I’m relieved, and realise that I have been carrying a lot of my old life with me. I’m as cautious as I have to be in South Africa. I don’t walk alone at night and I don’t wander off with men I don’t know to places I haven’t been to in day light.
I spend the rest of my evening at the taxi rank, and drag my bags back to the bus station in the morning. Now that there is lots of transport available, I want the comfort of a luxury bus that leaves in a few hours over the convenience of using a taxi that leaves for Abidjan in a few minutes.
V
YOUNG, BLACK AND WASTED
Abidjan, October 2008
THE CITY’S SKYSCRAPERS ARE rising so quickly you’d think there’s a competition between property developers. Bumper to bumper cars and human traffic make some parts of the city centre hard to walk through, especially when people pour out of offices after work. The fashion sense here is a cut above the rest – tailored suits, fine pinstripe that’s barely noticeable, and the sheer diversity of the outfits worn as daily wear. It looks like a trip to the opening of Parliament. The most lasting impression Abidjan makes is that of being a city that used to be a forest not so long ago; even as the light from buildings close to Ébrié Lagoon twinkle on its surface. Everywhere, the mounds of earth are covered in grass, trees and thick vegetation. Plumes of black smoke hover above the backed-up traffic out of Treichville.
Now that he can’t turn back, it’s time to let the cab driver in on my problem. I arrive at Elubo border between Ghana and Ivory Coast with an expired visa. The border official says I have to go back to Accra unless I give him ‘something small’. I open my bag in front of him to find the small change he wants. The man almost puts his hands in my bag to get to my cedis. He takes all the money I have on me. ‘You see, I need enough for my colleagues as well and there’s plenty of them,’ he lies when I protest. A girl who has been watching us breaks into fits of laughter when the official kisses me on both cheeks after taking my money.
I arrive in Abidjan with US$5 dollars between me and a pay cheque that’s already a week late. Mohammed finds me outside the office at the bus station where the bus driver leaves me while he explains to his boss how, instead of paying for the Ivorian leg of my trip from Elubo to Abidjan, I propose he holds on to my passport until I have cash. From the group of cab drivers circling me, I let Mohammed take my bags and I say nothing, other than ‘Village Ki-Yi’, until we are stuck in traffic. He switches the engine off to save petrol and turns his long, lean body towards me.
‘My name is Lerato,’ I tell him. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Mohammed,’ he says.
‘Well, Mohammed, here’s the deal – prostitutes don’t have sex for free on the job and cab drivers don’t give lifts, but the thing is, I don’t have money to pay you,’ I declare.
‘I understand. You pay when we get to Riviera?’ he asks,
‘No. I can only pay you in a few days, if you’re lucky. You don’t know me, but I’m not going to run away with your money.’
‘What do you mean you can’t pay me?’ Mohammed asks.
‘I don’t have any money on me,’
‘You can ask your friends in Riviera to help you,’ he suggests.
‘They’re not my friends. I’m going there to look for accommodation,’
The only person I know in Abidjan is Werewere Liking, the Cameroonian artist and co-founder of Village Ki-Yi, a Pan-African arts collective I read about in Adam Levine’s Wonder Safaris, about his travels around Africa. Werewere doesn’t know me.
When we get there, Mohammed eases the car up the gravel driveway into Village Ki-Yi, the Iroko tree in the middle of the compound is standing as tall and domineering as is described in the book that brings me here.
Four people stand around Mohammed, listening to his final shot at getting paid. One of them wears square spectacles with lenses as thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle. He tells Mohammed that they’re just as confused by my arrival. I simply show up, ask for help and let my life become someone’s chore. Mohammed leaves on our agreement to call him when I get paid.
I wait at an office for the general manager, rapper Ben Mpeck, who walks into the room hairstyle first; a sharp mohawk that looks blow dried to its last inch. Werewere is out of town. The problem with arriving unannounced instead of, say, sending a message beforehand on Facebook, is that my room is dirty and there is no one to clean it. Ben’s really sorry that I will have to sweep it myself, if I don’t mind.
My room is a one-bedroom flat in the living quarter next to the office. The bedroom is narrow, fitting in a three-quarter sponge and three yellowish shelves. The wide lobby that leads to the main door has a round table and matching chairs. Next to this is an empty lounge. My favourite thing about the room is the bathroom, which has a shower I can stand under to wash, and a toilet I can sit on and flush. I have not had a private bathroom in four-and-a-half months.
One of the best things about living on the road is never having to perform domestic chores – that’s just not something I’ve ever taken to. I’m the type of person who honestly believes that making a bed every morning, only to mess it up later, is obsessive-compulsive. Tonight, I unfold my bedding, airing my two sheets before wrapping the first one, fitted, over my bed, tucking every corner tightly so it doesn’t move when I’m sleeping.
I sweep the thick layer of dust off the concrete floor and mop it. I’m so happy about having my own space, I wash the shelves until the water I use to rinse my cloth is black. I also unpack my backpack, folding my eight-piece wardrobe onto one shelf. There will be no stepping over a trail of clothes and books on the floor and definitely no dirt, not even an invisible layer of dust, at my place.
In the morning, my room vibrates with beats from drums playing somewhere, making me fall – no, roll – out of bed. It’s time to start my first day in Abidjan. Village Ki-Yi under a clear, sunny sky is a half-moon amphitheatre that faces a museum adorned with masks and statues that have exaggerated features. Ki-Yi, the Cameroonian Bassa language word for ultimate knowledge, is founded with the singular aim of turning life into art, so that every aspect of life at the village feels like an ode to creativity. The outside walls of the main building have coral blue stripes and zig zags. There are white circles and dots and the floor on the veranda has black and white triangles. From its beginning in 1985, Village Ki-Yi has been home to artists from around Ivory Coast and West Africa; some come here as kids. To live here as an artist, I discover, is like taking your spirit to its Pan-African home where East, Central and Southern Africa meet in West Africa. As it does for most hours of the day, life this morning is focused on performance and rehearsal, giving the impression that the only living thing around is the black and brown puppy that thankfully stays away from me.
Other than her plays, Werewere also writes books, including her English novel Amputated Memory, which has been called a modern-day Things Fall Apart. Abidjan can wait, I have a novel to read and Ki-Yi also has a marquee, as outdoor bars are called around here. One of my favourite things about life around the continent is its simplicity. The marquee is at the property’s entrance. It has a fence on the side that faces Carrefour Riviéra Cité Universitaire, the roundabout that has a permanent cloud of smog over it from the perpetual traffic jam. The marquee has plastic chairs and wooden tables, and a shack at the entrance that doubles as a bar and kitchen. A new kitchen is under construction. For now, food is served by two women who come here around lunchtime to sell rice and sauce.
I sit at a table at the back and settle into the large wooden chair that gives me a view of the marquee. I order a Fanta Orange to go with my intention of spending the morning discovering what makes Werewere an award-winning author. Amputated Memory never makes it out of my bag. Instead of my Fanta, the waitress brings a one-litre bottle of Bock beer. The two uniformed gentlemen at one of the tables say bon jour. They would also like the pleasure of my company. I move to their table and discover that other than being traffic officers, they’re avid beer
drinkers who believe that the right time to have a drink is when you feel like it, and right now, they feel like Abidjan’s favourite beer, nicknamed Drogba. The superstar is the face of the brand and, just like him, it has a strong kick. We spend four hours drinking and trying to get me to memorise what they say is the only French phrase that matters in Abidjan: Je veux boire bière. I want to drink beer.
When it’s time to leave they call for the bill, but instead of paying, one of them goes to the street to set up a road block. He returns after ten minutes with money he collects as bribes, and uses it to settle our bill for eight bottles of Drogba. The beer kicks me back to my room where I pass out for a few hours. I never make it out of Ki-Yi. I’ll do better tomorrow. Then again, with US$5 to my name, staying at home seems like the perfect plan. My money comes in three days after my arrival. As promised, I call Mohammed to let him know that I can afford to pay him, and arrange to meet at the bus station. He agrees to meet, but refuses his payment. He doesn’t know if I’m brave or a clown for travelling on faith and prayer, he says. Whatever the case, he’s glad he could help me.
In the coming days, I begin to sense a creeping loneliness starting to eat away at me, even with my daily outings to different parts of the city. Then it hits me. I may be surrounded by people, and meeting more every time I leave the house, but I don’t have girl friends; no one to hit the club scene with or giggle about flings and schemes with. I buy a teddy bear that I cling to all night after a day of literally eating my loneliness away. The feeding frenzy starts in the morning, at the roundabout with the woman who sells bread, chips and fried meat. I wash it down with homemade passion fruit juice that’s more sugar than fruit or water. And so it goes, with fried plantain and fried chicken sometimes before lunch, and sometimes rice and meat with sauce from the vendors at the taxi station across the road from Village Ki-Yi.
There are stalls of deep-fried plantain called alloko, and I’m a midnight guest at the Lebanese café that only serves shawarma and chips. I interchange this with grilled meat I buy from a man who sells from a braai stand made from a zinc water drum cut in half. Salim buys a whole sheep every morning, selling it piece by piece in portions for 500 francs and upwards. Abidjan’s buzzwords seem to be food, fashion and fun. I don’t know about fashion, but I certainly take to the food and the fun once I get a taste of Abidjan by night.
It starts on the afternoon I walk into a restaurant that has the flag of Ghana hanging at the entrance. It’s a medium-sized room with six tables that seat six people each. They don’t sell Ghanaian food. The menu of fried chicken and fish and chips also includes onion-based chicken yassa and thieboudienne – the spicy national dish of Senegal. The yassa is bland, and the thieboudienne isn’t spicy, but what the food lacks in flavour, the owner, Kristle, makes up for with her personality. We hit it off from our first meeting. She sits behind a white, arm’s-width counter next to the door, from where she watches me take a seat at a table outside. There’s a bottle of Guinness and a glass covered with a coaster in front of her. Tina Turner is on the CD player. I love Ghana and Kristle loves South Africa. She has been in living Abidjan for three months to learn French and to try her hand at being a restaurateur in a city that has one of the largest appetites in the region.
We bond over our insatiable need to live for the night. Every evening starts with our usual lie, that our walk through the streets covered in coal dust to the shack that sells ginger moonshine is the beginning and end of it, only to stumble out of Vieradrome just before the city starts its day; partying like Abidjan is not on curfew. Kristle loves Vieradrome for the pool tables and the rounds of games she wins against whoever dares to play against her. I’m here for the red walls, and mirrors that run from the ceiling to the floor so ladies in three-inch minis and towering heels can look at their behinds shaking to zouglou hits. The dance floor heaves with grinding bodies whenever ‘Bobraba’ plays; it’s slang for ass. Winding the booty is the only move in its dance routine. When Kristle is ready to dance, it’s only to one song; always on special request. She locks my arm in hers to the deejay booth. ‘Mon ami,’ she says to him, ‘We have a guest from South Africa.’ She pulls me closer, so I chime in with the usual line. ‘I really miss home. Please play “Vulindlela”.’ People pull me off the dance floor to ask me to translate the song.
Then along comes Kevin; just the right ingredient to add to my Sex & the City lifestyle. We spend a lot of time together on what he sees as dates. I consider them a prelude to the shag I’m after. It comes a few days later at his studio apartment, also in Riviera Deux. We’re on a cream leather couch when Lucky Dube says ‘It’s Not Easy’, his hands are on me at ‘Different Colours, One People’. My mouth is on his at ‘Back to My Roots’. My top joins his shirt on the floor at ‘Feel Irie’. We move to the bed with ‘Prisoner’ in the background. The condom goes on his dick with ‘Remember Me’ and we get going. I don’t know why I use sex as entertainment when I can’t have it without hearing my mother’s voice. ‘Always use a condom, and don’t fall pregnant if that’s not what you’re planning on.’ I was fifteen. But that’s my mom for you – the most practical person I know. That conversation always plays in my head when I have sex; use a condom.
And I do, always. I go for regular HIV tests, I protect myself, and I make no exceptions to this rule. Mom’s words are in my head minutes into the action. I look to see if the condom is on properly. Kevin smiles like a kid caught being naughty. The condom is on the floor. I push him off me. I could lose my shit on Kevin and let him discover that, like Angelina Jolie, I have the temper of a cobra. And I am angry as hell, but it’s with myself. I’m part of a generation of young Africans who have had millions of dollars poured into drilling safe sex practices into our heads. It’s not enough to know my status or use a condom. Maybe there comes a time, and now could be that moment, when I think seriously about what it means to be sexually active in Sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV infections are still high. I need to change my attitude. If my next HIV test comes back positive, I only have myself to blame.
Lucky Dube is on ‘Ding Ding Licky Licky Bong’ when I walk out. ‘I took a wrong turn in life,’ Lucky sings when I close the door – what the fuck just happened? I’ve always been curious to know what the most definitive moment of my life would be. Would my aha moment be an act of love or desperation? Would I be high on life, or on my knees in desperation? None of the above. This moment has tyres screeching and cars hooting and exhaust fumes that sting my eyes. There’s a young girl running errands, with a brazier in her hand, looking fancy in a green and navy pagne skirt and a matching top. Life is moving on perfectly fine. The street vendors who take over the roundabout at Boulevard Mitterrand set up shop. The guy who sells porn DVDs has already packed his table with covers of soft and hardcore porn. The tomatoes at vegetable stalls are still in a pyramid, and the street still smells like used oil, fried chicken and grilled fish. I bury the incident at the back of my mind and go to Kristle’s for our evening ritual.
November 2008
The Fondation Félix Houphouët-Boigny building in Yamoussoukro is as grand as the man it’s named after. The first president of Ivory Coast had a taste for over-the-top buildings, turning his run-of-the-mill home town that’s more dust than tar into the home of the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. It’s the world’s biggest church, bigger than St Peter’s Basilica in Rome; with a US$300 000 000 bill. The Fondation Félix Houphouët-Boigny building is lowkey in comparison. Still, with its marbled interior, it is elegant and showy; making it the go-to venue for grand events in Yamoussoukro.
Tonight, Salif Keita will be on stage with Aïcha Koné: One of Africa’s biggest stars on stage with the Ivorian singer who inspires the same frenzy in her audience as Beyoncé does to her Hive. I’m with Setou, a Burkinabe dancer who trains and performs with the Village Ki-Yi Mbock. We’re the only people who aren’t dressed up. Setou’s in jeans and a tank top. I’m in a long skirt and a hoodie. Our drabness stands out when the venue fills up. Middle-
aged couples are in his and hers grand boubous. A couple in brown and gold boubous walks past us. He’s dressed in fitted pants with thick gold embroidery on the hem, and a tunic with matching embroidery around the neckline. She’s in a wrap skirt and a top with bell sleeves, covered with gold patterns that look like the letter ‘Z’ written in cursive. A group of three women make an entrance head-gear first, their sky-high doeks dwarfing all others. Ivorians are vain, and never leave the house without dressing to impress. For special occasions, Ivorians dress like they’ll be walking a red carpet with the eyes of the world on them. The dress code befits the artists’ stature.
The show is running on African time and starts two hours later than the 7pm advertised. It’s definitely worth the wait. Proceedings kick off – literally – with the three zougoulou opening acts. Zougoulou music still sounds like noise to me, but I lap it up anyway and join the audience to rumba and tango and gyrate our hips like they are made of liquid. The mood is electric.
Africa knows how to party, West Africa sets the roof on fire, and Ivory Coast is the after-party. By the time Aïcha Koné gets on stage, after her son Tchaga’s performance, we’re in a frenzy.
Aïcha’s beautiful, with a soft, round face and eyes that command attention even from across an auditorium. Covered in a white shawl, she sings like an angel and performs with drama and emotion. We swarm the area in front of and around the stage. We swing left and right in step with each other; the aim is to move, not sweat. We are Aïcha’s toys, breaking into fast-paced dances when she tells us, holding on to a partner or anyone close when she says so.
Salif Keita’s band walks to the stage first, each person behind their microphone and instrument. Conversations stop mid-sentence when Salif walks in and takes his place at the front, in the centre of the stage. Dressed in a white bazin tunic and pants, he kneels before us and puts his hands together. ‘Bon soir,’ he says softly. Good evening. ‘Aniche?’ he continues in Bambara, before switching back to French to thank us for being here tonight. He stands up and clasps his hands to his heart, and bows his head towards us, before sitting on a chair to start the show off with an acoustic solo set. Our silence is reverential. He puts his guitar down after three songs and walks towards his band before turning back to face us. He shoots his hand in the air, and the party finally starts. The aisles turn into a dance floor again.
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