Monkey Bite; my experience in Cote d'Ivoire

There is so much to say about this past week, yet I have no words to describe my experience in Cote d’Ivoire. You will all have to bear with me as I attempt to explain everything that happened without exposing how jumbled my thoughts and feelings are at this moment. I am sure that I will not be able to appreciate it all to the extent that it should be recognized as a pivotal experience in my life until much later, for now I will simply give you most of the details as they occurred consecutively.

First I will mention that the night before we left for our trip without much information about where we were staying or what we were going to do, the six of us were put in touch with the owners of one of our meal plan restaurants that happened to be from Cote d’Ivoire. We were only hoping to receive more detailed information about things to do and were pleasantly surprised to have them offer to contact their relatives back home that could provide a place for us to stay in the capital city of Abidjan. We were given contact information so that once we arrived, they would pick us up at the bus station, which was also very comforting. So that night we got a few hours of sleep before heading to the bus station at 3:00am for our 4:00am bus that would arrive in Abidjan at about 6:00pm, though unfortunately we did not leave until after 5:00am and arrive until close to 8:00pm. While the bus ride was excruciatingly long compared to road trips I have been on before, it helped that I was exhausted from lack of sleep and dozed most of the trip. However, once we landed in Abidjan, we waited about 20 minutes before being met by a couple members of our host family who escorted us back to the two separate houses we would be staying in the first couple nights (3 of us in one and 3 in the other). They chatted with us for awhile in French (a couple girls in the group had to translate for the rest of us who do not speak the language) and very graciously provided us with ice cold drinks and then a large meal before sending us off to bed.

The next morning, they brought us along to church with them, which was very interesting because the service was in French and included African gospel singers so although I could not understand exactly what has happening or being said, I felt like I experienced a great mixture of French-Afircan culture. When we returned home, a light lunch was presented to us by the family and we spent relaxing time around the house until they took us to another home of one of the family members where dinner was again made for us and we spent more quality time with locals.

To express our gratitude for everything they were doing for us, the six of us decided to cook dinner for our host family the next day that included some of our signature dishes. We made a trip to the supermarket where we discovered a large selection of cheese, which we had all been missing greatly since it is an expensive luxury in Accra, so we based our decisions on what to make on that as a main ingredient. Our meal consisted of an onion and goat cheese tart, roasted eggplant and tomato with herbs, pasta with vegetables, chicken, and gorgonzola cheese, and chocolate mousse for dessert. The family loved it all, as did we, though we almost regretted it the next morning when we all woke up a bit sick from eating so much of what our bodies had not consumed since we came to Ghana. I ignorantly made the decision that night as well to eat the chicken when I had not touched meat in two months, so unfortunately I woke very early to throw up and ended up feeling nauseous the entire day. Luckily our only plan for the day was to go to the beach in a town less than an hour away called Grand Basam, so I accompanied the group to a beach house the family had there and slept inside all day while the rest of them went out to the beach. Due to my inability to do anything other than sleep, that day is pretty much a blur to me now. We did stay the night, however, so the next morning I woke feeling very refreshed and was able to join the others to the beach this time where we spent hours chatting, reading, playing in the water, an taking pictures. It was definitely a nice respite after feeling so awful the day before, though I have to admit that I did feel very taken care of since the family constantly checked on me and gave me medicine. After that, however, I barely ate anything the rest of my time there except bread and crackers because I started to feel nauseous anytime I smelled or looked at food they made us which I still do not know the reason for except that my body must not be used to the ingredients and flavors. That night we returned to Abidjan to eat and sleep before waking early the next morning for a full day of activities.

On Thursday, we did a few errands in the morning like getting money from the bank and buying bus tickets for our ride home the next day before visiting a cathedral where a few of us had emotional moments. After we gathered ourselves together, we left and went to a local zoo, about which I am still trying to understand my feelings. It was different than any zoo I have visited in the United States in that it seemed very disorganized and the animals not well cared for; a few monkeys roamed free from cages and a few were solitarily confined to a tiny cell where they had no room to expel their energy. I had to look away from the lions after a couple minutes because their skinny, underfed bodies made me almost sick to my stomach as I tried to understand why they were treated this way. The boys in our host family (Jean-Claude and Paulin) did not seem to share the depression most of us felt and simply threw pieces of banana through the bars to the different animals as though that would make up for their maltreatment each day. And as a side note, I just want to mention that one of the small monkeys that was roaming around the entrance actually bit me and the men working there who witnessed it did nothing. I was told that the monkey was vaccinated and I would be fine, but I could not help but worry when my wound started to puff and bruise, which it still looks like now. I am perfectly fine, but am still in shock that I would attacked by an animal in a zoo of all places and simply look back on the moment in a humorous light. After that trip, we were taken to a rural village in another section of the town where we were given food and played music on drums that we danced to for a short time. It was a lot of fun, though most of us were not feeling well, so we left early and stopped at the supermarket once more to buy a few gifts for our host family as well as some souvenirs for the bus ride the next day (cheese and baguettes). That bus ride seemed even longer than the first because I was getting anxious to be back in Accra and was very nauseous once again, so when we did arrive I went straight up to my bed with nothing but hot tea in my stomach.

Yesterday and today I have been spending inside recovering and exchanging stories with everyone else in the dorm who traveled to other places like Togo to the east of Ghana and some beaches within Ghana. No one this semester was able to leave West Africa due to the expense, but most people had interesting experiences anyway and we all agree that we prefer Ghana to the surrounding countries. I will try to reflect more in my next post, but for now I just want to let you know that I am safe and sound back in Accra and that I had a very unique experience this past week; whether it impacted me in a positive or negative way I am still unsure, but I know that I have definitely learned much about myself that I either was unable to see or just refused to acknowledge before.

Change in fall break trip plans...

Well, it turns out that the visa to get into Burkina Faso costs around 100 U.S. dollars, more or less depending on what they want to charge you at the border, so most of us had to rule that country out since it is so expensive. Instead a small group of us have decided to travel west to Cote d'Ivoire, which I'm sure many people have heard is relatively unstable right now due to conflicts with the political system. However, it should be safe enough for us to get to the capital city of Abidjan, which is about an 8 hour drive from Accra, and stay there a few days. I am not entirely sure what else we are doing in the country, since we have not all come together and discussed it yet, but from what I have researched it looks very interesting and different. We applied for a visa a few days ago, which will be ready tomorrow, and we are planning to leave Saturday around 3am so we are traveling during the day and arrive by the evening instead of traveling overnight. When we return to Ghana, we are hoping to travel up north to Mole National Park where we can see wildlife like elephants and baboons as well as other monkeys, though it will be another long trip getting up there. I can already tell that this break will be fairly stressful and time consuming, but it will definitely be an adventure and will force me out of my comfort zone, which is all a part of the experience.

I will update again when we return in a little over a week, so wish me luck!

Fall break trip plans

I’m sorry it has been so long since my last post, but I did not have anything major to talk about since last week. Last weekend was pretty uneventful except for our large group outing to a sushi restaurant called Monsoon on Saturday night. The food was surprisingly good (Daniella and I shared vegetable tempura, spicy tuna roll, and a platter of mixed salmon and tuna sashimi and rolls), and not ridiculously expensive like we were expecting. Most dishes were between 9 and 16 cedis (probably about 5 to 12 U.S. dollars), so we did not feel too guilty ordering a lot of food. We needed a night to splurge on good food anyway, since most of us are growing tired of eating rice, plantains, and mixed vegetables nearly everyday. A few of us have decided to go there at least once every couple weeks, if not every week, to share a couple appetizers and have a drink in the very nice lounge they also happen to have. I forgot to mention that before we left the restaurant, after someone complained to the manager about an extra charge on the bill, we each received a free shot of B52, which I found surprisingly good. Most of you know that I am not a huge fan of alcohol, but this was very sweet (a mixture of Bailey’s and Kahlua), so I was even hoping for another one after I finished it. I think I have finally found my drink, strangely enough, in Africa.

Speaking of discovering things here, we had a very interesting discussion last night about racial differences among our group that allowed us to all evaluate our experiences here so far. Many of us have realized that being here as a minority for the first time has made us self-reflect much more and get more in touch with parts of ourselves that we may have overlooked while in the U.S. For example, a girl from a Jewish family spoke about how she feels much more Jewish being here in a predominately Christian country where she has to search for others with whom to share the holidays and traditions. It was nice to be so open about our races as well, since my experience in the U.S. is that it would be awkward to approach the subject with someone of a different race that may be sensitive about it. We did point out that coming here to Ghana in the first place was to leave our comfort zone, so why not talk about a subject we would normally be too nervous to discuss since it is on all our minds everyday? I for one definitely feel much more aware of my skin color and my background when I walk outside everyday, and am always wondering whether the African-Americans in our group feel the same way or have more a sense of belonging. What surprised me was that each one of them actually feels very differently, as do many of us with lighter skin, which made us realize that our experience here is very much shaped by our personal experiences back in the U.S. and our views of the world.

This weekend we have another two day trip; though this time it is to another large city called Kumasi about 6 hours north of Accra. It apparently is famous for its enormous market (the largest in west Africa), so we are advised to bring money for souvenirs and whatever else we find interesting. I will put the full itinerary in a separate post since it takes up a lot of room, but I will mention that we have to leave by 5am tomorrow morning since it is such a long trip and the traffic can get horrendous. I am not as excited for this trip as I was for the last one, since we are going to another big city that will probably also be very westernized and modern, but it should be nice to see another area of Ghana. Speaking of traveling, we are all pretty frantic about figuring out our plans for fall break, since it is very difficult deciding where to go that will not be expensive or difficult to get to. Daniella, Ivy, and I spoke with Christa, the associate director of NYU in Ghana, today about ideas of where to go and have basically decided to take a bus up to Burkina Faso right above Ghana. From what we have heard and read about the country, it sounds like a great choice since it is one of the safest countries in west Africa and has a lot of natural beauty and wildlife. I personally want to see as much African wildlife as possible, so I am in charge of researching game reserves up there while Daniella and Ivy figure out most of the transportation and visa fees. I will help with that too of course, but it just makes it easier when we all have separate jobs to worry about. We may be joined as well by a girl in the other dorm named Caitlin who I am slowly getting to know better, which will be nice since it will give us a chance to bond more. Traveling is by far the best way to get to know someone in my opinion; that’s how I learned to love Daniella in Florence after all. We will keep researching next week, so I will let you know our final decisions when we make them.