African Chopsticks

The signs of war:

2007-10-08T14:43:00.000Z

When you first leave the South behind and arrive into the rebel-held North of Côte d’Ivoire you can be forgiven for thinking that it is simply just another poor West African nation, with a rich coastal area but a poor inland zone. You may assume that the structures, buildings and economy were probably never any different from its neighbouring countries. But then over time you note that at night there are streetlights, even in small and remote towns; there are modern, multi storey buildings; and several large cities throughout the North with hotels and swimming pools; a web of tarmac stretching from North to South and East to West joins all these points on the map.

So what are the signs that war has hit this once powerhouse economy, how is it different from its poor neighbours in the North (countries to the West have been victims of poverty and war for a long time)? These are some of the things I noted in my time in the North.

There are the social signs, trained IT guys, photographers and the like who had businesses are now out of work, up to one third of young teenage girls in a village I worked in have babies of their own and they are not even sure who the father is, husbands are missing and families have been displaced when trying to escape conflict.

The influx of “foreign” people who manage the conflict itself and the relief efforts that follow it:

Men everywhere in mismatched hotchpotch camouflage clothes are the Forces Nouvelles, AKA “the rebels”,

The blue helmet toting smartly camouflaged UN Peacekeepers from France, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Every second car is a huge white four wheel drive vehicle, Toyota Landcruisers or Landrovers, all emblazoned with UN in big bold black letters or tattooed with the brightly coloured logos of international charities, MSF, Red Cross, Save the Children, you name it - they are here to help.

Also note that roads which were once covered in tarmac (?) are now potholed, bumpy and often turned into a slush of mud during the rainy season.

Supermarkets, banks and government buildings have been burned down and destroyed, sand bags are still strewn outside to protect gunmen during fighting?

Gunfire holes in the sides of buildings and statues.

Peacekeepers food supplies on sale at stalls near to their camps (how did they get there, I don’t know?).

Broken down and burnt out cars are dotted along the side of the road.

Signs of a tourist industry gone to sleep in Man: half a dozen mask and artefact shops on one road, when now no one is there to buy these things, hotels with swimming pools and “guides” waiting for months or years for visitors so they can take them to masked dancers and vine bridges. All these people pounce on the expatriate NGO workers who also have a thirst for adventure on the weekend days and can provide a little bit of the income the tourist industry used to bring.

Back to Africa...

2007-08-11T07:19:00.001Z

...and it's the rainy season; which as it happens is a wonderful thing. Lush greens are shining now rather than dampened by a layer of thick rust coloured dust. Never ending blue blue skies are broken up by the crisp white of cumulonimbus, heavy and pregnant with rain. The crumpled landscape, with its many rocky hills and soft velvety green surfaces has wisps of cloud clinging to it in the early morning. Milky light and cool, damp air greets me as I look out on to One Tree Hill sipping my bitter pre-office-wake-me-up coffee.

Butterflies of every colour and size skitter over the flower petals as I eat freshly baked French bread (just 15p a loaf), Emmental cheese (costs the same as all my weeks supply of fruit and veg from the market put together) and mangos for my lunch.

And on my way home, les Dents de Man, bites at the horizon, challenging me to clamber up its rock face as many expats have before me.

The torrents of rainfall leave behind them rainbows, sparkling drops of precipitation weighing down spiders' webs and twinkling flower petals.

Everything is fresh and spotless, God has done his spring cleaning here in Man.

I saw a sign....

2007-08-07T11:51:00.000Z

Of course, all this gadgetry is accompanied by some pretty funny 'signage' (as the Americans would call it) when they try to translate from Japanese into English. A sample of the contradictory signs from the toilets in the shinkansen, bullet train is attached.

Please, even if you don't have child, try to find a diaper so we can put our special bin to good use...

Forget what we see in West Africa, this here is a real child protection issue – there are huge black scary cats prowling the area.

Some doggy/pet control signs.

Pink rabbit/bear/dog pets are not allowed to fart in this area?

Hmm - Do you think anyone saw me do that?

And then some from the construction sites:

Don’t go a step further – this is a construction site, but of course you are welcome if you turn left …

Mind you, really it is a dangerous building site, even if you do turn left, things can fall down from above. But maybe a big pile of planks falling from the sky is "A OK"

And some other random ones I just had to snap.

Instructions on how to use a toilet seat...

And you thought the streets were the only place left for smokers - not here!

I saw a shrine

2007-08-05T13:29:00.000Z

Shrines, temples and castles, Shinto, Buddhist and samurai abound in all cities, hills and mountains in Japan. They are covered in gold leaf, topped with tiled swirling roofs, surrounded by VIP (?) moss, raked silver sand, golden carp-filled ponds and bonsai-ed trees.

Kinkaku-Ji

VIP Moss - I don't know what it is either

Everything is spotless clean and in order, shoes are taken off at all the entrances, people follow orderly lines and voices are hushed. Wishes and prayers are tied to twigs and branches. Prayers and chanting are accompanied by a choreographed series of claps and bows.

Prayers with flying pigs

If wishes were rain...

Origami wishes

The gardens are a haven of tranquillity where the plants, trees and moss growth, size and direction is controlled; bonsai on a giant scale - all of it is very beautiful. Large-lensed Nikons abound (here I am not out of place or asking to be mugged as I am in Côte d’Ivoire) and packs of Japanese tourists with fingers in V’s pose at every corner and step.

"V" is for...victory? VIP?

National Treasure: The sound of birds twittering accompanies your every step as you tread the floor boards of this samurai castle’s corridors. I could not believe that the birdsong I was hearing was being created by the footfall of the line of tourists marching around the castle in a regimented line, “It must be a tape recording" I was thinking to myself. So to test this creation I stayed on one floorboard until the coast was clear and gently rocked from one foot to the other to see if it was indeed my body weight creating the sound.

How the floors work

“National treasure, national treasure” squealed a lady in uniform. I was being told off like a little girl on a school trip, I had to walk on quickly and hang my head in shame as all the other tourists looked at me and tut-tutted. But at least now I had confirmed it was true; the joists and floorboards were designed to recreate the nightingales’ song so that the samurai inside could detect the steps of any intruders, so sophisticated a system that they could even pinpoint the intruder’s location based on the pitch and tone of the sound. This is one very special palace, Nijo-jo, in Kyoto.

Detail of the roof

You’ve come a long way baby…

2007-07-30T20:20:00.000Z

Pppppffffshhhhtt… the sound that greets you as you enter the toilet. “Hmm, maybe I set off the automatic toilet flush” I think to myself. I lift the toilet seat, no water. Ah, it’s another one of these Japanese gadgets. After a few moments reflection as I sit on the warmed toilet seat, I realise it is probably for shy Japanese ladies embarrassed at the thought that women in neighbouring cubicles may hear them do their business. So with this flushing noise I can trump away as I please. Later discussion reveals ladies flushing the toilet before going to the toilet were becoming such a problem that the reservoir supplying water to Kyoto, Biwa Lake, had dramatically reduced water levels. The government got the owners of public buildings, shopping centres etc together to find a solution – and this is what they came up with.

The gadgets, widgets and thingummies don’t end there. Aside from the seat being heated, the toilet seat has on average four buttons alongside it. They provide a bidet type water jet to clean your posterior, variable water pressure and temperature, music/flushing sound and one appears to have had a hair curling device. Well, there was a picture of a woman with curly hair, I don’t read Japanese and when I pressed it I couldn’t tell what it did, so I am guessing that’s what it was for.

The week before coming to Japan I was attending a workshop and staying in a hotel by the beach in Côte d’Ivoire. Twice, two times, not just once, but a second time too, I went to sit on the toilet seat and got up again straight away thinking that I had sat down on the lid of the toilet, the feeling of a proper toilet seat had become so unfamiliar. Then in Japan, all this gadgetry in public toilets even showed me that I had come a long way from my toilet-seat less commode in Man, 18 Montagnes (see post from 15 June "Gender Mainstreaming").

More fun, fabulous and fantastic fabric

2007-06-16T17:52:00.001Z

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

2007-06-15T21:54:00.000Z

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

2007-06-09T10:52:00.000Z

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

2007-06-03T12:46:00.000Z

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!

Famous because I'm white

2007-05-19T16:46:00.000Z

Today I had a 10am appointment to have my photo taken. One of our daily drivers (i.e. he is not on a long term contract), Basil, has a daughter who saw me one day when she was passing the office. She can only be about 4-5 years old (I must ask her age) and she asked him when he got home from work if she could have her photo taken with me; I am white, that is exciting! So early this week we made plans for him to come meet me at my house, 10 am on Saturday morning to take pictures of us together.

On Wednesday we also made plans for the same driver, Basil, to take me and a colleague to see the masked dancers on Sunday afternoon, as he is from the area. Needless to say I am very excited about this, I have already bought six masks in the Ivory Coast, I like dancing, and I like doing the things the Lonely Planet guidebook tells me to do, even more so if real live Ivorians are going too, much better than just a bunch of white tourists in an air-conditioned vehicle.

When Basil approached my desk yesterday and said “I will see you at 10 tomorrow morning” I was confused, “…but I thought we were going on Sunday” I said “we will have to check with Aline if it is ok for us to change the day” … “oh, but my daughter especially got her hair put into plaits today for tomorrow” he replies. Then I remember. How cruel and selfish I am, I totally forgot his little girl wants a photo with me.

Ange appeared in a gold satin dress, hair newly braided, with gold little bands holding the braids in place; very cute. Whilst we were waiting for the camera man I got Ange some biscuits, they were each the size of her hand, or so it seemed, but she managed to get about 5 of them down her in 10 minutes. Her face was covered in crumbs, all the hard work to make her look so beautiful and I had made her dirty! The camera man Basil had organised did not turn up so I used my camera, with my arm extended to press the shutter button. We wiped away the biscuit crumbs, positioned ourselves under the hibiscus tree and took some pictures. “Faut rire” (you have to laugh) Basil kept telling his little girl, she didn’t understand when I was asking her to smile.

Some photos are blurry, some are good, but in all the pictures, I am squinting in the sun with my sensitive blue eyes and my very very very white skin. I look like a ghost, no matter what shutter speed I chose I could not balance out the contrast between black and white. Apparently they are all going up on the wall of Basil's home, no matter what I think!

When Basil and Ange were on their way home my guard starts chatting to me (he had also benefited from the biscuits and was giving me – bad – photography advice throughout the process – so I suspect it was a fun morning for him too) and he says “I have a daughter too”…I know what’s coming next... 8:30 am appointment Sunday morning for a photo shoot! I don’t know why I made it 8:30, I was thinking the light would be better – but I need my sleep! I should have been more selfish. Oh well!