Yo!

In case anyone is interested:

Updated pictures with captions!

Nothing super exciting.  It's mostly pictures of food (because food here is quite different from that in Senegal), landscape, awkward pictures of me, or other rando things, but enjoy!

Visiting the Capital

 The actual and lesser-known political capital, Yamassoukro.  The capital was moved from ABJ to "Yakro" in the 1980s because it was realized that making representatives come for government meetings from the far corners of the country all of the way down to ABJ did not really make sense and so they figured Yakro would be a compromise.  Of course, all of the major agencies and international institutions are a bit lazy and stick to the more cosmopolitan ABJ, but I really liked Yakro.  Here are some highlights:

My first week in Cote d'Ivoire, the Chief of Party was (correctly) concerned that I would be bored to death just hanging out in my room here in Abidjan and organized a "mission" for me to travel to the political capital of Cote d'Ivoire with one of our drivers to "test drive" one of the new USAID/PEPFAR cars.  The car needed a practice drive and I wanted to see more of Cote d'Ivoire, so a 3-ish hour ride north was just what the doctor ordered.

Orange+green tricolor

The day before, I was handed an official "Mission Order," in case any security or military forces questioned us.  Sure, there were a few checkpoints on the way out of Abidjan and into Yamassoukro, but with our USAID/PEPFAR sign, we had smooth sailing--well, except where the road was bumpy.

I spent the whole ride staring out the window, AMAZED at the number of TREES!  Cote d'Ivoire is soooo green, and the ground so orange.  I understand now why the flag colors are what they are.  It looked so different from the greener, more tropical parts of Senegal or The Gambia that I've seen and I realized that I really am in a new country and part of the continent.  Very cool.  Also, LOTS of banana trees everywhere--I think I've found my country!

Our first stop, the Hotel President on the outskirts of the city.  The spaceship at the top?  A bar and restaurant of course.  We walked inside and I was the only one inappropriately dressed in flipflops.  I'm definitely not classy enough for this place!

After swimming 3 times a week in June, I was ready to jump into this pool.  Alas, we were just there for  a walk around, but still tempting!

This hotel was actually a little creepy in that you could tell that the people who stay here are power players but also that 20 or 30 years ago, it was in it's hey-day, like the rest of the country.  It still feels like a fancy hotel that was obviously built in the 1950s or 60s, but it has seen a lot of hard times too.  I guess there's no easy way to put words to it, but I felt the ghosts of post-colonial Cote d'Ivoire, when ties with France were close and the country was on it's rise.

A view of the Basilica from the top of the spaceship/hotel.

In my years abroad, "Winning" apparently became a catch-phrase, so I had to take this picture!

At the hotel, we met up with our Chief of Party's nephew, David, who works at the hotel as part of the CI Ministry of Tourism.  He acted as a tour guide and took a friend of his up on an invite for a special, traditional meal, bringing us along.  He invited more of his friends over and we feasted on this messy dish, village style.

Sugary banana mash with spicy mushroom sauce.  Weird but soooo good!

Take a bit of banana mash (futu), make it into a stick ball, and roll it in the slimy mushroom sauce.  Yum!

Then David took us to meet a fellow tourism friend who works at the Basilica, which has become the landmark for the city.  

You can't tell from this angle, but it's designed to resemble St Paul's in Rome with outstretched arms.

 The church is circular, which I love, and the bottom portion of all of the window sections open up to doors so they can have even larger crowds.

Very easily one of the coolest churches I've ever seen.

The capital city?  Yep, all you can really see is the white mosque in the background.

Looking up

Looking down on the church

Looking out on the entrance way and the arms

Unfortunately we ran out of time to check out the crocodile basin outside the palace where Boigny is buried.  They feed them every evening around dusk, especially dring Ramadan.  Alas, next trip!

A beautiful mosque covered in latisework closer to the town.

Though it was a quick trip and long road, Yamassoukro seemed more like a large town than a capital city, but also felt a little more like the West Africa of the Sahel I'm used to (if you ignore the trees, let's be honest).  Something about the dusty road, small stores, and general pace felt familiar.  I would love a chance to go back before I leave, but that might have to wait until my next visit to this country.

Bonne Fete de l'Independance!

Woohoo, Happy Independance Day Cote d'Ivoire!  52 years of "cooperation, hardwork, and development."

Vive la Cote d'Ivoire!

If only they could say "peace" as well.  :(

I guess one of the potential benefits of colonialism's sudden end is that at least for the former French colonies, the large majority of them received their independance the same year and thus it is easy to keep track of what number anniversary it is each year in each country.  Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Togo, and Cameroon, and many other pays francophones achieved independance after many years of colonial rule, over a few months in 1960, meaning that 2012 is 52 years.  When I left Senegal in 2010, it was a month after an enormous, and very important 50th anniversary celebration.  Senegal cheered it's peace and culture with Wade's terrible eye sore  beautiful triumph to African culture, the Monument of the African Renaissance.

You can't help but mock this statue.

Jokes about the Monument aside, and some rough times pre-election this past year, Senegal has maintained la PAIX.  PEACE. JAMM (or DIAM, for the fr. spelling).  Even with occasional separatist skirmishes or banditry in the southern Casamance area (below The Gambia), it has maintained large-scale peace.  This is quite an accomplishment in a region that seems to be falling to coups, wars, and general instability everywhere.

If you ask a Senegalese about peace, they may tell you that it goes back to a culture that across ethnic groups and personalities, appreciates a good joke and some sugary tea.  No seriously, you sit around with your friends and neighbors making fun of each other for last names, ethnic groups, favorite food, whatever, and before you can have a chance to get seriously angry, it's tea time!  [Not to say Senegal as a geographic space has been peaceful since time began, there were wars with the Pulaars and the slave trade and other terrible stories, but in "very recent memory."]  There are many other theories for the peace, but I think some of it has to do with their great sense of humor.
Note: I am not saying Ivoirians don't have a sense of humor, they definitely do!  But there's just something different in Senegal that keeps the peace coming.

Senegal's Independance Day was April 4, with many other countries following, and eventually Cote d'Ivoire on August 7.

As I posted on my first CI post about the conflict, Cote d'Ivoire has had a much different and sadly more violent past...perhaps it would just be better to say that the "New Millennium" hasn't been very kind to the country.  The country's first "President" was Félix Houphouët-Boigny who "ruled" (as Wiki says) from 1960-1993, celebrating independance while maintaining close ties to France, whose leadership and meticulous planning led to investment, prosperity, and development for the country.  Since the 1999 Coup, however, things have been "hot" or "warm" in the country ever since, and I am not talking abou the weather.

Ok, this post has been all over the place but really, I just wanted to post a notice to all about some of the violent skirmishes and attacks that have recently moved from the western border with Liberia (this link is only provided so that people don't confuse it with Libya) and northern areas and into the economic capital that is Abidjan. In the west, there is a lot of hangover from past wars in the areas (think Liberia, Sierra Leone) and some ethnic warfare and retaliation, which keeps my project and many others from doing much of anything out that way.  The north has also been tense over the past several years due to displaced persons from Burkina and other countries coming in, so we mainly stay in the south and east.

Anyways, the government had recently begun tearing down some of the remaining rebel camps/barracks in different parts of the country, and that upset various groups of people, including, apparently, those loyal to former prez Gbagbo, who is currently in trouble in The Hague.

Check it out:
BBC News
Cote d'Ivoire is heating up, en francais

There was a small attack near Abidjan a few weeks ago, though I didn't hear about until a week or so later, but things picked up this weekend, with events Sat/Sun and Monday morning in multiple areas in and around Abidjan.  DON'T WORRY: they are NOT in the part of time where I live/work.  The State Dept Travel Alerts and Embassy sent out TONS of email alerts the past few days with updates and recommendations (low profile, avoid crowds and military personal, stay away from areas where attacks have been known to happen, etc), so have no fear.  I do, however, wish that the Peace Corps system of color-coded party pagnes also worked here, but alas.  The skirmishes are all between current military and the rebel troops and extremely targeted, but emphasize the precarious situation that exists here.

In response, President went on TV last night to encourage calmness for the fete today and also emphasized that security (meaning UN troops, police, soldiers, etc) would be stepped up across the city and especially in the "HOT" areas that had the attacks.  UN trucks and SUVs are always a presence in the city and there is a GIANT UN compound right outside, thanks to the ONUCI, or United Nations Operations in Cote d'Ivoire.  While I think a big concert was planned in a park today, needless to say, there will not be fireworks tonight.  Clips from the military parade this morning were shown on national TV tonight and emphasized the Special Forces troops, sporting freaky masks and others with coast made of leaves.  Not even kidding.  Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of it nor can I find it online.  He also emphasize that large-scale demilitarisation will continue and be stepped up, which needs to happen, but is also not bound to make those leading some of these attacks very happy.

I am not trying to freak anyone out, but just wanted to keep people informed and also share some of the realities that come while working in a conflict or post-conflict/recovering country situation.  Abidjan is a cool city and the countryside is absolutely beautiful, so I am hoping and praying that lasting and stable peace comes to the country.

A view looking out on the political capital of the country, Yamoussoukro.

That's all for now!  Happy 52 Years to this beautiful country and people!


P.S. Sorry for all of the Wikipedia links that I know no one will use...it just gets a little too addicting when you want succinct information on a specific topic, over and over and over.

Today on the BBC

Cote d'Ivoire in the News

It's not a super happy post, but just shows a little about how far CI has come and how much still remains.

An Intro to My Practicum

So what am I doing in this fine and recovering West African country?  Well, it’s part of my Master’s Practicum, which is a 6 month internship that leads to a thesis so that I can graduate in May 2013 with a Masters of Science in Public Health.  My internship is with the Center for Communication Programs (CCP), who I have been working with part-time since October 2011.  I actually met them while I was still in Senegal in 2011 and have been on the NetWorks and Senegal teams this past year, supporting projects that promote mosquito net use and behavior change communication to reduce the malaria burden in multiple countries.  In June, I went full time, divided between NetWorks and a HIV/AIDS prevention project in Cote d’Ivoire called PACT (Participation Active et Communication Transformatatrice), which consists of several different programs in Cote d’Ivoire, especially with youth and young adults 18-30, called Super Go, Sports for Life, and African Transformation. We work through various NGOs around the country to run these programs and the office I'm at oversees everything.

This past spring, as I was trying to decide what to do for my Master’s Practicum, I found out that I received a small travel grant to go to Cote d’Ivoire with the PACT project and then NetWorks proposed sandwiching Cote d’Ivoire with two of their countries, Senegal and Benin, in order to do an awesome malaria-HIV/AIDS mash-up practicum focusing on training/education and formative research--super exciting and it seemed like I had found the perfect Practicum for my interests, past experiences, and future goals and skills learning.  Needless to say, an opportunity to use my recently renewed (and thus EMPTY) passport and get 3+ stamps beat out a different practicum possibility that was Baltimore confined but with an awesome international maternal and child health organization that I would LOVE to work for when I graduate.

Unfortunately, Senegal and Benin fell through at the last minute, bringing my time abroad down from about 16 weeks to just 8, bummer!  But, I’m back in West Africa and speaking French every minute of every day, so that’s pretty awesome.  My originally planned activities here got majorly delayed (oh international development!!!), so my work is changing to be a lot of technical assistance with some baseline surveys for African Transformations, leading formative research for a TV series/soap opera that entertains and educates about HIV/AIDS (see Intersexions in South Africa), and doing some preparation for a big strategic leadership course that will be happening in October.

Hopefully the work will still be interesting, though it's less time "in the field" than I would like, at least it's something.  Also, due to the nature of where I work and the fact that we have to go through a lot of ethics approvals, the fact that we have "competitors," and because I daily work with people who are all over facebook and the web, I probably won't actually be talking about any major details of what I'm doing or able to post a lot of pictures of things, but we'll see :)

Returning to West Africa

Rekindling the blog, two three weeks late.

So where am I now?

Cote d'Ivoire!!!  Or to the non-francophones, Ivory Coast!

I was first introduced to CI probably in middle and high school French classes, and vaguely talks about the war while in college, but was really introduced to it when I read Nine Hills to Nambonkaha before joining the Peace Corps in 2008.  It's the story of Sarah Erdman, who was a rural health education volunteer like I was, in a small village in northern Cote d'Ivoire, right near the border with Burkina Faso.  [Actually, one of the PCVs in my stage's older brother served in Peace Corps Cote d'Ivoire with the author, if you believe it!]

Here’s a little about what the CIA World Factbook says:

Close ties to France since independence in 1960, the development of cocoa production for export, and foreign investment made Cote d'Ivoire one of the most prosperous of the West African states but did not protect it from political turmoil. In December 1999, a military coup - the first ever in Cote d'Ivoire's history - overthrew the government. Junta leader Robert GUEI blatantly rigged elections held in late 2000 and declared himself the winner. Popular protest forced him to step aside and brought Laurent GBAGBO into power. Ivorian dissidents and disaffected members of the military launched a failed coup attempt in September 2002. Rebel forces claimed the northern half of the country, and in January 2003 were granted ministerial positions in a unity government under the auspices of the Linas-Marcoussis Peace Accord. President GBAGBO and rebel forces resumed implementation of the peace accord in December 2003 after a three-month stalemate, but issues that sparked the civil war, such as land reform and grounds for citizenship, remained unresolved. In March 2007 President GBAGBO and former New Forces rebel leader Guillaume SORO signed the Ouagadougou Political Agreement. As a result of the agreement, SORO joined GBAGBO's government as Prime Minister and the two agreed to reunite the country by dismantling the zone of confidence separating North from South, integrate rebel forces into the national armed forces, and hold elections. Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of rebel forces have been problematic as rebels seek to enter the armed forces. Citizen identification and voter registration pose election difficulties, and balloting planned for November 2009 was postponed to 2010. On 28 November 2010, Alassane Dramane OUATTARA won the presidential election, defeating then President Laurent GBAGBO. GBAGBO refused to hand over power, resulting in a five-month stand-off. In April 2011, after widespread fighting, GBAGBO was formally forced from office by armed OUATTARA supporters with the help of UN and French forces. Several thousand UN peacekeepers and several hundred French troops remain in Cote d'Ivoire to support the transition process

Not super optimistic, huh?  It's a beautiful country that after a promising start has suffered tragically.  Cote d'Ivoire also has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in West Africa, estimated at 3.4% in 2009.  The US government does not have much going on in CI, apart from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.

In terms of places to go and things to do, Lonely Planet is pretty unhelpful since tourism has suffered greatly due to the war and crisis, leaving me at a loss for what to do on the weekends, but coworkers are helping fill some of the time up.  The UK Trip Advisor has a little more going for it in terms of information about places, shopping, and more.

I’ve traveled to a lot of new places on my own, but always meeting up with people somewhere along the way.  This is my first time without a group of people in my similar situation or job, if you will, so that's a new change which means I'm spending less money on phone credit and more time wandering around the neighborhood to see what there is.  It's exciting and I'm enjoying learning about a new place, but that is the subject for another post, coming soon!

Third Goal

So here's one of 5 blog posts I started last summer and never finished, yikes!  This was actually all ready to go and then, BAM! nothing.  And by nothing, I mean I left Senegal, stopped briefly in Illinois, and started grad school within about 8 days.  A little intense.  So this is old, but here it is.

I've never talked about this before, but the Peace Corps is comprised of 3 different goals that define its mission in the world.  These three simple goals are as follows:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

Goals 1 and 2 are obviously work that happens during your PC Service, as does Goal 3, but it's this last goal which they tell us we never can stop doing.  Every PCV is told to "bring it home!"

The Third Goal is...

http://www.thirdgoal.org/view-details/BArnold

http://www.thirdgoal.org/

If you click on the link for Regions, Africa, my pictures are currently the first 3 that come up (probably because they are the most recently uploaded).


**Please note, this above point is probably no longer relevant as it was WELL over a year ago that I started this post.  Still check it out though, I'm still bringing the Third Goal wherever I can.