Readjusting

I have been back in Baltimore 3 weeks and back at work 2.5 weeks, and yet I'm still feeling so.far.behind.

I shouldn't complain as these things that are keeping me from catching up are mostly good things, like a weekend in DC for a college reunion and wedding, social and church events with friends, being busy with new (actually important) tasks at work, and getting back into my Baltimore routine.  I was positively giddy to enjoy my first weekend in Baltimore, with a visit to my neighborhood Farmers' Market and a trip to a nearby corn maze with my church group.  Godson.  Zumba.  Bible study. Game nights and other meet-ups with friends.  Theology on Tap. Volunteering. Cooking with fresh fruits and veggies.  Fall weather, whatever that actually means.  The Presidential Election (to a point).

However there are certain realities starting to hit me.  Namely, my Master's paper, which I'm insanely far behind on--think negative progress in the last few months.  Then there's that School of Nursing teaching course that I'm supposed to be following along with, though I couldn't actually audit it.  And I'm also trying to decide what public health course to take this term (Food Production and the Environment or Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS), based in large part on my work load.  My work is all coming to a head at the same time, with some intense deliverables on my different projects, plus my desire to generally enjoy life and have a bit of a social life.

Anyways, a lot of people have asked how it feels to be back, how it was to be in Cote d'Ivoire, and other relatively vague questions that my years of international work and travel have habituated me to answering with generalities like "great," "awesome," "I loved it," and "It was soooo hard to leave!"

As you read in my last post, it was easier for me to leave Cote d'Ivoire than most of my other international locations.  After some mixed feelings about being there and the work done, I found it difficult to completely honestly respond to coworkers (and organization leadership) who asked about my time.  I chose to focus on the positives with the interesting research, and ignore the lack-of-new-skills-internship part.  At the same time, when they asked about getting out into the city and larger country, I was honest about the political situation being a bit of a bummer although I did see awesome live music my last two weekends.  And then I lighten the situation by emphasizing that the CI military/police/gendarmes preferred seeing my Hopkins ID over a copy of my passport when questioned at checkpoints.  Random and entertaining and the Hopkins ego causes everyone to ask if it's because of the name "Hopkins."  No, pretty sure it's because it's in English and laminated instead of black and white and most of them probably don't know Hopkins quite that well.  Or maybe I'm underestimating the Hopkins branding?

But in general when someone asks about CI and about being back in Baltimore, I say that "It was cool to be over there and I'm glad I did it, but I'm also excited to get back to my 'regular life' in Baltimore."  "Regular life," meaning home, work, church, grocery stores and gym, and friends*, and all of that is currently based in Baltimore which is pretty awesome.

And regular life includes spending time with my godson, Connor Anthony, isn't he adorable?

And now with Hurricane Sandy ripping through the East Coast, I am enjoying a hurrication and all that it entails, including trying to be as productive as possible (and procrastinating at the same time) while we still have electricity and a fridge/freezer full of perishables.

*Ok, my close friends are really all over the place including Baltimore, DC area/NoVa, Seattle, Illinois, Texas, and many, many other places, states, and countries.

A la Prochaine, Cote d'Ivoire!

I fly out of Cote d’Ivoire on Saturday night, but I’ll still be posting about my time here in the weeks to come (Inchallah) to talk a little about the work I did, as well as more reflections on the country and my practicum.

I can’t remember ever looking forward to leaving a country and so I feel a little guilty even posting this.  My excitement about returning to Baltimore isn’t because I don’t like Abidjan or am really excited to get back to my office in Baltimore, au contraire.  I really like Abidjan and Cote d’Ivoire and if it were another time, or if I knew a few people outside of my office mates, I’m sure I would be very reluctant to leave.  There’s definitely a side of me that is sad, mainly because I do not know when I’ll be back, and I have a few awesome coworkers who have really been there.  However, after three months of loneliness and some cabin fever, the prospect of social events this fall and opportunities to travel a bit in the next few months are calling my name.  Not to mention the Farmers’ Market and my new godson who I can’t wait to hold in my arms.

Cote d’Ivoire is very different from Senegal in many, many ways, but also, being a francophone country in West Africa, it did not feel as foreign to me as maybe it should have.  Is that why I got restless?  I recognized the currency, the transportation system, and the chaos.  I only needed someone to point me in the right direction for the market, some interesting sights, and recommend some neighborhood street food stands and I felt like I could conquer the city.  However, the REALITY OF COTE D’IVOIRE took over and unfortunately that reality includes the past 12+ years of conflict and civil and political unrest.  Not wanting to freak myself out before coming here, I told myself that the situation was much improved, only to arrive and face August, the month where the fighting returned to Abidjan and the US Embassy temporarily suggested all “non essential” travel to Cote d’Ivoire be suspended (nothing about those of us already in town).  This understandably freaked out my coworkers, who remember all too well the war and the post-electoral crisis.  Heck, the doors in our lunch room still have bullet holes in them from the crisis, so while ABJ had a very quick face-lift post-crisis, it’s not far from the minds of its residents.

It’s this familiarity and yet different situation that threw me for a bit of a trip.  Me, Khady Diouf the Senegalese village RPCV, suddenly thrust into the cosmopolitan Abidjan, but without a network of contacts apart from the 15 CCP-CI staff members who work at the office.  And understandably, 3 months is not actually long enough to get super connected (starting from scratch) and integrated with the greater country.  That takes more time, or a host family, or someone whose main concern is helping you figure things out (this will be the topic of a post very soon).

It also means that I have an “interesting” list of impressions from my time here.  As much as I would rather have a list of “Cote d’Ivoire in Numbers” as I did with Senegal, a list of “Things I loved” and “Things I didn’t love so much” seems most honest and I will try to be respectful about it. [It was originally titled Like/Dislike list but that seemed mean.]

Things I loved:

o   The food: atthieke, alloco/plantains (fried or grilled), grilled chicken sold on the street corner (yes…and no, it didn’t make me sick), leaf sauce, peanut sauce, eggplant sauce with futu, everything was soooo good!  (ok, maybe not the escargots, but at least I tried them).

o   Grilled plantains.  Yes, they are so good that they need to be mentioned twice and I’ve been doing what I can to make sure I have them often in the last few weeks.

o   Zumba class, though it didn’t start until my last month here.  My first class, the instructor asked me to join her “Zumba Show” team because she could tell I’ve done it before and am decent.  A few weeks later she told another student that I was her “best student though it’s only her 3^rd time here.”  Yay dance parties and sweating BUCKETS!  This class really helped my psychologically my last month in town.

o   French, though I’m not in love with the accent and it took longer than I wish to admit to get used to it, is always a fun thing for me.  True, I make mistakes even after all of this time, but I still really love the language.

o   French-dubbed movies and TV shows (and realizing that I’m the age of the early seasons of Friends…yikes!), which are a great way to enjoy the language.

o   French MTV and African MTV-like channels that play nonstop music videos.  Ok, my iPod Nano broke IMMEDIATELY after I arrived, so this is how music enters my life.  Also, MUSIC, especially Adzonto and some of the other songs.

o   Beautiful fabric, though I only made it to the market once to buy anything.  And awesome fashions, especially at church, that fuse African fabrics with traditional+Western styles all at once.  Loved it!

o   TREES!!!!!!!!!  This country is soooo amazingly green (in part because I was here during the rainy season, which is much longer than up in the Sahel).  I recognize a few from Senegal, but there is such a diversity here!

o   Though I am an intern here, I feel like a part of the regular team and generally don’t feel the same exclusion from certain things (like not having a key to the bathroom or being on the main listserve) that I feel in Baltimore.

Merci Benoit!

o   A coworker who was often willing to alter his weekend plans to accompany me to church on Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, and then take me on walks to nearby areas I otherwise would have never discovered/known about.

o   That my office covered the plane change fees, paid all of my rent (in ABJ, not B’more), and gave me a small stipend for my last month in town, plus per diem for my 2 work trips. I'm still waiting on a reimbursement from my other project for my canceled Senegal trip.

o   That, while I had trouble getting to know people in town, at least the guards on my street were kind enough to chat with me.

o   Coworkers’ and others’ generosity and akwaba (welcoming), even if it’s not quite the same as the Senegalese teranga (hospitality), which could guarantee me a meal and bed in almost any house I could choose to walk into in Senegal.  That level of trust is still missing after the conflict here, but people have been kind treating me to meals, drinks, or little gifts.

o   Not feeling like I was overtly being taken advantage of or cheated, the way I frequently felt in new markets or parts of Senegal and why I always insisted on knowing the real price ahead of time.  Here people “adjust” the prices based on my skin color on occasion, but then a coworker can quickly get the right price out of them.

Things I didn’t love so much:

o   The difficulty finding people to spend time with outside of work: the loneliness.

o   The empty promises/offers of going out at night or around town from coworkers.

o   Lack of ability to go anywhere or do much, in or out of the city, as a result of the past and continuing conflict situation.

o   WAY more expensive than Senegal and Mali, though the same currency.

o   The fact that the actual work I did didn’t involve using new skills and that in general I’m feeling “burned” by my employer (US end) and frustrated with my practicum.

o   The lack of market time.  In Thies (Senegal 2011), I went to the market on a weekly basis, just to see what there was and stock up whenever I needed something.  The large markets here are far away and thus difficult to get to or learn your way around.  And my coworkers refused to tell me where they were, lest I be tempted to go there on my own.

o   Not sleeping well for the past 3 months, but I think the mefloquine is to blame (future post).

o   The fact that 3 months is not enough time to get to know a place and become a part of the community there, which is something I strive for (that’s the PC part of me, as well as my RA days), but I also knew I didn’t want to and couldn’t spend 6 months abroad (plus not enough funding).

It’s definitely bittersweet and my office has been kind enough to plan a “cocktail” for me the morning of my last day, which was totally unexpected and I am extremely grateful for.  I’m ready to leave and excited to be back in the States (weird, I don’t usually say that), but it will still be difficult to leave.  One of our colleagues is getting married this weekend and I will be going to the wedding with my bags in the car and heading directly to the airport.

A bientot!


Note: the "Cocktail" was a very sweet and kind farewell, complete with a HUGE spread of food and a gift.  Thanks to all of my coworkers for your kindness these past 3 months!

La Vie Quotidienne

My place of residence: a guest house/conference center

So some people have asked me what exactly I am doing here in CI and what life is like.  Honestly, it’s not super exciting in the day-to-day, as is the case in most jobs.  I should have posted this earlier during my time here when things were a little calmer, but this is generally how things go.  Later, I'll probably write about my weekends.

6:30 : alarm goes off so that I can go for a walk/run…mostly I just go back to sleep and save the exercise until later.

7/7:20AM: actually wake up, make PB and Banana oatmeal with MTV or an African music channel while getting ready.

8/8:05: Walk to work

8:20/30: Arrive at work, great, waste time on email/fb/etc/eventually get to work.  My work space changes based on which staff members are in the office or away on holiday or work travel, hence two different desk pictures below.

11:30:  Benoit collects lunch orders and then goes to pick up what people want.

12:45-1:20 PM: eat lunch, which is picked up from a nearby lunch stand.  Usually consists of fish or chicken with sauce and atthieke, rice, futu, or something else like fried plantains and hardboiled eggs, yam fries, or pork with bread.  Sauces available include eggplant sauce, leaf sauce, maffe (peanut butter), tomato/veggie, or other.  90% of the time it’s pretty delicious.  There’s always A LOT of spice but I can handle the spice more than more than a handful of my coworkers…(Dad, be proud!).

1:20 PM: take a walk in the neighborhood around the office.  This has become one of my main sources of exercise

2PM: back in the office, back at work.  The afternoon mostly FLIES by

5:50PM: head home

6:20PM: do back stretches, shower

7PM: dinner, usually yogurt+banana, cereal, other leftovers, etc, while reading articles I neglected to read during the day

7:30PM: do evening work for myself or my other project while watching the news, Disney Channel, French MTV, dubbed over TV shows, etc.  Also, do laundry and allow it to dry in bedroom.

10PM: get ready for bed

10:30PM: bed, read, sleep.

My old room+bathroom: 

My new room, living room, bathroom, and kitchen: