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.

A True Democracy

After speaking with my dad on the phone, I realized what an opportunity I had to speak a little about what a victory for Barack Obama and his ascendency to the office of President means to Peace Corps Volunteers, Africa, and people in general. Before I continue any further I would like to state that these opinions don't necessarily reflect my own, but those who I have talked to in village and in Niger. Nor do they at all reflect the views of Peace Corps or any other organization.

For Peace Corps, Obama has promised to double the size of Peace Corps by 2011, increasing our funding and the amount of Volunteers. Bush made the same promise eight years ago, so let's hope that this is followed through this time. Like everything else that Obama championed, this move stands for hope. It hearkens back to a time when America was seen as the philanthropic democracy, a place where anyone could succeed and do good in the world. There are so many links, real and imaginary, between Obama and Kennedy that I won't go into them here, but I will say this: if America has squandered this capital of political goodwill on costly wars and perceieved imperialism, we can gain it back by serving and sharing in other cultures. And for me, Peace Corps has provided this tenfold.

This idea of democracy is also integral for the world and Africa especially. I was in Niamey the day before the election, and a taxi driver, who must have been somewhat traveled or educated because he knew English, told me that Barack Obama could never be president in America. He said a black man could never be president. "Look at the pictures," he said, "white, white, white, white. Obama will never be the first black president." Well here we are. This election was historic because it represented so much for an entire continent. It lifted people up, gave them an ideal, destroyed cynicism. African leaders must now be responsible to their countries and their people as the citizens of Africa believe anyone can overcome any challenge and succeed. They now have many more expectations for their leaders. And not just Obama has put forth this change. With election violence in Kenya and Zimbabwe, McCain's concession speech gave many Africans a model for proper political behavior which we may hope to determine future election protocal here in Africa. Acknowledging defeat and proclaiming unity is an example of the democratic spirit America represents in the world.

My villagers have spoken a lot about France and America, about their differences and how these differences are reflected in our current political situation. The French, according to my villagers, came to niger and taxed people who'd been living in the same place for generations. They created artificial divisions among the people, mistreated everyone, and generally brought all the trappings of colonialism to Niger. The Americans, on the other hand, brought development and aid to millions who needed it. With Obama's election, they see the old America resurgent. They see an end to a war in which so many have died. They see diplomacy returning and conquering the rhetoric that has dominated the past decade, and they see America as a true democracy, a place where everyone is equal, something they hope Niger and all of Africa can one day attain.

And that's the greatest gift of this election: hope. It's something that American has stood for for years, in theory and somewhat variable practice. I can't believe how strong the reaction has been in my community to an election thousands of miles away. Strangers stop me in the bush to offer congratulations. Everyone listened to the election results even deep into the night. To see so many people happy about something one would expect to have such a small impact on their lives is unreal. To be American, which I've always taken for granted, is suddenly a lot more meaningful.