January 2006: Of more riots and fried bananas

Once, in a far away country - bulging with pine apples, coffee and cacao- there was a president who had been ruling the country for a long time and whose term had come to an end. However, one day while eating lunch with his wife, he told her : ‘Chéri, I cannot go. I like being the boss, I like it a lot!’
At which she answered: ‘Of course, you stay where you are! How else are we going to pay for my shopping trips to Paris?’

So the president then played many many cunning games with the many people that came from abroad to help him organize an election. He played it so well that the elections could not be held and then the foreigners, who did not want to give up that easily, said they were going to try to have elections a year later, and meanwhile he could stay in power. At the dinner table his wife applauded her husband for being so clever and served him an extra plate of his favourite dish of alocco, fried bananas.

But then, those white people that wanted to organize his elections, had set up a big working group including lots of big shots from Africa and the West, the WB, the EU and God knows what else, and they decided that even though he could stay on as the President, they were going to appoint another fellow Ivorian as the Prime Minister, with many many powers to rule the whole country.

‘Kaiiii!’ he now cried. ‘Kaiii, this is not what I want. I am the boss of this country, I decide who pockets the earnings of the coffee, cacao and pine apples (=me!), I decide who and what the army and police will protect or not, I decide if elections will be boycotted or not, kaiii kaiii kaiii, I do not like this Prime Minister business. He has to go! And with him all those white people with their bad, bad ideas!’

So he and his chéri got on the phone and after a few calls their magic started to work, again. From all over, but especially from the poorest slums, lots of kids and teenagers started filling into the streets of Abidjan, erecting barricades to stop the traffic, burning tyres to give it some special effect and asking money from cars that wanted to pass, while they were danced and shouted war slogans to brandish all those bad, bad people, French and UN.

After that lots of bad things happened such as burning of UN cars, attack of UN offices and looting of staff’s houses (especially in the western regions). As for Abidjan, the whole city was in the hands of the mob, which enjoyed the logistical help of the police and the army. The head of the army even helped the leader of the mob and his crowd force their way into the national TV station. This made for some rather peculiar news bulletins, filled with all sorts of militias raging and ranting, such as the Young Patriots, the Wives of the Young Patriots, the 2000 Women for Gbagbo, the Youth Patriotic Galaxy etc etc.

Meanwhile we were holed up in our apartments, our car park empty and the UN car hidden deep in the garden, as we did not want the mob to spot it from the street and come for us, as had happened last time. We stayed indoors while listening to Kamiel’s walkie talkie where we heard lots of Juliet Tango fours and fives calling Sierra base, talking about being under attack and requesting a helicopter to get them out, standby Roger, over and out .

During those days no word was heard from the president, who must have been enjoying many a plate of alocco with his wife, while trying to work out some more tricks. I am not sure which one he still had in his sleeve but I congratulated ourselves for having moved to a much safer area and having installed an iron front door. However, my Indian neighbour let me know that such was not enough, that most of the other neighbours had taken care of their personal safety by acquiring personal bodyguards or private weapons. Not having any of those, I started ogling my belongings a bit closer and found that our hammer, my Nike weights and the kitchen knife could provide some (temporary) relief, in case it got that far.

Luckily it didn’t, because even though those ranting patriots kept urging their followers to chase the UN and the French troops out of the country, as a footnote some of them would add that they were NOT to attack any individuals (hostage taking was more in favour) and also asked them to NOT loot or burn shops and other businesses. As far as I can tell they this time listened a bit better than last time (when over 8000 people -foreigners and Ivorian alike- had to be evacuated after many houses and businesses were burnt).

So it wasn’t as bad this time, but still it wasn’t too pretty a picture, and just when the chaos had reached the height that the president was waiting for to announce that he, the President, was going to dismiss his government and prime minister for not being able to deal with this ‘spontaneous uprising by a people upset with foreign powers trying to meddle in their country’s internal politics’, just when he wanted to step in, he got a call from some of his African elders, one of them that annoying Kofi Annan, and another from that Nigerian fellow, Obasanjo, who told him that it was not nice for the world to see what those youths were doing, behaving so lawless and attacking those foreigners who had gone there to help, and demanded that he get ‘his children’ back off the street as soon as possible!

Kaiiii! Kaiiii! That was not at all what he had hoped for, but as it was, with the heat of those elders in his neck he decided, after some heated discussions with his chéri, kaii kaii!, that he would give in, for now, and call the kids back home. So a few more telephone calls followed and after that thought the case was closed. However, what a surprise to find that those ‘kids’ were not at all eager to go home and tried to lynch some of his men sent out to urge them back home!

Kaiiii, Kaiiii! While they are recovering, so are we! Even though we are not allowed to move yet till Monday, we hope that by then life can resume its normal way: kids to school, fathers to work, mothers in the pool, the shops open as normal and no more worries about having the iron gate locked, the weights ready, and running out of nappies and toilet paper!

Griet, Abidjan, January 2006

Who wants to be shot today?

It’s been a while and some of you were wondering in which hole we’re gnawing our bread. Well, it is still Cote d’Ivoire – not the safest of places but then again there might not be many safe places left these days. So it is in Ivory Coast that Kamiel spends long days doing logistics to help supply peacekeeping troops, six thousand and more to come, to try and keep the peace here, especially during the upcoming elections.

Meanwhile I watch Remi (9 months and five teeth) in her own snaky-Mogli-crawl wriggle after Niko (three years and superb dancing queen), while working on a quirky pregnancy book. The setting is Europe, because in Africa there is not that much fun involved in pregnancies, just listen to Isaka’s story.

He and his new wife are expecting a child. I say new because the former one had a mental problem and died before their first child turned one.

Isaka’s new wife is six months pregnant and has not been near a nurse or ultrasound, but that does not seem too unusual here in Ivory Coast where everything, including healthcare, has gone down the drain, especially since the start of the war three years ago.

Everything seemed to be going well till the day his wife was walking on the street and got trapped in a crowd on the run for a ‘district-clean-up-team’. These axe-wielding men clear the pavements of all illegal traders, varying from women sitting behind wooden make-shift tables to sell oranges (two for 20 cents) to men standing at traffic lights trying to sell carpets (40 $) and stolen watches (4$). Not that they rejoice standing in the heat and dust all day, but when you can’t find a ‘legal’ job, nor a social security system, you have to do something to earn bread for your dozen kids to gnaw on.

As the clean-up people are known to destroy everything in their wake, people tend to panic at the sight of them and run for cover. This does not only mean that baskets with oranges go flying through the air, but also that people fall over each other or get hit by a passing car.

Isaka’s wife did not get run over, no she simple fell into a pothole. The subsequent injuries to her pregnant belly made her start to bleed, so days later when she finally told Isaka and asked him for money to go to the hospital, that’s when he came to see us.

That was two weeks ago. Meanwhile his wife seemed to be doing better after she’d gotten a few injections in the local hospital and taken pills as prescribed. Was it that, or were it the flushings with hot peppers and traditional herbs that she had undergone as well, as advised by her neighbour. Isaka wouldn’t know; but his wife was feeling a lot better, Dieu merci!

The next time we heard from Isaka was when his younger brother had told him that the mother of his late wife had requested that his four year old daughter would come live with her. She was getting older and had difficulty sleeping at night, always thinking about her dead daughter, and having the child near her would surely do her good.

Isaka was unhappy because he knew that his former mother-in-law was very poor and could not provide his daughter with good food. Besides that, his new wife was very fond of the girl and taking very good care of her, bathing her every evening and washing her clothes.

After much thought, Isaka gathered his courage and went to talk to his ex- mother-in-law, explaining her that he could not give her his daughter. The mother, Dieu merci!, seemed to accept this and even wished him good luck with the new baby.

Did she really wish him good luck or did she put a spell on him? Isaka wouldn’t know, but soon after the encounter, his new wife’s grandmother died and when she and some family took a bus to go to the burial five hours from here, they got stopped by bandits.

The bandits did not only take all there was in jewellery, watches, telephones, cash, identity cards and new looking clothes and shoes. They said that they also had to kill at least one of the passengers, as was their custom.

Isaka’s wife and family cried and pleaded with the bandits and asked them a million times forgiveness before God, le grand Dieu, that He blesses you all!

The bandits said that if the passenger themselves could not agree which one of them should die, then they were going to hurt every single one of them.

So all the passengers were beaten up severely, and that’s when we heard again from Isaka. He said his wife was stuck five hours down the road from here, and that she had started to bleed severely again, and this time he did not know how to get any money to her so that she could go to the nearest hospital.

While he was talking, it turned out that his wife’s father was staying in a village not far from there.
“So why doesn’t she ask him for help?” I asked.
Isaka looked alarmed and explained that according to their customs (they belong to the Moree tribe of Burkina Faso), a pregnant daughter can only face her father after certain rituals have been performed. As this had not happened, he was convinced that an encounter would worsen her situation – not only would it worsen the baby’s situation but it would endanger his wife as well.

There was no convincing him otherwise. He just shook his head and smiled unhappily. When I asked what he was going to do instead, he paused for a while and then said he would keep thinking for a solution and that, God willing, he’d find one, tomorrow.

And then he left.

Griet, Abidjan, middle 2005

My expanding vocabulary

"Stop!" the soldier meant to say while blowing his whistle and waiving his Kalashnikov at the white UN truck that drove past his roadblock.
'Stop!' he meant, and so we did, because life in this West African nation costs less than a dollar. Also, we might be hiding rebels in our trunk - one of those rebels that are dividing the country in two and who might have been covering as birds only an hour ago.
Just read on and you'll understand.
"Nice car you have," the soldier said, patting his gun while we lowered the car window, adding, "me too I want to drive such a car. Me too I want to work for the UN. I could be a security guard, you know."
"Yes, why not," Kamiel murmured, pleasantly surprised that for once he wasn't asked for money.
"You know," the soldier went on, a disgruntled look on his face, "I did send my CV to New York, but I haven't heard anything back yet!"
"Don't worry," Kamiel assured him. "With the UN you have to be patient. Me too I had to wait a while." And at that the soldier smiled contently, stepping back from the car and waving his arm to let us pass.

So here we are back in Ivory Coast where, after violent uprisings last November against French and other white faces, life is back to normal -- while far from normal at the same time. Just look at me, jumping up with excitement whenever I spot another white face on the street. I run to ask their telephone number, eager to have someone to talk to now that all my friends have left and none has plans to return. Even the mothers group has petered out (what with the schools burnt out), which means no more weekly meetings to socialize and exchange addresses of holiday resorts and golf teachers while nibbling on homemade cookies (courtesy of the hostess' cook) whilst our kids were tearing each others toys to shreds under the oblivious eyes of their nannies.

It was fun while it lasted; now I have to build up a social circle all over again from scratch, which is not easy these days when looking for white people is like looking for that chunk of chocolate in the fridge - it has disappeared! Of course there are still fourteen million Ivorians in Abidjan, and I have taken to inviting them over at our apartment, one couple at a time, on Wednesday evenings.

Frank and Justine, recently returned from a long stint studying and working in France, told us about the powerful witchdoctors the current president employs to warn about forthcoming coup d'états and other unfortunate events. These doctors and marabouts fabricate various gris gris and amulets the president has to wear to shield off bad luck and make him bulletproof.

Another couple, Alain (who had studied in Canada) and Jacky, told us to beware for the rebels in the North because they can sneak into the city without anyone noticing.
How come?
Because they change into birds and fly away.

Taxi drivers have similar stories, as well as depressing accounts of people shot to death when refusing to stop at roadblocks -- roadblocks are sprawled all over town and manned by police and army to, theoretically, search cars for hidden rebels and arms, but, practically, to make up for salaries left unpaid or considered inadequate.
Life here is cheap, about one dollar at the average roadblock. Water and electricity is far dearer, the same taxi drivers tell me. These days not even a civil servant can afford running water in his home any more.

And there is more, my gym trainer Abou tells me while slumped over on one of those bicycles that get you nowhere. "These days all the Ivorians do is drink and dance, while the country is going down the drain," he said, a somber look on his face.
"People have no jobs, no future. They leave their wives and children to fend for themselves while they go out to drink and forget. And the girls, even they are up for grabs now. For free, cheaper than a beer!" He had raised himself up and was looking me sternly in the eye. "It didn't used to be like this,» he said, while slowly letting his body slump back over the bike till his head rested on the handlebar and only when he didn't move or speak another word till I had finished all the weight exercises, did I realize that he had dozed off.

One might think that the whole of Cote d'Ivoire has fallen asleep, what with mutterings about a referendum, elections, disarmament and cantonment but no action whatsoever. However, the deadlock's quietness might be deceiving and nasty surprises might be brewing quietly; what with the sanctions announced against some prominent Ivorian elements not renowned for their openness to criticism, including the First Lady, accused of masterminding death squadrons? What with the mysterious disappearance of the former head of the army (dismissed for 'sidelining with the French' during 'the six day war' in November), whom many believe to have been dissolved in a large quantity of acid, while others maintain that he is still alive and planning a coup d'état -- as is very much en vogue these days.

While the future is very unpredictable, I take advantage of my stay here, conscious that while interesting and dangerous, it might be over very soon. So I hurry to improve my French, and the most recent additions to my vocabulary include the words charnier, impunité, barrage, cible, esqadron de mort, et putsch. Oh yes, another addition was the word 'sacrilege', which I learnt upon a visit at the French hairdresser in Hotel Ivoire.

Hotel Ivoire, the stage of much tumult, tanks and bloodshed, these days looks empty, deserted but for the presence of throngs of security guards, one of whom guided me through this immense hotel -the biggest of West Africa- towards its hairdressing salon.

Grandiose, it was, the way I imagine a room of Louis Quatorze's mistresses to look like: lots of crystal chandeliers, long velvet curtains, mirrors covering the length of the wall, antique looking chairs and an equally antique looking woman appearing from behind the curtains.

Though not any longer the Barbie-like figure that she might have been half a century ago, she was wearing tightly fitting white pants and a golden t-shirt stretched over her - can one say that? - ageing bosom. While she walked up to me on her high heeled sandals, barking an order to her Ivorian assistant before shooing her away, I could tell from the way she ran her freckled hand (40 years of tropical sun exposure) with long manicured nails through her blonde dyed hair, that she was measuring me up and decided that I (no jewels, no Louis Vuitton bags) was not worth much trouble, but now that she had to scrape customers to get by, she figured she'd hold her breath and deal with me, quickly.

Even though I felt like a cockroach about to be crushed under one of her stiletto heels, I still braved to ask her about the price of a haircut. This indecency already she found clearly unacceptable. Then she got even more outraged when I suggested that the amount she quoted (half a local monthly minimum wage) was a lot of money for a cut by someone I didn't even know had any credentials to do a good job.
That really got her fuming. How long had I lived here? Hadn't I heard her name mentioned before?
Yes, I had, but couldn't remember if it was in a good or a bad way.
"Well, I can't force you," she said, walking off towards a mirror where she feverishly started brushing her beehive hairdo while emptying half a can of hairspray on top of it, thereby nearly suffocating me and her poor assistant that was hiding behind a chair.

I pondered a while, and then sat down. With so many foreign businesses gone, where else was I going to find someone used to cutting Westerners' hair? Besides, I thought, this vicious looking countess might be quite an experience, after all.

How did I want it, she wanted to know after I sat down. "Medium?"
"That's okay, medium will do," I said, feeling like I had just ordered a beefsteak.

It didn't took long before I realized that this old queen had an alcohol problem and had to do her utmost to keep from cutting in her own, heavily shaking, fingers.
Oh, she had lived nearly forty years in Cote d'Ivoire, she said. She'd had a wonderful time, so good that she could not make herself leave when she should have, long ago, in the days when one still could sell ones stuff. Now it was too late, and, besides, where could she go? France, she insisted with a big gesture of her hand towards heaven, was a splendid, splendid country, no doubt about that, but it was cold there, and she hadn't lived there for so long.

Oh, she continued, grabbing my shoulders to steady herself, life had been so promising in Cote d’Ivoire; no one would have believed the possibility of such a sacrilege that took place.
"Because the Ivorians are, in se, not méchant," she sighed.

And just when I thought that she was going to break down and start crying on my shoulder, she suddenly took a deep breath and while raising her arms up again, nearly touching her crystal chandeliers, she exclaimed that in the past her salon used to be full, plain plain, with only the best of customers! People were queuing up to get a haircut from her!
"Like whom?" I wanted to know.
"Oh, only Europeans. And as for the Africans, only the elite, the aristocracy. Hélas,"and there she stooped down all of a sudden, as it the thread that had held up her head had suddenly snapped, "hélas, even they have all left."
"You know," she said while hanging over my shoulder and talking to herself in the mirror, barely audible and with a sour smile on her face, "there is no one left now... just you and I..."
And when her eyes caught mine, they lit up mildly. For the first time she seemed rather happy that I was there.

So now I understood what Abou had been saying, things had changed indeed. It didn't used to be like this. I wonder about the future and what other frightful words will be added to my vocabulary.

Griet, Abidjan, February 2005

Of riots, fried bananas and evacuations

So here we are in Ghana, recovering from what happened in Ivory coast.

What happened?

If you ask me, I'd say the president woke up on Thursday 4 November thinking 'to hell with that peace agreement, to hell with those rebels thatare occupying half my country. I want it back, all of it.'So next thing he ordered his pilots to start bombing those rebels.Then he ordered a clean up of the media (opposition papers were incidentally burned to the ground and for unknown reasons BBC went off air). And then the president announced on the only media left, the state radio and TV, that a great day had started, because he, the president, had started to liberate his country for the sake of his beloved people.

So it all started rather promising, till unfortunately a bomb went astray and landed on a French base, killing more than half a dozen. In response the French killed off the whole Ivorian air arsenal, including the president's two private jets.New announcement on state TV: your president has, for your sake,started bombing the rebels but now the French claim that a bomb was dropped on their base. They accuse us of dropping it, though we want a thorough investigation to make sure that it was not an act of the rebels, who are capable of all bad things and have no morals.

Next TV announcement: the French have bombed all our planes, hereby they declare war to us, so get up and react against those neo-colonialists who have no respect for us because we are poor and black, so stand up and let's rid our country from them. Remember that a true 'patriot' is willing to die for his country!From then on no one mentioned the rebels anymore. From then on it was war between Ivorians and the French. Or rather, between Ivorians and all white people, and we were told by our embassies to stay inside and not to show our face.

Outside on the street the 'get-rid-of-the-French' message was warmly applauded by the presidents' private gang of bandits, the Jeunes Patriotes, who immediately started bashing, looting and burning all French shops, schools and properties, grabbing thereby all those things they had always dreamt of, from mobile phones and microwaves to Nike shoes and air conditioners.This went on day and night; in our case right under our feet as the shop underneath our apartment, which a day earlier was still abustling Orange telephone shop, was now being reduced to rubble. The noise of continued hammering, right under our beds, made hardly for agood night's sleep and when they subsequently put the shop on fire, the fumes sifting through our air-conditioning did not improve things, nor the threat of the fire spreading throughout the apartmentbuilding. We stayed awake most of the night, listening to the sounds of gunfire, explosions and helicopters, ready to run when necessary.

When the morning broke with the birds singing as if nothing had ever happened, we imagined that there was nothing left to loot and we were hoping that things would get quieter. However, a new announcement wasmade on TV: French tanks are surrounding the presidents' palace, wanting to topple the government! So get out and form a human cordon around the presidents' palace! So off they went again, thousands of people, beating drums and shouting war slogans. On the way to the palace they passed our apartment and while hiding behind the curtains we could tell by the sounds of breaking glass and the banging of metals that they left a new trail of destruction (which I found highly remarkable because they had been looting and destroying for so long now that I was convinced that there was nothing to break or shatter left in the whole neighborhood. I later learned that the extensive hammering of the shop underneath us went on for days because the looters were trying to open the safe with their primitive means (hammers, axes, stones, sticks), and it was only days later when a police force showed up who helped them open it with a few well placed gunshots, in exchange for half themoney.

The French later announced that they had no intention of removing the president, but had been on their way to take over a big hotel (to have a place to safeguard their citizens), but that their tanks had lost their way and gone astray, coming very close to the president'shouse, thereby sparking the 'toppling' rumor.This announcement did not appease the angry crowd but made them all the angrier because they did not want the French to touch their HotelIvoire, the poshest of all West Africa. So another spate of violence ensued with more casualties and properties lost.

Meanwhile we were holed up in our apartment, the only whites in the whole building and therefore not an obvious target, till a 'patriot'spotted the UN car in the parking lot and started looking for the owners. Luckily we were tipped in time and could run to hide with neighbors, who served us fried bananas and explained that they did not approve of all the looting and violence that was taking place outside, even though they stressed that the French and the UN were indeed their enemies, but for us they made an exception - I guess because they liked the enthusiasm with which Niko claps her hands, swings her hips and shouts 'hallelujah!' and 'amen!' when she accompanies them to church on Sunday mornings.

Anyway, being holed up for seven days which seemed like seven weeks, I often wished I had dark make-up and an afro wig and a big boubou so that I could wander outside incognito and watch with my own eyes what was happening - the destruction, the crowds, the dancing in the street when they had found something new to plunder, and the long queues at the few still existing food shops (it certainly was a good week for dieting!)

During those days Remi, at four weeks, slept as a rose, unaware of what was happening around her, while Niko, at three, wondered why she had to keep quiet and was forbidden to play outside. She must have also wondered why we were all day on the phone - gathering information, keeping in touch with friends and embassies, getting calls from journalists, worried calls from friends and families overseas, as well as a rebuking call from my mother, telling me off for using slang and talking too quickly when giving interviews on national radio.

As the days went on, more and more foreigners started leavingAbidjan, even people who had lived there all their lives, but now had lost everything, their houses and businesses burnt to the ground, or if not, just scared to death because things had never been that bad before, certainly not with gang rapes and stuff like that.While everyone around us started making arrangements to leave the country (the French sent out helicopters to pick up people), I was left wondering 'should I stay or should I go?' Because often evacuations happen after the worst has already taken place, and then you find yourself stuck somewhere else and it takes ages before you can go back. So we waited and waited, till finally the UN decided to evacuate its personnel to Ghana.

So here we are, and wait, aware that the troubles in IvoryCoast are far from over, but hoping that somehow something will happen during the next few weeks that stabilizes the situation enough so that we can go back and resume our life.

Griet, Ghana, December 2004

Of babies, dwarfs and models

Dear friends,

Here’s the story about the birth of baby Remi - that is if you haven’t already heard the story and learnt how to deal with undersized gynecologist assistants, oversized gynecologists in full blown midlife crisis, and what to do when your water breaks whilst in the middle of a train ride…

Here I go: Even though I had planned to deliver in Ivory Coast, the doctors there sent me home because they didn’t like my previous HELLP syndrome history (with emergency caesarean) and feared that if they had to give me a blood transfusion, it might be infected with nasty viruses such as HIV and the likes. So I left Kamiel behind and hopped back on the plane with Niko to enjoy the last days of my pregnancy in Belgium in grand style (shopping, movies, cakes), whilst bracing myself for what was to come.

As part of this ‘bracing phase’ I decided to attend a lecture for expecting mothers at the local hospital. The lecture started with a woman introducing us to a certain Doctor Ping, an assistant in gynecology, she said, who would help us deliver our baby. Then she looked at the door and beckoned a little Chinese boy who was standing there, to come forward. A big sniffle went through the room accompanied by the murmur: ‘How old is this kid?’
‘Fourteen at the max,’ my neighbour whispered - while Doctor Ping clutched the pulpit with both hands but even then his head could barely reach over it.

He was dressed in a green medical uniform and he knew some medical terms so it might not have been a joke after all, but still I wondered, especially when he started to explain us how come we were pregnant (aha, so that pigeon had nothing to do with it?!)) how long a pregnancy lasts and what the typical symptoms are (strange swellings in the abdominal region as well as regular fainting, he said, which I was about to experience myself when he then told us how babies are usually born, describing us the melon-through-the-oninon-sized-canal scenario).

Speaker number two was a bit more enlightened, being an anesthetist who told us that even though it was written in Genesis 3,16 that in agony one shall give birth to one’s children, he comforted us that these days an epidural can be requested and will be given instantly, that is if you can get around the midwives who will still try to convince you to do it the ‘natural way’ - to me as natural as asking the dentist to pull out all your teeth without administering any pain relief and anesthetics. (Anyway, if I suffered from that kind of thinking I’d have stayed happily in Africa and squatted under a bush tree to deliver the baby there and then, biting the umbilical cord with my bare teeth to give it that natural touch.)

Number three was a pediatrician who told us the importance of our newborn to start scoring straight away - you’d think they give them some relief but no, only two minutes after birth the little ones have to start performing already, trying to get as many points as possible on the Apgar score (not sure what it all tests but wouldn’t be surprised if it rates their predispositions for musical brilliance, analytical thinking and a possible knack for water polo.)

The last speaker I heard (before I ran off) was a psychologist who said that three out of four were going to experience a postnatal depression, especially the ones who had to go through big changes, such as a move of house, a change of jobs or having to be separated from the natural father.

As I qualified for all three of those, I noted the speakers’ comment that in traditional cultures the baby blues are less common as new mothers there are not supposed to be superwomen but, just like in the animal world (think of elephants and the like), get lots of support from the group. This help, amongst others, makes the mother less vulnerable to the sufferings of sleep deprivation (a well proven torture technique).

With this in mind I planned to move back to Ivory Coast (and its abundance of nannies) as soon as the baby had made its entrée and was ready for the voyage. Of course, I hadn’t counted on a violent uprising in Abidjan that would make us flee the country very soon afterwards, nor had I counted on having the fourteen year old Chinese at my bedside at the moment of truth!

A week before my due date, Kamiel arrived in Belgium. The next day we went shopping in Antwerp when on the way back, in the midst of the train ride I suddenly thought: ‘Strange, did I sit down in a puddle or did someone leave the window open and is it raining inside this train?’

As if caught in a monsoon rain, I made it home to Kamiel's parents’ place where there just happened to be a celebration for his father’s birthday with mountains of cake, but would not let me have any as I was about to give birth soon and eating cake, they said, would make it all the messier!

That was the only hard part, honestly. Though no, now that I think of it, there was another difficult bit to come, later on. But in the beginning in the hospital all went remarkably well, thanks to the administering of an epidural which made for a rather pleasant night, chatting away with my sisters whom I had called in to keep me company once Kamiel had fallen asleep (still jet lagged).

It had been years since my sisters and I’d had so much time to catch up so we talked through the night till around 4am when a nurse walked in to tell us that we better caught some sleep because we still had a lot of work ahead of us, she said. So we slept a little bit till I woke up at 6 am, feeling some commotion in my belly, which according to all the beepers and machinery that by then had been attached to my body, meant that I was ready to give birth.

Now, that was really exciting because I had never given birth before - Niko having been pulled out by cesarean while I was in a very deep sleep. So this time I wanted to be very much there and see if the Chinese was right when he told us how babies really get there.

So we woke Kamiel and moved to the delivery room, where, just like in an aerobics class, I had to do a long series of abdominal muscle exercises, pushing a lot, and that was quite hard because whenever I caught Kamiel who was never too keen on bloody sights, his face looked so full of disgust and horror that I could not help laughing, something which was not appreciated by the doctor -- which by the way was the 14-year-old-looking-Chinese boy, as my own gynecologist had developed an acute case of midlife crisis, spending his days on a Harley Davidson and his nights in discotheques surrounded by ladies with tight bellies rather than the protruding lot of me.

Anyway, so the little Chinese was in charge and he kept telling me to stop laughing and to be serious and focus on the pushing, which, as I said, was not easy and this is where the second hard bit comes in, because he then had to take his scissors out, but before I had time to register that and to start running or, at least, screaming, there was all of a sudden someone else screaming in a voice I’d never heard before…

There she was, Remi, a little baby girl covered in blood and looking very blue-ish, but nevertheless scoring rather well on her first tests and, as my own gynecologist said -- who by that time had found the way to the hospital, wearing a fluorescent t-shirt he must have raided from his son's wardrobe -- Remi came with a lovely pair of long legs and therefore with a bright future in the modelling industry.

Bisous,
Griet - late 2004

OF zouglou, God and boubou

Dieu vous parle?

Is God speaking to you? That’s what the African shopkeeper asked me when I asked him if he had English books in his shop. He led me to a corner covered with Dickens and Danielle Steele, while telling me that God had just whispered to him that I was going to have a healthy baby girl (which made me listen twice, for he was right on that one) and that I should join his church to hear more of God, loud and clear.

Oh boy, those Africans, they talk to me about God wherever I go: inside the taxi with its broken windows and loud blasting zouglou music, at the market stalls heaped with all kinds of colourful and exotic fruit, and even inside our own apartment, where in the evening joyous singing drifts up from a practising church choir downstairs.

Yesterday Niko’s babysitter, Marie, asked me to visit a neighbour who she said could help me sew a cot and curtains for the new baby because she had not spotted any such things in our place and thinks that I am – just like in the magazines and movies she watches - a Westerner who likes flowery baby curtains with ditto baby cot and little bambino bookshelves and dwarfy baby sofas etc. Poor thing, she doesn’t even know that I am set to buy the little colourful cotton padded basket I saw on the market – which to me looks like a perfect baby cot, even though the stall keeper insists that it’s originally designed for keeping luxurious puppies.

Anyway, Marie took us upstairs, unbeknownst to her that this was going to be my first real visit to an African family’s house. While climbing the stairs to their apartment I had visions of voodoo practices I might get to witness soon, and lo and behold!, I had only been in the neighbour’s place for less than half an hour – a very barren room crowded with what looked like hundreds of kids and aunties, maids and cousins – when one of them, a very skinny and tall woman, raised her arms in the air and started singing a gospel. “Jesus, c’est toi qu’on suive, Jesus, c’est toi toi toi,” she sang, and the whole crowd joined in at the chorus and while Niko watched in astonishment how Marie and the others started dancing, the lead singer led a young man inside the circle and made him sit on his knees and then she raised her voice a little louder and prayed the lord to save this man’s soul, and all others started touching his back and his head and whispered arduous prayers while he sat on his knees with his face looking very peaceful and his hands stretched open, ready to receive whatever the Lord or spirits were going to send his way.

Ivory Coast, it is quite an experience. Even if once one of the richest countries in Africa, since the civil war the only thing they can depend on, they claim, is Jesus. Most people now have a hard life, as I learnt when I visited the hospital for a check up and was asked to fill out a form with questions such as how many kids I’d already had, and how many of them were alive and how many dead. And if my house had a toilet in the garden or in the house, and if there was electricity.

The main thing that seems to keep people happy is singing and dancing, as well as looking gorgeous in their boubou of Holland wax, and getting their hair woven into intricate designs in one of the hundreds of beauty parlours that flower all over town.

I enjoy watching it all, and one of the things that has kept me happy on top of all this, is the yoga class I’d found. Class? Not really. A teacher, rather, who seemed to know all about the right postures to stretch my bulging body and its tired bones.

Alain, very black and tall, works as the sports manager in one of the grandest hotels here (grandest in Ivorian terms but rather old and in shambles when using Asian standards). When I asked to join his class, he suggested he rather teach me privately at my home.

A private class, how convenient!, I thought.

The first time he visited my place I saw the worried look on our cook’s face when I explained that this was my new yoga instructor. Alain later explained that yoga is not very well known over here and that people are a bit naïve and regard it as form of voodoo – as if I was joining a dangerous sect.

Alas! We’re only three sessions later and already I am starting to think that the cook and his worried looks might have been very right, after all. Not that I am practising voodoo and at risk of being led astray, though yes, in fact that is exactly what might be happening.

It started with Alain’s persistent questions about my daughter, was she fast asleep?
‘Yes, she rarely wakes during her noon nap.’
And my husband, he prodded, was he at work or might he drop home for lunch?
‘Well, he might but then again he might not.’

Alain looked as if he was making some serious deliberations in his mind, while the cook kept throwing furtive looks down the little corridor into the room where Alain and I were doing our practice. Looks that I was now starting to find rather reassuring because I’m starting to get a bit worried that after all it might be ME who is being a bit naïve here.

But then again, the classes so far have been very good, so I don’t want to be too suspicious but might have to keep my eyes wide open in the future, in case the cook isn’t looking for an instant and Alain starts acting funny, and Jesus isn’t there to help me out!

Big bisous from Abidjan,
Griet & co