Things I learned this week in Abidjan

Observations from last week in Abidjan:

• Taxi drivers have been much more honest than I had been led to believe.  One negotiates their cab fare here, and to hear some tell it, they will skin you alive if you let them.  My experience has been that they usually start a dollar or two above the market rate, and negotiate down quite easily. 
• On Wednesday night, my cab driver was listening to a country music CD.  The juxtaposition between Dan Williams' music and the drive across Abidjan at rush hour (we drove on the sidewalk for several blocks -- I know this must seem like an exaggeration but it isn't) was one of the cooler moments I've had here.  It would have made a great scene for a film.   
• The climate is waaaay better than I had been expecting.  There hasn't been an oppressively hot day since my arrival and most days it's actually pretty pleasant.  Apparently, the dry season is much hotter, but I had expected every day to be unreasonably hot, and that is certainly not the case.   
• I moved into my new house last weekend with the three other Fulbrighters.  It’s a spacious four-bedroom house, with a small yard on a pleasant residential street.  We’re in Deux Plateaux, a couple of blocks from Rue des Jardins, one of the more fun streets in Abidjan. 
• Rue des Jardins is fun because it has restaurants (particularly Vietnamese and Lebanese), as well as cafes, an ice cream shop, a supermarket and a very decent French pastry shop. 
• Rent is less than half of what one would pay for a similar place in DC, but still supposedly quite expensive by developing country standards.  
• Moving in was complicated by the lack of social capital and the lack of trust in the legal system.  We didn’t want to pay anything until basically the moment we moved in and I felt stressed that perhaps it was all a scam and our money would be stolen.   For their part, they made us pay nine months of rent up-front -- six months of rent, along with three months of security deposit. 
• Lots of lizards here, some with brilliant orange stripes along their backs. 
• The ravens have white breasts. There are an extraordinary number of them here, particularly at sunset when they all take to the sky and downtown Abidjan looks like it’s in the middle of an apocalyptic bird uprising. 
• Most streets here don’t have names, just numbers that nobody knows or bothers with. To get somewhere, you have to know a landmark nearby and direct your driver from there.  
• The local furniture makers here don’t have stores or warehouses; they occupy patches of land in throughout the city where they display their wares.  We bought all our furniture for our house from one of these carpenters.  It was a mostly painless and effective process.  They built several beds, desks, chairs and desks for us, according to our specifications and delivered them; however, the one problem – and it is a significant problem – is that my bed smells like mold.  Trying to figure out how to get this fixed.  

Things I learned this week

Observations from my 2nd week in Abidjan:

• This is apparently common to all developing countries, but there is no better feeling than breaking a large bill here.  Change is almost impossible to come by, and one is in a constant state of worrying about having enough small bills.  
• In meetings, Ivorians clap to demand silence.  
• The internet is a bit slower than in the U.S., but usually stable and completely adequate for my daily needs.  Netflix and Hulu do not work here; iTunes and Spotify work as normal.
• The traffic here reminds me a lot of Santa Cruz.  There aren't a ton of cars on the road, but neighborhoods are spaced far apart and there are not enough roads to link it all.  
• There is a lack of rules here that is both liberating and terrifying.  On the good side, one can basically go wherever one wants with no consequences.  I don't think an authority figure has told me not to do something since I arrived here two weeks ago.  On the bad side, renting a house is terrifying; on Wednesday, we'll pay nine months of rent for our house, and we're concerned about the lack of legal recourse.  
• There is a startling amount of conflicting and sometimes just bad information that circulates among ex-pats.  Our housing search has been absolutely ludicrous.  We'll find a house at a given price, and some people will tell us that the price sounds too good to be true, while others will be scandalized at how much we're overpaying.  We likewise get contrasting information from our fellow ex-pats on acceptable modes of transportation, good/fun/safe neighborhoods, and the need for security guards.  
• Two weeks into my stay here, I see poor neighborhoods differently.  In my first few days, I would drive or walk through a poor neighborhood (and most neighborhoods are poor) and feel worried for my safety.  Mostly though everyone is just going about their daily lives.  Crime exists here, but I've yet to be targeted, and I've yet to have a legitimate reason for concern.   
• Sheila tells me that people are far more accustomed to white people here than they were in Ghana or Burkina Faso.  Most people don't look twice at us, although cab drivers honk at us in the hope that we're interested in a taxi (which we often are to be fair).  
• There seems to be a decent quality pick-up basketball game at the Lycée Classique in Cocody.  

Things I learned this week

Things I learned during my first week in Abidjan:

• Abidjan is less dense than I had imagined.  I imagined something closer to slums packed with humanity.  Instead, there is a shocking amount of open space.  Wealthy and middle class neighborhoods have huge swaths of basically undeveloped land.  Even in fully developed areas, Abidjan looks more like L.A. than New York. 
• Human labor is very cheap here in Abidjan.  You can rent somebody's car for $50/day.  Car and driver = $60/day.  
• As a result, most things are very cheap here.  Lunch on Friday (fried fish, cous cous and some chopped tomatoes and onions) cost $1 from a street vendor.  We were given a bowl of water to rinse our hands before eating.  It is customary to eat with our hands, although when I was hesitant, they brought me a spoon.  
• I did not get sick from the street vendor food and I've yet to have any stomach problems.  All meat that I have eaten has looked and tasted how it was supposed to look and taste.  
• Taxi rides are also very cheap.  Petrol must be heavily subsidized, since cars are apparently very expensive.  
• Apparently, cars and most other imports are quite expensive.  Multiple people have said that you can buy a car in the U.S., have it shipped to Cote d'Ivoire, and sell it for double the original price in the U.S.  
• There is something very feudal and mercantile about the economic system here.  There are apparently check points throughout the country where police officers (or gangsters) demand a "toll" from vehicles carrying cargo.  It reminds me of Paul Bairoch's description of 17th century Europe where a merchant would have to pay a toll every 5 miles on average.  
• I have been pleasantly surprised by the food, both West African and "ethnic" (e.g., Vietnamese) -- much better than Sheila had led me to believe based on her experience in Ghana.  I'm tempted to think it's a difference between ex-English colonies and ex-French colonies, but that is probably lazy.  West African food does not have much in common with French food so far.  
• That being said, one can get croissants and baguettes here.  The croissants aren't as good as in Paris, but are better than the median croissant in Washington, DC.  I haven't yet tried the baguettes.  
• Many areas of Abidjan smell faintly (or strongly) of human waste.  
• The embassy community seems pretty isolated from Ivorian culture.  Several ex-pats have expressed a degree of condescension about embassy lifestyle on issues ranging from transportation to antimalarials.  
• Houses of embassy staff in Abidjan are amazing.  They live in large villas with multiple bedrooms, spacious living rooms, cozy furniture, air conditioning, multiple security guards, and large backyards that sometimes have swimming pools.  We are staying with a foreign service officer and his wife and they have been extremely hospitable, providing us with food, lodging and even a driver most days.  
• Help or "domestiques" seem to be a staple of ex-pat life.  We are considering hiring someone once we have our own apartment.  We like the idea of being able to supply someone with consistent and stable income over several months, and an above market rate daily wage would be very affordable for us. Sheila also likes the idea of being able to work on her French. Needless to say, having someone help with daily errands sounds nice as well.  
• We went to dinner on Saturday night at a restaurant in an open field with a band playing.  The band played West African music and latin salsa.  They played for more than 90 minutes without a break.  Afterwards, they passed around a survey asking how they could improve (and also asking for a donations).  
• There are fewer rats in Abidjan than in Washington, DC.  

Why I'm excited for Cote d'Ivoire

I leave for Abidjan in a couple of hours.  I keep waiting to get nervous, but it hasn't really happened, perhaps because our entry looks likely to be smooth.  Someone from the U.S. embassy will be coming to pick us up at the airport and I'll have Sheila with me, so there isn't much to worry about.

Instead, I'm just really excited about it all.  Anticipation supposedly comprises a big part of happiness.  People are at their happiest in the weeks leading up to a big vacation or other happy event.  I'm trying to savor this last bit of excitement and embrace the anticipation as part of the experience.  You only move to Africa for the first time once.   My expectations are big and it would be difficult for any experience to live up to them.

Abidjan should bring great highs and lows, and hopefully rich memories.  Those memories are another big part of happiness.  Sheila and I have discussed this issue a lot, and we believe that it is necessary to seek out experiences with greater peaks and valleys.  Such moments are felt more intensely and they live longer in the memory.  Novel, exciting experiences may even make life feel longer.  These memories make us happy, and we've prioritized a life of adventure.

I'm excited to explore such a new culture and lifestyle.  My favorite part of traveling is learning about the nuances of life in a new place.  Abidjan promises to be very different to from anything I've known before.  As a brief example, the Ivorian conception of bribery sounds almost incomprehensible.  As a returning Fulbright fellow told us during orientation, "In Cote d'Ivoire, bribes are totally optional.  You can say, 'I'm sorry, maybe next time.'"  My American brain has difficulty comprehending by such a scenario, but apparently this is the natural state of affairs in Cote d'Ivoire.  A returning fellow explained that "many people just think of bribery as optional.  They call it 'dash' and it's more like a tip.  If you want good service at a restaurant, you would give a tip.  And if you want good service from a police officer, you give dash."

I'm not entirely sure how much I'll blog over the coming weeks and months, but I would like to note my personal observations as well as my policy learning.  Hopefully I'll be able to record this in a manner that is interesting to those reading this.

Book Review: Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War

Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War by Ben Rawlence 

My 2nd "guy going to Africa" book in the past month. This was the better of the two (or perhaps just the more relevant and contemporary). 

I've never been to sub-Saharan Africa before, and I have no real idea of what to expect, which is what makes these books interesting at the moment. This was well-written and engaging. It did a good job of giving color to daily life in the Congo. The characters (both African and European) were all a bit hollow still, but they had some level of complexity and I enjoyed his ability to write about individuals as individuals rather than archetypes. I didn't find his observations to be super insightful, but the writing was lively, and I enjoyed traveling along on his adventure. 

Book Review: The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria

The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria, by Randall M. Packard 

This was disappointing. I'm not sure how many times a book can re-write variations of the sentence, "Changing social and economic conditions transformed the ecological relationship of malaria parasites and human hosts, resulting in a decline/increase in malaria burden," but the author exceeded his allotment by quite a bit.  It's a useful point, and one well worth making, but I'm not sure if I've ever read a book that hammers its point so repetitively. 

Also, I'm not sure that it is a very productive argument.  Yes, improving social and economic conditions would be great for decreasing malaria, but no one argues that we shouldn't improve social and economic conditions for people around the world.  While we're working for social and economic betterment, what can we do to manage and control malaria rates as efficiently and effectively as possible?  Here the book is disappointingly quiet.  There are many discussions of failed malaria programs, but few examples of effective programs that could be repeated or adapted by poor governments in developing countries. 

This book had some useful information, and it wasn't a total waste of time, but I'd only recommend it to someone desperate to gain a bit of background on malaria and willing to plow through a lot of tedium to gain that basic background.  

Making development work: from farms to factories

Charles Kenny's article about the importance of "real" jobs is the most interesting thing on development that I've read in the past few months:

But worldwide, by far the most common way out of poverty in rural and urban areas alike is getting a job working for a company... Having a regular, paying job "may thus be the most important difference between the poor and the middle class," conclude Banerjee and Duflo. 

"Well paid" and "good" are relative terms when it comes to unemployment on a global scale... Nonetheless, these jobs are still better than other options--such as begging or hawking on the street or subsistence farming.  

So for all of the grind of the 9-to-5, the great majority of the planet would be absolutely delighted to get a position with regular hours and a regular paycheck.  And successful economic development--significantly raising incomes above subsistence--is about helping people achieve that dream...  In the long term, economic development is about moving millions off the small farm and into jobs.