Not just the Rich

News reports are full of the recent attack(s). Ankara and Grand Bassam  were hit on the same day, though the resulting news stories read quite differently.  As  seems too often to be the case with Africa, special attention is paid to the foreign victims of the tragedy. Everytime I read about the "French nationals" my mind rebels with images of the local children flipping into the waves and gorgeous young couples holding hands and laughing as they walk the beach.

Grand Bassam, described as a playground of the expatriates, has always struck me more as the "sleepy oceanside town"  with a funky artistic underbeat. It reminds me a lot of places I once considered home. I like it because it exudes an air of reality and humbleness. It is not where the uber rich usually spend their time (they gravitate more to Assine and San Pedro I think, where the undercurrents are said to be calmer and surfing is popular.)

When we head out to Grand Bassam, we often stop by to say hello to a missionary family  who has a sweet little house just across from the beach. While they do have a wall surrounding their home, there is no barbed wire. No sense of danger or unease. It is a beautiful town striving to keep afloat.

The family has a few friends in the neighborhood and we always make time to see them, too. Most often we gather at the beach sometime just after lunch and play in the waves, shovel piles of sand into buckets and listen to the music coming from any one of the little restaurant-bar huts lining the ocean edge. There are often crowds of local kids practicing their acrobatics or playing a game of soccer. There are couples walking and young guys on horseback trying to get you to snap a photo- or, for the more adventurous-hop on the saddle and ride off into the breeze.

It has a family feel. A solid, small town local flair. Definitely not the kind of place one would think as a target for a terrorist group looking to make a statement.  It seems more like terrorists targeting their own fellow Africans. Or like they weren't really targeting anyone at all but everyone in general.

This account, especially vivid and heartwrenching, brings it all together. In the midst of the terror, there is no separation of local or expatriate. Everyone was hiding. Some managed to escape with their lives, others did not. Reuters at least mentions 'Foreign citizens from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, France, Germany and Mali were among the victims' seeming to put them all on the same level. The Washington Post tries to get it right, but what's with including statistics on Americans included in other attacks as if they hold some sort of prestige? BBC is the worst, simply stating "four of the dead were Westerners" as if that is all that really counts. While they go on to mention that nationalities of victims hadn't been released, the pictures clearly show this event affected the local population.

It's anyone's guess where they will strike next. Speculation is on about Senegal and apparently in Guinea they have made some arrests. The only thing that seems certain is they will strike again, it will be unexpected (in the way that no one can really prepare or prevent) and it will affect us all, as humans.

Discouraging. Distressing. Too close to home. For all of  us, not just the rich or the Western.

Men Urinating.

Empty beaches?  Historic slave trade sites? Colorful marketplaces? What’s the most iconic symbol of West Africa? Tourist attractions aside, I am voting for the urinating man. Nothing says West Africa like a man peeing on the side of the road. 

I’ve spent a lot of time considering this problem. (Apparently I am not alone) It’s a common sight to see INTERDIT DE URINER scrawled across walls along the roadway.  It does little to deter the masses who persist. I’ve had the experience (more than once!) of having a taxi driver stop to pee, en route.  I guess he just couldn’t hold it in anymore. Sometimes I wonder if it is akin to small children who  want to use the restroom in any new building or restaurant they go in. Maybe there are certain walls or tree lined areas that emit a man-only detectable siren “Pee here! Pee here!”

Perhaps it has that collective quality. Seeing someone else pee suddenly awakens the urge and requires one to stop and urinate as well. Or maybe it’s more like a wolf marking its territory.

The question most on my mind, however, is what do all the women do? I take it as proof of man as the inferior species. Women are never spotted peeing on the side of the road. Somehow, we make it through our daily affairs without this ritual.   

A separate, but equally prevalent phenomenon, (though perhaps unique to Abidjan and not necessarily all of West Africa) are the signs for “Developpe Sex”- enlarging the penis is the translation I imagine. They are often placed next to signs for some elixir which is reported to help with premature ejaculation.  I haven’t quite arrived at the connection between this and frequent peeing, but I feel certain there is one.

Just as I feel certain there is a connection to the numerous posted advertisements for “Detective Privee.” Christian and I both remarked on this, having noticed the signs  in a variety of places throughout the city. Is there really such a need for private detectives?  It appears to be a lucrative business here. Of course, one might imagine if the population is busy enlarging their sex it might lead to certain indiscretions which require a private detective to sort out. 

In the end, I have no answers without real research. I have only my informal data to rely on- incessant observations of men urinating, here, there and everywhere.

Guinee on my mind

Like a long lost lover, memories of guinee come back, gently caressing me awake from my 8 year slumber.

It could be trying to learn lingala and thinking only of sousou
it could be every time I turn on the radio, I hear the rhythms of west africa
it could be dance awakening my soul
it could be torturous regret, cutting deep and turning savagely
it could be news from home, shutting down all connections
it could be the dream of freedom, riding on the back of the coup d'etat

But I remember
sucking water from a bag
hot colors and cool nights
full round moons
and dying brothers

I remember guinee, and as everyone else returns, I start to dream of leaving. I hope the daily routines that are sure to begin will put my head back on.