Cote d'Ivoire Part 2

The ride there was amazing because of the well built and maintained roads. It had been a while since I'd been on a bus that didn't have to slow down every ten minutes for potholes in the road. The "simple" investment of capital into infrastructure like nice roads made such a difference in the efficiency of the country and for the first time I was able to take a step back and realize that adequate infrastructure was seriously lacking back in Ghana.

The comfortable bus ride came to an end in a small station on the outskirts of the town, and after consulting the guide book we hailed a taxi and asked him to take us to the cheapest hotel. Yamasukro, the official capital of Cote d'Ivoire is a rare gem of West Africa in that with its modern amenities like smoothly paved six lane roads and unnecessary amount of street lights lining them, It didn't actually feel like I was in Africa. One of their presidents in the 80s straight up moved the capital from Abidjan to his small hometown, developed it, Built a giant $ 300 million basilica taller than the one in st. peters in the middle of nowhere and renamed it Yammasukro.

We arrived at our hotel off the back streets of some small housing communities just the way I liked it. The lobby was small and quaint and opened up into a beautifully small and unique courtyard with colorful flowers and well groomed bright green shrubbery. The rooms consisted of small huts with running water showers and a double bed and for the 4000 Siffa (8 dollar) price tag, seemed like a great deal. We put down our stuff, locked up our rooms, and walked down the street to flag a cab.

The Basilica rose triumphantly in the distance over everything else in the town as if to make sure the people could view their tax dollars at work anywhere, anytime they looked up. As we approached it, it was evident from the dense jungle in the immediate distance that a lot of trees had been cleared to make way for the monstrosity. It felt almost eerie walking up to the giant structure and as i approached I felt like i wasn't making much progress because of it's grandeur. The inside was amazingly beautiful, with over 40 giant stained glass windows including the dome of the Basilica itself. From the outside, the gardens were quite a shock in that no where in Ghana has gardens, but then again I guess that's what you get when you commission 1500 men for three years working tirelessly day and night.

The Basilica, and Yammasukro in general was such a strange site to me. It served as a prime example of the corruption that exists in this part of the world and the ability for a leader to take advantage his power. But then again, the capital was beautiful, the infrastructure present, the people just weren't. It's strange to drive down 6 lane highways in Yammasukro that have no people on them when contrasted with Accra's main two lane road that gets congested every afternoon in front of Campus. It is a different way to build a city, to establish roads and buildings before the people come, but who knows, maybe it'll turn out to be a great capital, i guess only time will tell.

After the tour, we walked back through the lobby before the exit and saw some beers in a refrigerator in the small cafe and decided to treat ourselves. I didn't necessarily even want a beer at 3:00 in the afternoon, but I figured I'd make the day a little more sacrilegious and we sat there and shot the shit as the cashier cleaned up her store. She wanted to close up soon after so we finished up and took a cab down to a lagoon side restaurant as the sun set and we ate a nice meal of spaghetti and pondered the strange world that is Yammasukro.

I awoke early at 6:00 am, showered, and began my journey back to Accra alone in order to make it in time for my interim assessment (IA) in coastal management. The journey back to Abidjan was easy on the smooth road and when I got there i quickly boarded what I would soon find out to be the worst bus yet. It took a few hours to leave the station, and once we got on the road we made so many pit stops that i soon lost count. I fell asleep soon enough and awoke at the Ghanaian border, sleepily removed my passport from my camera bag and put it back in my backpack on my seat. I crossed the border fairy easily after convincing the clueless order guard that my visa was legit by showing him my student ID. We crossed the border and all got back on the bus but were held up by a Liberian woman who had to get her passport stamped back at the Cote d'Ivoire checkpoint before crossing into Ghana. After waiting for a while I stepped off the bus to stretch and slink off into the jungle to relieve myself. I got back onto the bus and realized that my backpack was in a different place than I remember leaving. I opened it up and immediately my heart sank when I saw that my camera bag was gone. I made quite a scene to the driver and while everyone erupted in commotion i realized that there was no sign of the man who had been sitting next to me.

My problem i see now was that I was gently lulled into a false sense of security by the friendliness and hospitality of Ghanaians, and the walls I had brought down as I accepted my new environment should have been put immediately back up as soon as I was in a new, unfamiliar place. I was angry at myself most of all and couldn't really blame the slimy bastard who saw an opportunity and seized it. I fell asleep until the faint city lights of Accra welcomed me home and once back in my room, a nice cup of Bai mu Dan (White Peony white tea) comforted me as i studied through the night for my IA,