The April trip ...

I've not been out of Europe since April.

My return to Cote d'Ivoire in mid-April was wonderful, only 4 days there, the flights with TAP (aka Take Another Plane) were terrible, even their ticketing system was atrocious with a flight change from Lisbon to Sal (Cabo Verde) then they obviously thought I could swim to Dakar to get my connection to Abidjan.

The whole saga happened on Easter Friday with my flight due to leave on the following Tuesday, it resulted in a drive to Barcelona over 300km away to get a shuttle to Lisbon to rectify the situation. On my return (my wonderful travel agent Dominique having given all my mobile numbers to TAP) I arrived at Abidjan airport and told Laji, my driver that I'd be fine. He went home & left me to it; 30minutes later I was in Air Senegal's office fighting with them to endorse my ticket to Air Ivoire as they had done with most of the other passengers as Air Senegal had cancelled the flight (& gone bust!); amazingly the lady who typed one handed whilst the other rested on her thigh (I was gnashing my teeth with her attitude) told me they didn't have any contact numbers for me & that I could have flown out with the contactable passengers the night before on Compagnie Aerienne de Mali - well thanks TAP for not passing my numbers on!!!

290euros lighter, thank god I'd taken my visa card with me; I was in the possession of an Air Ivoire ticket to Dakar, departure time 23.30, arriving in Dakar at 2.30am. Wonderful!!! My soon-to-be host, Alain in Dakar had the unpleasant surprise of a text from me announcing my 3am arrival at his place ... could he give me directions please. He said he'd meet me at a petrol station near his place, pleased I'd picked up some attieke for him from the market on the way to the airport.

During my ranting in the airport, I'd rung Tomas, a Czech friend living in Abidjan who told me to get into town & he'd run me to the airport. I finally found a taxi to Zone 4 at a reasonable 1,000CFA, the driver after hearing my sob story whilst watching the soldiers about to descend on us in his mirror dramatically dropped his price. We sped off to Zone 4. He dropped me at my favourite maquis opposite Prima, St Christophe run by Patrick and I dumped my bags & ordered a rather late lunch whilst waiting for Tomas to finish work. He took me back to catch my Air Ivoire flight, excellent flight & on time, with a few other delegates for the conference on board. Getting to the conference at 8.30am was very difficult however!!!

My four days in CI were a little crazy. There for work & to catch up with everyone & the children at the centre. I saw an Aussie friend I haven't seen for 6years, had an e-mail a few months earlier asking how safe CI was; the week she was there was also the week my friends John & Therese got married in typical Ivorian fashion!

My arrival was a lot less stressed than my departure. I flew in from Dakar in daylight, great to fly over Abidjan, the lagoon; thrilled to be back, stupid sentimental idiot that I am, I had tears in my eyes on landing. Either that or due to the 6hrs I'd spent at Dakar airport restaurant trying to sleep on 3 chairs in the company of several cockroaches and an over zealous soldier who I fell out with!

I'd called Yao before leaving home to ask him to pick me up from the airport; told a few friends I was on my way back, told others to keep quiet. Denis, my friends' husband was so confused by the secrecy of my return he wasn't even sure if I was on my way back. Yao, turned up in his van, big smiles and out of the back popped Bassman aka Assouman who owns a gorgeous little hotel in Bassam 'Hotel Atlantique', a surprise for me .. lots of laughter, greetings & kisses all round then JB showed up to greet his 'grande soeur'. Unfortunately we had to leave JB behind to get a taxi to Bassam alone to meet me there.

Denis had prepared a great meal of poulet braise & attieke for me. How did he know I'd been dreaming of that for months?!?! Yao & Bassman were invited in, confused by the situation which I'd created, in that they were all friends but Yao hadn't told Denis that he was picking me up! A little later JB had managed to arrive by taxi & met us at the nearest maquis where I bought lunch for him as I felt so guilty leaving him at the airport.

Shortly after I took JB with me to the centre, he'd never been before. We put the 30kg bag of clothes, shoes, games & medical supplies in a taxi and set off. I'd told Diouf, the assistant I was coming back as he's in charge of the children's health & had been communicating drug names for me to pick up; I was thrilled I'd managed to get 11months supply of a particular medicine for the child who has sickle cell. I had told him not to tell Erick the manager as I knew that he'd tell the children I was coming, I wanted to surprise them all.

Surprise them I did. I knocked & knocked & knocked at the gate, no noises inside .. I was really confused as to where they all were. Finally one of the boys answered the gate & gave me a massive hug, suddenly I had someone from behind me hugging me to; it was the Erick admonishing me at the same time for my unexpected visit! The children were all having a siesta! We woke them up, all very confused to see me there!!!

The children were all doing well. M is very happy, very settled and a little monster at times ... she is constantly in trouble for locking the smaller ones in the bathroom, breaking things & pushing people around. Mama Liza spends most of her time scolding her for getting in the way of cooking preparations!!! The others were doing very well at school, one of the boys had an exceptional report at school, the one who hopes to be a magistrate - I really hope he gets his dream. I went to see them everyday I was there, it was hard to say goodbye after such a short time. One of the smaller boys said that next time he's going to be my pilot!!!

My Aussie friend had been working for her company up country. I discovered that she'd been eating typical aussie food shipped in especially for them; she'd never had any typical Ivorian food. After several calls to her CI coordinator taking full responsibility for her welfare, she arrived, with her driver in tow. The driver, Moussa, had to accompany us everywhere, he was from Senguela in the north of the country where there had been a lot of fighting during the crisis.

After a couple of hours with him we started devising ways of losing him ... it worked to an extent! She met the children and then we headed for the beach at Assouinde. Arriving on the edge of the village in the rain, I asked Moussa to stop his sparkling blue Peugeot and called for Ama ... she was thrilled I was back, she hadn't forgotten my promise that if she got a good report & was top of her class I'd bring a present. I lifted her into the car to sit on my lap much to Moussa's disgrain but removed her muddy red dirt covered sandals for the final 200m to Jardin d'Eden.

Moussa was like a shadow, the only problem was that he was about 8inches shorter than both of us! He constantly had the car keys in his hand. I said to him that we were spending the night here & he might as well go back to Abidjan & pick us up the next afternoon, he wasn't prepared for his boss' wrath and so I arranged accommodation in the village for him. We went out, back to the Bleu Marin so K could enjoy a real night out. A little later she went outside the club to get some air, I suddenly heard a call and Martial wanted me outside as she'd collapsed! My worst nightmare, I had a friend sick, barely conscious in a village with the nearest hospital about 30km away. She slowly came round, I made her answer a lot of ridiculous questions and most of the Jardin d'Eden crew had gathered around us. Arsene, the owner who's been a great friend to me had already organised a car to drive us back the kilometre up the track to get K to bed. He wasn't having us stay in the beach shack where I normally stay, but opened up one of the hotel rooms for us.

Of course, the following morning Moussa got to hear of all this & gave me a lot of stick for not calling him. Basically she'd been working 15hour days for 15 days straight & it was sheer exhaustion. I made it clear to Moussa we were staying till the afternoon as she needed rest, he wandered off disgruntled & got his dirty muddy red Peugeot blue again with the hosepipe!

The other days there were fairly run of the mill, except of course the wedding!

A fantastic affair which I almost missed. I was with Tomas & his business partner in Riviera, waiting for them to drop me at Cocody Hotel de Ville, but his business partner mis-directed us to the mairie!! When I finally got dropped off Athere I saw endless wedding parties lining up outside & had a horrible feeling I'd missed it. Finally I found a few people from John & Therese's party around the corner, I'd just missed the ceremony & photos! Typical! I managed to get a lift in a UN vehicle to the reception, yet again no one knew where it was but a helpful taxi driver seeing 5 blancs in a UN 4x4 stopped to tell us where to go!! Lots of sermons, dancing, eating ... a beautifully staged reception in a garden; I began to wonder how to get back across the lagoon to Zone 4. A new friend who's a cameraman for Reuters offered me a lift, a bit earlier than I wanted but we went to Koumassi together & had a few drinks before heading to Zone 4 & meeting Tomas. The plan was to go to Parker Place that night for a bit of reggae, between the sun, the drink & general fatigue, I fell asleep!!!

My time there wasn't long enough, calls from Ayame, Binouan, Abengourou, Jacqueville ... all asking me to see them! Next time inshallah!

A late arrival in Dakar caused a lot of problems. The first day it was a case of keeping my eyes open with matchsticks at the conference. We arrived at Dakar airport at 2.30am, the baggage guys obviously needed waking before working and at just gone 3am I was fighting off taxi drivers & trying to find one to get me to Mermoz at the correct price of 2,500CFA. I finally accomplished this but not without insults from a few Senegalese stunned by my hard bargaining at that time of the morning. I was concerned about going in a clapped out VW Golf at 3am with a big Senegalese guy but he was honest enough!

Alain, originally from SW France, brought up in Cote d'Ivoire until the crisis started & now working in Dakar was a wonderful host. He got up in the early hours, rode his motorbike to the rendez-vous petrol station & my 'taxi' followed him back. My final night before my 2am departure on TAP; my American friend Sam took me out for an Indian that night. A rarity, he was a gem to choose Indian, can't get it in this corner of France!

And so it has to end ...

I left Jacqueville having spent my last evening with 'la blanche' having dinner together outside her house on the beach. Sad to be leaving ... why is it that I'm always so sad leaving places in Cote d'Ivoire??? We walked back to Hotel Grace in town with people going past us saying 'bonsoir' and then a guy comes up to me in the dark & says 'Bonsoir' to me ... bit confused I didn't recognise him in a suit, it was Guy, my young money changer looking very smart!

Getting up early I said goodbye to Dudu the owner of Hotel Grace and paid my final 3,000CFA for the night. Wandered down to the gare routiere to find transport directly to Abidjan, one company has a pirogue on the lagoon so that you don't have to wait for the 'bac' across. Took forever thanks to some short guy with a personality complex of inferiority ... decided to throw us all out of one van and into a brand new vehicle; great except a tyre needed changing and they had to go off to find one. I was not impressed as I wanted to be in Abidjan early to get a few things done!

Finally we were on the road, got into the second vehicle the Sogon side of the lagoon and within a few kilometres almost ran over a gazelle of some type, stunning creature! Finally we reached Treichville after endless bottleneck jams in Abidjan prior to crossing the lagoon. I found a taxi or woro woro (shared taxi without a meter) and an honest driver and hopped in ... to then find he wanted me to stay at his for the night - here we go again ... no I needed a hotel, cheap one in Treichville or Zone 4 (where I knew cheap hotels don't exist).

He took me to Hotel Treichville on a promise that I'd call him later to go out, like I didn't have better things to do!!! Hotel Treichville was 10,000CFA a night with air-con, but didn't have anything without air-con; they sent me to Hotel du Prince (with my ever annoying taxi driver) on Av. 23; found a room with a shower & basin for 6,000CFA with a fan, probably the cheapest place in Abidjan. Opposite my window was the mosque, I knew I would be in for a delight early next morning, but the calling to prayers doesn't usually bother me, in fact I enjoy it! I had my doubts as to 'what type' of hotel I'd just booked into but I'd been to worse & it was clean!

Dumped everything, showered, changed into clothes that were more fit for Abidjan and not as to look like I was some country bumpkin and set off into town. Had an interesting day, met up with a friend I'd met a few weeks previously who works for FIF and went out for dinner with a friend who is with the BBC in Cote d'Ivoire. Had some interesting conversations at a gorgeous restaurant overlooking the lagoon in Cocody!

I left early the next morning to head to Treichville market to buy some bits & pieces, I also wanted a couple of pintade to take down to Assouinde for everyone. But then the thought of carrying 2+ live pintade (guinea fowl) and my two backpacks was a bit much when a whole cage of them got loose in the market & I realised that I could cause complete mayhem in a minibus down to Assouinde!!! I found the market cafe, waited very patiently to be served. All the market traders were having breakfast there & I had to wait till 9am to change money at the bank so joined them. Yet again the smallest, dirtiest little street cafe produces good food & great coffee!!!

Eventually caught a minibus to Bonoua where I hoped to find Eme & his taxi. After a bit of a mouthful from the guy trying to fill taxis who said 'Oi, blanche, tu va ou?' I gave him a lesson in diplomacy and pointed out if I yelled 'oi, noir' it wouldn't go down well. Eme came up to see what all the fuss was about and made him apologise to me ... think he learnt his lesson & I left my bags to go shopping. I found a youngster had tagged along with me wanting to carry my bags, tried to get rid of him but he was persistent & looked an absolute mess, very skinny, shredded clothes etc, so I held onto him. He carried my bags full of avocados, pineapples & plantain that I was taking to Assouinde with me. I spotted someone cooking brochettes & rongions .. so I bought one each for us; my little helper was thrilled. He deposited the bags in the back of Eme's taxi and was about to run off when I called him back & handed him 100CFA, he was astonished that I'd bought him food & paid him!

Another couple of days at the beach, doing not very much at all, very lazy, great to be back. Met a lovely Lebanese guy Mimo a friend of JB's who seemed to know all the other Lebanese I'd met, lives in San Pedro near the Liberian border. I wanted to return Arsene's tapettes (jandals, thongs, flip-flops - whichever language you speak)! But Arsene had just gone off to Burkina that morning & it seems that I probably passed him on the road as he was getting the train from Abidjan. I rang him having handed over the tapettes to Mack his brother & he died laughing at me for bringing them back!!!

The leg wound was getting worse, deeper, I kept pouring the powdered penicillin I'd bought in Jacqueville into it, bathing it in the sea. Getting a lot of advice from all of them ... but the worst of it was keeping the flies away from the wound, disgusting!

Billie, the owner of Blue Marin, the nightclub in the village came up to eat at Le Jardin a few times & invited me down to the club with him. Then it all started. Bedie, the former President had been on a 'tour' around the Sud-Comoe region & I stupidly mentioned that he'd been through Bassam & Bonoua, my transport had been held up because of him. Turns out that one of my friends is pro-Bedie whilst another is vehemently against him ... the argument went on over dinner with me trying to steer the conversation away from it all. Finally I suceeded & said I'd go down to the village later & to the club.

Arriving at the club, Billie wanted me to hear his politics & got the waitresses to set up a table & chairs in a far corner in the garden of the club. He started telling me his background, tribal roots etc when the others arrived & it all blew up again. They kept asking me, my opinion of it all; I pointed out that it's not my politics but they were all talking about the past, surely there's someone out there that is 'new' & would be good for the future of the country???

I left early, needless to say!!!

So after a few days on the beach; my leg got some great sea water into it and I continued adding penicillin until I got back to Bassam - which was quite a journey, only about 30km by road but I was waiting for Eme's taxi again, when a Lebanese friend's friend pulled up outside the Maquis. Dudu is Lebanese/Ghanaian born in CI, huge guy - offered me a lift to Bassam as he was going up to Abidjan and had managed to find a car and driver as his car was in a garage in Abidjan. Journey started well; he realised I knew Mimo the Lebanese from San Pedro as Mimo had been staying with him. Then the weed came out - no problem they could smoke if they wanted to - until he offered the driver some which had our vehicle driving on both sides of the road, in the bush and never in a straight line - luckily he wasnt going too fast but nevertheless we had oncoming trucks heading to Nigeria fully laden which we had a few near misses with!!!

I spent the first evening with Denis and a friend of his at a maquis to be joined by Eric + Diouf from the orphanage with some alarming news. One of the kids had come back from his grandfathers after Christmas with some money and two days later ran away ... Eric spent days looking around town for him (didn't know that he had money as he'd told all the kids to hand the money in), he was on Bassam radio, with the police (utterly incompetent) finally after 5 days the boys uncle rang from Abidjan to say the boy was with them. The family want the boy to return but I dont blame Eric, he doesn't want him back ...

Another Christmas & New Year in West Africa

Christmas was great; started on 23rd for me with a great party at the centre with Noel celebrations. The kids were super excited as Pere Noel (in the form of Etienne, one of the guys in the Abidjan office) was coming and I had promised to spend the night at the centre with the kids. I was presented to all and sundry; sat between the Mayor of Bassam and the King of Old Bassam whilst trying to butter up the representatives of the 43eme regiment from France to bring out more stuff to the orphanage for me!!!

Decided to head down to Assouinde on 24th to see Ivorian & Burkinabe friends there. The journey started well; got a taxi to Samo from the Grand Bassam gare routiere. However as I got out and held the door open with my leg (as you do with old bangers!) and got a rusty nail in the side of my leg! Blood streaming out I sat on the side of the road with my bits of a first aid and sewing kits putting myself back together! Lots of expats and Lebanese drove past in flash cars and when I finally stood up I had an offer of a lift from two Ivorian guys - wish I hadnt turned it down - it took another hour to get the taxi filled before we were on the move!

The guys in Assouinde were disappointed Dani wasnt with me, even little Ama now known as 'Princesse' Ama asked where she was! But they were all as kind as ever, spent 4 great days at the beach, listening to an endless collection of reggae, drinking too many Flags, getting meals from strange men who were eating at the maquis and lots of attention from Ama who I met last year who's now 5 and grown!! Spent just about every night at Dani's favourite nightclub, Blue Marin!!!

I headed off rather sadly for Ayame, a town that sits on the edge of a lake which has the second largest dam in CI and produces a lot of electricity. Got a taxi in Samo from Assouinde where a lady told me I have feet like Mme Gbago (Presidents wife) - it was meant as a compliment but Im dying to find a photo of her feet!!! I had a good laugh over that one!

In Ayame I got out of the taxi + pounced on by the deputy mayor who took me to an auberge for 4000CFA and completely under his wing with a group of friends of his. Lovely spot but it was soo hot, everyone was complaining and Ayame was no exception!!! They would not let me leave before New Years Eve, even rang the Mayor in Abidjan to tell him of my arrival. The deputy Mayor's wife who became a good friend; cooked meals daily for me and refused payment - another prime example of Ivorian attitude!

On New Years Eve, he and I went to Aboisso for me to use the internet and send an email and for him to do some banking! We were driven there by a mad elderly Italian nun, Sister Ana who was 80-odd apparently, lived in CI for 35yrs and would rival any Formula 1 rally driver, overtaking on blind bends with the horn pressed hard! I said my prayers that morning for the first time in a very long time!

New Years started around lunchtime New Years Eve and finished sometime around 10pm New Years day, I did manage to get some sleep; non-stop music, food, dancing ... it was all a bit mad.

New Years Day I was invited to the Mayors house for a champagne breakfast ... had an interesting chat with him about people I know in Cote d'Ivoire!!! He took me off to meet the village elders as on 31st the village chief had died, weird being sat next to the mayor on the best chairs the elders could provide us, discussing the arrangements for the chief's burial; very sad time ... women were crying endlessly ...

I finally left Ayame in a minibus to go the 66km up to Binouan, the first 15km was tarred then it turned into piste, lots of snakes around ... then horror of horrors, a truck just like the one I got in
Guinea had just overturned in front of us .. held us up a bit whilst they arranged a winch around a tree to pull it upright again, luckily the driver wasn't hurt! Made my heart pound a little!!!