Apologies for forgetting about posting this, the last Africa edition of the most essential Small Thoughts series, after writing about Côte d'Ivoire. Liberia Small Thoughts have been scattered through the posts as cultural notes. Enjoy!
Taxis: Inch'allah, Le Bonheur, Beau Merci, Le Pardon, Dieu Merci, Tout Est Possible, Dieu Est Dieu, La Patience, Bonne Chance, Un Peu Un Peu, General, I Remember, Prend Courage, Chacun Sa Chance, Tous Ensemble, Lass Vegass, J'aime Ma Mère,
Man, I am getting exceptionally talented at sitting on my butt for hours and hours and hours on various forms of transportation.
People drive on the right side here. Whaaattt? I didn't notice until my airport shuttle went counterclockwise around a roundabout then I was probably as confused as I was when I got to Southern Africa to see traffic going on the left. The things you get used to...
Lizards doing push-ups is probably my new favorite thing that animals do.
I just got greeted with a hearty "Bonsoir!" (Good evening!). It's 3 pm. I mean, there is a heavy cloud of pollution partially blocking the sunlight, but come on.
The West African French accent sounds strangely like the Canadian French accent for vowel sounds, but with a Spanish R.
I love the different sounds people use to call attention all over the world. Here, there's a little of the hissing like in Mozambique, but mostly people make a kissing noise.
There are women here in Abidjan carrying trays of bread on their heads, but the coolest thing is that they're all in this huge bag that they fluff up with air and then tie off, creating a tall bubble above the loaves.
Seen on a tshirt copying the Red Bull logo, but with upside down bulls: Dead Bull. Gives you mince.
Bus time play by play:
On this bus across Côte d'Ivoire, I have the good fortune to have been assigned a middle seat. I have the even better fortune to have been reduced to half a middle seat, as the window seat lady's butt is taking up half of mine. Yayyyy...
It has taken us at least an hour to actually get out of the city.
Now they're playing music videos on the tv up front. Man, Ivoiriens really like big butts shaking all they've got. Pretty much every video is butt-centric.
A guy handed out shrimp candies to everyone, and is now doing a combination preaching and trying to sell some kind of medication in the aisle. Is he a passenger, or has he just hopped on to try to sell stuff?
An hour and a half later, Mr. Snake Oil is still preaching and selling. Ughhh. Sit down.
Now we've stopped for a pee break and are waiting for a long time, then people are saying that one of the passengers is still outside and is sick. He just stumbled up into the bus and collapsed into a chair. What is happening?
Squishing up against Ms. Booty is actually not that bad, considering her side butt is giving me a bit of an armrest.
We're in the home stretch and had to stop for like half an hour because a truck carrying enormous logs has perhaps crashed but definitely blocked the whole road with spilled trees.
It seems to be quite the fashion trend here for men to wear those plastic jelly sandals I wore in elementary school.
Overheard at the taxi rank while waiting for my taxi to fill, 2 guys looking at me: "Elle est chinoise." "She's Chinese." Umm not quite, but good try.
Ok this makes the second guy to come up and tell me I'm Chinese. What's the deal?
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