Make the Money, Change the Game

In my last post, I compared Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to Monrovia, Liberia in that they are both cities that have suffered terribly from mismanagement and negle3ct in the last several decades, such that a visit to either feels like one has walked into a stage piece from 1978. Neither city has experienced much new construction in the last thirty years, and this is evident in everything from cracked pavement to broken streetlights, from faded paint to rusted steel.

However, there is another way in which Zimbabwe and Liberia compare, and this one is far more disconcerting for the average traveler - the use of the United States dollar as the main unit of domestic exchange.

If you've traveled often through any region of the world, you're probably used to operating a kind of internal forex everywhere you go. You may go to the ATM or use traveler's checks (do people still use traveler's checks? I honestly have no idea), but the end result is a proliferation of colorful new bank notes in various denominations, a plethora of new coins in different shapes and sizes, and a clean slate of personal knowledge on what costs how much where.

In West Africa, I had to remember that a dollar was equivalent to roughly 500 cfa, but that in Ghana, a dollar was roughly the same as one cedi. Okay, one hurdle jumped, but then there were the new prices and the old prices, a result of a World Bank sponsored revaluation exercise. A banana might cost 500 cedi, but that was the old price, before they cut off three zeros, so really that banana costs fifty cents. In Sierra Leone, that banana probably costs the same, only now it's 5000 Leones. If you're primarily traveling to Francophone West Africa, you'll be relatively fortunate that the cfa covers seven countries, but if you plan to leave any of the former French colonies, you'll still need to get used to the Ghanaian cedi, the Liberian dollar, the Leonean leone, and the Guinean franc, which is the same as the West African franc but with an extra zero for good measure.

To add to the mental gymnastics, one is constantly reminded that the West African monetary union drastically devalued the franc in the early 1990s, and yet the language of commerce just took it in stride and never bothered to readjust. Thus, a 1000 cfa note is often called 200, a fifty cent piece is known as a ten, and remembering the conversions and the vocabulary while negotiating over a pack of oranges can quickly become a frustrating but occasionally hilarious cultural exchange.

It's a bit easier in Southern Africa. The South African rand has fallen to 10ZAR : 1USD. Lesotho's Maloti is tied to the rand. In Botswana, the pula is doing a bit better at 8BWP : 1USD, and in Zimbabwe, wel...

Zimbabwe, like Liberia, uses the US dollar in most day-to-day transactions. This makes sense for Liberia: the country was established as a new colony for freed American slaves in 1822 and gained its independence twenty-five years later. Its political end economic systems have always been linked to those of the United States. It has its own currency, the Liberian dollar, which is pegged to the US dollar at 75 LRD : 1 USD. The two are easily interchangeable, and, owing to their historic ties, the use of the US dollar doesn't seem strange at all.

Zimbabwe, on the other hand, uses a hodgepodge of US dollar, South African rand, and even Botswanan pula. Zimbabwe has no currency of its own, at least not lately.

Some who follow African politics may remember Zimbabwe's catastrophic inflation of the last decade. This wasn't the result of the global economic crisis, or of US/EU sanctions as some here claim, but neither of those helped matters much as inflation peaked at 231,000,000% in 2008. Zimbabwe's massive hyperinflation is the second worst in the history of the world. Daily inflation peaked at 98%, meaning that prices doubled every 24.7 hours. Prices soared. If one had to buy diesel for a car or generator, it was best to buy in the morning, prices could increase many times over by afternoon.

The crisis wiped out pensions, cleared bank accounts, and reduced the country to a barter system. One lodge owner told me that he allowed a friend of his to pay for his accommodation in cans of paint. In an attempt to control prices, the state ordered police into stores and businesses, froze prices for certain goods, and commanded shop owners to roll back prices to a previous date, effectively forcing business owners to halve their prices. The same lodge owner told me he kept multiple sets of accounts to appease the authorities while keeping his business running.

Maybe you've seen the Zimbabwean dollars from that time period. In 2009, Improbable Science awarded Gilbert Gono, the head of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, with the IG Nobel in Mathematics. The prize is given for dubious accomplishments that make you laugh, then think. Gono won for "giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers - from very small to very big - by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000.00). It's a feat that won't easily be matched for many years to come (or until Zimbabwe reintroduces the Zim dollar).

These dollars float around now as collectables, but if you look closely, you'll realize that they aren't collected for their design elements. With inflation rampaging out of control, these notes are often simply plain paper printed with a few numbers (many of them zeros) and a slapdash etching of a lake or a bird. At the nadir of economic collapse, the bank didn't even bother to print bills on both sides, and why would you? They were literally worth less than the paper on which they were printed.

For years, the black market in Zimbabwe used foreign currency and maintained its own floating exchange rate. Of course it was illegal, and the state railed against it while many of its highest placed officials profited from the economic chaos, using their influence to game the fixed rate versus that of the black market. Ultimately, however, hyperinflation forced the government to ditch the Zimbabwean dollar and welcome the US dollar as the new basis for the economy.

This leads to some pretty interesting exchanges in shops and on street corners.

"Two dollars, please."

Alright, here's a fiver.

"Oh, ah...do you have two dollars?"

Nope, only this and a twenty.

"Okayyy...I just need to find change. What coins do you have?"

Not enough, I have eight rand, five pula, and fifty thebe (about $1.45). 

"That's fine. It's better to have change anyway. Thank you!"

This may seem like an odd interaction, but it's happened to me several times now. To make matters worse, many ATMs only spit out $100 bills. The first time I used one, it gave me five options: 100, 200, 400, 500, 1000. I thought to myself, "They can't surely mean..." They did. Your only options with many ATMs are clean, crisp, $100 bills.

It's then necessary to spend about two hours wandering around looking for change. The banks don't want to give their limited smaller bills away. Neither does Western Union. Street vendors just laugh when you ask if they can break a bill, and the various shops around town just send you down the street in a never-ending game of cat and mouse. 

If you ever can find some change, you're presented with a series of bills in a degree of usability that decreases with the denomination: crisp $100 bills, slightly ruffled fifties, still usable twenties, grimey tens, and fivers that are worn, dirty, and tattered.

And dollar bills? Well, alright, have you ever been to a smoker's house, and I mean a smoker who's smoked for the better part of six decades, not a stressed out master's student who is, at this point, surviving solely on coffee and cigarettes. I mean someone like, say, your great aunt. Okay, so you know how your great aunt has that couch that's been around for years and is probably stuffed with asbestos? It has to be stuffed with asbestos. There's literally no other way to explain the multitude of cigarette burns that have yet to burn the house down. Okay, so you're a kid, and your and has this couch, and it's dirty. Besides getting a contact buzz from the nicotine embedded in the fabric of the thing, it's never been cleaned, and your great aunt's seven cats have shed and yakked and and loved and lived and probably died all over this couch for fourteen years, each. And your great aunt has sat with her TV dinners and cigarettes watching Jeopardy since whatshisname hosted, that guy before Trebek. Merv Griffith. Ya, and you're a kid, and you're bored, and you're digging your hand in the cushions of the couch because you don't understand germ theory nor do you care about personal hygiene (a quality that some of us maintain long into adulthood). And there, between the metal frame of the pull-out bed that your cousin Gary had to sleep on for three years after his wife left him, is a snag of paper. And you pull, and squirm, and you finally manage to reclaim a dollar bill that was long ago lost to humanity. The thing is more brown than gree, it's been folded and handled so much that it feels like silk, and it smells like a sewer, but you don't care because that thing can buy you a coke and a candy bar (this is back in the day we're talking about after all). So you go out to the nearest gas station, and you hand that thing over to the wheezing, diabetic old woman watching the pumps like a hawk, like a sleepy, obese, rheumatoid hawk, and you walk out with a Dr. Pepper and a bag of Skittles to irritate the shit out of your parents with a sugar-induced game of hey, hey, hey, hey...hey, hey...pay attention to me, PAY ATTENTION TO ME.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

These are the only dollar bills that have ever made it to Zimbabwe.

It's not like the country has a direct line of credit to the US mint. These things get passed around and recirculated ad nauseum. New money must come into the system eventually, probably through traveling diplomats, businessmen, and criminals (sometimes all three embodied in the same individual). It is, after all, relatively easy to transport bills internationally. The same cannot be said of coins. Anything below a dollar is paid for in rand and pula from neighboring South Africa and Botswana. 

They've set the exchange rate at 10 rand to the dollar, so it makes the math relatively easy, but there's little to prepare you for paying for a drink and getting your change in three different currencies.

I've even seen quite a few $2 bills here. Most Americans, I'm sure, aren't even aware that they still produce $2 bills. I have a few left over from when I was a kid, but using them in daily transactions is about as common as using the Sacajawea dollar coin. Can you even name who's on the $2 bill. 

It's ahh...shit. It's Fillmore isn't it? Millard Fillmore?

It's Jefferson, bitches.

There's been some talk of reintroducing the Zimbabwean dollar, but after a senior politician (read: Mugabe) floated the idea at a recent political rally, the panic on the stock market forced the party come back and table it as a "long-term strategy." 

So grab all the trillion dollar notes that you can. One day they may be worth something. For now though, you're probably better off drawing up your own money with a pack of crayons and some scrap paper. The resulting disaster may be valued by at least one person, which is more than can be said for the Zimbabwean dollar.

The Colonial Treatment

Okay, now for a funny one.

I visited Dalaba, Guinea last week, one of the smaller cities in the Fouta Djalon region. The Fouta is an area in West Africa unique to Guinea. The high plateau is called Le Chateau de l'Afrique Occidental because most of the area's major river systems (including the Senegal, the Gambia, and some tributaries of the Niger) are sourced in these highlands. It's an area that can boast some of the best hiking in West Africa plus the unique culture of the Peul people, who dominate this area and are almost single-handedly responsible for the Islamic faith in the region. It's become sort of a recipe for my favorite places to travel: combine awesome scenery with a unique culture and I'm there. So far I've found it in Boukoumbé, Benin with the Somba people and in Dogon Country, Mali. Now I have the Fouta Djalon in Guinea to add to that list. Next up? I could only hope for Niger's Aïr Mountains or the Andes' Incan ruins. I'll settle for the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau next week.

But for now I'll focus on the Fouta. I went to Dalaba for the hiking, but also for the climate and the colonial architecture. Dalaba sits high up on the plateau, making the days hot but dry and the nights cool, even bordering on cold, a rarity in West Africa outside of the desert regions. As a result, Dalaba became a sort of rejuvenation center for the French colonials during their time here. Unfortunately, the only colonial architecture left behind is the old governor's mansion, the Sili Villa. Luckily for me (and you), I got a personal guided tour of the colonial mansion and can share that experience here.

I'd had this kind of thing happen before, in Sassandra, Côté d'Ivoire, and, more memorably, in Klouto, Benin. You wander up a disused paved road (probably the only one in town) to discover a mansion, completely uninhabited, with one old man sitting outside as guard or caretaker. For a small "fee" (negotiable, but usually around a couple bucks) he'll give you the history of the house and a grand tour around the interior. The history usually goes something like this: The house was built around the turn of the century by the French governor (or bought by said governor from some citizen who decided he'd had enough and was returning to France). After independence, the state took over the mansion from an indifferent civil servant ("Fine, go. We never wanted you as a colony anyway."), and turned it into a retreat for a corrupt president and his cronies (or in Guinea's case, a corrupt, paranoid president and his equally corrupt, terrified cronies). The house gets used for various autocratic excesses and bacchanals until the people decide they've had enough and there's a coup.

By now, the new corrupt government wishes to distance itself from the past corrupt government and it rightfully does so by moving away from Presidential playhouses. At least in one's own country. It's the 80s now, and wireless transfers make it so much easier to funnel money out of the country and into a Swiss bank account. So the state-owned villa is allowed to go to seed. Anyway, why would you want a villa in your own country when, with all that stolen money, you can have several in France?

So now the house sits abandoned by all save one guard (I think to be conidered a caretaker the property must have some kind of value of which to take care) in the employ of, presumably, the state. He sits, day in, day out, with not much to do except stare at the marble statue of a horse. So when a white guy with a couple bucks comes along, he jumps at the chance to play tour guide.

"This is a colonial bedroom, where the governor had his bed. Take a picture."

Where's the bed now?

"Oh, someone probably used it for firewood. Take a picture of where it used to be. For a souvenir."

This guy was particularly enthusiastic that I take pictures of everything. "This is a colonial bathtub."

It's made of cement.

"I know. That's colonial cement. This is a lightbulb. A colonial lightbulb. Take a picture. And over here is the colonial sink. And here, the colonial toilet."

And is that a colonial turd floating in the bowl?

"Yes... Take a picture!"

Overall the houses are dilapidated shells just waiting for some enterprising individual to rehabilitate them as a hotel or private residence. But for now, they'll just continue to sit in their decay, year after year, with a little old man watching over as it slowly crumbles into dust.

"But colonial dust."

Take a picture.

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.

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.