by phil | Sep 20, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, Music, W. Africa
The radio show to listen to in Abidjan is Dj Saturday Night. Two hours of the most popular tunes in the Francophone world, frenetically mixed, no commercials. This post is in the same vein. Ouvrer les frontieres – Tiken Jah Facoly by lionsinthetiles This first...
by phil | Sep 17, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, Stories, W. Africa
Faty, one of my couchsurfing hosts, invited me to a village two and a half hours west of Abidjan. Getting there involved the standard components of overland travel in Africa: poor driving, absurd delays, ten too many police checkpoints, and several different forms of...
by phil | Sep 14, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, W. Africa
Previously on Philintheblank: Twenty four hours of violent diarrhea and vomiting followed by eleven hours in a bus stairwell. Arrived in Abidjan exhausted, dirty, sunburnt, and bacteria-ridden. One night of revival at a posh hotel turned into six when I became trapped...
by phil | Sep 10, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, W. Africa
If you asked me two days ago what I thought of Abidjan, I would have said it’s a city of idle soldiers on cratered sidewalks telling market women to give them peanuts for free. I was not feeling it. Behold the power of incredible Couchsurfing hosts. Faty, her...
by phil | Sep 4, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Stories, W. Africa
My last post ended with a shared taxi on the way back to Takoradi. A British volunteer, an American journalist probing oil companies in Takoradi, and myself. Before getting in the car I had one of those unpleasant near vomit burps that scorched my esophagus. Things...
