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