Traveling With Soon To Be Friends

This Christmas vacation I was invited to travel to Cote d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) with one of my student’s families for 10 days. I gladly accepted and got my visa.

Roxy could sense I was leaving as I packed the night before and even tried to climb into my bag at one point (like she does when I take her to the vet in my bag). She was also extra playful, distracting me from packing. I was sure my friend would take good care of her while I was gone.

The night before I left my friend took me out to find Colico. This is a fried yam with spicy sauce that I love. Think of large potato wedges with a sweet zing to them and you dip them in spicy salsa. My colico lady in my neighborhood has relocated so we went to find another lady on the roadside who makes colico. We were successful and she also had a pot of goat with a green sauce that was really taste so I got a little of that too.

*** Please note that no matter how yummy something is you probably shouldn’t eat it for the first time when you are planning to go on a road trip the next morning (especially when you live in Africa). Oh yes my friends, running stomach hit me very badly as we crossed the boarder into Ghana, traversed the bumpy roads of Ghana, and then crossed into Cote d’Ivoire. This was 13 hours of stomach gurgling fun let me tell you. I was living the commercial jingle “gotta go, gotta go, gotta go, right now!”. I had to practice mind over body control as I was traveling with a family that I didn’t know really well and we couldn’t just stop all the time because we had to cross the Cote d’Ivoire boarder before 6:30pm. I was happy that my student is just 5 years old and she needed to have a potty stop ever 2 hours or so. It is all OK now and after 2 days it has finally passed but OO LA LA not so much fun.

The car ride took about 13 hours and I got to see the scenic view of Ghana during the daylight hours. There is definitely a different feel to each African country. Ghana is clearly more developed than Togo and seems cleaner to me. The stretch of road that was right next to the ocean was breath taking. Then when we drove past Cape Coast it almost felt like a smaller town on the coast somewhere in the U.S. I for sure would like to travel back there and spend a few days.

Meanwhile, inside the car I sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jolly Old St. Nicolas, and Jingle Bells over and over with my student. We had a Christmas program at school and for the last month or more I have been singing teaching and practicing these songs with the kids at least 3 times each school day. I thought it was all over and I wouldn’t have to sing these songs again but I guess my little girl loved them so much that we sang them over and over and over in the car too. Luckily, the sing along CD had a few other Christmas songs and so I taught her some others mixed in between the others. I hope I don’t have to sing these three unmentionable carols for a year or more.

I should also mention that the eating began in the car and I feel like I it never stopped eating for the whole trip. All the weight I’ve lost might be returning due to the family’s family and friends all wanting to feed us and serve cocktails every place we go. It’s all I can do to just have one drink to be nice and then return to water.

Oh and Abidjan is a beautiful booming city. It has grown so much in the last 5 years that it really is a big city. In some ways it reminds me of L.A. with an African twist. I’m so thankful for this opportunity to see another place, but I think that I’m ready to return to my home in Lome.