More fun, fabulous and fantastic fabric

Foetuses, women's breasts, chicks and eggs -
just right for a child right's NGO community educator.

Shower heads, with bath tubs,
maple leaves and trees - why not

...que ton coeur desire

Shalif: Is this Hebrew?

Gender mainstreaming

The Regional Director - he who commands all West and Central Africa for the organisation I work for - recently came to our lowly little office in the Western province of 18 Montagnes, Ivory Coast. He is a strapping (at least six foot?) American man's man, who has lived and worked in Ghana, Congo, Southern Africa, etc etc. He was staying in the "boys house" next door, but coyly popped over looking for breakfast on his first day as there was no food to be found there. Having been to the toilet in the boys house and the office he noted there were no toilet seats, and took this issue up with the Chef de Bureau as a gender mainstreaming issue; we need to consider women's and men's different needs in all that we do. Hurrah! Now this issue was raised I should be getting a toilet seat in my house too - it is a girl's house afterall. Jen - you don't have to worry about my thigh muscles anymore.

Drums, thunder, lightning, magic and stolen mobile phones

My Facebook surfing and calm morning with Ben Harper was just interrupted by the lively sound of African drums outside my gate. Barefoot and still in my sleeping sarong I walked out my door and onto the mud and gravel road to see. (My guards were visibly concerned about the possible tenderness of my white female feet!) A group of students were dancing, playing the "Tam Tams" and singing along the road to celebrate the beginning of the school holidays .

Asked if I would like to take a photo, I said that really what I wanted to do was take a sound recording, a photo would not do this justice.

The conversation then turned to my night's sleep (seems in West Africa morning greetings either revolve around "have you eaten yet" or "how did you sleep"). There have been thunder storms and thumping rain every night for the past week. I find this calming and it helps me sleep (maybe due to my years spent in tropical Singapore / Malaysia) . Then I was told there are two types of lightning in Africa. Expecting the cloud to cloud; and cloud to earth explanation I was surprised when I was told the following:

My guard: "If your mobile phone is stolen you can go visit a fetishist and they will cast a spell, lightning will come down and strike the person who stole it on the head. We believe in lots of kind of fetish and magic in West Africa. But in other places, Mali, Burkina (me - and the Gambia? - yes yes) they believe in even more than in Cote d'Ivoire. So many weird things happen here. There was a helicopter accident, the pilot died straight away and the Togolese President escaped unhurt. Only in Africa."


Me: "So what is the second type of lightening?"

My guard (with a quizzical look): "The type that strikes the ground during a storm of course!"

The Fabric of African Society

Called Pagne here in the Ivory Coast (which literally means "(a) loin cloth (b) grass skirt") you see everything printed on the fabric of African clothes. From geometric patterns and floral designs, to animals, butterflies and beasts. But I will just name some of the unusual here, I don't have photos of all them I'm afraid:

• Typewriter with “never say never”

• When you first look you think it might be chicken drumsticks, but on closer inspection you realise they are floating pointing index fingers, alongside floating hands of course.

• Guinea foul, every size and colour.
• Chicks, chickens and eggs (one of my favourites).
• General household items have included stand fans, spark plugs, padlock and keys, clothes hangers.

• Dollars and euro signs.
• Babies in their cribs with floating breast besides them.
  
• Bird cages and genie's lamps.

• Presidents with their wives, campaign slogans, national events (“National Women’s Day”, African Union) and political propaganda.

• Pictures of Saints, Christ and sections of gospel.

I love them all!