Abidjan is a city under construction. Everywhere you looking there is a building going up or the idea of a building going up. Happily, there are still enough palm trees evident to prevent the concrete from taking over. Not the California palm tree, tall and slender, impossibly touching the sky, but the village palm, short and squat full of aging brown leaves hanging down topped by new green growth, and maybe a bunch of bananas. Noticing the trees on my daily walk has made me realize I probably don't have enough words for palm trees. It's a whole class ? of tree that has many versions. Banana, coconut, pineapple, date. Each of these trees gives a different fruit and has it's own unique look. They frame the construction of Abidjan with a promising mood. I spend a lot of time hoping it will remain that way. That the developers won't get overzealous and knock everything down in their haste to make way for humans.
Events of the last month or so have left me reconsidering many things, trying to figure out which persecutive is the right persecutive. The ever elusive search for the truth. Is Abidjan a city of construction or destruction? Not surprisingly, I keep discovering that truth has a shifting and unsteady quality. Rather than an absolute answer, truth seems too often to be something that is chosen, a matter of framing.
