a toll that we have to pay, the story just keeps changing. I don't believe the commandant is on his way from Danané, as there's no one that would willingly make that trip for a reason as stupid as this. I walk back to the bridge and test it out with Knut. Looks safe to both of us. I walk up the bank to the Liberian side and ask a bystander if the bridge is safe. It is, we should just wait a bit until the truck blocking the bridge is fully loaded and out of the way. By the time I found my way back to the car, there was a woman mercilessly berating the punks who've blocked the bridge. If there's one thing I've learned in West Africa it's this: Fear the angry African woman. The "rebels" sheepishly take down the barrier under her watchful eyes and try to lecture Knut on respect, but he isn't listening. We cross the bridge into Liberia without paying a dime, glad to be out of Côté d'Ivoire and the worst border crossing ever.

I think there were two main reasons we were finally able to cross. The first was the involvement of a woman who obviously had a lot of influence in the community taking our case against some younger guys who make a lot of money exploiting those who move through this basically lawless land. The other factor? After over 30 minutes of arguing and near violence, I think these same punks realized that they might have pushed a little too hard against people who weren't going to be pushed around. When I walked over to the Liberian side, I didn't realize that I was steps away from a UN border post, with Bangladeshi blue helmets looking on from behind their razor-wired compound walls. I think they realized that if I took the time to strike up a conversation with any of the UN peacekeepers, the "rebels" would have had bigger problems to deal with. Once we got to the Liberian side, it was all smiles and sunshine. Though we still had a good ten hours to Monrovia, we were all glad to be out of rebel-held Côté d'Ivoire.

The Tragedy of Man

My final stop in Côté d'Ivoire, after the beautiful beaches near the Western city of San Pedro, was Man, once a tourist Mecca in Northern Côté d'Ivoire, now completely vacant except for the occasional adventurer like me. Man is the launching point for the fascinating villages in Yacouba (Dan) territory, an area known for it's masks, child juggling, and stilt dancing as well as beautiful mountain scenery and a climate quite a bit cooler than the rest of the country. However, during the crisis, Northern Côté d'Ivoire, especially around Man, suffered like nowhere else in the country. The guide books describe Man as one of the most beautiful inland Ivorian towns, and it would be if one were to look at it only in geographic terms. The city is known as The City of the Eighteen Mountains, and I'm sure that one hundred years ago, when Man was little more than a village surrounded by impressive forest-covered hills, it was one of the most beautiful places in this part of the world. However, illegal logging has devastated the surrounding hills, and the crisis has done much worse to the city of Man.

Man is, quite frankly, one of the dirtiest, most filthy, unattractive cities I've seen in West Africa. And that's saying a lot. I've traveled through cities in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, Sahelian countries all with less money and resources for community clean-up and beautification than Man. At one point, tourist money poured in to this area. Now only ruins remain of the many banks, hotels, and restaurants that made Man a target for wealthy Europeans. The main market burned down before the crisis and wasn't ever rebuilt because of the fighting. Fabulous hotels like La Cascade are now dirty shells with a haunted feel, like a broken boom town remembering it's former inhabitants. The largest building in town, a former bank, has been stripped down to the foundations. The streets that are paved are cracked and broken. Those that aren't cover everything in town with a fine, red dust whenever a car passes. Unlike the rest of Côté d'Ivoire, including the northern, rebel-held city of Bouaké, Man has no one to clean the streets or muck out the sewer drains. Trash is everywhere, the sewage just sits in open-air troughs. The UN presence, visible everywhere in Côté d'Ivoire, is especially felt in the roaming Land Cruisers that seem to outnumber taxis.

But perhaps the worst hit are Man's residents. They seem in stasis. By now, I've become used to tourists cities like Djenné and Timbuktu, where children cry for pens and any guy on the street is a potential guide. These problems exist in Man as well, but they're further exasperated by the fact that you're the only target in town. I saw no other travelers in my three days there. The tour guides and hotels are desperate for any kind of business. It's definitely a buyer's market for the intrepid types who make it up that far. My guide, who wanted to take me to many places I couldn't afford told me that before the crisis, he used to be able to combine poor travelers like me with wealthier groups for trips to outlying villages to see mask ceremonies, ritual dances, and natural wonders like Mt. Tonkoui, the country's second highest mountain. With me, we walked out the five kilometers to the cascades, flowing lively with an out-of-season rain the night before and stopped on the way back by the sacred forest, where monkeys very accustomed to Europeans seem to melt out of the forest looking for food from excited tourists.

At the end of the short tour, we sat in the shade and he gave me the long and the short of Man's troubles. At the cascades, he'd pointed out the ruined buvette, looted during the war. The gazebos and picnic areas, popular with locals for a weekend getaway are rotting away after almost five years of neglect. The tourists haven't come back. The local people haven't had a reason to reinvest in their natural wonders. La Dent de Man, the sacred mountain, which was once a popular day hike is now so overgrown that the trail has closed in on itself. Nearby Danané's vine bridge is no longer there. I was one of only a handful of tourists he'd worked with in the past year. I decided to hike La Dent de Man the next day with some local kids. It was supposed to be a four-hour hike. It turned in to six hours of the hardest hiking I think I've ever done. The trail is now nothing more than a hunting path, and not even a very clear one at that. Two kids went with me because they needed one another to find the path. Along the way, I quizzed them about the amount of business they'd had recently. It used to be there'd be dozens and dozens of hikers in the high season because of it's close proximity to town. There were fifteen total this month (I didn't ask if that included me), which would have been a slow afternoon during this time of year before the fighting broke out.

Perhaps most interesting, and horrifying, for me were the stories of local people. Man experienced three major attacks during the crisis. The rebels attacked first. The local people, unsupportive of both government and rebels, fought back somewhat, but really stood little chance. When the government counterattacked a few months later, they took all the men who understood Mandé to a field for questioning. The Mandinka were supposed to be the leaders of the rebellion. This was told to me by my tour guide, Touré, who is a Dan but knows some Mandé. He came back. Others didn't. By the time the rebels attacked the city again, all utilities had been cut. I heard from more than one person how they hid under the beds at night and tried to fall asleep to the sounds of gunfire, mortars, and rocket attack.

My time in Man was spent with a Volunteer named Martin working with the UN mission for the upcoming elections, if they ever indeed come. He and his girlfriend Sarah gave me a lot of insight into the violence and its causes. It's the same as many other conflicts in Africa: populist leaders stirring up inter-ethnic disputes both among native Ivorians but especially focused on immigrants from neighboring Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea. Ancient land disputes never resolved. Neighboring political issues spilling over the border. Rebel militias never demobilized. Colonial ambitions that remain in place fifty years after independence. Unscrupulous Western gun-merchants quick to cash in on conflict. The list could go on and on.

But despite all the problems, it does appear that there's hope for Man. The UN has moved out of the local hotels and there are no longer blue helmets on the ground. While I was there, I noticed a new hotel going up, and one lone bank has a small office and ATM in town. The post office has been rebuilt, and with any luck, the villagers will start to rehabilitate their "traditional" villages. Man is showing signs of life, but, as with everywhere else in Côté d'Ivoire, it's waiting tentatively for new elections to bring a stable peace to the country. Much like other popular tourists destinations, Agadez in Niger or Timbuktu in Mali, the rebellion hasn't been good for the city. But, with any luck, peace will come soon and restore hope to Man.

In to Rebel Territory in Côté d'Ivoire

This is taken directly from my journal, written 17 January 2010 at 6:40 pm. I'm going to rate this one PG-13 for most readers and for those of you in my immediate family...maybe it's just better not to read this one. You'll sleep better at night.

I've been in Côté d'Ivoire less than twelve hours, and I've already been threatened with jail time. Scariest fucking experience of the trip so far, although I was surprisingly calm throughout the whole thing. Nervous for sure, but not outright afraid that I would wind up in the military barracks being questioned in a language I don't have enough faculty in to make my case against espionage. Honestly, I was more worried about losing my camera for the rest of this trip.

So what did I do? I admit I stupidly took a picture of something I shouldn't have. It's too stupid to even mention what the object in question was. However, I'll put it out there anyway for entertainment's sake. As I was walking back from town (this is Bouaké, Côté d'Ivoire), the setting sun formed a perfect red orb just hanging low in the sky. A perfect picture for my first night in Côté d'Ivoire...a tranquil end to a tranquil day, this setting sun...right over the headquarters of the New Forces, the rebel army that controls all of Northern Côté d'Ivoire. Their capital is Bouaké. Fucking idiot. (The completely oblivious as to the GIANT F***ING SIGN type of idiot.) As I walked away, a civilian on a bike rode up and said, "The soldiers want to talk to you." I turned to see a heavily armed and armored man running toward me, and he was soon joined by two more, all equally pissed off. I, of course, immediately erased the pictures, but it didn't help my case that my dumb ass French kept telling these armed men, "I tried, I tried (essayer)," instead of "I erased, I erased (effacer)." Again...fucking idiot. We walked for about a block, them all the while yelling at me. We would stop, a civilian was trying to help my case by explaining that I had, indeed, erased the pictures. Walk another block...more yelling. It's not a film camera, it's digital. Walk another block...more yelling, it seems that it's really only one guy who's still pissed off. One seems on my side now, and the third's just indifferent. "If you want, I'll try the whole thing!" (Again, despite the fact that the civilian keeps saying effacer, I keep using essayer. At one point, I'm pretty sure the soldier who was on my side said that this proves I was just a dumbass.)

But, here I am now, none the worse for wear and a healthy lesson behind me for the rest of my time here. So much for Peace Corps no longer helping me out though. I'm convinced my crappy French and my Peace Corps-issued passport saved my ass. It's what convinced them that I was just a stupid tourist (which I am) instead of some savvy French intelligence worker. The entire day, I'd been thinking how lucky I was not to have had any major problems on the road. I only paid 600 cfa in "tolls" at the border and at the checkpoints near Bouaké. There was an attempted 1000 cfa charge at the border, but, in the end, it was actually kind of sad. The rebel troops, most didn't have boots or guns. Their camoflage looked like it had been bought in the local market. The kid, and I say kid because he was probably younger than me, originally told me to pay 2000 cfa (around $5). I told him I wouldn't pay it. His next offer was 1000 cfa. I again said I wouldn't pay it. My papers were in order, and there was no reason for me to pay any more than I'd already paid to get in to a country no one wants to go to. The passports were within reach of the window, and the kid didn't seem very sure of himself in the extortion department, so when he turned away, I just grabbed my passport and walked back to the bus. No problems. Maybe that was stupid, but it worked, and it got me away without having to participate in any kind of corruption.

I'm in Yamoussoukro now, and looking back, I can only think of Bouaké as a time bomb. If elections don't go through freely and fairly in the next couple months (they've already been pushed back twice), there's going to be all sorts of hell break loose. In Bouaké, it seemed as if there were soldiers everywhere. A lot of people near the New Forces barracks seemed on edge. It's easy to see why with so many guns all over the place. I met an Ivorian woman on the bus named Natalie. She is from Bouaké but studies in Ouagadougou. She said she loved to dance and go to the clubs (which always surprises me after two years in conservative Niger), and when I asked her about the clubs in Bouaké, she said she never goes. Not anymore. Not since the crisis; there are too many soldiers. And that's how they refer to the fighting that occurred a few years ago: as "the crisis."

Yamoussoukro feels as if it's a world away. Whereas Bouaké was marked by tension, I feel as if this city, the nation's political capital, is marked by absurdity. The streets are all about six lanes wide, with plenty of orange light bathing the pavement at night. This is one of the first African cities in which I've felt truly safe walking alone after dark. That's because it's actually a bit brighter than it is in the day. You can see down the street to the horizon in any direction. We may take street lighting for granted in America, but it's definitely not the same in Africa. This is one of the few cities I've been in with street lighting of any kind, and it's everywhere! But the funniest thing is, despite their absurd dimensions and development, no one's walking or driving these streets! It's as if you put Atlanta's interstate system smack dab in the middle of Flora, IN. (And if you're reading this and don't know where that is...that's kind of the point.)

That's the most obvious characteristic of this city actually: a complete disregard for sensible civic planning. The city's four major monuments: the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Paix, the Hotel President, the Maison de President, and the Fondation Houphouët-Boigny are, like the streets, absurdly immense with little to no human activity warranting their proportion. All four tower over the city. In fact, I've been using them as landmarks in my jaunts around town as they're so absurdly prominent on the skyline. The Basilica is a leviathan. It's the first thing you see upon entering the city from the North. I walked there (as I walk everywhere, in this case a big mistake as the buildings' immensity makes them look deceptively closer than they are) and chose the wrong gate. Instead of letting me cross the basilica grounds, I had to leave and walk around. A walk which took me 15 minutes!

The basilica is basically a carbon copy of St. Peter's in Rome, but built slightly lower at the Pope's request. However, the massive golden cross which tops the basilica, if added to the height, makes it the tallest church in Christendom. It seats 7000 people inside, with standing room for 11,000 and a courtyard that can hold 300,000. All in a country with a little over a million Catholics. But perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the entire thing is that there is absolutely nothing African about it. It looks like something ripped from an Italian holy city and deposited in the middle of an Ivorian bog. Gorgeous marble though, and the most beautiful stained glass I've ever seen, which is saying something considering I've been through almost every Notre Dame in France. The guidebook says there are over 7400 square meters of stained glass in 5000 different shades of color. I don't even know how that is possible, but at sunset, with the colors spilling across the sanctuary floor like melted candy, I'd believe it.

I could go on with descriptions of the Presidential Hotel and the Fondation, but I think you get my point. In the end, Yamoussoukro's streets and monolithic buildings seem to stand for what a leader can do with nearly unlimited power and resources. Before 1950, Yamoussoukro was just a village, and in the course of his presidency, Felix Houphouët-Boigny built it into a marvel of Africa to glorify himself and his ancestors. It is, I assume, a source of great national pride, but I found myself asking, "How many Ivorians have actually seen the capital's splendor?" But I feel as if I can't be critical, because after two years in Africa (celebrated that anniversary just last week), I also have to ask, "Would the money have actually been better spent if it hadn't gone to buid this city that is basically a monument to one man?" At least Côté d'Ivoire has Yamoussoukro as a source of national pride. I doubt the same could be said for many other countries whose national wealth went right into their big bosses' bank accounts.

An Updated Festival and on to Ivory Coast

I've had some time on my hands in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), and I've spent most of it sleeping. I probably should be updating, telling stories of adventure in the desert, etc. But honestly, I've had to spend the last few days recuperating from all my adventures, and it's only now that I've gotten up the energy to write anything at all. You may think a Festival in the Desert is all fun and games, but it's seriously tiring. The artists played every night until about 4 in the morning. It'd be a stamina contest even without the freezing desert nights and days which felt as if you'd taken up residence in a brick oven. Unless you had a hotel room somewhere in the city (which I didn't), it was pretty difficult to get more than two or three hours sleep a night.

I'll take this as a side note: Timbuktu proved to me that I'm still not ready to return to America until they've officially outlawed winter. I kept trying to see my breath, swearing up and down in the sleep-deprived 3am jam sessions that it had to be below freezing. It wasn't. At the worst of my cold-addled dementia, I called my dad and said, "It's SO cold here!" "...We're getting six to eight inches of snow tonight." "Fine, you win. I'm never coming home."

I've gotten only jealousy from fellow Volunteers after telling them I just came back from the Festival. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we're treated the same as embassy workers, which means if they State Department puts out an alert or a warning, as in the case of Timbuktu and specifically the Festival, we're not allowed to go. However, thanks to the terrorists (jerks) I ended my service early and didn't have any restrictions. Hell, I could've even driven a moto up there (we're not allowed on motos in Peace Corps). So...sometimes every bastard terrorist provides a silver lining, which he then promptly kidnaps and holds for ransom (jerk).

The questions I've been getting? "Was it expensive?" So expensive...but so worth it. No more expensive than a festival in the U.S. or Europe, but such a unique experience. "Who was your favorite?" That's an impossible question to answer, if in part just because there was no schedule for who was playing when, and it was kind of hard to know who was who unless you had a real background in West African music. Which I don't. In fact, I would have to admit that I could never work for Rolling Stone. I don't pretend to know a lot about music. I get most of my music through word of mouth and Internet radio stations, so I can't really speak to melodies, harmonies, movements, modes, etc. I didn't even know who Tinariwin was before I went to this concert (I do now, and they're awesome!). But that's why you go to something like this right? If I weren't already in West Africa at the right time and within spitting distance of the right place, I probably wouldn't have gone, but things just worked out right. And it's an experience, am I right? Very few other people in the world can say they've been to a desert music festival and seen some of the greatest musicians of one of the most vibrant music scenes in all of Africa all in one place.

So who did I like? Who should you check out? Well the aforementioned Tinariwin was a treat. They're kind of the reason the whole festival actually exists. Their music was the voice of an entire people. Resistance music the likes of which the 60s couldn't have imagined. They were actually banned at one time by the Malian government, but their sound still traveled the country on bootleg cassettes. They played the first night of the concert, when it seemed like the entire city of Timbuktu had snuck in to the concert. That was the best part about that first night. The music, no matter how good it was, took a backseat to watching Tuareg and Songhaï, Fula and Bella rock out to an iconic national group. Vieux Farka Touré was particularly great in a tribute to his father, the late Ali Farka Touré, who died back in 2006. Amadou and Mariam, who began to hit it big on the hipster scene in America a few years ago, rocked out in the final jam session of the third night to wild applause. But perhaps my favorite, a Niger staple, was Mamar Kassey, a jazz/pop group whose music I'd always heard in Niger and never liked. It's because, like Tinariwin, all the cassettes I'd ever heard were on their fourth trip through the piracy chain and usually played full blast through crappy Chinese speakers that had survived God only knows what natural disaster to end up in the desert, filled with sand and shattered dreams (or something like that). I had to give props to Mamer Kassey, if for no other reason than because they're from Niger, but also because they rocked it out. It's hard to jam on a flute! It also helped a bit that they were the only band that played anything I'd ever heard before that night. Are you looking these people up? Seriously now, why are you even reading this if you aren't interested in seeing what I've seen? Go find some youtube videos! I'm not saying I'm fully converted to high-pitched, nasal singing, which is kind of standard in griot music, but I do have to say that the experience, like so much else in this world, is radically transformed by the performance, something unique in every time and place in which it takes place. It's the same difference between film and theatre, a vibrancy that is diminished when a living, breathing human being exudes a palpable presence from a few feet away. It's a feeling of being alive and totally within a moment, and technology has yet to take that desire for contact and immediacy away from us.

Well, to sum things up, I'm fully rested and recovered now, as I hope this post shows. It's a good thing too, since I'm on my way down to Côté d'Ivoire tonight to continue my journey across West Africa. I'll be in Bouaké, capital of the rebel New Forces, by tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully well on my way into the less civil war-prone south the day after. If you're reading this as I'm posting it, wish me luck, because I'm sure I'll need it, if nothing else than to deal with the graft. I've met a lot of people who are interested in this section of my trip: no Peace Corps to fall back on in a country not known for stability since a civil war a few years ago. I'll keep everyone posted and hope to have only good things to say in my next post.